Let Them Eat Bingo

About

Let Them Eat Bingo is the debut album by British electronic project Beats International, released in spring 1990 on Go! Beat in the United Kingdom and Elektra in the United State. The project was founded and led by disc jockey and former Housemartins bassist Norman Cook, who produced the album alone and intended Beats International to be a collective of permanent and temporary members including singers and other performer. Cook is joined on the album by a host of contributor, including Lindy Layton, Billy Bragg, Double Trouble, and Captain Sensible. The album is largely built around samples of other record. Although a dance record, Let Them Eat Bingo explores and fuses a vast array of style, including hip hop, house, blue, reggae, punk rock, gospel, Latin music and African music, leading to an overall worldbeat style. Containing the UK number one single "Dub Be Good to Me" and the Top 10 hit "Won't Talk About It", the album was a succe, reaching number 17 on the UK Albums Chart and receiving positive reviews from music critics who commented upon the inventive mixture of musical style. After the dissolution of pop band the Housemartins in 1988, their bassist Norman Cook reverted to his original career as a disc jockey and soon became one of the most successful remixers in England, a feat which inspired Cook to form Beats International. The project was not intended to be a band but rather, according to Cook, a "collective" of singer, musician, rapper, dancers and a graffiti artist. As a studio team, the core of Beats International included Cook on bass and other instrument, vocalists Lester Noel and Lindy Layton, keyboardist Andy Boucher and rappers MC Wildski and DJ Baptiste (The Crazy MC), although the group extended to other occasional members including Billy Bragg, Captain Sensible and the Definition of Sound. The group's touring personnel included 22 member, including a 14-piece band. Cook met Lester Noel when the latter's indie band North of Cornwallis supported the Housemartins live, although Noel's interest in black music, a taste he shared with Cook, only emerged after both bands split up. Beats International's debut single "For Spacious Lies" was more pop-styled than the project's subsequent single, and received critical acclaim. It included the vocals of Noel, and was followed by the production of Let Them Eat Bingo, on which it appear. Let Them Eat Bingo was produced by Cook at Esselle Studios and engineered by Simon Thornton. Cook used a sampler and turntable in the production. In addition to the Beats International core line-up, other members who appear include Bragg, Sensible, DJ Streets Ahead, Luke Cresswell, Oisin Little, Robin Watt, Sam Illunga, Jo Jo Kavund, Gilebrt Sangana, John Bourne and Double Trouble, the latter of whom had appeared in the film Wild Style. The Goodyers provided a painting for the album's liner note. In an interview prior to the release of Let them Eat Bingo, Cook described the album as "a little bit of everything which has inspired me over the last 10 years or so." Let Them Eat Bingo is a dance album that explores a variety of different musical styles from across the globe, including hip hop and rap, reggae, house, funk, big band, blue, gospel, African music, Latin music, punk rock, and rock and roll, while being rooted in British rock music. Writer Greg Sandow felt the album was too eclectic to be limited under one genre, describing it as "a producer's album, full of rabbits pulled out of unexpected musical hat." The music is largely constructed out of samples of other songs and recording. Rick Anderson of AllMusic described the album as sampling "as blatantly as possible from as many different sources as possible" and turning the samples into funky, hook-laden dance-pop song. He highlights the inclusion of "cribbed snippets of Delta blue, what sound very much like samples of Fela Ransome-Kuti, all kinds of interesting and obscure stuff." Critic Nathaniel Wice described Let Them Eat Bingo as a worldbeat album with familiar samples which take unexpected directions and "reggae and Latin rhythms abound". In his Christgau's Record Guide, critic Robert Christgau emphasised the album's genre combinations: "Norman Cook has gone too far--the samples in his kitchen sink are just too blatant, too eclectic. Which is to say that this is the mixing record Coldcut only talk to interviewers about. Whether he's constructing a new rock and roll subgenre from blue, Burundi, and some kind of jump band or embellishing Herman Kelly's "Dance to the Drummer's Beat" with who knows what horns and African huzzahs or revivifying pleasant little tunes you can't quite place and are sort of surprised to hear again, Cook's music is perfect for people who like more stuff than they have time to listen to." "Burundi Beats" is a fusion between worldbeat, jazz and soul music, and incorporates African drums and Billie Holiday-style vocal. "Dub Be Good to Me" was built from an instrumental Cook B-side entitled "Invasion of the State Agents", which sampled The Clash's "The Guns of Brixton" and an Ennio Morricone snippet and incorporated record scratching and a kazoo-style sound. The instrumental, considered to be an example of proto-big beat, is mashed on "Dub Be Good to Me" with Lindy Layton's new vocal, covering the S.O.S. Band song "Just Be Good to Me", and a radio DJ sample. The resulting song is considered reggae and trip hop in style, and was described by Tom Ewing of Freaky Trigger as "the Wild Bunch/Massive Attack dub-dance Bristol sound, commercialised before it had even come close to breaking through." Music & Media described it as a fusion of house and reggae with blues harmonica. "Before I Grow Too Old" incorporates the New Orleans-era song by Fats Domino of the same name and adds extra groove. It opens with a wonky synth line which is then contrasted with post-punk riffs and electronic sounds resembling a rubber duck, exemplifying the album's humour. "The Ragged Trousered Perussionists" is a house record that makes use of Latin flute, while "For Spacious Lies" juxtaposes serious lyrics about grievance and the international black market, with a lighthearted vibe. "Blame It on the Bassline" is a new jack swing track which samples The Jackson 5's "Blame It on the Boogie", while "Won't Talk About It" contains Billy Bragg's R&B-style falsetto vocals and atonal guitar riff and explores styles of disco, rap music, synth-pop and rock guitar. "Dance to the Drummer's Beat" contains an Afro-Cuban funk style. The album closes with the final crash from The Beatles' "A Day in the Life" (1967). "To have a number one you have to sell to grannies and ten-year-old, I didn't think grannies would get into a record like that. It took six hours to make. I'm still shocked. It appealed to me, but I didn't think it would appeal to Simon Bate. It's got scratching noises on it and a bassline that doesn't follow the rest of the song. I suppose anything can happen now." – Norman Cook on the success of "Dub Be Good to Me" In the United Kingdom, Let Them Eat Bingo was released in March 1990 by Go! Disc. Released on CD, cassette and vinyl format, the CD edition included a bonus twelve-inch version of "For Spacious Lies". In the United State, it was released on 20 April 1990 by Elektra Records and promoted as "an inventive mix of unshakeable pop melodie, world music reference, choice sampling and club floor rhythm." The album was successful worldwide, and spent 15 weeks on the UK Albums Chart, peaking at number 17. It went on to receive gold certification. The album peaked at number 63 in Australia on the ARIA chart, and spent 10 weeks in the top 100. Ahead of the album's release, "Dub Be Good to Me" was issued as a single. In February 1990, the song reached number one on the UK Singles Chart, and it ultimately became the year's seventh biggest seller, helping to secure the album's succe. It also reached number 3 on the Eurochart Hot 100, and had made the Top 3 in the Netherland, Greece, and Austria. The single was controversial in that the sampled bassline from "The Guns of Brixton" was uncleared, leading to legal action. Writer Colin Larkin nonetheless notes: "This 'creative theft' may have diminished royalty cheque, but the interpretation of various styles and even passages of music proved a deliberate strategy in Beats International's armoury." "Won't Talk About It", which had previously been released as a Norman Cook solo single in 1989, was re-released as a single from Let Them Eat Bingo, reaching number 9 in May 1990. The final charting single, "Burundi Beats", failed to repeat the success of the previous single,peaking at number 51 in September 1990. Personnel Major contributors Norman Cook – producer Simon Thornton – engineer Andrew Boucher – keyboards Lindy Layton – vocals Billy Bragg – vocals Captain Sensible – vocals Double Trouble – vocals MC Wildski – vocals Other contributors John Bourne Luke Cresswell Sam Illunga Charles Kilenga Jo Jo Kavund Jeff Kumwarma Oisin Little Gabi Mutumbo Lester Noel Gilbert Sangana DJ Streets Ahead .

via Last.fm

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