Yes, I know I've previously said that, as a rule, I
was going to be giving these Top Of The Pops albums a wide berth for the
purposes of this blog, but as it's my own rule then I guess I'm free to bend or
break it as I see fit. The general principle still stands, but I saw fit to bend
it here simply because I noticed there was a version of Public Image Ltd's
'Death Disco' on this. I didn't know such a thing existed before and, now I know
it does, I had to hear it. And then tell you about it. But before I do,
a little back story.
I think one of the main things to note about the Top Of The Pops series of albums (apart from the shameless pilfering of the goodwill that attached to the BBC music programme of the same, unfortunately for them non copyrighted, name) is that they don't contain cover versions per se. The Jimi Hendrix version of 'All Along The Watchtower' - now that's a cover version in the sense of an artist crawling under the skin of someone else's song, re-tooling it to fit their own frame and, in the process, finding things in it that the original artist probably didn't know were there. No, the Top Of The Pops acts were more concerned with producing facsimiles of recent hit singles rather than covering them; they're attempts to produce a version that sounded as close to a passable imitation of what was recently in the charts as the talent, time and (I guess) money allowed.
As a case a point, the versions of 'Light My Fire' and 'C'mon Everybody' on this volume aren't cover versions of The Doors and Eddie Cochran respectively - they're versions of Amii Stewart's and Sex Pistols' own 1979 cover versions. Which I suppose puts everybody on the back foot before they even start. It's well known too that these things were knocked out faster than Henry Ford knocked out his cars by anonymous musicians who often had to buy the actual single themselves to learn how the song sounded on the day they recorded it, and if some the lyrics sound like they've been made up on the spot, then that's because they have.
So, what of 'Death Disco' then, my whole raison d'etre for buying this? Well the original is a thick slab of dubby krautrock that's all bassline and Keith Levine's skittish guitar tracking the primal scream of John Lydon as he stares down his mother's cancer. As a proposition for a hit single, it's hard work. The version here is a close approximation on the surface, but only insofar as Call Of Duty on the Playstation is an approximation of real war; there's a polite tidiness to the playing and the production that sucks out all the drama and power leaving a dry, bloodless husk that's more concerned with what it's meant to be, rather than what it could be.
And this applies to virtually every track on this record - to risk spouting a cliché, they are paint-by-numbers versions of old masters that, in being arranged in defined blobs of neatly demarcated colour allow you to see the picture, but not the artistry, tone, brushstroke or the consistency and texture of the paint itself. Thus, the power doom drone of 'Are Friends Electric' is reduced to the annoying buzz of a bluebottle butting against a windowpane, the glorious disco thrash of Patrick Hernandez's 'Born To Be Alive' is fitted with a straitjacket to keep it calm while the precision funk of 'Good Times' hobbles stiff legged in callipers. I could go on, but suffice it say that with every effort being spent on trying to reproduce the sound of a hit single as closely as possible, nothing swings, nothing grooves, nothing rocks and nobody sounds remotely like they're enjoying themselves
It's not just the music either; because of that brief then on the majority of the tracks, the vocalists try their best to imitate the original, which is often the final nail in their respective coffins. For example, I was enjoying this version of 'Silly Games' until the chorus left vocalist X completely high and dry and squawking a cracked falsetto as she gropes to get anywhere near the notes Janet Kay was hitting, whilst the same game chap tackles 'Are Friends Electric' and 'Death Disco' in a manner reminiscent of a young Albert Steptoe on both. An exception to the rule is 'Go West', where the Village People are reduced to a Village Person who attacks the song in the style of Wilson Pickett and is predictably found wanting, but at least he sounds like he's really going at it gangbusters.
There aren't really any honourable mentions in dispatches to be had on Top Of The Pops Volume 74 and no reason for me to ever listen to any of it again. The best I can say is that all the versions here are instantly recognisable and if they were knocked out to this standard by a covers band down the local club on a Saturday night in-between three games of bingo and a fat stand up comedian then everybody would go home happy. I probably would myself. But if you're going to freeze the recordings for posterity on a commercial release then I think even the most easily pleased amongst us are perfectly entitled to set a bar of quality that most of these would struggle to clear.
I think one of the main things to note about the Top Of The Pops series of albums (apart from the shameless pilfering of the goodwill that attached to the BBC music programme of the same, unfortunately for them non copyrighted, name) is that they don't contain cover versions per se. The Jimi Hendrix version of 'All Along The Watchtower' - now that's a cover version in the sense of an artist crawling under the skin of someone else's song, re-tooling it to fit their own frame and, in the process, finding things in it that the original artist probably didn't know were there. No, the Top Of The Pops acts were more concerned with producing facsimiles of recent hit singles rather than covering them; they're attempts to produce a version that sounded as close to a passable imitation of what was recently in the charts as the talent, time and (I guess) money allowed.
As a case a point, the versions of 'Light My Fire' and 'C'mon Everybody' on this volume aren't cover versions of The Doors and Eddie Cochran respectively - they're versions of Amii Stewart's and Sex Pistols' own 1979 cover versions. Which I suppose puts everybody on the back foot before they even start. It's well known too that these things were knocked out faster than Henry Ford knocked out his cars by anonymous musicians who often had to buy the actual single themselves to learn how the song sounded on the day they recorded it, and if some the lyrics sound like they've been made up on the spot, then that's because they have.
So, what of 'Death Disco' then, my whole raison d'etre for buying this? Well the original is a thick slab of dubby krautrock that's all bassline and Keith Levine's skittish guitar tracking the primal scream of John Lydon as he stares down his mother's cancer. As a proposition for a hit single, it's hard work. The version here is a close approximation on the surface, but only insofar as Call Of Duty on the Playstation is an approximation of real war; there's a polite tidiness to the playing and the production that sucks out all the drama and power leaving a dry, bloodless husk that's more concerned with what it's meant to be, rather than what it could be.
And this applies to virtually every track on this record - to risk spouting a cliché, they are paint-by-numbers versions of old masters that, in being arranged in defined blobs of neatly demarcated colour allow you to see the picture, but not the artistry, tone, brushstroke or the consistency and texture of the paint itself. Thus, the power doom drone of 'Are Friends Electric' is reduced to the annoying buzz of a bluebottle butting against a windowpane, the glorious disco thrash of Patrick Hernandez's 'Born To Be Alive' is fitted with a straitjacket to keep it calm while the precision funk of 'Good Times' hobbles stiff legged in callipers. I could go on, but suffice it say that with every effort being spent on trying to reproduce the sound of a hit single as closely as possible, nothing swings, nothing grooves, nothing rocks and nobody sounds remotely like they're enjoying themselves
It's not just the music either; because of that brief then on the majority of the tracks, the vocalists try their best to imitate the original, which is often the final nail in their respective coffins. For example, I was enjoying this version of 'Silly Games' until the chorus left vocalist X completely high and dry and squawking a cracked falsetto as she gropes to get anywhere near the notes Janet Kay was hitting, whilst the same game chap tackles 'Are Friends Electric' and 'Death Disco' in a manner reminiscent of a young Albert Steptoe on both. An exception to the rule is 'Go West', where the Village People are reduced to a Village Person who attacks the song in the style of Wilson Pickett and is predictably found wanting, but at least he sounds like he's really going at it gangbusters.
There aren't really any honourable mentions in dispatches to be had on Top Of The Pops Volume 74 and no reason for me to ever listen to any of it again. The best I can say is that all the versions here are instantly recognisable and if they were knocked out to this standard by a covers band down the local club on a Saturday night in-between three games of bingo and a fat stand up comedian then everybody would go home happy. I probably would myself. But if you're going to freeze the recordings for posterity on a commercial release then I think even the most easily pleased amongst us are perfectly entitled to set a bar of quality that most of these would struggle to clear.
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