Meanwhile in Australia… “I Touch Myself” by The Divinyls was Number One!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv-34w8kGPM

Was it just because I was a teenager and alert to the slightest sniff of sex, or were the early 90s particularly erotic(a)? On Friday we had “Justify My Love” and here, now, at Number One we have Australia’s reinvention of self-pleasure as an act of devotion. I do wish the two songs had came simultaneously, but…

As Tom has mentioned before here and there, “I Touch Myself” was co-written by Billy Steinberg – “Like A Virgin”, “Eternal Flame”, “True Colours” etc etc etc – which helps explain why “I Touch Myself” was a hit virtually everywhere. I guess the most relevant of those hits was “Like A Virgin.” Like “Like A Virgin”, “I Touch Myself” is a tawdry joke transformed into a touching love song.

And for Chrissy Amplett, singing a love song in which she ends up satisfied, gave her decade long career as Australia’s misfit bad girl – wearing her Catholic (probably) school uniform like a perpetually pouting female Angus Young – a happy ending. Love rarely turned out well in a Divinyls song. It was probably safer for Chrissy to love herself.

“Boys In Town”, their first hit, was a song about the trials and tribulations of being the girl with the worst reputation in town. Whilst Joan Jett might have not given a damn about her bad reputation, Chrissy was clearly conflicted, growing the world’s longest fringe in order hide her tears (probably).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnOXYcO4zjg

“Boys In Town” is a 10.

That’s how the story began, but probably the most important hit in their repertoire, in terms of foreshadowing “I Touch Myself” was “Pleasure And Pain” in which Chrissy begs “Please don’t ask me how I’ve been getting off.”

In “I Touch Myself” she would quite openly volunteer that information.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5boYiMktOvs

“Pleasure and Pain” is a 9.

“I Touch Myself” is an 8.

Meanwhile, in the UK…

A single week number one here too, and one with technically two titles – Sadeness (Part 1) by Enigma was issued as Sadness (Part 1) in Britain for… spelling reasons? Given the track is inspired by the sexual desires of the Marquis de Sade maybe they didn’t want the censorious press and radio heads looking too closely into it. Enigma was the concept of Germany-based Romanian musician and producer Michael Cretu, who got his start playing keyboard on Boney M records and after more than a decade of making and working on music conceived the idea of bringing together new age electronic floatiness and what was then known as ‘world music’ into a mystical whole. So: a number one in fourteen countries and Billboard #5 based on a French libertine, featuring Gregorian chant vocals in Latin, with additional French lyrics ASMR’d by German pop singer Sandra, hugely successful in mainland Europe and more directly Cretu’s then-wife. Reportedly the fastest selling single in German history, it’s essentially the downtempo ne plus ultra. There were two second parts, one called Mea Culpa released in 1991 that didn’t make the UK top 50 and an actual Sadeness (Part 2) in 2006. Frank Peterson, one of the co-producers of the record, filed a lawsuit against YouTube in 2009 claiming his work was being used illegally but it seems to have got nowhere, maybe because someone quietly informed him that Capella Antiqua München, the German choir sampled on the record, had sued him and his colleagues in 1994 for using their work without permission.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F9DxYhqmKw

We will see Enigma in the charts again down the line – they claim 70 million worldwide record sales – but not as much as we’ll see Sealhenri Samuel, though not as often as you’d think as he only had three UK top ten singles and one of those was a reworking of Killer, the rave anthem he’d hopped on and made an enormous crossover hit. Having fallen out with Adamski over his initial lack of credit he signed to ZTT, handed production over to Trevor Horn and saw his self-titled debut album reach number one and win the Best Album Brit Award, the first single peaking at UK #2 and Hot 100 #7. Doesn’t this sound oddly like some of the work William Orbit would do at the other end of the decade?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fc67yQsPqQ

When I was about 12, my parents made me sit down with them and go through the lyrics of all of my metal/hard rock tapes, to determine which ones I would be allowed to keep, and which I would have to throw out, lest they corrupt my impressionable Catholic altar boy’s mind. I will never forget my dad’s take ​on Def Leppard’s “Armageddon It”: “When these bands say ‘it’, they’re usually talking about sexual intercourse.”

It is officially the First Time I have no recollection of a Number One. I have no boring assed story, I have no historical fact. I knew it hit Number One I’m sure but it’s like an employee you work for two weeks and they suddenly disappear. For a few weeks you wonder where they went, then you forget them entirely.

Could we please get your mom on here to let us know who the other A list rappers are?

Hey gum-folks, I dropped my debut single + music video this week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3NXHxcwmew

I think lots of people are just exhausted from Kanye’s antics, without getting the same quality of music output that he had in the past. Donda was a fine album, but over saturated and even the best songs don’t touch his past musical output.

With your comments about artists not being able to tour, and general snarkiness in your first comment about the article not being up to your standards is why you’re getting downvoted. Artists are still doing some great things, so maybe move beyond the a-list rappers that have released some overrated albums.

It’d be cool if Elton John called Ed Sheeran everyday to tell him he sucks.

Putting women abusers on a pedestal is being “edgy” now? Fuck that shit.

*shrug* anyone giving Manson work right now can fuck right off.

Truly uninspiring review, heard it all before. Ed Sheehan probably has more musical talent contained within one measly ginger hair on his ballbag than ‘critic’ might ever. I know it’s your job mate but ease up on the big guy, 150 million people who have owned or own one of his records can’t be that wrong can they ? Horses for courses .

Horses for courses . Ed Sheehan probably has more musical talent contained within one measly ginger hair on his ballbag than ‘critic’ might ever. I know it’s your job mate but ease up on the big guy, 150 million people who have owned or own one of his records can’t be that wrong can they ?

bit of a delay on the coverage of this, eh? pretty cool so far. manson is just there, again. bieber has sung a few lines. mainly on hurricane, except it was way more like the old “80 degrees” version, which was cool. overall, it’s very well organized/planned so far, none of the “last-minute” vibes of the listening parties etc. there’s absolutely a deluxe edition of donda coming and/or a sunday service version. felt like this “article” could use a touch more context/insight.

so the stereogumcensus is that kanye west did/said things they don’t agree with and now he is in their time-out-zone. whereby, commenters who have anything nice to say about him and/or his endeavours are instantly blackballed. are there a-list rappers out there doing anything remotely as interesting at the moment? drake is your “sellout of the century”, cole is “shoulda, woulda, coulda”, and kendrick is your lord and saviour whoms stool you drool over, even when there is none. in this pandemic where all the “artists” are shitting their pants about not being able to tour their work, and therefore not doing anything at all, there is one who is consistently engaging and entertaining. but… god forbid he has different political/religious views, has done “edgy” shenanigans for publicity, or is just “a billionaire, which shouldn’t exist”.

“same quality of music”, i don’t even know what that means. donda is great. again, compare it and ye to anything and anyone you would consider to be on the same level. it’s 2021, the year and era of disappointment. donda is stlll the best and most iconic and impactful rap album of the year, by light-years. put up anything else. something more avant garde like tyler, guess what, he’s not on that level. sorry, my mom doesn’t know his name. kanye west is at the top of the top turning in projects that “indie” rappers would kill for, yet doing numbers that drake is confused about. your interpretation of my “general snarkiness” was predictable as fuck from the moment i put quotations on the word “article”. yeah, it’s an a-list artist, a-list album, a-list roll-out/promotion… accept that and come back to me. don’t bring this bullshit about “hey maybe consider that there’s music outside of the a-list celebrity realm” lollll no shit……….

been waiting since high school to hear this and now must wait one more hour bc i am in a meeting