To Cut a Long Story Short
"To Cut a Long Story Short" is the debut single by the English new wave band Spandau Ballet, released on 31 October 1980. The band began recording the song before they were signed to a record label because of the interest they had generated with a debut concert for patrons of the exclusive weekly London nightclub the Blitz as well as a Christmas party at that establishment. After having tried other popular genres, the band had been preparing to make their debut as performers of dance music and wanted the public to associate them with the young crowd who met at the Blitz every Tuesday. They needed their guitarist/songwriter, Gary Kemp, to come up with something that they could feel confident about presenting to the top tier of the club's regulars at their first performance.
For the short story collection by Jeffrey Archer, see To Cut a Long Story Short (short story collection).
By shaping their image around an exclusive club scene, Spandau Ballet piqued the interest of a television documentary filmmaker who then wanted to film the band in concert as part of presenting their story. A popular DJ attended the concert and requested that they record some of the songs for him to play on his show, and "To Cut a Long Story Short" became so popular that other shows on the station aired it as well. Several record labels were in touch with them after the documentary aired in July 1980, but the band had a long list of requirements that had to be met and had difficulty deciding which label would meet all their needs. The song had gained such popularity on that one station that the labels in the running all agreed that the one the band chose to sign with would pay for the session time needed to record it right away and start working on their first album.
The fact that they had little money to spend on the music video for "To Cut a Long Story Short" did not prevent the band from wearing historical military outfits. They kept the same look for their debut on the British music chart television programme Top of the Pops, emphasizing that their image was as much a part of their performance as their music. The single received mixed reviews at the time of its release, but when it got as high as number 5 on the UK Singles Chart, several other UK pop groups that were associated with nightclubs were signed to record labels and began charting in the US as part of the Second British Invasion as well as at home.
The record contract that Spandau Ballet signed with Chrysalis Records stipulated that covering the cost of remixing their songs for dance clubs would be included. The band was inspired by the practice of creating dub mixes and released both the 7- and 12-inch singles with such reinterpretations of the song on the B-side. The contract also gave control over all aspects of how their music was presented, which allowed them to get help from the creative regulars from the Blitz who specialized in such things as graphic design, hair and costumes. The tactics that put Spandau Ballet in the public eye with the song were more about recognizing the cultural shift that these young people represented than they were about just having a hit record.
Critical reception[edit]
Mark Cooper of Record Mirror was not impressed by the media exposure that Spandau Ballet had received by the time "To Cut A Long Story Short" was available for review. "Lots of advance publicity for this and mention of moneys, which fail to create a sense of obligation to enjoy."[56] His major points of criticism were directed at elements of the song that underscored why he felt the band was overblown: "Their debut single features a cute synthesiser riff that pretends to be profound and is pure pop with a vocal that verges on the operatic."[56] His conclusion also emphasizes what he saw as a tendency toward the grandiose. "Apart from a delightful series of rim shots and drumrolls in the middle, this is ordinary, a short story trying to become a novel."[56] In an otherwise scathing review of the band's December 1980 concert at London's LGBT nightclub Heaven, Richard Williams of The Times credited the song with having "a hook line reminiscent of the better psychedelic records".[57] It was chosen as one of the best tracks on Journeys to Glory in Billboard magazine's review of the album,[58] and Alan Lewis of Sounds magazine was quite complimentary: "It is a good record using the modern technology in a warmer, more organic way… the lead vocal [is not] the usual alienated robot wimp but a big, mature full-bodied roar. This is clearly NOT the work of a bunch of out-of-work hairdressers who've managed to stumble through a few gigs, but a massively competent record by a band with plenty in reserve."[59]
In retrospective reviews on AllMusic, Dave Thompson included "To Cut a Long Story Short" on a list of Spandau Ballet songs that were "utterly convincing white boy Funk";[60] Ned Raggett interpreted it as a "rent-boy scenario" in singling it out as one of their better early tracks;[61]
and Stewart Mason described it as minimalist "spiky synth-pop" with a style reminiscent of early Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark material and featuring a "dirty, overdriven synth sound and a stomping Gary Glitter-like backbeat". Although he described it as "largely forgotten" today due to Spandau Ballet's later successful change in style towards "smooth, soulful pop", he suggested it was "a minor lost classic of the early-'80s UK synth pop scene".[2] Ian Gittins wrote in The Guardian that the song "remains a sharp exercise in art-pop weirdness, all twitchy synths and bubbling urgency".[4] For Dylan Jones it was "an era-defining slice of electronic myth-making, and a great dance record to boot (if it hadn't been, the cognoscenti, those who went to the same clubs as Spandau, would have strangled it at birth – or, more pertinently, refused to dance to it)."[62]
Release and commercial performance[edit]
Early indicators of the song's chances were encouraging.[63] The Radio 1 studio session recording was in high rotation on the station before the commercial single was available.[64] The station's weekly "Roundtable" record review show featured pop stars giving their opinion of the latest singles, and the week that "To Cut a Long Story Short" was reviewed, one of the panelists was Bryan Ferry,[65] who Dagger described as "second only to David Bowie as style, musical and lifestyle inspiration to our generation."[66] They were relieved to hear Ferry describe it as a "smart, witty single".[66] Dagger hand-delivered the dance version of the song to the DJs in London at their clubs when it came out,[67] and "because of the hype around the band, they all played it almost immediately".[66] He and Chrysalis worked with promoters who knew other DJs around England to send it to, and those clubs also responded favorably.[68]
"To Cut a Long Story Short" debuted on the UK Singles Chart dated 15 November 1980 and peaked at number 5 during its 11 weeks there.[69] Lead singer Tony Hadley wrote, "No one expected a first single to shoot straight into the Top 10. In the Eighties, it was more about steady sales. Chrysalis would have been content with a Top 40 hit on the first single. It was about getting us on the map and raising the profile of the band."[70] The British Phonographic Industry awarded the single Silver certification on 1 December for reaching the 250,000 units of shipment threshold.[71] On other pop charts it reached number 9 in Ireland,[72] number 15 in Australia,[73] number 19 in Spain[74] and number 38 in New Zealand.[75] In the US, Billboard magazine paired the song on the Disco Top 100 with "The Freeze", and eventually they got as high as number 28.[76]
Twelve-inch single reissue[edit]
In 2020, to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the release of "To Cut a Long Story Short", the two mixes featured on the original 12-inch single were reissued both as a two-track digital single and on 180g vinyl.[44] Norman wrote that the last time he had heard the recordings was back around the time that they were released and that "the band's energy is all over it, which is how I remembered it sounding. This re-listening experience brought a smile to my face and, to be honest, made me feel somewhat proud all over again of all we were about to achieve as a band."[86]
Legacy[edit]
The signature riff from "To Cut a Long Story Short" was used as a sample looping throughout the Freestylers track "In Love with You", which was described as one of the "moments of boldness" on their 2006 album Adventures in Freestyle in a review by Andrew Drever for The Age.[87]
Former Depeche Mode keyboardist and songwriter Vince Clarke told Rolling Stone magazine in 2000 that "To Cut a Long Story Short" inspired him to write 1981's "Just Can't Get Enough". He admitted, "Up to that point, I didn't like dance music or disco at all."[88] Upon hearing the Spandau Ballet song, however, he said, "It was the first time I was actually impressed by a rhythm that went 'boom-thwack, boom-thwack, boom-thwack.' It was the first time I discovered dance music for myself, and to write a song around that rhythm was quite a revelation for me. 'Just Can't Get Enough' came out of that."[88]
In 2009, former Evening Standard and music magazine journalist David Johnson gave a historical account of the rise of the band in an article titled "Spandau Ballet, the Blitz kids and the birth of the New Romantics". He wrote, "Within weeks of Spandau's hit ["To Cut a Long Story Short"], Britain's clubbing grapevine put yet more clubland bands into the charts, many unveiled by sharp young managers the same age as the talent. In the Blitz slipstream, a dynasty of 35 new-look acts charted during 1981 alone" – including Duran Duran, the Human League, Depeche Mode, Soft Cell and ABC.[89] "In the next three years a second wave of image-led acts refreshed the pop charts to become household names", such as Bananarama, Culture Club, Wham! and Thompson Twins.[89]