Terrible records to sample...

The records below are so embarrassing you would rather be caught having a wank by your mother than admit to owning, however if you can muster up the courage to run to the counter of Music and Video exchange, fling two pounds at them and flee, you will find a fistful of oddly sampleable riffs and noises that will potentially make you a "one to watch" producer in Timeout, Wire or Mixmag and other completely unfashionable organs.

Eurythmics: Touch
If you can get past the carrot topped harridan on the sleeve striking some weird body building pose you will discover a sea of treats. Before they discovered "soul" Annie and the idiot who did the music created unnervingly brittle electro which was given its tension by the contrast of Lennox's white gurl whine and the relentless machines clanking around her. Every track features off kilter electronics and spacey synths, as well as the occasional burst of slap bass begging to be dub stepped to oblivion. Speed up "Aqua", "Paint A Rumour" or "Regrets" and you'll be laughing.

Japan: Tin Drum
These pale Bowie clones were all from Tooting or some such no go area and basically invented the formula for New Romantics through the simple expedient of changing their boring names like Brown and Smith to Sylvian and Barbieri and applying the slap (bass). After laboring for years as a sub glam band a fairy god mother came down and for one album they became world music/funk/avant titans. Mick Karns wobbling fretless bass lines are like Jaco Pastorious gone Benga, every track features drums seemingly played with giant wooden hands and synths made to sound like some pygmy initiation ceremony. Sample "Sons of Pioneers" or "Visions of China".

The Waitresses: Wasn't Tomorrow Wonderful
Know for the teeth splintering horror of xmas hit "Christmas Wrapping" these new wave also rans made a surprisingly grate (as in grating) debut. The things to head for are the shifting time signatures of "Pussy Strut" and the bitchy vocals of "No Guilt" and "I Know What Boys Like", imagine if Madonna rather than finding black Jesus molesting pop nirvana stayed in the punk funk swamp which bore her. Every track is a bored woman slagging off some idiot be it ex boyfriends, bad drivers or corporate bosses, without even trying to sing while a seven member gaggle of ex prog rockers and sessionistas pretend to be nu wave but keep going into 7/8.

Lou Reed: Sally Can't Dance
Guilt ridden by the fact he had become a pop star Mr Neu Yuk decided to make increasingly horrible records in an attempt to lose his pop fans and become once again free to make records nobody bought but millions pretended to like. Alas poor Lou the worse the records the more his mandrax addled fans consumed them sending this mess into the top ten in the US. This album is Lou trying to be funky, the man who had birthed rock's most white and sterile anthem "Sister Ray", a record that presumed Hitler had won the war and we were all forced to walk round with dyed blond hair and center partings while waltzing now decided to become Al Green or the Bee Gees. He actually has blond hair on the cover so a little bit of old Lou remained but that was brutally jack booted out of the actual contents of the vinyl by the mustachioed, floral shirt wearing John Holmesalikes in the band. But this means you actually have some killer grooves in "Sally Can't Dance" "NY Stars" and the outro of "Ride Sally Ride". Also terrific vocal samples, the album features such sound bites as "I'm just waiting for you to hurry up and die", "take your pants off don't you know this is a party" and "my sister has a husband who rides the train, he's big and he's fat and he doesn't have a brain", all sung like its suuuuuchhhh annnn efffortttttt maaannnnn.

maningrey