Smalltown Boy

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Smalltown Boy
Bronski beat
Genre (s) Synth-Pop , New Wave , Hi-NRG
text Jimmy Somerville
music Jimmy Somerville, Larry Steinbachek , Steve Bronski
album The Age of Consent
Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Singles
Smalltown Boy
  DE 3 07/20/1984 (20 weeks)
  CH 2 07/29/1984 (14 weeks)
  UK 3 06/02/1984 (16 weeks)
  US 48 12/22/1984 (16 weeks)
Smalltown Boy (1991 Remix)
  DE 28 03/18/1991 (9 weeks)
  UK 32 02/02/1991 (4 weeks)

Smalltown Boy is a song by the British group Bronski Beat . The synth-pop - ballad was created by Jimmy Somerville , Larry Steinbachek and Steve Bronski wrote, was established in June 1984 as a single published and motioned with third place in the UK Top 40 the first top ten -Hit for Bronski Beat.

Text and music

The text is about a boy who leaves his parents' home after he has confessed to his homosexuality and does not feel understood by his parents. Bronski Beat chose the perspective of an outsider, who partly reports on the fate of the protagonist and partly talks to him about his fate. The story has autobiographical elements because Jimmy Somerville himself had turned his back on his hometown, Glasgow , because he no longer felt comfortable there because of his homosexuality.

Characteristic of the song is the catchy melody of the introduction, which is accompanied by the gentle voice of the narrator. This increases into a ghostly lamentation and only after the introductory topic has been repeated again do the actual stanzas begin. The song is inspired by Giorgio Moroder's "Robot Beats". To Smalltown Boy two were music videos rotated. The version for the English market had a homosexual connotation, while the version for the US market dispensed with these elements and was explicitly presented as heterosexual .

publication

The single was released in June 1984 as a 3min 58s single with the B-side Memories . It reached number one in the Netherlands and Belgium and number three in Germany and Great Britain. The song was awarded a gold record in Canada and silver in the UK. Other versions of the song followed, including a maxi of around nine minutes. On Bronski's debut album Beat The Age of Consent , released in the fall, an album version of more than five minutes was included. In 1991 a remix of the song was released, which reached number 32 in the UK Top 40.

Cover versions (selection)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Sources chart placements: DE CH UK US
  2. ^ A b William Leap: Word's Out: Gay Men's English . University of Minnesota Press, 1996, ISBN 978-0-8166-2253-5 , pp. 94 f .
  3. ↑ Barney Hoskyns: What Is Bronski Beat? In: Spin . May 1985, p. 41 .
  4. ↑ Bronski Beat's biography at laut.de , accessed on January 17, 2012.
  5. ^ Henry Keazor, Thorsten Wübbena: Video thrills the radio star: Music videos: history, topics, analyzes . transcript, 2007, ISBN 978-3-89942-728-8 , pp. 134 .