Wednesday 16 April 2014

N is for The Normal


Ah, who can forget TVOD and Warm Leatherette? Lots of people, I should think, that is if they'd even heard them in the first place. Both tracks are the A and B sides of the first single by the Normal.

I bought the single after hearing it on the John Peel show and it reminds me of him and his fantastically broad taste in music. Some of the music I liked, some I didn't and frankly, listening to the Normal's single now, I'm not sure which category this single falls in.

Here's a version by Chicks On Speed that I think John Peel might have enjoyed were he still with us.



Also-rans: Norman Cook. All right, this is cheating slightly because the music I'm thinking of is issued under Norman Cook's stage name, Fatboy Slim. Anyway, Fatboy Slim's music tends to make me think of dancing. That's dancing as I know it, not what other people think of dancing. You have been warned.


2 comments:

  1. Heavens to Betsy! I Did Not See That One Coming. The Normal was, of course, Daniel Miller, at the time still recording in his bedroom in his mum's maisonette in north London (I interviewed him there..). To think that the multi-million Mute Records empire (home to Depeche Mode et al) grew out of that maisonette bedroom. That Chicks on Speed version is excellent, even if they abandon the last line ('Let's all join the car-crash set'), but its Kraftwerk-y sound makes me wonder why you didn't include Dusseldorf's finest under K.

    Honorable mention for Grace Jones's version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEfNaOrnB7U

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    Replies
    1. LOL, as the young folk say. I've got the original single here - one of the essentials for life in Greece - so I'll have to dig it out to hear it in its full glory. As for Kraftwerk, not a bad idea, maybe another time.

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