MARK ‘RUFF’ RYDER – Joy
Already been around for a while this one, but finally a proper release: i.e. on the singles racks at a Well-Known Record Store. (hah! no free plugs for Mr Branson. Oops…) You should already know this. It’s the tasty two-step t-for-terrific track which is a re-working of ‘Tainted Love.’ Yes, that ‘Tainted Love.’ The one that EVERYONE love’s, and no-one would dare fuck with… until now. I can’t describe the track itself. But it is an AWESOME thing. As Special MC puts it ‘2-step beats and wickedest bass.’ It sounds to me pretty much like jungle used to (back when it was any good), but the emphasis is on an enormous bassline which apes the Tainted Love synth riff (also present and correct) rather than on the beats. So we’re somewhere in the jump-up manor.
‘Tainted Love’ itself always skipped along that fine line between loss and hedonism, as its reincarnation as 80s nite good time classic proved. ‘Joy’ pushes this ambiguity further. The MC’s shout ‘You bring me love and you bring me joy’ opens up the tune along its main faultline. Is it the ‘bad boy selector’ who’s bringing joy? In which case the joy is in the dance, and the concomitant possibility that ‘all the ravers, left, right, and centre’ can ‘grab a girl, grab a boy.’ But the insistent two note synth refrain from the original tune reminds us that this is only tainted love and restores the ambivalence: ‘we get you freaky.’ Dialectics in pop — these propositions cannot be reconciled, they can only be re-wound.