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| THE SEVEN-INCH single is about to die. Think about it. The chunky plastic coins that once mapped out the progress of millions upon millions of adolescences are the component parts of a culture that still retain a tear-jerking romance: Top Of The Pops, proper jukeboxes, Sunday evenings spent crouching next to the radio to hear the Top 40. They're all expiring, forced into the afterlife by multi- formatting, declining sales, The Chart Show and Altern 8. Still, never mind, eh? The Old World isn't quite dead. It's found its last champion in a scruffy ex-student who loves the seven-inch single like a close relative. He likes appearing on TOTP. He's probably a bit miffed that Pan's People weren't around to shake their stuff to his records. So he hatched the one-45-a-month scheme to guide several thousand Wedding Present fans through the last traces of the things that probably made him pick up a guitar in the first place. As well as indicating the terminal nature of the Old World's illness (industry bigwigs have seized upon the apparent success of the exercise as prime evidence of the bankruptcy of the singles chart), the Weddoes' one-year plan has highlighted much of what we'll be missing. Like the warming certainty that comes from knowing that what you've bought is the definitive article (as opposed to "part one of an exclusive collector's edition"). Like the beautifully simple coupling of seriously-constructed A-sides and flips that contain all manner of weird daftness. Like the reassuring "clunk" made by record players when the music has finally been swamped by static and come to a close. In this instance, such thrills were only available to the hardy souls who got up early once a month and trooped down to their local Our Price. The rest of us have to make do with the two 'Hit Parade' collections, which take the whole project away from its romantic seven-inch setting and leave it vulnerable to all sorts of criticism. After all, without the matching art work, hot-off-the-presses excitement, and clicks and pops and clunks, much of the appeal of these records is lost. The B-sides are the perfect case in point. The six (spanning) June to December) that are collected here frequently plumb the depths of dashed-off stupidity, sounding like the work of people who've mistakenly let their rehearsal-room jokes into the public domain. There's a certain ham-fisted charm to the Weddoes' rendition of Bowie's 'Chant Of The Ever Circling Skeletal Family', but the reading of Bow Wow Wow's 'Go Wild |
In The Country' is wince-inducing rubbish. 'Theme From Shaft' John Harris |
SINGLES GOING UNSTEADY
New Musical Express 2 January 1993
THE WEDDING PRESENT
Hit Parade II (RCA/All formats)