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Best tunes of 2002: #27 Cornershop “Lessons learned from Rocky I to Rocky III”

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Cornershop’s third album, “I was born for the 7th time” was released in 1997 to critical acclaim but it only became a massive hit for the band after Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim, remixed the single “Brimful of asha” and that song hit the stratosphere. It took them five years to release a follow up album, “Handcream for a generation”, though the main players in the band, Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres, were anything but inactive. Of course, by the time 2002 rolled around, the buying public had moved on and the critics who fell over themselves for “I was born…” weren’t quite so enthused. I personally didn’t know what to think of it at first, beyond the obvious endearment of the grooves, but it has grown on me substantially over the years.

Some say their meteoric rise to fame is the inspiration behind the convoluted lyrics of this album’s second single, the awesomely titled, “Lessons learned from Rocky I to Rocky III”. There most definitely seem to be hits out at the music industry, at “soft rock shit”, at “TSB rock school”, and at hip hop stars bringing guns to meetings in A & R offices. However, all bets are off if you’re looking for depth here because Singh himself can’t account for the meaning in many of the tracks on this album. That is quite okay with me, though, because this tune really does rock and groove. Electric guitar hooks abound and funky drumming and soulful backing vocalists make it a real party. And Singh does his best Jagger swagger while he’s spouting this ‘nonsense’.

For the final word, I asked my friend Andrew Rodriguez to comment on the song and he came up with this:

“Packed lunches, chicks with dicks in miami beach and something about an Overgrown Supership. < lessons learned (and forget everything after 4)”

And this:

“That song in particular was referred to by some dumbf**k music critic as being ‘BTO esque’ ^^^seriously how do these cocks**kers have jobs???? *oh. wait. I answered my own question*”

Thanks again, Rodriguez.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2002 list, click here.

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Best tunes of 1992: #29 Happyhead “Fabulous”

<< #30    |    #28 >>

In the series on my favourite tunes of 1991 that I recently wrapped up, I spoke time and time again of the songs, and the artists that performed them, being discovered during my late Friday nights watching and recording videos off MuchMusic’s City Limits. I’ll try not to flog that horse too much in this series, though it is probable that a good many of the upcoming tracks were discovered there as well. Yet for Happyhead’s “Fabulous”, I cannot keep from mentioning City Limits because if I hadn’t recorded the hilarious video to video cassette tape while watching it, I very likely never would have heard the song ever again.

Looking back at it now, the video is a bit too obvious and garish, but at the time, it felt pointed and just anti-establishment enough to catch my attention. Of course, in those days before the internet and the unlimited information and gateway to music, this recording was my only access to the song, given that commercial radio in North America wasn’t exactly jumping all over Happyhead. And there was no way of me knowing then that the act was a short-lived project by ex-Shriekback lead singer, Carl Marsh. I only discovered this nugget of information years later when “Fabulous” occurred to me out of the blue and I hunted it down and re-immersed myself in its pure joy and fun.

One of two singles released off the group’s only album, “Give Happyhead”, “Fabulous” is representative of a time and place where Madchester insanity was leaking into mass culture and serving up bands like Stereo MCs, EMF, and Jesus Jones. It is funky drumming and tambourine hip-shaking, an awesome guitar line and wailing solo just before the bridge, and faux scratching throughout that definitely betrays the song’s provenance. Marsh’s sing/speak vocals sound like a cross between David Byrne and Tom Hingley, ringing the bell tower alarms against the inevitable onslaught of hyper-commercialism and capitalism in the media.

“Eat this. Drink this. Drive this. Charge it.”

It’s fabulous.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1992 list, click here.

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Tunes

100 best covers: #76 Weezer “The weight”

<< #77    |    #75 >>

A year or two ago, a teenaged girl started a social media campaign on Twitter calling for American 90s alt-rock icons Weezer to cover Toto’s hit from the 1980s, “Africa.” Six months later, the band relented, releasing their almost note-perfect cover, and because of it, have seen something of a resurgence, scoring their first big hit since 2009. Of course, the success of this one-off cover inspired a whole side album to be released in tandem with an album of new material. That so-called “Teal album”, an album full of covers of 80s tunes (among others), was released electronically in January of this year and pressed to teal coloured vinyl for Record Store Day. This release got people wondering if it was all some big joke but I didn’t think so. Weezer has always been retro leaning, always having fun, and never one to shy away from recording covers. One such cover was included as a bonus track on the UK release of their 2008 album, one of their many self-titled long players, nicknamed for the cover’s colour, which in this case was Red.

Canadian-American rock collective, The Band, released the original version of “The weight” in 1968 as part of their classic album, “Music from the big pink”. It is considered by many to be one of the best, most influential rock songs ever recorded. It is by now looked at as a standard and has been covered so many times, by so many artists, that it might as well be as such. Thus, I won’t even bother asking my usual question of “which do you prefer?”, though I give you full permission to debate the issue in the comments section if you so choose.

As great as I feel the original is in this case, Weezer’s cover might have it beat in one category: that being, the length of the recording. I always felt the groove could’ve been played out much longer in the original and I imagine it must’ve been every time The Band performed it live. It just has that awesome jam vibe. Both Weezer’s and Travis’s cover (another version I quite enjoy and that you can check out here), seem to slow it down a beat and drag another 30 seconds or so out of it. The Weezer cover starts out sounding much like the original with the rough pull on the acoustic but then, the raunchy guitars kick in, replacing the rag-timey piano of the original, and the blues turns to rock.

Purists might sneer but I really like it. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

The cover:

The original:

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.