Suicide - Dream Baby Dream

Richard Butler on Suicide's 'Dream, Baby Dream'

Suicide were Alan Vega and Martin Rev. They were a synth-and-drum machine duo from the late seventies who were probably role models for the likes of Soft Cell and Pet Shop Boys, but they were extremely uptempo and agressive - they used to bait the audience and even get into fights with them. I remember seeing them supporting The Clash in 1980, they were the loudest thing I've ever heard. And they were canned off. This is their one ballad. They usually sang about things like murder, suicide and insanity, but the message of this one is : you've gotta have dreams. The lyrics just goes 'dream, baby dream', over and over like a mantra. Vega's voice is quite rockabilly - his hero was Elvis - and very rough. The whole thing is much more 'in yer face' than say, Kraftwerk. He throws in the odd ad lib, like 'keep those dreamsd burning, baby', but basically it's monotonous.

The drum machine sounds really cheap, it's just a pulse going on in the middle distance, then thre's this endlessly repeated synthesised melody, a kind of sweet bell noise, very simple. it sounds a bit like The Tornadoes, who did "Telstar", making seedy, downtown New York music, like Lou Reed. Martin Rev was definitely of the two fingersschool keyboard playing. What they did was show that you didn't have to be like the Sex pistols to be aggressive. I don't know what they're up tonow. They really didn't like each other, and I doubt if they do now.

"Dream, Baby Dream' was released as a single on Island WIP6543

[Independent 18/07/91]

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