26
Jun 13
THE OUTHERE BROTHERS – “Boom Boom Boom”
A dilemma, here. On the one hand, the second Outhere Brothers number one is somewhat better than “Wiggle Wiggle” – it shouts at you less, for one thing. On the other hand, the very words “second Outhere Brothers number one” suggest we have left the borders of necessity far behind. The Brothers here sound a little less obnoxious, a bit more playful – nursery rhyme goofs instead of unabashed horndogs. They have better ideas, too – a breakdown early on that sounds like it might be going somewhere, with an atmospheric dancehall intro. But the basic approach, constipated rappers leching over ordinary beats, really hasn’t changed, and “Boom Boom Boom” outstays its welcome just as surely as “Wiggle Wiggle” did, so you send it on its way still wondering why it bothered us in the first place.
4
Sadly the great Menswe@r critical rehabilitation will have to wait until somebody starts Music Sounds Better With Ten :(
Don’t get to do I Can See For Miles or Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now either. It’s a disgrace.
I was going to say well at least you do on TPL, but not there either! I guess entry #311 will just have to be a long one :)
May well have to be, though entry #267 is probably going to take a year or seven…
Seems a bit of a downer to go back to The Outhere Brothers after that fascinating discussion but I’m not sure #2 is quite right because I recall it getting loads of play on kids TV (which I was just about still young enough to get away with watching) and indeed The Outhere Brothers are responsible for one of the most excrutiating moments in TV history when they performed one of their follow-ups on Live and Kicking and Andi Peters questioned them on, and invited them to perform a bit of, their album track Pass The Toilet Paper, when surely even the smallest child knew what that song was about. Happily the pair only sung the refrain.
Although an undistinguished song this is the start of a period of about two years when I knew more or less every single record in the charts and have a memory of every number one, because the combination of Chris Evans joining and me having just finished my GCSEs means I was now listening to Radio 1 all day, every day (I’d completely bought into the Bannister revolution) and completely immersing myself in pop, buying both Q *and* Smash Hits and watching Top of the Pops *and* TFI Friday. And some of it wasn’t just to impress the girls in my A-level classes.
As mentioned, this was a boiling hot summer as well, which makes me feel a bit more predisposed towards a lot of these records than might otherwise be the case. I wonder if anyone ever has the time or inclination to go through the last forty summers or so and working out if those with above average temperatures (1976, 1990, 1995, 2003) were particularly fertile for pop music.
That’s fair enough – it just must have never entered my memory. As said in another post it’s only a couple of months before I start to remember almost everything, for now it’s still just the occasional Take That song and hearing, of all things, ‘Trouble’ by Shampoo on the soundtrack of the Power Rangers movie which got it back into the top 40.
There was a big boom in reggae and dancehall in 2003 which suited that summer perfectly, but it seems to be a happy coincidence rather a genuine reaction to the heat.
#55 Clearly whoever did so would need to start by defining objectively what was meant by “summers with above average temperatures”. And by the way, I’m not arguing against the inclusion of 1995, which would almost certainly pass, whatever the definition. I mean like, 1995, yeah, eh, phew what a scorcher!
I would include 1983 and 2006 in the four mentioned by Steve.
#58. Since you two have, between you, identified 6 years out of 40 or so you want to include in the sample, the ‘which were the hot years’ test couldn’t be very objective. Also, your suggestions contain a recency bias (I’m going to express a hunch here that it is because the hot years are based on your own memories – but irrespective of that, there is a recency bias).
I’m sure you could fudge it to get the years you wanted, but that would be likely to be self-fulfilling when you came to consider whether the years were “fertile for pop music.”
It’s a nice day today. Go out for a walk. Learn about yourself. Enjoy life.
House!
Just rather belatedly replying to #44 and reflecting on 1995 myself I made the point that there are only two number one singles this year by guitar bands but we’ll see a holding pattern of guitar based number two hits as the year goes on – not necessarily Britpop ones.
Re: #59 Well I guess the stifling heatwave of ’76 caused the necessary tension for punk rock to explode. I always thought if it hadn’t been for the glorious summers of 1989 and 1990, acid house and rave culture – and perhaps the Mondays and Roses – would have died out early. Given they followed a run of limp, wet ones from 85-86-87-88 (that sounds like a Simple Minds album title from when they were “good”, and most music in those years sounded like Simple Minds when they “weren’t” very good. Something had to change..)
Don’t know where you were at the time but ’87 was a remarkably hot and nice summer.
I was only two years old at the time, so these opinions are based on secondary sources and my father’s distrust of eighties (especially the mid-eighties.) But then again, I was born in them..
Of course, people’s expectations of a “good” British summer have fluctuated throughout the years, and sun worshippers were perhaps spoilt by that great run from 1994-1997. I remember the morning of August 31, waking up to Princess Diana’s death and heavy rain from the remnants of a Biblical thunderstorm – it felt like the end of many different eras.. Mark E Smith was right when he said the Great British Public never fully recovered from their [confused and hypocritical] reaction to events in that Paris tunnel.
… not to mention another hammer blow, the paranoia and fanatical, nay, fundamentalist hype over a certain Oasis album released the week before – which musically I really don’t mind that much, but we’ll get round to it later. Though I wouldn’t mind a TPL hatchet job on its cultural impact..
Talking of weather and August 31, 1997, John Kettley is struggling to make it through this forecast, almost close to tears.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i2yaPgqF78
“Its cultural impact” has a much wider frame than just the second Oasis album, and I intend to begin addressing that issue in the very next TPL entry.
This was probably the first Number 1 I can remember just making its way into the top 20 and climbing to number 1 as opposed to the more expected straight to the top records that would occur more often from the mid-1990s.A record from just a year after this and one from late 97 are the other 2 I can recall making leaps but cant go into detail now.
It wasnt entirely unexpected.Radio-friendly (in edited form obviously),Dumb chorus,Teenage respect,Terrace/Sports anthem – the uniforms of the then imperial phase NBA helping no doubt- the unexpected heatwave.Nothing was stopping this juggernaut.Guaranteed to fill the dancefloor.
I’m embarrassed to admit I liked this a lot.All the ways up to dancing like a berk around the house when it was played.Might have also been the key factor in buying Now 31.
would have been an 8 when released but would find it hard to give it anymore than 3 nowadays.
Or, as my dad once sang: “Wa-hey, let me hear you say boom boom.”
I’m sure I remember Mark Goodier playing the explicit version of this on the Radio One Top 40 once during the weeks it was at number one- accidental or not, I don’t know.
Interesting facts (or not, depending on your point of view)- The Outhere Brothers, aka ‘Hula and K Fingers’ produced ‘Summertime’ by Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, and were also behind a number of other dance tunes, including garage hit ‘RU Sleeping’ by Indo.