Ah yes, The Oscars. All the fun of the fair. This years, much to me incredulous enjoyment, has surprassed itelf by being even more baffling that before. The added bonus for me, and perhaps nobody else, is that I've been following who the potential nominees might be, since August, back in the glorious indian summer where what-the-fuck nominees like Norah Jones, Reservation Road, Clive Owen in Elizabeth II - The Quickening, Claire Danes were being touted as shoe ins. Two hefty flops, a nonexistant movie, and I can't even remember what Claire Danes even did in the last 6 years let alone a potentially Oscar winning turn in the last 12 months later, and we have our final line up.
The boring thing about this year is that the majority of the awards are yawning chasms of dull two-horse races which probably means it won't be much fun on the night. It does mean the nonsense nominees crowbarred into each category makes the nominations more fun. For example, it's probably so obvious reliable nut job Daniel Day Lewis is going to ace the best actor/'tache award that they might as well have not bothered announcing four other nominees. On the bad side, this means shoe-horning in Tommy Lee Jones, who may or may not be a revelatory genius in 'In the Valley of Elah' and I do have a lot of time for him, but this boring excuse to recognise Academy darling Paul Haggis (Tom Hanks with a pen) is a waste of a nominee. As is Johnny Depp, who once again is used as a trendy folly to avoid nominating people in films nobody went to see again. See also George Clooney, who let us not forget, won Best Supporting Actor two years ago for his astonishingly dull performance in the equally diabolical 'Syriana', still to this day the only film I've left the cinema before it's finished. Somehow, Michael Clayton (starring Clooney as a Lawyer) manages to look even more boring than that. The good news is of course that Viggo Mortensen's naked knife fighting and preposturous Eastern European accent have not gone unnoticed.Eastern Promisese was awesome, although I didn't think VIggo Mortensen was anywhere near the best thing about it, naked knife fight or no naked knife fight.
There Will Be Blood has earned itself a slew of nominations, no doubt partly becaue it's directed by, and stars two frustratingly unproductive members of the Hollywood fraternity, so I mostly want them to win everything because it's essentially acting as a statement for them both to make more fucking films. The fillm is probably going to be awesome, but it's also about oil and greed, which let us not forget, is what Syryiana was about, It also looks a bit like a Carnivale, only with Paul Dano being a quasi-religious ballbag instead of a bunch of circus freaks. Leave that element to Daniel Day Lewis and his moustache.
Juno has gone squarely from being a film I'd quite like to see, to being annoying the point of wanted to never hear another single fucking thing about it ever again. It is, of course, the token indie comedy, a category created by the baffling overpopularity of Little Miss Shunshine last year, which probably did wonders for the Oscars street cred, hence the hideous overshowing of Juno. Surely this film is just Knocked Up for people who people who want to pretend they didn't go and see Knocked Up. A film for people who want to appear cool without actually being so. When I found out the soundtrack was almost all songs by the Moldy Peaches and Kimya Dawson I realised where I stood with Juno. It may star Ellen Page, wank-fantasy for plankton in Death Cab For Cutie T shirts, but I'll give this one a wide birth. Get it?
Best original song is a category I always love for two reasons. Firstly, it's so masively unimportant to the rest of the night. Secondly, it adds a level of surrealism when people like Paul McCartney hop on stage and sing. Qute often too, this is the point where the ceremony becomes a psychedelic nightmare, with hopeless concepts like Beyonce Knowles singnig every song, or recreating the burning car scene from Crash onstage with people moving really slowly from the wreckage. Hilarious. Thankfully, the nominations saved us from having to listen to a Pearl Jam song on the night, however, three songs from Enchanted means that, like last year, I'm going to have to watch three nearly identical performances straight after one another. The other nominations ('Once' which I refuse to believe is that good because it's music based on songs by the fucking Frames!) and 'August Rush, a film I've never even heard of) are also a bit of a waste of time.
Next point of query is all about best Foreign Language picture. I really need to read the small print regarding this category, becuase it seems to be a joke. I think the rules are that each country is only allowed to submit one film for nomination. This doesn't explain how France can have La Vie En Rose, Persipolis, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly nominated for three different awards, and none of them being nominated for best Foreign Language Picture. What happened here? What we're left with, is nominations for five films I know nothing about whatsoever, rather than being a three-way fight between one of the best films of last year, and what look like two of the best this year. This is probably as good a time as any to bring up this category last year, which was won by The Lives of Others. I enjoyed ;looking at the Bafta nominations this year because after unaccountably forgetting The Lives of Others even existed last year, they've gone hilariously overboard his year by seemingly nominating it in every category under the sun, including best Picture, best director and best actor! Not that I mind, because it was probably the best film released in 2007 full stop, but there's acknowledging your error, and then there's this.
I really hate it when films gets Best Picture nominations, and next-to-fuck-all else. In my opinion, best picture nominations need to be well-rounded affairs with lots of good things going. Which is the main reason why I like to pretend things like Munich and Letters From Iwo Jima were nominated in recent years purely for their clout rather than their merit. This year we have Atonement, which surely doesn't have any clout whatsoever unless having James McAvoy counts as 'clout'. I have no time for this film, it looks boring, it's a boring choice of nomination, it's obvioulsly going to wipe it's hoity-toity ass with the Baftas, it's got James McAvoy in it, we're all going to die horribly, and if this wins best picture, then we might as well all give up on trying to understand how life works.
The smaller categories are always a riot, mostly because you can say things like "Transformers got more nominations than Charlie Wilsons War" as if makes the war between Autobots and Deceptacons a more valid subject matter than the demise of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. Best screenplay is good. not least because I work in a bookshop, and it might mean we get sent more Alice Munro books because of ' Away From Her' because Alice Munro is a really good writer. Interestingly, 'Away From Her' has been adapted for screen, and directed by Sarah Polley, who if you don't already know, is the gill in Zach Snyders remake of Dawn of the Dead. Believe. I've also got an extended interest in Lars and the Real Girl, which is apparently about Ryan Gosling having it off with a blow up doll. Yawn - Juno gets another nomination, and it turns out it's written by - Yawn - an ex stripper who writes an online blog. Urgh. I'm pleased that The Bourne Ultimatum got noticed in the tedious technical categories, but it's shameful that Michael Clayton, which looks like a terminally dull equivalent of Bourne-with-lawyers gets all the big guns blazing.
Lastly, but by no means leastly, the supporting actor categories. I think for the first time in the history of my lacklustre following if the Oscars, I've actually seen two of the films where best supporting actor have cropped up. Philip Seymour Hoffman is amazing in Charlie Wilsons War, despite that film being a load of old shite. To be fair, Philip Seymour Hoffman could star in an all-mime remake of Jingle All the Way, and he's still be nothing but completely amazing, so this a sure fire guarantee. I'd have liked to have seen 'preposturous casting of the year' Ken Stott nominated for his role in the same film, but I'm guessing the Academy voters are still putting their eyes back in their sockets at such a ludicrous choice to play the Israeli chief. Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men, as a psychopathic manifestation of Mickey Dolenz from the Monkees is a mix of outrageously terrifying, and and absolute riot and really should win. I forget who else is nominated here, apart from the token old guy who appears for about ten minutes in a fairly average role and then wins an Oscar for his entire career. As for supporting actress, Cate Blanchett's Stars in Their Eyes impersonation of Bob Dylan swaggers above everyone else, and rightly so. However, although she is frankly astonishing in 'I'm Not There', her storyline was my least favourite, and I thought Charlotte Gainsbourg and Heath Ledgers story arc and performances were more interesting and engaging. And I'm not just saying that because he's dead.
Thursday 24 January 2008
Wednesday 16 January 2008
Oh Yeah (On the Radio)
Right now, hundreds upon hundreds, nay - maybe even thousands of people are queueing up to see a very very tiny, very small - miniscule, Radiohead gig. It was originally going to be in the Rough Trade record shop, but has since been moved to a nearby venue, 93 Feet East. This is probably due to safety reasons, but I'm preferring to think that someone phoned in a bomb threat, and the decision was made to move the band because the relevant authorities are more than happy to let Radiohead and their fans die horrible in a blazing inferno, but didn't want any Sonic Youth import B-sides albums to get any blast damage.
One of the most exciting events of last year was of course, Radiohead making the notably un-revolutionary decision to release their latest masterpiece on the internet. I personally found this twice as exciting as it meant scrawny Radiohead fans stayed indoors reading the Shock Doctrine and feeling very happy indeed with themselves for liking such a revolutionary band. The lack of radiohead fans on the street all I had to do to have fun was to turn off the internet and enjoy a brisk walk in the great outdoors.
One of the most exciting events of last year was of course, Radiohead making the notably un-revolutionary decision to release their latest masterpiece on the internet. I personally found this twice as exciting as it meant scrawny Radiohead fans stayed indoors reading the Shock Doctrine and feeling very happy indeed with themselves for liking such a revolutionary band. The lack of radiohead fans on the street all I had to do to have fun was to turn off the internet and enjoy a brisk walk in the great outdoors.
It's a Crime
James Patterson is a crime fiction writer who occasionally branches out into Romance and kids fiction. His books are unspeakably hilarious easy-to-digest blue funks of inanity. They're remedial blips on the stratosphere of intellect. They're unmitigated, mindless drivel, and are monolithically popular and I know exactly why. The man is a genius. Each of his books can be read in the same time it takes a seven year old to read a Roald Dal book. They're essentially Doctor Suess for literates. Each book is basically your serial killer-with-a-grudge-against-bugger-all terrorises the locals, and it's only down to local alcoholic/paraplegic/grief-stricken/single father/diabetic/decapitated/ibred/etc law enforcer with a person agenda to right justice because his cat got run over/wife got mugged/he lost his car keys etc to put a stop to it all. James Patterson has written like, a stupendous number of books. He's got at least 12 (!) coming out this year. That's one a month the frothing, raving fool is pumping out into your local bookshelves. The secret is, of course, contained within the pages.
James Patterson books are not very long, but they do have lots and lots of chapters, and each chapter is very very short. Like when you write stories at primary school and you're so excited you get to put chapters in, that you write chapters that are three lines long. It's a simple concept, and if you combine the length with no words longer than two syllables, and insert a fascinatingly vile murder sequence every third page, and hey presto, you've got Real Lives Magazine - the novel. There are so many of these fucking books doing the rounds that you can segregate them all off into different genres. The Womens Murder Club, or Ladies Death Club or whatever it's called, is dubious sexist tosh, natch. The Maximum Ride series were his piss poor attempt to emulate Stormbreaker (key character Alex Rider - get it?) but these were a flop, all book shops had to shift the kids titles back into the adult crime section - partly because none of the kids wanted to read them, but mainly because they weren't actually significantly different from the adult titles, what with an average reading age of three. I'm surprised they don't keep a glossary of basic english in the back, just incase any decrepit old buggers reading the titles aloud think you have to pronounce the 'K' in 'knife wound's a-plenty" or the 'G' in 'Drexel Marcovius had a face like a Gnome". The third 'series' of Patterson classics are the Cross book. Cross, whose first name escapes me at present (Alex?) is a detective with anger management issues, seriously. Almost all the 'Cross' books have pathetic nursery rhyme themed titles; Pop Goes the Weasel, Kiss the Girls, Roses are Red. You may have seen the big screen adaptation of 'Along Came a Spider'. You may also probably wish you hadn't bothered. I've sat through the entirety of that, and I can't remember a damn thing about it, apart from that it was a murder mystery with Morgan Freeman in, and it wasn't Seven, so what's the point?
His new schtick, and how he's managing to squeeze 12 books out in a year, is the biggest stroke of genius of the lot. What's he doing? Answer - absolute four-to-the-floor you'd-better-believe-it solid hard round-the-clock working class NOTHING! Taking a lead from the worlds of both Andrew Ridgeley, and Hollywood Marketing, Patterson has twigged that he doesn't have to do anything except slap his name on the front of a book, so he's getting an army of presumably teenagers doing an English Language Textual Reconstruction module to rewrite his books with different character names and even more preposturous murder scenes, and claiming to have co-written them. I'm assuming he wrote one chapter, or he wrote the last line ("Then he woke up and it was all a dream"), dug another moronic black and white jacket-shot of him stood arms folded against a Buick out from his family album, and by Jim, another guaranteed bestseller because his fans are too thick to notice they're reading a derivative of a derivative of a derivative of his fifthteenth indentical novel.
Jeffrey Deaver, who looks like the sort of person who'd jump out of the pages of one of his books and papercut your tongue off, at least, writes all his own work. Which is why they only surface at a rate of one a year, maybe two if you don't realise the plots are nearly identical. It's also why they're completely barmy, and morbidly enjoyable. The last one I read ('The Cold Moon') had so many twists, at one point I was left wondering if I'd even started reading the book in the first place, and then deftly ruined the previous 300 pages or so, in the last ten. But at least he was for real. Like how Andrew WK was worth a million Darknesses
James Patterson books are not very long, but they do have lots and lots of chapters, and each chapter is very very short. Like when you write stories at primary school and you're so excited you get to put chapters in, that you write chapters that are three lines long. It's a simple concept, and if you combine the length with no words longer than two syllables, and insert a fascinatingly vile murder sequence every third page, and hey presto, you've got Real Lives Magazine - the novel. There are so many of these fucking books doing the rounds that you can segregate them all off into different genres. The Womens Murder Club, or Ladies Death Club or whatever it's called, is dubious sexist tosh, natch. The Maximum Ride series were his piss poor attempt to emulate Stormbreaker (key character Alex Rider - get it?) but these were a flop, all book shops had to shift the kids titles back into the adult crime section - partly because none of the kids wanted to read them, but mainly because they weren't actually significantly different from the adult titles, what with an average reading age of three. I'm surprised they don't keep a glossary of basic english in the back, just incase any decrepit old buggers reading the titles aloud think you have to pronounce the 'K' in 'knife wound's a-plenty" or the 'G' in 'Drexel Marcovius had a face like a Gnome". The third 'series' of Patterson classics are the Cross book. Cross, whose first name escapes me at present (Alex?) is a detective with anger management issues, seriously. Almost all the 'Cross' books have pathetic nursery rhyme themed titles; Pop Goes the Weasel, Kiss the Girls, Roses are Red. You may have seen the big screen adaptation of 'Along Came a Spider'. You may also probably wish you hadn't bothered. I've sat through the entirety of that, and I can't remember a damn thing about it, apart from that it was a murder mystery with Morgan Freeman in, and it wasn't Seven, so what's the point?
His new schtick, and how he's managing to squeeze 12 books out in a year, is the biggest stroke of genius of the lot. What's he doing? Answer - absolute four-to-the-floor you'd-better-believe-it solid hard round-the-clock working class NOTHING! Taking a lead from the worlds of both Andrew Ridgeley, and Hollywood Marketing, Patterson has twigged that he doesn't have to do anything except slap his name on the front of a book, so he's getting an army of presumably teenagers doing an English Language Textual Reconstruction module to rewrite his books with different character names and even more preposturous murder scenes, and claiming to have co-written them. I'm assuming he wrote one chapter, or he wrote the last line ("Then he woke up and it was all a dream"), dug another moronic black and white jacket-shot of him stood arms folded against a Buick out from his family album, and by Jim, another guaranteed bestseller because his fans are too thick to notice they're reading a derivative of a derivative of a derivative of his fifthteenth indentical novel.
Jeffrey Deaver, who looks like the sort of person who'd jump out of the pages of one of his books and papercut your tongue off, at least, writes all his own work. Which is why they only surface at a rate of one a year, maybe two if you don't realise the plots are nearly identical. It's also why they're completely barmy, and morbidly enjoyable. The last one I read ('The Cold Moon') had so many twists, at one point I was left wondering if I'd even started reading the book in the first place, and then deftly ruined the previous 300 pages or so, in the last ten. But at least he was for real. Like how Andrew WK was worth a million Darknesses
.
Monday 14 January 2008
Just the One
Excerpt from 'How to Live My Rubbish Life' by John Widdop (Foreword TBA)
I arrived early to Richard "Sitcom" England's Birthday celebrations at noted wank joint 'Edwards', on St Mary's Street, Cardiff. I had to go to the bar and buy a drink alone and then sit down at a table. At this relatively early point in the evening (7.45) there weren't enough people in the place to be gabbing their way around 21st century remixes of presumed forgotten eurodance hits (the sounds du jour of noted wank joint 'Edwards') so I had to be careful. I remembered some lessons about drinking alone I'd acquired during my time as a bored student.
Choosing your weapon is a tough manouevre. Saving face is by and large the order of the day, so don't attempt to buy a drink you don't really understand yourself. For instance; don't buy a real ale with a difficult to pronounce name, because if you get it wrong, you'll look like a damn fool. Similarly, don't ask for a cocktail you're not entirely sure of, because if it comes back and it's got, I don't know, fishpaste in it, and you're allergic to all forms of paste, you're going to look idiotic taking the drink back confessing you didn't know what was in it - either the bartender's going to go Basil Fawlty on you, or you're going to have to find a way of tipping the drink in the toilet / on the floor / in the pot of an imitation rubber plant.
Don't use slang at the bar. It's probably easy to imagine what degree of dickhead goes alone into a bar and asks for Kroney, or Wifebeater, or Bo. Is 'Kroney' even a used abbreviation? Using slang to the barperson if they're male, suggests you want to be their friend, if they're female suggests you want to lick their face. However, it's important to note that often the drinks that have these slang terms are the extremely popular white-shirt taxi-home 9-to-5 'sensible' drinks that have no social stigma attached to them whatsoever. These are safe drinks to enjoy whilst alone in a bar.
Spirits pose an interesting dilemma. As anyone who's watched Eastenders knows, the step up to spirits basically means you're an alcoholic. Ordering a double in a bar in solitude is merely one step away from sitting three meters away on the steps outside with a brown paper bag, in the watchful eyes of the public. Singles are just about do-able, depending on what the spirit is. If it's vodka, people may wonder why you're buying a more expensive drink in a place you're clearly having no fun in. Jack Daniels and coke may seem like a good idea, with it's cooler-than-thou "I'm going to impress the bartender and everyone in the building" exterior and "God, I'm hip" interior, but beware. If you're as dangerously thrilling as your drink entails, then why did you turn up early / turn up at the wrong bar / do you not have any friends / feel the need to impress strangers in a bar with your choice of drink. Ordering gin on your own is the first sign of madness.
Anyone who buys shots on their own is a disgrace to society and an imminent danger that the world is going to implode. Even I've never done shots on my own, and I've bought vodka jellys from Thresher in Winchester and eaten them watching an episode of Dinnerladies on my own in my parents house, But shots on your own. I've never seen this, and I've seen a lot of depraved behaviour watching the people of South Wales try and extend their family tree. If you geniunely the sort of person who can line up shots on a bar with nobody watching you, down them, and then snort salt and lemon off your sleeve, then good luck to you in the next life, buddy, because there's no hope for you now in this one.
Cocktails: As mentioned above, don't take a gamble on these unless you're dead certain what's in them (you don't want another 'fishpaste incident'). Secondly, don't order something with a saucy name, because the bartender will assume you're going to masturbate over them there and then. Don't order something with an infinite number of fruit slices or paper parasols, or curly straws in, because this is giving the false impression that you are rich and successful, which you are not if you're ordering cocktails alone in noted wank joint 'Edwards'. If you were rich and successful, you could at the very least buy a few friends. There is also the danger that you look like a used car salesman or estate agent.
Don't sit at the bar. I've never worked in a bar, but I can imagine there is nothing at all worse than having to make tedious chat with bored, lonely fuckers with pathetic lives and a pint of lager. It's why I'm glad I don't have to make conversation with myself. The number of times the poor barperson will have to say "that's a shame", or 'How's the leg?" or "What was your wifes fitness instructor called again?" or more often than not "I'm just going down to the basement of slice off my own face with a broken martini glass. Oh yes - definitely don't order Martini. Only one person ever has been given the right to that, and he usually knows the bartender, and is also fictional. You are not fictional, and the bartender certainly isn't going to want to know someone who thinks they're James Bond, with muddy rain seeping out of their soles.
The trick of where to sit depends a lot on the bar in question. If it's quite a large place, not unlike noted wank joint 'Edwards', anywhere will do, providing you don't sit on a table right next to another group of people when there's ample space elsewhere. This makes you look like an eavesdropper, and you'll probably be karate chopped the second you leave. If you actually are waiting for someone to arrive, then sit somewhere that means you'll see the person arrive, but the vast majority other people who lead normal existences, don't notice you. It's also good to sit out of sight of the bar, because then the bartenders when they have their inevitable 'who's that twat on his own' conversation, they're not looking directly at you as you stare blankly into space and/or scribble on the beermat with a biro. Don't stand up when you could be sitting, thats just generally a bit awkward. If there is nowhere to sit because the place is too busy, then you're a little stuck, but ultimately the unlikely solution is to keep moving, at least if it's that busy, who's going to notice one more gawping twat stagging around the bar on their own?
The smoking ban threw a bit of a spanner in the works, but it can be exploited to your advantage. The bad news is that when you go outside, you've got to carry all your possessions and your drink with you, thus leaving your prime seating arrangement to any collection of bastards. The good news is, especially if the bar has glass windows, is that you can appear to have a conversation with the other people smoking outside, reducing your loner quotient slightly. If you're feeling really daring, you could try talking to the smokers, at least you've all got something in common. I'll suggest "God I hate this fucking smoking ban" as an original ice-breaker.
There are probably hundreds of other, smaller rules which can be stuck to, but a lot the fun is in trial and error. Another good one is 'don't go to the same bar you used to always frequent with your ex partner'. Another gem: Don't attempt at any stage, to try and offer excuses as to why you're on your lonesome tonight. Nobody cares because you're a sad pathetic loser with no friends.
Saturday 12 January 2008
Out There
Sandwich of the year already. Not many people have responded to the concept positively, but stick with me on this one. It's not much of a winner for you anticapitalists out there, but the ingredients (Tesco 'Healthy Living' (ie made of cheese-scented edible latex) cheese; a spoonful of Tesco brand mint sauce, and freshly cooked onions straight from the pan (or better still, straight from someone elses pan since then you don't have to waste time cooking anything). Slap aforementioned cheese and onions on a piece of bread, liberally spreading the mint sauce with the back of a teaspoon onto the surface of another slice. Fuck butter and margerine because that's for dimwits who can't even produce their own saliva Cut into relevant shape depending on your mental age (ie triangles if you're three years old and eat off a red plastic tray with a built in flask holder) and hey presto, you have one hell of a sandwich, combining the four essential food groups (cheese, warm bits, mint sauce, bread) in a frothy combination of tang, chew and nasal hum. For less hardened thrillseekers, there is also the double-dip sandwich, which is basically the same, but replacing the onions with a fat chunk of honey and mustard dressing and/or any other substance featuring the word 'dressing' found in the fridge. It's again, a tough manoeuvre, due to honey and mustard dressing's tendancy to leave it's parent bottle as it sees fit depending on whether it's that time of the month or not, resulting in what expects call a 'sham sandwich', that is, one which has outsauced itself into a wet, dripping, quivering mass. It's why people don't put soup in a sandwich, and why extra care needs to be taken in preperation of the 'double dip'.
"This truly is a marvellous sandwich. I ate it every day on the set of 3:10 to Yuma" - Christian Bale
Here are some interesting things that have so far made 2008 a dangerously fascinating year.
Kiefer Sutherland is a buffoon. This is not new news, insurmount that most people who aren't popcorn-hunking '24' nutjobs (of which there must now be about three and I doubt any of them even know what channel it's on) are aware of this anyway. Nor is my discovery of him being a buffoon a revelation - I had my inklings. Amazingly, the place where I found out he was a tremendous prat a new thing - it was in a 2006 copy of the Radio Times. On the same page as Andrew Collins laughably inaccurate Bafta predictions (Don Cheadle!) was a three-question interview with our man Kiefer. Question 1: "What was your favourite acting performance of the year" (answer: "I've gotta say my dad, in Pride and Prejudice") Question 2: What actors/actresses do you most admire? (answer: You're expecting me to say my dad again aren't you? Well, He's been the greatest inspiration...). The killer blow was Question 3: "If you could have appeared in any film or played any part in a film in history, what would it be?" The answer: "That's got to be Don't Look Now". The reason? "My dad was awesome in that, I'd love to do a film with my dad one day". However, I saw the film 'Phone Booth' featuring our man Kiefer, last Sunday, and it was 90 minutes of hilarious entertaining claptrap, so I'l forgive him a minor slice of dad love.
Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall has made me switch from chicken to imitation chicken quorn, and this kicks ten shades of chicken shit out of any bird I've ever tasted.
For no reason other than blatantly sexist marketing capaigning, a load of crummy old (and crummy recent) crap arsed feature films, soundtracks and knobbed-together Greatest Hits Cds are being repackaged in pink sleeves with flowers, vine leaves and butterflies on, and being flogged to appeal directly to girls, with the slogan 'girls night in', all handpicked to promote this pathetic excuse for an idea: http://www.songygirlsnightin.co.uk. There are many flaws in the concept. The gender stereotyping is horrendous, suggesting that girls basically want to watch crap rom-coms and listen to the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, all love the colour pink, and want to win a makeover at the hands of the same 50 year old twat whose dated concept of males and females dicated this sorry situation. Surely not. Secondly, they're alienating half their potential market. For instance, a man wanting to buy '13 Going on 30' because, oh I don't know, they want to have a wank over the concept of Jennifer Garner having the uninhibited mind of an illegal sexual conquest, they're going to be put off the pink packaging because they'll look gay, rather than just a homophobic berk with dubious sexual morals.Thirdly, is anyone sufficiently contrived enough to want Sony to dictate the rest of their lives? My favourite thing about the entire debacle, is that on the 'new' pink sleeve for the deluxe edition of the Top Gun soundtrack (now with a whole bunch of ridiculous 80s power ballads that have fuck all to do with Top Gun tacked onto the end), they've managed to misspell REO Speedwagon, as "Red Speedwaggon". One too many swigs of the peach schnapps, surely.
Disappointments aren't so bad when other people share them. And it's good to know that re: Okkervil River, Jens Lekman, Arcade Fire et al, I wasn't the only one.
"This truly is a marvellous sandwich. I ate it every day on the set of 3:10 to Yuma" - Christian Bale
Here are some interesting things that have so far made 2008 a dangerously fascinating year.
Kiefer Sutherland is a buffoon. This is not new news, insurmount that most people who aren't popcorn-hunking '24' nutjobs (of which there must now be about three and I doubt any of them even know what channel it's on) are aware of this anyway. Nor is my discovery of him being a buffoon a revelation - I had my inklings. Amazingly, the place where I found out he was a tremendous prat a new thing - it was in a 2006 copy of the Radio Times. On the same page as Andrew Collins laughably inaccurate Bafta predictions (Don Cheadle!) was a three-question interview with our man Kiefer. Question 1: "What was your favourite acting performance of the year" (answer: "I've gotta say my dad, in Pride and Prejudice") Question 2: What actors/actresses do you most admire? (answer: You're expecting me to say my dad again aren't you? Well, He's been the greatest inspiration...). The killer blow was Question 3: "If you could have appeared in any film or played any part in a film in history, what would it be?" The answer: "That's got to be Don't Look Now". The reason? "My dad was awesome in that, I'd love to do a film with my dad one day". However, I saw the film 'Phone Booth' featuring our man Kiefer, last Sunday, and it was 90 minutes of hilarious entertaining claptrap, so I'l forgive him a minor slice of dad love.
Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall has made me switch from chicken to imitation chicken quorn, and this kicks ten shades of chicken shit out of any bird I've ever tasted.
For no reason other than blatantly sexist marketing capaigning, a load of crummy old (and crummy recent) crap arsed feature films, soundtracks and knobbed-together Greatest Hits Cds are being repackaged in pink sleeves with flowers, vine leaves and butterflies on, and being flogged to appeal directly to girls, with the slogan 'girls night in', all handpicked to promote this pathetic excuse for an idea: http://www.songygirlsnightin.co.uk. There are many flaws in the concept. The gender stereotyping is horrendous, suggesting that girls basically want to watch crap rom-coms and listen to the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, all love the colour pink, and want to win a makeover at the hands of the same 50 year old twat whose dated concept of males and females dicated this sorry situation. Surely not. Secondly, they're alienating half their potential market. For instance, a man wanting to buy '13 Going on 30' because, oh I don't know, they want to have a wank over the concept of Jennifer Garner having the uninhibited mind of an illegal sexual conquest, they're going to be put off the pink packaging because they'll look gay, rather than just a homophobic berk with dubious sexual morals.Thirdly, is anyone sufficiently contrived enough to want Sony to dictate the rest of their lives? My favourite thing about the entire debacle, is that on the 'new' pink sleeve for the deluxe edition of the Top Gun soundtrack (now with a whole bunch of ridiculous 80s power ballads that have fuck all to do with Top Gun tacked onto the end), they've managed to misspell REO Speedwagon, as "Red Speedwaggon". One too many swigs of the peach schnapps, surely.
Disappointments aren't so bad when other people share them. And it's good to know that re: Okkervil River, Jens Lekman, Arcade Fire et al, I wasn't the only one.
Monday 7 January 2008
What? No Jamie T? My top 100 songs of 2007: Part Four
025 Deerhunter * Lake Somerset
"In the park, we hide behind rocks"
Contrary to what I often say about songs I adore, but in reality, I think less songs should sound like this. Simply because it's so easy to get it wrong, like Deerhunter manage to do throughout the majority of the rest of the album, really. On this one though, which is another one that reminds me of the epic journey to work from Angus Street to Borders Llantrisant in February, and milling around at the bus station, it all comes together, with one of the best bass lines I've ever heard, and pretty much indecipherable nonsense everywhere else.
024
Loney, Dear * Sinister in a State of Hope
"Someway, I let it happen, in a flash"
Swedish. My favourite use of a clarinet all year. This appears as the opening track on the album 'Loney, Noir', which is far as sequencing goes, is an inspired choice, and was one of the most common choices for a mixtape opener this year. Like most Loney, Dear songs, this is lyrically sparse, but melodically rich, and reminds me hurtling through the valleys on the 122 in early summer
023
Minus the Bear * Knights
"Is it really a sin if we both come out even?"
The aspect of 'Planet of Ice' that I take a particular fancy to, is the way the opening parts of some tracks intentionally sound like the CD is skipping, particularly on this song, where the sound skipping sound like it takes an integral part in the main riff of the song. This is the track which made me add Minus the Bear to the roster of 'blue collar indie' status bands, albeit descended from the set of Bladerunner as much as the Springsteen family tree. There are also parts of this album which sound like Mansun, which is also obviously a nice surprise.
022
Malcolm Middleton * Superhero Songwriters
"I can feel a blue moon coming my way"
Distinct Scottish accent #2, and probably the best thing that either member of Arab Strap have put their name to since 1996. This perennial mix tape fixture (including the one I made for Lisa in August and listened to every day on the way to the Holland House Hotel during the rocky training week. This epic, mierable showtune, has one of my all time musical devices; the mid section piano build up, beloved in previous years.
021
The Magnolia Electric Co. * In the Human World
"This time I've leaving nothing, nothing behind"
The Magnolia Electric Co. box set 'Sojourner', is phenomenal. Not only do you get a DVD documentary so you can have a good stare at how much Jason Molina looks like Chris De Burgh standing in a hall of mirrors, and you get a metal pendant, it comes in a wooden box with no less than 4 new albums, including 'The Black Ram', at long last a completely perfect Magnolia Electric Co. album worthy of the name. It really is completely brilliant, and so perfectly melancholic, it arrived at the perfect time, a late September Sunday. This is the opening track.
020
Loney, Dear * I Am John
"got a heart full of plans but nowhere to run."
Swedish. As above. And I AM John.
019
Anathallo * I Thought In My Heart "Come Now, I Will Test You With Pleasure to Find Out What Is Good" But That Also Proved to be Meaningless
"Grim faces mope about: 'how shall I live today?' "
The first thing that attracted me to Anathallo was the song title. Some of their others are annoying as well, including "To Gary and Marcus: The Sovereignty of God is Omnipresent" amongst others. But what appeared as hate at first sight soon blossomed into a bloody love affair, in which Anathallo's let-the-shit-fly cross between Thursday and Sufjan Stevens explode into a mismatch of hardcore, trumpets, twinkling player piano, and more or less everything else. There is too much going on in every second of this song to go into detail without it becoming a thesis. But it works. It works.
018
Glasvegas * Daddy's Gone
"All I wanted was a kickabout in the park"
The Christmas song. There's always one, that arrives late in the year and causes me to have to rearrange my shortlists to accommodate it. I only heard this for the first time the week before Christmas day, thanks to another of their songs featuring on a free CD with Musicweek. It went on to soundtrack my entire Christmas, including the walk home on Christmas Eve, to shopping for digital camera memory cards, to the train back to Cardiff. Everything. The song is simple enough; a paen to doting, absent fathers, from the childs point of view, sung like Malcolm Middleton fronting the Ronettes, by a band who look not unlike Rocket From the Crypt, circa 1996.
017
Parts and Labor * Knives and Pencils
"Someday the maps that you and I have made will all fade"
The previously mentioned 'Mapmaker' album which stands head and shoulders above all others I've heard this year is bookended by it's two best tracks. This is the closing number, which does all manner of vocal effects fading in and out at the end, and towers, at over six minutes long, as a lession in orchestrated noise. Every single equipment seems to buzz in all directions on this song. It sounds like twenty gongs being smashed. I don't have any memories attached to it, apart from reaching into my pocket to press 'play album' the second this finishes every time.
016
Sun Kil Moon * Glenn Tipton.
"I buried my first victim when I was 19'
Guaranteeing a Mark Kozelek-penned track in the top 20 for the third successive year, and the first Sun Kil Moon song, rather than Red House Paintes. This is inexplicably named after a member of Judas Priest, and describing Kozelek songs is often futile because they rarely distinguish themselves from each other, upon description. They're best left to their own devices, and listening to this at night, is one of mine.
015
Hakan Hellstrom * Jag Har Varit I Aller Stader
In Swedish.
Swedish. Of course. This harks back to bygone days of Big Country, The Alarm, New Model Army, Good Things Tapes, house party mornings and Jo's garage. Interesting how one bassline can generate a lifetimes nostalgia, especially one from a song I only heard for the first time aged 24, that I don't even know (or want to know) the words to. I'd love to call this a beautiful song, but I can't. "
014
Lucero * On the Way Back Home
"To get outta here, two options one chance - you joined the army, I started a band"
A swaggering power ballad that most Americana bands shy away from. Although this is a power ballad in the lights-out-at-the-bar, spewing on the sawdust floor, before hitchiking to the next town kind of power ballad. The one you'd get your lighter out to sway too but resist through fear your breath might set fire to your beard. The one where the guitarist riffs over your dads favourite power chords, and it still sounds nothing like Bon Jovi and everything like The Replacements produced by Jim Steinman. This is magnificent, not least for the fact they get away with it,
013
Motion City Soundtrack * Let's Get Fucked Up and Die
"Is it legal to do this? I surely don't know"
Quite why all of the ridiculously good Motion City Soundtrack songs I've come across this year (and there are more than the ones mentioned on this list, believe me) weren't soundtracking my life several years ago when they were originally released, is beyond me. They're quite obviously one of the top 5 pop punk bands of all time, with hilariously terrible lyrics to go with it. This song at one point even lifts two entire lines from a Promise Ring song (adding the 'is it legal...' line afterwards) as well as 'The BMX bike of my life is about to explode', and 'god damn the liquor stores closed!'. This song sometimes gets shortened to L.G FUAD, which is shit. In fact, if that was the actual title, I'd knock this about 20 places lower. Luckily it's not, so it's stupid duh-brained fun.
012
The Sundays * Can't Be Sure
"Desire, desire's a terrbile thing"
You know that feeling when you get back from your holiday? When you feel like you're jetlagged even though you've only travelled within a one hour time zone, if at all. The feeling that you're reached the other side of something, and it's a complete pisser to be back home and you've had no time to properly adjust back into the post-holiday and into your current activities. This happened to me. Stupidly, I'd agreed to work on the day I was due back from Sweden
011
mewithoutYou * Torches Together
"Tell all the stones, we're gonna make a building"
The coveted #11 spot previously owned by luminaries such as Interpol, The Magnetic Fields, The Dresden Dolls and R Kelly in recent years, this year goes to everyone's favourite Aspergers-inflicted Christians. This song is so good, I named a crappy short-lived 'blog' after it before realising it's also the name of a church group, thus making me look stupid, and I had to put an unnecessary hyphen inbetween the words as well. This could realistically be about anything at all, but it smells a bit religious to me. Terrific in every conceivable way.
010
Billy Bragg * Brickbat
"the sun came out the trees began to sing the light shone down on everything I love you"
For the first time since I started writing these annual lists of anecdotes, I've been single. Ignoring the argument which means this should result in the list being written quicker, it's worth pointing out that this is probably the first time since way before December 2001 when I did write the first of these, that being part of a relationship hasn't mattered. This doesn't mean to say that I've become an emotionless void, just the first time I've turned the volume down. As a tonic for the relationship that wasn't meant to be, this particular Billy Bragg song is fairly poetic. It's a rare back-to-basics latter day Billy Bragg song, with lyrics partly about fuck-knows-what, partly about everything. And a perfect way to start the top 10.
009
Cajun Dance Party * Amylase
"you're the catalyst that makes things faster"
I'm well aware that Cajun Dance Party are an absolutely atrocious band. I've heard more of their songs, and yes yes, you can tell by the nod of my head that they are really, really bad. But hey, Hitler was a vegetarian, so let's take a look at 'Amylase' for what it is. Rather than just being this years token 'good song' amongst the onslaught of MTV2 britpop dross (of which, I've noticed, there was decidedly less of this year), this stands alone as the best sing along of the summer. Essentially; this is what the Voxtrot album should have sounded like, only better, because suddenly halfway through, a pinballling guitar solo spirals down into the same two lines, repeated for over a minute, and the song soars upwards. I remember listening to this in Bournemouth on the Thursday night, having to pay 50p to go on the pier. For people who know Bournemouth, they have a giant hot air balloon moored in the park, to give people rides up to see the town. The entire time we were there, the weather was deeped too dangerous. On the balmy Thursday, strolling through the park with my headphones, they sent it up. It's a good balloon.
008
Woven Hand * Winter Shaker
"I clap my dirty hands"
Woven Hand are terrifying. The new band (that I didn't even know existed before this year) featuring David Eugene Edwards from Sixteen Horsepower, and seemingly exist in the vaccum for people who didn't think Sixteen Horsepower didn't quite scare the living crap out of enough people. Dark, brooding, sinister folk music built around a droning groove, which sounds like very little else. They can even throw a cover of 'Ain't No Sunshine' by Bill Withers onto their albums, blowing tumbleweed across it and turning it into a 12 minute epic. This, at a more condensed 3.46 leaves nothing out, with devellish allegories Nick Cave would cower from, and, if you really felt like it, you could do an imitation Michael Madsen dance to this. This featured on the halloween party playlist, as well as just about every other mix I made this year, for myself or otherwise.
007
Murder By Death * Those Who Left
Instrumental
A perfect partner for the song at #8, this is the sound of the kids taking on The Black Heart Procession at their own game, and winning. A sinister, repeatedly building piano track, which eventually crescendos around the seven minute mark, and with high pitched wailing, three tiers of feedback and a cello thrown into the mix, this was one of the first stand-out songs of the year way back in February. I remember listening to it on the way to Weston Super Mare and it being only the second Murder By Death song I'd heard, being very very excited. I was disappointed they didn't play it when I went to see them at the Barfly, but at least they weren't disappointing in the end, and they sold good t shirts, and Will, Grace and Pav liked them as well.
006
LCD Soundsystem * All Your Friends
"you think over and over 'hey, I'm finally dead' "
This has featured on just about every critical round up of the year, either applauding it's parent album 'Sound of Silver', and in dozens of cases, singling out this song as the stand out track of the year. They're not wrong, and it's hard to find someone who hasn' been won over by this. Even John Cale from the Velvet Underground covered it on the B-side. And Franz Ferdinand, but their cover doesn't work. But you can't beat the original, which countless people could attempt to imitate using it's very basic, very Tubular Bells structure of adding another track every thirty seconds or so. But that doesn't detract from the song, which is just about the first LCD Soundsystem track to not be about nothing in particular, instead being about the follies of growing up, and missing out on what really matters, what's really important.
005
The Twilight Sad * Cold Days From the Birdhouse
"your red sky at night won't follow me now"
Unlikely fantastic song sung in bellowing Scottish accent, part three. This is precisely the sort of song that I would have fallen head over heels in love with about six years ago, either just leaving secondary school when I listened to Mogwai, The Evening Session, The Delgados, Arab Strap and everything else Chemikal Underground. Even now, at the tail end of the year, I'm listening to 'Cold Days From the Birdhouse' and going back to listen to them. This is about as close to top notch post rock as the UK produces these days, and it's a long, long way from post rock as it is. 'Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters' was, without question, the finest album released from within these shores this year.
004
Enter Shikari * Adieu / Adieu (Routron 500 remix)
"home could be anywhere when I am holding you"
Hold it right there. Myself and others have been wrongly derided for about twelve months for dabbling in Enter Shikari. This reminds me of the sun, and of watching Entourage, of nipping 'round to Tesco to buy cigarettes before a party. It reminds me of waiting at the bus station in Talbot Green, it reminds me of being driven at night home from Leeds. It reminds me to DJ-ing for 60 minutes at Twisted By Design, it reminds me of crossing the bridge to get to Rhymney Street just after I moved. It reminds me of pink mp3 players, white mp3 players and black mp3 players. It's basically a very ordinary song, before launching into a build up straight from vintage Six By Seven. The drums kick in, the hilarious trance synths are faded up, and the coda (above) rings loud and clear, and forever. I've included the 'Routron 500' remix of the song for two reasons. Firstly, having a songs utterly outrageous remix in the same top 10 as the actual song (that's how much I like it) is a waste of a top 10 position, and secondly, I like to imagine when they play live, they segue the two songs together to make one massive prog-trance-emo-hardcore mess. The remix itself is actual trance. No just a rock track with a drum machine, but actual, proper, Paul Van Dyk trance with arpeggiators and all that. It sounds like Alice Deejay remixing Feeder. Next please!
003
Motion City Soundtrack * Last Night
"she whispers something in my ear, the message is unclear, she motions outside"
Almost all Motion City Soundtrack songs are about losing your girlfriend and being addicted to prescription antidepressants, but nowhere else do they reel off the cliches better than here. I listened to this song more or less every single day for about two months, simply because of it being one of the songs that if it comes on random when you're listening a CD on shuffle, you can always find three minutes spare to listen to it all. The story is simple; a guy gets dumped and has to deal with it. The interest is in what the fans refer to as "it's Memento narrative", which basically means it tells the story in reverse, which is a neat trick. The final verse is the killer though, because all emotions are put aside, as it does nothing but relate the details of the deed in factual terms; what she did, where they went, what was said. The closing line 'This is goodbye, this is the end', closes the song, but of course as we've heard the rest of the song, we know where he goes afterwards. It's more like Irreversible, really. With less rape.
002
Parts & Labor * Fractured Skies
"there are choices other than just fight or flight, wrong or right"
This song lasts the exact length from my front door to the entrance to Senghennydd Court on Salisbury Road. What I like, which I've related countless times, about this song, is that it starts with incomprehensiblty fast drummer which sounds like the tracks being played at the wrong speed, then the riff comes in, which sounds like a modem logging onto the internet, and then you get loose remnants of 'lyrics' being fed in through a melody filter, before holding one note for an obscene amount of time, and exploding into a fit of trumpets covering what sounds like the Superman theme. The build up of tension on that note before the release is musics finest moment this year, from this years finest album.
001
Robyn feat. Kleerup * With Every Heartbeat.
"I keep trying but things will never change"
I've criticised myself a lot in this list for not having sufficient anecdotes to make the songs interesting. But this is an exception, and this song ties up a lot of loose ends which I've come across this year. This time, I won't go into detail, but there was a moment this year amidst all the bus journeys, books, and boredom, that I felt that twinkle in my eye I haven't felt for years when I felt things falling into place, and saw a way out, a way forward from the person I'd been for about four or five years. Listening to this song serves as a reminder of not just how quickly you can throw that away, but how difficult it is to start again. Every last thing I've done this year I can inherently tie in to this, it's been everywhere. So it only remains me to say one thing; I hope 2008 is better. Swedish.
"In the park, we hide behind rocks"
Contrary to what I often say about songs I adore, but in reality, I think less songs should sound like this. Simply because it's so easy to get it wrong, like Deerhunter manage to do throughout the majority of the rest of the album, really. On this one though, which is another one that reminds me of the epic journey to work from Angus Street to Borders Llantrisant in February, and milling around at the bus station, it all comes together, with one of the best bass lines I've ever heard, and pretty much indecipherable nonsense everywhere else.
024
Loney, Dear * Sinister in a State of Hope
"Someway, I let it happen, in a flash"
Swedish. My favourite use of a clarinet all year. This appears as the opening track on the album 'Loney, Noir', which is far as sequencing goes, is an inspired choice, and was one of the most common choices for a mixtape opener this year. Like most Loney, Dear songs, this is lyrically sparse, but melodically rich, and reminds me hurtling through the valleys on the 122 in early summer
023
Minus the Bear * Knights
"Is it really a sin if we both come out even?"
The aspect of 'Planet of Ice' that I take a particular fancy to, is the way the opening parts of some tracks intentionally sound like the CD is skipping, particularly on this song, where the sound skipping sound like it takes an integral part in the main riff of the song. This is the track which made me add Minus the Bear to the roster of 'blue collar indie' status bands, albeit descended from the set of Bladerunner as much as the Springsteen family tree. There are also parts of this album which sound like Mansun, which is also obviously a nice surprise.
022
Malcolm Middleton * Superhero Songwriters
"I can feel a blue moon coming my way"
Distinct Scottish accent #2, and probably the best thing that either member of Arab Strap have put their name to since 1996. This perennial mix tape fixture (including the one I made for Lisa in August and listened to every day on the way to the Holland House Hotel during the rocky training week. This epic, mierable showtune, has one of my all time musical devices; the mid section piano build up, beloved in previous years.
021
The Magnolia Electric Co. * In the Human World
"This time I've leaving nothing, nothing behind"
The Magnolia Electric Co. box set 'Sojourner', is phenomenal. Not only do you get a DVD documentary so you can have a good stare at how much Jason Molina looks like Chris De Burgh standing in a hall of mirrors, and you get a metal pendant, it comes in a wooden box with no less than 4 new albums, including 'The Black Ram', at long last a completely perfect Magnolia Electric Co. album worthy of the name. It really is completely brilliant, and so perfectly melancholic, it arrived at the perfect time, a late September Sunday. This is the opening track.
020
Loney, Dear * I Am John
"got a heart full of plans but nowhere to run."
Swedish. As above. And I AM John.
019
Anathallo * I Thought In My Heart "Come Now, I Will Test You With Pleasure to Find Out What Is Good" But That Also Proved to be Meaningless
"Grim faces mope about: 'how shall I live today?' "
The first thing that attracted me to Anathallo was the song title. Some of their others are annoying as well, including "To Gary and Marcus: The Sovereignty of God is Omnipresent" amongst others. But what appeared as hate at first sight soon blossomed into a bloody love affair, in which Anathallo's let-the-shit-fly cross between Thursday and Sufjan Stevens explode into a mismatch of hardcore, trumpets, twinkling player piano, and more or less everything else. There is too much going on in every second of this song to go into detail without it becoming a thesis. But it works. It works.
018
Glasvegas * Daddy's Gone
"All I wanted was a kickabout in the park"
The Christmas song. There's always one, that arrives late in the year and causes me to have to rearrange my shortlists to accommodate it. I only heard this for the first time the week before Christmas day, thanks to another of their songs featuring on a free CD with Musicweek. It went on to soundtrack my entire Christmas, including the walk home on Christmas Eve, to shopping for digital camera memory cards, to the train back to Cardiff. Everything. The song is simple enough; a paen to doting, absent fathers, from the childs point of view, sung like Malcolm Middleton fronting the Ronettes, by a band who look not unlike Rocket From the Crypt, circa 1996.
017
Parts and Labor * Knives and Pencils
"Someday the maps that you and I have made will all fade"
The previously mentioned 'Mapmaker' album which stands head and shoulders above all others I've heard this year is bookended by it's two best tracks. This is the closing number, which does all manner of vocal effects fading in and out at the end, and towers, at over six minutes long, as a lession in orchestrated noise. Every single equipment seems to buzz in all directions on this song. It sounds like twenty gongs being smashed. I don't have any memories attached to it, apart from reaching into my pocket to press 'play album' the second this finishes every time.
016
Sun Kil Moon * Glenn Tipton.
"I buried my first victim when I was 19'
Guaranteeing a Mark Kozelek-penned track in the top 20 for the third successive year, and the first Sun Kil Moon song, rather than Red House Paintes. This is inexplicably named after a member of Judas Priest, and describing Kozelek songs is often futile because they rarely distinguish themselves from each other, upon description. They're best left to their own devices, and listening to this at night, is one of mine.
015
Hakan Hellstrom * Jag Har Varit I Aller Stader
In Swedish.
Swedish. Of course. This harks back to bygone days of Big Country, The Alarm, New Model Army, Good Things Tapes, house party mornings and Jo's garage. Interesting how one bassline can generate a lifetimes nostalgia, especially one from a song I only heard for the first time aged 24, that I don't even know (or want to know) the words to. I'd love to call this a beautiful song, but I can't. "
014
Lucero * On the Way Back Home
"To get outta here, two options one chance - you joined the army, I started a band"
A swaggering power ballad that most Americana bands shy away from. Although this is a power ballad in the lights-out-at-the-bar, spewing on the sawdust floor, before hitchiking to the next town kind of power ballad. The one you'd get your lighter out to sway too but resist through fear your breath might set fire to your beard. The one where the guitarist riffs over your dads favourite power chords, and it still sounds nothing like Bon Jovi and everything like The Replacements produced by Jim Steinman. This is magnificent, not least for the fact they get away with it,
013
Motion City Soundtrack * Let's Get Fucked Up and Die
"Is it legal to do this? I surely don't know"
Quite why all of the ridiculously good Motion City Soundtrack songs I've come across this year (and there are more than the ones mentioned on this list, believe me) weren't soundtracking my life several years ago when they were originally released, is beyond me. They're quite obviously one of the top 5 pop punk bands of all time, with hilariously terrible lyrics to go with it. This song at one point even lifts two entire lines from a Promise Ring song (adding the 'is it legal...' line afterwards) as well as 'The BMX bike of my life is about to explode', and 'god damn the liquor stores closed!'. This song sometimes gets shortened to L.G FUAD, which is shit. In fact, if that was the actual title, I'd knock this about 20 places lower. Luckily it's not, so it's stupid duh-brained fun.
012
The Sundays * Can't Be Sure
"Desire, desire's a terrbile thing"
You know that feeling when you get back from your holiday? When you feel like you're jetlagged even though you've only travelled within a one hour time zone, if at all. The feeling that you're reached the other side of something, and it's a complete pisser to be back home and you've had no time to properly adjust back into the post-holiday and into your current activities. This happened to me. Stupidly, I'd agreed to work on the day I was due back from Sweden
011
mewithoutYou * Torches Together
"Tell all the stones, we're gonna make a building"
The coveted #11 spot previously owned by luminaries such as Interpol, The Magnetic Fields, The Dresden Dolls and R Kelly in recent years, this year goes to everyone's favourite Aspergers-inflicted Christians. This song is so good, I named a crappy short-lived 'blog' after it before realising it's also the name of a church group, thus making me look stupid, and I had to put an unnecessary hyphen inbetween the words as well. This could realistically be about anything at all, but it smells a bit religious to me. Terrific in every conceivable way.
010
Billy Bragg * Brickbat
"the sun came out the trees began to sing the light shone down on everything I love you"
For the first time since I started writing these annual lists of anecdotes, I've been single. Ignoring the argument which means this should result in the list being written quicker, it's worth pointing out that this is probably the first time since way before December 2001 when I did write the first of these, that being part of a relationship hasn't mattered. This doesn't mean to say that I've become an emotionless void, just the first time I've turned the volume down. As a tonic for the relationship that wasn't meant to be, this particular Billy Bragg song is fairly poetic. It's a rare back-to-basics latter day Billy Bragg song, with lyrics partly about fuck-knows-what, partly about everything. And a perfect way to start the top 10.
009
Cajun Dance Party * Amylase
"you're the catalyst that makes things faster"
I'm well aware that Cajun Dance Party are an absolutely atrocious band. I've heard more of their songs, and yes yes, you can tell by the nod of my head that they are really, really bad. But hey, Hitler was a vegetarian, so let's take a look at 'Amylase' for what it is. Rather than just being this years token 'good song' amongst the onslaught of MTV2 britpop dross (of which, I've noticed, there was decidedly less of this year), this stands alone as the best sing along of the summer. Essentially; this is what the Voxtrot album should have sounded like, only better, because suddenly halfway through, a pinballling guitar solo spirals down into the same two lines, repeated for over a minute, and the song soars upwards. I remember listening to this in Bournemouth on the Thursday night, having to pay 50p to go on the pier. For people who know Bournemouth, they have a giant hot air balloon moored in the park, to give people rides up to see the town. The entire time we were there, the weather was deeped too dangerous. On the balmy Thursday, strolling through the park with my headphones, they sent it up. It's a good balloon.
008
Woven Hand * Winter Shaker
"I clap my dirty hands"
Woven Hand are terrifying. The new band (that I didn't even know existed before this year) featuring David Eugene Edwards from Sixteen Horsepower, and seemingly exist in the vaccum for people who didn't think Sixteen Horsepower didn't quite scare the living crap out of enough people. Dark, brooding, sinister folk music built around a droning groove, which sounds like very little else. They can even throw a cover of 'Ain't No Sunshine' by Bill Withers onto their albums, blowing tumbleweed across it and turning it into a 12 minute epic. This, at a more condensed 3.46 leaves nothing out, with devellish allegories Nick Cave would cower from, and, if you really felt like it, you could do an imitation Michael Madsen dance to this. This featured on the halloween party playlist, as well as just about every other mix I made this year, for myself or otherwise.
007
Murder By Death * Those Who Left
Instrumental
A perfect partner for the song at #8, this is the sound of the kids taking on The Black Heart Procession at their own game, and winning. A sinister, repeatedly building piano track, which eventually crescendos around the seven minute mark, and with high pitched wailing, three tiers of feedback and a cello thrown into the mix, this was one of the first stand-out songs of the year way back in February. I remember listening to it on the way to Weston Super Mare and it being only the second Murder By Death song I'd heard, being very very excited. I was disappointed they didn't play it when I went to see them at the Barfly, but at least they weren't disappointing in the end, and they sold good t shirts, and Will, Grace and Pav liked them as well.
006
LCD Soundsystem * All Your Friends
"you think over and over 'hey, I'm finally dead' "
This has featured on just about every critical round up of the year, either applauding it's parent album 'Sound of Silver', and in dozens of cases, singling out this song as the stand out track of the year. They're not wrong, and it's hard to find someone who hasn' been won over by this. Even John Cale from the Velvet Underground covered it on the B-side. And Franz Ferdinand, but their cover doesn't work. But you can't beat the original, which countless people could attempt to imitate using it's very basic, very Tubular Bells structure of adding another track every thirty seconds or so. But that doesn't detract from the song, which is just about the first LCD Soundsystem track to not be about nothing in particular, instead being about the follies of growing up, and missing out on what really matters, what's really important.
005
The Twilight Sad * Cold Days From the Birdhouse
"your red sky at night won't follow me now"
Unlikely fantastic song sung in bellowing Scottish accent, part three. This is precisely the sort of song that I would have fallen head over heels in love with about six years ago, either just leaving secondary school when I listened to Mogwai, The Evening Session, The Delgados, Arab Strap and everything else Chemikal Underground. Even now, at the tail end of the year, I'm listening to 'Cold Days From the Birdhouse' and going back to listen to them. This is about as close to top notch post rock as the UK produces these days, and it's a long, long way from post rock as it is. 'Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters' was, without question, the finest album released from within these shores this year.
004
Enter Shikari * Adieu / Adieu (Routron 500 remix)
"home could be anywhere when I am holding you"
Hold it right there. Myself and others have been wrongly derided for about twelve months for dabbling in Enter Shikari. This reminds me of the sun, and of watching Entourage, of nipping 'round to Tesco to buy cigarettes before a party. It reminds me of waiting at the bus station in Talbot Green, it reminds me of being driven at night home from Leeds. It reminds me to DJ-ing for 60 minutes at Twisted By Design, it reminds me of crossing the bridge to get to Rhymney Street just after I moved. It reminds me of pink mp3 players, white mp3 players and black mp3 players. It's basically a very ordinary song, before launching into a build up straight from vintage Six By Seven. The drums kick in, the hilarious trance synths are faded up, and the coda (above) rings loud and clear, and forever. I've included the 'Routron 500' remix of the song for two reasons. Firstly, having a songs utterly outrageous remix in the same top 10 as the actual song (that's how much I like it) is a waste of a top 10 position, and secondly, I like to imagine when they play live, they segue the two songs together to make one massive prog-trance-emo-hardcore mess. The remix itself is actual trance. No just a rock track with a drum machine, but actual, proper, Paul Van Dyk trance with arpeggiators and all that. It sounds like Alice Deejay remixing Feeder. Next please!
003
Motion City Soundtrack * Last Night
"she whispers something in my ear, the message is unclear, she motions outside"
Almost all Motion City Soundtrack songs are about losing your girlfriend and being addicted to prescription antidepressants, but nowhere else do they reel off the cliches better than here. I listened to this song more or less every single day for about two months, simply because of it being one of the songs that if it comes on random when you're listening a CD on shuffle, you can always find three minutes spare to listen to it all. The story is simple; a guy gets dumped and has to deal with it. The interest is in what the fans refer to as "it's Memento narrative", which basically means it tells the story in reverse, which is a neat trick. The final verse is the killer though, because all emotions are put aside, as it does nothing but relate the details of the deed in factual terms; what she did, where they went, what was said. The closing line 'This is goodbye, this is the end', closes the song, but of course as we've heard the rest of the song, we know where he goes afterwards. It's more like Irreversible, really. With less rape.
002
Parts & Labor * Fractured Skies
"there are choices other than just fight or flight, wrong or right"
This song lasts the exact length from my front door to the entrance to Senghennydd Court on Salisbury Road. What I like, which I've related countless times, about this song, is that it starts with incomprehensiblty fast drummer which sounds like the tracks being played at the wrong speed, then the riff comes in, which sounds like a modem logging onto the internet, and then you get loose remnants of 'lyrics' being fed in through a melody filter, before holding one note for an obscene amount of time, and exploding into a fit of trumpets covering what sounds like the Superman theme. The build up of tension on that note before the release is musics finest moment this year, from this years finest album.
001
Robyn feat. Kleerup * With Every Heartbeat.
"I keep trying but things will never change"
I've criticised myself a lot in this list for not having sufficient anecdotes to make the songs interesting. But this is an exception, and this song ties up a lot of loose ends which I've come across this year. This time, I won't go into detail, but there was a moment this year amidst all the bus journeys, books, and boredom, that I felt that twinkle in my eye I haven't felt for years when I felt things falling into place, and saw a way out, a way forward from the person I'd been for about four or five years. Listening to this song serves as a reminder of not just how quickly you can throw that away, but how difficult it is to start again. Every last thing I've done this year I can inherently tie in to this, it's been everywhere. So it only remains me to say one thing; I hope 2008 is better. Swedish.
Friday 4 January 2008
What! Nothing off 'In Rainbows'? My top 100 songs of 2007 (part III)
050
Buck 65 - Blood of a Young Wolf.
"Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my arm"
I heard this song in a club about two years ago, and although I knew it was Buck 65, I never felt the urge to trawl through the entire back catelogue, good as it may or may not be, to try and find what it was. By sheer fotune, I heard it again in the summer this year, and practically fell over myself to write down as many lyrics as I could to find out what it was. It worked perfectly, as it's the only Buck 65 song that references Neko Case and Egg and Spoon Races. It's as good as it ever was.
049
The Snuggle Ups * Dancing in the Dark
"Man I'm just tired and bored with myself"
The second Bruce Springsteen cover on this years chart. This band I know exactly nothing about, apart from that they no longer exist, and this is the only song I've been able to find by them. Basically it sounds like a homosexual Shins tribute act covered Bruce Springsteen in the style of Fischerspooner. Most people I've played this too have liked it, which includes Chris at work, who likes Wolves in the Throne Room and might be roadie-ing for Avenged Sevenfold.
048
The Tough Alliance * Mine Was Real
""I can't give you my heart, you abused it""
Swedish. An unlikely cover of a semi-obscure old soul song by Rozatta Johnson, which is similarly worth investigating for it's tear-inducing brilliance, this speaker-bouncing jazzed up cover paces the same turf as the aforementioned '25 years and running' only the lifted melody adds more poignancy, albeit nonsense. I love this band, if they weren't such a dubious art-pop 'concept', we'd all be happy together
047
The Kissaway Trail * 61
"We can, we're strong, we'll beat it!"
Alright! Fist-pumping positivity from the Danish school of indie rock. Basically Mew, but if Mew didn't know that Radiohead fans were also into them. They're all a bit wonky looking, in that half of look like models of Richey Edwards from the Manic Street Preachers made out of pipecleaners. This, of course, reminds of when I went to see them at the Barfly and Ewen turned up with his friend who'd never been to see a band before. I'm a bit jealous that Thr Kissaway Trail was her first.
046
Lucero * Bikeriders
"Kathy, do you mean it this time?"
If I could claim to have written any song from any time period by any band, I'd probably choose this one. Not because it's necessarily the best song ever written, but because it so perfectly encapsulate the perfect rock and roll song: rhyming couplets, a voice that sounds like it's been honking whiskey since noon, and best of all rock n' roll cliches - it's about motorbikes. I can't believe I'd never head Lucero before this year. I entirely blame Last.FM for this discovery, because for about three months, my "top friend" had them has his most-listened. So I did a single white female on him, and copied his music taste.
045
Minus the Bear * Dr L'Ling
"I'm afraid of becoming a causual business man on matters of the heart"
The training week in Bournemouth was strangely fun. I've never had a whole hotel room to myself, and the TV in the room had Sky One so I could watch rolling breakfast news in the morning after Breafast in the dining room with all the builders and computer technicians on their midsummer conference break. This reminds me of making coffee in the words slowest kettle, in a room with a view over the Bournemouth International Centre, listening to the Bournemouth Supremacy (see above) and watching Eamonn Holmes earn a living.
044
Now It's Overhead * Turn and Go
"There is not what I want in a mountain peak. There is not what I want in a valley deep"
I prefer to take the above lyrics metaphorically, rather than adopting a literal, St Bernard approach. To not find satisfaction in either the dizzying heights of happiness, or find salvation in the bottomless pit of despair isn't a nice experience at all. It's about disillusionment. It's horrible. Luckily though, this reminds of Christmas! And baubles! and plastic dancing light-up Christmas tree lights hangng over Working Street in Cardiff!
043
Kings of Leon * Knocked Up
"I'm a ghost and I don't think I know where we're gonna go"
Every year I write about the one song which seems to soundtrack the transition between the end of winter and the start of summer. This year it came early, in March. It proved the be a false dawn because the summer didn't actually happen at all, but for one weekend, it was warm. Lisa and I got a lift home from Borders with Karen, and despite it being the first sunny day of the year, I ended up watching 'Entourage' until all hours of Sunday morning. This is significantly better than a seven minute two-chord Kings of Leon song about getting a girl up the duff has any right to be.
042
Sun Kil Moon * Carry Me Ohio
"I'm sorry for never going by your door"
Mark Kozelek on top form. Thanks to him, Christmas, thanks to him, proved be a pleasantly dour affair, as I got albums by Sun Kil Moon, the Red House Painters, and a Mark Kozelek solo album, unbeknown to my parents they're all fronted by the same man, so they had to put up with endless misery all through Scrabble. This is a song I've been coming back to all year, and it hurts every time. Like picking a really painful scab.
041
Voxtrot * Real Life Version
"I see you, always struggling"
Another album that failed to live up to expectations, for reasons unknown the only song I really fell for on Voxtrot's album was the one that didn't sound like typical Voxtrot, and in anyone elses hands would be a mawkish Embrace-esque piano ballad. Luckily, Voxtrot are unashamedly twee, which obviously starts to grate, so when they write an actual proper song, it's a relief. A song for your mum.
040
Funeral For a Friend * Into Oblivion (Reunion)
"Will you be the same as when I saw your last, tell me how much time has passed"
This year was undoubtedly the year Matt Davies from Funeral For a Friend went insane. Not content with joining the "singers in emo bands going alt-country" bandwagon (see also: Thrice) and actually pulling off a worryingly authentic Ryan Adams impression despite singing in a Welsh accent, and then this. Out went the usual Funeral For a Friend devices, in comes.... a concept album about a man lost at sea on a rowing boat, that sounds like Iron Maiden. Your eyes are also diverted to the beyond-description closing track 'The Sweetest Wave' which features lyrics about killing all the surrounding fish, but this was the jewel in the crown, the lead single. Pompous shite, but gourmet pompous shite.
039
Destroyer * Your Blues
"Lord knows I've been trying"
Apparently this song is about "the fascination with the thing's we've lost no matter what the circumstances are".
038
Tokyo Overtones * Slow Graffiti
"Listen Johnny, you're like a mother to the girl you've fallen for"
I wouldn't have bet any money that a cover of one of my least favourite Belle and Sebastian songs by a French band that record some of the instruments backwards, and throw in loads of dated 90s drum effects ontop of the damn thing, would end up becoming one of my favourite songs of the year. But these things happen. The album this is taken from ('A Century of Covers') is largely unlistenable, save for an entertaining cover of 'Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying' sung in Italian, and a unspeakable cover of 'Dog on Wheels' which is up there with the worst things I've ever heard.
037
The Knife * Silent Shout
"In a dream I lost my teeth again"
Swedish. Whilst I was about two years out with realising how good 'Heartbeats' was, I'm justabout crawling into the same level of lateness catching up with how good 'Silent Shout' is. More impeccable Swedish electro pop, that reminds me doing fuck all except listening to The Knife, which in turn reminds the next time, of listening to it the previous time. A bit like when you look in a mirror and hold up another mirror, and then you see yourself disappear into a magical mirror world.
036
Manchester Orchestra * Where Have You Been?
"when you look at me, I'll be digesting your legs"
I often imagine what an actual Manchester Orchestra sound like. Just before I wake up in a cold sweat. This was yet another song from the infamous 'catsitting' sessions which I've now built up to be a much bigger event in my year that it ever could have been. I remember listening to this on a bus journey from Winchester to Southampton, where I got excited about shopping and then felt my enthusiasm drain with every shop I went in, before going into Borders in Southampton and spoke to a total irritating bore there about Freidrich Nietzsche, whom I know nothing about, and then I went home and watched The Bourne Identity.
035
Johnny and the Moon * The Ballad of Scarlet Town
"Don't tell me to repent, what to sow"
The horse from Hot Hot Heat returns in unprecedented folk-stomp brilliance. Just perfect for that trip down the Morgan Arcade to McDonald's.
034
The National * Start a War
"We expected something, something better than before"
This couldn't remind me of anything other than the most excrutiating half hour of 2007 when Gemma and I tried to watch a clip on Youtube of The National performing this in a cage, and it kept stalling, or taking too long, or going back to the beginning, and so I must have heard the introduction this song about a hundred more times than the entire thing. It's worth it, because once the first line is over, it's a lovely song.
033
The Arcade Fire * Keep the Car Running
"Same old city with a different name"
The best live show I saw this year, of the pitiful few I went to, was The Hold Steady. But running a close second was The Arcade Fire at Portchester Hall in London in January. Allegedly Chris Martin was in the restaurant downstairs. They walked through the crowd doing 'Wake Up' and then they played this, and it was completely brilliant.
032
Fucked Up * Triumph of Life
"When you get better at looking, I get better at hiding"
The more I listen to 'Hidden World' by Fucked Up, the more I discover. It was only the third or fourth listen that I started to notice the hand claps and floor stamps that riddle the last third of the song. Elsewhere, it's more sped up punk rock power chords being bellowed over by a hoarse, bald fucker. This reminds me of looking at imitation DVD titles like 'Transmorphers', 'Nightmare Hostel', and '48 Days Later" in Woolworths.
031
Band of Horses * Is there a Ghost
"I could sleep when I lived alone"
This song only has fourteen worlds. But it feels like a lot more.
030
The Rosebuds * Silja Line (On Settling For a Normal Life)
"Let's all drink to the ones we know"
Interesting # 1. I made a mix for my dads birthday, and this turned out to be his favourite song on it, and it went on to be one of his favourite songs of the year. Interesting #2. The Rosebuds are not Swedish, but they do reference 'the windy streets of Stockholm' in this song, and the Silja line is a connecting Ferry route in Scandinavia. But that's not just why I like it.
029
Stars of the Lid * December Hunting For Vegetarian Fuckface
Instrumental
A strange one. Anyone familiar with Stars of the Lid knows this dilemma. Why is this song a cut above the average Stars of the Lid song? Why, in a year in which they returned for the first time in years with a double CD of complete ambient perfection, did this stand out. Surely not just the title? Maybe the length, because for the first time, a Stars of the Lid song comprising of one long drone (as is the norm) straddled 17 minutes, and allowed enough subtle changes to go the distance? For anyone unfamiliar with Stars of the Lid, this is the "hit".
028
Jason Anderson * My Balancing Act
"Every 'hey, how's it going?'. 'I guess I'm fine. I guess I'm fine'
When you're setting up a new store, you have a three week period known as 'the sort'. During this time, you regularly have very early starts, often very late finishes, and an obscene amount of physical labour. I did another this year, and this was one of the two songs that carried me along on my way in each day. The other is still to come. This song, I think, sums up the feeling of having a borderline personality quite neatly. Quite naively and in paint-by-numbers terms, but it's fairly accurate.
027
Shout Out Louds * Tonight I Have to Leave It
"When we go out dancing I don't want to be bothered"
Swedish. I made myself a t shirt with the title of this song on and it got hideously deformed in the wash. Just as well really because I coldn't keep the text straight and I'd have to stand at a 45 degree angle to your eyesight for it to look central. But why would you be looking at my chest anyway?
026
Enablers * Pauly's Days in Cinema
"That's quite a frame when he takes that critical left turn into the bar"
Slint + Shellac = party like you dig post rock in 1999!
Buck 65 - Blood of a Young Wolf.
"Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my arm"
I heard this song in a club about two years ago, and although I knew it was Buck 65, I never felt the urge to trawl through the entire back catelogue, good as it may or may not be, to try and find what it was. By sheer fotune, I heard it again in the summer this year, and practically fell over myself to write down as many lyrics as I could to find out what it was. It worked perfectly, as it's the only Buck 65 song that references Neko Case and Egg and Spoon Races. It's as good as it ever was.
049
The Snuggle Ups * Dancing in the Dark
"Man I'm just tired and bored with myself"
The second Bruce Springsteen cover on this years chart. This band I know exactly nothing about, apart from that they no longer exist, and this is the only song I've been able to find by them. Basically it sounds like a homosexual Shins tribute act covered Bruce Springsteen in the style of Fischerspooner. Most people I've played this too have liked it, which includes Chris at work, who likes Wolves in the Throne Room and might be roadie-ing for Avenged Sevenfold.
048
The Tough Alliance * Mine Was Real
""I can't give you my heart, you abused it""
Swedish. An unlikely cover of a semi-obscure old soul song by Rozatta Johnson, which is similarly worth investigating for it's tear-inducing brilliance, this speaker-bouncing jazzed up cover paces the same turf as the aforementioned '25 years and running' only the lifted melody adds more poignancy, albeit nonsense. I love this band, if they weren't such a dubious art-pop 'concept', we'd all be happy together
047
The Kissaway Trail * 61
"We can, we're strong, we'll beat it!"
Alright! Fist-pumping positivity from the Danish school of indie rock. Basically Mew, but if Mew didn't know that Radiohead fans were also into them. They're all a bit wonky looking, in that half of look like models of Richey Edwards from the Manic Street Preachers made out of pipecleaners. This, of course, reminds of when I went to see them at the Barfly and Ewen turned up with his friend who'd never been to see a band before. I'm a bit jealous that Thr Kissaway Trail was her first.
046
Lucero * Bikeriders
"Kathy, do you mean it this time?"
If I could claim to have written any song from any time period by any band, I'd probably choose this one. Not because it's necessarily the best song ever written, but because it so perfectly encapsulate the perfect rock and roll song: rhyming couplets, a voice that sounds like it's been honking whiskey since noon, and best of all rock n' roll cliches - it's about motorbikes. I can't believe I'd never head Lucero before this year. I entirely blame Last.FM for this discovery, because for about three months, my "top friend" had them has his most-listened. So I did a single white female on him, and copied his music taste.
045
Minus the Bear * Dr L'Ling
"I'm afraid of becoming a causual business man on matters of the heart"
The training week in Bournemouth was strangely fun. I've never had a whole hotel room to myself, and the TV in the room had Sky One so I could watch rolling breakfast news in the morning after Breafast in the dining room with all the builders and computer technicians on their midsummer conference break. This reminds me of making coffee in the words slowest kettle, in a room with a view over the Bournemouth International Centre, listening to the Bournemouth Supremacy (see above) and watching Eamonn Holmes earn a living.
044
Now It's Overhead * Turn and Go
"There is not what I want in a mountain peak. There is not what I want in a valley deep"
I prefer to take the above lyrics metaphorically, rather than adopting a literal, St Bernard approach. To not find satisfaction in either the dizzying heights of happiness, or find salvation in the bottomless pit of despair isn't a nice experience at all. It's about disillusionment. It's horrible. Luckily though, this reminds of Christmas! And baubles! and plastic dancing light-up Christmas tree lights hangng over Working Street in Cardiff!
043
Kings of Leon * Knocked Up
"I'm a ghost and I don't think I know where we're gonna go"
Every year I write about the one song which seems to soundtrack the transition between the end of winter and the start of summer. This year it came early, in March. It proved the be a false dawn because the summer didn't actually happen at all, but for one weekend, it was warm. Lisa and I got a lift home from Borders with Karen, and despite it being the first sunny day of the year, I ended up watching 'Entourage' until all hours of Sunday morning. This is significantly better than a seven minute two-chord Kings of Leon song about getting a girl up the duff has any right to be.
042
Sun Kil Moon * Carry Me Ohio
"I'm sorry for never going by your door"
Mark Kozelek on top form. Thanks to him, Christmas, thanks to him, proved be a pleasantly dour affair, as I got albums by Sun Kil Moon, the Red House Painters, and a Mark Kozelek solo album, unbeknown to my parents they're all fronted by the same man, so they had to put up with endless misery all through Scrabble. This is a song I've been coming back to all year, and it hurts every time. Like picking a really painful scab.
041
Voxtrot * Real Life Version
"I see you, always struggling"
Another album that failed to live up to expectations, for reasons unknown the only song I really fell for on Voxtrot's album was the one that didn't sound like typical Voxtrot, and in anyone elses hands would be a mawkish Embrace-esque piano ballad. Luckily, Voxtrot are unashamedly twee, which obviously starts to grate, so when they write an actual proper song, it's a relief. A song for your mum.
040
Funeral For a Friend * Into Oblivion (Reunion)
"Will you be the same as when I saw your last, tell me how much time has passed"
This year was undoubtedly the year Matt Davies from Funeral For a Friend went insane. Not content with joining the "singers in emo bands going alt-country" bandwagon (see also: Thrice) and actually pulling off a worryingly authentic Ryan Adams impression despite singing in a Welsh accent, and then this. Out went the usual Funeral For a Friend devices, in comes.... a concept album about a man lost at sea on a rowing boat, that sounds like Iron Maiden. Your eyes are also diverted to the beyond-description closing track 'The Sweetest Wave' which features lyrics about killing all the surrounding fish, but this was the jewel in the crown, the lead single. Pompous shite, but gourmet pompous shite.
039
Destroyer * Your Blues
"Lord knows I've been trying"
Apparently this song is about "the fascination with the thing's we've lost no matter what the circumstances are".
038
Tokyo Overtones * Slow Graffiti
"Listen Johnny, you're like a mother to the girl you've fallen for"
I wouldn't have bet any money that a cover of one of my least favourite Belle and Sebastian songs by a French band that record some of the instruments backwards, and throw in loads of dated 90s drum effects ontop of the damn thing, would end up becoming one of my favourite songs of the year. But these things happen. The album this is taken from ('A Century of Covers') is largely unlistenable, save for an entertaining cover of 'Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying' sung in Italian, and a unspeakable cover of 'Dog on Wheels' which is up there with the worst things I've ever heard.
037
The Knife * Silent Shout
"In a dream I lost my teeth again"
Swedish. Whilst I was about two years out with realising how good 'Heartbeats' was, I'm justabout crawling into the same level of lateness catching up with how good 'Silent Shout' is. More impeccable Swedish electro pop, that reminds me doing fuck all except listening to The Knife, which in turn reminds the next time, of listening to it the previous time. A bit like when you look in a mirror and hold up another mirror, and then you see yourself disappear into a magical mirror world.
036
Manchester Orchestra * Where Have You Been?
"when you look at me, I'll be digesting your legs"
I often imagine what an actual Manchester Orchestra sound like. Just before I wake up in a cold sweat. This was yet another song from the infamous 'catsitting' sessions which I've now built up to be a much bigger event in my year that it ever could have been. I remember listening to this on a bus journey from Winchester to Southampton, where I got excited about shopping and then felt my enthusiasm drain with every shop I went in, before going into Borders in Southampton and spoke to a total irritating bore there about Freidrich Nietzsche, whom I know nothing about, and then I went home and watched The Bourne Identity.
035
Johnny and the Moon * The Ballad of Scarlet Town
"Don't tell me to repent, what to sow"
The horse from Hot Hot Heat returns in unprecedented folk-stomp brilliance. Just perfect for that trip down the Morgan Arcade to McDonald's.
034
The National * Start a War
"We expected something, something better than before"
This couldn't remind me of anything other than the most excrutiating half hour of 2007 when Gemma and I tried to watch a clip on Youtube of The National performing this in a cage, and it kept stalling, or taking too long, or going back to the beginning, and so I must have heard the introduction this song about a hundred more times than the entire thing. It's worth it, because once the first line is over, it's a lovely song.
033
The Arcade Fire * Keep the Car Running
"Same old city with a different name"
The best live show I saw this year, of the pitiful few I went to, was The Hold Steady. But running a close second was The Arcade Fire at Portchester Hall in London in January. Allegedly Chris Martin was in the restaurant downstairs. They walked through the crowd doing 'Wake Up' and then they played this, and it was completely brilliant.
032
Fucked Up * Triumph of Life
"When you get better at looking, I get better at hiding"
The more I listen to 'Hidden World' by Fucked Up, the more I discover. It was only the third or fourth listen that I started to notice the hand claps and floor stamps that riddle the last third of the song. Elsewhere, it's more sped up punk rock power chords being bellowed over by a hoarse, bald fucker. This reminds me of looking at imitation DVD titles like 'Transmorphers', 'Nightmare Hostel', and '48 Days Later" in Woolworths.
031
Band of Horses * Is there a Ghost
"I could sleep when I lived alone"
This song only has fourteen worlds. But it feels like a lot more.
030
The Rosebuds * Silja Line (On Settling For a Normal Life)
"Let's all drink to the ones we know"
Interesting # 1. I made a mix for my dads birthday, and this turned out to be his favourite song on it, and it went on to be one of his favourite songs of the year. Interesting #2. The Rosebuds are not Swedish, but they do reference 'the windy streets of Stockholm' in this song, and the Silja line is a connecting Ferry route in Scandinavia. But that's not just why I like it.
029
Stars of the Lid * December Hunting For Vegetarian Fuckface
Instrumental
A strange one. Anyone familiar with Stars of the Lid knows this dilemma. Why is this song a cut above the average Stars of the Lid song? Why, in a year in which they returned for the first time in years with a double CD of complete ambient perfection, did this stand out. Surely not just the title? Maybe the length, because for the first time, a Stars of the Lid song comprising of one long drone (as is the norm) straddled 17 minutes, and allowed enough subtle changes to go the distance? For anyone unfamiliar with Stars of the Lid, this is the "hit".
028
Jason Anderson * My Balancing Act
"Every 'hey, how's it going?'. 'I guess I'm fine. I guess I'm fine'
When you're setting up a new store, you have a three week period known as 'the sort'. During this time, you regularly have very early starts, often very late finishes, and an obscene amount of physical labour. I did another this year, and this was one of the two songs that carried me along on my way in each day. The other is still to come. This song, I think, sums up the feeling of having a borderline personality quite neatly. Quite naively and in paint-by-numbers terms, but it's fairly accurate.
027
Shout Out Louds * Tonight I Have to Leave It
"When we go out dancing I don't want to be bothered"
Swedish. I made myself a t shirt with the title of this song on and it got hideously deformed in the wash. Just as well really because I coldn't keep the text straight and I'd have to stand at a 45 degree angle to your eyesight for it to look central. But why would you be looking at my chest anyway?
026
Enablers * Pauly's Days in Cinema
"That's quite a frame when he takes that critical left turn into the bar"
Slint + Shellac = party like you dig post rock in 1999!
Wednesday 2 January 2008
What! No Pigeon Detectives? My Top 100 Songs of 2007 (Part 2)
075 Sally Shapiro * He Keeps Me Alive
"But I'm still happy when I get to hold his hand. He says I can hold it, but remember 'we're just friends'
Swedish. I know people that have gone through really bad break-ups, when they've found it utterly impossible to get over their former love, and their partner has used this entirely to their ill-gotten gains, by continually leading them on, leaving them unable to let go entirely because the fingertips grasp they have is what's keeping them together. Luckily I've never had this fun, but this song highlights what an awful experience this must be, and what a shit her guy must have been. The fact it's set over an ice-cold disco beat only makes matters more bitter.
074 The Drams * Unhinged.
"I'll show you pictures of someone I knew who disappeared"
Similarly to the Jason Isbell track mentioned above, another prodigal son of gruff Southern-states alt. country broke free from the restraints and returned to the fray. Brent Best, former hero with ludicrously underrated superheroes Slobberbone, was back, and although not quite up the same high watermark as the two essential Slobberbone albums, this is a typical example of not letting the dream die. This was another of the very first songs I head all year, where in the first week of January I'm already thinking "wow, this is a contender for song of the year already" in the sort of naive way that shouldn't be allowed to happen. Still, 73 places lower isn't as bad as some of the casualites of that first week,
073 Lucero * She's Just That Kind of Girl
"She was drunk when she kissed me"
From the old guard to the new school. Quite why I haven't come across Lucero before, despite their blatant place in the family tree which goes Uncle Tupelo - Son Volt / Slobberbone - Drive By Truckers / Drams + /Lucero. If that even is a family tree. Rugged, blue lumberjack shirted hairy Gregg Allman-meets Whiskeytown rock. With additional organ sound.
072 Junip * The Ghost of Tom Joad
"The highway is alive tonight"
No end-of-year 100 is complete without the obligatory Bruce Springsteen cover. This is the first, one I discovered whilst researching tracks for Gemmas dad's Springsteen covers mix cd.
071 Call Me Lightning * Soft Skeletons
"Fuck!"
I forget where I read it, but this is a good example of a band I decided to investigate because of a review that basically pulled no punches, and unreservedly gave them a slagging to kingdom come. They were partly right, because a concept album about everybody turning into a skeleton and then turning into dust is, as far as concept albums go, a poor one. Secondly, they're named after a Who song, which is never good thing. However, something about the review made me determined to see if they were really as bad as this vilification merited. The answer was no, they weren't. And this, the title track, is just over an ad break's worth of unrivalled joy.
070
Brand New * Jesus Christ
"So what did you do those three days you were dead"
Except, of course, he was only dead for two. They could have at least have consulted one of their many out-and-out Christian support acts to check the facts on that one. I owe Ian for realising this is a good song, and not just 'another Brand New track'. I'm so glad they shortened their song titles as well.
069
Bruce Springsteen * Radio Nowhere
"I want a million different voices speaking in tongues"
This chart barely reflects it, but 'Magic' is probably the best Springsteen album in ages. It's a strange year for the over fifties making their best for years (Springsteen, Richard Thompson, and Nick Cave) whilst young indie upstarts have turned to shit. This is a big blustering open-shirt convertible AM radio belter, all about Bruce moaning there's jack all to listen to on the radio anymore (get Last FM man, get in the right century) as using this as a metaphor for who much the whole world is lacking something, like 'soul' (get it?). Add the almost-as-good but not quite ballad with a title as daft as 'Gypsy Biker' as you've got one of the albums of the year.
068
Dans Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip * Thou Shalt Always Kill
"Bloc Party - just a band"
I was reading the Chrstmas edition of Mojo magazine over the festive period and every year they interview various Mojo-orientated artists (and Jools Holland) about what their favourite records of the year have been. Uusualy this is an excuse to see how out of date people are "I've just discovered The White Stripes..." or the occasional surprise "I've been listening mostly to Andrew WK" - Tim Burgess, and who could forget the edition where Devendra Banhart starting ranting and raving about 'Happy People / U Saved Me' by R Kelly? Not me, for one. This year had Ricky Wilson from the Kaiser Chiefs, who listed this track as one of his favourites of 2007, which is interesting because this track is essential a ranting diatribe against the culture in which Ricky Wilson, and 99% of all Kaiser Chiefs live and thrive in. Take you pick from the many excellent one liners in this. Don't judge Lethal Weapon by Danny Glover.
067
Liars * Plaster Casts of Everything
"I want to run away I want to run away I want to run away I want to run away"
Video of the year, and a completely demented return to form for the Liars. This was a song I overlistened to the point of overkill during my 7 day sojourn in Winchester in the summer. Every time a film finished, or I went in the kitchen, or left the house, I listened to this on repeat. It's one of the few songs of the year in which the dying art of the riff rose from the grave, and two-fold in this one, too.
066
Laakso * Someone Somewhere
"..the feeling that says "fuck them, go walk alone"
Swedish. Laakso don't sing in Swedish, but are huge in Swedish. They're like, the Swedish Kooks, or the Swedish Orson. But Sweden being Sweden, and being almost completely incapable of producing anything in the way of bad pop music, this is a bizarre Placebo-meets-Guided By Voices-meets-Muse-meets-Britpop semi-power ballad which features enormously warbling falsetto shouting, and a fantastically Scandinavian collection of repetitive lyrics. HOT.
065
Motion City Soundtrack * Everything is Alright
"I'm sick of the things I do when I'm nervous, like cleaning the oven or checking my tyres"
I defenitely remember listening to this on the cramped stinking megabus on the way to London to see the Arcade Fire at the tail end of January. I'd spend the previous day listening to a CD I found in the lounge of bands signed to Burning Heart records and playing Tony Hawks on Mark's Playstation. I reworked the tape I was making at the time to incude this as the last track on side B. Not terribly exciting, but after the demise of two walkmen, and buying a replacement CD/casette player to make tapes, that also didn't work, I conceded defeat, and this song will go down in history as being the very last track on the very last tape I made for my tape collection - 146 - 'Babel"
064
Robyn * Show Me Love
"Show me everything and what it's all about"
Swedish. The film of the same name is probably the best film about Swedish lesbians I've seen all year, if not the best film full stop. One character gives another Robyn perfume at one point. The whole soundtrack is phenomenal, including a timely use of 'I wanna know what love is" by Foreigner. This playing over the closing credits is the icing on the cake.
063
Shout Out Out Out Out * Chicken Soup For the Fuck You
Instrumental
Probably the most contrived thing on this list, but utterly compelling none the less. A New York (yawn) 'Dance-punk collective' (yawn) who specialise in playing a lot of cowbell (yawn) to the extent that they all dance on stage and hand out cowbells to the audience (yawn). They also have a stupid name and stupid song titles with unnecessary swear words in. They're essentially a !!! tribute act, but not to their detractment, this is bonkers electro that sounds like Roobarb and Custard farting 'House of Jealous Lovers' over a hundred thousand handclaps. And there's nothing contrived about THAT.
062
Mineral * Unfinished
"I still dream of December, dancing together with rings on our fingers"
I was reading a thread on a message board, possibly Drowned in Sound, but I tend not to take anybody on there seriously, so it was probably somewhere else, about what 'proper' Emo songs people would reccommend listening to. Although I was annoyed by the sort of holier-than-thou tosspieces who refute any music released since Jimmy Eat World sold more than two copies of Clarity as being 'not proper', I looked into it, just because the thread said "Mineral - Unfinished *sobs* ". It doesn't get more pathetic than that, so I checked it out. A boring anecdote; I listened to this song on the way to the dentist, during the week the management team of Borders were holed up in a hotel room chiselling away at a business plan, and drinking lime cordial. This was around the time of the 'Fuckjaw' incident, covered elsewhere I'm sure.
061
The Sound of Animals Fighting *The Heretic
"My body is a witch, I am burning it"
Significantly better than a supergroup comprising members of RX Bandits, Circa Survive and Finch who dress up in animal costumes has any right to be. This is yet another song from the 'catsitting sessions', and despite sounding a bit like a hybrid of DJ Shadow and Hoobastank, is a genuinely interesting and almost moving slow burner, complete with pointless lyrics about 'pumpkin boys' and the like. I have absolute no cause to explain what made me investigate such a band, but I'm so glad I did.
060
Hakan Hellstrom * Kann Ingen Sorg For Mig Goteborg
"Don't shed a tear for me, Gothenburg"
Swedish. And sung in Swedish, for good measure. This sounds like 'Together Again' by Janet Jackson being covered by Gogol Bordello. You'd better believe it.
059
Enter Shikari * Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour
"Who remains when the curtain goes down?"
Here's another one that shouldn't work. Ugly precocious ballbags from St Albans who listen to too much Pendulum making thrash metal records, sung in their native cockney, with a synth sound liberally 'borrowed' from the album 'It's My Life' by Sash. Yet oddly, and more often than not, it works in perfect harmony. Whats interesting, is that in the wake of the surely-now-dead 'new rave' scene, Enter Shikari were regularly omitted, despite this being the most appropriate 'rave' song of the year, and not just a bad indie band who can't keep in time, like the Klaxons.
058
Stars * Bitches in Tokyo
"I just want you back"
I made three mix cds when I went away to Bournemouth for a week: The Bournemouth Identity, which was full of sad songs, The Bournemouth Supremacy (you can see where this is going) which was full of songs you can dance to, and The Bournemouth Ultimatum, which was 21 tracks of utter favourites. A few of the songs on here I didn't fully appreciate until that week, when I had night after night in my hotel room getting ready after work in the shop there, with just three CDs. This is one. This was also the week just after I split with Gemma, although interestingly none of the songs bear any relevance to that.
057
mewithoutYou * In a Sweater Poorly Knit
"You're a door without a key, a field without a fence"
Kings of the bad religious metaphor which generally has to be crowbarred into each song, which stand along as mystical works of bonkers individuals singing through their noses. These emo/hardcore/indie fronted by the double whammy of genius that is a hardcore Christian with Aspergers (and yes, it does show), this bizarre no-mans-land halfway between The Arcade Fire and Boysetsfire runs rings around almost evey other song that falls into the above three pigeonholes. It's another one chalked up to catsitting.
056
!!! * Must Be The Moon
"1 drink 2 drinks 3 drinks 4"
The worst lyrics of the year without fail. This makes 'Grace Kelly' look like Ivor Novello material, which is probably was come to think of it. Take your pick from "love is love but a fuck is what it is", "but I was surprised when I got the cold shoulder (the next morning)", "you just got me hot, I finished off when you were snoring", or JUST ABOUT ANY OTHER LINE. Spectacular, but then !!! are not known for their lyrical desterity. What they are known for, is floorfilling insanity. Job done.
055
MGMT * Time to Pretend
"we'll choke on our vomit, and that will be the end"
My boss likes this because she thought it was a hidden track on 'Discovery' by Daft Punk with guest vocals from The Killers. Recommendation indeed. This featured on my festive CD which was played after closing on a couple of late shifts at Borders, which was unanimously uncommented on.
054
Wolves in the Throne Room * Queen of the Borrow Light
Not even going to try finding out the lyrics
11 minutes plus of doom ridden black metal by a self-sufficient farming community trio who only play gigs in the middle of the woods. More of this next year, please.
053
The National * Ada
"stand inside an empty tuxedo with grapes in my mouth, waiting for Ada"
The National were one of the artists whose albums I was eagerly awaiting this year who didn't disappoint. For once, not making a radical departure from the previous album proved the key to success, because Alligator II (aka 'Boxer') was a rousing joy, although not as immediately so. This was the track with the most similarities to Alligator, and wonderfully so.
052
The Tough Alliance * 25 Years and Running
"I don't think I can have another day of this"
Swedish. Wham meets The Knife in a baseball-bat weilding neo-realism high concept pop duo. More interestingly, I started listening to them after reading a news report where they either got arrested, or had their concert cancel for beating someone up with a baseball bat whilst onstage. Whether this is generally lies, or a nonsense fabricated 'news' item. Either way, it worked for me, and the EP this is taken from, which has only 3 1/2 songs on it, is one of the most consistently awesome releases I've heard all year. Needless to say, they're Swedish. And from Gothenburg, and it says more about the musical productivity of the city, than any sycophantic obsession I have with where I went on holiday, for the record.
051
Parts & Labor * Fake Rain
"I saw you start to wonder but we'll sing just like we never knew"
Purely because it's the only album on here which has three songs off it, and because it's completelyfuckingawesome, 'Mapmaker' by Parts & Labor is my album of the year. This is oddly remeniscent of 'Panic Song' by Green Day, which is obviously no bad thing.
"But I'm still happy when I get to hold his hand. He says I can hold it, but remember 'we're just friends'
Swedish. I know people that have gone through really bad break-ups, when they've found it utterly impossible to get over their former love, and their partner has used this entirely to their ill-gotten gains, by continually leading them on, leaving them unable to let go entirely because the fingertips grasp they have is what's keeping them together. Luckily I've never had this fun, but this song highlights what an awful experience this must be, and what a shit her guy must have been. The fact it's set over an ice-cold disco beat only makes matters more bitter.
074 The Drams * Unhinged.
"I'll show you pictures of someone I knew who disappeared"
Similarly to the Jason Isbell track mentioned above, another prodigal son of gruff Southern-states alt. country broke free from the restraints and returned to the fray. Brent Best, former hero with ludicrously underrated superheroes Slobberbone, was back, and although not quite up the same high watermark as the two essential Slobberbone albums, this is a typical example of not letting the dream die. This was another of the very first songs I head all year, where in the first week of January I'm already thinking "wow, this is a contender for song of the year already" in the sort of naive way that shouldn't be allowed to happen. Still, 73 places lower isn't as bad as some of the casualites of that first week,
073 Lucero * She's Just That Kind of Girl
"She was drunk when she kissed me"
From the old guard to the new school. Quite why I haven't come across Lucero before, despite their blatant place in the family tree which goes Uncle Tupelo - Son Volt / Slobberbone - Drive By Truckers / Drams + /Lucero. If that even is a family tree. Rugged, blue lumberjack shirted hairy Gregg Allman-meets Whiskeytown rock. With additional organ sound.
072 Junip * The Ghost of Tom Joad
"The highway is alive tonight"
No end-of-year 100 is complete without the obligatory Bruce Springsteen cover. This is the first, one I discovered whilst researching tracks for Gemmas dad's Springsteen covers mix cd.
071 Call Me Lightning * Soft Skeletons
"Fuck!"
I forget where I read it, but this is a good example of a band I decided to investigate because of a review that basically pulled no punches, and unreservedly gave them a slagging to kingdom come. They were partly right, because a concept album about everybody turning into a skeleton and then turning into dust is, as far as concept albums go, a poor one. Secondly, they're named after a Who song, which is never good thing. However, something about the review made me determined to see if they were really as bad as this vilification merited. The answer was no, they weren't. And this, the title track, is just over an ad break's worth of unrivalled joy.
070
Brand New * Jesus Christ
"So what did you do those three days you were dead"
Except, of course, he was only dead for two. They could have at least have consulted one of their many out-and-out Christian support acts to check the facts on that one. I owe Ian for realising this is a good song, and not just 'another Brand New track'. I'm so glad they shortened their song titles as well.
069
Bruce Springsteen * Radio Nowhere
"I want a million different voices speaking in tongues"
This chart barely reflects it, but 'Magic' is probably the best Springsteen album in ages. It's a strange year for the over fifties making their best for years (Springsteen, Richard Thompson, and Nick Cave) whilst young indie upstarts have turned to shit. This is a big blustering open-shirt convertible AM radio belter, all about Bruce moaning there's jack all to listen to on the radio anymore (get Last FM man, get in the right century) as using this as a metaphor for who much the whole world is lacking something, like 'soul' (get it?). Add the almost-as-good but not quite ballad with a title as daft as 'Gypsy Biker' as you've got one of the albums of the year.
068
Dans Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip * Thou Shalt Always Kill
"Bloc Party - just a band"
I was reading the Chrstmas edition of Mojo magazine over the festive period and every year they interview various Mojo-orientated artists (and Jools Holland) about what their favourite records of the year have been. Uusualy this is an excuse to see how out of date people are "I've just discovered The White Stripes..." or the occasional surprise "I've been listening mostly to Andrew WK" - Tim Burgess, and who could forget the edition where Devendra Banhart starting ranting and raving about 'Happy People / U Saved Me' by R Kelly? Not me, for one. This year had Ricky Wilson from the Kaiser Chiefs, who listed this track as one of his favourites of 2007, which is interesting because this track is essential a ranting diatribe against the culture in which Ricky Wilson, and 99% of all Kaiser Chiefs live and thrive in. Take you pick from the many excellent one liners in this. Don't judge Lethal Weapon by Danny Glover.
067
Liars * Plaster Casts of Everything
"I want to run away I want to run away I want to run away I want to run away"
Video of the year, and a completely demented return to form for the Liars. This was a song I overlistened to the point of overkill during my 7 day sojourn in Winchester in the summer. Every time a film finished, or I went in the kitchen, or left the house, I listened to this on repeat. It's one of the few songs of the year in which the dying art of the riff rose from the grave, and two-fold in this one, too.
066
Laakso * Someone Somewhere
"..the feeling that says "fuck them, go walk alone"
Swedish. Laakso don't sing in Swedish, but are huge in Swedish. They're like, the Swedish Kooks, or the Swedish Orson. But Sweden being Sweden, and being almost completely incapable of producing anything in the way of bad pop music, this is a bizarre Placebo-meets-Guided By Voices-meets-Muse-meets-Britpop semi-power ballad which features enormously warbling falsetto shouting, and a fantastically Scandinavian collection of repetitive lyrics. HOT.
065
Motion City Soundtrack * Everything is Alright
"I'm sick of the things I do when I'm nervous, like cleaning the oven or checking my tyres"
I defenitely remember listening to this on the cramped stinking megabus on the way to London to see the Arcade Fire at the tail end of January. I'd spend the previous day listening to a CD I found in the lounge of bands signed to Burning Heart records and playing Tony Hawks on Mark's Playstation. I reworked the tape I was making at the time to incude this as the last track on side B. Not terribly exciting, but after the demise of two walkmen, and buying a replacement CD/casette player to make tapes, that also didn't work, I conceded defeat, and this song will go down in history as being the very last track on the very last tape I made for my tape collection - 146 - 'Babel"
064
Robyn * Show Me Love
"Show me everything and what it's all about"
Swedish. The film of the same name is probably the best film about Swedish lesbians I've seen all year, if not the best film full stop. One character gives another Robyn perfume at one point. The whole soundtrack is phenomenal, including a timely use of 'I wanna know what love is" by Foreigner. This playing over the closing credits is the icing on the cake.
063
Shout Out Out Out Out * Chicken Soup For the Fuck You
Instrumental
Probably the most contrived thing on this list, but utterly compelling none the less. A New York (yawn) 'Dance-punk collective' (yawn) who specialise in playing a lot of cowbell (yawn) to the extent that they all dance on stage and hand out cowbells to the audience (yawn). They also have a stupid name and stupid song titles with unnecessary swear words in. They're essentially a !!! tribute act, but not to their detractment, this is bonkers electro that sounds like Roobarb and Custard farting 'House of Jealous Lovers' over a hundred thousand handclaps. And there's nothing contrived about THAT.
062
Mineral * Unfinished
"I still dream of December, dancing together with rings on our fingers"
I was reading a thread on a message board, possibly Drowned in Sound, but I tend not to take anybody on there seriously, so it was probably somewhere else, about what 'proper' Emo songs people would reccommend listening to. Although I was annoyed by the sort of holier-than-thou tosspieces who refute any music released since Jimmy Eat World sold more than two copies of Clarity as being 'not proper', I looked into it, just because the thread said "Mineral - Unfinished *sobs* ". It doesn't get more pathetic than that, so I checked it out. A boring anecdote; I listened to this song on the way to the dentist, during the week the management team of Borders were holed up in a hotel room chiselling away at a business plan, and drinking lime cordial. This was around the time of the 'Fuckjaw' incident, covered elsewhere I'm sure.
061
The Sound of Animals Fighting *The Heretic
"My body is a witch, I am burning it"
Significantly better than a supergroup comprising members of RX Bandits, Circa Survive and Finch who dress up in animal costumes has any right to be. This is yet another song from the 'catsitting sessions', and despite sounding a bit like a hybrid of DJ Shadow and Hoobastank, is a genuinely interesting and almost moving slow burner, complete with pointless lyrics about 'pumpkin boys' and the like. I have absolute no cause to explain what made me investigate such a band, but I'm so glad I did.
060
Hakan Hellstrom * Kann Ingen Sorg For Mig Goteborg
"Don't shed a tear for me, Gothenburg"
Swedish. And sung in Swedish, for good measure. This sounds like 'Together Again' by Janet Jackson being covered by Gogol Bordello. You'd better believe it.
059
Enter Shikari * Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour
"Who remains when the curtain goes down?"
Here's another one that shouldn't work. Ugly precocious ballbags from St Albans who listen to too much Pendulum making thrash metal records, sung in their native cockney, with a synth sound liberally 'borrowed' from the album 'It's My Life' by Sash. Yet oddly, and more often than not, it works in perfect harmony. Whats interesting, is that in the wake of the surely-now-dead 'new rave' scene, Enter Shikari were regularly omitted, despite this being the most appropriate 'rave' song of the year, and not just a bad indie band who can't keep in time, like the Klaxons.
058
Stars * Bitches in Tokyo
"I just want you back"
I made three mix cds when I went away to Bournemouth for a week: The Bournemouth Identity, which was full of sad songs, The Bournemouth Supremacy (you can see where this is going) which was full of songs you can dance to, and The Bournemouth Ultimatum, which was 21 tracks of utter favourites. A few of the songs on here I didn't fully appreciate until that week, when I had night after night in my hotel room getting ready after work in the shop there, with just three CDs. This is one. This was also the week just after I split with Gemma, although interestingly none of the songs bear any relevance to that.
057
mewithoutYou * In a Sweater Poorly Knit
"You're a door without a key, a field without a fence"
Kings of the bad religious metaphor which generally has to be crowbarred into each song, which stand along as mystical works of bonkers individuals singing through their noses. These emo/hardcore/indie fronted by the double whammy of genius that is a hardcore Christian with Aspergers (and yes, it does show), this bizarre no-mans-land halfway between The Arcade Fire and Boysetsfire runs rings around almost evey other song that falls into the above three pigeonholes. It's another one chalked up to catsitting.
056
!!! * Must Be The Moon
"1 drink 2 drinks 3 drinks 4"
The worst lyrics of the year without fail. This makes 'Grace Kelly' look like Ivor Novello material, which is probably was come to think of it. Take your pick from "love is love but a fuck is what it is", "but I was surprised when I got the cold shoulder (the next morning)", "you just got me hot, I finished off when you were snoring", or JUST ABOUT ANY OTHER LINE. Spectacular, but then !!! are not known for their lyrical desterity. What they are known for, is floorfilling insanity. Job done.
055
MGMT * Time to Pretend
"we'll choke on our vomit, and that will be the end"
My boss likes this because she thought it was a hidden track on 'Discovery' by Daft Punk with guest vocals from The Killers. Recommendation indeed. This featured on my festive CD which was played after closing on a couple of late shifts at Borders, which was unanimously uncommented on.
054
Wolves in the Throne Room * Queen of the Borrow Light
Not even going to try finding out the lyrics
11 minutes plus of doom ridden black metal by a self-sufficient farming community trio who only play gigs in the middle of the woods. More of this next year, please.
053
The National * Ada
"stand inside an empty tuxedo with grapes in my mouth, waiting for Ada"
The National were one of the artists whose albums I was eagerly awaiting this year who didn't disappoint. For once, not making a radical departure from the previous album proved the key to success, because Alligator II (aka 'Boxer') was a rousing joy, although not as immediately so. This was the track with the most similarities to Alligator, and wonderfully so.
052
The Tough Alliance * 25 Years and Running
"I don't think I can have another day of this"
Swedish. Wham meets The Knife in a baseball-bat weilding neo-realism high concept pop duo. More interestingly, I started listening to them after reading a news report where they either got arrested, or had their concert cancel for beating someone up with a baseball bat whilst onstage. Whether this is generally lies, or a nonsense fabricated 'news' item. Either way, it worked for me, and the EP this is taken from, which has only 3 1/2 songs on it, is one of the most consistently awesome releases I've heard all year. Needless to say, they're Swedish. And from Gothenburg, and it says more about the musical productivity of the city, than any sycophantic obsession I have with where I went on holiday, for the record.
051
Parts & Labor * Fake Rain
"I saw you start to wonder but we'll sing just like we never knew"
Purely because it's the only album on here which has three songs off it, and because it's completelyfuckingawesome, 'Mapmaker' by Parts & Labor is my album of the year. This is oddly remeniscent of 'Panic Song' by Green Day, which is obviously no bad thing.
Tuesday 1 January 2008
What! No Kate Nash? My 100 favourite songs of 2007 (part one)
100 Black Dice * Gore
Instrumental
Black Dice have cropped up in my end-of-year lists a surprising number of times, considering having been listening to them for nearly five years, they've still not even remotely approached a catchy song. This track is unique for being such a haggard mess I didn't even realise I had a warped mp3 of it until about the tenth listen. This is about as close to acessable as Black Dice have managed to date. Give it until 2112, and they might get near a tune. Interestingly, I was in HMV the other day, and they were playing tracks off Screamadelica over the top of this on my headphones. I've never been more glad I don't take drugs.
099 Emperor X * Raytracer
"Did you ever make out on the capitol steps with an AK-47 holding Marxist girl?"
Say, what so you do when The Mountain Goats are on a year off? Listen to their largely inferior and similar-sounding comrades in the war of acoustic wit. This references Elliot Smith and I listened to it a lot when I was cat-sitting in Winchester. At one minute-fifty, this is the shortest song on this years 100.
098 Boris * Pink
indecipherable Japanese lyrics
One of the very first songs I listened to in 2007, let alone listened to the first time. I remember downloading it just before New Years Eve last year after getting lifts to Borders with Richard Morgan on two successive days because the buses were cancelled. This is one hell of a song.
097 Alasdair Roberts * Where Twines the Path
"listen to our language lose it's former grammar"
An ongoing theme in this years chart are the precedence of good, hearty accents of the representative vocalists. Swedish, English, Southern States and Danish all get a look in, but the most exciting for me at least, is the return of the proper 'Hoots Man' Scottish brogue. This is the first of four in this years 100. A nonsensical folk song that rhymes "snuffle" with "truffles cluster in the hollow" that could easily be sung by Ralph McTell as it could by a cult Highlands lo-fi allstar.
096 Arthur Russell * She's The Star / I Take This Time
"She's thinks of us as friends"
Two songs for the price of one. This is one of the few songs I've discovered through listening to the radio. I think I prefer 'I take this time' and often wish it came before 'She's the Star' because the sentiment of the two titles work better in reverse, but that's the way it happened, so who am I to change it? This is one of the less straightforward songs I've liked this year, but that makes it no less damaging. 2007 has been quite an inaffectual year for me, with precious few specific memories I can attribute to each song, although I do recally sitting in the living room in Rhymney Street listening to this, around September time,
095 Okkervil River * John Allyn Smith Sails
"I feel so broke up, I want to go home"
Another two songs for the price of one.I saw Okkervil River live this year, finally. In the worst catch up in history because everybody and their dog I've ever met has seen them a least twice before, but I finally got to see them this year, after three and a half years. And they were shite. It didn't help much that they were trying to promote a lacklustre album and couldn't hold a tune for more than two bars. However, and this is a relatively large 'However', this was just about the only track they managed to hold together, presumable because it's basically a cover of 'Sloop Jon B' with the introduction to 'Black Sheep Boy' tacked on the beginning.
094 Grinderman * No Pussy Blues
"I played her guitar by the hour, I petted her revolting little chihuahua"
Easily the best thing Nick Cave's put his name to in about six years, and that includes The Proposition. As well. As entertaining a song as a raving drunk with a hard-on ranting about how he hasn't had any for ages could possibly be, with Nick Cave in classic pantomime mode, swaggering over what sounds like a combination of fifteen typewriters being jumped on, and someone feedbacking into an oscillator. Completely ridiculous, and a fitting soundtrack to driving down to the bay just before the Cardiff sort began.
093 Fall Out Boy * Thriller
"Y'all F.O.B!"
A Fall Out Boy song with a rapped introduction by Jay-Z, about the pressures of fame. Amazing. Next!
092 Iron and Wine * Flightless Bird, American Mouth
"Now I'm a fat house cat, nursing my sore blunt tongue"
One of the many US indie 'big-hitters' who served up disappointing new albums on a platter this year (see also; Modest Mouse, Okkervil River, Arcade Fire et al), this was the stand out track by an alt. country mile, by a) sounding a bit like 'If I could turn back the hands of time' by R Kelly, whilst simultaneously being an impenetrable metaphor about dustbowl America and the plight of Sam Beams life and loves using a cat / mouse / dead bird theme. Probably. This is another cat-sitting classic.
091 Hello Saferide * I Thought You Said Summer Was Going to Take The Pain Away
"why am I not like the others, and why are you not here with me doing crossword puzzles?"
This year I went to Sweden with my then girlfriend Gemma. Sweden is probably the most terrific place in the world. A place where theme parks with green rabbits in have hand-prints of the stars (including Leonard Cohen) around a themed fountain that 'dances' to the Superman theme tune. A place where river rapids rides hurtle around corners to instrumental versions of 'It's a Sin'. A place where you can find Six By Seven albums for £1 in giant department stores. A place that shows 'Bones' and cop shows with Kris Marshall in at 6 in the evening. There are a lot of Swedish songs featured on the chart this year. This is the first, and was not elevated above the many other good Hello Saferide songs because of it's title at all. This was also the first track on my 'Swedish Hearts' mix CD which my dad didn't like.
090 Kind of Like Spitting * St Swithin's Day
"I just can't bring myself to answer your letters"
A live mp3 of the greatest break-up song of all time, being sung by what sounds like Jeff Mangum yelling beneath an overpass. I've still yet to hear a bad cover of 'St Swithin's Day'. A song for the walk home,.
089 Marissa Nadler * Dying Breed
"Red is the colour of memory"
Very much a november song, ridiculously over-long loaded up playlists to listen to washing the dishes, having to dry my hands every time to turn off the screen saver to check the song titles. I like the way this song sounds like it's been recorded on a sinking ship.
088 Martha Tilston and the Woods * Kinvarna
"I hold my plastic camera up to the dirty glass"
Kate Rusby steals the headlines, but 'Of Milkmaids and Architects' by Martha Tilston outdoes the former in the forefront of acceptable radio 2 folk. As is customary when discussing folk songs, the highlighted twee British subject matter mentioned here is 'the abbey walls', although she does that radio 2 thing of justaposing things like plastic cameras and things to 'contemporise'. Similarly customary with folk songs, despite listening to this more on the streets of Cardiff than anywhere, this reminds me of the bus journey out into the valleys, which I stopped doing on a daily basis this year.
087 Midlake * Head Home
"She reads Leviathan"
Since Uncut stated theming their CDs with things like "the 20 boring shitters who inspired Led Zepellin", and stopped writing aticles about cinema because you had to buy the seperate film magazine, thus creating two crap magazines from one awesome one, like an earthworm with two tails. My point is that this might be the last good song I ever hear from a copy of Uncut. In all honesty, I can't remember why I bought the magazine in the first place, I can assume it wasn't because I wanted to read another article about what Peter Hook thinks about John Lennon's solo career. They don't even bang on about Americana anymore. You know those mornings in the first couple of weeks of January, when you get up, get dressed, walk to work, start work and about an hour later the sun finally rises. That's the time for this.
086 Pelle Carlberg * Go To Hell, Miss Rydell
"They say the pen is mightier than the sword. And I know that feeling, that devestating feeling, because I have been stabbed before"
Swedish. A 'hilarious' song that ultimately ends up more poignant than it's intention, due to quadruple levels of irony involved: Miss Rydell is a music journalist, who slags off Pelle Carlberg, and this song details his rage at her for the review, and the subsequent communication. Pelle Carlberg is essentially an underachieving Swedish indie singer-songwriter who writes songs about being an underachieving singer-songwriter, and basically self-fulfils his own prophecy permenantly. If he didn't have kids, it's be a laugh riot.
085 Jason Isbell * Chicago Promenade
"My back was turned, I did not see"
"Sirens of the Ditch" is one of my albums of the year, which is not going to change anyone's life, although since good as they are, The Drive By Truckers have yet to release a continuously indepensible album, goes to show where the talent in that outfit used to be. This is 'Blue Collar Indie', the best genre of music ever, which I've endeavoured to make additions to this year. See also; Jason Anderson, Minus the Bear.
084 Hellsongs * Seek and Destroy
"Our brains are on fire with the feeling to kill"
Swedish. A ludicrous Metallica cover by a bunch of twee losers that Luke Pavey (big Metallica fan) barely recognised when I played it at Grace and Gemmas graduation party. This was my official song for the night of the Harry Potter 7 launch at Borders in LLantrisant. £4000 in 50 minutes, all identical transactions, and a bunch of horrible children in witch costumes generally ruining my life, and catching out my lack of Potter knowledge. Hannah's 'inappropriate' costume, the night Morgan became Bobby Davro hosting a quiz, and some of the Rhondda Valley's most terrifying, all coming out to play.
083 Peter, Bjorn and John * Up Against the Wall
"I almost wish we hadn't met at all"
Swedish. Everyone talks about 'Young Folks' like it's a revolutionary song that's made everyones lives better. It's not. At best, it's an averagely good radio-friendly indie hit which builders can whistle. It's also only got a lifespan of about 20 listens before you want to garot Peter, Bjorn, John and the woman.After Radio 1 picked it up, suicide beckoned too, Conveniently, the rest of album has some real gemstones hidden away, not least this seven minute epic, which works perfectly as an album closer and opener, from a mixtape point of view, and it more than enough evidence that people should still, in 2007, look beyond the 'hit.
082 Leonard Cohen * Avalanche
"When I am on a pedestal, you did not raise me there"
There really is nothing like buying 'Songs of Love and Hate' on the same day as getting ditched. Weird thing is, I bought the album beforehand. I've always loved the cover of 'Songs of Love and Hate', Much like the cover of 'The River' by Bruce Springsteen looks like could be the cinema poster for a Robert Mitchum b-movie in the vain of 'Night of the Hunter', the cover of Songs of Love.. could easily be a long lost sequel to Nosferatu, starring noted Swedish theme park visitor... Leonard Cohen!
081 Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark * Maid of Orleans
"Her dream's to give her heart away"
FACT OMD are amazing. FACT they were one of the most talked about bands of the early eighties and their masterpiece album was called 'Architecture and Morality' and was about just that. FACT they released two top 20 singles in successfion, both about Joan of Arc (of which this is the better). FACT they shit on Joy Division, The Cure AND The Smiths. FACT the re-release of aforementioned album was one of the best CD releases of 2007 bar none, regardless of it's age and credibility. This oddly reminds me of buying food in the takeaway on Salisbury road, which I don't remember doing on my own at any point (due to the social stigma of being since alone in a takeaway), but I must have done.
080 Jens Lekman * A Sweet Summers Night on Hammer Hill
"Oh I still remember 'Regulate' with Warren G"
Swedish. We didn't listen to much music when we were in Sweden, but I still had this in my head for the majority of the time we were there. The fact it was the hottest weather in Gothenburg for 60 years meant there was a kind of party atmosphere in places, particularly around the stadium when 'Monster Jam' was there, and the kids by the crazy golf course in the park. Oddly, this was one of my least favourite Jens Lekman songs until about a week before we left, but memories and atmosphere can play havoc on your tastes.
079 Blonde Redhead * 23
"How many times? As long as you wish"
Worth a million Asobi Seksu's, this particular song reminds me of travelling back to Winchester on the train, the day before travelling up to Leeds for my Grandads funeral.I was reading 'And then we came to the end' by Joshua Ferris (Douglas Coupland- lite picked up by Richard and Judy for their spring book club, bizarrely) during that train journey, and the whole of '23' makes good reading music, because it's energetic without being obtusive, dreamy without being forgettable. I didn't go on enough train journeys this year.
078 Richard Thompson * Guns are the Tongues
"Bring peace to the grave of my father, bring peace to the grave of my brother"
By far and away the best song he's put his name to in a ridiculously long time, and the best song song on a fantastic album that nobody, including Richard Thompson himself, knew was coming out. I just turned up at work one day, and wow, a new Richard Thompson album, and he announced a tour the next day. This reminds me of loads of incredibly tedious work-related matters which aren't worth explaining in any detail, but it involved shifting the science, maths, religion and history sections in order to create a biography section upstairs. Which took about a week, This song marks some unintentional frat-boy humour about 'wanting to smell (your) love on my fingers". Ho ho ho.
077 Fucked Up * Crusades
"We died, then we're born again."
ANY punk song that starts with a spoken word quote from Corinthians over a guitar impersonating a motorcycle revving, and then explodes into an Arthur Baker 12" remix of a Ramones track with a bloated Deryck Wibley being bagpiped over the top, before breaking it's own legs and freefalling into a completely outrageous middle section which nobody's expecting, and then neatly severs itself at the 6:44 mark after the worst most illogical stadium chant, is going to be special. The fact that it's THIS special, is a gift to us all from Fucked Up
076 Shout Out Louds * Impossible
"you're just like your mother, I'm just the same as the others"
Swedish. This is a BIG song. I downloaded 'Our Ill Wills' by the Shout Out Louds one weekend when I was at home in Winchester. It might have been the same weeknd as my Grandad's funeral, but I remember listening to this on my CD player on the train home, and I think for Grandads funeral, I still had Gemmas mp3 player. I forget. I remember buying a Subway sandwich from the shop on the corner opposite the bus stop, and then I tried to eat it on the train, and got my bags, and shirt, and jacket covered in meatball and lettuce and cheese, because no matter how careful you think you are, the rickety 122 bus to Tonypandy is no place to keep an unsteady Subway, steady.
Instrumental
Black Dice have cropped up in my end-of-year lists a surprising number of times, considering having been listening to them for nearly five years, they've still not even remotely approached a catchy song. This track is unique for being such a haggard mess I didn't even realise I had a warped mp3 of it until about the tenth listen. This is about as close to acessable as Black Dice have managed to date. Give it until 2112, and they might get near a tune. Interestingly, I was in HMV the other day, and they were playing tracks off Screamadelica over the top of this on my headphones. I've never been more glad I don't take drugs.
099 Emperor X * Raytracer
"Did you ever make out on the capitol steps with an AK-47 holding Marxist girl?"
Say, what so you do when The Mountain Goats are on a year off? Listen to their largely inferior and similar-sounding comrades in the war of acoustic wit. This references Elliot Smith and I listened to it a lot when I was cat-sitting in Winchester. At one minute-fifty, this is the shortest song on this years 100.
098 Boris * Pink
indecipherable Japanese lyrics
One of the very first songs I listened to in 2007, let alone listened to the first time. I remember downloading it just before New Years Eve last year after getting lifts to Borders with Richard Morgan on two successive days because the buses were cancelled. This is one hell of a song.
097 Alasdair Roberts * Where Twines the Path
"listen to our language lose it's former grammar"
An ongoing theme in this years chart are the precedence of good, hearty accents of the representative vocalists. Swedish, English, Southern States and Danish all get a look in, but the most exciting for me at least, is the return of the proper 'Hoots Man' Scottish brogue. This is the first of four in this years 100. A nonsensical folk song that rhymes "snuffle" with "truffles cluster in the hollow" that could easily be sung by Ralph McTell as it could by a cult Highlands lo-fi allstar.
096 Arthur Russell * She's The Star / I Take This Time
"She's thinks of us as friends"
Two songs for the price of one. This is one of the few songs I've discovered through listening to the radio. I think I prefer 'I take this time' and often wish it came before 'She's the Star' because the sentiment of the two titles work better in reverse, but that's the way it happened, so who am I to change it? This is one of the less straightforward songs I've liked this year, but that makes it no less damaging. 2007 has been quite an inaffectual year for me, with precious few specific memories I can attribute to each song, although I do recally sitting in the living room in Rhymney Street listening to this, around September time,
095 Okkervil River * John Allyn Smith Sails
"I feel so broke up, I want to go home"
Another two songs for the price of one.I saw Okkervil River live this year, finally. In the worst catch up in history because everybody and their dog I've ever met has seen them a least twice before, but I finally got to see them this year, after three and a half years. And they were shite. It didn't help much that they were trying to promote a lacklustre album and couldn't hold a tune for more than two bars. However, and this is a relatively large 'However', this was just about the only track they managed to hold together, presumable because it's basically a cover of 'Sloop Jon B' with the introduction to 'Black Sheep Boy' tacked on the beginning.
094 Grinderman * No Pussy Blues
"I played her guitar by the hour, I petted her revolting little chihuahua"
Easily the best thing Nick Cave's put his name to in about six years, and that includes The Proposition. As well. As entertaining a song as a raving drunk with a hard-on ranting about how he hasn't had any for ages could possibly be, with Nick Cave in classic pantomime mode, swaggering over what sounds like a combination of fifteen typewriters being jumped on, and someone feedbacking into an oscillator. Completely ridiculous, and a fitting soundtrack to driving down to the bay just before the Cardiff sort began.
093 Fall Out Boy * Thriller
"Y'all F.O.B!"
A Fall Out Boy song with a rapped introduction by Jay-Z, about the pressures of fame. Amazing. Next!
092 Iron and Wine * Flightless Bird, American Mouth
"Now I'm a fat house cat, nursing my sore blunt tongue"
One of the many US indie 'big-hitters' who served up disappointing new albums on a platter this year (see also; Modest Mouse, Okkervil River, Arcade Fire et al), this was the stand out track by an alt. country mile, by a) sounding a bit like 'If I could turn back the hands of time' by R Kelly, whilst simultaneously being an impenetrable metaphor about dustbowl America and the plight of Sam Beams life and loves using a cat / mouse / dead bird theme. Probably. This is another cat-sitting classic.
091 Hello Saferide * I Thought You Said Summer Was Going to Take The Pain Away
"why am I not like the others, and why are you not here with me doing crossword puzzles?"
This year I went to Sweden with my then girlfriend Gemma. Sweden is probably the most terrific place in the world. A place where theme parks with green rabbits in have hand-prints of the stars (including Leonard Cohen) around a themed fountain that 'dances' to the Superman theme tune. A place where river rapids rides hurtle around corners to instrumental versions of 'It's a Sin'. A place where you can find Six By Seven albums for £1 in giant department stores. A place that shows 'Bones' and cop shows with Kris Marshall in at 6 in the evening. There are a lot of Swedish songs featured on the chart this year. This is the first, and was not elevated above the many other good Hello Saferide songs because of it's title at all. This was also the first track on my 'Swedish Hearts' mix CD which my dad didn't like.
090 Kind of Like Spitting * St Swithin's Day
"I just can't bring myself to answer your letters"
A live mp3 of the greatest break-up song of all time, being sung by what sounds like Jeff Mangum yelling beneath an overpass. I've still yet to hear a bad cover of 'St Swithin's Day'. A song for the walk home,.
089 Marissa Nadler * Dying Breed
"Red is the colour of memory"
Very much a november song, ridiculously over-long loaded up playlists to listen to washing the dishes, having to dry my hands every time to turn off the screen saver to check the song titles. I like the way this song sounds like it's been recorded on a sinking ship.
088 Martha Tilston and the Woods * Kinvarna
"I hold my plastic camera up to the dirty glass"
Kate Rusby steals the headlines, but 'Of Milkmaids and Architects' by Martha Tilston outdoes the former in the forefront of acceptable radio 2 folk. As is customary when discussing folk songs, the highlighted twee British subject matter mentioned here is 'the abbey walls', although she does that radio 2 thing of justaposing things like plastic cameras and things to 'contemporise'. Similarly customary with folk songs, despite listening to this more on the streets of Cardiff than anywhere, this reminds me of the bus journey out into the valleys, which I stopped doing on a daily basis this year.
087 Midlake * Head Home
"She reads Leviathan"
Since Uncut stated theming their CDs with things like "the 20 boring shitters who inspired Led Zepellin", and stopped writing aticles about cinema because you had to buy the seperate film magazine, thus creating two crap magazines from one awesome one, like an earthworm with two tails. My point is that this might be the last good song I ever hear from a copy of Uncut. In all honesty, I can't remember why I bought the magazine in the first place, I can assume it wasn't because I wanted to read another article about what Peter Hook thinks about John Lennon's solo career. They don't even bang on about Americana anymore. You know those mornings in the first couple of weeks of January, when you get up, get dressed, walk to work, start work and about an hour later the sun finally rises. That's the time for this.
086 Pelle Carlberg * Go To Hell, Miss Rydell
"They say the pen is mightier than the sword. And I know that feeling, that devestating feeling, because I have been stabbed before"
Swedish. A 'hilarious' song that ultimately ends up more poignant than it's intention, due to quadruple levels of irony involved: Miss Rydell is a music journalist, who slags off Pelle Carlberg, and this song details his rage at her for the review, and the subsequent communication. Pelle Carlberg is essentially an underachieving Swedish indie singer-songwriter who writes songs about being an underachieving singer-songwriter, and basically self-fulfils his own prophecy permenantly. If he didn't have kids, it's be a laugh riot.
085 Jason Isbell * Chicago Promenade
"My back was turned, I did not see"
"Sirens of the Ditch" is one of my albums of the year, which is not going to change anyone's life, although since good as they are, The Drive By Truckers have yet to release a continuously indepensible album, goes to show where the talent in that outfit used to be. This is 'Blue Collar Indie', the best genre of music ever, which I've endeavoured to make additions to this year. See also; Jason Anderson, Minus the Bear.
084 Hellsongs * Seek and Destroy
"Our brains are on fire with the feeling to kill"
Swedish. A ludicrous Metallica cover by a bunch of twee losers that Luke Pavey (big Metallica fan) barely recognised when I played it at Grace and Gemmas graduation party. This was my official song for the night of the Harry Potter 7 launch at Borders in LLantrisant. £4000 in 50 minutes, all identical transactions, and a bunch of horrible children in witch costumes generally ruining my life, and catching out my lack of Potter knowledge. Hannah's 'inappropriate' costume, the night Morgan became Bobby Davro hosting a quiz, and some of the Rhondda Valley's most terrifying, all coming out to play.
083 Peter, Bjorn and John * Up Against the Wall
"I almost wish we hadn't met at all"
Swedish. Everyone talks about 'Young Folks' like it's a revolutionary song that's made everyones lives better. It's not. At best, it's an averagely good radio-friendly indie hit which builders can whistle. It's also only got a lifespan of about 20 listens before you want to garot Peter, Bjorn, John and the woman.After Radio 1 picked it up, suicide beckoned too, Conveniently, the rest of album has some real gemstones hidden away, not least this seven minute epic, which works perfectly as an album closer and opener, from a mixtape point of view, and it more than enough evidence that people should still, in 2007, look beyond the 'hit.
082 Leonard Cohen * Avalanche
"When I am on a pedestal, you did not raise me there"
There really is nothing like buying 'Songs of Love and Hate' on the same day as getting ditched. Weird thing is, I bought the album beforehand. I've always loved the cover of 'Songs of Love and Hate', Much like the cover of 'The River' by Bruce Springsteen looks like could be the cinema poster for a Robert Mitchum b-movie in the vain of 'Night of the Hunter', the cover of Songs of Love.. could easily be a long lost sequel to Nosferatu, starring noted Swedish theme park visitor... Leonard Cohen!
081 Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark * Maid of Orleans
"Her dream's to give her heart away"
FACT OMD are amazing. FACT they were one of the most talked about bands of the early eighties and their masterpiece album was called 'Architecture and Morality' and was about just that. FACT they released two top 20 singles in successfion, both about Joan of Arc (of which this is the better). FACT they shit on Joy Division, The Cure AND The Smiths. FACT the re-release of aforementioned album was one of the best CD releases of 2007 bar none, regardless of it's age and credibility. This oddly reminds me of buying food in the takeaway on Salisbury road, which I don't remember doing on my own at any point (due to the social stigma of being since alone in a takeaway), but I must have done.
080 Jens Lekman * A Sweet Summers Night on Hammer Hill
"Oh I still remember 'Regulate' with Warren G"
Swedish. We didn't listen to much music when we were in Sweden, but I still had this in my head for the majority of the time we were there. The fact it was the hottest weather in Gothenburg for 60 years meant there was a kind of party atmosphere in places, particularly around the stadium when 'Monster Jam' was there, and the kids by the crazy golf course in the park. Oddly, this was one of my least favourite Jens Lekman songs until about a week before we left, but memories and atmosphere can play havoc on your tastes.
079 Blonde Redhead * 23
"How many times? As long as you wish"
Worth a million Asobi Seksu's, this particular song reminds me of travelling back to Winchester on the train, the day before travelling up to Leeds for my Grandads funeral.I was reading 'And then we came to the end' by Joshua Ferris (Douglas Coupland- lite picked up by Richard and Judy for their spring book club, bizarrely) during that train journey, and the whole of '23' makes good reading music, because it's energetic without being obtusive, dreamy without being forgettable. I didn't go on enough train journeys this year.
078 Richard Thompson * Guns are the Tongues
"Bring peace to the grave of my father, bring peace to the grave of my brother"
By far and away the best song he's put his name to in a ridiculously long time, and the best song song on a fantastic album that nobody, including Richard Thompson himself, knew was coming out. I just turned up at work one day, and wow, a new Richard Thompson album, and he announced a tour the next day. This reminds me of loads of incredibly tedious work-related matters which aren't worth explaining in any detail, but it involved shifting the science, maths, religion and history sections in order to create a biography section upstairs. Which took about a week, This song marks some unintentional frat-boy humour about 'wanting to smell (your) love on my fingers". Ho ho ho.
077 Fucked Up * Crusades
"We died, then we're born again."
ANY punk song that starts with a spoken word quote from Corinthians over a guitar impersonating a motorcycle revving, and then explodes into an Arthur Baker 12" remix of a Ramones track with a bloated Deryck Wibley being bagpiped over the top, before breaking it's own legs and freefalling into a completely outrageous middle section which nobody's expecting, and then neatly severs itself at the 6:44 mark after the worst most illogical stadium chant, is going to be special. The fact that it's THIS special, is a gift to us all from Fucked Up
076 Shout Out Louds * Impossible
"you're just like your mother, I'm just the same as the others"
Swedish. This is a BIG song. I downloaded 'Our Ill Wills' by the Shout Out Louds one weekend when I was at home in Winchester. It might have been the same weeknd as my Grandad's funeral, but I remember listening to this on my CD player on the train home, and I think for Grandads funeral, I still had Gemmas mp3 player. I forget. I remember buying a Subway sandwich from the shop on the corner opposite the bus stop, and then I tried to eat it on the train, and got my bags, and shirt, and jacket covered in meatball and lettuce and cheese, because no matter how careful you think you are, the rickety 122 bus to Tonypandy is no place to keep an unsteady Subway, steady.
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