The first thing the listener hears on Bronski Beat’s debut album The Age of Consent is a yelp. On opening track ‘Why?’, lead singer Jimmy Somerville’s military-grade soprano leaps out of silence, imploring someone to ‘tell me why!’ The question is rhetorical; Somerville knows ‘why’ (more specifically, why homophobia was rife in the 80’s, why the very act of loving who he loved put him at huge risk) and the answer is too unsavoury to name. Though, when the track jumps into action with a sprightly hi-NRG beat, Somerville repeats a refrain: ‘you and me together / Fighting for our love’ – a glimmer of optimism among scattered confusion and panic. ‘Why?’ deftly sets up the central conflict of the whole album, a boxing match between the gays and a strictly straight society. 

 

The Age of Consent, upon release in 1984, was nothing short of a battle cry; even from its title alone, which confronted the British government’s decision to keep the age of consent for homosexual acts at 21 (where heterosexual acts were lowered to 16). The album was released amid the rise of gay culture in ‘80s Britain, aided by the likes of George Michael and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Though the general public took their time to fully accept that queer was here (and some still reject the idea entirely, as evidenced by the recent US election win of the transphobic Donald Trump), the album was embraced by the little communities its lyrics spoke to. 

 

Somerville repeats a refrain: ‘you and me together / Fighting for our love’ – a glimmer of optimism among scattered confusion and panic

The album’s first and biggest single, ‘Smalltown Boy’ is testament to this. On a bed of gloomy synths and deceptively upbeat dance beats, Somerville spins a tale of a young gay man who decides to leave home as a result of homophobic bullying – a story that sadly resonated with many queer young people at that time, and still does. The refrain of ‘cry boy cry’ finds a kinship in producer SOPHIE’s 2017 track ‘It’s Okay to Cry’; even across the ages, queer artists have a tendency to extend a hand to their queer listener, letting them know they’re not alone. In the inner groove of the ‘Smalltown Boy’ 12” single, the telephone number of the London Gay Switchboard (a helpline for gays and lesbians in central London) was etched.  

 

‘Smalltown Boy’ is, even after all these years, a perfect song, a stained disco gem that every other queer person you know has an attachment to; on this album, it is surrounded by other contemplative tracks, musings and projections that search for answers at a time when there were none. The bossa nova-esque Gershwin cover ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’ questions the Bible’s teachings, and features the London gay men’s choir The Pink Singers. ‘Screaming’ has abstract lyrics painting a portrait of inner turmoil; the prescient ‘No More War’ never specifies which conflict it refers to, but the skittering percussion evokes a similar tension to that of a procedural drama. It is as though Somerville is aware that his plea for peace is futile, that no-one in the ‘80s would listen to a gay man (at least, not one so unashamed to be who he is). 

 

The album is not all doom and gloom; toe-tapper ‘Heatwave’ has Somerville singing of ‘tattoos and muscle passion and sweat’ with all the winking humour of Julie London. The closer, a cover of Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’, finds him going full pop diva, his silvery soprano descending like a glistening staircase. You can hear him practically beaming in the vocal booth. 

 

The ABSOLUTE. and Planningtorock remixes each deserve a permanent spot in a Zumba playlist, while Dave Audé & Tall Paul’s remix shrouds the song in a four-to-the-floor beat

Because this is a reissue, we are treated to some remixes, most of which are of ‘Smalltown Boy’. The ABSOLUTE. and Planningtorock remixes each deserve a permanent spot in a Zumba playlist, while Dave Audé & Tall Paul’s remix shrouds the song in a four-to-the-floor beat whose refrain reaches a fever pitch of ecstasy – before crashing down into a disco dissolution born for the gay club. Most striking is Perfume Genius’ rework of ‘Smalltown Boy’; accompanied by piano flourishes straight out of Jessie Ware’s playbook, Mike Hadreas (the openly gay man behind the Perfume Genius project) touchingly updates the song for a modern queer audience, his soft falsetto soothing the ache of Somerville’s yearning scream.  

 

The B-sides vary in quality, though that is to be expected. While ‘Close to the Edge’ fits snugly into the synth-pop bubble of the standard edition (albeit to a lesser quality), ‘Cadillac Car’ is an inexplicable left-turn into Blues Brothers-adjacent territory. ‘Infatuation/Memories’ starts as a breathy, expansive instrumental voyage before giving way to a stark stumble of a song, where Somerville mourns a lost love. The saving grace is Marc Almond’s ‘Cake Mix’ of ‘I Feel Love’, which threatens to surpass the original. 

 

As a statement, The Age of Consent is defiant, brave in a way that helped to give way to an onslaught (in the best way) of queer people expressing themselves. Though this would be Bronski Beat’s only album with Somerville as lead singer, the album has a legacy that few can match – a guiding light for millions of queer people, myself included. On the standard edition’s penultimate track, the brilliantly titled ‘Need a Man Blues’, a funk-inflected disco beat transports the listener to a sweaty corner of a gay club as Somerville declares the album’s ultimate message: ‘the sweetest thing of all is men loving men!’ Truer words have never been spoken. 

 

8/10 

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