We're Number Two

1987 – “What Have I Done To Deserve This?”, Pet Shop Boys With Dusty Springfield


Aww, bless


The expression “imperial phase” is a term coined by Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys to denote a musical act who are at the height of their critical and commercial success, when they can apparently do no wrong, and where triumph seems all but guaranteed. He used the expression in 1988, around the time of Introspective and “Domino Dancing”, but few bands have had an imperial phase quite like Pet Shop Boys in 1987. “It’s A Sin” was the fourth-biggest selling single globally, a UK Number 1 and to this day is their defining song (yes, even more than “West End Girls”). The album, Actually, produced a second Number 1 hit – “Heart” – and a Number 2 hit with “What Have I Done To Deserve This”. There was a further Number 8 hit, the excellent and greatly under-appreciated “Rent”, and Actually ascended to the Number 2 spot on the UK album charts. Oh, and they had the Christmas Number 1 with a vastly improbable cover of the cheesy Elvis song “Always On My Mind”, reimagined and given an up-tempo electronic workout that is markedly superior to the original. It was, by any measure, a good year. But that’s what an imperial phase is. It would come to an end in 1989 with the pretentiously self-important Behaviour, but for three albums – Please, Actually, Introspective – and three years Pet Shop Boys were basically untouchable. In fact, as a synth-pop band, they came rather late to the party. Most of the first wave of the great synth-pop era were already on the wane by the time “West End Girls” was released in 1986. Ultravox had already achieved all they were going to, Eurythmics won’t see out the decade, Soft Cell had already split, Kraftwerk were in terminal decline, and many of the early adopters – Human League, Gary Numan, OMD – had already passed their peak. There were one or two survivors like New Order, risen from the ashes of Joy Division, or Depeche Mode, but they were very much the exception rather than the rule. By the time Pet Shop Boys arrived, music had by and large moved on from the early-80’s high points of the synth-pop movement. Which in some ways makes their success even more impressive.

Crucial to that success is the fact that Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe are just really, really good songwriters. They had already proven that on their first album, but knocking out a great first album then fading away to nothing is a time-honoured path taken by many bands. It’s getting the second one right that separates the wheat from the chaff. As an album, Actually is a noticeable improvement on the already-good Please, both in terms of songwriting and overall coherence. What didn’t necessarily seem like an obvious approach was getting Dusty Springfield on-board to lend her considerable vocal talents to one of its numbers. And let’s be clear about something straight away – Dusty has an amazing voice here, more mature and developed than the familiar 60’s sound audiences might identify with but still full of power and emotion. That contrasts fantastically well with Neil Tennant’s distant, observational style as the two take up opposite sides lyrically. And yet, having an old 60’s icon pop up and deliver a vocal isn’t quite as counter-intuitive as it seems. Synth-pop was meant to be cutting edge, technology and music meeting each other in the sophisticated modern 80’s, so having someone like Dusty Springfield – someone from an entirely different era – appear on a single would seem to cut against that. Yet the charts in the mid-to-late 80’s are littered with examples of old singles and old styles coming back. The biggest selling single globally in 1987 was “La Bamba”. Sure it’s off the back of a movie, but still. At the start of the year Aretha Franklin and George Michael had a Number 1 hit with “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)”, so there’s precedent in 1987 for the equation (Modern Act + Oldie x 2 fanbases) = Big Chart Success. The Number 1 hit that followed Franklyn and Michael was a re-release of Ben E King’s “Stand By Me”. And the creation of The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame was suddenly throwing new light on old acts. This will all reach its hideous apotheosis in 1989 with Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers but suffice to say – there was reason to believe getting Dusty on board would be no bad thing.

That makes it sound more cynical than it actually was, though. It’s more straightforward than that really – Neil Tennant was just a big fan of Dusty In Memphis and wanted to work with Dusty Springfield as a result. The lack of commercial success Springfield had suffered from since her late-60’s peak was in some ways strange for such an obvious talent, and when “What Have I Done To Deserve This?” was released she didn’t even have a recording contract. None of that remotely changes what is an absolutely show-stopping performance. The structure of the song is a bit peculiar but when Dusty comes in on the “since you went away…” line it’s a genuinely spine-tingling moment. She’s back! The song combines the best of what Pet Shop Boys do with the best of what Dusty does and the results speak for themselves. Neil Tennant’s dry vocals on the first section of the song (“You always wanted a lover…”) give him a chance to deliver his typically sly lyric in traditional Pet Shop Boys style. The second section (“I bought you drinks I brought you flowers”) lapses into a spoken-delivery style redolent of “West End Girls” – again dry and sardonic but in a different style. Then Dusty comes in on the third section and the song ignites, the slow burn of the first two sections exploding into her peerless vocal before rolling into the second verse. The song maintains this slightly lolloping structure throughout but the peculiarity of it adds to the song. There’s no traditional chorus just the title repeated a few times, but it’s still a fantastic hook, delivered in Tennant’s deadpan style. By the time we get to the final Dusty section, when she’s bellowing out “We don’t have to fall apart / we don’t have to fight” the sheer force the song has built up bursts through and we get a catharsis of sorts, but far more importantly than that we get Dusty at full pelt and she’s simply glorious. And of course we absolutely mustn’t underestimate Chris Lowe’s contributions either, because he’s doing some seriously excellent work here, and the song has a third writer – Allee Willis, who wrote the Dusty bits which lend such a distinctive touch to the song. Throw all of that together and you have one of the best singles of the 80’s.

And an effective one too. “What Have I Done To Deserve This?” became Dusty Springfield’s biggest US hit and it revived her otherwise-finished career and rekindled interest in her music. In 1990 Reputation would be her first album to have any kind of meaningful commercial success since the early 70’s. Pet Shop Boys were involved in Reputation too – they co-produced the album and wrote four of the songs on it as well. The album got to Number 18 in the UK charts and put Dusty back on the map. Dusty’s revival wasn’t just some drab nostalgia act, she came roaring back to life with something artistically meaningful. All that would be more than worthwhile but the fact that it all happened off the back of such a great single just makes her success that much sweeter, and so well earned. And Pet Shop Boys would, naturally, go on to have their own measure of success. They’re the most successful duo in British chart history bar none. They’ve sold over 100 million records. Twenty-two top ten singles and forty-three Top 30 singles. Gay icons. Huge global touring success. Electronic and video pioneers. The inevitable musical. Writing an orchestral score to Battleship Potemkin. By any measure, Pet Shop Boys are dizzyingly successful yet they’re often much overlooked when discussing the big successes of British music. That’s deeply unfair – few bands write worthwhile, meaningful, intelligent and as straightforwardly fun music as Pet Shop Boys. “What Have I Done To Deserve This?”, written at the absolute height of their Imperial phase, is a foundational single in that success and a fantastic song to boot. They really do deserve this.




What Else Happened in 1987?
Michael Jackson releases the follow-up to Thriller, Bad. It goes on to produce five Number 1 singles in the US, a record which has yet to be broken, though none of them make the Top Five singles of the year. As mentioned in the article Los Lobos, improbably, top that list with “La Bamba” and meme-tastic Rick Astley trails with the second-biggest single of the year “Never Gonna Give You Up”. Actually it’s quite the diverse list this year, with Whitney Houston, Pet Shop Boys (“It’s A Sin”, of course) and Madonna making up the numbers. Elsewhere, U2 become the giants they were always destined to be with The Joshua Tree and Aretha Franklin becomes the first woman to be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. Mallrat classic “I Think We’re Alone Now” sees the (brief) arrival of Tiffany, George Michael releases his first solo album, Faith, and The Smiths release their last (and best) album, Strangeways, Here We Come. George Harrison releases his final “proper” solo album, Cloud Nine, which means he gets to go out on a bit of a high, and Ice T and The Happy Mondays both release debuts. MARRS – who were founded and split in the same year – become a one-hit wonder with “Pump Up The Volume” and Prince sees a Sign O’ The Times. Art rock provocateurs The KLF are founded and The Pretenders split. Guns’n’Roses release the biggest selling debut of all-time with Appetite For Destruction while Bon Jovi is “Living On A Prayer”. Lucky him. Zac Efron enters the world and, at the age of 88, Fred Astaire soft-shoe-shuffles off it.

What Did We Nearly End Up Discussing?
Doing Jan Hammer’s “Crockett’s Theme” was almost a temptation too far, less because it’s an excellent piece of music (though it’s pretty great) but more because getting an instrumental to the UK Number 2 slot is no mean feat. And, yes, lingering memories of watching Miami Vice as a teenager. It was never going to be “Fairytale of New York” because, really, it’s just as dreary as every other Christmas song (it was Pet Shop Boys’ “Always On My Mind” that kept it off Number 1 spot, amusingly). So no. George Harrison’s “Got My Mind Set On You” got to Number 2 in the UK and is a bouncy, enjoyable song and might have been nice. America furnishes us with nothing of interest this year, unless your idea of “interest” is Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over”. It’s not mine.

Rankings:

1.   The Beatles - "Strawberry Fields Forever" / "Penny Lane"
2.   Stevie Wonder - "Sir Duke"
3.   The Kinks - "Lola"
4.   Jean Knight - "Mr Big Stuff"
5.   Eurythmics - "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)"
6.   Ultravox - "Vienna"
7.   Elvis Costello - "Oliver's Army"
8.   The Animals - "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place"
9.   Sly And The Family Stone - "Everyday People"
10. Pet Shop Boys with Dusty Springfield - "What Have I Done To Deserve This?"
11. Adam And The Ants - "Antmusic"
12. The Sweet, "Ballroom Blitz"
13. The Bangles - "Manic Monday"
14. Petula Clark - "Downtown"
15. Queen, "Killer Queen"
16. Blondie, "Denis"
17. Dire Straits - "Private Investigations"
18. Elton John - "Rocket Man (I Think It's Going To Be A Long, Long Time)"
19. Tom Jones - "Delilah"
20. Gloria Gaynor - "Never Can Say Goodbye"
21. Cyndi Lauper - "Girls Just Want To Have Fun"
22. Eddie Cochrane – "Three Steps To Heaven"
23. Bonnie Tyler - "Holding Out For A Hero"
24. Wings - "Let 'Em In"
25. The Troggs - "Wild Thing"
26. Jimmy Dean - "Big Bad John"
27. Chubby Checker - "Let's Twist Again"
28. Billy J Kramer And The Dakotas - "Do You Want To Know A Secret"

Next Time On We’re Number Two…
Vascular inscription

I only just (knowingly) listened to that Terence Trent D'Arby song for the first time a few weeks ago - it came just a little before the time I became interested in music, so I had no memory of it at all. It also seems to have had little staying power beyond the year it was released in (at least in North America), which makes sense as it really is a mediocre song. I'd argue that "Need You Tonight" or even "Girl You Know It's True" are much better songs, though as you noted it is impressive that D'Arby/Maitreya took such an insubstantial song near the top of the chart based almost solely on the strength of the video.

I actually remember the follow-up album Neither Fish Nor Fish a lot better, and still like this single:

1989 - “Song For Whoever”, The Beautiful South



Tulips from Amsterdam Hull


For a band who were, at least for a while, incredibly popular, The Beautiful South have left a surprisingly small cultural footprint. There was a time when their Greatest Hits album, the magnificently-named Carry On Up The Charts, was said to be in one of every seven households in the UK. Whether anyone went round and actually counted them all remains somewhat up in the air but regardless – that such a thing could even be rumoured to be true gives some impression of just how successful they were. That album, released in 1994, was certified platinum five times in the UK alone (1.5 million sales – compare and contrast with Terence Trent D’Arby last week who “only” got to that number globally). It’s an impressive feat. That belongs in the future, though it does show the heights which the band will reach. The ascension to that success begins, here, with their very first single, “Song For Whoever”. The Beautiful South were born from the ashes of The Housemartins, one of those bands who just seem to have an absurd amount of talent concentrated in them. After the demise of The Housemartins one part of the band – Paul Heaton and Dave Hemmingway – formed The Beautiful South, continuing a vein of excellently-crafted, thoughtful and considered pop music. Norman Cook’s post-Housemartins career found him putting together Beats International and he’s now better known by the moniker Fatboy Slim. The Housemartins had found some success – “Happy Hour” was their breakthrough and remains a phenomenal single, and “Caravan Of Love” topped the charts – but only released two (excellent) albums before all that talent went their separate ways. Commercially the band’s career did just fine but they were about to be eclipsed on all sides.

From the very first line, “Song For Whoever” pretty much sets up how things are going to be for The Beautiful South. “I love you from the bottom of my pencil case,” croons Dave Hemmingway, delivering a classic Paul Heaton opening line sincerely, sweetly and without any inflected irony – the delivery is dead straight. It’s a droll line that has to be delivered in the right way, because if it tilts over into winking self-awareness the whole thing is going to become intolerably smug very quickly, and if it becomes overblown the song is going to lapse into bathos and just become ridiculous. It’s a high-wire act and that’s what the whole song is, a delicate balance between the lightly humorous, the sweetly sincere and the somewhat sardonic. It’s a wry, dry-witted song about a man who gets into relationships so he can find something to write songs about, a gentle but pleasing conceit with just a touch of acidity that shows some degree of thought but which never lapses into Morrissey-esque “oh woe is me” self-flagellation. There’s nothing self-pitying about “Song For Whoever” – in fact quite the reserve and Heaton’s lyric finds the sweet spot here precisely. The protagonist seems sincere in their desire to find something to write about, and that sincerity leads him into relationships with a string of women who get namechecked and thanked in a heartfelt way. “Oh Cathy, oh Alison, oh Phillipa, oh Sue / you made me so much money, I wrote this song for you,” Hemmingway sings with tongue planted firmly in cheek, yet also absolutely meaning it. And again it’s that high-wire act – that line ought to make him sound like a dick, exploiting women just so he can get a pay-day but because Hemmingway’s delivery is perfect and he sounds like he really does want to thank the women who provided him with inspiration it doesn’t come across that way. He’s delivering the lines, in other words, that make those women… well, not muses exactly, that would probably be an overstatement, but inspirations at the very least. “Deep, so deep / the Number 1 I hope to reap”, indeed. Whether that makes his treatment of said women any better is another matter, but it’s extremely characteristic of The Beautiful South that they will pull this kind of lyrical tightrope act but still remain likeable.

And if there’s one word to describe “Song For Whoever” it’s likeable. It’s a funny, easy-to-enjoy song which wears its wit and its charm lightly and is meant to be taken in that vein. It’s also a song which is consciously out of step with the music of 1989. It was held off Number 1 by Soul II Soul’s “Back To Life”, and the other three songs in the Top Five the week it was at Number 2 were “London Nights” by London Boys (no, me neither), Prince’s “Batdance” and the all-too-appropriately named “It’s Alright” by Pet Shop Boys. So in other words the Top Five that week basically consisted of four dance tracks and a self-deprecating piano ballad. And that’s not unrepresentative of the year (1989 was… not a great year, musically). It says something that The Beautiful South were able to do so well with this kind of song in the face of endless manufactured Stock, Aitken and Waterman rent-a-frontperson dross (and hideous TV show The Hitman And Her, which Pete Waterman co-hosted, was also on British TV at this point, tragically), big dance hits and nostalgia cash-ins. The video plays into the idea that the band are out of step, with everyone clothed in a just slightly old-fashioned way, dressed in shits and jackets. Meanwhile an impossibly-young looking Paul Heaton plays piano (until the camera shifts and it’s revealed he’s actually tapping away on a typewriter, dashing out the song’s lyric) and at one point a blancmange is wheeled out to be a star vehicle, a not-exactly-subtle swipe at just how artificial and fake the manufactured pop stars of the era were. Despite the musical landscape of the time The Beautiful South were still able to be popular, yes, but like previous entries Dire Straits that popularity never translated itself into “cool”, and they never courted it either – their aloofness was part of the appeal and though nobody would have used the phrase in 1989 they were what we would now refer to as “counter-programming” in terms of the charts. Instead of following the trends or styles of the era they intentionally contrasted with them and relied on just writing one really great song after another.

And though it’s easy to focus on the lyrics – because Paul Heaton is just a fantastically great lyric writer – we mustn’t give short shrift to the rest of the band. The song is co-written by Dave Rotheray, the band’s guitarist (as are all songs by The Beautiful South) and here they are a perfect match for each other. Dave Hemmingway’s vocals are fantastically good and bring so much to the song and Heaton, when he harmonises with Hemmingway, takes the song to a whole new level, adding depth and warmth with the simplest of additions. The piano lines are all fantastic, and little trills here and there even manage to raise a laugh – no mean feat – as they flirt with being deliberately corny in the style of a traditional piano ballad while playing off against the rather more knowing lyric. It’s the same high-wire act the lyric and vocal are performing, just corny enough to be recognisable but done well enough to hold the song together. “Song For Whoever” is about as good a start to a career as any band could hope for, and indeed it would be onwards and upwards for The Beautiful South. The album, Welcome To The Beautiful South, spawned two other big hits, “I’ll Sail This Ship Alone” and “You Keep It All In” (the latter also a Top Ten hit, peaking at Number 8) and the band would continue to have huge commercial success throughout the 90’s. It all petered out after the turn of the millennium and the band split amicably in 2007 in their usual wry way, “due to musical similarities”. They left behind a legacy of amazing songs and some top-notch albums but that cultural footprint remains just an impression in the sands of over-used similes – it seems that it is the fate of The Beautiful South that they are to be under-appreciated and unduly forgotten. That’s a terrible shame because Heaton and Rotheray are astoundingly good songwriters and “Song For Whoever” is a perfect way into the band’s back catalogue, doing everything they do as well as they can do it. If 1989 was a dreadful year for music – and it absolutely was – then at least “Song For Whoever” provided a little musical oasis in a desert of dreck. For that alone, we should be grateful.




What Else Happened in 1989?
It gives me no pleasure to tell you that this is the year of sodding Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers. Yuk. It’s also the year of Black Box’s “Ride On Time” – good luck getting that out of your head now. Madonna’s imperial phase continues unabated, despite being dropped by Pepsi, with “Like A Prayer” the biggest song of the year, and it’s Catholic Church-baiting video really did make all the headlines. The Bangles are just behind her with “Eternal Flame” as the second-biggest of the year. The 90’s really are just round the corner now – Hole, The Cranberries and Neutral Milk Hotel are all founded while Gladys Knight And The Pips go their separate ways. The whole Milli Vanilli scandal happens while, in other scandal news, Bill Wyman announces he’s going to marry Mandy Smith, who is nineteen and who he’d been dating for six years. Lou Reed returns to form with New York, New Order have Technique, and Roy Orbison’s final, posthumous, album Mystery Girl is released. David Bowie begins his long journey back to relevance with Tin Machine, and Paul McCartney releases Flowers In The Dirt, his best work since 1980’s McCartney II (not that there’s been much competition). Ice Cube leaves N.W.A., The Offspring debut and Prince is all about Batman this year. David Hasselhoff helps bring down the Berlin Wall with “Looking For Changes” and, in related news, the Berlin Wall comes down. Canada’s finest, The Tragically Hip, release their first album, Eurythmics release their last one (well, until 1999 anyway), and the B-52’s give us the sublime Cosmic Thing – they also have the fifth biggest selling single of the year with “Love Shack”. The Stone Roses give us student classic The Stone Roses, The Cure give us Disintegration, Tom Petty has Full Moon Fever and De La Soul are Three Feet High And Rising. Taylor Swift is born and, at the ripe old age of 101, Irving Berlin passes away and passes into legend.

What Did We Nearly End Up Discussing?
Right up until I hit “post” on last week’s entry it was going to be “Poison” by Alice Cooper then I swerved away at the very last second. Cooper is in many ways an interesting figure but I also realised I have nothing to say about the song beyond “nice riff, bit sexist, fine for what it is”. Which isn’t a great article, really. Other contenders were… um. You know, it really wasn’t a fabulous year. Erasure’s Crackers International EP would have been next-best after “Poison” but the Number 2 position is mostly a scattering of garbage. Michael Ball, Bros, Cliff Richard, fucking Mike fucking And fucking The fucking Mechanics? Fuck no.

Rankings:

1.   The Beatles - "Strawberry Fields Forever" / "Penny Lane"
2.   Stevie Wonder - "Sir Duke"
3.   The Kinks - "Lola"
4.   Jean Knight - "Mr Big Stuff"
5.   Eurythmics - "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)"
6.   Ultravox - "Vienna"
7.   Elvis Costello - "Oliver's Army"
8.   The Animals - "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place"
9.   Sly And The Family Stone - "Everyday People"
10. Pet Shop Boys with Dusty Springfield - "What Have I Done To Deserve This?"
11. The Beautiful South - "Song For Whoever"
12. Adam And The Ants - "Antmusic"
13. The Sweet, "Ballroom Blitz"
14. The Bangles - "Manic Monday"
15. Petula Clark - "Downtown"
16. Queen, "Killer Queen"
17. Blondie, "Denis"
18. Dire Straits - "Private Investigations"
19. Elton John - "Rocket Man (I Think It's Going To Be A Long, Long Time)"
20. Tom Jones - "Delilah"
21. Gloria Gaynor - "Never Can Say Goodbye"
22. Cyndi Lauper - "Girls Just Want To Have Fun"
23. Eddie Cochrane – "Three Steps To Heaven"
24. Bonnie Tyler - "Holding Out For A Hero"
25. Wings - "Let 'Em In"
26. The Troggs - "Wild Thing"
27. Jimmy Dean - "Big Bad John"
28. Terence Trent D'Arby - "Sign Your Name"
29. Chubby Checker - "Let's Twist Again"
30. Billy J Kramer And The Dakotas - "Do You Want To Know A Secret"

Next Week On We’re Number Two…
The 80’s discussed. Hopefully.

You sure are bro sis!

Mr Blobby is not a musical group, just an incredibly stupid and dumb novelty hit from an incredibly stupid and dumb TV show and trust me, you should be infinitely grateful it had no cultural impact on the US. You lucky things.

There's nothing alleged about The Beautiful South, they really are a Great British Singles Band, come with the Prole Stamp Of Approval^TM and I'd highly recommend either of their Greatest Hits, Carry On Up The Charts or Solid Bronze. Just think how fabulously cool and niche you will be loving a band others really ought to be aware of and aren't! (This may not be the persuasive argument I think it is.) There's plenty of acts on this list I'm not fond of or have defended as a challenge to myself (hello, anything to do with disco) but The Beautiful South are a properly great band and Paul Heaton is an absolute hero.

I'm very excited for next week, although I am mildly sad there is no "Groove is in the Heart" post upcoming. Boooo.

Question I will pose to act smart: Do you think the rise of MTV contributed to the homogeny you mentioned of late '80s music?

That's what I was thinking in an American context, MTV being de facto segregated. Which is especially odd, come to think of it, given that the standard excuse for not having black people on TV was "it'll hurt our bottom line in the South" and MTV didn't launch in the South for the first year of its existence. Apparently they made an exception for "Pass the Dutchie" because Musical Youth were "funny Jamaicans" and not "scary Black men" (not the exact wording they used but that's the implication)?

1990 – “Tom’s Diner”, Suzanne Vega-DNA / “Love Shack”, The B-52’s

  
Two for the price of one, the price being zero


Of course, “Tom’s Diner” had a long history before it became a hit, and another altogether different legacy after its release. It was originally written around 1981 or 1982 when Suzanne Vega was a student at Barnard College – it’s a real place and she really did frequent it, though the physical building is probably better known these days as the exterior location of Monk’s Café in Seinfeld. The song eventually saw release half a decade after it was written, on Vega’s critically acclaimed 1987 album Solitude Standing and it appears on the album twice, once as the a capella opening track and once as an instrumental to close the album out. It was the third single released off the album, and wasn’t a big hit – it got to 58 in the UK Singles charts and made no impression in the US at all. The big hit was “Luka”, which got to Number 3 on the Hot 100 in America and 23 in the UK. And, for a song like “Tom’s Diner”, that really ought to have been the end of the story. A well-regarded but minor success beloved of fans, maybe, but destined to make little impression on the general public.

This was not the fate of “Tom’s Diner”. In fact it has two legacies (well, three if you include the 1987 single release), the first of which is what brings it to our attention in 1990. The song itself is, if it needs to be said, a simple slice of everyday life narrated by Vega from a composite of events while she sits in the titular diner observing the world around her. The album version has no instrumentation at all, it’s just Vega singing a simple, somewhat captivating melody as the world happens around her. It’s a charming song, though it’s also not difficult to see why it maybe didn’t take the charts by storm. It might have made more progress in 1969, when folk-music was in vogue and Janis Joplin was at the height of her powers, but in 1987 it didn’t have much chance – honestly, getting to 58 is actually pretty impressive. The original version runs through the verse structure a few times, then ends with Vega singing the same melody as used with the lyrics but wordlessly, “do do do de do do do de” style. It’s a minor coda to the song, an outro. Step up to the plate, then, British remixers DNA, who take the outro and make it the key component in the song. Now, instead of being the way out of the song it becomes the way in, it becomes the break in-between the verses functioning as a “chorus” of sorts, and it ultimately becomes the most memorable part of the song. It is a genius move. All good remixes, mash-ups or cover versions should take the essence of a song, transform it, and explore new depths within that song while retaining a core of what made the original so great, and that’s precisely what the DNA remix of this song does. The focus of the song shifts – it retains the slice-of-life verses but by repurposing the coda and placing the lyric over a sampled dance beat (from Soul II Soul’s “Keep Moving”) it re-contextualises the song and shifts the emphasis. The results are both dramatic, in the sense that the song feels like it has much more dramatic weight behind it, and impressive. The DNA remix also alters when the song finishes – the original ends with Vega finishing her coffee and going to catch a train while also containing the intriguing but unexpanded-upon line “I am thinking of your voice”. Dropping the final verse means the song finishes on a sort of lyrical ellipse, with the slightly-staggered “to the bells of the cathedral” line suggesting that there will be more of life’s little events to observe. In other words the original has a closed ending – she gets up and leaves – and the remix has an open ending, where continuing vignettes are implied. This is, simply, brilliant, expanding the original without in any way taking away from it and lending some genuine additional power to an already great song. It is precisely what a good remix should do. This is the song’s first legacy – demonstrating just how much greatness can be derived from a song just by switching around a few elements.

Vega, by her own admission, loved what DNA did with her song and understandably so. But the original version has its place in history as well – the second legacy of “Tom’s Diner” is the one that gives Suzanne Vega the moniker of “The Mother of MP3’s”. Well, it had to be someone. The story goes that Karlheinz Brandenburg (very much the father of the MP3, since he designed the compression algorithm that we now know as MP3) heard the song “Tom’s Diner” playing on the radio and decided that it would be the perfect test for his new compression technique, which was (and is) designed to shrink music files to a practical size. Brandenburg responded to the warmth of Vega’s voice and thought it would be the ideal stress-test – if that voice sounded good after being run through compression then just about anything would. And fair enough, the production of “Tom’s Diner” does make terrific use of the warmth and naturalness of Vega’s voice. It’s not a “technically accomplished” performance, per se, but that’s not what it’s about – it’s about capturing an essence, and that’s what Vega’s voice does so well and what Brandenburg responded too. The end result was that Brandenburg tweaked his algorithm until Vega sounded just right and that algorithm became the finished version of MP3 compression – hence why she’s known as the Mother Of MP3’s. Of course there’s way more to MP3 than that, and the codec has been worked on, developed, tweaked and played around with by many, many people over the years as technology has improved and refinements have been made. But it was “Tom’s Diner” that helped bring the original to fruition. It’s a curious second legacy to a warm, endearing and enchanting little song – and it’s not a bad heritage to have.

Meanwhile, it’s time head down the Atlantic highway to ask one very simple question – is there anything more glorious than the sound of Kate Pierson’s voice at full pelt? She has an absolutely astounding voice, able to give joy to just about any track she appears on, whether it’s a myriad of B52’s songs, helping to breathe life into R.E.M.’s otherwise-not-wholly-convincing “Shiny Happy People”, or playing the part of Iggy Pop’s neglected girlfriend on the brilliant single “Candy” (also released in 1990). Whatever she does, it’s always magnificent. And the height of public awareness of just how undeniably fabulous her voice is comes, of course, on “Love Shack”. It reached Number 2 in the UK and Number 3 in the US, but of course the song’s legacy far outpaces its chart performance at the turn of the decade. It’s “Love Shack”, for goodness sake! From the moment those drums kick in there’s just something so undeniably captivating about “Love Shack” – once that song has started you can’t shut it off till it’s done. When Fred Schneider practically declaims, “you see a faded sign at the side of the road it says fifteen miles to the…” before handing over to the explosive, “looooooove shack!” that’s it – you’re in and you are staying in. It’s a joyfully loose song, shambolic in all the ways a good party should be but with just enough structure to hold it all together. It’s fairly traditional in style for a B-52’s song – compare to the likes of “Planet Claire” or even “Rock Lobster” and the difference is easy to see – but it’s just so irrepressible that it never feels like it’s courting accusations of sell-out. And the whole band are feeding into the greatness of the song. Sometimes it’s a big moment like Pierson’s brassy vocals on the chorus. Sometimes it’s something absurdly simple like Cindy Wilsons, “tin roof! Rusted!” that brings the whole song to a stop before crashing back to into the chorus. The whole thing is just carried off with such aplomb. The song is produced by Don Was (production duties on the album were split between Was and Nile Rogers) who holds everything together admirably, though a small note –the album version is actually superior to the single version. The single version truncates the “bang bang bang / on the door baby” section by a fair bit and completely unnecessarily – this was done to shorten the song from the album version (which runs at 5:21) to something a little less unwieldy for radio play (the single is 4:15, shaving off over a minute). But it also undermines the build-up – after the explosion of energy from the second chorus the song falls back a bit to allow the listener to catch their breath. That’s what the “bang bang bang” section provides, and the length of it on the album version lets the listener do just that before winding all the way back up to maximum power again. The extra time taken gives the climax extra punch precisely because it took a little longer to get to. The shorter version undercuts this a little.

Not that it’s too troublesome – in either version “Love Shack” is an outstanding single, and one that helped restore the fortunes of the B-52’s which had been in decline for some years. They really couldn’t have asked for a better song to help reconnect with audiences, and a second single from the album, “Roam”, is, if anything, even better. No mean feat, that. Both “Love Shack” and “Tom’s Diner”, despite being very different types of songs, do have one thing in common though. They’re from the heart. Whether it’s hazy recollections from a rain-soaked eatery in the big city or fun times hanging out with your pals in the middle of nowhere, both songs are united by how genuine they are. And that’s what makes both songs such winners. There’s no pretentions, no self-importance and no artifice. These are two heart-felt songs that do an amazing job of delivering the goods in two completely different but, ultimately, complimentary styles.

The decade is off to a fantastic start.
















What Else Happened in 1990?
Madonna continues to court controversy, first with her Blonde Ambition tour (including that famous cone bra, courtesy of Jean-Paul Gautier) then with “Justify My Love”, the video for which is promptly banned due to its sexual content. The Red, Hot + Blue AIDS benefit album is released, with modern artists interpreting the work of Cole Porter. Rod Stewart marries Rachel Hunter and Mick Jagger marries Jerry Hall (not all at the same time). One of the biggest bands of the 90’s, Pearl Jam, are founded and Eurythmics, one of the biggest bands of the 80’s, disband. They Might Be Giants gain unexpected mainstream success with Flood, and The Lightning Seeds debut with the charming Cloudcuckooland. MC Hammer parachute-pants his way into public consciousness with Please Hammer… Don’t Hurt ‘Em and MTV launches the Unplugged series, featuring Squeeze as the first incumbent. Iggy Pop pulls out of his 80’s slump with Brick By Brick, and N.W.A. are 100 Miles and Runnin’. George Michael entreats us to Listen Without Prejudice and The Happy Mondays have Pills, Thrills and Bellyaches. Depeche Mode fulfil all that potential with their best album, Violator, and Public Enemy give us Fear Of A Black Planet. The biggest single of the year – and of her career – is Sinead O’Connor’s Prince-penned “Nothing Compares 2 U”, though the rest of the Top 5 singles are pretty hit and miss. Madonna is inevitably in there with “Vogue” at the Number 2 position, though she’s only one ahead of Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby” (a song better than the Queen/David Bowie hit “Under Pressure” from which it flagrantly stole the bassline, though that’s not saying much), and behind them are MC Hammer and, erm, Roxette. Still there are a few great singles – Dee-lite’s fabulous “Groove Is In The Heart”, Iggy Pop’s “Candy”, Happy Monday’s “Kinky Afro”, and EMF’s adorable attempt at being bad boys “Unbelievable” are all released. And, at the age of 77, one of the most shout-able names in music passes away – “Leonard Bernstein!”

What Did We Nearly End Up Discussing?
We've already covered the two best contenders as it is. But putting that aside the actual answer is Pavarotti, who got to Number 2 with "Nessun Dorma" off the back off the England World Cup bid in 1990. Sadly, however, I know approximately sod all about football which means... guest post from one of the Not We!

Luciano Pavarotti - "Nessun Dorma", Guest Post by Clive Sinclair's Love Child ^*

* Real name! ^**

** OK, not real name. In fact one of my oldest and best friends, who I invited to write this post because football is beyond me but this single seems significant.


Coming To You Cup In Hand


There is no law that says that the pop charts has to contain only songs bought by the young. My editor tells me that no one calls them the pop charts any more and I don’t really care. The point is that pop may have come to refer to a form of cheap, disposable shallow form of music enjoyed by young, impressionable ears but popularity is the name of the game. In particular, it’s a form of fiscal popularity that sees consumers exchange cold, hard taps of their smartphone in exchange for a product. Or something like that.

For every Arctic Monkeys, there’s a dozen Robson and Jeromes. And, in their own ways, both reflect a moment of cultural significance. In the case of the mighty Robson and Jerome, it was the success of an ITV drama. Ah, the TV tie in! Many have had hits this way. David Soul, the Simon Park Orchestra, Joe Fagin, Anita Dobson, Nick Berry, Kylie and Jason, Mr Blobby…

Before I get too self-righteous, I like to remind myself that it doesn’t matter if people like things I don’t. If something becomes popular and I don’t like it, then so what. The tribal nature of a lot of youth culture can empower but it can also inhibit. There’s no harm in admitting that "Toxic" is still one of the greatest pop songs of the 21^st century just like there’s no harm in admitting that Nirvana’s finest album is Unplugged in New York. If either of those statements bother you then I might suggest that you’re the one that needs the rethink, not me.

At this point, I’ve just realised that this is the short version and I haven’t even got close to mentioning my point.

In 1990, Luciano Pavarotti scored (!) a hit with the aria "Nessun Dorma" from either a) Puccini’s Turandot or b) the BBC’s coverage of the 1990 World Cup. The two are important. The BBC used the recording to link its coverage to the culture of Italy, the host nation for the tournament and to distinguish itself from the slightly more low-brow efforts of ITV (further evidence for this came in the World Cup in America in 1994 – BBC selected from West Side Story. ITV? Hall and Oats).

Now it would be tempting to get drawn into a narrative about football here and link the success of "Nessun Dorma" with the changing nature of football fans (the era of the hooligan starting to draw to a close, Fever Pitch and the growth of the middle-class fan, fanzine culture, Thatcher and the ID card debacle, Hillsborough and so on) but it’s not hugely helpful. There are simply reasons why the release of "Nessun Dorma" as a single was an inevitable success. It was the expertly chosen theme tune on the most popular channel’s coverage of the most watched sporting event on the planet. Andrew Lloyd Weber wrote the theme tune for the BBC’s coverage in 1978 and that got to number 14 and Scotland was the only home nation to qualify. So, on the one hand, exposure to the music is clearly important. On the other hand, there’s an emotional swell to the aria that captured a mood. Now, it’s worth pointing out that, unless you’re English, Irish or German, you probably don’t have many fond memories of that particular World Cup. Face it football fans, it was a stinker. But Germany won it, the English finally looked as though they might win it and Ireland had a ball without actually kicking the ball very much (that’s a reference to their tactics in case anyone is incensed that I’ve overlooked their march to the quarter finals).

You can have all the analysis in the world about the minor fall and the major lift but the most important reason for a song’s success is its emotional connection to a wide number of people. Pavarotti connected before the tournament with the Three Tenors concert, and during the tournament as a curtain raiser to Des Lyman’s sexy eyebrows. Thirty million people tuned into that night in Turin on 4 July when hearts were broken in a penalty shootout and, subsequently, so were German made cars on the streets of Luton. You only need a small percentage of that audience to supplement their fervour by buying the record to make it a hit. And by buying the record and making it a hit, the cultural significance is cemented. Turandot was first performed in 1926 but is now forever connected with the summer of 1990. It was the summer that many British people remembered that classical music was pretty good to listen to for about two minutes but heaven help you if you asked them to sit through something not connected with an advert. Anyone else still think they should be smoking a cigar when listening to Air On A G String?

It’s tempting to only associate the success of "Nessun Dorma" with the success of the England team but it would be wrong. The performance of the aria continued at subsequent World Cups. But, more importantly, it also reached the top ten of the Irish charts in July 1990. Although RTE’s coverage was well watched in Ireland, many households were also able to pick up the BBC’s signal as well. It would be a foolhardy person to attempt to argue that Irish football fans were caught up in the excitement of the England team. So it clearly captured a zeit and geisted it all the way up the charts.

A couple of months later, England midfielder, Paul Gascoigne teamed (!) up with Lindisfarne to reach number two with a much more cynical marketing exercise, a reworked version of "Fog On The Tyne". And is that any better than "Blue Velvet" reaching Number 2 in the same year on the back of a Nivea advert? In fact, much as the World Cup was effectively devoid of entertainment, so is the list of Number 2's in 1990. "Love Shack", now saddled with the same wedding disco reputation as "Come on Eileen", and "Justify My Love" have some longevity but it’s only "Nessun Dorma" and "Groove Is In The Heart" that have anything like the staying power required for this kind of exercise, whatever Prole Hole is tempted to argue (now there’s a challenge).








OK, So What Else Did We Nearly End Up Discussing?
The UK is mostly a collection of leftover 80’s dross with Kylie, Craig McLachlan, New Kids On The Block and God help us all, the above-mentioned Gazza, all ascending to Number 2. Technotronic “Pump Up The Jam” early in the year in America and along similar lines Snap! have “The Power”. And, of all people, Bette Midler scrapes a late-in-the-year Number 2 in America with “From A Distance”. But best of all, Alannah Myles’s steamy Southern Gothic “Black Velvet” slithers its way to Number 2 in the UK in March and is, frankly, just a great single (it peaks at Number 1 for one whole week in the US, if you please).

Rankings:

1.   The Beatles - "Strawberry Fields Forever" / "Penny Lane"
2.   Stevie Wonder - "Sir Duke"
3.   The Kinks - "Lola"
4.   Jean Knight - "Mr Big Stuff"
5.   Eurythmics - "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)"
6.   Ultravox - "Vienna"
7.   Elvis Costello - "Oliver's Army"
8.   The Animals - "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place"
9.   Sly And The Family Stone - "Everyday People"
10. Pet Shop Boys with Dusty Springfield - "What Have I Done To Deserve This?"
11. The Beautiful South - "Song For Whoever"
12. The B-52's - "Love Shack"
13. Luciano Pavarotti - "Nessun Dorma"
14. Adam And The Ants - "Antmusic"
15. The Sweet, "Ballroom Blitz"
16. Suzanne Vega-DNA - "Tom's Diner"
17. The Bangles - "Manic Monday"
18. Petula Clark - "Downtown"
19. Queen, "Killer Queen"
20. Blondie, "Denis"
21. Dire Straits - "Private Investigations"
22. Elton John - "Rocket Man (I Think It's Going To Be A Long, Long Time)"
23. Tom Jones - "Delilah"
24. Gloria Gaynor - "Never Can Say Goodbye"
25. Cyndi Lauper - "Girls Just Want To Have Fun"
26. Eddie Cochrane – "Three Steps To Heaven"
27. Bonnie Tyler - "Holding Out For A Hero"
28. Wings - "Let 'Em In"
29. The Troggs - "Wild Thing"
30. Jimmy Dean - "Big Bad John"
31. Terence Trent D'Arby - "Sign Your Name"
32. Chubby Checker - "Let's Twist Again"
33. Billy J Kramer And The Dakotas - "Do You Want To Know A Secret"

Next Week On We’re Number Two…
Take the weight off your feet.

Thanks for bringing up Kate Pierson's guest vocal spot on "Candy." Not only is it a helluva song but for my money it might be her strongest vocal performance. As for "Love Shack" there's a part of me (probably the surly irony teen that lives deep in my psyche) that wants to shit on it for being overplayed or not as weird musically or thematically as The B-52s should be but I can't because even though it's their most straightforward pop song it is also probably the queerest song they ever created. That coupled with the fact that it got to #2 and had the music video it did is kind of subversive which makes it rule in a way that R.E.M.'s similarly pop-friendly output ("Stand" and the aforementioned "Shiny Happy People") did not.

I am but here to help.

Much, much better.

In terms of sampling, I know that it took DNA ages to put together their version of Tom's Diner because the storage technology didn't exist at the time to load the whole song at once so it had to be done in itty-bitty little piece then gradually assembled. I've worked with a few music editing packages over the years and even when the can load everything it's a frustratingly repetative process so I can only imagine how dull and tedious it must have been for them, but at least the end results were worth it.


Paging Moby! Paging Moby! Some people's entire careers rest on it. Not, let us be clear, good careers, but still.

In the Shoutbox, you asked if choosing Nessun Dorma was trolling the US - I said no, which is true, but what I should have done is follow that question up with "why would it be trolling the US?" And I didn't, so I'm doing it now. Why would it be trolling the US?

Ha, I forgot about Moby - was thinking of Black Box in 1989 and Marky Mark in 1991. It probably says a lot about Moby's endurance in the cultural memory that those two came to mind before Mr. Porcelain.

Sigh...

1992 – The KLF & Tammy Wynette, “Justified And Ancient (Stand By The JAMs)”


The cream of the crop


They’re a confounding band, The KLF, and that’s what makes them so profoundly interesting during a moment in time when a lot of music was anything but. Because although there’s a lot of good music bubbling under in 1992, precious little is making much of an impression at the top end of the charts, singles or albums. In fact the singles charts in the UK are in the absolute doldrums, with sales levels plummeting to near-record lows and just twelve Number 1 singles over the course of a whole year. The album charts are choked up with greatest-hits release after greatest-hits release, with Divine Madness by Madness, Abba Gold by Abba, Simply The Best by Tina Turner, The Best Of Belinda by Belinda Carlisle, Glittering Prize by Simple Minds and many others all ascending to the top of the album charts. In fact of the twenty-nine albums that topped the UK charts in 1991, twelve of them were compilations (that’s a whopping 41%), which doesn’t exactly suggest things are in a healthy position, and the majority of non-compilations that get to Number 1 are legacy acts, artists who have more than a decade-long career behind them (Cher, Neil Diamond, Lionel Richie, Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, Mike Oldfield and others). It’s just all very stagnant, in other words, even though there’s odd exceptions like R.E.M. and Prince – neither of whom are spring chickens at this point in their careers either – who both topped the album charts (briefly, one week each), or The Orb scoring an exceedingly unlikely Number 1 album with U.F.Orb. It is in this sort of environment a band like The KLF – unconventional, to say the least – can flourish, and they were already coming off an amazing year in 1991 which has seen big success from them in the singles charts. “What Time Is Love?”, “Last Train To Trancentral” and “3 a.m. Eternal” had already been hits (the latter a UK Number 1) and “Justified And Ancient” was ready to take follow suit, which it duly did.

On the surface, though, there’s not a vast amount to differentiate “Justified And Ancient” from “What Have I Done To Deserve This?” by Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield. This is appropriate – The KLF were self-confessed huge Pet Shop Boys fans and followed that template. Take one electronic band, add in an icon from a different age and style of music, blend together and see what happens. And “what happened” was the exactly the same result – a Number 2 single. There’s nothing wrong with that approach and it clearly works. “Justified And Ancient” seemed odder than Pet Shop Boys doing the same thing because The KLF are a markedly less conventional band than Pet Shop Boys, who – at least far as their single successes thus far have gone – wrote fairly traditional songs but in a synth-pop style. The KLF, on the other hand, are deeply invested in sampling, mashing up and cut-and-pasting existing music forms to see what can be done with them – they have always existed to subvert the music industry rather than being a part of it, in sharp contrast to Pet Shop Boys. “Justified And Ancient” is probably both The KLF track which most resembles a traditional song structure and just about the least invested in their sampling approach yet the roots are certainly visible (and it has a riff from Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” running through the chorus). Still, it should be immediately obvious why a band drawn to mashing up music in this way might be drawn to the idea of including someone like Tammy Wynette on a recording that’s otherwise got basically nothing do to with country music. The original version of “Justified And Ancient” came out in 1987 and has appeared several times since – The KLF sample and steal from other bands but they’re also more than happy to do it to themselves as well. And “Justified And Ancient” marks out something of the creative tension within the KLF – they exist to subvert music yet had a number of successful singles behind them and scored a massive hit by working one of their own numbers into a fairly conventional form and by sticking a big country star on vocals. The subversion element only really works if they’re basically taking the piss out of Tammy Wynette by getting her to sing a silly song about an ice cream van roaming the mystical lands of Mu-mu.

And yet by all accounts that’s simply not the case. Bill Drummond was genuinely fond of Tammy Wynette – another similarity to “What Have I Done To Deserve This?” where Neil Tennant was a genuine fan of Dusty Springfield – and having her on vocals appears to be sincere. It has all the hallmarks of a marketing ploy, especially from a band committed to the idea of being pranksters at the heart of the music industry, yet Drummond flew all the way to Nashville to personally take charge of the recording of Wynette’s vocals. That’s a lot of trouble to go to for a publicity stunt. And the production belies any sarcastic intent too – this is a more up-tempo version of the song than had previously been heard but it’s also catchier and it’s got a pedal-steel guitar on it, perfectly aligning the new version with Wynette’s background. Even the sleevenotes refer to her as “the first lady of country” and the parenthesis part of the title “stand by the JAMs” was apparently included as a nod the Tammy Wynette hit “Stand By Your Man”. The JAMs were an established part of The KLF mythos – if that’s the right term – by this point but they didn’t need to include it in the title of the song. Again, it could all be sarcastic but the evidence is mounting that it very much isn’t. It’s being played, at least by KLF standards, relatively straight. It is a strange combination, but there have been stranger, and the fact is that the end result works as a song. In fact it works so well that having an artist like Tammy Wynette singing over a then-extremely-contemporary style of music leaves “Justified And Ancient” positively ahead of the curve – compare and contrast to Cher reviving her career with “Believe”, which pulls exactly the same trick with a markedly inferior song, and it shows just how ahead of its time “Justified And Ancient” actually was.

It should, naturally, come as no surprise to discover that the other thing that “Justified And Ancient” has going for it is Ms Wynette herself. She’s pure, 100% class from top to bottom and she’s also clearly fully invested in this song. This isn’t some arbitrary “guest spot”, she gives a great account of herself delivering the extremely (but entertainingly) daft lyric a real shot of sincerity which it needs, and she stops the whole exercise from simply coming across as glib. And she delivers. Of course she does. Her enthusiasm for the project is perfectly clear, and she plays it dead straight. This allows “Justified And Ancient” to have its cake and eat it. If you want to read the song as a subversive slice of tee-hee pop anarchism that reading is open, and if you want to regard it as a well-crated pop song with a killer lead vocal from one of the big stars of country it can be read that way as well. Both readings are entirely valid and both readings sit alongside each other. Tammy Wynette also appears in the video for the song, the majority of which is a pretty random selection of bits of The KLF’s mythos – Handmaidens of Mu-mu dancing about the place, overlapping pieces of technology, a faintly Roman-looking stage set and many more – while in the middle of it all sits Tammy Wynette imperiously on a throne, looking like she’s having the time of her life. And that’s the thing – she very clearly is. Even if this were all just taking the piss out of a faded country star the piss-taking doesn’t work because Wynette plays it straight and plays it so well. The tee-hee reading is still open musically, especially in light of what else was in the charts at the time, but Wynette is simply too good here to allow it to seem like she’s the one that having the piss taken out of her. The audience, maybe, but not her. Now there’s a skill.

Still, this is basically it for The KLF. “Justified And Ancient” was the last single they released, as the idea of subversion got gradually swamped out by actual chart success. It’s tough to claim you’re doing much in the way of subverting when you’re scoring hit after hit, and ironic distance can only take you so far. To counter such accusations, and to genuinely approach a level of subversion, the band ended their career not long after the release of “Justified And Ancient” by playing a thrash metal version of “3 a.m. Eternal” at the Brit Awards while Bill Drummond fired blanks from an automatic weapon over the heads of the assembled audience, followed by the dumping of a dead sheep outside the post-award show party entrance. The original idea had been to disembowel its corpse live on stage. They then promptly deleted their entire back catalogue – none of The KLF’s releases are commercially available even to this day – and followed that up by burning one million pounds of their remaining KLF profits in cash a couple of years later. See? Confounding. Yet all these acts seemed genuinely impressive at the time – light years away from stale re-issues, bland techno or dull cover versions, the KLF were a genuine shot of colour in a music scene that seemed almost aggressively grey. They did it with style, with genuine artistic impulses, and managed to make some really great music along the way. If only more bands were bound for Mu-mu land.





What Else Happened In 1992?
Let’s start with a positive – Nirvana’s Nevermind gets to Number 1 in the US. On the other side the scale The Bodyguard is released in cinemas which means good luck escaping the massacring of Dolly Parton’s otherwise-rather-sweet “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston. Brace yourself for a shock – it’s the biggest single of 1992, though “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is right behind it. David Bowie marries Iman, Bobby Brown marries Whitney Houston, and Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain also get hitched. Lou Reed has Magic And Loss and Chumbawamba release their best album, Shhh! Guns’n’Roses break two records – longest single ever (“November Rain” weighing in at a mighty 8:57) and the most expensive video ever ($1.5 million). Bill Wyman quits the Rolling Stones, and Factory Records, home to some of Manchester’s finest bands, goes bankrupt. The Cure attempt cheerfulness with Wish (it’s not wholly convincing) and Annie Lennox kicks off her solo career with the brilliant Diva. Abba begin their long walk back from the wilderness to the limelight, firstly with the release of the huge smash greatest-hits compilation Abba Gold, then by Erasure releasing a quadrilogy of covers on the Abba-esque EP (followed, with puckish good humour, by Abba tribute band Björn Again releasing their Erasure-ish EP, covering four Erasure songs in return). Michael Jackson begins the Dangerous world tour, and Ice-T has the most controversial single of the year with “Cop Killer”. Frank Zappa has his final public appearance, and Kylie Minogue departs Stock, Aitken and Waterman. PJ Harvey releases her first album and so does Mary J. Blige. Perennial punchline “Achy Breaky Heart” by Billy Ray Cyrus (yes, Miley’s dad) is inflicted upon the world, The Shamen release the exceedingly funny (and great) “Ebenezer Goode”, and Dr Dre debuts with The Chronic. Oh, and R.E.M. release the best album of the decade bar none, Automatic For The People. And at the age of 79 John Cage passes away – please observe four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence to mark the occasion.

What Did We Nearly End Up Discussing?
Even next to the, ahem, variable standards of last year 1992 is spectacularly shit in the UK, with only The Prodigy’s Everybody In The Place EP and Arrested Development’s “People Everyday” sparking even the tiniest flicker of interest. Kriss Kross want to make you “Jump”, which is at least memorable, as is the Freddie Mercury/Montserrat Caballe duet “Barcelona”, though neither are the dictionary definition of “good”. Everything else, though, is just a wasteland that includes minor Mariah Carey (“I’ll Be There”), the far-from-cunningly-named Smart E’s, Guns’n’Roses’ appalling cover of “Knocking On Heaven’s Door” and TV soap star Nick Berry’s somehow-even-worse cover of “Heartbeat”. Save us, America! But alas no, there’s more Mariah Carey (“Can’t Let Go” this time), Eric Clapton’s understandable-but-not-actually-good-in-any-way “Tears In Heaven”, and fucking “Bohemian Rhapsody” rolls out yet again (Wayne’s World edition this time). The closest we get to a respite is “Under The Bridge” by Red Hot Chilli Peppers, for one whole week in the middle of the year.

Rankings

1. The Beatles - "Strawberry Fields Forever" / "Penny Lane"
2. Stevie Wonder - "Sir Duke"
3. The Kinks - "Lola"
4. Jean Knight - "Mr Big Stuff"
5. Eurythmics - "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)"
6. Ultravox - "Vienna"
7. Elvis Costello - "Oliver's Army"
8. The Animals - "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place"
9. Sly And The Family Stone - "Everyday People"
10. Pet Shop Boys with Dusty Springfield - "What Have I Done To Deserve This?"
11. The Beautiful South - "Song For Whoever"
12. The B-52's - "Love Shack"
13. Luciano Pavarotti - "Nessun Dorma"
14. Adam And The Ants - "Antmusic"
15. The KLF with Tammy Wynette - "Justified And Ancient (Stand By The JAMs)"
16. James - "Sit Down"
17. The Sweet, "Ballroom Blitz"
18. Suzanne Vega-DNA - "Tom's Diner"
19. The Bangles - "Manic Monday"
20. Petula Clark - "Downtown"
21. Queen, "Killer Queen"
22. Blondie, "Denis"
23. Dire Straits - "Private Investigations"
24. Elton John - "Rocket Man (I Think It's Going To Be A Long, Long Time)"
25. Tom Jones - "Delilah"
26. Gloria Gaynor - "Never Can Say Goodbye"
27. Cyndi Lauper - "Girls Just Want To Have Fun"
28. Eddie Cochrane – "Three Steps To Heaven"
29. Bonnie Tyler - "Holding Out For A Hero"
30. Wings - "Let 'Em In"
31. The Troggs - "Wild Thing"
32. Jimmy Dean - "Big Bad John"
33. Terence Trent D'Arby - "Sign Your Name"
34. Chubby Checker - "Let's Twist Again"
35. Billy J Kramer And The Dakotas - "Do You Want To Know A Secret"

Next Week On We’re Number Two…
Something the matter?

We are not as one this week but I can definitely understand the opinion. Certainly it's fair to say that at least some of The KLF material hasn't really aged well and is very indicative of its time. But, also, I was around then and I really do remember how much colour they added to an absolutely dire music scene (I still have my copy of The White Room on CD) so this isn't just retrospective it's something I vividly remember from that time. Context is definitely necessary and while I don't think I'd ever describe the music as daring (maybe some of the publicity stunts) it was effective for what it was back in the dark days of the late 80's/early 90's.

You're pretty much right about Gorillaz, though I'd say their good song count scrapes up to three (Clint Eastwood, Every Planet We Reach Is Dead, Feel Good Inc). I mean, maybe there's good stuff beyond that but I'll never care enough to find out and they're definitely a mystique > music band. Funnily enough were this project to breach the millennium, which it won't, Feel Good Inc was the contender for 2005 exactly because of this phenomenon. I'll list out the "missing" songs when I get to the end of this.