1990 Cliff Richard: Saviour's Day

I'm not sure at what point the 'Cliff Richard Christmas Single' became something to watch out for every December, but I know that in some quarters of the nineties it was regarded as a tradition up there with holly and trees. After the po-faced, arms length jollity of 'Mistletoe And Wine', 'Savour's Day' at least has some fire in its belly and a purpose in its step as Cliff gives thanks to another year done. Though the word 'Christmas' is noticeably absent, there's no doubt what the message is here ("Life can be yours if you'll only stay. He is calling you, calling you"), but what could so easily have been heavy handed sermonising (yet again, Cliff's face on the cover doesn't look like he's in the mood to get the party started) is wrapped up in a good value hook that the song can never wait to return to and a "Raise your glasses drink to the King" refrain that would have eased the guilt of those loading up the boot with slabs of lager no end. Look, there's even some cod new age pipes to get the Pagans involved. It's hardly the first pop Christmas song I look forward to hearing, but at least it doesn't have me itching to ram my fingers in my ears the way his previous one always does. It doesn't cancel it out, but seeing as it's Christmas we'll call it a draw. For now anyway.

1990 Vanilla Ice: Ice Ice Baby

Perennial whipping boy of white faced rap, Vanilla Ice and his theme song come pre-loaded with such weight of critical bile and ridicule that you wonder how it ever dares to show its face in public anymore, even ironically. Not since those St Winifred's girls sang about their Grandma has a song been such the focus of a united and definitive front of 'THIS IS SHIT' criticism that dares rather than invites contradiction. To be fair, a white guy hi-jacking a black medium in such an outrageous and overwhelming manner (his 'To The Extreme' album sold over 11 million copies worldwide) was tailor made to knock noses out of joint, but since the acceptance of Eminem, the whole 'look at the white guy rapping' novelty has faded enormously, not least through the fact that Eminem does (did?) it so well. Maybe time then to pause and re-evaluate his forerunner's input into the genre.

What always appeals to me most about rap is the machine gun delivery of a good rhyme, the free flow of words that, from the mouth of the best artists, tumble and spark against each other like the notes of a John Coltrane riff. On this point, 'Ice Ice Baby' falls at the first. True it has words aplenty over its whole four minutes but they've no direction home - with all the spark of a wet match they file by in a series of crude cut and paste images of supposed self aggrandisement so vague in their slung-togetherness ("Light up a stage and wax a chump like a candle, bum rush the speaker that booms. I'm killing your brain like a poisonous mushroom") they could double as self put-downs. And to add injury to their insult, they're not delivered that well either - rather than rap, Ice instead talks quickly and in a voice with no inherent rhythm or passion that uses the 'Under Pressure' bassline as a metronomic clicktrack to keep it all staid. And yes, that sample DOES grab the attention early in its audacity but then soon lets go when nothing more is done with it until it becomes a crutch that withers and snaps.*

There's 'Yo' this and 'yo' that, DJ's to the left and gunshots to the right but it's all pose with no substance - 'Vanilla' is apt; this is to rap what Pat Boone's 'Long Tall Sally' was to Little Richard's original; a one time wild dog with its balls cut off only this time I don't hear the influence of a conservative establishment engineering a response to damp down the wilder excesses of der yoof or even a cheapjack cash in on black culture. No, on 'Ice Ice Baby' Vanilla is a genuine fan doing his best. The problem is it's just not good enough, but it's hardly his fault that 11 million people thought otherwise.

* Compare this with 'A Tribe Called Quest's 'Can I Kick It' that used Lou Reed's 'Walk On The Wild Side' bassline as a similar launch pad but then cut it free once orbit was achieved.

1990 The Righteous Brothers: Unchained Melody

Second time at the top for this and a visit that by itself is not without it's own irony - 'Unchained Melody' comes from the soundtrack of the long forgotten prison drama 'Unchained' whereas its new lease of life was down to Jerry Zucker's from beyond the grave rom-com 'Ghost'. But I can't begrudge it that - this Righteous Brothers version unfairly only managed to reach number 14 on its 1965 release yet it remains (for me anyway) the definitive article, totally eclipsing Jimmy Young's thin gruel hit version from ten years earlier.

What makes it better? After all, it all sounds so rote in its execution, but like watching the scene setting opening three minutes of Orson Welles' 'A Touch Of Evil', it's only when you analyse Welles' one unbroken shot that you appreciate there's genius at work here. Phil Spector, popular music's own Orson, supplies a production that winds in the slack by slowing the song from a Bolero to a heartbeat. And by knocking down his usual wall of sound there's acres of space for Bobby Hadfield to slow burn over centre stage (though credited to the Brothers, this is a solo vocal).

For the first half of the track anyway - though Spector's savvy enough to fill the blanks with a wash of echo that highlights just how alone Bobby is, the simple slam of a drum at two minutes winds up the intensity as Hadfield's initially measured vocal goes wobbling off piste with increasing desperation until an anguished "I neeeeeeed your love" at 2:57 puts a crack in the bell of his tenor, bringing his frustration to the boil in a cry that wants to believe that stating something baldly enough will make it so.

But it doesn't, and he crashes to earth again, chaste in his emotion and still very much alone apart from an appeal to a God who may or may not be listening to make him happy. Performance art writ large maybe, but I never tire of listening to 'Unchained Melody' in the same way I never tire of watching Laurel and Hardy films; even though I know full well what's coming, it still manages to slow boil me unnoticed in its low heat like a frog in its saucepan. And who remembers the pottery now either?

1990 The Beautiful South: A Little Time

The Beautiful South have always walked a fine line for my affections. At times insufferably twee and/or worthy, there is at others a genuine edge of grit and subversion in their output that warrants a double take. This dichotomy was there from the start - I think the point I'm trying to make can be summed up from both their 'Song For Whoever' debut single, where a surface of sugar hid a lyric of withering cynicism, and debut album that originally came with a cover depicting a woman with a gun in her mouth, subsequently changed on complaint to a picture of two fluffy toys yet with both variations aptly managing to represent the music contained within.

When they walk the line dead centre they walk it well, but not so when they waver too much to one side. Which is what 'A Little Time' is prone to do through its own indecision. Essentially a dialogue between a couple with a relationship on the rocks, Dave Hemmingway's 'male' provides a laconic, 'it's not you it's me' vocal of tired resignation ("I need a little time, to think it over. I need a little space, just on my own") whilst Brianna Corrigan responds with stinging fire ("Funny how quick the milk turns sour, isn't it, isn't it.Your face has been looking like that for hours, hasn't it, hasn't it").

I confess I've always had a soft spot for songs with an internal call and response dialogue and I tend to see 'A Little Time' as a PG version of Tindersticks 18 rated 'Travelling Light' where Stuart Staple's in denial bravado is taken apart brick by brick by Carla Torgerson until he's reduced to a nothing but a shell. It's a satisfying conclusion and that's something 'A Little Time' doesn't have - the song's video brings it all to life but it also underlines the fact that 'A Little Time' is a random episode from a long running soap opera. The characters here have a back story history we're not aware of and a future we're not shown, but with the absence of either it tails off with a whimper, a book with the last page removed or left unwritten and it's a situation at odds with the song's own clipped, no fat brevity. The tension keeps it sour and interesting enough to make 'A Little Time' a good song, but it's not a great one and not one of their best.

1990 Maria McKee: Show Me Heaven

As far as music goes, I've always liked 'well kept secrets'. By that I mean an artist or band whose work I enjoy enormously but who has never found mainstream success. Like Maria McKee. In 1990 I'd long been a fan of her cowpunk band Lone Justice and the little diva's 1989 debut solo album still appears in any 'all time top ten' lists I compile. But whilst others are keen to bring their latest discoveries to the attention of a wider audience, I prefer to keep mine to myself, snobbish in my exclusivity (and probably too scared to cast my pearls before swine in case they don't grunt in approval). Sometimes though I have no say in the matter, a fluke hit or wider exposure can come from nowhere for the most spurious of reasons and so it was with a heavy heart I greeted the news that Maria would be singing the theme song to the new Tom Cruise movie about a racing car driver called Cole Trickle. I'd have probably felt less dismayed if she'd revealed she spent her weekends sealclubbing.

That's not to say I thought 'Show Me Heaven' was a nailed on hit, because I didn't. In fact I still can't see it - the song goes for a slow burn smoulder, but the wood here is too wet to catch a spark no matter how hard Maria's voice tries to rub two sticks together. Because although Maria may have insisted on re-writing the original lyrics, 'Show Me Heaven' remains a dirge that builds to a brick wall, a "Show me heaven, please" cry of inertia and dependency that's hard to sympathise with. Maria sounds suitably wrought throughout, but with a power ballad with no pay off to deliver her angst has nowhere to go and she's left floundering like a fish in the sun. It's only at the 2:13 "and it feeeeeels divine" mark does the real Maria break clear of the doldrums to run a shiver down the spine, but it's not enough to pick this up off the floor.

1990 The Steve Miller Band: The Joker

Another song to benefit from dubious exposure at the mercenary hands of a Levi's jeans ad campaign, 'The Joker' is a tune I seem to have known for about forever yet for most of that time I'd always assumed its title was either 'Space Cowboy' or 'Gangster Of Love'. Can't blame me for that, both are there in its opening "Some people call me the space cowboy yeah, some call me the gangster of love" and both titles appeared as songs in their own right on the 'Best Of The Steve Miller Band' album that I'd seen knocking around. It was only in 1990 and this number one that the scales fell, though my confusion would no doubt have given Miller a wry chuckle at my mistake; 'The Joker' is song as lighthearted autobiography and the namechecking of his own previous output is deliberate.

Casting himself as the eponymous grinning, sinning, smoking, joker, high on life and whatever he was toking, 'The Joker' to these ears is so achingly seventies and so achingly American post hippy burn-out as to border on parody. In it's good time shuffle and bounce I hear Matthew McConaughey's drug taking, high school girl loving (though old enough to know better-ing) 'David Wooderson' (from Richard Linklatter's own homage to the seventies 'Dazed And Confused') fronting Credence Clearwater Revival in an alternate universe.

Miller's casual drug taking and sexism ("You're the cutest thing that I ever did see I really love your peaches, want to shake your tree") may seem a tad objectionable and/or quaintly offensive to the more conservative, and maybe they are, but there's no malice or evil in his song ("I sure don't want to hurt no one") to raise it to the level of offence. Neither, to be honest, is there any indication that he'd give much of a shit what you thought anyway - 'The Joker' wasn't high art first time round in 1973, it's Miller poking fun at himself and encouraging his fanbase to join in with him at the altar of the Church of Slack, preferably with beer in hand. The recurring guitar wolf whistle is a joke too far maybe, but nobody here is taking anything too seriously and neither should we - it's a guilty pleasure, but not one you should be hanged for liking.

1990 Bombalurina: Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini

Growing up in the seventies and eighties, television was a rather more staid affair than it is now. In those pre-VCR years it was still the main source of media based information and entertainment and, as such, it commanded a certain respect from all who participated in its delivery; the Queen's English was spoken, suits were worn and regional accents were rare in all programming from the news to children's programmes.

Timmy Mallet was one of the new breed of hyperactive children's presenter that emerged during the eighties, constantly hyperventilating on his own enthusiasm and punctuating his every announcement with some physical action that usually involved a large, inflatable mallet. And with his popularity at a high in 1990 via his morning 'Wacaday' show, a crossover single was as inevitable as pain following a gunshot wound.

“Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini' is a cover of Bryan Hyland's 1960 original that celebrated the new bikini craze with a harmless slice of postcard humour. To try and contemporise, Mallet and his gang run it through a sequencer and tart it up with some dance ad-lib ("go on girl - ah yeah!") shapes that, when taken with the promotional video, hammer out all the wink by mistaking sexy for sleaze - Mallet is cast as a binocular toting peeping Tom trying to catch a glimpse of a pouting and worryingly young looking girl coyly hiding up parts of her body the titular bikini didn't cover while what look like a porn stars on a busman's holiday cavort around her. Annette Mills would not be so much spinning in her grave as drilling her way out through the bottom of it.

Surprisingly, for a man who made a career out of loud and obnoxious, Mallet handles the vocal remarkably faithfully to Hyland's own and his reserve lets out any fizz the music might have generated. Which wouldn't have been much - despite its best efforts at knees-up schoolyard anarchy, 'Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny' is not in the slightest bit sexy. Or fun. Or wanted really. Except by the sort of person who has a 'You don't have to be crazy to work here' sign on their desk at work. And they're welcome to it.