Song of the Week #27
In the unmistakeable handwriting of Donnie Darko across the schoolyard, “They made me do it”.
When Alex said he wanted to bring a bit of flair away from the rock scene for a couple of sessions on Song of the Week, how could I say no? As he rightfully said last week, music in itself is all about creating and evoking memories (hopefully with a glass of Sinner’s Gin in hand). Alex was always into dance music more than I was as a teenager, and truthfully it wasn’t until I ventured off to university that I began to discover house music, and dance music in general (the Warehouse Project in Manchester has a lot to answer for). We’ve been to many DJ nights together over the years, and hopefully there are more to come.
Thankfully for the metalheads, I’m not going to subject you to my taste in house music for a 2nd week in a row (that’s what summer time is for), but it is going to be another deviation away from rock and roll for one more week, so those of you with a guitar-heavy musical disposition look away now.
You may remember back in August I imparted the words “if you don’t love the Beastie Boys you’ve got no heart, if you don’t love Fatboy Slim you’ve got no soul”. Well here is part II to that little anecdote.
Surprisingly enough it was my dad that introduced me to Fatboy Slim as a child. More often than not if he had turned off the radio in favour of a CD on in the car, The Rockafeller Skank would kick in, and “Why Try Harder - The Greatest Hits” would begin. I have loved every song on that ‘best of’ since I was a child, and to this day, there is still something about the way Norman Cook remixed his best tracks that prove he was arguably the best DJ of a generation (from arguably the last generation of real DJs).
This week I’m bringing you from that compilation, a lesser known song called Sho Nuff, which to me encompasses everything that Norman Cook does exceptionally well.
He takes a simple lyrical excerpt from a track (in this case Humpin’, Bumpin’ and Thumpin’ by Andre Williams), mixes it over a backing track (Jeans On by David Dundas from the 70s) and takes you on a journey for 3 and a half minutes, creating his own rhythm bassline that guides the entire track. A true demonstration of his ability to entice the listener comes in at 1:45 when he strips back everything just to leave the vocal lines, then over the next 30 seconds gradually introduces back the clap, the drums, the bassline and then finally the backing track. For me this song and Fatboy Slim (despite his mercurial success) are still massively underrated. I hope you enjoy it, service as normal next week - much love!