Like the Slits, the Pop Group pined for a lost wholeness that they imagined existed before civilization's debilitating effects. The song "Words Disobey Me" even hinted that language itself might be the enemy, that underneath all the layers of conditioning lay a pure, inarticulate speech of the heart. "Speak the unspoken/First words of a child...We don't need words/Throw them away", beseeched Stewart.
The Pop Group - Words Disobey Me 1979
The Pop Group's mounting revulsion for corporate capitalism and corresponding desire for "purity" in a corrupt world inspired the single "We Are All Prostitutes". Musically, it's their most powerful recording. The lyrics, though, abandoned Y's imagistic delirium for a histrionic rant against consumerism, "the most barbaric of all religions". Stewart warned, "our children shall rise up against us". The Pop Group seemed to be changing from lusty poet-warriors to puritanical doomsayers.
The Pop Group - We Are All Prostitutes 1979
The backlash came in March 1980, triggered by a split single that paired the Slits' "In the Beginning There Was Rhythm" with the Pop Group's "Where There's a Will". NME's Ian Penman mockingly dissed them as "Bristol Baezes", evoking sanctimonious sixties folkie Joan Baez.
The Pop Group - Where There's a Will 1980
The second Pop Group album, For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder? got panned as self-righteous soapbox agitprop. The music was still fiery, and actually more focused than Y, but it was hard to stomach the crude finger-pointing of songs like "Blind Faith".
The Pop Group - Blind Faith 1980
The band seemed to proceed methodically through a checklist of issues - "Justice" dealt with police brutality, "How Much Longer" with Nixon and Kissinger's war crimes - and the self-flagellating guilt trip vibe was off-putting. "There Are No Spectators" chided the politically disengaged and passive, declaring, "There is no neutral/No one is innocent".
The Pop Group - Justice 1980
The Pop Group - How Much Longer 1980
The Pop Group - There Are No Spectators 1980
The album was relentlessly pinned to the specifics, from the sleeve with its collage of news clipping about outrages such as East Timor to songs such as "Feed The Hungry", all blurted statistics and denunciation. Hectoring and lecturing, For How Much Longer was as unpoetic as a fringe leftist pamphlet.
The Pop Group - Feed The Hungry 1980
A massive antinuclear rally held in Trafalgar Square in October 1980 was the last time the Pop Group performed together. After this high point - playing to 250.000 people - the Pop Group fell apart. "An organic disintegration", says Stewart. "There was no ill will".
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