Category Archives: All Vinyl Apocalypse

1,111 greatest records you probably haven’t already heard

720. double dutch

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In which Malcolm McLaren, best known for his genius level mismanagement of the Sex Pistols (it’s a long story) leaves Punk well in the rear view and embraces … what exactly? “It was Young Tim (friend of a friend) that turned me onto Duck Rock. More to the point, he forced it on me, because I wasn’t biting at first. Even with the Pistols connection. Because the guy clearly could not sing, and there was no evidence of proper punk aggro on it anywhere. Just exotic sort of party grooves and sounds (sampling before we even had a name for it, Trevor Horn take another bow). And, in the case of Double Dutch, high school girls skipping rope with a vengeance. Until one night, a little wasted, there I was dancing to it. It was fun. Cultural boundaries were eroding, great Jericho walls were crumbling, everything seemed possible, I was smiling.” (Philip Random)

DoubleDutch

721. paint it black

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“Eric Burdon took his whiteman-slumming-in-the-blackman’s-world thing all the way to the edge (and beyond) on his second (and last) album with the band known as War, with the epic take on one of the great Rolling Stones songs a definite (and definitive) highlight. It was released in 1970, but I didn’t hear until 1994.  A moment I remember all too well.  Kurt Cobain had just offed himself, everybody was fumbling around in shock at my friend Steven’s place. Suddenly some guy whose name I forget said something like, ‘F*** you, Cobain. There’s always something to live for. I bet you never even heard this.’ And then he slapped side one of Black Man’s Burdon on the turntable.” (Philip Random)

EricBurdonWAR-1970

722. dream within a dream

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“Propaganda are mostly forgotten now, but trust me, this is what 1985 sounded like.  Big, majestic, mysterious, not afraid to explore the darker side of things – a dream within a dream indeed. All credit to the band themselves, who I know nothing about except I think the woman doing the singing was German (maybe they all were). But don’t overlook the guy in the control room, twiddling the dials, pulling it all together – one Trevor Horn who was rather a big deal at the time working with the likes of Frankie Goes To Hollywood, ABC, Grace Jones, Malcolm McLaren’s Duck Rock, not to forget Yes and The Buggles (he was in both of them).  Pop sonic artist of the decade?  There are worse arguments.” (Philip Random)

Propaganda-1985

723. three more days

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“Speaking of the Brave Generation (ie: those of us who were still little kids as the 1960s flipped over into the 1970s), pretty much everybody had a half-cool older brother or sister or cousin that had a copy of the Guess Who‘s Share The Land lying around – the one with the wise Indian on the cover. Which was rather the hippie teenage dream at the time. Smoke a little maryjane and get some mystical magical guidance from somebody/anybody who wasn’t your dad or your grand dad or your hockey coach, or anyone even remotely connected with your suburban whitebread, soulless culture. Or as the lyrics go in Three More Days (Burton Cummings channeling his inner Jim Morrison) ‘Freedom – paint me a picture – show it to me right now’. And then the band got busy stretching things out and tearing them up. Epic indeed.” (Philip Random)

GuessWho-1970

724. For Michael Collins, Jeffrey + Me

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In which Jethro Tull remind us that July 20, 1969 may well have been the best day humanity’s ever known. Because even if there were brutal wars going on all over, children starving, good people going down – a man was walking on the f***ing moon (two of them actually), and if you were any older than three, you were watching it on TV. Including astronaut Michael Collins, who was the guy stuck back in the command module orbiting around while his two buddies got all the glory. Which is what the song’s really about. To be that close, yet so far away.

moonwalkApollo11

 

725. brave generation

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“Green on Red are yet another of those bands that never got the notice they deserved. Folk, rock, country, maybe a little psychedelic – they had a sound that was hard to get tired of, and, every now and then, a song like 1983’s Brave Generation (found on their first album) that just cut through all the cocaine banality of the time. At least, it did for me, probably because I’d never really thought much about my particular generation – the ones who were little kids when all the bigger kids (aka the hippies) were running wild, storming heaven, doing more than just talk about revolution. But that was all pretty much over by the time our puberty hit. The Beatles had broken up, Flower Power had wilted, Richard Nixon was getting re-elected, the Vietnam War still wasn’t over. I guess that made us brave more or less by default.” (Philip Random)

GreenONred