Robert Elms had another ACE Cover to Cover on BBC Radio London this morning. Up for consideration was Tainted Love - Gloria Jones Vs, well, you know what.

As ever with Cover to Cover, the original was played first. I always thought the Soft Cell cover was the original until relatively recently.

The Gloria Jones Northern Soul stomp was first released in 1964. The Soft Cell version followed seventeen years later.

It’s not a major lapse of time in the chronology of popular music. But they sound worlds apart. One is huff and puff Northern Soul, the other is the future.

SHOUT OUT to erm, Ed Cobb who originally wrote the song. Plus Glenn Campbell weirdly plays guitar on the Gloria Jones version.

I found the original to be lacking in any hook. That synth double beat riff which defines the Soft Cell version is so underplayed. The song is pretty much over before it’s started.

Soft Cell meanwhile is a youth club classic for me. The highlight of each month for me was dancing away to the 12" at the youth club disco as Tainted Love morphs into Where Did I Love Go?

It’s a killer drop, especially the segue, which still has me dancing more than four decades later.

The reason for Elms selecting Tainted Love was of course the passing of Dave Ball. His production and synth arrangement here is magical. It sounds like seedy Soho of the time.

As soon as the opening seconds of the synth whip kick in, you know you’re there.

No surprises that Soft Cell won.

An album that all the nerds at schools use to have wet dreams over. I was too busy with 2Tone and girls. Time to see if the nerds won the long game?

tl;dr nerds never win.

At the end of Oxygène 1 I was ready to bail. Wait. There’s five more servings of this shit sandwich to come?

It sounds more like the annoying soundtrack for an early 80’s video game console. It’s got a crap cover as well.

UP YOURS, nerds.

⭐

Here’s some geezer music for you: I bring you Good Health Good Wealth.

This time next year we will be millionaires, etc.

Which also happens to be the title of their debut album, out on Friday.

I first caught the duo on BBC Introducing for London. It’s a cheeky chappy mix of Streets style stories, with some tight beats brought up to date.

They look the bollocks as well.

Some of the tracks get a little dark. GWGH are not afraid to explore their own feelings, all behind the uplifting beats.

They’re also giving Sleaford fucking Mods a run for their money in the profanity stakes.

Well this is a wonderful oddity from Little Stevie - a double CD as well, something that I’m always in favour of.

Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants is WAY OUT of the usual Stevie narrative around this time. Released in 1979, it’s the polar opposite of that glorious run of five albums, starting with Music of My Mind in 1972, and closing with Songs in the Key of Life four years later.

That’s not to say that Plants is crap. It’s just different. VERY different.

I had no understanding or even knowledge of this album until recently. Apologies, Stevie obsessives.

It got name checked by Gawd knows who in a podcast I heard, or an interview I read. I get through so much online content these days that I can’t keep track of where all the heads up come from.

But something must have pricked my interest to add it to the ebay Watch List.

Daily CD’s were served up - £10 to £15. Which sounds about right for a double album release.

And then last week this copy landed at £4.

Blimey. BUY NOW etc.

ChatGPT tells me:

“Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants was an experimental, mostly instrumental album intended to accompany the visuals of a nature documentary exploring the idea that plants are sentient and can respond to human emotion.”

Which is all very King Charles.

First play, first impressions: it’s a soulful companion piece for Brian Eno releases around this time. It’s still Stevie, with the harmonica dropping across different tracks.

I still love the idea of taking a punt on the unknown. Sure, I could have streamed this. But for a £4 gamble, I’ve now got a new double album that keeps me going for the next month or so.

We need more environmental music btw. What’s Going On, World Party’s Goodbye Jumbo, and now Journey Through the Life of Plants.

I hope over time, Stevie gets the same high esteem from me as the other two albums on this list.

An interesting album, but hardly a classic. It does what you would expect from Fatboy - it builds, it bleeps, it bounces. But it’s very much a fast food instant hit. I didn’t find myself humming any of the lops later in the day. My main interest was in trying to spot the samples.

⭐ ⭐

Another day, another KLF podcast.

Eternal, etc.

And so here we have Miranda Sawyer with an hour of KLF conversation as part of her Talk 90’s To Me series.

Miranda is great with her understanding of promotion of all things 90’s. She was there and pretty much lived the dream.

Her constant laughter on the KLF pod is a little grating - a minor irritant. I think it’s the subject matter of what is quite a dark story that doesn’t lend itself to the bubbly narration.

Joining Miranda on the pod is Joe Muggs, here to plug his latest cover feature on the KLF for Disco Pogo magazine. He knows his Transcentral backstory.

It remains a magical tale, and one that I’ve not quite exhausted. But there is a sense of allowing the well to run dry with these art terrorist anecdotes.

The KLF squeezed so much into a relatively short period. The stories are getting repeated across various pods, with a different type of truth emerging at the other end each time.

Which is VERY Discordian in outlook.

It’s similar to all the Clough stories over the years. I can now no longer listen to the endless podcasts and YT clips with stories from the Great Man. I’ve heard them all before.

I’m not even going to touch the latest Sex Pistols podcast on BBC Sounds. How many times can you tell the story of overflowing bins in Leicester Square and Bill Grundy?

The 90’s pod though is definitely worth a listen. The section on burning the million quid gets quite deep and shines a new light on the whole spectacle.

I did like the quote that the KLF “aren’t the Pet Shop Boys.”

There’s also some well researched segments that bring the story up to date. The KLF may be dead, but the story isn’t.

MuMumification day is coming up on Merseyside on the 23rd, natch.

They’re still BONKERS, they’re still kicking against the pricks.

Following on from my Sunday night folk session with the great Dick Gaughan, I’ve gone full on folkie with Martin Carthy’s latest album, Transform Me Then Into a Fish.

Album titles still matter, Comrades.

It’s not an easy listen, but it is a rewarding one. Carthy describes the album as having come full circle since his 1965 self-titled debut. Transform has many call backs to the original.

The vocals are delivered in a staccato style. It can take some getting use to. This leads you to focus on the words, and then being taken in deeper with the storytelling.

Which is what folkie shit is all about, right?

Carthy’s daughter Eliza contributed to the production. I still remember when she was a young trailblazer for the new folk scene in the mid 90’s with her punky folk looks. The Carthy family name remains a very proud one in English folk circles.

Elsewhere on the album and sitarist Sheena Mukherjee is another standout performer. Folk music is essentially people music. It needs to adapt or die. This is a very modern take on an old tradition.

My interest in the new album was first raised after seeing Carthy perform a track live at the Mercury Prize last month. It was spellbinding, seeing an 84 year-old fella silencing an arena venue with just his voice and guitar.

Plus his songs. Never forget the songs - something that is often overlooked in new music.

Carthy appeared genuinely humble after receiving the applause from a glitzy Newcastle Arena on Mercury night. Of course he was never going to win the music biz vanity prize. But it was a stunning performance, much like this album.

It’s difficult to understand the importance of Ziggy at the time when I was only three years of age back in 1973. But it still sounds like the future, more than fifty years later.

The album starts in such an understated way with Five Years. It’s a softener for what is to come. By the time Starman kicks in, then we’re rocking.

Despite the WHAM BAM force of nature, it’s also a sorrowful record. Lady Stardust in particular always lowers the mood for me.

Four songs that have the word star in the title - he was trying to tell us something. My brain hurts a lot.

Oh how we miss him.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

One of the first albums that I bought back in 1981, and one that I continue to play almost forty five years later.

Gosh.

OMD mastered the delicate balance of subverting beautiful pop ballads with a dark and atmospheric message. The music hooks you first, before the lyrics then leave you thinking.

Any album that can have a song (and consecutive singles!) with the same name sitting side by side, tells you that OMD weren’t playing the game.

A rare example of 80’s music that understood that the medium is the message.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

This sounds a little like Stars on 45 - HIT after HIT after HIT. And all under 23 minutes as well. It’s a breakneck speed of an album that leaves you a little breathless.

What Jerry Lee lacks in his vocal abilities, he makes up for with the piano playing. It sounds like the vocals of Donald Trump with the body of Jools Holland.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐