As mentioned earlier, this was the year when half the bands in the world tried to sound like Tears for Fears, or some offshoot. Bear In Heaven were one of them, creating a clutch of New Wave pop gems of great cut and quality. Perhaps the most resonant, and certainly the most reverberant, is the echo-laden, galloping 'Sinful Nature' which could almost be Depeche Mode meets Yeasayer. Haunting, romantic, lyrically frank at times, this song made me want to be skinny, twenty, and in a disco falling in love listening to it. Listening to it, I was. The ending is especially sick slash cool.
THAT HANDSOME MAN A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought. Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that
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