August 02, 2014

Saturday Night Tunage XX

It's time!  It's time!  Get your greasy little faces up next to the speakers because it's time for everybody's favorite music break, Saturday Night Tunage featuring DJ Wonderduck!

Yeah, you know you've missed it.  Yeah, you know you need it.  So I'm here for your musical edification, bringing you the best tunes from the 80s, 90s and... um... more 80s?  Something like that, because (cue old man voice) today's music is all crap!  CRAP, I tell ya.  Get off my speakers, you whippersnappers before I hit ya with my tonearm.

Kids, ask your parents.  Parents, make fun of your kids.
Not one of the good ones with the diamond-tipped London Decca cartridges, but a cheap one.  I had a Decca cartridge once, I'm not sure how I found it (probably through the radio station), and it sounded soooo sweet, and dug such a big trench in my 12" singles...  Y'know what?  Let's just get to the music, whaddya say?



M/A/R/R/S - Pump Up The Volume (12" US Mix)


Greatest dance tune ever, and almost completely put together out of samples from other songs, to boot.  There are four main versions of this track out there, the US single, US 12", the UK single, and the UK 12", and all of them are subtly different from each other.  This one, the 12" US mix, is the one I remember from my days as a 80s music kid.  I don't know what "Rhythmatic systematic world control, magnetic, genetic, to match your soul" means, but I have to agree 100% with it.  And really, how can you not?

Jesus Jones - Right Here, Right Now

I can't help but feel that I've done this song before on a Saturday Night Tunage, but I can't find it and I don't really care anyway!  Inspired by the various goings-on in the European political scene in the late '80s/very early '90s, RHRN hit #2 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and has a jangly, almost light air to it that makes it ridiculously easy to dance to.  This might make it the only political song in history that you can dance to.  The album it's off of, Doubt, would be on my short list of "favorites of the '90s"... I carried a copy of the cassette in my car for 20 years, going through three of them, I think it was.

The Charlatans UK - The Only One I Know


From the exact same time period, and a completely different sound.  While I don't think it's aged anywhere near as well as the previous song, it's still got a great vibe to it, thanks to liberal applications of Hammond organ and a surprisingly good bass line.  And you know what else used a Hammond organ and had a surprisingly good bass line?

Booker T & The MGs - Green Onions

Not that I need a reason to play this.  I mean, really, c'mon, just how cool is this?

Run DMC - King of Rock


My first exposure to rap, unless maybe for the Sugarhill Gang which got a little play on MTV.  Certainly it was the first rap I actually owned, long before they did that thing with Aerosmith.  They had a set at Live Aid that nobody ever saw unless you were actually there... between Black Sabbath and Rick Springfield.  Don't care, King of Rock is one of those legendary tunes that spans genres and fandoms.  Or, at least, should

Joe Jackson (ft Mindy Jostyn) - Different For Girls

Joe Jackson, if he's remembered at all these days, is remembered for his song "Stepping Out," and for good reason.  That track hit #6 on the Hot 100 chart here in the US.  But, in the UK, this song is JJ's biggest single.  Well, not this version, which I personally believe is better than the original.  If a song ever screamed for a duet, it's this, which is why I prefer the live versions I've heard. 

Basia - Time and Tide


Back when DJ Wonderduck was a fledgeling just getting into radio, he started out at an Adult Contemporary station.  Then, as now, he stuck his beak in the air at most of the playlist as being "chicken rock."  This track, by Poland's own Basia Trzetrzelewska, was on heavy, heavy rotation on that list, and for good reason.  It's entirely unchallengeing to the ear, almost completely inoffensive in every way... and utterly, utterly gorgeous.  It's perhaps the only song I've ever described as "sleek."  Underwater otters aren't as slippery and sinuous as this tune.  I can't listen to it all the time, any more than I can listen to smooth jazz all the time, but upon occasion?  Man alive.

Double - Captain of her Heart

Also on the Adult Contemporary playlist when he started.  There's never quite been another song to hit the Hot 100 (#16) that sounded like this, and I kinda wonder why.  But then I hear what's on the radio these days, and I stop wondering.  The album this came from, Blue, is as close to an audio version of a Tintin book that I've ever come across.  No, there's no relationship, it's not like the band set The Crab with the Golden Claws to music or anything, but I get the same sort of... wonder of travel and adventure, I suppose, when I hear it.  Ah well, wistfulness.

The Who - Eminence Front

I was never a huge fan of The Who.  Legendary artists, sure, but they never seemed to worm their way into my musical heart the way others did.  But here and there, a song would find its way in... like this one, and wow, did it!  If someone held a gun to my head and said "make a playlist of quintessential 80s songs," this track, written and sung by Pete Townsend, would kick the whole thing off.  Although perhaps not this version.  See, this is the 1997 remixed/remastered version, which fixes the glaring error of the original.  At 2:37 on this song, Townsend and Daltrey sing "it's an eminence front" in the chorus.  In the original 1982 version, though, Townsend sings "behind an eminence front", and thus ends up a syllable behind (see 2:25 on this version).  It's a rare example of an flub that makes it into the final mix, and it makes me love it more.

Okay, that's it, everybody back on your heads!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:50 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 1072 words, total size 8 kb.

1 Helluva selection this time, sir!

"Wait, you pronounce it 'doo-blay'? Whose genius idea was that?" -- A question I had to ask at one point in the past.

With you on The Who, too... Eminence Front is pretty much the Who song I like most, which is to say I actually listen to it on purpose ever.

Posted by: GreyDuck at August 02, 2014 11:03 PM (CUkqs)

2 "doo-blay"?  Really?  I mean, sure, they're Swiss and all, but really?  Huh.  All that time, we got it wrong at the radio station.

Actually, I don't think I've ever heard them called "Doo-blay."  By anybody.

Posted by: Wonderduck at August 02, 2014 11:45 PM (ma9z+)

3 It's that fancy bit over the 'e' which tends to get left off... Doublé.

Posted by: GreyDuck at August 04, 2014 08:45 AM (3m7pZ)

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