Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Colourbox


When I was in England last (he typed self-consciously, after cracking his knuckles...no need to mention it was 1985...), this record was at the height of its not-to-get-all-that-popular popularity. "Just Give 'Em Whiskey" was a hot single in the FACE and NME, etc. It was one of the first songs to feature prominent sampling, bits and bobs from 2001 and The Prisoner, all set to a racing drum-machine, and there were no "performed" vocals...this is interesting because the brothers behind this album ended up as part of M/A/R/R/S, which produced the classic "Pump Up the Volume." A friend of mine once had the sheet music to "Pump..." in one of those "Current Hits!"-type songbooks and the sheet music was fantastic: like, one piano note, then four measures of nothing, piano note, then, in the lyrics portion, "pump-up-the-volume-pump-up-the-volume-pump-up-the-volume-dance-dance" done straightfacedly as if it were "I Will Always Love You."
[Along these same lines, I grew up sans cable TV, as is probably apparent. I used to get my rock video fix wherever I could and one way was a show on PBS on summer mornings that showed videos but told you before the song to watch for a specific part of speech in the subtitled lyrics provided; por ejemple, "Nouns": "I met a strange lady/she made me nervous/she took me in and gave me breakfast." So, one day, the video for "Round and Round" by Ratt came on, with the adjuration to be on the lookout for verbs, as in: "Round and round/what goes around comes around/I'll tell you why..." SO then singer Stephen Pearcy gives a get-ready! shoutout: Dig!, which was also in red! It's a VERB, see. Plus, Milton Berle!]
Another single, totally different from the other, was "The Moon is Blue," which probably got to about #36* on the UK charts, but is a great neo-soul number that sort of buries Sade and other purveyors of this sound at the time:
Sort of freaks me out that someone would make a video for it...
Also:
* #3, actually! Huh.

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