Richie's Singles Club

Single of the day

808 State
'The Extended Pleasure of Dance EP'
(ZTT)

Five months earlier, an unlikely marriage of acid house and wistful clarinet scored a top 10 hit called 'Pacific' for Mancunian dance outfit 808 State. Now they were faced with the tough task of following it up. 'Cobra Bora' was altogether a tougher beast, bringing together Psycho-esque stabs and funkily churning basslines into a tune that, while it slapped you nicely around the chops, you couldn't whistle it afterwards if you tried. Next up, 'Ancodia' sampled liberally from Thelma Houstons 'You Used to Hold Me So Tight' but, again, while impressively put together, lacked a real discernible hook. As a result, this release faltered outside the top 40 and dropped completely out of sight the following week. But, what's this? Tucked away at the end of this EP was a little track by the name of 'Cubik'. Now, this was a different beast all together - it had the heavy, heavy stabs but somehow arranged into a riff so anti-pop you can't stop humming it afterwards and, musically, it was a tour de force of heavy metal drums and guitars and everything you don't expect in a dance record. Famously, it got played to the rioting prisoners in Strangeways jail that Summer as a deterrent, but only made them dance. 'Cubik' was granted its own lead release later in the year (after the band did their thing with MC Tunes) and deservedly smashed into the top 10 matching 'Pacific', so got there eventually, eh, lads?

1979

Black Lace
'Mary Ann'
(EMI)

Here's where it all started for what was, sadly, my favourite band for a while when I was a child. 'Mary Ann' was the UK entry into the 1979 Eurovision Song contest and was intentionally supposed to sound like Smokie, who presumably were unavailable. Back then, Black Lace were a four piece and Alan Barton, who would go on to be lead singer, was controversially moved on to vocals. This interference pretty much split the band in two a couple of years later and the duo that gave us 'Superman', 'Agadoo' and , erm, 'I Speaka Da Lingo' came to fruition. So, thanks for that, UK Eurovison folks. In a weird twist, Alan Barton left Black Lace in 1986 (when they hadn't so much gone off as started to really pong) to join Smokie. Neither band was invited to represent the UK again but one nice fact is that when Barton died in March 1995, all proceeds of the abysmal Smokie version of 'Alice' with Roy Chubby Brown went to his family. So, at least some good came from it.

1990

Bizz Nizz
'Don't Miss the Partyline'
(Cooltempo)

A year and a half before becoming a quarter (and half of the invisible half) of 2 Unlimited, Belgian producer Jean-Paul De Coster gave us this simple yet catchy tune which urged us not to miss the 'Partyline'. And they never really expanded on what that was - a premium phone number upon which you can talk to like-minded Benelux ravers or a three line whip from the Progressive House Party to bop your botty off? Anyway, I liked it, and the riff was so simple that I was able to reproduce it on our old, out of tune piano which led to literally minutes of fun then hours of irritation for the rest of my family.