Tag Archives: Top 10 Music (Mojo & Funk)

Friday Night Funk – Top 10 Music (Mojo & Funk): Special Mention (Funk) (7) Naughty by Nature – O.P.P.

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(7) NAUGHTY BY NATURE –

O.P.P. (1991)

 

“Arm me with harmony”

To quote Wikipedia, “O.P.P. is a song by American rap group Naughty by Nature. It was released in August 1991 as the lead single from their self-titled debut album Naughty by Nature. The song was one of the first rap songs…Its declaration, “Down Wit’ O.P.P” was a popular catchphrase in the United States in the early-1990s. It was a hugely successful single…There was not a bigger, more contagious crossover radio smash in the autumn of 1991 than Naughty by Nature’s O.P.P.”

Not to mention it samples the Jackson Five and it doesn’t get much funkier than that. Of course, those lyrics (and video) are a little naughty by nature. Since then it has ranked in lists for greatest songs or singles of rap or hip hop – and playing on those initials has a special resonance for me. (You down with DPP? It’s an inside joke)

“You down with OPP? Yeah you know me”

 

RATING: 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Monday Night Mojo – Top 10 Music (Mojo & Funk): Special Mention (Mojo) (6) Talking Heads – Once in a Lifetime

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(6) TALKING HEADS –

ONCE IN A LIFETIME (1981)

 

“And you may find yourself in a beautiful house

With a beautiful wife

And you may ask yourself, well

How did I get here?”

 

Song of my life, baby, song of my life.

Talking Heads was an American rock band that helped pioneer the so-called New Wave in the 1980’s, combining elements of punk, art rock, pop, funk and afro-beat or world music “with avant-garde sensibilities and an anxious, clean-cut image” (perhaps apt for art students turned musicians).

 

“And you may tell yourself

This is not my beautiful house!

And you may tell yourself

This is not my beautiful wife…

And you may ask yourself

Am I right? Am I wrong?

And you may say to yourself, “My God! What have I done?”

 

Idiosyncratic genre-bending frontman and songwriter David Byrne “contributed whimsical, esoteric lyrics to the band’s songs, and emphasized their showmanship through various multimedia projects and performances”, not to mention giant suits and…unusual dancing. Producer Brian Eno’s “influence steered them towards their signature style dominated by incredibly dense, hypnotic funk grooves over which Byrne would improvise his vocals”.

And none more impressively so than this, their signature song released as a single in 1981 from their 1980 studio album, Remain in Light – accompanied by Byrne’s spasmodic, surreal video. The lyrics seem to evoke some existential life crisis, although Byrne has attributed them more to the unconscious fashion we all tend to fall through life (and think that we’re flying), tossed between impulse and circumstance.

 

“Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down

Letting the days go by, water flowing underground

Into the blue again after the money’s gone

Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground”

 

Either way – story of my life, baby, story of my life.

 

“Same as it ever was…”

 

RATING: 

B-TIER (HIGH-TIER)

Friday Night Funk – Top 10 Music (Mojo & Funk): Special Mention (Funk) (6) Deee-Lite – Groove is in the Heart

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(6) FUNK: DEEE-LITE –

GROOVE IS IN THE HEART (1990)

 

“Don’t forget – the groove is in the heart!”

Nuff said.

Or maybe not. Deee-Lite started in New York as a duo with the fabulous Lady Miss Kier and Ukranian Supa-DJ Dmitry, which became a trio when joined by Japanese Jungle DJ Towa Towa – the latter injecting techno music into their old-school style of dance music.

And they are defined by one song from their debut album – “Groove is in the Heart”, with its distinctive bass guitar loop sampled from Herbie Hancock’s “Bring Down The Birds”.

“Deee-Lite’s reputation may rest on only one hit single, but what a hit. “Groove Is in the Heart” defined the summer of 1990 on radio and MTV with its delicious combination of funk, modern dance sheen, and Lady Miss Kier’s smart, sharp diva ways. Add in guest vocals and bass from Bootsy Collins, brass from the original Horny Horns duo of Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker, and a smooth mid-song rap from A Tribe Called Quest’s Q-Tip, and the results sounded as sparkling now as they did then”.

And whenever or wherever it is playing, it will always get me dancing…

“Deee-groovy!”

 

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Monday Night Mojo – Top 10 Music (Mojo & Funk): Special Mention (Mojo) (5) The Smiths – How Soon is Now

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(5) MOJO: THE SMITHS (MORRISEY) – HOW SOON IS NOW (1984)

B-Side: Disappointed (1988)

 

“And you go home and you cry

And you want to die”

 

Well that pretty much sums up the common perception of The Smiths, depression tempered by apathy, or melancholy tempered by ennui. As an acquaintance of mine once quipped, summing up the ambience of The Smiths as “I’d kill myself if I could be bothered”. However, that is something of a misplaced stereotype of the Smiths and lead singer Morrissey (yet another musical artist known by his mononym) as ‘miserabilists’, albeit with an element of truth. While Morrissey’s combination of witty lyrics and campy vocals often seemed (or outright were) superficially depressing, they also often full of self-deprecatory or mordant sense of humor. They were also combined with guitarist Johnny Marr’s jangly, catchy pop-rock melodies.

Introducing its leading lights, Morrissey and Marr, effectively introduces The Smiths – that quintessentially British (albeit led by Morrissey and Marr of Irish origin) alternative or indie rock band that endured from 1982 to its breakup in 1987 or effectively as long as the rest of the band could put up with Morrissey (and something which has increasingly been difficult for the rest of the world to do whenever he opens his mouth to do anything but sing). But while it endured and since, The Smiths have been a cult favorite and one of the most important or influential bands to emerge from the British independent music scene of the 1980’s.

 

“I am the son

And the heir

Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar”

 

And which other Smiths song to choose than “How Soon is Now”? Ironically, it was originally released in 1984 as the B-side of another single, it has since become something of a Smiths signature song – noted by Marr to be their “most enduring record” and “most people’s favorite”, which is also ironic as many consider it not to be representative of the band’s usual style.

Of course, some may recognize the song from 1996 film The Craft – and from there it seems to have been associated with young witches such that it also was the theme song of the television series Charmed.

And for the B-side of this entry, I’ll choose something from Morrissey’s (early, more Smiths-like) solo career – the highlights of which are in his compilation album Bona Drag. And while I was tempted towards “November Spawned A Monster”, mainly due to its music video of three minutes of Morrisey writhing in a mesh-shirt (in the desert), I ultimately went with my favorite “Disappointed”, which was not released as a single.

 

“Drank too much

And I said too much

And there’s nowhere to go but down”

 

After all, who hasn’t been there?

 

And as for the balance of my Top 10 The Smiths / Morrisey songs:

(3) Suedehead (1988)

(4) Every Day is Like Sunday (1988)

(5) November Spawned a Monster (1990)

(6) What Difference Does It Make (1984)

(7) Bigmouth Strikes Again (1986)

(8) Panic (1986)

(9) Shoplifters of the World Unite (1987)

(10) Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before (1987)

 

RATING: 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Monday Night Mojo – Top 10 Music (Mojo & Funk): Special Mention (Mojo) (3) Radiohead – Paranoid Android

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Shot from the animated music video

 

 

(3) MOJO: RADIOHEAD – PARANOID ANDROID (1997)

B-Side: Just (1995)

 

“When I am king, you will be first against the wall

With your opinion which is of no consequence at all”

 

And so Radiohead anticipated all political arguments on the internet…

Radiohead moved from their alternative rock origins to a more “echoey, operatic rock” in their landmark 1997 album, OK Computer, although I always find a combination of melancholy and barely or mostly suppressed anger in the lyrics and persona of its distinctive lead singer Thom Yorke.

Paranoid Android” was the lead single from OK Computer. Its title, taken from Marvin the Paranoid Android in Douglas Adam’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, bears little relation to the “darkly humorous lyrics…written primarily by singer Thom Yorke following an unpleasant experience in a Los Angeles bar”. The song fused together parts from different songs each written by a different member of the band, Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” for the nineties as it were, even if the band denies that as their intent (although it was an influence) – “not unlike ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ being played backwards by a bunch of Vietnam vets high on Kings Cross-quality crack”.

And the lyrics bear little relation to the surreal animated video, commissioned by the band from Magnus Carlsson, Swedish creator of the animated series Robin, using the title character and his friend from the series – the band deliberately didn’t send Carlsson the lyrics (to avoid too literal a video) and so the concept for the video was based entirely on the song’s sound. The band make a cameo appearance in the video as animated versions of themselves in the bar (although without too much verisimilitude, particularly given the style of animation). I also remember a rumor that one of the characters in the video was meant to be a caricature of then Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

As my B-side entry, I have a soft spot for their single “Just” from their 1995 album The Bends (the preceding album to OK Computer). While I do like the song itself, including its lyrical attack on narcissism (“you do it to yourself”), my soft spot particularly comes from the combination of the song with its musical video.

 

“Yes, I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you why I’m lying here… but God forgive me… and God help us all… because you don’t know what you ask of me.”

 

And as for the balance of my Top 10 Radiohead songs:

 

(3) Go to Sleep (2003)

(4) Karma Police (1997)

(5) Everything in its Right Place (2000)

(6) Street Spirit (Slow Fade Out)

(7) Subterranean Homesick Alien (1997)

(8) I Might Be Wrong (2001)

(9) Pyramid Song (2001)

(10) There There (2003)

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Monday Night Mojo – Top 10 Music (Mojo & Funk): Special Mention (Mojo) (2) Lana Del Rey – Summertime Sadness

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(2) MOJO: LANA DEL REY –
SUMMERTIME SADNESS (2012)
B-side: Blue Jeans (2012)

 

“I got that summertime, summertime sadness”

You and me both, Lana del Rey, you retro pop queen – “self-styled gangsta Nancy Sinatra” and “L0lita lost in the hood”.

The music of Lana del Rey – or Elizabeth Woolridge Grant – has been noted “for its stylized cinematic quality; its preoccupation with themes of tragic romance, glamour, and melancholia; and its references to pop culture” Also – Hollywood sadcore, baroque pop, dream pop and “about music as a time warp, with her languorous croons over molasses-like arrangements meant to make clock hands seem to move so slowly that it feels possible, at times, they might go backwards”

And somehow all of this seems infused in her 2012 trip hop ballad hit, “Summertime Sadness” – so melancholy!

Also something of a crush of mine, although perhaps more as an idea

And as for my B-side, I’ll go with her characteristically mournful love song, Blue Jeans.

Love, like life, is the long lost last look back…

“I will love you till the end of time
I would wait a million years
Promise you’ll remember that you’re mine
Baby can you see through the tears?”

As for the balance of my Top 10 Lana Del Rey songs:

(3) Ultraviolence (2014)
(4) Video Games (2011)
(5) Born to Die (2011)

(6) Ride (2012)
(7) National Anthem (2012)
( 8 ) West Coast (2014)
(9) Did You Know There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd (2022)
(10) A & W (2023)

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP-TIER)

 

Friday Night Funk – Top 10 Music (Mojo & Funk): Special Mention (Funk): (3) Groove Armada – I See You Baby

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Groove Armada’s logo

 

(3) FUNK: GROOVE ARMADA –
I SEE YOU BABY (1999)
B-side: Paper Romance (2010)

 

“This is the house that funk built – Groove Armada style!”

Nuff said.

Or perhaps not – Groove Armada (English electronic music duo Andy Cato and Tom Findlay) is another big beat funk entry from the 1990’s.

This entry, I See You Baby, is arguably their signature single and certainly one of the defining songs of 1999-2000. Although the original single was funky in itself, I prefer the even funkier remix by Fatboy Slim. (Interestingly, the duo DJ’d Fatboy Slim’s – or rather, Norman Cook’s – wedding). Watch out for that video – it gets a little raunchy

“You got to get on the dance floor…Oh this party got it going on!”

Don’t look for much in the way of lyrical depth (or lyrics) there – it’s all about the funk.

For my B-side – their 2010 single Paper Romance from their album Black Light (also remixed with other songs in their White Light album that year)

As for the balance of my Top 10 Groove Armada songs:
(3) Song 4 Mutya (2007)
(4) If Everybody Looked the Same (1999)
(5) Madder (2003)
(6) Superstyling (2001)
(7) My Friend (2001)
(8) Think Twice (2002)
(9) Purple Haze (2002)
(10) But I Feel Good (2003)

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Friday Night Funk – Top 10 Music (Mojo & Funk): Special Mention (Funk) (2) The Prodigy – Smack my B*tch Up!

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(2) FUNK: THE PRODIGY – SMACK MY B*TCH UP (1997)

B-side: Firestarter (1996)

ALBUMS: EXPERIENCE (1992) / MUSIC FOR THE JILTED GENERATION (1994) / THE FAT OF THE LAND (1997)

 

“Oh my god – that’s the funky sh*t!”

We flashback to my hardcore stark raving techno dance bunny days with The Prodigy and their ant logo, although my taste has mellowed somewhat since then.

The Prodigy are an enduring electronic music band, although their high point was as one of the most important bands of the “big beat” subgenre of the 1990’s – not coincidentally, one might recognize the others from other funk entries in my top ten.

The musical prodigy behind The Prodigy is Liam Howlett, with the actual prodigy behind the name being his Moog Prodigy synthesizer. The Prodigy’s early material was largely straightforward rave with humorous samples thrown in, as shown by their debut album Experience. They ramped this up for their second album, Music for the Jilted Generation, “cultivating an angry, heavy sound drawing from techno, breakbeat and industrial rock”. Although I like the sound of both albums, this entry can only go to this single from their landmark album, The Fat of the Land in 1997, in which Howlett openly aimed at an alternative rock audience, “making the beats heavier”.

Of course, it does have that somewhat unfortunate title and lyric (sampled from “Give The Drummer Some” by the Ultramagnetic MCs), although I’ve always assumed it to be metaphorical – for “doing anything intensely” as the band itself claimed, or the sort of drunken or drug-fueled excess in the controversially explicit video.

I particularly enjoy the female vocals, performed by Shahin Badar, with vocals and harmonies in turn based on “Nana (The Dreaming)” by Sheila Chandra (initially as a direct sample but later with the vocal re-sung after sample clearance issues). Some of you may also recognize it from the Charlie’s Angels film soundtrack, where it was used to great effect in the action or fight sequences.

 

“I’m the trouble starter, punkin’ instigator

I’m the fear addicted, a danger illustrated

I’m a firestarter, twisted firestarter

You’re a firestarter, twisted firestarter!”

 

And as for my B-Side, it’s finely balanced between the two other leading singles from that album (such that it may vary by day and my mood), but I’ll go with their first single from the album and their first big hit – Firestarter.

“It showcased Keith Flint, with punk rock-style vocals, as the group’s frontman and is an important crossover song, meshing electronic beats with industrial metal and punk rock”.

 

RIP Keith Flint 4 March 2019

 

And here’s my Top 10 Prodigy songs for hardcore fans:

 

(3) Breathe (Fat of the Land 1996)

(4) No Good (Start the Dance (Music for the Jilted Generation 1994)

(5) Voodoo People (Music for the Jilted Generation 1994)

(6) Music Reach (1,2,3,4) (Experience 1992)

(7) Wind It Up (Experience 1992)

(8) Your Love (Experience 1992)

(9) Their Law (Music for the Jilted Generation 1994)

(“What we’re dealing with here is a total lack of respect for the law”)

(10) Poison (Music for the Jilted Generation 1995)

(“I got the poison / I got the remedy”)

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Friday Night Funk – Top 10 Music (Mojo & Funk): Special Mention (Funk) (1) Fatboy Slim – Rockafeller Skank

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Screenshot from the music video for Rockafeller Skank

 

 

 

(1) FUNK: FATBOY SLIM (NORMAN COOK) –
ROCKAFELLER SKANK (1998)
B-SIDE: Weapon of Choice (2001)
ALBUMS: Pizzamania 1995 / You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby 1998 / Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars 2001

 

Right about now – the funk soul brother! Check it out now – the funk soul brother!

And we’re in the electronic dance funk end of the funk scale, so don’t look for lyrical depth – or any lyrics beyond the above.

A prolific producer or mixer of dance music, Norman Cook has an appealing array of musical funk sub-genres attributed to him by Wikipedia – electronica, acid house, trip hop, nu-funk and the nomenclature with which I identify him, big beat.

Of course, not many people identify him as Norman Cook – he is best known by the moniker he adopted in 1996, Fatboy Slim, and under which he released the album which represented perhaps the height of his acclaim, You’ve Come a Long Way Baby. And that album featured this entry, Rockafeller Skank.

I am also partial to the following Fatboy Slim album Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars, particularly my B-side selection Weapon of Choice and its video, because who doesn’t love Christopher Walken dancing?

And as for the rest of my Top 10 Fatboy Slim songs (including his previous incarnation as Pizzaman):
(3) Happiness (Pizzamania 1995)
(4) Sex on the Streets (Pizzamania 1995)
(5) Going Out of My Head (Better Living Through Chemistry 1997)
(6) Right Here Right Now (You’ve Come a Long Way Baby 1999)
(7) Praise You (You’ve Come a Long Way Baby 1999)
(8) Sunset / Bird of Prey (Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars 2000) – I mean, come on, it samples Jim Morrison!
(9) Demons (Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars 2000)
(10) That Old Pair of Jeans (The Greatest Hits – Why Try Harder? 2006)

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Monday Night Mojo – Top 10 Music (Mojo & Funk): Special Mention (Mojo)

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Burn to Shine album cover

*

(1) MOJO: BEN HARPER –

THE WOMAN IN YOU (BURN TO SHINE 1999)

B-side: Glory & Consequence (The Will to Live 1997)

 

“Love carved sorry in his face

The woman in you is the worry, the worry in me”

 

A voice like smooth smoky honey with a soft sad blues aftertaste – Ben Harper is an insanely talented singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, playing an eclectic mix of blues, folk, soul, reggae and rock.

Ironically my entry here, “The Woman in You” from his fourth studio album Burn to Shine in 1999, was effectively a B-side as inexplicably it was never released as a single.

As for the B-side of my entry, “Glory and Consequence” was a single from his third album The Will to Live in 1997 – the lyrics just have that hauntingly evocative resonance for me.

 

“I would rather me be lonely

And you have someone to hold

I’m not as scared of dying

As I am of growing old”

 

That hits me right in the heart – perhaps a little too hard.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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