troubled diva

18. High Come Down – Junior Boys

1999: Hey Boy Hey Girl – Chemical Brothers
1994: Boundaries – Leena Conquest
1989: Voodoo Ray – A Guy Called Gerald
1984: Give Me Tonight – Shannon

I spent the first nine months of 2004 not liking The Junior Boys because they reminded me of wet Tuesday afternoons.

I spent the last three months of 2004 enjoying The Junior Boys because they reminded me of wet Tuesday afternoons.

This suggests that I have reached some sort of accommodation with wet Tuesday afternoons. Does this count as Personal Growth?

19. Babycakes – 3 Of A Kind

1999: Windowlicker – Aphex Twin
1994: Ghetto Day – Crystal Waters
1989: Express Yourself – N.W.A.
1984: You Think You’re A Man – Divine

My great blogging regret of last year was that I never put together a decent tribute to one of the very few true “hero” figures I have ever had in life: the late John Peel. For although “somebody famous has died” is right up there with “today I had a cheese sandwich“, “Blogger ate my post“, “aren’t spam commenters ghastly?“, “Googlers search for the darndest things!“, “look what I just found on Boing Boing!” and (embarrassed cough) “isn’t it amazing what you can do with del.icio.us?” in the pantheon of Blog Postings We Never Want To Read Again Unless There’s A Very, VERY Good Reason, I felt that there was much that could usefully be said about the powerfully benevolent influence that Peel exerted on so many of us in our formative years – to say nothing of the cultural legacy which he has left behind.

On the other hand, the sheer number of well-worded, insightful and affectionate tributes which poured forth on seemingly every weblog within my orbit over the ensuing weeks was a source of both astonishment and delight. I simply had no idea that so many of us related to the man in such an intensely personal way, and that there was so much shared ground between each of these individual relationships. As time went on, the urge to pen my own tribute slowly dwindled. Everything that needed to be said had already been said, to the point of saturation.

(Or even beyond it, as some testily observed. Given the overall mood of National Grief which briefly prevailed, it’s a small wonder we haven’t ended up with a Memorial Garden.)

However, a point which I only saw being made once or twice, and a point on which I have since reflected upon at some length, concerns the particular nature of Peel’s preferred musical aesthetic. Just why did he continually favour the new over the established, the debut single over the third album, the rough over the slick, the barely “musical” over the practised and accomplished?

To some, this indicated a fickleness, a shallowness, an inverted snobbery, an unseemly arrested development. But the particular observation which struck me as being closest to the truth was this: that Peel’s primary aesthetic was that of the Primitive. Once you start to apply this guiding principle, then a lot of Peel’s seemingly baffling eclecticism begins to add up and make sense. The thrash metal, the nosebleed techno, the dub reggae, the English folk, the Southern African hi-life, the low-budget early hip-hop, the dour indie miserablists, the original punk rockers, the assorted outsiders and refuseniks… nearly all of them shared something of this unifying primitive quality.

But what the f**k has any of this to do with Babycakes by 3 Of A Kind: a massive overground chart hit in the UK, which could be heard blaring from every other car window in town over July and August of last year? To most of my generation of former Peel fans (who actually stopped listening years ago, provoked beyond endurance by some newly favoured “call this music?” genre; for me it was the thrash metal), this could easily be held up as a prime example of the sort of gormless commercialised pap that Peel had fought against all his life.

Except that in this instance, I beg to differ. To these ears, there’s something of that essential primitive quality in Babycakes: a stuttering, clattering piece of four-years-out-of-date two-step UK garage which sounds like it was recorded in a back bedroom in East London on a budget of tuppence by a bunch of Nike-ed up no-marks whose only other pleasure in life is to get strung out every night on super-skunk and carry-out Breezers in the car park of the local Burger King.

(All of which is an unnecessarily roundabout way of avoiding the use of one snide, smug, hateful little word which became an unavoidable part of 2004’s cultural currency. Four letters, begins with C, ends with V: class hatred in a single syllable.)

Indeed, it’s the very gormlessness of Babycakes which appeals: that disaffected, detached vocal delivery; that take-that-gobstopper-out-of-your-mouth diction; that fumbling emotional inarticulacy; that accidental quality, which has you seriously wondering whether 3 Of A Kind will ever be heard of again (at least beyond the confines of the promo racks in their local vinyl store).

You see the problem here? For someone like me – pushing 43, second home in the country, nice collection of contemporary ceramics on the leather console table – to appreciate somehing like this, which comes from a place well outside of his experience or even his imagination, the temptation to apply the patronising and ignorant critical aesthetic of the “noble savage” becomes almost overwhelming. We’re a heartbeat away from Henry Higgins territory here.

And maybe that’s the same problem which some suspicious commentators had with John Peel: this privately educated bourgeois boy with the dry, self-deprecating wit and the singular blend of cynicism and idealism, who shed his posh accent and comprehensively re-invented himself (several times over) as a classless, class-blind Everyman.

But, ahem, let’s not get too carried away here. Shall we crack on with The Big Competition instead? Yes, I think we’d better.

As Dave Spellcnut thought that Babycakes would be my favourite single of 2004, he takes over the leader board from Waitrose David (whom I forgot to credit earlier, when his prediction for The Prodigy came up). Remember: the person who makes the closest prediction wins a copy of my Best Of 2004 triple mix CD. So keep those guesses coming!

Already listed:
#19 Babycakes – 3 Of A Kind (dave) · #29 Girls (rex the dog mix) – The Prodigy (Waitrose David) · #32 Toxic – Britney Spears (Angus) · #36 I Believe In You – Kylie Minogue (Joe) · #38Love Machine – Girls Aloud (Alan) · #49 The Show – Girls Aloud (Paul) · #64 Take Your Mama – Scissor Sisters (Chig) · #85 Matinee – Franz Ferdinand (timothy)Not (yet?) listed:
Tits On The Radio – Scissor Sisters (Todd) · Filthy/Gorgeous – Scissor Sisters (asta) · Heartbeats – The Knife (Swish David) · Trick Me – Kelis (Ben) · Common People – William Shatner & Joe Jackson (Gary F.)

See also: Tuesday October 26, 2004.

20. Nature Boy – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

1999: Praise You – Fatboy Slim
1994: Saturday Night – Whigfield
1989: That’s The Way Love Is – Ten City
1984: Cockney Translation – Smiley Culture

I was walking around the flower show like a leper
Coming down with some kind of nervous hysteria
When I saw you standing there, green eyes, black hair
Up against the pink and purple wisteria
You said, hey, nature boy, are you looking at me
With some unrighteous intention?
My knees went weak, I couldn’t speak, I was having thoughts
That were not in my best interests to mention…

Finally, after all those long years of tortured Sturm und Drang, music’s Mister Misery Guts pops some Happy Pills and releases a jolly, bouncy, genuinely funny out-and-out pop single – complete with a knowing musical nod to Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel’s Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me). Next thing we know, he’ll be smiling. Are there no certainties left in life?

21. 1980 – Estelle

1999: She’s In Fashion – Suede
1994: Sour Times – Portishead
1989: Can’t Be Sure – The Sundays

File alongside Jamelia, in the box marked “Superior UK urban music which could show those damned Yanks a thing or two if only they’d care to listen”.

(Forgive me, my American chums. I’m still reeling from the double whammy of George Bush’s hideously chilling inauguration address and being passed over for Best British Poof at the Queeries. Tant pis, as they say in Freedom Land.)

22. All Day Long I Dream About Sex – JC Chasez

1999: Beautiful Stranger – Madonna
1994: Love Is All Around – Wet Wet Wet (yeah yeah, get over it)
1989: Losing My Mind – Liza Minelli

This was first brought to my attention by Zbornak last April, when I was assembling my reader-compiled “Songs You Have To Hear” CD. It was then used as part of the backing track for my “Squint” performance piece (still available for download, and possibly my favourite piece of work on the blog last year), where its combination of full-on chorus and unexpectedly reflective middle section suited one particular part of the narrative to a tee.

To my great surprise, this then turned out to be a complete flop as a single, despite being the follow-up to a #13 hit, Some Girls (Dance With Women). I’m not even sure it even made the Top 75, and in these depressed-market days you have to make quite a serious effort of will to avoid making the Top 75. I was therefore pleased to see that at least Stuart Hydragenic hadn’t forgotten about it, singling it out for a mention in his long-awaited Best Albums Of 2004 round-up.

The Smash Hit That Never Was, then. You’ve always got to have at least one of those in your list.

23. It Hurts – Lena Philipsson.

1999: Comedy – Shack
1994: Supersonic – Oasis
1989: Me Myself & I – De La Soul

Following Pay TV, The Concretes and Alcazar, Lena Philipsson becomes the fourth (*) Swedish act (**) to make my Hot Ninety, with a cheeky ode to taking it up the jacksie that stormed last year’s Eurovision in Istanbul. (OK, it actually came sixth. But for anyone who saw just how suggestively Lena worked that giant microphone stand, it was a moment to treasure.)

(*) But will she be the last? Eh? Eh?

(**) And there have also been two entries by Annie, from Norway, which is sort of Sweden isn’t it?

24. Rude Bwoy Thug Life – Ce’cile

1999: Let Forever Be – Chemical Brothers
1994: Son Of A Gun – JX
1989: Your Love – Frankie Knuckles

Not strictly speaking a 2004 release, but an MP3 of an Jamaican dancehall track from a year or so earlier, which seemed to get everywhere last year following an appearance on Fluxblog. The rhythm track (I think we’re actually supposed to say “riddim”, but I can’t quite bring myself to) is of particular interest, as it’s a direct re-working of The Cure’s 1985 hit Close To Me, and you don’t generally find much of a Goth-pop influence in Jamaican dancehall, so you know, fascinating innit?

25. Dragostea Din Tei – O-Zone

1999: Walk Like A Panther – The All Seeing I featuring Tony Christie
1994: Superstar – Sonic Youth
1989: Whatcha Gonna Do With My Lovin’ – Inner City

Basically, I’m with Nigella Lawson on this.

When describing her tastes, the Domestic Goddess explained (and I wish I could find the precise quote, because she explained it so well) that she tended to favour music with an intense, surging, ecstatic quality to it; music whch floods the senses with an overwhelming feeling of elemental joy.

As it is with Nigella, whose Desert Island Discs choices included Sugar Sugar, Ye Ke Ye Ke, Hey Boy Hey Girl and the Hardfloor remix of Blue Monday, so it is with me and daft little Eurodisco nuggets such as Dragostea Din Tei (which even moved me to start a weblog conga line over the summer).

Because when all is said and done and dusted and dissected, and considered and compared and contrasted, and appreciated and accomodated and alphabetically filed by artist: the musical aesthetic which perhaps chimes closest to my singular little soul is precisely this aesthetic of ecstatically joyful abandon. It’s an instant hit, which frequently (if by no means always) wears off quite quickly, forcing me to trawl with a wide net.

(Which helps to explain all the accumulated yardage of DJ mix CDs from the 1990s, unplayed for years, mutely festering in the spare room.)

Yes, it’s formulaic, and thus best not picked apart too closely. And OK, its best examples may often be achieved as much by accident as design. And sure, I can see why this stuff pisses so many people off – including my long-suffering Life Partner, to whom it is an anathema. Apart from anything else, it’s just so damned intrusive; drafting you into its slipstream, robbing you of free will, insisting that you surrender to its relentless collectivism and – worst of all! – join in.

To finely tuned sensibilities, this must all be distressingly jarring. However, it’s precisely this intrusive, communal quality to which I respond. Indeed, I positively embrace it. For when tunes such as these are playing, some measure of happiness cannot help but leak in through the cracks, no matter how glum my overall state of mind might be at the time.

Even during some of the worst episodes of my Uniquely Troubled And Tortured Adolescence (oh yes) – right in the middle of some unendurable family screaming match, for example – the chance intrusion of a jolly tune on the radio would allow me, on some scarcely conscious level, to detach from my immediate reality, granting me some small but vital measure of sanctuary. Even in the eye of the storm, I could tune out the blind rage and tune into the good cheer, tapping my toes even as the tears rolled down my face.

– Why not go and give the little pansy a touch-up?

– F***ing p***ing s***ing BITCH. I want a DIVORCE.

– Oo-wah oo-wah, cool cool Kitty, tell us ’bout the boy from New York City…

With that characteristic contrariness which I hold so dear, K often asserts that while happy music makes him miserable, miserable music makes him happy. Consequently, I try to keep him shielded from tunes such as Dragostea Din Tei as much as possible. (When Eurovision is on, I have even been known to flee the country.) However, for me the equation is much simpler: happy music – even the dumb stuff, and sometimes especially the dumb stuff – makes me happy. Generally speaking, I like to think that this is evidence of a healthy, straightforward attitude to life’s pleasures.

Neverthless, I have my doubts. What if all this stuff is merely acting as an SSRI, crudely boosting my diminished stock of happy-juice? Is it dysfunctional to rely so heavily on so much transient froth and nonsense?

Well, f*** it. There are many worse ways to self-medicate. So come on everybody: on the count of three, and let’s see those hands in the air!

Ma-i-a hi, Ma-i-a hu, Ma-i-a ho, Ma-i-a ha-ha…

See also: various weird unofficial videos. (via Adrian Mc)

26. Making Music – Chungking

1999: New York City Boy – Pet Shop Boys
1994: Confide In Me – Kylie Minogue
1989: The Real Life – Corporation Of One

So come on, Mike: tell me honestly. Ninety posts on ninety singles is one hell of a tall order. Haven’t there been times when you wish you hadn’t embarked on such an ambitious project?

Actually, I think this might just be the first of them. But plough on we must. (Endurance blogging: it’s a fine and noble tradition.)

I first became aware of this track – and of Chungking – on the 2003 compilation from Radio One’s Blue Room, where it stood out from the crowd straight away. It was therefore good to see both the single and its parent album re-released in 2004, with somewhat better (*) promotion and distribution – although this still proved insufficient to bring Chungking the mainstream commercial success which should by rights be theirs.

(*) Although when searching out a copy of the album (re-released less than three months ago) for a friend’s birthday present last week, I was dismayed to find that it had already vanished from the racks in Selectadisc and Fopp, with only a couple of full-priced copies left in Virgin’s “dance” section. Which is daft, as they’re not a “dance” act by any stretch of the imagination.

27. Mary – The Scissor Sisters

1999: Superfreaky Memories – Luna
1994: Let The Music Lift You Up – Loveland featuring Rachel McFarlane
1989: Looking For A Love – Joyce Sims

Following a song bearing my name at #87, here’s a song which bears my sister’s name. (Incidentally, if you know of a song which features K’s name other than The Undertones’ My Perfect Cousin, then please let me know.)

I know you’re not a travelling girl, croons Jake Shears: monumentally inappropriately, given that in the last few years, my sister has lived and worked in Sudan, Iran, Jordan, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone… and those are just the places I can remember. On the other hand, if the lyric had been I know you are a travelling girl, then this might have placed inside the Top Twenty. Pop music, she works like that.

28. Somewhere Only We Know – Keane

1999: Straight From The Heart – Doolally
1994: 977 – The Pretenders
1989: The Beat(en) Generation – The The

You know: I sense I might just have lost a regular reader with this one.

The first time I realised that I might have been wrong about this dreary whiney droopy gloopy faceless spineless gutless sub-Coldplay corporate-indie-lite dirge: when it was used as the backing track for the really rather poignant and effective end-of-season montage of highlights from Big Brother Five. I’m just digging a bigger and bigger hole for myself here, aren’t I?

29. Girls (rex the dog mix) – The Prodigy

1999: Re-Rewind The Crowd Say Bo Selecta – Artful Dodger
1994: Sweetness – Michelle Gayle
1989: Lullaby – The Cure

Of the astonishingly few straight-up utilitarian dance tracks which came my way in 2004, this is the only one which made me wish that I still went clubbing, just so that I could experience it “in context” (shall we say). I particularly like the fractured staccato cut-up nature of the first couple of minutes, which conjure up certain experiences which I may or may not have had on a fairly regular basis in the mid-to-late 1990s particularly vividly.

As for The Prodigy’s original version, of which this is a “mere” remix: I’ve only heard it twice. To be honest, it sounded like a pointless breakbeaty remix of the Rex The Dog version. I fully realise that this viewpoint wouldn’t stand up in court, but there you go.

(Oh, and that early 1980s soul/funk sample which crops up a few times on both versions: it’s D-Train’s “You’re The One For Me”, isn’t it? Anybody?)

30. Destroy Rock & Roll – Mylo

1999: Glamour Girl – Chicks On Speed
1994: Philadelphia – Neil Young
1989: Respect – Adeva

“…and working specifically through these individuals, for whom we call forth the Judgement of the Sacred Fire in this hour before the Throne of Almighty God: Michael Jackson, Prince, Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner, David Boowy…”

…not to mention “Cyndi Looper”, heh heh. And my my: haven’t they got it in for poor old Michael Jackson, who gets called forth for Judgement twice: once by himself, and once with Paul McCartney. (Although “The Girl Is Mine” was pretty unforgivable, come to think of it.)

I particularly like the way that Culture Club becomes “Culture Club including Boy George“, though. You know: just to ram home the point. They may not have heard of the rest of the list, but they’ve certainly heard of him.

(And why Band Aid?)

31. Cherry Blossom Girl – Air

1999: Bug A Boo – Destiny’s Child
1994: Hold That Sucker Down – O.T. Quartet
1989: Sister Rosa – Neville Brothers

Boom thwack crunch screech wallop: this hasn’t exactly been the most relaxing selection of tracks so far, has it? In which case, it’s time to kick your shoes off, light the scented candles, and enjoy a well-earned chill-out break with this single from Talkie Walkie: an album for which the phrase “welcome return to form” could have been invented.

(Hang on: this is a weblog, not an independent local radio station. OK, as you were.)

32. Toxic – Britney Spears

1999: Everything Will Flow – Suede
1994: We Are The Pigs – Suede
1989: Always There – Charvoni

The Britney single that all the hi-brow New Pop Conceptualists flipped their collective wigs over, and with good reason; it’s a brilliantly crafted confection.

However.

When you’ve spent as many Wednesday nights down at NG1 (the local gay club) as I spent in the first half of 2004, in a lagered-up, laboratory-beagle-nicotined-up, what-am-I-doing-here, don’t-wanna-go-home-yet-either stupor of dumbed-down expectation and imagination-bereft habit, waiting for at least one half decent tune to lurch around to, because then at least you’ll be able to synthesise at least some vague approximation of Having Fun, and they’ve already played Girls Aloud’s cover of Jump (For My Love), which is usually as good it gets all night…

…then you’ll seize upon the opening notes of Toxic with progressively less desperate glee as the weeks go by, until eventually it sounds as much of an empty, forced rattle as everything else that surrounds it.

But conceptually speaking? Sure, it’s still a great record. But I have heard it enough now.

Angus takes the lead from Joe. Keep those guesses coming!

Already listed:
#32 Toxic – Britney Spears (Angus) · #36 I Believe In You – Kylie Minogue (Joe) · #38 Love Machine – Girls Aloud (Alan) · #49 The Show – Girls Aloud (Paul) · #64 Take Your Mama – Scissor Sisters (Chig) · #85 Matinee – Franz Ferdinand (timothy)

Not (yet?) listed:
Tits On The Radio – Scissor Sisters (Todd) · Babycakes – 3 Of A Kind (dave) · Filthy/Gorgeous – Scissor Sisters (asta) · Heartbeats – The Knife (Swish David) · Girls (rex the dog mix) – The Prodigy (Waitrose David) · Trick Me – Kelis (Ben) · Common People – William Shatner & Joe Jackson (Gary F.)

33. Drop The Pressure – Mylo

1999: I Surrender – David Sylvian
1994: Life’s A Bitch (Can’t Get A Man, Can’t Get A Job) – Sister Bliss featuring Colette
1989: All Around The World – Lisa Stansfield

The Jerry Springer – The Opera of the UK singles charts, this managed to make Number 19 with what must be the highest usage of the word “motherf***er” in musical history. Strangely, nobody ever bats an eyelid when this is playing, probably because the repeated word fits so well texturally into its surroundings. In other words, it has been used for its sound rather than its meaning, and without any attempt at shock value beyond a mild sonic tickle.