Compilation Album Review: "Hitz Blitz"

Compilation: Hitz Blitz
Released: 1990 – Possum
Number of tracks: 16
Number one singles: 1 – "Swing the Mood" by Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers
Other top ten singles: 1
Best track: "Get Up (Before The Night Is Over)" by Technotronic
Hidden gem: "Back To My Roots" by FPI Project featuring Sharon Dee Clarke

First up, I think this is the 60th compilation CD in my collection! Considering I only expected to collect about 20 of these, it's quite surprising. Of course, a couple of those 60 are not your typical chart compilation but a genre compilation, and this is one of them. It's a collection of dance and house music tracks, all but two of them from 1989. As such, only a handful of these songs actually charted. The abovementioned Jive Bunny track is the only number 1 song on here.

Let's look at some of those phrases on the cover. "No slow songs", says one. Well, that suits me fine, CD cover art. No room for slow jamz™ on a dance comp. If you want to slow dance, go act out your 1980s teen rom-com fantasies elsewhere. Another such phrase that caught my eye was "No breaks between the hitz". At first I thought they did crossfades between each track — a technique used to great effect on XTC's 1982 album English Settlement, which I highly recommend you listen to — but no, it just means there is no two-second gap between tracks. 

Right, let's begin. The album kicks off with "Italo House Mix", a medley by Rococo which actually charted in Australia at an impressive number 13, making it the third highest-charting song on here. It's not bad (although a few songs in the medley aren't strictly 'Italo'). When they get to the portion of "Pump Up The Jam" by Technotronic, the unnamed members of Rococo sing "Shake your booty on the floor tonight" when the actual lyric is "Get your booty on the floor tonight". That has always bothered me for some reason. Not that I can talk. I frequently record other people's songs and stuff the lyrics up.

Next it's "Baby Don't Forget My Number" by Milli Vanilli, also a hit here. It had a 38-week run on the charts, which was very impressive in 1990, but despite that it never got any higher than number 17. Just another random chart fact for you. It's also one of those songs where I hear the Weird Al parody lyrics when I listen to it, instead of the real lyrics. 

Next is "Warning" by Adeva which sounds like the vocals were rehearsed maybe once or twice before they were recorded, then it's two songs I'd never heard by two singers I'd never heard of. Dina Carroll and Johnnie O, anyone? They're alright. Then it's "Get Up". Before the night is over. And you should. Ya Kid K is the one. I actually like this song a whole lot more than I did in 1990, and I loved this song in 1990. It was the first song I ever put on my CD player and turned the volume up full bore.

"Blame It On The Boogie" is a song I have to listen to somewhat regularly at work, and it's not a song I'm particularly fond of, either in the original Michael Jackson version, or this one by three grinning wallies in yellow jackets, Big Fun. They aren't. Next. "With Every Beat Of My Heart" by Taylor Dayne. Hey, didn't she do big rock power ballads and whatnot? I guess not.

Next is "Numero Uno" by Starlight, another solid slice of Italo house, which reached number 23 on the Australian charts. It's better than the Rococo single which outcharted it by 10 positions. After this is sadfish muzak maestro Lisa Stansfield with "This Is The Right Time", another one of those inoffensive pop tracks from the late '80s. I'd never heard of Jam Machine, but their track "Everyday" fits right in here. It seems to be another one of those Italo tracks where they cobbled together the entire vocal line from samples.

I'd never been particularly interested in Soul II Soul and their generic late '80s dance pop which used to have the same beat on every track, not to mention the singer's stupid-looking hairstyle. Still, they were a big influence on Yuzo Koshiro who did the Bare Knuckle/Streets Of Rage video games soundtracks. This song of theirs, "Jazzy's Groove", is him doing a spoken word bit over one of their typical backing tracks. It's all very Bri'ish, guv', kno' wha' I mean, you wazzock?

"Messages" by Go 101 — I'm pretty sure they were a Melbourne band. How many times have Melbourne bands come up on these compilations — zero? They're not bad; the sax sound makes this track stand out a bit. Then there's something called "Back To My Roots" by FPI Project featuring Sharon Dee Clarke. Heard of them? Me neither. But they do use that "Wooh!"/"Yeah!" sample over some house piano chords that sound identical to "Mary Had A Little Boy" by Snap! which came out a year later. I picked it for my hidden gem, as you may have noticed.

Girl Overboard? They're not a dance act, are they? Well, in any case, "I Can't Believe", a mid-tempo pop-rock tune, is on here. It definitely stands out as it's from a totally different genre. Not to say it's a bad song, but what gives? This song did chart, peaking at number 43, if you care to know. Which you don't. That's okay. We can't all be interested in Girl Overboard chart stats, can we?

The sole number 1 single is the last track on here: the aforementioned "Swing The Mood". If you don't like medleys of 1950s rock n' roll hits, you won't like this, or the two follow-up singles Jive Bunny put out, all of which went to number 1 in the UK. You can definitely dance to it, if you're so inclined. Probably not in the same way you'd dance to Technotronic, but there you go, old bean. Perhaps they put it as the last track as a nice 'comedown' to all the house music workouts that have been assaulting your ears for the previous 56 minutes. I wish there had been more vocals in it though. That goes double for you, Rococo.

Rating: 5/10

Compilation Album Review: "Take 40 Australia #1"

Compilation: Take 40 Australia #1
Released: 1991 – Mushroom
Number of tracks: 18
Number one singles: None
Top ten singles: 7
Best track: "Last Train To Trancentral" by The K.L.F.
Hidden gem: I've heard all of these songs before. I listened to Take 40 Australia every week in 1991!

Well yes, I did. 1991, the year this CD came out, was the year I started listening to it. I did this for two reasons: to tape my favourite songs off the radio, and also because for some reason which I have never been able to ascertain, when they did the Top 40 countdown they always did it for the previous week and not the current week. I didn't mind the one week discrepancy because it meant that if I didn't get up early enough to catch the Top 20 on Rage, I could use Take 40 to fill in the blank spaces in my Top 20 chart book the following week. What a saddo I was!

Also: I was in Year 8. What else was I gonna do on a Saturday evening – homework?? Get real, man!

Anyway, it was essential listening and the host, Barry Bissell, was always entertaining. He'd hosted the Saturday evening show from its inception in 1984 until 2004. The show was eventually cancelled in 2016. But thirty years ago, I'd have my radio tuned to 6PM as it was then, blank cassette tape at the ready.

I've got a soft spot for the pop music of 1991. It was a good time to follow the charts, and probably the midpoint of a golden age, of sorts. The vast majority of the songs on my Top 100 of All Time list are from the years 1990-1992 alone. I had just started high school and was discovering new cool songs every single week. It was an exciting time!

I'm not sure why they waited seven years to put out a Take 40 compilation, but it's funny that it happened to come out in the year I started listening to the show. They called it Take 40 Australia #1 but there aren't any number 1 singles on it. Oh well. There was no Take 40 Australia #2, either, although there were four more Take 40 compilations released between 1995 and 2003.

There's a lot of Australian content on this album – it is a compilation for an Australian radio show after all – and it's Noiseworks that kick things off with their last big hit single "Hot Chilli Woman". I don't mind it, but it was the long-delayed follow-up single to "Freedom", which is my favourite Noiseworks song.

Then it's "Hey Stoopid", an anti-drug song by Alice Cooper. In 1991, I didn't know who this dude was, and only from reading Smash Hits did I discover that he'd been around since the '70s and did mock-theatrics on stage like getting guillotined and whatnot. Crazy, man. It would be another year before I saw him in Wayne's World and thought "It's the 'Hey Stoopid' guy!" We're not worthy!!

Who's next? Hmm, it's Transvision Vamp. "If Looks Could Kill" is hardly one of their typical rawk n' rawl numbers. From what I recall they basically disappeared after this single and the parent album wasn't up to scratch. Then comes Kylie Minogue and "Shocked", and no, she still can't sing. She is the second-best vocalist on this track. The featured rapper Jazzy P is best. Isn't it a bit weird how the final chorus fades out so abruptly? Get it together, Stock Aitken Waterman!

After Kate Ceberano, C+C Music Factory and Yothu Yindi, fine dance/pop singles all, we get to the mighty KLF. Those guys really knew how to put out brilliant and catchy pop music, be it dance bangers, stadium house anthems, synth/trance, or more rock-pop-electro stuff – and their featured rappers were always great, the one here being the late Ricardo Da Force. The synth/string break on this song is one of the best interludes ever. All the elements of a hit pop single are present here: it reached number 2 in their native UK, and number 5 in Australia.

Now it's time to rock it out Kiwi-style, bro! Push Push was a New Zealand rock band that had moderate success here with "Trippin'", and I really like that crazy high note the singer hits in the second verse, but the video stands out to me because the drummer is wearing a T-shirt with "Nirvana" written on it. I didn't know who Nirvana were in mid-1991, but I soon would. I remember asking this kid before school one day if he'd ever heard of Push Push and he just made this weird double hip-thrust motion and went "Uhh-uhh!" What a degenerate.

There's more rock for us with Roxus – didja like what I did there – and "Bad Boys" which was given more than its fair share of exposure via the Summer Bay Diner jukebox in several episodes of Home And Away. Then comes Jimmy Barnes with some mid-tempo rock and mandatory throat-shredding high notes. I don't think I've heard this song in 30 years. Eh, s'alright I s'pose. Deborah Conway's "It's Only the Beginning" is quite a nice tune, although I didn't really care for it 30 years ago. Ditto Daryl Braithwaite's "Higher Than Hope". He's got much better songs than "The Horses", which is sappy sentimental rubbish, in my opinion. "Rise" is his best song. This is NOT negotiable.

"99 Reasons" by Jo Beth Taylor is another song I hadn't heard since its release 30 years ago, and for (99) good reason(s): it's irredeemable donkey twaddle. I remember she copped a fair bit of flak in the Letters page of Smash Hits for slagging off Vanilla Ice and Roxette when she reviewed the singles. That was a bit rich when both of those artists had had number 1 singles when this junk only reached number 31, and that's more than it deserved.

Let's hit the Skip button and go next to "Unity" by Sound Unlimited Posse, a song I had only heard once until now. It's not as good as "Kickin' To The Undersound" – maybe a recognizable sample might have improved it. After that, down the back end, comes "What Comes Naturally" by Sheena Easton which, in reaching number 4, makes it the equal highest-charting track on this disc. I know, I'm as shocked as you. I thought this song was rather naff in 1991. I was only 13 and had no time for these 'sex kitten' antics.

The last two songs on here are rap singles that charted in the top 10, and they're both rather good: "Now That We Found Love" by Heavy D & The Boyz, and "Ring Ring Ring" by De La Soul which is the other song that reached number 4. Still a great track. I had the hook as my answering machine message in the late '90s.

Well, there may have been no number 1s on here but Take 40 #1 is still a solid compilation. Plenty of songs that deserve repeat listens, especially if you want to be transported back to 1991. In a metaphorical sense, that is. Otherwise you'll just have to wait for time travel to be invented.

Rating: 7/10

Making rubber stamps

This post is way late, as I started making these nearly a year ago, but here are a couple of rubber stamps I put together. I got some 95 x 79 mm pieces of rubber, each 1mm thick, from one of those art reject stores, where they recycle odds and ends for craft purposes. I got them in the distant past when Melbourne's shops were actually open. Anyway, these floppy pieces of rubber sat around in my house for a long time, until I suddenly thought "Hey, I need a cheese sandwich." And also "Hey, those bits of rubber would be great to make stamps with."

In January 2014 at the City Library in Melbourne – the same month as my comic artwork was part of an exhibition there – I joined in a stamping workshop where the girls running the session made their own stamps out of erasers. I've always liked rubber stamps, date stamps, postage stamps, and the actor Terence Stamp is pretty good as well.

Well, enough talk, let's carve up some rubber.

This photo and the one below were taken on December 22, 2020, which means this so-called spontaneous stamp-making exercise has taken nearly 10 months to see completion! Some things have to take a back seat in the production bus, you know? Anyway, I liked this design of a polar bear, a simple line drawing which used to feature on a badge I used to own. So I drew it on a scrap of paper and then used pencil lead to transfer it in reverse onto the rubber.

Next I used lino-carving tools to carve the image in relief onto the rubber. Don't be a fool and do the carving on top of your graphics tablet as seen above. This photo is for demonstration purposes only.

Once that's done, get out your scissors and bull glue and cut the designs out. Using the scissors, of course, not the glue. I'm fairly sure glue wouldn't be of much use in cutting tasks. For the second stamp I did a garbage bin. I used to draw them on my folders in high school for some reason. So, let's glue the rubber onto the blocks of wood and see how they stamp up, shall we?

Ver' nice. My polar bear does look a bit sheepish, but I'm pretty happy with the result. Be sure to check this blog in another 10 months to see if I've made any more!