STEX featuring JOHNNY MARR – “STILL FEEL THE RAIN” (1990)

Daft Punk are this week top of the hit parade with their funky disco number "Get Lucky". Hope you noticed my Tony Blackburn voice there. It’s not a bad song but why it has caught the imagination in the way it seems to have done I don’t know. Maybe it’s the lack of competition but we’re talking a huge omnipresent hit, like Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” in 2006. It features Nile Rodgers laying down a typically Chic guitar riff, which is pretty cool I guess.

Anyway, it made me think of this record by Stex which included Johnny Marr adding some Rodgersesque guitar licks (similar to the ones he employed on "Barbarism Begins At Home"). I absolutely loved this at the time, was convinced it was going to be a smash, and told everyone I thought might be interested about it. “Still Feel TheRain” limped to number 63 and disappeared without trace. I’ve always had an ear for these things.

Over twenty years since last hearing it I’m pleasantly surprised how well it has weathered the ravages of time, especially for an early 90s “dance” record (which of course it still sounds like). To Stex’s credit they avoided inserting an awful rap break two-thirds in which was almost de rigour for this type of track. Since playing it yesterday I’ve had it lodged in my brain once again.