Jez-Clackers and Groovy Andy are unlikely farm friends

You know that Jeremy Clarkson guy? The punchy old car bore man? Apparently he's got a television show about being on a farm, which is called Clarkson's Farm because he's called Clarkson and he's got a farm.

I wouldn't normally post about Jeremy Clarkson's farm. I have a negative-level of interest in learning about that Top Gear twerp muck-spreading or cow-bothering or whatever it is people do on farms.

But on series three of the programme, I notice that Clarkson has got a new friend. He's called Andy Cato, and he's an expert in sustainable farming. Something to do with regenerative planting, biodiversity, carbon storage, elephant taming, and similar green goals. Wait. Not the elephant taming: ignore that.

Andy Cato is better known as a member of Groove Armada, the electronic dance popsters famous for hits like Superstylin' and I See You Baby, at least one of which is about unnatural movements of human bottoms. They were dubby and fun and not quite as good as Basement Jaxx but we liked them anyway.

This is, of course, really annoying. Because this gives Jeremy Clarkson credibility in the electronic music community. We must now take J-Clark seriously, as if he was the third member of Erasure or the fifth member of Kraftwerk or the 493rd Aphex Twin (he gets secretly replaced twice a month, ssshhh don't tell anyone).

When Johnny Rotten started advertising butter, some people scoffed, but I took it very seriously. I ate only Country Life for six months. I bathed in the stuff. It was endorsed by a music legend, so it must've been good for you.

I suppose I'd better get into farming. Adopt a sheep; move into a one-bedroom combine harvester; brandish pitchforks at passers-by. I don't want to do it, but I want to be friends with Jez-Clackers and Groovy Andy, as they will be known from now on.

Goodness knows what'll happen next. Boards Of Canada opening up a tea shop? Fila Brazillia flogging tractors? Mint Royale running a countryside B&B where the residents go mysteriously missing but no-one complains because he sells special "meat" out of the back door when the police aren't looking? Honestly, any of this could happen.

Now excuse me while I write 20,000 words on how Jeremy Clarkson is the next Delia Derbyshire. [jumps balls-first into a thresher]

Picture: Wildfarmed / BBC News

Further Fats: Meet the Yamaha GX-1, the tractor's natural nemesis (2019)

Further Fats: It's got a cow as a logo (2022)

Warning! Dinosaurs are taking over the UK album chart!

You know that movie where Richard Attenborough breeds a load of dinosaurs and then they stomp all over a theme park while Jeff Goldblum from The Fly doesn't turn into a fly and Richard's all like 'screw this, I'm off to play Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street instead'?

Well, that exactly what's happening to the album charts.

The dinosaurs are taking over. Instead of the album charts being full of cool young bands like The Kneepads, Post Office Flip Flop Explosion or Digital Colostomy, it's packed with bands that have been around the block so many times, they've worn a groove in the pavement.

By the way, those cool young bands don't exist. I made them up.

Mint Royale pointed out that this week's album chart is full of incredibly old LPs because music fans are streaming the same favourites over and over again. "An Oasis compilation is getting enough steady streaming to probably just sit in the top 30 for ever," he says.

He's not wrong. The current number one album is brand new: Tyron by that cheeky scamp Slowthai has been around for precisely one week. But that's not typical. 60% of this week's top 100 has spent more than a year in the charts, which is a big rise on five years ago when it was just 35%.

Let's take a look at the longest-toothed dinosaurs in the current album chart. Here are the LPs sitting in the charts right now that have clocked up the most chart weeks since their release.

ABBA: Gold – Greatest Hits (981 weeks)
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Legend (965 weeks)
Queen: Greatest Hits (933 weeks)
Fleetwood Mac: Rumours (876 weeks)
Michael Jackson: Number Ones (483)
Oasis: What's The Story Morning Glory (476)
Eminem: Curtain Call – The Hits (449)
Amy Winehouse: Back To Black (411)
Oasis: Definitely Maybe (392)
Foo Fighters: Greatest Hits (392)

Just outside that tyrannosaur top ten? Time Flies 1994-2009, that aforementioned Oasis compilation which has spent 389 weeks in the album chart, 216 of those weeks consecutive.

This is theoretically fine. People are caning their favourite music, maybe having living room discos on Saturday nights while their pet dog looks on in confusion, and there's nothing wrong with that. You spin that old ABBA record, daddio.

However, these craggy dinosaurs will sell bucketloads of albums come rain, wind or scattered sunny spells. And they're clogging up the charts, reducing the number of chart opportunities for newer acts further down the pecking order: active bands who are writing and releasing fresh tunes in a Herculean effort to gain chart recognition.

Just a couple of blog posts ago I raved about the appearance of bleep techno in the hit parade and how it blew my tiny mind. I'm fascinated by new shiny things, like a magpie or a baby or a magpie looking at a baby. I don't want to delve into the latest album chart and see the same ancient faces with their expensive microphones and branded plectrums and anecdotes about how they met George Harrison once in a Tandy electronics shop. Serious yawn.

That's like searching on YouTube for bitcoin investment advice, or the Mars landing footage, or the latest Taskmaster challenge, and every time the only result that comes up is that bloke singing Chocolate Rain. Every time. Chocolate Rain. You try adding quote marks or searching in Welsh. No luck: just Chocolate Rain. You try the 'Contact Us' link to get help, and Mr Clippy pops up and starts singing Chocolate flipping Rain. You keep rocking those 2007 trends, daddio.

Mint Royale goes on to suggest that perhaps the album chart should be subject to ACR. This stands for Accelerated Chart Ratio: in the singles chart, this is used to weaken the chart position of songs if they've been around a while. It's a modern oddity that became necessary after Ed Sheeran almost monopolised the charts in 2017 in a move that even the Roman empire would have called "brazen".

I hope they sort it out soon. Otherwise the dinosaurs will continue to rampage unimpeded, and before we know it we've got a Lost World situation on our hands. And nobody wants Lost World.

More Fat Roland: No new electronica in the singles chart, repeat to fade (2009)

Even more Fat Roland: What's happening with the not-so-current current album chart? (2016)

Dance music fans, I have bad news about Christmas

Every now and then, mega cool dance music dominates the charts.

Yeah, I said "mega cool". Deal with it, kids.

Like the time the Chemical Brothers' Setting Sun topped the charts in 1996, the same year the Prodigy took the top spot twice. Or the moment Kraftwerk knocked Shakin' Stevens off number one. Or 21st century bangers breaking past a mush of identikit dance records such as Mint Royale's Singin' In The Rain or Kiesza's Hideaway.

The bad news is that Santa is having none of this. He hates dance music. He's your crusty old grandpa banging on the ceiling with a walking stick, or in his case, an elf. There has never been a mega cool dance hit as Christmas number one.

There must be some Christmas chart toppers with dance elements, right? A pearl among the oysters, a bit of gristle amid the constant stream of watery gravy, something credible besides Jimmy Osmond, Cliff Richard, all the Band Aids and Shayne flipping Ward.

Wait. Yazoo's Only You was Christmas number one in 1983. Vince Clarke! Alison Moyet! Synths! Except this was the a cappella version by The Flying Pickets: not dancey at all. Dammit.

What else? Not much. Mr Blobby's self-titled 1993 Chrimbo chart-topper was a dance music track, with its horrendously outdated Stock Aitken Waterman rhythms. But it can't count: it was a children's singalong with a bunch of kids who deserved to be sent up t'chimneys.

Apart from one track I'm yet to mention, that's it. Everything else is ballads, charity singles or people singing about sausage rolls. If Christmas was a nightclub, it would have been long bulldozed to make way for an Asda. I believe in the power of redemption, such as celebrity chefs doing interesting things with the long maligned sprout, but there is no hope here: the Christmas chart topper will never be a mega cool dance hit.

Except...

There is a pure, club-thumping dance track that made it to number one. It had samples, a roof-raising build-up and key change, and a pretty nifty breakbeat. That's right. Bob the Builder's Can We Fix It? is the most danceable festive number one in history.

Has Bob fixed it? Yes, he has. Have a listen: that's a proper skippy breakbeat right there. Even better, he knocked Westlife off the top of the charts when he became the Christmas chart-topper in 2000. Santa Claus is squeezing down your chimney, and he's armed with a cartoon wrench and Neil Morrissey dressed a reindeer.

Thank you, Bob. Or should I call you Robert? You truly are the most mega cool king of Chrimbo.

*publishes blog post*

*fast-forward to later that night*

*Fat Roland's bedroom, a rattle of chains in the darkness*

FATS: Whaaa? What's that? Who's there?
GHOST: Wooooah. It's me. The ghost of blogs past.
FATS: What do you want? Is it money? Lard? Take the lard! I only keep it on my bedside table for comfort.
GHOST: Whooaah. I'm here to tell you off about that blog post you did. The one about Christmas. Wooooaaaah!
FATS: Since when did ghosts get internet?
GHOST: You didn't mention the Pet Shop Boys Always On My Mind and the Human League's Don't You Want Me. Woooah.
FATS: Can I go back to bed? I've not finished making my Christmas candle and I need to break into my neighbour's first thing to get more earwax.
GHOST: Woooah. You deliberately missed out two of the biggest electronic music hits of all time to make some vapid point about dance music and Christmas. Seriously, dude. It renders your whole point moot. Woah.
FATS: Listen here, matey, get back inside that wardrobe. I'm going to push you back inside that spooky flipping wardrobe.
GHOST: Yikes! Do you always dress like that for bed? That's going to chafe, surely.
FATS: Hey, if it's good enough for Noel Edmonds, it's good enough fo—

*cuts to black*

Pictured above: Glasgow Sound Control's window display at Christmas taken by Agent Banana

Further Fats: Fat Roland's number one album chart death rant (2010)

Further Fats: If it goes bleep, it may or may not be EDM (2013)