“‘Daft Punk Is Playing At My House’ is playing at my house.” Not a flicker. Junior will appreciate her dad’s jokes one day. It took me a decade or so to finally realise that my old man’s dry quips were the stuff of legend. I think she enjoys the record but her mum finds it forgettable, twice asking what it is. Indeed, does anyone remember LCD Soundsystem now? They were cool in February. Anyone?
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[17] Ciara featuring Missy Elliott, ‘1, 2 Step’
This is Ciara’s year, we just live in it. Junior is puzzled to see her dad try to sing along with what the nice lady is saying, but you can see she wants to get up and dance. The song has a minimalism to it that wouldn’t take much effort to move with. She could do those press-ups that she practises on her mat before rolling over and doing that slightly astonished face before she sees that her mum is smiling. Missy Elliott could try that in the next video. I’m not entirely sure she hasn’t already.
[18] Amerie, ‘1 Thing’
It’s all stop-start crash-bang with this song, and that’s the cue for something to get a hammering. Junior is back in the bouncy chair, holding the toy bee that can be attached to things. As Amerie wails and slides over the guitars and beats, the bee is shaken up and down and smashed against the side of the chair before involuntarily flying off out of sight. No doubting this is a hit. As for Amerie, it just sounds like a lazy talker saying Anne-Marie. That doesn’t go down well round here.
[19] Snoop Dogg featuring Charlie Wilson & Justin Timberlake, ‘Signs’
This was a big hit in utero, so I’m expecting some outlandish reactions. But smiles will do. And yes, it’s a Snoop Dogg record, not a Timberlake one as some mothers believe. It might’ve finished higher in this chart, instead it’s one of those tunes that diminishes over time – a sit-up-and-listener when you first hear it but, by the time it’s over, you’re staring at the Christmas tree.
[20] Gorillaz featuring De La Soul, ‘Feel Good Inc.’
Junior’s grinning at me before I’ve even stepped away from the stereo, and by the time De La Soul start their “laughing gas” cackles she’s in bits. Posdnuos, Trugoy and Mace first came to Junior’s attention when she was minus 16 and twinkling in the corner of her dad’s eye by the municipal outdoor pool in Berkhamsted. She stuck with them through the jazz period and the frankly boring albums period, and is delighted to see them return to the fore as ciphers to Albarn’s cartoon characters.
The Go! Team, ‘Feelgood By Numbers’/The Arcade Fire, ‘Wake Up’
Who chooses the pop music that’s put behind TV trailers or features on Grandstand, or used as incidental music on Supernanny and House of Tiny Tearaways? And is it the only job they have? I reckon I could do it. Slap a load of Zero 7 or Lemon Jelly on the property programmes, a bit of Embrace behind ITV’s Sunday night drama, no effort required. 2005’s TV has been ruled by the Go! Team. They can do jaunty, upbeat, ecstatic and simple pottering about. They might not be quite so suited to the melancholy side, but “pottering about” is the clincher for most telly. ‘Feelgood By Numbers’ is a pottering song – our first instrumental – and would do well through the arched window. Junior used it as a soundtrack for wearing a flowery Reni-from-the-Stone-Roses hat and staring at the new Christmas tree.
‘Wake Up’ was the theme for the BBC’s autumn schedule trailer. Actually, it might just have been an advert for those slightly sketchy Shakespeare Retold things. I was a bit disappointed with them. I was disappointed initially that I managed to record Much Ado About Nothing and Macbeth and then record over them without watching them, but The Taming Of The Shrew and Midsummer Night’s Dream both failed to keep me interested, or even unirritated. Anyway, ‘Wake Up’ worked as the trailer. It has a bit of magic and wonder, and drama too, and it added to the anticipation. The Christmas tree won again, mind.
Stevie Wonder, ‘I Wish’
Even Junior’s mum can only think of Stevie as a fat bloke in a bedsheet making sappy records, so goodness knows what the little one will think when she’s older. Or maybe those critics fanfaring a “return to form” will eventually hit the mark with their scattergun and Steveland will once more bestride the world like a blind, bead-sporting behemoth.
There’s nothing new about praising his 70s output, but today we found a certain sort of context. This wasn’t the only one we played. Once Junior had bounced along to the rhythm and her mum had discovered where Will Smith’s “Wikki Wikki Wah Wah Wild Wild West Switch Hitch Turn Around Now” came from, we moved onto ‘Pastime Paradise’ and ‘As’ to marvel at how many of the album’s songs had been lazily regurgitated to form far bigger hits with a bit of mumbling over the top. So much hip hop is fresh and bright and shaking with invention, but the last 10 years have seen Puff Daddyfication sucking the life out of it. Why don’t the clever ones plunder Stevie?
Junior enjoyed ‘I Wish’ for a while until she was distracted by Roobarb on the television. As the tales of childhood high jinks came out of the stereo’s speakers, I remembered watching Roobarb and Custard as a boy and Junior looked forward to the day when she could write something nasty on the wall.
David Bowie, ‘Young Americans’
I was 19 when I decided that ‘Young Americans’ was my second favourite single of all time. I’d say it’s settled somewhere between five and nine now, and it still makes me feel like I’m the coolest catwalk model in south west London when I listen to it. Junior has no concept of cool, despite her natty pink Biggles hat and snow white woolly hoodie, but she understood the record the moment it started. The drums kicked, the piano and saxophone rolled by and she was right on the button joining the late, great Luther Vandross on backing vocals. She seemed to get a touch scared towards the end, possibly wondering what could make someone “break down and cry” apart from an unscheduled delay to the next feed. Maybe that haunted Dave as well.
I think she liked the barrel load of words streaming out. I think that’s what grabbed me back then when I was seeing that great pop didn’t have to be verse-chorus-verse-chorus-middle eight-chorus. The song fits that loosely, I suppose, but Bowie saw how much more fun there could be in the “ad lib to fade”. When I was 11, my friend Neil and I used to laugh at Tom Robinson’s ‘War Baby’, scoffing at him trying to shoehorn as many words as possible into each line. We thought his scansion was rubbish, or that he was holding the wrong lyric sheet.
Sorry Tom.
Coldplay, ‘Talk’/Julie Andrews and children, ‘Do-Re-Mi’
So here we have an actual new single, Coldplay’s tilt at the Christmas No.12. More serious commentators than me have seriously pointed out that it’s a limp song hanging from Kraftwerk’s ‘Computer Love’ riff, and there’s a great big anvil of truth in that. In homage, Junior spends its five minutes 10 seconds trying to roll over and ends up looking like Ralf Hutter hunched over his handlebars, negotiating a Tour de France Alpine hairpin bend with cold German precision (there is no other form of precision, really). There’s barely a nod to Chris Martin’s influence, unless you count the puzzling fact that I had “Mojo” written in biro on the back of my hand.
Now, ‘Do-Re-Mi’ has always made her smile, perhaps incredulous at my note-perfect rendition. We tried the crackly old LP today, part of a job lot I nabbed off my mum when she and my dad embraced the CD age. Lorraine Kelly of television fame tells us that The Sound of Music is enjoying a mini revival, and I’m not one to snub a bandwagon.
Junior looked impressed that Julie Andrews didn’t get the “ti” and “so” lines mixed up like some people, but found the children annoying. Especially that Friedrich.
To recap then, a number twelve hit for ‘Talk’ and a timely festive repackage for The Sound of Music.
The Verve, ‘Lucky Man’/Kate Bush, ‘Wuthering Heights’
These were on the radio this morning while I shaved (bit of gritty bathroom sink real life drama for you there), so perhaps it’s a cheat. Junior was in her bouncy chair, singing along to ‘Lucky Man’. I’ve decided that it’s the song where it went wrong for Ashcroft, inspiration finally giving way to pomposity, after the poised and considered highs of ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ and ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’. Those two may have had a tinge of the overblown, but they carried it off by being totemic. We’ll hear arguments for earlier Verve, from the kind of hipster who’ll dismiss a band when they nuzzle against the bosom of the hit parade. I’m going to ignore them. ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ gets to be the totem. It had bells and whistles. Well, not whistles as such. Whistles and flutes. Suits. Lawsuits. It had a couple of them. Lawsuits that with one hand gave them a “The”, and with the other took away all their royalties.
By happy chance, Ashcroft’s new single was a Video Exclusive on Channel 4 last night. I’d had a couple of Hoegaardens, but it sounded to me as if it started off with some low-fi electronic burbling. “Hello,” I thought, “Richard’s had enough of self-parody, he’s branching out, pushing that envelope, cutting through the Blunts and Powters of our years to reconnect.” Don’t remember the rest of it.
Looking back, I think Junior was droning, not singing. The blossoming satirist was taking the mick.
‘Wuthering Heights’ had her transfixed. Sounds about right.
Jukebox Junior 