SNAP! – "The Power"

The introductory Sputnik commentary instantly conjures up the spirit of Joe Meek, and some of that slightly mischievous spirit pervades the rest of “The Power.” Although packaged as a cutting-edge rap-dance track “recorded in Cold Storage, Brixton” (strictly speaking in Camberwell, and the studio most famously used by the post-punk group This Heat, if we’re talking 24-track loops) Snap! were a German duo – the Teutonic Black Box, more or less – and all of the vocal tracks were re-deployed from existing records; the rapper (“I’m the lyrical Jesse James”) was one Rob Chill G (who knew nothing about the record until it became successful, despite his “Copywritten words, so they can’t be stolen” for which he duly received a co-writing credit and royalties) and various sampled soul divas provide the singing.

So, once more, “The Power” was concerned with reusing elements of the old, or other parallel presents, to help construct something new. It has aged slightly better than “Ride On Time” if only because of its jittery, and decidedly Germanic, take on hip hop beats and the fact that it still sounds like a fantastic clarion call, from its malfunctioning, distortion-heavy synth riff at the beginning (the Scorpions and Michael Schenker survive in strange ways) via its insistent cowbell-driven rhythm and the deft use of layers of voices (“It’s gettin, it’s gettin’, it’s gettin’ kinda hectic”) and also because it transcended its dubious origins to become a cutting edge track; in the clubs of early 1990 it stopped everyone dead in a genuine WHAT THE FUCK? sense and it’s still capable of getting me out of bed even today. Naturally, compared with the true apocalyptic blitzkrieg of Fear Of A Black Planet (which we bought, on import, on the morning of the poll tax riots) its cosmetics show through; but in those uncertain weeks as the wreckage (and not just physical) was slowly meditated over, “The Power” was a pop alarm clock issuing wake-up calls on an hourly basis. “Don’t need the police!”

I love the bit in Hudson Hawk where Sandra Bernhardt starts singing this. Talk about Hollywood crossover!

This is the first #1 example of the ‘bad rapper plus female singer’ Eurodance formula that would dominate the early 90s, right? A straight classic for the riff plus chorus alone IMO, I’d have given it an 8, surprised it didn’t do better.

Love Turbo B’s rap and Penny Ford’s (and again that’s not her in the video – shame on ’em) vocals equally. “Dig it like a shovel, rhyme devil on a heavenly level bang the bass turn up the treble” is just one of the lines I love and the “s’gittin’ kinda heavy” loop from Ford is a great lift off another sound from another time (swingin’ jazz!).

It is, from Turbo B, but I’ve always heard Ford’s bit as ‘heavy’.

You’ve gotta love a rap about intellectual property, “copywritten” ten years before Napster…

Still sounds like “it’s gettin’ kinda hectic” to me in Turbo B’s vocals, although it’s definitely “kinda heavy” in Penny Ford’s earlier singing. Also, the video flashes “HECTIC” when Turbo B raps it.

My first thought on hearing this t’other day, for the first time in donkey’s years, was that it’s aged remarkably well (I wasn’t a big fan at the time): and also that it’s surprisingly melancholic (even just plain miserable) for a dance number (by no means the only rap-featuring number 1 of 1990 to which that applies), and fairly slow as well.

I kind of wish they’d never “invented themselves as a band” after this became a hit: so much of their subsequent stuff was pure unadulterated lowest common denominator dross. Rather than being a straight pop song, this works because of the way (indeed like “Dub be good to me”) it combines complimentary (or possibly even contradictory) elements.

And as for the Russian…well, I suppose the cold war wasn’t QUITE over yet.

So which version went to number one? The Rob Chill G-sampling original, or Turbo B’s re-recording?

I was on a school geography trip on the Isle of Skye when this hit number one. In my memory we had one radio between us and were huddled around it listening to the chart, and this leapt from nowhere to the top spot, leading to much headscratching and “what on earth’s this?”. We felt very cut off from the world. (Apologies, Skyeites.)

Whilst I never really loved the track it did feel exciting, though listening to it now my jaded old ears were bored within a minute.

Great sleeve!

I’d been holding off on listening to this one b/c I knew it was coming up fairly soon – of course, within seconds of it starting my reaction was ‘oh it’s THAT one’, the title line having been used in countless adverts since (or does it just feel that way?). With that in mind the relatively dirty and warehouse-like rest of the song is refreshingly different from the hectoring self-help I was expecting. 7 I reckon.

“And now ladies and gentleman the 15 times champion of the world its phil ‘the power’ taylor.”

its probably most famous these days as phil taylors walk on music in darts and TBH i wouldnt really have known it otherwise.works well with the darts as the song has a sense of doom about it when paired with taylor.

Having said that its a fairly good early baseball-capped euro stomper with a bit to offer and a sure sign that this was the 90s.a bit lightweight compared to other dance hits of the time with the exception of norman cooks effort.

enjoyable enough but wouldnt say its dated badly at all.especially compared to some dance/rap entries in 1990.

would have been a 7 from me but considering chancers all around europe/us shamelessly milked the formula for all it was worth (get ready for this,everybody dance now etc) im prepared to agree with tom.

Not so much “affaires de coeur”, but “The Power” from my point of wiew, is forever locked in with the beginning of a downward spiral towards complete nervous/mental breakdown. The week this reached #1 was the same week my beloved jack russell, Tuppence, shuffled off this mortal coil. My canine companion from childhood died at the grand old age of 16, leaving an enormous hole in my life. The death of a pet can be as traumatic as the death of a close family member, when they’ve been around and part of the family since The Osmonds were in their full pomp. I was inconsolable for days.

Had I been in a more positive place, I could have drawn strength from a song built around “I’ve got the Power!” as a lyric, but I never sought to derive anything from it. It’s not so much of a painful memory when I remember a friend of mine doing crouch-spins to it on the dancefloor, which was quite hilarious. I would mark it higher, if spring 1990 was a better time for me, but no.

I’m surprised to learn that this is a composite record, because whenever I hear it I think that the hooks could go on to be reconstituted into something much better.

Sixth-form reaction approved of the blaring riff and the residual touches of soul cred, but Snap! themselves were so clearly a made-up proposition – and Turbo B such a poor frontman – that nobody took ‘The Power’ to heart.

The big chart pop excitement of April 1990, alongside the next Popular entry, was ‘Step On’ by The Happy Mondays, which felt like a much bigger hit than it was (no. 5), and is nowadays as well remembered as ‘The Power’.

re: #27 – this is an prime example of what was going wrong with pop at the time – it’s monotonous, artificial-sounding rubbish. It was also apparently once used for psyching up some poor devils who worked in a call centre. See you in the Britpop era.

Yes this is a Jock Jam, appearing on Jock Jams (why oh why wasn’t it Jamz?) vol. 1, not quite up there with 2 Unlimited but still played.

I heard the Chill Rob G version first but could never find it in stores, and the Snap! version took over the world.

Ten years ago, had you shown me the list of every single number 1 since I was born and asked me to name the ones I recognised, this would have been the first. Well, along with ‘Mistletoe & Wine’ but as a festive release that doesn’t count. Still a bit too young to remember it new, but it was that common throughout the 1990s.

All I can say is wow. Some years have great songs coming out, but not the ones that get to #1 – instead its the novelty songs or boyband flavour of the months that get the top spot, with the true classics confined to the remainder of the top 5. But right now, 1990’s on an absolute roll – although starting shaky with NKOTB and Kylie, the last THREE number 1s I’d give 9 or 10 to (NC2U, Dub Be Good To Me, and this). And sneaking a peak at what’s next, oh yes yes yes indeed.

This got to number 1 right after the poll tax protest, right? Very fitting…definitely the people, and not Thatcher who had the power there. Twenty years on and those of us at yesterday’s tuition fee protest (including me, but I wasn’t one of the window-smashers) have, erm, Rihanna as our #1 soundtrack. Oh well.

Very much a Jock Jam, I think of it as the Romulus to Gonna Make You Sweat’s Remus, the birth of the tasteless but all-consuming Eurodance anthem which twenty years later has resulted in the Max Martin 2010 we’ve had, if that’s not baiting the bunny too much.

For some reason, I wasn’t content with just disliking this; I have always actively despised this record.

Not exactly sure why, but I still detest it now.

Someone mentioned upthread that Snap! went on to produce lowest-common-denominator crap, but I would add this one to that list. I was never much of a clubber, and I in my own experience, I think “dance” music’s takeover of the charts, starting around this point, was the biggest single factor which destroyed the chart as a genuine source of enjoyment for many. (The Cowellisation of later years only worsened things, as has the “featured artist” or “feat.” phenomenon which anonymises so much of today’s music – and also makes it harder to get pub quizzes right – Jimmy Savile would win lots of points playing the 2009 chart.)

Don’t get me wrong, I do like a lot of dance tracks; but as far as I am concerned, they are there to be danced to, not to be listened to, and most don’t transfer away from the clubs well – how often have you heard a great track in a club, only to be mightily disappointed when you heard it at home?

Rant over….. for now, anyway.

I would of course disagree and say that the biggest single factor that has turned people off the charts over the last twenty or so years is not the predominance of dance music or Simon Cowell but the hype machine which has turned the singles chart into a demonstration of record company marketing strategies rather than a reflection of genuine popularity. The same could be said to a more limited extent of the album chart but I’ll be addressing that in good time.

@41 Turbo B was an imported American rapper, wasn’t he?

#40 I agree with you to some extent MC but who were the “genuinely popular” artists whose chart positions were presumably being depressed by the hypers ?

I don’t think dance took over as such ; it held its ground as did metal (and we’re not far off the first real metal topper)while mainstream pop (represented by Transvision Vamp, Jesus Jones and the fag-end of SAW) slipped out of contention in a time of diminishing singles sales.

Anyway glad to have you back – is TPL going to get back in its previous rhythm ? Monday night had become Marcello night for me !

By genuine popularity I meant records, not artists.

The decline is due to the lack of creativity and intelligence (not to mention Canute-like tendencies upon the advent of Napster) on the part of record companies; all they do is hype their top priorities, pile them high and sell them cheap in the first week of release to get instant sales. Thus lots of crap got to number one, thereby destroying whatever credibility the charts had left.

I didn’t think there was anything wrong with hype when the quality of the record demanded it – “Hey Joe,” for instance – but the majors simply carry on with their diminishing trick of copying established (Spanish?) practices without really understanding why they’re doing it, except to maintain the feeblest of toeholds on an eradicated market.

About TPL – well, let’s see how it goes. Still househunting so don’t expect miracles but I do want to get back to one album a week. If I didn’t have a day job it would be five albums a week but there you go.

Went out to Turkey with the dance troup. They’d asked us to have a routine based on the number 1 record in the UK at the time.

Unfortunately, the day we left the UK, this was deposed by the Mmmmommm hit, “Mmgmm”, and we watched *that* video and said, ach, we haven’t go time to sort costumes and routines for *THAT* one out. So we told them “nooh, it’s still “The Power” at the moment.