If you find The Cars original version of Drive to be a bit too po-faced and solemn, then this Steely & Clevie production, which served as the title track on Eustace Hamilton’s seventh studio album might be for you. The original is treated respectfully, Thriller U provides an impassioned vocal and there’s no big bwoy Carribean toasting rap dropped into the middle of it (I’ll drive ya home/Be ready ta go etc), but the synthesisers are, in typical dancehall style, a good deal more jaunty than they were on the original. The key difference is probably that you’d play Thriller U’s Drive in the middle of a party, and The Cars Drive at the very end of one.*
Peel felt that Thriller U’s version had a chance at being a hit single, which given that this show was being broadcast a few weeks after the top 3 singles in the UK chart were Oh Carolina, Informer and Mr. Loverman, and while the chart also contained other reggae flavoured songs like Sweat and reggae covers of 80s material such as Jamaican in New York, seemed a decent prediction. In the event, Thriller U never had a UK hit single, but my checking of the UK Singles Chart website provided me with a lightbulb moment that I hope I’ll be able to go on pursuing for as long as I enjoy listening to music.
My Friday evenings tend to be quiet these days. Nobody seems to rehearse plays on a Friday night anymore, and I don’t go out on the town. Instead, my wife and I sit at home and watch Gardeners’ World, while I might also have a football match on mute on one tablet, while scanning Bluesky to read people’s pithy remarks about the Top of the Pops repeats showing on BBC Four. I’ve been disengaged from the singles charts and contemporary music for nearly 20 years, I reckon. It’s a mixture of me growing older and the market changing. Given that the charts now include downloads of any song ever released, I wrote off any attempt to follow them given that it struck me they would be stuck in a perpetual version of the charts circa 1972, with contemporary releases jostling alongside re-releases of tunes that could be 10, 20 or 30 years old.
In this environment though, I found myself wishing that Top of the Pops were still around now. The great thing about it was that it gave viewers - whether they were in the target demographic or not - a snapshot of what contemporary pop music was like. Parents, grandparents, those who feel that music was better when they were young could all get some kind of handle on what was happening now. They wouldn’t necessarily rush out to buy any of it or namedrop it to try and appear cool, but it would at least keep them in the loop. That seemed to be gone now, and the consequence of it is that if you asked me to sing any hit song from 2010 onwards, I couldn’t.
But looking over the chart yesterday, with its blend of songs both modern and ancient, it struck me that in the age of YouTube, it would be easy to do your own version of Top of the Pops each week. Just choose 7 songs, all of which have to be climbing in the chart, regardless of how old they are - but skew more towards the newer releases than the older ones - and Bob’s your uncle, you have your contemporary pop music snapshot. My list from last night was:
I liked them all, though it’s a good thing I like electropop which seems to be the dominant style now. I intend to pick seven songs each Friday in order to give me that snapshot and in the case of the older tunes, educate myself on what I missed. I won’t do anything with this, except to maybe link contemporary tunes that I hear post-2010 with things that the artists themselves may have heard in Peel-aligned artists. In the main, it will serve to keep my head in the musical present, while my heart and soul remain in the musical past.
Video courtesy of All Reggae.
*In case you’re wondering, Thriller U sings “Mm-mm” instead of “pork pie”.
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