Here comes the 35th track in the Play It Again Mayhem series. This time it is the turn of Australian rock band Icehouse. They had their first Australian hit single in 1980 and continued to enter the Aussie top 50 up until 1990. They never really had a succession of worldwide hits until 1982’s “Hey Little Girl” which is now included in the Play It Again Mayhem playlist. The song charted in Australia, obviously, New Zealand, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, USA and the UK. Sadly it only reached number 17 in the UK charts. It is a perky synthpop classic with some quite dark lyrics. The band still play isolated festivals and events. I was lucky enough to see them when they supported David Bowie, as did the Beat, at the Milton Keynes Bowl in 1983.
If you have enjoyed this article, feel free to follow the blog.You can also follow us onInstagram, Bluesky, and Linkedin.
Are you interested in writing and reviewing for With Just A Hint Of Mayhem? If so then please get in touch via EMail.
Melbourne’s Drunk Mums has just released a new album full of first-class punk and garage firepower. proceedings are kicked off with “New Australia” which is a perfect blueprint for the album, full of anger, angst, and huge punky riffs with a wonderful Ramones feel. “Slippn’ Up” could have arrived here in the 21st Century via a punk time machine from 1977. It has elements of the Clash and the Damned. If Status Quo had been fed Lemmy levels of speed they might have sounded like Drunk Mums do on “Mutant”. If the New York Dolls came back from the dead to record with Iggy Pop, then the Drunk Mums “Bet On Black” was written just for that occasion. Drunk Mums keep their punk credentials to the fore on “Apocalypse” but they incorporate a filthy and gorgeous dark glam vibe. “Livin’ At Night” showcases everything that is great about Drunk Mums but adds a layer of 1970s classic rock. The punk fun continues with the high-octane “Magazines” which could be like a more punky Jonathan Richman. Do you need a Saturday night party anthem? You do? Then look no further than the Drunk Mums blasting out “Saturday”. Play it alongside Elton’s “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting” and the Bay City Rollers “Saturday Night”, now that would be an absolute mental party! All the expletives on this album have been saved for the final two tracks, starting with the epic and warped “Not My Dad” and followed by the album’s closer “From The Hip”. These two are probably my favourite tracks from the record right now. Check it out, this is considerably classy classic punk!
If you have enjoyed this article, feel free to follow the blog, or follow us on;Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, EMail. Are you interested in writing and reviewing for With Just A Hint Of Mayhem? If so then please get in touch.
I am pleased and a bit excited to announce that my blog reached a fantastic landmark last weekend. It has been around for just over six years and on April 4th it received its one and a half millionth hit! Yep that’s 1,500,000. If I include the hits for my other three blogs the total is in excess of 1,600,000. Now don’t get me wrong, I realise why many people have arrived at my blog; so many have searched for various celebrities in a state of undress notably Lily Allen and there was even a search for Meatloaf naked which arrived here. Recently thanks to glamorama.cl a Chilean gossip site there have been loads of hits in search of pictures of J-Lo‘s bottom. If you are interested my other blogs are;
Anyway by means of a celebration I thought I would give you some random statistics which show how far around the world this blog has gone and the countries that still haven’t succumbed. In addition I have made a very special top twenty where if you add up the numbers in the song titles they add up to 1,500,000. There was only a bit of artistic licence involved in this. I hope you enjoy the tunes. Incidentally the geographical stats have only been available for three years.
If you are from any of these countries or indeed any other country then feel free to come and say hello. Actually even if you’re from another planet I’d be happy to see you here! And now here is the top twenty that really does add up to 1,500,000.
Are you excited yet? It’s less than three weeks to the big day where we all eat too much, drink too much and regret that over indulgence the next morning! But in the meantime I am rationing my chocolate intake to what is behind the pathetic little doors of my Spiderman advent calendar. I’ve said it before but why is all the chocolate shaped like Christmas things? How about some shaped like doctor Octopus, The green Goblin, the Lizard or even Spidey himself? Chocolate manufacturers please take note!
Anyway it’s December 6th which means that todays songs will contain the number six. It’s an easy concept really isn’t it. The first song for today is “6 Underground” by Sneaker Pimps. The song comes from the Hartlepool bands album ‘Becoming X’. It was their first chart single when it reached number 15 in the UK when it was released in 1996. It was re-released the following year when it made the top ten at number 9. It also made it to number 45 in the US charts that year too. The song was used in the film ‘The Saint’ in 1997 which led to its reissue. The open melody on harp is a sample from the soundtrack of 1964’s James Bond movie ‘Goldfinger’. The band took their name from and article in the Beastie Boys ‘Grand Royal’ magazine. It was about a man who the Beasties used to tracked down classic box fresh trainers and sneakers.
The second song for today comes from down under and it is New Zealand’sSplit Enz with “Six Months In A Leaky Boat” taken from their album ‘Time And Tide‘. The song is about the time it took for early pioneers to sail from Europe to New Zealand and Australia. It was released in 1982 and because of the Falklands war it received hardly any airplay in the UK. The Powers That be felt that references to leaky boats in a time of naval conflict would be inappropriate, so it only managed to reach number 83 in the UK and an even more lowly 104 in the US charts. It fared better in Australia where it went to number 2. It also made it to number 7 in both New Zealand and Canada. The song was written by Tim Finn brother of Neil Finn who was also in Split Enz. the pair went on to form Crowded House. The tune has been covered by artists ranging from Marillion to the Wiggles.The band were originally called Split Ends but they changed to Split Enz before their first Australian tour to emphasise their New Zealand heritage with the nz in the name.
Geri meets 3 of the 393 people that bought her new single
Once upon a time she was one fifth of the pop world conquering Spice Girls who sold their songs by the Starship load. Nowadays Geri Halliwell a.k.a. Ginger Spice is selling barely enough CDs (ok I recognise that many are probably downloads these days) for one person to carry. Geri’s new single in Australia, “Half Of Me” sold just 393 copies in its first week. To be fair that is probably 392 more than perhaps a new Victoria Beckham single would sell.
Geri celebrates after the first six copies of her new single had been sold
Anyway it seems that Geri is taking it reasonably well. She decided not to perform the song on the Australia’s Got Talent Final TV show. Instead she performed a version of the Spice Girls first hit “Wannabe”. She admitted that deep down she was gutted. In contrast the Australian number one single, “Alive” by Aussie X Factor winner Dami Im sold 44,000 in the same period. Click here to read the story on the BBC.
Geri spends all the profits from the sales of her new single on a cab ride across the road
It’s clearly a long way from those heady days of her early solo career where she achieved four UK number ones; “Mi Chico Latino“, “Lift Me Up”, “Bag It Up” and an atrocious cover version (in my opinion) of the Weather Girls disco classic “It’s Raining Men“. The latter was also number one in Belgium, France, Ireland and Italy. She has never had an Australian number one solo single though and with “Half Of Me” only making it to number 281 that seems unlikely to change. Her biggest solo hit in the land down under was her first single “Look At Me” which made it to number 3 in 1999. Should we start a campaign to have “Half Of Me” adopted as the anti X Factor Christmas number 1 in the UK this year? No I didn’t think you’d go for that either!
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 