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FALCO: Emotional (LP, Teldec 6.26380 AS, 1986)

This album was given to me as a gift by my friend Moira, after she returned from a European holiday. I must admit that I haven’t listened to it more than once, as it’s not that good. I get the impression that Falco was – in his own mind, at least – much more than just “that ‘Rock Me Amadeus’ bloke.” This record suggests somebody who takes themselves very seriously; the steely gaze of the cover’s photograph reflects what I remember to be some particularly portentous, serious music. Serious, yet still generally in the form of relatively lightweight synthetic pop, of course.

There’s nothing wrong with taking yourself seriously, it’s just that in this particular instance I’d have preferred for Falco to have produced an album full of nothing but ‘Rock Me Amadeus’ clones. That would have been great. Even more, perhaps his ‘clever’ side could have been indulged with a side-long remix of ‘Rock Me Amadeus’ with that sampled repeated bit of vocal at the start, repeated endlessly:

‘Rock Me Amadeus Rock-Rock-Rock Me Amadeus Amadeus Amadeus Amadeus Amadeus Amadeus Amadeus Amadeus Amadeus Amadeus Amadeus Amadeus Amadeus Amadeus Amadeus Amadeus Amadeus Amadeus…’ etc.

Now that would have been daring and bold.

Thinking about ‘Rock Me Amadeus’ has transported me back to the mid-1980s, and for some reason triggered a memory of the low-fi remixes I used to create myself. I would use my ghetto blaster (what young hipsters nowadays would refer to as a ‘boombox’, I expect), with its twin tape decks, to play through taped recordings of songs on Tape A, and carefully use the stop/start/record buttons to construct a new version on Tape B. This was an exceptionally long-winded process, but I remember that the outcome actually wasn’t that bad. I was particularly pleased with a triple-length version of New Order’s ‘Blue Monday’. I’d love it if that tape turned up in my things somewhere, one day.

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