Nicely that is awkward. Not simply because the S phrase is a beloved staple of the Traditional Pop type information, however as a result of the report we’re right here to debate – the Blow Monkeys’ 1986 sophomore album Animal Magic – is broadly thought of to be a high-water mark of the shape.

The primary Blow Monkeys’ report to make a industrial splash, Animal Magic arrived within the slipstream of breakthrough single Digging Your Scene, which was a Prime 20 hit on each side of the Atlantic.

Mixing slick, soulful (and, sure, refined) pop with deceptively biting lyrical dispatches from the frontline of Thatcher’s Britain, it may not have been the band’s most profitable album – within the UK, at the least, that honour falls to its follow-up, She Was Solely A Grocer’s Daughter – however practically 4 many years on, there’s a powerful argument for it being the Blow Monkeys’ definitive 80s assertion therefore its current reissue – the second in a decade – is a deluxe, 4CD bells-and-whistles version.

For the person they name Dr Robert, the Blow Monkeys’ singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, the album’s Motown-meets-New Wave aesthetic has its considerably unlikely origins on the terraces of King’s Lynn City FC.

“King’s Lynn is a soul city,” says Robert, who’d moved to Norfolk from his native Scotland as a toddler. “And I’d stand on the terraces with my dad, within the freezing chilly, listening to the half-time music of Freda Payne singing Band Of Gold – and being transported.

“Plus I had two sisters who have been 10 years older than me, who’d purchased the whole lot that got here out within the 60s – Motown, Bacharach and David, The Beatles, clearly. All these information had a huge impact on me.”

His additional musical schooling, although, got here with a tragic backstory: when Robert was 15, his father died, and he and his mom emigrated to hitch his sister in Australia.

“Going from King’s Lynn to Sydney was like going from black and white to color,” he remembers. “This was March 1977, so punk had simply damaged. The primary band I ever noticed in Australia was The Saints, adopted by the Boys Subsequent Door, which was Nick Cave’s first band.

“My sister had a guitar mendacity about and a guide, The Eagles Made Simple. By the point she got here again from work, I’d discovered the entire guide – though I didn’t know any of the songs. For me, taking part in guitar was like meditation. I needed to do it on daily basis.”

Trying again, was throwing himself into music partly a coping mechanism, to assist him cope with his grief?

“Completely,” nods Robert, who’s speaking to CP over Zoom from his long-time residence in southern Spain. “My father died across the identical time as Marc Bolan – two very massive issues in my life.

“I took a few years off college and simply kind of hothoused myself, taking part in alongside to early Tyrannosaurus Rex information, then The Conflict, and early Jam. I simply performed endlessly. Looking back, it in all probability was a type of remedy. And it nonetheless is.”

By 1985, Robert was again within the UK and hatching plans with bandmates Neville Henry (sax), Mick Anker (bass) and Tony Kiley (drums) for what would grow to be the Blow Monkeys’ second album.

Eager to evolve their sound from the jazz-inflected post-punk of their current debut, Limping For A Technology, Robert instinctively discovered himself reaching again to these frozen Norfolk footie terraces.

“I can look again at it now and theorise how we received there – how I used to be tapping into that type of latent soul bug,” he says. “However on the time I used to be simply writing the songs that have been coming into my head.”

In addition to Freda Payne and Marc Bolan, “there have been nonetheless remnants of issues I’d been into once I was in Australia – bands like The Laughing Clowns, that had that brass factor happening,” he says, of the Sydney post-punk combo’s fusion of punk guitar, be-bop drums and horn part.

“The producer, Pete Wilson, had so much to do with how [Animal Magic] got here collectively. I bear in mind taking part in him issues like Endlessly Modifications by Love and saying how I liked that blend of brass and strings, however beneath it there’s a storage band taking part in alongside.

“That’s what I wished. I feel the album ended up being a bit smoother than that. However normally it sounds good, it appears like a band. There’s a coherence to it,” he says, citing the swooning soul of Aeroplane Metropolis Lovesong and Bolanesque title observe amongst his highlights.

If issues had gone to plan on the time, although, it’s potential Animal Magic may not be fairly so extremely regarded at the moment.

Inspired by Wilson, who had produced Sham 69’s ‘punk rock opera’, That’s Life, Robert was eager to put in writing an idea album, full with spoken phrase sections between the songs.

“Do you bear in mind Johnny Morris – the zoo man who had a programme known as Animal Magic?” he says of the one-time children’ TV staple. “I attempted to get him to do it. He stated, ‘Thanks very a lot, however no thanks’. And thank God for that. I dodged a bullet there!”

Launched in February 1986, Digging Your Scene was “type of a life-changer,” remembers Robert. “It’s the report for which we’re in all probability finest identified around the globe.”

And whereas Spotify begs to vary – 1987’s It Doesn’t Have To Be This Means (the Blow Monkeys’ solely UK Prime 10 hit) has thus far racked up a few million extra streams – it’s actually true that Digging Your Scene is the tune that turned Robert right into a pop star.

Although not, because it turned out, a wholly comfy one: for Robert, there was all the time an uneasy rigidity between the socialist soul boy punk and the beautiful boy pop pin-up.

“I used to be simply too good on the lookout for my personal good,” he laughs. “And I went with it. Even on that fucking silly [Animal Magic] sleeve, the place I appear to be one of many geezers from a-ha.

“It was a schizophrenic shift [from the previous album], which could have been to our detriment a bit. However I’m not complaining.

After Digging Your Scene, we went from taking part in golf equipment to flying into the States to help Robert Palmer at Purple Rocks within the Arizona desert, and doing American Bandstand with Dick Clark. It was a visit, .”

There have been moments, says Robert – like having inexperienced foam sprayed at you by somebody wearing a monster swimsuit on Saturday morning TV – when all of it appeared a bit surreal. However it was additionally nice enjoyable. “I used to be a single man on the time,” he notes, with a twinkle.

“The one factor that bothered me was that, as a band, we had a extremely robust bond. However there have been murmurings within the report firm that perhaps there was a little bit of a George Michael vibe right here… ‘Perhaps we might get you into that stratospheric pop star territory?’ That was by no means going to occur. Principally as a result of I used to be simply shit in any respect that,” he laughs.

In addition to, as fairly as each he and the tunes might have been, Robert was additionally a political protest singer: Animal Magic, lest we neglect, actually contains a tune known as Burn The Wealthy, impressed by a slogan sprayed throughout the financial institution reverse the singer’s Brixton flat – a location that gave him “a chook’s eye view” of a febrile interval of British historical past.

“It was the 80s – the whole lot was political,” he says. “And, a lot as I really like Billy Bragg, we will’t all be Billy Bragg. I assumed it was okay to nonetheless have that type of androgynous, flamboyant nature. That didn’t cancel out the truth that, deep down, I used to be a socialist who thought what Thatcher was doing was towards nature.”

Comply with-up album She Was Solely A Grocer’s Daughter’s title (plus the lyrical message of It Doesn’t Have To Be This Means) provided additional proof of the then-Prime Minister’s rent-free existence in Robert’s head.

However regardless of these twin successes – plus an extra-curricular UK Prime 10 hit for Robert, duetting with Chicago home singer Kym Mazelle on 1989’s Wait – by the beginning of the 90s, it was clear the Blow Monkeys’ imperial section was over.

“I knew it was going to occur, as a result of the automobiles had stopped coming,” he says of the band’s subsequent (amicable) break up. “I used to be simply exhausted. It had been 10 years with my foot on the pedal, by no means stopping. I had a younger household, and it felt like the appropriate time.”

Even so, Robert admits, that there was “a way of rejection. Trying again, there have been a few years the place I felt a bit wobbly, and I drank an excessive amount of. As a result of it occurred in a short time. Folks stopped calling, and also you assume, ‘Nicely, is that it now?’

“That’s what actually types the boys from the boys. As a result of that’s when you need to ask your self, ‘what’s it that I actually need to do?’ And what I wished to do was play music, whether or not there was an viewers there or not.”

An in-car cassette copy of Bob Dylan’s Need kickstarted a run of Greenwich Village-inspired solo studio albums, earlier than the Blow Monkeys reformed in 2007 for a second act that has proved extra enduring (and produced extra albums) than the primary section.

Now 61, Robert – who has a grown-up son and daughter along with his spouse Michele – combines Blow Monkeys duties with initiatives comparable to Monks Street Social, a free collaboration of artists whose rolling roster has included everybody from Paul Weller to former Time Lord Peter Capaldi (Robert produced the latter’s current debut album, St. Christopher).

He additionally nonetheless picks up his guitar and performs on daily basis. “I’ve typically thought I’ll in all probability find yourself busking once more in the future,” he smiles. “And I’d be comfortable to do this.”

Within the meantime, he’s quietly happy to see Animal Magic getting the deluxe therapy – its authentic 12 tracks have been expanded to a whopping 47 by way of B-sides, demos and remixes – and, as a collector, is especially excited concerning the single-disc white vinyl model.

So is that this the definitive, last phrase on Animal Magic? “I hope so,” says Robert. “I suppose once I die, they may discover another demos someplace, however I feel that is it.

“I’m comfortable to assist BMG benefit from it, as a result of they informed me it was a part of their ‘iconic collection’. For those who dwell lengthy sufficient, you grow to be iconic. Sooner or later, I went from being ironic to iconic,” he chuckles. “So I’m pleased with that.”