dunno if this will work, but lets see.

 

lets list the referances to someone/thing/lyric that appear in modern songs... for eg

 

kesha - 'tick tock' referances 'mick jagger', some might not know who mick jagger is! (lead singer of the rolling stones)

 

and

 

arctic monkeys - 'when the sun goes down' referances in the lyric "he told roxanne to put on her red light" , a nod to the polices chart topper 'roxanne'.

 

can you think of others?

(ok not too modern)

 

scooter - 'weekend'.... "respect to the man in the ice cream van" giving the nod of respect to the klf.

the only one I can think of is American pie (don McLean/Madonna) which references Buddy Hollys death.

(ok not too modern)

 

scooter - 'weekend'.... "respect to the man in the ice cream van" giving the nod of respect to the klf.

didn't Scooter include a reference to KLF in a number of their songs? For example

 

Ramp (The Logical Song)

 

Love, peace and unity

Siberia the place to be

The K The L The F and ideology

Hallelujah!

One, two... one, two, three, yeah!

Rough!

Aaaah!

Here we go!

 

 

 

 

Not a reference in a modern song but a track from ELO's New World Record (1976) 'Shangri-La' ... mentions Hey Jude. The line is 'faded like the Beatles on Hey Jude'.

 

Norma

didn't Scooter include a reference to KLF in a number of their songs? For example

 

Ramp (The Logical Song)

 

Love, peace and unity

Siberia the place to be

The K The L The F and ideology

Hallelujah!

One, two... one, two, three, yeah!

Rough!

Aaaah!

Here we go!

 

indeed and in 'weekend' theres the seemingly bizarre 'respect to the man in the ice cream van' like at the end.

The funniest one I remember right now was Carter USM - "Goodbye Ruby Tuesday/Come home you silly cow..." :lol: :lol:

Kylie paid tribute to You Spin Me Round with Red Blooded Woman.

I think the lyric was you got me spinning round round (like a record.)

didn't Scooter include a reference to KLF in a number of their songs? For example

 

Ramp (The Logical Song)

 

Love, peace and unity

Siberia the place to be

The K The L The F and ideology

Hallelujah!

One, two... one, two, three, yeah!

Rough!

Aaaah!

Here we go!

 

 

I do not know if anybody else has got this record or not, but as far as The KLF are concerned I think “Kylie Said To Jason” should be mentioned here, because even when it was first released, the record featured a number of retro references alongside lyrics about Kylie, Jason and the Todd Terry Project.

 

I cannot remember all the lyrics to the song, but I remember that Bill Drummond was reminiscing back to a [fictional] time in his life where he was relaxing on the floor of a room listening to music, whilst being in the company of a number of celebrities. I do not know if this was supposed to be ‘The White Room’ or not, though I remember that footage from that abandoned film project was used for the single’s video.

 

The video featured on one of the Snub TV compilations that were released onto VHS by Virgin Vision in the late 1980s, though I never got around to buying that particular release, only the Snub TV video, which featured “Hairstyle Of The Devil” by Momus. My copy of “Kylie Said To Jason” is on an old ‘Beachwood Indie Hits’ compilation CD [volume 8], alongside “Only Losers Take The Bus” by The Fatima Mansions. It has been so many years since I have listened to “Kylie Said To Jason” that lyrics in my mind have become merged with that of Red Box’s “Heart Of The Sun” single [which went “Contrasting ceremonies!, the circle and the square”].

 

I do not see why this record has become merged in my sub-consciousness with that of Red Box as “Kylie Said To Jason” was a record that sounded more like [fellow 1980s duo] Sparks, in the decade [starting circa 1985] when they were a synth/electro-pop act recording songs like “National Crime Awareness Week” and “When I Kiss You, I Hear Charlie Parker Playing”.

 

Whereas a lot of references noted by Sparks in their songs seem to be of a high cultural calibre [jazz & classical music, foreign films, people like Charlie Parker and Tsui Hark] “Kylie Said To Jason” was very much to do with mass entertainment.

 

In the song Drummond states that a number of television characters and personalities are in the vicinity of the room where he was, including many popular in the 1960s and 1970s. From Australia, Skippy The Bush Kangaroo was being ‘entertained’ by Rolf Harris who was playing “Sun Arise” on his didgeridoo, whilst Felicity Kendal and Richard Briers from The Good Life were also present, though Drummond could not remember if Briers was actually in the garden or not.

 

I do not think Scooter have recorded a cover of “Kylie Said To Jason” yet or in fact, any records by The KLF, though I did read that they were very fond of Stump and have recently covered a track by that band. The magazine did not say what record it was, though if it was “Charlton Heston” it may be interesting to hear at least once.

 

Loz

 

I do not see why this record has become merged in my sub-consciousness with that of Red Box as “Kylie Said To Jason” was a record that sounded more like [fellow 1980s duo] Sparks, in the decade [starting circa 1985] when they were a synth/electro-pop act recording songs like “National Crime Awareness Week” and “When I Kiss You, I Hear Charlie Parker Playing”.

Sparks started in the 1970s and are still going. They've released some brilliant albums in the last few years.

 

BTW, good to see you back. You don't seem to have been around much lately.

Sparks started in the 1970s and are still going. They've released some brilliant albums in the last few years.

 

Have you heard their Swedish Radio ‘popera’ about Ingmar Bergman yet? [i do not know if ‘popera’ would be the right term or whether it should be ‘operetta’, as I have just borrowed the phrase from an old Associates album]. I think the album was called “The Seduction Of Ingmar Bergman”, though I can not be sure as The Art Of Noise released an album in 1999 called “The Seduction Of Claude Debussy” and might be getting mixed up with that.

 

Thankfully, the ‘popera’ was not just confined to Sweden and was broadcast by the BBC over Christmas on the radio. That was when the album was released in a number of special editions and to this day, I do not think you can buy the recording as a conventional CD, unless you live in Stockholm.

 

Ingmar Bergman was originally mentioned as an example in the list that I provided but in the end, I deleted his name as I thought there were too many references in the brackets. Also, as I had already mentioned Honk Kong film maker Tsui Hark, I thought that one director in the list was enough.

 

Now I come to think of it, Ingmar Bergman may have been a better example as I think that Tsui Hark is still making movies in China. I would not know what films he would have made recently, as these days, on the rare occasions when I actually have time to see a film, I normally end up watching those big Hollywood blockbusters on DVD.

 

At home I have also got a Sparks concert DVD to watch, though this will have to wait until I have finished watching my Yazoo compilation, The Best of Big Country and a couple of Roxy Music discs that I have recently purchased.

 

For many years I disregarded both Bryan Ferry’s solo and band work. This was because my first point of reference would have been “Jealous Guy” and “More Than This”, which made me come a conclusion, formulated over a number of years in the 1980s, that this was music for ‘slimy yuppie types’.

 

Over the last few weeks I have bought a large selection from the back catalogue of Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music. I think my verdict was unfair as there are many tracks by Roxy Music that I have come to like and anyway, to keep up those type of ‘vendettas’ against acts is quite immature, especially now I am in my mid-30s and not a teenager anymore. Not only that, but I guess that they would have influenced many of the New Romantic acts that I like [i would say Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran, though maybe not Classix Nouveaux] as well as being contemporaries of a number of acts from the 1970s that I like as well.

 

Actually, on a number of recordings by Sparks, I think that the vocal style of Russell Mael is very similar to that of Ferry. Obviously this would not be in the instances where Mael would ‘talk-sing’ or where his vocals would soar into falsetto. I think the best example of this could be in the song “Lighten Up, Morrissey”. I may have got the wrong song, but I remember that Sparks were guests on ‘Friday Night with Jonathan Ross’ and it was with one of the performances they gave that night, that I first thought of the similarities between the two singers.

 

The album which Sparks were promoting at the time was called “Exotic Creatures Of The Deep”. I think this album was the 21st album that they have released during their career. I do not own that album or as it turns out, a large proportion of the others, even with the many albums by Sparks that I actually own.

 

My collection comprises of many of their later works, rather than the albums that were released in the 1970s by Island Records. This is because my starting point with Sparks would have been “Singing In The Shower” [with Les Rita Mitsouko] and the ‘Music That You Can Dance To’ album in the 1980s. For many years, I knew them just as a typical synth-pop duo of ‘show-person’ and stationary synth player. I suppose it might be too simplistic to state that they were, at this point, just an ‘American Soft Cell’ [the first act of this type that I knew] as with their ‘Avant-garde’ leanings maybe an ‘American Yello’ would be nearer the truth.

 

There are many tracks that I like by Sparks, but in regards to the last 10 years, I think my favourites would be “Perfume” and “My Baby’s Taking Me Home”. In the case of the last track, I did not understand the subtleties of that recording at first, as the song is essentially the phrase “My Baby’s Taking Me Home” repeated over and over again. Nevertheless after listening to the song a few times more [and after being given ‘pointers’ from a show on the radio] I can now say that the Maels did achieve the effect that they were going after. The track is like an ‘aural’ Magic Eye picture and it does seem that Russell is implying that ‘a girlfriend is taking him home in her car’ at the start which then changes to ‘Damn! the divorce has been finalised and she has got the keys to my home’ by the end.

 

Loz