Beats International - Dub Be Good To Me

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Take flight, bosswalk, jam, nitty gritty, you're listenin to the boys from the big bad city, this is jam hot...

This was the first time I remember being conscious of being at number 1. I also loved it to bits - I think I must have been 9. I remember feeling angry with Snap! for eventually knocking it off the top slot.

Years later Norman Cook would come back as Fatboy Slim and do it all over again, but for then he was simply that bloke out of Housemartins skulking around at the back while the gorgeous Lindy Layton stole the camera.

A cover version of the SOS Band's hit from 1984, it was also one of the first examples of a mash-up, sampling spaghetti westerns and the Clash to maximum effect.

Any thoughts on this?

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Friday, 26 January 2007 12:03 (eighteen years ago)

yuk, i didn't know it sampled the clash.

it is not a mash-up, though... is it?

― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Friday, 26 January 2007 12:07 (eighteen years ago)

CLASSIC

― FACEBRACE (FACEBRACE), Friday, 26 January 2007 12:08 (eighteen years ago)

it's a mashup in the same way sugababes and liberty x did those mashups a few years back. it samples "guns of brixton" by the clash but is a cover of "just be good to me". what is the western theme it samples? is it moroder or morricone?

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Friday, 26 January 2007 12:13 (eighteen years ago)

It's Morricone, from the score to Once Upon a Time in the West, also sampled on the Orb's "Little Fluffy Clouds".

― Neil Stewart (Neil Stewart), Friday, 26 January 2007 12:15 (eighteen years ago)

was the opening rap a sample too or something one of the band did?

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Friday, 26 January 2007 12:16 (eighteen years ago)

another classic bit - the bit where the male does a kind of bridge simply by going "mm-mmm--mm-mm-mm-mmm-mmm--mmm" into a comb and tissue paper.

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Friday, 26 January 2007 12:17 (eighteen years ago)

it's paul heaton

xpost

― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Friday, 26 January 2007 12:18 (eighteen years ago)

i'll bet you £3 it's not.

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Friday, 26 January 2007 12:21 (eighteen years ago)

also, it's not a sample of the clash - the boy quentin played it himself but openly admits it's a tribute.

and totally fucking completely classic, duh.

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Friday, 26 January 2007 12:25 (eighteen years ago)

is that true? i don't think i'd be able to tell them apart if it weren't for the beat.

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Friday, 26 January 2007 12:26 (eighteen years ago)

i like it but i prefer the song he did with billy bragg

― jimbo (electricsound), Friday, 26 January 2007 12:32 (eighteen years ago)

There was a classic bootmix which mixed lindy layton's vocal w/ "Let em in" wings, which somehow brings out the sad and desolate nature of the lyric.

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 26 January 2007 12:35 (eighteen years ago)

is that true? i don't think i'd be able to tell them apart if it weren't for the beat.

yup., and in fact it's actually a wee bit different to the clash bass riff - well, in that it's only the first half of it.

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Friday, 26 January 2007 12:46 (eighteen years ago)

"Any thoughts on this?"

it's great!

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 26 January 2007 12:59 (eighteen years ago)

you know what else is great:

http://www.kompaktkiste.de/cd/mute/mute129.jpg

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 26 January 2007 13:00 (eighteen years ago)

Classic, I also loved this, and was shocked when I heard 'London Calling' 4 years later, with 'Guns Of Brixton' on it.

― zeus (zeus), Friday, 26 January 2007 13:01 (eighteen years ago)

Classic!

No. 1 on my 18th birthday

― nate woolls (napawo), Friday, 26 January 2007 13:11 (eighteen years ago)

Classic. I loved this song when i was 9 or whenever it was.

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Friday, 26 January 2007 13:36 (eighteen years ago)

On balance I think it's better than "I Know Him So Well."

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 26 January 2007 13:38 (eighteen years ago)

One of the only Norman Cook produced tracks I actually like. Like? Fuck no, I L.O.V.E. it. I bought the single and played it ad nauseam. I used to play this together with Neneh Cherry and think I was a popstar.

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Friday, 26 January 2007 13:39 (eighteen years ago)

Whatever happened to Lindy Layton anyway?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 26 January 2007 13:41 (eighteen years ago)

I hate Norman Cook but ye at the time this was great

― X-101 (X-101), Friday, 26 January 2007 13:50 (eighteen years ago)

Lindy Layton's Hardknox tune 'Fire Like This' is on some (UK) advert at the moment.

― Ruairi Wirewool (Ruairi Wirewool), Friday, 26 January 2007 15:13 (eighteen years ago)

GREBT!

I wonder if label issues would prevent him putting out a collection of all the non-Fatboy Slim tunes he's done? Dance's Damon Albarn?

― fandango (fandango), Friday, 26 January 2007 15:30 (eighteen years ago)

More like dance's Jonathan King BUT BECAUSE OF THE USE OF MULTIPLE PSEUDONYMS AND NO OTHER REASON

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 26 January 2007 15:46 (eighteen years ago)

Lindy Layton's Hardknox tune 'Fire Like This' is on some (UK) advert at the moment.

Yes, it's the one for the Fiat Grand Punto. Must admit I thought it was the Go! Team when I first heard it.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 19:00 (eighteen years ago)

http://rapids.canoe.ca/cgi-bin/jmr/rel_info?rid=20214

― Viz (Viz), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 20:09 (eighteen years ago)

yup., and in fact it's actually a wee bit different to the clash bass riff - well, in that it's only the first half of it.

it may have been that he had to re-record the track this way because i do remember reading an interview with him in Record Mirror at the time in which he talked about how afraid he was that Paul Simonon was going to beat him up at some party. he would've recorded a version using the sample first at least and that would've got the initial airplay. he made very little if any money from this track due to the samples. so good job he stuck at it.

and according to Smash Hits the lyric went

tank fly boss walk jam...
whatever 'tank fly' means. but it's clearly not 'take flight'.

but for then he was simply that bloke out of Housemartins skulking around at the back while the gorgeous Lindy Layton stole the camera.

Cook had already had a solo hit under his own name before this with 'Blame It On The Bassline' ft. MC Wildski and a sample of John Peel.

― vita susicivus (blueski), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 21:57 (eighteen years ago)

i've got a mash-up of the DBGTM acapella over Loose Ends 'Hanging On A String'. pointless but nice.

― vita susicivus (blueski), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 21:59 (eighteen years ago)

Also, was Lindy Layton gorgeous? She was extraordinarily plain, IIRC.

― ailsa (ailsa), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 22:00 (eighteen years ago)

Well, I don't advise going to lindylayton.com to find out (because it's NSFW, natch.)

― scotstvo (scotstvo), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 22:22 (eighteen years ago)

Oh, God, he's not kidding!

(that's not actually Lindy Layton of Beats International fame, I presume?)

― ailsa (ailsa), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 22:34 (eighteen years ago)

I really hope not. If it is, then she's let herself go.

― scotstvo (scotstvo), Thursday, 1 February 2007 00:24 (eighteen years ago)

I read an interview at the time where he said Simonon took him out for lunch while lawyers were being heavy, as a "no hard feelings" gesture

Cook had already had a solo hit under his own name before this with 'Blame It On The Bassline' ft. MC Wildski and a sample of John Peel.

and OG Won't Talk About It with Billy Bragg doing falsetto lead vocals on the A-side! that Bragg replayed his own guitar hook for a sample source on this makes it more likely that Cook always played the Brixton bassline himself and never actually sampled (esp as he said at the time that he did so as a tribute. and he was actually best known as a bassist then!). making bugger-all money off it would be down to the publishing being split between SOS Band writers and Simonon rather than paying licenses, no?

― nu-mongrel (kit brash), Thursday, 1 February 2007 03:27 (eighteen years ago)

when eric b and rakim's 'i know you got soul' came out, was it normski's version that generally got played on the radio?

― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Thursday, 1 February 2007 09:25 (eighteen years ago)

Reminds me of being 10 years old and eating pure fast food filth on a Saturday afternoon after going swimming at Woolwich Waterfront and then playing on the arcades, therefore classic times ten.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 1 February 2007 09:36 (eighteen years ago)

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Beats International - Dub Be Good To Me - Classic or Dud?