114. The Sugarcubes - Deus (One Little Indian)

Three weeks at number one from 23rd April 1988

Over the years, drivers on the A38 road from Willand to Taunton have reported the appearance of a bedraggled, curly haired gentleman with a torch. Sometimes the man has been reported to cadge a lift, throughout which he grumbled morbidly about historical road fatalities in the area. In others, he apparently disappears before the driver’s eyes, frequently after a near-collision.

All this would be odd enough by itself where it not for his appearance and garb, which made him seem, to all intents and purposes, like a modernised version of the Greek God (with Celtic origins) Telesphorus; a deity who was historically portrayed in grey hooded garments holding a lantern. It was as if time had lowered his status, or changed him or perhaps our perceptions of him; from respected God with a way-bearer's flame to common hitch-hiker holding an electric torch filled with Ever Ready batteries, begging for help. Seemingly even deities can get demoted.

I think about this version of Telesphorus a lot, more perhaps than I should; after all, he’s probably just a figment of tired and overheated human minds, brains whose wiring has snagged and is pulling on ancient memories buried deep in their DNA. But what if he’s real? That just makes me feel concerned for the poor deity. People seem to report finding him in a freezing cold or drenched state, and that’s no way for Gods to carry on.

In The Sugarcubes track “Deus”, on the other hand, Bjork tells us “Deus does not exist, but if he does…” before speculating on what God might look like, deviating away from any stereotypical descriptions. Throughout the song we learn that not only does he have a proclivity for putting people in bathtubs and “making them squeaky clean – really clean”, he also has sideburns and a quiff. “I was surprised – just as you would be,” Einar tells us, reasonably enough.

In an interview with Record Mirror in April 1988, the group explain things further – well, almost. “He lives up in a cloud. He's not a very interesting person,” Einar said. “He’s sterile,” Bjork added.

After spending some time considering whether Lofty out of Eastenders might be a God (well, he did record this) Bjork finally clarifies: “Mr Deus is just one of many gods. He's not special . . . Except for his sideburns and quiff!”

There has been much speculation from fans over the years that there’s a deeper meaning to this record, and it’s actually about the perversity, controlling authority and banality of the monotheistic Gods, and that also seems like a fair interpretation, but above all else, the song is mostly surrealistic flights of fantasy; a particular and unusual God built and created by a rock group, created because they were in a position where they could do it and people would listen. Therein lies the double-bind; Deus does exist, because he’s on this record. You can’t uncreate a myth.

Such bizarre playfulness would ordinarily earn any other record, even one not by The Sugarcubes, some kind of disjointed, experimental melody. Possibly in a bid to defy expectations and do the least obvious thing, however, the group back the song up with their most conventional arrangement on an A-side yet. Deus’s eccentricities are twinned with a rhythm which wouldn’t have been out of place on a Police record in 1979, with delicate skanks and ricocheting snare sounds meeting Bjork’s passionate blasts about the imaginary deity. It’s not exactly pop music, but it lacks the creepy unease of “Birthday” and the jolting awkwardness of “Coldsweat”.

It didn’t achieve much more than evening airplay in the UK, but it was possible to pick up mainland European radio where I lived in Essex, and I caught it on a couple of occasions during the daytime while scanning foreign stations. The group later said that “Deus” had been written for the French market – on paper, that comment read like a sardonic stab at the British music press, who were convinced that all European groups must be continually obsessed with “breaking” the UK market. In reality, though, it may very well have been true. “Deus” could indeed occasionally be heard through a crackle of static near the Thames estuary.

In the event, it failed to become a hit anywhere (except perhaps Iceland) and the group had to make do with remaining a cult, albeit a cult who now had an actual God to worship. Few other bands could offer that.

As for Deus, I hope that through our collective will alone, we can get him to emerge in the year 2185 with a bathtub and a sponge-on-a-stick on the Southend Arterial Road, a mere spit from where the stray fragments of his song drifted from a Belgian radio station into my bedroom. Perhaps then he can tell us what it is that he wants.

New Entries Elsewhere In The Charts

21. Disco 2000 - One Love Nation (KLF)

Peak position: 21

An oft-ignored KLF project (by everyone except Jarvis Cocker, perhaps) which involved Jimmy Cauty’s partner Cressida and ex-Brilliant singer June Montana being paired up to front some potentially chartbound sounds.

“One Love Nation” is actually just the track “The Candystore” from the Justified Ancient Of Mu Mu’s second album “Who Killed The Jams?” retooled and repurposed, Bill Drummond’s hearty and threatening rants removed and replaced by joyous female vocals. Problematically, without his interjections adding some grit to the mix, it’s almost overly effervescent, but too lo-fi to cut it as a pop record, on occasion feeling like Toto Coelo recording on a budget of tuppence in the backroom of someone’s house. It wouldn’t be the pair’s last attempt at having a hit, though, as we’ll go on to find out. 

22. Flesh Volcano - Slut (Some Bizzare)

Peak position: 8

In 1989, Marc Almond collaborated with Gene Pitney and sent their version of “Something’s Gotten Hold Of My Heart” to number one. In 1988, he collaborated with Foetus and released a song called “Slut”, which most certainly did not.

No edges were sanded down or corners blunted for this work, either. Marc Almond is a dramatic cut above the average industrial vocalist, and uses the track’s menace to cackle gleefully and project its intentions across the room. This is pure theatre. Beyond that, though, its Foetus through and through – grinding repetition, clattering rhythms and smacking guitar lines. It’s also better than they usually are, though - Almond is the cherry on the top, the much-needed ringmaster to their chaos. 

23. The Gun Club - The Breaking Hands (Red Rhino)

Peak position: 18


24. Laugh - Time to lose it (Remorse)

Peak position: 24

Laugh managed one album (“Sensation Number One”) before sensing the changing tide and morphing into the glamorous baggy near-sensation Interstella. “Time To Lose It” is a fair approximation of where their heads were at before that moment; here, craggy, sludging beats meet chopping and swerving guitars, like the key mantra of C86 – thou shalt either be twee or irrepressibly strange – hadn’t been entirely forgotten.

29. The Dynamic Duo - Batman Theme (Anagram)

Peak position: 29

To all intents and purposes this is Alien Sex Fiend doing a squeaky dancefloor friendly version of the Batman Theme. When the Fiends attempted this kind of thing under usual circumstances, they tended to smear it with their own odious noise, but this smells more like the charcoal-packed corner of the 24 Hour Petrol Station where the budget Hallmark CDs are stocked. It’s a cheap, tinny and obvious cover version, and it’s also really quite obnoxiously bad – the noise of a group trying to score a quick novelty hit but not having the skills to see it through. Not as easy as it looks, is it fellas? Now get back into your fetish gear and start singing about bodily waste again. 

Week Two

12. Pat & Mick - Let's All Chant (PWL)

Peak position: 11

Pat Sharp and Mick Brown were both Capital Radio DJs, and really weren’t typical indie chart fodder. For one thing, Sharp had his hair styled into a mullet and hosted the knockabout kid’s TV show “Funhouse”, whose theme tune declared “There’s a whole lotta fun/ prizes to be won”, words you wouldn’t expect to hear on a Foetus or Nick Cave single unless they were followed up by an unspeakable perversion.

Every year from 1988-1993, however, the pair participated in their radio station’s “Help A London Child” charity event, and released a Stock Aitken Waterman produced single to support it. “Let’s All Chant” is the first, and sounds exactly as you’d expect a SAW backed version of the song to – it takes the froth of the original and pumps even more air into it, turning the scene into a giant foam party which almost obscures all Mullet based mistakes from view.

Debates have been had about whether Pat or indeed Mick actually sang on this record, a riddle I’m sure we would have resolved by now if anyone really cared enough. Suffice to say that this was hardly a matter which bore comparison with Milli Vanilli gate, and the pair happily took the cash for charity and went back to their radio studios for the rest of the year round. It’s only a laugh, no harm done.

17. The KLF - Burn The Beat (KLF)

Peak position: 17

This is another sanitised version of a track from “Who Killed The Jams”, this time “Burn The Bastards”. Once again Drummond’s Glaswegian shouts and complaints are thrown on the slag heap, and this time the samples of Sly And The Family Stone’s “Dance To The Music” are pushed to the forefront.

It’s significant for being the first record of theirs to be released under the moniker The KLF, but in all other respects its electro-pop leanings make it sound somewhat dated. It offers some frantic, hip-wiggling fun, but when stacked up against the class of 1988 (S’Express in particular) it seems like a pale imitator rather than a pack leader. The pair would learn, however, and learn quickly.

20. Beastie Boys - Polly Wog Stew EP (Rat Cage)

Peak position: 20


30. The Mekons​ -​ Ghosts of American Astronauts (Cooking Vinyl)

Peak position: 25

An unexpectedly haunting track from The Mekons, taking the subject of the Vietnam War and turning into a funeral march for the American Dream. Vocals echo “A flag flying free in a vacuum” despondently, reducing the USA’s achievements into a cheap, artificial, airless gesture. The band perform a slow, dreamy, music box ballad beneath.

Few singles have ever managed to be beautiful and yet such a damning political statement at the same time.





Week Three


10. Loop - Collision (Chapter 22)

Peak position: 5

Harsh, minimal and grating, Loop were a surprisingly big deal in the late eighties for a band so awkward. Sounding faintly like Suicide with distorted, effects-laden guitars instead of synths, or the most shimmering, three-chord, droning psychedelia, they were certainly a unique prospect. Comparisons with The Jesus and Mary Chain were inevitable, but Loop could never (or at least, would never) have written "Some Candy Talking" or "April Skies" - compared to Loop, JAMC were The Reynolds Girls, pure Top of the Pops fodder.

"Collision" is a lovely drone as well, which if sped up a bit more could easily be as contagious as the most nagging krautrock tracks.

11. McCarthy - Should The Bible Be Banned? (September)

Peak position: 7

In which the group take satirical potshots at the likes of Mary Whitehouse who attended church but wanted anything with even mildly violent or titillating content to be banned. “Have you read your favourite book, lately?” they ask of her and her kin, outlining the outrageous atrocities committed within the pages of God’s textbook.

“The Home Secretary/ Is looking closely into it/ Could a copycat killer/ Copy the Book of Genesis?” they trill happily, while backing it with a punkish but bright melody which proves you don’t need to approach these topics with heavy-handed growls and thrashes. Sometimes, in fact, it’s actually more amusing not to.

12. 14 Iced Bears - Come Get Me (Sarah)

Peak position: 12


14. Star turn on 45 pints - Pump up the bitter (Pacific)

Peak position: 11

They’re finally back. The last time we mentioned Starturn on 45 Pints was in the 1981 chart, when they put a parodical northern working man’s club spin on the Starsound medley craze.

In 1988, of course, they had the likes of Mirage to inspire them, and “Pump Up The Bitter” was a surprisingly popular take on House mixes and medleys, turning them all into uncool, fusty soundtracks to the social club experience.

Such parodies tend to age badly, of course, as the sands of time change both the feel of the clubs that inspired them and the club music that tends to excite the public today. The glib joke about Mrs Patel having a funny turn while Ofra Haza is mimicked is also cringe-worthy by 2026 standards (there are many, many miles between India and Israel, chaps).





15. Gwen McCrae - All This Love That I'm Giving (Flame/Mute)

Peak position: 13


16. A. R. Kane - Baby Milk Snatcher (Rough Trade)

Peak position: 5

A.R. Kane’s career didn’t achieve any significant bounce after “Pump Up The Volume” reached number one, and they returned to selling records to their small, core audience. “Baby Milk Snatcher” is a fine collision of dreampop and dub, though, its title riffing on Margaret Thatcher’s famous nickname while the bass swoops low and the track reverberates so sleepily you almost wouldn’t notice the subterfuge.

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Number Ones In The National Charts

Pet Shop Boys - "Heart" (Parlophone)

S-Express - "Theme From S-Express" (Rhythm King)