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On Fridays this year, we ask...
( What's in the Box? )
In The Box this week we have:
Martika - Martika
This week's post comes to you despite the fact that The Box was brazenly attacked over the weekend. On Sunday night Johnson (my poor car) was discovered to be surrounded by broken glass, missing a window and generally quite sorry for himself. Mysteriously, no tapes went missing... maybe the car thieves of London are trying to tell me something...
Remember Martika ? A few hits in the early 90s, then more or less vanished into total obscurity from which even an Eminem track sampling Toy Soldiers has completely failed to rescue her.
I had high hopes for Martika, but the tape turns out to be a real curate's egg of an album. When considering which song to post today I kept thinking of good songs, listening to them, and realising that actually they were rather bad songs with occasional brilliant moments.
Most of the songs are strange and lumpy, sounding like they were put together from spare parts. The songs lack a coherent feel, and suffer intermittently from an ugly vocal delivery that the producer should really have done something about. I still listen to it now and again, as I can't shake the feeling that it could have been a really fine slice of robust 90s sing-a-long pop.
The lyrics are a bit iffy, though. I eventually plumped for posting the song which was sampled by Eminem in his 2004 Like Toy Soldiers, mostly because at the time I was surprised how few people seemed to know the original, but partly because it's about the only track which isn't directly addressed to a prospective, defective, hypothetical or degenerative partner.
The opening track (If You're Tarzan I'm Jane) has Martika promising that she will do anything, make herself into anyone, etc, to have your love - in particular changing her name to something appropriate (Jane, Cleopatra, Juliet...) depending on yours. I don't honestly think that's a sound basis for a relationship. The second track begins with her declaring that your mere proximity will result in turn in her hypnosis, paralysis, and ultimate insanity. I don't think that sounds like a great recipe for happiness either. And so it goes on. Then again, a lot of great pop songs have shockingly awful lyrics.
Er... have I put you off yet ?
Having listened a couple of times to Toy Soldiers this morning, it is possibly the best song on the album, with a Berlin-esque[*] grandiosity to it, and I've been quite enjoying it.
Martika - Toy Soldiers [link expired]
[Poll #1127165]
[*] That's as in "sounds a bit like Take My Breath Away" not as in "full of lime trees and with a bloody big wall down the middle".
( What's in the Box? )
In The Box this week we have:
Martika - Martika
This week's post comes to you despite the fact that The Box was brazenly attacked over the weekend. On Sunday night Johnson (my poor car) was discovered to be surrounded by broken glass, missing a window and generally quite sorry for himself. Mysteriously, no tapes went missing... maybe the car thieves of London are trying to tell me something...
Remember Martika ? A few hits in the early 90s, then more or less vanished into total obscurity from which even an Eminem track sampling Toy Soldiers has completely failed to rescue her.
I had high hopes for Martika, but the tape turns out to be a real curate's egg of an album. When considering which song to post today I kept thinking of good songs, listening to them, and realising that actually they were rather bad songs with occasional brilliant moments.
Most of the songs are strange and lumpy, sounding like they were put together from spare parts. The songs lack a coherent feel, and suffer intermittently from an ugly vocal delivery that the producer should really have done something about. I still listen to it now and again, as I can't shake the feeling that it could have been a really fine slice of robust 90s sing-a-long pop.
The lyrics are a bit iffy, though. I eventually plumped for posting the song which was sampled by Eminem in his 2004 Like Toy Soldiers, mostly because at the time I was surprised how few people seemed to know the original, but partly because it's about the only track which isn't directly addressed to a prospective, defective, hypothetical or degenerative partner.
The opening track (If You're Tarzan I'm Jane) has Martika promising that she will do anything, make herself into anyone, etc, to have your love - in particular changing her name to something appropriate (Jane, Cleopatra, Juliet...) depending on yours. I don't honestly think that's a sound basis for a relationship. The second track begins with her declaring that your mere proximity will result in turn in her hypnosis, paralysis, and ultimate insanity. I don't think that sounds like a great recipe for happiness either. And so it goes on. Then again, a lot of great pop songs have shockingly awful lyrics.
Er... have I put you off yet ?
Having listened a couple of times to Toy Soldiers this morning, it is possibly the best song on the album, with a Berlin-esque[*] grandiosity to it, and I've been quite enjoying it.
Martika - Toy Soldiers [link expired]
[Poll #1127165]
[*] That's as in "sounds a bit like Take My Breath Away" not as in "full of lime trees and with a bloody big wall down the middle".
