New Jack Swing pioneers Bell Biv Devoe popped up on Jimmy Fallon’s show last week, performing their brand new- sorry, their twenty-one year old song, “Poison”. The chaps looked pretty good for their age, taking wise, if funky, precautions against televised indignity: green leather waistcoats to hold in the guts, and shades to hide the crow’s feet. Respect for trying a few moves before running out of breath, as well.

“Poison” still sounds great today, although of course not many people realised on its realise that it was a subtle warning about HIV and AIDS. Or - no, that was “Poison” by Alice Cooper, wasn’t it? Or - no, was that “Poison” by The Prodigy? Or - hang on, was that “Poison” by Nicole Shirtslinger? Or - could it have been Poison the band?

Yes, didn’t Poison the band form with the noble aim of preventing the spread of HIV and AIDS, with each song’s lyrics part of an overarching, career-spanning narrative bemoaning the loss of sexual freedom in the eighties and nineties? Wasn’t there something in “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” about avoiding pricks?

I don’t think Bell Biv Devoe’s “Poison” was about HIV and AIDS. It was merely the tale of a woman whose wily sexual powers were such that BBD decided she bore a resemblance to an actual poison, such as cyanide, sarin, strychnine, ricin, tetrodoxin, hemlock or potassium chloride.

It’s still not clear exactly which substance this toxic femme resembled, but given the effect the above examples have on a human being’s central nervous system we probably owe Bell Biv Devoe a hearty thanks for the heads-up.

Or at least we might if they had TOLD US WHAT HER NAME WAS. Pillocks.

Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday February 28th, 2011 at 8:00 am

I’ve just finished reading this book about Chris Morris. Want a quick review? OK - it’s goodish because there are no other Chris Morris books out there, but it doesn’t have the depth or detail you’d hope the definitive Chris Morris book would have. So, you know, if you’re a fan check it out but don’t expect too much.

I thought it would be good to look at the best music parodies he produced when he was on TV & radio. I hate even using the word “parody”, thanks to all the berks on YouTube who use the word to describe their dickings-about.

Chris Morris produced all of these before YouTube even existed. Ponder that.

Blouse - “Oh Me Oh Myra”

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday February 21st, 2011 at 8:00 am

You shouldn’t really need an excuse to like Miley Cyrus’s's’s’ “Party in the U.S.A”, because it’s a rather adorably catchy little twit. But let’s face it, folk of a certain age, or people who have a misguided sense of their own coolosity, will never be able to admit liking it.

So here’s Rye Rye with a hipster-friendly remix of it. She’s probably only a year or two older than Miley Cyrus, but I think everyone’s allowed to like this “Party In The USA” remix because:

1. Rye Rye is “urban”, and her version is “dancefloor-friendly” (i.e., it’s faster and contains rapping).

2. For the video, Rye Rye appears to have raided M.I.A’s “closet”. Perhaps it was while M.I.A. was guesting on her recent single “Sunshine”.

3. Rye Rye adds plenty of “eyyy”s and “yeah”s - and even uses the word “bitch” a few times - which the original version sadly lacked. Crucially, she also employs the well-worn question “where the party at?” - which, in case you were in any doubt that you were listening to a track intended for dancing to, helpfully clears things up. Of course, she knows damn well where the party at, the minx. It’s in the title of the song she’s sampled, for goodness’s's’s’ sake!

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday February 14th, 2011 at 8:00 am

Twenty years ago I was in the midst of a decade-long slog to tape every song I liked for posterity. Back then I didn’t know that one day you’d be able to obtain songs from the ether, just as I failed to anticipate that there would come a time when shiny Puma tracksuits would go out of fashion. You live, you learn.

The result of hours and hours of taping the charts (and in later years, The Evening Session and Mark Radcliffe) off the radio, I have dozens of tapes that quite effectively illustrate how my music taste (d)evolved through my teens and early twenties.

I thought it would be interesting - and humiliating - to go back to one of these tapes and take a look at what I could learn about the me I used to be.

My key findings were:

1. I had no clue how to create a running order.

2. I adhered to a music policy that bordered on the deranged.

3. I possessed very, very small handwriting (thanks to my primary school teacher Mr. Davies, whose strange, pathological hatred of anything larger than what you can squint at in the above image had done its damage).

So join me as we see how, within the space of one TDK D-90 - which covers, by the looks of it, late 1991 to early 1992 - one teenager’s taste managed to veer from Mariah Carey to Senseless Things; from Julia Fordham (??) to The Prodigy; from Ride to Shanice. This is the alluringly-titled Compilation 17.

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Posted by Stuart Waterman on Monday February 7th, 2011 at 8:00 am