chance Archives - Medialoper

Album: Chance
Year: 1990

After all of these years, I couldn’t remember anything about the initial time I was exposed to the Rave-Ups, and why — given not just their exposure in Pretty in Pink, but also some of the good reviews they got — given their name and their look, I didn’t get their albums back in the day.

So, thanks to YouTube, I checked out the big song from their debut album, Town and Country, “Positively Lost Me,” and all I could hear was a decent — not great — tune, lost in shitty 80s production. So I either dismissed them out of hand, I guess, like a lot of mid-80s bands who might have had their hearts in the right place but got fucked up by their record companies. And even back when I had all the time in the world, I didn’t have time for that.

Album: The Crossing

Year: 1983.

At the time, Big Country was held up as one of the exemplars of what I think was briefly called “The New Positivity” or “The Big Music,” alongside U2, The Alarm, The Waterboys and others, but to me, there was always just a tinge of sadness in their music. Even their biggest hit wanted nothing more than for you to “stay alive.”

So while many of their songs were big and uplifting (and had those guitars that sounded like bagpipes, a sound that very few bands – even other big-sounding Scottish ones – have ever tried to emulate), the one that has stuck the most with me over the years is the saddest one of all.

Not so much for the sadness, but rather for the echoing guitars that didn’t really sound like much of the rest of the album. Most of the other songs typically featured Stuart Adamson & Bruce Watson’s guitars intertwining with each other, but “Chance” featured them bouncing off of each other, to great effect, especially in the end, as they echoed off into infinity.

“Chance” live in Glasgow in 1983

My Certain Songs Spotify Playlist:

Every “Certain Song” Ever

chance

Certain Songs #1835: The Rave-Ups – “She Says (Come Around)”

Certain Songs #46: Big Country – “Chance”