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.