Gertsamtkunstwerk

This means nothing to me...

Near hits - an exploration of the 'Vienna' phenemon.

Years ago, Neil Farebrother made his debut for Lancashire. He was on 99 NO when Lancashire declared. I moaned about how unfair that was - the captain should have at least waited until he made his century, but my father commented that he would be more remembered for making 99 NO in a declaration.

And let's face it, everybody knows Vienna ought to have been number one when Shuddup Your Face was.

I got a tad alarmed in conversation with someone a few weeks back, someone I regard as being *about* my age, who commented that Shuddup Your Face was number one when she was born. I realised that I am probably older that I like to think I am.

Queens of Pop

First up, we have Madonna's Immaculate Collection. I have some more Madonna in other parts of my collection. Purchase of this CD was a watershed. I don't like anything she did after this. Prior to this, she had been a bit of a goddess. The Spice Girls may have had Girl Power in the Nineties, but that was an entirely unconvincing marketing ploy. Madonna circa 1985-86 demonstrated the power of a woman. This album is a sort of Greatest Hits. Yup, a Greatest Hits album that conveniently chops off the past fourteen years of her career.

The sort of record that makes me feel that I can dance. And that I'm young and sexy. Scrub that, I'm so much more sexier than I was fifteen-twenty years ago. Individually great tracks include:

• Get Into The Groove - I so wanted to be like her in Desperately Seeking Susan. She was the first to wear her underwear on the ouside. It was bleeding edge in 1985. Passe in 2004
• Live To Tell - just because, surely this has to be in my Top Fifty?
• Like A Virgin - because it sounds fresh now, as if heard for the very first time
• La Isla Bonita
• Papa Don't Preach
• Like a Prayer - one of my Top Twenty Two. The very best aspect of this rather marvellous song is the fact there are at least ten different tempi in it, each one slightly quickly, and with a different rhythm; melody-wise it's very simple, but the rhythm never recapitulates, very reminiscent of good sex - hmm, no wonder it was called blasphemous!
• Crazy For You, and
• Holiday

You know, I started this post by thinking I would write *Oh, I used to love Madonna back in the Eighties but playing this record has made me realise just how naff and dated she is*. I feel the complete opposite now I have played it - that list above is part of the soundtrack of part of my life.

The other Pop Queen is Kate Bush with her "The Whole Story". It isn't, actually, because it was compiled in 1986. It opens with Wuthering Heights. Those of us of a certain age will remember the impact that this unusual, inspired song, sung by the wild-haired Ms Bush. I was far too young to have read the book. I fell in love with it a few years later (Thanks Miss D., the best English teacher!). To this day I think my love of the book was subconsciously at least partly inspired by this song. It's not just the song - many people have tried to cover it, and whilst they never sound bad, they only serve to show the talent in the original.

The Man With A Child In His Eye seemed very reassuring to an innocent ten-year old. I'm not so sure now. I also like Babooshka. However, the quality of the tape is so poor that I have just irdered a replacement CD. and another CD, and two DVDs. So although Kate Bush only costs £7, I've just committed to £58.

Could somebody please shut Amazon down. It's another 18 months until I get to remortgage my house.

I was disturbed as a stude when my friend Andrew produced some evidence to show that Kate Bush was related to the then President of the United States. something to do with Kent, and an unusual surname. I don't know whether it's true, but it's even more disturbing now...

Kirsty MacColl and the Pogues

By happy coincidence, my CD Of Galore, The Best of Kirsty MacColl, and my taped-off-vinyl of Rum, Sodomy and the Lash get to be played in close proximity.

Kirsty MacColl is in that great league of artists that I would surely have bought Albums if I had had the money. So the production of a Greatest Hits was fortuitous. There's not a bad song on it. I remember precisely where I was when I heard of her death - in the front seat of a 45 bus outside my then office on Walworth Road, on the phone to Jimmy. I let out a cry of anguish.

One of the greatest song titles of all time, "There's a Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis" , gets me on my feet rockin' and a reelin' to the clangy piano. Energy energy energy.

I love They Don't Know , which was capably covered by Tracey Ullmann, but Kirsty's original is better. Then there is Don't Come the Cowboy with Me, Sunny Jim, which is possibly the weakest track on the album, but if you could see Jimmy right now, out in the garden in a plaid shirt and jeans, you would find it funny.

This album demonstrates not only that Kirsty was a great songwriter, but also she was a not inconsiderable coverer of great tracks by greats eg You Just Haven't Earned It Yet Baby (Morrissey and Marr - the epitome of great songtitle writers), and New England (Billy Bragg). Not to mention the Perfect Day duet with Evan Dando, a man with a haunting voice, singing a haunting song. I was so annoyed when this became popular due to a)Trainspotting and b) that great BBC trailer-cum-charidee fundraiser that had thirty zillion artists singing it. There was also the Harry Enfield version, with all his various characters singing. Still, I think Kirsty and Evan are the match of Lou Reed.

And the song that links the two artists in the title - Fairytale of New York. This is on my list of Twenty Two top songs of all time. (My father was also inordinately fond of it). There is an irony that Shane McGowan still lives whilst Kirsty doesn't - a Dead Pool a few years back saw most of us sharing out The Queen Mum, Pope, Thatcher, Reagan etc. One friend insisted he would win with Shane McGowan. Still he goes on...

This is a song I would love to do at a karaoke (if I did karaoke), if I could find someone to be my Shane. Or maybe I could be Shane and find someone to be my Kirsty. But then I would miss out on the opportunity to sing

You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas your arse
And thank God it's our last

I'm surprised Mike Read didn't ban it from Radio One.

Rum, Sodomy and the Lash contains a plethora of songs that I am convinced are genuine Irish folksongs and, (say it quietly), are much much better than Irish folk songs.

The album opens with the immortal line

McCormack and Richard Tauber are singing by the bed...

Immortal, because John McCormack is a running joke in our family. My Uncle Noel, thirty-plus years dead was a an obsessive John McCormack fan, to the extent that my cousins used to flee the house on the (frequent) occasions that his records were played. My father had a liking, too, although not to the point of obsession. He was not to my taste - indeed, I couldn't bear to listen to him singing. Mind you, the discography is interesting eg Cylinder Recordings 1904-1906. And look at the variable speeds. I bet I am the only person of my age (and you, now that I've told you) that knows that 78s didn't all play at anything like 78rpm....

Fairly recently, my mother offloaded all the John McCormack 78s to a dealer somewhere. My cousin was outraged - she's become all nostalgic for them, despite a traumatic teenage spent fleeing the house.

Back to the Pogues. I spent very many hours travelling between Manchester and Nottingham with this album playing in my head. I must express my gratitude to Dave, Mike and Andrew, whose attempts to de-mainstream my musical tastes never proceded much beyond Billy Bragg and the Pogues. But what a jolly good job they did with these two.

I remember venturing into the City of Salford (quite a risk for a nice Sale girl). My mission was the Manchester United training ground, The Cliff. I remember walking down Lower Broughton Road with 'Dirty Old Town' playing in my ears, and getting excited because I was actually listening to it in Salford. It was, of course, written by Ewan MacColl, Kirsty's father - another great favourite of my father's.

And the greatest track on this album is "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda". A brief history here about this moving song, and news story about the State Funeral given to Australia's last Gallipoli veteran. I wonder if Britain will be brave enough to give a State Funeral when our last World War One veteran dies?

Hmm, I'm sure I promised you loads of proof of me being an Eighties Pop Tart. I bet you think I'm a folky at heart. Maybe I am...

Sir William of Bragg

A true and sadly under-rated National Treasure. I am currently playing through his music I have on tape - the CDs will come at some other time, probably in about 2006.

The first tape was recorded off my dear friend Andrew T when we were at Uni. At about the same time that I saw Billy opening the Red Wedge concert, three days before the '87 election. It consists of Life's A Riot and Brewing Up, with some additional odds and sods

When I took this tape out of its case, I decided that I would play one track before all the rest. Fortuitously, and showing great foresight on my part, the tape was positioned at exactly the right place to play the anthemic Between The Wars, which, incidentally, is one of my Top Twenty-Two. Belting song for belting out in the crowd. I recall that wonderful feeling at Mayday in Finsbury Park in 1997, when I was with Anna and Tilly, wife and daughter of Andrew (who had gone down the front - we stayed back because Tilly was just a few weeks old). Some of the dreams I held in May 1997 have been dashed, but many many more remain. So, the skies are still dark with bombers, but I'll give my consent
To any government
That does not deny a man a living wage

I was a miner I was a docker I was a railway man Between the wars I raised a family In times of austerity With sweat at the foundry Between the wars

I paid the union and as times got harder
I looked to the government to help the working man
And they brought prosperity down at the armoury
We're arming for peace, me boys
Between the wars

I kept the faith and I kept voting
Not for the iron fist but for the helping hand
For theirs is a land with a wall around it
And mine is a faith in my fellow man
Theirs is a land of hope and glory
Mine is the green field and the factory floor
Theirs are the skies all dark with bombers
And mine is the peace we know
Between the wars

Call up the craftsmen
Bring me the draftsmen
Build me a path from cradle to grave
And I'll give my consent
To any government
That does not deny a man a living wage

Go find the young men never to fight again
Bring up the banners from the days gone by
Sweet moderation
Heart of this nation
Desert us not, we are
Between the wars

If there is one artist who, above all, provides the soundtrack to my life, it has to be Billy. Not great music, but compelling. Not a pleasant voice, and that East London accent is not to my taste. And yet, and yet - possibly the greatest poet (Morrissey notwithstanding) of a generation. Not least in his wonderful play on words eg The Milkman of Human Kindness. Or a pinpoint analysis of the degeneracy of the tabloid press:

Where they offer you a feature
On stockings and suspenders
Next to a call for stiffer penalties for sex offenders

A great political balladeer, he is at his superb best when singing melancholy personal ditties, with that soulful voice and tuneful guitar.

In fact, I suggest that if you are not au fait with the work of Billy, you click any two or three of these songs and acknowledge the genius.

The second BB tape I have (taped off vinyl) is Talking With The Taxman About Poetry. All songs v.v. good (hmm, somehow, you just can't imagine that vacuous Bridget Jones listening to Billy...); highlights for me 'Ideology' - great words, fab guitar riff; There Is A Power In A Union; Wishing the Days Away; and the Home Front.

Another two years until I reckon I'll get round to playing Billy again? This All The Records By forty project sucks...

Best Album in the World...Ever

This post was started before both discs of Volume 3 got irretrievably stuck in the soon-to-be-scrapped midi system.

Four different volumes, confusingly not volumed. Eight discs in all. Aptly named. The cream of early-mid 90s rock, with some classics from earlier eras thrown in for good measure. Three or four years ago these were pretty constantly on the CD changer.

Some compilation albums work because, taken in the round, they provide a canvas of pleasure. Others work because they have such a high proportion of really classic tracks. These albums, or, at least, the first three are special becaue they manage to combine both elements. I'm tempted to namecheck tracks such as Ash's Angel Interceptor and Happy Mondays' Kinky Afro, or really really adrenaline-forcing tracks like Pulp's Common People but however good they sound on a compilation album they sound even better on their artist album, but won't because I shall just name the tracks that make me go "Ooh! wow! Yay oh yay!"

Life of Riley - Lightning Seeds
It's Oh So Quiet - Bjork
Little Britain - Dreadzone
Hope Street - The Levellers
Yes - McAlmont/Butler (really wooo!)
Zombie - the Cranberries (seriously woo ee ay yo!)
15 Years - The Levellers
High and Dry - Radiohead
Every Day Is Like Sunday - Morrissey. One of my top twenty two of all time pop songs. I have always thought that this (along with Chris de Burgh's line 'Nothing Quite Like An Out of Season Holiday Town in the Rain') was written about Morecambe, the most god-forsaken seaside town I have ever visited. Sadly, I now think - hope - Morecambe will be remembered for more than two obscure late Eighties pop songs.

Vin-da-loo - Fat Les. Oh what fun we had explaining to two American friends, Megan and Phil, why an England football song should be called Vindaloo. I think we came up with "because it's difficult to get anything to rhyme with chicken tikka masala."

Brimful of Asha - Corner Shop

the rest of kd lang

Angel with a Lariat is one of her earliest albums, and full of some reasonably pleasant self-penned high impact tunes, of which my favourites are Watch Your Step Polka and Tune Into My Wave. What really makes this album for me is the two cover versions. I would sing Rose Garden at a karaoke if a)I ever did karaoke and b) if it was ever an option at the karaokes I don't do. It is immeasurably better than the other version in my collection, by Lynn Anderson. Three Cigarettes In An Ashtray is a soulful and poignant ditty.

Drag is an amazing concept album, one entirely devoted to smoking, which I think was a very brave - or mischievous - disc to bring out in 1997. It would probably be censored by the do-gooders today. Every track is a cover version, and, let's face it, who does covers better than kathy dawn. Even songs like The Joker sound moody and soulful, whereas the original by The Steve Miller Band bugged the bejaysus out of me. The Air That I Breathe leaves me breathless, tingly and swoony.

I don't think I have ever seen the film of Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, so this album was bought sight-unseen, so to speak, Like most film soundtracks, it is a bit patchy, but includes some amazing tracks - Hush Sweet Lover, Sweet Little Cherokee and Curious Soul Astray.

Ingenue is probably her best album, certainly the one with which she broke through with critical acclaim and commercial success. Ideally, it should be played with the lights dimmed. For me, it's great music, to share with a lover, even though the underlying theme is a love that has ended. Probably my favourite track is Miss Chatelaine, but the rest are so superb and mood altering - which is a superior art form to 'good, if I'm in the mood...' that this is definitely a major contender for Gert's top albums of all time!

Shadowland, recorded in 1988, is a collection of cover versions of various country songs, perhaps not the most auspicious description of an album. But the combination of that amazing voice with whining guitar weaves a touch of magic. Highlights include Don't Let the Stars Get In Your Eyes, Tears Don't Care Who Cry Them, I'm Down to My Last Cigarette, and the fabulous Honky Tonk Angels' Medley, featuring Brenda Lee, Loretta Lynn, and Kitty Wells.

And finally, a wonderful world, with tony bennett. I still have the price sticker on - is that as big a faux pas as leaving the price sticker on the bottom of your shoes so that when you kneel at the Communion rail* everyone can see how much you paid for your shoes. More distressing is that the stock-control sticker categorises it as "easy". I don't do Easy, all right? It's inspired by Louis Armstrong, and it is definitely moody bluesy. I'm not a fan of Tony Bennett, but his voice seems to provide an interesting contrast with kd's. It would be tempting to dismiss this as dinner party or coffee table music (is there a difference? if so, what?) but you know how much I absolutely adore everything about kd lang's voice so this is active listening. The best track is What a Wonderful World.

*yes, I know, nobody kneels at the Communion rail these days - but, trust me, it's a long time since I've made a habit of going to church.

Strange bedfellows

Next up in the alphabetical playing of tapes is The Blues Brothers b/w with Paul Simon's Rhythm of the Saints (you will find that in taping, I had no real regard for the alphabet, a fact that troubles me 13-18 years later). I can't imagine the last time I played these - a good few years, I'm guessing

I think I taped The Blues Brothers off my friend Helen-in-Essex, but I can't be sure. There was a mad Blues Brothers craze when I was a student: I think we had numerous Blues Brothers parties round campus. In fact, as write this, I smell a smell which is evocative of those crazy boozy nights and vodka-and-orange. I think as a student I was too young (too immature? insufficiently hedonistic?) to really enjoy the student life. I saw the film once. It was okay, but I've never had a great desire to see it again. Rawhide is quite a good song.

I taped Rhythm of the Saints off Matt. It is entirely unremarkable and totally forgettable.

Bagpipe guitars and rock'n'roll

The next tape contains slightly strange bedfellows, The Crossing by Big Country (taped off Janet C's album) and Bat Out of Hell - Meatloaf (taped off my now brother-in-law's album) both taped just as A Levels finished.

Big Country are one of the most underrated and half forgotten bands of the 80s. But being underrated doesn't mean that they are great. In the summer of 83, wher I think I had uncontrollably lust for way too many men on the telly, I had a serious thing about Stuart Adamson. I was, momentarily, very upset when he died a couple of years back. In A Big Country, Chance, and Porroh Man.

Meatloaf on the other hand is one of the greats of Rock Music. I don't listen often enough to him. This Bat Out of Hell is oneof the best selling albums of all time; it is also one of my favourite. IT was absolute de rigeur to own this in Willoughby Hall 1986-87, along with Chris de Burgh's Into The Light and Dire Straits Brothers in Arms. And there was something rather magical about walking around hearing that real raw, passionate, rocking good love songs belt out from the rooms of Willobites (motto: Nil Taurus Excretum.

Best Tracks - Bat Out Of Hell, Paradise By The Dashboard Light and For Crying Loud - which is barely a cigarette paper away from being in my top twenty two.

My manager went to see Meatloaf just before Christmas, and walked out halfway through due to utter crapness. Sometimes it's best when people realise in time that they should retire.

I always quite fancied being a doo-wop girl for Meatloaf. Or Leonard Cohen. I could never quite decide which one.

Saint Morrissey

The 1980s. Being a teenager. Being a tortured intellectual soul-searching teenager. Who better to speak for us than Morrissey - the fan who became a star?

It was slightly strange, actually. The Smiths were our local band. Morrissey grew up on the same road as my brother-in-law, went to the same primary school as b-in-l, and Mother, and the same primary and secondary schools as my uncle. Mike Joyce lived next door to an elderly couple that Jane 'did' for in her year out before studying Occupational Therapy. Michelle's neighbour had been Andy Rourke's dinner lady at All Saints school. Andy did the same job as my sister, leaving before she started. Steph used to chat to Morrissey in the front garden of his exclusive pop star pad in Hale.

What a shock to reach University and realise that our local band, that everybody 'knew', were absolute gods and idols to the rest of our generation!

More Beatles

I bought an album called Beatles Rock 'n' Roll music in 1980. December 1980. (Significant date). Listening to it, now (for the first time in years) I realise that it's done by session musicians. It's difficult to tell when you are playing a vinyl on the crappiest second hand multichanger mono with a stylus that needed changing probably before I was born. I hate it when record companies do this, and flog their dubious products in Woolworths to unsuspecting pre-teens. But there you go.

The other side of the tape is Paul McCartney's Pipes of Peace. I bought this with Christmas money in O-Level year (1983/4). At the time I really loved it. Now, I realise that every track, except perhaps the title track, is irredeemably forgettable. And the title track is barely mediocre.

I then listened to the White Album. I guess I was not in the mood to listen properly to it, but it did somewhat prove my thesis that The Beatles are rightly held by posterity to be great because such a high proportion of their songs are good or better, compared with, say Madonna or Queen, who produced some storming records but also produced too many mediocres or turkeys.

With the Beatles

Sometime in the early nineties I decided it would be really good to expand my Beatles collection. Lo and behold, I find the next tape to be played includes Revolver which contains some classic songs - Eleanor Rigby, which is an amazing poem with quite a pleasant tune; Here, There and Everywhere, a sweet little love song; Yellow Submarine, a sweet little nursery rhyme (I remember in my first week at Primary School we had a wet lunchtime and one of my classmates had the bright idea that we were all going to draw Yellow Submarines); and For no one, a sweet song about a love that 'could have lasted years', but didn't.

And then you get Sergeant Pepper, which destroys my thesis that the Beatles produced a lot of pleasant tunes but nothing special. What is special about the Beatles is embodied in this album. I was a student when the media were doing "It was twenty years ago today..." and the music sounded fresh then. Sixteen years on, it is still revolutionary, mind blowing...

Listen to the words of She's Leaving Home - the tiny details of domestic mundanity, and the poignant "She's Leaving Home after living alone for so many years..." Or When I'm 64...

Now, I'm betting that somewhere in your collection you have Sergeant Pepper, and I'll also bet that it's a while since you played it. Go on do me a favour, do yourself a favour, take that vinyl out of its sleeve. And th einner sleeve. Blow off the dust. Put it on the turntable. Listen to beautiful music (And sing along - you know the words...). Then come back here and tell me whether your day just got a little bit better!

Blogging the pop music

I have a tape. On one side is a Beatles Greatest Hits taped off my sister who taped it off a friend. Many years ago. On the other side is some of the favourite singles (7" vinyls) that I found in my collection at about the same time.

I’m never really quite sure how to feel about The Beatles, really. They had split up by the time that I became aware of them, so I never had the experience of feeling something fresh and new. There are no Beatles songs I hate and few that I dislike, or leave me indifferent. But I am not sure that there is any Beatles song that affects me emotionally.

However, I am playing my tapes alphabetically, so there's plenty more Beatles to come...

'The Other Side' includes:

• Waves - Blancmange: one of those songs that I spent weeks going round saying 'ooooooh' everytime I heard it. Wonderful to hear it again.
• Sensitive -Mick Karn: one of the most obscure singles I have, and time has not diminished the pleasure of the tune and the melancholy "If you shake their hands and stab them maybe they'll become sensitive"
• Memory - Elaine Paige. OK, I'll admit, I actually do like this. It might have been written for my voice - a belt it out loud, and not too high, except for the "Touch Me..." at the climax, which has a swoop-up to help. Elaine Paige subsequently made a career of appearing on Pebble Mill, and, really, isn't very good. Still, the words are better than most Andrew-Lloyd Webber's songs. I have tried and failed many times to get into TS Eliot. (My mother met him once in a dry-cleaners near Gloucester Road Tube, at about the same time she Flanders and Swann live in concert. We went on pilgrimage to that dry-cleaners about ten years ago.)
• Waterfalls - Paul McCartney I really liked this when it came out; indeed I bought it, but I later worked in a pub called the Bulls Head and this was on a tape that played about four songs on a constant reel throughout the summer and Christmas vacations of 1987. It bugged the life out of me and I realise still that I actively dislike it. We visited that same pub on New Years Eve afternoon. It was a most weird experience, partly because they had changed the layout. Still, I had a pleasant glass of light mild and remembered never to go back to the past
• Crying - Don McLean. I subsequently bought the kd lang/Roy Orbison version which is superbly excellent, but this is good. Many years ago I tried my hand at writing stories based on songs ie what caused the song to be written, or what happened next. This was really quite inspirational. Shame that I threw out that notebook in a fit of *I'm grown up now so don't need the fiction I wrote at age 13*
• Joan of Arc/Maid of Orleans - Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Two of the prime examples of the beauty of 80s electronic music. And two incredibly ugly geeky guys, who would never make it now...
• It's My Party (And I’ll Cry If I Want To ) - Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin - one of the best intros of any pop songs...EVER! And absolutely loaded with teenagey angst
• Total Eclipse of the Heart - Bonnie Tyler. A gloriously OTT Jim Steinman (best known for his work with Meatloaf) creation
• No Regrets - Midge Ure - see comments for OMD. Although Midge isn't ugly or geeky

Air Supply

Their greatest hits was given to me by Andrew, erstwhile boyfriend of my sister and of my onetime best friend. For a while, Andrew was a bessie mate.

He wasn't really giving me Air Supply,. It just happened to be on the other side of the tape that had a Brian May album on. All that remains of Brian May is Starfleet and Let Me Out. The rest was dire, so in a moment of extreme poverty* I used it to tape some hits off the radio.

It was slightly distracting, because he called round to give me a tape moments before an Adam and the Ants was being shown on the TV - in the days before video...

I've never really made my mind up about Air Supply, nor REO Speedwagon and Chicago, with whom I often confuse them. In no way do they fit my image or my demographic profile - but I stopped bothering about that twenty years ago.

All of their songs have nice tunes and words with meanings. But the voice of the lead singer gets very grating. I couldn't bear to hear them live - I'm not sure what would be bug me most, his voice or the thought of being surrounded by slightly autistic denim-clad males of un age certain with shapeless beards and headhair.

The words speak very powerfully to a teenager who is learning about love and emotions etc. I'm afraid now I am older and wiser more cynical, they just come over as sickly sweet schmaltz.

* it wasn't really extreme - I had shelter food clothes education etc etc but the pocket money didn't stretch to buying a blank tape cassette.

All You Can Eat

Undoubtedly kd lang's worst album. See Mike's comment on a previous post.

When I read the comment, I wondered what he meant, but thought it a bit harsh. Having spent 36 minutes listening to unvarying dirge, I realised that I have played this album rarely, and only when playing all albums in a sequence - I have never impulsively put it on the stereo.

A few days ago I played a double compilation: Acoustic 2, which is a singularly pleasant listen, taken in the round, with some exceedingly pleasant tracks: Drift wood, Have A Nice Day, Thank You, Emergency 72, She Cries your name, Brown Eyed Girl (eventhogh blue-eyed girls are much better, Everybody`s Talkin, Shine, Catch the wind, and Days.

Top Albums

Rolling Stone reveals top 500 albums ever

I have 6 of the Top 50, but, I have to say, it's a very partial list. It's basically a list of albums that you would expect middle-class white men between about 39 and 54 to own, comprising only 3 female artists. Nothing has gone through my mind as being a "But surely they should have included..." I don't think that it adds anything to the common weal to compile a list like this. In fact I find it somewhat irritating, reminding me for all the world of certain men I knew, especially at University, who chose their music collection, and criticised mine, on the basis of the image it projected, whereas I chose mine because I liked it.

Strip and Singles

More Adam. A tape that has on one side, Strip, and on the other side, the Antmusic EP (hands up all those under thirty who even know what an EP is), and various B sides.

Strip continues that jazz funky thang started on Prince Charming. Strip could almost be described as a concept album in that it has an ongoing theme running through it - erotic or even kinky sex. Except for the one track that was released as a single, Puss 'N Boots (and maybe there was a subliminal message there). But, in the end, Strip was a pretty forgettable album.

It is educating and liberating when you are about fifteen or whatever to hear this kind of stuff and know that however salacious the words, the music makes it seem really quite pleasant.

The B sides (and this is really just for the aficionados are:

• Juanito the Bandito
• Kiss the Drummer
• Physical (You're So)
• Red Scab
• Press Darlings
• Christian D'Or
• Beat My Guest
• Whip In My Valise

Listening to some of these now, I wonder whether it was a deliberate strategy by Adam to teach the teeny boppers like me a lesson or two. Adam and the Ants had spent years doing the circuit of grotty clubs as a punk band late Seventies, then Kings of the Wild Frontier propelled them onto Top of the Pops in October 1980 and suddenly they were the latest Boy Band, with a large contingent of 11-14 year olds going completely gaga about them. It must be one of the weirdest transformations in the history of pop music. Whatever Adam felt privately, he never gave the impression in his many interviews in Smash Hits, Swap Shop etc that he felt any contempt for us. but I think that the B sides, and the kinky sex tracks were probably his way of making it clear that he really wanted to make music for grown-ups.

During the punk era - or New Wave or whatever - I read something in the Sunday Telegraph saying that the Youth like this loud music because their hearing is at a different frequency to adults, and it's not surprising that adults don't really like it, because of changes in the frequency of hearing. I don't know how true that is, I'm certainly prepared to believe it. However, despite my relatively advanced age, I am absolutely delighted to report that the music still gives me that same adrenaline rush of raw unbridled emotional nihilism and the urge to mosh is irresistible. (Mind you I suddenly realised earlier that I was headbanging to Beethoven's 9th earlier).

I feel sorry for today's youth being spoon-fed safe bland manufactured pop devoid of emotion. But I wish I could have been a bit older and been a proper Punk...

Absolute Torch and Twang

I have been blogging for *almost* two years, and I am shocked that in that time I have barely mentioned kd lang. I can't believe that, having adored and worshipped kd for - let me see - twelve years, she barely figures on this blog.

Just to set the record straight - I absolutely adore kd lang, who is the only woman I have ever had a celebrity crush on. She is close to perfection. I have eight of her albums, plus the single of Crying she did with Roy Orbison. I have actually seen her live, and, you know I have been to so few pop gigs that is really remarkable, as is the fact that I travelled to Brighton especially to see her. And I screamed hysterically (ish).

What can I say? I am not a fan of Country 'n' Western, on the whole, and some people class kd as C&W. To me she transcends categorisation. She writes many of her own songs, and when she covers other people's she does so in a way that makes all preceding versions irrelevant. As it happens, I find it easy to sing along with her songs because our voices lie in the same range. Although, of course, she has a brilliant voice and mine is on the borders of croak-and-squawk with an occasional reference to the tune. (Actually, goddammit, I used to be able to sing, what the fuck I have been doing smoking for the past twenty three years - and smoking seriously for 17? Fuck fuck fuck!)

Just on the album from which this post takes its name, I will single out Big Boned Gal and Nowhere To Stand, one a boppy hoe-down-ish song, the other an absolute Torch miracle. Both of them tackle issues of social marginalisation. and they do it with gorgeous music and a gorgeous voice.

Much more kd to come!

Unplug the jukebox and do us all a favour...

...which actually is my attitude when I walk into way too many pubs these days...

A hectic social whirl combined with working and too much telly imposed a moratorium on my systematic listen-blog of my entire record collection.

Back in the days it was universally acknowledged that pumping up the bass made the Adam and the Ants experience mind-blowing. I don't actually have a bass to pump up on my stereo (as opposed to the mono multi-changer that had to suffice for too many of my formative years). I now have an EQ thingy that lets me choose between Disco, Soft, Clear, Heavy, Live and Hall. Or flat. And a Superwoofer that be off, med or max.

I have spent an hour-and-a-half listening to Kings of the Wild Frontier and Prince Charming, and have concluded that both of them must figure in my top ten albums of all time. Both of them contain a multitude of tunes that are right up there as bubbling outside my top twenty songs, although not actually in there. Listening brought back so many memories. Prince Charming took me back to Christmas Day 1981 (guess how I acquired this record...?) and I repeated my feeling of surprise at how, although you think of Adam and the Ants as being double drums and heavy guitar, there is a heavy 'jazz funk' influence.

I also thought about the influence that celebrities have on young impressionable teeny boppers. Goody Two Shoes led me (temporarily) to eschew drinking and smoking; S.E.X. had a far more profound influence. Just short of fourteen, I acquired a record on which my hero sang

Let all the braggers brag
Sex
S-e-x
Virginity’s no crime
Your body should be yours
And sharing it sublime

What a fabulous mantra!

Keeping up with the Joneses

I'm starting my pop CDs at Norah Jones, bought last year. I'm not sure about it. Cutesy, easy listening and pleasant, but I think I was rather put off by Jimmy asking me to take it off the CD player: he was annoyed by her twangy voice singing songs that were too similar. I'm not sure I would want to defend that position in an argument with a Norah Jones fanatic, but it's a notion I can't quite shake from my mind. It's the sort of thing that I can imagine that people would put on at a dinner party. Only not the sort of dinner party I attend. At one, a Thanksgiving dinner, a throwaway remark by me about the Poet Laureate led to one person screaming "Typical American feminist" and another yelling "Typical gay man", before the Typical American Feminist took the Typical Gay Man off to the bedroom to liberally dose his fingernails with Stop 'n' Gro. After the opening track, Don't Know Why, I'm tempted to say that "Is that it?"

Especially knowing that there are 9 kd lang, a Kirsty MacColl and a Madonna to follow.

And next up is Tom Jones's Reload, an interesting compilation featuring duets with other singers. Another 21st Century purchase. During my mini-pre-mid-life crisis I worked in a pub, where this featured on the jukebox. The sort of pub where people don't listen passively, but dance and sing along. The atmosphere's lively, but lary...One great favourite was 'Sexbomb', and it always made me laugh. The actual words are

Sexbomb sexbomb you're my sexbomb. And baby you can turn me on

Terry Mc, whose song this was, used to sing, with no sense of irony or self-awareness 'I'm a sexbomb' - he isn't.

A compilation like this is almost guaranteed to be a curate's egg. Tom Jones, of course, does what he does best: singing (but is it really singing or merely tuneful-ish shouting?). Some of the collaborations are masterful, notably Sometimes We Cry with Van Morrison when he's good, he's bloody amazing but I've never been tempted to explore him further), and, surprisingly, Natalie Imbruglia on Never Tear Us Apart. My overall favourite track is I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone with James Dean Bradfield, especially its anthemic mood and ear-bleeding screeching guitar, which kind of contradict the words.

I did try listening to this in my Walkman on the journey to and from work. It's years since I used a Walkman just to commute. I don't like it - there are too many changes on the journey, and I find it strangely disorienting. It would make more sense if I was travelling door-to-door by bus.

A rod for my own back?

For twenty-five years* I have been collecting records, tapes and CDs at a fairly prodigious rate. I dread to think how much money I have spent, especially in the days when I was skint. Add on the cost of taping all the vinyl (which now sits on a high shelf in the bedroom - next to the teenage diaries, actually).

It seems criminal that there's stuff I never play nowadays, let alone have an opinion on, yet I must have liked it enough to buy it (or, at least, tape it off a friend).

I did play through my collection systematically, but that was about ten years ago. I have been playing my pop CDs alphabetically by artist - I'm currently up to Meatloaf - but the tapes are being ignored. I have just sorted them into alphabetically by artist, rather than chronology of obtaining them, and realised why I never did it before - most tapes have two albums on them, and there is no way of establishing a pure alpha system). However, undeterred, I have decided to play every one of my tapes, impurely alphabetically, as well as each of my CDs.

note to self Classical CD; Pop tape; classical tape; Pop CD; - don't follow rigidly, passion must rule, ultimately

I just cheated, because having blogged about Deacon Blue yesterday, I decided to play Raintown, which set me off on the tape quest. Raintown is backed with U2's The Unforgettable Fire. Which, I have to say, is rather forgettable, apart from Pride (In the Name of Love) which I have on CD multiple times. Raintown hangs to gether well as an album, with two outstanding songs - Dignity and When Will You (Make My Phone Ring)? Both of these were bought in a record-buying splurge in the months after starting a real job - they date from the Westcliff era.

I then picked out the first one alphabetically, also dating from the Westcliff era. Friend or Foe is actually much older as an album, but for some reason - probably financial - I never bought it. This tape is written out in Helen-in-Glasgow's handwriting; the other side is Manners and Physique - I seem to recall I bought that and taped it for her.

I was a bit scared getting this out, because I was so obsessively into Adam Ant/Adam and the Ants when I was a teenager, and there's that really scary feeling that maybe you'll be left staring at your hands wondering why you invested so much emotional energy.

Well, Friend or Foe is fab!!!!!!!! (oops she reverts to adolescent over-use of exclamation hyperboles). Starting with the title track, moving onto the jolly Something Girls, and the funky Place in the Country. If they were the only good tracks on the album, it would still be ace, but Goody Two Shoes is yet to come (evocations of the heat of summer of 1982).

This post is being brought to you by much over-excited bopping. I really really really can't understand why, way back in the early 80s, stuffed shirts somehow portrayed Adam and the Ants as the end of music. I mean, why? Yes, they were mind-blowingly radical - ooh, they used double drumkit - and they wrote about some fairly obscure abstract concepts, but, ooh, did they have tunes, and energy, and - they were so so so so fab. Youngsters today don't know what hasn't hit them with their identikit formulaic manufactured 'stars'.

I'm going to see if I can blog every album. You don't have to read it; it's my blog, my diary, the outlet for my slight anal tendencies. I'm not providing links - if you're desperate, you can use a search engine, or if you're really desperate, come round to my place to have a listen. Hopefully, you will be surprised by the slightly eclectic nature (although, ultimately, I'm an Eighties Pop Tart). Hopefully, I'll also be honest and actually play Phil Collins and Gloria Estefan...

*oh my god, help me, help me!

Unjustly forgotten greatness

As a student I had a real love of Deacon Blue. I have three of their albums in my collection. I always feel they never received the credit they deserved, and seemed to fall into an unjust Middle-of-the-Road category. A story from Mr D reminded me of one of Deacon Blue's most hauntingly inspiring songs - Dignity

And I'll sail her up the west coast
Through villages and towns
I'll be on my holidays
They'll be doing their rounds
They'll ask me how I got her I'll say "I saved my money"
They'll say isn't she pretty that ship called Dignity

Insidious evil of bad music

It won't go away. It just won't leave me. It's a so-called bloody "song". Twelve years it's been around.

I hate Mistletoe and Wine. The world is full of good music of all descriptions. And Mistletoe and Wine. Christmas has been and gone, and yet, I find myself in the smoking room today, with the earworm of Mistletoe and Wine. No, not an earworm, a Trojan Horse and Virus combined, the superbug of earworms. I was telling myself that it was long ago and far away, so for a few brief seconds I had Paradise by the Dashboard Light in my head. On the way home I had King of Pain, briefly. But still bloody Mistletoe and Wine came back to haunt me.

I spent much of the evening playing most of The Chemical Brothers' Singles but as soon as Child of Our Time was finished, the curse of Mistletoe and Wine returned. Briefly it was broken, when the local news carried the story of Wimbledon's roof and illustrated it with that notorious clip of *Sir Cliff* singing Summer Holiday. Not one of his worst songs, indeed, as a toddler, I used to sing it.

And then bleedin' Mistletoe and feckin' Wine returned to my poor little head.

Is shooting too good for Cliff?

She who dwells...

I am currently on my first listen to Sinead O'Connor's She Who Dwells, my prize for being horrible to the lovely Stuart. So far so good. I do like Celtic with a hard edge.

I'm just giving it the seep-into-my-system listen at the moment, but on an initial listen I am enjoying it. I am notoriously bad at classifying musical genres (and, to be honest don't like getting too hung up on them, my favourite classifications are: Explains life, Amazing, Brilliant, Good, Pleasant, Not Bad, Not Me, Dull, Crap, Turn that fucking noise off).

However, I have definitely fallen for the Celto-Reggae version of Chiquitita...! It is already brilliant, and has potential for amazing.

And Molly Malone...how to rework a classic/twee folk song and invest it with meaning. Proper review in time.

Blast Amazon. I logged on, Wednesday, to search for a particular book I want, and they were telling me to buy Billy Bragg. I already have it on my Xmas/bday present list, but I noticed that there is a limited edition bonus disc of rarer tracks. Considering I used to live five minutes walk from the A13 it is actually criminal that I don't have this track.

So I got out the Switch card, and it should be delivered by Monday, at the latest.

Yesterday, I suddenly realised that Amazon have no way in hell of knowing that iI am a Bragg fan...!

Ooh, and my Sky Man has arrived, and has to install on my chimney stack which will detract less from my period cottage...

Agnetha Faltskog comeback

Bjorn Again

Let's hope that 'the blonde one', the recluse, isn't too embarassing in her comeback bid.

Music is confusing...

What is it about music, that sends me cuckoo. There were some young crusty/hippy types controlling the juke box in the pub last night. I say young; they might have been my age.

I kept yelling at Kevin the Barman to turn up the jukebox because conversation was slightly too loud.

Still, the music included Good Vibrations, Twentieth Century Boy, People are Strange, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, I am the Walrus, She Sells Sanctuary, and Bat Out Of Hell (as loved by all crusty/hippy types...).

I think I worried all the old male bar propper-ups by dancing to She Sells Sanctuary and yelling that I was the only Goth in bright clothes, when I were a lass.

When we got home, I put on the White Album. We lay on the sofa, and eventually - after the entirety of Disc One (I have it on tape) - concluded that it is utter shite.

the day thou gavest Lord is ended

He went to the pub to watch the football. I couldn't. I stayed at home and cleaned picture frames. I can't bear the football at this time of year.

So what if we're now Five points ahead with two games to go. They've got three matches and they can get nine points, so we have to get five to guarantee winning the Championship, so that really means six and therefore we have to beat Charlton at home and Everton away. Everton who are looking for a place in Europe.

This is English Premiership football. Either you're interested so you know exactly what's what, or you're not, and thus unlikely to click any link I might provide.

Ten years ago - ten years, it's like the blinking of an eye - when we won it for the first time in my lifetime, and Harriet and I sipped champagne out of Manchester United mugs, I thought that it would cease to matter: Holy Grail achieved, mission over.

But I'm ten years older and a few days wiser, and it still bloody matters.

I rustled up a stunning little meal, and I have to say I was jolly proud. A starter of pitted, spiced olives (from the Greek deli in Brixton), M&S Irish soda bread and Kerrygold, a main of Marks and Spencer Fish pie and Tesco sweetcorn, and a pudding of M&S zabaglione, washed down with a bottle of Tesco Chianti Classico Reserva (you see, Lyle, I am entirely promiscuous in my use of supermarkets). We could have had it slumped on the sofa on our laps in front of TV, but, no we sat up at table, with a solitary candle burning,
and "Classic Ads" on the CD, the table adorned by a small vase of fabric flowers.

We decided that we shall have, as "Our Song" Ella Fitzgerald's 'Someone To Watch Over Me.' Better than 'Strangers in the Night'.

Incidentally, 'Bel, I would be lying if I said that my posts yesterday were not influenced in some measure by your personal circumstances, but also by the posting of another blogger on my list; also by some risque banter in the week with the person I dreamed about, plus an ongoing discussion with Jimmy about why his ex-wife's infidelity led to their marriage ending, yet his frequent dalliances didn't seem to count.

Plus the damn annoying wet fish face slapping dream, which unnerved me.

Corny

Really Bad Country Song Titles

Did I Shave my Legs for This?
Come out of the Wheatfield Nellie, You're Going Against the Grain
Drop Kick Me Jesus (Through The Goal Posts Of Life.)
Here's A Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares)
How Can I Get Over You if You Won't Get Out from Under Me?
I Don't Care if it Rains or Freezes 'Long as I Have My Plastic Jesus Sittin' on the Dashboard of my Car
I Gave Her My Heart And A Diamond And She Clubbed Me With A Spade
I Want a Beer as Cold as My Ex-Wife's Heart
I'd Rather Pass a Kidney Stone than Another Night With You
Our Love is Illegal, Cause Our Names Ain't the Same

via Sore Eyes

Black Lace - my part in their success

Scaryduck's comment in the previous post but one reminds me it is time for me to tell of one of my less praiseworthy contributions to World Peace, Mental Health and General Joy.

Namely, How I Helped to Make Black Lace the Global Superstars and Party Regulars they are today.

It all started innocently enough. As a teenager I listened to Piccadilly Radio, the commercial radio station serving the Greater Greater Manchester area. A radio station that spawned, amongst others, Andy Peebles, Garry Davies, Timmy Mallet, Chris Evans, Steve Penk, Richard Keys, Mark Radcliffe and Tery Christian (and The Word).

There was also a presenter called Dave Ward. In the 80s he was very popular. (I last heard of him five years ago d-j-ing in a Blackpool pub). He used to host the 11-2 at night programme . There were certain traditions associated with this, best summed up by the jingle

Under the Bedclothes with Cuddly Dave. Everyone knows he's a bit of a rave. Bedsocks and garters and Terry the Tug. Nookie and birthdays and records he'll plug. Eleven to two in this we will revel Because we all know he's a dirty old devil.

One of the traditions was flashing. When Dave gave you the nod, you had to flash your bedroom lights and look out to see whether your neighbours were flashing theirs, then ring up to say. Nevile started going out in the Flash Van to look for people to flashing. This grew into gatherings at an announced phonebox.

He very much welcomed contributions from listeners. I was a very frequent contributor - probably in the Top 5 - to the extent that I knew my letters would also be read out on other shows, because I was "Gerry from Sale - she's not a fella".

One of the traditions was horizontal dancing. At ten to midnight a dance record would come on and you had dance to it, in bed. Again, the onus was on the listeners to find obscure records and send them in, then other listeners would demand they be played again and again. One such was "The Joker" by Phil Charles. This was on more or less every other day, prompting Black Lace to record a version and call it Superman.

When it was riding high in the charts, Peter Powell stated on Radio One that it was selling well because of a "strange dance fashion in the North of England..."

So if you ever wanted to know the history of Black Lace's Superman, there you have it.

Pop pop pop pop music

Sometimes I like a comment so much, I just have to post it to my own blog. This was left at troubled diva, to which you'll have to click to find out the link to the Spreadsheet of Number one singles which contains the soon-to-be notorious* Line 609.

"May I be slightly pedantic, in that on Line 609, "With A Little Help From My Friends" was actually released as a Double A, and I bought it on the strength of the flip side, "She's Leaving Home" by Billy Bragg.

I actually bought it the day before my sister's wedding, which could be the cue for a very poignant story. Except that I was thinking "She's leaving home, finally I get a bedroom to myself, typical me to have to wait until I'm away at Uni for that to happen!"

Incidentally, do they have Double As these days. I always thought them very good vfm, two A sides on one disc. Mind you in "the old days" there were some class songs as "B sides". In fact Adam Ant even released an EP called The 'B' sides. The best B side ever was "Seconds" on the back of "Don't You Want Me" by the Human League.

Not like nowadays when yer average CD single includes The Song, the Radio mix, the Ibiza mix, the trance mix, the Mix mix, the Sample mix."

And what is my head singing right now? Why! Band of Gold, of course!

* on this blog, anyway