7 inch singles collection: Toni Childs - Zimbabwe

Into Africa...

TONI CHILDS

A-Side: Zimbabwe
B-Side: Where's The Ocean?
(A&M 1988)      

There was a glut of female singer/songwriters in the late 80's and early 90's, but rather than languish in the folk tradition of many of their forebears, like Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell, they expanded their horizons and encapsulated the sounds of rock and pop as well, establishing a new tradition, which in all likelihood can be traced back to Kate Bush as a point of origin. One of the things, though, that does connect back to their folky antecedents is many of their songs were very serious and definitely about something and not just love songs. Toni Childs is one of these performers. As you can tell from the above preamble I know little else about her. All I can say is that I may have bought this single under the assumption that she sounded a little bit like Melissa Etheridge, an assumption gained from a review read in, most likely, Melody Maker. Whether or not there are any similarities with Melissa Etheridge is a moot point now, as I've not listened to anything by her for years and can't remember what she sounds like.

It was very trendy at this point in time to indulge in a bit of ethno-musical tourism and incorporate the music of other cultures into the western sound. Paul Simon had done it incredibly successfully only a year or two before this record with Graceland. Whether this cultural appropriation of sounds is good because it spreads the music wider, or is actually a bit patronising is a debate that can rumble on indefinitely. I'm a bit on the fence myself, I've heard some fine music from non-western cultures because I've investigated sounds I've heard from records like this, but there is also the feeling of being in thrall to the spectacle what the the great white hunter has brought back from exotic climes. Having said all that in a record called Zimbabwe it does seem like a no-brainer to include elements of that country's music. There is some obviously African style chanting and instrumentation on the background of what is otherwise a bit of dullish AOR. As you probably could have guessed this song is about the recurrent and still ongoing problems of Zimbabwe, at least I'm guessing that, because Toni Childs appears to have a strained, and gravelly way of singing that actually obscures half the lyrics. This fact and the lack of any real hook or melody makes me feel like this has all been a wasted effort.

The gravelly voice is apparently not and affectation for the first track, because it's her on the flipside too. To be fair the lyrics are easier to make out on Where's The Ocean? I really hope that's a rhetorical question because on a planet that's 2/3rds it's a bit of a daft question. Acutally I got bored with the song and couldn't really be bothered listening to carefully. It could be about the environment, it could be about drought, it could be a soppy love song - I was just waiting for her to sing the words "Where's The Ocean?" so I could shout back "It's over there", pointing generally oceanwards. Sorry about that. It's a slow, synth heavy ballad, which ultimately bored me.

When I don't like a record by the likes of One Direction or Boyzone, it doesn't bother me, in fact it's something I take delight in. However disliking this record feels a bit like kicking a puppy, because Toni Childs sings so seriously and earnestly, (earnestness is the key feeling that I get from this record), that you can't help but feel she's passionate and committed to cause.

Next time the sister of a more famous musician...

7 inch singles collection: Jools Holland - Holy Cow

Later with...

JOOLS HOLLAND

A-Side: Holy Cow
B-Side: Biggy Wiggy
(IRS 1990)      

It seems like Jools Holland has been the smiling, enthusiastic, if a little sardonic host of Later... on BBC2 forever, (an entertaining, eclectic, but often frustrating programme), and whilst he often backs his guests on the piano, it's sometime easy to forget that he is a musician in his own right. Through the years he has spoardically released a variety of his own releases, much of which tend towards the jazzier end of the musical spectrum.

Holy Cow is a well known composition - in fact I probably bought it because I'd heard several different versions of it before, so I knew that I actually liked the song itself. It was written by Allen Toussaint - a name that may not be generally familiar, but is well regarded by aficionados of New Orleans style boogie woogie and R'n'B. Holy Cow has a light jazz bounce and a rhythm that bobs up and down like riding a horse - in this version that rhythm has an almost Ska-like feel to it. This isn't a one man show either, Jools is generous and lets both saxophonist and guitarist have good solos, keeping his piano down in the mix, and not letting it come forward until the end of the song. The vocals are low-key and unobtrusive, and oddly enough the backing vocals are performed by Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer. This should be good, but there's something a little lacking, any energy here comes from the song itself and not the performance - it's not without charm, but there are plenty of better versions of this song around.

Jools has committed one of his own compositions to the flip-side - Biggy Wiggy. With a title like that I think we all know that we're not getting something deep and serious, but it's not an entirely throwaway frivolity either. Biggy Wiggy has a bit more of that piano boogie that drums up the gets the body moving. I was unable to stop myself from moving about to the beat of this one - which means that it must be doing something right. A different vocalist, sorry forgot to check the name, has been drafted in on this, and he has a fine jazz voice, that adds to the song without overwhelming it.

Jools Holland should rightly be regarded as a bit of a national treasure for his constant curatorship and propagation of all varieties and styles of music, but respect is due to for his own musical skills, especially when he's letting loose with his own stuff.

Next time a trip to the dark continent...

7 inch singles collection: The Beatles - Something

Inevitably it's...

THE BEATLES

A-Side: Something
AA-Side: Come Together
(Capitol 1969)      

It's not easy to write about The Beatles - I'm guessing that everything that can be written about them has probably already been written, and any attempt that I make will be a poor rehash of thoughts and ideas better expressed elsewhere. They are the very cornerstone of modern rock and pop, and as such the cornerstone of modern pop and rock criticism. They were there because they were good (a lot of the time - there are many mediocre Beatles songs and several poor ones), they were there because the were early (they weren't the first doing this kind of thing, but they had the attention worldwide). They were an ultimate affirmation of right place, right time with a huge lump of right talent thrown in.

For me there are two choices when looking at The Beatles records that fall under the auspices of this blog. Firstly I can take all the received wisdom as read, and then go on and have a look at historical context and that kind of stuff, or secondly I could just pretend the records aren't significant and aren't by The Beatles and attempt to judge them on their own merits. Ideally I'd like to do the latter, but the former will have to happen sometimes, and having said that that's the way this entry will largely play. This is because this is one of the later Beatles singles and there's something (pun not intended) extra around context that we need to delve into when looking at this record.

It was apparently Frank Sinatra, who when covering this song at a concert, introduced it as the best song that Lennon & McCartney ever wrote. He is of course mistaken because this song was written by George Harrison. However it may well be the best song that Lennon & McCartney never wrote. This is end stage Beatles career - they were (according to legend) falling apart, not agreeing on stuff and generally not happy being Beatles - however accurate the details on this kind of thing are, one thing we can be sure of is that Something is the very first Beatles single with a George Harrison song as the a-side. It's a bit late in the game too - from their final album to be recorded (if not released) - it seems like George never had the chance before. He had done songs on previous albums - many of which were good and the equal of songs that were the a-sides of singles, so why had they not been released as such before. Was there a sinister plot to keep George (always the quiet one remember) in the sidelines and to make sure that John and Paul were the faces and voices of the group, was there a worry that maybe songs by George wouldn't sell? Maybe they thought things are going south anyway and let George have a go as a sop to ease tensions in the group. I don't know and I'm not sure that I care particularly either. What is important is that George stepped up and delivered - not just here, but in these later years also providing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" on The White Album and "Here Comes The Sun" from "Abbey Road" (as was Something). These three songs could easily make top 10 Beatles song lists for many fans, and indeed I'm sure there's plenty of people that would have these in their top 3 Beatles songs list. The greatest of these songs though is Something.

"There's something in the way she moves that attracts me like no other" - a great line in and of itself, but also because it's descriptive of the song it's from. There is something about this song that attracts, it has a coy charisma that charms and seduces whilst the music is dizzying and mellifluous, twisting and turning, longing and yearning. Something is George Harrison, in his own quiet way, saying to John and Paul, "don't worry about breaking up the band, lads, I can manage on my own", and then deftly pulling out this song - equal to anything, if not better than anything, in the whole Lennon/McCartney songbook. The real tragedy is that here, in England, it didn't get to number on in the charts.

Of course George doesn't get his own way completely on this record because there on the other side is Come Together - they can't relegate John to the B-side of a George record, so this song shares top billing as a double a-side.There are plenty of people who think that John Lennon can do no wrong, and I'd be the first to say that he made many many wonderful records in his lifetime. Come Together isn't one of them. I'm not saying it's really bad, it's just not that great. It feels to me that Lennon is experimenting with form, sound, and style in this song - that's great; Lennon experimenting is better than Lennon on autopilot. The shapes that the sounds and rhythms of this song make in you're head are great, they're fresh and different. The lyrics however are a stream of consciousness gibberish that really don't cut the mustard. I'm sure that they're deep and meaningful if your on an altered plane of consciousness (or really pretentious), but otherwise they do do it for me. Good songs can be made from random word put together where the sound and rhythms of the words make their own music - I don't think that they do that in Come Together, instead they're just riding atop the melody like a barnacle stuck to a whale.

I didn't mean to write that much on this record - I'm sure I'll have less and less to say about The Beatles each time one of their records come up. One final thing that I want to point out about my copy of the record is that it's not a 70's/80's/90's re-release, it's an original  issue, and not only that as you can see from the picture it's a US import too, the reason I want to point this out is so that I can feel smug and self-satisfied for buying this from a charity shop for 30p.

Next time a song about a sacred bovine...

7 Inch Singles Collection: Castanarc - This Island Love

Another obscure one...

CASTANARC

A-Side: This Island Love

B-Side: Heroes

(Pyramid 1989)          

Well here's another one - a record that I know nothing about and can't remember what it sounds like. This one was definitely bought very cheap somewhere because someone has taken a hole punch to the sleeve (I've done a digital repair on my scan - so much for authenticity, eh?) I almost certainly bought it because of that slightly defaced sleeve. The shade of green is pleasing to the eye, and the picture is intriguing. I enjoy the way the bands name interleaves with picture and also the typography of it. These are probably not usual, and possibly not entirely valid reasons for buying a record - but it adds a bit of chance and risk to the whole listening process.

Before settling down to listen to this I was absolutely certain that I didn't like it that much and it was piano-pounding piece of House. It turns out that the memory cheats because This Island Love isn't remotely like that at all. Instead there's a slow soft sax start, it has hints of soul - but very much blue-eyed soul as the singer sounds very English and very white. It's quite light and poppy the pace picks up a bit in the chorus. It is a largely unremarkable love song. Only distinguished by the saxophone and something that sounds like a clarinet or at least a synthesizer pretending to be a clarinet at the end. I was right about one thing though - I don't like This Island Love very much.

A quick look at the credits on the b-side lets me know that this isn't a cover version of the Bowie song Heroes, but is an original piece. I'm not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. This has a rocky upbeat start - it's all drum machines and stabby keyboards - it's like on of those very earnest 80's AOR bands with big perms. Lots of synths being pressed into the service of rock when maybe they could be creating something more original. It doesn't really have any hooks or catches, or indeed anything mush to grab hold of. It's different to the a-side, but in now way is it better than the a-side.

I feel that this was a triumph of packing over content. It still looks nice, and it still sounds poor.

Next time four lads from Liverpool...     

7 Inch Singles Collection: The Badgeman - Crystals

Psychedelic noise from...

THE BADGEMAN

A-Side: Crystals

B-Side: P.A.F.

(Paperhouse 1990)

There is absolutely nothing I can tell you about The Badgeman. I simply have no idea of who they were or where they were from, or even (before re-listening to this record what they sounded like). I suppose I could go and look it up on the net, but that feels like cheating and against the vaguely nostalgic ethos of this blog. History is those things that we remember an idea that should be familiar to those of you who've read Sellar & Yeatman's "1066 and all that". Anyway after that digression I can tell you what led me to buy this record - it's a combination of the sleeve and the label. I had a small number of other singles on the Paperhouse labels - which I liked - and they all have this lovely blue die-cut sleeve with a lovely picture on the label (oh and it was probably cheap too).

Crystals starts off with a slowish beat which is enjoyed by full-on psychedelic swirling guitars. The singer comes in and kind of mumble-sings over the top of this mid-tempo psych-rocker. The whole thing is punctuated by guitar wails and shrieks, then slowly the guitar riffing starts to fade out and the record ends.

P.A.F. is the name of the b-side - I don't know what it's short for - it may have been alluded to in the lyrics, but to be honest I wasn't following them that closely. This is harder, heavier and faster than the a-side feels like something from the rockier end of 60's psychedelia. It's a driving rock song, it's got attacking sound with no showing off and no showboating, with plenty of riffage throughout.

I quite enjoyed listening to this record because I had no recollection at all of what it sounded like. I think I'll quite enjoy listening to next time I listen to it because, if it weren't for the notes I took whilst listening, I'd still have no recollection of it. It's pretty much the epitome of unmemorable.

Next time another record that I don't remember...

7 Inch Singles Collection: The Shadows - Love Deluxe

Stepping back into the shadows...

THE SHADOWS

A-Side: Love Deluxe

B-Side: Sweet Saturday Night

(EMI 1978)

Here we find the Shadows in 1978 in something of a limbo position, three years earlier they'd been on the relative high of representing the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest. (You can read that sentence with as much or as little irony as you like), they'd also recently had a number one album in the shape of "20 Golden Greats" - a best of package. So you'd maybe expect them to have some kind of public profile - but no their last few singles had failed to get anywhere near the charts. It looked like all that was left was the greatest hits circuits - this was to change, but not with this record, but the one after (which is another story for another time). This record is quite possibly The Shadows single that has been least heard, and least heard of. Neither tracks were from albums and neither make it to compilations very often.

It's easy to see why Love Deluxe is not a great song. It's a vocal track - The Shadows have always been a fine adequate vocal group - but it's not the vocals that are the problem. Bruce sings well, although he doesn't seem to be doing much guitar playing, and neither does Hank. That's part of the problem - if you're listening to The Shadows you kind of expect thto hear Hank Marvin's distinctive guitar playing - there are guitars present here, but there way down in the mix, and it could be anyone playing them. As a song it's a keyboard heavy piece of uptempo pop, bouncy enough but not particularly memorable. Just to add insult to injury there are some light disco woven throughout the record, particularly nasty are the synth drums that pop in and out of the song. I'm not dissing disco, but it needs to be performed by seasoned disco professionals not shoehorned into a light piece of AOR. Love Deluxe is not the worst vocal track that The Shadows have recorded, (for my money that honour goes to The Bandit off their second album), it is however probably their worst single*.

It's a relief to flip this record over and discover Sweet Saturday Night nestling there. It's not that it's brilliant, but it's more of what I expect. There's no singing, and the guitar noises coming out are unmistakably Hank B. Marvin. Sweet Saturday Night has a soft funky groove, there's still a hint of trying to surf the disco zeitgeist, but it's a bit more restrained. Little synth twinkles actually accent, rather than distract from the tune. It's rather mellow with a yearning quality to it. Where most pop/rock songs break out into a guitar solo about 2/3 of the way through this has a little percussion solo - long enough to engage and short enough not to bore before Hank effortless glides back in with a couple of smooth riffs and then settles back into the main groove before the song fades away. It's not great but it is pleasant enough to make up for the a-side.

There you go then, a horrible record from my favourite band - these things happen, but it should be all uphill with every other Shadows record from now on**.

*There's one other that we'll come across that is a strong contender for this title.
**See above footnote.

Next time some early 90's indie psychedelia...

7 inch singles collection: Scritti Politti - The Word Girl

Green is the colour...

SCRITTI POLITTI

A-Side: The Word Girl (Flesh & Blood)
B-Side: Flesh & Blood

(Virgin 1985)

Scritti Politti is a name that to me promises something other than it delivers. The name, apparently, means political writing - so what I expected from Scritti Politti when I first heard the name was some kind of agit-pop political diatribists - all angry shouting and choppy guitars, not the more melodious dance-pop that they delivered. Of course it being dancey stuff initially set my teenage self against it - as with many different genres that I was set against during my youth I've come to appreciate more as I've aged. My excellent wife has a couple of Scritti Politti albums and I feel a better understanding of them now than I ever did, and also a realisation that amongst the soft dance tunes there are writings of political import as well.

Notwithstanding the above The Word Girl was a song that I quite liked at the time - it has a sweet lilting reggae melody that feels light and airy. Green Gartside's voice is quiet and precise, and captures the essence of dreamy adoration that he feels to the girl in question. there's a the coming to terms with the fact that she's not just ideal, or a word, but she is "Flesh and Blood" as well. There's not much more that I can say about The Word Girl - it's a pleasant song that seems lightweight and throwaway, but ends up ensnaring you in it's charms.

Flesh And Blood is a recurring theme here - not only is it the subtitle and lyrical coda to the a-side, it's here in full glory as the b-side. During the course of this blog we will encounter records with different songs as b-sides, records where the b-side is an instrumental version of the a-side, and b-sides which are remixes of the a-side, but here is a unique example of a b-side that has exactly the same tune as the a-side, bu different words and a different singer. Flesh And Blood is rapped by a female with a Caribbean accent - Ranking Ann. Her tone is more aggressive and confrontational than Gartside's singing - and well it should be as she's rapping about how she (and all other women) are actually flesh and blood human beings - not just objects (for adoration or abuse). Not sure that it's as successful as the a-side. The contrast between the style of singing and the music doesn't really work for me, on the other hand the mirroring between the two sides of the record is nice idea and executed well.

Ultimately though, for me, there's little more to this than one good song that passes a few moments pleasantly. Oh, and I enjoy the fact that the singer's first name is Green.

Next time it's probably about time for another Shadows record...