<< #24 | #22 >>
Much like the last song and post in this series, the song at number twenty-three on this list of my favourite tunes from 1994 came to me care of the very same CMJ New Music Monthly CD sampler issued in December 1994. But unlike Cranes, whose introduction was the song on that CD (and was well met indeed), I was no stranger to Stourbridge, England’s Pop Will Eat Itself.
Indeed, I’ve already regaled a few pieces of my history with the Poppies on these pages. It all started off with my hearing of them from my friend Elliott, who learned of them from his girlfriend Jen, and listening to them one day at his apartment. Then, perhaps a year or two later finding myself on the dance floor late one Saturday night at the now-defunct Moon Room with a strange young lady dancing to “Wise up! Sucker” and learning that the backing vocals were provided by Miles Hunt, frontman of my favourite band at the time, The Wonder Stuff. I had decided at that point that it might be worth my time to search out some of PWEI’s stuff but whenever I found their CDs at the used shops, I always seemed to find something I wanted to buy more.
Hearing “Ich bin ein auslander” on that CMJ sampler, proved to be the missing piece and proverbial straw that opened the floodgates. I got myself a copy of “Dos dedos mis amigos”, the group’s fifth (and what turn out to be their last) studio album, and proceeded to play the hell out of it. It definitely sounded more industrial than the material that I had previously heard by the group, controlled chaos of more sample heavy dance punk. This fifth studio album also sounded more serious as a whole, less infantile and more angry.
“Welcome to a state where the politics of hate shout loud in the crowd
Watch ’em beat us all down
There’s a rising tide on the rivers of blood
But if the answer isn’t violence, neither is your silence”
The title of the opening track on the album is a misspelled german phrase which translates roughly to “I am a foreigner”. It starts with a rhythmic keys line that resembles a siren or an alarm and almost immediately, the raging guitars kick in, just begging you to jump around or thrash your head back and forth, long hair flailing all about. It is an angst driven political indictment of racism, nazism, and England’s immigration laws at the time, rife with killer lines like the ones above, tailor-made for shouting along to with the rest of the crowd on the dance floor with your fist punching the air.
Glorious!
For the rest of the Best tunes of 1994 list, click here.
My (life in) music lists 