A Hint Of Mint – Volume 51: So Sexy It Hurts

Forgotten uptempo songs primarily from the eighties and nineties to play at your next party provided you don’t invite you-know-who, ’cause she has the personality of a wet mop and takes life way too seriously. Does she enjoy the B-52’s? No! Can she get into Tom Jones covering Talking Heads? Absolutely not! And if she heard the vulgarities on that Sinéad O’Connor record she’d turn red and run out of the room crying. Bye, Felicia!

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100 Greatest Artists

Last week my close friend Laura forward to me a link to Rolling Stone magazine’s “100 Greatest Artists” and asked for my impression.

My 100 Greatest Artists list includes many of the same acts as Rolling Stone’s list; however, there is a large handful of acts on my roll that are not on that publication’s slate.

I won’t disparage their choices (but seriously, Aerosmith at #59?). Instead, I will share with you music from twenty artists that made my roster but are not among Rolling Stone’s top 100.

Feel free to share your choice acts in the Comments section.


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Eric Clapton: England Is For White People

“Do we have any foreigners in the audience tonight? If so, please put up your hands. Wogs I mean, I’m looking at you. Where are you? I’m sorry but some fucking wog…Arab grabbed my wife’s bum, you know? Surely got to be said, yeah this is what all the fucking foreigners and wogs over here are like, just disgusting, that’s just the truth, yeah. So where are you? Well wherever you all are, I think you should all just leave. Not just leave the hall, leave our country. You fucking (indecipherable). I don’t want you here, in the room or in my country. Listen to me, man! I think we should vote for Enoch Powell. Enoch’s our man. I think Enoch’s right, I think we should send them all back. Stop Britain from becoming a black colony. Get the foreigners out. Get the wogs out. Get the coons out. Keep Britain white. I used to be into dope, now I’m into racism. It’s much heavier, man. Fucking wogs, man. Fucking Saudis taking over London. Bastard wogs. Britain is becoming overcrowded and Enoch will stop it and send them all back. The black wogs and coons and Arabs and fucking Jamaicans and fucking (indecipherable) don’t belong here, we don’t want them here. This is England, this is a white country, we don’t want any black wogs and coons living here. We need to make clear to them they are not welcome. England is for white people, man. We are a white country. I don’t want fucking wogs living next to me with their standards. This is Great Britain, a white country, what is happening to us, for fuck’s sake? We need to vote for Enoch Powell, he’s a great man, speaking truth. Vote for Enoch, he’s our man, he’s on our side, he’ll look after us. I want all of you here to vote for Enoch, support him, he’s on our side. Enoch for Prime Minister! Throw the wogs out! Keep Britain white!”
– Eric Clapton, to his audience during an August 1976 concert in Birmingham, UK. (Per Wikipedia, “in British English, wog is an offensive racial slur usually applied to Middle Eastern and South Asian peoples.”)

Clapton’s rant, coupled with the rise of fascist and neo-Nazi rhetoric in England, led to the formation of Rock Against Racism, a UK campaign in which recording artists including The Clash, Elvis Costello, The Buzzcocks, Steel Pulse, Aswad and Generation X performed concerts with an anti-racism theme.

In an interview some years later, Clapton claims his remarks weren’t aimed at any one particular minority. True. They were aimed at “wogs” and “coons” and Arabs and Jamaicans, so several minorities. You dug yourself out of that one! “It was kind of a feeling of loss of identity, being English and losing my Englishness,” said the blues guitarist whose first solo top ten hit was a cover of a reggae song written by Bob Marley.

In his 2007 autobiography, cleverly entitled Clapton: The Autobiography, in a paragraph that begins with the sentence “I had never really understood, or been directly affected by, racial conflict,” Clapton says of the 1976 outburst “Since then I have learned to keep my opinions to myself.” Okay, that’s one lesson. I think there may be more if one looks hard enough.

Today Eric Clapton turns 70 years old. To celebrate, here are twenty songs about the idiocy of racism.

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Ringo + Sinead

Labeling Sinéad O’Connor

Ringo + Sinead
Is she or isn’t she? Sinéad O’Connor in her own words:

“I would say that I’m a lesbian. Although I haven’t been very open about that and throughout most of my life I’ve gone out with blokes because I haven’t necessarily been terribly comfortable about being a lesbian. But I actually am a lesbian.” (2000, in Curve magazine)

“That I have explored my sexuality is accurate and I have no shame about that and would, if I fell in love with a woman, have as few qualms about expressing it as if I were a man. I have only ever been in love with one woman. One other, years ago when I was 20, I simply slept with selfishly for sexual exploratory purposes. Though of course I loved her, I was not, as they say, ‘in love’ with her. The one I was in love with was a brief relationship conducted more recently with a lovely American woman who was an angel to me and saved my life in many ways and to whom I owe a very great debt of love and gratitude. And whom I still adore. Although we are no longer a couple, I love her deeply. These are the only homosexual experiences I have had so far. Of perhaps thirty people I’ve been with since eleven years of age, two have been women, the rest men. I am rarely attracted to women but loved making love with the women I loved. I believe it was overcompensating of me to declare myself a lesbian. It was not a publicity stunt. I was trying to make someone else feel better. And have subsequently caused pain for myself. I am not in a box of any description.” (a little later in 2000, in The Independent newspaper)

“I’m three-quarters heterosexual, a quarter gay.” (2005, in Entertainment Weekly magazine)

“Any man I contemplate has to be into anal sex.…I’ve had reasonable complaints from lesbians that they have been excluded. This was terribly remiss of me and I would now like to make it clear that women will also be very much considered.” (2011, on her blog)

“In my youth, I did some exploring of bisexuality. And perhaps I said things, put labels on things, and put measurements on things that actually you can’t put measurements on. I wouldn’t put labels of either gay or fucking straight or any other thing. I do believe people often explore their sexuality….I was brought up to believe sex was a shame, so I was determined I was going to fuck my way beyond that. I was going to explore my sexuality. So there was maybe three occasions where I had sex with women that I fancied….I always believed that whatever kind of sex, as long as it’s consensual and no one is getting hurt…is a sacred thing. No matter how filthy or sweet it might be.” (2013, on SheWired.com)

“If I fall in love with someone, I wouldn’t give a shit if they were a man or a woman.” (2014, on PrideSource.com)

Eleven years of age???

Today Sinéad O’Connor turns 48 years old. Here are twenty of her best.

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Glenn’s Ten (11-18-14)

Greetings, readers! Today we check in with Glenn’s Ten, the list of my ten favorite current songs at this moment.

There are no changes in my top three. For the third week in a row, Tove Lo is at #1 with “Habits,” Banks is at #2 with “Beggin for Thread,” and George Ezra is #3 with “Budapest.” Entering this week’s top ten is Father John Misty’s “Bored in the USA” at #4, Les Sins’ “Bother” at #5, and Belle & Sebastian’s “The Party Line” at #8. This is the first time in Glenn’s Ten for Misty and Les Sins (who also records under the name Toro y Moi). I haven’t published Glenn’s Ten in the blog for a few weeks, so there are a few other songs that will appear to be new entries to those of you keeping score at home.

Here is Glenn’s Ten for this week:
1 – “Habits (Stay High)” – Tove Lo
2 – “Beggin for Thread” – Banks
3 – “Budapest” – George Ezra
4 – “Bored in the U.S.A.” – Father John Misty
5 – “Bother” – Les Sins
6 – “Inside Out” – Spoon
7 – “Let Me Down Easy” – Paolo Nutini
8 – “The Party Line” – Belle & Sebastian
9 – “Cedar Lane” – First Aid Kit
10 – “Low Key” – Tweedy

Today’s playlist are the above ten tracks followed by ten songs that were #1 on this date in Glenn’s Ten history.

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me July 25 2014 at IM

It’s Friday And I Need To Dance!

Last week I regaled an audience with the story of the time I accidentally hired a prostitute to show me around Prague. These things happen. To me, anyway.

Half-glass-full guy that I am, once I realized what I did, I looked at the positive – I hired a prostitute to show me around Prague! Complications arose when the police got involved and I had to explain to my bank why they needed to credit that charge.

Though I ended up sightseeing that spectacular city on my own, I got a great story out of the trip. Sometimes things don’t go according to plan, but you make the best of the situation and try to turn it into a positive.

me July 25 2014 at IMSomeday I’ll talk about the time I boarded a bus in Mexico to go on what I thought was a nature trip to the hot springs. Let’s just say I don’t think the springs got any hotter than they did that night.

In 1987, two bands, both interested in making a dance record, got together in the studio at the suggestion of the head of their record label, 4AD. Colourbox and A R Kane didn’t hit it off, so each worked on their own track, which they then turned over to the other group to embellish.

Colourbox came up with “Pump up the Volume,” its title line sampled from Eric B & Rakim’s “I Know You Got Soul.” A R Kane added some guitar to the track, and DJs CJ Macintosh and Dave Dorrell added a bunch of samples.

The record was released under the name M|A|R|R|S. “Pump up the Volume” became a worldwide smash and was groundbreaking in its use of samples on a British house track.

Though the idea of a true collaboration between the two bands didn’t come to fruition, and the acts didn’t get along and never worked together again, they did produce a dance classic. “Pump up the Volume” kicks off today’s dance playlist. Have a great weekend and before you buy anything, make sure you know exactly what it is you are paying for.

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