On my mind: The Guardian's 100 greatest UK No 1s

The Guardian's 100 greatest UK No 1s had some pretty good selections. It's hard to go wrong when you're picking 100 highlights from fewer than 1,500 songs, most of which are hogwash. Take a random year as an example: 1999 number ones by Chef, The Offspring, Boyzone or the Mambo No 5 bloke were hardly going to trouble the list.

Pet Shop Boys' topped their poll, which is entirely the correct choice. Their take on Elvis's Always On My Mind has an incredible energy, like a firework exploding in the boot of a car – I've always considered this the best Christmas number one, so I'm happy to extend it to the best chart topper of all time. Sadly, the Guardian opted for West End Girls as the greatest number one; any fool knows that the other PSB number ones, Heart and It's A Sin, are better than 'Girls. Pfffrt. Just you wait till I get you home, The Guardian.

The Chemical Brothers were just inside their top 50, while the Prodigy soared into their top ten, troubling the likes of Michael Jackson and the Human League. Steve 'Silk' Hurley's Jack Your Body was also in the mix, with it being labelled as "the most minimal No 1 of all time". Black Box and Daft Punk were included, although the latter's only number one song is hardly their best.

Killer made it into their list, with the Guardian praising its perfect design, as did I just last week. Kraftwerk's The Model is also in there, with a welcome shout-out to its brilliant flip-side Computer Love. And while we're doing k-words, the KLF's 3am Eternal made it quite high up the list, proving the ancients of Mu-Mu still have some mojo. This made me sad that Last Train To Trancentral never got to number one. Still, all of these were great to see.

They chose Snap!'s Rhythm Is a Dancer, which I'm sure they were as serious as gout about, but I would have probably have gone for Snap!'s other number one, The Power. That track was so strange and discordant, confusing my head at the time before my heart fell in love with it. The Power knocked Beats International's Dub Be Good To Me off the top spot – another missed contender in this list.

They should have included Pump Up The Volume by MARRS, which incidentally stands for band members Martyn, Alex, Rudy, Russell and Steve. They're like ABBA but with less knitwear. The band didn't get on, and it was a miracle they ever released anything, never mind create a chart-topping acid house classic. And how on earth The Guardian missed The Shamen's Ebeneezer Goode, I have no idea.

There were some outsider choices I would have like to have seen, and would have no doubt made a top 200. For the 1990s, I love the indie spirit of White Town's pin-sharp Your Woman ("So much for all your highbrow Marxist ways, just use me up and then you walk away"), while I mourn the exclusion of Flat Beat by Mr Oizo, which was a blow to yellow puppets everywhere.

There are some 21st century outsiders I'd liked to have seen: Rihanna's Diamonds (they chose Umbrella); Duck Sauce's Barbra Streisand; David Guetta's epic Titanium; Tinie Tempah's Scunthorpe-namechecking Pass Out. Nothing much interesting to say about them – I just like the tunes, dammit.

Like I say, it's an easy list to generally get right, even for people like me who find it difficult to focus on anything before 1987. And not a single mention of Lou Bega's fifth Mambo, despite its remarkable lyric "It's all good, let me dump it, please set in the trumpet". Pardon?

Further Fats: Delirious' bid for number one: the rock delusion? (2010)

Whatever happened to the cheeky New Year number one? (2013)

Decapitated Seals and Adamski's skinned llama: remembering Killer

In May 1990, Adamski's Killer knocked Madonna's Vogue off the top spot of the UK singles chart. Madge was too concerned with Greta Garbo and Rita Hayworth, and didn't see the keyboard wizard sneaking up from behind.

Killer wasn't just a breath of fresh air: it was a fully-bellowed gust up the jacksie. It was clearly informed by Adamski's rave DJing, but that bass drum / bassline combo was something new. The Italo-house piano, the 909, the bit where Seal's voice goes "be-ee-e-ee". So good.

The track was recorded amid noisy protests over the Tories' anti-rave legislation. Seal was a penniless singer, while Adamski was relying on the government's Enterprise Allowance Scheme (as was I around that time). Lots of dance music felt politically charged. Killer seemed to suck in all that energy, then blast it out in a fully clubby and commercial way.

Watch the original verson with decapitated Seals, young Adamski wearing a skinned llama, and. um. some random science lab tech things.

The track was a huge smash. Only four artists outsold Adamski that year: the Righteous Brothers, Sinéad O'Connor, Elton John and king of all rappers Vanilla Ice. The single hit number one in Zimbabwe and Belgium and — wait for it — hit number 112 in Australia. 

George Michael's bland version brought the track back to UK number one in 1993. I was horrified. It sounded like yer dad discovering your rave records and putting on a live entertainment night with a buffet. Still, I was obsessed with Killer and bought every subsequent cover / remix on vinyl. Even the George Michael one. Sigh.

Here's Seal and Adamski appearing on Top of the Pops on Christmas Day 1990. No jeans and a t-shirt with these two. Just look at them. Adamski looks like a little peroxide tearaway and Seal looks like a gymnast biker. Both are in full live flow, with Adamski taking bits of his other tracks and throwing it all into the mix. Brilliant.

Further Fats: Finding healthy pop wheat amid the pop forest fire of, um, doom (2014)

Further Fats: The 7 best moments in Ryan Wyer's video for Aphex Twin's CIRKLON3 [ Колхозная mix ] (2016)

Ten amazing albums that influenced my taste in music

My blogging schedule's gone a bit sideways because the Covid-19 lockdown has, like many other people, left me quite out of sorts. My capacity for creativity is pretty limited.

So I'm going to steal something I did on Facebook. And then we'll get back to the best-of-1995 thing.

My brother Grum tagged me in a Facebook challenge to name ten albums that influenced by taste in music. Here's what I posted, edited to make it more interesting than wot I said on Facebook. 

1 – The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld

I remember playing this on my cassette walkmen in my tent on family holidays. So surreal to be in some random Welsh field and to get this amazing, otherworldly collages playing in my young ears.

2 – Transglobal Underground's Dream Of 100 Nations

This strange mix of UK techno and African tribalism and things from other planets. "Watch the skies! Keep looking!" I went to see TGU a couple of years ago and they were phenomenal.

3 – Drum Club's Everything Is Now

The album that truly made me fall in love with the bass drum for bass drum's sake, an appreciation that served me well in many a club. Thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump....

4 – Orbital's brown album. 

Here's the one that changed everything for me. My Damascene moment. The album that hardwired techno and all its variants into my brain for life. And look at me now. I'm **twitch** FINE.

5 – The Irresistible Force's Flying High

Mixmaster Morris's hypnotic ambience lifted me into heady clouds of dubby ambience: I haven't quite come down since. The kind of album that lives in my veins. I also liked things with circles on. See also Banco de Gaia.

6 – The Goons' Ying Tong Song

No, really. This is cheating because it's an EP not an album, and it was a family hand-me-down rather than something I bought myself, but it's worth it because THIS IS WHAT MY BRAIN IS LIKE ALL OF THE TIME.

7 – Adamski's Doctor Adamski's Musical Pharmacy

I have to say, this is NOT a good album, despite the presence of Killer and NRG. But Adamski's DIY 'keyboard wizard' approach introduced my little Smash Hits brain to the concept of the bedroom studio a long time before doing that was a viable option.

8 – Underworld's dubnobasswithmyheadman

An obvious one for other fans of 90s techno, but what a strange animal at the time. I was already a fan of their 12-inches and I keenly devoured Junior Boy's Own's early output. All that gorgeous Tomato design work too. Cor.

9 – LTJ Bukem's Logical Progressions series

Drum 'n' bass was always a trip, and even now the thought of this series gives me tingles. My few short years as a drum 'n' bass DJ were some of my happiest creative times. The best sound, the best live experience, and the best to mix. 

10 – Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works 85-92

Pretty obvious, this one. That bass in Ageispolis. Oooooo.

And so many more, of course. Ten will do for now. 

That's it. I'm creatively spent. I've run out of words. Flong. Pathoot. Clibbibuuuu. See? It's just noise.

I'm off for yet another night of stupidly vivid lockdown dreams.

Further Fats: Chosen Words: B is for Boss Drum (2010)

Further Fats: Don't be rattled: it's just drum 'n' bass (2016)

The doctor (Adamski) will see you now

Doctor Adamski's Musical Pharmacy was the 1990 debut album from Adam 'Adamski' Tinley. (Not an actual pharmacist.) I seem to remember Smash Hits calling him a keyboard wizard. (Not an actual wizard.)

I first got into Adamski when he released the fizzy NRG,  a Lucozade burst of squelchy rave. So when he got to the top of the charts with Killer, a tune I was obsessed with, it seemed the keyboard wizard was working his wand overtime. Wait. Not an actual wizard. I keep forgetting.

Doctor Adamski's Musical Pharmacy was the first big rave album I owned, but it was before folks like Orbital and the Prodigy showed us how excel at making dance music albums. I wanted a sweaty club experience but the clubbier elements were squeezed out by what felt like extended jokes. Tinley doing an Elvis impression. Reciting the alphabet ("E is for electro, and that's quite serious"). Adam's strained punk singing.

Then again... Listen to the choppy bassline of Eighth House. The Detroity surf of Squiggy Groove. There's a whole heap of rave sensibility still in there, and the naive sound of his bedroom keyboard set-up is utterly charming. Despite its flaws, I was fond of the album and the 17-year-old me played it loads.

The Pharmacy shut up shop pretty quickly. The album only spent five weeks in the charts, compared to, say, 25 weeks that year by fellow chart-toppers Snap. It doesn't even have any reviews on Discogs. Adamski has been active this century as Adam Sky, plonking out sparky house music and dirty punk electro. Forever the keyboard wizard - just not necessarily remembered as a pharmacist.

(Slight hiatus)

I'm not being lazy. I've been on holiday.

As I get back into my blogging groove this week, please amaze yourself with these fascinating Fat Roland facts:

- Because of his recent media trawl, I am starting to find James Blunt quite entertaining. I think that makes me a bad person.

- I fear that when Aphex Twin finally produces his comeback album, it can only be a disappointment. I think that makes me a bad person.

- The last two music videos I snorted on the digital cocaine that is YouTube were Panjabi MC's Mundian To Bach Ke and Adamski's Bass Line Changed My Life. That's right. Adamski. I think that makes me a bad person.

- I *want* people to play music on their headphones too loudly on public transport. I like the distraction and I feed off other people's frustration like fat gay Dementor. I think that makes me a bad person.

- I once sneaked up behind a hedgehog and said "boo!" just to make it curl into a ball. I never asked its name. I think that makes me a bad person.

- I started a 2010 film review series in March,. Like a New Labour spending programme, I immediately mothballed it even though I see films at the flicks most weeks. I think that makes me a bad person.

- I use words like "flicks" and "LPs", yet most of the music I consume is streamed like a proper modern fella. That's called hypocrisy. I think that makes me a bad person.

- I still haven't forgiven Apple for their DRM disgustingness with iTunes. I never want to have an iPhone as a result. Whenever I see someone with an iPhone, I stamp on their head. I think that makes me a *good* person.

- Anyone that feels the need to *stress* certain words with *asterisks* clearly isn't working hard enough at sentence structure.

- Er...

- ...that's it.

While my guitar gently sods off

The recent news that pop music is outselling rock music is as an important a cultural change as the renaissance, the industrial revolution and processed cheese.

For too long now, the tyranny of the guitar has ruled over us. We have bowed and scraped to our six string masters, as if rebelling against the jangly bastards was as bad as strangling Bill Wyman to death with a jack lead.

The indoctrination starts early. Pony-tailed parents soundbomb their Smiths collection at pregnant tummies to 'train' their newborn into having good taste. Any gawky teenager showing a creative bent has a guitar and a Nirvana chord book shoved into their hands.

Turgid

And what has it given us? The Beatles, who were responsible for the worst haircuts ever and fixed Liverpool into the '60s for all eternity. Turgid rock behemoths like the Rolling Stones and Status Quo, who somehow made stadium rock acceptable and are therefore responsible for Coldplay. And James Blunt. James Blunt.

Official Charts Company figures show a third of sales in the UK are now pop, compared to rock's tawdry one-quarter share. We have rendered our Fenders to the dustbin. Given ebows the heave-ho. Turned rage against the machine into a polite letter of complaint.

Because pop music is more enamoured with the keyboard as opposed to the guitar, this means electronic music fans win. The keyboard wizard is supreme: Adamski can finally rest in the grave of his forgotten career.

Breakcore

Okay, it's only pop music and not, say, ambient or dubstep or breakcore. Having Lady Gaga and JLS at number one is not great - we'd obviously prefer it if Aphex Twin went platinum, and I'm not talking about his hair. But an unpopular, painful compromise is the step in the right direction. It's true. Just ask a Liberal Democrat.

There are dangers in this brave new world. If rock bands start ditching their guitars, we could be saddled with more Ben Folds Fives and Keanes. They need identifying early. I would suggest border police at the door of every recording studio, with faceless but sinister staff asking everyone "are you now or ever have been a guitar player?"

They would lie of course. But then the cunning officer, feigning informality, would mutter a comment about E flat minor seventh not being the sexiest chord. The secret guitarists' instant and obvious revulsion would see them dragged out the back, cut to pieces with an overly-sharp plectrum and buried in their own guitar case with the word "IRONY" emblazoned across the top in glam lettering.

Windmilling

Having said all that, The Who were quite impressive weren't they? All that windmilling and smashing stuff up. And I quite liked Madchester. The XX and Lonelady have a kind of amazing energy, y'know? In fact, guitar bands are fantastic. Who wrote this crap?

Vive la rock music! Guitar bands are brilliant. If I find you buying pop music, I will slice you. I will smother you with Lady Gaga's hat until you are nothing but a vegetable blithering "ro mah ro-mah-mah" in the corner of an institution.

No, seriously. For too long now, the tyranny of the keyboard has reigned over-- (nurse's note - Fat Roland has gone to sleep now. You can visit him again when he's rested.)

Dear James Blunt

To: Twenty-First Artists Ltd,

1 Blythe Road,

London

W14 OHG

Dear James Blunt,

I couldn't help noticing that you aren't quite the chart presence you once were. Your last three singles, which the BBC lovingly described as "catchy and uplifting, in a Chris-Martin-on-an-off-day kinda way", have reached numbers four, 57 and 20 respectively. I would have thought if these chart positions befell Girls Aloud, KitKat's sponsorship moguls would be spluttering into their sugary tea.

May I offer a suggestion that would help return you back up the greasy pole of fame?

These days, it's all about chicks with synths. Trust me on this: I have my finger on the pulse of modern whims. Lady Gaga is a chick with a synth. La Roux is a chick with a synth. Britney Spears is a chick with a synth (that is, assuming "synth" is rural states slang for a snaffled bag of Bic razors).

You need to have a synth. You need to buy a nice shiny silver synthesiser and get it into every publicity shot you can.

You don't have to play it yourself:. Maybe smuggle in a synth pop legend such as Gary Numan, Adamski or Richard Clayderman to tinkle the electronic ivories for you. Then mime playing, as though it's your big new thing. "Look, there's James Blunt, and he's a keyboard wizard," people would say, and they would point. People would point at you, although this time it would be in admiration.

You should do this. Become a chick with a synth. Every single would go to number one.

Which leads me to one last thing. You will, of course, need to alter your gender. I am quite happy to offer my services. I once cut the leg off a teddy bear with my dad's nosehair clippers, and I'm sure changing your sex wouldn't be much different.

I still have the nosehair clippers.

It wouldn't be pervy or anything. I have no desire to see you naked; I think we had quite enough of that in your 2005 smash hit video I'm Quite Beautiful. One quick snip, maybe a bit of a push-in with a sink plunger, and we can leave matron to mop up the blood.

Just let me know.

Yours sincerely,

Fat Roland

Confusion in our eyes that says it all - we've lost Control (well, almost)

Oh plop tarts. I was busy enjoying a bit of summery pop courtesy of King Of All The Animals, and I surf onto a site that tells me Sound Control have been silenced.

The most joyous moment of my life was discovering the blue, mottled knob-laiden monster that is the Roland JP-8000 in Sound Control's Salford store.

I spent half an hour in acid nirvana as I took that synthesiser to buttock-wobbling depths and combover-raising zeniths. As I slapped the cash on the counter, I made my best purchase ever and the "Roland" part of my DJ name was born.

Yes, I named myself after a bloody keyboard.

The staff at the Salford branch would always take time out to teach dimwits like me the finer points of sound modules and weird samplers, even if was a Saturday afternoon and the shop was full of greasy teenagers in pseudo-army shirts playing Wish You Were Here.

I was even allowed into their store room to peruse their nuts.

A great aspect of Sound Control is they give a damn about maintaining your gear. Now everyone who owns anything musical will see their beloved Stratocaster / digital drum kit / electronic zither (delete as appropriate) crumble before their weeping eyes.

The Salford branch remains open while administrators tout the business for all the rupees they can get. But the Manchester branch closed a few days ago, along with nine other Sound Control and Turnkey stores from Southampton to Glasgow.

I don't want to listen to King Of All The Animals now. I'm need comfort music so I can retreat to my happy place.

Doctor Adamski's Musical Pharmacy it is, then.

Edit: Music Thing wants your help in tracking down all the music equipment shops in the world ever. Go to it!

DEEPER FRIED FAT: NEVER MIND, QUIETLY ROOTING

Let's get quizzy - the answers

Well, chafe my trousers and call me Henry, it must be time for the answers to the pub quiz I posted last week.

Q1 The First Commoner of the Land is the Speaker of the House of Commons, a.k.a. Michael Martin

Q2 Tony Blair is the UK politician that has been played (or parodied) by Michael Sheen, Robert Lindsay and David Tennant.

Q3 Paddy Ashdown’s first name is Jeremy, Obviously.

Q4 The Sun prefered to call Paddy Ashdown Paddy Pantsdown in the early 1990s.

Q5 In his own words, Iain Duncan Smith was a quiet man.

Q6 In the 2006 local elections, (b) Independent Kidderminster Hospital and Health Concern ended up with the most councillors out of them, The Christian Peoples Alliance and SALT.

Q7 William Pitt The Younger’s father is called William Pitt The Elder. Minus a thousand brownie points if you got this wrong.

Q8 In no particular order, Simon Hughes, Chris Huhne and Sir Menzies Campbell came first, second and third in the 2006 Liberal Democrat leadership contest. No, not Lembit Biscuit or Mark Oatcake.

Q9 Dennis Skinner called the Minister of Agriculture a "slimy" and a "wart", said the only thing growing in the 1980s were “the lines of coke in front of Boy George and the rest of the Tories”, told the House of Lords to go to hell and called Dr. Owen “a pompous sod” – after which he offered to withdraw the word “pompous”. His infamous nickname is the Beast of Bolsover.

Q10 David Cameron has been an MP for six years.

Q11 David Cameron's constituency is Witney, in Oxfordshireland.

If you got 10, you are Mike Paradinas and you are the foremost genius of electronic music. If you got 9, you are Max Tundra, which makes you a genius, but just not as recognised. If you got 8 or less, you are Adamski, the keyboard wizard.

Never mind the baubles, here's James Brown

It seems only inappropriate to wish all my readers a stupendously average Christmas with perhaps the occasional moment of lucidity about where it all went wrong and how you want things to be different next year and oh my god I'm so fat.

Fear not, my tearful Tiny Tims; put your regret in your jacket pocket and don't bring it out again until New Year. In the meanwhile, gorge yourselves on sweet yule logs, stodgy Christmas pudding and glass baubles.

>Adamski

An angel once told me the true meaning of Christmas, but I can't remember what he said and anyway he had a girl's name. Christmas for me is about having a few days off work, eating things made from fat, and getting all my old Adamski records out.

>Funk

I must mention the sad loss of James Brown, probably the first true legend to die on Christmas Day. When I say "first true legend to die on Christmas Day", I don't know that for a fact, and please do correct me. I can think of WC Fields for a start...

Anywii, I tried to post a JB vid from Youtube, but since I upgradified to Blogger Beta I've not been able to stick illegal videos on my blog. So I've learnt a bit of HTMLTML and here is, hopefully, James Brown as I'll always remember him: high and funny.

Happy Christmas.

PS - The blasphemy at the top is by WibblyWobbly and his (NSFW) B3ta profile is here.