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“

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The M M & M 1000 – part 43

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

FLAMING LIPS – Race For the Prize / Riding to Work in the Year 2025 / 3000 ft of Despair (Warner 494 1999)
Flaming Lips are an unusual rock band in that they never seem to moan about anything, never seem to be unduly negative about anything and yet also manage to avoid all the ‘up’ clichés of calls to party / rock / dance etc. It’s a rousing anthem about the dedication of scientists, praising the self-sacrifices of scientists working for the good of mankind, that makes science sound heroic and romantic in a way usually reserved for war heroes. Heart-warming.

GENE VINCENT – Race With the Devil / Gonna Back Up My Baby (Capitol 3530 1956)
It’s kinda like an update of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal for the rock and roll generation, with the game of chess replaced by a hot rod / drag race. Saying that, I’m now getting daft images in my head of Max von Sydow and Bengt Ekerot zooming down the track in souped-up Chevys!

PAST SEVEN DAYS – Raindance / So Many Others (4AD 102 1981)
Past Seven Days were one of the great what-ifs? of the post-punk era. From Sheffield, they combined the doomy atmospherics of the Joy Division generation with a spacious, ACR type punk-funk and staccato guitar lines straight out of the Andy Gill school. “Raindance” is a six minute, brooding and quite brilliant piece of music. Sadly, they didn’t last much more than seven days, and this remains their only recorded statement

BROOK BENTON – Rainy Night in Georgia / Where Do I Go From Here? (Cotillion 44057 1969)
Randy Crawford’s cover is probably better known, but Benton’s original is the definitive reading. Like Lou Rawls, Benton had a wonderfully smooth and pure baritone, and like Rawls too often wasted it on MOR standards. “Rainy Night in Georgia” is probably too lushly arranged to be considered a typical southern soul tune, but it has a beautiful, dreamy sadness about it.

PAVEMENT – Range Life / Raft / Coolin’ By Sound (Big Cat 77 1995)
Ignorant dismissals of Pavement as Fall clones seem to have become more widespread as time passes. It’s no more relevant than to dismiss the Fall as Monks clones. The band were one of the most consistently interesting of any nineties rock outfits. Their genius was to blend elements that all seemed ramshackle and off-key on their own (especially the vocals) and make them into something engaging. Like a portrait painter whose detailed central study is surrounded by broad strokes tailing off into blank canvas, Pavement left their edges rough, and that always made their songs sound more interesting. “Range Life” is actually quite smooth for them, although Malkmus’s cracked whine is hardly typical of your average ballad singer.

BUDDY HOLLY – Rave On / Take Your Time (Coral 61985 1958)
It’s interesting to speculate how Buddy Holly’s career would have panned out if events had allowed it. He wasn’t just a songwriting genius, but a bit of a technical wizard too. It would have been such a shame if he’d ended up on the easy-listening or bog-standard country treadmills. He definitely had the potential to take music into new directions and perhaps completely have changed the course of music history. We’ll never know, and will just have to be satisfied with the great records he left us.

FOUR TOPS – Reach Out (I’ll Be There) / Until You Love Someone (Motown 1098 1966)
Melodramatic perfection. Fave bit? The brief bass and percussion pause that allows Levi Stubbs to get his breath back between “Reach Out” and “I’ll Be There”. Magic.

SWELL MAPS – Read About Seymour / Ripped and Torn / Black Velvet (Rather 1 1978)
Must be the shortest song on this list. It starts out almost conventionally for a post-punk record with a verse-chorus structure, before disintegrating into a barrage of clatter and noise. Swell Maps were essentially English eccentric experimentalists in the Henry Cow tradition with a DIY ethos and an instinct for carving melody out of chaos.

DELFONICS – Ready Or Not Here I Come / Somebody Loves You (Philly Groove 154 1968)
The song’s better known in its revamped form by the Fugees, but they didn’t really add anything to the two minute marvel of the original with its unusual horn motif.

CRASS – Reality Asylum / Shaved Women Collaborators (Crass 5249841 1979)
Still shocking, still awesome, I wrote about this here.

PUBLIC ENEMY – Rebel Without a Pause / instrumental (Def Jam 651245 1987)
Yo! Bum Rush the Show is a great album, but the step up to It Takes a Million… is astonishing. “Rebel Without a Pause” was the first taster for the second LP, and was louder and more intense than anything before in hip hop history. This was a mere eight years after the genre’s first recorded statement. Things haven’t really moved on that much further in the following 22.

SEBADOH – Rebound (plus 9) (Domino 17 1994)
I’ve probably stretched the definition of a single well beyond breaking point here since “Rebound” was track two of a ten track EP called (with typical Sebadoh contrariness) 4 Song CD. Hell, though, everyone treated it like it was a single at the time. After their cynical “Gimme Indie Rock”, they did just that to perfection with “Rebound”, a fat free 132 seconds of alt-pop-punk.

McCARTHY – Red Sleeping Beauty / From the Damned (Pink 12 1986)
Witlessly lumped in with the C86 brigade, it seems to me that McCarthy became damned by association. Which is a shame. Like Easterhouse and Crass they came from the radical left (Crass would bristle at being branded lefties, but they shared the same distaste of the hierarchical establishment), but Malcolm Eden preferred satire to sloganeering, often voicing the establishment view with enough of a gentle twist to make it sound ludicrous. “Red Sleeping Beauty” is suitably dream-like musically, with a spare, subtle lyric that alludes to the lack of an effective socialist opposition during the height of Thatcherism. “Nothing Stirs Us, We’re Sound Asleep, We’re Sound Asleep”.

BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS – Redemption Song / version (Island 6653 1980)
The final track from the final album released during Bob Marley’s lifetime and astonishingly for such a well known song, never a hit. Unlike anything else he did, this was just Marley and guitar, and feels like a last will and testmanent. Even for the faithless, an undeniably moving song.

STEELY DAN – Reelin’ in the Years / Only a Fool Would Say That (ABC 11352 1973)
This early Dan tune stands out from their usual smooth west-coast jazz ouevre by being unashamedly rock, with some superb guitar playing by Elliott Randall. Randall was never officially a band member (in fact he turned them down when asked) but would play on many of their records.

JACKIE WILSON – Reet Petite / By the Light of the Silvery Moon (Brunswick 55024 1957)
Some classic songs are just there, and you forget how extraordinary they are simply through familiarity. Jackie Wilson’s singing on this record is nothing short of extraordinary – from the rolled r’s, always in rhythm, to the incredible range, he never misses a note or a beat, even by a hair’s breadth. It also has trombones, and there should be more trombones in pop.

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The M M & M 1000 – part 40

Here’s the latest batch of Music Musings and Miscellany’s unapologetically subjective selection of the twentieth century’s best 1000 singles. Much delayed – apologies for that. Anyway, getting on with the Ps..

CLARENCE CARTER – Patches / Say It One More Time (Atlantic 2748 1970)
I wrote about this weepie here.

BAD BRAINS – Pay to Cum / Stay Close to Me (Bad Brains 1 1980)
Probably the most ferocious band of all of hardcore’s first wave. They probably had more to be pissed off about than the usual white suburban mall-brats. They also knew their instruments, but that didn’t stop them making an unholy racket.

STEELY DAN – Peg / I Got the News (ABC 12320 1977)
There’s probably nothing more snooze-inducing than tasteful, well-played, glossily produced pop-jazz. Steely Dan have always made records that tick all those boxes, but have a bit of bite to them. “Peg” has an unforgettable horn riff (if you don’t know it, you may know De La Soul’s “Eye Know” which samples freely from the track) and a great chorus, with Michael McDonald (a man with a great voice who always seems to make lousy records) contributing some superb backing vocals.

IMPRESSIONS – People Get Ready / I’ve Been Trying (ABC 10622 1965)
Effortless, timeless Gospel-soul that gives even die-hard heathens like me the goose bumps.

VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR – People You Were Going To / Firebrand (Polydor 56758 1968)
Van Der Graaf Generator had already split up when recording began on what was to be a Peter Hammill solo album – the Aerosol Grey Machine. Gradually they clumped back together, like a planet from spinning debris. “People You Were Going To” is kinda half way between the familiar Van Der Graaf sound and pastoral psychedelic pop. They would get denser, intenser and louder as time wore on, but this song is more than just curious juvenilia.

THE THE – Perfect / The Nature of Virtue (Epic 3119 1983)
Soul Mining was Matt Johnson’s second album, but the first under the resuscitated The The moniker. It took the lush, buoyant synth-pop of the day, and turned it into something darker and more introspective. “Perfect” was only added to cassette versions of the LP at the time, but it fitted seamlessly with the record’s mood. Musically sunny and rich, and on the surface optimistic, it had a dark heart of despair. It fitted the times when a primary coloured optimism glossed over a steel grey underbelly of trepidation.

NEW ORDER – The Perfect Kiss / Perfect Pit (Factory 123 1985)
It’s strange that “Blue Monday” remains New Order’s best selling single ever, when it was essentially a rhythm track and a fairly basic synth melody. It was no more than a prototype for much more fully realised and melodic tracks to come like “The Perfect Kiss”, but they never quite captured the world’s imagination in the same way.

JOHN BARRY – The Persuaders / The Girl With the Sun in Her Hair (Columbia 7569 1972)
DUANE EDDY – Peter Gunne Theme / Along the Navajo Trail (Jamie 1168 1960)
I must have been only eight or nine at the time, but The Persuaders was my favourite TV show bar none. It was the supercool repartee between Tony Curtis and Roger Moore, the exotic south of France locations and the brilliant cars that did it for me. Oh, and the title sequence where resumés of the pair’s rags-to-riches and riches-to-riches stories are played out in the form of newspaper clippings to the accompaniment of John Barry’s faultless theme tune. It had the mysterious air of a spy movie soundtrack played out on synthetic bass and what sounded like a harpsichord and was totally unlike any piece of music I’d ever heard in my short life. It remains my favourite TV theme ever. I wasn’t born when Peter Gunne was on our screens and have never seen an episode to this day. But what a dramatic theme tune! A dirty, rolling guitar riff full of menacing bass is overlaid by the alarmed squawks of the saxophone. It’s got film-noir written all over it.

ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN – Pictures On My Wall / Read It in Books (Zoo 4 1979)
This comes from the time when Echo the drum machine had its five minutes of fame before it was cruelly booted out in favour of the human Pete de Freitas. I’ve always preferred the Bunnymen’s stuff from the period where they had that raw post-punk rush to them, before production values were of too much concern.

THE IMPOSTER (ELVIS COSTELLO) – Pills and Soap / same (Imp 1 1983)
26th November 1981. Two and a half years into the Conservative regime, Britain was in chaos. A summer of some of the most serious social unrest in the twentieth century had burned itself out, but unemployment was climbing towards three million and inflation was 20+%. It was one of the most unpopular governments in British history. Meanwhile the Labour Party, rather than capitalizing on the woes of its rival, was engaged in a suicidal civil war. The results of the Crosby by-election were a political earthquake. In one of their erstwhile safest UK seats, the Tories were kicked out. Labour lost its deposit, and the SDP candidate Shirley Williams gained almost half the total vote. It seemed like politics were about to move into completely uncharted waters. Then General Galtieri stuck his oar in.
9th June 1983. Thatcher’s landslide victory would change the face of Britain forever. Where the radical right in the Tory party had largely been kept on a leash since 1979, the country was now about to see its entire fabric ripped apart in the name of Friedmanite monetarism, a doctrine of greed and sanctioned corruption dressed up as economics. For just that week, “Pills and Soap” was available in shops before being swiftly deleted. It was a fearful, downbeat and defeated dirge of a song that lamented the final passing of a nation’s values of community in favour of an imported culture of rapacious greed, rampant consumerism and selfish individualism. Everything that’s happened over the last eighteen months is a consequence of that philosophy, one shamefully continued by the so-called ‘people’s party’.

CHILLS – Pink Frost / Purple Girl (Flying Nun 2 1982)
New Zealand’s finest pop group with their finest three minutes. “Pink Frost” is a chilling tale of a man who appears to have killed his girlfriend whilst in a somnambulant state. “I thought I was dreaming, so I didn’t heed her screaming”. It’s a horrible scenario. No details are sketched – it’s up to the listener to draw his or her own conclusions. It does seem that Martyn Phillips’ protagonist is more concerned about what will happen to him than what he’s done to her, though.

JONNY L – Piper / Common Origin (XL 74 1997)
To get those last two pieces of downright misery out of our systems, what better than John Lisner’s Tonka-tough “Piper”, the tune that filtered two-step drum and bass into its minimalist conclusion. The rhythm has a jackhammer ferocity, coupled with little else other than a wispy echo and the short, disembodied female interjections of the track title every now and then. This is truly hardcore stuff, stripped down to its most primal elements. And yet once heard, never forgotten – a masterpiece of economical music making.

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The M M & M 1000 – part 29

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

RADIOHEAD – Karma Police / Meeting in the Aisles / Climbing Up the Wall (Parlophone NODATA03 1997)
The video, directed by Jonathan Glazer, is striking, with Thom Yorke sitting in the back of a driverless limo in pursuit of a running man who turns the tables in spectacularly fiery fashion. It’s a damn good song too.

DEUTSCH-AMERIKANISCHE FREUNDSCHAFT – Kebabträume / Gewalt (Mute 5 1980)
Before Robert Görl and Gabi Delgado-Lopez reinvented themselves as a sweaty techno duo, DAF were a fully-fledged post-punk band. Kebabträume is angry, strident and political. It’s roots lay in a track called Militürk by Delgado-Lopez’s previous band Mittagspause. The song is a tale of paranoia about the cold war and Turkish migrants. Some have called it anti-Turk, but it’s actually an attack on the West German mindset – fear of the DDR, the Soviet Union and Turkish guest workers. “Kebabträume in der Mauerstadt / Türk-Kültür hinter Stacheldraht / Neu-Izmir ist in der DDR / Atatürk der neue Herr. / Miliyet für die Sowjetunion, / In jeder Imbißstube ein Spion. / Im ZK Agent aus Türkei, / Deutschland, Deutschland, alles ist vorbei. / Kebabträume.. / Miliyet… / Kebabträume… / Miliyet… / Wir sind die Türken von morgen. / Wir sind die Türken von morgen.“

BIG BILL BROONZY – Key to the Highway / Green Grass Blues (Okeh 6242 1941)
“Key to the Highway” is one of the archetypal road songs, where the protagonist decides that he has to move on for some destination or other (usually St Louis or Chicago – here it’s West Texas). It’s unsurprising that it was such a common subject for blues singers, since most led an itinerant lifestyle, especially during the Depression. Along with “Chicago Bound”, “Key to the Highway” is one of the best known and most covered songs of the genre.

MC5 – Kick Out the Jams / Motor City Is Burning (Elektra 45684 1969)
The MC5′s studio records always seemed a bit thin and weedy compared to their live recordings. It was a good move to record their first album live, although it set a standard that the band could never hope to live up to. “Kick out the Jams” is probably their greatest moment, a frenetic piece that sounds like a call to arms but isn’t about anything more than getting up on stage and playing rock ‘n’ roll. The riff that holds the song together is as good and heavy as any in rock.

STEELY DAN – Kid Charlemagne / Green Earrings (ABC 12195 1976)
The anti-MC5. Smooth, sophisticated and mature as opposed to rough, primitive and delinquent. Whereas most music of this ilk makes me want to subscribe to Class War, Steely Dan always had a knowing and ironic side that flew over the heads of the yuppie wine bar set. They often satirised the very people who bought their records: “Son you were mistaken / You are obsolete“. As true now as it always was.

WIRE – Kidney Bingos / Pieta (Mute 67 1988)
What the fuck is a kidney bingo? Obtuse as ever, Wire have probably never recorded anything as lush and catchy as this song.

HOWLIN’ WOLF – Killin’ Floor / Louise (Chess 1923 1965)
While we’re at it, I’ve no idea what a “Killin’ Floor” is either. An abattoir? Who cares, this is one of Chester Burnett’s finest sides, with a simple but addictive guitar riff.

THE CURE – Killing an Arab / 10.15 Saturday Night (Small Wonder 11 1978)
Now all but disowned by the band (it’s absence from the recent, otherwise comprehensive, CD reissues was striking), “Killing an Arab” was controversial from day one. The song was based on Albert Camus’ The Outsider, and the point is the existential exploration of meaningless and motiveless murder. The band’s treatment was unsubtle and naive, but not racist. The double A sided single was completed by the desolate “10.15 Saturday Night”, a brilliant treatise on loneliness that borders on the nihilistic. The guitar solo is dissonant and psychotic, whilst the drip drip drip of the rhythm truly gets under the skin.

ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN – The Killing Moon / Do It Clean (Korova 32 1984)
What set the Bunnymen apart from most of their peers was the fact that they had a singer who could really sing. Ian McCulloch has a rich, expressive voice that had fallen half an octave by the time the group recorded their fourth album. He’s never sounded in finer fettle than on this song, the band’s masterpiece.

AUGUSTUS PABLO – King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown / Baby I Love You So (Island 6226 1975)
The melodica has never been a widely used instrument, in reggae or in any other field of music. It’s range is limited, although it is easier to play than the harmonica. Augustus Pablo made it sound ghostly and haunted, and it perfectly suited the echo-laden dub productions of King Tubby. This, the title track of what is widely regarded as the definitive dub album, helped to transform dub from a cost-cutting exercise (eliminating the need for two songs to be recorded for a single) into a major art form.

ASSOCIATES – Kitchen Person / An Even Whiter Car (Situation 2 7 1981)
SIMON DUPREE & THE BIG SOUND – Kites / Like the Sun Like the Fire (Parlophone 5646 1967)
The Associates debut album had its moments, and Billy Mackenzie’s voice was always extraordinary, but it was the series of singles that the band recorded for Situation 2 during 1981 (later collected on the Fourth Drawer Down LP) that truly set them apart. “Kitchen Person” was one of these. It’s absolutely manic, with a cluttered production that whooshes along in an amphetamine rush. It’s almost a wonder how the track doesn’t spiral out of control into total chaos, but somehow Mackenzie and Alan Rankine keep it together. Just. The same year that they did the Situation 2 singles, the duo recorded a typically over the top version of Simon Dupree and the Big Sound’s “Kites” under the name 39 Lyon Street. The original was a suitably soaring piece of psychedelic pop that was both grandiose and whimsical. The three Shulman brothers who were the core of the group apparently hated it, as they considered themselves a soul act. The band split in 1969, with several members going on to form jazz-prog act Gentle Giant.

BOB DYLAN – Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door / Turkey Chase (Columbia 45913 1973)
“Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” was recorded for the soundtrack to the Sam Peckinpah western Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. It’s the lament of a dying gunfighter, obviously written for a character. Yet somehow it seems like one of Dylan’s most personal songs, a short, simple and deeply moving treatise on death and regret.

KRAFTWERK – Kometenmelodie 2 / Kristallo (Vertigo 6147015 1975)
After “Autobahn”, or at least a radically edited version of the original 22 minute track, became an unexpected worldwide hit, Vertigo issued “Kometenmelodie 2″ as a follow up. Unfortunately, the group were considered as little more than novelty hit makers at the time by all but a few cognoscenti, and it was ignored by radio and record buyers alike. It took a few years before Kraftwerk were afforded the respect they deserved. Autobahn, the album, wasn’t exactly stuffed full of whistleable tunes, but “Kometenmelodie 2″ has actually got a gorgeous, if simple, melody. Powered by a rubber-band bass, it has a sweeping, stellar analogue synth tune, not a million miles away from the Tornadoes’ “Telstar”.

STEEL PULSE – Ku Klux Klan / dub version (Island 6428 1978)
British reggae grew out of very different circumstances to its Jamaican counterpart. Its influences reflected both British and Caribbean culture. Birmingham’s Steel Pulse were one of the finest UK reggae acts, and their debut LP Handsworth Revolution is the first true classic album of the genre from this side of the Atlantic. “Ku Klux Klan” used the KKK as a metaphor for the very real menace of the National Front whose strength was at its height in the late seventies. It’s a chilling song, but the fear that comes across is mixed with pride and determination to resist. With the NF’s heirs, the odious BNP, poised to become a real electoral force, the song’s message is as relevant now as it was 30 years ago.

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The M M & M 1000 – part 14

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

BLIND BLAKE – Diddie Wa Diddie / Police Dog Blues (Paramount 12888 1929)
Ragtime and blues guitarist Blind Blake wrote many songs more serious than this, but it’s an engaging little piece of nonsense. “I went around and walked around, somebody yelled, said, “Look who’s in town” / Mister Diddie Wa Diddie / Mister Diddie Wa Diddie / I wish somebody would tell me what Diddie Wa Diddie means!”

DELFONICS – Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time) / Down Is up, Up Is Down (Philly Groove 161 1970)
This classic sweet soul ballad gained a new lease of life when it was heavily featured in Tarantino’s Jackie Brown. It’s an uplifting tale of escape from an emotionally abusive relationship.

JOHN LEE HOOKER – Dimples / Bay Lee (Vee-Jay 205 1956)
Hooker’s best uptempo songs had a swagger of machismo that no blues band acolytes could ever hope to match. You wouldn’t have thought a song called “Dimples” (which sounds like somebody’s pet bunny rabbit) could be so full of testosterone.

KING OLIVER’S CREOLE JAZZ BAND – Dippermouth Blues / Weatherbird Rag (Gennett 5132 1923)
The Original Dixieland Jazz Band may have been the first to record a jazz record in 1917, but this was probably the first true masterpiece of the genre. Though hailing from New Orleans, the band were actually based in Chicago when they made these recordings, away from the stifling grip of the Jim Crow laws. “Dippermouth Blues” features Joe Oliver on cornet, future husband and wife team Louis and Lil Armstrong (then Hardin) on second cornet and piano and brothers Baby and Johnny Dodds on drums and clarinet: a collection of some of the finest talent of the pre-bop era.

UNDERWORLD – Dirty Epic / various mixes (Intercord Tonträger 893019 1994)
OK, I’m cheating a bit here. “Dirty Epic” was never actually released in the UK as a single, except in remixed white label bootleg form. And the US issue (which I wrote about here) is a sprawling 70 minute plus collection that’s an EP in name only. So I’ve plumped for an obscure German issue of the track to fit it into my criteria. Why? Because it’s just a wonderful, hypnotic, melancholy AND euphoric stream of consciousness.

STANDELLS – Dirty Water / Rari (Tower 185 1965)
The Standells were one of the best garage bands to emerge in the mid sixties. The “Dirty Water” in question is the Charles River in Boston. But despite their snotty, punk, east coast attitude, the band were from Los Angeles, and the song was written by record producer Ed Cobb. To undermine authenticity further, they had a former Mouseketeer amongst their number. They still sound like a gang of street ruffians, though, so there’s no harm in pretending.

FRANK WILSON – Do I Love You? / same (Soul 35019 1966)
THE CONTOURS – Do You Love Me? / Move Mr Man (Gordy 7005 1962)
For more on Frank Wilson’s little piece of history, go here. Four years previously, the Contours gave Motown an early smash with the raucous “Do You Love Me?”. The song was almost a throwback to early rock and roll acts like The Treniers. It quickly became a beat group standard over here.

STEELY DAN – Do It Again / Fire in the Hole (ABC 11338 1972)
“Do It Again” was the band’s first hit, but already it contained their trademark snooty misanthropy. A cautionary tale about folk who never learn from their mistakes.

PULP – Do You Remember The First Time? / Street Lites (Island 574 1994)
A lot of Pulp songs seem to concern themselves with reminiscences of teenage affairs and adolescent sexual awakenings. “Babies” and “Disco 2000” mine a similar field. Like those two (and others) “Do You Remember The First Time?” is a mini play about working class life topped off with a veneer of glamour and a glorious pop chorus.

OTIS REDDING – (Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay / Sweet Lorene (Volt 157 1968)
Soul? Country? Rock? Pop? “Dock of the Bay” ties them all together with string, leaving a genre-defying piece of hazy idleness. No song conveys that supreme satisfaction of just sitting, contemplating and smelling the sweet salt air as well as this. It’s a cruel irony that such a life-affirming song should be a posthumous release. Best whistling on a record, too. No debate.

JELLY ROLL MORTON’S RED HOT PEPPERS – Doctor Jazz / Memphis Shake (Victor 20415 1926)
Ferdinand Morton was one of the pioneers of New Orleans jazz, but came relatively late to the recording studio. “Doctor Jazz” became something of a theme tune for Morton, even though it was written by Joe ‘King’ Oliver. Whether it’s talking about jazz using drug metaphors or the other way around is a moot point. “The more I get, the more I want it soon / I see Doctor Jazz in all my dreams / When I’m in trouble bounds are mixed / He’s the guy who gets me fixed / Hello central give me Doctor Jazz”.

HOLE – Doll Parts / The Void (Geffen 91 1995)
Courtney Love is such a controversial figure that the music gets forgotten. Live Through This is a great album, and “Doll Parts” one of the very best songs on it.

FRED NEIL – Dolphins / Badi-Da (Capitol 5786 1966)
Greenwich Village folk legend spent only around a decade making records, before spending the rest of his life working with dolphins in Florida. This song may partly explain why. It’s a weary tune, resigned to the fact that the ways of the world – violence, war and suffering – are never likely to change. A cheery note on which to end this latest installment.

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The M M & M 1000 – part 13

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

NOMEANSNO – Dad / Revenge (Alternative Tentacles 60 1988)
“Dad” was remade by the band’s alter-egos the Hanson Brothers (with different words) as “Brad” (Wrong 4 1992). Both concern monstrous family members. “Dad” is the violent, sexually abusive, domineering patriarch whilst “Brad” is the über-annoying little brother who steals and squeals and generally causes no end of trouble. Both have the same punk-rock arrangement, but the protagonist on “Dad” sounds desperate, while on “Brad” he’s merely extremely exasperated. There is a difference. Unsurprisingly, it’s the Hansons I listen to most often. The Nomeansno original is too raw and disturbing.

GANG OF FOUR – Damaged Goods / Love Like Anthrax / Armalite Rifle (Fast Product 5 1978)
A brilliant three-tracker from Leeds University’s most famous Marxist alumni. Human being as consumer object, love as disease, weapons as freely traded commodities. Everything wrong with the world is pretty much encapsulated in this trio of brilliant, spiky post-punk tunes.

SOPHIE B HAWKINS – Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover / Don’t Stop Swaying (Columbia 657735 1992)
Unrequited love can foster many reactions. The one most usually observed in pop is the self-pitying adolescent mope (hi Mozzer). Ms Hawkins, though, is just really really frustrated. This is one of those worm-like songs that gets into your head and stays there. At least it does in my case. Great use of Bonzo Bonham’s drumming on “Kashmir” too, before the sample became as hackneyed as that James Brown one from “Funky Drummer”.

SLY & THE FAMILY STONE – Dance to the Music / Let Me Hear It From You (Epic 10256 1967)
The Family Stone’s breakthrough hit, and the first really successful melding of funk and rock. “Dance to the Music” is a great party track, but also pointed the way for many to follow from the P-Funksters to the Whitfield-era Temptations and rock groups like Blood, Sweat and Tears and Rare Earth.

MARTHA & THE VANDELLAS – Dancing in the Street / There He Is (Gordy 7033 1964)
According to Mojo Magazine, the greatest of all Motown 45s. Somehow an upbeat party record caught the mood, and became an anthem for sixties radicalism – from the Detroit Riots to the Paris uprising to the Prague Spring.

ABBA – Dancing Queen / That’s Me (Epic 4499 1976)
What wedding disco or office party would be complete without it? Essentially, any social function that mixes a disparate group of people of all generations with little in common, and needs something to give the group a little cohesion usually wheels this one on. If people are drunk enough, it’ll always work. Disco-pop about nothing other than the joy of dancing. What’s not to like?

JAMES CARR – The Dark End of the Street / Lovable Girl (Goldwax 317 1967)
If soul is the expression of inner pain, then James Carr was the finest soul singer ever. He battled with severe depression all his life, and without wishing to sound glib, you can hear it in his songs. “The Dark End of the Street” is actually about two adulterous lovers trying to keep their affair a secret, but in Carr’s hands that seems a far more heartbreaking situation than the poor sods that they are cuckolding are in. Is there a genre called soul-noir? If there isn’t, then I’ll just have to invent it and give this record pride of place.

POGUES – The Dark Streets of London / And the Band Played Waltzin’ Matilda (Stiff 207 1984)
Drunken rabble rousing of the highest order. The flip side is a spirited, but respectful reading of Eric Bogle’s epic Great War tale of an ANZAC veteran of the Gallipoli campaign. June Tabor’s spooky and solemn acapella version is probably the best known, but Shane MacGowan gives the protagonist an outraged anger as opposed to Tabor’s weary resignation.

STEELY DAN – Deacon Blues / Home at Last (ABC 12355 1978)
By the time Becker and Fagen made Aja, they’d ironed out all the rough spots leaving a glistening sheen of smooth jazz-pop. By rights, that should be truly awful, but “Deacon Blues” has a sophisticated charm that makes you fantasize about owning an opened top Beamer and your own cocktail bar. At least for five or six minutes.

LOU RAWLS – Dead End Street / Yes It Hurts Doesn’t It (Capitol 5869 1967)
Lou Rawls had a gorgeous baritone voice, but for much of his career, he was a singer of standards in the Sammy Davis Jr / Billy Eckstine mould. “Dead End Street” was an all-too rare excursion into darker, more soulful terrtory. Essentially, it’s a two part song – the opening minute and a half is a monologue about growing up on the cold and mean streets of Chicago, before the song proper gets underway. It’s a gripping tale of deprivation and escape. Hey, another for my soul-noir category!

JOY DIVISION – Dead Souls / Atmosphere (Sordide Sentimentale 2 1980)
Any other band with two songs this good would have issued them as singles or used them as showpiece album tracks. Joy Division licensed them to a French arthouse label who issued them under the title Licht und Blindheit in a limited run of 1578 copies. “Atmosphere” surfaced later in the year on a twelve inch, and “Dead Souls” in 1981 as part of the Still odds ‘n’ sods compilation. With its title taken from Gogol, “Dead Souls” is a rumination on internal conflicts where the dead seem to be summoning Curtis to join them. Seriously spooky. In its initial incarnation on a Piccadilly Radio session, “Atmosphere” had the equally spooky couplet “It may happen soon – then maybe you’d care” which was changed to “abandoned too soon – set down with due care” on the final version. Discuss.

PUBLIC IMAGE LTD – Death Disco / No Birds Do Sing (Virgin 274 1979)
Seriously brutal dub topped with Lydon’s wailing phantom. Can you imagine something this confrontational and extreme making the top ten today? It’s a pity that the Sex Pistols still get all the attention. They were a minor footnote compared to PIL if you use an artistic yardstick as opposed to a cultural one.

DAVE DAVIES – Death of a Clown / Love Me Till the Sun Shines (Pye 17356 1967)
Ray’s little brother proved he had the chops with this solo hit. The dark side of Swingin’ London.

WATERBOYS – December / Three Day Man (Ensign 506 1983)
Mike Scott had already begun to move towards self-consciously epic territory in his previous bands Another Pretty Face and Funhouse, but it was with the Waterboys he went the whole hog. Big subjects required big music, something grandly self-proclaimed on his second album. “December” is a cracking song, although I haven’t really got a clue what it’s about. But it does sound very important – Jesus gets a name check, so it must be.

PRETTY THINGS – Deflecting Grey / Mr Evasion (Columbia 8300 1967)
UK psychedelia is so polite. There’s no revolutionary calls to arms, or garage band punk in the ouevre. Or very little – most concerns itself with oddball characters, gentle satire and Edwardian children’s fiction. “Deflecting Grey” is more like the gritty US psyche punk of the likes of the Count Five or even the Red Krayola. But with far better musicianship. It rocks much harder than anything else to come out of the country before the Broughtons and the Deviants injected a bit of proto-punk zip.

HOUSE OF LOVE – Destroy the Heart / Blind / Mr Jo (Creation 57 1988)
The last of the House of Love’s four great Creation singles, “Destroy the Heart” fades in at a point where you feel you’ve just walked in and missed part of it, and precedes to zip along with no let up for two and a half minutes. Brilliant and exciting – not words that would be easily applied to UK indie these days.

SKIP JAMES – Devil Got My Woman / Cypress Grove Blues (Paramount 13088 1931)
Skip James was both an amazing guitarist and brilliant songwriter, but he had a lousy sense of timing. He arrived on the scene just as the record industry was going into meltdown, so his recorded output was small, and sold zilch. Interest was revived by a couple of albums he made for Vanguard in the sixties. Good as they were, they don’t really compare with his classic 1931 material.

CLOVERS – Devil or Angel / Hey Doll Baby (Atlantic 1083 1956)
“Devil or Angel” was one of the last classic Clovers records before Atlantic virtually destroyed the group by covering their tunes in orchestral and choral schmaltz in a misguided attempt to gain crossover appeal. None of that here, thankfully – just a pure, heartstring-yanking doowop ballad where he can’t decide whether she’s good or evil before having to admit that it makes no difference, ’cause he’s smitten anyway.

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