CULTURE BEAT – "Mr Vain"

More misheard lyrics – wasn’t sure if this was “Call him Mr Right or call him Mr Wrong”, or even “Call him Mr Raider, call him Mr Raw”. All makes the same amount of sense, which is part of the magic of Eurodance.

I much preferred all of Culture Beat’s other hits: Got To Get It has those minor chords, Anything has a weird new-wavey ravey vocal (“Should my hair be red or shall it be blue?!”), The World In Your Hands is properly atmos. Still, this is no slouch but a surprising no.1 when you considr the other Eurodance singles that didn’t make it.

Geeky pop history point: this was the first no.1 not available on a UK 7″ format since the early fifties (possibly Lita Roza, need to check). A whole era coming to an end etcet.

Light entertainment watch: Just two UK TV appearances for Culture Beat – who I don’t remember as being a particularly telegenic act – on the list;

THE O ZONE: with Barry Manilow, Culture Beat (1993)

THE SMASH HITS POLL WINNERS PARTY: with Culture Beat, Andi Peters, Mark Owen, Will Smith, Meat Loaf, Bad Boys Inc, M People, Apache Indian, Take That, Haddaway (1993)

#2 Don’t forget ‘Adelante’…OK not actually a hit and markedly different from their other stuff (think 2 In A Room go New Beat) but the haunting synth hook stood out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ7NdoKP8pk

#lamelandmark I think ‘Mr Vain’ was the first song/video I saw on MTV in my own house (we got a Sky dish that Summer), a giant and simultaneously awesome and atrocious window into both European and US pop culture in roughly equal measure (it would take a few years before MTV started to feel much more UK-centric, then literally branded as such). This was about six weeks before it was released over here.

It isn’t “call him Mr Right or call him Mr Wrong”, then?

I do remember hating this song, but then I was That Age.

I always thought it was ‘Call him Mr Vader, call him Mr Wrong’.

Anyway, this was one of those songs I changed my mind about during its chart run. Hated it at first, dismissed them as a Tesco Value 2 Unlimited. By the time it had completed its run at Number One, I was in love with its daft charms.

Actually Clock were the Tesco Value 2 Unlimited, weren’t they?

Another single I don’t actually remember getting to number one – in my memory, it was a number two or number three hit. Strange.

Like a great many of the records issued throughout 1993, I just can’t find much either interesting or positive to say about this – it just is. I’ve always maintained that 1993 was a uniquely dreary year for music in all of its genres and forms, and I’ve been consistently corrected on that point by friends who claim that this view probably has little to do with what was being issued at the time and more to do with the fact that it wasn’t an incredibly upbeat year for me personally. I can see I’m probably going to be sitting a lot of these records out comments-wise.

Is it about cocaine replacing ecstasy in clubs? That would make sense of the lyrics.

I loved this as, as a late adopter, I was still bang on da Eurobeat ting in 1993.

I was also struck by the lust-as-vanity message of the lyrics: a couple of years before I had seen Disney’s Beauty and The Beast at the pictures and recounting the entire plot to my mum in that childlike way, described Gaston as ‘this man, who’s really vain and all the girls fancy him, but he wants the only one who doesn’t.’ I distinctly recall her saying ‘yes, vain people always want the one they can’t have’. It must have stuck with me because two years’ later ‘I want you coz I am Mr Vain’ made perfect sense.

Given that Revolution In The Head was first published in 1994, and therefore must have been written, at least in part, during 1993, it is possible that Ian MacDonald may have had “Mr Vain” in mind when he snarls in his introduction at then-contemporary pop which in his view had been reduced to “little more than a soundtrack for physical jerks.” That wouldn’t in itself have necessarily made his premise wrongheaded, but one can very briefly glimpse, if not grasp, his point (there were plenty of counter-arguments at the time, and also subsequently). 1993’s “Rhythm Is A Dancer,” down to sharing the same bpm and practically the same tune, “Mr Vain” was another Teutonic studium dance epic, and even though it tries to debunk itself in its stodgy process (“Loveless dying/For a chance just to touch a hand”), the now wearily predictable combination of “soulful” female lead vocal and “gruff” male “rap” (“One sexy can’t perplex me now” – answers on a postcard, please) is reminiscent of nothing less than an updated, and possibly even more dated-sounding, Boney M.

“Mr Vain”’s principal significance is that it was the first number one single since the fifties not to be released on seven-inch vinyl (it appeared in both CD and cassette form) and thus helped shift the earth for the eventual burial of one mode of pop delivery. Many of my contemporaries of the period read that as a signal to begin drifting away from pop altogether, and the record’s run at the top coincided with a personal (work-related) life change to do with things closing down and other things starting; nevertheless, “Mr Vain” does close more than one book.

#17 – Yes, there was the odd good album around, but in terms of the stuff that seemed ubiquitous there was little of value to me. In the sixth form common room it was wall-to-wall grunge dirges about how alienating and depressing being alive was, and on Radio One it was either the likes of this, a track Punctum summarises incredibly well above, or whatever MOR track they’d backed that month. I just have distinct memories of going to both mainstream and alternative clubs in 1993 and feeling bored out of my skull, wondering if this was really what being a teenager of legal drinking (and therefore partying) age should feel like. I still want my money back.

I realise things aren’t ever quite as straightforward as this and that life doesn’t work to neat chapter headings and cut-off points, but you could view 93 as being a watershed year. Certainly it was the year that Bannister took over Radio One (in October) which led to massive changes at the station, it was also the year that Suede properly broke and put the wheels in motion for Britpop (though that could possibly be regarded as a negative shift), and the template for a lot of sophisticated and inventive mainstream Dance music was also being set (I think Leftfield are strangely under-referenced these days, for example). Stuff was bubbling under, but London and the South East didn’t feel particularly vibrant at the time, events always seemed half-attended, and there was a heavy sense of pessimism about the state of the British music industry. Indeed, one question on my Media Studies A Level exam paper that year was on whether the British music industry could ever be revived, and if so how? I did answer it, but I can’t remember much at all about what I put – except that I chose to take a positive tack – but my result was an “A” so it must have made some kind of sense, even though I was probably hopelessly wrong with my predictions.

Re 18: a pedant writes, Rhythm Is A Dancer has a much lower bpm, though as mentioned upthread it’s clearly the basis for Mr Vain.

Punctum, any idea which was the previous no.1 not to have been on 7″? My money’s on Lonnie Donegan’s Gamblin’ Man/Putting On The Style, though it was on an EP (ditto Alma C’s Dreamboat).

Last no.1 on 7″ only? I reckon it might be a charity record. Ferry Aid? (note: The Stonk, Bring Your Daughter… and ALL THREE Jive Bunny no.1s were on 12″ ferchrissakes)

@17, 20. Zooropa, Debut, Siamese Dream, In Utero sold tons and were all excellent, as was Exile in Guyville. Suede’s album was a let down after the singles, Pablo Honey was much better than everyone said. Kate Bush laid an egg. The Abba awakening was in full swing. Dre’s entrancing, frightening The Chronic was everywhere all summer in 1993 in the US (That it didn’t chart *at all* in the UK strikes me as bizarre. How is that even possible?). The Breeders’ Cannonball, Underworld’s Dirty Epic, Slowdive’s When the Sun Hits? MTV felt rather exciting at the time as I recall…

#24 – I loathed “In Utero” and absolutely despised “Siamese Dream”, so you’re talking to the wrong person here! Meanwhile, I’ve never listened to “Zooropa” from start to finish, but probably should get around to doing that soon.

There definitely was stuff going on in 1993, but if I’d picked any other year in the nineties I’m sure you’d have been able to rattle off a longer list than that, and you wouldn’t have mentioned a revival in the process (but yes, Suede’s debut album was disappointing – I put so much hope in that, too).

#22: “Dreamboat” is right; I don’t remember a 12-inch or CD of the 1989 “Ferry ‘Cross The Mersey” (unless it also came out on cassette grr!).

Fairly sure “Ferry Cross The Mersey” had a cassette single – all those sales at Woolworths to mop up!

best song of 1993 in my Sixth Form Common Room then: “Alright” by Urban Soul. Wrongly overlooked by the wider world and probably largely forgotten now.

As for 1993: the Love Post. Hmm. Carter USM’s follow-up album (to 1992: etc) in 93 was a big, big, disappointment, and really didn’t warrant repeated listening at all. It was the year I went to university and more or less lost contact with pop music and popular culture (beyond what could be heard on Radio Tay…) – but so much of it was dire at this time – it was a very worthwhile break, and a good time to take such an interlude.

Another song that has memories for me but in a completely different era to when it was released. Not the 4 year old me of 1993, but the 15 year old of 2004, discovering this at the same time as ‘3am Eternal’, ‘Rhythm is a Dancer’ and most other number 1s of the early 90s. Like The KLF and Snap this totally blew me away, utterly exhilerating and made me wonder just what the hell happened in the intervening eleven years for music to become so dull. It’s picked up again since 2009, but that’s another story.

The mix heard on the video is different to the radio edit, to my slight disappointment when I downloaded the mp3 – the video mix starts with that epic synth riff, while the ‘Special Radio Edit’ (even though it appears to be the only radio edit) starts with something much more watered down and duller, not kicking in until the second chorus. Happily the 12″ mix starts the same as the video, so if I was truly bothered I’d edit them together.

Definitely a 9 for me!

Dearie me. All these years I’ve disliked this song for what I thought was the incongruity of having a female vocalist singing “I am Mr Vain”, not realising until now that she’s quoting the man. I’d not noticed the “He’d say” before the main vocal hook.

As shown by my thinking Take That were singing “All I do is shine this thing,” I really must pay closer attention.

Upgrading from a 3 to a 5.

@37 hmm, that’s a good point. (Chart peak of no 43 on – was it its third release? – in September 1991) Clearly it lived on in someone’s CD collection in my sixth form…

Slightly weird posting schedule coming up as I’m about to go off to Berlin. I’ll get the next one up tomorrow, but there might be a gap to Thursday after that.

Nobody’s done a #2 watch, so here goes … one week of the previous incumbent, then two of Bitty McLean “It Keeps Rainin’ (Tears from my Eyes)” – then, rather more cruelly to my mind, the Pet Shop Boys glorious rendition of “Go West.” Surely the last time they got anywhere near a number one. Radiohead’s “Creep” entered the chart at #7 in the last week of Mr Vain’s reign, its peak position and only week, surprisingly, in the top ten. Culture Beat had several follow-up hits, including “Got to get it” (#4) and “Anything” (#5) which have utterly escaped my memory, and I’m in no hurry to have it refreshed. A later top 30 hit came with “Crying in the Rain”, surely not the old Everly Brothers number, although that might be worth hearing.

Am finding it funny that all the songs I despised at the time, I adore now. I suppose it didn’t help that my stepfather took a liking to this and sang it repeatedly for most of our 1993 family package holiday to Portugal *runs off to the Global Wizzy Club to watch Dumb and Dumber dubbed into Portuguese*

culture beat, nietzkov, whigfield

Disliked it at the time as a blatant and cynical- and less forgivably, second rate- ripoff of “Rhythm is a Dancer”. Can’t say there’s much there to change my mind twenty years later.

The only thing to be said in its favour is that it doesn’t feature any lines as godawful as “I’m as serious as cancer when I say rhythm is a dancer”.

Okay… that *is* a large plus point, but this is still a Tesco Value “Rhythm”. (Sorry Will (#10)… right sentiment, wrong band!)

#23, Anto; “I suspect it sounded very ’92 in 93.” One might suspect this was due to its similarity to a major 1992 hit. 😉

Another appealing, pumping dance tune at #1. This gets an 8 from me.