The M M & M 1000 – part 61

Here’s the latest batch of Music Musings and Miscellany’s unapologetically subjective selection of the twentieth century’s best 1000 singles. When, Where, Who & Why?

ROY HARPER – When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease / Hallucinating Light (Harvest 1975)
One of the drawbacks of living in Scotland is the natives’ inability to grasp the joys of cricket. Mind you, considering the average Scottish summer, it’s no wonder it never really caught on here. For fans, though, there is something terribly poignant about the end of the season. Unlike football, where there’s a summer to look forward to, with perhaps a World Cup to add a bit of spice to it, the end of the cricket season is the portent for months of cold, gloom and darkness. There’s a poignancy about it – the last glimpses of old pros as they shuffle off into retirement, and in the rooms full of ancient members, the knowledge that some won’t be back in the spring. This mixture of nostalgia, the passing of time and the bleak reminder of mortality is captured nowhere better than on this doleful classic by Roy Harper, with the brass band sounding much like a funeral anthem for an old England.

PREFAB SPROUT – When Love Breaks Down / Diana (Kitchenware 1984)
If it’s not a hit, keep on re-releasing it until the cloth-eared public succumb. That seemed to be Kitchenware’s philosophy with this single, and the public did indeed succumb. Most of Prefab Sprout’s tunes are cloaked with that horrible glossy eighties production, but the songs shine through. And if the sound seems dated to contemporary ears, it does reinforce the sense of nostalgia that McAloon’s good at anyway.

SAM & DAVE – When Something Is Wrong With My Baby / Small Portion of Your Love (Stax 1967)
The antithesis of the plasticity of eighties production is the rough and ready sound of Stax, where the frayed edges just add to the authenticity of the performances. The records always sound like first takes – even that they just spontaneously happened as they went along. It’s the difference between the hand crafted and machine made. Sam Moore and Dave Prater are at the top of their game on this fierce ballad. Even the slow weepies at Stax had an electric energy about them.

THREE DEGREES – When Will I See You Again? / Year of Decision (Philadelphia International 1974)
Both of these songs were hits in their own right in Britain where the Three Degrees were far more popular than they were at home. Perhaps they were just a bit too pop for black radio, I’ve no idea. The Philly sound was the dominant commercial force in soul in the UK in the pre-disco days in a way that it never was in the States. And this is a fine example of its glorious sweet sound.

POP GROUP – Where There’s a Will There’s a Way / SLITS – In the Beginning There Was Rhythm (Y / Rough Trade 1979)
Where There’s a Will sees the mighty Pop Group at both their most anarchic and their most funky. The single was a double A side with the Slits whose offering is a dubby, rhythmic clatter in seacrh of a tune. Which, I guess, was the point.

SPIZZENERGI – Where’s Captain Kirk / Amnesia (Rough Trade 1979)
OK, it’s dumb but it’s fun.

THIN LIZZY – Whiskey In the Jar / Black Boys In the Corner (Decca 1972)
It’s odd to consider that for a few years Thin Lizzy looked destined to be one hit wonders. It was only with the 1976 Jailbreak record that they really established themselves. Whiskey In the Jar is folk-rock with the accent on rock, even though the song is a classic “trad: arr.”. Eric Bell’s brilliant guitar riff must be one of the best-loved and most recognisable in rock.

GRANDMASTER & MELLE MEL – White Lines (Don’t Do It) / mixes (Sugar Hill 1983)
Everybody calls it a Grandmaster Flash record, but he wasn’t actually on it. But it’s an understandable confusion since records featuring any, some or all of the Furious Five, Melvin Glover and Joseph Saddler were released under a bewildering variety of name variations. Many found the record a bit preachy, even though the sentiment was difficult to argue with. The thing that makes the tune, though, is the bass riff. And that was sampled from The Cavern by punk-funkers Liquid Liquid.

CLASH – White Man In Hammersmith Palais / The Prisoner (CBS 1978)
One of the first records I ever bought, and one of the most played. And probably still my favourite Clash 45. The Prisoner was good enough to be a classic A side in its own right.

MO-DETTES – White Mice / Masochistic Opposite (Mode 1980)
It was re-recorded in 1981 for a major and given a bit of a polish, but the Mo-Dettes’ original recording of White Mice is a much better indication of where the group was coming from – a kind of pop-friendly Raincoats. (note to self: whatever happened to them after they split in ’81?)

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE – White Rabbit / Plastic Fantastic Lover (RCA 1967)
Two and a half minutes long and the perfect acid song. Makes you wonder why no one questioned what Lewis Caroll was taking at the time! Brilliant lyrical imagery and a structure that takes you from the first tweaks of unreality to the full head trip in an unwavering crescendo.

CREAM – White Room / Those Were the Days (Polydor 1969)
I like Cream when they do the concise, moody songs. The endless blues jams bore the pants off me. Yes, you’re good musicians – we get it, no need to drone on for fifteen bloody minutes. White Room is heavy as fuck, but with a pop touch that keeps it in check.

BO DIDDLEY – Who Do You Love? / I’m Bad (Checker 1956)
To contradict the above comments on Cream entirely, I have to admit that I love Quicksilver Messenger Service’s twenty-odd minute take on Bo Diddley’s song. But, of course, Bo’s is best. Mean and lean.

TIMMY THOMAS – Why Can’t We Live Together / Funky Me (Glades 1972)
For years, I was under the impression that Timmy Thomas was Jamaican. He isn’t. But there’s definitely a reggae vibe to this song. The rhythm is unusual, a kind of salsa setting straight off a Bontempi organ. But it works perfectly alongside the slightly shrill organ licks and Thomas’s soulful vocal. I have to confess I’ve never heard anything else by him, something I really need to address.

TEENAGERS – Why Do Fools Fall In Love? / Please Be Mine (Gee 1956)
The original issue was credited to the Teenagers featuring Frankie Lymon rather than Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers. A pedantic point. Terrific song, of course, and what a performance by 13 year old Lymon. His life went into a downward spiral thereafter. He left the group for a solo career that never worked out, was in rehab at 19 and dead of a heroin overdose at 25, already a washed-up has-been.

MOBY – Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad? / mixes (Mute 1999)
Play is a really good album. But by 2000, all the tracks seemed to be everywhere – in adverts, in movies, as incidental music in TV documentaries, in shops. People just got sick of it. I got my copy a couple of months before it came out in Vinyl Exchange in Manchester. Animal Rights had flopped, and even a couple of months before Play was officially out, the shop was struggling to give them away. Think I got it for £2.99 or something. I loved it though, as all 18 tracks were completely new to me. Doubt I’ve played it for ten years now. This song still gets played quite a lot on the radio, and it still sounds good. And I’ve always loved the cartoon video with the Little Idiot and his goofy dog.

Three to go!

The M M & M 1000 – part 59

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

FLAMING LIPS – Waiting For a Superman / mixes (Warner 1999)
Is this a metaphor for global warming? About how no one wants to act in the hope that someone else will sort the problem out for them. Some things are just too big for even the proverbial superman.

EVERLY BROTHERS – Wake Up Little Susie / Maybe Tomorrow (Cadence 1958)
And is this a veiled reference to teenage sex? – not something you could explicitly deal with in a pop song in 1958.

FOUR TOPS – Walk Away Renee / Your Love Is Wonderful (Motown 1967)
Of course it’s a song by psyche-popsters the Left Banke, but good as the original is, they didn’t have the mighty Levi Stubbs. And a song this full of hurt was just made for him.

CANNON’S JUG STOMPERS – Walk Right In / Whoa Mule! Get Up the Alley (Victor 1929)
Gus Cannon’s group and Will Shade’s Memphis Jug Band were probably the two biggest jug bands of the late twenties / early thirties. By 1962 when the Rooftop Singers covered Walk Right In and took the song to the top of the Billboard chart, Cannon was a largely forgotten figure. In fact, so forgotten, that the story goes that everybody assumed he was dead and never thought to check. It was only when he heard it on the radio that he had any idea that the song had been remade. It ended well for him, and although in his late seventies, he enjoyed an Indian summer of recording and acclaim.

EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL – Walking Wounded / mixes (Virgin 1996)
Many people sneered when Everything But the Girl ‘went drum & bass’, but they absolutely nailed the fusion of late night melancholy pop and quicksilver beats. In retrospect it’s not so surprising that it worked. Omni Trio (who provided a remix) and others had always had a sad, downbeat air to their tunes, and Tracey Thorn had proved with Massive Attack that she had the perfect voice for that late twentieth century urban loneliness.

HOWLIN’ WOLF – Wang Dang Doodle / Back Door Man (Chess 1960)
Two great slices of bad boy blues from the big man. What more can you add?

EDWIN STARR – War / He Who Picks a Rose (Gordy 1970)
It’s kind of ironic that Berry Gordy, one of the most reticent label bosses when it came to allowing real life and real issues to infect his feel-good pop factory, eventually issued a string of songs that were some of the most profoundly political pop of the era. Edwin Starr’s War is just one example – an angry blast that no Iraq or Afghanistan demo would feel complete without.

KILLING JOKE – Wardance / Pssyche (Malicious Damage 1980)
For me, Killing Joke never really delivered on the promise of their debut album’s furious, dense industrial punk. Wardance is a vicious, tribal yell, but it’s Pssyche that gets the blood flowing. Youth’s bass is like a battering ram and Jaz lets rip with some real fury, although the targets of his ire seem almost random. And there’s something uncomfortably Nietzschan about the line Dodge the bullets or carry the gun, the choice is yours.

ATLANTIC OCEAN – Waterfall / Mimosa (Eastern Bloc 1994)
Sometimes a melody can be so simple and yet so effective. This house / proto-trance track sounds like it could’ve been thrown together in five minutes, but still sounds terrific.

TLC – Waterfalls / mixes (LaFace 1995)
I’m not the biggest fan of modern R&B. Too much is just dreary. I always liked TLC, though. They had a bit of grit about them that was lacking in most of their contemporaries and acolytes. They also could harmonise effortlessly and turn in a ballad that actually felt like it came from the heart. Then tastes changed to the sub-Gospel wailing of Destiny’s Child and their ilk, and TLC got bumped to the sidelines as the cult of celebrity became the be all and end all. Pity.

KINKS – Waterloo Sunset / Act Nice and Gentle (Pye 1967)
A love letter to Swinging London that somehow captures its death throes, a year before Grosvenor Square bashed out the chippy innocence for good.

TEMPTATIONS – The Way You Do The Things You Do / Just Let Me Know (Gordy 1964)
One of the best songs from the group’s Smokey era, before they really found their own voice. That happened in the first twenty seconds of Ain’t Too Proud to Beg, two years later.

POP GROUP – We Are All Prostitutes / Amnesty Report (Rough Trade 1979)
A band that burned like a magnesium flare. A band that foretold the future with chilling accuracy, and one that still stands unique thirty years on. There are no Pop Group soundalikes.

We Are All Prostitutes
Everyone has their price
And you too will learn to live the lie
Aggression
Competition
Ambition
Consumer fascism

Capitalism is the most barbaric of all religions

Department stores are our new cathedrals
Our cars are martyrs to the cause

We are all prostitutes

Our children shall rise up against us
Because we are the ones to blame
We are the ones to blame
They will give us a new name
We shall be
Hypocrites hypocrites hypocrites

Now available as a ringtone (true). FFS!

SISTER SLEDGE – We Are Family / Easier to Love (Cotillion 1979)
By 1979, disco’s name was mud. It had become ubiquitous and ridiculous, a bandwagon jumped upon by every chancer from Rod Stewart to Barbra Streisand. And yet it was the year that produced the two greatest albums of the genre – Chic’s Risqué and the Chic produced We Are Family. Both are rhythm led, with songs as seductive as they are simple and as dancefloor friendly as you can possibly get. They are also chock full of optimism of the kind that is hard to do without coming across as twee or just plain gormless. Those two albums alone produced half a dozen great singles of which this is but one.

ANIMALS – We Gotta Get Out Of This Place / I Can’t Believe It (EMI Columbia 1965)
One recurring feature on this list is the classic bassline, and they don’t get much better than this. I admit to being sold on the bassline in some cases, even if the rest of the tune isn’t up to much. Not the case with this one, though. It’s like one of the great British kitchen sink dramas full of angry young men and downtrodden women. Or Our Friends In the North encapsulated in three minutes.

LOUIS ARMSTRONG – We Have All the Time in the World / Pretty Little Missy (United Artists 1969)
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was an odd Bond film. Firstly, it had George Lazeby in his only appearance as 007. Secondly, he got married in it (and became a widower). Thirdly, the official theme tune was the instrumental of the same name, with Louis Armstrong’s beautifully rendered ballad demoted to the end credits. My Bloody Valentine’s version is a swoonsome thing that’s well worth hearing too.

THE BAND – The Weight / I Shall Be Released (Capitol 1968)
Hey, mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed? / He just grinned and shook my hand, and “No!”, was all he said. That line always makes me laugh out loud. It’s just the mental picture it conjours up.

More soon

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

Song of the day: POP GROUP – Savage Sea (1979)

I was going to do a review of  the Pop Group’s debut album Y when it was reissued by Rhino a couple of months ago. Through most of the 28 years since it was issued, it has been out of print. It didn’t get its first CD outing until 1996, and that only remained available for a few years, so it’s good that Rhino have put it out again. Nearly a generation on, the album sounds as out there as ever. It’s not an easy thing to get to grips with at first, but it pays to persevere. The band fused dub reggae, free jazz, funk and punk to create something utterly their own. They are often lumped in with contemporaries like the Gang Of Four and the Fall as one of the prime post-punk outfits, but they were never really a rock band at all. Their most famous song, the sublime “She Is Beyond Good And Evil”, has far more in common with Chic than it does with Joy Division. Mark Stewart’s wailing vocals are an acquired taste – he seems to be permanently treading the line between despair and insanity, with a generous side order of paranoia. They wouldn’t work in a conventional rock setting, but with the skittish dub-jazz provided by the band, seem almost like just another instrument. For much of Y, the players seem to have their own agenda, with a guitar riff here and a blast of sax there. The bass acts as the glue, but the music has a fluidity and freedom rarely encountered in rock where the rhythmic structures are quite rigid.

“Savage Sea” isn’t an obvious highlight. “Thief Of Fire” or “We Are Time” show the Pop Group at their most savage and funky. “Savage Sea” is almost pastoral by comparison. The track is built round some lovely classical piano, with Stewart’s vocal hushed and anguished. There are some discordant slashes of violin, and what sounds like throat-singing to disturb the mood, but the track wouldn’t sound massively out of place on a contemporary album by a pianist such as Max Richter. It is a little unsettling heard in isolation, but in the context of the album seems an oasis of beatific calm.