GOLDFINGER

Absolutely nothing to do with James Bond….and it’s not even a posting about Magazine who once did an okay cover version of the theme song made famous by Shirley Bassey back in 1964.

Instead, it is one of the finest moments in the career of Ash:-

mp3 : Ash – Goldfinger

The fourth single to be lifted from the album 1977, it was arguably the one which made them such a stand-out act in comparison with many of their peers. OK, the opening few bars owe something to Nirvana or Smashing Pumpkins but once the lyric kicks in and the song slows down there’s a real sense that the 18-year old Tim Wheeler is again proving to be highly capable of writing stuff that is well beyond his tender years. It’s an ambiguous tale that could be about a young lad trying unsuccessfully to come to terms with the fact his relationship has come to an end or equally it could be from the perspective of a junkie waiting on the return of his other half with the next hit. Either way, it’s a great piece of indie-rock that climbed all the way to #5 in the UK singles charts, which remains the band’s best achievement in that respect.

There were three very different types of tracks available on the CD single:-

mp3 : Ash – I Need Somebody
mp3 : Ash – Sneaker
mp3 : Ash – Get Ready

The first is quite experimental, with a strange ever-changing tempo which sounds as if it was waiting to be put in the hands of an uber-producer who could have added strings, brass and a kitchen sink to make it into something epic.

The middle track is Ash at their loudest and fastest, the sort of track that made them so appealing to those who pogoed and those who headbanged.

The latter is indeed a cover of the 1966 hit single by The Temptations. I could be cruel and say it is an effort akin to that by a slightly better than average wedding covers band, but then again, it really is no worse than the sort of covers that Paul Weller and co had been recording 20 years earlier when they were ages with the Ash boys.

JC