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Here's a short, sweet, self-explanatory video (just 50 seconds) demonstrating the three most important breaks in history.



If you have 18 minutes - and if you don't, set them aside - watch this video detailing the history and usage of the Amen Break. It's a 6-second drum loop nicked from a song called "Amen, Brother" by The Winstons, released in 1969. It's the single most used break in history, and is responsible for spawning, oh, I don't know, 10 genres of music. I watched this in 2006, so am just posting it here for people still in the dark about it. No matter who you are on this site, I can guarantee you've heard this break hundreds of times and didn't even know what it was. Most of the time, it's slowed down drastically to act as backdrop to a track, be it for Bassbin Twins, DJ Shadow, DJ Krush, etc.



To hear "Amen, Brother" in its entirely, watch this video:



Out of those three breaks, James Brown is responsible for the other two of them. "Funky Drummer" is the obvious one. The not-as-obvious one is Lyn Collins's "Think (About It)."



Lyn Collins was James Brown's back up singer and was one of the artists who continued to promote and manage - which is why you hear him in the background. James Brown wrote and produced this track. Lyn Collins was on his label, People records. He really is The Godfather for a reason. I mean, Godfather of Soul, but really more like Godfather of 10 Genres of Music. It's thoroughly ridiculous how much modern music owes to James Brown.

So, I'm off to educate myself in depth about soul music. It's a great foundation of musical history.

Just for fun, by the way, there's some absolute goofball on youtube with the user name of AddedAmenBreak. S/he literally slaps Amen Breaks on top of completely random things and posts them. It's rather amusing.

Review - Album: Kiss The Lips Of Life - Brilliant

This album is actually twenty-three years old, so why review it now? It has recently been issued on CD for the first time in the U.S. only and is now being imported by music lovers in the UK after a heads up from the official PWL website about the reissue.

So, who are Brilliant and why should we care?

The album has vocals from June Montana, guitar and keyboards come courtesy of Jimi Cauty who later went on to vast success with The KLF and backing vocalists include Princess, Pepsi, Shirley Lewis and Dee Lewis.

The production on all but one track is from the magical Stock Aitken Waterman team.

It's A Man's Man's Man's World Yes, this is a cover of the James Brown song. It's urban-lite on a pretty sorry scale. Dull, plodding and pretty pointless. 4/10

Somebody This is one of those tracks where - once you hear it - you'll realise that the song you never heard of is a song that you do actually know... if you're a Stock Aitken Waterman fan. This has the key elements that drove the team to become the phenomenal success that they were. A really hook laden and upbeat chorus - top drawer. 10/10

Ruby Fruit Jungle This sounds like one of those very early Bananarama tracks that nobody actually knows... before they became famous, as it were. It's inoffensive, mildly pleasant, but won't make you're waters run with excitement. 6/10

How High The Sun This track really does mark the birth of future legends. All whooshing and rocking guitars with a driving dance beat - hear this, know that the man behind MuMu Land and Transcentral is involved and it all makes sense. Look, too, at the writing credits and see that Stock Aitken Waterman not only produced this but co-wrote it, and you have a vital part of British pop and dance music history to consider. And it's a great, strong track too. 9.5/10

Kiss The Lips Of Life Title track of the album, sounding every bit the mid-eighties track that it is. It's a good fun, upbeat track and one which allows Cauty to show off on the guitar a little. 9/10

Love Is War This track was my biggest joy about buying this reissued album. This is one of those quintessential Stock Aitken Waterman early tracks and was the true fore-runner to all that came after. Hear this once and, if you don't know it already, you'll play it on repeat already and know it by bedtime. A must have track. Ten out of ten just doesn't ate it highly enough. Pure Pwl gold. 10/10

Crash The Car Slightly cheesy but interesting and enjoyable borderline Hi-NRG track which foreshadows Roadblock far more than it does anything KLF. It's almost entirely instrumental... and it doesn't half make you want to sing a Rick Astley song over the top of the beats. 9/10

I'll Be Your Lover This is completely recognisable as Stock Aitken Waterman from the word go. Nice track. 9/10

The End Of The World This is a cover of the old Skeeter Davis song that Stock Aitken Waterman would, a few years later, preside over with a further cover from Sonia. While Skeeter and Sonia delivered quite contrasting version, this one is reasonably uptempo and is a refreshing take on an old song. 9.5/10

Overall rating: 8.5/10

Upcoming:
Bombay Bicycle Club (x2)
The Maccabees
The Big Pink

A:
Airborne Toxic Event

B:
Beck
Bloc Party
Bombay Bicycle Club (x4)
British Sea Power

C:
The Coral
The Cribs

D:
Dan Potthast
DJ Yoda
Does It Offend You, Yeah?
The Doves

E:
Editors (x2)

F:
Fatboy Slim
The Feeling
Future of the Left

G:
The Go! Team

H:
Hard-Fi

I:

J:
James Brown
Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong
The Joy Formidable

K:
Kate Nash
Keane
Kid British
KT Tunstall
Kubb

L:
Lightspeed Champion

M:
Macy Gray
Magic Numbers (x2)
Maximo Park
Morrissey
Mylo
Mystery Jets

N:
Natty

O:

P:
Paul Weller

Q:
Qemists

R:
Radiohead
Razorlight
Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Rumble Strips

S:
Streetlight Manifesto
Sugababes
Supergrass

T:
Travis

U:

V:

W:

X:

Y:

Z:

Previously: My top 200 tracks 1990-99 Pt.01a: 200 to 181
Previously: My top 200 tracks 1990-99 Pt.01b: 180 to 161
Previously: My top 200 tracks 1990-99 Pt.02a: 160 to 141

140
Lo-Fidelity Allstars
Vision Incision
How to Operate with a Blown Mind
1998

Treated by the music press as if they were the saviours of electronic music, they could never possibly live up to the billing, and nor were they anyway. They did, however, release some pretty special singles. Broadly, they were "big beat" with vocals, but their use of some pretty diverse samples and influences helped to broaden them out of what would otherwise have been a musical dead-end, as the genre was already beginning to peter out creatively even by this point. Of the first album singles - i.e. before the vocalist quit - Vision Incision's string-sample-laden, not to mention sampling The Three Degrees, epic soundscape was by far the best of them. To add to that, I was never entirely sure what the lyrics were on about, but their beat-poet stylings work well, before the track itself leaves the vocals behinds and heads off into the stratosphere, picking up more and more elements as it goes along...

139
Carcass
Corporal Jigsore Quandary
Necroticism - Descanting the Insalubrious
1991

We can argue all day what genre this falls into - I prefer to say this is death metal rather than grindcore, certainly - but what is indisputable is just how fucking good this track is. Once you get past the sample describing the arrival of bodies in the mortuary, it's the ultra-fast drum rhythm that knocks you off your feet, before the guitars sweep in to deliver a quick punch to the face. What is perhaps all the more impressive is the fact that this track never stays still - switching styles, rhythms and riffs where necessary but always remaining coherent.

138
Type O Negative
Black No.1 (Little Miss Scare-All)
Bloody Kisses
1993

Who said Goths have no sense of humour? By a long way the most accurate character sketch of the gothic girl ever committed to tape, it's also hilarious, and the tune ain't bad, either, even if at eleven minutes it really does go on a bit!

137
Skunk Anansie
Little Baby Swastikkka
Paranoid & Sunburnt
1995

I still remember the sensation that this track caused when played on Radio 1 early on, and I also remember the batshit insane reception it got when they opened with it at the Heineken Festival in Leeds in July 1995. Judging on recent footage of it being performed live this autumn by the newly reconvened band, it still rocks very hard indeed, and it's less-than-subtle anti-racism message still shines through, too. Nice to have them back.

136
China Drum
Wuthering Heights
Can't Stop These Things (Single)
1996

One of those truly out-there covers that on paper should never, ever, ever have worked, not only that but this was only a B-side, until John Peel and the Evening Session picked up on it. A Northumberland-based pop-punk band whose drummer was the singer, they are now pretty much forgotten, I'd suspect, aside from the oddity of this song. Basically fast-paced guitar rock, this version, but somehow it works, puts a smile on your face, and remains an enduring classic.

135
Headswim
Dead
Flood
1994

Headswim were an odd band, particularly early on. A strange mix of grunge and psychedelia, really, following the death of the lead singer's brother they changed tack entirely to a more introspective sound, that admittedly still had it's great moments (Tourniquet in particular). It's their really early stuff, though, that's truly ace - like this track. It's deep, ominous basslines pulls the whole track forward into a dirty groove that stands above just about everything else the band did.

134
Clawfinger
The Truth
Deaf Dumb Blind
1993

Highly political, (deep breath) industrial-tinged-funk-rap-metal from Sweden of all places, the album raised a few eyebrows with it's (very) coarse language and confrontational songs (the opener, Nigger, is an anti-racism track), and needless to say was a pretty big success. The most immediate of the singles, though, was this (again easily recognisable for it's sweary chorus), the stomping, bouncing rhythms almost put in the shade by Zak Tell's staccato lyrical delivery. Apparently a re-recording of this album is coming soon...

133
Six by Seven
Something Wild
The Things We Make
1998

Six By Seven's first album was a masterwork in control - of holding back the rage that was always seemingly about to explode from the speakers, tempering every last track with such restraint that many tracks took some while to really kick in. One of the notable exceptions to the rule was this track, an urgent, searing exhortation to take a chance with just about anything, that's such a thrilling track you just want to jump along for the ride.

132
The Young Gods
The Night Dance
T.V. Sky
1994

An obscure album track that was always an impressive song, but really came into it's own when I saw TYG live - built around the usual trio of vocals, drums and sampler, it's a track about watching the stars with a lover, and it sounds like a track beamed in from said stars.

131
Sister Machine Gun
Why Not
Sins Of The Flesh
1992

This takes me back. US Industrial, Wax Trax! style. A pulsing, heavy heavy beat underpins the really quite sleazy lyrics - trying to get some unnamed girl to sleep with him. For some reason, though, I love this song. The furious desire in the lyrics, the hushed delivery, in fact just about everything about it. They just don't make industrial like this any more...

130
Rammstein
Wollt Ihr Das Bett in Flammen Sehen
Herzeleid
1995

The first Rammstein track I ever heard, way back at the beginning of 1997, this was the beginning of my love of this band that has taken me as far as Prague to see them live (not to mention three other occasions in the UK, and soon another in London in the new year). Like all of the best R+ tracks, it's ridiculously over the top, very heavy, and needless to say live (although it's not been played for some years) it involves a lot of fire, as befits it's title. Lyrically it's about the battle of the sexes, in a very descriptive way, and would probably still fill metal/industrial dancefloors if anyone had ever bothered to pick up the first R+ album...

129
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Where the Wild Roses Grow (feat. Kylie Minogue)
Murder Ballads
1996

I bet you weren't expecting Kylie in this list. She isn't the primary reason, of course, she just happens to feature on one of Nick Cave's more remarkable tracks - a murder ballad that somehow became a reasonable hit. Of course that is likely down to the fact that it sounds like a lush love song, of first love and then loss. Listen a little more closely, though, and the full horror of what happens becomes clear: boy meets girl, falls in love with girl...and then murders her because he can't bear for such beauty to stay alive. My girlfriend and I long-since agreed that if we ever get married, our first dance will be to this. That should be fun...

128
Stanford Prison Experiment
(Very) Put Out
The Gato Hunch
1995

A band so long gone that there is barely a web mention of them now, they were a small footnote in hardcore, perhaps. A shame, as this was a pretty special band. Ultra-political (to the point of putting a 28-minute Noam Chomsky lecture on the end of this CD), they specialised in a bass-heavy, near-funk metal-influenced hardcore, and they had a habit of managing to write tracks that grabbed you by the throat and slammed you against the wall. This two-minute track was one of those - and the bone-dry production only helped to accentuate it. Much to my regret I never got to see this band live - I believe they only came to the UK once, anyway, in '95 with Quicksand.

127
Cubanate
Oxyacetylene
Cyberia
1994

An industrial dancefloor monster, this, that was inescapable in the clubs for many, many years. And with good reason, too - this is pure industrial aggression with a pulsating beat and gigantic chorus that remains something of a classic, even if it is a little overplayed - yes, fifteen years on. It still fucking rocks, though. Side note: ex-Cubanate member Phil Barry's new project Be My Enemy is well worth a look if you liked Cubanate...

126
Blind Melon
No Rain
Blind Melon
1992

An already beautiful ballad gained added poignancy three years after release, when singer Shannon Hoon succumbed to a long battle with cocaine addiction. Not that this song is about that - more about battles with depression and finding the small moments of positivity within it, as I see it - either way, it's one of those songs that touched a nerve and became huge, single-handedly driving sales of the band's first album. Not a lot else I can say about this, really: this is a song I emotionally connected with a long time ago, and the bond still hasn't been broken yet.

125
Air
Kelly Watch The Stars
Moon Safari
1998

Easy-listening, chillout music perhaps had a bad name by 1998 - dreadful, throwaway cheese like Mike Flowers Pops saw to that - and it could perhaps be said that Air were a lot of the reason that this situation changed. The whole album was brilliant, but this is the track I prefer of the majestic pair of singles (Sexy Boy being the other). A bit more uptempo, with it's marching beat and odd, detached vocodered voice, it takes off into space quite literally halfway through, with the sound of the stars whooshing past your ears. It's mightily odd video - featuring a table-tennis match - is worth a look too.

124
Manic Street Preachers
Elvis Impersonator: Blackpool Pier
Everything Must Go
1996

Quite probably one of the strangest lyrics that Richey Edwards left the Manics when he disappeared, this opener to their triumphant comeback album Everything Must Go didn't half sound odd having already heard the single A Design For Life. Seemingly a musing on the Americanisation of British culture, it paints a sad and slightly pathetic image of the titular character, but explodes into such a life-affirming track - something kept up by the tracks that follow it - that it's no surprise that the album was such a huge success, really. Triumph in the face of adversity and all that, right? And the positive nature was something of a change to the relentless The Holy Bible, too...

123
KMFDM
Liebeslied
Naïve
1990

Sadly nowadays shorn of it's iconic sample (the Carl Orff samples from O Fortuna had to be removed pretty quickly), the original version - the version I'm referring to - is an astounding tour de force, and is certainly one of the best KMFDM tracks ever. Bombastic, skyscraping, and a crunching symphonic metal backing, frankly this could be seen as being years ahead of it's time. It works without the sample, but for the full effect hunt out the original. You won't regret it.

122
Ministry
Thieves
The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste
1990

The first song of many to sample Full Metal Jacket? Probably the best, too. Stop-start dynamics in full-force, along with the titanic thrash-metal interludes, result in one of industrial metal's finest moments, never mind Ministry's. Also notable as one of only two or three tracks to survive the car crash that was the C U L8 Tour in 2008 without being butchered by the dreadful performance.

121
Public Enemy
Welcome To The Terrordome
Fear of a Black Planet
1990

To follow-up the greatest rap album ever (sadly out of my remit here), PE somehow made an album almost as amazing, but it was the first single that always stood out the most. A dense meshing of many, many samples (including god knows how much James Brown), and Chuck D bringing his thoughts to bear on everything that was pissing him off at the time (and that was quite a lot, judging on how much he stuffs in to his raps). PE's best moments were always all about righteous fury, and this perhaps tops them all.

Tuesday: My top 200 tracks 1990-99 Pt.03: 120 to 81

After these English alphabets I've put some of my favorite bands.

When you have read through this journal, you're supposed to write at least one (but max. 4) band after every letter. You can put bands that you don't listen to anymore but you once listened to a lot, or bands that you've just started diggin' and of course; your all time favorites.

A: Asa, Arctic Monkeys
B: Beastie Boys, Big Daddy Kane, Billy Talent, Bloc Party
C: Coldplay, The Chemical Brothers, Cobra Starship, The Cab
D: Dr. Dre, The D.O.C., Dizzee Rascal, Doug E. Fresh
E: Eric B. & Rakim, Egotrippi, EPMD, Eazy-E
F: Fintelligens, The Fray, Family Force 5, Franz Ferdinand
G: GZA, Gnarls Barkley, Gym Class Heroes
H: Hannibal & Soppa, Hieroglyphics, Heikki Kuula
I: Immortal Technique, Ice Cube, Innerpartysystem
J: Jay-Z, Jamiroquai, Jamie Cullum, James Brown
K: Kanye West, The Killers, Keane, Kool G Rap & DJ Polo
L: Lupe Fiasco, Loost Koos
M: Mika, Muse, Michael Jackson, Mobb Deep
N: N*E*R*D, Naughty by Nature, Nas, Norah Jones
O: OutKast
P: Panic at the Disco, Proof, Petter, Pharrell
Q: -
R: Run-D.M.C., Radiohead, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ray Charles
S: Secondhand Serenade, Snoop Dogg, Snow Patrol, Slick Rick
T: Talib Kweli, T.I., A Tribe Called Quest
U: Usher
V: -
W: Wu-Tang Clan, The White Tie Affair, Wale
X: Xzibit
Y: -
Z: -

My top 10 albums of each decade since the 1960s.

1960s

1. The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground & Nico
2. Pink Floyd - The Piper At The Gates of Dawn
3. Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band - Trout Mask Replica
4. The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
5. 13th Floor Elevators - The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators
6. The Stooges - The Stooges
7. James Brown - Live at the Apollo
8. Love - Forever Changes
9. Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
10. The United States of America - The United States of America

1970s

1. Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
2. David Bowie - Low
3. Gang of Four - Entertainment!
4. Funkadelic - Maggot Brain
5. The Clash - London Calling
6. Television - Marquee Moon
7. Brian Eno - Here Come The Warm Jets
8. Miles Davis - Bitches Brew
9. Pink Floyd - Animals
10. Kraftwerk - Trans-Europe Express

1980s

1. Talking Heads - Remain in Light
2. Joy Division - Closer
3. Minutemen - Double Nickels on the Dime
4. Tom Waits - Rain Dogs
5. The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead
6. Meat Puppets - Meat Puppets II
7. Paul Simon - Graceland
8. Operation Ivy - Energy
9. Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation
10. Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique

1990s

1. Guided by Voices - Bee Thousand
2. Jawbreaker - 24 Hour Revenge Therapy
3. Wu-Tang Clan - Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
4. Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
5. Green Day - Dookie
6. DJ Shadow - Endtroducing
7. Dr. Dre - The Chronic
8. Radiohead - OK Computer
9. At the Drive-In - Acrobatic Tenement
10. Reatards - Teenage Hate

2000s

1. M.I.A. - Kala
2. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion
3. Radiohead - Kid A
4. Jay Reatard - Blood Visions
5. Portishead - Third
6. OutKast - Stankonia
7. At the Drive-In - Relationship of Command
8. Andrew Jackson Jihad - People Who Can Eat People Are The Luckiest People In The World
9. Arcade Fire - Funeral
10. The Ergs! - Dorkrockcorkrod

My Girlfriends Review:

I really enjoyed this album from the first chord till the last. Solomon Burke with this album took me back to the holiday camp in Dirty Dancing, the back rooms where the dancers let there hair down and the main camp during the day while guests played golf took dance lessons etc. Goodbye Baby is a very chilled out relaxed track which funny enough works as a opener and immediately takes you back to the era of the 60's. The voice is so soothing and makes all the tracks mellow and relaxing and somehow upbeat at the same time. Tracks like If You Need Me and Hard Ain't It Hard show this beautifully. Big thumbs up for Rock n' soul.

The only thing about this weeks album is we couldn't find it in full so we ended up messing the tracks together from three different Solomon Burke albums but thats nothing to worry about. Thanks guys till next week happy listening.

My review:

Cry To Me is an excellent, brilliant song from the movie Dirty Dancing. Its a shame that the rest of the album really couldn't match up to this song. He really does have a great voice though. This is much better than the previous album and is much more to my liking than other recent albums such as the James Brown album. I'm just slightly dissappointed that the whole album was not as good as 'Cry To Me' because that is one of the best songs in this challenge so far.

My rating: 0.5/5
My girlfriends rating: 3.5/5