I've heard this Janet Kay reggae track at various times over the last few weeks. It's popped up on mixes, on radio shows. When I heard it, I assumed it was some obscure dusty thing that's been rediscovered somehow. I mean, it does sound a bit off, and Tom Ravenscroft is playing it on 6 Music. Then I looked it up and it turns out it was #2 in the UK in 1979! #2!! A hit, in other words, and Janet Kay, the singer, was on Top of the Pops.
This wouldn't be a very big deal, but given everything that's in the news these days, the hostility and anger, and how important identity, race, background, has seemingly become (at least online), it's kind of cool to go back to 1979 and a time when things were probably pretty bad, race-wise, and yet this slightly strange track made it all the way to #2 in the UK (it was apparently a hit around Europe too). What does it mean? I don't know to be honest... maybe that it doesn't have to be this way, that there are better parts of our nature we should be tapping into? Or maybe it just means that a good pop song can transcend boundaries -- or at least it used to be able to. Is pop culture the answer to our troubles? It's possible (as an aside, when I looked up #TopBoy on Twitter, I came across quite a few users with England flag emojis in their name who'd enjoyed the show...).
It also reminds me of just how important Black music is to pop music in general. Especially in the US and UK, one could argue that without Black music there'd be no pop music, no rock music, no dance music, nothing; we'd be listening to skiffle boards, country (maybe?), folk, and who knows what else. It'd be pretty shit. So check out this video -- I hope it makes you smile.
Also, on Tom Ravenscroft, I heard Metronomy do a live track and I have to say it sounded like... something from Flight of the Conchords. And I like Metronomy. I wonder if it's meant to be funny? The official version actually sounds pretty good:
This wouldn't be a very big deal, but given everything that's in the news these days, the hostility and anger, and how important identity, race, background, has seemingly become (at least online), it's kind of cool to go back to 1979 and a time when things were probably pretty bad, race-wise, and yet this slightly strange track made it all the way to #2 in the UK (it was apparently a hit around Europe too). What does it mean? I don't know to be honest... maybe that it doesn't have to be this way, that there are better parts of our nature we should be tapping into? Or maybe it just means that a good pop song can transcend boundaries -- or at least it used to be able to. Is pop culture the answer to our troubles? It's possible (as an aside, when I looked up #TopBoy on Twitter, I came across quite a few users with England flag emojis in their name who'd enjoyed the show...).
It also reminds me of just how important Black music is to pop music in general. Especially in the US and UK, one could argue that without Black music there'd be no pop music, no rock music, no dance music, nothing; we'd be listening to skiffle boards, country (maybe?), folk, and who knows what else. It'd be pretty shit. So check out this video -- I hope it makes you smile.
Also, on Tom Ravenscroft, I heard Metronomy do a live track and I have to say it sounded like... something from Flight of the Conchords. And I like Metronomy. I wonder if it's meant to be funny? The official version actually sounds pretty good:
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