Top
Ten
LP
(UK) 1984 Statik Records
(STATLP 20) - Produced by David Cunningham for Piano Records
Side A
01) Tutti
Frutti [3:24] [Penniman/La Bostrie]
02) Dizzy
Miss Lizzie [2:05] [Larry Williams]
03) Sex Machine
[5:09] [Brown/Byrd/Lenhoff]
04) What's
New Pussycat [3:49] [Bacharach]
05) Suzanne
[5:30] [Leonard Cohen]
Side B
06) Then He
Kissed Me [2:54] [Spector/Greenwich/Barry]
07) Whole
Lotta Shaking Goin' On [4:52] [Williams/David]
08) Purple
Haze [2:55] [Hendrix]
09) Great
Balls Of Fire [1:57] [Hammer/Blackwell]
10) Tears
[4:31] [Uhr/Caprano]
Sleeve notes:
Instruments: David Cunningham, Voice:
Sally with Julian Marshall (piano on 2, 3, 9), Michael Upton (voice on
3), Peter Gordon (saxophones, clarinet on 4, percussion on 6), John Greaves
(bass guitar on 1, 7), Steve Beresford (piano on 10), Elisabeth Perry and
Alexander Balanescu (the Flying Lizards Strings). Recorded in London and
Geneva, mixed digitally at ADA London. Photography: Garrard Martin, Makeup:
Kaz Simler, Sleeve: Julie Pratten.
"these songs are dedicated to Maelzel, inventor of the metronome, the motto is 'rhythm is not arithmetic' and the interpretation is not innocent"
Inscriptions on vinyl: side A) "FRIVOLOUS" side B) "VEXATIOUS"
Description:
Imagine trying to create HTML code to replicate Jackson Pollock's painting
style. Try and stay in that same mindset and you'll probably experience
some of the same thought processes David Cunningham was going through when
he envisioned The Flying Lizards' "Top Ten" project. This was the last
official release from The Flying Lizards, and they certainly went out with
a high concept bang. Hailed by many critics as their best work, "Top Ten"
puts all of David Cunningham's avant/experimental inclinations and improvisational
habits on hold to make room for ten carefully chosen rock and roll classics
that have been meticulously and outrageously deconstructed with admirable
control and discipline. The cover versions on the first two Lizards' albums
took catchy and memorable rock songs and made them catchy and memorable
in a completely new ways despite their parody. "Top Ten" takes takes catchy
and memorable songs and removes everything catchy and memorable from them
whatsoever... but that's precisely the point (though to be honest,
two of the album's tracks were released as singles - but the lines separating
commercial intentions and delicious prank are pretty blurry here). David
seemed to listen carefully to each song he covered, decided what it was
exactly that made it "special", then mathematically inverted that quality
(he appropriately dedicated all the songs on 'Top Ten' to Johann Maelzel,
inventor of the metronome). With tongue planted waaaayyyyyy in cheek, the
pop music on this LP is "form follows function" taken to it's obvious conclusion...
it's the bastard child of Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd Wright...
it's Donald Judd's chickens coming home to roost... it's modernism's
dirty little secret! Today, this album might sound a tad worn, these forms
of post-structuralism and deconstruction have worked themselves well into
our everyday society at large. Still, despite it's probability in being
used as background music on a VH1 documentary about postmodernism, it's
nice to see a time-stepping piece of art where the artists were able to
put one foot in the past, one foot in the present, but were still just
enough ahead of everyone else to reach a decade or two into the future.
This time around, David
enlisted vocalist Sally Peterson (now a successful British radio DJ, a
career choice that was apparently sparked after a commercial producer heard
her voice on "Sex Machine", and offered her television voice-over
work) to fulfill all singing duties. Musically, everything is thundering,
processed drum beats and precise electronics. Every foot-tapin' beat replaced
with a programmed drum repetition, every primal guitar riff replaced with
a binary code, and every inspiring moment replaced with the cold hard steel
of a digital studio, chrome furniture, air conditioning and fluorescent
lighting. When Kraftwerk used electronics to create an organic new sound,
they seemed to be saying "Wow! Look what computers can do!", when the Lizards
use electronics to poke fun at a good-time classic, Cunningham seems to
be saying "Wow! Look what computers have done!". The use of
technology to create this music is sarcastic and obnoxious, never reverent.
David's dedication to his homage remains consistent throughout the entire
album, each song gets it's own meticulous treatment, but all ten are cut
from the same warped template. The shout-out-loud, bring-the-house-down
chorus of "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin On" is reduced to Sally's barely
audible spoken whisper. The spontaneous banter between James Brown and
his band members during the funk anthem "Sex Machine" turns into
a predictable, robotic tape loop. The sacred, soul-of-a-poet lines to Leanord
Cohen's "Suzanne" are blasphemously recited with a blunt thud that
would probably even annoy Hal from "2001: A Space Odyssey". Any beat or
word or moment that happens in the original song more than once - repetition
being a prime ingredient in rock and roll - is never played twice. It's
digitally sampled, no matter what it's nature or purpose, and then obnoxiously
repeated whenever necessary, with no subtlety or nuance. At first you laugh,
then you find yourself slowly pulled into the Lizards' vision of a purely
functional world of hard lines, where human emotion is not a right but
a privilege, and people probably have wires and circuitry beneath their
sunglasses. And to be honest, despite their extreme nature, some pieces
even sound enjoyable in their own right ("Great Balls of Fire",
"Then
He Kissed Me" and the two singles). Many other artists have done works
of this nature, notably The Residents' "Third Reich 'n Roll" and Sonic
Youth's "The Whitey Album". But those sound like sloppy studio parties
compared to this disciplined and frighteningly thorough journey into grid
pattern aesthetics. If you've always loathed the sanctimonious admiration
granted the golden years of rock and roll, and are nauseated by the thought
of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame... then this album is definitely
for you!
Availability:
Out of print collector's item. Hard to find.
Top
Ten
CD
(France) 1985 Statik
(CDST 20) - Produced by David Cunningham for Piano Records
track listing same
as above, plus adds one bonus track:
01) Tutti
Frutti [3:24] [Penniman/La Bostrie]
02) Dizzy
Miss Lizzie [2:05] Larry Williams]
03) Sex
Machine [5:09] [Brown/Byrd/Lenhoff]
04) What's
New Pussycat [3:49] [Bacharach]
05) Suzanne
[5:30] [Leonard Cohen]
06) Then
He Kissed Me [2:54] [Spector/Greenwich/Barry]
07) Whole
Lotta Shaking Goin' On [4:52] [Williams/David]
08) Purple
Haze [2:55] [Hendrix]
09) Great
Balls Of Fire [1:57] [Hammer/Blackwell]
10) Tears
[4:31] [Uhr/Caprano]
extra track:
11) Top
Ten Again [11:55] [Cunningham]
Description: This album sounds great on CD. Bonus track: "Top Ten Again" is a sort-of sampler of the whole album, set against a blasting drum beat. Pieces of the entire album weave in and out of the long mix (even the B-sides 'Flesh and Steel' and 'Gyrostatics' from the two album's singles work their way in) and at the end, the track's samples and additional instrumentation build into a chaotic crescendo. Any spontaneous studio improvisation that was missing from the disciplined "Top Ten" LP (and that was so prominent on the first two Lizards LPs) shows itself on this track.
Availability: Out of print collector's item. Hard to find.