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Best tunes of 1993: #7 Radiohead “Creep”

<< #8    |    #6 >>

“When you were here before
Couldn’t look you in the eye
You’re just like an angel
Your skin makes me cry
You float like a feather
In a beautiful world
I wish I was special
You’re so f*ckin’ special
But I’m a creep”

I’d say most, if not all English alternative/indie/rock fans, especially those of a certain age, know these words well and in fact, see in them a reflection of a certain time and place and feeling. Ah, yes, Radiohead’s first big hit, “Creep”.

Incredibly, there’s only been two posts* on these pages thus far dedicated to the well-known quintet from Oxford, England. One might think that yours truly was not really a Radiohead fan, but this is not the case. It just so happens that the series that I’ve been posting since this blog’s inception have not necessarily fallen in line with the years in which I feel that the group produced its best work. However, here we are in 1993 and this is where we find the song that introduced me and likely 99% of the world to their sound.

“Creep” is notable for being Radiohead’s very first single. It was originally released in 1992, almost seven months in advance of “Pablo honey”, the group’s debut album, upon which the single appeared. It didn’t immediately gain the traction that their label was expecting when it was hand-picked from some of their early studio sessions. It only first started to see success on Israeli radio, of all places, before finding regular slots in MTV music video rotation stateside. The label had to convince the band to reissue the single in 1993** and this is when it became the massive hit that was originally predicted.

In fact, “Creep” is still Radiohead’s most successful and most recognizable song, despite the fact that it is generally accepted that pretty much everything they released afterwards is more original and higher quality in songwriting and musicianship. This is why, for years, Thom Yorke and company had refused to include it on their live set lists, despite their fans’ unending calls for it. They have, however, softened their attitudes towards it in recent years, even pulling it out for random shows to everyone’s surprise and delight.

“Creep” had many of the hallmarks of 90s alt-rock – the crunchy guitars, the loud-soft-loud structure – but it also sounded fresh, especially to my ears. In spite of the band’s assertion that it is about an experience where Thom Yorke found himself following a woman he did not know, hence, “creep”, the sound became an angsty anthem for the disenfranchised gen X youth, kind of like a certain song by a particular band from Seattle. And I wasn’t at all immune to its charms and was often pulled to sing along with its lyrics wherever I was when I heard it played. It left a mark on many of us and ensured we took note of the band’s name so that our ears would be lubricated for their next release.

*A best albums post for 1997 and an appearance on my best tunes of 2000 list.

**Which is why I’ve included the song on this list rather than that of for 1992.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1993 list, click here.

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Tunes

Eighties’ best 100 redux: #91 Pop Will Eat Itself “Wise up! sucker” (1989)

<< #92    |    #90 >>

I started this project of re-counting down my top 100 favourite eighties tunes just over a year ago and yet, I’m only at song #91!*

Pop Will Eat Itself’s track, “Wise up! sucker”, just snuck itself into the eighties, and subsequently, my list, being released in 1989. PWEI came out of the same Grebo music scene as another Stourbridge, England band, The Wonder Stuff (see track #96). In fact, both bands have their roots in a short-lived project from the early eighties, called From Eden and Miles Hunt and Clint Mansell remain friends today. PWEI very quickly moved on from their original pop punk influenced sound to the dark, drum machine- and sample-heavy music heard on “Wise up! sucker”.

This song comes from what many consider to be PWEI’s second album, “This is the day!… This is the hour!… This is this!” (I guess many don’t consider “Now for a feast” a proper album?) “Wise up! sucker” is a cacophony of the aforementioned drum machines and samples, along with drilling guitars and half-sung, half-rapped vocals and is instantly recognizable for its “She loves me… She loves me not” chorus. And yes, that is Miles Hunt singing back up.

I think I first came to realize that I liked these guys after dancing to this very song and drunkenly screaming the chorus on a Saturday night at a now defunct alternative music club in Oshawa called the Moon Room and meeting a girl on the dance floor that I would spend the rest of that summer courting. I never got the girl (I have since found a better one) but still love the tune.

Original Eighties best 100 position: #92

Favourite lyric: “You give me sixteen different flavours of hell” Have you ever been in a relationship like that?

Where are they now?: The band went on to many different projects after their breakup in 1996. Original member Clint Mansell has had a successful career scoring films, such as “Requiem for a dream” and “The wrestler”. In 2011, Graham Crabb resurrected the PWEI name and released a new album, though he was the only original member that performed on it. Since then, original members Richard March, Fuzz Townshend, and Adam Mole** have rejoined the group and a couple other records have followed.

*Though I have been making up ground of late…

**Clint Mansell is the only original member that is not currently with the band.

For the rest of the Eighties’ best 100 redux list, click here.

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Tunes

Eighties’ best 100 redux: #92 The Housemartins “Caravan of love” (1986)

<< #93    |    #91 >>

Ah… the high school dance memories…

The Housemartins’ “Caravan of love” at track #92, reminds me of the half-hugging*, half-shuffling we would call “slow dancing” back in the old high school auditorium days. Teen boys lining the walls on one end of the hall and groups of tittering teen girls on the other, each eyeing and sizing the other up, while betwixt them were couples that had got up the nerve to cross the floor and find each other. There might be a few more songs on this list that call this image clearly to mind, some on this list mostly because of this memory.

In this case, though, I consider myself something more of a fan of the group that sang the song. The Housemartins were formed in 1983 by Paul Heaton and Stan Cullimore and went through a number of personnel changes, that included drummer Dave Hemingway, who would go on to form The Beautiful South with Paul Heaton later on, and bassist Norman Cook, who would later go on to fame as Fatboy Slim. Their music was jangly, indie pop at its best with Paul Heaton’s extraordinary vocal work at the centre of it all.

The group only ever released two full-length albums and a handful of singles in their brief five years in existence, but so many of their songs soundtracked the latter half of my high school years and the ones immediately thereafter. Indeed, The Housemartins’ 1988 compilation, “Now that’s what I call quite good”, was one of first compact discs I ever bought, a necessity after I had worn out the cassette tape I had copied from a friend. So many great tunes on that one and it’s a compilation that I keep hoping will see a vinyl reissue one day.

“Caravan of love”, an a cappella cover of an Isley-Jasper-Isley tune (this is the first of a number of covers that will grace this list), gave The Housemartins their first and only UK #1 hit in December 1986. Paul Heaton and company often delved into a cappella territory but for some reason this is the one that struck a chord with the buying public. It certainly is a song that begs to be sung along with.

I think I’ll go sing along to it again.

“…Everybody take a stand, Join the caravan of love… Stand up, stand up…”

Original Eighties best 100 position: #89

Favourite lyric: “We’ll be living in a world of peace /
In the day when everyone is free ” Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?

Where are they now?: As I hinted at above, the band went their separate ways after they broke up in 1988 and never looked back. I read somewhere that the original members were gathered for a photo shoot and feature by Mojo magazine in 2009 and at that time, they unfortunately maintained that there won’t ever be a reunion.

*Not too close, mind you, it was a Catholic high school!

For the rest of the Eighties’ best 100 redux list, click here.