Are Trends Eclectic: Part 3

Aim
To see how many genres will fit onto one CD, without compromising aural pleasure (third time lucky).

Method
Wagner: Ride of the Valkyries
Perez Prado: Besame mucho
Klaus Wunderlich: Summertime
Smoke City: Underwater love
Nas: Hip hop is dead
First choice: Armed and extremely dangerous
Loleatta Holloway: Love sensation
Som Tres: Homenagem a mongo
[Don’t know]: Theme from spider-man
The Creators: Astrology
Dudley Manlove Quartet: Wonder Woman
Pharoahe Monch: Body baby
Bo Diddley: You can’t judge a book by looking at the cover
Abbot Lighthouse Choir, Rose Stone & The Venice Four: Trouble of this world
Elvis Presley: Never been to Spain
El Lele de Los Van Van: High and dry
Robin Thicke: Lost without you
BB King: The thrill is gone
Arlean Brown: Impeach me baby
Labi Siffre: I got the…
Raffaella Carra: Presentazione orchestra
112-key mortier dance organ: Paris

Discussion
I’ll be the first to admit that shoving Wagner in there was cheap (not to mention overlong) but I’d like to think it serves as a bombastic intro, after the manner of cack-handled hip hop skits, but with more orchestra and fewer Uzis. Frankly I’d start on track 2, for a much more easy vibe.

Summertime is perhaps my all-time favourite bit of Klaus ‘Mr Hammond’ Wunderlich, one of the few items of note in my grandfather’s vinyl stash (more on which another time). Wunderlich is an ideal figurehead for this compilation, as one can but admire his indiscriminate openness to different music styles – playing classical, operetta, musicals and pop music all on the one side of an LP, attacking each with the frenzied hedonism of a serial killer. He also played the accordion, owned a VW diesel Golf and had 13 gold discs and a gold cassette to his credit. He returned several times to the Caister Keyboard Cavalcade Festival, and anecdotal evidence suggests he liked visiting the newsagents in Yarmouth.

From here, the ride is generally smooth, accelerating slightly to a distinctly camp middle act. You and I both know that if we had more time for disco and super-heroes in our daily grind, the world would be all the better for it. Think of this as my gift to the world.

I’m not convinced by the addition of BB King. I used to love this tune when I was a kid; now it just makes me think of Gary Moore, or perhaps my father playing air guitar. My father doesn’t play air guitar, but if he did, it’d be excruciating. This isn’t excruciating, but it covers some questionable grounds.

In fact, Labi Siffre aside, the CD suffers compilation fatigue in general subsequent to BB King. Impeach me baby is technically the final song – from here it’s curtain call and the floor-clearer (in this instance from my grandfather’s collection of mechanical organs).

Conclusion
Despite the tail-off at the end, and the questionable start, the bit in the middle is all right. At the very least, it’s better than Eclectic 1.