Interview of Debbie Harry (1981)
BBC Newsnight in 1981 follows Debbie Harry into the biomechanical world of H.R.
Respect – Aretha Franklin
The band hits, and she is already ahead of them, piano in the left hand of the arrangement, voice in no doubt at all.
Like a Prayer – Madonna
An organ chord opens like a church door, then a kick drum turns the nave into a dancefloor, and Madonna's voice comes in already confusing the two, prayer and wanting in one mouth.
Nancy Boy – Placebo
The chords are almost embarrassingly pretty, a classic-rock lift that the singer nearly threw away for being too easy, and then the vocal arrives thin, nasal, delighted to be looked at.
Cars – Gary Numan
A bass synthesiser draws a line as cold as a motorway at night, and Gary Numan's voice sits on it without warmth, repeating a comfort that sounds like a rule.
Hallogallo – Neu!
The drums begin as if a car had already been moving for an hour, a steady bright pulse with no verse to wait for, and a guitar lays long notes over it like weather changing on a motorway.
Illmatic – Nas
In the spring of 1994, a twenty-year-old from the Queensbridge Houses released a debut so short it felt like a refusal to waste your afternoon.
Disco 2000 – Pulp
A guitar riff steals the hips of a disco record and then behaves as if it had invented them, bright, cheap, impossible to sit through.