Whatever You Say, Say Nothing is the fourth studio album by Scottish rock band Deacon Blue, released in March 1993 by Columbia Records. It was the group's final original album before their initial dissolution in mid-1994.
Wishing to pursue a new musical direction, Deacon Blue recorded the album with the dance production team of Steve Osborne and Paul Oakenfold, hoping that the team's different background would provide a creative challenge. Oakenfold agreed to the project in hopes of changing the band's sound to something edgier, but recording sessions were fraught with disagreement and Oakenfold, who believed the group were uninterested in his ideas, lost interest in the project. Breaking with the band's earlier, more soulful and folky work, Whatever You Say is a visceral, guitar-driven alternative rock record with dance textures and driving rhythms. Lead singer Ricky Ross pens lyrics with more universal themes than on earlier records.
Promoted by the lead single and UK Top 20 hit "Your Town", Whatever You Say, Say Nothing reached number four in the UK Albums Chart, but was less successful than the band's earlier albums, and failed to chart in the United States. The album received an unenthusiastic response from music critics and the group's new direction baffled some of their fans. Some critics have described the album as a late entry into the dance-rock and baggy movements of the early 1990s. In support of the album, Deacon Blue toured Europe in 1993, with an elaborate stage set featuring scaffolding and corrugated sheets. The record was re-released in 2012 by Edsel Records as a two CD and DVD set.
Background Deacon Blue's third album, Fellow Hoodlums (1991), sold half as many copies as its predecessor, When the World Knows Your Name (1989), and was critically panned, though it did receive a Platinum certification in the United Kingdom. Believing that they had firmly "established their sound" by the release of Fellow Hoodlums, lead singer Ricky Ross comments that the band wished to pursue a drastic change in direction for the follow-up album, Whatever You Say, Say Nothing. Craig Winn of M8 believed the band's "need to attract a new audience" was comparable to Wet Wet Wet, who – having been criticised for attracting a teenage audience – released the "mature" album High on the Happy Side (1992) and became fashionable, but writes that Deacon Blue "had the opposite problem" of having a mature audience and wanting younger fans.
On impetus for the band's new stylistic change, Ross commented that after the band achieved their original aim of recording an album and appearing on Top of the Pops, he realised that he is "actually quite ambitious and [wanted] to take it somewhere [he] hadn't imagined possible". He also credited "boredom factor" as a reason, commenting that, as a songwriter, he originally joined the band because it would be "interesting", adding: "I'm pushing it having done three albums and trying to do four. So you may as well push your luck the whole way and make a fourth album that is actually quite adventurous." Ross said that, rather than commercial motivations driving the band's desire for new fans, he was more interested in "us being a band and staying a band and having fun being in a band", as "it's about really sparking and really pushing yourself hard because you just get lazy."
Deacon Blue chose dance producers Steve Osborne and Paul Oakenfold to produce the album. Bassist Ewen Vernal said that the production duo were recommended by A&R staff, and that the group chose them because their musical background was highly different to "anything we've ever done", believing that it had "got to the point where any new project we want to get into we try and approach with some kind of challenge in mind." According to Ross, the duo of Osborne and Oakenfold were one of several "oddball names", another being David Byrne, that the band piled with A&R workers, hoping to find "someone to visit the studio every two weeks and be a kind of upsetting factor in the whole thing". He said the decision to hire Oakenfold came down to his vague knowledge of him as a DJ, but was only familiar with his work on an INXS song. Ross has denied that the production team's work with U2 influenced the band's decision.
Oakenfold and Osborne had recently completed their work on the Happy Mondays' Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches (1990) when Sony approached them to produce the Deacon Blue album. As Oakenfold later explained, he considered them to be "an out-and-out pop band, real cheese in some respects", and was uninterested in taking on the project, but was persuaded by the group's A&R man, who ensured him that the band "really want to change, to come up with a more interesting sound." As Deacon Blue were a Platinum-selling pop band, the producer decided it could be "a great thing to do, because it's not the obvious thing to do. We could completely change their sound. People would be able to see our production qualities, because we'd taken a pop band made them more edgy."
Recording
Deacon Blue recorded Whatever You Say, Say Nothing in three English studios: London's AIR Studios, and Oxfordshire's The Manor Studio and Outside Studios. A fourth studio, Eden Studios in London, was used to mix the record. Paul Corkett recorded the album with assistance from Adrian Bushby, Danton Supple, Gorby and Steve Orchard. Vernal said the record was difficult to record, due to the band entering "territory which we'd never been in before'."
Music author Richard Norris writes that although recording with Oakenfold and Osborne was intended to "invigorate the band's creativity with a fresh new approach", the sessions were not wholly successful in this regard. Oakenfold said that Deacon Blue initially agreed to his ideas about moving their sound in an edgier direction, but that once he and Osborne entered the studio, the band changed their mind, having just released their best-selling single. The producer said that after completing the first track, which was "great", he told them "we now need to go more edgy...they're all getting nervous, and I'm saying trust me, this is where we're going now."
Oakenfold credits co-vocalist Lorraine McIntosh – Ross' partner – for driving the band's resistance to his ideas: "it was one of those cliches where she had his ear, and what she wanted was what went on." According to Ross and McIntosh in an interview with The Observer, Oakenfold and Osborne "took their carte blanche control of song selection to extreme tyrannical proportions", on occasion driving McIntosh to tears. The band's guitarist Graeme Kelling believed that, despite hiring the producers to break up the band's familiar way of working, "we were trying to force ourselves in to another jacket – a terrible-looking spangly one – and didn't realise that what we had was actually quite special."
Oakenfold lost interest by the end of the sessions as the album "was becoming more and more pop. Obviously it had all our sounds in terms of production, so the mix was a lot harder than the band were used to, but it was nowhere near where I wanted it to be." He said: "In the end you just think, fuck it, they ain't listening." He later said that despite losing interest, Osborne remained engaged. Ross viewed Osborne, rather than Oakenfold, as the album's central influence, saying: "I think Steve's input was 75% and Paul's 25%. Steve’s a huge part of the deal. Paul's very good at coming in and going 'Yeah, I know' to things, and they work together as a team. I think the logic of why they worked together as a team defied some of the band at the time because of how little Paul's input was on anything."
Composition Musical style and themes
For Whatever You Say, Say Nothing, Ricky Ross stirred Deacon Blue's sound into a more rock-oriented direction than their previous folk-tinged work, with the "unlikely" team-up with Osborne and Oakenfold contributing to the "major sonic departure" and giving it a dance edge. Considered an alternative rock record, the music is guitar-driven, something which pleased Kelling, who believed it marked a departure from the keyboard-oriented material on their earlier albums; he stated that Ross "wrote that album on guitar, and the songs were a lot more direct." The sound is broader and more visceral, and is further characterised by its driving rhythms, dense textures, and percussive dance flavour, achieved with the producers. The rhythms have been described as techno-esque and repetitive, while the use of "acoustic guitar, strings and a variety of percussion" leads to what reviewer Virginia Trioli describes as the album's distinctive British rock sound. Music critic Barbara Jaegar believes the group "boosted its rhythm quotient" for a more immediate feel, departing from the ethereal, soulful pop sound of its predecessors.
The reviewer John Harris contends that the album – through Oakenfold and Osborne's input – features a similar sound to Happy Mondays' Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches. According to critic William Ruhlmann, Ross adopts a "high, breathy singing voice with lots of echo", and writes lyrics with more universal themes in contrast to earlier songs inspired by the Glasgow neighbourhood he grew up in. Kelling's guitar work is raw and melodic, inspiring comparison to James Honeyman-Scott of the Pretenders. Elements of the group's earlier sound remain, such as the midtempo pacing and the continued interplay between the two vocalists, Ross and McIntosh. Ross denied that they "set out to make a dance record" but added that a club mix of "Your Town" was produced because, as the song ran at 125 bpm, Osborne had the idea to "dance-up a Deacon Blue record" and surprise the band's fans. Nicole Meighan of The Scotsman wrote of the "fierce undercurrent of frustration and ragged anger" that characterises parts of the album, considering it "an impression, perhaps, of a band at sea, fighting against the tide."
Songs The group's new direction is immediately apparent with the tense opening song, "Your Town", a galloping protest song with heavy guitars, keyboards, dance-like rhythms and breathy harmonies. Ross's unusually-altered vocals are distorted and muffled, inspiring comparison with industrial music, and Bono's vocals on U2's "The Fly" (1991). One reviewer commented that Ross' vocals are "compressed and equalized into an AM-radio buzz." His vocals are surrounded by the swirling guitars and the restrained, martial drums, while acoustic textures more typical of the band are placed low in the mix. Meighan describes the song as an "emotional juggernaut" through which drummer Dougie Vipond evokes Fleetwood Mac's "Big Love" (1987). The lyrics express anger at former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who had been out of office since 1990, with lines like "When you're gone, they will curse you". Ross credits the venomous lyrics to the song being written in the leadup to the 1992 general election, saying: "We had had three Tory governments, and everyone was really sick, fed up with them, and it was that sort of political song." McIntosh has since described the song as one of her favourites by the group, praising its "unbelievable energy and power."