Clash’s barometer charting the best and worst facets in music, ascending from ten to one. This month we look at duets…
10. Madonna and Britney Spears – ‘Me Against The Music’
With a video that resembles a virulent strain of chlamydia attacking a leather handbag, Britney and Madonna’s ‘Me Against The Music’ should have been the duet which entwined two pop queens of their respective generations in perfect harmony. But fuck that shit! What we actually got was an attempt at lasciviousness so mired in the pair’s inflated sense of self-worth that it bypassed the accepted conventions of contemporary music and opted instead for an experience akin to licking the toilet floor at a Moto Services.
9. Ozzy Osbourne and Kelly Osbourne – ‘Changes’
The main problem with becoming rich is that you end up with rich children. And the main problem with rich children is that they tend to confuse inherited wealth with an innate right to be indulged by society at large. Empirical proof lies within the fetid Osbourne clan, a gene pool that hatched siblings Jack and Kelly into a life of public exposure entirely predicated on a TV show which portrayed them as a pair of whinging, spoilt cunts. And this duet sounds like a dial-up modem connecting to Hades.
8. Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder – ‘Ebony And Ivory’
Paul McCartney; ex Beatle and undisputed British icon. Stevie Wonder; Tamla Motown prodigy and timeless talent. Together; a right old balls up. Having respectively penned some of the defining additions to the Western Songbook, collaboration was surely a no brainer? Yeah? Yeah?! Nope. Coming across like a right pair of tosspots, ‘Ebony And Ivory’ managed to simultaneously negate all achievements from their aggregated past and leave us with a glib comment on race relations that sounded like a piss-poor theme tune from a shitty Eighties cartoon.
7. Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry – ‘7 Seconds’
Two artists. Three languages. Five minutes of worthy bollocks. A song which purports to detail the first seven seconds of a baby’s life before they become mired in the shambolic mess that society has prepped for them, Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry’s 1994 duet sounds as if it was assembled by a Tory focus group looking to capture the essence of the word ‘ethnic’. Unconsciously condescending, ‘7 Seconds’ is an aural coupling which needs a serious session down at Relate.
6. Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan – ‘Especially For You’
Nostalgia be gone! This song is dog eggs and no amount of misty eyed reminiscing can possibly rectify that. Shorn of its Ramsey Street context, ‘Especially For You’ is a cloying ballad of such staggering ineptitude it genuinely beggars belief that anybody survived this abortion with a residue of their careers intact. But they did; with Kylie becoming a diminutive chart starlet and Jason hawking frozen hydrogenated fat to ITV1’s braying viewership. Oh.
5. Beyonce and Jay-Z – ‘Crazy In Love’
Things didn’t bode well. Having already dueted on the atrocious ‘Bonnie And Clyde’, a Mr. and Mrs. Z hook-up was more likely to produce a meandering ego wank than anything approaching a modern classic. Yet despite the odds out came ‘Crazy In Love’; a daisy-chaining fusion of mother funking samples, Beyonce honks and a middle-eight rap which referenced Tony Soprano. Less of a duet, more of a masterpiece.
4. Elton John and Kiki Dee – ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’
Dismissed as a kitsch Tamla parody by many, ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’ should be recognised for the high-kicking shudder of affirmative pop it is. Originally released back in 1976, Kiki Dee and Elton John complemented each other’s vocal style with a classic tug-o-war – bouncing their emotional insecurities betwixt swelling strings and a blossoming chord structure that creates an exquisite juxtaposition of hope and fear. Blessed with a video that resembles a prolonged build up from You’ve Been Framed, ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’ is so wrong it’s right. Then wrong. Then right again.
3. Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong – ‘Dream A Little Dream For Me’
Delicate, poignant and thoroughly unhurried, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong’s reading of Ozzie Nelson’s ‘Dream A Little Dream For Me’ is a gorgeous melding of vocal styles and hushed instrumentation that is timeless despite being very much of its era. Whereas duets can all too often emerge from fiscal motivation, ‘Dream A Little Dream For Me’ eschews such tawdry origins and exists purely for the good of the world.
2. Queen and David Bowie – ‘Under Pressure’
“Mm ba ba de /Um bum ba de /Um bu bu bum da de”. Tempting as it was to favour Jedward’s version through sheer contrariness, the Bowie / Mercury twosome of ‘Under Pressure’ is a master class in commercial dualism. Opening through some textbook Freddie gymnastics, the genius of getting Bowie involved lies within the contrast produced by the pair’s artistic standing; one a respected auteur, the other a mass market indulgence. Deceptively concise, ‘Under Pressure’ is all about the contrast – with Bowie and Mercury happy to play their respective roles without recourse to parody.
1. Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel – ‘Don’t Give Up’
What with the UK desperately treading water as political ennui cripples our hung parliament, the sense that you’re slipping through the gaps of a social system struggling to deal with the 21st Century can become overwhelming. But fear not; Bush and Gabriel have already wrestled with this dilemma and come out the other side with a stunning duet that uses its protagonists’ discourse as a means of fortifying a relationship in the face of broader adversity. Tender and piquant, this textured duet is a powerful example of just how well a coterie can operate given the right personnel.
Words by Adam Park
