Tag: 1990s

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Tunes

Best tunes of 1991: #27 Ministry “Jesus built my hotrod”

<< #28    |    #26 >>

“Soon I discovered that this rock thing was true
Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil
Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet
All of a sudden, I found myself in love with the world
So there was only one thing that I could do
Was ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long”

I had a few friends in university that had the whole monologue to this song memorized, could spout it off in exactly the same tone, and would do so randomly to great effect. (You know who you are.) I personally could only ever remember the last couple of lines and the last bit, the “dang a long ling long”, never failed to make me laugh.

“Jesus built my hot rod” was the first single off Ministry’s fifth album, “Psalm 69: The way to succeed and the way to suck eggs”. It was released in 1992, I know, but this track makes my 1991 list because it was released as a single well in advance of the album, more than six months beforehand, if memory serves.

I blame my friend Elliott for getting me hooked on this track. He had purchased the cassette single, which featured the eight-minute, full version on side A and on side B, the “Short, Pusillanimous, So-They-Can-Fit-More-Commercials-On-The-Radio Edit” version, along with “TV song”. I actually liked the latter B side song first, with its hilarious “Connect the goddamned dots” lyrics, but with the constant rewind and playback of the A-side, I grew to love it as well.

The lyrics on “Jesus built my hot rod” are nonsensical, purportedly laid down by a quite drunken Gibby Haynes (of Butthole Surfers fame), and the aforementioned monologue and outro words were recorded afterwards to try to tie things all together. But this song isn’t about saving the world. It’s about angst and the music has plenty of it. Frenetic drumming and careening guitars match the pace of the samples of NASCAR racers roaring by. You turn it up loud and all you want to do is close your eyes and bop your head to the breakneck tempo as well as you can.

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

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Tunes

Best tunes of 1991: #28 EMF “Unbelievable”

<< #29    |    #27 >>

What do you call it again when an artist or band writes a song that becomes the biggest thing they ever do, overshadows their entire body of work, and becomes the only song they are remembered for? Oh yeah…

Well, in the case of EMF’s “Unbelievable”, it just happened to be the first single that the Gloucestershire dance group ever released. It was actually released in the UK in 1990 but didn’t hit North American shores until 1991, which is when I would have first heard it (hence it being in this 1991 list rather than for 1990). It found itself at or near the top of the charts in most countries and hit gold status in Australia, Canada, England, and the United States. All that means nothing though. You really know you’ve made it when ‘Weird’ Al Yankovic takes notice of you. That prince of parody fit the song’s chorus lines, “The things you say, your purple prose just gives you away”, into his polka medley, “Polka your eyes out”, on his 1992 album, “Off the deep end”.

Yeah. That’s right.

Though “Unbelievable” sounds a bit dated today, it hit all the right notes in 1991. It took the acid house beats and psychedelic sounds of the baggy Manchester deeper into dance floor territory. I definitely heard it a few times at high school dances and mouthed along with the chorus lines while shuffling along in my own corner of the auditorium or gymnasium floor (whichever it was at the time). It is an unbelievable danceable groove, peppy drumming set against a slick bass line and plenty of fun samples, mostly notably, the Andrew ‘Dice’ Clay trademark “Ohhhh!!!!!” leading into every chorus.

Okay. So this song isn’t going to save the world but at least it might make us forget our troubles for three and a half minutes, while we’re sweating out the alcohol molecules underneath the disco ball.

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

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Vinyl

Vinyl love: James “Wah wah”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: James
Album Title: Wah wah
Year released: 1994
Year reissued: 2015
Details: Double LP, Black vinyl, 180 gram, Remastered

The skinny: This is the companion album to “Laid“. When James went into the studio to record that album, producer Brian Eno saw the way the band came up with its material in such an organic way and suggested they release two albums. The one album proper, which became “Laid”, and the second, “Wah wah”, were the jams by the band that Eno recorded. For the most part, the album is snippets with a few proper songs (the below being an example of these) but it’s some seriously beautiful stuff.

Standout track: “Honest Joe”