25 years ago was a weird time for the music industry, when they had more money than they knew what to do with and threw it at anything that remotely smelled like a hit.
Sire, a subsidiary of Warners, that housed both Madonna and The Smiths at the same time, decided to take their own stab at this ever-growing club trend of house and acid house music. But how does one market that to an American mainstream audience that has no idea what 'house' is, let alone 'acid house'?
Rhythm King (see previous blog entry) released UK artist Baby Ford's debut release, an EP called 'Ford Trax' in 1988, songs that added a vocal element to the squelches and noise of early acid house.
For a debut album, Ford went for a more pop slant. With a voice that was a fey cross between Neil Tennant and Boy George, he cooed and whispered his way through a T.Rex cover:
Haunted us with the eerie and pretty swirling psychedelic 'Milky Tres/Chikki Chikki Aah Aah':
Needless to say, none of these tracks bothered any of the U.S. charts and Ford was dropped from his major label moment after the even bigger commercial misfortunes of his next release.
This release, 1992's 'BFORD9', an album that stripped out almost all vocals, left us with early moments of minimal techno and a new direction for Ford.
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