John Lennon said of Revolution #9, the cut & paste sound collage piece regarded by many proponants of "Proper Music" as Not Being Proper Music, that he had expended more time and energy on the creation of that White Album epic than he had on much of his back catalogue, the inference being: 'I can knock out tunes on my acoustic guitar all day. It's stuff like that which is throw-away and lazy and inconsequential, not this. This took real effort. This was the challenge. And it's valid.'
But as much as I like Revolution #9, and could spend all day defending it...it sure ain't funky. It took hip-hop, maybe 7 or 8 years later, to marry the avant-garde cut-ups of postmodernist art as exemplified by Revolution #9, and the dancefloor filling RnB sensibilities of James Brown. Revolution #9 was self-conciously anti-pop - it was designed to shock and disturb and shake the squares from their bourgeois slumber. Grandmaster Flash's The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel was super-pop, designed to amuse and move and get the squares to shake their tail feathers.
And as far as bone fide hit records go, few have ever taken the model of imaginative collage + humour + grooviness and done anything with it nearly as joyfully, danceably, delightfully brilliant as Australia's The Avalanches did on their 2000 Top 20 sampledelic smasheroo, Frontier Psychiatrist. I Love This Record. I probably wouldn't have even bothered doing this list if I hadn't wanted a reason to write about Frontier Psychiatrist. Alphabet Of Pop aside, I'd still put this in my all-time Top 50 singles. Wikipedia states that it contains 37 samples; I'm gonna say I think it's higher than that, but even if it's just 37, I'm pretty sure this must be a record for a Top 20 UK single. Best of all, one of those samples is from The 'Burbs, one of my all-time favourite movies - and I'm damn certain that Frontier Psychiatrist is the only Top 20 UK hit single with a 'Burbs sample in it.
I dig the Wild West, spaghetti-western, Morricone sorta vibe; I dig how daft it all is...it's really a comedy record, and certainly The Avalanches spoke in interviews around the time that they feared being percieved as a novelty act. Now, there's nothing wrong with novelty songs - I like Doctorin' The Tardis as much as the next man - but this isn't a novelty song. It's funny, sure, and fun, and definately unusual - but nothing this artfully constructed can be called a novelty. I'm a real sucker this sort of sample-heavy fare; it appeals to the record-geek in me, the crate-digger mentality that has you thinking "Ohh - where'd they nick this bit from, and where can I find it?" As a pop-culture junkie, a song composed entirely of pop-culture junk is just right it my street.
Oh, and the video is potentially my favourite video of all time.
3 comments:
Aww Paul...I actually punched the air with delight when I saw you'd picked this piece of dingbat genius for your list! I absolutely adore this record too, along with The Avalanches other cut-and-paste masterpiece "Since I Left You" (which has a different vibe entirely, but is still wonderful), and have been extolling its virtues to anyone who'll listen for years.
You're right of course, that it could be dismissed as a mere novelty record, but the amount of skill that went into crafting this tune is phenomonal - it must have taken untold hours to collate all those samples and slide them into place, a real labour of love...
I've always enjoyed a good mash-up record myself, but it's a very hard thing to do well, to give it structure and direction rather than just a mess of random samples over a funky beat. The only guys I can think of who even get close to The Avalanches craftsmanship are pasting pioneers Steinski & Mass Media ("We'll Be Right Back") and the mighty ColdCut, especially their remix of Eric B & Rakim's "Paid In Full"...
As a fellow pop culture obsessive, I too delight in games of "spot the sample" - I watched the Stepford Wives recently, and was delighted to finally find the source of an S-Express "Hey Music Lover" sample that had been bugging me for years.
And yeah...superb video. Defo one of my top ten faves too...
And finally, for a modern take on the art of cut-and-paste, have a look on YouTube at Addictive TV's remix of Laurel & Hardy's "Trail Of The Lonesome Pine". It's in the same vein as Psychiatrist, and I think you might enjoy it...
Cheers for stopping by again, Dazzy. Yeah, I like all the songs I've chosen so far, but I really love this record. It really cheers me up. And Coldcut might still be making an appearence later on, actually. Watched the Addictive TV thing too, infact watched a few of their things. Very inventive, and I remembered that I saw Coldcut at Creamfields in about 2000 (the only 'dance' festival I've ever been too), and they were doing video cut-up stuff on big screens. I'd never seen anything like that before, and it blew my mind. I was like: "they're scratching a sample of a bird...and there's a video of a bird being manipulated in time to the scratching!" I thought that was so cool.
Another fab choice ,(though a bit disappointed you didn't go with Fixin' to Die !!)Good song,great video.All these songs ought to be put together for an Inkwell special compilation cd !!
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