Gezza
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Post by Gezza on Sept 26, 2011 8:13:39 GMT 1
28TH SEPTEMBER- LET'S TALK ABOUT SEX- Salt N Pepa Featuring Psychotropic (2 weeks)There isn't much subtlety about this song, but then that's the point. A safe sex message put to music, it's not a song that I have ever loved but it's not unbearable either, it is however very symbolic of it's time. These days I can't recall the last hit single that was about safe sex or the perils of the casual encounter, indeed in the late 80s sex was all but absent from the top 40 as a string of asexual stars were hitting it big, it may therefore have helped that Salt N Pepa were American rap stars ( a genre known for it's provokativeness). For all that though it is executed in quite a charming way, never really smashing home the message with a sledgehammer, it's playful but firm and would certainly have been a very unusual chart topper had it got there, it was a joy to listen to again after all these years but I doubt i'll listen to it again for another 5 years.....
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TheThorne
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Post by TheThorne on Sept 26, 2011 10:07:49 GMT 1
For my crimes I was listening to "Move To This" by Cathy Dennis and "Voices" by Kenny Thomas back in 91 haha Cathy Dennis I will excuse as she was very cute but sorry shame for Kenny Thomas. Great voice bland music.
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Post by evansabove on Sept 26, 2011 13:48:21 GMT 1
Let's Talk About Sex seems so tame by today's standards but i remember it caused a bit of a storm back then when it came out
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Sept 26, 2011 14:10:31 GMT 1
Not as much of a storm as "Push It", which got banned by several radio stations, thus directly contributing to the crime that was Glenn Medeiros. I pray that whoever was responsible for that decision is currently having hot anvils piled onto his genitalia.
The odd thing about "I'm Too Sexy" is I cannot imagine it being number one for 6 weeks had Adams not been there, it's the kind that would have had a couple of weeks on the top a la The Firm. Novelty record, sure, but one with charm, it wasn't pretending to be anything it wasn't.
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vya
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Post by vya on Sept 26, 2011 19:43:52 GMT 1
Hmm, 1991 was the year that the charts were full of songs that were more openly and ambiguously about sex than at probably any time before. (Even as recently as 3 years earlier T'Pau's "Sex Talk", released close to the peak of their popularity, got next to no radio airplay - I suppose one can argue that was partially because it was a less than outstanding single, while the year before that George Michael track and the somewhat more innocent reissue of "There's Nothing Like Shagging" by the Tams had been effectively completely banned by the beeb.
But in 1991...Color Me Badd had their rather questionable number 1, the Divinyls were in the top 10...alone,. LaTour (with a rather cringeworthy video) were kind of doing a slightly less assertive pro-"safe sex" number than Salt n Pepa, and then was Billy Bragg standing on the boundary of the boroughs of Havering and Thurrock on the front sleeve with the uncle who once played for the Red Star Belgrade...
Not really a fan of Salt N Pepa, on the whole (a couple of fantastic singles, though - but this isn't one of them in my book), but it is still a long way from Rihanna singing about chains and whips on pretty much every radio station in the land...
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Post by Earl Purple on Sept 26, 2011 20:33:20 GMT 1
I liked the Right Said Fred song at the time, reminded me of summer evenings in the pub whilst finishing off my MSc. It did sample of Cozy Powell track that seems to always go unmnentioned.
Salt N Pepa's "Don't Talk About Sex" was ok. I didn't even like them in 1988, but my favourite song of their was "Do You Want Me".
A strange coincidence here: In 1989 Jason Donovan charted wtih a cover of Brian Hyland's "Sealed With A Kiss" and then the next year Timmy Mallett coered "Itsy Bitsy..". (And of course they both reached #1 I was considering recording my own cover of Ginny Come Lately). Now in 1991, Jason Donovan covered the Turtles "Happy Together" only for Salt N Pepa to also cover the Turtles later on with "You Showed Me", a song the Lightning Seeds also covered in 1997.
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Post by Earl Purple on Sept 26, 2011 20:34:10 GMT 1
There were other sex songs that didn't get banned on radio, probably because of who recorded them and that they were considered classics: Sex Machine by James Brown and Sexual Healing by Marvin Gaye... Why weren't they banned?
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Sept 26, 2011 22:27:48 GMT 1
the Divinyls were in the top 10...
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Post by andrew07 on Sept 26, 2011 23:27:28 GMT 1
Wait, I thought that riff from "I'm Too Sexy" was taken from "Third Stone From The Sun" by Jimi Hendrix?
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Post by thehitparade on Sept 26, 2011 23:30:02 GMT 1
Deeply, deeply disturbing.
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on Sept 26, 2011 23:32:20 GMT 1
it's this one!
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on Sept 26, 2011 23:33:33 GMT 1
Deeply, deeply disturbing. Suely that shoulld be deeply deeply dippy?.....
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on Sept 27, 2011 16:56:24 GMT 1
12TH OCTOBER- WIND OF CHANGE- The Scorpions (2 weeks)A song about the end of the cold war sung by a german rock band hardly sounds like a winner but the Scorpions proved us all wrong back in 1991. In the Wake of THAT record which was STILL at No 1 that week I suspect the UK was now lapping up AOR like there was no tomorrow, but the Scorpions were odds on favourite to topple the everlasting Adams but it was never to be. "Wind Of Change" is an OK record if you just listen to it without the awful video which is full of the usual "rock" palava interspursed with images of moments of European history, it's weighty in theme alright but it doesn't quite carry it off sadly, I suppose how do you condense all of that into 4 minutes of pop? or in this case Rock. Yet it's also a song that it's hard to spout vitriol about, and in all honesty it hasn't aged that badly, which surprises me, I didn't mind it at the time but then I think there was so much goodwill given to it in hope it might dislodge THAT record....
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on Sept 27, 2011 16:57:32 GMT 1
26TH OCTOBER- GET READY FOR THIS- 2 Unlimited (2 weeks)Oh dear. I NEVER liked 2 Unlimited- Music directed at the lowest possible demoninator in my opinion. Dutch duo Ray Slijngaard and Anita Doth were one of the bigger acts during the 1992-1994 period, I have to give them that, but there aren't any of their hits I would ever voluntarily listen to again. When they were released on the continent they contained Slijngaard's raps which were "erased" by Pete Waterman (who was in charge of the UK Label that released them) as he considered them to be too awful- I can only imagine. "Get Ready For This" is typical of what 2 Unlimited were about, mindless dance music directed at the masses and involving little lyrical enterprise and soundbite vocals. At 15 I was probably at that inbetween age when I was too young to hear it in clubs and too old to be taken in by the DIY playground chanting element, but in a year with KLF this always seemed like lazy music at it's most irritating.....
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borneoman
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Post by borneoman on Sept 27, 2011 17:09:39 GMT 1
never really that SaltNPepa song, found it silly, especially compared to the amazing Push it I'm Too Sexy, kinda liked it... I still remember St Etienne did a version that was great!!! from The Fred EP that they did with other bands on Heavenly... Scorpions Wind of Change is the snoozefest for me. Too AOR, and the lyrics are horrible Never thought much of 2 Unlimited. They were kinda bad in my book, still amazes me that they had like 10 hits which sounded 100% identical
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Post by evansabove on Sept 27, 2011 17:13:20 GMT 1
Listening to 2 Unlimited brings back memories. Get Ready For This was a bit different to subsequent singles as it was a little more dance instrumentally and not into the whole pop-dance genre with which they became famous. I did like them even if No Limits drove me mad after a while
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Sept 27, 2011 18:24:53 GMT 1
A song about the end of the cold war sung by a german rock band hardly sounds like a winner but the Scorpions proved us all wrong back in 1991. No they didn't. Yet it's also a song that it's hard to spout vitriol about... No it isn't. It is, comfortably, in the bottom ten singles ever released. Totally, totally dreadful. Quite apart from it having godawful lyrics and cliched structure, see comments above on Extreme...
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Sept 27, 2011 18:25:52 GMT 1
BTW wasn't it Anita Dels rather than Doth?
"Get Ready For This" was very nearly an accurate songtitle; they just anagrammed the final word.
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TheThorne
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Post by TheThorne on Sept 27, 2011 18:27:09 GMT 1
rofl!!! Wind Of Change is dire beyond believe, good intentions maybe but a dreadful record, I am sure we can collect a large bucket of vitriol no problem!!
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on Sept 27, 2011 18:36:04 GMT 1
BTW wasn't it Anita Dels rather than Doth? "Get Ready For This" was very nearly an accurate songtitle; they just anagrammed the final word. Wikipedia says Doth- if that's worth anything.....
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