Someone, somewhere posted Flowered Up’s single It’s On the other day and it reminded me of its release back in summer 1990. The band had got some music press coverage, references to them being the London answer to Happy Mondays (whatever the question was). ITV’s Saturday morning music programme The Chart Show had an indie chart segment, once every 3 weeks (switching between the dance chart and the metal chart). The programme trailed Flowered Up’s appearance later on so we settled down on our rented sofa in our student house and waited for this up and coming band we hadn’t heard yet.
It sounded really weird, all over the place. Vocals sometimes rose up in the mix and sometimes the instruments sounded like they’d been stretched out and a strange whooshing noise dominated. It was miles away from Step On.
It turned out the video tape that Heavenly had sent over to ITV was faulty, the band’s first TV appearance screwed up. I don’t know if it affected the sales of the single. It’s On was released in a variety of formats, 7″s and 12″s, as labels did back then to fleece the fans out of their cash by getting them to buy multiple copies for that extra B-side. It’s On is a good song, the rhythm lurching from one foot to the other, enough to disconcert at the indie-disco. There aren’t many good songs led by pan pipes and keyboards, and then there’s Liam Maher’s stream-of-consciousness lyrical drawl- ‘I like French ones, big French ones’. The extended version, It’s On- Sonia, seems to exist in different versions as well, across multiple formats. This is the seven minutes plus version.
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