"What was I thinking?" - inexplicable/embarrassing selections from your old "best singles of the year" lists.

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Come on, be brave.

"New York, New York" - Ryan Adams (#10, 2001)
"The Bad Touch" - Bloodhound Gang (#2, 2000)
"I Try" - Macy Gray. (#9, 1999)
"All I Wanna Do" - Sheryl Crow. (#6, 1994)
"I'm Every Woman" - Whitney Houston (#8, 1993)
"People Everyday" - Arrested Development (#2, 1992)
"When You Gonna Learn?" - Jamiroquai (#3, 1992)
"Something's Got Me Started (Hurley's House Mix) - Simply Red (#10, 1991)
"You Are My World" - The Communards (#1, repeat #1, 1985)
"You Can't Hurry Love" - Phil Collins (#14, 1983)

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Thursday, 27 October 2005 08:50 (twenty years ago)

HAHAHAHA I BET YOU STILL LOVE PHIL COLLINS

DONT TRY TO DENY IT

― ESTEBAN BUTTEZ~!!, Thursday, 27 October 2005 08:52 (twenty years ago)

There were, um, personal reasons for that choice. Oh yes.

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:16 (twenty years ago)

"The Bad Touch" - Bloodhound Gang (#2, 2000)
"I Try" - Macy Gray. (#9, 1999)
"All I Wanna Do" - Sheryl Crow. (#6, 1994)

These are still great songs, though, Mike! I reckon the Crow would have been about #6 on my list that year. The other two maybe a bit high up.

― edward o (edwardo), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:20 (twenty years ago)

No doubt there were also personal reasons behind the 1985 one - and why not, I say.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:23 (twenty years ago)

I win this.

from
I've been to a marvellous party - The Divine Comedy (#11, 1998)
to
The Power of love - Huey Lewis & the News (#8, 1985)
[But I was only 13 at the time and loved Back to the Future]

and
Winds of Change - Scorpions (#8, 1991)
[There are NO EXCUSES]

― vinegar (Koens), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:24 (twenty years ago)

"So Cold The Night," funnily enough, turns up in my '86 one. I liked the Roy Castle tap dancing interlude in the middle.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:25 (twenty years ago)

Number 12 in my 1975 list: "Whispering Grass" by Windsor Davies and Don Estelle.

I was eleven at the time, give me a break innit.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:26 (twenty years ago)

"So Cold The Night" was Hit Sound #37 in my 1986 list. And you're right about the "personal reasons" behind "You Are My World". (Fact: the readers of Smash Hits voted The Communards their Least Promising New Act of 1985.)

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:28 (twenty years ago)

Just one year after they voted Bronski Beat the Most Promising New Act of 1984, with double the vote Frankie got, tsk tsk!

In that pre-post-punk whirlpool of 1978, I see at #29 in my list for that year: "Loving You Has Made Me Bananas" by Guy Marks, one slot ahead of "Hard Workin' Man" by Captain Beefheart.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:33 (twenty years ago)

i loved "Tomorrow" by the communards - great chorus. all these songs are good - even the phil collins to be honest, though i'd prefer a different version or a mash up with a town called malice

― Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (Alan), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:36 (twenty years ago)

Also from my 1978 list:
9. I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper - Sarah Brightman & Hot Gossip
14. Automatic Lover - Dee D Jackson
35. Ole Ola - Rod Stewart & the Scottish World Cup Squad!

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:36 (twenty years ago)

oo no, not all great. jamirok-why? and sheryl crow can eat a bag of dicks. each

xpost, now the first two of those are ber-illiant. sod rod and footie nonsense

― Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (Alan), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:37 (twenty years ago)

xpost:

The avant-garde art-prog concept album which I made in 1975 (using two cassette recorders and a variety of "found sounds") contains a snatch of "Whispering Grass", as recorded off Fab 208 Radio Luxembourg.

I was very keen on "Loving You Has Made Me Bananas", as I fondly imagined it to be some sort of über-conceptual post-modern high art prank. (Mind you, I thought the same about "The Smurf Song" for a short while.)

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:38 (twenty years ago)

Koen, there IS an excuse for that, it was brilliant.

Some of my dirty skeletons:

Paula Abdul - Rush Rush (#1, 1991)
Natalie Merchant - Carnival (#3, 1995)
Steps - Tragedy (#2, 1999)
Atomic Kitten - Whole Again (#2, 2000)

― edward o (edwardo), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:40 (twenty years ago)

also good (though i can't even recall the Natlaie Merch to be honest)

you are all failing to come up with really embarassing selections. someone say westlife/mariah carey, and you're in.

― Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (Alan), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:41 (twenty years ago)

xpost: Jamiroquai got to #3 because he was this super-cool new talent on the super-cool Acid Jazz label, which was almost as cool as the ultra-cool Talkin' Loud label. (While the rest of the world were rubbing Vicks on their chests and blowing hooters in fields like normal sensible people, I was stuck in a snooty latter-day soulboy rut. Odd year, 1992.)

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:42 (twenty years ago)

sod rod and footie nonsense

yeah but you have to remember i was in glasgow! and it still reminds me of a nice summer, crap ally mcleod performances notwithstanding.

even more incredibly, it is not rod's only appearance in that list; d'ya think i'm sexy turns up at 26.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:44 (twenty years ago)

D'ya Think I'm Sexy?!! OK Marcello, you win.

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:46 (twenty years ago)

airport by the motors is at number three, and i still stand by that decision.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:46 (twenty years ago)

with D'Ya Think I'm Sexy I thought Rod was going into his Low phase - those "Sound And Vision" synths - but it was not to be.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:48 (twenty years ago)

you folks actually keep lists of these things ?
or are these things you sub'd to magazines of the day ?
i never have done this, then again, no-one has ever asked me for any such opinion, which is understandable i guess.

does this invalidate my ILM membership ?

― mark e (mark e), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:48 (twenty years ago)

Not only do I keep these lists... I bring them to work every day, all handwritten in the Filofax I've been using since 1985. Um, doesn't everyone?

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:49 (twenty years ago)

actually, yes!

that 1978 top ten in full:
1. Ian Dury - Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick
2. Sylvester - You Make Me Feel Mighty Real
3. Motors - Airport
4. ELO - Mr Blue Sky
5. Kate Bush - Wuthering Heights
6. Stranglers - 5 Minutes
7. PiL - Public Image
8. Gerry Rafferty - Baker Street
9. Sarah Brightman/Hot Gossip - Starship Trooper
10. Magazine - Shot By Both Sides

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:51 (twenty years ago)

i loved airport by the motors. is that still 1978. a formative year for little alan. is that the same year as Milk and Alcohol, and Some Girls by racey? or were they a little earlier?

― Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (Alan), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:53 (twenty years ago)

start a "charts in 1978" thread plz

― Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (Alan), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:53 (twenty years ago)

Ah, "Five Minutes" by The Stranglers, as played on Tony Blackburn's "National Pop Panel".

Caller: "It's got a good beat to it." (They always said that.)

Blackburn: "Yeah, but banging your head against a wall has got a good beat to it."

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:54 (twenty years ago)

without being too sickophantic, MC's 1978 list is sheer perfection.
mine would have probably included the bloody wombles for all i can remember.

― mark e (mark e), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:56 (twenty years ago)

(xpost)

It was a great video as well, shot in this murky underground garage. I remember Tom Browne on the Sunday Top 40 rundown being decidedly sniffy about it.

Milk And Alcohol and Some Girls were both '79, but Racey did chart in late '78 with Lay Your Love On Me.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:57 (twenty years ago)

xxxxppost
Been making these song (and album) lists since I was 13, yes. No magazine's ever been interested in them - I usually make them for my own pleasure. Until last year when I posted them on a weblog, and literally dozens of people read them. Al Gore I kiss you!

(Somebody to shove - Soul Asylum #8, 1992)

― vinegar (Koens), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:58 (twenty years ago)

xpost: On the little post-it note which I've attached inside my Filofax, in which I worked out what my favourite singles would have been from 1975 to 1982, "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" is also listed as my favourite single of 1978.

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:02 (twenty years ago)

now what's bugging me is was there a recent-ish song (last 5 years) that rips off shot by both sides? or am i confusing it with a buzzcocks track?

― Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (Alan), Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:09 (twenty years ago)

Don't know about the last five years, but Kim Wilde's "Chequered Love" borrows from "Shot By Both Sides" big time, and when Morley interviewed her in NME at the time she cheerfully 'fessed up to it.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:19 (twenty years ago)

"SBBS" is a Surftones-ripoff itself, right?

― vinegar (Koens), Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:29 (twenty years ago)

Wouldn't know, we didn't get the Surftones over here.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:32 (twenty years ago)

No, wait - it was covered by the Pixies ... "Cecilia Ann". I think they're sort of similar guitar melodies, they get muddled in my head.
But that's me, probably.

― vinegar (Koens), Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:35 (twenty years ago)

For some reason I can't visualise the young Howard Devoto being into surf music. I'm sure that guitar line/chord progression gets used a lot, though.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:36 (twenty years ago)

SBBS was a re-working of the Buzzcocks' "Lipstick", of course...

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:40 (twenty years ago)

"What Do I Get?" was number 11 in my '78 list, btw.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:43 (twenty years ago)

SBBS was a re-working of the Buzzcocks' "Lipstick", of course...

So it is. How strange, as that is a Shelley/Diggle song (it says, on Singles Going Steady)

― vinegar (Koens), Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:48 (twenty years ago)

(but then Devoto gets writing credits only for Orgasm Addict, i now notice)

Anyhow, I've decided that all my year-end-lists from the 1990s are a complete embarrassment.
(I won't list them all.)

― vinegar (Koens), Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:49 (twenty years ago)

*BBS was a re-working of the Buzzcocks' "Lipstick", of course...*

SBBS was released Jan 78, and Lipstick Nov 78 (b-side to Promises). I think the riff was something that Shelley had been working on when Devoto was in the band, and both of them kept it in mind to use for the future. Bearing in mind that the 'Cocks didn't play Lipstick live before it came out on record, I think it's not right to say that SBBS is a reworking of it.

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:57 (twenty years ago)

Isn't it the case that lists become "embarrassing" not because the songs cease to be good, but because the artist has gone from being trendy (or at least okay to like) to not? I mean, "I Try" is an excellent song that still moves me, and the only reason why it would be embarrassing in retrospect is because time has made is clearer that Macy is bonkers.

Or am I stating the obvious?

― brittle-lemon (brittle-lemon), Thursday, 27 October 2005 11:23 (twenty years ago)

That's certainly a large part of the reason - and sure, all of the singles I listed have some sort of merit, to a greater or lesser degree - but what amazes me now is that I ever loved them quite so intensely.

There's another related category: singles which I can barely remember. I'm good at replaying old music in my head, but I draw more or less a complete blank at this lot:

Breathe In - Frou Frou (#19, 2002)
Heard It All Before - Sunshine Anderson (#8, 2001)
Battle - Wookie (#10, 2000)
The Man With The Red Face - Laurent Garnier (#20, 2000)
Turn Your Lights Down Low - Bob Marley/Lauryn Hill (#10, 1999)
Spellbound - Rae & Christian feat Veba (#17, 1998)
Blueprint - Attica Blues (#10, 1995)
Sistine Chapel Ceiling - Adorable (#13, 1994)
Love & Pain - Carlton (#14, 1991)

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Thursday, 27 October 2005 11:58 (twenty years ago)

I can still remember "Spellbound" very well, that was a bloody good one. The chorus to the follow-up "All I Ask" still lingers in my head, it wasn't as good though.

― edward o (edwardo), Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:04 (twenty years ago)

This thread is making me wish I still had my full top 100s from 1990 onwards that were on my old computer that died in 1996. I only have top 20s from 1995 onwards, as I typed them out nicely once, and top 100s from each of the 00s.

― edward o (edwardo), Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:12 (twenty years ago)

I can remember "Spellbound" being brilliantly sung - a real full-on belting diva performance - but that's all. I wonder what happened to Veba.

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:17 (twenty years ago)

i can replay the Attica Blues and the Laurent Garnier out of that lot. i love them both.

3xposts

― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:31 (twenty years ago)

I was just thinking last night while listening to Shakira's "Underneath Your Clothes" that I had no idea why I voted for it in pazz'n'jop. But I re-read Kogan's piece about the album and he mentioned sometimes wanting to pull the "DIVA SHUT UP" lever and its possible I was just in that mood. It's also possible the track is insufferably yarltastic.

― miccio (miccio), Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:31 (twenty years ago)

maybe you just fancied her.

― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:33 (twenty years ago)

that could be part of it. I definitely found her vocal quirks way more charming at the time.

― miccio (miccio), Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:38 (twenty years ago)

I think Veba is still doing session work for Grand Central, which at the beginning of the year released a "Veba vs Grand Central" compilation. It made it even clearer what a fab singer Veba is -- her vocals on Mark Rae's "Fold or Flower" are even more fantastic than on the better known songs.

I still love "Heard It All Before" very much, especially in the Ben Watt mix.

― brittle-lemon (brittle-lemon), Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:43 (twenty years ago)

Aha!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0006GVKJI/

Also, aha!
http://www.veba.org.uk

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:50 (twenty years ago)

George Clinton - "Double Oh Oh" (#4, 1985)
Blind Melon - "No Brain oops I mean No Rain" (#9, 1993)
4 Non Brains oops I mean 4 Non Blondes - "What's Up" (#10, 1993)
2 Live Crew - "Banned in the USA" (#10 I think, whatever year that waws: 1989 or 1990, maybe?)

I'm sure there are others; I will ask forgiveness once I find them. (Oddly, the old singles list stuck at the bottom of mix inbox were way less embarrassing than I would have guessed, but there are many others that aren't there, and I know I've voted for crap before.)

― xhuxk, Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:55 (twenty years ago)

(year that WAS, MY inbox, blah blah blah)

― xhuxk, Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:56 (twenty years ago)

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