The History Of Jop Part 6 aka Animals strike curious poses

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Beware the savage jaw of 1984! The Pazz and Jop poll takes some curious turns this year with plenty to analyse in the comments boxes. For once no holdovers from last time or entries from the EP list, though I was sorely tempted to put Into Battle With The Art Of Noise in.


[Poll #823959]


The Joptimist Metapoll Remix (1983 Dub) is as follows:

1. Billie Jean (35 votes)
2. Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) (34)
3. Little Red Corvette (30)
4. Beat It (28)
5. White Lines (Dont Dont Do It) (26)
6. It's Like That/Sucker MCs (21)
7. Burning Down The House (18)
8. Every Breath You Take (17)
9=. Lets Dance (16)
9=. Last Night A DJ Saved My Life (16)
9=. Do You Really Want To Hurt Me (16)

Much wider spread of voting last time btw.

Comments

A good year for the remix

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

It was in 1984 that I started compiling personal End Of Year lists - top 75 tracks, top 25 LPs usually. Clearly, Xmas 1984 must have been v. quiet chez Worrell. I even went back and retroactively compiled charts for 1980-83, but I'm pretty sure what follows is the first list of favourite tracks that I compiled contemporaneously. I've reproduced just the Top 15, but that sums up the pop I was listening to very neatly.

An interesting quirk about the 1984 list is the number of "tracks" that had great remixes. Only they didn't call them remixes back then but rather "versions". In the case of ZTT releases, it was often difficult to choose one version over another. So I lumped them all together as one track for list-making purposes. The "/" symbol used frequently below implies the version was on the flip side of the vinyl record, and that is true in some cases, but in others the version was on a completely different release. For example, "Beat Box (Diversion 1) and "Beat Box (Diversion 2)" were the A and B Side of a separate 12" to the Into Battle... EP, while "Beat Box (Diversions 3 and 4)" were released only on an NME cassette. And you could fill both sides of a C-60 with all the versions of "Two Tribes" that were knocking around. I even made my own mix/edit of the track, using TV interviews with Frankie and Paul Morley and other 'found' media material.

My top 15:
1. Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Two Tribes / versions
2. Art of Noise – Beat Box / Beat Box (Diversions 1-4)
3. 23 Skidoo – Language A / Language B
4. Cocteau Twins – Aloysius
5. Cocteau Twins – Ivo
6. The Smiths – Suffer Little Children
7. Bronski Beat – Why? / Why? (12” extended version)
8. Rush – Red Lenses
9. Wham! – Wake Me Up Before You Go Go
10. New Order – Thieves Like Us
11. The Smiths – How Soon Is Now?
12. Scritti Politti – Hypnotise / version
13. Smiley Culture – Police Officer
14. Tears For Fears – Mothers Talk*
15. 23 Skidoo – Coup / Version: In the Palace

*ex-post substitution for ‘Reel Around The Fountain’ by The Smiths (I later decided much preferred the ’83 Peel session version of this, which became #2 in my 1983 chart).

Re: A good year for the remix

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

Was it not all the different versions of Two Tribes (and other ZTT releases) that lead to the chart introducing rules about the number of formats and remixes?

Re: A good year for the remix

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I don't think so, e.g. the 'only 3 formats' rule (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Singles_Chart#Criteria_for_inclusion) came in much later.