Compilation Album Review: "Can't Beat The Music Volume 1"

 

Compilation: Can't Beat The Music Vol. 1
Released: 1992 – Columbia
Number of tracks: 18
Number one singles: None
Other top ten singles: 5
Best track: "The Globe" by Big Audio Dynamite II
Hidden gem: "Once Bitten Twice Shy" by The Angels

One last whip 'round the op shops for 2020 and I managed to find this first volume in the three-volume Can't Beat The Music series from 1992. Interestingly, unlike the long-running 100% Hits and Hit Machine serieseseseses, this one says Vol. 1 on the cover in anticipation of there being a follow-up. I found Volume 2 way back in July 2017, so this has been a long time coming!

There aren't any numero uno singles on this disc, probably due to some dreary song staying forever at number 1 (a certain lame-o 'bootscooting' song springs to mind), but it opens strongly with its best track "The Globe" and then its second-best track "Justified And Ancient" by The KLF feat. Tammy Wynette. "The Globe" was an ace follow-up to "Rush" and has a definite British 'rave' flavour, and it's the long album version that appears here, not the single edit.

As for "Justified And Ancient", when I was 14 I didn't fully appreciate how truly bonkers this was! I mean, I knew it was odd for a British rave/dance act recruiting country music legend Tammy Wynette (who was 49 at the time) to sing quaint and bizarre lyrics on a remade version of the song, but didn't give it too much more thought. I often wondered if Tammy wrote the lyrics that she sings ("They said 'Tammy, stand by the JAMs'" would tend to suggest she did, but she is not credited as one of the songwriters). You can kind of tell that she's probably thinking 'What the hell am I singing' when she gets to the line "All bound for Mu Mu land". But I think you'll agree, the pop world of 1992 was all the better off because she agreed to do it.

The tracks that follow this are good — Rozalla's house anthem "Everybody's Free (To Feel Good)" and "Mustang Sally" by The Commitments, a song that seemed to be everywhere in '92 (one of my school bands played it all the time) so I was surprised it only reached number 43 on the charts.

Between those two songs is one I had no recollection of, despite it charting at number 12: "Pride (In The Name Of Love) by Clivillés & Cole. I remembered that they did this U2 cover but when it started to play, I couldn't identify it. It's bleep-pop opening intro sounds cool though — sorry to say I had no recollection of it, and I was a fan of C+C Music Factory! Speaking of whom, there's a song by them on here — their fourth single which has a long title.

"One Word" by Baby Animals, my favourite song by them, still sounds good and probably gets a lot of airplay on Oz Rok™ FM stations today; it deserved to go top 10, which it didn't. None of Baby Animals' singles did, but this came the closest, at number 15.

Then we get to "Word Is Out" by Kylie Mole. Minogue, I mean. I like the piano house backing, reminiscent of Black Box's "Hold On" and "Open Your Eyes", and "Keep The Groovin'" (the Round 4 music in Streets Of Rage), but ho hum, it ain't one of her most memorable songs. But she's a prostitute in the music video, so there's that. This is followed by Naughty By Nature's "O.P.P.", which cleverly avoids saying "pussy" or "penis" in the lyrics — if this was released in 2020 those would be the only lyrics, such is the crudity and vulgarity which doth prevail these days.

The remaining tracks (George & Elton, Dannii, Farnsey, Dezzzzz'ree, New Skids On My Jocks) don't exactly light my lemon, although it's a pleasant surprise to see perv-pop gem "Crucified" by Army Of Lovers on here. It almost made the Australian top 50, so I wouldn't think many buyers of this album would have heard of it, but it's a worthy addition to this set.

Rating: 7/10

Compilation Album Review: "Hit Machine 10"

 

Compilation: Hit Machine 10
Released: 1995 – Columbia
Number of tracks: 20
Number one singles: None
Other top ten singles: 8
Best track: "Excalibur" by F.C.B.
Hidden gem: "You Gotta Know" by Supergroove

Righto, it's the tenth installment of the Hit Machine series which had proved itself a serious rival to the dominant 100% Hits series. What will they serve up this time? Why, whatever was in the charts in the latter half of 1995, silly.

It starts with "Shy Guy" by Diana Young, a number 3 hit which I think got a boost in popularity from Bad Boys. That annoying 'reggae' type of singing was everywhere in 1993 and two years later it was still lingering on as far as the ARIA charts were concerned. Irie, mon. (What?)

Next up is The Real McCoy and their heartfelt ballad "Love And Devotion". Nothing says sensitivity and sentimentality than a deep-voiced dude intoning over house synths, right SNAGs? And then we've got "U Sure Do" by Strike which sounds decent but the vocals in the verses are buried so low in the mix they are practically inaudible. I get that they're sampled from somewhere, but still, I have no idea how this got released without having this mixing error corrected. Unless it's not an error, in which case, you're crazy!

"Forever Young". You know the song, and you hate its stupid lyrics. So does everyone else who ever existed. I don't know who wrote it, and I don't much care, but some European outfit called "Interactive" give it a techno workout. For years I thought they were singing "Why don't you be forever young" instead of "I want to be forever young". There's a great moment at the end of the video where the singer performing on stage suddenly turns into a little kid. He steps off the stage and the crowd part to let him out. For some reason he then exits out the back of the venue, puts on some sunglasses, and nothing happens after that. If you know what that was meant to mean, let me know, because that has always bugged me. It's been a quarter of a century, man!

Track 5, the mighty "Excalibur" by F.C.B. (which I thought stood for "Fortuna – Carmina Burana" for a long time – it actually stands for the initials of the guys who produced it), one of the best tracks of 1995 and a number 2 hit. This thing just demands to be played loud, 25 years later and it's still brilliant.

I was in Year 12 when this all came out, and my schoolmates used to occasionally shout out "Mister Magoo! You may be blin' but I can still see you!" WTF? This is of course the opening line to Herbie's "Right Type Of Mood", and it makes no sense (the song features some pretty dumb lyrics it has to be said) but it's a fun little tune even if nobody ever heard from 'Herbie' again. Let's just see if he's still alive...checking Wikipedia...yeah, he is.

"Try Me Out" is not one of Corona's best efforts and is decidedly inferior to "The Rhythm Of The Night" and (especially) "Baby Baby". Meh. Next up it's "Don't Give Me Your Life", number 13 hit and dancefloor banger from Alex Party! Yeah! Only they've used a remix of the song ("Dancing Divaz Edit"), and while it has some nice pianner chords, it's not a patch on the original mix. A bit of a disappointment, but the inclusion of remixes show they were at least trying to do something different.

M-People and A.K. Soul are next up with some fair-to-middling dance tracks, then it's Christine Anu's "Party". I think Channel 10 were using it for a station promo at one point, it was getting a lot of airplay, so I think it should have got higher than number 20 in the charts. It's just a fun song that reminds me of my final year of high school. It's also one of 6 tracks on here that also appear on Smash Hits '95. And speaking of which, they both end with the same track: The Steppers' "Alice, Who The F..k Is Alice?" which I assume is the reason for the "offensive language" warning on the cover, but it's the 'bleeped' version (which I think is funnier than the uncensored one).

(By the way, the overlap with the tracklisting of Smash Hits 95 is probably due to it being released by Sony, one of the record companies that also contributed to Hit Machine).

You can't get more bang for your 27 bucks (from memory that's typically how much CDs cost in 1995) with the runtime of this set – it clocks it at a disc-busting 78 minutes and 47 seconds! You can't get much more music than that. Kudos to the compilers – but you should've used the original mix of the Alex Party track!

RIP, Scatman John.

Rating: 7/10

Airbury Academy series now available from online booksellers!

My series Airbury Academy, comprising six graphic novels titled – wait for it – Volume I (2014), Volume II (2015), Volume III (2016), Volume IV (2013), Volume V (2017) and Volume VI (2018) are now available from several online booksellers, such as Amazon, The Book Depository, AbeBooks, Fishpond and more!

(Yes, Volume IV was produced first. As my friend Dave put it, I am the George Lucas of comics. Perhaps.)

For more information about the series, click on the 'Airbury Academy' tab at the top of the page. It's a comedy/drama series set in a boarding school and is suitable for readers aged 15 and over. It's funny, and entertaining, and a little strange in parts, but it's well worth a read! I know, because I wrote it.

You can also find a synopsis of each book if you click there – as well as a link to Booko. This is a website that compares prices across several online retailers. You can choose whichever bookseller you prefer.

Each of these books have been re-released from their original A5 print runs. They are now all in A4 size, with renewed artwork here and there. They are all over 100 pages long, but the last two are quite a bit longer.

Thanks very much for taking a look, and if you purchase a book, I really appreciate your support, and hope you enjoy the read!

Moon Zero Two – "Portals"

Here's the second music video by Moon Zero Two for the song "Portals", from the 2019 self-titled album, written for the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. Filmed at home during lockdown on April 29, 2020.

 

China 5 – "Nightingale"

Hey, here's a new music video I made! It's for the 2018 song "Nightingale" by China 5. Filmed in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam in July 2018. The song appears on the 9th China 5 album Confusion.

China 5 – "British India"

 Music video for the song "British India" by China 5, from the 8th album Tigerbear (2016). Obviously we didn't film it, we just nicked the footage from vintage sources. Cheers!

 

Moon Zero Two – "Hovercraft (Space Hotel)"

Here's a music video from Moon Zero Two – my new electronic 'space music' project. The very first Moon Zero Two video, in fact!

The song comes from a self-titled album from 2019, made to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. The name Moon Zero Two is also the title of a film made in 1969, the year of the moon landing.

This video was filmed and edited by my good friend David Piper, who went to great lengths to capture the beauty of the natural world. Many thanks, Dave! Oh, and see if you can spot Ronaldo.

Adventures in Polymer Clay: Marbled Beads

Well wouldn't you know it, I just couldn't leave well enough alone and was soon back in the polymer clay for a second bash at creating something of a three-dimensional nature. This time: beads! Good golly do I ever love beads. Especially handmade or wooden ones. Each one has its own character, and because they are either made individually or not mass-produced, they can be striking and interesting.

By intertwining two long thin 'worms' of clay, then kneading them a bit and rolling into balls, you can get beads with a certain marbled effect. I had enough clay to make nearly five dozen of them – 59 to be precise – and used a needle to make holes through each one. Putting 18 of them on an elastic string produced this bracelet, as you see below.

By putting a few plain-coloured ones in there too, it changes the effect and adds variety. You might want to go for a different option, if you try it yourself, which I recommend you do.

And there it is. Any colour you like, as Pink Floyd would say. Or was it Deep Purple? Or Moby Grape? Either way, wise words indeed. Now, get beading, or I'll make you dance to the tune of my hickory stick!!

Bye for now.

Adventures in Polymer Clay: Sugar

Do you remember my character Sugar from Airbury Academy, you know, the girl with the pink hair? Well you should – she's right up there in the banner heading of this blog. I used some coloured polymer clay to make a little figurine of her. She looks a bit pudgy, but it's not bad for someone who is totally inept at sculpture. i.e. me.

See the resemblance? Uncanny, ain't it?

Working with polymer clay is quite easy to do. It doesn't make a mess, you can blend the colours easily, you don't have to hurry in case it goes hard, and if you know what you're doing (which I don't) you can put together each differently-coloured part into a cohesive whole. Then you put it in the oven and bake it.

I still have some clay left so I dare say there will be more of this sort of thing appearing here in the not too distant future.

Compilation Album Review: "Smash Hits '91"

Compilation: Smash Hits '91
Released: 1991 – Columbia
Number of tracks: 18
Number one singles: 3 — "Jukebox In Siberia" by Skyhooks, "The Horses" by Daryl Braithwaite, "Sucker DJ" by Dimples D
Other top ten singles: 9
Best track: "Jukebox In Siberia" by Skyhooks
Hidden gem: None, because I've heard all these songs before. Been there, done that, man!

The hot streak continues! I must admit this was one of the last compilations I'd expected to find, and in an op shop where their CD shelf consisted mainly of Gina G singles, at that. But those have been tossed into the trashcan where they belong, and up popped this little gem. It seems like they couldn't decide on the title; it's called Smash Hits '91 on the inside cover of the booklet, the back cover, spines, and the CD itself, and Smash Hits 1991 on the front cover only.

There's a fair bit of overlap with Video Smash Hits Dance Mix, another compilation Columbia released (and only one of two which I got when it came out!) which was a genre compilation rather than a chart one (although all the songs on it charted). Five songs on it appear on both albums: "Step Back In Time", "Wiggle It", "3 a.m. Eternal", "Games" and "Sucker DJ" (which incidentally all appear sequentially on Smash Hits '91). Both albums also start with a C+C Music Factory track, although not the same song. The catalogue number for the Video Smash Hits Dance Mix CD is lower than Smash Hits '91, so I assume that came out first.

Right, that's the dorky details out of the way! This is a pretty solid lineup, with 12 songs that made the top 10, most of the others making the top 20, and 10 Australian artists. To avoid teenage girls hurling Molotov cocktails at the Smash Hits offices, there's a New Kids On The Block song on here — towards the end you'll find the try-hard rap single "Games [The Kids Get Hard Mix]" (yeah, I bet they do, snigger snigger). No less than Donnie Wahlberg was voted best rapper in the pages of Smash Hits, despite some stiff competition (Betty Boo, Vanilla Ice, Turbo B). Make of that what you will but his opening monologue of "'Positivity is not about bein' sawft, it's about bein' smart — yew suckehhhhhhhr" makes me laugh every time. The dude's a comedy genius. It's almost as if he wanted to take the piss out of all this "we suddenly have street cred" baloney.

If you like rap, there actually is a real rap song here in Sound Unlimited Posse's "Unity", which is the final song. It is also the lowest-charting song on here, having reached number 40 (just behind "Games", number 33), but it deserved much higher — this is from the year that "Pump It" by Icy Blu reached the top 10. Shudder. The compilers wisely did not go anywhere near that dreck.

Oh, and there's more rap with De La Soul's "Ring Ring Ring" as well, and it's the 'Radio Decision' version which is the one used for the music video. The differences are slight, but they are there. The other version appears on another compilation, so that's all bases covered.

What else is on here...let's see, there's Barnesy wailing his way through a 'tender' ballad, Roxus and their stalker/nice guy hit, the Skyhooks comeback single which is the highlight of this disc, Warrant with some good ol' cock-rock and Hoodoo Gurus with hippie action. Then there's Daryl Braithwaite and "The Horses" — a song which I had totally forgotten reached number 1 until recently. I'm yet to understand Australia's weird fascination with this Rickie Lee Jones cover. Only five days ago it was performed to massive crowd response at the Concert for National Bushfire Relief in Sydney. They loved it!

The final song I have to make mention of is "Hot Chilli Woman" by Noiseworks. It's a pretty good song, but it was released a full 13 months after the lead single from their album, "Freedom", a song which I liked a lot more (actually it's my favourite Noiseworks song). But while "Freedom" reached number 30, "Hot Chili Woman" got to number 7 — showing that the massive time lag between Noiseworks singles meant that their fans vastly preferred party tunes about bonkin' in the bedroom to psychedelic meditations on freedom and faith.

Thus endeth the lesson.

Rating: 7/10

Compilation Album Review: "100% Hits Volume 18"

Compilation: 100% Hits Volume 18
Released: 1995 – EMI
Number of tracks: 17
Number one singles: None
Top ten singles: 3
Best track: "Country House" by Blur
Hidden gem: "Downtown Venus" by PM Dawn

When I picked up Smash Hits '94 and Hit Machine 8, I also found 100% Hits Volume 19 in the same op shop and passed it up. Looking at the tracklisting, other than Blur's "Charmless Man", most of the songs were rubbish. That's part of the reason why my cutoff year for these chart compilations is 1995; it seems pop music took a large dip in quality after that year. I'm not sure if it's a coincidence but 1995 was my last year of high school and once I started uni the following year I started listening to more alternative music on Triple J because the stuff in the charts largely didn't cut it for me any more. And so, I made a mental note to myself that if I ever found 100% Hits Volume 18 it would be the last from that series I would get. And eleven days later, I got it.

It's a shame because it really is the low point of the series thus far, hence the low rating. One reason for this is it only has 17 tracks, and a comparatively short running time at around 66 minutes. There are no number one singles on it — its biggest hits are "Fairground" by Simply Red and "I'd Lie For You" by Meat Loaf, both of which reached number 7. Four songs on here didn't even chart, and of the remaining thirteen, the average chart position is number 21.

But hey — that doesn't necessarily mean the songs themselves aren't good. For a start, it opens with Queen's "Heaven For Everyone", put together after the sad loss of Freddie Mercury 4 years earlier, and it got to number 15 in Australia. Then comes "Sunshine After the Rain" by Berri, a pretty good dance track but it would have been better if they'd written more than 3 lines of lyrics!

"Somethin' 4 Da Honeyz" (man, it hurt to type that out) by Montell Jordan is sexist rubbish (would a line like "Call up your girlfriends, and you know there always tends to be an ugly one, but bring her too" fly nowadays?) Then comes Shaggy, who sucks bigtime, but he at least insists on announcing his name at the start of each one of his songs so you can reach for the skip button.

Some of the artists here I'd never heard of: Dana Dawson and Billie Ray Martin. Portrait I'd forgotten. I was surprised the PM Dawn track was unconventional and quite good, given their former sadsack wuss-rap output, and I expected to dislike Chris Isaak's number 9 hit "Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing" (I don't remember liking it first time around) but that was pretty good too.

Blur's "Country House" (a UK number 1, number 28 in Australia) is right towards the end for some reason, and the final track is Tina Turner's James Bond theme "Goldeneye", which I had totally forgotten about. It is a pretty good way to finish proceedings here though.

The CD has quite an elaborate 20-page booklet with one song's lyrics on each page, with corresponding album info. Just to show you it ain't all bad. Also take a look at the typeface used on the cover — that font was everywhere in '95 and '96, wasn't it? But overall, this ain't as great as previous compilations, which proves gauging the popularity of chart music at any given time is, pardon the pun, hit and miss.

Rating: 4/10

Compilation Album Review: "Kool Skool"

Compilation: Kool Skool
Released: 1991 – Columbia
Number of tracks: 16
Number one singles: 1 — "Do The Bartman" by The Simpsons
Other top ten singles: 2
Best track: "Spin That Wheel" by Hi Tek 3
Hidden gem: "Unity" by Sound Unlimited Posse

(Just so you know, the above photo is of the CD in a freezer. 'Kool', get it? Never let it be said I don't go for realism in my review photos.)

So, here we have Kool Skool. I saw it on eBay, read the tracklisting and decided to get it (the asking price of $2.33 didn't hurt) even though I hadn't heard of it. In the handful of ARIA charts I have from 1991 it doesn't show up in the Compilations top 5 at all, and it's unusual in that it isn't a chart compilation, more of a genre compilation (house/rap/hip-hop). Even more unusually, it both starts and ends with novelty songs. And even even more unusually, it covers tracks from over a year's span ("Spin That Wheel" was charting in June 1990 and other tracks were charting in late 1991 and into early 1992).

Because of this album not charting (I assume), I have no idea when in 1991 it was released. This is important for dorks like me who like to order their CD collections. The 47 chart compilations I have so far are arranged in order of release, to the best of my knowledge. I assume this was released in late 1991 around the time Columbia released Video Smash Hits Dance Mix. For convenience's sake I've placed it between Wiggle N' Sweat '91 and Yo!...Let's Go!

Right, on to the CD itself. It breaks convention by not opening with its highest-charting single, but instead a rather silly (but entertaining nonetheless) novelty song entitled "I'll Be Back" by the deliberately-misspelled Arnee & The Terminaters, obviously inspired by Terminator 2. Rage never used to play the video for this song, if there even was one (I just checked. There isn't), and I never heard it when listening to Take 40 Australia on radio 6PM at the time, so I had never heard this song before. It doesn't exactly enjoy a good reputation but I don't mind it, really – it features the word 'cack' in the lyrics after all.

The other novelty song is of course "Do The Bartman", which ends this CD. I'm not sure what Nancy Cartwright thought when she was asked to perform this rap as Bart Simpson, but she does a good enough job. Most of the enjoyment, of course, comes from watching the music video. It topped the charts in five countries and went top 5 in seven more.

The other fourteen songs that come in between are more authentic examples of rap (except for George Michael and New Kids On The Block [their music was bloody awful, wasn't it?] which contain no rapping whatsoever), and at the risk of sounding like a boring old fart, rappers were actually better back then and I'll see anyone outside who disagrees! There's Freedom Williams, with his solid delivery, the humorous exploits of Young MC, the harder edge of Public Enemy (I'm glad they didn't censor the "Get that shit!" line) and one of two female MCs (three if you count Nancy Cartwright) in Nikki D. The other one of course being Ya Kid K who reigns supreme over them all. Ya Kid K is the one. The only rapper not really up to snuff is Candyman in "Knockin' Boots", a song that doesn't seem to have a proper ending. LL Cool J is also okay but his song here "Around The Way Girl" doesn't do him justice — it's pretty soppy stuff. Although I suppose his entire schtick is based around the premise that 'Ladies Love Cool James'.

Special mention must be made of Sound Unlimited Posse who were one of the few flying the flag for Australian hip-hop in 1991! Nowadays hearing rap in Aussie accents is pretty lame (I'm sorry, but it is), but those guys did it well, with a nice female singer to boot. Yo DJ!

Rating: 6/10

Compilation Album Review: "Hit Machine 8"

Compilation: Hit Machine 8
Released: 1995 – BMG
Number of tracks: 20
Number one singles: 1 – "Another Night" by M.C. Sar & The Real McCoy
Other top ten singles: 8
Best track: "Dead Eyes Opened" by Severed Heads
Hidden gem: "Can't Get Enough" by Supergroove

Hit Machine 8 is a pretty solid compilation, and there's only one song that is eminently skippable, which I'll get to. These are all songs that charted at the tail end of 1994 into early 1995. When I was watching Rage and found that M.C. Sar had entered the charts with "Another Night", I thought hey, these are those same guys who did a cover of Technotronic's "Pump Up The Jam" back in 1990 with a dodgy German-accented rap (and I actually bought the cassingle of it!). When "Another Night" shot up to number 1 I'll bet few people knew them from that cover — and it's this song that opens the CD. It's nice and catchy enough, but it's always seemed like a somewhat sad song to me. "When the night is gone I'll be alone", the lyric that ends the first stanza of the chorus, is a rather depressing sentiment to be expressed in such an up-tempo song. But, as has been proved, techno and dance music isn't 'happy-clappy' all the time. "Mr. Vain" is another example of a lyrically dark techno song.

Next comes the song that you should skip if you hear this album: "Short Dick Man" by 20 Fingers feat. Gillette. I don't know who Gillette is or was, and I don't much care, but the song is repetitive, irritating, and about two minutes too long. Then there's the offensive aspect to it; just imagine if it was a dude singing about a woman's anatomy! The song would never be a hit and he'd be pilloried for it. But that aside, there are a fair bit of explicit lyrics in this song which aren't cut out, and there was even a 'radio friendly' edit of this song which they called "Short Short Man". I'm not the type who insists that swearing should be edited out on pop music compilations, but it has been on past releases — The Steppers, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Cypress Hill and Denis Leary have all had singles with the 'F-word' censored on albums like these, so why should bloody Gillette, of all people, be the one who gets away with it?

There at least two dance covers on here: "Total Eclipse Of the Heart" (Nicki French) and "Sky High" (Newton, which seems to rip off Corona's "The Rhythm Of The Night" in its intro). Possibly "Cotton Eye Joe" (Rednex) as well. Then there are updated versions of two '80s hits. The first of these is Arrow's reworking of "Hot Hot Hot", a song which always reminds me of a pool party I went to circa 1995, and the remix of Severed Heads' "Dead Eyes Opened" — I would definitely not have chosen it as the best out of these 20 songs if I'd listened to it in 1995, but I've come to appreciate it more over the years.

I'd forgotten Londonbeat's "Come Back" even though it reached the top 20 here, and "Sooner Or Later" by gf4 (the 'sexier' version of Girlfriend) was actually better than I remembered, even if the lyrics could be a little less middle-of-the-road. And it's good to hear Ya Kid K (is the one) on Technotronic's "Move It To The Rhythm", a song I don't remember hearing at all back in '95, and only tracked it down thanks to the internet, but that was ages later, dude.

Ween's "Voodoo Lady", one of my favourite songs by them, is also on here, with its great manipulated feedback breakdown in the middle. Ween were geniuses and I'll see anyone outside who disagrees! Boom Crash Opera remind us they were a damn fine rock/funk outfit with "Tongue Tied", but my hidden gem "Can't Get Enough" is the clear rock winner. What happened to Supergroove? They clearly had a lot of talent and deserved to be bigger than they were.

An entertaining enough way to spend 75 minutes! (But skip that Gillette track, it sucks.)

Rating: 7/10

Compilation Album Review: "Smash Hits '94"

Compilation: Smash Hits '94
Released: 1994 – Columbia
Number of tracks: 20
Number one singles: 1 – "The Sign" by Ace Of Base
Other top ten singles: 10
Best track: "Doop" by Doop
Hidden gem: "Light My Fire" by Club House

Smash Hits magazine, the Australian edition that is, was marking its tenth anniversary in 1994, and at the end of the year (although the CD shows no copyright year) they released their annual compilation. So, what was cranking the magazine staff's cheese wheel that year? For the most part, high energy (or hi-NRG if'n ya wanna be a bit wanky about it) dance music. It'd be a pretty decent rave if you cranked out some of these tunes in quick succession. You've got "The Key: The Secret", the ace rave anthem coming out of the UK courtesy of Urban Cookie Collective; "Satisfy The Groove", a bit of piano-house from Culture Shock; "The Winner Is..." from Australian techno crew Southend with Nik Fish, which celebrated Sydney winning Olympic Games hosting rights (I lived in Perth then, so I didn't give a shit); Corona's "The Rhythm Of The Night" and Doop's signature Charleston-meets-techno tune; and Culture Beat's underrated third single "Anything" which I must point out has a music video that supposedly takes place on March 17, 2020 which is just over a month away.

Phew!

If the cartilage in your joints isn't worn out after all that, there's a bit more dance music at a slightly slower tempo from 3 The Hard Way, Beverly, Tag Team, Dr. All-Bran (he'll keep ya regular), and Jam & Spoon. Good stuff there, except the Beverly tune is just a techno-fied version of '80s hit "The Power Of Lurve". Then there's "Steppin' On" by Sexing The Cherry, which was almost going to be my hidden gem rather than the Club House track, as it was the only other song I hadn't yet heard, but "Light My Fire" is more stylistically varied and has some killer pianner riffs and whatnot. Plus one of the blokes from 49'ers is behind it. What's not to like?

Lighter moments come towards the tail end, from Frente (nothing against "Bizarre Love Triangle", but I wish they'd put "Lonely" on instead), and the Badloves, before The Poor wind things up with their antics involving, but not limited to, requesting more alcoholic beverages from servers in dining establishments. And being Smash Hits, there's Take That and Peter Andre in there as well. Because if they were left out there'd be teenage girls rioting in the streets of Darlinghurst. And we can't have that, oh dear me no!

Smash Hits: I miss you. Oi!

Rating: 7/10

Compilation Album Review: "Hit Machine 3"

Compilation: Hit Machine 3
Released: 1993 – Festival Records
Number of tracks: 20 (2020202020202020...etc)
Number one singles: None
Top ten singles: 1
Best track: "Somebody Dance With Me" by DJ Bobo
Hidden gem: "Harness Up" by Died Pretty

Here comes the third Hit Machine compilation, the one that dispelled any doubt as to whether uniquely-named chart compilations were dead and gorne. They were. From now on (well, from Hit Machine 2 on if'n ya wanna be pedantic about it) it would be Hit Machine and 100% Hits vying for supremacy in the chart comp game. This particular release features 20 tracks, and as you can see above, a very prominent repeated '20202020' motif in the cover art — quite apt for the first compilation I found in 2020!

This compilation is rather unusual for two reasons. The first it that it features no number one singles at all and only one top ten single — the rather excellent "The Key: The Secret" by Urban Cookie Collective which starts the CD and might possibly be the only chart hit with a colon in the title. I get the feeling this album was released during Meat Loaf's endless domination of the charts so there was little movement at the top.

The second reason is that 11 of the 20 tracks are by Australian artists; over half of it is local content and I don't recall this being true for many other compilations. Those 11 tracks, even though most of them didn't chart, are pretty good songs as well. Most of them I hadn't heard before: the Died Pretty track being my fave, "The Right Time" by Hoodoo Gurus is also rather ace and even Dazza Braithwaite manages to rock out on "The World As It Is"!

They put Soul Asylum's "Runaway Train" as the second track. It's certainly a fine song, and I admire the band's efforts in using its video to try and find missing young people (with different versions made for different countries), but I can't say listening to it is a pleasurable experience because of the sadness associated with runaways and abductions and so on. That scene at the end of the video where a baby gets abducted, followed by a photo of a missing baby (in the U.S. version) is heartbreaking, and the scene at the start with the abused child's drawing (which is not present in all versions) creeped me out to the point where I stopped following the charts for the remainder of 1993, lest I see that unsettling drawing again. That was around the time I stayed up all night to watch Rage for the one and only time.

This is quite a genre-diverse album; it's got rave anthems (DJ Bobo, Urban Cookie Collective), Eurodance (Haddaway), indigenous-meets-dance (Yothu Yindi), alt-rock with French lyrics (?) (Baby Animals), R&B girl groups (S.W.V., and Destiny's Child can get stuffed compared to this trio), gangsta rap (Ice Cube, surprising to hear "The Message" sampled), folk-pop (Deborah Conway) and even reggae (The Black Sorrows, and I would never have guessed it was them).

There's a song by Australian girl-group Girlfriend on here, and guess what — I rather like it! Now I'm no fan of theirs, in fact I found their stupid big hats annoying and I wasn't into their 1992 singles at all, but this track, "Heartbeat", which peaked at number 36, actually is rather good music-wise, almost sounding like video game music (and I don't mean chiptune). In fact the first few seconds has this atonal sort of sound to it which I wish had been kept up throughout the whole song.

Ver' nice!!!

Rating: 7/10

New graphic novel for 2020

The character you see above is Spike, the first proper character I created for my comics, in or around September 1993, when I was 15. He first appeared in a pencil-drawn comic soon after called Missing, Presumed Stupid which was a whopping 16 pages long (hey, that's a long comic for a teenager). You can see in the above picture there (on the left, obviously) how he looked in it. He appears to have had flamingo feet for hands.

Well, his five-fingered human hands have finally been reinstated and this year he will be starring in my next graphic novel (Untitled 2020), which I will share excerpts with you as n' if n' when time goes by.

Interestingly enough (well, I think so), Spike's age originally was 22, before I increased it to 27. So when he appears in my new book, his age in real time will be 27!

China 5 – "Lonely!"

Hey, what's up kids. Here's a new music video I made, and spent more time than is healthy in editing it. It's for for the song "Lonely!" 

It was filmed (mostly) on November 27, 2019 and was directed and edited by me. Special thanks must go to David Piper for the mask dance performance and assistance with the shoot. He went right ahead with my weird ideas without hesitation. Thanks Dave, you're a dude.

"Lonely!" appears on the 9th China 5 album, Confusion. Yes, the exclamation mark is part of the title.

 

Ads From The Old Days — Part 3: TV Times

After a nearly seven year hiatus, it's time to take another look at old print advertisements! For those of you who missed my first two posts on the subject back in 2013, and I suspect each and every one of you, catch up on Part 1 and Part 2. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Read 'em both? Good. The ads I'll be looking at today are from this issue of TV Times from the UK, issue dated August 8, 1981.

Hey, that's Joanna Lumley on the cover. How fascinating. If you're not familiar with TV Times, it was (and is) Britain's television guide (I think it had radio listings as well). In 1981 it cost twenty pence, as you can see.

Prince Charles and Princess Diana had just got married, so you can bet there was a lot of coverage of that in there. Let's not make any comment about how that all ended up and move on.

If you've read my previous post about old ads, you'll recall me saying that 1980s print ads, in the UK at least, were unnecessarily wordy. That's not a bad thing as such, it was just an advertising trend I suppose. The ads would frequently have several paragraphs of text "setting the scene" about why the product should be procured by YOU. In this case: a tin of cat food. The copy states that cats are "only human". Better go back and study some biology, 9-Lives copywriters. You too can get a whopping five pence off with this coupon. Hey, that was a lot of money in 1981. Really? Nah.

Hmm, Philadelphia. The spreadable cream cheese was big in England in the '80s, and adorned many a snack table at a dinner party where the women wore shoulder pads and whatnot. Well, I assume so. There's a lot to catch your eye in this 'spread', haw haw!

This Clarks Commandos shoe ad makes elongated mention of the special way the soles were designed, because it is indeed germane to the product under discussion. If you'd rather not read about this then clearly you have no sole.

And here's the last one: a full-page ad for a six-pound handbag that has a novella's worth of text on it. If you don't know every single detail about this bag after reading it, such as the designer's dentist's name or the name of the factory where the metal studs were manufactured then I don't know what I can do for you.

Welcome To The Twenties

Welcome to the Roaring Twenties, folks. Here's a watercolour I just did of Juliet Prime as a flapper and her best pal Dave as a city slicker! These two will finally make their graphic novel debut next year, 21 years after they came into being. And the last 2 digits of next year's date is...? Oh, the symbolism!

I'll be writing the Juliet comic concurrently with another one due to be completed this year. And in April, my blog will be ten years old! Gawd, where does the time go.