Tag: 1990s

Tunes

Best tunes of 1992: #30 Shakespears Sister “Stay”

Post author By jprobichaud
Post date June 26, 2019
6 Comments on Best tunes of 1992: #30 Shakespears Sister “Stay”

One list ends and another begins. And for 1992, we’re starting things off with “Stay”, the biggest and best known single by Shakespears Sister.

The duo was formed when Siobhan Fahey asked songwriting collaborator Marcella Detroit to join her solo project as a full-time gig. Fahey, a founding member of 80s girl group Bananarama, sang lead on the majority of the group’s songs with Detroit contributing backing vocals. “Stay”, the second single to be released off the group’s sophomore release, “Hormonally yours”, was the one anomaly. On this one track, Detroit sang the verses and chorus and Fahey added a darker tone with a combatative bridge. The results are a beautiful song that showcases the differences between their vocal styles, a push and pull, a tug and a scream. However, it was never meant to be released as a single, at least in the eyes of Fahey, which was reportedly the cause of tension between the two when “Stay” actually became a massive hit. It spent a number of consecutive weeks at the top of the UK singles chart and climbed quite high in many international charts as well.

I definitely remember my first exposure to the song being its music video, which got more than a bit of play on MuchMusic and not just on the top 30 countdown. The narrative of the video had a supernatural bent and was one that stuck with many people, the two vocalists representing different factions fighting over the fate of a comatose man, good and evil, light and dark, love and hate, life and death, and perhaps a case of art imitating life. Teenaged me had a crush on both women, a slightly heavier one on Detroit, but back then, I didn’t know about Fahey’s girl group pedigree.

Detroit acrimoniously left the group in 1993, effectively ending things, while Fahey continued on with her solo career. She resurrected the Shakespears Sister name and continued performing under it 2009. And just this year, a reconciliation was announced and Detroit was welcomed back into the fold. Tours have since been plotted out and a new album is in the works.

It’ll be interesting to see how long this lasts.

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

Tags 1990s, 1992, Alternative, Alternative pop, Alternative Rock, Bananarama, Best tunes, British pop, Duo, Marcella Detroit, Retro, Shakespear's Sister, Siobhan Fahey

Tunes

Best tunes of 1991: #1 James “Sit down”

Post author By jprobichaud
Post date June 22, 2019
12 Comments on Best tunes of 1991: #1 James “Sit down”

<< #2

Okay. I have likely stretched this list out longer than it needed to be, given that I started counting down these tunes well over a year and a half ago. And well, for those of you who have frequented these pages in the just over two years since I started this blog and know that I am something of a James fanatic, this post might seem somewhat anticlimactic. And yet at the same time, this song placing at number one for 1991 may still come as somewhat of a surprise.

“Sit down” was originally released as a single in 1989 but in that seven minute long form, it didn’t take a big piece out of the music sales pie. The song was later re-recorded to a shorter length, with some editing in the lyrics, and re-released in 1991. This is the version that I first heard, being my first ever exposure to the band, coming to me like many of the songs on this list, in the form of the video recorded off of CityLimits. This is the version that many people know best, definitely making a bigger mark with the buying public, and placing one spot short of number one in the UK singles charts in 1991. Neither version appeared on the original track listing of their 1990 album “Gold mother” but the re-recorded “Sit down” was included when the album was released in North America as “James” with a new cover, the white flower insignia on blue backdrop. And though this has ultimately become my favourite James tune, I actually had to go searching for the original to remember what it even sounded like in my research for writing this post.

So yes, for me, this tune is 1991 at its best. The re-recording is definitely punchier, tighter, and more succinct than the original, perhaps influenced by the acid house dance and psychedelia prevalent at the time with their fellow Mancunians. Frontman Tim Booth was certainly a willing and able dancer for the music they created, just watch the video for a hint of his ecstatic moves. And there is depth here as well. But I’m not just talking about the multiple layers of sound that the band’s players create, though that definitely contributes to the majestic beauty of their music. Nay, it’s Booth’s recognizable vocals and his lyrics that set the band apart from their peers.

“If I hadn’t seen such riches, I could live with being poor.”

“Sit down”, for its danceable beats and upbeat melody, seems to be a song about those lowest moments in your life when you feel like you’re all alone, Booth sounding like he’s coming from a place of experience and wanting to assure us all that, if nothing else, he’s there for us all. But it’s not just Tim, no, the whole band, sliding guitars and the punished drum kit and all. It’s a song my wife Victoria loves, just as much as I do, perhaps her favourite by the band as well. I’m sure she’ll correct me if I’m wrong. However, we’ve definitely sung along together the following lines, while driving in the car, just hanging around, or wherever we’re hearing it.

“Those who feel the breath of sadness
Sit down next to me
Those who find they’re touched by madness
Sit down next to me
Those who find themselves ridiculous
Sit down next to me”

Yep. I think I could listen to this song forever.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1991 list, click here.

Tags 1990s, 1991, Alternative, Alternative Rock, Best tunes, British rock, James, Madchester, Manchester, Retro, Tim Booth

Tunes

Best tunes of 1991: #2 Chapterhouse “Mesmerise”

Post author By jprobichaud
Post date June 2, 2019
6 Comments on Best tunes of 1991: #2 Chapterhouse “Mesmerise”

<< #3 | #1 >>

“Pearl”, the standout single from Chapterhouse’s excellent debut album, “Whirlpool”, appeared earlier, at number 15 on this list, and now we have what is easily my favourite track by this band at number two.

Yes. “Mesmerise”. Let’s paint that picture.

Circa 1993 or 1994, the heaving dance floor is packed at the Dance Cave, the upstairs floor of one of Toronto’s more infamous concert venues, Lee’s Palace. The cheap $2-a-glass mystery draft has been flowing freely all night long. In the middle of the crowd, a tall, stoop shouldered, and ridiculously skinny young man is dancing to Adorable’s “Homeboy” or perhaps, Catherine Wheel’s “I want to touch you.” He is breaking a sweat under his extra large Wonder Stuff t-shirt and baggy green corduroys, requiring him to periodically remove his bucket hat to gather his shaggy thick brown hair, roughly the same shade as his long sideburns and goatee. His friend Tim, who is just back in town on break from Waterloo university, joins him on the floor, handing him a glass, his portion of the ‘next round’, just as the song ends and a new one begins with an unfamiliar, yet inviting piano melody. The young man hesitates a moment, should he stay or should he go, his friend definitely shows no sign of leaving the dance floor. Indeed, he has already started into his trademark sway, eyes sliding closed. So our protagonist finds the groove and starts moving, slipping easily in with the delicious beat, washes of synths, and hazy vocals. Two minutes in and he is in love. He wakes Tim with a nudge on the shoulder and yells the question in his ear above the din. “Who is this?” Tim responds but he is not sure he heard him quite right so he repeats it. “Chapterhouse?!” To which, Tim nods and continues dancing.

I can’t be certain now but I’m reasonably sure that this is as good an approximation as any as to how it went down. That skinny young man, realizing that “Mesmerise” didn’t appear on either of Chapterhouse’s full length albums thus far, because he had them both on CD, immediately went out on the hunt for the EP of the same name, finding it used at the long closed down Penguin Music. And yeah, I’ve still got it. It’s one of the few CDs I may never get rid of.

As an EP and single, “Mesmerise” bridged the chronological and philosophical gap between their first and only two albums, from the guitar-heavy shoegaze majesty of “Whirlpool” to the synth-driven dreamy dance of “Blood music”. This track shades heavy on both and is just so… damned… beautiful. Yes. “Mesmerise” is beautiful.