HIDDEN GEMS!!!
The 20 Greatest Lost Singles Of My Record Buying Life

Last year, on this here blog of mine, I waxed lyrical about my favourite underrated albums that I just can't live without. The albums that, over the years, have burrowed deep within my ear canals and wrapped themselves around my inner speakers - never to let go. Now, as a companion piece of sorts, it's time for the lairy little brother to take centre stage. Ladies and germs, I give you The Greatest Lost Singles Of My Record Buying Life! (Cue fanfare...)
For this list, I've tried to avoid well-known one-hit wonders - songs like 'Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm' by The Crash Test Dummies and the gorgeous '74-75' by The Connells - as well as steering clear of singles by established acts that for whatever reason, didn't connect with the public. I'm thinking of 'Popscene' by Blur; 'Did It Again' by Kylie; 'I Pronounce You' by Madness and the frankly astonishing 'Mountains' by Prince - which somehow didn't even crack the Top 40 in this country. Instead, I've chosen 20 utterly fantastic singles that, upon first hearing, I genuinely thought would be massive. A few of these tracks did make the chart over here but, in the main, these 45's slipped through the net and passed most people by. The oldest songs here date from the mid-80's and the most recent is from 2006. That nigh-on two decade time-frame basically encapsulates the bulk of my singles buying life. In recent years of course, downloading and streaming has taken the place of physical single releases. Indeed, most acts these days will only drop a 'lead track' online to promote a forthcoming album. At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old fart, I fear something has been lost along the way....
Anyhoo, that's enough of my yakkin'. And so, without further ado, eyes down for my latest list...

20: THE ROCKINGBIRDS: 'GRADUALLY LEARNING'

The Rockingbirds were a London-based band that, early on in their career, embraced the classic country-rock sound of The Flying Burrito Brothers and fused it to their janglesome, indie-rock aesthetic with great aplomb.Their self-titled debut album, released on Heavenly Records in 1992, was a delight from first to last and although this glorious lead single garnered rave reviews and a fair amount of radio play, it failed to chart and the band never really recovered. They split in 95, and although there has been sporadic reactivations since then, they remain a tiny footnote in British indie history. A real shame, as this song is divine. Opening with a chiming piano riff, and embracing banjos, pedal steel guitars, horns and strings, the track features head 'Bird Alan Tyler singing his heart out to a new-found love as the tune swells to a wondrous singalong climax that should have even the shyest of souls joining in lustily whilst cutting a rug.

19: THE NYMPHS: 'IMITATING ANGELS'

In 1992, not long after the massive worldwide success of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and the rest of the grunge bands, record companies far and wide did their usual thing of signing any combo that looked the part and who might make a quick buck. Nirvana's label - Geffen Records - thought they'd struck lucky once again after fast-tracking the signing of LA-based goth-rockers The Nymphs. Led by lead singer Inger Lorre, the band's debut album sat on the shelf for 18 months - during which time the band all but imploded. Indeed, by the time of it's release in the UK, the group were no more. Lorre's outrageous behaviour - mostly heroin-induced - no doubt didn't help either. On-stage bust-ups were frequent and Lorre also sped up the band's demise by urinating on the desk of their A&R man. All of this sadly overshadowed the music, which was a sparky and vibrant mesh of grunge, glam and punk. The album was great but this lead single - which incredibly didn't even chart here - was the cherry on top. Featuring a tremendously catchy guitar riff, the song is a tribute to a close friend of Lorre's who had recently died. Like most songs from that alt-rock era though, the dark lyrical content is swathed in gloriously uplifting music and a chorus for the ages.

18: GIGOLO AUNTS: 'WHERE I FIND MY HEAVEN'

American power-pop combo Gigolo Aunts - named after a Syd Barrett song - were formed in New York in the early 80s and gained very little traction outside their home state for nigh on a decade until this breezy 3 minutes of jangly indie was used in the movie Dumb And Dumber.
Written by lead vocalist Dave Gibbs, the track features a recurring guitar riff and a simple chorus that repeats the title twelve times. Sometimes though, that's all you need. Celebrating the little things in life that bring you joy, this ridiculously catchy track was a big hit in the US before just breaking the Top 30 over here when it was subsequently used as the opening music for long-forgotten sitcom, Game On. The band never repeated the success of this track and have disappeared back to the margins with occasional releases and gigs since. This tune though, is an absolute joy.

17: THRUM: 'SO GLAD'

Scottish quartet Thrum formed in 1992 and split less than three years later after releasing just one album - the excellent 'Rifferama' - and a brace of singles. The first of these, the truly stupendous So Glad, somehow failed to find an audience upon it's release in early 93, even though it married the crunchy riffs of the prevailing grunge scene with the melodic indie nous of fellow countrymen Teenage Fanclub. The band's secret weapon was vocalist Monica Queen who sang like an astounding meld of Tammy Wynnette, Janis Joplin and Maria McKee. The band had a brief taste of fame when they performed this track on the infamous early-90's post-pub Friday night controversy magnet The Word. After they split, Queen went on to perform with Belle & Sebastian, Snow Patrol and The Jayhawks. There was a reformation and a second album a few years ago but So Glad will always be their calling card.

16: SLOAN: 'UNDERWHELMED'

Historically, Canada's music scene has always been healthy, hale and hearty. The names just trip off the tongue: Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, K D Lang, Alanis Morrisette, The Band, Rush, Cowboy Junkies, Arcade Fire. And many, many more. It was no exception in the 90's when the whole alt-rock explosion took over the western world leading to hitherto unknown Canuck combos like The Tragically Hip, Barenaked Ladies, Moist and Sum 41 all getting their moment in the sun. One of the best bands from this period were Sloan. Hailing from Nova Scotia, this four piece - who are still all together today - have been peddling a hugely Beatles-influenced power-pop sound for over twenty-five years. This track, from their debut album, is the closest they've ever come to perfection - 5 minutes of driving, fuzzy rhythms and chiming melodic riffs that just cry out "Indie disco!" Written by all four members of the band, who throughout the duration share some splendid harmony vocals, the song tells the well-worn tale of an insecure, nerdy guy's unrequited love for an aloof, too cool for school girl who is way out of his league. The perfect 90's indie anthem then. It also features one of my all-time favourite lines:
"She wrote out a story about her life, I think it included something about me, I'm not sure of that but I'm sure of one thing - her spelling's atrocious."
Magnificent.

15: PHANTOM, ROCKER & SLICK: 'MEN WITHOUT SHAME'

Some of my older readers may remember that in the early 80's there was a short-lived, but massively successful, craze for all things rockabilly. The movie Grease may have started the 1950's fixation in the late 70's but a few years later the charts over here were filled with bands dressed in colourful suits and brogues and sporting huge quiffs atop their bonces. One of the most popular of these bands were New York's The Stray Cats, who had a number of big hits during this period.
Quite soon afterward though, lead singer Brian Setzer left the group to go solo, and the remaining members - double bass maestro Lee Rocker and drummer Slim Jim Phantom - were suddenly left in the lurch and looking for a new singer. They settled on guitarist Earl Slick - who'd served his apprenticeship in David Bowie's band - and quickly released a self-titled album. The long-player itself was hit and miss but this single was just huge. Fusing a massive sounding rock and roll drum beat with searing, hard rock inspired guitar riffs and thundering along tremendously for a mighty 6 minutes, this should have been a worldwide smash. As is the way though, it fizzled away without trace and the trio broke up soon after.

14: THE BENS: 'JUST PRETEND'

The Bens were a short-lived supergroup of sorts made up of American singers Ben Folds and Ben Kweller and Australian songsmith Ben Lee. Getting together in 2003 and touring across Australia for a few months, the trio used the experience as a period of winding-down after their solo endeavours. Folds had had a good few years of continued success with his Ben Folds Five combo, Kweller had hit big with his post-grunge band Radish before flying solo and Lee had enjoyed huge acclaim in his homeland as well as writing songs for Evan Dando. Originally conceived as a bit of a laugh, the response from fans was so positive that a four track EP was released. Featuring one track written and performed by each Ben, the other track was this delightful harmony-laden slice of Americana that in an ideal world would have ruled the roost. After this little sojourn into modern-day Crosby, Stills & Nash territory, the troika of Bens drifted back to their day jobs, with differing levels of success.

13: CRACKER: 'LOW'

Cracker were - and still are - a Californian alt-rock combo formed by David Lowery ( who was once the singer in criminally underrated post-punkers Camper Van Beethoven), and who have been releasing solid albums for almost 20 years now and touring consistently without ever really breaking into the mainstream. The closest they came was in 1993 when the excellent 'Kerosene Hat' album hit big in the US charts.

This first single from it, a gnarly slab of post-grunge rock and roll, just missed out on the charts in this country and it's still a mystery to me as to why. Considering how many lesser bands of a similar ilk were succeeding around the same time - I'm looking at you, Bush - Cracker's lack of success makes me shake my head in despair. I can only imagine that Lowery's lyrics in the song - pretty blatantly about heroin addiction - may have caused the band's record label to ease up on promoting it. However, the song has had a decent second life, turning up in movies as disparate as The Perks Of Being A Wallflower and The Wolverine, as well as appearing on a fair few compilations. Cracker still perform regularly in the States and this song is still the main encore.

12: WHIPPING BOY: 'WE DON'T NEED NOBODY ELSE'

Whipping Boy were a four piece indie band from Dublin who, heavily influenced by The Velvet Underground and The Fall, scrabbled around their local music scene for a few years before finding their own sound and releasing a low-key debut album in 1992. This led to a major deal with Columbia Records who, in 1995, released the band's astonishing sophomore effort, 'Heartworm'. Huge critical acclaim followed - one Irish publication called it "an earth-shatteringly powerful experience" - although commercial success passed the band by. My theory on this incredible album's lack of popularity is based on it's appearance smack-bang in the middle of the uptempo Britpop party summer of 95. Due to the record's dark and downbeat tone, it would have stood a better chance a couple of years later when The Verve's 'Urban Hymns' and 'OK Computer' by Radiohead were ruling the roost.

Indeed, you could quite easily draw a line between that latter album and 'Heartworm' itself. The lyrics and subject matter of this mind-blowing single are a case in point. A painfully raw and emotional account of a love affair gone sour and the brutal descent into domestic violence that followed it, lead singer Fearghal McKee's spoken word verses are impossible to ignore, before the chorus kicks in with a wall-to-wall blast of frenzied guitars. The pivotal moment in the song is when McKee speaks the following lines: 
"I hit you for the first time today, I didn't mean it - it just happened. You wouldn't let me go to the phone, you wanted to make love and I...did not. Now I know the distance between us. Christ, we weren't even fighting - I was just annoyed. Silence, and you started to cry. That really hurt you said. Yeah? And you thought you knew me". 
To this day, 23 years later, it's still as shocking a verse as you're ever likely to hear. But it's also heartbreakingly honest and truthful, which in turn gives it - and by extension the whole song - a rare kind of emotional heft. It proves McKee's credentials as a phenomenal songwriter, but - like every other song on this list - it just didn't happen for him and his band. Columbia dropped them not long afterwards and they eventually split. A true cult classic.

11: FLOWERED UP: 'WEEKENDER'

In the late 80's - after the euphoria of the acid house drenched summer of 88 had died down - I, like many like-minded souls around me, fell in love with the whole indie-dance/baggy movement that had emerged from Manchester. The Stone Roses and The Happy Mondays were the obvious progenitors of the scene, and other bands such as The Charlatans, Inspiral Carpets and New Fast Automatic Daffodils also hit big around that time. As always though, there were stragglers and hangers-on aplenty. Candy Flip, The High and Northside are remembered with scorn these days - if they're remembered at all that is. One of the bands who at first fell into this latter category of bandwagon jumpers were Flowered Up. Formed in Camden in 1990 by brothers Liam and Joe Maher, the group eventually settled on a 5-piece lineup and started touring. Joined on stage by dancer Barry Mooncult (who wore a big foam flower on his head - hey, it was the 90's), the band soon gained a big enough following to hook themselves a record deal and release a debut album and a couple of singles that scraped the Top 40.

However, it was a disagreement with their label over the choice of their next single - the staggering Weekender - that put paid to their career. A mindbending 13 minute long epic extolling the virtues of 24/7 hedonism and at the same time vitriolically denouncing those who just save their good times for Saturday night, this massive tune embraced the baggy sound of the time and melded it with 60's inspired psychedelia, late 80's acid beats and samples from the movie 'Quadrophenia'. It was a huge quantum leap from the group's earlier material and quite frankly is the one and only reason to remember Flowered Up in the first place. The single was eventually released in the summer of 1992 and reached number 20 in the charts, and was accompanied by a short-form video which celebrated the alcohol and drug fuelled activities of the lyrics. Weekender's success - it earned almost universal acclaim from the music press who variously described it as aggressive, unique and breathtaking - looked to lay the groundwork for the next stage of Flowered Up's career but unfortunately, internal squabbles and disagreements got in the way. As did drugs. Lots and lots of drugs. There was an attempt at a reunion in 2007 but nothing came of it. Liam Maher sadly died of a heroin overdose in 2009, tragically followed by his brother Joe in 2012. Their legacy is this extraordinary time capsule of an era when anything seemed possible and the nights were long, expansive adventures involving tremendous music, questionable fashion choices and responsibilities that stretched no further than making sure you had enough cash in your pocket for the evening's festivities. To quote the sample used at the end of the song, as spoken by Phil Daniels' character Jimmy in 'Quadrophenia': 
"You can take that that mail and that franking machine, and all that other rubbish that I have to go about with, and shove it right up your arse!"

10: DROP NINETEENS 'WINONA'

Back in the late 80's, the US state of Massachusetts was renowned for it's incredibly healthy and vibrant music scene. Bands such as the Pixies, Throwing Muses and Dinosaur Jr broke out from playing local gigs and started to gain major traction internationally - especially in the UK where the more discerning listener fell hard for this new breed of alt-indie heroes. The next wave of Boston bands included The Lemonheads, Buffalo Tom and Belly and all of a sudden New England's Puritan State was neck and neck with Seattle for the title of Best Place In America For Fantastic Music. Swimming along in the slipstream of all this glorious music were a little band called Drop Nineteens. Led by singer and guitarist Greg Ackell, the quintet were obviously influenced by their local peers, but also were very much in thrall to recently prevalent British shoegaze acts like My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive and Ride.

Their debut album, the really rather lovely 'Delaware', was released to some acclaim in the spring of 1992 and decent word of mouth allowed the band to travel over to Europe for a run of dates that summer. Indeed, I saw them perform a sterling set at 92's Reading Festival and can definitely remember thinking that they'd go far. Another prediction that went south! After some personnel changes and a middling second album a couple of years later, they split and moved on to other lives. That first album still shines though and this single from it - which was originally promoted as a tribute to Winona Ryder but is really about the desire for fleeting fame that some acts at the time were actively seeking - is a wondrous rush of distorted guitars, crashing drums and swooning vocals that comes very close indeed to matching the efforts of the aforementioned UK bands that Drop Nineteens so admired.

9:  DARYLL-ANN: 'I COULD NEVER LOVE YOU'

Daryll-Ann were a Dutch indie band who during the 90's released a batch of albums that, although successful in their homeland, never really broke big anywhere else.

The four-piece - led by singer and principal songwriter Jelle Paulusma - peddled a fuzzy and vibrant blend of janglesome grunge that brought to mind 'Thirteen' era Teenage Fanclub as well as Pavement and Dinosaur Jr. Their debut album, 'Seaborne West', is a delightful collection of chugging indie-rock but, before then, the band released the wonderful 'I Could Never Love You' EP - the title track of which still rattles along quite gloriously when it pops up on shuffle mode on my phone. Yet another plaintive paean to unrequited love - these fey indie chaps didn't have much luck in the romance department - Paulusma's lyrics describe his dismay at the realisation that the subject of his desire is out of reach: "I could never love you, there's someone who will. I could never love you, I'm alright but, still..." Ouch. The track ends with a tremendous instrumental coda, all driving guitars and harmony-laden "Whoo whoo's" from the band that can't fail to raise a smile. Yet again, this should have been gigantic but record company wrangles and inter-band acrimony led to a disparate and chequered history for the group that eventually led to their dissolution in 2004.

  

8:  WENDY & LISA: 'WATERFALL'

During the 80's the Big 3 American popstars of the age were Michael Jackson, Madonna and Prince. Although Jacko and Madge touched upon greatness on occasion, the real genius of this trio was the mighty Mr. Rogers Nelson of Minneapolis. His run of albums from 1983 to 1988 - 1999, Purple Rain, Around The World In A Day, Parade, Sign O' The Times and Lovesexy - are as groundbreakingly brilliant as anyone has ever produced. A monumentally important part of the first four of those records was Prince's band The Revolution. Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman were, respectively, the guitarist and keyboard player of that group, as well as contributing to the songwriting process and adding backing vocals to various tracks. After the Parade album was released, Prince shocked fans the world over by sacking The Revolution and moving forward with a new cohort of musicians. Stung by this betrayal from their friend, Wendy & Lisa channeled their frustration and anger into a suite of songs that they had been stockpiling during their tenure with Prince. Released in 1987, their eponymous debut album was - and still is - an absolute triumph. Oozing slinky funk and swathed in divine pop hooks, the album is as good as anything Prince subsequently released with his new band. High praise I know, but completely warranted.

Waterfall is a case in point. A five minute rush of swooning psychedelic funk-pop, with a chorus to die for, how it only reached number 84 over here is an absolute mystery - as well as a total travesty. Lyrically, the song could well be about Prince - the oft-repeated refrain of  "people may come, people may go" in particular - but, due to the intelligence of the duo's songwriting chops, it could be about a number of things - lost love, most likely. Sadly, further singles from the album fared even less well, and even though the duo had a little bit of success with their second album - the single Are You My Baby was a minor hit over here - they eventually moved into composing and have been extremely prolific writing TV scores for shows like Heroes, Nurse Jackie, Carnivale and Touch. They have also done session work for, among others, Seal, KD Lang, Pearl Jam, Joni Mitchell, Grace Jones, Tricky, Sheryl Crow, Eric Clapton and Madonna herself. Happily, there was a reconciliation with Prince in 2004 and they contributed to his 'Planet Earth' album. They are currently touring with other musicians who worked with Prince as a tribute act of sorts. Waterfall though, will always be their finest achievement as solo artists. WHAT a song.

   

7:  WILLIAM PITT: 'CITY LIGHTS'

One late Sunday night in the mid-80's, whilst furiously trying to cram in homework I'd ignored all weekend, a long-forgotten DJ on whatever radio station I had on in the background played a song that caused me to completely forget what I was doing and just stare at the radio, slack-jawed in amazement. The song was City Lights by a chap named William Pitt. I hadn't heard from him before, and I haven't heard from him since. The archetypal one-hit-wonder, then. Although, as you can no doubt imagine, this wasn't a hit. In fact, it barely scraped into the Top 100 - reaching the dizzy heights of number 94 for one week only in 1987. I remember scribbling the name of the single into one of my school books and spending my next free Saturday trying to purchase it.

This was pre-internet of course kids, so I ended up visiting a fair few record shops that day - eventually getting hold of it in a branch of HMV in Guildford. Thank you His Master's Voice! A few years later I managed to find a CD single of it online which still nestles snugly in my collection. Thank you Amazon! The song itself is a delightful meld of Europop style Balearic dance beats and swanky British synth-pop - I've always felt that Neil Tennant had heard this track before writing Domino Dancing for the Pet Shop Boys a year or so later. Swimming in acoustic guitars and a quite wondrous Italian House style piano riff, the track builds to a magnificent guitar solo that is impossible not to get up and throw some shapes to. All the while Pitt, who was an American singer living in Paris and embracing the uptempo pop sounds of his adopted continent, sings along in a dark and doomy voice that shouldn't fit with the music swelling around him but somehow does. Imploring his new flame to give up their old life and embrace the sparkling new horizons ahead, Pitt's plaintive howl of  "you gotta try to get out and see some city lights!" is just glorious. The song was unsurprisingly big in the sun-kissed climes of Southern Europe - it was number one in Spain for a bit - but Pitt never troubled the charts anywhere else ever again. Where he ended up remains a mystery, but hats off to him for leaving us with this utterly joyful three and a half minutes. Thank you William!

  

6:  THIEVES: 'UNWORTHY'

In 1994, after his sudden and acrimonious departure from Britpop heroes Suede, guitarist Bernard Butler hooked up with London-born soul singer David McAlmont and released the Sound Of McAlmont And Butler album. A quite lovely collection of Bacharach & David style orchestral pop, it spawned the huge hit single Yes. The combination of Butler's indie smarts and swooning guitar fills and McAlmont's flamboyant appearance and skyscraping three-octave vocal range was a match made in heaven and their success together was deserved as it was welcome. Everyone knew who Butler was of course, but who was David McAlmont?

I had already discovered this marvellous talent a year or so previously when I picked up an single by a band called Thieves, who were made up of McAlmont and multi-instrumentalist Saul Freeman. Unworthy was a sumptuous Cocteau Twins inspired track, full of luxuriant strings and lavish chord changes. Once again depicting a tale of unrequited love, McAlmont's lyrics were even more intense, due to his struggle over embracing his homosexuality, and the song was obviously a far more autobiographical affair than most. The pivotal line - "It's no good, I want you in my room, my bed instead of my mind" - is as succinct a description of the lovelorn as there has ever been. As McAlmont opens his heart, all around him Freeman's music builds and swells, incorporating pop smarts reminiscent of The Associates as well as mid-80's era Scritti Politti style soul, and luscious Johnny Marr-esque guitar licks. It is just a stunning song that should have opened the door for the duo. However, whilst recording their debut album, McAlmont and Freeman fell out spectacularly and Thieves were no more. McAlmont went on to release the bulk of the sessions as a self-titled debut album, before hooking up with Butler. He has since skirted around the margins of the music scene without ever really breaking through. He and Freeman did reconcile a few years ago but no new music came of it.

   

5:  LORRAINE: 'I FEEL IT'

Lorraine were a quite horrifically named band from Norway who, in 2006, released this truly superb synth-pop masterpiece and just cracked the Top 30 in this country. Heavily influenced by New Order, Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys and their fellow countrymen A-Ha, the trio from Bergen had been playing together since their school days and gained enough traction to release their debut album in 2003. I Feel It was the first taster from their second album, and if you have any affinity at all for the bands mentioned above, then you'll love this.

A shiny, sparkling gem of a track, I Feel It features vocalist Ole Gundersen pleading with the object of his affection to throw caution to the wind and join him on the next stage of their adventure together. It comes across like an updated version of William Pitt's City Lights - which is no doubt why I love it so much. Fellow band members Anders Winsents on guitar, and keyboard whizz Paal Haaland surround Gundersen with all the delectable musical food groups that the very best synth-pop has to offer: shimmering keyboards, swishing percussion and a melody that grabs hold and doesn't let go. It really should have been the start of something big but, although the song was a minor hit throughout Europe, the band's terrible name went against them. Future releases were held back and eventually the trio renamed themselves Blackroom - which, to be fair, isn't much better. Momentum had been completely lost and after the release of the album 'PopNoir' - featuring a re-recorded version of I Feel It - they drifted away. Shame. All we really have left is this golden nugget of pop glory.

4:  WHALE: 'HOBO HUMPING SLOBO BABE'

More fantastic music from Scandinavia here - this time from Sweden, which in the mid-90's was the place to be for sophisticated indie, driving garage-rock and chunky rock n roll. The Cardigans, The Wannadies, The Hives, The Concretes, The Soundtrack Of Our Lives. There was tons of great stuff coming out of the land of the midnight sun. One of these cracking combos were Whale, who were ostensibly a duo - musicians Henrik Schyffert and Gordon Cyrus - and who had been collaborating on instrumental tracks for Swedish television. Upon deciding to make a proper record, Schyfffert recruited his then girlfriend, Cia Berg, to perform vocals.

The first fruits of their labours - released in 1994 - was this still utterly thrilling punky, funky, grungey ode to female sugar daddies - sugar mommies? - that used to bring the house down at rock clubs. Fusing hard rock guitar riffs, shouty vocals, dubby beats and lyrics that didn't really make a lick of sense - "Seeking candy, out of line, broken kneecap, fail with spine" - the track still to this day never fails to excite. The chorus alone is enough to make you grin from ear to ear, never mind the thunderous rhythm that bulldozers you from the first second to the last. It's all quite wonderful. It did nothing on it's original release but eventually climbed to number 15 some months later. Quite honestly though, they really should have given up after this but a middling debut album was released the following year, which although featuring that year's critical darling Tricky on a number of tracks, never caught on the way this single did. A second album slipped out a few years later by which time the band were going their separate ways. Cyrus went back to advertising, Schyffert became a TV comedian and Berg moved into presenting. All together now: "You hobo humping slobo babe, get it off, get off, get off of me!!!"

3:  ADORABLE: 'SUNSHINE SMILE'

Adorable were a whey-faced, black-clad indie quartet from Coventry who by early 1992 had moved away from their provincial roots and signed a record deal with the then achingly cool Creation Records. Joining a roster that included Primal Scream, Teenage Fanclub, Ride, Swervedriver and Slowdive would no doubt have built up the confidence of the band no end. Lead singer Pete Fijalkowski certainly embraced the persona of 'Famous Rock Star' with weekly announcements in the music press that he was the next big thing and his band would go on to greatness. It never happened of course - none of their singles were massive and their debut album - the pretty decent 'Against Perfection' - peaked at number 70. Creation eventually dropped them and then signed Oasis - who did end up taking the world by storm as well as delivering to the world the Gallagher brothers, world famous rock stars if ever there was.

Before all of that though, Adorable's first proper single - released in the summer of 92 - was without question one of the finest singles Creation ever released during their first period of success. When you consider that around the same time Creation released Movin' On Up by the Primals, Leave Them All Behind by Ride and The Concept by TFC, that's some going. Sunshine Smile was - and still is - one of my all-time favourite one-offs. A glorious janglesome beast of a tune, all chiming guitar fills and crunchy riffs with a crashing drum beat that drives the tune along thrillingly all the way to the magnificent instrumental coda when the song speeds up to it's climax. All the while, Fijalkowski sings lovingly about a woman who makes him feel perfect: "She's got a sunshine smile, the kind that warms up the corners of my cold room. She's got a sunshine smile, the kind that makes you forget again". It's just wonderful. Although some of their later tracks were pretty good, Adorable never came close to scaling the heights of this song ever again and by 1994 they were done with three of the band returning to 'proper' jobs and Fijalkowski sticking with music to limited impact. They will always have my gratitude though for leaving us with such a stupendous tune.

  

2:  LAID BACK: 'BAKER MAN'

Back in the late 80's there was an hour long programme smack bang in the middle of ITV's Saturday morning schedule called The Chart Show. It was basically 60 minutes of the latest music videos 'presented' by a colourful set of computer graphics that would inform you of a few tit-bits about each artist being played on screen. It was the perfect hangover cure - I can remember many a fuzzy 'morning after the night before' in my scuzzy bedsit, nodding along to acts as disparate as Technotronic, Pixies, Soul 2 Soul, Orbital and Skid Row. It was that kind of show. One morning in late 89, a video was played of a bunch of loons skydiving whilst dressed as chefs, policeman and bowler-hatted businessmen.

Some were playing instruments, some were holding plastic toys and some were holding loaves of bread. There was even a couple of female backing singers holding microphones and miming along to the chorus. It was one of the most weirdly compelling things I'd ever witnessed. And the song that this video was accompanying was even stranger. I figured out reasonably quickly that it was called Baker Man, as that was pretty much the entirety of the lyric, and I waited patiently for the graphics on the screen to impart some more information about this crazy crew of nut-jobs. Turns out they were called Laid Back and were essentially a duo from Denmark who had been peddling a relaxed, reggae-infused strain of synth-pop for well over a decade. John Guldberg and Tim Stahl had scored some minor success throughout Europe and America with songs like Sunshine Reggae and White Horse, but Baker Man was their first real foray into the UK charts. I was more than a little intrigued. Again, this was pre-internet so I had to seek out this single the old-fashioned way. I eventually managed to pick up a copy of the 12 inch single a couple of weeks later and the song has stayed with me ever since. It's an acquired taste to be sure, but those who like it really, really like it. I've had many a conversation - in hushed tones, natch - with the odd like-minded soul about the song's insane brilliance. It's one of those odd little tracks that shouldn't work at all but that somehow does. Set to a basic electronic synth beat, with proper old school syn-drums crashing away in the background, Guldberg - singing in a delightfully deep register that makes him come across like Leonard Cohen after an acid trip - regales us with the story of the Baker Man: "Baker man, is baking bread. Baker man, is baking bread..." There's something sung in African by guest vocalist Hanne Boel which back then I thought was "suck a bone now, come Johnny Wayne now", but which I've since discovered is the phrase "sagabona kunjani wena" - meaning something along the lines of "hello - how are you?" Then we're told that the night train is coming and we have to keep on running before, conversely, to relax and take it easy. Then, tremendously, the baker man is back - baking bread. It's all complete and utter nonsense of course, but due to the song's beat being so ridiculously groovesome, and the introduction midway through of a gloriously Clapton-esque guitar solo - not to mention the full-blown power ballad style saxophone break at the end - it's nigh on impossible not to fall in love with the whole shebang. It just about scraped the Top 50 over here - although it was a major hit throughout Europe - and was re-released in 2006 in a remixed format which rather fantastically got to number one in, of all places, Greenland. Splendidly, Laid Back are still together and have just released a quite astonishing version of House Of The Rising Sun that is almost as good as Baker Man. Almost, but not quite.

1:  BANG BANG MACHINE: 'GEEK LOVE'

And so to number one in my list of Hidden Gems and Great Lost Singles and it's an absolute pearl. In 1992 I was working at a branch of a late, lamented record store chain and had been put in charge of purchasing singles from all the various distributors in the country. I mainly focused on indie and alternative releases - as that was my bag, man - and had struck up a decent rapport with Pinnacle Records who specialised in that area. Musically, everything was pretty rosy at that time with the Creation roster all doing great business, the grunge bands all smashing it big-time and a whole slew of discordant and spiky alt-rock bands from the US making decent inroads into the UK charts. There was also room for some complete one-offs - one of which was this extraordinary debut release from a four-piece combo from Worcestershire that the rep at Pinnacle put me on to (and he has my eternal thanks to this day). Formed in 1989 by vocalist Elizabeth Freeth and guitarist Steve Eagles, the band's lineup was completed by Stan Lee on bass and a chap called Lamp on drums. Covering a wide ranging group of musical styles, they weren't easily pigeonholed. There was some goth here, some alt-rock there, a little bit of ambient as well as some shoegaze. All of these sounds and influences coalesced magnificently into this first single. Geek Love was inspired by the travelling carnies and freak-shows of post-depression America and featured samples from Tod Browning's controversial 1932 movie 'Freaks'. The lyrics - sung by Freeth in a drifting, ethereal whisper - are short and succinct and just a little bit freaky themselves:
 "Waltz around her, waltz around her. Crystal mystery, my dreamlets. Midnight gardener and the rose garden. Designer children, Papa's roses. Janice, Maple, Clifford, Fisk - Apple and Leona, The Lizard Girl!"
So far, so a little bit sixth-form poetry and slightly kooky to boot. But this is only half the story. What really makes this song so unquestionably special is the music. Starting slowly, the track begins with a hushed drum beat that comes across like a slightly more somnambulant sibling of Fool's Gold by The Stone Roses. Accompanied by some deep bass and some spine-tingling guitar licks, Freeth's vocals then kick in before the song launches into what can only be described as a complete and utter joyful noise. Pounding drums, driving riffs, swirling keyboards, funky bass, the aforementioned samples and a melody for the ages. Throughout this astonishing second act, Freeth repeats the refrain "To love, but never to be in love..." It is, without question, a total masterpiece and 10 solid minutes of utter wonder. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. Apart from bagging a few Single Of The Week accolades in the weekly music press, BBM's biggest champion was the god-like John Peel on Radio One who not only placed their song at the top of his Festive 50 for that year, but said of the band: 
"Even if they never make another record, they will have achieved more than most of us do in our entire lives".
He knew his onions that Peel fella.

Unfortunately, all this acclaim and praise was for nothing. Geek Love barely troubled the charts and the band later encountered problems with their new record label - GL had been released on their own imprint - and a slapdash debut album, not including Geek, was released a year or so later. Further singles and a second album all failed to live up to their initial promise and the band split in 94. Freeth and Lee married and started a family - with Lee dipping into music here and there - whilst Lamp became a sound engineer and Eagles tried again with various bands. Geek Love however, lives on. The original EP - which I was lucky enough to purchase all those years ago, and with my staff discount to boot - now goes for silly money online. It also made Number 16 on an online radio station's Top 20 Singles Of All-Time list. There was a book published on the band and Geek Love's influence in 2012 and there was even a Sunday Times article a year later. The very definition of a cult band, then. It's unlikely that Bang Bang Machine will ever reform and to be honest, I wouldn't want them too. They peaked with Geek Love and they have nothing to prove. It is the perfect Hidden Gem and The Greatest Lost Single Of My Record Buying Life.