Music in 2020

Here are my picks. 

Clearly the pandemic and lockdown has affected music this year - clearly in a negative way in terms of live music, but not in a wholly negative way in terms of recorded music.

Music has felt urgent and necessary this year, and a lot of records have risen to the challenge. When you look at the end-of-year lists, it's clear that intimacy has been what people have been after, and what many of the most acclaimed albums have offered.

Not that many years are these days, but it has not been a year for the rock music. I'm not sure there'd have been a glut of great man-rock records anyway, but I'd look at a band like The Strokes, who I think released their best album for at least a decade and a half, and that if they'd had big festival shows to back it up, and have people realise the new stuff sits better with 'Is This It' than almost anything else they've done, I think we'd be seeing them higher up the year-end lists.

No matter, it's been what it's been. 

I have two clear favourites, both of which I've listened to over and over throughout the year, as they both were released fairly early - Laura Marling's 'Song for our Daughter' and Waxahatchee's 'Saint Cloud'. 

The former was probably my favourite for the first half, the latter for the second half, so it's only fair to make them joint Number 1s. I was pretty hooked on 'Song for our Daughter' from the moment my daughter walked into my office just as Marling was singing the line "Lately I've been thinking about our daughter growing old" in the title track, and though not overly given to sentimentalism, that was hard to resist.

It is, for me, her first classic album, after several very good albums. I think it deserves better than it's received, both critically and commercially, so far, but so be it. There's not a weak track, the second half is just entirely beautiful.

And yet, right now, I may even rate the Waxahatchee album even higher. I'd listened to Waxahatchee (Katie Crutchfield) a fair bit before, but always just liked, without loving, her indie-guitar sound.

'Saint Cloud' is, sonically, clearer, straighter, more like country-rock. There's no hiding, no tricks. It's 11 stunning songs. I know it's a bit invidious to compare all great female singer-songwriter albums to obvious forebears, but this album really does strike me as the perfect blend of those two landmarks recorded in the same studio at the same time, 'Blue' and 'Tapestry'. The journey is like 'Blue' - a mix of self-examination, wistfulness, sadness and then bursts of something like euphoria, while the clear, true singing, the sense of a mature song cycle, reminds me of 'Tapestry'. I don't know, I'm not sure the comparisons really do it justice. It's not derivative. It's such a great album.

Most of the headlines at the end of the year are being taken by three (indeed four) other albums by solo women - 'Fetch the Boltcutters' by Fiona Apple, 'Punisher' by Phoebe Bridgers and 'folklore' (then 'evermore') by Taylor Swift.

I really liked all of them too, I just think the Waxahatchee and Laura Marling albums hit home a bit more personally. 'Fetch the Boltcutters', although it presents as "hard work" is not actually hard work, and is catchy, funny, clever and brilliant all the way through. With Phoebe Bridgers, both this and her previous work, I can't quite pin down why I'm not completely sold. Just something ... something ... anyway, it's an album full of tunes you're surprised to remember and lines which make you stop and check what you've heard.

And, yes, there are the Taylor Swift albums, rather like Beyonce's 'Beyonce' and Lemonade' where reluctant rock men put aside their suspicions and accept they're good albums full of good songs.

Who else is near the top of my tree? 

Run the Jewels, whose fourth album felt so of the moment when it came out, and Bob Dylan, of course. Just the sheer relief of there being an actual Bob Dylan album, and it being finely wrought and wide ranging. Has it been overpraised? Maybe in some quarters, not in others. It's as consistent an album as he's put out for decades.

There have been a lot of pretty decent albums by guys who, a decade or so ago, were topping lists and winning awards. People aren't that interested these days, but these genuinely were the best albums by Badly Drawn Boy and Rufus Wainwright for 15+ years, there were excellent solo albums by the lead singers of the best indie rock bands of the century (Tweedy, Leithauser, Berninger). I loved the Fleet Foxes album when I first heard it, but then began to find it quite hard work. The Khruangbin album, Mordecai, is a bit of a curiosity, but quite hypnotic.

So, here are my Top 40 albums, I think, subject to change. I'll put a list of favourite songs and a playlist underneath.

1. St Cloud - Waxahatchee (1st Equal)
2. Song for our Daughter - Laura Marling (1st Equal)
3. Rough & Rowdy Ways - Bob Dylan 
4. Fetch the Boltcutters - Fiona Apple
5. Punisher - Phoebe Bridgers
6. RTJ4 - Run the Jewels
7. folklore - Taylor Swift
8. Banana Skin Shoes - Badly Drawn Boy
9. The New Abnormal - The Strokes
10. Love is the King - Jeff Tweedy
11. Unfollow the Rules - Rufus Wainwright
12. grae - Moses Sumney
13. Song Machine - Gorillaz
14. Shore - Fleet Foxes
15. Old Flowers - Courtney Marie Andrews
16. England is a Garden - Cornershop
17. Women in Music Pt 3 - Haim
18. April / 月音 - Emmy the Great
19. Lianne La Havas - Lianne La Havas
20. Down in the Weeds Where the World Once Was - Bright Eyes
21. evermore - Taylor Swift
22. Shortly after Takeoff - BC Camplight
23. Future Nostalgia - Dua Lipa
24. The Universal Want - Doves
25. The Loves of Your Life - Hamilton Leithauser
26. Mordecai - Khruangbin
27. Idiot Prayer (live from Alexandra Palace) - Nick Cave
28. Dark Hearts - Annie
29. Deep Down Happy - Sports Team
30. Heavy Light - US Girls
31. On Sunset - Paul Weller
32. Letter to You - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
33. Set My Heart on Fire Immediately - Perfume Genius
34. Untitled (Black Is) - Sault
35. To Love is To Live - Jehnny Beth
36. That's How Rumours Get Started - Margo Price
37. A Hero's Death - Fontaines DC
38. Sawayama - Rina Sawayama
39. Live Forever - Bartees Strange
40. Untitled (Rise) - Sault

SONGS

1. Song for our Daughter - Laura Marling
2. Unfollow the Rules - Rufus Wainwright
3. War - Waxahatchee
4. 4 American Dollars - US Girls
5. Hell - Waxahatchee
6. I Contain Multitudes - Bob Dylan
7. Me in 20 Years - Moses Sumney
8. Betty - Taylor Swift
9. Bad Decisions - The Strokes
10. ICU - Phoebe Bridgers
11. Under the Table - Fiona Apple
12. I Need Someone to Trust - Badly Drawn Boy
13. Sunblind - Fleet Foxes
14. Walking in the Snow - Run the Jewels
15. First Class - Khruangbin
16. Can't Do Much - Waxahatchee
17. Fortune - Laura Marling
18. Guess Again - Jeff Tweedy
19. Sour Flower - Lianne La Havas
20. That's How Rumors Get Started - Margo Price
21. Dandelions/Liminal - Emmy the Great
22. Violent Sun - Everything Everything
23. Stairwell Song - Bright Eye
24. Black Dog - Arlo Parks
25. Don't Wanna - Haim

https://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/2020-songs/pl.u-11pe1sBM0JV

Brief 61: Christmas Eves

In my last post, about the streets of Ealing where I grew up, I reminisced about annual Christmas Eve parties when we were young children, the shock loss that haunts those memories.

I don't closely recall what Christmas Eves involved when I was a teenager - often not much, I think, though there's nowt wrong with that.

Then, for my 20s and a little beyond, it was Barnes for Christmas Eve.

Pub - Midnight Mass - Basil's.

I'm sure that's where many of us will be in spirit this year. 

I'm not the most convivial, never have been, but those Christmas Eves come close to an idyll of old-fashioned bonhomie I'd secretly aspire to.

Usually The Red Lion first, then The Sun Inn, then The White Hart, by the river, the one closest to St Michael's. Annual encounters with old friends, London Pride and Young's Bitter. Candlelight and pubs too full to move. Face after friendly face.

Worse for wear by the time we get to the church, checking that the toilet's in the same place as last year, keen for the Communion wine as a top-up, keen to secure a lift home.

In 2002, I wore my Clash t-shirt, 3 days after Joe Strummer's death, I remember that. I don't remember too many other specifics, year to year. Lots of us would be in an absolute state, but we loved the mass. It wasn't a duty, it was a pleasure.

Then Bas's ... the short walk through Barnes, in procession. Port, snacks - people you'd not seen for years and were glad to see. Bas asking you to remind him who so-and-so over there was, his old skill.

I've been thinking, I was Ealing all the way through school, and it really did make a big difference, that Ealing/Barnes thing. It seems ridiculous now, but it did sometimes seem, among us, there were two slightly different types of people. It wasn't until I left school that I was fully part of the other side, completely comfortable in it.

Something I wouldn't have missed though. I'll make it back to St Michael's for Midnight Mass, or maybe the Easter Day dawn service (that was a mad one) one day ... Basil won't be there.

Great Basil, who died last month, aged 85. I've seen a little this month how loved he was,  and how influential he was on so many, how many lives he changed. 

As a teenager, being from the other side of the tracks - those mean streets of Ealing - it was more in passing and in admiration that I knew Bas. I was probably one of those kids about whom he'd ask "remind me what his name is again" before approaching me warmly and saying "Aah, Dave, so good to see you ...", but I had my share of his kindness, humour, brilliance and hospitality in my 20s, vicariously experiencing and hanging onto his and other people's faith and sense of community, making sure I established a bridge between the happiest moments of my chequered, but devout, teens and the different, faithless, person I'd be as an adult.

Those Christmas Eves, man, I think that's when we'll all miss Basil the most.

Brief 60: Oh Mary, this London ...

 So, I've tried to make a playlist about London from the point of view of non-Londoners - the cold, hard, side of London mixed with the excitement of London to be discovered.

• Mountains of Mourne - Don McLean
• A Rainy Night in Soho - The Pogues
• Ballerina - Van Morrison
• Londinium - Catatonia
• Woozy with Cider - Woozy with Cider
• Strange Town - The Jam
• Until I Believe in My Soul - Dexys Midnight Runners
• Mornington Crescent - Belle and Sebastian
• Baker Street - Gerry Rafferty
• At the Chime of a City Clock - Nick Drake
• Brompton Oratory - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
• London’s Brilliant Parade - Elvis Costello
• England - The National
• London Belongs to Me - St Etienne
• Streets of London - Ralph McTell
• 8 Miles High - The Byrds
• Sunny Goodge Street - Donovan
• London is the Place to Me - Lord Kitchener
• I’m Trying to Make London my Home - Sonny Boy Williamson
• Sultans of Swing - Dire Straits
• Mile End - Pulp
• Best Days - Blur
• Fake Plastic Trees - Radiohead
• West End Girls - Pet Shop Boys
• Herculean - The Good, the Bad and the Queen
• London Irish - The Divine Comedy
• Get Outta London - Aztec Camera
• Born Slippy - Underworld
• Primrose Hill - John & Beverley Martyn
• Living in America - Fontaines DC

This is a list to add to ... a nice idea. 

 

Brief 59: The roads and parks of Ealing

So, as I said last time, I was thinking about little old Ealing. Little old Little Ealing. My place, where I've only been once in a long time.

Steve McQueen's series of 'Small Axe' films, which were the best thing on television in a great year for television, were produced by "Lammas Park Productions", which twanged at my heart. (I can do no justice to Small Axe, but I will probably write a little about it in another blog).

I knew McQueen grew up in Ealing, that he'd gone to Drayton Manor Secondary School, where my siblings and I, with varying degrees of willing, went for Ealing Junior Music School on a Saturday morning. I'd even heard him incongruously mentioning "Ealing, Queen of the Suburbs" on a platform he shared with Cornel West to talk about Paul Robeson.

Still, Lammas Park, eh ... my little park, figure of eight shaped, between Northfields and South Ealing, playground, line of horse chestnuts where we'd gather conkers, bowling greens, perimeter paths I'd run round in 7 minutes flat, tennis courts we'd spend our summers in, grass we'd run Trampy on till we realised she was less likely to get in a fight with other dogs if we took her across the road via Blondin Road (where Charles Blondin lived) to Blondin Park, by the tube hangar, and, on a good day, on to Boston Manor Park, down by the path under the M4 overpass to the Grand Union Canal.

I found an old interview with McQueen, when he was just an artist with a growing reputation, not an Oscar-winning director, where he talked about the merits of Ealing and the pleasure of hanging out with his group of friends in Lammas Park after school, where he found belonging.

He talked of Ealing as an open, diverse place, which is exactly what it was. He's nine years older than me, but I always feel lucky, for my own part, that I grew up in a place where different cultures were already a given, completely ingrained. Irish, Japanese, Caribbean, African, Polish, Jewish, of course and most notably Indian, Pakistani, Ealing had loads of all of them since before I was born. I have studied at and lived in lots of places since where that is not the case. Just the benefit, inherently, that not seeing Britain as a country for white English people gives you ...

Ealing's not a place to be idealised, mind you. McQueen had a very negative experience at Drayton, and the school I went to, briefly, in Ealing has had more than enough abhorrent and bad headlines to mention here ...

McQueen has had an exhibition at the Tate recently where he's collected pictures of every Year 3 Primary Class in London. He himself went to Little Ealing Primary, the noise of which, as I mentioned in my last blog about Denis the drunk, we could hear from our house (Little Ealing was next to Mount Carmel Catholic Primary, so I'm sure it was the noise of both we could hear ...)

I miss Ealing, that little Ealing I moved to from the bigger Ealing with my mother and three siblings when I was 5, where I lived for most of the next 20 years or so, and have only been to once since my mother moved in 2008.

The sounds: the aforementioned Primary Schools, the planes heading into Heathrow, constant, not quite overhead, not quite unbearable, but enough to mute the TV on a summer's day when the window was open, the tube trains, 100 metres away or so, all day, pulling into and pulling away from the almost contiguous Northfields and South Ealing stations. Our cats, mewing and purring, owning the neighbourhood.

The streets - the grid of old-fashioned suburbia, houses terraced and compact where we were but increasing in size as you zig-zagged towards the park, the corner near the 12th century St Mary's Church, just along from Ealing Green and the Studios, there was the largest of the houses with its red door, on the corner of Clovelly Road, just before the parks, where Neil Kinnock lived, where I stuck my tongue out at him when he gave me a cheery thumbs up, where his driver pulled out his car door into my mum's red Renault 4 as she drove my sister to her first A-Level.

The parks, Lammas, and, right next to it, Walpole, with its own dusty tennis courts which we'd go to if the better ones at Lammas were full, Walpole which held Ealing's Jazz and Comedy festivals - the roads by there, the party in the house near the park we'd go to on Christmas Eve, year after year, after watching Box of Delights or The Chronicles of Narnia, fancy dress, party games, carol singing, the boy, my brother's friend, who died, we heard one Saturday, the first Saturday I played sport at school rather than going to music school. I saw a magpie that day, I remember.

Brief 58: McGowan and the London Irish

More than anyone else, Shane McGowan wrote songs for and about the London Irish.

While watching the film 'Crock of Gold' about McGowan recently, I thought, for the first time in many years, of Denis, who lived on my road as I was growing up.

Denis was, I suppose, my phantom Irish drunk dad. I never spoke to Denis, avoided passing him on the pavement if I possibly could. He was a shambling street drunk in an ill-fitting dirty suit, a small, pathetic-looking man, who seemed far older than he must have been, since his children were younger than us.

They couldn't have looked more Irish, those kids, ginger and pale-skinned, taking after their long-suffering mother, who always looked tired and immaculate.

The road was a short row of terraced houses off Northfield Avenue - it dipped in the middle and Denis and his family were down in the dip, while we were near the top (we could hear the children of Little Ealing Primary School at break time, a subject I will get to in my next post). Those houses are probably worth £1m+ now, 2 up 2 down as they all were, yet Denis was a street drunk, a regular at Bramley Road Open Space, near the station.

He may have been about the same age as my own dad or even younger, though, at that stage, looked older. My dad was a tall, strong man, and, into his 50s, still capable of being light on his feet. He'd played rugby until he was 45 - indeed, I remember him telling me the year he died that one of his greatest regrets and sources of ruin was playing rugby a few years too long, which I thought, in context, preposterous at the time, but understand a bit better now. 

Also, my dad, Paddy, rarely looked angry and confused, as Denis often did.

And my dad was not, to my knowledge, a street drunk. He was a pub man, a convivial regular, a drinker of routine who, most days until he was older, managed the short walk home from either The Duke of York, The Windsor Castle or The Royal Exchange to his flat off the Edgware Road without an excess of drama.

Still, Denis always haunted me, made me think of a life that might have been lived daily in the shadow of that, but, for me, the youngest, was not.

McGowan's, I suppose, the most famous London Irish drunk, lionised, pitied and romanticised in equal measure. Through my life, and still now, that's exactly how I describe my own relationship with that archetypal figure, both real and imagined, known and unknown. Best never to tip too far to one extreme.

Brief 57: MacGowan - a generation of men

That generation of men ... it was the first I was into, properly into, that were young punks when I was born. New wave, post-punk - to start with, when I first discovered The Jam, and wanted music a bit like that, I was indiscriminate, it was The Jam but also The Police, Dire Straits and Boomtown Rats.

I love this photo of Weller and Cave, two men of the same age, now at roughly the same level of fame, by very different journeys, bumping into each other at a service station, Cave the one more out of stage character, Weller an endless mod. Of all that generation, those are the two I'd put furthest apart, two completely different sides of my taste, but really, they're not that far apart.

And so many of these men are linked - Cave was in the MacGowan film, duetting with Shane at his 60th birthday on 'Summer in Siam'. So was Bobby Gillespie. So was Bono. Bob Geldof got a bit of a slagging from McGowan, as did Costello.

McGowan was a young punk all the way, front of the crowd at Pistols, Jam and Clash gigs - he once sold Weller a union jack t-shirt he'd got off a tramp, for a ridiculous sum. For MacGowan, an IRA supporter, it was a bitterly ironic item of clothing, for Weller, it was part of the mod look. That union jack element bedevils people's idea of Weller's fanbase. That Fred Perry for cool kids but also, horribly, for Proud Boys ...

Who was doing what MacGowan was doing? Kevin Rowland - original, joyful, angry rebel music for the diaspora. Who else was doing what Kevin Rowland was doing? Adam Ant - distinct, stylish dance music for the masses.

They were not the last, but almost the last, generation in Britain who didn't have to choose between being pop stars and rock stars, they could be, and were, both.

So many Number 1s ... Geldof was the first of all of them to have a Number 1 - The Boomtown Rats were really pretty decent. He tries to get people to remember, but no one remembers now.

The Irish and the Irish diaspora in it all - Lydon, Costello, Rowland, MacGowan, Geldof, Hewson ... and Morrissey, of course. There's that scene too. And O'Dowd, an unlikely friend of Weller, And McCulloch. There's that scene too. 

Collins and Frame, that scene too. Dammers, Hall, McPherson, that scene too.

There was a great generation of women too, of course:

... and so much else going on, but I think, right now, of that generation of men who came out of punk, and who made brilliant, angry, popular music...

There was punk and rock against racism and red wedge and there was live aid - less than a decade between punk and live aid. They seem a million years apart. Some of them were never so great again - some just kept going, some had barely got started by that point.

And Joe Strummer, of course, I almost forgot Joe - pretty much my favourite of all of them - pretty much the oldest of them, 18 years gone now.

Aah, those men ...

Brief 56: Diverse viveurs

I've watched documentaries recently about two men who are still alive - 'David Crosby: Remember My Name. and 'Shane MacGowan: Crock of Gold'. Both have lived and are hitherto still alive.

The MacGowan one in particular has led me down several paths which, in the past, I'd have combined into one long, circuitous post, but now, older and wiser, I'll separate them out. But. for now, old Crosby ...

... it's a fine film, 'Remember My Name'. It navigates the path of making you warm to its subject while still showing him in all his warty ridiculousness.

While I see him as a man who talks in faux-profound aphorisms (and as archive footage shows, has done so all his life), and he is a man who has alienated all his musical collaborators - one of the highlights of the film is the one of those collaborators who deigned to appear in the film, Roger McGuinn, drily saying "David had become insufferable by that point" - Crosby has nevertheless been around some of the key moments in the rock'n'roll tale, has an incredible story to tell, and retains, against all the odds, a voice in tremendous fettle.

When I first bought a '1000 Greatest Albums' book, compiled by a man by Colin Larkin, which would be a fine resource for me for years to come, Larkin revealed his own personal favourite was Crosby's 'If I Could Only Remember My Name'. I bought it a year or two later and while I quite like it, , I don't really hodl it in high regard, and I also have always found Crosby writes the least appealing on the CSN and CSNY albums, but the man can sing, that's for sure, and has excellent musical instincts.

There is a fragility and tenderness to the Crosby of today that one can't avoid warming to, though there remains the self-importance and mythologisation. As the rock survivor most willing to shoot his mouth off, a lot of my understanding of the golden era of rock'n'roll is filtered through Crosby's gaze, for good or bad.

He is, as he says himself, a man who could die any day. But he's still, right now, throwing out the twitter funnies, so, all in all, after all, fair play to him.

Brief 55 - Small Music (small playlist)

This playlist has been much harder to make than Big Music, and in fact I've stopped at 30, not 60 songs. Really I'm just talking about 'Pink Moon' by Nick Drake. Very little else matches it for intimacy, for suffocation in detail.

There's a lot of men and women with acoustic and intimate but very few make music that is truly tiny. I don't think I've got this quite right, and may return to it another time ....

1. Place to Be - Nick Drake
2. Mid Air - Paul Buchanan
3. Johnsburg, Illinois - Tom Waits
4. Naked As We Came - Iron & Wine
5. Lua - Bright Eyes
6. Medication - Damien Jurado
7. You Missed My Heart - Phoebe Bridgers
8. We'd Be Home - Joan Shelley
9. Highway Patrolman - Bruce Springsteen
10. Flicker - Kathryn Williams
11. Three Questions - Bonnie Prince Billy
12. Surf Song - James Yorkston
13. Moon Song - Karen O
14. Me in 20 Years - Moses Sumney
15. Sunken Treasure - Wilco
16. Glow Worms - Vashti Bunyan
17. Tricky Kid - Tricky
18. I Want You - Elvis Costello
19. Celllophane - fka twigs
20. Once - Laura Marling
21. The Chalet Lines - Belle and Sebastian
22. Working Class Hero - John Lennon
23. No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross - Sufjan Stevens
24. Chelsea Hotel No 2 - Leonard Cohen
25. Love Love Love - Mountain Goats
26. It's a Motherfucker - Eels
27. Trellick Tower - Emmy the Great
28. Radio Cure - Wilco
29. We Are Going to Be Friends - White Stripes
30. Hey Self Defeater - Mark Mulcahy

Brief 54: Big Music

This is a playlist of big music - you know what I mean. Big Music. The Waterboys had a song called 'The Big Music'. This is definitely that, but not just that. That's why it's just "Big Music" not "The Big Music".

It crosses over with Kaleidoscopop but is not quite the same. Big Music can be black and white, like Doves.

I am also making a playlist of Small Music. It may be that Big Music and Small Music are my favourite musics, but then again, I'm a sucker for the Alt-Country Middleweights, which are neither ...

https://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/big-music/pl.u-aZM96tvWEd8

1. The Whole of the Moon - The Waterboys
2. Runaway - Kanye West
3. The Cedar Room - Doves
4. The Universal - Blur
5. As - Stevie Wonder
6. Sowing the Seeds of Love - Tears For Fears
7. Your Love Alone is Not Enough - Manic Street Preachers
8. Wake Up - Arcade Fire
9. Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen
10. I'm Gonna Make You Love Me - Diana Ross & The Temptations
11. Jump - Van Halen
12. Many Shades of Black - The Raconteurs
13. Killing in the Name - Rage Against the Machine
14. Smile - The Jayhawks
15. Go Your Own Way - Fleetwood Mac
16. Out of Space - The Prodigy
17. We're Here - The Guillemots
18. Running up that Hill - Kate Bush
19. St Elmo's Fire - John Parr
20. Absolute Beginners - David Bowie
21. Series of Dreams - Bob Dylan
22. Like a Hurricane - Neil Young
23. Thinking of a Place - The War on Drugs
24. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For - U2
25. Ocean Rain - Echo and the Bunnymen
26. Today - Smashing Pumpkins
27. One-Armed Scissor - At the Drive In
28. Baba O'Riley - The Who
29. Diamonds - Rihanna
30. Shine on You Crazy Diamond - Pink Floyd
31. Boys are Back in Town - Thin Lizzy
32. Sweet Child of Mine - Guns N Roses
33. Stay Together - Suede
34. Grace Kelly - Mika
35. Seventeen - Sharon Van Etten
36. Your Fake Name is Good Enough for Both of Us - Iron & Wine
37. Paper Planes - MIA
38. Come Alive - Janelle Monae
39. Kashmir - Led Zeppelin
40. Us - Regina Spektor
41. No Danger - The Delgados
42. Proud Mary - Ike and Tina Turner
43. Party Hard - Andrew WK
44. Run - Snow Patrol
45. Sunrise - The Divine Comedy
46. Purple Rain - Prince
47. Earth Song - Michael Jackson
48. There She Goes, My Beautiful World - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
49. Stay Young - Oasis
50. Nutmeg - Ghostface Killah
51. My Girl - The Temptations
52. Duet - Everything Everything
53. Crazy in Love - Beyonce ft Jay-Z
54. 14th Street - Rufus Wainwright
55. Rock'n'Roll - Mos Def
56. Empire State of Mind
57. Rise - PIL
58. Beth/Rest - Bon Iver
59. Edge of Glory - Lady Gaga
60. Friday Night - The Darkness
61. New York, I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down - LCD Soundsystem
62. Until I Believe in My Soul - Dexys
63. Lost in the Plot - The Dears
64. Don’t You Forget About Me - Simple Minds
65. Love You Anyway - The Waterboys

Brief(ish) 53: Maradona & the Greats

A few thoughts I've had on Diego Maradona based on my own memories, and having now watched the excellent Asif Kapadia documentary [and then i'll move on to a more general consideration of the idea of "The Greatest Footballer"].

1. Most of us didn't watch Maradona play many games. Just the World Cups. European football was not shown much in the UK back then, and he'd left Napoli by the time Channel 4 was showing Serie A. Grandstand would show some occasional clips of his brilliance in Napoli, I recall. As with so many considerations of sporting greatness, a lot of it's extrapolation.

2. He really truly was a dominant cultural icon for us kids in the late 80s. We'd all pretend to be Maradona, some different aspect of him. The aspect I chose, bizarrely, briefly, was play-acting. In playground football I'd fall as if shot and role round as if seriously hurt. It made people laugh a little. Then once, shamefully, I did it in an actual PE practice match, and carried it through as if I was seriously injured and the teacher said I should go to the sick bay (though I think he knew I was faking). Thanks, Diego.

3. People have focused a bit this week on British sourness to Maradona being purely because of the hand of god goal, and I don't think that's wholly it. I think in 1990, many folk were ready to embrace and love Maradona's brilliance. But that Argentina 1990 team were the nastiest, most awful team to ever make a World Cup Final. 5 goals in 7 games, 3 sendings-off, would be way more in modern football. They were the dark side of Maradona's personality. Yes, it is a testament to his greatness that he dragged them to the final, but there was little to love and admire that time.

4. Nevertheless, his goal in 1994 vs Greece was so momentarily exciting, and his drug ban truly gutting. Of course he was doping, and I, like many others, wish he hadn't been caught that time. Having said that, I remember a documentary talking about his preparation for that tournament saying his main training was running at 16 kph for an hour on a treadmill every day, which struck me as so gloriously sensible and prosaic. Of course, that wasn't the whole story.

5. What I think, looking back at that 1986 game, is that England had Waddle and Barnes on the bench. Barnes, of course, almost came on and thrillingly redeemed the game for England, but, looking back, it seems a crying shame that England, mundane England, could have fielded a team containing Hoddle, Waddle, Barnes, Beardsley, all just a notch below Maradona in natural beauty and brilliance, and instead filled the team with Stevens, Steven, Hodge, Fenwick, Reid ... I mean, horses for courses, and I'm sure it made sense at the time - that same team had just beaten Poland and Paraguay 3-0 after all, but still ...

6. His stint as Argentina manager, culminating in the 2010 World Cup, is seen as an ignominious failure, whereas it should be seen as glorious failure. They won 4 games in a row in fantastic style, looked really together as a team, then faced a superb Germany team in the quarter-finals. Germany scored early, then Argentina battered them in search of an equaliser for an hour, missing numerous chances. Then Germany scored again, and yes, they fell apart, but being 2-0 down with 20 minutes to go in a world cup quarter-final when your whole philosophy has been attack-attack, seems a perfectly acceptable time to fall apart.

So, saying all that, I'd been thinking of the idea of "The Greatest Football Player Ever" for a while, since Maradona's 60th birthday when there was a bit of chat about it.

It's basically impossible to be conclusive about it. Impossible. I've also been making a list of "The Greatest Players in the Champions League" which is much easier to assess with the benefit of memory and statistics. I'll get to posting that in time.

If you're talking about "The Best Footballer Ever" you have to compare across so many different eras, different competitions, different positions, and there is no one, really, who perfectly ticks every box.

Who are the usual candidates? Pele, Maradona, Messi, Ronaldo, Cruyff, Beckenbauer, Zidane, Brazilian Ronaldo, the hipster tips Di Stefano and Puskas. In Britain there's a romantic notion that George Best belong up there, but you can't really make a case for that based on achievement. Charlton and Moore are in the next echelon down, along with the likes of Laudrup, Gullit, Matthaus, Xavi, Maldini.

There are different cases for each of them - most modern football fans feel an urge to say it's Messi, but it remains an unfortunate truth that he's neither won the World Cup nor the Copa America. Whereas Ronaldo did win the Euros ... but he hardly played in the final, so is that really better than Messi's almost taking an average Argentina to triumph in 2014, but for some poor finishing by Higuain.

Pele - people don't know what to make of all his goals for Santos. With Santos he won the Copa Libertadores twice - is that worth two Champions Leagues? And Pele, oddly, fails an eye-test to modern observers. We're told that the 1970 final is the greatest player in the greatest team in the greatest match, and then we watch it, and that's one of the few games of his we watch all the way through, and can't quite believe how sluggish it all is, how error-strewn, particularly Pele himself, who looks deeply ordinary most of the game, just happens to pull out a great goal and a great assist. Was he like that every game, we wonder? Must have been a pain to play with ....

So people do often settle on Maradona, because we remember 1986 and 1990, and we know Napoli had never been close to Serie A before he arrived. Yet, still, it's not that long at the top, there are no European Cups/Champions Leagues (just one UEFA), there was a lot of ugliness with the beauty.

I honestly think the case for Brazilian Ronaldo is almost as strong. His World Cup story is just as engrossing and triumphant, he also suffered through his own fault and external factors in club football. He also was simply, in his prime, on a different level to everyone else. The difference is, I guess, Brazil 2002 really was a very good team, though not everyone said so at the time (not that Argentina 1986 weren't a good team. The extent to which he did it "alone" is overplayed).

There's Zidane, and - you could say - his 70s equivalent, Cruyff, who reinvented football, apparently. Cruyff, I was surprised to see, only played 48 international matches, and didn't play in the 1978 World Cup. There's an interesting piece to be written about team's thriving in the absence of their hero and talisman - Holland in 78, Denmark without Michael Laudrup in 92, Man Utd post-Cantona, Ireland post O'Driscoll etc.

But, look, here's the thing. The good people at 4-4-2, who know 1000s times more about football than bullshitters like me, made a very good list of the 50 Greatest Players ever 

https://www.fourfourtwo.com/gallery/50-greatest-footballers-all-time

and it's really interesting and educational, shows some proper knowledge of the global and historical context of football, and yet, even so, once you get to the Top 20, it's nearly all post-War (Giuseppe Meazza being the only pre-War player) and it's nearly all attackers - just Maldini at 20, Baresi and Beckenbauer being defenders in the Top 20.

You begin to get an idea of why this is so impossible. When I make my lists, I try to make clear what I mean, provide my criteria and context, so at least that aspect of it makes sense, and someone reading can see that I've at least I've followed my own logic.

But, when you talk about the Greatest Footballer? What do you use? Number of goals? Number of assists? Number of World Cups? Number of League Titles? Number of European Titles? Other Titles? Ballons D'or and Teams of the Year? Impact on game as a whole? Ability to carry a team single-handedly? Ability to bring out the best in team-mates? Transcending era? Longevity? Aura? Sheer brilliance? Box office? Best tackler? Best holding player? Most saves? Most flexible?

There is no single satisfactory answer. Everyone is in a different set of categories from each other. No one has the complete package, not quite. People would love Messi to win a World Cup and then maybe the argument would be over. 

There are defenders who don't make that 4-4-2 Top 20 who maybe should - it is understandable that it is easier to see the attackers as the best, and to measure them as the best, I often do that myself, but it is not how winning football matches actually works. So ... Cafu with 3 consecutive world cup finals, a Serie A with Roma, 2 Copa Libertadores, a Champions League, surely the best right-back there's ever been, Lilian Thuram and Marcel Desailly, Lucio, went to the Champions League final with Leverkusen, won it with unfancied Inter, heart of that Brazil team who only conceded 2 goals in winning the 2002 World Cup. Surely Maldini should be higher than e.g. Platini, Zico and Van Basten? Surely that's too much attacker bias when you look at how much each stood out from others in their position and the sum of their achievements.

And after all that, who has the most complete palmarès? The actual answer's a bit of a shock.

Who's won, and been fundamental to, 3 major international tournaments, 4 Champions Leagues, been in the Team of the Year more times in their position than anyone else, broken records for scoring, switched seamlessly between positions, put in man of the match performances in finals ... shit, it's everyone's least favourite footballer, Sergio Ramos, the man for whom the phrase "maybe John Terry wasn't that bad" was invented.

I'm only half-joking. No one wants Sergio Ramos to be the Greatest Footballer that Ever Lived, he only deserves to be the Greatest Shithouser that Ever Lived, but, there's a case, a strong case.

So, when there's a case for that being the outcome ... I guess we should leave the argument alone.

Brief 52: Facing It

I've just read Debbie Harry's autobiography, which is called 'Face It'. It's a peculiar book, a bit scattershot, somewhat dispassionate and guarded. It isn't looking to endear or engender sympathy. Still, it has many wondrous stories and leaves you with a pretty good sense of someone who is in with a shot of being the greatest rock star of all time...

Or maybe not ... but, yes, maybe. Not greatest in most senses, but in some senses.

I've always loved Debbie Harry - I first started listening to Blondie when I was about 14 and it's, obviously, one of the greatest runs of singles there's ever been, which gives me just as much joy as it did then. There is so much that is rare about her as frontperson - the fact that women leading mainly male bands were uncommon enough at that time in and of themselves, the fact she was already in her 30s when it began, the fact that, in that context, she was a pin-up, the fact that they started as punk, did disco, radio rock, reggae, hip-hop, doo-wop, the fact that she/they barely compromised any iota of cool or self.

There really was not before her, or indeed since, anyone who quite holds the same position. [Perhaps Stevie Nicks, perhaps Annie Lennox, though they're both a bit different]. Not as "diva", whatever that means, but as rock'n'roll bandleader, at that level of pop fame.

When reading the book, I sometimes forgot, in the offhand way she describes things, how huge a band Blondie were, with their 6 UK Number 1s and 4 US Number 1s, or rather, it's hard to make up your mind if she should be talking it up more or talking it down more. Sometimes she's quite starry and sometimes she's completely diffident and lowkey about the whole thing.

I saw a thing going around last week, in the light of Dolly Parton funding the Moderna Covid vaccine, saying that Dolly was a superhero sent to save the world. Which is, funnily enough, what I've always thought about Debbie Harry. With their names both beginning with D and being 11 letters, with them both being stigmatised as blonde bombshells, with their being born within 6 months, with them both having successful acting careers on the side, they make a good "look the other way" quiz question, let me tell you.

Another thing about the book - it is quite the densest book I have ever encountered, literally. Full of pictures and printed on suitable paper, it is as weighty a tome as you'll come across.

Brief 51: Pet Shop Boys

Speaking of 80s bands.

They used to call the Pet Shop Boys the Pat Sharp Boys on Capital Radio. Or at least I think they did, that might just have been David Jensen's accent.

Recently, the Guardian did a big and very well written list of the Top 100 Number 1 singles of all time, and 'West End Girls' was Number 1, which took me aback a little.

It's one of the first Number 1s I was aware of - I still remember them playing it on Children's BBC in, I suppose, early 1986. I remember I immediately liked it and thought "this isn't like most of the songs" - I couldn't work out any of the words apart from "East End Boys and West End Girls". I thought the line before was something like "wassatadadawa".

And so the Pet Shop Boys carried on, and I always enjoyed their singles well enough. I actually loved Erasure during that period, as far as perfect pop double acts go, but I certainly remember liking Pet Shop Boys.

And yet, they haven't stuck. I've never loved them. To many of my generation, they're hallowed, they're Dylan and the Beach Boys. They've written songs that could be Blur songs, songs that could be Madonna songs, that could be Rufus Wainwright songs, Killers songs or Arctic Monkey songs.

There's nothing not to like about them. And yet, there's a point where I found myself getting a bit irritated, and I never quite got past that. The way Neil Tennant was, like Brian Eno, always cited as a "rare pop intellectual" when it seemed to me that there were countless very clever people in pop music. I remember having their lyrics spoken to me as if I should be awed (I mean, I've done that myself with much worse lyrics). 

I think, above all, as I've said before, I found it harder to love the music I actually grew up with and experienced as a child, whether it's U2, The Smiths, or Prince.

I'm interested, one day, in getting to the bottom of that, but not now.

Brief 50: The Style Council

There was a documentary about The Style Council on Sky recently, called 'Long Hot Summers', and there's also been a Weller-curated Best Of with the same name, which I've been listening to.

I've always felt Weller himself is pretty keen on The Style Council - in a way, more so than the Jam. You can tell he enjoyed it more, and he wants the band to get a bit of respect.

I bought The Style Council Greatest Hits on the same day in 1994 as I bought The Jam Greatest Hits, which was probably a few weeks before someone taped Wild Wood for me so, for me, it's always all gone together, and it's hard to separate each act out.

Although I enjoyed them perfectly much to begin with, I remember once, just as I was trying to have it known that I was now a cool guy with varied music taste, I'd put on the Style Council, and an older boy, who had good music taste himself and had, up to that point, enjoyed what I was putting on, switched one of their more 80s-sounding tracks off in disgust, saying something like "no, this time you've gone too far".

How would I perceive The Style Council if (as I suppose may be true for lots of people) there was no connection to The Jam or Weller's long solo career. I think I probably would think them one of the best British bands of the mid-80s (which is not a period I love much). I'd think they had a kinship with Dexys Midnight Runners, a political British soul band with a single-minded, awkward leader and a flexible line up, a tendency to pretension and over-stretching, but a great ability to mix up memorable pop tunes with melancholy and diatribes. And, of course, they shared Mick Talbot.

A way to look at our long-lasting icons is, if you had only one set idea of them "wow, i would not expect that of them" - like, if someone thought of Dylan in terms of nasal young protest guy and croaky old guy, you'd play them him singing 'I Threw It All Away' on The Johnny Cash Show.

So, with Weller, if you have one or both of  'In The City' suited punk and 'Changing Man' dadrock perennial, then the sight of him crooning 'You're the Best Thing' with slicked back hair or, more strikingly, dancing pointily on Top of the Pops in 1989 while performing a cover of the house tune 'Promised Land', and the fact that none of this is that far apart, is pretty striking.

Anyway, there was a real sweetness to the documentary, a word that you don't often associate with Weller. There was even a reunion of sorts - the four core members - Weller, Talbot, drummer Steve White and Dee C Lee (also Weller's first wife) singing album track 'It's a Very Deep Sea' at the end.

Although The Jam remains, of course, my favourite Weller, I'd say his best solo stuff has more in common with The Style Council. They're a band with a solid handful of great pop songs and some very pretty other stuff too. And his dancing ... engaging ....

Brief 49: WWE ... world wrecking entertainment

When I was a kid, they started showing US wrestling on ITV in a slot where, previously, there'd been some sport. I was young. It probably took me about 15 minutes, after thinking it looked a bit odd,to figure out that this wasn't sport.

I never got into wrestling. In fact, I hated it. I still hate it. I really hate it. So we're clear.

Initially, being a kid, I thought "these people are so dumb! Don't they realise it's fake? Why are they watching it and getting so into it?"

I found everything about it so ugly - the costumes, the movements, the hairstyles, the dialogue. I still do.

I've come to accept the great skill, flair and physical resilience of the participants is not to be sniffed at. It is no coincidence that many have gone on to have very successful action-comedy film careers.

And I know that lots of all sorts of people love it, and they'd tell me I'm being uptight and missing the joke, and all the kitsch and fakeness and silliness is exactly the point and the joy of it.

I remember, a bit older than when I first watched it, looking at the huge crowds baying for drama and for blood and thinking "Do they really all get it? I guess they do, I guess there's a level of sophistication here in their mass consciousness and participation that I am not capable of. My inability to enjoy this on any level reflects, in some way, on my own imaginative shortcomings."

Anyway, I was reminded of the wrestling crowds watching Trump fans up in arms (liderally) on CNN this week. Reminded of it because I guess there are a lot of the same people.

All of it is bullshit, everything they're saying, everything they think, everything they're doing. It's so ugly and it's so bullshit. And there's this mass consciousness to it, where it exists in an area where the truth that an individual thinks just doesn't matter. Probably loads of them know somewhere within themselves that it's bullshit, probably some of them don't. None of them really care. 

The crowds at wrestling glorified in being extras in the spectacle. The Trumpists are the same. There's something quite sophisticated going on at some level, within all the lies and idiocy and plain evil.

The difference is, I suppose, there was no "higher cause" to the mindset at the wrestling - it was enjoyment, entertainment, participation. Republicans have the higher causes of hating liberalism, of guns, of god, of pro-life, amongst many others. The end justifies the mental gymnastics.

I guess, what I mean is that, watching them talking and enacting their fury, it doesn't feel real - the man they believe in is so preposterous, the extent of the lies so ludicrous, they seem like actors, part of a grand situationist prank, which I suppose is a bit like how I see wrestling.

Anyway, there it is, wrestling has caused Trump. Hope that's sorted.

Brief 48: The Consolations of Homophony

Here's another playlist, this time dealing in that simple consolatory message which, while it can get on the nerves at times, can catch us in the right mood and offer some respite from the world around.

There's nothing terribly subtle here, & it's arguably far too much of a certain kind of sounds, but still, there are lots of nice songs. I haven't laboured over it too much, so it's probably pretty samey stylistically. Still, this kind of song is actually quite hard to do well.

Broadly, I guess this covers consolation, respite, hope and perseverance ... 

https://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/consolatory-songs/pl.u-JPWNVCjqxpe

1. Be Not So Fearful - Bill Fay
2. A Change is Gonna Come - Sam Cooke
3. Pa'lante - Hurray for the Riff-Raff
4. Yes - McAlmont and Butler
5. Alright - Kendrick Lamar
6. Jesus Etc - Wilco
7. You've Got a Friend - Carole King
8. Lean on Me - Bill Withers
9. This Year - Mountain Goats
10. In the New Year - The Walkmen
11. Cry Baby - Janis Joplin
12. He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's the Pilot - Grandaddy
13. Come Healing - Leonard Cohen
14. This Whole World - Beach Boys
15. Reach Out - The Four Tops
16. Tomorrow (from 'Annie')
17. Snow is Gone - Josh Ritter
18. How Far I'll Go (from 'Moana')
19. Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing - Stevie Wonder
20. Ain't Got No (I Got Life) - Nina Simone
21. Stand by Me - Ben E King
22. Tender - Blur
23. Float On - Modest Mouse
24. Life's a Miracle - Prefab Sprout
25. Wonderwall - Oasis
26. Hey Jude - The Beatles
27. I Would Fix You - Kenickie
28. Oxygen - Willie Mason
29. Stop Your Crying - Spiritualized
30. Move on Up - Curtis Mayfield
31. You Get What You Give - New Radicals
32. The Circle Game - Joni Mitchell
33. Dry the Rain - The Beta Band
34. Waterfalls - TLC
35. Everybody Hurts - REM
36. Over the Rainbow - Judy Garland
37. Bridge over Troubled Water - Simon and Garfunkel
38. All Things Must Pass - George Harrison
39. This Land is your Land - Woody Guthrie
40. Hold on Hope - Guided by Voices
41. Don't Let it Bring You Down - Neil Young
42. Don't Worry Baby - Beach Boys
43. Make Your Own Kind of Music - Mama Cass
44. I Whistle a Happy Tune (from 'The King and I')
45. Take It With Me - Tom Waits
46. Rise to Me - The Decemberists
47. You'll Never Walk Alone (from 'Carousel')
48. Do You Realize? - The Flaming Lips
49. Ain't That Enough - Teenage Fanclub
50. He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother - The Hollies
51. When the Ship Comes In - Bob Dylan
52. At Last - Etta James
53. Redemption Song - Bob Marley
54. It's Not the End of the World? - Super Furry Animals
55. Godspeed - Jenny Lewis
56. Why Worry? - Dire Straits
57. Every Grain of Sand - Bob Dylan
58. Skeleton Tree - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
59. Lead Thou Me On (hymn)
60. From the Morning - Nick Drake

Brief 47: Best footballers I've seen

In the prolonged absence of live sport, I've been thinking about the best footballers I've seen in the flesh. I've never been a prolific football match attender. Being taken by one's father is a common way into that, and my dad was a rugby man, so we spent many afternoons at Sunbury watching London Irish, but not football. I also supported Spurs and lived in Ealing which was a pretty forbidding journey, did not have vast amounts of spare cash, and was playing sport myself most Saturday afternoons growing up.

I did manage a nice smattering of games as a kid, going to Plough Lane, Craven Cottage, White Hart Lane once or twice, Loftus Road. and Griffin Park. At school, though of course you had your Liverpool and Man Utd supporters, in terms of regular attendance, the main pockets of people I was friends with were for Wimbledon, Brentford and QPR (later Fulham). I don't recall that many regularly going to Highbury or White Hart Lane, and very few kids supported Chelsea full-stop. It just wasn't really done.

I could/should certainly have gone to more Brentford games - i had friends who went and it was within walking distance and hardly prohibitively expensive.

I've kept a lot of the programmes and have been able to go through some of the line-ups of games I went to. More by luck than judgement, I've happened to see several of my all-time favourite footballers, and a really good collection of world-class talent.

In terms of performance on the day, I remember Cesc Fabregas being brilliant when I watched Arsenal play Blackburn in around 2009, really liking the Bulgarian Martin Petrov when he was playing for Man City against Fulham, and have never forgotten Lee Clark captaining and scoring a hat-trick for England U15s in 1988. Clark would go on to be a good but not great footballer, probably one of the best of his generation not to play for the full England side.

I'm struck, looking back, at how many fine players QPR and Notts Forest had in the late 80s. I also noticed that when I watched some Olympic football in 2012, not only did Team GB have Bellamy, Ramsey and Giggs (who I mainly went for) but it was a double-header on the day, and we were able to watch Senegal-Uruguay before the GB game, and that meant Sadio Mane, Luis Suarez and Edinson Cavani.

I'm going to pick one XI (for balance), then add to the squad:

G David Seaman

RB Paul Parker 

CB Des Walker

CB Thomas Vermaelen

LB Stuart Pearce

RM Gareth Bale

CM Paul Gascoigne

CM Luka Modric

LM Ryan Giggs

Striker Matt Le Tissier

Striker Gary Lineker

Also saw, Suarez, Cavani, Mane, Fabregas, Van Persie, Anelka, Ray Wilkins, Les Ferdinand, Kenny Sansom, Chris Waddle, Rosicky, Walcott, Arshavin, Petrov, Nzonzi, Chris Hughton, Jimmy Case, three Wallaces, Gary Mabbutt, Shaka Hislop, Chris Coleman, Roy Wegerle, Alan MacDonald, Clive Allen, Steve Hodge, Neil Webb, Nigel Clough, Vinnie Jones, Dennis Wise, Fashanu, David Healy, Aaron Ramsey, Craig Bellamy, Kaspar Schmeichel, Gary Speed, El Hadji, Gael Clichy, William Gallas, Abou Diaby amongst several others

Pretty good bunch.

Song 91: Why Worry

Of all the bands stuck on the wrong side of the cool line, Dire Straits are the one for whom I always maintained a sneaking affection.

Like all super-hip teenagers, I listened to Dire Straits quite a lot when I was 14/15/16. Their tapes were around the house. When I started reading the music press, I was taken aback by the extent to which one was simply not allowed to like them. The NME review of 'Brothers in Arms' had been brutal. Seems funny to me that. It's not like there was loads of great music in 1985. 'Brothers in Arms' hardly came out in the Summer of Love or the Golden Age of Punk or whatever.

But, anyway, Knopfler and his gang sat alongside the likes of Sting and Phil Collins as persona non grata from the MOR era.

But I never really stopped liking them. There were always a nice handful of their songs that, if I should happen to hear them out and about, I'd stop for and enjoy.

Here's an example. A day in 1997 we'd been in Nairobi to renew our visa but somehow ended up being threatened with jail by an immigration official, so our time was being cut short and we only had a couple more weeks before our flights back to England, and there was a lot to get straight, we took the train back from Nairobi to Voi, which is the largest town on the main road from Nairobi to Mombasa, and was an evocative, wild west frontier town-like place, and we got back to Voi in the early hours and would have to catch a bus to Wundanyi (our nearest small town) which wasn't til the early morning, so we had a few hours at Voi bus station, and I remember we bought some sausage and chips with watery ketchup and prepared to try and get some kip on a bench and contemplate the vastness of the sudden switch in plans, weighing up the fact I was secretly relieved to be going home with the brief blast of adrenalised fear Mr Kirui had, for his own amusement, given us that afternoon, and the disappointment at not being able to complete what we'd intended, and, anyway, complete incongruously, 'Why Worry' by Dire Straits came quietly out of the speaker hung on a post, and it was a moment in time.

'Why Worry' has that trite sentiment - "hey, things are bad now, but they'll be better in the future" which can be terribly grating at times, but also sustains some of the most perfect and beautiful songs ever written, from 'Be Not So Fearful' to 'From the Morning' to 'Over the Rainbow' to 'Hey Jude', and sometimes that trite sentiment is all we want and need. More than we'd care to admit.

That night in Voi, that song had been sent by my god to calm, reassure and amuse me, and even in these particular awful, endlessly hopeless time, it does the job as well as anything else.

I found myself watching a documentary of a Dire Straits concert a few weeks ago. If I tell you Knopfler, mullet and headband and all, was the least uncool man on display, you get the idea. But, boy, could he play guitar.

I've loved the theme from 'Local Hero' most of my life though mostly I didn't even know what it was, I love 'Blind Willie McTell' more than almost any other Dylan song, and it's Knopfler's guitar accompaniment that adds so much to it, I still find 'Sultans of Swing' thrilling and 'Romeo and Juliet' delightful.

I get some of the negativity but Knopfler never erred in the taste stakes anywhere near as much as Collins or Sting or countles others, he always kept on making music which seemed relatively true to himself and didn't put himself about that much.

I'm quite sure he's spectacularly rich and doesn't care much about any of it, but I think he's as due a critical reappraisal as anyone.

Brief 46: Gareth Bale

Gareth Bale is an interesting case in my theories of what it means to be a great footballer. In his early years with Spurs, I was obsessed with the fact they never won when he was playing - it was (not sure if it still is) the longest stretch for a player not to win a game in Premier League history. 

When he suddenly got brilliant, that all seemed like a particularly funny coincidence. But if i'm to be consistent to my own idea of what makes a footballer, none of it is coincidence.

That thought came back to me when Bale re-signed for Spurs this year, and, with the team 3-0 up, came on for his first appearance as a substitute against West Ham with about 20 minutes to go, only for it all to go awry, resulting in a 3-3 draw.

I've also been thinking, separately, about the greatest footballers I've ever seen in the flesh. For a Spurs fan, I haven't watched them all that many times. The last time was an FA Cup match vs Fulham in 2010. I sat with the Fulham fans. Spurs won. I remembered the game dimly, that Fulham were better in the first half, but Spurs came back strongly and won 3-1 and I had to pretend indifference.

I looked the game up online - pleasingly, both Bale and Luka Modric, two of the great footballers of the last decade, were playing. I then had a memory (perhaps false) of thinking at the game, "Aah, finally Bale is good". Closer inspection reveals that game indeed took place just at the pivot point when Bale became brilliant, and then became a superstar. For the next three years, he was sensational for Spurs, earning his record transfer to Madrid, where his legacy is soured and up for grabs, but the successes should be indisputable.

Yet Zinedine Zidane, when he came in as manager, didn't want to play him. And is it possible he was right? Is Bale one of those players who, unless magnificent, is bad. Is that the way the start and end of his career will be defined?

He was magnificent for Spurs for three years, and undoubtedly made an ok team a lot better, including reaching the quarter-finals of the Champions League. He was also magnificent for Wales for several years, inspiring an ok team to the heights of the semi-finals of the European Championships. This proves that, at his best, he could be a team's Number 1 star (though it is to be noted that Spurs' best recent years have been since he left the club).

At Madrid, he went in as "second superstar", behind Ronaldo but not a standard team player either, expected to do incredible, stunning, unique things, but also defer to his more consistent and productive team-mate.

This set-up worked. He produced many extraordinary moments. https://www.youtube.com/watchv=yWVrolNQ4RU&ab_channel=RealMadrid This goal in the 2014 Copa de Rey was a preposterous combination of power, speed and skill. He was a bit like football's Jonah Lomu for a while.

Madrid won the Champions League four times when he was at he club, and he was integral to at least two of those. However, Barcelona remained, mainly, the dominant team in the league - Bale, with his injuries, his inconsistencies and highly specific set of skills, didn't quite bring the all-round dominance Madrid might have hoped for.

Maybe he's like an uber-Gerrard, a cup specialist, a master of moments rather than the man you can build your team on (that's the player Gerrard should have been, Liverpool made the mistake of building their team on him).

So, for me, that's the fascinating thing with Bale back at Spurs. Will it be a disaster? Will he be, past his best, an active negative for the team, like he was before his best, or will Mourinho deploy him wisely such that he brings real added value to a squad already full of attacking talent. Maybe he'll end up where he began, as the reserve left-back.

Brief 45: Et tu, bono et cetera

I've been thinking for a long, long time about compiling a list of the worst songs ever. It's harder than you'd think. It's not that much fun being mean, especially as I don't actually know a single thing about music and, deep down, admire anyone who manages to get a single song written and listend to, and also, most songs that are bad are not bad in an interesting way, or a way I can bring any insight to.

The kind of bad I'm interested in, of which there is less than you'd think,  is when something tries too hard to be good, or when pomposity and bad faith takes overwhelms everything.

Anyway, U2 ... 

Sometimes, with U2, I'm not entirely sure what my problem is, and I recognise the solid, anthemic rock band with good tunes which millions around the world have loved for years. You don't have to hate anything, David, and are you really sure this is something to hate? Poor Edge. Edge seems nice.

Really, they all seem nice, in their way. 

But, on other days, when I really notice how much U2 (let's say Bono, cos it's Bono that people mean when they don't like U2) have always been trying so hard to be some-thing, to do some-thing, that I understand fully why they inspire such loathing, in me and in others.

Trying so hard to be sincere and meaningful in the 80s, then trying so hard to be ironic and funny in the early 90s, then trying so hard to be modern and hip in the mid-90s, then trying so hard to sound like Gay Dad's 'To Earth With Love' in the early 2000s. There's something about a massive band copying a song by a smaller band and having massive success with it which is pretty annoying.

Anyway, I'm not really explaining this well, I guess it's just that every song by U2 is either 'Student Demonstration Time' by The Beach Boys, 'SYMM' by the Manic Street Preachers, 'Closing Time' by Semisonic, or 'Crazy Beat' by Blur.

That's the thing.

Brief 44: The moral leaders of Britain are young black people

I've been thinking this for a while, but it seems timely to say it now. I hope this doesn't seem a fatuous or gratuitous point. 

Apart from the unavoidable Marcus Rashford, I won't be giving a list of names and actions. Suffice to say, I've seen countless examples in the last few years where the most (indeed, only times) I've felt a sense of pride, affection for country, hope and, dare I say it, moral order, has been in the achievements, initiatives and words of young black people.

I think there are various reasons for this. Clearly it is not that they are the only people doing noteworthy good deeds.

There's a reason why it is Rashford, in his early 20s, and 100 year old WW2 veteran Tom Moore, whose stories resonated this year. Moore belongs to the last generation whose actions are entirely accepted and celebrated - the generation below his are broadly despised by their juniors and seen to have abdicated moral responsibility, while mine, the next one down, looks at itself now as not having done enough positive with the knowledge and understanding it has - it looks admiringly and apologetically at its youngers, a generation of activists out of necessity (or else, it collaborates with the one above ... Matt Hancock is younger than me, people like him in charge ...).

And where the British black pioneers of previous years were publicly pilloried as much as they were celebrated, there is, at least now, more of a critical mass that looks for and finds greatness in the actions of Rashford and his peers.

I grew up in a Britain where the black youth was the bogeyman, the demon. At school, on the news, on the sports field. That hasn't changed entirely, let's not kid ourselves, but when the tabloids went after Raheem Sterling, there was far more of a mainstream biteback than there'd have been in the past.

The black youth of Britain are a living contradiction of the myths of empire, yet also the embodiment of a dream that feels a bit like it's died, of a Britain that might have been, that maybe was close, if it had fully accepted its colonial legacy and the glorious impetus of its large immigrant communities.

Look, there's a degree of personal confirmation bias in this. When I attempted my PGCE in 2005, I floundered in my final placement in a school in Peckham with a high proportion of black kids. As much as the truth was simply that I was unsuited to teaching, I felt like I'd failed to get to grips with these children's realities, their identities, their hopes and dreams.

In the following years, I worked from home near Clapham South and would hear and see the kids from St Francis Xavier 6th Form College going into and out of school on week days. And gradually I gained a sense, a belief, that this was the hope and glory of Britain. I know it sounds crass and cliched, but it was all so contrary to the racist stereotypes I knew still flourished across England.

I know there are dangers to this perspective - firstly, that it buys into the myth of the "good immigrant", that young black people need to be of outstanding character, rather than just run-of-the-mill, to be accepted. Secondly, that such a glowing, rose-tinted view ignores the deprivation, prejudice and danger that young black people still face.

All that is true. I can only say that, overwhelmingly, this is where I am taking my lessons about values, kinship, aspiration, nuance and fairness these days. Others exist, but modern Britain is set up, for better or worse, for these lessons to have the greatest impact.

Brief 43: Being wrong about a big thing

It's ok to be wrong about big things sometimes. Some people are paid good money to be wrong about big things three times a day, after all. Considering how much time I spend online, I've managed not to make a fool of myself tooooo much, by strongly stating big important opinions that would go on to be completely wrong.

I tend to be able to hedge, or to stay silent on things even if my head is burning to submit a big important, heartfelt opinion to the world. I'm glad social media came along when I was just about old enough to mainly know how not to be an overt mega-twat all the time.

I comfortably get along by getting things wildly wrong about sport sometimes, which is fine and less embarrassing, but still a little bit embarrassing.

But I did give one terrible twitter take this year, which I'm happy to admit was a terrible take (whatever should happen in the next few weeks).

I tweeted in early March: 

"The way the Democrats have suddenly closed ranks to shut out Sanders would be impressive if it wasn’t so depressing. One would almost think they could organise to win. But Biden will lose in November. Without a fight"

Whatever happens, this is clearly a bad take. It felt to me, at the time, when South Carolina congressman James Clyburn led the closing of the ranks by Democrat leaders in support of Biden just when it looked like Sanders was going to be the nomination, that it was not only a poisonous conspiracy, but an unwise one.

Wrong on both counts - swayed I suppose, by leftist online fervour, which I am usually only slightly partial to. Biden has been an excellent candidate, his best qualities have shown, and the doddering, compromised fool the Sanders left was painting  has not been seen.

The key thing is, and this is an indictment but it's true, he was always going to be the guy most likely, when some were finally too sickened by Trump to stick with him, that they'd look to and be ok with what they saw. That's not a good thing, but it's true. That's what was needed in this election, and I guess O'Rourke, Buttigieg etc, even Warren when she didn't explicitly back Sanders, saw that.

God knows what's going to happen, but Biden's been the right candidate for 2020, and I'm glad to have owned up to my terrible take.

Brief 42: What was the best thing of the 1990s?

It was not lumberjack shirts. It was not Expecting to Fly by the Bluetones. It was not Just a Gigolo starring Tony Slattery, or Caffrey's.

It was Italian football on Channel 4.

When live top flight football left terrestrial TV at the start of the Premier League in 1992 (and no one had Sky back then), when Paul Gascoigne was playing for Lazio, when Serie A was the best league in the world, Channel 4 had a brilliant idea, a brilliant idea which worked.

We were always told that Italian football was technically excellent but dull and defensive. I still remember watching the first live match in September 1992 (at a family friend's house in Gloucestershire), a 3-3 thriller between Lazio and Sampdoria, two goals for Beppe Signori.

There were many memorable games and memorable players - a 3-2 victory for Sampdoria over Milan where Ruud Gullit, for Sampdoria, avenged his jettisoning by Milan with a stunning winner ... not just the superstars like Baggio and Gullit, the likes of Diego Fuser, Abel Balbo, Daniel Fonseca, Pietro Vierchowod.

Gascoigne was a bit of a side issue - he was meant to present the Saturday morning show Gazzetta Football Italia, but was completely unreliable, so the job, serendipitously, went to producer James Richardson, who turned out to be one of the great sports broadcasters of all time. Gascoigne was meant to be Lazio's star, but he was mainly disappointing there. Not just that he was injured a lot, he just rarely played particularly well when he did.

Paul Ince and David Platt, on the other hand, were excellent in their stints at a variety of Italian clubs. So much of 90s football is forgotten, I find - a story narrowed down to Gascoigne, Shearer, Cantona, Beckham, Bergkamp. Ince and Platt were England's two world class players in the first half of the decade, trying to hold an average team together while Gascoigne wasted his talent away.

The commentary on the live games was magnificent - Peter Brackley is, for me, one of the three greatest British football commentators, and he'd be joined, mainly, by Ray Wilkins, Paul Elliott, Luther Blissett or Joe Jordan, all of whom were super-knowledgeable, and with all of whom Brackley had a great rapport.

When there was so little football on TV, it was such a steady and reliable joy - I, and millions of others, watched it regularly for most of that decade, saw the coming of Boban and Savicevic, Asprilla and Zidane, Seedorf and Henry.

It's time came and went - more bought Sky, or went to the pub on a Sunday to watch the Premier League, La Liga began to dominate more, something like that. It finished in the early 2000s, I think. I remember I was disappointed, but had not been watching regularly for a while. Such a place and time it was, though.

Brief 41: Rushed Strokes

 I quite like The Strokes' 2020 album 'The New Abnormal'. It's really a good listen.

Which got me thinking that, up until that point, every single piece of new music The Strokes had put out since their first release I'd enjoyed less than the previous one. Every single one.

That's pretty unusual and disappointing over a 20 year period but, I guess, well done to them for halting the decline.

But really, the remarkable thing about The Strokes is that the decline includes their much-acclaimed first album. I mean, that album was a disappointment, even though it was very good.

Their first EP and then their first CD single, both of which I'd already bought and enjoyed, contained arguably their seven best songs - Last Night, Barely Legal, The Modern Age, Hard to Explain, New York City Cops, Take It or Leave It, Trying Your Luck.

So the only songs not on those first two releases, which were widely available in the summer of 2001 before the album's release, were Is This It, Soma, Someday and Alone, Together. So, some might like one or two of those songs the most, but they're not palpably and clearly better than the previous seven.

Like, I can't think of any other band that did that - that put out all their great songs before they'd even released their debut album, as if they correctly gambled that they could create 20 years of hype out of quite how brilliant they seemed like they were going to be.

Anyway, this seems very negative. Their second album is also a very good album. But they could have held something back for it and it would have been even better. Ah well, it all worked, I guess.

Brief 40: Ford v Ferrari

 It's been bracing to watch a film and not like it one little bit.

It's not, objectively, a bad film.

It's directed by James Mangold, who generally directs pretty good films, it stars Christian Bale and Matt Damon, who are both good screen actors I tend to like a lot.

I hated the title - 'Ford vs Ferrari', and the alternative title 'Le Mans 66' and, let me tell you, I hate motor racing, but, what with it being Oscar-nominated and all, I thought the credentials and the notion of it being good old-fashioned solid entertainment would carry it through.

But what I did is underestimate how much I hated motor racing, how much I rejected the idea of motor racing as a film subject, an arena for nuance and for heroism, for humour, for idiosyncracies and for moving loves and friendship.

So, for every deftly plotted turn, ever well-written line, every well shot thrill, I went "yeah, so what", "who cares" "knobs" over and over again, like a small, small boy watching a romance.

And so I had a bit more sympathy for people who flat-out hate films which seem to be to have little wrong with them. There is not that much wrong with 'Ford V Ferrari' - I mean, all the accents are slightly wrong, all the banter is slightly off, all the historical detail doesn't quite ring quite true, but I'd definitely be able to put up with that if it was about cricket, basketball, or indeed boxing.

Though one of the reasons I hate motor racing is why many people hate boxing - it ain't worth it for all the deaths. But, at least, surely, people watching boxing films or reading boxing stories can believe that it has real value and meaning in people's lives, that the jeopardy is real? But here? These car pricks want to be faster than these car pricks, and this car prick wants this slightly more nuanced car prick to help him do that, but, really, it's all just nothing.

Anyway, it's quite a good film. You should see it.

Brief 39 - Interim Pop

 This is a playlist of the stuff I thought I was trying to avoid.

It's the pop charts, 1998 to 2006. These were my CD-buying years - voraciously chasing the heritage of rockular music, as well as buying everything vaguely indie that half-interested me - 1000+ CD albums I bought in those years, hardly any featured here.

This is the pop stuff, the stuff I was mainly turning up my nose at. Yet, of course, I still heard it. I still watched 'Top of the Pops' and 'The Chart Show' then 'CDUK', listened to Radio 1 sometimes, watched 'Popstars' and 'The X Factor' etc.

These are, mostly, the songs which I liked begrudgingly, or thought at the time I didn't like but it turns out I did.

It was still pretty much acceptable to be snobby about pop music in 1998 - I genuinely did think that what I was in to was "better". That changed over the course of this playlist - pop started to win critical acclaim, to be enjoyed and judged on its own merits.

I've finished at 2006, not just because that's when I started downloading music, so everything opened up choicewise, but because, by then, most of barriers were down. I didn't like something like 'Biology' begrudgingly, I loved it and knew it was good. I've chosen 'Patience' by Take That as the last song, just because I hated Take That in their first incarnation, and yet when they came back a decade later, with a solidly pleasing middle-aged pop ballad, I lapped it up.

So, this is that stuff. Of course, I wasn't a complete closed book at the time - some of it, like 'Doo Wop (That Thing)' and 'Get Your Freak On' was recognisably great, even to me.

And, of course, I wasn't entirely wrong. A lot of the stuff of that era was bobbins. Still, here are my favourites, my pleasant memories, of the interim pop.

[usually only one track per artist, though sometimes have allowed an artist twice in different guises].

INTERIM POP - PLAYLIST 98-06

1. Doo Wop (That Thing) - Lauryn Hill
2. Family Affair - Mary J Blige
3. Complicated - Avril Lavigne
4. All The Things She Said - Tatu
5. Move Your Feet - Junior Senior
6. 1 Thing - Amerie
7. Biology - Girls Aloud
8. Irreplaceable - Beyonce
9. We Are Your Friends - Justice vs Simian
10. Toxic - Britney Spears
11. Shackles - Mary Mary
12. Getting' Jiggy With It - Will Smith
13. Chewing Gum - Annie
14. Show Me Love - Robyn
15. I Try - Macy Gray
16. My Love is Your Love - Whitney Houston
17. Milkshake - Kelis
18. It Feels So Good - Sonique
19. Try Again - Aaliyah
20. Genie in a Bottle - Christina Aguilera
21. See it in a Boy's Eyes - Jamelia
22. Leave Right Now - Will Young
23. I'm Like a Bird - Nelly Furtado
24. Get Ur Freak On - Missy Elliott
25. Who's That Girl - Eve
26. Fallin'  - Alicia Keys
27. Lose Yourself - Eminem
28. Cry Me a River - Justin Timberlake
29. If There's Any Justice - Lemar
30. Some Girls - Rachel Stevens
31. Obviously - McFly
32. Shiver - Natalie Imbruglia
33. Hollaback Girl - Gwen Stefani
34. No Worries - Simon Webbe
35. Hung Up - Madonna
36. Pure Shores - All Saints
37. Independent Women Pt 1 - Destiny's Child
38. 911 - Wyclef Jean
39. What Took You So Long - Emma Bunton
40. Honey to the Bee - Billie
41. Keep on Movin' - 5ive
42. Most Girls - Pink
43. In Demand - Texas
44. Ms Jackson - OutKast
45. Groovejet (If This Ain't Love) - Spiller ft Sophie Ellis Bextor
46. It Wasn't Me - Shaggy ft RikRok
47. Chase the Sun - Planet Funk
48. Lovin' Each Day - Ronan Keating
49. Flyby - Blue
50. Can't Get You Out of My Head - Kylie Minogue
51. If You're Not the One - Daniel Bedingfield
52. It's OK - Atomic Kitten
53. Dy-Na-Mi-Tee - Ms Dynamite
54. Dilemma - Nelly ft Kelly Rowland
55. Breathe - Blu Cantrell ft Sean Paul
56. Come As You Are - Beverley Knight
57. Pon de Replay - Rihanna
58. Push the Button - Sugababes
59. End of the Line - The Honeyz
60. Patience - Take That

Brief 38: Cyrano de Bergerac

When we were 14 or 15, Rory Kinnear, who was in my year, played the lead role in a school production of 'Cyrano de Bergerac'.

I'd seen plenty of classical concerts by then, I'd seen amateur and professional stage productions, I'd seen live sport and sport on TV, but that was the first time I experienced a performance that was transcendent.

I saw an interview with Kinnear a few years ago when he was publicising Hamlet or Othello,  for one of those professional roles for which he was heavily acclaimed, and he joked that friends and family still said his best performance was Cyrano de Bergerac, at school, aged 15.

I'm sure, in real terms, it wasn't. I'm sure he's honed his craft an awful lot since then. I've seen him put on several outstanding performances on stage and screen.

But, honestly, that Cyrano. 

We knew Rory was talented, he'd stolen the show the previous year with a comic supporting role in whatever that play was. By that age, there'd been lots of school productions, I'd even been in a few myself, they were fun, everyone took it oh so seriously, occasionally someone was actually pretty good (many still talk about the gravitas I gave my 5 lines as Metellus in 'Androcles and the Lion'. As for Nick Symons as the lion ...)

But when I, and everyone else, watched Kinnear playing Cyrano, the air in the room changed. It was like that. 

Everyone felt it. The school buzzed with it in the next few days. It was hard to know what to say to him about it. From that point, the notion that he'd become an award-winning, scene-stealing, generational stage actor seemed inevitable. I'm sure he wouldn't see it as inevitable, and I'm sure it hasn't been that way in the slightest, but if you'd asked most of us who watched those three nights whether there was anyone in Britain better at acting at that point, and whether in time everyone would come to know it, we'd have said no.

I don't really know what my point is. Probably just that it really, probably was, even with the benefit of hindsight, as good as I think it was. That we were lucky to see it. 

I've had that feeling a few times since, not that many, but quite a few. At sport, at music, at the theatre ... something which feels genuinely special, not just interesting or exciting or good. It's rare.

Brief 37: Choose the Twos!

OK, this is a playlist of the Greatest UK Number 2 singles of all time. I tried to get it down to 60, but couldn't get it lower than 66 songs. Lots of great songs here, and if they're not great, they're at least quite fun.

No one artist is permitted more than one song. Every song has to have reached Number 2, no higher. If I wasn't sure what to include, I went with songs whose presence near the top of the charts was odd or interesting. Sometimes, similarly, I've chosen songs whose Number 2 status is famous in and of itself, like 'Vienna' and 'Sit Down'.

My favourite, in a way ... 24 years later, I still have not got my head round the fact that 'Slight Return', a pleasingly jangly modest shrug of a song by a diffidently pleasant band, entered the pop charts at Number 2. Those were funny times.

My actual favourite ... Penny Lane, I guess. That's a good one. Aah, another note - where's it a double-a side, I've only included one song ... so no Strawberry Fields.

There are, you'll notice, some of the greatest pop songs of all time in the list. The Number 2s in the late 60s were just incredible.

Whether something got to Number 2 or Number 1 used to really, really matter. Perhaps it still does to some people, but it doesn't feel like it.

Final note - this is a playlist, not an order. God Save the Queen is not my favourite, but it seems a fun place to start.

https://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/choose-the-twos/pl.u-d29p0tAZrR6

1. God Save the Queen      The Sex Pistols
2. Sir Duke              Stevie Wonder
3. I Want You Back              The Jackson 5
4. Penny Lane        The Beatles
5. One Day I’ll Fly Away      Randy Crawford
6. Absolute Beginners        David Bowie
7. Sometimes         Erasure
8. Wonderwall      Oasis
9. Shake it Off        Taylor Swift
10. Love Machine    Girls Aloud
11. Some Girls          Rachel Stevens
12. Get the Party Started     Pink
13. Pump Up the Jam           Technotronic ft. Felly
14. Groove is in the Heart    Deee-Lite
15. Take On Me       A-ha
16. My Generation The Who
17. Gimme Some Lovin’       Spencer Davis Group
18. Suspicious Minds            Elvis Presley
19. Ain’t Got No - I Got Life  Nina Simone
20. Lovin’ You          Minnie Riperton
21. Dreaming           Blondie
22. Zoom    Fat Larry’s Band
23. That’s the Way Love Goes           Janet Jackson
24. Confide in Me    Kylie Minogue
25. A Design for Life              Manic Street Preachers
26. Rocket Man       Elton John
27. I Believe in a Thing Called Love   Darkness
28. My Name Is       Eminem
29. Bitter Sweet Symphony Verve
30. Common People             Pulp
31. Wind of Change The Scorpions
32. Sit Down            James
33. Axel F    Harold Faltermeyer
34. Downtown         Petula Clark
35. This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us            Sparks
36. Born Slippy        Underworld
37. Ms. Jackson       Outkast
38. Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of              U2
39. God Only Knows              The Beach Boys
40. Waterloo Sunset             The Kinks
41. Yesterday Once More    The Carpenters
42. In the Air Tonight            Phil Collins
43. Vienna  Ultravox
44. Oliver’s Army     Elvis Costello & The Attractions
45. Push It  Salt-N-Pepa
46. I’m Too Sexy      Right Said Fred
47. Don’t Upset the Rhythm (Go Baby Go)    Noisettes
48. I Need a Dollar  Aloe Blacc
49. Empire State of Mind     Jay-Z ft. Alicia Keys
50. Danger High Voltage      Electric Six
51. My Love is Your Love      Whitney Houston
52. Torn      Natalie Imbruglia
53. Up the Junction Squeeze
54. Kids in America Kim Wilde
55. Golden Brown   The Stranglers
56. Fairytale of New York     The Pogues ft Kirsty MacColl
57. Electric Avenue Eddy Grant
58. Ain’t No Pleasing You     Chas and Dave
59. Justified and Ancient      KLF ft. Tammy Wynette
60. On a Ragga Tip  SL2
61. Song 2  Blur
62. Slight Return     Bluetones
63. Cry Me a River   Justin Timberlake
64. Milkshake          Kelis
65. Pompeii              Bastille
66. American Pie     Don McLean