Cupid & Psyche 85 (1985)

Cupid & Psyche 85 is the second studio album by the British pop band Scritti Politti, released in the UK on 10 June 1985 by Virgin Records. The release continued frontman Green Gartside's embrace of commercial pop music stylings and state-of-the-art studio production, while its lyrics reflect his preoccupation with language and politics.

It remains the band's most commercially successful studio album, peaking at number five on the UK Albums Chart, and was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for 100,000 copies sold. The album contained five singles, three of which were top 20 hits on the UK singles chart. The single "Perfect Way" became a surprise hit in the US, peaking at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 in a 25-week run on the chart.

Background

Scritti Politti's debut studio album Songs to Remember had been released in September 1982, but even before the album's release frontman Gartside had expressed in interviews his frustration at the limitations of being signed to an independent label like Rough Trade Records. After Songs to Remember he began to talk to major record labels, a move reluctantly supported by Rough Trade who wanted to keep him but realised they could not support him financially with the budget for the type of record that Gartside wanted to make. At the same time Gartside had been distancing himself from the Marxist collective that Scritti Politti had originated from, and by the time of the album's release Scritti Politti was effectively his solo vehicle, the other original members having left during the album's recording or shortly afterwards (the album's release had been delayed by a year at the band's request).

During the recording of Songs to Remember Rough Trade had introduced Gartside to the New York musician David Gamson. Gamson was a keyboardist, programmer and an assistant engineer for the label who had used some studio downtime to record a demo version of the Archies' 1969 hit song "Sugar, Sugar". Gartside and Gamson hit it off and decided that they would work together in future as they had similar ideas about the type of music they wanted to make.

Recording

In 1983 the duo of Gartside and Gamson travelled to Gamson's home city of New York and met up with another New Yorker, drummer Fred Maher, to put together a new version of Scritti Politti. Maher remembered, "I'll never forget the first time I saw Green. It was in the studio in New York and he came up to me and said 'hello, I'm Green, I'm terrible'. He'd been out the night before with Marc Almond [of Soft Cell] and he looked a bit the worse for wear." The trio continued work on "Small Talk" which had been started by Gamson and Gartside in the UK and was later remixed by Nile Rodgers. They hoped to release it as a new Scritti Politti single. However, due to the legal battle involving Green's release from his contract with Rough Trade, the single was never released. "Small Talk" would eventually appear as a track on Cupid & Psyche 85. Another song from this period written by Gartside and Gamson, "L Is for Lover", was recorded by the American R&B singer Al Jarreau and released as the title track of his 1986 studio album.

Green remained in New York with his new musical partners, and with the help of his new manager Bob Last he finally resolved his problems with Rough Trade and signed major label deals with Virgin Records in the UK and with Warner Bros. Records in North America. He also used the time to set up meetings with musicians and producers that he wanted to work with, later recalling, "I seemed to get put in touch with anybody I wanted to meet and they were all very enthusiastic". Following the signing of the new recording contracts, the band remained in New York and recorded three songs with producer Arif Mardin: "Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin)", "Absolute" and "Don't Work That Hard"; the first two would later become singles from the new album. Gartside told NME, "He was the producer I most wanted to work with. We sent him some demos and he liked them very much and wanted to do it. It was his work with people like Chaka Khan over the past few years that made me want to work with Arif. Her [1981] version of [ the Beatles'] 'We Can Work It Out' – incredible!" Gamson brought the influence of black American radio acts such as Parliament-Funkadelic, while Gartside took inspiration from nascent hip-hop music. According to Uncle Dave Lewis of AllMusic, "no prior pop album had integrated the techniques of sampling and sequencing to such a great degree".