With no fewer than four records\u00a0appearing on the midweeks but vanishing by Sunday, this is an unusually volatile week. \u00a0It’s unlikely that\u00a0many readers will be that bothered about Bondax’s “All I See”, Hudson Taylor’s “Chasing Rubies”, or Alex Clare’s “War Rages On”, but I suspect more of you\u00a0would be disappointed if I skipped the other\u00a0one, so let’s take a rare meander outside the\u00a0top 40…<\/p>\n
44. \u00a0The Independents – “UKIP Calypso”<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n This is a truly bizarre recording by any stretch of the imagination. \u00a0UKIP – the UK Independence Party – is\u00a0a\u00a0populist anti-EU, anti-immigration policy currently enjoying a surge in the polls. \u00a0The actual record\u00a0consists of\u00a0former Radio 1 DJ Mike Read, accompanying himself on the acoustic guitar, singing the\u00a0party’s praises in\u00a0what he optimistically conceives to be a calypso style. \u00a0This entails\u00a0a somewhat half-hearted attempt at a generically Caribbean accent.<\/p>\n It’s mind-blowingly awful. \u00a0To be fair,\u00a0I\u00a0think it’s overstating the case to say\u00a0that it’s racist;\u00a0the dodgy accent as a calypso pastiche staple is\u00a0hardly Read’s invention, and\u00a0the main focus of UKIP’s anti-immigration rhetoric is eastern Europeans. \u00a0Still,\u00a0in the same week when UKIP\u00a0cheerfully signed a formal alliance\u00a0with a Polish ultra-right party<\/a> – a group so nuts\u00a0that even the French National Front\u00a0won’t talk to them – it’s probably\u00a0territory that sensible\u00a0people would steer clear of. \u00a0But then, most sensible people would steer clear of\u00a0hanging around with neo-Nazis for money. \u00a0Sends the wrong message, doesn’t it? \u00a0Nonetheless, the record itself is more xenophobic than outright racist. \u00a0It’s mainly just bizarre. \u00a0It’s unhinged in a way we rarely see in the chart – and tragically we have been deprived by four places of seeing it today.<\/p>\n Read has been knocking around local radio since leaving Radio 1 in 1991; his name occasionally\u00a0re-surfaces in connection with largely unsuccessful efforts in the field of music and stage musicals. \u00a0This is not his first chart appearance; he\u00a0was a member of the Jungle\u00a0Boys (some people\u00a0who’d just been on\u00a0I’m a Celebrity<\/em> – Read was\u00a0first out that year), who had a number 30 hit in 2004 with “Jungle Rock”. \u00a0He also wrote the 2005 tsunami-relief charity single “Grief Never Grows Old” by the One World Project, which\u00a0reached number 4. \u00a0But the only trace of his chart career I can actually find on YouTube is\u00a0Slade’s final hit single, “Radio Wall of Sound”<\/a>, which reached number 21 in 1991. \u00a0(Yes, you read that right.) \u00a0Read is, obviously, the DJ doing to the intro vocal.<\/p>\n Outright political songs\u00a0– as distinct from download campaigns of thematically appropriate back catalogue material – are very rarely seen in the UK chart. \u00a0We\u00a0did have “Roll of Honour” by the Irish Brigade charting at the start of the year,\u00a0which\u00a0is<\/em> a political record, but it was being downloaded by Celtic fans for a rather different political cause, namely their opposition to\u00a0anti-sectarianism laws. \u00a0For a case of an outright political campaign record being downloaded on first release and making the chart, I think we have to go back to 1998, when insurance broker George Bowyer got to number 33 with his song “Guardians of the Land”, registering his strong disapproval of proposals to band fox hunting.<\/p>\n “Guardians” is\u00a0quite something in its own right. \u00a0Mike Read sadly omitted to make a video, but George Bowyer did, so let’s take a moment to enjoy\u00a0it. \u00a0He does\u00a0a good stride, does George.<\/p>\n