vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Dec 28, 2014 23:21:38 GMT 1
Oops, forgot to mention. About the only other act I thought of for no. 67 were Brakes, whose Rock Family Tree would encompass a number of extremely underrated acts, some of whom might make this list. Their one chart hit though was emphatically not their best work...
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TheThorne
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Post by TheThorne on Dec 28, 2014 23:49:55 GMT 1
I first heard One Dove on Pete Tong back when you had a variety of dance music on his show not just one sub genre like now., then yeh the video was on The Chart Show and I found out they were Scottish so they became even better, bought some Dot Allison singles including that one but none reached the heights of 'Fallen'
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Dec 29, 2014 8:15:29 GMT 1
66. This Mortal Coil
Certain record labels are iconic. Tamla Motown, obviously. Phil Spector's Philles label had an astonishing hit-rate in the States - half of its releases going top 40. In the 80s there were plenty of British indies who had a certain aesthetic - Situation 2, Blast First, Chapter 22, Creation, and the behemoth that was Rough Trade - but none quite like 4AD.
Ivo Watts-Russell's label had a small, but select, roster, with some acts like Xymox lasting for years on there despite no commercial success, and the unlikeliest acts this side of Clive Dunn to have a no. 1 hit, namely Colourbox and AR Kane, whose collaboration under the name M/A/R/R/S turned out to be too painful to repeat.
But the best of them all was Cocteau Twins. How on earth did such a sound come from the grotty oilport of Grangemouth? Perhaps in the same way that rainbows live in puddles. Even the ethereal guitar sound of Robin Guthrie on its own would be astonishing. But they happened to have the greatest vocalist in the history of music.
Elizabeth Fraser is unique. It's easy to over-use that word (q.v. literally). But in this case it is the literal truth. There has never been another singer like her. There has never been anyone else that can take you to heaven without singing any intelligible language. There has never been anyone who can move the soul in the same way. You can take all your note-perfect operatics or Careys and stick them wherever. They are soulless automata. If you want the human spirit, you want the joys and sorrows, you want the feelings, you want life itself, it has to be Elizabeth Fraser.
Ivo Watts-Russell used to make his own recordings under the This Mortal Coil label. He would rope in whichever 4AD stars were recording at that time to give him a hand. For his cover of the Buckley classic he had Fraser and Guthrie alone. And he came up with perfection.
And if there is ever a single for someone to get behind as an anti-Fix Factor protest, this is the proverbial it.
So, as this single, one of the top 10 ever recorded, peaked at 66, the representative for this number has to be this one.
Pity the alternatives for here - The Mighty Lemon Drops, The Meteors and art terrorists Selfish C**t. They were bringing knives to a nuclear war.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Dec 29, 2014 20:48:08 GMT 1
65. Psychic TV
Three very different acts vying for the 65 spot. Helen Love, with their obsession with Joey Ramone, are probably best taken in small(ish) doses. Madder Rose also staked a strong claim with their winsome alt-rock.
But I had to go with Psychic TV for the sheer "how in the name of God did they get into the charts?"-ness of it. In bullet points, P-Orridge:
-was called "a wrecker of civilization" in 1976 for the COUM Transmissions art project; -invented industrial music via Throbbing Gristle, which project used corporate identities before Lydon did so with PiL; -started PTV as the audiovisual offshoot of his occultist experiment Thee Temple Of Psychick Youth; -fled Britain in 1992 over false accusations of making snuff movies; -underwent significant body alterations with his second wife so that they would both be the first members of the third sex (dubbed pandrogyny).
It makes Bootsy Collins look like the neighbours in Rentaghost. Such borderline (I think) lunacy making the charts is rather splendid.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Dec 29, 2014 23:38:19 GMT 1
64. Blood Red ShoesSomewhat to my surprise, I note that Atari Teenage Riot's Alec Empire had peaked at 64, but it would be indulgent to give him a second tilt at the list. But I totally missed him charting at the time. I would also never have dreamed that second-wave hardcore punks Discharge would ever have made the chart, but no, in that magpie year of 1981, they snuck in at 64. But really, it was down to two. Very tempted by Wall Of Voodoo, whose " Mexican Radio" is probably the best single to stop here, giving Stan Ridgway his first chart outing. But I went with quantity as a tie-breaker - I have more material by BRS, and, although their one hit single has tendencies towards landfill, they've got a lot better since.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Dec 30, 2014 18:33:22 GMT 1
63. Win
David Henderson's project after the demise of The Fire Engines, Win took the Postcard mentality and mixed it with a smidge of Art Of Noise to generate a sort of technopop that is extremely mid-1980s in sound. Their best-remembered single was one that I remain astounded was not a top 75er, namely "You've Got The Power", which had the additional boost of being on a McEwan's advert. I blame their label - I traipsed around record shops for ages trying to find out what the song was, but nada. A couple of them formed The Apples and joined The 75 Club. Where Win definitely win, though, is two members produced the unreleased Clare Grogan solo album Trash Mad... The main other act I thought about was The Blue Aeroplanes, but one I came across in researching was a German one-hit wonder group called Bell Book & Candle. I need to dig out more about them, as their one hit sounds a bit 4 Non Blondes-ish, only better.
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Post by vastar iner on Dec 30, 2014 23:54:41 GMT 1
62. These Animal Men
You know that Sesame Street song "One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other"? I get that feeling with number 62. A massive collection of heavily hyped failures all topped out here. Two of them pushed to the moon by Stock Aitken Waterman and their habitual music genocide, this time via Michaela Strachan and the twins from Neighbours, Gayle & Gillian, whose surname I cannot even be bothered to look up. Also So, who would fit in with the ungoogleable names like Cults and Girls and various shapes that are popular these days, who were promoted as some sort of yuppie favourites and who were about as interesting as watching paint dry. Paint that had been daubed in 1384. And there was Pele, who seemed to be signed up because another band called Mexico 70 were knocking around and football was becoming popular again. It certainly wasn't because of their music.
And I haven't even mentioned Mr Food.
So I've gone with These Animal Men faute de mieux. Because, unlike the total business-oriented nature of the other 62s, they were musicians. They progressed quite a bit from their shouty punky early days to a far more blissed out vibe for their second album, but their chart career was base over apex; they started with the hit album and then became a singles band. Odd. The label must have expected the 33 to outdo the 45, as they were promptly dropped.
To be fair, though, despite The Boy Least Likely To and Rain Tree Crow peaking here, it's one of the drearier numbers in the 75.
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Post by TheThorne on Dec 31, 2014 0:42:21 GMT 1
Yes everyone in Scotland loved that 'we've got the power' track by Win , super poppoid groove was fun as well and yes you couldn't buy it anywhere , shame we didn't have Shazam then as it took weeks/months to find out who even did it never mind buy it
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Post by TheThorne on Dec 31, 2014 0:46:25 GMT 1
Oh and really liked Are you Sure ? By So and was that 'Raid The Palace ' by Pele as that was ace , honestly it was the brother track to 'monster mouth' out same time and played well together in same set
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Post by TheThorne on Dec 31, 2014 0:46:38 GMT 1
Oh and really liked Are you Sure ? By So and was that 'Raid The Palace ' by Pele as that was ace , honestly it was the brother track to 'monster mouth' out same time and played well together in same set
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Post by vya on Dec 31, 2014 1:25:44 GMT 1
I'd defend Pele, lightly, as well: "Raid the Palace" and "Fair Blow The Wind For France" were kind of minor-league good fun, kind of slightly folkier Kingmaker ripoffs... Oh that does sound like damning with faint praise, but I liked 'em anyway, without rating them particularly highly. It certainly was the case that they got major label backing remarkably quickly....
The Blue Aeroplanes were a bit dull; at their best kind of bit like REM but without any hint of oooph
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Dec 31, 2014 9:10:01 GMT 1
61. Annabella LwinAm I the only one who detests remixes? I cannot see the point of them. Other than to fill up a CD when the label can't be bothered to put in the expenses to do the proper work. The way I look at it is if a remix of a single is better than the single, it would be the main track of the single instead (q.v. "Brimful Of Asha"). So, if it is not good enough to displace the lead track, why the hell should the label expect anyone ever to listen to it? I mention that because I cannot find the full video to the original single mix of Annabella's biggest solo hit anywhere. All I can find are bloody remixes which are almost all gash. And remove her gorgeous voice as much as they can. So completely, totally, utterly pointless. I reckon I should become a superstar DJ. Got to be the easiest job in the world. Researching some of the unknown acts in the charts demonstrates this. There is so much total bleepy sh*te. Just press a few random pooter buttons and voom. So, instead of putting one of those up, you'll have to settle for the 45 second extract. Which, as it's up to over a million views, suggests there is a market for a full-length Annabella video. I wonder why. Malcolm McLaren claimed to have discovered her singing in a laundrette. What is certain though is that he had her front (originally co-front with Boy George) Bow Wow Wow, made up of Adam's Ants without Adam. Adam got a new set of Ants and dominated the world; Bow Wow Wow didn't. Mostly thanks to McLaren concentrating on outrage rather than music - BWW got into trouble with the industry for glorifying home taping, and then the tabloids for glorifying under-age sex. Annabella was 14 when she was fake-orgasming in the studio... Which was a counter-productive move for BWW (if not for McLaren) because Annabella had a tremendous voice - powerful and soulful, strong yet tender - and BWW could back a decent track. "Louis Quatorze" is a tremendous singalong pop song - or would be with less provocative lyrics. And after three years of being on the cusp of the Next Big Thing, BWW scored a couple of delicious top tens. But music shifted to the yuppie rubbish and BWW were out of it. Annabella tried a couple of solo comebacks which went nowhere despite their (and her) undoubted brilliance. Her biggest hit was the best of her singles. Juuuust right. Perhaps helped by its Steve Lironi production; Steve is probably better known as the lucky, jammy get who is Mr Clare Grogan... Main other contestant for 61 was Kim Deal's sideproject The Amps. Didn't really last long enough to oust Ms Lwin, given that I'm using her Bow Wow Wow career to shoehorn her in here. Also thought about The Trashcan Sinatras, if only for their lovely cover of Lulu's " To Sir With Love", but they were a bit also-rannish in the gap between indiepop and Britpop.
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Post by Earl Purple on Dec 31, 2014 15:58:46 GMT 1
If you allow Annabella Lwin separate from Bow Wow Wow then you should allow Clint Boon Experience as separate from Inspiral Carpets and their peak position was also #61 with White No Sugar and would definitely be my choice for that number. They also did a song called Do What You Do (which peaked at #63).
And yes, I definitely agree with you on the whole about remixes. They are often done as "favours" to the remixer. Rarely there may be 2 different interpretations of a song, e.g. a slow version and an uptempo disco version (anyone remember Madonna's "Don't Cry For Me Argentina", Miami mix. And there was a superior disco mix of Unbreak My Heart by Toni Braxton around the same time, plus an instrumental version and a vocal version of Dreadzone's "Little Britain").
And whilst I don't know about "DJ", I would also like to be a music promoter, although my search for decent music that is out is quite a painful process. I sift through hundreds of songs every week to build my playlist.
Back in the old days the record companies did a decent enough job for you. Now everyone just releases independently.
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Post by Earl Purple on Dec 31, 2014 16:00:51 GMT 1
For #62 I would potentially go for The Boy Least Likely To although their biggest hit in my chart wasn't until 2013.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Dec 31, 2014 16:49:05 GMT 1
If you allow Annabella Lwin separate from Bow Wow Wow then you should allow Clint Boon Experience as separate from Inspiral Carpets and their peak position was also #61 with White No Sugar and would definitely be my choice for that number. I am being not entirely consistent with singers vs groups, basically doing whatever it takes to make the chart positions work. I have another choice for no. 7.
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Post by vastar iner on Dec 31, 2014 19:06:01 GMT 1
60. The shoegaze bands with trisyllabic names number
Chapterhouse
Ahhh, shoegaze. The scene that celebrates itself. And whatever other derogatory term the NME came up with. One of the most under-rated musical genres and one which was probably stifled by the media's constant denigration. Created a vogue of band-names with one syllable, usually meaning something vague and unclear; Ride, Curve, Blur, Lush, Loop, even Suede. There was one with two syllables who will be coming up; there were two with three, who both peaked at 60. Chapterhouse, and Swervedriver. But I'm going with Chapterhouse, whose debut album Whirlpool was pretty close to perfect. Their masterpiece single, though, was not their biggest hit, but their first; the second track on Whirlpool, " Pearl", which featured the backing vocals of Rachel Goswell. They took a more brutal turn for their second album Blood Music, and their only other release was the offcut compilation Rownderbowt, which, if you ever see it, get, it's hen's teeth these days. There was also a remix version of that called Twobrednwor, which seems to be an extinct hen's teeth. /me clutches copy close to heart One other act of note to peak at 60, given the recent honours list, is The Joan Collins Fan Club, who charted with a twisted cover of " Leader Of The Pack". If you don't know the personnel behind that monicker, click the link...
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Post by TheThorne on Dec 31, 2014 20:59:29 GMT 1
Yes another case of the best song not being the biggest hit . Every fan of Chapterhouse and Shoegaze will agree that 'Pearl' is one of the top 5 songs if its genre and their best by far.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Dec 31, 2014 21:16:04 GMT 1
59. The iffy names number
Having your name as an un-googleable scribble is nothing new. Yes, I'm looking at YOU, Alt-J. As you have found out, people just change it to something that is googleable. Prince, who, presumably, was influenced by Slade in his spelling, had already tried the same sort of thing, only to find everyone called him The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, or, for short, "Prince". No, if you're going to do it, you have to do it properly. Don't bother with anything that can even remotely be pronounced. Or even described. That's what did. And that's the name on their one UK hit single. On the sleeve and on the label. And even in the writer credit. As they were something of a new act, nobody knew how to pronounce it, and nobody could come up with a succinct approximation. Although one of the music mags - possibly the NME - described them as "Sperm Crashing Into A Wall"; Sounds called them "Elephant With A Stick Of Rhubarb". Anyhoo, CBS spoilt the fun, and said that, if you want promotion, you have to have a name that people can read out. So they said it was pronounced Freur, which is only a little more helpful. And even then the name remained the symbol with the translation in brackets. Oddly, "Doot Doot" was a big hit in Italy, which probably got them enough impetus to record 2 albums, but after total floppage they were dropped. The members then stepped away, re-thought and re-formed, and became a ginormous success under a different name. Underworld. Only one other act peaking at 59 was any good. The Butthole Surfers. Who also had problems with their name. It's surprising that a nation that fetishizes the gun as much as the United States is so prudish. Mainstream newspapers would never print anything as 'obscene' as Butthole, so for years the posh print would refer to them as The BH Surfers. Slightly better fate than The Circle Jerks, who became The CJs, pretty much unrecognizable. God alone knows what they'd've done with The Don't f***ing Cares.
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Post by vastar iner on Jan 1, 2015 11:48:16 GMT 1
58. The unfulfilled potential number
Martin Stephenson & The DainteesHmm. Not the most enthralling of numbers. Mainly because most of the acts that peaked here seemed to have one great record and then either vanished or produced some fairly humdrum stuff. So, out of a line-up that included Mint Juleps, Kiss AMC, Brilliant and a promising solo artist called Andrew Ridgeley, I was basically down to two; Gang Of Four and The Daintees. I was sorely tempted to go with the spiky progenitors of new wave, but my view turned to the north-east and the Prefab Sprout soulmates. Not because of their biggest hit (credited solely to The Daintees for no evident reason, and which featured Sam Brown on backing vox), but because of the astonishing " Wholly Humble Heart", one of the absolute best songs of the 1980s, and therefore of any time. And even this was a missed opportunity; the production needed a lot more oomph. I would have made a lot more of Andrea Mackie's backing vocals and developed something of a crescendo in the bridge. As it is, The Daintees were, like Prefab Sprout, Frazier Chorus, XTC and various others widely tipped for success by the critics, but it never quite happened. One has to wonder whether those acts ever actually wanted it to happen. More power to them if they did not.
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Post by vastar iner on Jan 1, 2015 12:14:22 GMT 1
57. The Only OnesThis one came close to a dilemma. For some reason the original version of "The Time Warp" from the Rocky Horror Picture Show has never been a hit. I can only think it an oversight. A former member of Sad Cafe destroyed it by extracting all the joy, humour, whimsy, power and everything that made it a positive contribution to humankind, gave it to some tosser called Damian, and kept on releasing it over and over and over again until it became a hit. People who bought that ought to be placed carefully into a blender. Anyway, I found in doing this, to my surprise, that the song itself became a hit in 1998, peaking at 57, as done by the contemporary cast. Which caused agonies, as it coincided with The Only Ones' peak. So I was thinking whether to include a musical - by its nature a one-off, but at least with an album's worth of material - to the exclusion of one of the most influential bands nobody has heard of. Then I found a copy of what they did to it. Positive points were that Nicholas Bloody Parsons was in the video. Negative points were everything else. They'd put a bloody stupid dance mix behind it and repeated the Damian travesty. These people must die. So, it was with a clear conscience that I go for Peter Perrett's band. They never had a contemporary hit; AGAP only made the charts as it was the promo single chosen from the epochal compilo Sound Of The Suburbs. One youtube comment suggested that they were the British version of Big Star and the comparison is not inapt; The Only Ones were basically the best musicians to emerge out of punk, and it's astonishing that they never made it big on the coat-tails. The Police? Dear sweet God. Perrett's two sons were briefly members of Babyshambles. Which shows how degraded the current musical age is... The only other act I considered was King Trigger, and that was only because " The River" is one of the greatest one-hit wonders ever. Although if you like U2 and Big Country you might want to check out The Silencers.
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