Holy heck, it's top of the God pops

Today is Easter Sunday, which is an annual day of celebration for that time a chocolate egg fell from heaven and killed the Easter Bunny to forgive our sins.

The UK singles chart is a pretty godless place. A quick scan of the current top 40 singles chart and I can see songs about Dracula, swimming, dancing and loving each other, all of which sounds terribly non-Christian. Erm. Probably.

To celebrate the day Jesus rose from being cross and ascended to Heaven nightclub – I really need to brush up on my Bible knowledge – here are the ten most successful Jesus-themed songs in the UK singles chart.

Disclaimer: I looked up the words “Jesus” and “Christ” and didn’t go much beyond that, so if I’ve missed something, feel free to condemn me to all seven circles of hell. Oh and they're in order of chart success, so we'll be ending on a couple of number one smashes.

10 – Longpigs: Jesus Christ (number 61, 1995)

While there were more prominent proponents of the Sheffield’s Britpop scene, the ‘pigs were absolutely brilliant. Jesus Christ was full of their typical yearning and the lead singer looked a bit like a future Matt Smith. Their guitarist went on to be in Pulp and their original drummer used to play for Cabaret Voltaire, which makes them the most Sheffield band ever.

9 – Delirious: White Ribbon Day (number 41, 1997)

An obscure choice here, but this did precede a four-year run of top 40 singles for this Christian praise & worship outfit. White Ribbon Day is proper religious – there’s praying and the cross and hallelujah and all that kind of thing. The gospel truth is they sounded like U2 from the late 1980s, which ticked boxes for people that found 1990s U2 too MacPhisto-ish.

8 – Green Day: Jesus Of Suburbia (number 17, 2005)

“Everyone's so full of shit,” preaches Billie Joe Armstrong on this nine-minute epic beloved by Green Day fans. This is, apparently, Green Day doing a Bohemian Rhapsody,  and the track is split into five movements, like me after a bowel exam. I was never a massive ‘Day follower, but it feels like we need their agit-angst more than ever now. 

7 – Kanye West: Jesus Walks (number 16, 2004)

Before things went south for West, he made tracks full of braggadocio and brilliant beats. Jesus Walks was super militaristic, but this was okay in the mid-2000s because the US army had definitely never done anything bad ever. Ahem. These days West is just full of braggadocio and bullcrap. Shame because his College Dropout years were banging.

6 – Ash: Jesus Says (number 15, 1998)

The video for Jesus Says has the camera spinning around and around, like you’re inside a washing machine. The effect prompted protests from fans who complained of nausea, but they needn’t worry coz they could just pop their vom-splattered t-shirt into said washing machine. “God give me strength,” sing Ash on Jesus Says. Fair comment.

5 – Depeche Mode: Personal Jesus (number 13, 1989)

For far too long, I thought a Personal Jesus was a personalised Christ service in which He followed you around all day and made bitchy comments like ‘You look fat in that jumper’ and ‘That blusher’s far too gay’. Anyhoo, this is Depeche Mode at their peak, and it gave the impending 1990s permission to blend rock and synths and change music forever.

4 – Marilyn Manson: Personal Jesus (number 13, 2004)

For far too long, I thought a Personal Jesus was a– oh hold on, we’re already done this. I’d lost track of Marilyn Manson and where the allegations were up to, so I googled “is marilyn manson a wrong 'un” and Google’s AI bot responded by saying that the truth is “subjective”. So that’s settled then. I do not want Marilyn Manson to reach out and touch me.

3 – Morrissey: I Have Forgiven Jesus (number 10, 2004)

Oh holy hassocks of hell. Am I in some kind of purgatory? Is writing this blog post punishment for my multitude of sins? Here comes another person I would not to choose to be stuck in a lift with. I wouldn’t even follow behind him on the stairs. I much preferred Mozza when he was a lyricist and not a polemicist, although maybe he has always been both.

2 – Cliff Richard: Saviour’s Day (number 1, 1990)

Finally. A perfectly normal pop star. Cliff’s religious output is universally awful, and his triptych of Christian chart-toppers – Mistletoe And Wine, Saviour’s Day and The Millennium Prayer – have the same linear drop-off as the Godfather trilogy. Still, I’m glad Cliff exists. If he wasn’t around to be God’s representative in the pop charts, we’d have to choose Ye and that wouldn’t do at all.

1 – George Michael: Jesus To A Child (number 1, 1996)

You’ve got to have faith, and you’ve got to have this caramel-smooth cheese-fest from king George. Without telling anyone, George Michael donated the royalties from Jesus To A Child to the ChildLine charity. That makes this paeon to a lost lover the most Christian track in this list.

Not much electronic music in this list. Jeez, get it together Jesus.

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

Further Fats: Warning! Dinosaurs are taking over the UK album chart! (2021)

Best electronic albums of 2020: twenty-two

22 – K-LONE– Cape Cira (Wisdom Teeth)

Find a marimba. No, that's a xylophone. It's the one with the bars underneath. Yes, that's the one. Give it a clonk. Well clonked. The sound's a little insubstantial, isn't it. Welcome to the soft-touch world of K-Lone.

Cape Cira is as feather light as cirrus clouds tickling the skies above tropical lakes. Its bass drums are faltering footsteps on hot sand. The album is ambient, the album is world music, but the album is also Detroit-inspired techno transplanted from the motor city to a seaside hut in the Bahamas then left to bleach in the sun.

One online reviewer calls this 'Smooth FM in an African mood'. I'm not convinced by a comparison to a radio station that has voted Imagine, Careless Whisper and Ed Sheeran's snoozesome Perfect as its listeners' favourite songs. But there's definitely something soporific about Cape Cira.

Just embrace it. It's slow, it's relaxing, it's quite gorgeous. Oh and don't forget to put the marimba back. It belongs to Alan Titchmarsh and we still owe him for ruining his alpine horn.

 

Browse the rest of the Best Electronic Albums of 2020

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)

This picture of Fred Durst is offensive

Bread Durst.

Get it? I'll say it again.

Bread Durst.

This picture, made by Ian Breen and uploaded to the world by Anclove, is deeply disrespectful about Fred Durst and his oeuvre.

Fred Durst's debut opus was Three Dollar Bill, Yall$ (pronounced "three dollar bill you all dollar sign") as a member of the Limp Biscuits. He changed music forever with his version of George Michael's 1972 hit Faith, and without his canon, we wouldn't have Eminem, Muse, Jesus Jones or The Rutles.

To compare Lord Durst to something as plain as bread, and not even interesting bread at that, is like comparing John Lennon to cheese strings, or comparing Mark Owen to a piece of furry calamari dropped behind a disappointing fridge.

I encourage you to follow Anclove and Breen on Twitter to ensure no more of this nonsense is spewed out of their pus-infested internet tubes. Keep an eye, lest they delve into dangerous spoonerisms like Rid Kock, Stinchy Trousers or Blan P.