115. S'Express - Theme From S'Express (Rhythm King)

One week at number one on 14th May 1988

Bill Drummond once argued that anybody could have a number one in 1988, and it felt as if he had a point. There have been few moments in music business history where non-musicians could grab the top spot without the benefit of a major label strategy or a team of stylists behind them, but 1988 was an exception. Perhaps the punk rock dream had finally been realised. 

Except that none of the freakiest of these freak number ones, often released on indie labels, sounded anything at all like punk rock. There was no fury, disillusionment or thrashed guitars on offer; instead, the past was burped up on top of House grooves, and represented on television by either a DJ miming their day at “the office”, or a bunch of faces plucked from the latest dancefloor. A casual onlooker might think that the only thing these artists had in common with punk was the volume (and strength) of hair product they used.

Which could be true, except I don’t think that Punk Rock and British House culture were as far detached as they seemed. The Clash begat Big Audio Dynamite, after all, who were one of the first groups out of the traps to use loops and crude samples. Combined with that, many of the DJs didn’t emerge out of the High Street nightclubs of Britain; they emerged from the leftfield, bringing a diverse record collection and a do-it-yourself mentality, and the attendees frequently had an awkward but entirely self-styled glamour.

At the risk of complicating things, however, Mark Moore of S'Express was possibly one of the less marginal DJs. He had already achieved acclaim at the mixed/gay night “Asylum” at Heaven in London, whose style took on board the electronic edges of post-punk and House music. That instantly gave him an edge and a sense of flamboyance many of his contemporaries lacked. If Tim Simenon made shapes with his hands next to street graffiti and M|A|R|R|S’s in-person appearances on British television were practically non-existent, S’Express presented Britain with a camp, frivolous image – one of bright make-up, lame, thick eyeliner and a dependance on the cheap, thrift-store availability of the past (whether that involved the records or the clothes). If a lot of emerging House music DJs wanted to be seen as credible artists, Moore primarily seemed to want to prove that he was having fun and could also provide fun; S’Express dressed up for Top Of The Pops, laughed and sniggered, winked at the cameras, and pouted and beckoned like pied pipers (actually, some photos of the German disco ensemble Silver Convention show considerable similarities).

The music itself mirrored their image and attitude. On “Theme From S’Express”, Moore was never going to sample James Brown or Public Enemy if an irresistible riff from Rose Royce was there waiting to be grabbed, so a sample from “Is It Love You’re After” – a huge hit and not a funk or soul deep cut – is used as the central hook. It’s placed neatly over an acid rhythm, combined with prominent doses of cult psychedelic funk track “Crystal World” by Crystal Glass (I am proud to own a copy of this myself) and a brew of other sources, credible and incredible (it’s flash-in-the-pan US pop star Stacey Q, rather than some obscure soul singer, gasping “overdrive”, for example). It’s the sound of boundaries being pushed to one side, of frivolousness and silliness having a place alongside the credible suspects.

None of this made it an expensive pop project; the mere fact that the hi-hat sound was created with a can of hairspray was entirely a method of convenience (though if you weren’t told, it’s not even as if you’d notice). Moore simply didn’t have the equipment to make a satisfactory approximation of the noise any other way. The group’s thrift store clothes were, likewise, often a result of simple budgetary choices.

The end result is actually, for all its irreverence and scattergun focus, the most pop of all the House music tracks we’ve heard so far. It’s the sound of an ecstasy tablet being washed down with a glass of Cava, of your inner child allowing yourself to raid your older sibling’s abandoned suitcase of seventies clothes, of the once-loved records you left up in the loft being mixed with the vinyl you bought last week.

Pop music is rarely inclusive – the whole point of a pop idol is to give the ordinary pleb something to worship or desire – but the most punk rock thing about S’Express isn’t just their cheapness (in the best sense of the word) but their lack of snobbery and their relatable chaos, their understanding that while current trends and fashions bring joy, that's also true of the things from our childhoods we might have cast off into the cultural beyond. As one sample tumbled into another on their record, so too did their Top Of The Pops appearances revel in the sense they were getting away with something; a group of friends thrown together by a strange set of circumstances gurning and grinning like cheshire cats.

86. New Order - State Of The Nation (Factory)

Number one for four weeks from 27th September 1986

I don’t often delve into other people’s blogs or forum posts while researching for this site, purely because I don’t want to be unduly influenced by other people’s takes on these records. For “State Of The Nation”, though, I found myself sufficiently perplexed to want to scout around. It sometimes feels as if it’s the serviceable New Order single nobody has a strong opinion on one way or the other, their equivalent of “Lady Madonna” or “Heart” (cue the inevitable complaints from Beatles or Pet Shop Boys fans).

I uncovered nothing much at all during my scouting mission, apart from a few forum posts asking “Why does everybody hate ‘State of the Nation’?” during which nobody replied with anything negative at all, only expressing the view that they quite liked it. No-one seemed particularly compelled to jump in and scream that it was a blight on New Order’s catalogue, which made sense to me (I wasn’t previously aware that it was supposed to be).

Then I went over to my Last.fm profile to see how often I’d played it, and was a little bit surprised to see that it was my tenth most listened to New Order track – amazing since I couldn’t actually remember the last time I’d bothered (if anyone cares, it’s marginally ahead of “True Faith”, “Perfect Kiss” and “Regret”, all singles I could have sworn I’ve spent more time with). Obviously the views of a few Internet randoms and my own listening habits are not a precise scientific study, but it does feel as if “State” – New Order’s seventh indie number one – has been strangely neglected, rarely (if ever) played by the group live since its year of release and allowed to drift into the background.

This is peculiar. Musically speaking, “State Of The Nation” is an enticing, though admittedly never quite exciting, mix of sweet and sour. The keyboard lines are filled with exotic pan flute noises while the guitars are distorted and scraping, sounding like a hailstorm falling on abandoned sheet metal. Rhythms twitch beneath all this, jitterbugging almost threateningly, and throughout the full six-and-a-half minutes on the twelve inch, they manage to stretch what seem like quite limited ideas out into interesting new shapes and destinations; say what you want about New Order but they were unbelievably bloody good at writing epic pop songs. Whereas most groups start to dawdle and repeat themselves after the third minute, they’re still bursting with fresh ideas in double that time.

The single seems to pick up the most criticism for its lyrics, and deservedly so. Sumner here feels as if he's delivering guide vocals camouflaged as social commentary; a dirty trick to play on the neurotic mid-eighties public. “My brother said that he was dead/ I saw his face and shook my head” he sings, almost disappointed rather than upset by the fact that his sibling was either literally or metaphorically deceased. “The state of the nation/ that’s holding our salvation” he informs us, before telling us it’s also “causing deprivation” (I always swear he sneaks “death inflation” in there somewhere as well, but that’s possibly just a long-standing misheard lyric of mine).

81. Weather Prophets - Almost Prayed (Creation)

One week at number one on 5th July 1986

To casual viewers of the indie charts and non-readers of the NME or Melody Maker, The Weather Prophets must have seemed like a strange and sudden flash on the scene; that try-hard band name conjuring up images of your best friend’s cousin’s group who were signed to Creation on one of Alan McGee’s whims. The truth is somewhat different. The Weather Prophets were actually formed following the messy end of The Loft, a promising group whose two singles, “Why Does The Rain” and “Up The Hill And Down The Slope” are still remembered fondly (and playlisted heavily) by those who know their mid-eighties indie.

Despite the fact he had an established platform to build on, it wouldn’t be unfair to suggest that the group’s lead singer Pete Astor was lucky, however. Fate seemed to slap him encouragingly on his leather trousered arse wherever he went in the mid-eighties. In 1984 Janice Long, at this point presenting an early evening show on Radio One, selected their single “Why Does The Rain” as one of her three favourite singles of the year, an unexpected boost for both the band and a tiny, cash-strapped label like Creation. Intriguingly, I’ve also never met anyone else who genuinely believes it to be in the top three best records released that year – but if you’re going to win those kind of wild plaudits with anyone, a national radio DJ is surely your best outcome.

Then in 1985, journalist Danny Kelly was at a football match where he met Peter Hadfield, the manager of Terry Hall’s new group The Colourfield. Kelly enthused about The Loft, and Hadfield wondered if they might be available to support his group on a major venue tour of the UK. No money changed hands, and sweet and simple arrangements were made to give The Loft a lift on to the professional circuit. As anyone who has ever been in a band will tell you, things seldom happen this easily without meetings, pluggers and expensive tour budgets being involved.

Despite all this, Astor was unhappy, feeling as if he had little in common with the rest of his group and mumbling to McGee and other parties that he didn’t see them as a long-term proposition. He eventually split them up live on stage at the Hammersmith Palais while supporting the Colourfield, a move some deemed legendary and others strangely cold. Vague insults were directed at other band members, and the whole thing drew to a messy close – two singles and endless love and good fortune later, the group were no more.

Astor decided before they even split that The Weather Prophets sounded like a good name for his next group, and they were up and running relatively swiftly, recording a radio session for the ever enthusiastic Janice Long before a single note was captured on vinyl. “Almost Prayed” featured on that debut session and McGee felt strongly it should be their first single, but numerous attempts to re-record it at other studios ended unsatisfactorily, with the group failing to capture the snap and spontaneity of the BBC session. Eventually, all concerned had to reluctantly lease the recording from the BBC for commercial release, though the text on the rear of the sleeve informing you of the fact is written in such a tiny font you might miss it.

There’s a simple reason both Creation and the band were a bit ashamed of this step. BBC sessions often differ from the finished product in many ways, but are usually more stripped back and basic. Fans of bands will often nudge those not in the know and tell them that actually, the John Peel session version of Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” has a bite the single version didn’t, or that Microdisney’s Peel Session versions of the “Crooked Mile” era material punch more forcefully than the Lenny Kaye produced LP. Despite this, the suggestion that any polished, professional recording following a session simply wasn’t as good as the BBC’s quick efforts would be embarrassing for any up-and-coming band, especially one the major labels were keeping a close eye on. It carries suggestions of amateurism and an inability to hold it together as soon as the grown-ups leave the room.

The Weather Prophets would eventually re-record “Almost Prayed” for their debut major label album “Mayflower”, and sure enough, even with WEA’s money and time being spent on it, it remains feeble by comparison, as if the group have been asked to imagine the song being covered by Big Country. So what did producer Barry Andrews (no relation to the ex-XTC member) get right at Maida Vale that everyone else got wrong?

I wasn’t there obviously, but my suspicion is that “Almost Prayed” is one of those songs which gets duller, rather than shinier, the more you scrub it up. In its BBC form, it’s a thing of beauty, three minutes of simple indie-pop which jangles and thumps through Astor’s angst about the fluidity and unpredictability of life; the phrase “You can never go home again” given its best representation on 45. The song’s fuel comes from the almost folky simplicity of its hooks (you can imagine “I almost prayed” being murmured repeatedly at a folk night) and its directness. Place a mid-eighties production over that, and you’re smothering the track in padding when its bare bones need to be visible. Here is a song, after all, with limited chord structures and a simple swing which veers close to something approaching pop, but is ultimately too melancholy – it’s the sound of damp, drizzly nights spent by the coast attempting thought-walks, an introvert’s basic whistling tune. It’s not a daring, bold statement, which is what the band probably wanted their debut single to be, but it is strangely beautiful, which is all that matters in the long term.