APPROACHING THE AGE OF FIVE (Part 9)

It's hugely satisfying when any of the browsing expeditions brings something I didn't even know existed:-

mp3 : Leftfield/Lydon - Open Up (Original 12" mix)
mp3 : Leftfield/Lydon - Open Up (Chemical Brothers 12" remix)

Open Up has featured on TVV before. It was #19 in the run-down of my all time 45 45s back in 2008. Here's a reminder of what I said at the time:-

John Lydon makes his appearance in the chart at #19 with what I think is the greatest dance record ever made.


You will have gathered by now that I’m no expert on dance music – I leave that to friends like ctelblog who has the most incredible blog over at Acid Ted which is quickly becoming the ultimate Encyclopaedia of Dance/House/Rave from the late 80s and early 90s.


And I’m not going to kid on that the song made me go out and buy all sorts of similar stuff – dance music remains something that I will dip in and out of rather than spend lots of time on.


I didn’t know too much about Leftfield until this 1993 collaboration with John Lydon, but my love for this single led me to buying their CD of the time and discovering to my great delight that it also contained a collaboration with the great and hugely-underrated Toni Halliday of Curve.


The CD confirmed a number of my prejudices about the dance genre – while some of the stuff was among the personal highlights of 1993, there was just too much that I failed to get, and so it became a CD that was ideal for the skip function.


I don’t think John Lydon has ever delivered a better vocal in his life. I know that when he was a young punk 17 years earlier he did insist his musical influences were hugely varied from prog-rock to reggae and all parts in-between, but I don’t think any of us could ever have imagined him doing something quite like this Open Up.


Can anyone really listen to this and resist the urge to jump around like a mentalist?


The single that I bought in 1993 was a CD as indeed was just about everything else I bought at that time in history. I had no idea that back in 2002, the London-based label Simply Vinyl put it out as a 12" release with the remix from Ed and Tom on the other side. Bloody bargain for £2.

Here's your promo from 1993



Happy Listening