342) Big Audio Dynamite - Megatop Phoenix

BAD we’re on the up with their first two records and Mick was not looking back towards The Clash and I’m sure had a wee grin to himself when he heard Cut the Crap.However, BAD’s third record, I personally felt, was not as strong as the first two and had sold poorly.  They would need to hit back and quick.Sadly, Mick then got pneumonia with a chest infection and was admitted to hospital and was in a coma, at the time I thought Mick was a genius (still do I guess) and was constantly checking the music press as there were serious concerns for his life.Mick recovered but this was a long process and momentum was definitely lost and when the band returned fifteen months later Megatop Phoenix hit the charts in September 1989 at number twenty-six but was gone in three weeks, and the band split up early 1990.

So, falling sales, illness and clearly not getting on we can expect a total mess.

No, whether Mick was determined to prove a point (I assume he is the Phoenix of the title), and the band after five years together had gone from Mick’s hired hands to a proper band, they excelled. Megatop Phoenix is a triumph.

I remember coming home on the train looking at the back cover and thinking, seventeen songs, this will be a massive listen but the songs really all merge into one. What we have is a tight hour of likable songs with samples throughout. What other record will you hear The Who, Charlie, Watts, George Formby, Bernard Cribbins, Alfred Hitchcock, and The Great Escape theme tune.

The record is full of melodies, Mick Jones strong point, the record doesn’t have songs as good as The Bottom Line, E=MC2, V-Thirteen and Sightsee MC but fits together as a whole and for consistency, is their best record.

If you have never heard, and you should listen as a whole, but highlights are when Leo Williams comes in on bass on Rewind and all the band sing throughout the song. Union Jack solid drums from Greg Roberts and then we get a good bit of guitar from Mick and for a naive minute I thought Contact may have given them a hit, sadly not to be.

Baby Don’t Apologise, over beats and synth Mick gives one of his better vocal performances and Around the Girl in 80 Ways is clever, sophisticated pop.

House Arrest Don Letts steps up to the mic, and the band give us a bit of house music and Mick in the background singing Prince before leading us with a country like guitar into The Green Lady and Stalag 123 takes us out of what is quite simply an enjoyable record.

A record tinged with regret for me as these five men seemed back on track and would have been great to see where they would have gone next, sadly we would never know.

8.5/10

GIVE IT A STREAM: House Arrest