In Praise of: Soho's "Hippychick" and Londonbeat's "I've Been Thinking About You"

"A Better Love" is a bit generic. "You Bring On The Sun" sounds like Seal.

both of these songs, total 4.5/5s.

hippychick is pretty good

If by "pretty good" you mean "sucks from a giant, larvae-slathered cock dunked in a greasy septic tank in the dank cellar of a Cambodian brothel," then yeah.

"You Bring On The Sun" was pretty much the same record. In the best possible way. "A Better Love" was a 'midtempo-er', or as I would probably have had it at the time, a 'slowie', in comparison. In the video they were walking along some pavement, with the sun in their faces a bit. I'm pretty sure it was great, in an unshowy way. The other one, I have no recollection of at all.

You cannot imagine how glorious Londonbeat sounds whilst scanning the produce section for sour oranges.

Both of these songs are fantastic, though I don't think I've heard the Londonbeat one in ages. I could've sworn they had another U.S. hit, but maybe I'm thinking of someone else: Fine Young Cannibals, maybe?

Their other hit (Top 20!) is "A Better Love." And, yeah, I think they were FYC background vocalists once.

"9am (The Comfort Zone)"

9am... on a new york subwayyyy
strappa hangin' commutin on a double A.."

remember?

This was their first hit. So why they called Londonbeat then?

And then there's London Boys! Who had a hit w/ Harlem desire.

Maybe they were singing about wishing they weren't in London then.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=aldgAtTflrc

the world needs less hipsters and more people running around in these outfits...

This is the fly lo-budget UK promo video for Thinking About You. This shit is awesome.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xbjlc_londonbeative-been-thinging-about-y_music

Alex in NYC really kind of sensitive on this subject? Had he actually sucked on such a cock while listening to 'Hippychick'? Does he still post - his schtick was really funny and not in the least bit repetitive.

I suppose we need this video too: http://youtube.com/watch?v=aNYv3PHPd6M

We musta been stone crazy when we thought we was just friends.

i'm always shocked at how slow hippychick is when beatmatching it

I had heard (and loved) "Hippychick" before I discovered "How Soon is Now." Once, while riding in the car of a much hipper & older kid (I was probably 13 at the time), he put on a mixtape which featured HSIN. I was devastated to have lost whatever few cool points I had with said individual by being all "ooh, is this Hippychick? I love this song."

the persistent absence of the original "hippychick" video from youtube has made me sad in the past. but this thread revival made me go look again and voila:

This made me so happy! I haven't thought about Hippychick in a looooooooong time. Thank you, TM.

I had heard (and loved) "Hippychick" before I discovered "How Soon is Now."
^
this. i still love it more than hsin and i'm not sorry.

"Hippychick" was produced by Bow Wow Wow's bass player.

Has anyone ever noticed how gorgeous the guitars on "I've Been Thinking About You" are?

I heard "Hippychick" on an old mixtape 2 days ago, for the first time for what, 10 years?

(a remix version..)

Oh man, "I've Been Thinking About You" is one of my main singing-in-the-shower songs.

Whoa, watching the video just now – I always thought it was sung by a woman!

love both of these songs. there was a time when i really enjoyed the londonbeat album and it was well after they were popular. at the time I didn't allow myself to enjoy them because they were so popular (lol college attitude) but it was a pretty good album. Better than the Soho album, at least.

bonus! i just went to youtube to watch this video and saw this comment:

"80's very early 90's were awesome, only a kid, but wow, I wish I was in my 20's in that era. I'd like to thank Nirvana for screwing up my current 20's with depressing crap that spawned unlimited depressing crap."

Spot on random youtube commenter.

Without resorting to nostalgia (I was in high school), 1989-1991 was the last time all these chart oddballs that straddled freestyle, R&B, house, and pop scored big on the American charts. When you consider that Crystal Waters' "Gypsy Woman," Roxette's "Joyride," Natural Selection's "Do Anything," and Jesus Jones' "Right Here, Right Now," to take three random examples, were huge hits, it's a testament to how unsettled things were in the Moment Before Nirvana.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4Cl9RSD174

^gif of 1:59-2:04 please

I gotta admit, this is pretty cool -- Tim London, Soho's main man, posted an extensive comment on my Not Just the Ticket piece about seeing them and Jesus Jones in spring of 1991:

http://nedraggett.wordpress.com/2010/01/25/not-just-the-ticket-13-jesus-jones-may-15-1991/

I have to say this is one of the most cogent paragraphs on LA and KROQ both I've read:

Having been in LA a few times before I had already decided it was a peculiar mix of vacuum, hedonism and apartheid. We had a run in with KROQ: they loved us, asked us on to do a kind of agony-aunt thing with young people ringing in with problems we were meant to help solve. While we were on air a young girl called in in some distress and the ‘crrrrazy’ jocks whose show it was mercilessly took the piss out of her. We had a row and ended up leaving the station mid-show (much to our manager’s and ATCO Records rep’s unhappiness). It’s a good indication of our experiences there.

I love this as well:

Ironically, we now get more props, particularly from young Americans, for our cover of Whisper To A Scream, from the first Scream soundtrack than for any of our albums. And we make more money from re-runs of Beverley Hills 90210 (who used our music a fair bit) than we do from any other sections of the media. We’ve been sucked into two iconic ‘dramas’ that sum up, for me, the teenage west coast experience, almost despite ourselves…

that entire post is great. it sums up pretty well what happened to radio during that year (and the next one as well).

Wow. Yeah, I first heard "Hippychick" on "90210." Are the reruns allowed to air the original music? When I rented them on DVD a couple of years ago they couldn't get the licensing.

xpost -- Thanks! It had been the show I kept coming back to as perfectly emblematic of this 'the nineties but not THE nineties' space of time.

Alfred -- not sure, perhaps post a response there to him on that? I'll be following up more, I know!

Tim's such a lovely man, he used to put on gigs in London and once a band I was in ended up on the same bill as a three piece sea shanty group called The Shanty Crew and a film about Lee Perry iirc.

He's got a page here that links as well to his other sites:

http://timothylondon.tumblr.com/

'hippychick' is so so dope.

Are the reruns allowed to air the original music? When I rented them on DVD a couple of years ago they couldn't get the licensing.

Broadcast rights are not the same as DVD rights, this is not a 90210-specific difference

I've said this countless times elsewhere but the guitars on "I've Been Thinking About You" are straight up Congolese rumba/soukous. They'd fit on a Franco song.

We must have been stone-crazy when we thought we were just friends.

uhhh not hearing those congolese rumba sounds just sounded like copping baggy jangle to me. shit pow pow.
had both these songs on 12" when they came out. remember soho sounded good on 33 and a nice beat. the londonbeat just reminds of two things mostly, aerobics classes, and briton attended holiday resorts in the med.

I've said this countless times elsewhere but the guitars on "I've Been Thinking About You" are straight up Congolese rumba/soukous. They'd fit on a Franco song.

― Mexico, camp, horns, Zappa, Mr. Bungle (Matos W.K.), Sunday, May 30, 2010 2:15 AM (3 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ok this is fucking weird....

going w/Matos' post....this site had MP3s of a digitized cassette release from the 80s from a Somali group called Dur Dur

Listen to the song "Ethiopian Girls"...it is "I've Been Thinking About You"!!!

EXACTLY..not just "similar"...it's the same song!

I looked into that...
http://www.kezira.de/dur-dur-somali-music-from-the-1980%E2%80%99s

ah doi a cover...

sha pow pow!

GOT NO FLOWERS FOR YOU NOW

NO HIP HIP HIP

It's even better than that:

GOT NO FLOWERS FOR YOUR GUN

You must have been stone crazy

Was wondering why that's been in my head recently. I think it's the Queen poll.

Was wondering why that's been in my head recently I've got those feelings again

alfred it's been nearly a decade since your last revive. hoping you haven't gone stone crazy?

and yes: both very classic jams... but "thinking about you" is my pick of them.

I feel so confused about you!

“Hippychick” is such a cool song, these are both dope songs that make me think it’s still late morning in my life

1989-1991 was the last time all these chart oddballs that straddled freestyle, R&B, house, and pop scored big on the American charts.

Does anyone else remember the Cinnamon Mini Buns cereal that had some promotion where you could order five different free cassingles, including "Hippychick", back in 1991? You had 4 very of-their-time songs of the stylistic melange referenced above (Betty Boo's "Doin' The Do"; TKA's "I Won't Give Up On You"; and Information Society's "Think") with #5 being a hilarious bit of counter-programming with Bad Company's blooze-tastic "Holy water".

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/FJgAAOSwfDFlCh5z/s-l1200.webp

Great music round in the pub quiz where everyone failed when they played the intro to Hippychick

My dad also got it wrong when I made him play Unbelieveable Too in the car about 20 years ago. I, being a brat, corrected him before the beat came in.

Wow, Kim! I found a note about it, but its super wild to see the actual box