Single Shot

One of the great things about the download age is that you can buy individual tracks, a real boon if you don't really care for the rest of a band's repertoire. As a result, I have a fair few songs on this here laptop by bands of which I own nothing else. Here's my favourite five, all worth tracking down if you've not heard them.

Jasmine Minks - Cut Me Deep
Released on Creation before McGee got into drugs and dance music. Along with Primal Scream's Velocity Girl and the Bodines, this was as good as the whole sound that would be labelled C86 would get. I know nothing of the band except I think they were from Aberdeen and this one song. Luckily, it's brilliant.

Despite what I said up the top, I haven't downloaded this but instead found it on an early compilation of Creation artists called Doing It For The Kids, on which you can also hear luminaries such as Nikki Sudden, Momus and, err, Biff Bang Pow!. Despite being alongside personal favourites of mine like Felt and the House of Love, Cut Me Deep holds its own, helped by being a damn good pop song.

Adorable - Sunshine Smile
Another Creation act, and perhaps a bridging point between the Ride of 1990 and Oasis of 1994, which isn't a bad thing despite my disdain for the latter. It's more a case of very loud guitars washing over your head, but with lyrics you can sing along to despite the vocals not being all that strong.

What happened to Adorable, I can't say, but they certainly weren't helped by Suede stealing a load of the thunder for a loud guitar pop band in those pre-Britpop years. Without a sniff of a hit, they fell out with the label and disbanded. Still, thanks for this one, lads.

The Incredible Bongo Band - Apache
Some years ago, I saw some music show that had a segment about the Shadows, making a claim that they helped inspire hip-hop. A quick vox-pop of some dude involved with the start of that scene had him say something to the effect of "the crowd went wild when you played Apache".

Well, I'm willing to bet my house (if I had one) that he was referring to this version, featuring as it does an extended bongo break, which in return was more than likely chosen not because of ol' Hank and the boys, but some Danish chap who had the original hit with the tune in the States.

The Bongo Band version is fantastic, though, all stabbing horns and organ driving the distinctive melody. The Sugarhill Gang would use this as the basis of their own fine version. But who were those mysterious bongo players?

Melle Mel - White Lines (Don't Do It)
More that I only own the one song by a whole genre on this one, though that I haven't got The Message in my collection is an error I should rectify soon.

Here, the music is a direct lift of Cavern by New York band Liquid Liquid, with the vague lyrics of the original changed to the anti-drug message here. Not that it entirely matters, as the whole thing is driven by the bassline. Mel's lines are pretty good, though, and he sounds like he means what he says. Certainly over here in the UK, the song itself proved to be (ahem) something of a phenomenon. Baby.

Killing Joke - Love Like Blood
Essentially, I always found Jaz Coleman's mob a bit silly. Sure, they could make a nice enough racket but it all seemed so, so serious. You couldn't imagine them having a laugh in the way Joy Division did. And they certainly made themselves look like a right bunch of arses when they took off to Iceland in the early 80s, certain that the apocalypse was imminent and they were in the one safe place.

By 1985, they'd decided to cash in a wee bit by roping in producer Chris Kimsey, who'd worked with the Stones. On Love Like Blood, it all works: icicle guitars, huge drums, chugging bass and lyrics that aren't about mental breakdowns or sex with nuns, somewhat mercifully. A great song, for sure, and surprising it didn't cross over well into the States around the same time the Cure were chasing the black-clad Goth dollar.