Ned's Atomic Dustbin

0.522
Sony, 1994

Ned's Atomic Dustbin were an indie rock band with two bassists who recorded their debut album God Fodder as teenagers in a town in central England. It was released on Sony's Furtive label and made an appearance in the charts thanks to the singles 'Kill Your Television' and 'Grey Cell Green' – the title of which was a faint reminder of the chorus from New Order's famous indie hit 'Temptation' a decade earlier ("Oh you've got green eyes/ Oh you've got blues eyes/ Oh you've got grey eyes"). It sounded like a mix between that song and the college rock records coming out of North America.

After God Fodder it was all downhill for the Neds. Their second album Are You Normal? was more of the same but without any memorable singles, and a bid to reinvent the band's sound a few years after that with the heavy techno and industrial beats of Brainbloodvolume failed to convert many new fans. Sony had hoped the band would prove as successful as their peers Pop Will Eat Itself, who hailed from the same town of Stourbridge, and so tried to squeeze a little more cash out of the first two albums by releasing the compilation 0.522.

Now compilations like this are usually utter garbage, and in a way 0.522 was no different. It contained pretty much nothing to excite fans beyond a reworking of the band's first single, 'Kill Your Remix', and a few outtakes and B-sides. It would have been entirely useless, were it not for the band deciding to embrace the commercial aesthetic and record two covers of trashy pop songs to spice things up a bit. And embrace it they did, kicking things off with a cover of The Bay City Rollers' kitschy 1976 hit 'Saturday Night'.

The second cover, and the highlight of the record, was Charlene's 1982 single 'I've Never Been To Me'. If you've never heard the original, imagine the least offensive thing you possibly can and then picture it through a soft-focus lens. The remake began with samples of a crowd cheering and a cry of "motherfucker!", before a thumping beat and rave club synths kicked in and got mixed up with distorted electric guitar and snippets of humorous film dialogue. It's the best dance hit of the 1990s that never was. If only they'd done that shit from the start, the Neds could have been bigger than the Happy Mondays.