Album: I Will Cure You, 1991
Justification: Here’s the thing about this jokey novelty single by UK comedian Vic Reeves: it wasn’t really a joke.
"No, that's the joke - that I'm doing a serious cover of a Tommy Roe song. Don't you get it?"
Yes, the album was mainly comedic in intent – ‘Sing Hi! To The New Romantic’ remains one of my favourite song titles of a song I’d never actually heard until this entry made me wonder if the album was on Spotify (spoiler alert: totally is) – but this straightfaced cover of Tommy Roe’s key-change-heavy 1969 hit was perfectly legitimate. And given that Reeves – or, more specifically, Jim Moir – had started out as a wannabe pop star, that’s not that big a surprise. He even got some impressively-legit folks on the album: aside from the Wonder Stuff, who backed him on this #1 single, the album was produced by Andy Metcalfe (of the Soft Boys and, later, Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians), Phil Oakey (of the Human League) and British jazzbo Steve Beresford.
And let’s face it, it’s a heck of a song – and with a grand total of twelve (count ‘em!) key changes, would probably have swept Eurovision.
My friend Adam R Wigg had this single before I did and I remember thinking that this was OK but the b-side ‘Oh! Mr Hairdresser’ was far superior, mainly for the exhortation to Mr Keyboard Wizard to “go tweedly-deedly-dee on your Korg”. I was all about brands of synthesiser in those days.
It was the biggest hit that the Wonder Stuff ever enjoyed too, which was somewhat unfortunate.
I really, really wish I’d copied the DVDs of The Smell of Reeves & Mortimer I bought my then-wife. It would have made explaining why I was drunkenly singing about my lucky, lucky carpet that time rather more straightforward.
SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2010 and 2011: Really? Nothing? Jesus. OK, fine, let’s plunge into the fertile waters of the 1991 archive, with Pixies, Carter USM, De La Soul, Ed Kuepper, Matthew Sweet and loads and loads more stuff that you love.
AND HERE’S THE LAST FIVE…
475. dEUS: Little Arithmetics (24 May)
476. Siouxsie & the Banshees: Kiss Them For Me (4 June)
477. The Monkees: Last Train to Clarksville (5 June)
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