poptimists | The History Of Jop Part 11 aka Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps

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freakytigger.livejournal.com posting in

1989, the number, another poll - something to do while you count the minutes until POPTIMISM TONIGHT AT THE UNION TAVERN (ahem).

Only EIGHT picks this time because Tone Loc's "Wild Thing" was a duplicate.

[Poll #837465]

Sweet Jop Of Ours (1988)

1. Push It (38 votes)
2. Sweet Child O Mine (35)
3. Don't Believe The Hype (34)
4. Paid In Full (33)
5. Alphabet Street (28)
6. Birthday (27)
7. Crash (26)
8. Welcome To The Jungle (25)
9. My Prerogative (23)
10=. Fast Car (20)
10=. It Takes Two (20)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

chezghost.livejournal.com

me on 'Fight The Power' for FT's top 100 singles list:
http://freakytrigger.co.uk/old-ft/nylpm/2005/09/the-ft-top-100-tracks-of-all-time-no80/

Clearly I picked this because I was worried there wouldn’t be enough rockist rap in the list. I still think this is their best and most succinct single, although I know the general consensus would point to any of the three before it. The street sound of Summer ‘89, this reference run deep into the ground by its gratuitous use in Do The Right Thing. The track is presented in that movie as some ultimate, towering concoction of black punk, following two years of consolidation and growth by the most exciting band in the world at that point.

It feels a little busier, more infectious and, perhaps crucially, more Pop than their other anthems, with the production unit and MCs on peak form. Containing arguably Chuck D’s most famous lyric (Oh, NOT an Elvis fan you say?), he wins sympathy from me as even today I know friends equally indifferent to the stature of John Wayne. Other great lines are strewn throughout. Another highlight lies in Chuck bitterly stressing that Bobby McFerrin’s message of ‘don’t worry be happy’ amounted to nothing more than denial, for D’s target audience at least, and simply wouldn’t do. How they got away with this level of fun-hating lyrically whilst attached to some of the funkiest party music of the time is the real skill of the act.

I often miss the rawness and maximal approach that came with so much hip-hop at this time as things have moved on since then in more ways than one. This represents well though the point where their message managed to capture maybe their largest universal audience yet, before being drowned out forever by the far greater demand for bitch/gun/money-obsessed gangsta fantasies (N.W.A. etc.) as opposed to dour b-boy political aspirations, regardless of how def the jam. It’s also the last track on their last truly great album and a fitting ‘exit theme’ as a result.

From:

koganbot

How is the Elvis line great? It was ignorant and stupid, calling someone complex "simple." (But that's not why I'm relatively tepid on the song. It just fades down the homestretch for me.)

From:

chezghost.livejournal.com

i thought it was great because it just comes out like pure anti-establishment energy. D sacrifices/risks accusations of ignorance and stupidity (which he felt he was getting regardless of what he said, presumably) to make a relatively good point in a way that makes you sit up and react. the strikes me as uber-punk (if you feel punk was always meant to be effective in making people think diffrerent).

From:

freakytigger.livejournal.com

I loved "Fight The Power" because it was the first thing PE did after I got into them, and because I was one of maybe three people who liked any hip-hop at ALL at my (private boarding) school, so I felt quite pleased with myself for liking it, but was also, in your elegant phrase re PE "addicted to my own oppression", and so read "the Power" as "the guys in the top year who hassle you" and "Elvis" as "the boring rock music they play" (which didn't include any Elvis - it was mostly Dylan, and I started loving Dylan as soon as I left school, when he started to make a great deal more sense).

I don't know whether - more than half my lifetime afterwards - I should still like "Fight The Power" as much, these reasons having mostly withered. But I do.

"Love Shack" annoyed me then and annoyed me now, though seeing friends try it at karaoke endeared it to me.

From:

carsmilesteve.livejournal.com

um, isn't he saying,

a straight out racist the sucker was, simple and plain

ie simply and plainly, he was a straight out racist, rather than as well as being a striaght out racist he was also simple and plain...