So, you’ve got a theatrical #1 record about teen alienation under your belt - how do you follow that? Why, more histrionics, greater alienation, and - the trump card - this time it’s all true! This wouldn’t be the last time Bob Geldof’s gut reaction to a news story made a mark on pop, but there’s no good cause associated with “I Don’t Like Mondays” and no good comes of it. … read on …
Posted by Tom in Pop, Popular | 59 Comments
“I don’t think I mean anything to you.”: it’s a sulky break-up song in android drag. But what drag! There’s a muscley, unpleasantly compelling crunch to the synthesisers on “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” - the song is built on awkward, thrilling mechanical lurches rather than Kraftwerkian glide or Moroderish thrust. It’s futuristic, but this future setting is audibly shabby, an exhausting and dispiriting time to live: you suspect it rains a lot there. Numan himself shifts from distanced scene-setter to hurt suburban boy - the everyday whine of his voice cutting through the future he’s trying to establish, its baffled pique reminding you what these robot worlds get built to cover up. … read on …
Posted by Tom in Pop, Popular | 83 Comments
“Ring My Bell” is a disco masterclass in how to use the treble - the bell itself (sounds like it’s off a bicycle!), the laserbeam bleeps, Anita Ward’s impishly breathy voice, and the skritch-skratch guitar in the middle of the stereo pan, halfway between a mouse and a typewriter. … read on …
Posted by Tom in Pop, Popular | 80 Comments
I prefer Blondie when they’re poking their noses where they didn’t seem to belong, applying their touch of devastating cool to disco or rap or reggae and getting clean away with it. “Sunday Girl”, delightfully frilly though it is, doesn’t floor me in the same way. In a way its weirdly reminiscent of the Grease singles, a pastiche of something I can’t quite put my finger one - except this doesn’t come alive for me until the last twenty seconds or so, when Debbie Harry suddenly gets some snarl in her voice and the handclaps and guitars start to surge… and then it’s over. Pretty, thoroughly pleasant, beautifully crafted, but too pert to excite.
Posted by Tom in Pop, Popular | 39 Comments
Tuesday’s Popular birthday drinks will be in the HEAD OF STEAM DORIC ARCH (same pub!) at Euston Station. A very familiar pub to most of you, I’m sure, but a good one - real ales, TV and quiz machines for those who want them, and most importantly for me I’ll be at the St Pancras Novotel for a conference all day beforehand.
Hope to see a few of you there!
Posted by Tom in Pop, Popular | 14 Comments
Who wrote “Bright Eyes”, and why they wrote it, I don’t care. I know, but I don’t care. You can talk about all that stuff Because all “Bright Eyes” means for me is this: … read on …
Posted by Tom in Pop, Popular | 56 Comments
I have a new Pitchfork column up, called “45 Things I Love About Pop”, which as titles go is among my more straightforward ones. A lot of what I talk about is helpfully linked to thanks to the wonders of YouTube: this post is designed to sweep up some of the other bits and bobs which that fine site hasn’t got. So you get (audio under the cut):
Frankie Goes To Hollywood - “Two Tribes (Carnage)”: to be honest I can never remember which Two Tribes remix is which but they’re all pretty awesome - well, except Hibakusha with the vomiting noises halfway through.
The JAMS - “Whitney Joins The JAMS”: Mission impossible they said!! I think I wrongly credited this to the KLF in my piece.
Thieves - “Unworthy”: As also featured in my top 100 songs of the 90s, way back when.
Sabres Of Paradise - “Wilmot”: This is the full-length version, not the single/video edit linked to on P4K.
Seeed - “Release”: No bogling indie girls, sadly, but here’s Seeed at work on the famous ‘Cure Riddim’ … read on …
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Posted by Tom in Pop | 7 Comments
As Martin S pointed out on the “I Will Survive” comments thread, Pulp have borrowed both lyrics and hooks from this song, the latter in their epic His N Hers track “She’s A Lady” - which shares a theme as well as a partial chorus with “IWS”, though Jarvis’ crack-up and recovery is a lot more grubby and ambiguous than Gloria’s.
This version - recorded in 1992 for what I think is a French radio session - cranks up the intensity even further thanks to layers and layers of penetrating violin. It also, attentive Pulp fans will realise, switches the punchline at song’s end.
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Posted by Tom in Pop | No Comments
I suddenly realised last night that next Tuesday (16th September), Popular will be 5 years old. The workrate hasn’t always been what it could have been but this still deserves celebration, so anyone wanting to join me for a brief pint - details to be announced, but it’ll be somewhere in central London - would be very welcome. Will Spoiler Bunny attend? Depends on whether he survives the next number one…
Posted by Tom in Popular | 16 Comments
It’s not unusual for songs to become cultural fixtures, but it’s a little rarer for their emotional use to be so generally prescribed: “I Will Survive” is so ensconced as the go-to cry of defiance for the jilted girl that it feels more ubiquitous than it actually is. I can’t remember the last time I heard “I Will Survive” on the radio, or at karaoke, and it’s almost impossible to imagine it ever being used seriously on TV or in a film now. But none of that lessens its familiarity. … read on …
Posted by Tom in Pop, Popular | 26 Comments
Tom invented Freaky Trigger on a bus journey in the mid-90s. Typically, it took him 5 years to do anything about it.
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