I used to love this: Ragga Twins

Having rudely slagged off the Red Hot Chili Peppers last time, I'll pick a disc I'm going to be nice about. This time, it's Ragga Twins - Reggae Owes Me Money, an album as completely awesome now as it was in 1991.

I ended up paying almost £30 to get a CD of this album on eBay a few years ago, just cos I had to have it. And then last year they released a Best of the Ragga Twins compilation on Soul Jazz. Oh well. 

There's an astonishingly poor entry for them on Wikipedia. Good grief! These guys - rejoicing in the names of Flinty Badman and Deman Rocker - pretty much built jungle with their bare hands! Great voices, more or less incomprehensible to me at the time, but spilling over with energy and attitude. Wonderful, instinctive badness which mixed up hip hop, sound system, and techno. Check out Spliffhead:

And get a whole load of Hooligan 69. Just last week I was monumentally disappointed when it turned out the DJ was playing the Prince track, rather than the Twins' remix.

Oh Jesus! God bless YouTube for having this on it - it's the video for Hooligan 69 original version, the one above being the remix - look at those little dudes go!

A quick note to all the "youth" who are currently going completely NUTS for Caspa-style dubstep wobble: ferchrissakes do yourselves a favour and check out the Ragga Twins. It's what the stuff you love used to sound like before it was neutered and pumped full of Xanax.

Verdict: Guilty of wickedness in the 1st degree.

Sentence: Eternal everythingness! Free pass to do whatever, whenever. Bow down to the rulers!

All of which reminds me to get my hands on some Iration Steppas ASAP. 

I used to love this: Red Hot Chili Peppers

Since The Red Hot Chili Peppers were my inspiration, I should start with them.

My era: Freaky Styley, Uplift Mofo Party Plan, Mother's Milk. 

I loved them for this: they made a crazy noise I had never heard before. Funny, bouncy, unusual rocky stuff that sounded to me at the time like pure fun. Consider that I grew up in Beaconsfield. 

Holy shit, did you know George Clinton produced Freaky Styley? Ha ha! Apparently the spoken word intro and outro to "Yertle the Turtle" were performed by Clinton's drug dealer, who wrote off George's debts in return for being on the album. Witness the awesome collision of capitalism and creativity!

I went off them when they released Blood Sugar Sex Magik because I found the name and a lot of the songs really embarassing, especially "Give it away". Truly, that is some appalling funk/rock/rap fusion right there. It won a Grammy ZOFMG WTF LOL?

The only good thing on that album is "Under the Bridge" - unfortunately since ruined by the All Saints cover. 

So anyway, those three records were the ones for me. Skatepunk teenager, happy to pledge eternal allegiance to a band that puts a picture of totally hot topless girl on album cover. 

Brief pause to locate said album cover: 

Still good.

HOWEVER. Have you heard their stuff recently? I mean, since 1992... It's probably a result of their being off drugs or something but bugger me, they have lost their edge and disappeared up their own bumholes to an extent only rivalled by the likes of U2 and er... can't think of anyone else. Their stuff is just plain limp. They overwork the instrumentalism like it's going to make up for the lack of songs or ideas - it doesn't. 

Was it always thus? No! They used to have spunk. And terrible hair and trousers. As did I. 

Um...

Verdict: They were always wankers. I grew up. That's really not fair, though. I think I'm blaming them for my own enormous lameness, but so what? Get out of my court! Bailiff!  

Revised verdict: They always sucked, that's why I don't actually own anything of theirs. I only liked them because I was also a wanker.

Sentence: DEATH!

I used to love this record!

I was in a car the other day about 14 months ago - in the unfortunate position of having to sit through someone else's selection of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' latest CD - so I sat there thinking "I used to love these guys... but they seem to have become complete wankers - what happened?"

And so I have decided to start a regular feature on this blog right here to work out if the bands and records I used to love have stood the test of time. Do I still like them, did they go all wrong in the meantime, or was I going through a phase of terrible taste?

I'm going to randomly trawl through my memory and record collection to rewind my thoughts and feelings and see how they match up to today's me. And then grade it. Please try to contain your excitement. 

Based on the results I've had exploring my vinyl library over the past few months, this stands a pretty good chance of being rather embarassing. 

Let us play.