Pop Picking

Paul Cornell's now annual attempt to do 'The 12 Days of Blogging' (or 12 Blogs of Christmas, or something to do with the number 12) has brought up a brilliant blog that I hadn't previously heard of, but has apparently been running since 2003.

[Sidestep: did I even know the word 'blog' back then? I'm surprised how long I've been writing this one - I spent an hour yesterday adding keywords to all of the entries and was amazed at how much I've written. I know it's nowhere near the 'blog every day' ethos, but I also note that a couple of my chums abandoned their blogs over a year ago, so, um, I win. Ha!]

Over on Freakytrigger, Tom Ewing has been reviewing every single UK number one record, starting at the beginning with Al Martino and 'Here in my Heart' and working his way through in order. As I write this, he's just completed his 477th review - Shakin' Stevens' 'This Ole House'.

A good few years ago, I decided I needed [oh wait, hold on a sec, I'm not writing this while Fern Kinney is playing. Skip to The Jam's 'Going Underground'. Better.] to get an MP of every number one single. I had a few already so I added those to my playlist, then set about scouring the internet for the rest. Entirely coincidentally, the last number one I managed to find before I'd caught up was Don Cornell's 'Hold My Hand'.

Tom has managed to find the sleeve artwork for a lot of these songs, so I've wasted a fine hour this morning stealing the pics and adding them to my playlist on iTunes. This is how I came to make a discovery - that there's an astoundingly perfect run of number ones in the late 1970s. David Soul's 'Silver Lady' was tripe, but I've seen grown men wilt at the first cautious electronic organ sighs of Baccara's Euro-pop hit 'Yes Sir, I Can Boogie'.

Grown gay men, but grown men nonetheless.

From then on, it's one great pop track after another until late-1979 when Buggles' 'Video Killed the Radio Star' was bumped for Lena Martell's 'One Day at a Time'. I can imagine a collective exhalation there, when the record-buying public asked 'Who bought that? COME ON - own up!!'

I've always loved the 1980s, but I have to concede the late '70s was a brilliant time for pop fans. Just have a look at this list (the numbers in square brackets give the song's order in chart history):

[414] Yes Sir, I Can Boogie Baccara
[415] The Name Of The Game ABBA
[416] Mull Of Kintyre Wings (okay, I'm conceding this Macca hit because I did like it at the time)
[417] Uptown Top Ranking Althea and Donna (best one-hit wonder ever!)
[418] Figaro Brotherhood Of Man
[419] Take A Chance On Me ABBA
[420] Wuthering Heights Kate Bush
[421] Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs Brian and Michael
[422] Night Fever The Bee Gees
[423] Brown Girl in the Ring Boney M
[424] You're the One That I Want John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John
[425] Three Times A Lady The Commodores
[426] Dreadlock Holiday 10CC
[427] Summer Nights John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John
[428] Rat Trap The Boomtown Rats
[429] Da Ya Think I'm Sexy Rod Stewart
[430] Mary's Boychild Boney M
[431] YMCA Village People
[432] Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick Ian Dury and the Blockheads
[433] Heart Of Glass Blondie
[434] Tragedy The Bee Gees
[435] I Will Survive Gloria Gaynor
[436] Bright Eyes Art Garfunkle (c'mon, it's the most-played song at children's funerals. That has to count for something)
[437] Sunday Girl Blondie
[438] Ring My Bell Anita Ward (pew pew!)
[439] Are Friends Electric Tubeway Army
[440] I Don't Like Mondays Boomtown Rats
[441] We Don't Talk Anymore Cliff Richard
[442] Cars Gary Numan
[443] Message in a Bottle The Police
[444] Video Killed The Radio Star Buggles


Here's something else though: Baccara were Spanish; Abba were Sweden's biggest export; Boney M were German. We had European acts in our charts, and they were bloody good.

In a similar time period, we've had a number one from Swedish Basshunter ('Now You're Gone' - tripe!), a dreary, overplayed song by another Swede, Robyn, and a godawful one by bloody Chico! European acts just aren't crossing over the channel any more. I wonder if their charts are as dominated by English and American acts. There are more American artists in the charts now, the majority of which are R&B-based. In fact, the genres have become very samey too, with identikit R&B singers warbling through tuneless songs, or skinny white guys moaning to a dreary Coldplay-lite backing track (including - Heaven help us - Take That, whose 'Greatest Day' sounds as if it were written specifically to be used on an advert for BT).

I'm sure it's not just nostalgia - music was more varied, more adventurous and more surprising in the 1970s and '80s than it is today. Or rather, the stuff that tops the charts tends to be kind of the same as the stuff we heard last time. Simon Cowell's got the Christmas number one sewn up again in the form of X Factor winner Alexandra Burke - the only surprise there being that she's doing a Leonard Cohen track!

I'll go back to my number ones now. I can feel an old fogey rant coming on.

We Are Family...

Social Networking, they call it - those websites that seem to pop up every six months that allow you to make new friends and link up to old ones. I've joined a lot of these over the years, sometimes to get in touch with a specific person, sometimes to explore what everyone else is on about.

I never really got MySpace. It's clunky, many of the profiles are horrifically untidy and ugly to look at (and I don't mean the people, just the junk they litter their pages with), but mainly because it's full of dickheads who treat friendship like Pokemon: GOTTA CATCH 'EM ALL! I've made contact with a few long-lost friends, but I've rejected new 'friendships' with far too many stupid 15-year-old girls who are clearly leaving themselves open to be abused by strangers, but who also clearly have little interest in actually being friends with anyone as they send out invitations for friendship even when my own profile specifically states I'm not looking to befriend strangers.

But I suppose it's a handy tool if you're a musician and have a teensy bit of design skill.

I spent about four months exploring Second Life too, but it's tricky getting into the heart of it unless you have money and 3D sculpting skills. I've had some great nights on there, virtually dancing in a virtual nightclub, but the fact that locations are rented and need to be paid for means you can go to a club in a location one night and then turn up at an empty field the next.

YouTube's a lot of fun. I've linked to things on there here before and I enjoy a good night browsing. No problems with that, although I'm unlikely to ever become a Vlogger (a clumsy port manteau word really). My favourite YouTuber is a fella who goes by the name of 'Blunty 3000'. He get angry with things, has obsessions equal but different to my own, but on the whole he seems to be a voice of reason and common sense on the web, which needs to be applauded. If only the dumb American teens would get off his back.

The current 'UGC site du jour is of course Facebook. It's good for allowing users to add or subtract applications and you can join up with groups that are relevant to you.

And occasionally, you get a message from someone who blows your mind, like I did two weeks ago when my cousin, who I haven't seen in nearly 20 years, dropped me a line.

Almost straight away we were gabbing away like mad, shared a few family stories and memories and agreed to meet up.

Unfortunately, the night we were meeting up happened to come the night after my dramatic tooth incident, so I was a bit slurry thanks to the numb jaw when we first met, and (thankfully) a bit slurry at the end of the night because we'd enjoyed copious lagers.

It's great having family nearby now, and I'm proud to say my cousin is very, very cool.

Oh, and she's on MySpace too, in the form of her project Bad Anorak 404. Who'd've thunk?! There's a review on the Bad Anorak 404 website that includes a review with an amazing back-handed compliment:

Lin Sangster is like a strange aunt you hate to visit as a child (the awkward opening track does nothing to assuage your fears), but when you are older you realise that she’s the well-adjusted one and she quickly becomes your favourite relative.

Spot on.

Laid Them on the Green

They might be the cause of embarrassment if you reveal them during a karaoke performance, but the mondegreen is often a thing of pleasure. That wonderful moment when you realise that they lyrics to a song weren't quite how you thought they were.

My first experience of this was in 'I Will Survive' by Gloria Gaynor, in which my seven-year-old self was convinced the song was about a woman refusing to be friends with a boy who bullied her at school. After all, 'weren't you the one who tried to hit me with your bike?' Later on, one of my oldest friends tried to convince me that Madonna's 'La Isla Bonita' contained the words 'Last night I slept with some Dago' and 'Chocolate goolies, Ice for free.' I wasn't fooled.

Madonna seems to have a real skill for these things though. Who can forget 'Erotica', where she urges: 'Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie - put your hands all over Bill Oddie'? Or that glorious chorus from 'Ray of Light' where she eulogises over a former Brookside actress's obsession with glitterball-illuminated garden pond decorations: 'Anna Friel - is a disco gnome!'

A really obscure one is the reluctance of Liberty X to acknowledge how influential a certain Doctor Who writer has been on their career. Why else would they take time out from their cover of 'Ain't Nobody' to refer to 'The Russell T we cannot mention'?

Once you start noticing mondegreens, you begin to hear them all over the place. My own version of it is, I think, slightly influenced by Tourette's Syndrome as I frequently hear people say the most filthy things only for them to repeat themselves and I discover they were actually asking me if I could flick their cat out or something.

And that, your honour, is my defence...

(p.s. – I do love that my spellchecker doesn’t recognise the word 'Tourette's' and offers 'toilette' as an alternative. Is it trying to say I'm a potty mouth?)

Bears, Sausages and Divas

'Do you like Madonna,' shouts the self-proclaimed Diva, and considering the clientele, the response was surprisingly apathetic at best. It's the launch night of an event for gentlemen of a certain persuasion, certain weight and certain type of facial hair that goes by the name of 'Ursus', and the cabaret act is... okay, although I find myself conjuring up Simon Cowell to be really off-hand with her.

I'm there for most of the night with my dear friend David, who's a sweet, sensitive soul who doesn't drink, so I'm on Shandy so as not to annoy him (not that he'd ever judge me, but I'd hate to give him cause to). In truth, the first part of the night is like a cut-price Duckie without the surprises but the second DJ manages to play a few electro-tunes that sparked the room up, including 'Over and Over' by Hot Chip. And the compere is a little too in your face and desperate. It's launch night, he's allowed to be, but I have to say his plate of sausages nearly turned my stomach.

It's strange being in a room full of people you mainly know from the internet. It's a bit like Terminator 2, where your inner T-1000 is scanning the room and applying data that you've skimmed from their online profiles: '6' 2", blue eyes, active, likes to be spanked... 5' 10" (liar!!), bottom, likes role-play... 5' 11", real name Steve, total homer sexual....'

Then there's the moment you realise you're the only person in the room who seems to be glad they're playing 'Wordy Rappinghood' (12" Version) by the Tom Tom Club - or maybe it just feels like that.

So then it's home and I manage to sprint across Brixton to catch my bus and be back in time to spend an hour listening to 'Uptown Top Ranking' and 'The Happy Man' by Thomas Lang, which helps to take the edge off the week. Tomorrow, it's a deliberate day of leisure, then on Sunday I'm being interviewed for a documentary to appear on a forthcoming Doctor Who DVD, in my 'TV and film historian' guise. I've got a lot of my comments rehearsed, but I know most of what I will say is going to be used as airfill. I just have to make sure I'm not used to just tell the story, but instead have something political or socially engaging to say, rather than 'I like dis wun' or 'Dat wus crappe'.

We shall see. I'll probably end up doing the Whovian equivalent of 'hats, gloves and shoes'...

Throughout the night, no need to fight...

So, Gordon Brown's officially the new Prime Minister.

I'm awaiting a succession of programmes using that song by The Stranglers, because 'Golden Brown' sounds like 'Gordon Brown'.

... and then a succession of producers getting a bollicking when someone points out that the Stranglers song is about heroin.

A Little Bit of Politics... but American

I like the Clintons. Bill was working on his electoral campaign when I was in the first year of my degree studies. We were both very successful, though I emerged with slightly less scandal than Bill. Much as I liked him, I really liked his wife. Takes a lot of guts to say to the American people 'If you don't believe him, don't vote for him' and then to stand my him after he's admitted to getting a blow-job from a rather plain intern.

I've just seen this news story about Hilary inviting people to choose her campaign song in her own bid for the American presidency.

Now, firstly, I would imagine the people would want someone who can choose their own song without putting that to the vote, but it's all about engagement, so I can see why her advisors might think it's a good idea. But look at the choices:

U2 - 'City of Blinding Lights'
U2 - 'Beautiful Day'
KT Tunstall - 'Suddenly I See'
Smash Mouth - 'I'm a Believer'
The Temptations - 'Get Ready'
Dixie Chicks - 'Ready to Run'
Shania Twain - 'Rock This Country'
Jesus Jones - 'Right Here Right Now'
The Staple Singers - 'I'll Take You There'


I love that Smash Mouth's 'I'm a Believer' is in there. That's a cover of the Monkees song... as first heard in Shrek... Someone in her campaign has worked out how to attract new voters. She might as well put 'A Whole New World' from The Little Mermaid in there too. A friend suggested she should choose 'Stand by your Man' but that seems more than a little cruel.

Her website's a bit odd too. 'Help make history', it invites. In my mind, this has collided with Richard Curtis's campaign to get rid of poverty to produce 'Make Hilary history'.

Still, she's got a Jesus Jones song in the list - how cool is that? Hope she wins, but the cynic in me doesn't see it happening. The Right will intervene with dirty tricks - you mark my words.

I'd go with The Temptations, myself. Not so much a musical recommendation, more a guide for life.

Prescience and Bad Taste

It's back to the retrospective reviews of my own postings on mailing lists, and this one from Friday 23 July, 1999, on the subject of Paul McCartney, who my mate Jim was insisting 'is a bloody genius'.

... and therefore invalidated every one of [Jim]'s previous opinions on everything. When my dictatorship comes to fruition, Jim, that man will be tried for his crimes against nature.

I *hate* it when he says in interviews "So I said to John..." when it's just painfully obvious that he didn't. You can hear it on one of the Anthology session recordings when he tries to have a go at John by saying "I'll try to remember, but if I don't it's too bad", and then wusses out by doing a funny voice to mask his petulence. And then he knocks over a glass and John
immediately jumps in with "Paul's broken a glass, broken a glass he's broken today" revealing his calm, wonderous talent and showing Macca up.

On the subject of Peace and Goodwill to All Men:
JL - "War is Over"
PMc - "Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time"

On the subject of their wives:
JL - "Woman"
PMc - The Frog Chorus*

Still, they both married complete dogs who should have stuck to art instead of "having a go" at music.

Oh, and then years later, Macca collaborated with Elvis Costello and in the interviews all we got was "so then I said to Elvis..."

I bet he's waited YEARS to use that phrase - even if it was the wrong Elvis (and yet the right one - in SO many ways).

* Okay, technically speaking, The Frog Chorus was inspired by Linda's dad advising Paul to buy the rights to Rupert Bear and making him rich, but it was a joke just sitting there, pining to be picked up, despite its useless back legs.

Okay, so that last line about useless legs made me wince. How was I to know that Macca would be married to Heather Mills within seven years of writing that, eh?

I'm still not overly fond of Macca, though I work with people who claim he's their favourite Beatle. he'll never be mine, even if he outlives Ringo Starr. Why would I pick him when I can still have 'Scarab' and 'Dung'?

Later on that same day, apparently after a horrible meeting (the weekly status meeting I bet; by this time I was struggling to create enough time for the teams to do a decent job, because all of the 'fat' in the schedules had been slashed down), I backtracked a little and had something nice to say about Paul McCartney. It's a view I'd still stand by today:

McCartney made the Beatles popular. He had an ear for a good tune, a skill for upbeat popular styles and a way of reinventing other people's songs (in the early days) and adapting them to his own methods.

But Lennon made then unique. The moment he lost interest (around the time of the White Album) is when, for me, they stop being interesting and start laying down the template that Paul Wellar would stick to for his entire career (and Oasis, The Verve...)

Hey Sucka!

This from 30 June, 1999:

Just listening to one of the new early-80s NOW albums (the originals started in 1983, but they've faked up three others so the series can run from 1980 to 1995 - and they're fab!). While enduring "Wham Rap!" I noticed the many clues to the future "Revelation" about George Michael's sexuality (I say "Revelation" because I have this image of a middle-aged couple in Guilford going "NO! Really?" when the news broke).

The following are excerpts from the song:

"Hey sucker! What the Hell's got into you?" [The first damn line!!]
"Well I haven't seen your face around town awhile / So I greeted you with a *knowing* smile..."
"See me, single and free..."
"A married man? You're out of your head!"
"Death by matrimony" [!!]
"I remember when we had such fun and everything was fine..... tell me that's all in the past and I will gladly walk away."
"There's something 'bout that guy I don't like..." [so speaks Pepsi - or was it
Shirley - pretending to be Andrew Ridgely's wife].
"You're wasting time on some creepy guy" [ditto]

... okay, all this and the fact that the dance moves were camper than Steps ever dreamed of AND the fact that, well, he just looked dead poofy, something that Andrew Ridgely looks really uncomfortable with on Top of the Pops.


Andrew Ridgely's first solo single? "I'm Gonna Shake You". In reality it was more of a mild murmur.

And after all that, Steve Lyons pointed out that it was 'Young Guns' I'd actually been quoting from. Pah!