Kaleidoscope is the third studio album by British rock band Siouxsie and the Banshees, released on 1 August 1980 by Polydor Records. With the departure of John McKay and Kenny Morris and their replacement by two new musicians, Budgie on drums and John McGeoch on guitars, the band changed their musical direction and offered an album containing a wide variety of colors. "It was almost a different band", said Siouxsie.[4]
Background and music
Following the departure of McKay and Morris, the band regrouped and redirected their sound for their third record. Departing from their previous work, the Banshees incorporated synthesizers and drum machines for the first time. They particularly experimented in electronic music on a couple of tracks: the electro-rockminimalism of "Red Light" and the atmospheric, synth-based piece "Lunar Camel". The album also contained what could be described as a ballad, "Desert Kisses". Kaleidoscope marked the debut of guitarist John McGeoch and new drummer Budgie. Siouxsie Sioux saw it "like a new lease of life".[5] The songs had been demoed at Warner Chappell studios with only a bass and a synthesizer played by Siouxsie and Steven Severin. After the 1979 tour, Siouxsie had been ordered to take one month of rest by doctors; she used this time to learn to play guitar and compose music for the first time.[6]
When they recorded the final track of the album "Skin", Budgie asked co-producer Nigel Gray if he could add a second drum kit,[7] as if "I was playing to myself a ‘call and answer'."[8]
Release
Kaleidoscope was released on 1 August 1980 by record label Polydor. The album peaked at No. 5 in the UK Albums Chart, the highest position the band has achieved to date.[9] A 180 gram vinyl reissue of the album, remastered from the original ¼” tapes and cut at half-speed at Abbey Road Studios by Miles Showell, was released in December 2018.
Melody Maker's Paolo Hewitt gave the album qualified praise, summarising it as "a kaleidoscope of sound and imagery, new forms, and content, flashing before our eyes". Singling out the tracks "Paradise Place" and "Skin", Hewitt called them "classic Banshee pieces. Hypnotic, relentless and incisive".[11] Writing for ZigZag, Kris Needs hailed it as "probably the most varied, diverse and adventurous offering yet to shimmer under the Banshees' banner", praising the band's new musical direction: "Tracks veer from the lightest electronic backdrop pulse to surging soundwalls as mesmeric and powerful as anything they've done. But the subtlety evident in 'Happy House' and marvellous 'Christine' are the pointers to the main content of 'Kaleidoscope'". Needs noted that Siouxsie's voice "gained new strength and depth, but she's also widened beyond singing and writing to include synth, piano and a spot of guitar".[12]
The band's work on the singles "Happy House" and "Christine" was hailed shortly after their release by peers the Jam; singer-songwriter Paul Weller said that both songs used "some unusual sounds", while drummer Rick Buckler qualified them as "innovative".[13]
In his retrospective review, David Cleary of AllMusic described Kaleidoscope as a "strong record" with "extraordinarily imaginative production values, featuring intricate synthesizer-flecked arrangements; psychedelic touches in "Christine", spaceship synthesizer swoops in "Tenant" and rhythmic camera clicks in "Red Light" all enliven their respective songs".[10] The 2004 edition of The Rolling Stone Album Guide gave a 3 out 5 rating saying that with the change in personnel, Kaleidoscope refined "the Banshees' attack, diversifying the sound without losing its swirling impact".[14] In 2020, Rolling Stone included Kaleidoscope in the top 40 of their "80 Greatest albums of 1980" list, praising McGeoch as "one of the Eighties' unsung guitar masters" and Siouxsie's "vocal charisma".[15]
When Robert Smith described the Cure's album The Head on the Door to the press in 1985, he said: "It reminds me of the Kaleidoscope album, the idea of having lots of different sounding things, different colours".[16] During a TV interview to promote The Head on the Door, Smith also included Kaleidoscope in his "five favourite albums".[17] In a February 2008 interview on BBC Radio 2, Johnny Marr discussed McGeoch's contribution to "Happy House": "What it is about "Happy House" from a guitar playing point of view, is for a start it's modern. It's not got any of the sort of creaky old rock'n'roll aspects to it and it still sounded like the Banshees, almost more so. That's when I really began to become a fan of John McGeoch. It was an extra bonus for me that they'd got a great guitar player who had left another band and came in as a ringer and joined and not surprisingly, that to me was a very good scenario
".[18] Thom Yorke selected "Happy House" as one of his milestones in an interview for the BBC in 2017.[19] Radiohead stated in 2008 interviews that they had rehearsed "Happy House" before going on tour. O'Brien added: "We've been doing all this... stuff,... which is our youth, really. You know, when we were teenagers. They were very formative years, and those bands".[20]
Red Hot Chili Peppers covered "Christine" in 2001 with John Frusciante on guitar.[21] Bobby Gillespie was inspired by both "Happy House" and "Christine" because they were pop songs with dark subject matter. He stated: "That's the idea, yeah—to use the conventional way of constructing a pop song to communicate what I feel about the world and my take on relationships. It's a twist that makes it darker than it seems. When we were growing up, Siouxsie and the Banshees were doing this kind of stuff—they were getting in the charts with songs about mental hospitals! "Happy House"? That was nearly number fucking 10 in the charts! 'Christine, the strawberry girl, Christine, banana split lady'—they were writing about a girl with schizophrenia! They were getting in pop magazines and on TV; they were getting played on daytime radio. It's fucking subversive! They were outsiders bringing outsider subjects to the mainstream".[22] Tim Burgess of the Charlatans said: "my favourite Banshees album is Kaleidoscope, because it's been the most played [...] or maybe because of one or a dozen other reasons, 'Happy House' and 'Clockface' are both in my top 100 songs of all time".[23] Santigold took inspiration from the song "Red Light", explaining, "'My Superman' is an interpolation of a Siouxsie Sioux song, 'Red Light'... I love her song..."[24] Santigold also later sampled "Lunar Camel", on her Top Ranking remix album. Jeremy Jay covered the same song on his Airwalker EP.
Kaleidoscope was also praised by the singer of Suede, Brett Anderson.[25]Erasure's Andy Bell cited it as one of his favourites :"More commercial offering from Siouxsie was much more up my street – and consequently, as with all my favourite teen angst albums, I learnt all of the songs inside out and backwards".[26] The Weeknd sampled and used the chorus of "Happy House" on the 2011 track "House of Balloons / Glass Table Girls",[27] included on the Trilogy album.
Cultural references
In the 2006 film Notes on a Scandal, the sleeve of Kaleidoscope is shown in one of the scenes: the character played by Cate Blanchett tells her lover that it is her favourite album, calling it "a masterpiece", and that listening to the album as a teenager made her feel "invincible".[28]
Track listing
Original release
All tracks written by Siouxsie and Steven Severin, except "Trophy" written by Siouxsie, Severin and John McGeoch.
All lyrics by Siouxsie except "Christine" and "Red Light" by Severin.
Sullivan-Burke, Rory (April 2022). The Light Pours Out of Me: The Authorised Biography of John McGeoch. Omnibus Press. ISBN978-1913172664.
References
^ abHam, Robert (9 March 2021). "Japan – Quiet Life". Pitchfork. Retrieved 6 August 2023. Alongside other albums of the era like Siouxsie and the Banshees' Kaleidoscope...Quiet Life served as a bridge between post-punk and the burgeoning new-wave scene.
^Pitchfork Staff (10 September 2018). "The 200 Best Albums of the 1980s". Pitchfork. Retrieved 25 April 2023. They went in a more electronic direction on 1980's Kaleidoscope...
^Goddard, Simon. Mozipedia: The Encyclopaedia of Morrissey and the Smiths [Sioux, Siouxsie entry]. Ebury Press. p. 393.
^"The Banshees and other Creatures". BBC2 television. 1 hour documentary. Broadcast September 1998
^Johns, Brian (1989). Entranced: the Siouxsie and the Banshees story. Omnibus Press. ISBN0-7119-1773-6.
^"Radiohead Ed O'Brien interview on 94/9 radio, San Diego radio". citizeninsane.eu. 11 January 2008. Archived from the original on 18 September 2016. Retrieved 20 May 2016. We've kind of been rehearsing Happy House – Siouxsie & the banshees. Ryan Dombal (28 March 2008). "Radiohead interview". Pitchfork. Retrieved 16 May 2016. In rehearsals yesterday, Thom, Ed and I were running through a Siouxsie and the Banshees cover called "Happy House".
