vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on Apr 18, 2020 14:25:08 GMT 1
Twenty not four seven. Gary Davies introduces The London Boys, looking like S&M gladiator/pornstars. I suppose they're firmly aimed at an audience. Starts off with a chorus à la genuine requiem, this one builds up to a chorus that doesn't quite convince.
Bronski Beat and...Eartha Kitt? Well, this is a very HiNRG start. This doesn't make sense. She will walk all over me if I DON'T give her cha cha heels? Won't giving her those heels make it worse for me if she THEN decides to walk over me anyway? It's not much of an incentive.
Monie Love, with what looks to be a repeat performance. Bloke on stage with her looks delighted to be there.
Chartinos. "Sweet Child Of Mine" seems to have been around for ages without being that big a hit. Doug Lazy? How did he get to the recording studio? Highest new entry at 31 from a cartoon rabbit. Oh, we're sticking with it, it's apparently been in the clubs for a year. Must have missed that by listening to The Wedding Present. Well, it's basically a bunch of old tracks very artlessly strung together with a drumbeat over the top. If people are dancing to it in ver clubs, doesn't that show that the current scene is very lacking in imagination and innovation? Davies says at the end it could go to no. 1. Weird to say that for a new entry at no. 31. Has he seen midweek sales flashes?
Blow Monkeys. With the very attractive Sylvia Tella. Who has a very powerful voice. Hm. This is something of a grower. Even though it's cheap politics.
Charts, they seem to have flipped the Norman Cook single. Up to the balcony again and it's evident that Sonia is no. 1, I will be able to ff that to the playout, which, given the charts, ought to be "Voodoo Ray". Bobby Brown gets a fuller play, because we've not had enough of repeat shows for the same song when there are two dozen others we have never heard.
Doug Lazy, he gets a showing. I can see where he gets his name from as the video is just a load of vintage cartoons. What's the point of showing this? There's nothing to it.
In 1984 this song went to no. 8. Now it's been remixed. So why show it? Old record, rubbish remix, not worthy of inclusion. Chaka Khan in case anyone wants to know.
Playout is The Cult. This is very unlike The Cult. It's an actual ballad. Is this aimed at getting a US number 1? I really LIKE this, quite startling myself. It's what happens if someone with no idea how to do a ballad does a ballad. It's different to the usual "oh let's be epic" type material.
No Gerald. Weird that nearly everyone who gets a playout play gets a showing the following week. But "Voodoo Ray" missed out last week. Who is selecting these tracks? It ought to be almost automatic yet someone seems biased (see earlier comments for instance about the SAWmill somehow getting on when one of them goes 39-38 yet someone else enters at 13 and gets ignored).
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SheriffFatman
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Post by SheriffFatman on Apr 21, 2020 22:57:34 GMT 1
In retrospect, Cry by Waterfront is a very dubious record. “I know you’re just 16, but looking all of 21” - yeah, steady on there mate. “I know that you are not a child” - er, I think the strict legal definition would suggest otherwise...
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vya
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Post by vya on Apr 25, 2020 12:29:26 GMT 1
"Daddy would go to jail for you if he thought you were having the wrong sort of fun"
Moving on: 27th July.
Some really decent music here, mainly fortuituously because there lots of rather good new entries. In terms of genre, it's misleading though: out of context one could look at this episode and think that guitar-laden heavier rock was the theme of the moment, like we'd gone back to a bit of the 70s.
Starting off with the Primitives: Tracy Tracy is blonde no more (maybe seeking to distinguish herself from the more straightforwardly poppy, and - say it quietly, nowhere near as good, Darling Buds). "Sick Of It" is a scorcher that plays to the Prims' rockier strengths, just as their hits in '88 had played a bit more to their poppier side. This sounds more like their earlier material, but with better quality producion, really allowing the strength of the material to shimer and shine. (B side "Noose" is even better, a real career highpoint. And as for the - yes, poppy - overlooked, wonderful follow-up single, "Secrets": really the sound of summer). Nearly Coventry's finest.
Estefan - blanded out. yawn.
Inner City: in its a way a minor tragedy is how an act with a singer and producer who are clearly both not without talent are pushing out generic substandard dross. I understand how it came about: they came from backroom obscurity to public attention by making a groundbreaking record, got international fame and fortune from it. Released a follow-up that sounded very similar but slightly more commercial, and had even more success. And since then, boring inferior retreads, of which "Do You Love What You Feel" is not the worse. Sure everyone needs an income. But they can clearly do better. Why not go away and make a more experimental, groundbreaking album that plays to your strengths, even if no-one at all buys it? (Hang on, that's what they did next...)
Days: I disagree with the presenter that this is the sound of summer (especially summer 89): it's more timeless than that. Inner City were far closer for me to the sound of this summer.
Breakers: Gun's "Better Days" is angry but proud but optimstic, the hard-edged sound of Glasgow. Quite something. Macca's "This One" is Macca-annoying, but has one of his almost-appealling nursery-rhyme like tunes. Annoying and saccharine, though. The low-key production on "She Bangs The Drums" hides how poppy it is. Whoever excerpted the video clips (less brutally than habitually this week) managed to include the one lyrical reference to the song's title, but cut it off just as the infectious chorus was beginning. Lots of music press hype about this, but well warranted IMO.
Kick It In: I'd completely forgotten this. Deservedly, probably. I'm old enough to remember Simple Minds weren't crap, weren't pompous, weren't a more sterile imitation of the excessively pompous evolution of U2. No.
Too Much: even Bros are rockin' it up now. The general public impression that Bros's key fanbase were screaming teenage girls is inaccurate: in as much as they also had a fairly wannabe- hard male teenage fanbase, with Grolsch bottle tops on shoes, etc, who I think saw the twins as role models, in a kind of hard-edged Thatcherite way. I think this comeback was a bit more aimed at them. And, well, it could be a lot worse. Some interesting vocal techniques, and a chorus that slaps you round the face without leaving that much of an impression. More Pacer Firm than Inter City Firm.
A New Flame: against my will, I still rate this.
You'll Never Stop Me From Loving You: channelling George Orwell - "It was only an 'opless fancy/ It passed like an Ipril dye/ But a look an' a word an' the dreams they stirred/ They 'ave stolen my 'eart awye!". Not so much redolent of the potency of cheap music as of its pungency. Not good.
Play out is Alice Cooper with a surprisingly strong comeback after years of apparent irrelevance. Sounds like a big hit to me, but it'd be foolish to bet on such things. Maybe we really are back to the 70s. Pints of Double Diamond all around.
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SheriffFatman
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Post by SheriffFatman on May 2, 2020 16:43:16 GMT 1
BBC 4 seem to have reduced to one episode per week. What’s the plan, does anyone know? Are they not doing 1990 this year?
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vya
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Post by vya on May 2, 2020 23:06:58 GMT 1
It might just be that they've got ahead of themselves a bit: we've got slightly under 4 months left of 1989 to get through, and slightly under 2 months left of the first half of 2020. So my guess is that normal service will be resumed soon...
3 August 1989 - now this really was a good show, both in terms of music and in terms of performance.
Gun - "Better Days": slightly underwhelming start (should have played another 30 secs at the end, and cut out some of the instrumental intro), a decent track, but not quite one that translates so well to the ToTP studios. The pyrotechnics didn't really suit, either. After Texas, another promising rock act out of the West of Scotland to watch, though...
Martika - "Toy Soldiers": moody and complex, and rather appealling.
Macca - "This One": the nearest thing to a bum note on this show (omitting an obvious myxomatosis-addled exception), but it is Macca being Macca, and I suppose he'd earned it. Not rubbish, just not great. Although his play acting out of the lyrics is at times cringeworthy.
Alice Cooper - "Poison": proper theatrical - pantomime, even - rock. Clearly a lot of thought and attention put into this, and he obviously knows it's ridiculous, but wow, it works. Talk about an unexpected and welcome return.
Transvision Vamp - "Landslide of Love": also theatrical, and also harking back some years, pretty much to a Phil Spector wall of sound. At the time I thought it was maybe the best thing they'd done, but in retrospect I think the more straightforwardly (and also quite 70s) glammish rock approach of the previous two "Velveteen" singles suits them better, even if this track hints more at the bands' pretentions (in all senses of the word) and (not entirely successful) future direction. And gosh what is she wearing? Well, not very much.
Wendy & Lisa - "Satisfaction": almost an old-school funky jam, and the Paisley Park influence is intact. An engaging performance too. A song telling a (slightly complicated) relationship drama, with emotional and musical peaks carefully aligned. I like it a lot, but actually, well, they put out even better singles than this that were almost completely ignored. A pleasure to see this on TOTP.
Lightning Seeds - "Pure": almost but not quite perfect pop, influenced even more obviously by New Order than Kon Kan were. Doesn't sound that different to Broudie's last act, Care. Quite fey and very English, only his haircut (well, and some of his past affiliations, I suppose) hints at the flirtation with quite boorish laddishness that is yet to come.
Kylie - "Wouldn't Change A Thing": as we could tell then, not quite from SAW's very top drawer; and we can tell now, not quite from Kylie's, either: but not very far off it at all, in either case. It does seem clear now that she has clear aspirations to be more than a manufactured pop starlet with a brief and unremarkable career (other, Liverpudlian, options have since encountered Mr Waterman. Oh and that guy she used to act with too), and one might foresee interesting things ahead, if her talent can be trained and harness to match her ambition. And the choreographed performance hints at this too. Much more promising an outcome than I'd have bet on when her version of "The Locomotion" was doing the rounds just a year earlier...
Two Wedding DJs - "Swing The Mood": Oh baby, that's not what I like. Still, as this is shaping up to be the best year for pop music, both in and out of the charts, since 1981 (or maybe 82), I guess accepting some naff megamix compilation things is the price we pa for all the quality elsewhere.
Shakespear's Sister - "You're History". Gosh, the one who wasn't in Bananarama really can sing. The determination and bluntless of the lyrics is also noteworthy. Goth + pop, sort-of. Very good.
It'll be hard to beat a line-up like that...
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TheThorne
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Post by TheThorne on May 3, 2020 9:14:55 GMT 1
Yes it was a top notch show only skipped Jive Bunny and Macca and Kylie the only average songs, the rest was great or excellent
Never realised how INXS styled, 'Your History' was even the video had shades of 'Need You Tonight'
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SheriffFatman
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Post by SheriffFatman on May 4, 2020 8:58:28 GMT 1
Strange how L'il Louis wasn't shown even though it was a new entry at 10. There's plenty they could have broadcast before it gets to the bit they couldn't. Will be interesting to see if they show it at all in the coming weeks. No pun intended.
Looking at YouTube though I wonder if it even had a video, there doesn't seem to be one there.
[Edit] I think I've just remembered it does have a video, there was a toy soldier playing drums and a monkey with cymbals (have I got the right one?). Srange that it's not on YouTube, and even stranger they didn't show it as a new entry at 10 when they showed Alice Cooper's new entry at 34.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on May 8, 2020 9:12:42 GMT 1
27/7. Parkin and Goodier. Bang boom pow start with The Primitives, who can't find a rhyme for heaven. Or sky. Tracey has gone redhead. Suits her. Follows their pattern of minimalist lyrics but absolute barnstormer of a tune. Outstanding.
Goodier says there are 10 new entries on the 40. Wow, could be a packed show. We however go to a Gloria Estefan video that looks like it's bleached in the sun and a song likewise.
Charts. Stone Roses in at 36. Alice Cooper at 35, Gun at 34. Rockin.
Cut to video and Inner City. Budget didn't stretch to a real beach. Looks like Aerobics Oz Style. It's not bad. Fairly generic but there's a pop sensibility in there.
Kirsty MacColl. Oh, this is wonderful. Other than the audience which is whooping. Cretins.
Three newies in the breakers. Gun, bit of basic rawk that has no pretensions to be anything other than it is, but this is a distinct cut above the standard, clever construction building everything else. Paul McCartney, because if there's anyone who needs more publicity it's someone with 21 or whatever no. 1 hits. Sounds like George might have had a hand in this one. Stone Roses, which is an amazing juxtaposition because this is quite simply the greatest thing to hit the top 40 in, ooh, five years?
Simple Minds. Aaagh, this is TERRIBLE. Three seconds in the breakers is enough for this. Why not take the opportunity to use the full video play to promote a new act? And whose idea was it to release this? I mean, someone sat down and wrote this, or played it to the band , or whatever. They recorded it, they did it live (hence the video). And someone thought, hey, there are people who will buy this. And they were right, it is no. 23, but really? Is this worth the effort? This is just about the laziest song I've ever heard from SM.
Bros. No. 2. Well, that's all the image. It's their worst single yet.
Charts. Simply Red. This is worse than Simple Minds. FF.
Top 10. Lil Louis at 10. There's some controversy about the heavy breathing on this. It's the only reason why it's selling because there's no tune of which to speak. Jive Bunny went 28 to 3. Well, they weren't far off with the prediction. Sonia has sold 200,000 singles. There are 200,000 morons in this country. Minimum.
Playout is Alice Cooper. Yeah, this is great fun. An unexpected return - and return to form. And that brunette in the dripping chains is, wow.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on May 8, 2020 10:20:58 GMT 1
3 August. Oh God, it's Steve Wright. Fortunately there's also Jenny Powell. Gun. There's something of the terrace anthem about this. Audience likes it.
Martika. This is both poignant and epic. The kids' choir should make it shlock. But it somehow works. Actually makes it sound more like a horror film soundtrack for that brief moment.
Charts. Wright is wearing SHORTS. f***ing hell. Paul McCartney, it's OK, basically marking time. Alice Cooper, see above. She's called Rana Kennedy.
From one searing hottie to Transvision Vamp. Wowowowowowowowowowowowow. This is their forgotten epic, where they go half-Spector. God almighty, Wendy. I mean, there's sexualization, and there's this. But it actually fits TV's image and swagger and braggadocio. "Yeah, I'm the hottest thing on the planet, I flaunt it, but I don't give a sh*t, deal with it popbitches".
Charts. "Batdance" has gone back up.
Wendy & Lisa. This is OK. You can hear the influence of working with Prince.
In at 32. The Lightning Seeds. "Nobody knows much about them." Powell initiating the Miquita Oliver school of journalism there. This is wonderful, psychedelic tweepop.
Kylie Minogue is at no. 2. HOW? Is this a bet? "How lazy and bad can we get and STILL have hits?" It is one of the direst, most unlistenable slabs of **** that has ever come out.
Bros dropped. Sic transit. New no. 1. Jive Bunny. I'm actually thankful for this for stopping the atrocity from topping the chart.
Playout is Shakespear's Sister. This was on The Chart Show a few weeks back and I fell in love with it then. Finally getting into the charts.
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vya
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Post by vya on May 8, 2020 21:47:32 GMT 1
10th August. A mixed bunch, but more bad than good.
Starting with the very worst, Big Fun, whose chief strengths are clearly more in the areas of wearing fluorescent jackets and making synchronised moves than they are singing. Maybe a new low for SAW, even.
Lisa Stansfield - "This Is The Right Time": very much a step in the right direction - classy, slick (though the musical accompaniment varies from sparse almost OMD-like precise electronica in places to being overcrowded in others). A fine voice, and she really sounds like she is smiling throughout.
Dog's D'Amour - "Satellite Kid": raw bar-room blues (strong hints in the lyrics of an unhealthy relationship with booze too). Have no idea how this made the chart, but it's kinda charming it is joy-through-tears way. Fine on-stage presentation too.
Redhead Kingpin & the FBI - "Do The Right Thing": written for the Spike Lee film of the same name, but (understandably) not used. Public Enemy gave us something much better than this earlier in the year. A lot of didactic finger-wagging going on in the lyrics, rather more than in strictly necessary. And, hello! there are other places in the US than New York and the West Coast. A whole continent, even. Sounds very dated.
Shakespear's Sister - "You're History": this is very promising. Marcella Detriot is almost operatic. And the back-and-forth between her and Siobhan Fahey is accomplished. Main flaw? The production is bland. Too bland. Sure the point is not to overwhelm the vocalists, but it is a bit bog-standard major-label trying to play-indie in 1989.
Aswad - "On and On". Not sure what the response of long-term Aswad fans to this might be. To me it's incidental but not unpleasant, no more and no less.
Beatmasters & Betty Boo - "Hey DJ (I Can't Dance To That Music You're Playing". On the other hand this is the real deal. Both the rap and the interloping samples in the background are first rate. We have a new star, Houston.
Liza Minnelli - "Losing My Mind" - the combination of the Pet Shop Boys and Stephen Sondheim in retrospect seems an obvious one. As does the progression for them from working with Springfield to doing so Minnelli. It works so well. Arch singing, and some of the best music the PSBs have put out behind it.
Jive Bunny - Jive Bunny
Lil Louis - "French Kiss" - carefully cut off before it really slowed down. As the uncool father on the Mary Whitehouse Experience would have put it "It's got a good beat". Attractive minimalism.
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Tom
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Post by Tom on May 9, 2020 19:23:53 GMT 1
BBC 4 seem to have reduced to one episode per week. What’s the plan, does anyone know? Are they not doing 1990 this year? I wondered that too but was told next week they're back up to two episodes a week. Which if even makes it even less clear. Only thing I can think of is that they're spreading them out until they've been able to film the rest of The Story of 1990 (was also told they had started this pre-lockdown). How they then schedule 1990 though is a mystery, as they're surely not going to be able to cram it in before the end of the year now.
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SheriffFatman
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Post by SheriffFatman on May 10, 2020 13:52:10 GMT 1
The Top of the Pops repeats have reached summer 1989, and the beginning of the brief but enormous success of Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers. Their records were widely derided as a cheap and artistically void way of making lots of money, and they seemed absurdly at odds with the visionary dance music that dominated the rest of the charts in the last 6 months of the decade. Madchester was on the rise, Italo House filled the clubs and the top 10, and yet at number one a cartoon rabbit was very badly mixing Glenn Miller and Chubby Checker records. I have to confess though, aged 12 at the time, I absolutely loved them.
I was listening to a bit of Little Richard yesterday following the announcement of his death, and realised the first time I ever heard him shouting “a wop bam a loo bam, a wop bam boo” was probably on Swing The Mood. After That’s What I Like became Jive Bunny’s second number one, I looked up the songs in my Old Gold record catalogue, exchanged some pocket money for a cheque from my Mum, and sent off for a 7” vinyl copy of Good Golly Miss Molly. I guess it was the first Little Richard song I ever heard in full, and it’s from there that I started to piece together an understanding of where all the music I loved actually came from.
Looking on Wikipedia now at a list of the songs I discovered thanks to those big Jive Bunny hits - Wipeout; Great Balls Of Fire; Johnny B. Goode; Wake Up Little Susie; Hound Dog - it was a history lesson that had a far bigger impact on me than any I had in school. I still liked Technotronic, Guns N’ Roses and all the other stuff people my age were into, and very soon the Happy Mondays and the Stone Roses would change my listening habits forever, but on the quiet I was also discovering some incredible music that was too old for even my parents to remember.
Over the next few weeks of Top of the Pops repeats I will undoubtedly grimace at the very basic way the songs are mixed together, and wince at the awful animated rabbit pasted over the top of 1950s news footage, but I will also recognise I have a debt of gratitude to this bizarre chart phenomenon which mercifully, virtually as soon as the 1990s dawned, was a distant memory.
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SheriffFatman
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Post by SheriffFatman on May 16, 2020 11:03:57 GMT 1
BBC 4 seem to have reduced to one episode per week. What’s the plan, does anyone know? Are they not doing 1990 this year? I wondered that too but was told next week they're back up to two episodes a week. Which if even makes it even less clear. Only thing I can think of is that they're spreading them out until they've been able to film the rest of The Story of 1990 (was also told they had started this pre-lockdown). How they then schedule 1990 though is a mystery, as they're surely not going to be able to cram it in before the end of the year now. I just spent some time getting to know the calendar app on my phone, and worked out if they show 2 regular episodes every week from now on they will reach Christmas 1990 on January 8th 2021. Maybe there’s some weeks they’ll skip for some reason but it’s still tight.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on May 17, 2020 12:39:01 GMT 1
That's a big ten eight, good buddy. Brookes and Ruscoe. Both look dressed for a bank party rather than TOTP.
Starting with Fig Bun. This is everything that is bad about music. A cover version of a song that was sh*t to start with. Three guys picked solely for their looks. They're not singing on this. The backing is 100% computerized cliched sh*te. Not one single redemptive factor about this. Total IQ of the people buying this: three.
New in at 37. Lisa Stansfield without Coldcut. God almighty, she's gorgeous. Very twenties glam look to her. Seems to have a voice as well. Chicagoish backing but also but her vocal is more jazzy. Interesting, more admirable than engaging though.
Charts. The 40-31 seem rather good; Fuzzbox, Beatmasters, Aswad, Neneh Cherry.
Now for the wildest band, apparently. Go-Go's? No, Dogs D'Amour. Great name. Tyla with the roughest booziest dirtiest blues voice in a generation and he looks a bit like Ozzy Osbourne. Lyrics are somewhat unexpected but this is quite a thing, like a soused and picked Bon Jovi on broken instruments.
Redhead Kingpin & The FBI. New jack swingy. OK.
Shakespear's Sister. Heh, they've thought about emphasizing the contrast, Mary Quant meets Kate Garner. Really like this song. Stands out a mile with two distinctive vocal lines.
30-11. Going back to Aswad, with some laid back lovers rock that if it could get any more relaxed it would be comatose. Bob Ross would have loved this.
Ruscoe on the balcony with people who look twice the age of a later TOTP audience. Betty Boo and Beatmasters. Yeah baby. This has sass by the bucketload. "And I can't dance to that." Great chorus as well.
Liza Minnelli. Heh. Oscar winner on Ver Pops. Well, this is dramatic. Obviously PSBs on the backing, but I wonder if Minnelli is the right singer for this? She's far too powerful and overwhelms the tune. Might have been better with Tennant singing this and putting Liza on something weaker.
Top 10. Alice Cooper sneaking up. Jive Bunny still at no. 1. My uncle remembered seeing Bill Haley on tour in '55 and he was so disappointed that he was a fat balding middle-aged man. It's keeping Minogue off the top so it's alright by me.
Lil Louis makes the playout. It's extremely dull. It's an introduction that goes on for seemingly hours. Were it not for the heavy breathing I doubt anyone would be interested in it.
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vya
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Post by vya on May 18, 2020 22:38:21 GMT 1
17th August '89. Pretty close to a flawless edition.
Black Box - Ride On Time. Extraordinary and brilliant. Frankly, the record of the summer. Good artists borrow, great artists steal, an' that. Salsoul as it has never been heard before. Right on time indeed. Love it. A sensation. (Just give Loleatta Holloway the credit and share of the royalties she deserves, though, eh?)
Jody Watley with Eric B & Rakim - Friends. Not sure that Watley's career has come close to taking off since she left Shalamar. Why not? Because too much of her material is bland and generic, and she's not such an accomplished vocalist to transcend its limitations. This is about as good as it gets song-wise, and, the accompanying presence of the slickest and most accomplished rapper, the R, can do no harm. One to dance to rather than actively listen to though.
Martika - Toy Soldiers. Comes close to doing, production and backing track-wise to Madonna's "Live To Tell" what "Ride On Time" did to "Love Sensation". Consequently atmospheric and gripping, and the song shows off Martika's voice to good effect. Has aged unexpectedly well. Fine wine indeed.
Alice Cooper - Poison. Rather good. En route to be an unexpected number one, perhaps?
Breakers: Starlight - Numero Uno. The same producer as Black Box (also masquerading elsewhere as the Mixmaster, Wood Allen, and loads of other names). Much less appealing or interesting than "Ride On Time", but danceable enough, I suppose. Alyson Williams - I Need Your Lovin'. Superb, getting the Soul II Soul treatment. Gorgeous late summer ballad. Then Jerico - Sugar Box. Blatantly manufactured pop-rock, but done well, if over-emoted. Radio One, like this edition's presenters, seemed to love this, for some reason. It's OK.
We've Got A Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It! - Self! Rather more than their two recent hits, this retains quite a bit of their earlier punkier, spunkier, aesthetic alongside the new poppier tone, and is all the better for it. A swizzlestick of sharp and witty raw rock dressed in gold lamé and dipped in Woolworth's pick and mix sherbert. Quite mad antics onstage, too.
Neneh Cherry - Kisses On The Wind. Can't quite come up to the gold standard of sublime excellence set by Buffalo Stance or Manchild, but a very, very, strong silver performance. So much going on here amid the apt breeziness. Texture, samples, attitude.
Queen - The Invisible Man. The nearest thing to a weak spot on this edition (no 1 aside), or it would be were it not redeemed by Mercury's vocals, and indeed May's guitar histrionics. In retrospect I wonder if the lyrics refer to Mercury's enforced disappearance from public engagement. And I'd also not noticed how the music harks back a bit towards the (IMO unjustly) critically slated "Hot Space" era - a bit less rocky, a bit more funky. Not outstanding, still.
Jive Bunny - You've got more rabbit than Sainsburys, why don't you give it a rest?
Adeva - Warning! Another intriguing and promising star to break through this year. Attitude and aggression turned up to full effect. Not sure she will surpass "Musical Freedom" soon, but a welcome addition to the charts, still.
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vya
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Post by vya on May 20, 2020 15:39:23 GMT 1
24 Aug - not bad
Beatmasters & Betty Boo - "Hey DJ (I Can't Dance To That Music You're Playing)". Fantastic, creative, innovative, and a little bit eccentric in a characteristically British way - how to adapt an up-and-coming and potentially challenging genre? - make it amusing (without being as blatant as Morris Major & the Minors about it - and get someone talented to do the rap, too). The greatest thing since sliced bread? Not quite, but close.
Lisa Stansfield - "This Is The Right Time". Smooth and appealing.
Alyson Williams - "I Need Your Lovin'". Ah, so this was actually a Soul II Soul remix, not just an homage to their sound. Sultry, summery, a delight to hear again.
Starlight - "Numero Uno". Tolerable. Interesting selections of samples, at least.
Then Jerico - "Sugar Box". Utterly hilarious, and presumably unintentionally so. Troubadour-tastic, that everything about this is so over the top - the lyrics, the feigned excess of emotion - and the ultra rock out guitar action towards the end of the TOTP mime - seems to serve as evidence for my thesis that Then Jerico were the equivalent of foodstuffs for teething toddlers: an interim step on the route from facile pop music to, well, facile rock music. If only Breathe had not been afraid to make themselves appear quite so ridiculous as Mark Shaw's Merrie Bunch of Seaside Theatre Entertainers, they too could have enjoyed a career as lengthy and spoken in such awe and fond memory as that of Then Jerico. Musically, I don't mind this at all, but it is ludicrous.
Bon Jovi - "Lay Your Hands On Me". Also over the top and ridiculous, but devoid of redeeming features. Mediocre, or worse than that. Dance music clearly in the ascendency now, and rock music going down the pan.
Adeva - "Warning!". No-nonsense attitude. The break down into a brief rap is particularly sound. Like it. Not immeasurably ,but a fair bit.
Cliff Richard - "I Just Don't Have The Heart". Much weaker than I remember it being. Cliff as variety show entertainer. SAW's music backing is insipid, serving as another reminder they generally do dance better than they do straight pop. Not horrid, but a very long way from either SAW's or Cliff's pop best moments.
Jive Bunny - "Swing The Mood". Looks like Alice Cooper (the last redoubt of rock it seems) or Black Box will make rabbit pie of them next week. Not complaining.
Donna Summer - "Love's About To Change My Heart". As with the Cliff number, neither the performer nor SAW's finest moment. But considerably stronger than the Cliff track, not least as it is far more dancefloor oriented. I rather like it, but the song would surely suit a younger performer better.
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SheriffFatman
Member
Been spending most our lives living in the Cheshire countryside
Posts: 10,930
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Post by SheriffFatman on May 21, 2020 22:14:29 GMT 1
I love Numero Uno, the piano is brilliant.
What on earth did Alyson Williams have on her head? Looked like a dog’s water bowl.
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Post by o on May 23, 2020 10:56:54 GMT 1
Cure - Lovesong in the end credits best part of that show by a MILE!
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vya
Member
Posts: 8,776
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Post by vya on May 23, 2020 11:32:46 GMT 1
31 Aug - not a patch on the shows that closely preceded it
Big Fun - most inappropriately named act around, maybe ever.
Debbie Gibson - "We Could Be Together". As agreeable and inconsequential as a prepared Clinton Cards greeting. The problem is that for a teenage singer-songwriter Gibson is so wholesome (apparently without the depth and interest that the religious focus that someone like Amy Grant has) and gives the impression of being well-adjusted. That way seldom goes great art, or even great pop music lie.
Guns N Roses - "Nightrain". In a word: no. They'd have been better off rereleasing the track that originally had this hidden away on the B (or possibly AA) side, "Welcome To The Jungle", which was 100 times better. Far prefer Dogs D'Amours recent paean to a sozzled life.
Black Box - "Ride On Time". Genius.
Tina Turner - "The Best". NOT the best. Insistent and forceful and catchy, but not for me. Corporate rock par excellence. I suppose this unsubtle production suits Turner's fairly unsubtle manner of singing and indeed her voice, but other parts of her generally unsubtle 80s catalogue are heads and shoulders above this.
Eurythmics - "Revival". No doubt about the talent contained herein, but this track seems a bit like they aren't quite firing at full power. As such, an odd comeback single. Maybe released in anticipation of better ahead.
Donna Summer - "Love's About To Change My Heart". I like this, but the song develops too much as it goes on to lend itself to a two-minute excerpt. It could be improved, though, perhaps by upping the melodrama (replace the identikit PWL backing with a full orchestra, and either really slow it down and up the emotion, or camp it up in full-on HI-NRG mode). It'd have been interesting to hear the Pet Shop Boys with Liza Minnelli take a pop at this. As it is, about a three out of five, but with a reworking a potential five out of five.
Tears For Fears - "Sowing The Seeds Of Love". Another song that it is far too complex to be represented by a two minute chunk. A better 60s peace-n-love pre-Altamont pastiche than the one Danny Wilson offered up a few months earlier. Naive lyrics, by definition. More Stroud than Gloucester. Not unpleasant. But kind of odd. Doesn't sound like the TFF we thought we knew. Interesting to see what else they have up their sleeves...
Damian - "The Time Warp". I (still) don't care for this in the slightest, unlike many. Potentially something could be done with the rhythm track, but I'd happily scrap every single vocal bit, and would otherwise be happy never to hear this again.
Jive Bunny - "Swing The Mood". Was expecting this to have been toppled by now. Damn. But at least this week's excerpt is exceedingly brief.
Malcolm McLaren & the Bootzilla Orchestra featuring Lisa Marie - a far more interesting track - verging on conceptual art more than coherent song - than the 40 seconds we get allows us to hear, although we do at least get to appreciate a degree of the ambition of the "Waltz Darling" project. And Lisa Marie's voice is delightful.
Too many songs, too little of quite a few of them, and overall lots of stuff that while mostly not atrocious is not much more than middling. Maybe the second summer of love is over already, as August turns into September...
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vya
Member
Posts: 8,776
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Post by vya on May 23, 2020 19:47:51 GMT 1
7th Sept
Marillion - "Hooks In You". Steve Hogarth breathed new life, freshness and crispness into the group when he became vocalist, brushing aside the accretions of excessive pomposity and self-reverence that had developed thanks to the overbearing presence of the increasingly Derek Dick-ish Fish. You'd not really notice it on his first single, though. Seems like a hangover from Old Marillion rather than the immediate promise of a bright future.
Richard Marx - "Right Here Waiting". Bruno says Marx is "bigger than sliced cookies in America", curiously, but certainly accurately. He'd broken through a bit as a songwriter in the UK by now, with Cliff's ostensible "100th single" in the summer, and one of Vixen's better singles, too, but despite lots of radio play had never made the top 40 before as a performer. A superior piano ballad brutalised here by the video edit, typically.
Starlight - "Numero Uno": becomes more fun with every listen.
Prince - "Partyman", best thing about this is the dirty funky groove, as the song itself is not up to much.
Alyson Williams - "I Need Your Lovin'" - still silky
Depeche Mode - "Personal Jesus". Man, they've come a long way from Basildon. The US stadium fandom clearly influencing them now. I don't think I'd the slightest idea then of how this track would be seen as a classic in time. Its simplicity is probably one of its strongest points.
Janet Jackson - "Miss You Much". Seriously impressive choreography in the video, matching the regimented, feriociously controlled beat that is Jam and Lewis in full effect. Not much of a melody, but that's not the point. Masterful, actually.
Jason Donovan - "Everyday (I Love You More)". Entertaining performance as Jase the Pre-emptively Bigger Rock Star than Craig McLachlan, in leather n jeans, slaps his butt repeatedly and "plays guitar" (in a track not notably guitar-led) with so much enthuisasm (except when he stops "playing" it just as performatively) he might be auditioning for a place in Then Jerico. By no means his worst single. And by no means the worst SAW single in the top 5.
Black Box - "Ride On Time". There's no way someone as young and thin as her has a voice like that.
The Cure - "Love Song". More accessible for Bob Smith's merry men than usual, but a really attractive mixture of joy and melancholy, and nice little tune too.
There've been better episodes than this one, there have been worse.
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