Pop The Vote
On the I Love Music board I am running a poll to determine ILM’s Top 100 albums and tracks of the decade so far, what with being pretty much halfway through it as we are (unless you’re one of those anti-Carterian date rockists). A lot has happened in the last five years in the world of popular music - some genres ‘dying’, some being ‘reborn’, some continuing to mutate and spawn demonic offspring, but of course this is a poll for individual works (albums and tracks - not JUST singles mind) and not genres, although it will be interesting to see which styles prove the most popular when all the votes are counted. Right now I see no clear winner for either the albums list or the tracks list, but it’s early days yet. Please check out the voting form here and submit your choices based on the list provided, nominations provided by the ILM contributors on a ‘Pick One Only’ basis, leading to some shocking/hilarious omissions I’m sure you’ll agree - and that’s before the final chart has been calculated. The deadline for submissions is Monday 16th August, 12pm BST. Happy voting!
I recorded then watched Channel 4’s ‘X Rated: The Pop Videos They Tried to Ban’ the other day, and spent much of it’s duration begging Jayne Middlemiss (unfair to single her out, and hardly new to pick on TV talking heads but never mind) to actually venture her own opinion for once rather than just stating the obvious as if it was somehow learned rather than just basic observaton. But when Jayne did manage to state a view with what seemed like a shred of actual ‘this is what I - not the producers - think, actually’ emotion, I just felt even more embarassed for her and the programme. The view in question amounted to indignation regarding, yes, that old chestnut, the video for Prodigy’s ‘Smack My Bitch Up’. More interesting than the video (meh) was JM’s minor outburst - but still seeming contrived, the lingering camera only serving to accentuate the pompousness of it all, and the sense of pre-meditation. Do the programme-makers use the likes of Middlemiss and Gina Yashere i.e. TV presenters with no apparent knowledge of the subject they are discussing other than the press clippings or videotapes they may have seen just before filming, because they want to make them look stupid? The shrewd editing of 2 Live Crew’s Luther Campbell so that he appeared just as conservative and hypocritical (deeming TATU ’sick’ etc.) as the buffoons who petitioned to have his material banned from record stores in the 80s also a case in point. If so then this would be the only thing I learned from the predictably but still disappointingly banal look at naughty music videos. Other ‘revelations’ (Trent Reznor obsessed with S&M, Jonas Akerlund ‘not’ out to cause controversy, rock stars and rappers equal in exhibiing violent and misogynystic behaviour alongside a penchant for titillation, duh) all second hand. Too bad they couldn’t get a word from Pharrell on the supposed rationale of N.E.R.D.’s ‘Lapdance’ video (the naked women representing politicians, obviously - but that’s old news too I guess). Paul Morley may get tired of describing the chaotic abandon that accompanied Frankie’s glorious rise to the top of the charts, but it’s always fun to portray the early 1980s as footloose yet fancy-filled - nobody really seeming to understand the exciting new music video genre at the time, but figuring that adding breasts or cunning allusions to sordid sexual acts would be enough to get tongues wagging, eyes goggling and sales soaring. Somehow it worked then, but the cynical and relatively lazy approach of C4’s retrospective evening-fillers ends up only entertaining by default but largely unsatisfying. And afterwards? Not the music videos themselves in all their assorted glory but a repeat of Bo Selecta (breasts and cunning allusions to sordid sexual acts - but without decent tunes over the top, bah). How about a new series of Mirrorball instead? Please?
Mobb Deep ‘Got It Twisted’ (Jive)
It shouldn’t still happen should it? Taking hits from the 80s hasn’t sounded so crazy for a while, even as that trend has reached it’s fulcrum in the post-millennial fallout. This time the hook from Thomas Dolby’s ‘She Blinded Me With Science’ is stretched and skewered and bound with a crystalline perfunktory beat perfect for Prodigy and Havoc’s blahzay (if not particularly inspiring here) posturing. For me, as is often the case with my enjoyment of US hip-hop) all that really matters about this track is that hook and it’s deployment. The subverting of context, so simply, so craftily and in this case so elegantly. The question of whether the beat came before the sample intrigues. But less imaginative as it may seem compared to the recent wave of crunked up hits that tend to shun obvious (tho perhaps you wouldn’t expect Dolby’s work to be drafted in this genre) samples in favour of original hooks generated by digital synths - itself something in common with early 80s pop production. Either way new wave influences and references (fresh or old) in hip-hop (and other genres - cf Richard X) production remain welcome in this corner.
(Forgot to mention that the duo were quoted in interviews as claiming the Dolby track and others like it WERE popular in circles such as theirs growing up - so not a complete surprise to see it used in this way after all. But then maybe the surprise is it’s taken this long).
I have just given You Whores a cursory glance for the first time and I was amused soon enough. The idea’s seeming unoriginality quickly dissolves once you recognise the quality of craft and content (simple but stylish and effective design, very funny submissions from the interweb’s finest assortment of mostly anonymous menkos - awarded a ‘black star’ for a proposal deemed creative enough by the site’s maker.
Another hit for Bill Drummond then, who made an appearance at St Luke’s church in Old Street last night as part of the Clerkenwell Literary Festival’s bill to promote his latest online venture. This was my first encounter with the great man in the flesh. I did not know what to expect and did not care too much frankly. I had heard about the site but not had the chance to check it out before. After brief performances by Giro Playboy (spoken word recitals over non-descript ambient tones - some nice bits but an overall meh) and Adam Buxton in his playful if somewhat hackneyed Pavel the angry Latvian poet guise, Drummond bounded on stage and set about his task in a very business-like manner.
Explaining the origin and reison d’etre of You Whores via smirk-worthy anecdotes (it was partly inspired by a Tracey Emin piece who it seems clear Drummond is quite a fan of) and logical reasoning Drummond established the appeal of the project quickly and successfully. However, there was something a little unsatisfying about this casual demystified approach for me, and the blatantness of the way Drummond touted his wares - well composed but totally ordinary posters detailing the site’s purpose and very little else. And some T-shirts, ‘10 to you mate. Hmmmm. When he asked what should be done with the bottle of unopened champagne he’d brought along for some reason I resisted the temptation to suggest burning it. Charmingly, if unspectacularly, it was given to the first person in the audience who asked if they could have it. This seemed to go against the general theme of ‘whoring’ but I will forgive him for this, and the site, which can only grow in size and popularity in the coming months.
In this month’s Four Four Two (a good read tho not enough coverage given to Euro 2004 review I thought - then again I guess we don’t need yet more pages and pages devoted to THAT disallowed goal) magazine Jurgen Klinsmann re-affirms his status as TNT (Thoroughly Nice Teuton) of the highest order in an earnest if only mildly revealing interview (I particularly enjoyed the anecdote about Sheringham convincing JK to dive to celebrate his first goal for Spurs). But it was his comments regarding the alarming decline of German international footballing ability that got me thinking…
While Italy, Spain and France all provided their own puzzling questions regarding their poor performances (unlike England who played well enough but ooh that cursed luck of the draw again eh? hem hem), it’s generally recognised that Germany have sunk the lowest. What convinced me that England may be inching closer to winning SOMETHING ANYTHING (apart from the unexpected Lampard equaliser, showing a dogged tenacity that I thought went encouragingly beyond Lineker’s strike in Turin 14 years prior) is the fact that their failure in Portugal seemed to come down to a tactical stubborn-ness (though some of you may prefer to call it a naivety, understandably) in defending marginal leads against a) the defending champions in their opening game and b) the host nation in the interim make-or-break/no more room for error stage of the tournament. Against ANY other teams they may just have managed it, as Germany did two years before in South Korea (It is oh-so-convenient to ignore this because although it was deserved, it was always very difficult to believe we were watching a genuinely excellent team (perhaps the same is thought of Greece by some though their recent victory was just as deserved if not more so). Erikkson recognised that the way to win was to mimic the Germans whilst hopefully using England’s natural strengths to provide that extra punch. Perhaps it didn’t work because Sven himself is not German - a schoolboy error wrt to executing his masterplan? Or perhaps it did just come down to who the opposition were and what was at stake in both cases.
Klinsmann cited the problem as there being too much for young people in Germany to do now. Sports have taken a backseat to the obsession with technology and gadgets (phones, Internet and other burdgeoning entertainment markets based on hi-tec developments that have exploded in the time since an arrogant but grateful Andreas Moller lifted the European Championship at Wembley eight years ago). Another difference may be the nature of England and Germany’s domestic leagues - the Premiership as bloated and affluent as ever, fuelling the fire in the belly of kids tantalised by big glory and even bigger wages. The Bundesliga remains a beautiful machine by design but with even Bayern Munich floundering in Europe and domestically in recent times the league has trouble attracting big names and does not seem to command the same fervour as the Premiership or La Liga home or away. English hyperbole tends to revolve around the arguments of ‘having the best league in the world’ and ‘having the quality, but not the team/direction/sufficient management’, oh and they all get paid too much so are less hungry. These are valid points but they don’t really apply to Germany whose sole basis for believing success is something to be expected comes down to just the belief that having done it before they must do it again. But I’m thinking ‘why should any of this be deemed a mystery now?’ Why is success for such nations often deemed a right as some sort of echo of past imperial magnitude? But England will have another chance. Germany will surely produce classic players again in time - they would perhaps be wise to take advantage of the massive immigrant population as France did. And it will be interesting to see if/how they turn themselves around for 2006.
What does the latest round of Guiness (Extra Cold) adverts (a follow-up pastiche compilation of previous classic Guiness ads) suggest? That they’ve run out of ideas and are squeezing the last drops of the black stuff (not Bovril) from the damp bar cloth? Or is it an inspired celebratory reinforcement of the ideas and themes that have been tossed our way the last fifteen or so years by the marketeers?
Perhaps both in that they seem keen to signal the end of an era for the brand, possibly to culminate somehow with the fact that Guiness is no longer brewed in the UK at all - a major business change that I’m not sure regular drinkers of the stuff here will really notice. The ads on the other hand are easily noticed and indeed it’s somewhat remarkable the way the latest ones grab you with the exact single reference you would surely have placed on them (e.g. the fish on the bicycle - referring to an advert from the mid-late 90s - not a term they invented but seeing one on screen I’d be surprised if nobody instantly realised they were watching a ‘new’ Guiness ad…the image and the product becoming synonomous with each other in the process, or at least you would think that was the intention). More extraordinary is the re-appearance of Rutger Hauer who I thought was dead for some reason (probably a consequence of having done apparently nothing in the last 15 years, other than the odd ad for Irish stout…around 15 years ago).
These familiar references are enjoyable to see again though, representing the more thoughtful side of DYS thinking - a reward of sorts for those who’ve been paying attention to and enjoying the campaigns all this time, if not those who go one better by actually consuming the drink. One of the more popular adverts (’Swimmer’ featuring the cheating brother vs the pint and effectively spawning a number one hit in ‘Mambo No 5′ has yet to be referenced as far as I’ve seen) and the ‘meaning of life’ one with the talking squirrel remain favourites here. All this enough to keep me interested (as far as ad-spotting goes) in seeing what they do next.
One of the more arresting and memorable exhibits at Bilbao’s glorious Guggenheim for me was Pierre Huyghe’s ‘One Million Landscapes’ from 2001, the somewhat retro-futurist CGI reminiscent of Shynola and Alex Rutterford’s work for Radiohead, enough for my tiny mind to find compelling on it’s own.
But what does it meeeean? Having initially missed the brief introduction to the piece in the form of explanatory narrative with diagrams and thus been intrigued by the ghostly parade of lunar-waveforms and trudging forlorn girl hologram slowly mouthing a Neil Armstrong monologue, I was a little disappointed upon viewing that beginning part afterwards. It seems to balance ideas of both despair and hope, fact and fiction - but with not quite enough strength to provide a truly profound or moving experience. For me the pull was in it’s aesthetic concept and execution alone - something about just walking in on this looping presentation a third of the way through provided much of the appeal - not knowing the intentions behind it or even when it dates from but becoming instantly drawn into the alternative world presented to you, something that relates to my fascination with short pieces as reliant on audio as they are on video, exploring the relationship between the two both literally and non-literally, juxtaposed or synchronous. Meaning and intentions can blur and drown easily when the combination of sound and pictures strike a resonant chord with the viewer, as they seemed to on this occasion.
Other higlights included the permanent Pop Art collection, the temporary but seemingly quite comprehensive De Buffet range, Miquel Navarro’s Wall City and Sam Taylor-Wood’s people-focussed and often rather rude staged photographs. Another obvious but amusing DYS moment arose from Douglas Gordon’s ‘through a looking glass . . ‘ video piece which runs two copies of THAT scene from Taxi Driver, facing each other on giant screens.
‘Is you is or is you ain’t my baby….top of the pops top of the pops’
So sang my dearly departed Grandad within earshot on more than one occasion during my childhood. Sadly his follow-up ‘Is that a man or a woman?’ failed to match up in the hit parade. Still, if nothing else, these quotes brought home to me then the cultural magnitude of the generation-spanning show and it’s status as primary talking point for many households around the country every Thursday dinnertime. Certainly from the time Shakin’ Stevens and Bucks Fizz emerged from the primordial pop soup (constituting my earliest memories of watching TV in the process) to the Battle of Britpop some 13 years later it was something unmissable for me. Essential viewing, just as the Top 40 on Sunday evenings was a listening experience of ritualistic nature.
Such sentiments are hardly original as time and time again pop fans and music critics have expressed their appreciation for TV music shows in providing them with a primary source for hearing and seeing new music whilst growing up and learning how to deal with hormonal upheaval, teenage angst and subsequent rebellious urges. Often the acts on the show would provide perfect targets for cathartic outbursts of spite directed towards the screen, or alternatively you’d catch something so fantastic it would inspire you long enough to mention it in the playground the next day (from Duran Duran to the KLF and beyond there was always this exciting prospect to look forward to). Often however, the love turns to hate. I stopped watching Top Of The Pops from titles to credits sometime shortly after the Blurasis shenanigans of the mid 90s. Admittedly this was more due to personal circumstances (I had to get a part-time job that swallowed up my Thursday and Friday evenings more often than not) than a sense that the show no longer entertained me as it once did, although it’s also true that I never felt a greater sense of loathing for chart pop than I did at that time.
Nonetheless, when opportunity knocks, you have to accept the charges (or something). And there was still a frisson of excitement within me as on a whim and with a ‘well it’ll be nice to say ‘I was there’ attitude we secured access to an unusually scheduled afternoon recording of the show. It wasn’t until we arrived at BBC TV Centre (where it occurred to me again how much more convenient Top Of The Pops must be to both attend and film now it’s moved back to Wood Lane rather than distant Elstree) that we learned the reason for the re-schedule (the whole reason we were able to attend in the first place) was due to the producers attempting to align things more conveniently with the schedule of the delectable Ms Spears. Sadly Britney still didn’t turn up and we could only imagine what wonders her materialisation in the studio would’ve yielded.
Annoyingly we had to make do with Big Brovaz who were signing flyers in the foyer. Ignoring them in favour of beer we could only loiter and watch the promotional video loop for the show on giant plasma screens while Stardust’s ‘Music Sounds Better With You’ piped throughout the room. Not a bad start, despite the absence of dearest Britters.
We’d already learned the line-up: The Darkness, Electric 6, Blur, Big Brovaz, Texas featuring Kardinal Offishall and Emma Bunton. However when we eventually ambled into the remarkably compact studio – along with some 200 sixteen year old girls in ludicrously short skirt-belt hybrids, oikish students, oikish meejaslargs and mates of The Darkness - we found the first performance was to come from spanking new girl group Clea. Their ode to the merits of digital freeloading was adequately delivered and received thanks to the sterling efforts of the motivating floor manager and the fact that for some reason the track acquired a much bassier vibe in the studio, almost to the point where I could barely hear their vocals. Excellent.
After a second take, Clea tottered off happily, making way for virtual headliners The Darkness. Justin and his motley crew bounded on stage gamely and the frontman was only too happy to act up and crack jokes for the flailing punters. The Darkness remain vaguely likeable (if not completely adorable) and the mood is genuinely charged - if you really do hate fun then do look away at 7.30pm this evening. Some excessive smoke, pink spandex and swish pyrotechnics later and following a second take it’s on to Big Brovaz giving it their acoustic all. It may dismay readers to know that while ‘Baby Boy’ was bawled out with predictable mediocrity (twice) at least half of the audience preferred to skulk around the opposing stage where Damon, Alex, Dave and Joe Sessionist had emerged, seemingly from nowhere. Now that’s a ‘Taking Sides’ thread if ever I thought of one…
Sadly Blur’s new single cannot quite compete with their relatively pleasant sound-check ditty. Much like Mickey Pearce - sorry - Mr Albarn, we drift through ‘Good Song’ rather aimlessly but are not completely offended. At some point during the next three minutes I feel moderate guilt for realising I quite like ‘Crazy Beat’ – some people in the audience actually call out for ‘There’s No Other Way’ which baffles me all the way through Emma Bunton’s tolerable performance which then follows.
Bunton appears to be staking her claim for the next Bond theme (or at worst the next Austin Powers movie) with a new song, the title of which I have been unable to determine. It’s pleasant enough and quite possibly her best single yet. More impressive are the range of backing dancers who thankfully ditch the yawnsome Dairylea formation in favour of all manner of strange manoeuvres, complimented by costume design clearly inspired by the bastard offspring of Jean-Paul Gaultier and Evanescence.
At various points hosts Richard Bacon and Margherita Taylor conduct the necessary links. Their voices are barely audible despite the small scale of the studio so we’re forced to wait for Bacon’s ‘razor-sharp’ quips announcing the Metallica video and what have you. Do listen for the obligatory reference to The Darkness as ‘antidote to manufactured pop’ and make of it what you will though.
Texas follow and it’s time for a sit-down as all this standing around applauding like idiots has become extremely tiresome. Kardinal Offishall is much taller than I realised and this proves to be the most interesting thing about the four minutes that follow. Sharleen Spiteri reveals how they were eager to work with him after hearing ‘Belly Dancer’, just in case we’d forgotten that Texas really dig hip hop and dancehall don’tcha know. Good taste not withstanding, it’s fortunately a hitch-free rendition and we’re on to the mighty all-the-way-live Electric 6, some of whom have already been milling around the audience, dazzling all with their appalling hair and lovely suits.
‘Dance Commander’ ignites the place unlike anything since about an hour ago when The Darkness were on stage. But the band provide a fine spectacle of their own and just about steal the show. Dick Valentine may have ditched the Ron Mael look completely as his toothy grin and unswept locks would confirm, but he does look genuinely happy to be there despite resisting the urge to goof around on the tiny stage more. The second take inevitably follows but what remains essentially a more buoyant, discofied mutation of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ does not become tedious. The band then wrap up with a cover of Queen’s ‘Radio Ga Ga’. It sounds like a bizarre but potentially marvellous concept. The reality doesn’t QUITE match up and you can’t help but wonder if The Darkness might’ve handled it better. Most disappointing of all the band do not break for the obligatory audience double-claps - guitars drone throughout which blunts the song’s dynamic noticeably. Still, significantly better than a knitting needle in the ear, and Valentine remains in good voice throughout, even for that all-important second take.
So after around three hours another week’s edition of the longest running music show on television is done and dusted. Goodie bags are given to selected members of the crowd, presumably the ones who applauded the most enthusiastically, grinded the most horrendously and wore a skirt the most minimally. Fair enough. We shuffle out quite satisfied, even declaring our intent to do this again sometime, and only a slight amount of time is spent pondering whether the demystification process of being in the audience would weaken my current level of enthusiasm and appreciation for the show, the charts or even pop music itself. None of this is actually likely, as I haven’t watched the show in full for some time though I do retain an avid fascination with the charts themselves.
Top Of The Pops, much like a vinyl single, may not retain the same allure with most of today’s teenagers as it did with generations before, but whether this is due to the increase in non-terrestrial music programming over the last ten years or a fault with the show’s format itself it is hard to tell. When considering how to improve the show my personal instincts are to drop the more recent ideas such as the pointless on-the-spot interviews that tend to make Premiership footballers look eloquent and enlightening by comparison. Cutting to videos remains a useful tool but I miss the old FULL chart rundown and to discard it merely adds fuel to the fire that the charts, the reason this programme exists, do not have the same relevance or power they once did – due to the lack of slow-burn ascending hits if nothing else. Still, TOTP’s future seems safe for the foreseeable future and Bacon himself was heard to remark that he had not seen an atmosphere like that on set during his (albeit fairly brief) time presenting the show. Of course he hadn’t seen The Rapture the night before unlike me so his opinion is really meaningless in that respect - but it does suggest that The Darkness, clearly the incentive for so many of the audience’s choosing to attend, may be having the biggest impact on British pop music since Oasis, at least in terms of exciting the NME-shepherded mainstream media.
Regardless, TOTP’s survival really depends on whether the charts continue to accommodate such a broad range of releases. Thirty minutes remains the perfect timespan to deliver a sweeping glance at the pop world that week with the more variation the better, and the slick professionalism and efficiency with which I witnessed the ‘magic’ being made at least reinforced the idea that this actually is mainstream entertainment at its most decent. CD:UK carries certain advantages over TOTP for sure (it’s scheduled better and is able to focus on the forthcoming chart rather than the previous one for example) but some of TOTP’s original ethos and spirit remains. It’s this sense of tradition that means that while it may not quite be still number one, it’s still up there as a non-mover - and that may be enough for now.
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