Pop Music | Level 42: Late Hippies

The Mark Knopfler of bass: Mark King. Both Marks succeeded in coaxing new sounds from a familiar instrument. A song by Dire Straits or Level 42 can be recognized after just a few bars.

The fact that neither band found any notable imitators is unusual for an industry in which pretty much anything even remotely successful or promising is adapted, copied, or plagiarized. This speaks to the outstanding craftsmanship, but also to the fact that the music contained something that defied imitation.

The 80s are said to have been cold and cynical, especially in comparison to the idealistic 60s, but also to the sobering 70s, when people huddled together – teapot within reach – to salvage at least a little happiness (even if their big dreams hadn't worked out). Punk and New Wave ended this illusion, too. There was no real life in the fake one. And if you couldn't change the world, you at least wanted to face it coolly. "YES to NO" was the slogan of a 1986 campaign by the zeitgeist magazine "Wiener," which pretty well captured the general attitude – "the world is bad, I'm fine with it!"

Level 42 were never cool. Mark King looked like a sad, sulky boy who'd been teased too much in the schoolyard. Drummer Phil Gould and his brother, guitarist Rowland "Boon" Gould, on the other hand, looked like softies. In the '80s, that's what they called young men who seemed too sensitive for the world. And at least this was true of "Boon" Gould. He suffered from bouts of depression and panic attacks throughout his life and hanged himself in 2019. Only keyboardist Mike Lindup, who radiated serenity and cheerfulness, didn't quite fit into the group picture. On the other hand, he also contributed the least to the creation of the songs.

They were preferably in a minor key. While the sound became increasingly airy and light over the years—from bass-heavy funk to synth-driven pop—the lyrics created a leaden melancholy. Even love songs were always about fundamentals. Mark King laments that his girlfriend expects strength from him. He should always be "a good man in a storm." But that's exactly what he's been trying to do since birth—to conform to social norms.

These are lines that don't really fit the 80s. A decade in which people everywhere—from neon bars to gothic basements—ignored society and sang the praises of individuality and self-realization. Finally, grow up and let loose!

Level 42 were left out. For them, "grown-up" is a synonym for deformed, disillusioned, and deranged. Getting older doesn't make you wiser. Quite the opposite. "These changing years, they add to your confusion," goes the line in "Something About You," the song that brought them worldwide success in 1985. And in "Children Say," their own parents receive the bill for the betrayal of their childhood dreams: "They close the door, but they can't lock it, 'cause something of their childhood remains. And they've felt it before, when the man in their pocket counted the cost of their material gains."

Their biggest hit, "Lessons in Love," from 1986, hits the same note: "All the dreams that we were building we never fulfilled them. All the homes that we were building we never lived in."

All these lines seem familiar, yet unreal. They seem out of time. They're typical hippie ideas. Words from a bygone era. And in a decade that paraded coolness like a monstrance, they were considered pretty uncool. Suddenly, you understand why Level 42 had no imitators in the '80s. Musically, they may have broken new ground, but spiritually, they were following paths that pointed back to the past.

The fact that they were successful nonetheless shows that there must have been many teenagers and twenty-somethings back then who shivered in the coolness. People who didn't necessarily long for the music of the 60s and early 70s, but who did long for the spirit of that era. For them – the sensitive discotheque goers – Level 42 offered the perfect complete package. You could dance brilliantly to their hits (at school parties, "The Sun Goes Down (Livin' It Up)" was the perfect bridge between "Don't You (Forget About Me)" by Simple Minds and "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson) and at the same time surrender to melancholy. Weltschmerz that grooved. That can't be copied.