I’m hoping none of you saw the title of today’s posting and thought I was writing about the prog-rockers that so many loved or loathed in the 70s.
Nope. This is about one of the most incredible sounding singles of the 1990s or indeed any other decade. It’s a song that I didn’t realise was as brilliant sounding as it was until I heard it played at high volume, over a sensational sound system, at one of the Little League nights in Glasgow. It is joyous, glorious, anthemic and wonderful to dance to:-
mp3 : McAlmont & Butler – Yes (full version)
It’s the duo’s debut single, released in May 1995 and which went all the way to #8 in the singles chart. To paraphrase S-WC from a few weeks back, I’m shocked that there 7 songs were better than this in that particular week’s rundown….
Both David McAlmont and Bernard Butler had departed from their previous bands in very bitter circumstances. Butler has since explained how this particular song came about:-
“It was the first piece of music I wrote after I left Suede. I wrote it as an instrumental. Everything was in place, but it didn’t have the voice… Everything I’d done in the past six months had been really dark. I’d come out of a very sad situation and lost a lot of friends, so it was a very liberating song. I met David at the Jazz Café in Camden and said, ‘I’ve got this song, do you want to try it out?’ He came back to me two days later and sang the first verse. He had no second verse, so I just said ‘Sing the first one again’… I wanted it to be like a great piece of ’60s vinyl.”
Sadly, and despite the title of this blog, this is a song I don’t have on vinyl but I do have the 2 x CD singles. The one with the blue sleeve has the full length version of Yes along with these two:-
mp3 : McAlmont & Butler – What’s The Excuse This Time?
mp3 : McAlmont & Butler – Disappointment
The other single had slightly shorter version of Yes (about 53 seconds worth of music was cut out, and I’m guessing this was the version made available to radio stations) and it too had two other songs:-
mp3 : McAlmont & Butler – Yes (edit)
mp3 : McAlmont & Butler – Don’t Call It Soul
mp3 : McAlmont & Butler – How About You?
Put it all together and it is a fairly stunning way to introduce yourself to the record buying public and to stick two fingers up at your former bands….
Enjoy.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 