Sweetwater.com defines sophisti-pop as “the 80s’ most elegant genre … combining pop sensibilities with refined arrangements that were inspired by jazz, avant-garde classical music, and soul … looking simultaneously to the past and the future.”
Mick Hucknall, frontman for UK band Simply Red, fits the genre well: ” … in love with ‘60s soul, which he gives a high-tech overhaul and an ‘80s pop gloss,” (LA Times, reviewing the 1989 album A New Flame). “Refracted through the Hucknall filter, some of the hard-core earthiness of the style doesn’t survive. Hucknall has created a hybrid that’s laid-back and maybe just a little too slick — but still teeming with understated passion … Most of the album’s music is dreamily romantic and fairly mellow. One of the best songs is “Enough,” which reflects the fragile, wispy style of Marvin Gaye’s great What’s Going On album.”
As an album closer and a non-single, “Enough” was granted plenty of freedom. The percolating bassline and syncopated keyboard kicks of the verse, starting in C minor, open into a more uncomplicated chorus in Ab major (0:54); the cycle repeats at 1:12. At 2:25, a bridge appears (or second chorus, as we hear it more than once?), with its lead vocal featuring only a few emphatically repeated words (the title among them). At 2:43, an instrumental verse and chorus are home to piano and guitar features, followed by an outro featuring a lithe soprano sax at 4:21; all set a tone which wouldn’t be out of place at a jazz club, yet also for a time had a place on the pop charts.
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