Reverse Midas Touch - A Slight Return

Previously: I failed in my attempt to locate the tracklisting for Reverse Midas Touch. I even tried to recover data from an old and dusty hard drive, but to no avail. Today, though, we’ve been going through the loft, and lo! what did I find but a CD backup of my old Linux hard drives? My dissertation survives! As does this:

Reverse Midas Touch

  1. Grandaddy — AM 180
  2. Spearmint — Sweeping The Nation
  3. Mono — Life In Mono
  4. Sleater-Kinney — Little Babies
  5. Ooberman — Shorley Wall
  6. Cotton Mather — She’s Only Cool
  7. Velocette — Bitterscene
  8. Black Box Recorder — The Facts Of Life
  9. Belle & Sebastian — Legal Man
  10. The Flaming Lips — Race For The Prize
  11. Brassy — Good Times
  12. Elliot Smith — Waltz No. 2 (XO)

Mark and Lard began their afternoon show on October 13th 1997, having helped to ease the burden on Radio 1’s overworked transmitters by chopping off two million listeners from the Breakfast Show’s audience.

The hapless duo stated their intention to perform as well in the afternoon as they did at breakfast, hoping to reduce the next RAJAR audience survey to double figures. They brought all-new (and some well-worn) quality items to the show; who could forget the blazing originality of the Cheesily Cheerful Chart Challenge, or the staggering genius of “Flick or Trick”? Who could resist Lard’s sultry “Waaarrps”, or Mark’s slavish devotion to the Radio 1 playlist? Or the spectacular collaboration between Fat Harry White and the London Philharmonic Orchestra? This, and many more radio gems, are not included on this CD.

For this is a CD celebrating the Record of The Week. For anybody in Radio 1’s target audience, that’s all those bits of noise that they play before 911 comes on, or the latest Number One by a Chancer With A Drum Machine Washing On The Right-Hand Side. For everybody else, seeing what the duo had picked for this week’s record was worth sitting through the endless repetition of Steps/Lolly/insert playlisted song here. Scream if you want to go faster!

They all had something in common. They sold six copies each.

So, without too much further ado, we present “The Hit Parade of an alternate universe.” A universe where the Lighthouse Family are indeed locked up in a lighthouse, Michael Bolton is a failed hairdresser, and where the word “playlist” is verboten.

(note - obviously written before my Popist days. There’s no worse zealot like a convert, remember)