smash hits

[14] M.I.A., ‘Born Free’

M.I.A.

“This is just noise.” “It’s exciting.” “It’s echoing, it feels loud.” M.I.A. is used to eliciting mixed responses, and all of these come from the same five-year-old. A five-year-old who’s just taken nearly five years to realise I’m making a note of her reactions, and so gets a whole lot more vocal about them.

It is just noise too, but I’m still blinded by hype – perhaps it’s not just hype after all? – and lap it up over and over. M.I.A. takes Suicide’s ‘Ghost Rider’, turns it up until it creaks at the edges, then bombasts over the top of it, ever-relevant, ever-empty. With M.I.A., What seems uncompromising on the surface is always firmly anchored by a pure pop sensibility. It was the same, really, with Suicide, whose name fascinated me when I saw it for the first time in NME’s All Time 100 Albums, published in late 1985. I’d bought the paper as a taster, a candidate to replace Smash Hits which I felt I’d outgrown (ha!) – in the end, I went for Record Mirror because Mum thought NME was a bit rude, but that list burrowed into me, a primer for a new education.

[5] Bomb The Bass featuring Justin Warfield, ‘Bug Powder Dust’

I’m getting weary legs as we stagger towards the 1994 finish – but hey, the thrilling 2008 Top 20 countdown begins a week today! Make a note in your Smash Hits diaries, pop fans.

This is an excellent record and everything; I’m just feeling tired today. Let’s see if I can pep myself up simply by talking about Justin Warfield’s pseudo-intellectual cut-up flow and Tim Simenon’s aggressive electro motor beats. Warfield was ever keen on styling himself as a beat poet and ‘Bug Powder Dust’ is ripe with Burroughsian word clashes and good sounds – verbal and musical – as he waggles his beatnik head to Simenon’s spiky Brit-house. It’s cool and rules, although I think I prefer Warfield’s own ‘Fisherman’s Grotto’. Ok.

We do the bus-listening trick again, reprazenting in the priority seats by the door. Junior rolls her shoulders and twists her hips before announcing at the end, quite unnecessarily, “That made me dance.”

[2] Depeche Mode, ‘Personal Jesus’

Depeche Mode

I ditched Smash Hits for Record Mirror in 1986, and had it delivered until its demise in 1991-ish. Nothing ever lived up to it, nothing seemed to cater for me after that. In the late 80s it hooked itself onto the new rock/dance crossovers in its superlative BPM section alongside the usual house and r&b reviews, ahead of the game with early warnings about unexpected remixes and bewildering new directions. ‘Personal Jesus’ was one of these blindside dancefloor monsters.

The pervtastic ‘Mode (© Smash Hits) were big but somehow still niche. I reckon this single – with its swampy swagger, twanging groove and stomping beat – made it “OK” to like them. It topped Record Mirror’s Cool Cuts chart on its white label release, and went on to storm the clubs and excite indie kids and pop kids alike. ‘Blasphemous Rumours’ didn’t quite have the same broad appeal.

I’d been buying their singles for years – a dubious inheritance for Junior – but ‘Personal Jesus’ was the first one that I thought was really great. The tight, pulsating Violator album was pretty special too. They peaked here, I reckon, before Dave Gahan started on all that dying and being resurrected caper. Junior hasn’t got time for all that showing off; she’s only here for the music, and the glam stomp grabbed her right from the off. A leather-skirted hit for the Basildon boys.

OK, viewers, your turn: guess the Number One, choose the next year, suggest a new theme, throw in some bad puns on Martin Gore’s name, slag off the songs so far and gnash teeth at the absence of Technotronic.

[5] Terence Trent D’Arby, ‘If You Let Me Stay’

A second appearance from 1987’s self-proclaimed biggest star. ‘If You Let Me Stay’ was his first single, an ’80s soul rush with oomph to spare and the campest backing singers this side of Vegas. His bug-eyed James Brownisms were everywhere for a year or so, an effortless rise to the top of the tree that was almost as quick and remarkable as his subsequent fall.

The Trout (thanks, Smash Hits) saw his debut album spend at least six months in the chart even before it reached No.1 in early ’88, where it stayed for a couple of months. A huge, heady success. The second arrived in 1990, entered at No. 12 and was gone in four weeks, never to be seen again. He didn’t miss his water, ‘til his well ran dry.

Junior was caught up in the whirl, laughter tinkling with each of Terence’s whoops. I was throwing her up in the air at the same time, admittedly. Still, the song whistles past and leaves you smiling.

ZZ Top, ‘Gimme All Your Lovin’’

Strictly, we don’t own any ZZ Top records, but we appreciate them for the little things – the trend-defying boogie-woogie, the well-worn irony of Frank Beard’s name, the album titles that Bobby Gillespie would’ve dearly loved to have thought of first, that swinging pointy gesture they do and the Smash Hits interview in which Billy claimed that a dead vulture stank like Dusty’s boots.

However, when this song was requested, I remembered that I had it on The Hits Tape which still nestles in the Various section of the cassette library I’ve stashed under Junior’s changing table. The flat’s just not big enough to store all my records successfully. Anyway, The Hits Tape, eh? The ill-fated Now competitor. They shared a common format, you may recall: a pop side, a dance/soul/hip-hop side, a rock side and, well, a crap side. ‘Gimme All Your Lovin’’ kicks off the rock side of this one in fine style, a momentum sustained by Van Halen’s ‘Jump’.

Junior is a hitherto unsuspected ZZ Top fan. She boogie-woogies on the Winnie the Pooh mat with all her strength, stamping on the Tigger squeaker in time to the riffs. The arm waves and smiles are de rigueur. The traditional first Christmas panda is picked up at one stage for a spin around the dancefloor, and so immersed is Junior in the rhythm, she doesn’t even try to eat it. Otherwise, a girl of eclectic tastes.