Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
“To be great”, as the American poet once insisted, “is to be misunderstood”. Seven words that perhaps on the face of it could be seen as demeaning the application and hard work it takes to be considered touched by genius, to be of the soil and the clay and see the stars clearly and without exaggeration: but Ralph Waldo Emerson showed that greatness is often cursed by those not willing to comprehend the sacrifice made, the sense of madness, the beauty in the mayhem as the art flows, as what is with the human soul comes alive and breathes in the nectar of the illustrious.
Misunderstood…maybe, certainly misjudged before the fact, misread by many, appreciated and valued by those who saw past the drama of other people’s words, Shakespears Sister’s prized and scintillating album Hormonally Yours would take the early 90s view of what constituted great song writing, almost with care, making sure that anything that threatened its subtly and charm as tracks such as Stay, Goodbye Cruel World and I Don’t Care rocked the singles chart out of its post 80’s apathy and reliance on a seemingly bland future…this what is was to be misunderstood by another generation, and yet like Tori Amos and Nirvana, Shakespears Sister seized the moment, carpe diem in its finest and most absolute form.
Thirty years on, the seminal double platinum selling album is finally having its time in the sun once more, never forgotten, always cited as a fan favourite and inspiring in ways that was more than just about music, the reissue of Hormonally Yours is a reminder of just how much influence both Marcella Detroit and Siobhan Fahey had on the times, the sound, the emotion…and it was that undaunted spirit of emotion that makes the recording one of brutal brilliance.
“To be great is to be misunderstood”, we should all strive to be so misjudged by our so called peers, because their opinion is based on tired old cliches and judgements that has had its day, even when the album was first released, when the video to Stay filled every screen time possible, there were those who could not see how the public had their eyes opened to such a sound, not quite pop, not rock, but feminine argument and pleasure; thirty years on those arguments are still raging, and the album still provides power for the voice to be heard, recognised, and applauded.
Where there is Stay, there is My 16th Apology, where Goodbye Cruel World spits fire into the eyes of naysayers, there is the finesse of The Trouble With Andre, there is Black Sky and Catwoman, and in the expanded reissue there is also the surprise of Let Me Entertain You, Hello Turn Your Radio On, and the appropriate response of the demos of Cat Worship and Out To Groove, songs to kiss the blues away, tracks to usher in a period which showed emotions to be not only healthy, but sacrosanct.
Hormonally Yours, thirty years on it sounds just as terrific, just as enlightening, and one in which greatness surely was never in dispute. An exciting reissue full of meaning, pleasure, and history. Ian D. Hall