Up and Coming!
PH.UK sorts out the cream from the cheese
this month: Orlando
Who?
Timothy Mark. Ex-actor and funeral director. Devout Christian. Scariest, stariest eyes in pop. Looks like a young Larry Grayson. The finest white soul singer since Boy George.
And?
Dickon Edwards. Celibate bisexual ("I don't swing, both ways"). Too much eyeliner. Never swears (when something bad happens, he says "sugar"). Has appeared on TV with "Miserable" Spice on his arm. The most alienated lyricist since Morrissey.
Examples, please?
"I wish I was a girl... because you're only nice to girls", "I'M AFRAID OF BEING ALONE, AND I'M AFRAID OF BEING NOT ALONE"
What are they like?!
Since you ask, "Manic Street Preachers if they didn't think Motown was junk, The Smiths if they didn't think disco was vile, Dexy's Midnight Runners if they believed in romance." One of those bands.
Did you say Christian? And celibate?
"Sex is the PE of adult life, and I wish to be excused from games" - Dickon.
Serious young men in eyeliner - all the rage, aren't they?
Only if they back it up with reassuringly macho rock. Orlando's sin is to love such 'girly' genres as swing, handbag, soul, easy listening and teenpop.
Are they doomed, then?
Possibly. By rights they should be Pulp-sized, but any band who share a producer with Boyzone but claim Quentin Crisp and Philip Larkin as their major influences may struggle to find an audience.
So why are you bothering to write about them?
Because "Passive Soul", out now on Company Communications, is a dark horse for Album Of The Year.
SIMON PRICE, Penthouse Magazine, Nov. '97
