The Midnight Hustle Video Jukebox

Simply click on any of the titles below to watch a performance of the song in question!

(Audio only for Status Quo, Kilburn and the High Roads & Kandidate.)

Side One

1 Boney M - Brown Girl in the Ring
2 Exile - Kiss You All Over
3 Hi-Tension - British Hustle
4 Herbie Hancock - I Thought It Was You
5 Frankie Miller - Darlin'
6 The Dooleys - A Rose Has to Die
7 ABBA - The Name of the Game
8 Bilbo - She's Gonna Win
9 The Motors - Forget About You
10 Status Quo - Again and Again

Side Two

1 10cc - Dreadlock Holiday
2 Clout - Substitute
3 The Boomtown Rats - Like Clockwork
4 Flash and the Pan - And the Band Played On (Down Among the Dead Men)
5 Boney M. - Daddy Cool
6 Kilburn and the High Roads featuring Ian Dury - Billy Bentley
7 Kandidate - Don't Wanna Say Goodnight
8 Darts - It's Raining
9 Blondie - (I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence Dear
10 City Boy - 5-7-0-5

Running out of ideas

Saw what may well be the most poorly-conceived compilation album I've ever laid eyes on the other day, Now That's What I Call Running - ironically, a really lazy title. There are no songs about running on it. Even if there were it would still be a nonsensical name - unless it were chock full of audio clips of people running, which come to think of it would be an even dafter concept (although it would at least involve some logic).

So anyway, no 'running' songs whatsoever, however tenuous. No Keep On Running, No Run To You, I Ran or Road To Nowhere (which, come to think of it, would have just the right rhythm and tempo for jogging); hell, no Tears For Fears or their largely-forgotten 1986 charity single Everybody Wants To Run The World, adapted from the then ubiquitous Everybody Wants To Rule The World in about five minutes as part of that year's big Sport Relief campaign. There wasn't even an attempt to introduce a touch of levity into proceedings by including Jarvis Cocker's Cunts Are Still Running The World (although in fairness that may have risked alienating the target audience). As for the absence of Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill (or, if the rights were a problem, a cover version of said track), words fail me!

Instead the compilers have plumped for a hodge-podge of largely baffling and presumably cheap contemporary filler such as Sexy & I Know It by lmfao (Deluded & You Don't Know It, more like), Moves Like Jagger by Maroon 5 (about renowned keep-fit freak Mick Jogger Jagger) and, erm, Maneater by Nelly Furtado, with just the odd concession to anyone with an age or IQ over 15. Honestly, though, 1 out of 10 for imagination. To borrow an expression from the type of person who'd presumably be in Now That's What I Call Running's intended demographic, whoever cobbled this old guff together can jog on.

While we're on the subject, the following video features much jogging and is very funny, so you should have a look!

Three of a Kind #114

It's always a pleasure to chance upon one of the old Indie Top 20 compilations on one's travels - and that's exactly what happened to yours truly the other day when I got Volume 6 on CD for a quid in a charity shop. I already had this one on vinyl and if I'm honest it's not my favourite in the series - there are eight or nine songs on here that I could happily live out my days without ever hearing again - but it does house a handful of gems, three of which I've selected below.

So we've got David Gedge and chums giving us a French version of Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now? (Tres bien! Ou est la bibliotheque? etc), the Colorblind James Experience thinking about relocating, and Sandie Shaw still clinging on to some indie credibility in the wake of her collaboration with the Smiths some five years previously. If this had been Five of a Kind, Bradford and The Parachute Men would have made the cut too. But hey, that's showbiz.

1 Pourquoi Es Tu Devenue Si Raisonable? - Le Cadeau De Mariage
2 The Things You Want - Snapdragon
3 The World Is Ours - Rose of Avalanche
4 Rent Act - Wolfhounds
5 Butterfly - Inspiral Carpets
6 Rain of Ruin - Suicide
7 Black Sun - Loop
8 This Is Not Blasphemy - Christian Death
9 Pas Mal - Young Gods
10 Revolution - Spacemen Three
11 Transcendental - Bam Bam, Shamen
12 Headhunter [VI] - Front Two Four Two
13 Voodoo Ray - A Guy Called Gerald
14 Tangiers - Screaming Trees
15 Blow Up - The James Taylor Quartet
16 Dodging Around in Cars - Bradford
17 Nothing Less Than Brilliant - Sandie Shaw
18 Sometimes in Vain - The Parachute Men
19 Considering a Move to Memphis - Colorblind James Experience

Le Cadeau De Mariage - Pourquoi Es Tu Devenue Si Raisonable? mp3

The Colorblind James Experience - Considering A Move To Memphis mp3

Sandie Shaw - Nothing Less Than Brilliant mp3

Get away

"Party all summer long with The Holiday CD - 16 original hits!" boast CBS Records on the front cover of their 1987 funtime compilation. If we must, CBS, if we must. But something's wrong with this picture. Take a closer look at the track listing below and tell me what's wrong with it (apart from the obvious).

1) Wham! - Wake Me Up Before You Go Go
2) Mel & Kim - Respectable
3) Bananarama - Venus
4) The Communards - Don't Leave Me This Way
5) Miami Sound Machine - Dr Beat
6) Kool & The Gang - Fresh
7) Spagna - Call Me
8) Boney M - Hooray, Hooray, It's A Holi-Holiday
9) Typically Tropical - Barbados
10) Ottowan - D.I.S.C.O.
11) Ryan Paris - Dolce Vita
12) Modern Talking - Brother Louie
13) Modern Romance - Everybody Salsa
14) Denise LaSalle - My Toot Toot
15) K.C. & The Sunshine Band - Give It Up
16) Opus - Live Is Life

You're absolutely right, it's the choice of Wham! song: Wake Me Up Before You Go Go? Pfft! Maybe I could have let this go if Wham didn't have an actual, completely obvious song tailor-made for a holiday compilation in their repertoire. But I mean, hello, does Club Tropicana not ring any bells? The drinks are free, and there's enough fun - and sunshine - for everyone. Either the decision to eschew that in favour of Wake Me Up Before You Go Go (on holiday?) was one serious piece of lateral thinking or someone's missed a song title open goal here.

Now, you might argue that dredging up the whole subject of a mildly contentious choice of song on an obscure summer compilation almost a quarter of a century on is only exacerbating matters; hell, you may even say that it's an utter irrelevance in an age where there are a million more serious things to get het up about; but by gum this rankles with me. What were they thinking?

Anyway, I need to calm down. Here's some more holiday music!

Pullover - Last Christmas mp3

For more on Pullover click on their label at the bottom of this post and you'll be whizzed away to a post I wrote about them a few years ago. Before you go, here's another of their songs which, while not being suitable for a holiday compilation in any way, is also dead good.

Pullover - Holiday mp3

Swede surrender

Anyone who's read any (well, most) of my previous contributions to this blog will know that I am more than a tad taken by this Swedish indiepop malarkey, and need no second - or indeed first - invitation to blather on about it.

In fact, such is my infatuation with all things 'Swindie' that I've probably said all I have to say on most of my favourite Swedish acts on Too Much Apple Pie, over the past few years. But this doesn't, of course, stop the music itself being great. So what I thought I'd do now, like, is to have a dedicated 'Swedish music season' in which all the acts I feature in my contributions to this blog will be from Sweden. (I know what you're thinking: how will we tell the difference?)

Anyway, basically it'll be less blather, more music for the next little while; which has to be a good thing, right? If you want to know more about some of the artists featured here just click on the 'labels' tab at the bottom of the entries. (Alternatively you could just go out and buy their entire back catalogues. Yes, do that.)

Let's get the ball rolling, shall we, with four - count 'em! - songs from one of my absolute favourite compilation albums, the magnificent, two-disc Svensk Indie 1988-2006 - En Kärleks Historia - a must-buy, I'd suggest, for any serious lovers of the genre. (That Bear Quartet song title takes some beating too.)

happydeadmen - Silent Sigh City mp3

Frida Hyvönen - Once I was A Serene Teenage Child mp3

Marit Bergman - This Is The Year mp3

The Bear Quartet - It Only Takes A Flashlight To Create A Monster mp3

Three of a Kind #109

Another serendipitous charity shop find today, New Wave Hits of the 80s Volume 1 - a rather splendid US-released compilation featuring, as it does, 16 poptastic classics from... umm... 1979, mostly. A splendid piece of lateral thinking, or a bit of a ricket? It doesn't really matter when the songs are as good as the ones here; and I suppose they had to start somewhere.

Anyway, those not-actually-new-wave-hits-of-the-eighties-at-all runners and riders in full:

1. Ca Plane Pour Moi - Plastic Bertrand
2. Warm Leatherette - The Normal
3. One Way or Another - Blondie
4. Hey, St. Peter - Flash & The Pan
5. Cruel to Be Kind - Nick Lowe
6. Too Young to Date - D-Day
7. Local Girls - Graham Parker
8. Rock & Roll High School - The Ramones
9. My Sharona - The Knack
10. Girls Talk - Dave Edmunds
11. Video Killed the Radio Star - The Buggles
12. I Do the Rock - Tim Curry
13. Dirty Water - The Inmates
14. I'm a Believer - Tin Huey
15. Gidget Goes to Hell - Suburban Lawns
16. Money (That's What I Want) - Flying Lizards

So, yes, a really interesting line-up of songs - some familiar (Cruel To Be Kind and Girls Talk especially being long-time favourites of mine) and some not. I've gone for three not-so-familiar tracks here, with Mute Records boss Daniel Miller's alter ego The Normal's Warm Leatherette, Tim Curry's I Do The Rock (because I know Spike will want to hear it) and the hilarious Too Young To Date by D-Day. Oh yes, peoples, tonight we're gonna party like it's nineteen seventy nine.

D-Day - Too Young To Date mp3

Tim Curry - I Do The Rock mp3

The Normal - Warm Leatherette mp3

Three of a Kind #107

It's always fun to stumble upon old indiepop compilations on your travels, and that's just what happened to me when I picked up a copy of the 1992 album Precious for a quid in a charity shop the other day. I'd not heard of this particular album before but, as you'll see from the track listing below, it's a decent enough representation of (mostly) mainstream (mostly) UK indie circa 1990 to '92. The Spaghetti Head song was the only one I'd never come across previously.

The album also possesses quite possibly the soppiest cover photo of any album I've ever seen, i.e. a small child with some puppies. Aww!/Pass the sickbag, mother (delete as applicable).

Anyway, as a sort of handy guide (albeit one of absolutely no use or interest to anyone but me), I've highlighted the tracks on this album that I'd already owned as (mostly) vinyl singles way back when; and, this being a Three of a Kind post and all, I've made my three favourite tracks available for download. Usual terms and conditions apply - i.e. get 'em while they're hot!

1 Inspiral Carpets - Dragging Me Down
2 The Charlatans - Weirdo
3 The Stone Roses - Fool's Gold
4 Ride - Twisterella
5 Suede - The Drowners
6 Primal Scream - Loaded
7 Blur - There's No Other Way
8 House of Love - Shine On
9 James - Sit Down
10 Jesus Jones - Real Real Real
11 The Shamen - Make It Mine
12 The Sugarcubes - Hit
13 Lush - For Love
14 Voice of the Beehive - Monsters and Angels
15 The Wonderstuff - The Size of a Cow
16 Pixies - Planet of Sound
17 Pale Saints - Kinky Love
18 Spaghetti Head - Glad
19 My Bloody Valentine - Soon
20 Daisy Chainsaw - Love Your Money

Lush - For Love mp3

Pale Saints - Kinky Love mp3

Daisy Chainsaw - Love Your Money mp3

Three of a Kind #88

We're going late-70s German compilation crazy today, with a record I found in a charity shop in Braintree yesterday: High Life - 20 Original Top Hits. "Aus der rundfunk und fernseh verbung" (as they say in Germany).

The album was released on Polystar Records - which sounds like a made-up label from Spinal Tap or something, but which, upon a spot of cursory research, turns out to have released countless albums in a similar vein down the years. Well I never.



And what an album High Life is! Quite possibly the best 50p I've spent all year. Let's take a look at the runners and riders.

A1. ABBA - Voulez-vous
A2. Clout - Under Fire
A3. Oliver Onions - Sheriff
A4. Luv - My Guy
A5. Gibson Brothers - Cuba
A6. Dollar - Who Were You With In The Moonlight
A7. Golden Earring - Weekend Love
A8. Blondie - Sunday Girl
A9. Overdrive - Constantinople
A10. Nick Straker Band - A Walk In The Park

B1. Luv - Eeny Meeny Miny Moe
B2. Roxy Music - Dance Away
B3. The Boomtown Rats - I Don't Like Mondays
B4. Peaches & Herb - Reunited
B5. Milk And Honey with Gali - Goodbye New York
B6. Thom Pace - Maybe
B7. ABBA - Happy Hawaii
B8. The Sweet - Call Me
B9. John Stewart - Gold
B10. Rainbow - Since You Been Gone

A fantastic mixture of artists and styles, I'm sure you'll agree. I only knew nine of these songs before yesterday but I must say I've been mightily impressed with some of the tracks I wasn't already familiar with - even if the artists generally seem to be ever-so-slightly obsessed with aping the sound of Boney M or ABBA, or both.

Here's Dutch girl group Luv, for example, with the snappily-titled Eeny Meeny Miny Moe. (NB: No primates were hurt during the making of this song. Probably.)



Luv - Eeeny Meeny Miny Moe mp3

If you thought that sounded like Boney M, wait till you hear this bonkersly brilliant paean to the city currently known as Istanbul! I love this.

Overdrive - Constantinople mp3

Finally today, we wave ta-ta to the Big Apple in a song whose chorus is more or less an exact copy of Does Your Mother Know, only with different lyrics. Marvellous!

Milk & Honey with Gali* - Goodbye New York mp3

*So that's what Boutros-Boutros was up to before the U.N. gig came along. Figures.

Three of a Kind #83

Three videos from 1984's Now That's What I Call Music 3 VHS today - all of which are ace, and none of which made it on to the actual record! This was a curious quirk of the early Now releases - presumably because of rights issues, or the expense, or whatever, a lot of the songs from the bigger artists that appeared on the albums never actually made it on to the accompanying videos, and were instead replaced by contemporaneous songs from less famous (i.e. cheaper) acts. (The fact that these replacement tracks were often superior to the ones they were standing in for was, well, just a lovely bonus, really.)

Anyway, let's compare and contrast the track listings for Now 3 the album and Now 3 the video, shall we? Why not. All hail the god of copy and paste!

NOW 3 THE ALBUM:

Side One

Duran Duran : "The Reflex"
Nik Kershaw : "I Won't Let the Sun Go Down on Me"
Sister Sledge : "Thinking of You"
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark : "Locomotion"
Ultravox : "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes"
Howard Jones : "Pearl in the Shell"
Blancmange : "Don't Tell Me"
Phil Collins : "Against All Odds"

Side Two

Frankie Goes to Hollywood : "Two Tribes"
Grandmaster Flash & Melle Mel : "White Lines (Don't Don't Do It)"
The Special A.K.A : "Nelson Mandela"
Womack & Womack : "Love Wars"
The Style Council : "You're The Best Thing"
Bob Marley & The Wailers : "One Love"
Bronski Beat : "Smalltown Boy"

Side Three

Queen : "I Want to Break Free"
Cyndi Lauper : "Time After Time"
Alison Moyet : "Love Resurrection"
The Bluebells : "Young at Heart"
Bananarama : "Robert DeNiro's Waiting"
Propaganda : "Dr. Mabuse"
Tina Turner : "What's Love Got to Do with It"
The Flying Pickets : "When You're Young and in Love"

Side Four

Wham! : "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go"
The Thompson Twins : "You Take Me Up"
The Weather Girls : "It's Raining Men"
Gary Glitter : "Dance Me Up"
The Art Company : "Suzanna"
Madness : "One Better Day"
David Sylvian : "Red Guitar"

NOW 3 THE VID:

1. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - Locomotion
2. Simple Minds - Up On The Catwalk
3. Thompson Twins - You Take Me Up
4. Madness - One Better Day
5. Farmers Boys - In The Country
6. Helen Terry - Love Lies Lost
7. Loose Ends - Emergency (Dial 999)
8. Working Week - Venceremos
9. Tina Turner - What's Love Got To Do With It
10. Phil Collins - Take A Look At Me Now (Against All Odds)
11. Talk Talk - Dum Dum Girl
12. Kajagoogoo - Turn Your Back On Me
13. Gary Glitter - Dance Me Up
14. The Mighty Wah! - Come Back
15. i-Level - Our Song
16. Limahl - Too Much Trouble
17. Flying Pickets - When You're Young And In Love
18. Thomas Dolby - I Scare Myself
19. Blue Nile - Tinseltown In The Rain
20. David Sylvian - Red Guitar

Oh, and have a squiz at this, the original TV advert promoting the album - with a voiceover from that renowned fan of eighties pop Brian Glover!



But back to the respective track listings. Quite a bit of difference there, to say the least, with a whopping 12 of the 20 tracks on the video failing to make the actual record(s). Cripes, though, what an especially strong line-up the vinyl version of Now 3 had. It's hard to pick any weak links really (although I must admit I've always had a strong dislike for It's Raining Men despite the fact that it's essentially just a bit of harmless disco fluff; oh, and the less said about Gareth Glitter nowadays the better!).

But yes, a mostly fantastic double album and one of the finest in the entire series, for me. And, although vastly different, the video definitely has its moments as well. The ones I've chosen today are all good (at least I think so), but my absolute favourite just has to be the Talk Talk one, sung live, and featuring a rather addled/stoned spoken-word preamble from singer Mark Hollis, in which he comes across not unlike ex-Portsmouth F.C. manager Tony Adams at a post-match press conference!

Talk Talk - Dum Dum Girl (Trousers)






For more 80s video-based nostalgia visit the excellent Tracklister blog, where Mick has been busy uploading and posting some rarely-seen music video gems.

Three of a Kind #81

Three songs from the 1997 compilation A Tribute To The Cardigans today tonight. German girl group The Mobylettes cover Hey! Get Out Of My Way, Swedish indie stalwarts Red Sleeping Beauty tackle After All, and Susan Morris's unmistakably English vocal stylings on Automobile's acoustic version of Been It round things off nicely.

Actually it's a bit ironic that Automobile lumbered themselves with such an American-sounding moniker, given how English they obviously are (were). It's a bit like some American band calling themselves Pavement instead of Sidewalk, or something. Tcha! As if that'd ever happen.

The Mobylettes - Hey! Get Out Of My Way mp3

Red Sleeping Beauty - After All mp3

Automobile - Been It mp3

Mildly Obvious Pop Fact: Red Sleeping Beauty took their name from the old McCarthy song of the same name. Honestly, the level of research that goes into these posts is frightening.

My goodness the Cardigans were great though, weren't they? For those first couple of albums, Emmerdale and Life, at least; before they dropped the twee, beefed up their sound and went all serious. I'd also highly recommend a Japanese import album of Cardigans b-sides and rarities that came out in '96 or '97 called The Other Side Of The Moon. It is absolutely brilliant. Even the title's clever (bearing in mind the whole First Band On The Moon thing)!

Three of a Kind #80

We've done Now That's What I Call Music 1, so let's move not-all-that-swiftly on to Volume 2, shall we? Why not. As I'm admittedly overly fond of saying, this was the first album I ever owned. Certainly I'd already collected a dozen or so singles by this point - Joe Dolce's Shaddap You Face, Kraftwerk's The Model and the 1982 England World Cup Squad's This Time (We'll Get It Right), to name but three - but Now 2 was the first record that made me utilise the 33rpm switch on my turntable. Here's the full track listing.

Record One Side One:

1. Queen - Radio Ga Ga
2. Nik Kershaw - Wouldn't It Be Good
3. Thompson Twins - Hold Me Now
4. Matt Bianco - Get Out Of Your Lazy Bed
5. Carmel - More More More
6. Madness - Michael Caine
7. Flying Pickets - Only You
8. Nena - 99 Red Balloons

Record One Side Two:

9. Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Want To Have Fun
10. Tracey Ullman - My Guy's Mad At Me
11. Matthew Wilder - Break My Stride
12. Julia & Company - Breaking Down (Sugar Samba)
13. Joe Fagin - That's Living Alright
14. Hot Chocolate - I Gave You My Heart (Didn't I)
15. Snowy White - Bird Of Paradise

Record Two Side One:

16. Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Relax
17. Eurythmics - Here Comes The Rain Again
18. Howard Jones - What Is Love?
19. The Smiths - What Difference Does It Make
20. Fiction Factory - (Feels Like) Heaven
21. Re-Flex - The Politics Of Dancing
22. Thomas Dolby - Hyperactive
23. China Crisis - Wishful Thinking

Record Two Side Two:

24. David Bowie - Modern Love
25. Culture Club - It's A Miracle
26. Rolling Stones - Undercover Of The Night
27. Big Country - Wonderland
28. Slade - Run Runaway
29. Duran Duran - New Moon On Monday
30. Paul McCartney - Pipes Of Peace

Straight away it suffers in comparison to its more illustrious predecessor - Vol. 1 having contained, by my reckoning, ten UK number ones to Vol. 2's paltry four. But is the second instalment really that much poorer than the series opener? Well, yes, frankly. I mean, Snowy White's Bird Of Paradise? Tracey Ullman's pointless Madness cover My Guy's Mad At Me?? (Mary Wells had obviously claimed dibs on the use of My Guy as a song title two decades previously.) Re-Flex's The Politics Of Dancing?! Purlease!

Even some of the more well-known songs on this volume leave me cold now. I really, really hate Radio Ga Ga for example. Even as a feckless child I realised what a load of pompous drivel that was. And maybe they've just been played to death in the intervening quarter of a century (in fact, they definitely have) but Relax and Girls Just Want To Have Fun really get on my wick now too. Whereas the only good thing about It's A Miracle is it's not The War Song. Humbug!

But it's not all bad news; far from it, in fact. I mean, look! What Difference Does It Make is on there! (The fact that I was far too young and stupid to realise its genius at the time is neither here nor there.) And, erm, Wouldn't It Be Good. (Oh come on, you know you love it really!) Incidentally, Nik Kershaw was married to the daughter of an English teacher at my school. Or am I thinking of Howard Jones? No, Nik definitely never married him. Ho and indeed ho.

I also muchly like these three songs (which is probably just as well bearing in mind that I'm sticking them up as mp3s here).


Julia & Company - Breakin' Down (Sugar Samba) mp3

Thomas Dolby - Hyperactive mp3

Slade - Run Runaway mp3

More Now/Music-based madness to follow at some point in the future - possibly!

Three of a Kind #73

We're compilation crazy on the blog at the moment; and we're off to Sweden today for three songs from the 1994 A West Side Fabrication collection We're All Part Of A Family.

Long-term readers (let's pretend we've got any for a second) may have noticed my predilection for Swedish music; well, it was buying a cheap bunch of these A West Side Fabrication compilations many moons ago that helped kick-start my love of music from this particular part of Scandinavia.

Pop, dance, indie, folk, heavy rock - these albums had a bit of everything really, being, as they were, drawn from the eclectic roster of Swedish artists that would be signed to the label at any given time. The albums could consequently be a bit patchy at times but when they were good they were very good indeed.

I'll try and feature more songs from some of these collections in the future, anyway, but in the meantime today's tracks come courtesy of The Drowners and Popundret (both of whom I've written about here in the dim and distant), and Pleasurehouse, whose Candyfloss Summer is the best song the Boo Radleys never wrote (but probably should have). Great tunes all.

Pleasurehouse - Candyfloss Summer mp3

Popundret - I Say No mp3

The Drowners - Destroyer mp3

Mildly Interesting Pop Blog Fact: There are far too many labels on this post! Aargh!

Now that's what I call a re-release

In an era when classic albums (and plenty that weren't much cop to begin with, to be honest) are being re-issued left, right and centre, the humble compilation album has, it seems to me, had a bit of a raw deal. But no more! Yes, 80s pop fans everywhere will be rejoicing at the news that EMI have this week re-released the original volume in the Now That's What I Call Music series, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its original release. So, for the first time ever, Now 1 is available in the new-fangled compact disc format. Fancy!

For those of you who weren't weaned on these albums, the Now That's What I Call Music series traditionally provides a snapshot of what the UK pop charts look like in the month or two before any given Now release. Released at the fag end of 1983, Volume 1 had an especially strong track listing, bearing in mind that it had the pick of the whole of the preceeding year's chart output to choose from (rather than, as with later albums, just the last few months' worth). Here's how the runners and riders lined up:

Side 1
1. Phil Collins - You Can't Hurry Love
2. Duran Duran - Is There Something I Should Know
3. UB40 - Red Red Wine
4. Limahl - Only For Love
5. Heaven 17 - Temptation
6. K.C. & The Sunshine Band - Give It Up
7. Malcolm McClaren - Double Dutch
8. Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse Of The Heart

Side 2
9. Culture Club - Karma Chameleon
10. Men Without Hats - The Safety Dance
11. Kajagoogoo - Too Shy
12. Mike Oldfield - Moonlight Shadow
13. Men At Work - Down Under
14. Rock Steady Crew - Hey You (Rock Steady Crew)
15. Rod Stewart - Baby Jane
16. Paul Young - Wherever I Lay My Hat

Side 3
1. New Edition - Candy Girl
2. Kajagoogoo - Big Apple
3. Tina Turner - Let's Stay Together
4. Human League - Fascination
5. Howard Jones - New Song
6. UB40 - Please Don't Make Me Cry
7. Peabo Bryson & Roberta Flack - Tonight I Celebrate My Love

Side 4
8. Tracey Ullman - They Don't Know
9. Will Powers - Kissing With Confidence
10. Genesis - That's All
11. The Cure - The Love Cats
12. Simple Minds - Waterfront
13. Madness - The Sun And The Rain
14. Culture Club - Victims

And now all this can be yours - yours! - on the fancy two-disc re-release. I'll certainly be buying myself a copy anyway - at the time the album came out originally my pocket money just wouldn't stretch to it, and I had to wait until Now 2 before I was finally able to get my grubby little mitts on one of these albums, when I received it as a birthday pressie. (First album I ever owned, that was, and I played it to death!)

Anyway, no mp3s today, but here're some of my favourite Now 1-related vids.

Malcolm McClaren - Double Dutch


Men Without Hats - The Safety Dance


The Rock Steady Crew - Hey You (The Rock Steady Crew)


Tracey Ullman - They Don't Know


Buy the album

Three of a Kind #69

I dunno, you doze off for five minutes and all of a sudden it's 2009. What better way to start the new year, though, than with some tracks from the estimable 1978 compilation album Don't Walk - Boogie, which promises 20 Great Disco Sounds. And, like a milkman or midwife paid strictly on a commission basis, it certainly delivers.

That track listing in full:

Side One

A Taste Of Honey - Boogie Oogie Oogie
Tavares - More Than A Woman
Sheila B. Devotion - Singin' In The Rain
Macho - I'm A Man
Evolution - Summer In The City
Patsy Gallant - From New York To L.A.
Gonzalez - Just Let It Lay
Tavares - Whodunit
Gloria Jones - Bring On The Love (Why Can't We Be Friends Again)
Clout - Substitute

Side Two

La Belle Epoque - Black Is Black
Marshall Hain - Dancing In The City
Sylvester - You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)
Tavares - Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel
Matumbi - Empire Road
Jesse Green - Nice And Slow
Sun - Sun Is Here
T. Rex - I Love To Boogie
John Forde - Stardance
Tom Robinson Band - 2-4-6-8 Motorway

Putting aside the decidedly undisco-ish credentials of the likes of Matumbi, T Rex and The Tom Robinson Band, this is a cracking album and, like pretty much all compilation LPs released when the songs would still have been contemporary, is about a squillion times better than any disco compilation CD you'd find in the shops in 2008 2009, which tend to concentrate on the same, overplayed best sellers time and time again.

Anyway, it's proved devilishly difficult, as you might imagine, to whittle Don't Walk - Boogie down to just three tracks for today's post. But I've managed it, somehow. God my life's hard sometimes!

Sheila B. Devotion - Singin' In The Rain mp3

Patsy Gallant - From New York To L.A. mp3

La Belle Epoque - Black Is Black mp3

Three of a Kind #68

I know what you're thinking: if only there were some way I could get hold of a bit of Christmas-themed music on the blogosphere; like, say, three rather tuneful cuts from the 1998 Dutch yuletide compilation Zo, Dit is Kerstmis. If only.

Ho, ho, ho.

Daryll-Ann - Happy Xmas (War Is Over) mp3

Solex - Santa Monica (Kissing A Man With A Beard) mp3

Caesar - Hang Myself From The Tree mp3

(Probably best to give that last one a wide berth if you're feeling a bit forlorn at the moment.)

Three of a Kind #65

I've just been watching the none-more-eighties dance flick that is Breakin' (or Breakdance: The Movie as it was known in the UK). Clunky script, wafer-thin plot, wooden acting, haphazard editing - what can I say? marvellous! I'd never seen it before but my goodness it's camp! There's as much jazz dancing and prancing about in leotards and leg warmers as there is yer actual break dancing 'n' body popping.

Ahh, the body popping. This took me right back to the school lunchtime discos of my youth when some of my more foolhardy peers used to get up on the stage in the assembly hall in their Nike Wimbledons and Adidas windcheaters and exhibit their risible, home counties attempts at appearing 'street'; sadly, these were more Coronation Street than anything else.

But I digress. It's odd but, for all its faults, Breakin' is actually pretty inspiring, albeit in a cheesy, how-the-hell-did-this-ever-get-commissioned kind of way, and leaves you feeling inexplicably cheerful and optimistic afterwards. Maybe that's just the fantastic eighties soundtrack working it's magic, though, I dunno.

Anyway, here's a typical scene from the film, in which the gang all strut their stuff and resolve their differences to the musical accompaniment of Rufus & Chaka Khan. (if only the Israelis and the Palestinians could get together and try something similar.)



And here's a sprinkling of other songs from the soundtrack. Just mind you don't do yerself a mischief spinning on the living room floor, old timer!

Ollie & Jerry - Breakin'... There's No Stoppin' Us mp3

Carol Lynn Townes - 99.5 mp3

3-V - Heart Of The Beat mp3

Watch Breakin' in its entirety (albeit in the usual bite-sized chunks) on YouTube.

Three of a Kind #58

If you'd been stuck on a desert island in 1993 and hadn't a clue what was happening in the UK music scene at the time (something that would be troubling your thoughts greatly in such a situation, obviously), today's featured album would have provided you with all you needed to know about the state of (for want of a better phrase) chart indie in the nanosecond or two before Britpop broke. The album in question is Loaded (named after the Primal Scream track rather than the lot-to-answer-for lads' mag), and, to save you straining your eyes trying to read it from the pic above, the track listing went something (or exactly) like this:

1. Loaded - Primal Scream
2. Are You Gonna Go My Way - Lenny Kravitz
3. Animal Nitrate - Suede
4. The Devil You Know - Jesus Jones
5. Connected - Stereo MCs
6. I Feel You - Depeche Mode
7. Mrs Robinson - The Lemonheads
8. The Only Living Boy In New Cross - Carter USM
9. Totally Random Man - Therapy?
10. She Sells Sanctuary - The Cult
11. Start Choppin' - Dinosaur Jr
12. Feed The Tree - Belly
13. After All - The Frank & Walters
14. If I Can't Change Your Mind - Sugar
15. Certain People I Know - Morrissey
16. Showgirl - The Auteurs
17. Anyone Can Play Guitar - Radiohead
18. I'm Easy - Faith No More

Now I don't know about you, but I can take or leave a lot of those tracks. There're some crackers in there as well, mind (else what would be the point of my posting songs from it?). Crackers like these!

Belly - Feed The Tree mp3

The Frank & Walters - After All mp3

The Auteurs - Showgirl mp3

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Three of a Kind #57

HIT AFTER HIT AFTER HIT. So boasts the front cover of 1986 dance compilation Night Beat II. And does it deliver? Well, for the most part, yes. You can't argue with the 'hit' credentials of Billy Ocean's When The Going Gets Tough, Colonel Abrams's Trapped, Princess's Say I'm Your Number One or Paul Hardcastle's Just For Money - even if the first one's a pile of old pants and the last one only got to number 19. (ironic, really, given that it was the follow-up to Nineteen.)

But on the other side of the coin, who remembers Debbie Sharp's Zapped By Love, Precious Wilson's I'll Be Your Friend, The Team's We Are The Team or Dynasty And Mimi's Dynasty Rap (The Story Of The Carrington Crew)? Nobody, that's who. Well, save for the artists, their families, friends, me and the fifteen other people who bought this album.

Incidentally, Dynasty Rap is every bit as terrible as it sounds. The rappers even get into character as Blake and Alexis (and possibly some others - I can't bear to listen to it all the way through so don't know for sure). Utterly cringeworthy!


All in all, though, and speaking typing as a long-time fan of eighties dance music, this double vinyl LP is really good, evocative stuff, and one of my favourite compilations. Picking just three songs from it to feature here is going to be tough, but I've opted for the following trio.

Full Force - Alice, I Want You Just For Me mp3

Full Force get busy one time! This musclebound lot originally came to the fore (or background) as one third of the cumbersomely-monikered Lisa Lisa And Cult Jam With Full Force on the superb I Wonder If I Take You Home, which made the UK top 20 several months earlier. Alice was comfortably their biggest solo hit, reaching the giddy heights of #9 in January 1986.

Regina - Baby Love mp3

OK, so this is basically a straightforward rip-off of mid-eighties period Madonna - but the song's seriously redeeming feature is that it's an absolute belter of a tune in its own right. Entirely derivative, but a belter! Baby Love only made #50 in the UK, but climbed all the way to the top ten in her native USA, and deservedly so.

Hugh Masekela featuring Jonathan Butler - African Breeze mp3

Ooph, that Hugh Masekela's been playing with his trumpet again! For this jazztastic number he's ably supported, on guitar, by fellow South African Jonathan "Lies" Butler. African Breeze failed to trouble the scorers in the UK, but it's a lovely, mellow tune which deserved to fare much better. Actually, it's easy to imagine it serving as the backing music on a Judith Chalmers holiday report from Lanzarote or somewhere similar on an old edition of Wish You Were Here. But don't let that put you off - it's fab, really!

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Three of a Kind #54

It's not often we receive requests on this blog (in fact it happens with about the same sort of frequency as Derby County winning games of football), so it's ta muchly to Davy for requesting a post on Rock 'N' Roller Disco, a poptabulous 1979 Ronco compilation LP I bought in a charity shop the other week.


And what an album it is! Just feast yer mince pies on this lot!

Side One:

1. Ooh What a Life – Gibson Brothers
2. Girls, Girls, Girls – Kandidate
3. Loves Gotta Hold On Me – Dollar
4. Reggae For It Now – Bill Lovelady
5. Money – Flying Lizards
6. Back of My Hand – The Jags
7. Halfway Hotel – Voyager
8. Boogie Down – The Real Thing
9. Ain’t No Sunshine – Jimmy Lindsay
10. Amadeus Theme – Jasmin

Side Two:

1. Video Killed the Radio Star – The Buggles
2. Bang Bang – B.A Robertson
3. I Don’t Like Mondays – The Boomtown Rats
4. Beat the Clock – Sparks
5. Conscious Man – The Jolly Brothers
6. Always & Forever – Heatwave
7. Who Were You With in the Moonlight – Dollar
8. Babylon’s Burning – The Ruts
9. Death Disco – Public Image
10. Lay Your Love On Me - Racey

Eclectic, no? I love the way it veers straight from the cheesy pop of Dollar to the punk of The Ruts and P.I.L. and then back to pure fromage with Racey, all in one fell swoop, like its been sequenced by a roomful of chimps taking time out from their busy schedule typing out the complete works of Shakespeare in order to earn a few extra bananas cobbling together some kind of insane prototype random iTunes playlist. Or something.

I also love Dollar's comical attempt at Americanizing the title of their song on side one: Love's Gotta Hold On My Heart. Er... so that would be love's got to hold on my heart, then, would it?! I don't think van Day and Bazar really thought that one through you know, readers.

Also, note the puntastic connotations of the splendidly-named Bill Lovelady's Reggae For It Now. "She's reggae for it now". Geddit? The annoying thing is that I actually really like this song, despite the naff innuendo of the title. (curse my ridiculously high tat threshold.)

Oh, and what's this in small print on the album's back sleeve? To ensure the highest quality reproduction, the running times of some of the titles as originally released have been changed. Boo! That's kind of the 70s equivalent of those cheapo oldies compilation CDs you see nowadays which have that caveat along the lines of: Some of the songs on this album may be re-recordings featuring original members of the drummer's family. That sort of thing. Bad show!

Anyway, which songs to choose for today's Three of a Kind? Ooh... these I think.

Bill Lovelady - Reggae For It Now mp3

B.A. Robertson - Bang Bang mp3

Racey - Lay Your Love On Me mp3

I will never, ever tire of watching the following clip of Racey performing the aforementioned track, by the way. It's like punk never happened!



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