POP WILL EAT ITSELF - Get The Girl! Kill The Baddies!

Pop Will Eat Itself were from Stourbridge, and at least one of them went on to be in Bentley Rhythm Ace. They had 11 top 40 hits, of which this was their only top ten hit (#9, January 1993 - so effectively, 11 years ago, they were the Scissor Sisters. Sort of). I decided to give it a listen, based mainly on the fact that:

a) everyone I know who knows who they are hates them (usually a good sign)

b) I think it’s a really good title for a song. By way of comparison, here’s this week’s top twenty. When was the last time there was a song with a really good title up the business end of the charts? (Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End) is not a really good title, it is a shit pun)

So anyway, I listen to it, and… it is very much like I remember the vague snataches of youth culture I absorbed when I was 9 being. That title, which is used for the sort-of chorus “Gonna get the girl! Kill the baddies! And save the entire planet!” It feels exactly like the kind of thing the computer games journalists of the time would have danced badly to at their student indie disco whilst discussing The Mary Whitehouse Experience and drinking snakebite. You can smell the crustiness, as the two shouting men groan “Rough justice, rough law, rough justice, rough law…” (this being the song’s other line) like an inferior West Midlands Black Grape. For no actual reason, this song lasts over five minutes. There’s a keyboard bit which sounds like Altern-8 covering Carter. You could imagine Terry Pratchett really liking it.

I dunno if I like it or not. It does have this air of a band that had a really good song title, and a half-decent keyboard riff, then couldn’t work out what to do next. I could imagine Busted covering it quite badly.

In the end, I suppose I admire it more than anything, because it is that badly dated, and somewhat impossible to imagine happening nowadays (not with the same degree of success in any case). A bit like ‘Get Stuffed!’, the late night cookery slot where some mature students cook bread and butter pudding whilst shouting, and occasionally a man runs round in a chef’s hat with an inflatable baguette. In any case, Deepest Blue are #9 in the chart this week, and it’s tons better than that.

But anyway - if you’d care to push me further down this road of listening to songs that are a bit old and dated that people don’t like very much, post us a comment with a suggested song. I’ll try and get a listen to it then write up my thoughts next week. I’m thinking Jesus Jones right now… but any other suggestions welcome.