Whitesnake 'Here I Go Again [USA Remix]'

Chart Peak: 9 [original version 34)

YouTube

One thing this definitely has in common with the previous track is that it was already several years old. In 1987 David Coverdale and the musicians who were then Whitesnake produced a re-recording of the original 1982 hit, which replaces the word "hobo". This was remixed in turn in a bid for plays on US radio, and a successful one too, as it managed a week at the top of the Hot 100. It's that version which appears here.

And yet again, I'm mildly disappointed by a track on this album. Not that I'd have very high hopes, otherwise I might have made more of an effort to listen to it in the intervening couple of decades, but it was one I didn't hate. Whilst I still appreciate the lack of lecherous content here everything else is weaker than I remember it. Like Billy Idol again, it's really only the hairstyles that make this recognisable as rock, because everything else is so layered in keyboards, thudding echoey drums and endless reworking as to be without identity; the chorus isn't as strong as I thought it was either. Coverdale is a good singer, but not good enough to make this work. One of the better tracks on this side of the album, but that isn't saying much.


Also appearing on: Now 11
Available on: 30th Anniversary Collection

Billy Idol 'Mony Mony'

Chart Peak: 7

YouTube

One that didn't get off to a great start. With all official videos barred to me, I suspected the version I'd found was a re-recording or something. However, comparison with clips from the album suggest that this is indeed the official version, it just sounds that bad. By 1987 I knew what punks were, and I think I might already have worked out that Billy Idol wasn't really one. I sort of remembered him as a metaller, albeit with hindsight a rather contrived one. Nowadays he doesn't even sound like that so much as some kind of watered-down synth-pop act. In fairness, the version of 'Mony Mony' that ultimately became a hit was a remix of his 1981 solo debut (the song itself of course goes back further still) but everything else I listened to him sounded much the same in style.

Wikipedia suggests that this single became controversial because you could sing rude words along to it - but can't you do that to any song ever written. I was more attracted by the fact that the backing vocals sound like they're singing "I feel like a pony", which will amuse those readers who are familiar with Cockney rhyming slang. If I want to be generous, I can say that this makes less claim than 'Crazy Crazy Nights' to be anything it isn't but otherwise it's a product of its time.

Also appearing on: Now 11
Available on: Vital Idol

Kiss 'Crazy Crazy Nights'

Chart Peak: 4

YouTube

Perhaps nine was the right age at which to hear this record. I don't specifically remember my opinion of it at that time, but it does have a slightly tantrum-esque quality that seems particularly suited to that age group.

I think this sort of consciously anthemic rock is something you need the right sort of mindset to appreciate. I don't think I have that mindset now, if I ever had: it doesn't mean that there are no records of that type I like, just that it's not something I'd consider inherently worthwhile. Kiss are singing to the people who do think that.

'Crazy Crazy Nights' plays to the rock-rebel pose, the idea that we're all being held back by some unspecified "they" and that we should all kick back and have a party. Fair enough, but the trouble is that 21 years later, it doesn't sound like a party, more like a day at the office. Any atmosphere of rebellion or challenge or even fun is undermined by the very sound of the record, which is so calculated and overproduced as to lose any excitement. And they're so tough and dangerous they wimp out of saying the word "crap". But maybe I'll like it more when I reach my fifties.

PS - Anyone who does manage to see this video should probably be warned that Kiss aren't wearing their make-up. It's probably scarier than when they were.

Available on: Greatest Hits

Dear music industry: bite me

So, as has been widely reported here in the UK, all music videos posted or claimed by record companies have been blocked from UK YouTube users due to a royalty dispute. So several of the links won't be working in the forseeable future. I'll carry on as far as possible, but should I ever need to turn to illicit means to find a track, we'll know whose fault it is, won't we?

Heart 'Alone'

Chart Peak: 3

YouTube

Generally speaking, I'm not the sort to accuse people of selling out. But it's hard to be generous to such a shameless piece of power balladry. In fact this pushes the usual buttons so predictably that the most surprising thing about it is that it wasn't written by Diane Warren, or even Albert Hammond: it's Billy Steinberg & Tom Kelly, so not a lot better really.

If I really really try to be positive, I suppose I can say that Ann Wilson puts in a decent vocal performance. And this is better than Celine Dion's version - apparently Robert Forster from the Go-Betweens has had a go too, which might be interesting. This is one occasion when I definitely can't blame the fans who didn't approve of their new direction though, three weeks at the top of the US chart or no.

Also appearing on: Now 12
Available on: Greatest Hits: 1985-1995

T'Pau 'China In Your Hand'

Chart Peak: 1 (5 weeks)
YouTube

Nine tracks in and this is only the second Number One single, albeit a long-running one (indeed it was the incumbent at the time of release) and one with a very minor place in history as the 600th single to top the UK chart.

I used to know all the words to this. Or at least, I thought I did: for some reason I thought the chorus was "Don't push too far your dreams of china in your hand," whereas in fact T'Pau are claiming that dreams *are* china in our hands. Yet as my mother, who used to work in the crockery department at Jones Brothers, pointed out, china isn't actually that likely to break in your hands, which is why they make teacups and things out of it. Still, it makes as much sense as the rest of the song, I suppose - when I was nine, I think I just assumed that songs were meant to be written in this sort of self-consciously "important" psuedo-mystical way, but now I know better. I also know that it's possible to write much better tunes than this, but by far the worst part of this must be moment when it appears to end, only to break into that ghastly sax solo. At best this is a terribly watered-down version of 'Total Eclipse Of The Heart', at worst it's everything dislikeable about 80s music.

Also appearing on: Now 11, 12, 13
Available on: T'Pau: The Greatest Hits

The Style Council 'Wanted'

Chart Peak: 20

YouTube

The full title of this, their last Top 20 hit, is 'Wanted (Or Waiter, There's Some Soup In My Flies)'. Ahem. That's almost as bad as calling your band The Style Council.

Perhaps it's unfortunate that TSC (as fans call them) are destined to be viewed largely through the prism of what Paul Weller did either side of them. There's definitely something to be said for his having the bravery to abandon The Jam at the peak of their success and try to do something fresh. And there were some very good singles in the early days. By this point, however, they were dropping off the radar: indeed, the single before this, 'Waiting' was Weller's first ever to miss the UK Top 40, which was presumably the reason for rushing out this non-album 45 (the B-side was the title track from their album The Cost Of Loving). It's tempting to perceive the synth-heavy production as a precursor to their experiments with house music, but it does sound rather more like an effort to makes something that fits in with the idea of a hit in 1987, and some elements (the slap bass and Mick Talbot's repeated keyboard glissandi) just sound impossibly naff today. The effect is to smother any breezy charm that the rather slight song might have had, hence a record that was a hit in its day but seems forgotten now - I think I'd only heard it once before it cropped up here, and it's conspicuously absent from the best-of album I have.

Also appearing on: Now 3, 4, 5, 14
Available on: Greatest Hits