Chipping in as well with the indie novelty single, the excellently racist Welsh Bands Suck gave me pause to smile at least five times in 1996. And it would appear that Helen Love (one of those Welsh bands that actually did suck) have made an entire non-career out of novelty hits which tend to namecheck the Ramones, or threaten death upon Kula Shaker.
To continue Maura’s list records though – its impossible to ignore A House’s magnificently misguided “Endless Art”. As a namecheck of some artists, date of birth and date of death over what sounds like a clapped out hurdy gurdy the track is bad enough, but to then repeat the exercise because you left out women raises this to a champion level of foolishness. “More Endless Art” (the female version of Endless Art, handily on the re-released versions B-Side) was not only tokenistic, but knocked out in such a half-hearted manner that a good twenty percent of the great female artists namechecked on the single were movie stars. Or nurses. Not to belittle the contributions made by Florence Nightingale or Marilyn Monroe, but if the band had spent more than ten minutes thinking of lyrics I reckon they could have strengthened their team. None of this is in any way an excuse for them missing out women in the first place – certainly if you are drifting around nineteenth century literature some female authors spring to mind.
It also is not an excuse for myself and John (who’s nuptuals are iminent and taking up most of Tom’s time) playing both versions of the song back to back at the early nineties Indie Night. Apologies to anyone who had to sit through it.