131: Loose!

Come (1994)
Once upon a time, poodle-haired lizards with loud guitars roamed the charts. Then God said “let there be rave” and the immaculately-coiffed dinosaurs were hit by an MDMA meteor of electro energy. Those least able to adapt were wiped out by the yellow smiley-faced fireball but the resilient absorbed the blast and mutated into something bigger, faster, stronger than they were before. Loose! was once a heavy rock number soundtracking Hades in Prince’s dance production of The Odyssey. It wasn’t terrible but probably best left in the Land of the Dead. A year later Prince reworked it into a pandemonium of hoover synths, industrial guitar and rave abandon – music for the jilted generation – and outlines of its impact can still be found scorched onto walls in Pompeii. A choir-sampling dub version called Get Loose turned up on Crystal Ball five years later – a leftover from a Loose! single that never happened (So Dark also comes from this non-release). Despite its screamed obscenities and Prodigy-style “let’s go!” samples it had its Day-Glo battery acid drained. Come’s version still sounds as devastating as the day it hit Earth.

3 thoughts on “131: Loose!”

  1. Still here reading this glorious countdown. This song has to be the starkest difference between our tastes. I think that this song ranks in his bottom 5 all time. I hate this song with an unreserved passion (well, reserved only for Strays of the World). Still – keep it up – this list is fascinating.

    1. Ha. The first gig I ever saw was the Prodigy in ’96. That may go some way to explain my tastes.

      Glad you’re still with us!

      1. Showing my age – i don’t know what Prodigy is…..and i surmise that if they sound like the song Loose – i won’t like them…..Can’t get enough of this list……i love being surprised. I love that i never “caught” the double entendre in Elixer until i read your post…. i love that people have such divergent view points – i would never have put 3 Chains of Gold in the top 200….or Dance On or Rock N Roll is Alive.

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