Sunday 11 October 2009

1989 Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers: Let's Party

Third number one on the trot for Jive Bunny, and no wonder - their postmodern take on the juxtaposition of sounds from the past with the music of the future necessarily created a package that defined, defied and ultimately transcended the zeitgeist. Not least at Christmastime when this skilful collage of the best of popular contemporary Christmas songs are overlaid with the strident beat of Joe Loss's 'March Of The Mods' with the effect of highlighting the relentless commercialisation of the festive season and seeking to thus reclaim its true meaning by rooting it in a golden age (real or perceived? - the question itself illuminates the genius of Jive Bunny) of a Christmas past that even Charles Dickens would have tapped his feet in approval to.

Or maybe the mass delusion and whispered voices are getting to me now too. 'Let's Party' is none of the above, but it does go to show that all music journalism (sic) boils down to intellectualising an emotional response and that it's possible to spin gold out of any old shit if you put your mind to it. Which kind of begs the question as to whose time is being wasted the most with all this - mine for writing it or yours for reading it?

Ah, but apologies. Cynicism is getting the better of me. And why shouldn't it? Compared to some of the classic songs that have held the number one spot, 'Let's Party' is the laziest of the lazy, the crappest of the crap; three chunks of festive Slade, Wizzard and Gary Glitter are dumped in between snatches of the Loss tune with the skill and imagination of a four year old's potato prints. That's literally all there is to it.....

Except that there's even less to it than that - the Slade etc songs aren't the original recordings, they're just vague soundalike cousins of the ones on the Hallmark 'Top Of The Pops' albums that needed a dolly bird on the cover to help inject some excitement and mitigate the inevitable disappointment of not getting such a bargain after all. Probably the best thing you can say about this is that by using the pre fall from grace Gary Glitter tune, they inadvertently ensured that 'Let's Party' has been consigned to a shallow grave of guilt by association and it's rarely revived anymore.

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