Does Your Mother Know That You're Out?

"I'm the cruiser

You're the loser

Me and you sir?

Homosapien too..."

"Well I can dance with you honey

If you think it's funny

But does your mother know that you're out?"

We don't have a high tolerance for mash-ups here at Pop Heights, but try sitting through this one with a po-face.

Thanks, Tony.

Living In Another World

"Did I see tenderness where you saw hell?”

I can remember the first time I heard ‘The Colour of Spring’. It’s just one of those albums. The sun was streaming through the windows of the record shop I worked in, revealing dust motes in the air and grime everywhere. I fell pretty hard for the whole LP, but ‘Living In Another World’ took a while to grow. Maybe it’s my favourite now.

It’s a fascinatingly structured track. I love the way the chorus suddenly jumps out, unannounced – a kind of ambush. Then we get Mark Feltham’s searing post-chorus harmonica riff. Fresh momentum is achieved in the second verse via the introduction of an ace one-note anchoring bassline. By this point, Mark Hollis is sounding increasingly desperate. When he delivers the pay-off line, “God only knows what kind of tale you’d tell!”, I have visions of him in the vocal booth ripping fistfuls of hair out. His post-break-up lyric seems to deal not with the sadness of heartbreak, but with the rage and mystification of it.

At 3.37 a petulantly mis-hit piano chord announces a fifteen second percussive break. I always find myself waiting tensely for those four snare cracks that signal the song’s resumption. Great fill.

Driving the track along throughout is a feverish Hammond part by Steve Winwood. Legend has it the starstruck Talk Talk boys were so thrilled to be working with Winwood they decided furtively to note down the settings of his organ drawbars for future use in the studio. They were amused to discover he had literally pulled out all the stops…to the max. Voila: The Winwood Sound.

The extended twelve inch of ‘Living in Another World’ lacks the jolting urgency of the album version, but is a brilliant arrangement in its own right.

Thank you to my friend James for making me listen to Talk Talk, despite my hatred of their artwork.

Song 4 Mutya

"I'm driving fast, I feel so fine

I've got Prince singing 'Hot Thing' to me

I know every line

So I pull up to the red light

Sitting there in my car

I look up to my right

And there you are

Sat there with some new girl - what is this?

That's who has replaced me - what a diss!"

Normally, the music of Groove Armada makes me shiver with a nameless dread, but I went a bundle on this collaboration with ex-Sugababe Mutya Buena in 2007.

There's something about the way she narrates those opening lines that tickles and terrifies me in equal measure. Maybe it's because she looks a lot like a girl I went to school with who gave me a deserved whalloping once for "using big words". I definitely wouldn't fuck with Mutya. I bet what she has done to toilet attendants in clubs over the years would send Cheryl Cole running for her mummy.

The groove of 'Song 4 Mutya' is a replayed version of the fantastic 'Let's Be Adult' by Ambitious Lovers, Arto Lindsay's skewed pop project with keyboardist Peter Scherer. Lindsay was also in no-wavers DNA, The Golden Palominos and John Zorn's Locus Solus ensemble.

But back to Mutya. A quick scan of Wikipedia reveals that she is now training to be a child psychologist and paid £5,000 for bum implants in 2009, a procedure I doubt Arto Lindsay has ever considered.

The much-venerated Pitchfork Media described 'Song 4 Mutya' as 'inspired' and 'glorious'.

Get Well Soon

Don't stop the dance, Fez. You big Tory bastard.

Madonna (by Sparks)

(Russell, as he may have looked when he caught Madonna's eye)

"I walked out on the street

While the big city lights

Tried to sell me on a way of life

I was already living..."

#2 in my featured 'talking' songs (also from 1988, coincidentally), 'Madonna' is the story of a one night stand that doesn't end well. It's far from being a classic Sparks record, and yet I've always found myself captivated by the idea of Ms. Ciccone slowing down in her "limousine longer than the Golden Gate Bridge" to pick up the narrow-hipped and handsomely maned Mr. Mael (Junior) off the streets of San Francisco.

This track was introduced to me by my friend David, a fellow Sparks fan, many moons ago. I had always avoided the 'Interior Design' album it comes from because of the woefully thin, tin-pot synth-pop production (the Mael brothers' first attempt to self-produce after working with a string of big names like Mack and Moroder), but I have since come to treasure 'Madonna' more as a series of images than anything else. ("She turned on a classical station, but the reception was poor".)

I've also long harboured a desire to cover the track, to recite the lyrics (which I know by heart) in a whacked-out, slutty drawl (à la Kim Gordon doing 'Tunic') over some fathoms-deep cosmic throb. But I don't suppose a Lancashire accent would really cut it...

Somewhere Down The Crazy River

"She said, you like it now

But you'll learn to love it later..."

A little while ago a pub conversation got me thinking about my favourite 'talking' records - tracks that feature a characterful, filmic narrative where a vocal melody would usually sit. I've compiled quite a list of them since and will be blogging on this theme when the fancy takes me.

First up is Robbie Robertson's 'Somewhere Down The Crazy River'. It came out in 1988 when I was ten - a year of total pop immersion for me. A time of obsessive chart taping, Casio keyboard programming and live 'broadcasting' direct to an endless supply of TDK C90s using my Dad's slimline AKAI pencil microphone.

I remember listening to Robbie's honeyed burr over and over again and feeling deeply absorbed by the mystery of it all. I didn't really know what he was on about, but I sensed the voodoo, the headiness, in my own way. Hilariously (looking back), I remember linking the track, mentally, to Um Bongo - of 'consumed in the Congo' fame. I felt certain that exotic liquid must spring from a similar kind of 'crazy river'.

These days, when I put my seven inch on, I am struck instantly by two things: the sheer atmosphere and potency of the lyric, and the stunning Manu Katché groove. I could disappear for days at a time down the cracks in that spacious groove. I've even managed to find some footage on YouTube of other drummers deconstructing it.

And last, but not least, of course, I must mention the great Daniel Lanois - I can almost smell Lanois all over this record...Eau De Lanois.

Gorgeous...

Just Be Good To Me

"I don't care about the other girls

Just be good to me..."

Such a heavy record.

The intro is so melancholy and grandiose I feel I have to get to my feet to listen to it like some knackered veteran hauling themselves up for The Star-Spangled Banner.

The lyric observes the time-honoured female-vocal tradition of 'shit on me, it's fine, just get on with it' best exemplified by 'Stand By Your Man', 'Don't Explain' (it's the Nina version for me) or Bobbie Gentry's 'I Wouldn't Be Surprised'.

A Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis production, it is perhaps second only to 'Sexual Healing', in the 'famous use of an 808' stakes.

Norman Cook's cover, 'Dub Be Good To Me', lent heavily on The Clash's 'Guns of Brixton' and sampled the harmonica from Morricone's 'Once Upon A Time in the West'. The opening and closing line, 'tank fly boss walk jam nitty gritty/you're listening to the boy from the big bad city, this is jam hot, this is jam hot', was from Johnny Dynell's 1983 hit 'Jam Hot', which was recently reswizzled by Tensnake.

Distressingly, 'Dub Be Good to Me' was covered in 2002 by Faithless and Dido for a Warchild charity album. Surely one of the most sinister pop collaborations of all time.

Just A Little

"And you're so innocent

Please don' take this wrong

'Cause it's a compliment..."

One of the songs I enjoyed hearing most at Pop 'Til You Drop on Saturday was Liberty X's 'Just A Little'. A mega-hit from 2002, it surprised many by proving that, occasionally, great records can emerge from the ashes of TV talent contests such as ITV's 'Popstars'. That series was, of course, won by those rampant disrespectors of the apostrophe, Hear'say - 'a veritable banquet of British pop talent', as Paul Adam, director of A&R at Polydor Records described them at the time.

'Just A little' - a number one - was followed cannily by a cover of Mantronix's 'Got To Have Your Love' (#2) and then Christmas single 'Holding On For You' (#5) . The latter, an arid, featureless ballad topped off with some very nasty drum programming, nevertheless burrowed its way into my affections that December. I love the harmonies, particularly evident at 2.51, and suspect that in the right producer's hands it could have been a gorgeous TLC-esque swoonathon.

Yeah?

Pop Til You Drop - Maiden Voyage!

Nasty Girl

"That's right, I can't control it

I need seven inches or more

Tonight, I can no longer hold it

Get it up, get it up, I can't wait anymore..."

'Nasty Girl' is a song written by Prince for his protégé girl group Vanity 6. Prince gave the songwriting credit to lead singer Vanity, although he was the writer and composer. It was the second single taken from their debut album 'Vanity 6' and was released in 1982.

Vanity is now a Christian preacher and has denounced 'Nasty Girl', telling members of her congregation who've listened to it to 'keep praying to the Holy Spirit'.

[Wikipedia]

Inaya Day had a hit with the track in 2004. Her version, which I used to love listening to in the car with an ex who always drove too fast, also tips a hefty wink to 'Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough', and was produced by the redoubtable Mr. Mousse T.

Orchestra Hit

(Waveform of an orchestra hit played on a Yamaha MU50 - XG mode)

An orchestra hit, also known as an orchestral hit, orchestra stab, or orchestral stab, is a sound created through the layering of the sounds of a number of different orchestral instruments playing a single staccato note or chord. The orchestra hit sound was propagated by the use of early samplers, particularly the Fairlight CMI where it was known as the ORCH5 sample. The sound is used in pop, hip hop and techno genres to accentuate passages of music.

[Wikipedia]

-

I've been playing with this all day:

http://free-loops.com/6976-orchestra-hit-4.html

This Is Pop?

"In a milk bar and feeling lost
Drinking sodas as cold as frost
Someone leans in my direction
Quizzing on my juke-box selection
What do you call that noise
That you put on?

This is pop
Yeah Yeah

This is!

On a walkway and moving fast
All I get is transistor blast
Someone leans in my direction
Quizzing on my station selection
What do you call that noise
That you put on?

This is pop
Yeah yeah

This is!

We come the wrong way
We come the long way
We play the songs much too loud

I consider this song to be a manifesto. The 1978 re-recording (starts 25 seconds in - TURN IT UP!) is superior to the original album version. I love the cheeky 'circus polka' keyboard solo at 1.18.

Before playing Girls Aloud to glaring indie boys in bars, I always give 'This Is Pop?' a spin. Like it or lump it, dickwads!

Isn't It Midnight

"Isn't it midnight

On the other side of the world?"

An overlooked Christine McVie song, 'Isn't It Midnight' was the vastly less successful follow-up to 'Everywhere' from 'Tango In The Night'. McVie wrote it with her then husband, the keyboard player Eddy Quintela, a non-member of Fleetwood Mac.

Having always had a soft spot for the track I snook it on at a friend's house a long time after midnight on Sunday morning just gone. Halfway through the guitar solo my friend delivered her verdict, head in hands:

'It's just so (long, drawn-out sigh of exasperation)....gash.'

This is an alternate mix taken from 'The Chain' box set - one of my favourite comps of all time.

I Do, I Do, I Do

"Love me or leave me

Make your choice, but believe me..."

Three years ago today the great Ola Brunkert, drummer for ABBA, died after an accidental fall at the age of 61. Brunkert hit his head against a glass door in his dining room in Mallorca, shattering the glass and cutting himself in the neck. He had managed to wrap a towel around his neck and leave the house to seek help, but collapsed in the garden.

Strangely enough, when I was in M&S today snatching a few stolen moments with Myra, my favourite mannequin, 'I Do, I Do, I Do' came on. Not one of Ola's grooviest moments, I'll concur, but nevertheless an ABBA song of which I am unwaveringly fond. Its torpid post-glam triplets, sleazy saxes and screamingly predictable key lift at the end all say 'IT'S CHRIIIIIIIIIISTMAS!' to me. Albeit Christmas on your own with a pale ale down the Emmanuel Street Labour Club in Plungington.

This ABBA performance is notable for those electric blue suits and the palpable tension between Agnetha and Frida, who loathed each other's guts at this point.

Play The Game

"When you're feeling down and your resistance is low

Light another cigarette and let yourself go..."

'Play the Game' is my favourite Queen song. It opens with a spacey rush of Oberheim OB-X synth and features one of Brian May's most rhapsodic solos. The exquisite Gershwin-esque vocal melody and 'fuck it!' lyrics are among Freddie's best. This is Queen at the peak of their powers: a four piece perfectly quartered.

Some years ago I saw a sketch on TV by (I think) Bill Bailey, which involved him dissecting the 'Play the Game' video. He pointed out that at exactly two minutes into the clip, John Deacon steadfastly refuses to play said game. A hilarious pop moment.

In an NME review of a Queen gig in the eighties, a journalist described John Deacon's bass-playing style as 'like a man trying to flick a wasp off his waist'.