Slick Rick — “Children’s Story”
Known as “hip-hop’s greatest story-teller”, Slick Rick is at his narratorial best in “Children’s Story”. Delivered in his signature conversational style and accent (existing somewhere between cockney, Australian and Bronx), Rick spins a compelling yarn about a young kleptomaniac who tries to rob an undercover cop. The chase scene that ensues is hilarious (especially when “Daaaaaa-ve the dope fiend” lends the boy a “spanking shotgun”). Rick is quick to undercut this hilarity by having the unarmed boy shot down by the police, but then reinstates it with the two children he is reading this ‘story’ to complaining ‘Uncle Ricky is reeeeally weird’. A golden-age hip-hop classic.
Laurie Anderson — “O Superman (For Massenet)”
Unfairly known by many music fans as simply Lou Reed’s wife, Laurie Anderson was in fact making some of the most startlingly avant-garde pop in the 80s and 90s, long after Lou Reed’s musical endeavours had peaked. In ‘O Superman’, inspired by the aria “Ô Souverain, ô juge, ô père” from Jules Massenet’s 1885 opera Le Cid, over a repeated 1242 beats of the sound/word ‘ha’ Anderson weaves a stunning dialogue between uncertain characters. Mother, daughter, living, dead, man, woman, ‘O Superman’ is a song of universal communion.
Tom Tom Club — “Genius of Love”
Like Laurie Anderson, Tom Tom Club are also plagued with being associated with a more famous act. In Tom Tom Club’s case, husband and wife Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz are also members of Talking Heads. It’s only natural therefore that ‘Genius of Love’ is a brilliant synthesis of two distinctive Talking Heads styles: the rhythm-focussed material on Remain in Light (particularly ‘Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)’) and the beautiful melodies of ‘This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)’.
Bad Brains — “Pay to Cum”
Bad Brains were that oddest of hardcore punk bands. Thanks to their background in fusion jazz, their music was more versatile than any of their 4-chord peers. ‘Pay to Cum’s 1:33 features tempo changes, varying vocal harmonies, a bloody cowbell (which before James Murphy and the Rapture was actually quite the underused percussion instrument) and ends with a downstroke so loud, final and clear it’s basically an aural exclamation mark. Influencing the great (Beastie Boys) the awful (Red Hot Chilli Peppers) and every punk band in between, ‘Pay to Cum’ is Bad Brains definitive statement.
