As part of his nineties Radio One Radio Show, media terrorist Chris Morris used to present a weekly spoof 'Dance Top Ten' run-down: "Forty-ninth week at seven, it's still there for Oestrogen Blabdaddy and "Bring Me A Chicken". Down twelve at six, there they sit, Urbane Bookie Collective and "Dreamy Twat." And also at number six, due to huge shopping, Denis Helium and his remix of ELP's "Anaesthetics At The Birth Of A Potato." Up more than I care to say, with their first major number five, it's Love Minus Petrol and "Blundering Around In A Tent". If he'd added "And at number one, Armand Van Helden's house remix of Tori Amos' 'Professional Widow" then I don't think it would have looked too out of place in its unlikeliness.
And yet here it is, a spoof made flesh at number one. I've said in the past that it's no great shakes to graft a thumping 4/4 backbeat over anything and present it as a 'dance remix', but Van Helden goes much further than such simplicity to completely re-construct Amos's original harpsichord led swipe at Courtney Love (originally a 1996 double A side with 'Hey Jupiter') from the ground up until only the DNA of her vocal remains, and even that is sliced and diced until her "Honey bring it close to my lips" is reduced to a hard garble to bounce off Helden's snakeskin bassline. In fact, Helden's work reduces Tori to a bit part player struggling to belong in her own song. 'Own song'? - this is now as much a Tori Amos song as replacing the head and handle of a broom makes it the same broom, and I don't know what impresses the most; that Helden's vision saw the potential in the source material in the first place or that he actually pulled it off. Philosophical niceties aside though, this is simply a great dance track.
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