In issue 85 of Electronic Sound magazine, I do a deep dive on the new Bonobo album. Meanwhile, in my column I take on cancel culture while my fictional self blows a horn. All pretty normal, nothing to worry about here.
The Bonobo review is the lead review in this latest edition, which is always a nice spot to be in as a writer. You'll have to read the magazine to find out what I think, but I can tell you it contains the phrase "frozen fish aisle". I also review the latest album by Pan Daijing ("a forest of startled birds") and Arca's new clutch of albums ("witches and queerness").
This month's column has me getting outraged about cancel culture. "Are you telling me I can’t prance around as glam-rock Brian Eno, complete with unbuttoned motorbike jacket and feather shoulder-pads, while hooting Van McCoy's ‘The Hustle’ on the alpine horn?" And yes, that ended up being my illustration for the column, with added conkers for eyes. It'll all make sense if you read the column. Probably. Ahem.
Elsewhere in the mag, in gubbins that wasn't written by me, there's a piece about the Hacienda's design, a chat with Suicide and their "battered old keyboards", Tim Hecker talking about writing soundtracks, and a piece about the ace new electro-pop project Telefis. And loads more.
85 issues, 85 columns. Good grief. Incidentally, Erasure's Oh L'amour only got to number 85 in the charts when it was released, only surpassed by Dollar's cover version in 1987 and Erasure's slightly weedier remix many years later. All the best things are number 85.
I was tottering along the street a while ago when a black cat appeared from under a hedge to say hello. I always stop to fuss cats. They're cute and fun, and you never know if one will suddenly start talking French or lead you to an abandoned whelk mine.
The moment I stroked this friendly black cat, another black cat appeared. Same hedge, same appearance. I suddenly had two black cats greeting me. It was like being in The Matrix except without the pill popping and questionable spoons.
Apart from the brief concern that I had developed a special power that duplicates whatever I stroke, a talent that could get very problematic very quickly, I handled the situation fine. Two very similar cats. Two very similar hands. The maths worked out: double petting commenced.
Why am I telling you this? Because at the moment there are two songs in the UK singles chart called Better Days. This concerns me, because singles are less cute than cats and I don't like having two of them.
One of the Better Days is by Neiked, Mae Muller and Polo G. It's a sunny slice of Tik Tok-famous retro pop in which US rapper Polo G asks "can I get an amen" so politely, it sounds like he's ordering afternoon tea.
The other Better Days is a yearning torch song by Irish singer Dermot Kennedy. In the video, he falls into a puddle and stays there for a bit. It's pretty wet physically and musically, but Snow Patrol fans will like it.
Two Better Days in one chart? I thought this wasn't allowed. I thought you had to give songs different nicknames so you could tell them apart, in the same way we all have friends called Big Tony, French Tony, Naked Tony and Seven Years In Strangeways Tony. I thought songwriters had these things allocated to them, making them queue with a numbered ticket as if they were waiting for fancy cheese.
In the past, duplicated track titles were easily navigated. Adele and Lionel Richie both had a Hello, but the songs were decades apart and Adele didn't have a bonce made out of clay. Orbital and Boney M both had tracks called Belfast. Neither are likely to get confused, unless the Orbital brothers suddenly start coming up with disco dance moves. Mariah Carey and Big Bird both had different songs called All I Want for Christmas Is You, but only one of them was about a snuffleupagus.
It gets more difficult the closer the songs get. In the mid-1980s, there were two number one ballads called The Power of Love courtesy of Jennifer Rush and Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Close in time, close in style. Meanwhile, Robert Plant, World Party and Erasure all had different hits called Ship Of Fools within 20 months of each other. It's such a colourful metaphor that, in my mind, all three songs have muddled into one vague image of a bunch of clowns on a pirate ship doing karaoke.
Whitesnake and Alison Moyet both had mid-1980s songs titled Is This Love. Go and look at the videos for the songs. Moyet and David Coverdale sport the exact same shaggy dog hairstyle. It's ridiculous. There have been 20 hit singles called Stay. It's such a bland track name, I could sing you the Shakespears Sister one but absolutely none of the others, despite the rest of the list featuring big hitters like Rihanna, Mica Paris and Simply flipping Red. Not helpful.
I demand that each Better Days song changes its name. The first one, the Tik Tok one, should be called Afternoon Tea. And the other one, the wet one, should be called Oh Look I'm In A Puddle, While I Think About It Whatever Happened To Snow Patrol. That should sort it. Who do I contact about this? Is it the Queen? Paul Gambaccini? Greg James?!
The other solution is to enact a new law in which every song is called Song. Every song ever written. All of them called Song.
Hey, I've written a new track.
Brilliant, what's it called?
Song.
That's great, what's it about?
Stuff.
Sounds wonderful, here's a Grammy.
I wonder if the existence of two Better Days is a Matrix glitch caused by the appearance of two similar cats. I'd ask Keanu Reeves if this is possible, but he's done four films with the word 'Matrix' in, so I'm not going to take his advice on anything. There is no spoon? I've got loads of spoons, mate, all of them identical.
In this essay, I will prove that the video for Erasure's A Little Respect is a cinematic masterpiece, on a par with Citizen Kane, the Godfather Trilogy and the Spongebob Squarepants Movie.
Actually, it's not quite an essay. I'm simply going to describe how the video subtly illustrates each line of the lyric. Strap in. Get the video loaded up (or stream at the bottom of this blog post), and follow along below.
Erasure's video for A Little Respect
"I try to discover" Vince Clarke looks through a magnifying glass while Andy Bell peers into a microscope
"A little something to make me sweeter" Loads of sugar is spooned into a decorative tea cup, stretching the meaning of the word "little"
"Oh baby refrain from breaking my heart" Andy Bell tries to stop a hammer-wielding Vince Clarke from breaking the heart that Andy is holding: Vince does indeed smash the heart, and Andy laughs at the futility of life
"I'm so in love with you" A child dressed as Cupid curls up on the seat of a JCB, perhaps suggesting love is a bulldozer
"I'll be forever blue" Vince Clarke and Andy Bell turn blue
"That you gimme no reason why you make-a-me work so hard" Andy Bell dressed as a construction worker has a lovely time with a pneumatic drill
"That you gimme no, that you gimme no, that you gimme no, that you gimme no soul" Andy Bell is festooned with presents, none of which seem to be someone's soul, until, that is, we cut to the logo of the Seoul Olympics
"I hear you calling" Andy Bell, finished with his construction work and what appeared to be an impromptu birthday, is now yodelling
"Oh baby, please, give a little respect to me" Vince Clarke gives Andy Bell a small sign with the word RESPECT on
"And if I should falter" Andy Bell leans onto a pillar which falls over, taking Andy with him
"Would you open you arms out to me?" Vince Clarke opens out the arms of a skeleton and looks very pleased with himself
"We can make love not war" Clad in army camouflage, Andy Bell and a lipstick-kissed Vince Clarke hide in military netting
"And live at peace with our hearts" Andy Bell and Vince Clarke stand in the doorway of their home, which is called, according to a tasteless sign above their door, PEACE WITH OUR HEARTS
"I'm so in love with you" The Cupid child fires a bow and arrow, then cheers furiously, presumably in delight at the person he's just killed – a risky crime considering we know the Erasure boys own a magnifying glass and a microscope
"I'll be forever blue" Vince Clarke and Andy Bell turn blue again, and show no concern at this repeat incident
"What religion or reason could drive a man to forsake his lover?" In a scene reminiscent of Bronski Beat's Smalltown Boy, Vince Clarke and Andy Bell walk away, bindles over shoulder and surrounded by the precarious pillars that previously foxed Andy
"Don't you tell me no, don't you tell me no, don't you tell me no, don't you tell me no soul" Vince Clarke shakes his head lots, perhaps in judgement at the next shot, which is Andy Bell using sole fish as earrings
"I hear you calling" Andy Bell dresses as an old man and uses an ear trumpet to listen to Vince Clarke who is dressed as an umpire or sweet shop owner
"Oh baby, please, give a little respect to me" A smug-looking Andy Bell gives a larger RESPECT sign to Vince Clarke, further stretching the definition of the word "little"
"I'm so in love with you" The Cupid boy again, whose actions are harder to make out but he could be playing darts at God's face – he doesn't appear again, presumably smited
"I'll be forever blue" Vince Clarke and Andy Bell turn blue again, the former's raspberry blow showing a cavalier attitude to an increasingly disturbing medical condition
"That you gimme no reason, you know you make me work so hard" A flat-capped Vince Clarke mops his brow as he pick-axes, off screen, a pavement or possibly the Cupid child
"That you gimme no, that you gimme no, that you gimme no, that you gimme no soul" Andy Bell and Vince Clarke are festooned with pieces of paper, none of which seem to be someone's soul, until we cut to, er, someone sewing
"I hear you calling" A telephone shakes vigorously, perhaps ringing amid an earthquake
"Oh baby, please, give a little respect to me" Andy Bell and Vince Clarke frolic around some massive letters, which are not yet fully apparent but we can probably guess
"I hear you calling" An audio speaker is spray painted silver to make the sound go faster
"Oh baby, please, give a little respect to me" The camera pulls out and we can see Andy Bell and Vince Clarke hanging round some absolutely huge letters spelling the word RESPECT, shredding any vestiges of meaning from the word "little", and finally leading to a letter-stealing Vince taking the "P" in what is perhaps the best metaphor of the whole video
Throughout this countdown, I have herded many albums into a pen labelled "special mentions". Here is the final lot of special mentions for you to ogle longingly at. Oh and my notebook tells me the following selections are labelled "pop / chart".
I've always had a soft spot for Moby, and although it got mixed reviews, I enjoyed All Visible Objects (Mute), especially its nod to his younger rave days. Speaking of feeling young, there was a fresh energy to Disclosure's third album Energy (Island), all chart-friendly and chirpy and cheesy smiles.
I've never fully got Sparks: the quirkiness is lost on me. That said, there was a lot to admire in A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip (BMG), with my Electronic Sound review praising their wryness, lyricism and "earworms with moustaches". Another duo I got to review in 2020 was Erasure. Their eighteenth (!) album The Neon (Mute) was a "glittery cannon of anthems", in which the "neon flickers with regret".
I always love a Pet Shop Boys album. Early in the year, they released Hotspot (x2), revisiting subtler melodies and giving us the prophetic stay-at-home anthem I Don't Wanna. Nice to see Years & Years making an appearance (the band not the television programme) (obviously) (duh).
Another bunch of old party-heads releasing an album in 2020 was The Orb. Abolition of the Royal Familia (Cooking Vinyl) was a likeable jumble of soulful pop and dubby ambience, and featured the usual gang (Eno! Youth! Hillage!) alongside tributes to Stephen Hawking and Jello from the Dead Kennedys. This was, by the way, only their seventeenth album. I can hear Erasure's mocking laughter.
Finally, pop-pickers, there's this wacky pairing. Eccentric knob-twiddler and Sigur Ros collaborator Dan Deacon gave us Mystic Familiar (Domino Recordings), his first album since 2015. It had DIY songwriting, crashing drums, wonky electronics, and an anthem or three. And eccentric sample-fiddlers The Avalanches were back with We Will Always Love You (Astralwerks), which they said was an “exploration of the vibrational relationship between light, sound and spirit” although was much more straight-laced than that.
I think that's it for my special mentions. I've probably missed something. Tom Vek did an album, didn't he? Too late. I need to publish this in about 60 seconds. I really am writing to deadline – cor blimey.
We're not too far from number one, so let's kill off a few more giants.
I really didn't take to The Avalanches comeback album Wildflower (XL Recordings). Way too "kooky" mainstream. And I don't know what Tricky was up to on Skilled Mechanics (False Idols). Oh dear. Let's move on.
I have endless love for Paul Hartnoll but his collaboration with Vince Clark on 2Square (Very Records) was a bit dad-pop in places. Meanwhile, Romare tend to be a little too straight down the line for me, no more so than on Love Songs: Part Two (Ninja Tune). That's also the case with Tycho, whose Epoch (Ghostly International) is as robustly satisfying as Coldplay.
Sometimes albums are great but perhaps don't fit my narrow definition of electronic albums. That goes for the much-lauded and utterly fantastic Anohni's Hopelessness (Rough Trade) and for Jenny Hval's thoughful and engrossing Blood Bitch (Sacred Bones Records).
Finally, a couple of miscellaneous names that didn't make the final selection but are probably worth a nosey. Steve Hauschildt's new agey Strands (Kranky) and the whimsical electronic pop of Motion Graphics (Domino) by Motion Graphics. The latter has a track called Minecraft Mosaic.
Despite my recent nigglings at this year's Mercury Music Prize, I still feel the need to tip a winner. Last year, my bet for Burial got given a hefty Elbow, although my Klaxons tip in 2007 came wonderfully true. So here's who I'm putting a dime on this year. Bat For Lashes sounds like Suzanne Vega riding a pretty horse which has the face of Kate Bush. This alone is enough to win the Mercury.
BFL's music is indebted to the 80s, but not in as a denim-tearingly obvious way as La Bloody Roux. Who, incidentally, needs to give her keyboards back to Erasure so when I break into their studio, I have something to pummel them with.
Seriously. Vince and Andy should have given up existing 22 years ago, when they were still truly different and interesting.
La Bloody Roux, for that matter, should also have stopped existing 22 years ago. And she's only 21. When Mr La Roux and Mrs La Roux got jiggy in their south London bedsit in order to create a musically and mentally deranged Alison Moyet, someone should have thrown a great big bucket of cold water over them. Then recorded the startled screams. And sold that recording 22 years later on the basis of, yes, this still sounds better than anything that little dampened La Roux sperm would ever have created in its lifetime.
Where was I?... I suspect Kasabian will be the favourite, although the Mercury's been quite blokey for the last few years and they probably need to tick the chick box in '09. Very cynical I know, but you don't come to this blog because it reads like Hello!, do you?
She deserves it more than the others, though. Who do you tip for the Mercury?
