Whether or not due to these inherent limitations or just his personal inclinations, Palmer didn’t discover the outer limits of synth-rock on Clues. As a substitute, he developed a hybrid of contemporary rock, blue-eyed soul, and future pop, honing his hooks so the music feels fast even when it flirts with the esoteric. Palmer was excited about aesthetics, not the avant-garde; all of the electronics give the music form and texture. The elevated aural definition accentuates Palmer’s sharpened melodies whereas additionally shrouding the document in a trendy facade that pushed Clues barely to the left of the mainstream’s middle in 1980.
Contemplating the intentional chill that Clues exudes, it’s straightforward to overestimate the affect Numan had on the document, positioning him because the Brian Eno to Palmer’s David Bowie. The synth-rocker solely seems on one minimize on Clues, a canopy of Numan’s dystopian ballad “I Dream of Wires,” and co-wrote one different tune, “Discovered You Now,” an train in Moroccan funk. Numan handed by Compass Level on his solution to Japan, and his presence on Clues additionally feels oddly transient; he’s chargeable for colourful accents, not the underlying construction.
It’s doable Numan’s synths drove Palmer to create “Johnny & Mary,” the album’s exquisitely eerie first single. The tune seems to rise from the digital ether, a story of a romance that’s withered right into a cycle of codependency, set to a round minor-key melody. Loads of the story is left unsaid and, appropriately, elements of the association appear lacking, with its nocturnal pulse accentuated by smears of synth and shards of guitar. It’s so spare, it may nonetheless appear startling, capturing the sensation when the promise of the long run begins to fade.
“Johnny & Mary” finds a companion in “On the lookout for Clues,” a jittery piece of funk whose modernism is knowledgeable by Speaking Heads. Certainly, Heads drummer Chris Frantz, a buddy and Nassau neighbor of Palmer’s, performs percussion on the observe; Palmer returned the favor on Speaking Heads’ Stay in Gentle, launched just a few months after Clues. Frantz famous in his memoir that “Robert appreciated the worth of an excellent rhythm part,” which is a mirrored image of Palmer’s uncommon compositional course of. Palmer advised Fricke in 1979, “I put a groove down on the drums and check out to consider a melody to sing.” His rendition of “Not a Second Time,” a tune plucked from With the Beatles, was additionally the results of his rhythm-first method—as soon as he had the beat in place, he realized the Beatles’ deep minimize was an excellent melodic match—but “Not a Second Time” can also be indicative of the truth that Clues doesn’t strictly adhere to synth rock. When Palmer was protecting Numan in live performance, he additionally was performing a model of “Child” by the Pretenders, an indication that he was tapped into the extra tuneful facet of latest wave.
