Instead of giving you yet another yearly roundup (let’s face it, no one cares about these except record stores pushing old stock, and most of them went out first week of December somehow) we’ve taken the end of 2019 as a chance to re-examine the final year of previous decades as well.
Rollin’ With The 9s gives Kamikaze, Jimmy Monsta Funk and myself to look at years ending in 9 through our own personal music lens’, drawing on records that we felt reflected music or events from the year. There’s a bit of commitment required here as it’s somewhat designed to be listened to with the selection notes in front of you.
Paul Ackroyd aka Kamikaze is up first with a session that goes chronologically, choosing a record recorded in each year ending with a 9 from 1899 to 2019. Taking you from ‘Maple Leaf Rag’ to ‘Dance Of The Cosmos’ in one sitting is impressive on its own right.
Rollin’ With The 9s – Part 1: Kamikaze
1899
Scott Joplin – Maple Leaf Rag
One of his earliest compositions, and the blueprint for ragtime moving forward. While Joplin never made an audio recording, his playing is preserved on seven piano rolls for use in mechanical player pianos.
1909
Mr Ero – My Darling Rose
An early piece from Georgia, short ‘n’ sweet. Typical of early day 78s where gramophone companies were trying out the format to see what they could do with it, leading to a lot of fairly strange records released.
1919
Marika Papagika – Arahova
Marike was the first greek singer to record in the USA, and typical of the trend of singers and musicians relocating to New York from overseas in mid/late 1910s to take advantage of the blossoming record industry.
1929
Robert Wilkins – That’s No Way To Get Along
It’s got to be blues in 1929. Spoilt for choice really, so have just gone with an old favourite.
1939
Billie Holiday – Strange Fruit
Gotta go bleak in a year a war’s kicking off.
1949
Lata Mangeshkar – Aaeyega Aanewala
From the 1949 film Mahal, “India’s first Hindi reincarnation thriller”, this is the track that propelled Mangeshkar’s illustrious career. Some estimates believe that she has made something in the region of fifty thousand recordings!
1959
The Flamingos – I Only Have Eyes For You
Going doo-wop here because it represents a developing freedom, certainly in the USA at the time. Plus, of course, a need to dip into the abundance of teen heartthrob hits I’ve got from the time. This is a stone-cold classic.
1969
White Noise – The Black Mass: An Electric Storm In Hell
Experimentation time, and how better to represent that than on offshoot project from the licence-fee-funded radiophonic workshop? Such an important album.
1979
First Choice – Love Thang
I just had to go disco here. Proper timeless this one.
1989
808 State – Pacific State
I whittled this down from a ludicrous amount of tunes, but reckon this says ’89 as good as any.
1999
Aphex Twin – Windowlicker
I was originally going to go godspeed here, for the post-apocalyptic anti-millennium choice, but then I remembered ‘Windowlicker’. And ‘Windowlicker’ trumps everything basically.
2009
Broadcast and The Focus Group – Mr Beard You Chatterbox / Drug Party
Mid/late-00s dance bits started to get more experimental and dark (wonky, dubstep, etc), and it ended up dominating the more experimental sections of record shops. 2009 for me spelled the end of that, and a lot of people dropping the beats altogether (eg ‘bass’), and the people that were already a bit weird sounding had the freedom to go all-out batshit bonkers, eg like when Broadcast inexplicably teamed up with The Focus Group to record one of the most spectacular albums ever made
2019
Ras G – Dance Of The Cosmos
Because 2019’s been shit for a lot of things, but Ras G’s passing knocked me for six.