Pop music
The irritant factor
Marcus Berkmann
It is a natural human instinct to put things into some sort of order and then publish them as a league table. Many age- ing pop fans can look back on years of childhood happily wasted listening to the new top 40 singles chart, with the resultant feelings of exultation when your favourite song went up a few places and personal betrayal when it dropped a couple.
A few days ago I saw a 38-year-old man shed a tear of drunken pride because his old school had improved its A-level results. And I myself suffered more than a pang of gloom this week when England were beat- en at the Oval by Sri Lanka, for not only had they succumbed in their usual feeble way, but the result meant that they dropped below their conquerors in the Wisden International League Table, from sixth to seventh out of nine.
Pity, then, Black Lace, an almost cruelly undistinguished pub band of long standing whose only real achievement, if it can be so described, was the recording and release of `Agadoo' in June 1984. Agadoo, doo, doo, push pineapple shake the tree,' it began, ominously, and for a while everyone in the country knew all 6,542 lines of this nonsen- sical summer hit. Fourteen years later nothing so accurately captures the sheer deadening horror of the 1980s package hol- iday. This was a band whose lead singer invariably rolled up the sleeves of his jacket — and if those words didn't send a shiver up your spine, you are a lucky person indeed.
So last week, when HMV published the results of its poll to establish the most irri- tating pop songs of all time, the surviving members of Black Lace could reasonably have expected their song to come out on top. They never came close to repeating its success, although with singles like 'El Vino Collapso' and 'I Speaka Da Lingo' they certainly tried hard enough. Winning this poll would have been the pinnacle of a unique career. Sadly, though, HMV's cus- tomers had other ideas, and voted in vast numbers for Aqua's emetic 'Barbie Girl'. `Agadoo' came a distant second.
`So what?' you might ask. HMV's cus- tomers are unlikely to be a representative sample of music-lovers — being mainly Scandinavian at this time of the year and the poll has clearly been commissioned only to remind us that the chain still exists during the quiet months of summer. Even so, a top ten like this has far more to offer music fans than, for example, the shortlist for the Mercury Music Prize. On the whole HMV's customers have demonstrated high levels of taste and judgment, although their omission of the Electric Light Orchestra's `Diary Of Horace Wimp' is at best a grave error.
At tenth, then, comes St Winifred's School Choir with the unforgettable `There's No One Quite Like Grandma'. Captain Sensible's 'Happy Talk' (which I must admit I always rather liked) is per- haps the surprise of the list at ninth, beaten narrowly to eighth by the recently deceased Falco and his 1986 monstrosity 'Rock Me Amadeus'. From seventh to fourth are a quartet of unarguable classics: Aled Jones's `Walking In The Air', The Tweets' Birdie Song', Joe Dolce's `Shaddap Your Face' and, from 1996, the Teletubbies' smash hit Teletubbies Say Eh Oh'. But the most sat- isfying entry of all is number three. Bryan Adams's lEverything I Do) I Do For You' spent 16 weeks at number one in 1991 and drove us all mad. Fortunately HMV's cus- tomers have long memories. (Some of us have only just got over 'Mull Of Kintyre'.) But where was Whitney Houston's 'I Will Always Love You'? Wet Wet Wet's equally overplayed 'Love Is All Around'? Stevie Wonder's all-time low, 'I Just Called To Say I Love You'? Grandad' by Clive Dunn? (You can argue about this for hours.) 'The Laughing Gnome' by David Bowie? 'Alright' by Supergrass? Anything by Phil Collins? (You can argue about this for weeks.) Where on earth was 'Lady In Red' by Chris de Burgh?
In fact Aqua did well to see off such an opposition, 'Barbie Girl' is a worthy winner (if you have never heard it, be thankful). All we can wonder about now is what next year's winner will be. For I believe HMV may have started something here. Their poll should become an annual event, and if they don't do it someone else should. For `Agadoo', all hope may not yet be lost.
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