1990 Beats International: Dub Be Good To Me

A mash up of sorts - 'Dub Be Good To Me' takes its melody line from the SOS Band ('Just Be Good To Me'), it's bassline from The Clash ('Guns Of Brixton') adds some Morricone for flavour ('The Harmonica Man') and opens with (I think) the first genuine rap to reach number one in the UK (lifted from Johnny Dynell's 1983 'Jam Hot'). And it all gels quite nicely thank you as ex Housemartin, pre Fatboy Slim Norman Cook lassos these disparate elements into a single of immense crossover appeal: Dub Be Good To Me' skanks with the throb and controlled menace of the streets tempered with the joy of making music to escape them.

And if that description seems a bit colourful, then its reflected in my own contemporary appreciation of the song as a gritty white man's hip hop that (in much the way that the Rolling Stones covering 'Little Red Rooster' did to the blues) presents the genre for a wider, homegrown audience without patronising the source or reducing it to cartoon. More than that, it was a hammer blow that helped break down my (then) aversion to all things rap and dance.

Lindy Layton plays no small part in its success; while she can't really sing for toffee, her piggy backing directly on Mary Davis's original SOS Band vocal to the point of imitation makes her strained, one syllable at a time huff and puff ("that, I'm, waste, ing, time, with, you") bounce like a hardball between the spaces left by Simenon's bass. It makes the "Just be good to me" sound more of a warning than a plea, and by coming across like the girl next door she adds an extra layer of urban credibility to a piece that could have so easily have descended into a lumbering novelty. Because one thing 'Dub Be Good To Me' does not do is lumber; it's as lithe as a rattlesnake sans spine (watch Layton in the video, she can't keep still) but at the same time comes layered with a rootsy bark that keeps tough a release that I don't think Cook, in any of his disparate guises, has never bettered.