Pop-Eye 27/5/01

Is it is it wicked?...no sir, probably the second most tedious record released this year. Oh that Radiohead song, sounds like the filler track from most American lo-fi rock albums released 1994-6, I thought give Radiohead a chance, it might be good, it was an ode to dirge. Blue at number 5, that is surprising, I'd written them off as a failed boy band already, well good luck to them. Dido is passable, pleasent enough. 3LW are okay, a destiny's child jr song. Sunshine Anderson, again pleasent but forgettable. Can't say I like much in the charts this week!

oh, its wicked, i think there can be no doubt about that...

when rave got ultra-cheeze some people moved away from house to define the nu - shiit, now that record is no.1 WITH A BULLET ( an' there'll be more) a similar thing will happen. All Hail the nu Flesh !

'trend-setters are often reactionary rather than revolutionary'

I'm assuming that James E L above believes that DJ Pied Piper has recorded the second most tedious dirge this year, the first being Pyramid Song (a Top Of The Pops performance which blew the Coronation Street record of people simultaneously putting the kettle on - and possible the stereo and any other entertainment device they owned). Is it is it wicked - oh yes madam. Just when "It Wasn't Me" has run out as teen catchphrase we now have a call and response version to be slipped into conversations at the nations dinner tables:

MUM: Do you really like it? (Refering to Mum's curry which always has rasisins in it). Kid A (For want of better name): Is it is it wicked. Kids B thru D: We're lovin' it lovin' it lovin' DAD: We're lovin' it like that. Look of bemusement on Mums face.

And so DJ Pied Piper ends generations of mistrust between families and the end of all war. I just fear that when he rocks up to the mayor of Hamlyn for payment he might get stiffed with a copy of the Geri Halliwell album and then release another two-step anthem called "Follow me kiddies into the secret valley in the mountains - like that"

3LW and Sunshine Anderson and Blue are thoroughly irrelevant in the scheme of things therefore. In two months time there won't be any kids to buy any records and Radiohead and Travis will therefore be at number one forever. So lets makes sure th Pied Piper is getting his money.

Someone wanted me to review that Sunshine Anderson single. I'm a pop pariah since Isabel's car crashed cos that was the only place I listened to top pop radio.

Also, I like Pyramid Song. I like it more on the album than on its sluggish lonesome, mind you, but I like the faltering dirginess of it (Q reckons its about SUICIDE but I dont: I think it's about ALEXANDER THE GREAT). But the question is - how does it sound on the chart? Bloody awful I would think (I don't rate its chances in the next Focus Group either). So the wider qn is - how does the vision of charts-as-melting-pot hold up when tested by difficult buggers such as Radiohead? My guess is that Radiohead look worse for it than the charts do.

Yeah, "Pyramid Song" sounded a little lost amid the chart rundown on Sunday, but better that than the neo-prog "We Are Above The Top 40" attitude they took last time out.

Goodier informed the nation that Sunshine Anderson was Macy Gray's, erm, protegee. I hadn't known that beforehand, but naturally it prejudiced me against the single that followed, which seemed quite boring Nu Soul as expected; I've not heard it since.

But, hey, I like the Blue single.

Actually, I think the no-singles-off-kid-a policy was entirely the right one, as none of the tracks on that record would have made good singles. Nobody's slating, say, Laughing Stock by Talk Talk for being 'above' the Top 40. Though LS is a million times better than KA, obviously.

I'd assume concessions were made to the record company, but Radiohead should release something like "Pakt" as a single, which would sound great on the radio and not too out-of-place on the charts. Of course, we'll get "Knives Out" instead. *yawn*

Well, maybe with Kid A as a one-off. I certainly can't *imagine* anything off that album being a single.

But I basically have an innate distrust of anyone who actively doesn't want to be in the Top 40; it can't fail to remind me of too many of the worst aspects of 70s megabands. Hence why I was quite stupidly pleased when "Pyramid Song" was released as a single.

re Radiohead: Before there was an official "single", they were playing "I Might Be Wrong" on the radio here.

Is it just me or is the MOP record completely brilliant, completely honest and completely and gloriously transparent - even though Mrs C is convinced it's really the Shirehorses.

Sunshine Bloody Anderson is going to have to wait until my Jools Holland, A Bloody Obvious Target But What The Hell, Someone Has To Do It thread. Next week, unless I think of something different.

DJ Pied Piper? To quote the immortal Peter Powell: it's the greatest pop record I've ever heard. Apart from other ones.

Sunshine Bloody Anderson is going to have to wait until my Jools Holland, A Bloody Obvious Target But What The Hell, Someone Has To Do It thread.

My knife is at the ready (for JH).

Apologies if this has been mentioned elsewhere, but is it (is it) true that DJ Pied Piper and Master Of Ceremonies are former members of legendary UK hiphop crew Hijack ("the group that has no friends")? Anyone? If so, they deserve all the money that's coming to them from this number 1 super smash! Go and buy it!

Marcello; you're on the money about MOP. Now I think of it, it *does* sound in places like a Mark & Lard parody of hip-hop (not that such a comparison would ever have occured to me before). I like the utter in-yer-face simplicity of it; if it was still only Westwood playing "Cold As Ice", it wouldn't work a fraction as well, somehow.

The Holland thread will, I suspect, be a repetition of various long- held suspicions of this board. Doesn't make them any less true, though, and like David I'm looking forward to placing a few more (if predictable) potshots at the propagator of "real soul".

Joel: I know vaguely that quite a few UK hip-hop old-schoolers have gone garage. So you could well be right.

Joel: I know vaguely that quite a few UK hip-hop old-schoolers have gone garage

Having previously gone jungle/d&b?

They sing "'ardkore, you know the score" but they're not on a hardcore track, so I don't know the score. Silly fun, except the the hook is so terribly off-key.

I think that's the way it's tended to go, David. People jumping on trends, as often.

I shall defend J.Holland, of course. He is an affable chevalier in the age of the Free- Range Rude.