Already Starting To Pick Out My Records

Eric Clapton – Behind The Mask (MP3)

Well, New Year’s Eve is fast approaching and yours truly has, seemingly be default, found himself on early doors DJ duties at Common that evening. Some might find a NYE 8PM until 10PM slot to be a bit of a bum deal, what with no-one likely to be there yet, but I’m thinking it’ll give me a nice opportunity to dry-run some potential new additions to the Best Foot Forward Official Party Music canon. And with no-one there to listen early on, no-one will be any-the-wiser when I stick a few of the best ones on again in the inevitable post-midnight drunken DJ free-for-all.

Currently top of my list of contenders is the fantastically pompous ‘Behind The Mask’ by none other than Eric Clapton. This record had a pretty interesting conception starting sometime on the early 80’s with Michael Jackson deciding he wanted to work with Kraftwerk. They unsurprisingly weren’t particularly interested in the proposed project so in stepped Ryuichi Sakamoto of Yellow Magic Orchestra instead. He took the original ‘Behind The Mask’ from YMO’s 1980 album ‘X∞ Multiplies’ and reworked it, with Jacko providing new lyrics based loosely around some of the originals. I’m not quite sure what happened next but Jacko never ended-up recording the song, although I’m so sure I’ve heard a version by him somewhere (I KNOW I’ve heard him singing that chorus but the whole internet doesn’t seem to know anything about it). Somehow the song found its way to Eric Clapton who then recorded it with, yes, Phil Collins not only on drums but also producing.

There seem to be quite a few videos for ‘Behind The Mask’ on Youtube, with I think my two favourites being this Yellow Magic Orchestra one (awesome outfits, awesome hexagonal electric drums and weird, but still awesome on-stage girl-behind-door action) and what it possibly the most 80’s gig imaginable with not only a fantastically-mulletted Phil drumming live but also, unless I’m very much mistaken, a rather fresh-faced Jools Holland on keyboard duties. You certainly don’t get gigs like that any more!

If I’m honest I much prefer the original YMO version for home listening. When it comes to choosing which to play out on a new Year’s Eve however, it’s got to be old Slow Hand. I reckon this’ll be getting played twice come December 31st.

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