As we continue the journey to the end of this series in March next year, I seem to be picking up some of the harder subjects now, those that had less suggestions and are more difficult to build a post around.

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/amodelofcontrol.com now has a Patreon page, at this stage purely as a potential way of helping to cover the running costs of the site. There is absolutely no compulsion to do so: if you feel you can chuck a small amount to the site each month, that would be appreciated.

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Or at least, that’s what I thought this one would be. It turns out that there aren’t that many songs explicitly about rumour and conjecture, but those that are happened to be really good songs, so despite fewer suggestions, it was pretty difficult to whittle this down to ten.

Thanks, as ever, to everyone who suggested songs.

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A quick explanation for new readers (hi there!): my Tuesday Ten series has been running since March 2007, and each month features at least ten new songs you should hear – and in between those monthly posts, I feature songs on a variety of subjects, with some of the songs featured coming from suggestion threads on Facebook.

Feel free to get involved with these – the more the merrier, and the breadth of suggestions that I get continues to astound me. Otherwise, as usual, if you’ve got something you want me to hear, something I should be writing about, or even a gig I should be attending, e-mail me or drop me a line on Facebook (details above).

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/Marvin Gaye
/I Heard It Through The Grapevine
/In The Groove

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Perhaps obviously, the first thought and first choice for this week’s /Tuesday Ten.

Amazingly, Marvin Gaye was the third Motown artist to release this classic Whitfield & Strong composition, after Gladys Knight & the Pips and The Miracles both recorded and released their versions, and reputedly Gladys Knight was absolutely furious that Berry Gordy allowed Gaye’s version to usurp hers. But there is no doubt that the song is unquestionably associated with Marvin Gaye in popular culture.

It is a song of unresolved tension, of fear and despair: as the protagonist hears rumours of their partner’s infidelity, and begins questioning their own actions and beliefs, as if this couldn’t possibly be true. Gaye’s tremendous vocal range and vocal power carries the song, too, the amount of emotion put into the vocals perhaps suggesting that this subject was something close to home.

Marvin Gaye died tragically young, of course, killed by his own father after months of family conflict, the day before his 45th birthday on 01-April 1984.

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/Alexander O’Neal
/Hearsay
/Hearsay

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While Marvin Gaye could be considered part of the old guard of soul music, Alexander O’Neal was at the vanguard of soul music in the eighties, and his best work was in conjunction with the legendary production duo of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis – with whom he’d been part of seventies funk band Flyte Tyme, which later morphed into The Time and worked closely with Prince (although Morris Day fronted that version of the band rather than Cynthia Johnson and (later) O’Neal).

Hearsay is O’Neal’s greatest album by far, a remarkable concept album built around the idea of him hosting a party of sorts, and each song has an intro that is overhead conversations at the party. The slower-paced title track – a welcome pause for breath on a side one that includes tough-as-nails tracks like Fake and Criticize – sees O’Neal wearily taking on a gossip-monger at the party, who likes doing nothing but stirring up trouble through rumour and accusation.

O’Neal, now 72, retired from music in 2024 after a fifty-year career, closing out at the Royal Albert Hall (unusually for a US soul artist, his greatest success was in the UK) and even marrying his partner of 35 years onstage!

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/Ashbury Heights
/Derrick Is A Strange Machine
/Three Cheers For The Newlydeads

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Swedish synthpop group Ashbury Heights have had something of a renaissance of late, and I can’t help but feel that this has been driven by the reuniting of the original duo, Anders Hagström and Yasmine Uhlin. They were absolutely fantastic at Resistanz last year, and they closed out their set with, unexpectedly, this old favourite from their debut album.

This song glowers amid an album of otherwise fizzing, youthful energy, an abrupt turn that jarred initially until the brilliance of the song revealed itself. It is a song about someone raising the alarm about the new partner of their ex: it is clear that Derrick, the new partner, clearly has a history, and the song is carefully worded to never really reveal what Derrick is accused of, instead leaving it at rumour and insinuation.

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/The Provenance
/Some Gossip on Stealing A Spouse
/How Would You Like to Be Spat At

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A rare opportunity to feature the much-missed Swedish gothic-metal band The Provenance, a band whose songs were rooted in the darker side of love: of regret, relationship breakdown and revenge. Many of their songs revolved around vocalists Emma Hellström and Tobias Martinsson, Tobias being very much a foil to Emma’s seething, powerful delivery. For me, their third album How Would You Like to Be Spat At is their best, an album that simmers and rages at the injustices and abuse women face in relationships, but is also full of extraordinary songs.

One such song is Some Gossip on Stealing A Spouse, the roiling centrepiece of the album, as Emma Hellström addresses someone who has left town after a slew of accusations, and the feeling I get is one of a little sympathy for the accused, as increasingly bizarre rumours are repeated and it is suggested that no matter how far they run, the rumour and accusation will stick whether it is true or not.

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/Curve
/Unreadable Communication
/Cuckoo

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Cuckoo was the point where the shoegaze elements began to give way more overtly to the already-extant industrial rock elements of Curve’s sound (shown most obviously by the rampaging lead single Missing Link), and so the album didn’t land with everyone in the same way that the remarkable power of Doppelgänger did. I was one of those that Cuckoo did hit like a missile – even though I was already more than familiar with the world of industrial rock by this point in 1993, Curve still didn’t really sound like anyone else, having a distinct sound of their own, and part of that was down to Toni Halliday’s measured, calm among the storm vocals.

Unreadable Communication is unusual amid this list, as the protagonist appears to be the subject of the rumour and hearsay. They are being talked about and targeted, but among the hubbub they just go “fuck it” and dive headlong into a tryst that may or may not be a very bad idea indeed for all concerned. Things are never resolved, it simply fades away into the background.

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/The Killers
/Somebody Told Me
/Hot Fuss

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Despite their ubiquity over the past two decades or so – almost the same period this /Tuesday Ten series has been running for, in fact – I’ve only ever used The Killers four times (and two of those were Mr Brightside, repeat usage of songs being something I generally try and avoid). And amazingly, until now, I’ve not used the gloriously catty Somebody Told Me, which revolves around the idea of trying to hook up with someone in a club.

Amid the slick beats and wheezing synths, Brandon Flowers’ vocals boil with the frustration of being led up the garden path in his attempts to impress the object of his affections: as it turns out that he’s not quite as great as he thought he was. As far as I can tell, the woman he’s after is – he’s heard – dating another woman he’s hooked up with in the past. And presumably, one of his friends has pulled him aside to tell him this, but club-based bravado has him thinking he still has a chance, when he clearly doesn’t…

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/Charli XCX
/von dutch
/brat

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What became the Brat Summer of 2024 began with the release of von dutch at the end of February 2024. As Charli XCX found out as her fame grew, she became a sadly inevitable subject of tabloid and gossip intrigue, and that was only to become ever more the case as her profile absolutely exploded with the success of brat. Not for the first time, von dutch was Charli XCX getting ahead of the game and addressing such issues: making it clear that the gossip and rumour about her online just fed her fame and success ever further. Two years on, and Charli XCX is now one of the biggest pop stars on the planet

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/The Indelicates
/Something’s Goin’ Down in Waco
/David Koresh Superstar

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The tale of David Koresh, his religious fanaticism, the alleged abuse of underage girls, and the 51 day FBI siege of the Branch Davidian compound that ended with a fire that resulted in 86 deaths and destroyed the compound, has become yet another in the long list of religious fanatics whose actions eventually kill many of their followers. But debate has raged about the exact circumstances of what happened since, and some of it remains rumour and conjecture.

There have been many songs about the group and the siege (some of them detailed here), but few have gone as far as the Indelicates, who created an entire concept album about it, with a host of other artists lending a hand to add voices and instrumentation for various characters within.

Album highlight Something’s Goin’ Down in Waco details the beginning of the end of the siege, as one chance connection destroys the FBI’s chance of surprise in storming the compound: the postman the reporter asks for directions turned out to be David Koresh’s brother-in-law, so by the time they raided, the Branch Davidians were armed to the teeth and prepared to fight. Like any battle, accurate detail is difficult to come by at the time, so to begin with reports were confused and unclear…

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/Faderhead
/Fuck What You Heard
/FH3

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Faderhead burst onto the scene seemingly out of nowhere nearly twenty years ago, and quickly became divisive – partly because of Sami’s prickly nature onstage and on record, seemingly seeking to answer back on every slight and taking the whole lot a little too personally. It certainly made a number of later releases rather less enjoyable, and Fuck What You Heard, from FH3 in 2008, is little more than sparse beats, a few dustings of synths and Sami addressing a whole host of rumours and comments by simply answering “Fuck What You Heard”.

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/Felt
/Henrietta Longbottom
/Felt 3: A Tribute to Rosie Perez

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We close this week with the hip-hop group known as Felt, not the Felt that was Lawrence‘s first band. They are a duo (MCs Slug and Murs) originally from Minneapolis, and on their third album they worked with Aesop Rock to create it. His hand is obvious from the first seconds of this track, the unusual sounds and loping beats, but Slug and Murs exchange lines like the old friends they clearly are, as they talk about this neighbourhood character that, it becomes clear, no-one really knows. There’s a whole lot of rumours and stories about this person, but the truth? Who the fuck knows.