Where were all of your laughing friends
Where were they at the bitter end
They started to steal your glory
They never even told your story
Featuring a marvellously atonal middle eight (not a million miles removed from the Velvet Underground’s “What Goes On”), “Godstar” is one of the most outstanding pop songs of the 1980s. It sounds nothing like Throbbing Gristle, and arguably not much like Psychic TV either.
Frankly, there’s something wrong about the idea of a world in which Genesis P-Orridge is a chart-topping pop star. Still, “Godstar” should have been a gigantic hit, if for no other reason than the glorious irony of the situation. Sadly it was a minor one at best, charting for two weeks at a highest position of 67. It’s still out there somewhere, though, and well worthy of your acquaintance.
Article comments
1 - Jim Carruthers
From RE-Search magazine Genesis P-Orridge had a memorable quote about the state of his member, "I think everybody should pee sitting down".
2 - 23rd peter
i wonder why you only talk about one track when discussing the "beauty from the beast" best-of-compilation. it holds much more tracks than just godstar, covering a variety of well known or at least well respected psychic tv tracks out of almost 10 years. among these are pearls like "roman p." (atribute to roman polanski, or sharon tate, or charles manson, just as you want it to be), and "i.c. water" (a tribute to ian curtis). it also has nice coverversions of "eve of destruction", "good vibrations", and "je t´aime". the compilation is a rather good guide for beginners to see how psychic tv dealed with cultural inspirations to engineer them in their very special way. "godstar" is one aspect, but there is much more to discover. a rather comprehensive discography is to be found at www.fopi.net.
3 - James Russell
Hey, 23rd Arseclown: if you'd read the fucking piece, you might've realised the whole point of it (along with a few other items I contributed at the time) was just to talk about the one song, not the whole album. If I wanted to discuss the entire album, do you not suppose I would have done so? No. I wanted to write about "Godstar" specifically. Therefore I wrote about "Godstar". Not about "Roman P." Not about "I.C. Water". Not about anything else Psychic TV performed, not about the compilation pictured above (purely in accordance with Blogcritics posting rules) nor about Psychic TV generally. Read it again and see if it sinks in this time. Hmph.
4 - Jade Webster
Calm down. It's only a song. *Smirks*
5 - Jade Webster
The Roman P Scrap. Certificate PG.