Number 17: Electronic

Vivid (Parlophone CDR6514)

Chart Debut: 24th April 1999

Writers: Electronic

Electronic are an odd little chapter in rock history, a sort of part-time supergroup formed by two people who never really seemed to want to be famous and never really seemed to have an identifiable image of their own. Even the name is odd - slightly bland and forgettable, but also misleading as a description of their sound. Amid all this confusion though, they managed to release a small but solid catalogue of recordings, and I don't think they ever released a bad single which isn't something I could comfortably say of either the Smiths or New Order.

Some of the singles were really very good indeed, and I realised gradually that their first one, 'Getting Away With It' was one of the best of recent(ish) years, but it's also a bit too obvious for these purposes. So instead we turn to what proved to be their last single: a follow-up ('Late At Night') was planned but ditched at the last minute. 'Vivid' is exactly the sort of hit that I wanted to write about here; at the time it can't only have been me buying it, but nobody ever seems to mention it now and it's certainly not the song that they're associated with now. Maybe it's not the sort of thing that people expected from the duo (as they definitely were by now - no big-name guests at this point in their career) but it's one that instantly appealed to me, thanks to Johnny Marr's insistent harmonica riff. Indeed, the song was apparently written mostly by Marr, who even fronted a demo version of the track before Bernard Sumner supplied the final lyrics and the lead vocal. In truth, those lyrics sound like a typical set of Sumnerisms, most notable for the fact that the words in each chorus are different, possibly not the most obvious commercial move to make. You could certainly make a case for them, but they do seem like the sort of thing he can write by the yard, and this is a record that grabs me more at a musical and performance level than a lyrical one, and I'd like to think he wouldn't mind me saying that.

Official website: Archived version. Try the unofficial Feel Every Beat instead.
YouTube if you want to: Actually, whether you want to or not the record company don't seem to want you to, but it is audible on Last.FM Or you can watch 'The Sweetness Lies Within' by Hefner, which has some of the same actors in it.
Where to get it: I listened back to the album Twisted Tenderness in preparation for writing this, and I must admit I still struggled to get into it, although it certainly has its moments; the version of 'Vivid' on there is a slightly longer and less tight edit. An expanded digital-only version includes several B-sides and remixes. The single cut is available as a download or on the Best-of Get The Message, with or without a DVD for those who really want to see the video.

Number 18: Bill Withers

Lean On Me(A&M AMS 7004)

Chart Debut: 12th August 1972

Writer: Bill Withers

I resisted this choice for a long time, not because there was anything wrong with the record but because I doubted my own ability to write about it. 'Lean On Me' feels like a song that lends itself brilliantly to trite observations.

So, what changed my mind? Well, I was quite encouraged by the realisation that it's one of the few tracks on here that were made by people older than me. But the most important influence wasn't to do with this song at all, but with his first US hit 'Ain't No Sunshine'. When I had to search YouTube for the Lighthouse Family for the purposes of my other blog I was slightly concerned to notice that some of the people who'd done cover versions of 'Ain't No Sunshine' attributed it to them. A couple of weeks later, somebody sang the song on the telly, pushing the Withers original into the UK Top 40 for the first time: but some people seem to have gone for a Lighthouse Family version. Clearly, there are people who don't know enough about Bill Withers!

Perhaps that's always been the fate of this song, though: despite topping the US chart it was a bigger hit here for Mud and then Club Nouveau. The many other cover versions by everyone (even Bon Jovi) seem to suggest that it's become the sort of standard that's no longer really associated with the originator, although perhaps that suits the modest but presumably comfortably-off Withers rather well. With this in mind, I'm going to skip all the obvious observations about the song itself and emphasise how good this version is. Withers is perhaps the least showy of the great soul singers, as you can tell from the title and cover of the Still Bill album where this first appeared, and he judiciously avoids overcooking this, evading the tendency of some singers to turn this into sentimentality. After all, this may be a tribute to the community spirit of his childhood in smalltown West Virginia, but he had chosen to move away from there and perhaps this song is about the hardships that meant people had to work together as well. His touring band back him here as well as co-producing, and they help to create the open, warm-hearted spirit that the song seeks to evoke, as well as supplying an effective contrast between the the more upbeat sections ("Call on me brother if you need a hand") and the the slower verses and chorus. By the time we get to the sung outro it's almost gospel, and indeed the song does seem to have acquired that connotation in some places, although it's not really there in the lyric.

Perhaps I've made this description sound a bit like he did a cover version of his own song, but in a way it almost doesn't matter that he wrote this song, so much as that he lived it.

Official website: Billwithersmusic.com
YouTube if you want to: WMG have silenced all copies of the studio recording, even though they don't seem to own the rights. There remain plenty of TV performances, including one introduced by Kenny Rogers.
Where to get it: There are too many compilation albums to count, but a quick scan suggests that Very Best Of is supposed to be the current one, whilst Ain't No Sunshine is a lot for a budget price and Greatest Hits is the one we used to listen to in the car.
I have the entire Still Bill album on a two-on-one CD with Just As I Am
but it is also available alone with two bonus tracks from Live At Carnegie Hall: you'd be better off with the whole of that though.