Tori Amos - Spark

Cover of From the Choirgirl HotelNews that Tori was soon to be gracing our shores here in SA got me running back to the house to dig up my copy of From the Choirgirl Hotel - by far my favourite (and in my opinion her most dangerously engaging) album.

I remember hearing the album for the first time and exiting the tail end of it physically exhausted and distraught, not least for the hard and unnerving employment of noise in the recording, nor Tori's weird and wonderful wailing between moments of sweet and  seductive siren-ing. (Yes, I make up words sometimes.)

Distortions, strange amplification, and just plain crazy musical variations make Choirgirl a masterpiece in the context of Albums by Iconic Women in Rock.Fuckit, never mind that - it's a great freaking album any way you want categorise it!

"Spark" - which opens the album - is a brilliant example of Amos' musicality over a tangential and seemingly obtuse sense of subject and lyric. The odd-time verses are an outstanding counter to the beautifully singable chorus.

And if you took the time to try to decode the lyrics, you'd find a number of possibilities and references that would appeal.

Fantastically appropriate video too, which in a way raises more questions and possibilities than answers.

Related articles

• My favourite album: Tori Amos - From the Choirgirl Hotel (guardian.co.uk)

Midnight Oil - The Dead Heart

Cover of Diesel & DustMost people I've seen dancing in retro clubs remember the first single from Diesel and Dust ("Beds are Burning").

But the album as a whole is probably one of the top - certainly in my top 20 - albums of the 80s. And there are PLENTY of albums from the 80s that are exemplary.

What set D&D apart for me was the combination of political sincerity (Garrett is still a politico), classic album mix (still love the way those guitars bounce all over each other), and the songs - well, you'd be hard-pressed to find more economically blissful songs on one album.

It seemed for a while there that between The Oilers and Crowded House, Australia/NZ were becoming the new caretakers of truly wonderful pop and rock. By this time, remember, Stock Aitken and Waterman had started taking over UK markets with their dance-oriented brand of radio pulp.

But Diesel and Dust (along with The House's Crowded House, Temple of Low Men and later Woodface), still holds up today as a collection of songs that exceed expectation and indeed many peers' lifespan.

To whit: The Dead Heart - the opening track to side B (yes, we had vinyl records then).

Related articles

• No more Crowded House: Neil Finn's new band, Pajama Club (guardian.co.uk)

Will Smith – Wild Wild West

Image via WikipediaSlick Willy is the consummate showbusiness all-rounder. Actor, rapper, presenter... he's a fine example of how charisma and likeabilty will take you far far beyond your small beginnings.

He had a fair crop of hits in the early 90s ("Girls of the World Ain't Nuthin but Trouble!", even though he's kept his brand of rap fairly innocuous, pushing fun and light over hard and mean.

While the movie Wild Wild West turned out to be a bit of a dog - or giant spider, whatever - the accompanying single is a killer of note.

Sampling and referencing solidly from Stevie Wonder and hip-hop icon Kool Moe Dee, the groove that's produced is as good as anything in the preceding decade.

In fact, so good is the arrangement, even Sisqó's, slightly overcooked delivery of the chorus hook works deliciously!

It's a perfect flatbead for Smith's ever-the-wise-ass lyrics and posturing, and as a result the whole thing comes off like it should: Fun under a very VERY slick delivery.

Along with "Boom Shake the Room", this is Slick Willy's finest moment, despite criticism from the gallery at the time of its release.

Note a hilariously stiff dance segment in the video (which is actually pretty funtastic as well) actually seems to add to the charm of the whole shebang. If you don'f feel your feet tapping to this, you're dead from the ears down.

Destiny's Child - Independent Women

Before Beyoncé Knowles became an unstoppable hairforce unto herself - or perhaps while she was on her way there - Destiny's Child had a clutch of successes with their irritatingly spot-on vocal delivery and perfectly pitched-yet-strangely-reserved sexuality.


Some time around the third album, team Destiny came up with this killer pop track, driven not so much by its "slammin' beat", but actually by a huge basket full of vocal hooks, which didn't rely on the hystrionics so evident in modern RnB.


The production (kudos to Beyoncé Knowles, Sam Barnes, Jean-Claude Olivier and Cory Rooney) rightly saves any vocal improvisations only for weak musical moments - the bridge is a low point in the song to be over-critical.


But be honest now: Can you truly resist lip-synching that opening word:"Question..."? Or even being a backup singer later on in the prechorus and chorus ("I bought it!", "Throw your hands up at me!")


By the time the link ("The shoes on my feet...") arrives in the song you're sold. It's strange but true to assert that the actual chorus hardly matters in this one, because the entire track is basically a neverending series of utterly singable melodic lines, which the understated beat does well to colour by being almost by-the-way.

Despite a video that looks a bit random due to the Charlie's Angels movie attachment, it's an object lesson in how to put together a dance tune with credibility. And if, by chance,  you've ever heard Elbow's skiffle version, you'll agree that a great pop song's acid test is to be overhauled in a completely different style... and still work.In this case... Oh yes. Oh yes indeed. Winner.

Related articles

• Kylie - Aphrodite (nobodyknowsyourname.blogspot.com)

Hunters & Collectors - True Tears of Joy

Great pop songs are very simple to achieve in principle. Listing the requirements on paper, it's easy to think "how hard can that be to do?" And yet, so few actually achieve it, because in reality, of the 50 things that could make a great pop song, hitting 5 or even ten just ain't good enough.

And then you get those moments where every box gets ticked. And in many cases it's not by the top-selling or most-played artists on tv or radio. In this regard, Australian artists really hit the ball out of the park when you least expect it.

The first time heard Hunters & Collectors was on one of Donna's radio mixtapes. Must have been around 91 or 92. Back then radio was a platform for discovery (much like the Interwebnets is for some these days, but in a different way).

When I eventually caught a glimpse of the band in press photo, I remember thinking that it was a side project for Crowded House. Of course it was Mark Seymour's resemblance to House bass player Nick Seymour that confused me – and given that they're brothers, well... you understand my mistake.

ANYWAY... they had a handful of hits in the Aus, couple of good albums, a reputation for being a top live band – Seymour even scored a few ARIA awards.

But True Tears of Joy is a gem of a tune, partly because it features all the ingredients of a great pop song: Strong opening motives, prechorus and hook; excellent vocal performance, quietly confident musical arrangement...

And when it came to the video they chose to go simple and unsophisticated. This is still one of my favourite songs to play at home when I'm thinking about where to take life to next... and if I ever open a songwriting and performance school, this will feature in the curriculum.

Sigue Sigue Sputnik - Love Missile F1-11

I'm not sure that Tony James or Martin Degville knew exactly how mindblowing this concept is... yes, still is. Entertaining as it is to look at... weird and wacky as it sounds, it's actually a grandiose piece of concept pop that William Gibson might have been rather interested in pondering.

If Johnny Mnemonic was the archetypal cyberpunk terrorist, Sigue Sigue Sputnik was on his iPod (or whatever they had in Sputnik City, 1990).

In trying to retro-engineer the original versions of the songs that became the first album (I have a copy of The First Generation), you get the impression that this was the foundation of what was to become the automated mix era of music.... a combination of samples, dropout, four-track cassettes, voxpops ripped from TV, radio, and all manner of guerrilla-styled audio adventures.

That Sputnik carried that mentality into its video presentations must have seemed like sheer lunacy at the time. But you have to concede in retrospect that it acerbically and accurately predicts the plasticity of pop culture to come, not to mention the total artificiality of its soundtrack.

Seriously, how far removed is the preening and posing of Neal X from a modern day Heidi Montag or Kim Kardashian? X probably had less plastic in his bodysuit than Montag does.

Yet Sputnik has more social relevance – intended or not - than many "smart" bands have had since. Added to this mix of crazy subterfuge is the context of global annihilation anxiety (1986!) and the hysterical excess and aspiration of the 80s (1986!).

The culmination – probably the zenith – of which is the iconic song and video "Love Missile F1-11".

Backstreet Boys – As Long as You Love Me

Those who know me do understand that I've never been one to follow the candypop bands – especially those who require dance routines to sell their music.

BUT I do give credit where it's due, and sometimes even a boy band from the nineties deserves a mention for getting a single right.


Backstreet Boys were never really on my radar – I kind of regarded them as an American phenomenon, neither unimportant nor particularly critical to music and its legacy. Their second album, Backstreet's Back, did contain at least one little gem of a song.


The official music video is rather predictable, but this live performance for Disney appropriately captures the band's appeal for that intended audience; they were good performers who never really felt they needed to take things over the top (looking at you, Gaga), but managed to come across as friendly, fun, and just smart and respectable enough to be acceptable at your Dad's dinner table.


In this case, a great pop song, complemented by a great live performance. Respect.

'Why don't we all drink some very sexy wine?'

I wrote a song a few years ago in which I name-checked one of my favourite comedic actors – Dom DeLuise. I can remember several movies in which he made a mere cameo, but stole the scene – and he often did with little effort – much like Bill Murray seems to do these days.

This was originally going to be a post about Dom Deluise's gut-breaking cameo in Robin Hood: Men in Tights.

But along the way to writing it, I was reminded of another classic comedy scene starring DeLuise and a an ensemble i like to think of as "the Crazy gang" of comedy: Dom, Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn...

I guess what made them funny was that they were so firmly rooted in old-school theatrical technique, so really the director had to point the camera and let them 'chew scenery'. Result? Comedy gold.


Case in point: The opera scene from The Adventure (singular) of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother is an outstanding bit of slapstick married with the absurd... translating 'Gambetti' into a sex farce in the middle of a murder plot is insane... insanely funny.