Apologies for my lack of posts on this for a while had a few things on etc.
I’ve still be watching (selectively) the repeats on BBC Four and here’s a rundown on my thoughts on the last month or so of the 1989 repeats.
The Dancier elements are there large in the recent repeats although with one or two exceptions they’re not really in common/in step with what’s going on in the clubs, at Raves etc. I suppose to counter the backlash against Acid House, Hip House and soulful House seemed to fill a vacuum until more Ravey tracks from the likes of 808 State, LFO, Unique 3, Nexus 21 (Altern-8), N-Joi etc. started appearing later on in ’89 or in 1990. The likes of Double Trouble/Rebel MC, Beatmasters/Merlin, LA Mix etc. were alright for/at the time but they’re not really classics for me and I think as LE may have said in a few previous posts the ‘wooh yeah’ sample did get way, way over used back then and got a bit tiresome by that summer let alone 31 years later.
Having said that the Cookie Crew’s
Got To Keep On was a interesting UK Hip Hop tune of that era collaborating with Edwin Starr and combining that with Kraftwerk’s Numbers to good effect a bit more interesting the usual James Brown sampling Rap acts of that period. Ten City, Adeva, Kym Mazelle, Inner City etc. all had good follow up hits that spring. However Ten City aside they weren’t quite up there with their earlier tracks from ‘88/’89. Even Chaka Khan got the House treatment from the late Frankie Knuckles who perhaps respectfully remixed I’m Every Woman to good effect too. Even Eurodance was getting in on the act with Capella’s Helyom Halib again nothing essential and choc-a-bloc with samples but on the whole generally works as a decent track of it’s time let’s say.
I liked and still like very much Neneh Cherry’s Manchild which was very different from Buffalo Stance and I feel is still one of her best all these years on. The Massive Attack influences and their future are all there in Manchild and perhaps it deserved to have been a bigger hit back then than what it was. She’ll be back in the chart with Kisses on the Wind later that summer/autumn and is still putting out reasonably good stuff today with the Broken Politics album you may/may not like.
I know from ‘The Story of’ documentary Soul II Soul wanted to do live vocals and this was out of step with producer Paul Cianni, they wouldn’t mime and didn’t perform the track on TOTP so all we get is the promo video being shown for a few weeks. Would a live-ish performance have made this track an even bigger hit than what it was or it deserved to be… who knows but it’s a classic 6 of 1 half a dozen case here. Fortunately for Soul II Soul it didn’t hurt their career although they didn’t really seem to have anything near as good as Back to Life with what they came up with after that and Keep on Movin’!
Even Public Enemy and A Guy Called Gerald get a few minutes over the end titles too which probably show’s for all it’s faults TOTP did have a wide/varied approach to what it covered. It would have been interesting if Voodoo Ray had have got a studio performance which it maybe deserved considering it near enough was the dance anthem of Manchester for ’88 and ’89.
I suppose Tony Wilson wasn’t so afraid allowing Gerald and (I think) 808 State playing at Victoria Baths in ’88… health and safety would have a field day with this today.
De La Soul, The Blow Monkeys and Pet Shop Boys also had decent-ish Dance/Rap tracks for their time with Me Myself and I, Choice and (the Stirling Void cover) It’s Alright respectively… these could still be played without embarrassment today IMO!
Alice Cooper’s Poison was a
good track from ’89.
I’m not a big hard rock/metal fan but that was a good and original salvo from Mr Furnier and another case of a great number 2 being kept of the top spot by absolute trash… in this case the bloody Jive Bunny & the Mixmasters (sic), more of that
shite later.
Again not really my thing but Guns ‘n’ Roses, Sweet Child O’ Mine is enjoyable too. I always thought it was a hit in ’88 around the time of Paradise City and Welcome to the Jungle was their hit in ’89. Ah well you learn something new with these repeats.
REM’s Orange Crush, Queen’s Breakthru/I Want It All, Metallica’s One, Fine Young Cannibals Good Thing, The Cure’s Lullaby and Midnight Oil’s Bed’s Are Burning aren’t too bad either, if perhaps Midnight Oil’s subject matter is little madling and has got contradictory in retrospect.
We then get to the decent and half decent stuff like Tone Loc’s Funky Cold Medina, Prince Batdance, The Cult’s – Edie (Ciao Baby), D-Mob’s Time to Get Funky, Gun’s Better Days, Kon Kan’s I Beg Your Pardon, Martika’s Toy Soldiers, M Pop Muzik, Donna Allen Joy & Pain, Wendy and Lisa’s Satisfaction and perhaps borderline stuff like Holy Johnson’s Atomic City, Shakespeare’s Sister’s You’re History, Morrisey’s Interesting Drug etc. A few novelty songs aside like Edelweiss and Lynn Hamilton’s On The Inside… we get to the
dross some of which is positively
horrifying.
The S/A/W machine is rolling on but as perhaps described in the documentary from a few months ago some are backlashing against it and wanting something else to happen –
it will! They really had some pony around that time with the likes of London Boys, Rick Astley, Kylie, Jason, Sinitta etc. all putting out pedestrian plastic pop songs, cover versions… or
worse both.
S/A/W even managed to co-op Cliff, Lonnie Gordon and Donna Summer into their empire in '89 but perhaps the worst of the lot was Sonia…FFS!
Nothing against her individually but the whole package of this ‘product’ was a very forced (girl next door – please!), false and (i feel overly done) irritating pop star IMO lapped up by the masses again to great effect which in some respects you have to take your hat off to S/A/W in being able
to do that. I suppose they asked Sonia to over do the cliché’s and ‘bubbly personality’ (sic) stuff to the max and at the time it worked! But man I sooner listen to a road drill than that pony… didn’t Throbbing Gristle have them on a few of their records!
I suppose the summer of ’89 allowed S/A/W to milk the cash cow as much as possible before the Rave scene, Madchester, Indie and many other things which followed in the ‘90’s sort of changed the landscape for them until say the arrival of Steps, Popstars, X Factor etc. which I feel brought this tosh back into play/the public eye again!
It's interesting was Stefan Dennis’s effort – Don’t It Make You Feel Good (sic) wasn’t a S/A/W one and/or anything to do with them. I’m indifferent to it and don’t really think of it like these S/A/W tunes from ’89 and can see why he wanted to
cash in on the 'Neighbours' thing but the world could also have lived without it too!
It’s a big pity The KLF’s
Kylie Said To Jason didn’t chart and sort of bombed that year as it was a good p*** take and send up of everything S/A/W were sort of about back then.
It’s a sort of miracle KLF did sort of made it to the top after that failure… it almost wiped them out financially but they would whether you liked them or not shake things up considerably in the 2-3 years after 1989 up to their infamous Brit Awards performance.
I know The Bangles Eternal Flame was a big hit that year but don’t really like it seems a bit twee a bit of dirge to me so not one of my favourites.
No disrespect if you like it but not for me!
The other dross from these recent repeats like Natalie Cole, Poison, Fuzzbox, Bros, Vixen, Sam Brown, Danny Wilson, WASP, Deacon Blue etc. are all forgettable and not really worth of mention but we perhaps come to our
WORST act to emerge in ’89… maybe the ‘80’s period. Jive Bunny and The Mixmasters… FFS!
How on earth did they make the Top 75 let alone score three Number 1’s that year is a mystery all I know is I don’t know of anyone who (or who owns up to) bought it!
It's not even like it is ‘sampling’ these records either simply tacking on the best bits of these 50’s Rock n Roller’s in a medley style which was dated in the late ‘70’s let alone by 1989.
It’s
galling for me that stuff like Alice Cooper’s Poison and Lil’ Louis French Kiss were denied the top spot by this
CRAP! I used to follow the chart around that time and there were so many good tracks in positions
50-41 back then from a variety of genres that deserved a place in the Top 40 a million times
more than that rubbish. Hope they made some decent money out of all this. It’s a shame as ‘sampling culture’ has produced many, many great records and artists in the years which followed perhaps the trick is to sample creatively and do things which move things forward and things you've not heard before rather than simply make something any old Joe Soap could do with a tape recorder and a pause button. I also know some of Jive Bunny's ‘members’ (sic) here have done things in the music industry since - some good, some bad, so I just hope it was a novelty cash in… not a
p***-taking cash in if you get my gist!
At least one good thing they’re history and there have been and will be good things to
discover from these repeats. Even if it’s not quite the music you’re into and things you may have forgotten about it shows that all years, decades and era’s have their rough and smooth… shit and sugar!
I’m still enjoying these repeats at the moment. Perhaps more so when the ‘90’s ones hopefully come on at some point too.
Hope I’ve not bored, ranted or gushed too much here but thought I’d just do a review of what I’ve seen recently and what I’ve thought of it.
My Top 10 in no order!:
1 Neneh Cherry - Manchild
2 Alice Cooper - Poison
3 Ten City - Devotion
4 The Cure - Lullaby
5 Cookie Crew - Got To Keep On
6 Pet Shop Boys - It's Alright
7 Inner City - Ain't Nobody Better
8 A Guy Called Gerald - Voodoo Ray
9 The Blow Monkeys featuring Sylvia Tella - Choice
10 Fine Young Cannibals - Good Thing
Any thoughts?