The History Of Jop Part 7 aka We're Rockers And Rappers United And Strong

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The Pazz and Jop polls take us to the fairly unheralded year of 1985, and the selection is.....well, judge for yourself and discuss below. You get NINE votes, cast them wisely.

Notes: The John Fogerty song that got in last time rose to #3(!!) this time. It was excluded.


[Poll #826538]


The Joptimists 1984 Vote Verdict:

1. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (38 votes)
2. When Doves Cry (37 votes)
3. Jump (31)
4=. I Feel For You (28)
4=. Time After Time (28)
6. Let's Go Crazy (23)
7. What's Love Got To Do With It (21)
8. Dancing In The Dark (20)
9=. Free Nelson Mandela (19)
9=. Let's Hear It For The Boy (19)

Comments

At the time

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

The top 15 of my Top 75 tracks list of 1985:

1. The Smiths - "The Headmaster Ritual"
2. Tears For Fears - "Everybody Wants To etc."
3. The Woodentops - "Move Me"
4. Kate Bush - "Running Up That Hill"
5. Scritti Politti - "Perfect Way"
6. Jesus & Mary Chain - "Just Like Honey"
7. Scritti Politti - "The Word Girl (Flesh and Blood)"
8. The Men They Couldn't Hang - "Ironmasters"
9. New Order - "Perfect Kiss"
10. Rush - "The Big Money"
11. Eurythmics & Aretha Franklin - "Sisters Are etc." *
12. Go West - "We Close Our Eyes"
13. The Fall - "Paint Work" **
14. The Woodentops - "Well Well Well" (12" extended version)
15. Prefab Sprout - "Faron Young"

*Clearly, with benefit of hindsight, not as good as "There Must Be An Angel", which was my #16.

** ex-post substitution for "19" by Paul Hardcastle, which got bumped way down the list. But this is probably too high a position for MES as well, especially given that I put "Into The Groove" at a mere #24.

I overrated #6 and #8 at the time.

Re: At the time

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

"Faron Young" by Prefab Sprout is a huge favourite of mine too, despite being (as McAloon later admitted!) catastrophically wrong!

Re: Faron Young

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

"wrong" in what sense?

I was originally attracted to it because I had loved "Four In The Mornin'" by Faron Young as a kid (although I didn't know it was by Faron Young at the time - being able to make that connection was part of the appeal).

I was slightly surprised, when I finally heard Steve McQueen, that there was nothing else like "Faron Young" on the record. But I soon fell in love with what it did contain.

Re: Faron Young

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

In the sense that the emotion in country music isn't as bogus as he's claiming in the song.

Re: Faron Young

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Oh.

TBH I've never been a big lyrics person, and that went double for McAloon: trying to work out what he was on about was generally Too Much Like Hard Work. What was good about PS to me = the melodies, the arrangements, the singing, and T Dolby's input.

Re: Faron Young

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yeah I wouldn't normally bother with PM's lyrics anyway because they're mostly cobblers, but actually the reason I tracked down this song in the first place (and got into Prefab Sprout) was an interview talking through a compilation in 1992 in which he was saying "Oh the lyrics are so terrible, I got it completely wrong, like the song though". I was really intrigued by this as such candidness seemed unusual to me! So I always think of the song in those terms. It's maybe my favourite PS record.

Re: Faron Young

[http://users.livejournal.com/xyzzzz__/]

I think I must've tracked them down when I had a look at the cover for Steve McQueen -- black and white, and the title probably got me curious -- now I'm thinking how Smiths-like all that ws must've been, unconciously then, my reason for getting it despite not having heard any individual songs from them.

Faron Young feels so right as an opener.