INXS 'Baby Don't Cry'

Chart Peak: 20

YouTube

Well, I sort of remember INXS releasing the album Welcome To Wherever You Are, (their only one to top the UK chart) and I sort of recall the different covers on the CD and cassette versions. I don't remember ever hearing any songs from it though, so here goes...

'Baby Don't Cry' was the second and biggest of four UK hits from the album. It's a big, brassy production of a song that sounds slightly half-baked. The verses feel like afterthoughts hidden between choruses; which makes the chorus sound worse too, because there's nothing for it to contrast with. The ultimate effect is just hollow to me.

Also appearing on: Now 14, 15, 18, 19, 20
Available on: Welcome to Wherever You Are

Genesis : "Jesus He Knows Me"

Chart Peak: 20

YouTube

This one I knew and rather liked when I was 14, as Collins and colleagues take aim at the (with hindsight rather soft) target of phoney televangelists. Now I'm no longer a teenager, it impresses me less as a piece of satire, especially with the heavy-handed middle-eight, but as I've hinted before I find pop Genesis more appealing than the prog end of their repertoire and I have to give Phil Collins credit for having the sense of humour to wear a comedy wig in the video. In fact the pastiches of low-budget God channels might be the best thing about this.

Also appearing on: Now 1, 7, 8, 9, 21, 24
Available on: We Can't Dance

Richard Marx 'Take This Heart'

Chart Peak: 13

YouTube

Another song I can't remember hearing or even hearing of at the time. And indeed 24 hours or so after first hearing it, I still can't remember a thing about it. I suppose I'll have to listen to it again then....

Wow. That is so amazingly bland I'm genuinely struggling to find anything to say about it. No wonder the Wikipedia article is all about the video, and how it wouldn't be possible in real baseball. In places it reminds me slightly of the Baywatch theme. Not good.

Also appearing on: Now 16, 22, 27
Available on: Greatest Hits

Little Angels 'Too Much Too Young'

Chart Peak: 22

YouTube

As musical subgenres go, the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal wasn't one that really attracted my attention much at the time. Indeed, I don't think I heard any of it, as it was so swiftly overshadowed by grunge before it really touched the mainstream. My main experience of the Little Angels before this week was seeing what looked like almost their complete back catalogue donated to one charity shop, the plethora of limited edition formats, boxed 7" singles and free posters that were the stuff of chart success for ambitious rock bands in the early 1990s. It worked up to a point, as the parent album Jam was a surprise chart-topper in early 1993, although it does share the record for shortest total chart-run by a Number One album.

Anyway, NWOBHM seems to have been painted as an attempt to break away from the supposedly dead hair-metal scene (although these guys do actually seem to have a lot of hair) and produce something a bit less macho and cliche-ridden, possibly returning to the sources of early AC/DC and stuff. Well, possibly. This certainly seems less knuckle-dragging than a lot of hard rock before and since and it's fairly catchy, at least until you realise that the chorus is a bit like 'Footloose'. And if it's true that Bryan Adams is on backing vocals, then extra points are awarded for his inaudibility. So, yeah, I feel positively disposed towards this record but I wouldn't say it really convinced me of anything, or made me want to listen to it again.

Available on: Little Of The Past

Billy Ray Cyrus 'Achy Breaky Heart'

Chart Peak: 3

YouTube

"Before country was mainstream" claims one wrong-headed online commenter, and certainly before his children started inflicting awful Disney pop on us, the elder Cyrus proved that he was eminently capable of making awful music himself. Don't think I haven't tried, but I can't find anything to like about this record at all, and there's a faint hint of cynical targetting about it. I try not be a snob but this is just rubbish.

The video, which I'm pretty sure I'd never seen before, makes it seem even worse. Still, at least the related videos tab pointed to some Hank Williams.


Available on: Achy Breaky Heart

John Lee Hooker 'Boom Boom'

Chart Peak: 16

YouTube

Just in case anyone thought Erma Franklin's track was the oldest on the album, 'Boom Boom' dates back to 1961 in its original form, although given the large number of different recordings on YouTube I can't be absolutely sure I've found the right one. I remember the song itself well enough though, as like the aforementioned 'Piece Of My Heart' it was brought back to the national consciousness by a jeans advert. It was Hooker's second Top 40 hit in the UK, a mere 28 years after 'Dimples'.

As it happens, my Latin teacher at the time was a big blues fan, an amateur guitarist who sometime did a blues show on a volunteer radio station. Lessons with him were always pretty freewheeling and when the subject came up, he seemed glad to have this song to use as an example of the emotional directness of the music. I don't know whether that totally convinces me, and I tend to feel that you have to make a decision to become a blues fan or not, but the fact that I didn't doesn't preclude me from liking the odd blues record here and there and this one hits the spot just right, somehow. The fact that it's barely a couple of minutes long is an advantage, evading the self-indulgence that puts me off a lot of the blues music I've heard. Also, it doesn't have the burden of self-conscious authenticity that modern-day blues can too often be ruined by.

Available on: Legend - The Best of John Lee Hooker

Simple Minds 'Alive And Kicking'

Chart Peak: 6 (7 in 1985)

YouTube

I suppose it's kind of a neat coincidence that a song later to reapper in the Now series is followed by a track that had already shown up once. 'Alive And Kicking' was of course a Top 10 hit in 1985 but re-emerged as part of a double A-sided reissue with the somewhat darker 'Love Song' in order to promote a compilation album. In theory, using the other side might have reduced the duplication, but this unlikely to have been a significant consideration - whilst I've discovered over the years that there are such people as loyal Now collectors, the albums don't show much sign of being assembled with them in mind; and that's probably no bad thing.

But am I rambling about this digression just to avoid saying something about this record? Apparently so. 'Alive And Kicking' pushes the right buttons and as stadium rock anthems go, is one of their better attempts, with a chorus that rises in the expected places. Unfortunately stadium rock anthems are one of my least favourite musical forms so I still don't get a lot out of this.

Also appearing on: Now 1, 5, 6 [this track], 7, 14, 15, 30
Available on: Glittering Prize 81/92