Your Thursday night starts here, as we count down from 70 to that all-important 61!
70) Linx – Intuition
69) Freeez – Southern Freeez
68) Level 42 – Lessons In Love
Three faces of Britfunk landing together – firstly David Grant’s steel pan decorated groove, then the future jazz-funk overlords teaming with the splendidly offhand Ingrid Mansfield Allman for a song apparently based on a frozen-on-the-spot dance move, then the longer lasting bass-thwacking XR3i funk at its sprightliest.
67) Althea & Donna – Uptown Top Ranking
A track based on two other records by two teenagers who couldn’t really sing and were never heard of again, and even its UK popularity stemmed from John Peel playing it accidentally and the Top Of The Pops orchestra making a mess of it, but it made roots reggae approachable and enriched our knowledge of patois.
66) Betty Boo – Doin’ The Do
Magnificently cartoonish Emma Peel meets Barbarella rapper didn’t have a long chart career but made sure she was unforgettable for various reasons. Redolent like nobody else of Number One magazine.
65) Aztec Camera – Oblivious
Roddy Frame, still in his teens, writing lightly funky lovelorn guitar pop well beyond his years for the BBC2 Riverside set.
64) Bananarama – Robert De Niro’s Waiting
Whether Fun Boy Three or SAW (or Lananeeneenoonoo) behind them the perpetually “wild child” ‘Nanas have plenty of supporters but little agreement on which period is best. Upbeat paranoia is the way the public jury voted, which, whisper it, always quietly suited their ways more than the years spent with male dancers in devil horns.
63) New Musik – This World Of Water
The lab coat-sporting studio bods (and off-duty Nick Straker Band) went underappreciated for years since their turn of the 80s handful of hits, but this peculiar drowning paranoia chic synthpop with varispeed vocals has built up quite a following under the radar.
62) Chas & Dave – Ain’t No Pleasing You
No irony inherent, just a gorgeous song by men who just happen to have colloquial accents, and without that you don’t get the tremendous internal rhyme of “you got another thing coming, I’m tellin’ yer that for nuffin”.
61) The Specials – A Message To You Rudy
Featuring beanie hat-sporting veteran trombonist Rico Rodriguez, lest it be overlooked. Another band for whom appreciation was split many ways, this is the one most likely to bring about outbreaks of bobbing up and down on the spot.
See you as we near the halfway point, next week!
Richardpd
November 7, 2022 at 2:30 pm
Fittingly, Oblivious is a hidden gem for Aztec Camera, with Somewhere In My Heart being their go-to song to play.
While Chas & Dave are often considered uncool for good reason, for years before their rockney pairing up they were sessionists & played live with a lot of big names over the years.
Glenn Aylett
November 7, 2022 at 9:26 pm
Chas and Dave did the theme tune to In Sickness And In Health, which must have kept the money rolling in, and did the theme tune to the legendary 1989 Only Fools And Horses Christmas special.
Richardpd
November 7, 2022 at 9:49 pm
The also did the later theme to Crackerjack.
Supposedly the could have done the main Only Fools And Horses theme, but were too busy touring when the BBC called.