— Rob Manzoli, quietly
Is it 1988 already???
The rise of house music in the late eighties proved to be a boon to rave culture and for teens/young adults who liked to go clubbing. What frequently gets ignored, however, is that many of the acts that came about during this period appealed to kids as well. Kids who weren't dropping acid in abandoned warehouse but who were getting into music via Top of the Pops, Radio One and Saturday morning telly and Smash Hits.
Following the chart topping success of "Pump Up the Volume" by M|A|R|R|S in the latter part of 1987, there was a sudden rush of house music in the pop charts. While these organizations had hardcore club DJ's behind them, several had pop backgrounds as well. M|A|R|R|S had been descended from indie soul act Colourbox, while the members of Freur would eventually evolve into influential nineties group Underworld. Those who hadn't been part of the UK's indie scene were young and had an eye on the charts while the other was focused on the clubs.
Tim Simenon's Bomb the Bass project was one the first beneficiaries of Britain's house music revolution. Made up entirely of samples, debut single "Beat Dis" was simply astonishing. Boring old rock types would start to moan about how this kind of thing wasn't real music (something which fans of classical, jazz and Tin Pan Alley used to say about rock 'n' roll itself) but the rest of us new better. DJ's could be annoying at weddings and roller staking rinks but when they cut their own records they'd perform the tasks of musician, producer, engineer, pop star and fan all at once. They wore so many hats that no one else was even needed. Simenon had time for appearing in the pop press though he wasn't as willing to shill himself the way S'Express' Mark Moore had been. Still, he seemed a pop fan and not just a mix desk snob with a strict love of obscure 12" singles from clubland.
The Beatmasters, on the other hand, never quite seemed cut out for the pop game, which maybe explains their desire to have the likes of Cookie Crew, P.P. Arnold, Merlin and Betty Boo fronting their records. They even produced Yazz's number two hit in the autumn of '88 "Stand Up for Your Love Rights" as if knowing that their group name wasn't even needed for the singer who had just topped the charts that summer with "The Only Way Is Up". Where people like Simenon and DJ/production duo Coldcut seemed to require certain kinds of vocalists to suit their material, the trio of Paul Carter, Manda Glanfield and Richard Wamsley were adept at switching themselves up in order to service whoever they were working with.
Their first commercial attempt was one of their finest. Cookie Crew members MC Remedee and Susie Q rapped on "Rok da House" with a delightful mix of charm and ferocity, the sort of girls I could imagine myself being in terrifying awe of at school. Those sweet smiles of their's hid a "don't you dare mess with me, mate" attitude that lurked just bellow the surface. Subsequent singles recorded free of The Beatmasters — including party anthem in waiting "Got to Keep On" — kept the momentum going. While up for a laugh, they had more depth than Derek B or the Wee Papa Girl Rappers and didn't seem to take themselves as seriously as fellow Beatmaster collaborator Merlin.
~~~~~
— Rob Manzoli, whispering
Where's the fun in '91?
(Actually, there plenty of fun pop back then but it was generally being made by dummies like Right Said Fred, this fortnight's guest reviewers. They'll be coming up soon with a Single of the Fortnight of their own (hint: it isn't "I'm Too Sexy"; fingers crossed that it's something as daft as "Wonderman"; hint: it isn't) so I'm leaving aside my distaste for them for a few weeks).
The house and hip house acts of the late-eighties had begun to disappear with the arrival of the nineties but some were trying to hang on. Staying relevant is the toughest task to master in all of pop, especially in an environment of "back to basics" rockist nonsense and a sudden dearth of independent, dance-orientated labels to foster advances in techno music. Possibly reacting to the Top 40 performances of Enigma that year as well as the rise of trip-hop, Bomb the Bass took a much more mellow approach for second album Unknown Territory. The Gulf War harmed the chances of first single "Love So True" (the name Bomb the Bass was considered objectionable, even though the activities of the IRA hadn't managed to make the name problematic three years' earlier) but follow-up "Winter in July" gave Simenon a fourth Top 10 hit. Sadly, singer Loretta Heywood (who seemed to wear the same dress in all their videos) was all over the place, giving a tiresome sameness to their singles output. "The Air You Breathe" was almost exactly the same as "Winter in July", which hadn't been all that different from "Love So True".
Cookie Crew come out of this a good deal better than Bomb the Bass. They didn't deserve Single of the Fortnight either (in my book it's either Mariah Carey or Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine who should've taken it: now that would've been a nice odd couple pairing for co-SOTF) but "Love Will Bring Us Back Together" is a fine attempt at keeping their output current. The obvious connection is with De La Soul, The Jungle Brothers, Monie Love and Dream Warriors.
Remember what I said above about "back to basics" nonsense? Well, the upside of this was samples of killer soul and funk records on current hip hop singles. Roy Ayers' iconic seventies' jazz-funk sound forms the basis of "Love Will Bring Us Back Together" to the extent that he often get's an artist's credit. Though happy to pilfer, they aren't as brazen as many of their hip hop contemporaries, resulting in this being a bit of a let down. More could have been accomplished.
The Crew's popularity had fallen off since 1989. According to Wikipedia, their record label FFRR looked to have them be more of a pop-rap outfit while they were intent on going more in the direction of pure hip hop. There's the feeling here that they've found a happy medium but compromise renders it more toothless than it ought to have been. Good fun but empty and quickly forgotten — and, indeed, little regarded enough (even by some of Right Said Fred, who don't seem any fonder of it than non-SOTF by Carter, PM Dawn and Kim Appleby) not to get itself a chart position of any kind. The future had once been bright but the present had suddenly become dark. Makes sense since 1991 was an awful year, though I would say so since that was when I turned fourteen.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Mariah Carey: "Emotions"
Mariah in not-a-slushy-love-song shock! While she was busy reeling off number ones back home in the States, her records didn't manage to take hold of the British charts in anywhere close to the same way. This meant, however, that those of us who weren't fans or were neutral towards her wouldn't have been overexposed to her unique brand of birdsong. For some reason, I liked "Love Takes Time" back in the day and didn't mind this one and that was the extent of my Mariah Carey fandom. But now it's clear that "Emotions" is her at her very best. The tune is pretty damn glorious, the high notes were still a novelty by this point and I liked her more when she still had frizzy hair. Let's have this soundtrack out next Christmas instead, okay? Okay???
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