You ain't so cool
Uncool Tournament Golden Beats compilation, pt. 1 of 2
I recently participated in one of Arron Wright’s music challenges based on Garry Mulholland’s books. It’s called UncoolTwo50, after the book This Is Uncool—plus the “two” because it’s the second running of this particular tournament, and the “50” because you list your favorite 50 singles from 1977-1999. This challenge, like the book, leans British, and also generally aims for being a moderate corrective to the hobbyhorses and taste blobs of what was once called “Music Twitter.”1 The results are tallied in a points system and a top 250 rolled out over the course of a few weeks.
My own picks for this challenge were unremarkable if you know anything about my previous writing. What I did enjoy, though, was going through the final list of (nearly) every song mentioned by over 120 players, in a playlist of 3,000 tracks compiled by idca. I skimmed it like I would my weekly playlists, specifically looking for Golden Beats, i.e. songs I loved that were new to me.2
Given I already knew many of the songs, I was pleased to find two mixes (33 tracks) worth of great material. I’ve sequenced those tracks into two CD-length mixes (both in the playlist below) and will share some commentary in two installments.
UNCOOL MIX 1: YOU AIN’T SO COOL
1. Shampoo: Bouffant Headbutt (1993)
Nominated by Kieron Gillen (kierongillen.bsky.social)
“Bouffant Headbutt” was the first song that turned my head in the whole tournament — I’m familiar with Shampoo’s bigger hit, “Trouble,” from the following year, but didn’t really investigate their punkier prehistory, even though I’ve seen it discussed by the British folks I follow. This was comics writer Kieron Gillen’s #50 pick, which helped me frame the whole tournament as a vehicle for discovery. Here’s a portion of his thread on the song:
My guiding principle is “anything else has to at least make me as glad to have ears as Bouffant Headbutt. This is my Bouffant Headbutt scale. Your pop single must rate 1.0 or higher on the Bouffant Heabutt scale, or you’re out, you’re fucking dead.”
Oh yeah—why do I like it? It’s plain feral, a rabies sugar-rush, vinyl sharpened into a shiv, an inversion of another song that won’t be in here—it’s Happy, Violently. Frankly, Carrie makes Stephen King’s Carrie look like she’s not even trying. ❤️ you, Shampoo, ❤️ you.
I hear more “sugar rush” than “feral.” In some ways I think Daphne & Celeste’s eventual glossy facsimile of Shampoo’s energy, if not exactly their shtick, is more genuinely poke-in-the-eye aggressive than this is, which sounds of a piece with the next few selections, too arty to merely (“merely”!) annoy.
2. Girlschool: Emergency (1980)
Nominated byAndy Aldridge (grange85.bsky.social)
An early all-woman hard rock/heavy metal band I associate with Jel Bugle, who nominated the also excellent “Yeah Right.” Girlschool’s debut wasn’t released in the US in 1980, and I don’t think I was aware of them before now. I checked various Chuck Eddy sources to see if he’d mentioned them over the years. As expected, he has pretty consistently, from their sophomore album Hit and Run in his best of 1981 list all the way up to their 2015 album Guilty as Sin.
3. Daisy Chainsaw: Love Your Money (1991)
Nominated by MJMcG (mjmcg.bsky.social)
A band discovery from People’s Pop, post-punk spotlight on central firecracker Katie Jane Garside, with songwriter/chainsaw guitarist Cripsin Grey chugging along in the background. I had never heard this particular song, which is now my favorite from them.
4. Suburban Lawns: Janitor (1980)
Nominated by Helen is serious (helenenen.bsky.social)
Nominator Helen relates the origin story of this Long Beach art-punk band’s mondegreen rocker: “The singer Sue McClane was at a loud party and she asked someone what he did. He said, ‘I’m a janitor,’ and she heard, ‘Oh my genitals.’ Enjoy.”
5. Altered Images: I Could Be Happy (1981)
Nominated by Andy Aldridge (grange85.bsky.social), PGJ (pgj.bsky.social), and Philip Jones (jonesjonesph.bsky.social)
I was surprised that this was the only track chosen by multiple people in my whole list. For the most part this was a blindfold taste test exercise, so there’s no reason I shouldn’t have discovered other tracks that multiple people listed, even though it’s likelier that solo picks would be more obscure. That said, I there are lots of very popular songs in the UK that just never really hit over here in a way I’d have noticed. Case in point: These Scottish new wavers were huge in the UK in the 80s, with multiple songs (including this one) in the top ten—but the highest they ever got in the US was #45 on the dance charts. Not really sure how you’d dance to this one, anyway: a jaunty jingle-jangle dripping with sarcasm.
Aldridge: I guess I love this because it is the purest, and sweetest pop song about ditching someone?
PGJ: I love the way the guitar parts lock together (this is my Marquee Moon), I love the colloquial use of “holi-dee,” I love the melodic bass (proto New Order), Martin Rushent’s production and I love that I can't decide between the 7" and 12" versions. God, I love it.
6. The Beat: Too Nice to Talk To (1980)
Nominated by Lorraine via Bob McAllister (bobbyscocks.bsky.social)
Still British, still now — so British, in fact, that the first several hits on YouTube for this are Top of the Pops performances. In the 1981 performance of this song, I notice that the announcer sounds British but like they’re affecting an American accent. Also that the congas and sax are given the prominent center spot they deserve—they were indeed what grabbed me in a way no other Beat nominations I tried out did, though I didn’t dislike anything I heard. This is another one that barely crossed the ocean, even with “The English” affixed to the “Beat”: nothing on the Hot 100 charts before 1982 (though they made it to the dance charts), at which point they bubbled under a few times but failed to boil over.
7. The Negro Problem: Macarthur Park (1997)
Nominated by Andrew Hickey andrewhickey.500songs.com
When I was in high school, I kept an enormous list in tiny font of every band I needed to check out. I may still have a copy of it somewhere, but there are bands on it that have never left my mind even though I’ve never knowingly made an effort to listen to them. Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown is one I’ve always remembered. (Listening now. Great!) Another is The Negro Problem. If you’d asked me to describe what The Negro Problem sounds like, what years they were active, or where they’re from, I’d draw a complete blank. (Loosely power-pop, but harder in both sound and words than that suggests; mid-90s; California.) So I’m glad to have this opportunity to savor their straightforward but deceptively strident cover of “Macarthur Park,” which as Andrew Hickey notes changes only a single word from the original. He also points out that there were only two proper singles from the band, this one and an original called “Birdcage.”
8. Marshall Hain: Dancing in the City (1978)
Nominated by Lonepilgrim (lonepilgrim.bsky.social)
A major highlight from People’s Pop pal Lonepilgrim, who says: “As a teenager, the aloof vocals, mellow keyboards and sultry sax suggested a world of sophisticated adult pleasures which still sound entrancing today. Virtually one hit wonders, this pair disappeared behind the scenes to serve other acts.” I replied: “Never heard this, it’s fantastic. Like...what, Nico in Laurel Canyon?”
9. Mecano: Barco a Venus (1983)
Nominated by Jonathan Bogart (jonathanbogart.net)
The next two are both Jonathan Bogart 1983 picks. Jonathan wrote up every track he nominated extensively, so I will just quote those and encourage you to click through to read more.
Mecano is to Spanish-language pop more or less what ABBA is to English-language pop: from fizzy, melody-forward beginnings, they made a slow increase over time in sophistication and thoughtfulness without losing their melodic spark, and had some of their most enormous hits with bleakly adult examinations of failure and loss. Just as importantly, they are known everywhere Spanish is spoken, which is not something that can be said for most of the rest of the movida madrileña — which to be fair, as the name indicates, was aimed locally.
“Barco a Venus” has long been my favorite Mecano song, not because of the unhelpful lyrics (which I’d never paid close attention to until this writeup, assuming they were about depression rather than addiction; like many another middle-aged man, I love upbeat songs about depression) but because of the gorgeous production, hard minimalist synthpop backed by a quasi-Impressionist string arrangement that I had thought was attributable to band member Nacho Cano’s tutelage under Hans Zimmer, but the arrangements are credited to former progger Luis Cobos. But singer Ana Torrojas’ high, small voice, chorus-ending “hey hey hey hey”s, gorgeous self-harmonies on the middle eight, and wordless final verse is what really makes the song for me, and has for twenty years.
There’s something particularly Spanish, maybe even particularly Madrilenian, about joining fizzy, poppy beauty to bleak subject matter and elegant design. And that’s what ultimately reconciles it to me even if it is a lame anti-drug song, because the sound of the song is not hectoring but fantastical — it’s in some ways a colorful trip all in itself — and the chorus phrase that gives the song its title, “sabes que nunca has ido a Venus en un barco” (you know you’ve never gone to Venus in a boat), is almost painfully poetic.
10. Matia Bazar: Elettrochoc (1983)
Nominated by Jonathan Bogart (jonathanbogart.net)
Matia Bazar was formed as a typically weedy sub-ABBA Europop outfit in the 1970s, with only singer Antonella Ruggiero’s four-octave range as a distinctive element. The arrival of keyboardist and synth wizard Maruo Sabbione in 1981 transformed their sound to a modern electropop one, and a series of striking modernist records in the early to mid Eighties made them one of the most exciting acts in an exciting era. Their 1983 album Tango is a favorite of mine, a romp through twentieth-century fashions, ideas, and music that remains firmly planted in neon synthpop.
The swooning, elegiac “Vacanze romane” was the album’s big hit in Italy (although YouTube has them performing just about every track on various TV appearances), but the most thrill-powered cut is undoubtedly “Elettrochoc.”
I didn’t realize until hunting down a lyric to quote for this entry that it was actually about electroshock therapy: the verses all start with a “[name] said…” (translated a moment later into Italian as ”[nome] disse” by guest Enzo Jannacci, who was something like the Buddy Holly of Italian rock n’ roll, if he’d survived to become Leonard Cohen), followed by a sentence out of Dada. The treatment for such nonsense, is of course, electroshock — evoked by a nearly proto-jungle drum pattern, synth yowls, and Ruggero’s vocal acrobatics spinning out in incredible patterns.
11. Dee D. Jackson: Automatic Lover (1978)
Nominated by Koen Sebregts (dorsalstop.bsky.social)
Wouldn’t have been able to place this other than pointing vaguely toward Europe, but it’s England (singer) by way of Munich (producers, “Sound-of-Munich” couple Gary and Patty Unwin). Robo-vocals from Jimmy McShane, later of Baltimora and “Tarzan Boy.” You can maybe guess the story here: big in the UK, whiffed in the states. Note to self: find a copy of the disco compilation Koen describes below.
Sebregts: You say futuristic disco from Munich, I say Automatic Lover. Coming 6 months after (and not as groundbreaking as) our #1 seed [“I Feel Love”], I sheepishly admit to enjoying this one more. This is also my favourite track on the very first album I bought with my own money (not this copy, it was a cassette), the enduring classic, Super Disco Party 2.
12. Sweet Tee: It’s Like That Y’all (1987)
Nominated by David L (davidwl.bsky.social)
Was smitten with this Hurby Azor-produced golden age NYC rap, brimming with sunshine braggadocio, and, as an added bonus, an early example of a rapper asking for the producer to turn up the volume in the headphones. Was then concerned that it might have appeared on my copy of Hurby’s Machine: The House That Rap Built, a 1987 compilation showcasing some of the best Azor-produced tracks of this period. But Sweet Tee, thankfully for me, though maybe sadly for her, did not appear, nor was this a track in the People’s Pop ‘87 tournament (she got through one round with “I Got Da Feeling”).
13. Young Disciples: Apparently Nothin’ (1991)
Nominated by ally (dustysevens.bsky.social)
A briefly popular UK group that sounds modeled on a combination of new jack swing and the sort of Afrocentric posicore that Arrested Development would also ride to success around the same time, but they came out of the UK acid jazz scene.
14. Soda Stereo: Nada Personal (1985)
Nominated by Sarah Daniel Rasher (rasher.bsky.social)
Didn’t have much of a read on this very 1985-sounding Argentine rock, so context from its recommender is in order: “When I tell people my favorite New Wave song is an Argentinian song about depersonalization in the face of technology, mass media, and the Sexual Revolution, they mostly say, ‘Yeah, checks out.’”
15. Smoke City: Underwater Love (1997)
Nominated by Margaret Brown (magstheobscure.bsky.social)
A decade before iPod indie, this light sampledelic trip-hop track became a huge smash (everywhere but America, natch) in a Michel Gondry-directed 1997 Levi’s commercial.
16. Stump: Buffalo (1988)
Nominated by Thomas Evans (thewrittentevs.bsky.social)
Can comfortably give this blurb over to its recommender:
HOW MUCH IS THE FISH? HOW MUCH IS THE FISH? HOW MUCH IS THE CHIPS? DOES THE FISH HAVE CHIPS? HOW MUCH IS THE FISH?! HOW MUCH IS THE CHIPS?!! HOW MUCH IS THE FISH?!!! DOES THE FISH HAVE CHIPS?!!!!
The most obscure song on my list by a band that’s divisive even among the people who’ve heard of them, posted on a Sunday near the end of a challenge with a caption that's impenetrable unless you’ve heard the song. And people say I’m not populist. Fully expecting this to get no reaction
It got a reaction!
17. Fatal Microbes: Violence Grows (1979)
Nominated by Andrew (Arfur) Clarke (apcrft.bsky.social)
I’m a sucker for this formula—British woman sneers and hollers against a wash of needling guitars—as long as said formula occurs between c. 1978 and 1981.
Clarke: One of my earliest litmus tests: people who knew this weird post-punk obscurity and people who didn’t. Never owned it, just heard it on The Anne Nightingale Request Show (and maybe Peel?)
18. Palais Schaumburg: Wir bauen eine neue Stadt (1981)
Nominated by Jesse Farrell (jfarrell.bsky.social)
Assertive NDW (Neue Deutsche Welle, German new wave) that threatens to veer into Pigbag dance-punk territory if the band could ever get its act together, which they don’t—but only just. The edge of the dance is provocative, too, horns commanding you to do something with your body. Maybe just go chuck it against a wall.
Farrell: First heard by chance: a radio colleague needed some filler before interviewing someone from Swans or Sonic Youth, in town that night. First taste of NDW; my 7th-grade German failed me, but vibes transcend.
19. Suicide: Dream Baby Dream (1979)
Nominated by Mathew Kumar (mathewkumar.bsky.social)
A lovely, droning Lou Reed-y closer from a band I obviously continue to underrate even though I should know better by now. I like the single but love the extended version. A fitting final word from its recommender, too.
Kumar: Is the dream promise or portent? Is this feeling dread or delight?
***
That’s it! See you next week for part 2!
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title from Shampoo’s “Bouffant Headbutt”
To illustrate both its Britishness and its progressivism, the challenge has what’s called the Neil Kulkarni Clause, named after the British critical iconoclast, which states that only 70% of your singles can be by artists/bands comprised exclusively of white men before your selections are docked points.
I disqualified anything that appeared in a People’s Pop tournament that I likely heard even if I have no recollection of hearing it. Those disqualified songs are: Janet Kay, “Silly Games”; 23 Skiddo, “Coup”; Sister Nancy, “Bam Bam”; Susan Cardogan, “Nice ‘N’ Easy”; Chris Rea, “Josephine - French Edit”; Bhundu Boys, “Jit Jive”; Origin Unknown, “Valley of the Shadows” (not only heard but already listed as a Golden Beat!); Sasha, “Xpander.”