Longread about Pump Up The Volume by MARRS - does this exist?

Pump Up The Volume' features virtually no sampling, all the cuts and scratches being done live on the turntables by the two DJs.

gosh

I'm not sure I believe that.

Was it this? https://thequietus.com/articles/22224-justified-ancients-of-mu-mu-coldcut-marrs-s

Not this no but looks great, thanks!

https://www.soundonsound.com/people/marrs-pump-volume?amp

I'm not sure I believe that.

yeah, this sounds like the writer in 1987 slightly misunderstanding the process

Either way, that muzines piece is truly fascinating.

Martyn Young and his 192nd-of-a-beat resolution - wow!

It was a big loss to music that he didn't continue producing.

As an aside, I did end up down a wormhole of all the related acts and was blown away by Colourbox. I'd say only three truly great songs: Arena, Theme, Moon Is Blue, but Christ what three songs. Nothing like PUTV obviously.

Weirdly, Colourbox were never ever a reference for me growing up. Started reading the music press in 94, indie clubbing in 96, and never once heard or read about a single Colourbox song. Any ideas about why they fell through the cracks? I mean, Ride suffered the same fate but they've had a few revivals over the year but never Colourbox. Plus Cbox had actual catchy, singalonga songs, seems bizarre they haven't been reappraised in 30 years. Unless I missed something.

In the unlikely event Adele or someone of that ilk is readIng this thread, ‘Arena’ would be a barnstorming show stopper for anyone with the pipes to pull it off.

As would ‘The Moon is Blue’.

Their version of "Baby I Love You So" is still the greatest.

Colourbox are still highly regarded are they not?

At my bar mitzvah 30+ years ago, March 1988, we got some hack party DJ, and he asked 13-year old me what songs I wanted him to play. I made him a list, but I could tell he didn't really care, since as I remember it most of the stuff he played was pretty predictable, generic family gathering party stuff or pop radio of the day. I did, however, specifically request that he play "Pump Up the Volume," and not just that song, but a specific edit/mix I'd heard somewhere. I was only 13, and nowhere near the snob I'd become, so god knows why I requested a specific mix. Anyway, the night goes on, the party is winding down, and then I hear that familiar programming pattern: finally, it's "Pump Up the Volume," and me and my friends go nuts on the dance floor.

It was the wrong mix, though.

True story.

Agreed Dan, I was stunned that those two songs haven't been covered, or used on adverts/films (unless they have). I think what got me was seeing this live performance of Moon Is Blue, packed festival crowd, going nuts, then a decade later almost totally forgotten, unlike say The Smiths, Echo Bunnymen, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IOUJa7bv4A

Stirmonster, I think they are in those of a certain vintage but I'd say under 40s don't have a clue, in the main. This 'Baby I Love You So' is great. Are there other songs I'm missing? Love how Theme is so wildly different to Arena, and PUTV something else entirely. Martyn Young deserves much more acclaim than he has, guy was a stone-cold genius.

You should probably add Tarantula to your list of their great songs

packed festival crowd, going nuts,

tbf this is a TV audience who have will have been encouraged to react wildly before the taping, and before each act's mimed performance

Ah ok, were Colourbox not much of a draw back then? I know 'Theme...' was a club hit, round my way at least, but that's a few years later than that clip.

Does baffle me that the Cocteau Twins, for example, had a constant low buzz of hype all through the past decades, but Colourbox fell off the map, mediawise, in the early 90s.

You should probably add Tarantula to your list of their great songs

and the cover by This Mortal Coil.

as well as

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp8dMveAYZc

and on a more PUTV tip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4UasSnTKWE

Ian did mention Theme tbf, but the version on the 12" that segues out of Philip Glass is The One imo.

Searched "music convoy," from the logos on the truck, and it turns out to be a German TV show with typically one song each by four bands per episode. Including other big-time hitmakers like Troy Tate, Slickaphonics, David Knopfler and Götz Alsmann & The Sentimental Pounders. Presumably each episode saw the truck parked in a different German street.

Ha, what?! Honestly thought you'd made "Götz Alsmann & The Sentimental Pounders" up. Looks like a second stage at Glastonbury or something, not... that.

How big actually were Colourbox in the mid-80s? I have no clue at all. Like, where would they place on a festival line-up compared to Bunnymen, Ride, Sonic Youth, Smiths, etc

In truth not very big outside indie circles. No chart singles and album only made #67.

Which makes the runaway success of PUTV even more astonishing.

Stirmonster, I think they are in those of a certain vintage but I'd say under 40s don't have a clue, in the main.

i guess this is true.

'The Official Colourbox World Cup Theme" was MASSIVE at student discos when i was a student so i feel they would probably have been a bigger festival draw than one might imagine.

I don't think the runaway success of PUTV was really related to Colourbox at all. The vast majority of people who bought it probably had never heard of them and never heard of them afterwards either. i think it was astonishing it was such a big hit but it was really about the timing of when it came out and an audience for that kind of record had been building and building, it's just that nobody really knew that until PUTV was released.