The Jealous Games People Play

Skinnyman “Love’s Gone From The Streets” – I promise you that it is only coincidental that this is the third track by a British MC to be posted here this week, but it is certainly indicative of the steady flow of quality hip hop records coming out of the UK this year. Unlike Dizzee, Wiley, and the rest of the grime gang, Skinnyman doesn’t have a background in garage, and so this is a fairly straight-ahead hip hop track. This is somewhat dated in terms of the US mainstream, owing a lot to the most melancholy Wu, Nas, and Biggie tracks from the mid-90s, but all of that stuff is pretty timeless ten years on, so it doesn’t quite feel retro. Bonus points are given for making great use out of a Todd Rundgren sample. (Click here to order it from Rough Trade.)

Fun Boy Three “Our Lips Are Sealed” – Lately, I’ve become semi-obsessed with watching VH1 Classic. It’s just about the most addictive non-fiction programming on television, aside from the I Love The (____)/Best Week Ever snarkfests on regular VH1. VH1 Classic is essentially the only music video channel which even comes close to approximating the free form aesthetic. Though there are some obvious limitations, you never really know what to expect while watching the channel – it’s one of the few places in contemporary American culture where you can be genuinely surprised to hear what comes next on a playlist.

It’s pretty clear that the people at VH1 Classic enjoy fucking with your expectations too, because they often play non-hits by familiar artists. Sometimes this is fantastic, and either gives you a new perspective on an artist you may have written off or lets you hear a less-than-obvious song by a well-loved artist. Other times it’s just aggravating, because you’d much rather hear a hit than some lame second-rate single which never caught on. Often it seems as though the programmers are deliberately attempting to embarass famous artists by airing cringe-inducing videos for songs from their most marginal, lackluster albums. It’s not unusual to see, say, two videos back to back from Lou Reed’s awful 80s period, or a double-shot of post-Ozzy hair metal Black Sabbath from the late 80s.

I suspect that the true intention of VH1 Classic is to show us how virtually no one who was successful in the 60s and 70s made it through the 80s without making at least one spectacularly awful record and/or fashion statement. A great example of this would be a recent Tuesday Twoplay airing of two Stevie Wonder videos, the first being a live performance of “Superstition” from German television circa the mid 70s. In this clip, Wonder looks like the coolest guy ever. He’s got some rad sunglasses, a nice little black hat, a black leather outfit – this look was clearly one of the templates for Andre 3000’s current style. Flash forward to the 1985 video for the sappy ballad “Overjoyed” and we have Stevie walking around an airport in a drab baggy purple sweatshirt with a dragon design on the chest, with its head forming some kind of Rob Liefeld-ian shoulder pad. It’s just tragic to behold. Stevie is a slightly obvious example, given that he’s well known for wearing clothing only a blind man could appreciate, but what’s the excuse for Roger Daltrey going from mod rock icon to a look in the “You Better You Bet” video which suggests “dreary home-permed used car salesman”?

Anyway, this is the long way of saying that I first heard this slightly goth new wave cover of the Go-Gos “Our Lips Are Sealed” on VH1 Classic a few weeks back. It was good timing, since the Hillary and Haylie Duff version of the song has recently made me realize just how much I adore this song, no matter who is performing it. I don’t enjoy this version as much when compared to the candy-coated Duffs recording (on which Hillary sounds strangely similar to Tammy Ealom from Dressy Bessy) or the classic original, but this certainly has a period charm to it which I find pleasing. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)