Kaleidoscope (Siouxsie and the Banshees album)

Background and music

Following the departure of two band members, 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-dance minimalism 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 saw it "like a new lease of life". 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 playing guitar and compose music for the first time.

Release and critical reception

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.

The reception from critics was positive. Melody Maker's Paulo Hewitt gave the album qualified praise, summarising it as "a kaleidoscope of sound and imagery, new forms, and content, flashing before our eyes. Undoubtedly a lot of the album is a success on those terms, but even after about ten plays it’s still hard to fully grasp 'Kaleidoscope' as a concrete whole. Maybe that’s the fault. Or maybe that’s the beauty." Their work on the singles "Happy House" and "Christine" was praised 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".

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".

Legacy

Kaleidoscope later influenced several critically acclaimed musicians. In a 1985 interview with Steve Sutherland, The Cure frontman Robert Smith cited the album when describing The Head on the Door: "It reminds me of the Kaleidoscope album, the idea of having lots of different sounding things, different colours".

In a February 2008 interview on BBC Radio 2, Johnny Marr from The Smiths discussed McGeoch's contribution on "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. I've always liked that. It was like getting George Best on the guitar."

Radiohead stated in 2008 interviews that they had rehearsed "Happy House" before going on tour. Guitarist Ed 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."

Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream 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".

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 and I love this song". Santigold also later sampled another song from Kaleidoscope, "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. Erasure's Andy Bell cited it as one of his favourite :"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".

Track listing

All lyrics written by Siouxsie Sioux, except "Red Light" and "Christine", by Steven Severin; all music composed by Sioux and Severin, except "Trophy", by Sioux, Severin and John McGeoch.

Personnel