Labels: Platform Records
Review by: Captain Fidanza
When I put this into my computer, a box appeared in the middle of the screen informing me that there were several possible readings for the information contained on the disc. There wasn’t one which tallied with the name on the press release so I just clicked on the top one and allowed iTunes to work its magic.
Apparently this woman had a top ten hit in the 1980’s with a song called Iko Iko but despite being told about her “rich and illustrious musical background” I was unable to place it, so I went to Youtube and discovered that the aforementioned smash hit was a cover of a traditional New Orleans folk song written in 1953.
Further research revealed this song has been covered about fifty different times by artists as diverse as Cyndi Lauper, The Grateful Dead and Aaron Carter but I remember first hearing it over the credits to the film Grosse Point Blank. The lyrics, which you will recognise immediately, are as follows;
My grandma and your grandma
Were sittin’ by the fire.
My grandma told your grandma
“I’m gonna set your flag on fire”
Hey now! Hey now!
Iko, Iko, unday
Jockamo feeno ai nan?
Jockamo fee nan?
In the video to her version, Natasha England is wearing a flimsy black dress and bending over forwards and backwards quite a lot; all this takes place in an embarrassingly cheap rendering of the Mad Hatter’s tea party and contains frequent interruptions by a twat with a saxophone.
I remember dancing to this at a school disco at St. Edmunds Middle School in about 1987 and feeling vaguely ridiculous then, so whatever this poor woman must think whenever she hears it on the radio as she’s in the kitchen making scones one can only imagine. But she recorded it, she took the shekels and skipped happily into the recording studio so she has nobody to blame but herself.
So anyway, that’s the 1980’s hit out of the way, what of Natasha England in 2010?
Well it gives me no pleasure to inform you that whereas twenty eight years of life on planet earth now separate us from the release of Iko Iko and the whirlwind of regional supermarket openings which tumbled in its wake, Natasha England is still yearning for the days when singing through a vocoder made people shit themselves in the belief that martian overlords had rested control of the radio waves.
There is nothing wrong with your radio. Do not attempt to adjust the dial. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you hear.
Yes, I’m afraid to tell you that this is essentially electronic music for people who think the band Athlete are a little bit too edgy and that sadly, dancing about on Top of the Pops in 1982 is likely to remain the highest point of Natasha England’s career. But we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that this is only a four track album sampler and the remainder of the album might be as revolutionary as the Goldberg Variations.
When I had heard the four songs on the disc and ejected it, I was struck by the difference between the names of the songs iTunes had told me were on the disc and the names of the real ones. Below is a handy ready-reckoner for the information received, see if you can calculate which were the real song titles.
Infested with Ebola “” Stop Doing Nothing
Dropping Limbs “” Darkside
Vengeance through Genocide – Come
Flesh Dissolves “” Remember Me
Incase you’re interested, the name of the phantom EP from iTunes was Onslaught of the Undead.