Even a dilettante like me is aware that the late 70s were a storied age for Jamaican music. The flow of talent and money between Kingston and London was starting to open up world markets to reggae, with Marley a superstar and punk drawing social (and increasingly musical) inspiration from roots and dub. In London, the sweeter sound of Lovers Rock was scoring occasional, deathless pop hits. In Jamaica, a fresh generation of MCs and singjays were starting to make waves, men who would become the stars of early dancehall. And in New York, techniques imported by reggae DJs were setting trends in motion that would transform pop’s vocabulary.
So far, so historical. And then sneaking past the Kintyre titan for a week in the wintry sun was this, the most wondrous of one-hit wonders. If you want proof of the appeal of “Uptown Top Ranking”, try this: I have never once, that I can remember, seen anyone decry it as inauthentic, or sold-out, or frivolous or unrepresentative of Jamaican music. Nobody resents it, in other words. How could they?
The appeal of Althea and Donna is double-edged. Look at the Top Of The Pops performance: two gawky teen girls in their khaki suit an’ ting, trying to groove rather than giggle to the house band parping its way through a Joe Gibbs rhythm track. They are adorable, but in that setting not too far away from Baccara – and that’s the context which probably pushed “Uptown” from a Top 20 hit to a Number One. God bless novelty, when it gives us this!
On record, though, the girls are significantly blanker, more reserved – cooler than anyone who might be listening. They bite at lines – “seh mi in mi halter back / seh mi give yuh heart attack” – and they hit that zone where awkwardness suddenly morphs into supreme confidence, the telepathic forcefield of front that makes girl-gang pop from the Shangris to Shampoo so irresistable. I used to listen to this thinking “no pop no STYLE” was a dismissal – of whatever grown-ups or squares or bores might be listening. My comprehension might be off, and those enemies might be straw men, but it still sounds like the most joyful put-down on record.
Score: 9
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Wonderful.
We have now reached for me one of the best singles of the period. I first heard it on Peely and had a Dave and Ansel Collins moment (“Double Barrel” being the first record I ever bought). My main criticism of JP, apart from the fact that he really did play a lot of cobblers as well as the good stuff, was that he could never quite accept the concept of acts/bands becoming popular (the favoured term was “commercial”) even on his own coattails. For John, people were only worthy if they remained in the shadows as far away from the chart (which he despised as much as its champion Tony Blackburn) as possible. There were exceptions but Peely was happier on the fringe. I remember him championing the embryonic Lena Lovich to the rafters only to drop her like a hot coal once she broke through, although her star shone only briefly.
Althia and Donna’s case was rather curious. Having gained Peely’s stamp of approval, this attitude-rich Jamaican duo then had to deal with the reverse side of the coin in the shape of the oafs of the mainstream: Edmonds, Burnett, Travis et al, none of whom I can recall eulogising about UTTR, which I felt was fabulous. Despite Radio One’s ambivalence, Althia and Donna scored and I was delighted.
i vaguely remember at the time a few grizzled ja toasters being a bit cheerfully grumpy about it, but even then it was more along the lines of “these pesky pop kids, they don’t know which way is up!”
(i saw penny reel in mare street narrow way abt a week ago! i was in a hurry or i’d have stopped and said hi…)
I heard it first on Peel too – I believe I bought it ages before it charted. Am I right in remembering that it had been around for several months before daytime R1 started playing it?
My favourite one-hit wonder single ever. I own tons of reggae, and I still don’t think I’ve heard anything else by them. I think I’d have given it a 10.
There’s a case for arguing that “Uptown Top Ranking” is the second true punk number one; available on pre-release and indie for the best part of 1977, Strummer cited it (“Nah pop no style, I strictly roots”) during Clash gigs; and of course “gimme likkle bass make me wind up me waist” became an almost obligatory meme to a subsequent black British pop/R&B generation. Its success once again draws attention to the unfailingly strange way in which the British mainstream will ignore reggae, or marginalise it, for years on end – Junior Murvin’s “Police And Thieves,” the anthem of 1976’s Notting Hill Carnival and subsequent riots, resident on the reggae charts for practically all of that year, and covered (again) by the Clash in 1977, did not cross over to the mainstream chart until 1980 – and yet the occasional massive crossover hit is almost invariably as cutting as the cutting edge could serrate; think “Israelites” and “Double Barrel.” The irony of a record setting itself up as strictly roots and Not Pop knocking Britain’s biggest-selling single to date off number one need not be underlined.
Althea and Donna were two JA teenagers who, in the three-and-a-half minutes of “Uptown Top Ranking,” manage to invent and effortlessly surpass the likes of Lily Allen, with their genuinely cool and undiluted patois (“Dem check say we hip an’ ting”). They are making the most of their status, revelling in turning the boys on (“See mi in a’ alter back/Sey mi gi’ you heart attack”), triumphing over the prejudices of Authority (“See mi in mi Benz an’ ting/Drivin’ thru’ Constant Spring/Dem check sey me come from Cosmo Spring/But a true dem no know an’ ting”) and simply loving the movement of the moment (“Love is all I bring/Inna mi khaki suit an’ ting…/Watch how we chuck it an’ ting”).
There are two distantly echoed moments of punctum in “Uptown Top Ranking”; the elated “Ow!”s sometimes inserted by Althea or Donna after a line, and the way the bassline and harmonies change and thicken under the second “khaki suit an’ ting” and the last “I strictly roots.” Producer Joe Gibbs is skilfully spontaneous; the record really does sound as though it were being improvised on the spot, words, horn lines, keyboard (harpsichord?) depth charges, the “Ow!”s; the harmonies are not quite in place and at times approach quarter-tone status – and this is all part of the record’s ineluctable magic; its blend of absolute assurance and genuine good humour built the pathway which ultimately led to Neneh Cherry and others, and unlike today’s dreary R&B accounts of girls on the make and on the take, which invariably make me visualise stern faces clutching clipboards of resumés, “Uptown Top Ranking” is so damn life-affirming that you want to cartwheel through Brockwell Park just for the hell of it. “Love inna you heart dis a bawl out fer mi” – loudly and proudly!
i’m pretty sure i recall a speedily recorded follow-up LP getting an “oh dear, not much here” review in sounds — in fact my friend rob may even have owned it…
At the time I wasn’t too happy with them for denying Macca his historic 10th week at number one, though I didn’t mind the record at all. But whenever I hear it now the reaction is of pure unpretentious joy – which is pretty much what you hear in the vocals. I’d love to see the face of a Lily Allen fan hearing this for the first time – as you didn’t point out, Marcello, the intro for “Smile” is such a ringer for this that you’re tempted to start singing the wrong words. (It’s a much closer match than that between Rod Argent and Duffy which quite exercised you a while back.)
Tom, I liked your typo (since corrected) about the appeal of Anthea and Donna. “Gimme little twirl make me wind out mi waist, nice to see you, to see you nice – ow!”
I think “no pop no style” meant “I’m not putting you on/ I’m the real deal” etc…
a wonderful, wonderful piece of pop and the perfect antidote to the suffocating presence of Mull of Kintyre. A friend had lent me a copy of Joe Gibb’s ‘African Dub Volume 2’ a few months earlier which had a version of this – different again to the B side of UTTR – and my ears had been opened to the richness and pleasure of this music.
I first heard this in 1993 on my ‘Ragga Heat Reggae Beat’ tape, and instantly fell in love with it. No idea who they were or how old the song was (or how old THEY were when they sang it!), to my oblivious ear it sat just as well with Shaggy and Inner Circle as with Jimmy Cliff and Susan Cadogan. I learned all the words (hahahahaha or at least what I thought were the words) and was utterly, utterly gobsmacked when I saw what they actually looked like on an episode of TOTP2. DUDE those GLASSES. Amazing.
10 from me, no question.
This is such a delightful record – and so summery I am stunned to discover that it hit the top in the tail end of 1978’s winter. It’s one of my eeriest childhood memories seeing those two outlandish-looking women in khaki, one with enormous Buggles-type glasses, singing in what seemed to me at the time simply another language. I also remember phrases from the song percolating very quickly through my primary school playground, ‘an ting’ being a popular piece of punctuation.
Listening to it now I’m interested in the blankness/flatness of the vocals. The two girls singing together and not always hitting the note exactly gives a sense of affectless cool which still works for me. In this specific way, it reminds me of The Shirelles’ ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow’, another example of black performers flattening the emotion out of their vocals to haunting effect. Here it’s both comic and impressive, oddly dignified.
#7 – I didn’t highlight that specific similarity for SB reasons.
That reminds me of the review of Marley’s “Kaya” in Sounds which had a photo of Bob sitting at a piano looking thoughtful and the caption underneath said “Now let’s see, what rhymes with ‘ting’?”
Odd the things you remember.
A 10 for sheer enjoyability, one of those naturally happy one-off pop moments that just seems to sort of happen without anyone trying too hard which makes them even more special.
Come on, ten, ten, ten! Straight down the middle!
A record that could and still can bring me out in a big beaming smile in the midst of the blackest despair. A burst of Caribbean sunshine in the middle of a cold, grey winter in a house desperately in need of redecoration (the chocolate brown radiators – aaaarrgh!), and a world away from some of the more menacing, mysoginistic music that has emanated from Jamaica over the years (but which is just one facet of the rich culture of that tragic island.) It’s another face of Dancing Queen, of course – the put-upon working girl of the rest of the week scrubbing up into something beautiful and desirable at the weekend: not in a dark dive foggy with weed but in a provincial dance hall (at least I’ve always assumed that “toprankin'” refers to an evening at the Top Rank Suite, but I may well be being very naive about this). But although I like Dancing Queen and I recognise that it is technically streets ahead of this, I much prefer this one for its earthy simplicity that makes you warm to the girls.
Most glorious moment for me: the words “Love is all I bring” punching their way through the patois in something alarmingly close to RP. But it’s true – and who needs anything more?
My enduring memory of this is being driven on holiday to Wales in the summer of 78 and my dad singing this every time we passed a Top Rank motorway service station which seemed to be every bloody five minutes…
Like Rosie, I’ve always kind of thought that this was about going out dancing, while feeling that it might not entirely be. It’s funny, that lexical confusion that I only get with Caribbean music amongst the major pop genres. I find that I have to do a lot more imaginative work in a song – trying to visualise the difference between Constant and Cosmo Spring for example, and working out the inferences!
As Dan says, there’s something oddly dignified about the vocals. It’s clearly a joyous young womens’ song, and yet their voices seem to carry an instinctive wisdom and knowledge that’s older than that.
A word of appreciation for the rinky-tink keyboards in the middle eight by the way, which further add a note of poignancy and charm to the whole affair.
Not much to add to comments above. One of those ‘great leveller’ songs that pretty much everybody likes. The patois was totally baffling to me, aged 12, but it didn’t matter. On the contrary it added to the charm. “Khaki?” “Car keys?” Whatevs.
Some more information on the riddim track from those in the know would be of interest to me. How prevalent was it? Were there any other big JA hits that used it? etc.
my best friend P is trinidadian — or at least her parents are, she’s actually from croydon — and she often does this same turn-on-a-dime patois-to-posh-and-back move; it’s a kind of a protest-joke and an adaptive camouflage and a put-on and all manner of things in-between, and it’s a vivid and funny mark of street-smart alertness (knowing resistance as well as prideful stubbornness) in a way that mimicry the other way round will always find it hard to catch
i think “i strictly roots” as some cheekily baffling nonsense chirped by two 16-year-old girls is awesome: YOU’LL NEVER GET IT GRANDPA, cz we JUST MADE IT UP — and right there is half the story of how “roots” actually work
i’m pretty sure i recall a speedily recorded follow-up LP getting an “oh dear, not much here” review in sounds — in fact my friend rob may even have owned it…
I owned the album for quite a while but rarely listened, thinking it rather pedestrian in comparison to the single (in fact, I got the album before I heard the single, and though I liked the album version of the song “Uptown Top Ranking,” I wasn’t wild about it. I was delighted when I got the single to hear that it had far more sparkle: more sound effects than on the album).
I dug this up for Amber and Alice on a recent ‘singles day’ where they act as DJs on a very old wooden portable stereo gizmo (pics on application)..
We didn’t get to this one, but we will…
So, how many number ones have “gimme likkle bass make me wind up me waist”?
Obviously, you cannot answer that here.
It took me a while to ‘get’ this record. Being 8 years old, the only time I got to hear pop music was on Thursday nights during the sacred 7.20 – 8 slot. Thanks to the TOTP Orchestra’s piss-awful rendering of the backing track, I had a pretty low opinion of Up Town Top Ranking until I heard it properly some years later.
TOTP Watch: Althea & Donna appeared on the edition transmitted on the 26th of January 1978. Also in the studio that week were; Rich Kids, Terry Wogan, Yellow Dog, Baccara and Gallagher & Lyle, plus Legs & Co, interpreting ‘Lovely Day’. The host was David Jensen.
The previous week Legs & Co had danced to the tune. Does anyone remember what that was like?
I daresay they’d be wearing Khaki suits, halterbacks, and ting.
Quite right. It nearly give mi heart attack.
I think this rhythm first arrived from Studio 1 in the 60s in the shape of the wonderful “I’m Still In Love With You” by Alton Ellis.
In the 70s Joe Gibbs re-cut the rhythm, and hit with “Three Piece Suit” by Trinity (he recorded an almost identical version by Dillinger, interestingly) – this maintains the “I’m Still In Love With You” line, so there may be a lady vocal version of this cut I’ve never heard. “Uptown Top Ranking” was a version on this cut, and an answer record to “Three Piece Suit”. That’s most of what I know.
It might be interesting to add that Joe Gibbs was one of the Jamaican breed of producers who were more executive producer than actual recording guy. He had a stellar knack of recruiting people to do his recording though – he’d made extensive use of Lee Perry and Niney Holness before embarking on his lengthy relationship with Errol T, ongoing by the time of UTR.
OK this (http://www.riddimguide.com/tunedb/riddim_I'm%20Still%20In%20Love%20With%20You/) suggests that the Joe Gibbs version with a female vocalist which predates “Three Piece Suit” is by Marcia Aitken. And lists lots of other exciting possibilities, like the 1979 Junior Delgado cut on (Dennis Brown’s) DEB. Ranking Trevor!
re #24 that would explain the similarity of the Sean Paul ft Sasha cover to UTR for me then cheers
i expect many here will be familiar with Black Box Recorder’s cover of UTR from their ‘England Made Me’ LP – a version i’m a fan of even if there’s no hope of eclipsing the original.
shortly after that didn’t Abs from 5ive’s ‘What U Got’ sample UTR?
Thanks, Tim. “I’m Still In Love With You”! How could I forget? *slaps forehead* And I think it’s the Marcia Aitken version I own too (as well as the Sasha one).
TOM why on earth no ten for this either?? 10, 10 times over, if this doesn’t get it nothing does.
Strummer cited it (“Nah pop no style, I strictly roots”) during Clash gigs
ewww so indie kids doing this shit is not a new phenomenon? gross.
The Black Box Recorder cover is failed but not totally awful – what IS appalling is the Scout Niblett cover which surely ranks as one of the vilest things ever recorded
‘ewww so indie kids doing this shit is not a new phenomenon? gross.’
hardly the same thing. Strummer and co. actually made good on their evident love of reggae, dub etc. by moving their sound closer towards it, getting Lee Perry to produce, involving Mikey Dread etc.
My basque-spanish ex-girlfriend used to play this song all the time in California. I had no idea it was even a UK #1, or even what the name of the song what. But — YES, I know this song, and it is amazing.
hardly the same thing. Strummer and co. actually made good on their evident love of reggae, dub etc. by moving their sound closer towards it, getting Lee Perry to produce, involving Mikey Dread etc.
this is not what I want them to do either, this is like awful indie bands roping in grime MCs or Timbaland working with terrible rock bands. what I want them to do is STEP OFF
You might want to tell Joe Strummer that.
isn’t he dead?
A minor hurdle.
re #31
I find that in most cases I prefer the results of this process to what the bands sounded like before. Certainly this is true with all of the acts we’ll be talking about on Popular who set about this (some more successfully than others, from an artistic pov), including those who jumped on the disco bandwagon as opposed to the reggae one. But I knew these records before the songs and artists they ‘ripped off’ and there are emotional ties born of ignorance that can’t (and in most cases needn’t) be shaken.
except “that one about black and white people living together on pianos” SB yellow card etc.
considering how much this song is part of the cultural landscape, not to mention how great it is, it’s amazing how little utr actually gets played. i don’t think i’d ever heard it until it was on simon bates’ golden hour while i was at university in the early nineties (when i must admit my excitement was mainly to do with finding the source of PWEI’s ‘no pop no style’ sample) and since then I’d be suprised if I’d heard it much more than ten times – it would pop up on totp2 every once in a while but you never seem to hear it on radio 2 or capitol gold. shame on them!
Radio 2 and Capital Gold don’t like black music unless it’s Dock Of The Bay or Move On Up.
Like others upthread, I was aware of UTR from the summer of 1977, when Peel was heavily championing it. I taped it off the radio, where it sat next to The Clash’s “Complete Control” and the first Slits session on the same side of the same C90. Happy days.
What’s remarkable about UTR is the way that the “Three Piece Suit” backing track (featuring an early outing for Sly and Robbie) sounds tailor-made for Althea & Donna’s vocals: as if it had been expressly recorded with the girls in mind.
What’s equally remarkable is the way that A&D’s standard two-note toasting melody in the verses (that particular interval was used time and time again as I recall – Ranking Trevor to thread?) sit so light and fresh within the context of the tune, transcending the restrictions of their convention.
Predictably, A&D’s misfortunes started with their new label Virgin’s disastrous choice of follow-up single “The Puppy Dog Song”: a banal reggae-fication of the “frogs and snails and puppy dogs’ tails” nursery rhyme, complete with an introductory piano figure lifted directly from “Chopsticks”. As Brotherhood Of Man could have told them, it’s really never a good idea to follow a Number One single with a song about a cute little puppy dog.
or “sweet soul music”
Like others upthread, I was aware of UTR from the summer of 1977, when Peel was heavily championing it. I taped it off the radio, where it sat next to The Clash’s “Complete Control” and the first Slits session on the same side of the same C90. Happy days.
What’s remarkable about UTR is the way that the “Three Piece Suit” backing track (featuring an early outing for Sly and Robbie) sounds tailor-made for Althea & Donna’s vocals: as if it had been expressly composed and recorded with the girls in mind.
What’s equally remarkable is the way that A&D’s standard two-note toasting melody in the verses (that particular interval was used time and time again as I recall – Ranking Trevor to thread?) sit so light and fresh within the context of the tune, transcending the restrictions of their convention.
Predictably, A&D’s misfortunes started with their new label Virgin’s disastrous choice of follow-up single “The Puppy Dog Song”: a banal reggae-fication of the “frogs and snails and puppy dogs’ tails” nursery rhyme, complete with an introductory piano figure lifted directly from “Chopsticks”. As Brotherhood Of Man could have told them, it’s really never a good idea to follow a Number One single with a song about a cute little puppy dog.
actually, R2 and capital do play quite a lot of the obvious motown and stax stuff along with a smattering of disco and funk. but yes, not much reggae unless it’s ‘jamming’ or by eric clapton. you do sometimes hear the israelites though. i think it may be a while before mobb deep are playlisted.
Mobb Deep should never have followed up ‘Shook Ones’ with that cover of ‘The Puppy Dog Song’
#40: unless you’re Gilbert O’Sullivan.
na na na na nah.
I wouldn’t care.
As soon as this song comes on, everyone is overcome with an irresistible desire to sing the words to one another, but no one knows what they actually are! (And even if they do, they can’t remember what order they come in – the ostensible verses and chorus wind around each other like fractals.)
Here are a couple of the more, erm, singular comments made by readers of my blog, when this cropped up on this year’s Which Decade Is Tops For Pops:
“Obviously it’s jumping on the bandwagon of Reggae Like It Used To Be by Paul Nicholas.”
“I recognise that this is regarded by some as a seminal track, but I’ve never really liked it very much. I suppose I don’t like the reggae-disco fusion. Be one or the other, not both.”
# 47 – Mike! What’s the matter with you, rass clat? “Reggae Like It Used To Be” is a seminal Joe Gibbs classic and Paul Nicholas the most important reggae artist to emerge…er…to emerge…er…in fact a pioneer…yes, that’s it – a PIONEER… “Let Your Yeah Be Yeah”…that was him! Errrmm…he…er…er…he…
Continued on Page 94
Not too long after this one, Althea herself (sans Donna) put out “Downtown Thing”, sounding much more, er, “experienced”, even talking about “me drink up de Heineken”. Strictly roots indeed.
You gotta give Paul Nicholas props for inventing the Scissor Sisters on “Dancing With The Captain” though.