One week at number one on 24th September 1988
As 1988 progressed, all the break-out House music stars were faced with a decision – should they cling to the same scattershot formula for the follow-up to their hit, or prove there was more to their work than a being a knowledgeable chef with a huge pantry and speedy chopping skills?
Mark Moore clearly decided that what wasn’t broken shouldn’t be meddled with, and “Superfly Guy” continued the messy thrills. Coldcut went off on a strange reggae safari with “Stop This Crazy Thing”, which bore as much relation to “Doctorin’ The House” as a giraffe does to a lion, and Bomb The Bass? Tim Simenon indulged in an interesting bit of cake-ism by doing both things at once.
Their second indie number one was therefore this; a double A-side which, in many chart listings, put “Megablast” in prime position, even though the track didn’t seem to have a promotional video (please do correct me if I’m wrong) and was almost never heard on the radio or television. Here’s where we get the continuity “Beat Dis” approach. “Megablast” is another bass heavy juggernaut ploughing through your neighbourhood, all barked samples, juddering rhythms, clarion call melodies and a faintly basic, lo-fi production.
While the samples are almost as fast and furious as “Beat Dis” – Freda Payne, Sly and the Family Stone, Rufus Thomas, Malcolm McLaren, Pink Floyd and the Apocalypse Now soundtrack all make their presence felt – it contains something which is much closer to a melodic hook than their first hit, namely that cheery, celebratory keyboard riff which emerges at regular intervals. As such, it’s less interesting somehow, less of a volatile stew of mixed ingredients and more of a standard dance track with a central gravitational catchphrase bidding for airplay. The bassline is strangely bare too, like a Commodore 64’s SID chip stretching towards distortion (though this may seem very appealing to some retro 8 bit loving listeners in the 21st Century).
Then, over on the other side – the side radio and television actually exposed us to – lay “Don’t Make Me Wait”, featuring Lorraine (aka Cool Notes member Laurine McIntosh). It’s a different concoction altogether, being more straightforwardly Pop than anything Simenon’s rivals had produced prior to this; in fact, the robotic exhortations to move one’s body, Lorraine’s bright vocals and the synth stabs and jerky but deliberately hooky keyboard melodies are attention-grabbing in traditional, almost Pete Waterman-approved ways. It’s only the glitchiness of the House rhythms beneath that give the track a credible clubland groove – in all other respects, it adheres to pop music’s strict rules about verses, choruses and middle eights. We wouldn’t have banked on this a few months before.