The M M & M 1000 – part 48

Here’s the latest batch of Music Musings and Miscellany’s unapologetically subjective selection of the twentieth century’s best 1000 singles.

FLAMING LIPS – She Don’t Use Jelly / Turn It On (Warner Brothers 18131 1994)
Simple and surreal, “She Don’t Use Jelly” was Coyne and cos first singalong song which, unlike many, never seems to pall with repeated listenings. It’s just gleefully absurd, simple fun.

POP GROUP – She Is Beyond Good and Evil / 3.38 (Radar 29 1979)
Perhaps the Pop Group’s most accessible song, this is still evil sounding Faustian funk that lies somewhere between Chic and free jazz. They were a band whose tension between deep dub-funk and stellar jazz was stretched to breaking point, and topped with the borderline madness of Mark Stewart’s paranoid vocals, created a distopian soundtrack to societal, political and personal breakdown. The tension that drove them inevitably destroyed them as the group was pulled in too many conflicting directions, but their small ouevre is a truly great legacy.

PJ HARVEY – Sheela-na-gig / Joe / Hair (Too Pure 8 1992)
Part Pixies part riot girl, Polly Harvey stripped out the fat and fancy from her music, but still sounded a world away from the basic rock template. She infuriated and thrilled people in equal measure for her steadfast refusal to be labelled, or dragged into ‘scenes’, and still does. Her secret is a paradoxical combination of self-doubt and self-confidence that leaves her restless and continually inventive, but at the same time, never capriciously flitting from style to style.

RAMONES – Sheena Is a Punk Rocker / Commando / I Don’t Care (Sire 746 1977)
They sounded dumb but were never stupid. The first three albums fire off crackers like this every couple of minutes without ever sounding weary. That they ultimately became a cliché was inevitable. They either progressed and lost the raw simplicity, or stayed the same and became a self-parody.

HALL & OATES – She’s Gone / I’m Just a Kid (Atlantic 3332 1974)
In the eighties they became pop giants, but their music became plastic and soulless. In the seventies they couldn’t get arrested, but came out with some amazing Philly soul-drenched pop. “She’s Gone” is a powerhouse of impassioned vocal interplay.

YELLO – She’s Got a Gun / The Evening’s Young (Do It 18 1982)
While a lot of Yello’s early music was fairly brash, electro-influenced synth pop, my favourite side to the duo was always the atmospheric noir-ish stories relayed in tracks like “Lost Again” and this one. Dieter Meyer’s image fits the world of darkened railway stations, femmes fatales with guns and the fading decadence of a Europe living under the burden of its own catastrophic history.

HOUSE OF LOVE – Shine On / Love / Flow (Creation 43 1987)
About as good as indie guitar music gets. The House of Love’s first single was emotional, exciting, crisp and concise. It sold diddly squat, despite being on a fashionable label. Some things are just unfathomable. Over the last two decades, they’re a band I’ve introduced to people more than any other I think, and the reaction is always glowing. And I’ve met other people who rate the band’s short tenure at Creation as highly as I do.

ROBERT WYATT – Shipbuilding / Memories of You (Rough Trade 115 1982)
Elvis Costello’s brilliant response to the Falklands War isn’t a angry polemic, but a confused reflection of a character whose livelihood has been secured by it, and feels guilty about that fact. I have no problem with Costello as a singer, but he has a rather sarcastic tone that really can’t carry off the emotional conflicts of the song. Robert Wyatt, however, has the right mixture of pathos, vulnerability and deep unease to convey it perfectly. A masterpiece.

BOYS NEXT DOOR – Shivers / Dive Position (Mushroom 7492 1979)
Before they discovered their true mettle as the Birthday Party, the band’s previous incarnation peddled a kind of jerky, spiky pop. This Rowland Howard song sounded nothing like either. It’s a brooding ballad that oddly has far more in common with some of Nick Cave’s later work even though it wasn’t his song. It’s appearance in the film Dogs in Space is a perfect cinematic moment.

MIRACLES – Shop Around / Who’s Loving You (Tamla 54030 1960)
Along with Barrett Strong’s “Money”, “Shop Around” is one of the two major hits of Motown’s first year that has one foot in doo wop and rock ‘n’ roll, and the other in the future, world-dominating Motown sound.

MAGAZINE – Shot By Both Sides / My Mind Ain’t So Open (Virgin 200 1978)
With a riff so good that former Buzzcocks partners Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley both used it (see “Lipstick” by the Buzzcocks), “Shot By Both Sides” introduced Magazine with a bang. It was a winning combination punk’s excitement and sharpness and the more expansive, almost prog, sound of bands like Roxy Music.

JUNIOR WALKER & THE ALL STARS – Shotgun / Hot Cha (Soul 35008 1965)
Motown anomalies in that they owed as much to Booker T & the MGs and James Brown as they did to the sound of the Motor City, Walker’s All Stars were a funky rhythm and blues outfit who were as much about the groove as they were about the song. “Shotgun” is a blast (sorry).

THE CARDINALS – Shouldn’t I Know / Please Don’t Leave Me (Atlantic 938 1951)
The Cardinals were one of the great proto-doo wop ballad groups, but one who seem to have fallen through the cracks of history. The only available compilation is a stingy 10 song collection that appeared on the Collectables label in 2006 and is only available on import from the US for a silly price.

STEELY DAN – Showbiz Kids / Razor Boy (ABC 11382 1973)
“Showbiz Kids” is another one of those great Steely Dan tunes that subverts the kind of smooth, self-regarding, nouveau riche types who probably listed the band as one of their favourites. Only this time they did it with a brazenness that only an idiot could fail to see: “They got the house on the corner, with the rug inside / They got the booze they need, all that money can buy / They got the shapely bodies, they got the Steely Dan T-shirts…” and as a final coup de grace: “Show bus’ness kids makin’ movies of themselves / You know they don’t give a fuck about anybody else“

More soon

The M M & M 1000 – part 2

Twenty more of the Music Musings and Miscellany 1000.

CHAMELEONS – A Person Isn’t Safe Anywhere These Days / Thursday’s Child (Statik 6 1983)
The influence of the Chameleons is all over the place these days, from Interpol and Glasvegas to shameless carbon-copyists Editors. They seldom get due credit. “A Person Isn’t Safe…” is one of the stand-out tracks on A Script of the Bridge, an album frankly full of them. It’s an edgy and paranoid tale of urban threat with thumping riffs.

PREFAB SPROUT – A Prisoner of the Past / Where the Heart Is (Kitchenware 70 1997)
Few would make a claim that Andromeda Heights is one of Prefab Sprout’s best records, but this single taken from it juxtaposes sweeping, lush strings with a fairly creepy lyric about obsession. A long way from jumping frogs.

DISCO INFERNO – A Rock to Cling To / From the Devil to the Deep Blue Sky (Rough Trade R2983 1993)
Disco Inferno were a group out of time. When everything was baggy and Britpop, they were making dense, sample-heavy records that were way ahead of their contemporaries. They had a small, dedicated coterie of fans, but jacked it in when their (uninsured) van and equipment were stolen.

MAGAZINE – A Song from Under the Floorboards / 20 Years Ago (Virgin 321 1980)
Lyrically inspired by Dostoevsky’s Notes From Underground, “A Song from Under the Floorboards” was typical of a time when intelligence in pop songs wasn’t derided as pretentious. Great McGeoch guitar riff, too.

CHARLEY PATTON – A Spoonful Blues / Shake It and Break It, But Don’t Let it Fall (Paramount 12869 1929)
Charley Patton’s untutored howl, combined with the primitive recording techniques of the time (and Paramount’s notoriously poor quality pressings) make his records seem almost primeval, even compared to contemporaries like Lonnie Johnson and Willie McTell. “A Spoonful Blues” is probably his best known song due to the cover recorded by Cream forty years later. A copy, battered and scratched, recently sold on eBay for $1400!

MISSION OF BURMA – Academy Fight Song / Max Ernst (Ace of Hearts 104 1980)
It could be argued that Mission of Burma were the grandfathers of US alt-rock. Combining US punk and British post-punk, their records had an amazing energy. “Academy Fight Song” was their first, and probably best, single.

PHUTURE – Acid Trax / Phuture Jacks / Your Only Friend (Trax 142 1987)
HARDFLOOR – Acperience / mixes (Eye Q 18 1991)
Two very long singles, but both incredibly influential. “Acid Trax” pioneered the use of a 303 sampler to give that sharp, flangeing sound that came to define acid house. As a track, it’s as basic as they come, stretching one idea over eleven minutes. But that’s part of its appeal. As dance music mutated into endless genres and sub genres, the nine minute “Acperience” brought it right back to that acid sound, but with brutally hard techno beats.

BOBBY WOMACK – Across 110th Street / Hang On In There (United Artists 196 1973)
Blaxploitation movie theme tunes don’t come any better than this. The film wasn’t much cop.

ALTERNATIVE TV – Action Time Vision / Another Coke (Deptford Fun City 7 1978)
From the man who brought you “Sniffin’ Glue”, a fab three minutes of sloppy, angular punk-pop.

GRANDMASTER FLASH – Adventures on the Wheels of Steel / The Birthday Party (Sugar Hill 557 1981)
Recorded live in one take, “Wheels of Steel” sounded nothing like anything I’d heard before. It seemed impossible to figure out how he’d done it – incorporating bits of familiar records from Queen and Chic, and yet making it sound like they belonged together. This and Steinski’s three lessons are the Old Testament of turntablism.

AGE OF LOVE – Age of Love / mixes (React 100 1992)
Bruno Sanchioni & Giuseppe Chierchia’s “Age of Love” had actually first appeared two years earlier, but it was the definitive Jam and Spoon mix from 1992 that more or less laid down the blueprint for Trance which was to become all too ubiquitous in the years to come. Seldom a year goes by without new mixes of the track being dumped on to a credulous market without holding a candle to Jam and Spoon’s.

DIANA ROSS – Ain’t No Mountain High Enough / Can’t It Wait Until Tomorrow (Motown 1169 1970)
Diana Ross’ solo career was hardly living up to expectations when this came out. It’s more than just a remake of the Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell hit – more a widescreen cinerama Cecil B DeMille production. Frankly, it’s ludicrous, but the melodrama and kitchen-sink production job are terribly seductive. In some ways it works precisely because it is so ostentatious.

LOUIS JORDAN & HIS TYMPANI FIVE – Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens / Let the Good Times Roll (Decca 23471 1946)
Farmer’s hassling his poultry, and the poultry are getting pissed off with his interruptions. I’ve never seen this record fail to bring a smile to anyone I’ve played it to. Brassy, bouncy and cheerful – I first heard it at a club in the eighties. Sandwiched between stuff like New Order and Heaven 17, the floor was shaking that night.

TEMPTATIONS – Ain’t Too Proud To Beg / You’ll Lose a Precious Love (Gordy 7054 1966)
With David Ruffin’s most soulful vocal, and possibly the sharpest backbeat on any Motown record, never has the desperate plea to a wayward lover sounded so uplifting.

KLEENEX – Ain’t You / Hedi’s Head (Rough Trade 9 1978)
More than just the Swiss Slits, Kleenex made ramshackle, strident records that had hooks as sharp as the best pop. They don’t make ‘em like this any more – more’s the pity.

WAY OUT WEST – Ajare / Montana (Deconstruction 24380 1994)
Jody Wisternoff and Nick Warren’s Way Out West project has never been afforded the same kind of respect given to contemporaries like Orbital and Underworld. Which, to my mind, is a real pity. “Ajare” is a fantastic slice of urgent, crunching progressive house.

PRINCE BUSTER – Al Capone / One Step Beyond (Blue Beat 324 1965)
The record that, more than any other, was responsible for the Two Tone movement a decade and a half later. Two indisputable ska classics on one 45.

REPLACEMENTS – Alex Chilton / Election Day (Sire 8297 1987)
Paul Westerberg’s paean to his hero combined the big pop choruses of Big Star with the scrappy garage rock of his own band. Impossible to listen to without bouncing around with a big shit-eating grin on your face.

BESSIE SMITH – Alexander’s Ragtime Band / There’ll Be a Hot Time In Old Town Tonight (Columbia 14219 1927)
This was already a well-recorded standard by the time Bessie Smith laid her version down in 1927. But she made it her own with that big, bold, booming voice of hers.

More soon.