Indie Top 20 Volume 3 Side 3 - Cookie Crew, Hotline, Erasure, Ghost Dance

1. Cookie Crew - Females (Get On Up) (Rhythm King)

"Females" followed hot on the heels of the initial non-success of "Rok Da House", and climbed to number 78 on the national charts - a fairly big deal for a British rap act at that time. Seemingly focused on the slicker dressed female rappers with snobbier attitudes on the circuit, the pair put them on the straight and narrow: "Females, they wear a lot of gold/ be careful of them homeboys, because they're ten years old". Mmmm.

This is slick, sassy and smart, though sadly some of the sampled elements in it - most especially the "Yeah Woo!" sample - do datestamp it rather firmly in 1987. In the pair's defence, though, they weren't directly responsible for the fact that absolutely everyone, including Timmy Mallett, ended up using it.

After the success of "Rok Da House", The Cookie Crew became a steady mainstream presence for awhile, until it became clear that a pop life within the belly of the beast simply wasn't for them.



2. Hotline - Hellhouse (Rhythm King)

(Guess who just had to upload a YouTube video for this himself, as nothing seemed to be available?)

House music was huge news in both the national charts and the indie charts at this point, and Beechwood Music would have been fools to ignore the fact. It was seen as a vibrant and underground music form which was starting to change the way the music industry operated - pressed up by independent labels and distributed by either Rough Trade or Pinnacle, it succeeded and sold seemingly whether it picked up airplay or critical praise or not, with clubland dictating the end result. In fact, it usually sold in much greater quantities than your average Mighty Lemon Drops release, and sounded considerably less retro.

Did the kind of kids buying Indie Top 20 albums really care, though? That's a good question, and one Beechwood would have to grapple with in interesting ways by the time Volume 4 of the series rolled around. For now, though, "Hellhouse" sits slightly awkwardly between Erasure and The Cookie Crew here, and while it's a sturdy enough example of the genre, I doubt there are many people who would regard it as being an important or pivotal release - you get the impression that all involved with Volume 3 would have preferred the eternal 1987 indie number one "Pump Up The Volume" to occupy this space instead, but they couldn't afford the rights to it.

Having said that, listening to it again through good headphones for the first time in years, there's a corking groove to this one, sitting neatly between House music and mid-eighties funk. I didn't remember it being quite as good as this, and it's aged like a fine wine.  This is the kind of bass-heavy, complex, slowly evolving groove the retro-kids in the old school clubs are into now more than they were at the time, and while it might have sounded like neither fish nor fowl to me in 1987, now it seems like an incredibly effective piece of work. Or, to put it into context - it made me dance around my living room and I've got a bad knee. That's high praise at my age.



3. Erasure - Victim of Love (Mute)

Whether they could afford "Pump Up The Volume" or not, they clearly could afford the rights to Erasure again, although "Victim of Love" was a mere number 7 national hit for the pair. Falling back on one of Vince Clarke's subtle-as-a-sledgehammer choruses and an almost unfeasibly vibrant melody, it's strangely uplifting given the fact that its lyrics are about giving up on the idea of relationships. "I'm building a wall, every day it's getting higher" sings Bell happily. Please yourself, mate.

Erasure do not appear on the Indie Top 20 series again, which seems like an act of total denial, as the indie hits kept on coming. The reality seemed to be that their favour among indie kids had almost entirely waned by this point and they steadily became regarded as being "merely" a pop group. But, lest we forget, "merely" a pop group who produced "Drama", an overloaded piece of electro-gospel featuring The Jesus and Mary Chain shouting "Guilty!" in the background, the indie chart number one "Ship Of Fools", the Wheatus-covered "A Little Respect"... and even then, when they were truly, undeniably pop, they did it far better than most during their imperial phase. "Stop!" proved that without a doubt.

It's a shame, but not surprising, that we won't have the chance to discuss them again. Their absence from the series makes it feel as if they produced nothing else of note, when their ideas became much taller and mightier than this one. It's proof that when studying these LPs, we can't really treat them as being wholly reliable documents of what was or wasn't happening on the indie chart at any particular point.



4. Ghost Dance - Fools Gold (Karbon)

And no, this isn't an early version of the Stone Roses classic. Rather, "Fools Gold" is an epic Goth Rock tune which has been strangely overlooked by most people in the years that have followed. Discarding the basic strum and stomp of "Grip of Love" from volume one, it instead goes overboard and unveils something that sounds like classic rock - and genuinely so.

"Fools Gold" is a truly soaring anthem, whose exposure suffered slightly from being the second track on side one of an EP the band released. Track one "When I Call" may have felt more likely to pick up airplay, but "Fools Gold" gave a much stronger impression of the scope of the group's songwriting abilities. Chunky Goth Rock basslines meet with chiming guitars and the track gradually builds into an almighty chorus. Intricately produced and arranged, and with some killer guitar riffs at the tail end meeting with ex-Skeletal Family member Anne-Marie Hurst's powerful vocals, it really isn't terribly alternative or indie, to be truthful. Rather, it sounds like a band declaring to the world, and perhaps major labels in particular, that they have the skills in place to take things further.

Chrysalis raced forward to sign them, and another single "Down To The Wire" emerged in 1989, followed by an LP... but neither really delivered commercially on their promise. Internal tensions within the group ensured that far from realising their potential, they all but disappeared shortly afterwards.

Hurst occasionally performs with The Skeletal Family these days, but Ghost Dance seem to have been completely consigned to the past.

Indie Top 20 Volume One - Tracks 11-15 (New Order, Ghost Dance, Rose of Avalanche, Ciccone Youth, Chesterfields)

11. New Order - Turn The Heater On (Peel Session) (Strange Fruit)

While it might have seemed a bit rum to follow Joy Division's track with New Order's on this album, it does, to be fair, involve a flip of cassette sides first (remember we're still a long way from the CD era at this point). What waited for you on side two was actually something of a New Order obscurity, being a cover of reggae maestro Keith Hudson's song which was unissued on any of their B-sides or albums, being a John Peel session exercise only.

So could New Order have followed in the footsteps of UB40 in another life? Not really, but this is an exceptionally eerie, wintery dub excursion which had its heart in exactly the right place. Recorded solely due to the fact that it was one of Ian Curtis' favourite songs, New Order turn it into a unique tribute of its own, and create something beautifully atmospheric and filmic. While Hudson's original burbles along in a lively and summery fashion, New Order leave it to sprawl on the bare floorboards of a Manchester bedsit in January. It's the best kind of cover version, in that it's a total reinterpretation. That it's also a touching gesture makes it a bit more special.



12. Ghost Dance - The Grip Of Love (Karbon)

Enter Goth Rock into the fray. Goth was a funny old business back in the mid-eighties, receiving a very variable music press reception which appeared to operate along the following lines - Sounds viewed it more favourably than Melody Maker, who in turn viewed it much more favourably than the NME. So far as the NME seemed to be concerned, Goth was a deeply silly business only to be spat at, a game of Dungeons and Dragons for Bauhaus fans who were all old enough to know better. By the end of the eighties, of course, almost everyone had given up and began writing about Goth in mocking tones, if they wrote about it at all (many of the movement's biggest bands were utterly denied coverage by the turn of the decade).

Ghost Dance were much-feted among some sympathetic journalists and also within the movement itself, but ultimately never really broke through commercially. Unfortunate, as "The Grip of Love" certainly proved they had the pop chops to cross over under the right circumstances. It pounds along like a more leaden-footed version of mid-seventies Fleetwood Mac (has anyone actually investigated the influence mid-period Mac had on Goth Rock in the eighties? It seems more common than you'd suppose) but ultimately never drifts far from the chorus or central riff, clinging on to both like a small child terrified to break free of its mother's grip. The Grip of Love? Well, maybe. Perhaps that's the point they were trying to make.

This isn't the last we'll see of Ghost Dance on "Indie Top 20" (I told you, they were big news for awhile) and the next time we come to visit them, my opinions may actually surprise you, as they say on Upworthy. Or not, now I've let that huge plot spoiler out of the bag.



13. The Rose of Avalanche - Velveteen (Fire)

We seem to have entered a brief Goth Rock segment in the compilation, for while they later denied it utterly, Leeds' The Rose of Avalanche certainly had a goth following, and a distinctly dark, doomy air to most of their recordings.

"Velveteen" is a prime low-budget, indie approximation of an epic rock tune which in places vaguely predicts the riff from Guns N' Roses "Sweet Child Of Mine". Written about Nico of the Velvet Underground, a drum machine thuds and echoes its way through a slowly evolving guitar riff, and the drama slowly brews, sprawling across six minutes of hollering vocals and foreboding atmospherics.

Or, if you're anything like me, you'll actually find this single unspeakably dull. While it was considered a huge statement to make at the time, back in the days when everything Velvet Underground was the height of outsider sophistication, right now it sounds like a horrible plodding chore, with nothing much to say for its woebegone self. An artist like Scott Walker could do chorus-free character portraits across six minutes and make them sound fascinating - The Rose of Avalanche don't have the same dexterity with arrangements or lyrics, and this entire song is writing artistic cheques it cannot cash. There's no question that this was hugely significant at the time and highly regarded by many fans and critics, but for me it just doesn't cut it.

The next time we meet The Rose of Avalanche, however, I will be a lot more favourably disposed towards them - but epic, plodding rock statements of this nature are something I just lose patience with.



14. Ciccone Youth - Into The Groov(y) (Blast First)

Aka Sonic Youth and Mike Watt having a jolly good piss-around. Like a lot of Sonic Youth's attempts at side projects and experimentation, this starts off feeling so gleefully anarchic that you immediately want to rewind and listen to the whole thing again... but the fun palls quickly. "Into The Groov(y)" is a mutant Hip-Hop and punk celebration of all things Madonna, cutting huge holes in the original pop arrangement of "Into The Groove" until all that's left is a hollow, grinding structure predominantly driven by Watt's repetitive bass runs. Occasionally Madonna's original vocal (which I'm assuming they didn't get copyright clearance for) rises up into the mix to threaten to restore order, then evaporates away again, overpowered, giving up the ghost.

But there's no way on earth this was intended as any kind of serious artistic statement, and really, it's just supreme daftness, another in a long line of attempts to punkify and radicalise highly successful, slick pop music (If I wanted to be really controversial here, I might ask what the difference is conceptually between this and The Dickies). Often though, the problem with exercises like this one is they make you realise how solid and well constructed the original vision was, and by the time you get to the end, your main urge is to just put the original single on the turntable.

Sonic Youth do not appear on the "Indie Top 20" series again after this, which feels like a wasted opportunity.



15. The Chesterfields - Completely and Utterly (Subway)

Another very minor indie chart hit here, which held down the "all-important" number 16 slot in 1986. A gentle and merry track, it cowers and quakes in the presence of Sonic Youth immediately before it - and while Chet and Bee did eventually become dab hands at creating the running orders of "Indie Top 20" albums effectively, it has to be said that Volume One highlights that at this stage in the series, they were clearly not firing on all cylinders.

Yeovil's The Chesterfields were one of very many indie-pop bands of the era whose influences appeared to be somewhere between early sixties pop, The Monochrome Set and Orange Juice, while entirely lacking the groove and funk of the latter. Charm was their main selling point, and "Completely and Utterly" veritably nods and winks its way into your heart, despite trying to sound faintly cross with itself. "I am sick of situations... nothing's changed in donkey's years!" states lead singer Dave Goldsworthy, but it doesn't sound as if it's about anything crashingly important. I've always imagined it's probably about something mundane like the local bus service, but - within the context of indiepop - that's actually a compliment. It wouldn't do for The Chesterfields to try to be The Clash. And in any case, crowbarring the phrase "Nothing's changed in donkey's years" into a pop song, then delivering it in a polite voice, is a brilliant masterstroke.

Like many of their kind, The Chesterfields split in 1989. I can see I'm going to be typing "split in 1989" a lot whenever we cover indiepop bands (although a few brave souls limped on into the dawn of 1990).