Anthony Moore - Flying Doesn't Help

  by Maarten Schiethart

published: 31 / 7 / 2022

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Maarten Schiethart finds that, while receiving lukewarm reviews at the time, Anthony Moore's 1979 now seminal solo album 'Flying Doesn't Help' strikes hard after over forty years.

Amidst the streak of reissues of adventurous albums from the 1970s and 1980s by the likes of Be Bop de Luxe (to name just one) comes the reissue of 'Flying Doesn't Help' by Anthony Moore. On a Virgin Records subsidiary, Moore was granted a leave from his Henry Cow and Slapp Happy obligations. Moreover, Moore touched on new grounds, the sort that were being explored by bands like Magazine and This Heat. Moore bridged the gap between prog rock, post-punk and new wave, owing a bit to catchy pop music popularised by Sparks, with irate compositional twists. The failed 1980 top-40 entry 'Judy Get Down' starts the LP', leading to an intermezzo, then followed by another possible hit song, 'Useless Moments'. 'Lucia' showcases his compositional ambitions. Met with lukewarm reviews, 'Flying Doesn't Help' was out of fashion at the time. 'Caught Being In Love', is a mix of snappy post-punk, new wave, glam rock and prog rock and, of course, art rock. Never shy of experimentation, with plenty of white noise intermezzos, the album nevertheless paved the way for bands like Franz Ferdinand and Arctic Monkeys. 'Just Us' is the epitome of the characteristics of such bands. Henry Cow and Slapp Happy never aimed for the charts, yet decades later, the song structure that Anthony Moore set to perfect became commonplace.

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