Uncool 50 - Video killed the lazy Buggles headline
Part of my Uncool50 series, an autobiography through songs.
Three excellent videos this time.
“Take on me” by A-ha, takes our representative out of the café and right into the pages of the comic she’s reading. The hand-drawn rotoscoped animation was a work of love; the seamless meld with actual footage remains a joy to watch.
This was the first single I bought with my own money, £1.55 to hear Morten Pål and Mags over and over again.
“Cloudbusting” by Kate Bush, a miniature movie starring Donald Sutherland.
If “Wuthering heights” had introduced the concept of pop music, this single helped coalesce pop as high art. As much an ear-worm as A-ha or Red Box (qv), but somehow the sort of culture my parents and grandparents clearly approved of.
Yes, Kate Bush gets two singles into the top 50. No other act does.
"Press" by Paul McCartney. Right there, that's it, yes. (Are you perfectly sure about this? - Ed)
My parents had a microscopic record collection. Lots of light classical, some ABBA albums, Simon and Garfunkel, and The Beatles' Red and Blue albums. Of the Fab Four, John Lennon's songs were new before I got into pop, George Harrison made one LP, and Ringo Starr is the voice for Thomas the Tank Engine.
Paul McCartney has always been a welcome guest, and much of his 80s work made my longlist here. "We all stand together" is completely awesome, “Once upon a long ago” plays for nostalgia. "My brave face" and "This one" are tremendous songs, “No more lonely nights” is a touching tearjerker.
For pure cheek, sass, and general Fab Macca Whacky Thumbs Aloft!!-ness, you can't beat "Press". Paul makes the music he loves, gets an audience because he’s the most familiar face in town, and it's all completely carefree and relaxed. Same for the video, filmed without permission on the Tube, it's relaxed!Macca surprising and delighting his fans.
This is going to be an index for #Uncool50, my very personal list of the 50 greatest singles released on the Isles Trans-Manche since 1976. It serves as something of an autobiography, albeit patchy and partial.
The challenge requires strict chronological order. My write-up requires honesty, though some names and identifying details have been changed.
For Tumblr, I'll put the songs into little groups, slight ages of my life.
Childhood
My kind of pop
Video stars
Crushes
Rock and indie
Not rock and indie
University friends
University years
The greatest year for pop music
Turn of the century
American influences
Falling in with my crowd
Say you love me
Designing a decade
Snapping back
Also: the top 500 countdown:
two and three nominations
four and five nominations
six and more nominations
Below the fold, an explanation of why I think a memory tape is the right way forward.
Almost fourteen years ago, the uncarved.org blog wrote,
It's curious how often music bloggers end up stuck in the rut of expanding their cultural capital. Yes yes, you saw it first, you know more, you have more records, you have a better analysis, you’re The Man. And always *so* tasteful.
Few find the time to write about aspects of their lives which might detract from their cred. Even the “ten records hiding at the back of your collection that no grown man should own” meme ended up being an exercise in wacky popism rather than abject embarrassment. Because we’ve already purged our collections of the really awful stuff – as part of the process of reinventing ourselves as dashing young things rather than spotty teenagers.
What has my year on the fringes of music Twitter taught me? That it's populated by angels, and we're all dancing on the tip of a very small pin. The bounds of discourse are shaped by existing cultural gatekeepers. It all works to reinforce the existing cultural boundaries, not break them down.
Music Twitter is haunted by the ghost of John Peel, it hews to the spectre of what we think we remember of his shows. Music Twitter pays homage to Peel's successors on 6 Music, picks from a surprisingly narrow definition of "alternative". It's interested in the BBC's annual "Sound of The New Year" poll, which actively rejects leftfield contributions. It's small, it's confining, it's a self-reinforcing echo chamber.
Arron Nonoxcol has set a challenge, #Uncool50. The 50 greatest singles of the post-punk/disco era. I could play this to accrete my own cultural capital, thirty-five singles from the 6 Music library, ten from Radio 2, and a handful of others just for variety and show just how "whacky" I am. Go with the flow, put in what's already popular, vote the equivalents of "Stairway to heaven" and "Boheminan rhapsody" and "Euphoria". It would help ease Arron's list-keeping, but it would be faker than a nine-bob note.
Or I could put in a list of the 50 most important singles since 1977. The songs that helped shape the future of popular music, turn it into the mega-zillions industry it is now. That leads into some very dubious places. It goes to the man who mined the album for a zillion singles, suspected kiddyfiddler Michael Jackson. The Dunblane record, bought not for musical merit but to make a political point. Crazy Frog, "Gangnam style", and the inevitable meme hits. There is an objective reason to include these tracks, and it is a project worth pursuing, I cannot honestly call them "good".
Greatness is in the eye of the beholder. It's an intensely personal thing. And so is this list. Fifty singles, all of which have a place in my heart. Some of them shaped pop history. Some of them are generally accepted as brilliant. All of them shaped me, in some small or large way. In chronological order, a memory tape. From ABBA to [wherever it ends], a story of my life.
