Here's how we roll: start your music shuffling device, list and describe the first five songs that come up. No skipping, no choosing, random!.
For example:
- A Tribe Called Quest - Award Tour. One of my favorite tracks from one of my favorite records. Jazzy, laid-back, with that catchy little vibraphone sample. Sounds odd out of context, though. I'm expecting the segue into "8 Million Stories". Instead...
- The Allman Bros - Don't Keep Me Wonderin' (live). Starts out with a harmonica blast that makes me think it's Black Sabbath's "The Wizard". And then the fear sets in: oh shit, is this one of those 20 minute Allman Bros tunes that I forgot to take off the iPod? Nope: this is a short one. Still, Duane Allman packs a hell of a lot of sizzlin slide guitar goodness into these 3 minutes.
- Polvo - Channel Changer. The kings of Chapel Hill noise. There were a lot of indie bands in the early 90s that, inspired by Sonic Youth, featured two oddly-tuned, dissonant, guitars weaving around each other. But Polvo's guitar sound is distinguished by a slight middle-eastern vibe, especially in the less chaotic parts. This is a pretty good example of their early sound; it's dissonant as fuck, but still a pretty strong melody somehow emerges from all the grinding and hissing. I wish it was mixed a little differently. This whole album is muddy.
- Matt Pond PA - Taught To Look Away. A pretty little bittersweet love song, sounds like it could've been written in the 50's - reminds me of "Sea Of Love". That clip doesn't really do it justice, but it's only one I could find. I'm always puzzled by the last verse, though. It starts with the woman who was singing harmony singing the verse alone. And that would make the song a duet, which feels exactly right for a sweet little thing like this. But Matt Pond comes in singing after the first line and then finishes the verse alone. It's like they started that verse thinking "duet!" then changed their mind after ten words. A great song, though. A grea album, too.
- Robyn Hitchcock - Shuffling Over The Flagstones. An instrumental: mostly acoustic guitar, with some electric accents. Not really a favorite - I like the playing, but the tune itself is meandering and a little too vague for me to get into.
OK, now you go!
11 days till the big 4-0. Bring it!
1. The Clash – Guns Of Brixton (Live)
This track is featured on their live album ‘From Here To Eternity’ which was released in 1999. It was recorded in New York City in 1981 when the band were at their peak. It’s a little rough around the edges, and it’s sung by the bassist Paul Simonon … who doesn’t usually sing … and the vocal isn’t brilliant (he sounds knackered but he is well out of his comfort zone). Great tune though – the reggae bassline riff is pretty much known by everyone and the lyrics are reminiscent of the tension found in parts of London at the tail-end of the 1970s.
2. Madness – House Of Fun
A coming-of-age song about buying condoms for the first time(or ‘rubber johnnies’ as us Brits usually refer to them as.) Madness were HUGE in the early 80s and this track was number one in 1982 for 9 weeks. It’s quirky and has that trademark ska sound and just never fails to make me smile. I was 11 when it was released so found the johnny-related double-entendres (“box of balloons with a featherlight touch”) absolutely frickin’ hilarious.
3. The Smiths – Barbarism Begins At Home
Fact: My first album was ‘Meat Is Murder’ by The Smiths (vinyl of course) with features this track. I was a little late into this band, but heard this record round a friends and it completely blew my socks off. Johnny Marr’s guitar sound is just mesmorising and Morrissey yelping about corporal punishment was borderline political!!! Politics in music at the tender age 14? Wow! Love it and it’s still my favourtie Smiths record. I still have the LP somewhere … skinned up on it through most of the 90s mind.
4. Thompson Twins – Hold Me Now
What’s with all the 80s songs iTunes? Anyone else remember these three (ha ha … yeh, three twins. Sigh). They were quite popular in the mid-80s and I snogged a couple of girls to this song at school discos (probably). I remember trying to grow a rat’s tail like that. It actually doesn’t sound *too* dated, and today was the first time I’ve heard it is many years (it’s on some 80s compilation I don’t often see shuffled.) The vocal is great and it sounds like a xylophone in there somewhere. I wonder what happened to them? Isn’t it amazing how you can go years without hearing a song and then, when you do, you remember every little detail about it instantly? You know exactly what’s coming before it plays? Amazing. Actually makes me a little nostalgic for those school days. Ack, stop it.
5. Howard Jones – What Is Love?
Oh now you’re taking the piss. Sigh. OK, I was crazy about this guy for a little while in the early 80s. He was a synth-pop wizard from Oxford and released an album called ‘Human’s Lib’ that at the time sounds like it was made in the 22nd century. It was pure electronic – I’m sure he even played one of those fucking keytar things. He also had a dancer on stage, called Jed or Jez, who wore a mask and writhed about like a chrysalis trying to escape a cocoon. Anyway, this song hasn’t aged well really, which is surprising as I assumed it will still sound decent (the drums really sound pants). I realise now that he wasn’t a great singer either but for about 6 months in 1984 he was a fucking god.
Balls to the 80s for making me so bloody wistful. Life begins at 40 right!?
First Monday back after a week off. Like getting hit by a truck. But Liverpool crushed Manchester United yesterday so all is well with the world.
1. Smashing Pumpkins – Soma
I love songs that build and this song does that well. There is something about this album. A lot of people I know think Mellon Collie is the best one but I have always loved this album the best. There isn’t a bad track on there.
2. Grant Lee Phillips – Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me
This was from the wonderful Grant Lee Phillip’s album Nineteeneighties where he covered a bunch of his favorite songs from the eighties, this one obviously from the Smiths. Not my favorite Smiths song (that would be Queen is Dead) but I really like what he has done with it. He radically changed every song he covered, uncovering a melancholy you might not have noticed before, and his song selection was superb. His voice, as usual, is fantastic.
3. TV On the Radio – DLZ
I can have all 6,000 songs on my Cowon A3 playing on random and every single time a TV on the Radio song comes on I go, “Jesus, who IS this, this is awesome???” I don’t even know what kind of music this is, sort of an upbeat Massive Attack with a rock kicker is how I think of it. Either way, this was rightly on many album of the year lists a couple years ago. This song rocks.
4. Pearl Jam – Alive
Ah, memories. This will forever be Los Angeles for me. KROQ in LA played the living hell out of Pearl Jam and this was actually one of my favorites from that album (along with Even Flow). I always wondered why Pearl Jam was always considered an alternative band when they are really 70’s hard rock. At the same time Motorhead is considered metal and they are clearly punk/alternative.
5. Killing Joke – Eighties
Ha, the song that Nirvana ripped off for Come as You Are. I actually like this song better.
Currently upgrading the desktop to Ubuntu 10.10. Probably a good thing I have the laptop running fine. Have a good Monday, cleekers!
I have every single one of those songs in my collection, Rob, and I grew up in Iowa in the States. I saw Howard Jones in 1989 with Midge Ure opening. I went to see Midge actually, but HoJo was fun as well.
I totally had a rat-tail at one point but the less said about that the better.
HoJo? *shudders* And where did Midge Ure go? :)
I think Howard Jones still tours on the back of the 80s revival thing that seems to have kicked off since many people our age realised that modern pop music is fucking awful and, actually, the 80s weren’t that bad after all.
Love the Pumpkins and Killing Jokes tunes BTW. Great list.