Doctor Blind
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Posts posted by Doctor Blind
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Sash! ft. La Trec - Stay
http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm82/TheMagicPosition86/rsz_stay_zps8kjk2o9h.png
Date 12th October 1997
4 Weeks
Official Chart Run 2-4-4-5-9-15-21-26-33-44-48-44-54-70 (14 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.
Racking up their third hit of the year, and impressively a third consecutive silver medal position (becoming the first act to open their UK chart history account with a trio of #2s) were the German production team led by Sascha Lappessen, aka Sash! - who as mentioned in previous commentaries also consisted of Thomas Lüdke and Ralf Kappmeier.
“Stay” replaces the euphoric and uplifting trance of its predecessors and replaces it with the melancholy of warm strings, a killer synth melody and the beautiful belting vocals of Francine McCoy (aka, La Trec) pining for a rekindling of a relationship that has long since faded out. La Trec was the third different singer in as many releases, which Sascha reasoned kept them from repeating themselves.. however they did go on to use La Trec on 3 tracks on 1997 debut It's My Life. It also became the groups third consecutive hit constituting a different language; following the French in “Encore Une Fois” and Spanish in previous hit “Ecuador”, and is a much more conventional song with more lyrics than either of its predecessors which suggested an appetite for a serious commercial assault on radio.
Such large overnight success often draws scepticism and criticism in equal measure, and it was all-too-predictable after Faithless had accused the group of stealing parts of “Salva Mea” and “Insomnia” for debut hit “Encore Une Fois” (though never taken as far as legal proceedings), British DJ Andy Hagerty (aka Kaleid) would then sue the group alleging plagiarism of his 1996 dance track “Durrel” for the main hook in “Stay”. Whilst there are undoubtably similarities between the two and it is tempting to think that the talent behind Sash! was contrived and that he was some kind of dance music magpie, the court ruled against Hagerty as there was no clear evidence to suggest music plagiarism.
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Edited by Doctor Blind
Dario G - Sunchyme
http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm82/TheMagicPosition86/Sunchyme_zpspmpfx2fe.png
Date 21st September 1997
3 Weeks
Official Chart Run 2-3-2-3-5-6-10-15-21-34-43-58-65-60-54-62-59-65 (18 weeks)
*Positions in red are the weeks when the track would be number 1 if just dance music was chart eligible.
With its African/tribal sounding influences, it is difficult to immediately believe just how British 90s dance track “Sunchyme” really is - with its main sample and influence drawn from English group The Dream Academy’s beautiful but somewhat depressing 1985 hit “Life In A Northern Town” - and that sample being transformed into an incredibly upbeat and positive dance anthem (complete with steel drums) by a trio of DJs from northwest England.
Dario G were based in Cheshire and made up of Scott Rosser - who was originally from South Wales, and locals Paul Spencer and Stephen Spencer. Paul and Scott had previously met in college during the 1980s on a music course, and by the end of the decade with their studies behind them, the two went about building a record studio and began experimenting with different ideas. To pay the bills, Paul taught music and Scott played in a band. They then chanced upon meeting Stephen, who was working at the time in the music industry as a distributor, and began collaborating as a trio on underground dance tracks - though it took some time, after building up a catalogue of sounds, samples and demos before they created what would become known as “Sunchyme”.
“Life In A Northern Town” was a #15 hit for the Dream Academy in 1985 and somewhat unusually a bigger hit in America (#7) - dedicated to the late Nick Drake, who tragically took his own life at the age of just 26, the song was written to describe the abject depression that befell major northern cities during the 1980s after having lost their main industry (in this case it was the shipyards in northeast England). Dario G were named after Crewe Alexandra long running manager Dario Gradi (who only left in November 2011 after 28 years!) and cleverly crafted the sample amongst joyous steel drums, an incredibly catchy piano hook and transformed it into the upbeat, unifying sound that became “Sunchyme”. The video highlights its influences well and conveys the same social message of equality, and with it being unique this inevitably led to its use successfully soundtracking many a TV montage. “Sunchyme” would go on to sell half a million in the UK and rank 19th for the year, and with over 1.5 million copies worldwide from its success in Europe, this took the group and the label by surprise meaning a follow-up was not put forward for some time...
More from the group next year!
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The Top 50 is a playlist in itself which is one of the most popular playlists on Spotify. Once you enter it the song becomes more likely to be streamed, which helps it to remain in the Top 50 - it is actually incredibly difficult to break in and there are lots of songs with a '51' peak as shown here: http://kworb.net/spotify/country/gb_daily.html
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Doctor Blind Chart - 3rd April 2016
TW - LW / Artist / “Song” / Peak- if not current
01 - 01 LUH “I&I” *3 weeks at #1*
02 - 02 Jessy Lanza “It Means I Love You”
03 - 03 School of Seven Bells “Ablaze”
04 - 09 Anohni “Drone Bomb Me”
05 - 07 New Order “Singularity”
06 - 04 PJ Harvey “The Wheel” (01)
07 - 05 Kanye West “Real Friends” (05)
08 - 11 FKA twigs “Good To Love”
09 - 06 Primal Scream ft. Sky Ferreira “Where The Light Gets In” (03)
10 - 16 Animal Collective “Golden Gal”
11 - 08 Yeasayer “I Am Chemistry” (01)
12 - 17 Massive Attack & Young Fathers “Voodoo In My Blood”
13 - 23 Yeasayer “Silly Me”
14 - 21 Cassius ft. Cat Power & Mike D “Action”
15 - 10 Mssingno “Fones” (10)
16 - 12 Grimes “Kill V. Maim” (02)
17 - 14 Little Green Cars “Easier Day” (14)
18 - 13 CHVRCHES “Clearest Blue” (13)
19 - 31 The Last Shadow Puppets “Aviation”
20 - 37 PJ Harvey “The Community Of Hope” *Biggest Climber*
21 - 33 Frightened Rabbit “Get Out”
22 - 15 AlunaGeorge ft. Popcaan “I'm In Control” (06)
23 - 25 Icarus ft. Aurora “Home”
24 - 18 Anohni “4 Degrees” (02)
25 - 38 Peter, Bjorn and John “What You Talking About?”
26 - 32 Mura Masa ft. Bonzai “What If I Go?”
27 - 20 Christine and the Queens “Tilted” (04)
28 - 24 Grimes “Flesh Without Blood” (01)
29 - 44 A.K. Paul “Landcruisin’”
30 - 19 Moderat “Reminder” (13)
31 - 22 Lush “Out Of Control” (18)
32 - 28 Alessia Cara “Wild Things” (28)
33 - 26 Nao “Fool To Love” (26)
34 - 27 Jamie xx and Four Tet ft. Romy “SeeSaw [Club Version]” (07)
35 - 47 Empress Of “Woman Is a Word”
36 - 50 Bat for Lashes “In God’s House”
37 - 29 Day Wave “Come Home Now” (17)
38 - NE NZCA Lines “Jessica” *Highest New Entry*
39 - 49 Kero Kero Bonito “Lipslap”
40 - NE The Kills “Doing It To Death” *New Entry*
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Maybe so, but he hasn't demonstrated strong leadership. The sniping has only grown because of his lack of leadership and that tends to lead to... yes, more sniping and 'loyalty letter leaks'.
Corbyn hasn't had much (if any) impact on the debate - Osborne has sensed the weakness of the opposition and tried to get through a lot of quite unpopular and aggressive cuts and shift the government from the centre ground. As Qassändra rightly points out, it is more to do with the majority of 12 as opposed to that of 70 that has encouraged the potential for rebellion and forced the government to re-think policy.
That and the actions of the Lords.
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Edited by Doctor Blind
Great to have the album on Spotify, I waited until he had stopped messing around with the album on TIDAL before giving it a listen as I'm not a massive fan anyway. On first listen through not as great as the hyperbole that followed its release quite frankly (feels a bit half finished?) but I do love “Real Friends”. A definite step down from the last album. -
“All I Wanna Do” marked just about the only moment in Dannii’s career where she was ahead of sister Kylie (Kylie was entrenched in her indie phase at this point and would not trouble the Top 10 again until 2000).
It also marked as you say the first Xenomania chart credit, a springboard from which they were able to craft numerous #1s in the following decade.
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Crystal Castles ft. Robert Smith “Not In Love”
UK Chart Position: #54 (19 December 2010)
Personal Chart Debut: 31st October 2010
Hit #1: 5th December 2010
Personal Chart Run: 40-26-18-07-02-01-01-01-01-01-01-01-02-03-03-05-07-07-09-12-15-18-22-28-33-36-41-45-48-48 (30 weeks)
Canadian synthpop duo Crystal Castles first came to my attention during the first series of Bristol-based teen drama Skins. The distinctive and somewhat abrasive vocals of Alice Glass mixed with the experimental and interesting production talents of Ethan Kath made for some very interesting early singles - of which “Courtship Dating” was the first to capture my attention, and sharing my love of the group amongst my close friends I began to develop a strong appreciation of and obsession with the Canadian duo. The second album followed 2 years later in 2010 which was - to my ears - even better and a lot more commercial than their self-titled debut. In the autumn it was announced that they had re-recorded “Not In Love” as a single - a fairly standard electropop cover of forgotten 1980s Canadian New Wave band Platinum Blonde. The album version was duly updated to include the vocal talents of my childhood hero Robert Smith of the Cure. A perfect mix ensued of emotional charged vocal bombshells from Smith juxtaposed with the rhythmic blast of euphoric synths throughout which makes this THE perfect pop single of the decade for me. It especially hit me when the lyrics in the bridge leading to THAT chorus Cos it's cold oustide tapped in well with the record breaking snow and cold that hit Devon that Christmas, and it strongly reminds me of an indie night in early 2011 when The Cavern went crazy for it!
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EU Referendum Discussion
in News and Politics
I didn't get one :( (I did one that said 'EU: The Facts', that had very few of them and was produced by Vote Leave)
The rhetoric of the entire campaign has been predictably driven by fear and scaremongering by both sides, and ultimately has driven my interest away from the debate. Basically the only reason we seem to be having this referendum in the first place is to settle some pathetic spat within the Conservative party that has little to do with bettering the lives of people in or out of Europe and essentially I just want it to go away.
Anyway I still think the remain will get enough of the status-quo votes to secure a reasonable win, whatever the result however: the entire thing will mostly go down as a complete waste of time/money.