studio 54

[12] Belle & Sebastian, ‘Dog On Wheels EP’

Tough to choose just one of Belle and Sebastian’s legendary EPs – tough to call them ‘legendary’, but we eschew understatement here – so ‘Dog On Wheels’ gets the nod for ‘The State I Am In’. I reckon the album version is better, so I played them back to back for Junior to judge. She disagreed with her dad, possibly not for the last time.

The rougher EP version had our baby Belle grinning and banging her hairbrush on the coffee table. Quite a raucous response to B&S, but then I’m not sure Junior’s going to be a twee, gingham-frocked, church hall sort of girl. She’s going to be a B-Girl, Acid Tess, Studio 54 rawk chick.

Speaking of the Mercury Prize (as I was in my head), how the hell did Belle and Sebastian’s fantastic The Life Pursuit not get a nod? Makes the whole thing look like a sideshow farce.

Ah.

[13] Sister Sledge, ‘Thinking Of You’

And this is a genuine Chic knock-off; a re-release from 1979, but I suppose I didn’t know at the time. Junior doesn’t pay it the blindest bit of attention, and who can blame her? It’s a frothy irrelevance that sounds sparky at a wedding, or squeezed between ‘Le Freak’ and ‘Going Back To My Roots’ at Studio 54. I know, I was there.

It had another revival in the early ’90s when every record company was giving its new singles to Joey Negro to turn into disco house monsters. He managed to make the Brand New Heavies sound exciting and everything.