THE 1000 BEST SONGS IN THE WORLD EVER.

323-Leftfield featuring John Lydon-Open Up.

1993-Number 13 single.

Best Bit-At 0.53. When two of Electronic Dance Music’s most innovative artists team up with a ‘National Treasure,’ there is a fairly good chance of something special occurring.

Leftfield were formed in London, England, in 1989 by Neil Barnes, and Paul Daley, they are considered to be very influential in the evolution of ‘Electronic Dance Music’ in the early 1990’s. In 1992 in a review in the British dance music and clubbing magazine ‘Mixmag,’ the writer described their sound as ‘Progressive House,’ thus defining a new genre of music. The word ‘Progressive’ had previously appeared in music in the mid 1960’s, when used to describe artists who were creative with Rock Music. Prior to forming Leftfield, Neil Barnes had been playing percussion as a session musician, but after being inspired by the music of Afrika Bambaataa (see also best songs 716) he decided to have a go at producing Electronic Dance Music, resulting in the first two singles, ‘Not Forgotten,’ (1990-UK-Number 120) and ‘More Than I Know,’ (1991-UK-Number 98) being released under the ‘Leftfield’ name. For the remixes of the tracks Barnes brought in Paul Daley who was the percussion player with the Dance act ‘A Man Called Adam,’ on realising they had a lot in common they joined forces to become ‘Leftfield.’ The duo were active until 2002, but in 2010 Barnes revived Leftfield, with Daley declining to get involved. Since then Barnes has toured and recorded under the name Leftfield with other artists, and at the time of writing they remain active.

The discography of Leftfield includes four studio Albums released between 1995-2022, and 20 singles released between 1990-2023, there are also three official compilation Albums, and one live Album available. Leftfield have also remixed tracks since 1991 for several artists, including the David Bowie single ‘Jump They Say,’ (1993) and the David Arnold ‘Shaken and Stirred: The David Arnold James Bond Project’ (1997.) In the UK, all four of their studio Albums have made the top 20, with their second studio Album ‘Rhythm and Stealth,’ (1999) reaching Number 1, while six of their singles have made the UK top 40, with ‘Afrika Shox, featuring Afrika Bambaataa, peaking the highest at Number 7 in 1999. Leftfield have never charted on the American Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, but two of their tracks ‘Song of Life,’ (1992-Number 27) and ‘Afro-Left,’ featuring Djum Djum, (1995-Number 20) have both made the Billboard ‘Dance Club Songs’ chart.

‘Open Up’ was first released as a single by Leftfield in November 1993, and then appeared on the debut studio Album from Leftfield, called ‘Leftism,’ from January 1995. ‘Open Up’ which is the second of five singles released from the Album, was co-written by Neil Barnes, and Paul Daley of Leftfield, along with the songs vocalist John Lydon, (see also best songs 967-576-92 and 27) who wrote the lyrics. Leftfield made a point of using several different guest vocalists on their songs, all of whom had little to do with ‘Dance Music.’ On the ‘Leftfield’ Album for example, guest vocalists included the Jamaican Reggae singer, Earl Sixteen, Toni Halliday of the English Rock group ‘Curve,’ the Swedish Rapper Papa Dee, and of course the ‘Punk Rock’ artist John Lydon.

The story goes that one of Neil Barnes’ friends knew John Lydon, and he introduced him to Lydon when he was 19 years old. Once Barnes formed Leftfield with Paul Daley, Barnes was always on the lookout for a suitable song for Lydon to sing on. Barnes has said, ‘We had to do something that warranted getting John in. We were terrified that we’d do something second rate. We worked on the bassline until we got it right, spinning in records endlessly, trying different breaks to get the right feel for it, changing the hi-hat rhythm 100 times, different bass drums… We’d push things sonic-ally as far as we could.’ John Lydon has said, ‘They brought me over to the studio one night, and I more or less just free-formed it. I’d been running the ideas through my mind almost constantly, so it was all just waiting for the pen to hit the page. There’s so many different issues that run rampant in your mind when you put songs together. The best songs are when you draw conclusions from all those issues that are part of that same conglomerate that we’re presented with. In my book ‘Open Up’ is all flashing lights, that’s how I remembered it, writing it and thinking about it and being in the studio. I used the traffic lights scenario. Red is of course the warning, you could ruin this if you’re not careful.’

‘Open Up’ includes the line ‘burn Hollywood burn,’ Lydon has said that the song was partly about him not being given a part in a movie, but it was only ‘some of it.’ ‘Open Up’ is probably a scathing attack on all the opulent excesses, and fake lifestyles of the people who attempt to live the Hollywood ‘dream.’

‘Lose myself inside your schemes, go for money honey, not the screen, be a movie star, blah blah blah, go the whole hog, be bigger than God.