1.Real Great Britain [album version] (3:13) 2.Officer XX [ADF Jump Up version] (3:23) 3.Real Great Britain [Jazzwad Real Jamaica mix] (4:00)
Laura bought this one actually. But if she hadn't, I might have done.
Real Great Britain was the opening track on the band's third long-player Community Music. Despite the worthy-sounding album title (actually a reference to the local project that got them started), this is actually an impressively energetic number with the obligatory dub beat and a brass section adding a vaugely ska-like tone. It lacks the ferocity of their breakthrough single 'Free Satpal Ram' or the pop appeal of their sole Top 40 hit, 'Buzzin', but remains possibly their most effective melding of those two qualities.
Of course with ADF you can't ignore the politics either, and here we have one of their most convincing lyrical statement, although it's hard to hear the words. If you do figure them out (or read them!) you can dectect a thorough examination of British national identity: "Will the real Great Britain please step forward... One nation forever looking backwards"; along with sideswipes at the Union-Jack retro-patriotism of the Britpop era, the tendency for concepts of "Britishness" to ignore the non-white populations, and even at the fashion for "Asian underground" with which they found themselves associated. There are also some notable examples of the band's often overlooked sense of humour: "Murdoch she wrote" and "More prime cuts than beef on the bone" indeed!
There were no proper B-sides on this single, but CD2 can at least claim to have had a remix of a different song, namely Officer XX [ADF Jump Up version]. Without knowing the original, it's hard to comment on the mix (by the band and engineer Adrian Bushby) but even this version features more Indian sounds than is usual from this band. Lyrics are still hard to discern, but it's clearly an indictment of police racism, with specific reference to the MacPherson Inquiry, criticised by many for slating "Institutional Racism" without acknowledging the responsibilty of individuals.
I have to admit that I've never been to Jamaica, but I'm slightly confused by the Jazzwad Real Jamiaca mix which replaces the beat and brass with some vaguely skittery electronics and scratching. It's a perfectly acceptable alternative interpretation, but it actually sounds less Jamaican to me.
For some reason (possibly inspired by its football-themed video), this song found its way onto the soundtrack of forgotten British soccer movie There's Only One Jimmy Grimble. The album made a brief visit to the Top Twenty as well, but the band were dropped when London Records was sold from Polygram/Universal to Warners - to be fair, they were far from the only ones. Still, they were able to fall back on their huge success in France, extending their deal with Virgin there to the rest of the world.
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