The Pop Corporation

Whether you’re into ace music, football, or dynamite fonts, you’ve probably come across the work of Stanley Chow on your travels. Famed for his love of the beautiful game, Manchester United, and music, Stan’s immediately recognisable style has graced the pages of the New Yorker, alongside fanzines and more.

His involvement in the music scene has been a long and storied one, from his prize-winning work with The White Stripes, to way back when doing sleeves and posters for Northern Noughties greats’ Alfie.

Chow has also been known to DJ too, so we decided to let him tell us about 10 Songs, in our latest feature where interesting people tell us about the songs they love. By his own admission, “Apologies if it’s too desk island disc-y“, which obviously, is unfounded but part of Stanley’s self-deprecating charm.

He’s come a long way from doodling on the paper in his parents’ chip shop. Click here to grab yourself a print or two from Stanley himself.

Kate Bush – Babooshka

I look back to my childhood, and I think this record is the record that I would pick as my first favourite record that I consciously chose to like… it came out in 1980, so I would have been 5 or 6. I remember when, quite clearly, I first saw the video for it, at a time when pop videos weren’t really a thing, Kate Bush prancing around in a medieval yet futuristic outfit – I was completely mesmerised.  I very much assumed the video played a big part in me liking the record so much.

Doris Day – Secret Love

My parents had a Doris Day ‘best of’ tape and they played it to death. I had a real soft spot for Doris Day and this song was always the one I loved the most. I feel I’ve loved this song all my life and still it slays me every time I hear it. It’s a song I’d always used to sing to myself whenever I fell for a girl.

Frances Yip – Green is the Mountain 

Frances Yip was a megastar in Hong Kong and the Far-East in the 70s and 80s. My parents loved her. Admittedly I had little or no interest in Cantopop or Mandopop whilst growing up, however, there’s a handful of Chinese language songs that stay with you, and this funky little number pushes all my buttons. 

Led Zeppelin – Kashmir

This track changed everything for me… 1988, Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary concert at Madison Square Garden was aired live on TV. I stayed up to watch it. I was 13 years old at the time. Then, the music i listened to was mainly whatever was on Top of the Pops or Radio 1 and whatever my parents listened to. Anyway, Led Zeppelin came on, they had never really been on my radar at the time and they opened with Kashmir. My jaw dropped and I haven’t listened to music the same way since. Physical Graffiti never left the record deck. Subsequently for a few years it got me into hard rock, I grew my hair, I tried to learn to play guitar, started wearing denim jackets with Metal band patches sewn on badly…

Stevie Wonder – Contusion

I had a massive blindspot for Stevie Wonder’s 70s stuff when I was younger. I was pretty ambivalent towards his 60’s stuff and I definitely wasn’t into what he brought out during the 80’s. For me Ebony and Ivory was a low point. Anyway, it wasn’t until a schoolmate of mine who I was in a band with put on ‘Contusion’ on the 6th Form Common Room stereo – it blew my fucking mind!

It’s a jazz, rock, funk fusion instrumental. It’s frantic yet mellow, soulful yet edgy – it was like music from another planet when I first heard it! I play this record out quite regularly now when I DJ, and anyone who asks me what this it is, they always say I didn’t know Stevie Wonder did this stuff like this.  The problem is he doesn’t… sadly, ‘Contusion’ is just a one-off. However this tune did open the door to me listening to his 70’s back catalogue, opening my ears to ‘Talking Book’, ‘Innervisions’, ‘Fullfillingness’s First Finale’ and ‘Song’s in the Key of Life’, which are all just incredible albums. 

Shirley Bassey – The Sea and Sand

This track is from her album ‘Something’. Named after George Harrison’s classic track, which Bassey does a very good cover of in my humble opinion. Also on the album are her versions of ‘Spinning Wheel’ and ‘Light my Fire’, which were frequently heard in funk and soul club nights back in the day.

Anyway there was a time I was listening to the album whilst smoking a joint and we get to ‘The Sand and Sea’. I closed my eyes and the combination of Bassey’s voice, the lyrics, the crescendo in the chorus and the weed took me to transcendental place where I’d never been before. 30 years on, I still think about that moment every now and again.

Secos & Molhados – O Patrão Nosso de Cada Dia  

This was song was played on our wedding day as my wife-to-be was walking down the aisle. It’s just a very beautiful and evocative song. The chimes of bells at the start of the record made it perfect to be played on the day. The lyrics of the song are the words to a poem by Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa. I think it’s about unrequited love and the powerlessness of being in love when it’s not reciprocated or something sad like that, which probably made it not so perfect for the occasion… anyway, too late.

Nobody at the wedding spoke Portuguese and I don’t think Google Translate was a thing then. It’s a bit like whenever you hear a DJ play Band of Gold by Freda Payne at a wedding party.

Yvonne Elliman & Ted Neeley – Everything’s Alright

It’s my favourite song from the Jesus Christ Superstar film soundtrack, a film that I had an obsession with when I was at art school, and though I’m not religious, I do watch it religiously every Easter.

My wife Bec would use to sing it to my kids whilst doing bedtime too, which was really cute and  more recently it’s become a song I enjoy murdering whenever I duet with Bec doing Karaoke.

Valérie Btesh & Tangerine – Yragael

I love a good cover version, especially when it’s better than the original version and more especially when it’s sung in French. This is a cover version of the Doobie Brothers’ ‘Long Train Running’… and it’s possibly my favourite 7” I own.

Ananda Shankar – Snow Flower

I haven’t 100% decided yet, but I think I’d like this record to be played at my funeral.