{"id":4274,"date":"2010-05-29T19:21:30","date_gmt":"2010-05-29T18:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/?p=4274"},"modified":"2010-06-04T00:28:06","modified_gmt":"2010-06-03T23:28:06","slug":"the-normal-mute-records-1978","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/the-normal-mute-records-1978\/","title":{"rendered":"The Normal – Mute Records – 1978 \/ Girls On Top – Black Melody Records – 2001"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two records that were released\u00a0between a 23 year period, that show what you can do with a lot of\u00a0imagination, but\u00a0not a lot of know how in traditional musical composition. <\/strong><\/p>\n

I placed the two records on the same post as I feel that they are connected via the lineage that started from this wonderful debut Mute Records release from 1978. <\/strong><\/p>\n

This is Punk Rock people!<\/strong><\/p>\n

1978<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

Warm Leatherette<\/a><\/p>\n

T.V.O.D.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Normal is the recording artist name used by English music producer Daniel Miller, a film editor at the time, who is best known as the founder of the record label Mute Records.<\/p>\n

The Normal were born in 1978 when Daniel Miller, inspired by the attitude of punk, and the music of Can, Neu and Kraftwerk bought an analog synthesizer and a four track recorder and set up Mute Records to release the resultant single called \u2018Warm Leatherette\u2019 backed with \u2018T.V.O.D\u2019. The lyrics for \u2018Warm Leatherette\u2019 referenced J.G. Ballard\u2019s novel \u2018Crash\u2019 which investigated the erotic possibilities of a car crash. This\u00a0song was then covered by Grace Jones in 1980\u00a0for Island Records and was a world wide top seller.<\/p>\n

Both tracks were minimalist electronic songs using\u00a0the KORG700S analog synthesizer and a REVOX B-77 tape machine that Miller had bought for the project. This single was recorded in Daniel Miller\u2019s living room and although when released it did not enter the UK Singles Chart, the single was extremely influential on the post-punk \/ electronic music scene in the UK at the time.<\/p>\n

Before punk it would have been inconceivable for someone of Miller\u2019s self confessed musical limitations to release such a record.<\/p>\n

A second release as The Normal with other Mute Records act Robert Rental, \u2018Live at West Runton Pavilion\u2019, wasn\u2019t well received. A strange release, it was a one sided album (side two was left blank) of improvised electronic noises, in a plain purple dust jacket. Marat Records published the same record in Germany as \u2018Daniel Miller Robert Rental Live\u2019 with a black and white picture sleeve.<\/p>\n

Miller also recorded the album \u2018Music for Parties\u2019 under the name Silicon Teens, mostly featuring sparse electronic new-wave covers of \u201950\u2019s and \u201960\u2019s pop classics such as \u2018Sweet Little Sixteen\u2019 and \u2018Let\u2019s Dance\u2019.<\/p>\n

Daniel Miller went on to be and still is a prolific engineer and producer, producing such acts as Depeche Mode, Erasure, Wire, and DAF for his Mute record label.<\/p>\n

Over a quarter of a century later the first ever release on Mute records is still as original and groundbreaking as ever.<\/p>\n

2001<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Warm Bitch<\/a><\/p>\n

We Don\u2019t Give A Damn About Our Friends<\/a><\/p>\n

Richard X started his career in the underground music scene creating popular bootlegs. Richard\u00a0states \u201cwhich are illegal, under the counter remixes which combined two existing records to make an entirely new song.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the pseudonym Girls On Top, Richard X released a series of vinyl only underground singles. He says bootlegs were \u201cescaping from that world of formatting \u2013 which the DJ culture and club culture relies on so much. They were supposed to be the future of pop music.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first two 7\u2033 records by Girls On Top became singles of the week in the N.M.E.<\/p>\n

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NME SINGLE OF THE WEEK<\/strong><\/p>\n

Girls On Top : Being Scrubbed \/ I Wanna Dance With Numbers<\/p>\n

After V\/Vm and their vicious assault on the sacred cows of nostalgia-pop, along comes avant-terrorist Richard X in his Girls On Top guise, to further disrupt the fabric of sonic spacetime.<\/p>\n

The concept here is so artfully executed that it\u2019s enough to rewire your synapses: \u2018Being Scrubbed\u2019 locks together The Human League\u2019s \u2018Being Boiled\u2019 with TLC\u2019s vocal from \u2018No Scrubs\u2019, a fit so perfect that you\u2019re suddenly shifted into an entirely alternate universe where the R&B classic is no longer an insouciant funky strut through hyper-beats but a menacingly apocalyptic goth-pop mantra.<\/p>\n

This is nothing, however, compared to the B-side, the real reason that this is Single Of The Week. \u2018I Wanna Dance With Numbers\u2019 overlays Whitney Houston\u2019s diva croon from \u2018I Wanna Dance With Somebody\u2019 onto Kraftwerk\u2019s \u2018Numbers\u2019, and the result, far from being the genre-clash mismatch you might expect, is astonishingly moving.<\/p>\n

Whitney\u2019s vocal floats over the proto-electro beats and looped synth pulses, creating a kind of euphoric techno-soul hybrid. That such a simple idea could produce something so profoundly affecting, and from something so gut-wrenchingly banal as an \u201980s Whitney Houston performance, suggests that Richard X is some kind of decks Duchamp. It\u2019s a juxtaposition of the mundane and the sublime, creating a third aesthetic that transcends both original sources and allows you to see the world in a new way. Quite a feat for an unassuming act of turntable trickery.<\/p>\n

The icing on the culture-jamming cake is the 45\u2019s sleeve, which parodies the cover to Kraftwerk\u2019s \u2018The Man Machine\u2019, only with the unsmiling faces of Germany\u2019s finest faux-robots replaced with Whitney\u2019s cheesy-grin visage. Messing with heads that\u2019s Girls On Top all over.<\/p>\n

Christian Ward NME<\/em><\/p>\n

NME SINGLE OF THE WEEK<\/strong><\/p>\n

GIRLS ON TOP : Warm Bitch \/ We Don\u2019t Give A Damn About Our Friends<\/p>\n

\u201cThis one\u2019s dedicated to all you Gucci bag carriers out there. It\u2019s called \u2018You\u2019ve Got Gooooood Taste'\u201d.<\/p>\n

So proclaims the Cramps sample at the start of \u2018We Don\u2019t Give A Damn About Our Friends\u2019.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s doubtful that anyone thought Girls On Top mainman Richard X had good taste when he came up with the idea of bootlegging Gary Numan with obscure American R&B diva Adina Howard, but the result is probably the most inspired seven-inch you\u2019ll hear all year.<\/p>\n

Sure, \u2018Warm Bitch\u2019 is clever (Missy Elliott meets classic electro punk, The Normal\u2019s \u2018Warm Leatherette\u2019) but laying Howard\u2019s \u2018Freak Like Me\u2019 acappella over Tubeway Army\u2019s early 1980s bleepathon \u2018Are \u2018Friends\u2019 Electric\u2019 is downright genius.<\/p>\n

This record\u2019s all about squeezing funk out of the funkless, and inserting a groove where none existed. And as Howard\u2019s gospel-esque harmonies reach their climax amid Numan\u2019s blackened synth blitz, the song implodes in a barrage of white noise and static.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll be both drained and exhilarated \u2013 and reaching straight for the stylus to play it once more.<\/p>\n

Kieran Wyatt NME<\/em><\/p>\n

Island Records heard \u2018We Don\u2019t Give a Damn About Our Friends\u2019, which was the B side of the second Girls On Top 7\u2033 single (the\u00a0mash-up of Adina Howard\u2019s \u2018Freak Like Me\u2019 and Tubeway Army\u2019s \u2018Are \u2018Friends\u2019 Electric?\u2019) and requested that Island artists, the Sugababes record it.<\/p>\n

Richard X said he was \u201cvery keen to do it as long as it remained what it was. It was raw, it was against the grain and it was still pop music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sugababes\u2019 version of the song, which kept the Adina Howard title of \u2018Freak Like Me\u2019, was re-recorded by Richard X and voiced by the Sugababes in Richard X\u2019s flat in Tooting. \u201cThere was a loop, my friend Guy Sirman helping with some handclaps, the Sugababes themselves and a semi-broken synthesiser\u201d Richard revealed of this informal\u00a0session.<\/p>\n

Released as the first single from Sugababes\u2019 second studio album \u2018Angels with Dirty Faces\u2019, it charted at number one on the UK Singles Chart, the first of many for the girl group.<\/p>\n

As a result of the interest in Girls On Top and \u2018Freak Like Me\u2019, Richard X was signed to Virgin Records.<\/p>\n

He collaborated with pop group Liberty X to create \u2018Being Nobody\u2019, a mash-up of Chaka Khan\u2019s \u2018Ain\u2019t Nobody\u2019 and The Human League\u2019s \u2018Being Boiled\u2019. Richard X\u2019s next release was \u2018Finest Dreams\u2019 with Kelis, which was a reworking of The SOS Band and Alexander O\u2019Neal\u2019s \u2018The Finest\u2019 with another The Human League song \u2018The Things That Dreams Are Made Of\u2019. Both the Liberty X and Kelis collaborations charted within the top ten, at number three and number eight respectively.<\/p>\n

Richard X released his debut album Richard X Presents His X-Factor Vol. 1 in August 2003. The album featured \u2018Freak Like Me\u2019, \u2018Being Nobody\u2019, \u2018Finest Dreams\u2019 as well as collaborations with Annie, Jarvis Cocker, Javine Hylton, and Tiga, among others. Richard X described the album as \u201cmodern, alternative, future-pop\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In memory of Dennis Hopper who died today aged 74.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two records that were released\u00a0between a 23 year period, that show what you can do with a lot of\u00a0imagination, but\u00a0not a lot of know how in traditional musical composition. I placed the two records on the same post as I feel that they are connected via the lineage that started from this wonderful debut Mute […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links-downloads"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4274"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4309,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4274\/revisions\/4309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}