MacKenzie’s lament

For the most recent instalment of On The Record, his excellent survey of Scottish rock and pop albums, The Herald’s Russell Leadbetter has turned to Sulk by The Associates. Released in 1982 it was described by Billy MacKenzie, the band’s singer and lyricist, as “ABBA meets Bet Lunch on acid.” It’s a neat distillation of the band’s sound and of MacKenzie’s vision. Its author was troubled, though: the Dundee-born singer took his own life on January 22, 1997, a couple of months short of his 40th birthday and six months after the death of his beloved mother, Lily. His suicide robbed music of a rare, precious and unusual talent.

Thought not the subject of the article – but maybe a future one? – Russell also mentions Beyond The Sun, the posthumous Billy MacKenzie solo album released in October 1997. Funnily enough I had reason to dig out the CD recently, the reason being a whim and a strong belief that it was worth revisiting. I wasn’t wrong. If ever an album was ripe for re-discovery and acclaim, it’s this one. It anticipates everyone from ANOHNI to Perfume Genius. Dig out MacKenzie’s comments on gender, sexuality and gender identity and you sense a man ahead of his time in that regard too. A queer icon in the making.

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Russell’s article about Sulk features tributes from music writer Simon Reynolds as well as from Simple Minds singer Jim Kerr and MacKenzie’s bandmate, the late Alan Rankine. But let’s throw Bono’s voice into the mix too, with words taken from his introduction to Tom Doyle’s 1998 biography The Glamour Chase: The Maverick Life Of Billy MacKenzie.

“The best aesthetes are working class,” the U2 singer writes. “Oscar Wilde on the buses, Versace down the chip shop, a falsetto voice on the terraces. Disco ball of nerves that he was,........

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