Vitamin E12

So I own 6 12″ singles by bands I don’t own an LP by that begin with E.

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Speaking with kicking things off with an E, welcome EMF Unbelievable. I remember watching The Word one night back in 1990, slightly pissed as was my wont when some funny looking geezers hoved into view with a great tune. It was built on a brilliant baggy beat*, the tune kinda rocked but the vocals were wonderfully half-arsed and decidedly fey. The man couldn’t even be arsed to belt out the chorus properly!

Intriguingly crap, was my verdict at the time, which lasted as long as it took me to encounter the tune on a packed dancefloor. It was love, still is. It was Unbelievable.

The A-side of this 12″ promises ‘Unbelievable (The Cin City Sex Mix)’. Not quite sure why this is a sex mix, unless the clue is that it is overlong, over-complicated and ultimately unsatisfying. Much better the B-side which is the original version of Unbelievable and a somewhat profane live version of ‘EMF’; E is for ecstasy and M is for motherfucker, apparently, now you know too.

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‘Let’s get obscure French and arty’ I hear my public cry and as I am a just God, I answer your pitiful entreaties, mortals. Emmanuel Top Spherique.

Released back in September 1996 on NovaMute this is a fairly monstrous slab of acid-drenched dread, predicated on a skittering steadily ascending rhythm pattern. It sounds like the sort of thing that would be playing in an underground basement club in an unspecified Eastern European locale while the two friends you came in with were being kidnapped by cannibal cultists in the toilets as you were at the bar getting the Staropramen in. True story.

I really like it, the music seems simultaneously insubstantial and utterly concrete. There is a definite sense of paranoia suffusing it all, one I cannot tear myself away from, try as I might.

Bonus points for an engraved B-side too. Attaboy Emmanuel, Top hole.

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Now E gets problematic**. Eminem. I own Stan and Without You, because they were both quite brilliant singles. I loathe the man, particularly for his casual, spiteful homophobia, but I overlooked this to buy these two, which gives me pause for reflection. I have actually considered giving them away a couple of times but have never quite done so.

Stan is easily one of the very best singles of the whole 2000’s, it is clever, sane, chilling and as neat a short story as you can find in song. As a response from an artist to fame and obsession it is just perfect. It is also a wonderfully well put together track, Dido’s voice and the various FX used are so effective, affecting even. The last verse, his reply to his stalker fan is masterful.

Without Me is just great too, Eminem in full-on superfly ADHD party mode. What astonished me, then and now, is just how mind-bogglingly dextrous his delivery and his wordplay is and can be. You can hear his glee at the sheer cleverness and fun of the rhyming here, I get it too. Meld it all into a great tune and it’s unstoppable. File it under: Pleasures, guilty.

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So let’s open the windows to air the room and slap on something far more wholesome, a hip hop pop tune that I got to love the old-fashioned way by hearing it on the radio a lot 18 years ago, Estelle 1980.

Estelle’s tale of growing up poor but happy in London (‘Nine kids a house and one lifetime’) is warm, witty, wise and very moreish, it just demands to be played several times in a row, helped by a brilliant sampling of ‘Lazy Susan’. Estelle’s delivery and lyrics are just so on point, its ridiculous.

1980 is a brilliant track, possibly the only track I can think that mentions dog shit, Connect 4^ and Dynasty. Word up. Plus she manages to rhyme ‘showing interest’ with ‘flat chests’ to earn extra 1537 bonus points here. Estelle is a class act.

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So there we have a random scattering of 12″ records beginning with the letter E^^ there are no unifying features, no neat conclusion to close the post with. What did you say EMF? ‘The things you say / Your purple prose just gives you away’, harsh but fair. So it goes.

1143 Down.

*as beloved by all my fave Manchester acts.

**or tres problematique, as we Welsh say.

^Church was, all day every day and every week
That’s where I learnt how to sing hearing that pastor preach
Benediction was all we went for
So we could run home and play Connect 4

^^the sixth one was Eric B & Rakim Eric B For President, which much as I love the guys was just really dull, so I missed it out. It’s no Paid In Full.