Ween - Piss Up A Rope

(Warning: NSFW lyrics - as if the title didn't give it away...)

Truth be told, I thought twice about posting this as the lyrics are rather crass and somewhat misogynistic... but, hey, it wouldn't be a Guilty Pleasure otherwise I guess. So, here is 'Piss Up A Rope' in all it's glory.

For the uninitiated, Ween is an alternative rock band formed in the mid-'80s by pretend brothers Gene & Dean Ween (Aaron Freeman & Mickey Melchiondo respectively). They have released many albums on both independent and major labels containing their own strange brand of humour, some of which have an overarching concept or theme e.g. The Mollusk (nautical, the track 'Ocean Man' playing over the end credits of The Spongebob Squarepants Movie) and, the album that the track in question comes from, 12 Golden Country Greats (country music, which only has 10 tracks natch).

Unlike their other albums, the musicians on 12 Golden Country Greats were mostly well-respected Nashville session musicians, a couple of whom declined participation due to the 'blue' nature of the lyrics. Lyrics aside, the production is straight country resulting in its incongruous nature. Apparently, this alienated most of their fans and they returned to their alternative roots for their next album, The Mollusk.

Bonus Clips: My favourite non-GP track from 12 Golden Country Greats 'You Were The Fool'...

... and the aforementioned 'Ocean Man' from The Mollusk.

Credit To The Nation - Pay The Price

Credit To The Nation was one M.C. Fusion aka Matty Hanson with a couple of dancers. If you know of them at all, it is probably from their 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' sampling track 'Call It What You Want' released at the height of mid-90s 'Brit Hop' or their association with Chumbawamba on 'Enough Is Enough'/'The Day The Nazi Died'.

This, however, was their first release on Chumbawamba'a 'Agit Prop' label in 1991 and, somewhat similar to 3rd Bass's 'Pop Goes The Weasel' released the same year, is a Vanilla Ice diss track!

Bonus Clips: 'Call It What You Want'...

... 'Enough Is Enough'...

... 'The Day The Nazi Died'...

... and for comparison, here's 3rd Bass with the Peter Gabriel sampling 'Pop Goes The Weasel'

SL2 - On A Ragga Tip

Ah the heady days of early 90s UK rave! SL2 were the duo of DJs Matt "Slipmatt" Nelson and John "Lime" Fernandez - the S & L coming from their nicknames and the 2 because they were a duo, duh.

Note: every time I play this I end up with 'Dey da dey da wot la dun dey' going round my head for the next few days... and now you will too!

Bonus clip: SL2 only had one other charting single, a remix of 'Way In My Brain' which had been the B-Side of their previous single 'DJs Take Control' and features a sample of Wayne Smith's 'Under Me Sleng Teng'. Talking of which...

MN8 - I've Got A Little Something For You

"and I'll give you just three guesses to figure out just what it is." Have you guessed yet? Somehow, I doubt it was a raspberry in the ear...

Second tier UK boy band alert. MN8 were the 90's all black UK boy band that Baby Spice's boyfriend was not a member of (that was Damage, trivia fans). This track appeared in the film 'Bad Boys' and was one of Puff Daddy's (or P. Diddy or Diddy Dirty Money or whatever he's calling himself this week) early remixes. However, like a number of their peers, after a couple of more low charting singles the group disappeared without a trace. Ah well...

William Shatner - Common People

William "Cpt. James T. Kirk" Shatner has often been pilloried for his 1968 album 'The Transformed Man' which featured cover-versions of recent hits performed in his own inimitable style of dramatic interpretation, making every phrase sound as if it should be followed by an exclamation mark. For example, 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds': "Picture Yourself! In A Boat! On A River! With Tangerine Trees! And Marmalade Skies!" However, old Bill appears to be able to laugh at himself and has continued to spoof his style in various commercials and at the 1992 MTV Movie Awards (where he performed all 5 of the Best Song From A Movie nominees). In 1995 in teamed up with Ben Folds to produce another album 'Has Been', the only cover this time being Pulp's 'Common People' which also featured Joe Jackson (of 'Different For Girls', 'Is She Really Going Out With Him?', 'Stepping Out' fame). For some reason, the dramatic reading actually works here either because the source material is so good or because the verses have little melody anyway. Funnily enough, 'Has Been' got pretty good reviews and became the basis for a ballet (choreographed by Margo Sappington, best remembered for 'Oh! Calcutta!') also called 'Common People'. Who said "Pop Will Eat Itself"?

Bonus Clips: Here's the aforementioned 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds':

... and just in case you thought this cheese was limited to Cpt. Kirk, here's one of Leonard Nimoy's contributions to popular music:

Cicero - Love Is Everywhere

OK, I'm back after an enforced absence due to real life! So, let's kick things off again with one of those Europop tunes with a brain-numbing synth hook I seem to love so much. At the beginning of the 90s, the Pet Shop Boys started their own record label called Spaghetti Records. The first signing to the label was David Cicero, a 20-something New York-born, Livingston-raised singer. The PSB production and backing vocals are all over this effort which hit the heady heights of no. 19 on the charts in Jan 1992 - in fact this could be a PSB track if Neil Tennant decided to affect a Scottish brogue...

Betty Boo - Where Are You Baby?

Another one to file in the 'I think I only liked it 'cos I fancied them' file! Betty Boo (Alison Clarkson) first appeared as a member of the all-female rap crew She Rockers and then guested on The Beatmasters 'Hey DJ'. Her first solo single was the classic(!) 'Doin' The Do' which was followed by this and the album 'Boomania'. After her second album flopped, Betty Boo effectively disappeared. Alison, however, did not - she turned her hand to songwriting and has written hits for the likes of Hear'Say, Girls Aloud, Dannii Minogue & Sophie Ellis-Bextor.

Bonus Clip: Doin' The Do... wouldn't you too!

Daphne & Celeste - Ooh Stick You

I can't believe I almost totally forgot about this one. I was only reminded when it came up in an obituary on Steven 'Swells' Wells. Swells was a journalist for the NME back when I first started reading it in the late 80s. He was incredibly opinionated, shouty, frustrating to read and absolutely brilliant. Almost every UK music journalist since has, as my friend Mark Beaumont will readily admit, tried to emulate him. He sadly passed away this week after a fight against Hodgkin's lymphoma. You can read his final column for the Philadelphia Weekly here.

One of Swells' favourite things was winding people up. So, of course, when a pop song featuring helium vocals by two American teenagers and lyrics consisting of schoolyard insults was released, he would wax lyrical in the pages of the NME resulting in vitriolic letters from readers who were more interested in the likes of the Manic Street Preachers, Blur, Travis etc. I would sardonically proclaim its brilliance but as a matter of fact it's pure genius - and the fact that Celeste is incredibly cute doesn't hurt either! Swells and others managed to get D&C on the main stage at the Reading Festival where, despite being bottled with all kinds of unmentionables, they put on a great show by all accounts.

RIP Swells - Ooh stick you, your mama too and your daddy!

Bonus Clips: Their other charting single, 'U.G.L.Y."

... and getting bottled onstage at The Reading Festival 2000

B*Witched - C'est La Vie

Boy Girl Band Alert!

B*Witched were an Irish (Really? You couldn't tell? The Riverdance in the bridge didn't give it away?) pop group which contained the twin sisters of one of the guys from Boyzone and whose first 4 (yes, that's FOUR) singles all went to No. 1 in the UK charts.

This was their debut release and the silliest, from the Irish brogue inserts to the ridiculous lyrics, proving that the double entendres in Bubblegum was alive & well in the 21st century:

"I wanna know just what to do

Is it very big is there room for two?

I've got a house with windows and doors

I'll show you mine if you show me yours"

Hanson - MMMBop

No, there's no other excuse for this one except that it is a top, top pop tune. Of course, by the end of summer 1997, I was sick to the death of it being playing non-stop almost everywhere I went. However, with the passing of time, it has taken on Guilty Pleasure status. This possibly has more to do with the Dust Brothers production than with Hanson themselves - I honestly couldn't tell you another one of their tracks...

5ive - Everybody Get Up

Boy Band Alert! 5ive were put together by the team behind The Spice Girls (yeah, they were manufactured - so much for Girl Power!) and followed most of the boy band rules, including featuring your band's name in your (mostly rapped) lyrics and having a percentage of the group (in this case 60%) do little more than the requisite posturing. Still, they were pretty huge in the UK in the late-90s and never took themselves too seriously. This 'classic' features the riff from 'I Love Rock 'n' Roll' and such fine examples of English usage as: "You gots to keep it real. You gots to keep it raw. I'm lyrically blessed so don't try to ignore" - as if we would...

By the way, I used to adjudicate exams when I was a college. It was nothing like this!

Bonus Clip: Debut single 'Slam Dunk (Da Funk)

East 17 - Stay Another Day

Of all of them, East 17 was probably the most ridiculous boy band; a group of proto-chavs comprising a talented songwriter, a titch with a pretty good voice and two other guys who did nothing other then posturing - 2 Bezs! This is quite a nice ballad that, thanks to the inclusion of a load of Xmas bells near the end for no reason at all, became a huge Xmas hit.

A1 - Be The First To Believe

OK, everything I've been posting so far has been leading up to this, my most shameful secret. You see for all my love of 'challenging' music (or, as my wife calls it, stuff that sounds like someone scratching their fingers down a blackboard), I am a sucker for a great pop song, and the zenith (or nadir depending on how you look at it) is a fondness for boy bands. But not any old boy band, no siree - I gravitate towards the second-string or B-list acts. After NKOTB, the UK went boy band crazy but for every Take That, Boyzone or Westlife, there was a 911, Northern Line or Upside Down. Which brings us to A1 - named, I assume, after the vernacular for 'top class' and not the steak sauce, UK trunk road or paper size. They were slightly different to most as they mostly wrote their own stuff and this one was their first of a not particularly spectacular run of singles (which included a truly awful version of 'Take On Me'). It's poptastic though this video is cringeworthy!

Bonus Clip: A1's version of 'Take On Me'.