Luniz 'I Got 5 On It'

Chart Peak: 3

YouTube

'I Got 5 On It' raced into the UK Top 3 on release in February 1996... It had already been a monster hit all over Europe for these lively young fellas.

Not surely "lively" is exactly how I'd describe them, nor how they'd like to be, given that this song is fairly blatantly about the desire to smoke cannabis - specifically, apparently, the reference to 5 means that they're offering to go halves on a ten-dollar bag of the stuff. If I've learnt anything from 1990s popular culture, it's that one of the most prevalent effects of dope is to induce massive overestimation of how interesting the subject actually is to the rest of us. Admittedly, this only lasts about four minutes so it's not as bad as the fame of Howard Marks, but it's still a pretty boring subject lyrically.

At the time, this track never seemed to be off the music TV channels and I soon grew to hate it, shunning it to the extent that I didn't realise Luniz were only a duo (not counting Michael Marshall, who sings the chorus but has only been given co-credit in retrospect). In subsequent years I've discovered two things: firstly, that it actually has a fairly decent West-Coast-style backing track, which has been sampled a few times; and secondly that that track itself is heavily dependent on samples. The main sample is from Club Nouveau's 'Why You Treat Me Me So Bad', which is itself derived from 'Thinking About You' by Timex Social Club, another track that features Michael Marshall. This one is listenable now if tiresome.

Luniz weren't quite a one-hit wonder - they had a second Top 20 with 'Playa Hata' and a remix of this track was a hit in 1998 - but they seem to fall into that category of hip-hop acts who struggled to attract a permanent audience.

Available on: Original Hits - All American

Metapost: some linkage

According to the Iplayer website you've got until 2099 to listen to The Art Of Sequencing, a documentary presented by Guy Garvey (who appears on Now 83), and also featuring Nick Mason from Pink Floyd (Now 66, sort of) and members of Field Music, Van der Graaf Generator and I Am Kloot, who've yet to appear in the series. It also includes a brief contribution from Ashley Abram, compiler of everything from Now II to Now 81, about the sequencing of these albums, in which he refers to the history of Queen's appearances, and their insistence on only appearing at the very start of the albums; his memory isn't totally accurate, as it happens, but it is true that only twice do they appear in a place where they're not at least the start of the side: and one of those is the hidden track of 'A Kind Of Magic' on Now 7.
Anyway, it's an interesting programme in its own right and worth a spare half-hour.

Meanwhile, this piece about people's first record purchases includes a topical addition from one Alex Hannon.

And it would be wrong not to mention our friends and colleagues at The Shine Years and 1p Album Club.

East 17 'Thunder'

Chart Peak: 4

YouTube

Tony, Brian, John and Terry have been consistent hitmakers around the world since 1992... 'Thunder' steamed into the UK chart at No. 4 and spent 11 weeks in the Top 40 up to January 1996.

In case you thought the bit about steaming into the chart was a mixed metaphor, I think it's a pun on the title of their album Steam, although that would have worked better had this song come from that album: it's actually the first release from their third set Up All Night, which is surely the only possible explanation for it making the Top 5. That "around the world" line may also be a reference to their 1994 hit of the same title.

By this point, the band did seem to be - ahem - running out of steam. And whilst the album was another inevitable Top 10 entry for them, it lasted less than half as long on the chart as each of the previous two. That's not an uncommon pattern for the modern boy-band, whose biggest-selling album is almost always their first, and you suspect that the record company must have noticed too, as they don't exactly seem to have gone crazy with the video budget here. 'Thunder' is a bit of an odd song, combining the pretentious chorus lyric "When the thunder calls you/Under purple sun/To the place where horses run" with verses which try to sound vulnerable in the face of love, not a mood that seems to come naturally to the usually cocky group, nor a combination that makes any sense. Tony Mortimer does an amazingly shoddy rap in the middle and the two who aren't him or Brian Harvey wander around a bit in the background. Er, that's it.

In my last posting about East 17, I mentioned that they'd reformed again, replacing Brian Harvey with an X-Factor contestant. Just to keep you posted, they later ditched the frontman, and the remaining trio of founding members released a new album last year with a new musical direction they think sounds like Kings Of Leon, although it sounds to me more like Wet Wet Wet. You have to love the "driving me crazy" mime though.

Also appearing on: Now 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 30, 31, 35 (with Gabrielle), 36, 41 (as E-17)
Available on: Thunder

Gabrielle 'Give Me A Little More Time'

Chart Peak: 5

video

'Give Me A Little More Time', with its big and brassy Motown influence, returned Gabrielle to the Top 20 in February 1996... It is actually her 5th UK Top 30 hit and could emulate her 1993 smashes 'Dreams' and 'Going Nowhere'.

It's not spelt out exactly how it might emulate those two songs, but its eventual chart peak is roughly half-way between theirs of 1 and 9 respectively: it also seems to sit about in the middle of them in posterity, neither a well known as her debut single nor as comprehensively forgotten as its follow-up. By this point in history it was getting pretty rare for a track still to be climbing the chart as the Now album went to press, although as you'll have seen in earlier sleeve notes it wasn't uncommon for them to have to include a track that hadn't even been released by the printers' deadline. It was by 1996 standards extraordinary that the aptly-titled 'Give Me A Little More Time' had to wait for its fifth chart week to reach its highest chart placing; given that it sat at 5 for three weeks it's a reasonable bet that had it enjoyed the more concentrated sales most singles had in those days it would have been a Top 3 hit at least. The fact that it didn't is perhaps indicative of the struggle she had to re-establish herself after the unloved follow-ups to her first hit and the two year break during which she had some difficulties in her personal life. When she finally re-emerged with a new image (her lazy eye now hidden behind a fringe rather than the eyepatch) and a fresh set of songs, fashion seemed to have moved on a little and the world didn't seem as ready, so it was lucky for all concerned that she came back with such a stormer of a single.

I've said before in other contexts that the strident brassy sound suggests Stax or Atlantic to me more than Motown, but this is a bit picky of me. It's certainly in the right area and whereas most songs that are described as having a retro-soul influence merely adopt isolated elements of the production (usually the tambourines) this one has sixties soul all the way through it; even though the beat is presumably programmed it's got the right sort of ambience and feel about it to make you imagine that there are a team of crack studio musicians with rock-solid timing on there and that they're all playing together in a small room. Even the mix does its bit, with so little stereo separation you could mistake it for mono. Of course, even the most perfect pastiche is at risk of seeming pointless, but that's not a problem I ever had with this particular song, which I liked even before I'd listened closely enough to realise how faithful it was to the sound; having grown up hearing old soul music it never struck me as unusual to hear a song in this style. Although the lyric breaks no new ground, it benefits from that slightly chatty, down-to-earth tone of her best songs, and it's easy to imagine her fumbling around how to express her feelings about her friend, and how to deal with the possibility that they might be reciprocated. Even the slightly inconclusive fade on the single edit helps convey the uncertainty: I've never checked what happens in the extra minute or so of the album version, and I was determined to find a link to the correct version - irrelevant as it is to the song, I always quite liked the final shot in the video where the French kids realise there's a camera pointed at them.

Just in case you didn't believe me about Simply Red going downhill after this period, you can see a bit of his ill-advised collaboration with the Fugees in this clip of Gabrielle accepting the first ever MOBO for best single. She deserved it too.

Also appearing on: 25, 26, 33, 27 (with East 17), 36, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 58
Available on: Gabrielle

Simply Red 'Never Never Love'

Chart Peak: 18

YouTube

Sometimes it's very hard to resist the single-sentence dismissal, along the lines of "I will never, never love this record". Indeed, his/their previous single 'Remembering The First Time' inspired one of my favourite ever such responses in a review on Teletext: "Not to be confused with Pulp's Do You Remember The First Time, or with any other decent record." I admit to adapting that line once or twice over the years.

Anyway, the final appearance of Mick Hucknall and his employees catches him in bland, time-serving mode, a far cry from the mildly triumphant return of 'Fairground'. Although the talk of "good revolution" hints at the politicised tone of some of the band's early work, it's all so vague and soppy as to be meaningless, and his vocal on the chorus is annoyingly thin on headphones. Not a great way to bow out, though worse singles were to come, and Hucknall's awful soul covers as a solo artist almost make you pine for this.

Also appearing on: Now 5, 7, 9, 20, 21, 23, 24, 32
Available on: The Greatest Hits

Etta James 'I Just Want To Make Love To You'

Chart Peak: 5

YouTube

Los Angeles born Etta James Hawkins scored her first British hit single in 1996 at the age of 57 (approx.)... Her version of Willie Dixon's classic 'I Just Want To Make Love To You' shot into our Top 5 in February 1996 after its use on the "Diet Coke" Ad.

And indeed her only other credited Top 40 hit came with the revival of the perennial 'At Last' (of which this was the original US B-side in 1961) after her death just over a year ago; though by an odd coincidence her voice was also on two of the Top 10 singles that week - she was sampled on Avicii's 'Levels' which was in turn sampled for 'Good Feeling' by Flo Rida. As the note explains, this one-off success was the product of a commercial, which is a fact that perhaps doesn't reflect too positively on the UK record-buying public. But the song (originally written by blues great and Led Zep plagiarism victim Willie Dixon) was not unfamiliar beforehand and whilst it's not my favourite item in Etta's catalogue it's a powerful record in its own right, thanks largely to her extraordinary vocal: when she tears into that first verse, her singing is almost too good for the early 1960s microphone.

Despite the number of times it's been covered, it's a difficult song to sing because it's so hard to stay the right side of sounding like a sex offender. It requires a very special perfomance to make the sexuality sound heartfelt and directed - about attraction to a particular person at a particular time - without camping it up or just sounding ridiculously priapic. Even though this song was written by a man (and originally made famous by another man, Muddy Waters) this version is one of the most powerful expressions of female sexuality I've ever heard on a record, because it's not just playing up to a male fantasy. I almost feel sorry for Eternal, because knowing this track was coming up next can't have improved my opinion of their attempt at soul music. But I'm sure they'd agree that her catalogue is worth investigating and you could do far worse than pick up the Chess singles collection; especially if, like my wife, you were smart enough to do so while she was still alive. In the light of recent events, it's seeming increasingly possible that her final album might also prove to have been the last thing I ever bought in HMV, though it's hardly in the same league as this and the rest of the work she did at her peak.

Available on: The Very Best Of Etta James: The Chess Singles

Metapost: The Missing Million-Sellers

Second in my monthly-so-far list series, a selection of big million-sellers (since 1983) that didn't find a home in the Now series. I've excluded Christmas songs and some charity releases as they wouldn't be expected to show up, and also 'Impossible' by James Arthur, the most recent single to make seven figures, as that's all but guaranteed to show up on Now 84.
Again, possible spoilers after the jump.