Student idol Vic Reeves teams up with student favourites The Wonder Stuff for a student disco friendly cover of “Dizzy” which – going to University a year later – I unsurprisingly became utterly sick of. It was inescapable, or at least if you didn’t get “Dizzy” it was only because you’d been treated to the wretched “Size Of A Cow” instead.
Listening to it now it’s better than I remember: certainly at least as good as Tommy Roe’s oddly polite original. On one of Vic Reeves’ sketches he and Bob Mortimer imagined the home life of Slade, and Reeves’ bellowing good humour here has more than a bit of the Noddy Holders about it – he is clearly having a monster of a time, jumping into each “DI-ZEE!” like a kid in a puddle. He also quite upstages the full-time pop singer he’s replacing – Miles Hunt gets a few rotten backing vocals near the end (“Like a whiiiirlpool….”) and almost sours the entire thing. His band clodhop their way through an arrangement not built for subtlety – just as well, since the Stuffies have none to offer. It was a brutish, ruthless kind of single, meant for red-faced hollering and floors slicked with cider and black, and it filled that role all too well.
Score: 4
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Good God! The sleeve!!
There is a fundamental problem with this reading of Dizzy for me – it doesn’t sound Dizzy at all. The original Tommy Roe version has a woozy quality that, quite properly, ties in with the lyrics – making it seem much more like the singer is actually dizzy in love with the girl. Kudos too for the drum break – which unless I am hearing things incorrectly, turns up on The Magic Number by De La Soul.
By contrast, I find this version to be bludgeoning; the sound of a drunk pawing some poor unfortunate at 1am in a sleazy nightclub, desperate to get his end away for the night. Frankly, this is laddism in excelsis, 2 or 3 years before the launch of Loaded and Damon Albarn telling us all how he used to be into books but was now into football and greyhound racing (and Oasis doing their part in their own way too lest people think I am not being even-handed). I guess we’ll get around to this topic at that point but, nevertheless, this prefiguring is not all that welcome to my ear.
I realise that Vic and The Wonderstuff are making some effort at shooting for comedy here but it doesn’t do it for me. It’s just aggressive – and not in a good way. I only really watched Shooting Stars of the Vic and Bob stuff. Whilst they could be caustic (particularly Bob who I have always thought the funnier of the two), I never really pegged them for aggressive. This just doesn’t seem to fit either the song or what I think of when I think of Vic Reeves’ comedy. For me, a resounding miss. 3.
The TOTP version that I have seen on Youtube also captures something else – Vic Reeves bawls out the song gracelessly but I found it interesting that he looks to be wearing a tweed suit. Not being familiar with Pulp prior to their big period: did Vic Reeves nick this look from Jarvis? Or did Jarvis nick it from him?
#2 this is a good point – it’s completely disconnected from the meaning of the song, it’s a pure dance cover version of it, really.
I was steeling myself against the inevitable kicking The Wonder Stuff would get, the same they get everywhere. I guess people may only know this and ‘Size Of A Cow’, but their ’88 debut Eight Legged Grove Machine is a a scuzzy pop classic, 15 punchy, hooky beauties. They were never all that serious, but back then it was sarcasm not tomfoolery that brought the smiles. And ’89’s Hup was nearly as good.
But to the record in point, yeah, fair enough, not great. An oddly joyless sledgehammer of a “birrovfun”. I bought it though, because my flatmate and I were by this stage the official university DJs and you needed stuff like this in your locker for the History Society Christmas Party.
#2, If I recall, there is a mix of “Magic Number” that lets the sample run to the beginning of the chorus of Tommy Roe’s “Dizzy”. Unless that’s a different song/band.
Yes, it’s a straight, non-ironic cover version, and not a “pub singer” thing at all. This got replayed on the 1991 TOTP roundup recently, Vic getting totally lost and failing to find the washing machine with the TV camera in it. Oh, and for product placement, “Whirlpool” weren’t doing too badly, getting their washing machine and a few irrelevant microwave ovens on-screen…
I’d give it 6 points as there’s nothing actually wrong with it, but if you ever find the 10″ picdisc of “Born Free”, there’s a lovely hip-hop(?) version/mix of “Oh Mr Songwriter” ….
#4 re. 8LGM – I have intense resentment for that record, bought on the strength of a glowing Q Magazine review, the first album I’d ever paid for with my own wages, so I tried SO HARD to convince myself I liked it, but I never really did.
This is the downside to the whole “oh in my day we really worked hard to like a record” pre-digital nostalgia – as often as not I worked hard to like a record which deep down I thought was a bit shit.
(The sarcasm was their worst element too – MH obviously thought of himself as a great wit, but gawd! “It’s Your Money I’m After Baby”, “Who Wants To Be The Disco King” etc – heavy-handed isn’t the word. I do appreciate they’ve become a bit of an easy target though.)
I loved this. My sister was well into The Wonder Stuff and that meant I was too. It was a bit of a shock though when I saw them do ‘Welcome To The Cheap Seats’ on TOTP a bit later on and they didn’t have Vic Reeves at the front but some dude with really long hair, like Charles II.
Re: #2 I think Vic Reeves was always well into his tweed (still is!). Jarvis, back then was more sharp but quirky hipster nerd than the frightening bearded nonce he resembles nowadays.
would you trust this man round your kids: ttp://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iJPUPy50Gxc/TDObzZ-eszI/AAAAAAAAAkY/YcZEjjZ7Fgc/s1600/Jarvis-Cocker–002.jpg&imgrefurl=http://marineville.blogspot.com/2010/07/6-music-saved.html&usg=__vZWqpzlW4r48-lK1OR7pi07hdWM=&h=276&w=460&sz=35&hl=en&start=34&zoom=1&tbnid=a-pAwBQ9weT_8M:&tbnh=125&tbnw=167&ei=q43KTfe8MYiwhAfEm-CoAg&prev=/search%3Fq%3Djarvis%2Bcocker%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-gb:IE-SearchBox%26rlz%3D1I7_____en-GB%26biw%3D1020%26bih%3D567%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=0&page=3&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:34&tx=50&ty=46
Would you trust this URL around your comments box?
This just confused me at the time. He’s a comedian? Is this supposed to be funny? Where are the jokes?
Now it seems like “harmless fun” or something along those lines – still not funny but probably the better for it. If I’d had to put up with it in indie discos for years I might be a lot less charitable though.
One of my housemates at university was heavily into TWS, we all thought it was very strange. There wasn’t anything else released between 1991 and 1999 which he preferred!? But then he discovered Semisonic and David Grey, which turned the divide into a chasm.
Re:9 Oh bugger, tried to fix it, just made it worse. Shame. I’ve also just eaten a jar of chocolate sprinkles I found in a cupboard. They were 10 months out of date. More shame.
I stand by my point: Jarvis Cocker, once one of the sharpest men in pop now looks, at times, genuinely unsettling.
Re 2: I’ve always considered Reeves’ dedication to proper tailoring his sole redeeming virtue.
I used the pages of Leeds Student to berate the readership for listening to The Wonder Stuff. Didn’t do any good, obviously. They were poor, though.
Re 6: Struggling to like albums (and resenting it) – that’s a good point. It’s why I grew to actively dislike Led Zep, among others, rather than just letting them pass me by, as I guess my equivalent now would.
#4. yes quite.
I always found Vic Reeves profoundly irritating.
But it was only from this time on that the same became true of the Wonder Stuff. I suppose the laddishness and cod-loutishness was always there, perhaps submerged a bit under some lovely jangly, and tuneful, guitars, and a slightly more subtle manner of singing. (“Oh Astley in the noose, oh he hasn’t got a use, but he is trying, trying hard to be someone” . Hmm maybe scrap the subtlety) But, when all’s said and done, they always were a beery, laddish, sweaty group, not a sensitive angst-ridden indie one, really.
(I remember reading an irate piece somewhere, possibly just a letter in Record Mirror, claiming that “Who Wants To Be A Disco King?” was offensive and racist, which frankly seems somewhat over the top and unfair.)
As a student in St Andrews a couple of years later, this still rocked the, erm, megabop, as the student disco was called there. Possibly rivalled only (five+ years after its release, and even longer before its re-release) by “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)”. (Having drunk at ULU while a sixth-former, indeed in 1991, where snakebites and black were very much in evidence, I can confirm that such a beverage had no following 450 miles north-by-north-east)
My favourite “Dizzy” cover – barring the unrecorded version that Dolly Mixture performed in their early years – remains Boney M’s juddering electro version (“DEE! EYE! ZEDZED WHY!”) from 1984. Meanwhile, I tried quite hard to find Night Out-era Vic & Bob funny, mainly because I couldn’t bear to let its absurdism defeat me – I’d loved “nonsense” humour (Milligan/Lear) as a child, after all – but I don’t recall my laughter being anything other than forced. I had similar struggles with The Wonder Stuff, almost succeeding in convincing myself that “Size Of A Cow” and “Caught In My Shadow” were Good Pop. As for “Dizzy”: I bought it, keen to be in on the joke – but really, it was only good for sticking on party tapes for friends.
Finally, a unsubtle cross-site plug: the follow-up to “Dizzy” will soon be under discussion within my Which Decade Is Tops For Pops? thingy, which has recently rumbled back into action on the main FT site. If you feel like participating, you’ll be very welcome.
(#14 – Ahaha, did I say “follow-up” when I should have said “predecessor”?)
This one’s new to me. Pretty unpleasant/irritating really. Trying to think of something illuminating to say about it (while listening a couple more times) has actually put me in a really bad mood, so the hell with these guys:
2 or 3.
They play “Friday” at student discos nowadays. So yes, in terms of both irony and quality you can count yourselves lucky.
“Unbearable” is better but with the distance of time I find “Dizzy” hard to dislike; 5-y, 6-y end of things I think. “The Size of a Cow” I always think I really dislike until I hear it and I find myself liking it – I think it’s because it’s only the really clodhopping bits I can recall offhand.
“The Size of a Cow” from “Never loved elvis”
I’m positive that the radio used to play a version that had a “jailhouse rock” ending, but then it got replaced by a simple end chord and I never heard the first version again, ever.
Does anyone else remember this?
I never liked Vic Reeves’ Big Night Out but by 1993 the university mind control had taken hold and I enjoyed The Smell Of… a great deal – doubt it would stand up to rewatching.
#17 In general this was a good period for the student disco! This was a low point, as were The Levellers. But it was a fairly open-minded time, and DJs played a mix of alt.rock, dance music, hip-hop – I remember realising an era was ending when I went to one in 1994 and heard SEVEN Oasis tracks.
It will surprise maybe no one that this song is making me really, really wish there was an option on Popular to award 0. Utterly grim in concept and execution. I thought this at the time and if anything it’s gotten even worse over time.
#6 I always thought there was a bit of winning chippiness to MH’s sarcasm, but perhaps I was a carefully studied cynic too. Imagine he’d be, um, unbearable to actually know, mind.
Q forced me to buy an eye-wateringly boring Robert Cray Band album.
Hmm, apart from the Proclaimers, I bet that the atrocious house music of some kids from Cumbernauld out of their faces on E and Irn-Bru, TTF, a.k.a. The Time Frequency, wasn’t inflicted on student disco goers south of the border either.
(I think they had one semi-big hit UK-wide. I suspect they were inescapable in the Glasgow area or anywhere you could get M8 magazine)
#18 that rings a bell, but I can’t help with specifics, unfortunately…
#22 heh this is falling on deaf ears, yr blogger is a man who owns not one, not two, but THREE Tom Wilson’s Tartan Techno compilations. Though I filleted them for my favourite tracks pretty quickly (ah, “Freedom” by QFX, now there’s a tune)
Vic’s album I Will Cure You is on Spotify despite being out of print for some time, and just in cast list it’s remarkable – the Grid producing a cover of Abide With Me, Phil Oakey likewise for Black Night, BJ Cole and Jonathan Ross both get credits, and on a few tracks there’s essentially only a Derek Bailey short of a free jazz supergroup, led by Steve Beresford and Evan Parker. Against all that this seems even more of a bludgeoning claw hammer to the inner ear.
I preferred Mulligan & O’Hare.
Dizzy – the only Grebo number one?
A friend said to me recently that he’d just realised that the Wonderstuff had come up with the worst album title in pop history.
“Yes, you’re right!”, I exclaimed. “Never Loved Elvis. Awful. Was it a boast? Was it meant to provoke ageing teds? What was the point?”
“Err, no… not that one…”
No? Oh, I’ve got it… The Eight Legged Groove Machine. Horrible! The kind of name you’d think up for your band age 13 and hope no one remembered it a couple of years later.
Again he said no. The ‘correct’ answer was If The Beatles Had Read Hunter. Where to start with THAT little gem? For a start the Beatles almost certainly DID read “Hunter”, which presumably was meant as a knowing first-name ref to Hunter S Thompson (though they quite probably read Hunter Davies’ Beatles biog too). Presumably they thought their singles comp sounded better than the Beatles? I’d suggest it falls short in some departments.
So The Wonderstuff make up the entire Top 3 of worst album titles ever. Impressive work.
As for Miles Hunt, he once arrived at the studio to find Shampoo there (they’d gone to meet producer Pat Collier). He told them to leave immediately (not his exact words) as “girls don’t belong in studios.”
And he has such a kind face… who’d have guessed?
It’s a good job he thought Kirsty McColl was a bloke then.
That “worst” title does sound like it came from a (good) review (?)…
I do know the “Never loved Elvis” title came from a Dudley Moore interview, although the one I heard had him saying something slightly different. Maybe it was a later interview and he changed his answer because of the Wonder Stuff?
To be fairer no-one would bat an eyelid if The Eight Legged Groove Machine were a Funkadelic album title.
Maybe Never Loved Elvis was a reference to the fact that most of Miles Hunt’s heroes didn’t appear on no stamps.
Re 27: I’m not inventing that story. Your response only makes it worse – presumably he thought he couldn’t be as offensive to Kirsty McColl as she’d smack him in the face. Picking on 16 year olds was much easier. Hunt might be a soft target but he deserves a kicking.
Re 28: Good call, but then most Parliament/Funkadelic titles make me feel ill too. Maggot Brain? Bleeeeee!
Construction For The Modern Idiot is only a non-bad title in the context of other Wonder Stuff titles, too. It sounds like a Razorlight record.
Did Hunt not “go grunge”?
And we’re back in the dumbass arena, which The Clash occupied a few posts back.
I’ve nothing against Vic and The Wonder Stuff’s “Dizzy”. I daresay I may have drunkenly danced to it on more than one occasion. But to sit down and listen to it…any subtlety that might have been evident in the Tommy Roe original has been bludgeoned out of it.
Vic, without Bob, is an overgrown infant running wild on sugar and tartrazine. Mortimer is the parent who steps in with the warm milk and tells Reeves it’s naptime. Without that calming influence, the sugar rush leads to tiredness and tantrums. Luckily for us, “Dizzy” ends before the tantrums begin, but watching kids riffing off eachother mid-sugar rush, can be positively annoying if you’re not joining in. So without the requisite cheap cider and scruffy mates, I’m not overly amenable to this particular record. 3 is fair.
#27, I’m not saying you were inventing it. Indeed, he either respected KMac more, or (more likely) Steve Lillywhite, her (producer) husband.
“Construction For The Modern Idiot” sounds like a Lennonism, maybe from one of his books..
# 20 Didn’t think we’d ever find common ground Lex but I’m 100% with you on this.
I remember first seeing Vic Reeves on The Tube (circa 1986 when the alt com/ music balance was swinging in favour of the former) compering a laboured and hardly topical skit on Celebrity Squares. He displayed an ease with the autocue that made Mick Fleetwood look professional and I was confident that I’d never see him on TV again. Unfortunately I was wrong. I can bear him with Bob Mortimer who as Cumbrian says is much the funnier of the two but on his own he’s insufferable.
As someone who graduated in 1986 it is interesting to read what was popular with students after that. I guess from the mid-90s on the explosion in numbers meant there was no gap between the charts and the student disco anymore.
Re 30: Their discography also includes “Radio Ass Kiss” (US Radio release only). Gawdelpus! Proper misanthopists weren’t they? No disco, no Elvis, no girls, no radio friendly pop…
Reeves & Mortimer – I liked the relatively late period Catterick quite a lot. It’s unexpectedly dark, which helps. And Bob Mortimer’s character is called Carl Palmer, a neat touch as there are no other ELP references in the programme whatsoever.
TOTPWatch: An extremely drunk Vic Reeves & The Wonder Stuff performed Dizzy on the Top Of The Pops broadcast on October 24 1991. Also in the studio that week were; 2 Unlimited, Kenny Thomas, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine, Mariah Carey and Tin Machine. Tony Dortie and Mark Franklin were the hosts. Something for everyone!
“Never Loved Elvis” did have the redeeming virtue of inspiring an Aston Villa fanzine, “Never Loved Ellis” (referring to the not-very-much-liked chairman Doug Ellis). Agree about “If The Beatles Had Read Hunter” being a dog of a title, though. Namechecking another band in your own album title is generally a no-no, and it complicates matters that “Hunter” was also the title of a porn magazine, or so I’m told.
I wonder whether the general Wonder Stuff dislike on here reflects a generational divide, in that much of it appears to be based on contributors’ exposure to actual Wonder Stuff fans in their student days. Being well past that stage, I wasn’t exposed to any of their fans and their nefarious activities, so could only judge from the music and the occasional sighting on TOTP, which I have to say I enjoyed a lot. I thought the aforementioned “Hunter” compilation was full of win as well.
As for Vic, my wife and I discovered Big Night Out shortly after moving into our first house, and it was very much a shared pleasure. Not everything was a hit or even comprehensible by any means, but the more you eased yourself into his world the more sense it made, and we still quote Man With The Stick routines and Bob’s Rick Astley impression at each other even now.
“Dizzy”, then, was a blast, not trying to be a comedy record, the vocal delivery of a bloke who knows he’s not the world’s greatest singer but won’t let it get in the way, and a musical arrangement that packs a punch, with the drum intro setting the tone. Neither the singer nor the band carries the negative baggage for me that they do with others on here, and I find it easy to like.
#34 yeah, I think that was the very track (US radio played “Bugger the plugger, cos they’ll be another”? Only, ironically enough, I guess, in the imaginations of the Stuff’s plugger, I suppose. Or maybe it was all a complicated in-joke) – actually, combined with some other dire stuff on “Hup” – which I was really rather disappointed by – that made me realise that, whatever they were, they really weren’t the equals of the Wedding Present (who were also sweaty, beery and excessively conventionally masculine). And “Golden Green” was a really, really, terrible, single. And thinking about it some of its lyrics are certainly misanthropic, and possibly misogynistic, too….
I still harbour good memories of “Don’t Let Me Down, Gently” (and “Welcome To The Cheap Seats”). Although admittedly I haven’t heard either for ages.
And I don’t think I have ever met a Wonder Stuff fan…
Some of the early singles, “A wish away” for instance…
Also, “Circle Square” had one of those videos that you could make at a ‘make your own video’ booth.
I remember those. It cost £20 or something like that, but it would cost £200 if you wanted to use it for proper promo, to pay for the copyright outright.
Oddly enough Wichita Lineman and I were talking about this perception of ‘the Weddoes’ in the pub the other night! I think only in the context of 80s indie would the Wedding Present come across as “beery” or “excessively masculine” – anyone imagining they represented some kind of pole of blokedom in rock was going to get a rude shock as the 90s progressed.
As Miles Hunt used to go out with a friend of a friend, I’m sitting very tightly on my hands while I read this comments thread!
I thought I would be quite positively disposed towards this until I saw it again recently on the BBC roundup of 1991 acts and I found it laboured and bludgeoning. I bought a copy of ‘Hup’ and quite liked it’s energy – never listening to the lyrics – but I suspect its charms may have faded
#36 – Thank God for that. I thought I was going to have to wade into this thread with a positive comment all by myself. This record is far too easy a target, as – unlike “The One and Only” – it hasn’t really been reassessed by anyone yet, or reclaimed by a new generation. In fact, I think its main problem was its sheer ubiquity for about 5-8 years after it hit number one.
I was a huge fan of both Vic Reeves and The Wonder Stuff at the time this was released. The latter have slipped down in my estimations quite a bit since (they were my absolute favourites, you know) and now admittedly seem like a band a bunch of adolescents would have got a lot out of between 1987-91. Those knowing sarcastic lyrics, smug yet clumsy Bukowski references, sledgehammer arrangements – it’s pure teenage boy stuff, music for slamming doors and stomping your feet to. This is probably why I got a lot out of them at the time, but cringe mightily at some of their low points now.
For all that, though, “If The Beatles Had Read Hunter” does prove that, for the most part, they had some superb indie-pop songs in their arsenal. “Hot Love Now”, “Caught In My Shadow”, “Unbearable” (preferably the album remix), “Don’t Let Me Down Gently”… all are great, in the same way that their Midlands forebears Slade had a powerful and laddish yet wonderful way with hook-filled melodies. If it’s subtlety you’re after, you won’t find it here, but if some of these melodies had been owned by Madness they’d still be raved about. Ignore the clunkiness of the lyrics, and there’s a lot to love. I was actually listening to them on the way home from work this evening, perhaps in anticipation of this entry.
“Dizzy” was admittedly not a career high point, but I will happily admit that I prefer it to Tommy Roe’s original. Like a lot of Stuffies singles, there’s a sheer rush to it which is infectious – perhaps horribly so if you’ve been to too many student discos. As the song ploughs forwards towards that megaphone howl at the end, it’s actually reaching a sugar-rush of a high which still makes me smile with its OTT energy, pushing an already energetic record into the red. Reeves’ vocal, meanwhile, is competent enough to carry the song, and I’ve always thought his performance is ‘frustrated rock star’ rather than an attempt at comedy. He was in bands long before his attempts as a “TV funnyman” (which were largely the result of a happy accident).
I never listen to this track out of my own choice these days due to its over-exposure, but for a time it was fun, and interestingly my Canadian wife plays it frequently despite despising Vic Reeves with every fibre in her body. She moved to this country utterly oblivious to this record’s existence then decided she liked it despite the individuals involved. That to me has always been proof that it has some kind of peculiar hold and was a natural number one.
I would launch into a defence of Vic Reeves as a result of some of the flippant dismissals above, but I fear I’d be here all night if I did. I still actually believe that he’s an astonishing talent, and own absolutely all of his shows on DVD which I rewatch many times and always find new details to admire.
(Also, only just noticed that thefatgit uses the “sugar rush” description as a criticism above. I don’t quite see it that way – like bubblegum, it can either be an insult or a complement depending on your viewpoint).
I actually think Vic Reeves flat vocals are what hamper it and it’s the band who give the song some uplift not least the drummer.
Having said that I would join in the No votes on the Wonderstuff.
Whenever I hear people claiming Britpop was some kind of rebuke to Grunge I wonder does no one remember those grey November afternoons steeling oneself to listen to Construction for the Modern Idiot start to finish, or trying to be convinced that Kingmaker on TOTP was some kind of triumph or gamely attempting to sing along to After All by the Wank and Falters. Regardless of grunge there was a whole host of decent bands coming from the States around this time. It was British indie that was wandering down the same dreary cul-de-sacs so we should be spared all that thoughtless anti-American crap.
#43 – to be honest, I don’t think Britpop itself was largely any better than the bands you’ve mentioned. Certainly The Frank and Walters were better than Echobelly, and The Wonder Stuff were better than Dodgy. The Wonder Stuff were also sure as hell better than The Supernaturals, who were complete Stuffie clones musically speaking. Britpop to me was just three good bands (or three bands, some of them successful and some of them good, depending on your perspective) and a bunch of other middling acts riding on their coat-tails, some of whom could equally have belonged in the NME in 1991. Elastica (who I change my opinion about regularly) and Echobelly, lest we forget, had already been lumped in with the “New Wave of New Wave” movement.
The most interesting British material for me circa Britpop was the stuff which didn’t fit the sixties guitar pop model at all, and therefore wasn’t officially included in the genre at the time (Radiohead and Leftfield, for example). There did seem to be a hell of a lot of interesting homegrown talent around in the mid-nineties which wasn’t all second-hand sixties and seventies new wave riffs.
Interesting that this has come up in conversation, because Miles Hunt makes no secret about the fact he’s bitter that The Wonder Stuff aren’t given any credit for paving the way for Britpop. Commercially, they were one of the only British guitar bands to regularly break the top ten and therefore might have opened some ears, but stylistically I think they contributed relatively little (ignoring The Supernaturals here for a minute).
Wonderstuff – the UK’s first lottery funded band – fact. The bassist won on the football pools and decided to release an EP on their own label. Arguably the best track by them was ‘Golden Green’ and then almost 20 years later they do the theme tune to CBBC’s Underground Ernie.
I must admit this effort is a lot better the I’m a believer some 4 years later with EMF.
#44 – Don’t forget that in 1992 ‘the future of British music’ emerged in the form of Suede. It is always considered that they paved the way for Britpop. I think this has to do with the fact that they were from London, not a provincial town where a certain sound could be attributed, which most indie bands were at the time. Now if Suede were from Northampton would they of received the same plaudits.
Here in Oz, I had no idea Vic Reeves was a comedian and thought Vic Reeves and the Wonder Stuff was an actual band. I wondered why this was their only song. It took me years to realise the truth.
So with Reeves taken out of context, I actually enjoyed this at the time in a jump around crazy kind of way. I liked my goofy songs back then.
Garry might correct me, but I believe that Reeves and Mortimer weren’t seen on Oz TV in any manner, means, shape or form till about five or six years ago when three or four episodes of “Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased)” appeared on a weekday afternoon slot, then vanished forever.
So, like one or two others here, one was able to assess it without any baggage attached (I don’t think a lot of Stuff was played either). It was OK.
@23daves, 42.
Also, only just noticed that thefatgit uses the “sugar rush” description as a criticism above. I don’t quite see it that way – like bubblegum, it can either be an insult or a compliment depending on your viewpoint).
I like your one word examples of something having a kind of hidden premise that reverses intent. I heard a radio piece by a linguist (Geoff Nunberg) on proverbial phrases that vary in the same way (so they’re always right!):
A rolling stone gathers no moss = good (you should be a rolling stone then!), because moss is horrible grungy polluting crap.
A rolling stone gathers no moss = bad (you shouldn’t be a rolling stone then!), because moss is warm fuzzy stuff that represents roots and connectedness (in other regions).
Proverbs about ‘bad apples’ originally counseled watching out for bad apples precisely because they’ll infect/taint a whole barrel of apples. That’s now completely flipped around to an (often implausibly exculpatory) image of non-infection, e.g. there’s nothing wrong with the police/company/marines etc., it’s just those bad apples over there.
Nunberg cited The Osmonds as a possible inflection point in how ‘bad apple’ proverbs were used, but I suspect that things like ‘sugar-rush’ and ‘bubble-gum’ that flip almost instantaneously from negative evals (by out-group members) to positive (by in-group members) are going to be the norm in the engine-room of pop and dance culture.
#45 – Yes. And I only realised after making my post that if I’d wanted to expand on my point, I should have pointed out that Blur were in the charts already at this point, and Dodgy (who I used as an example) weren’t having any success but were most definitely out and about. I know this, because I have hazy memories of watching a live gig by them around this time. Britpop definitely co-opted a lot of bands who had been around for some time already, and trickled down to add more time to the careers of others (such as the Inspiral Carpets and The Charlatans) who it couldn’t realistically assimilate. I sometimes wonder if the Stuffies would have benefitted from a Britpop career boost had they carried on, but demos of the material they recorded before they split seem to show that they’d have been lucky to catch anyone’s attention at all. Dreary isn’t the word.
#48 – This is a really interesting area, and I think it applies to music in particular because one person’s source of irritation could be another person’s hook. I think the Pet Shop Boys in particular are a band whose critical comments (usually around Tennant’s voice) often actually highlight their appealing aspects for me.
This is one of the things I like most about music (and writing about music, specifically) – the way pretty much any adjective becomes malleable in value. So “smooth” can imply luxury or tedium or both, “cheap” can be thrilling or ugly, and so on.