1963: Bob Dylan: The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

Regular readers of the blog could almost certainly have guessed both the album and the artist to follow Blur (and not just because I actually told the most regular reader of the blog who was coming up next). There's not much between Blur and Bob Dylan in the alphabet (I'm neither a big enough fan of Bo Diddley or Boards of Canada) and, with the Beatles having already gone, there's really not much else in my realm from 1963.

So Freewheelin' it is. The first great Bob Dylan album. The start of the singer-songwriter. Pretty much the start of everything, albeit 'Please Please Me', the Beatles' debut album, was a couple of months earlier.

Another wonderful wonderful album cover. Young Bob in love with Suze Rotolo, arguably the most important of the many muses throughout his career. What might Bob Dylan have been without Suze Rotolo? One more thin gypsy thief ...

The first Bob Dylan album, 'Bob Dylan', is fine. Some very nice folk covers and a couple of tentative attempts at writing. I don't believe it set the world on fire at the time.

Why did Bob Dylan start writing his own songs? Because no one else had written the songs he wanted to sing.

There is a certain disappointment when one delves into the life and times of Bob at what that "songwriting" often entails. Recently, we know he's been borrowing a few words, and early on, he used a lot of pre-existing melodies. It's no secret, and it's also not true to say that Dylan never came up with any great melodies. As his career progressed, there are many, many melodies of his own, great Bob Dylan songs of all different kinds of styles and patterns. It irritates me if anyone says otherwise.

But 'Freewheelin', great as it is, is basically Dylan learning how to speak his mind over old tunes. The result is several songs which are classics to this day, so not many are complaining.

I think I prefer 'The Times They Are a Changin' which came a year later. It's more austere, more serious, sadder and harsher, but to me the songs are even more breathtaking. On that album, there's 'With God on Our Side', 'One Too Many Mornings', 'When the Ship Comes In', 'Boots of Spanish Leather' and 'The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll' - the latter alone is, to me, one of the greatest works of art of the 20th century, and I'll stand by that.

What's on Freewheelin?  The tracklistin' is
Blowin in the Wind
Girl from the North Country
Masters of War
Down the Highway
Bob Dylan's Blues
A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall
-
Don't Think Twice it's All right
Bob Dylan's Dream
Oxford Town
Talkin' World War III Blues
Corrina, Corrina
Honey Just Allow Me One More Chance
I Shall Be Free

Come on, it peters out a bit, doesn't it? It could lose at least two, arguably four.

But just imagine hearing it when it came out. Especially the first half. Just imagine. There are all the song types which well be the template for his career, in excelsis.

The idealistic, questioning one
The nostalgic, romantic one
The angry one
The richly metaphorical one
The sweetly, slyly, bitterly cynical one
The funny one


They're all there.
I'd been listening to Dylan for maybe a year or two, in the form of a couple of mixed up compilations before I bought this, along with Highway 61, Blonde on Blonde and Blood on the Tracks when I was 18. A favourite can't be picked from these 4, but I think this may have made the earliest impression. I knew the first, second and sixth track already, but they worked far better in their right context.
Don't Think Twice It's All Right was the biggest winner for me, I couldn't believe how pretty it was (here was a particular disappointment when i later discovered it wasn't Bob's own melody).

I did love the two talkin' songs on the second half, Talkin World War III Blues and I Shall Be Free - how fabulously silly, surreal and smartass he could be.

And Masters of War, well it seems a bit basic and unnuanced now, but jeez it was powerful back then when I heard it, so again, just imagine how powerful it will have been at the time.

Perhaps it would be silly to think that "political" "adult" songwriting in the pop charts wouldn't have come about anyway without Bob Dylan, but, you know, maybe it wouldn't. What would have happened to the Beatles? Would they have stayed fun, got boring and would rock'n'roll have died a fairly quick death? It's not a ridiculous question.

This was a cultural phenomenon that did need to gain momentum in the early 60s, it hadn't really gone anywhere for a few years, and this album was unfathomably important in that.

It still sounds great. Just great.

I saw Dylan at the Albert Hall last week. My view was terrible, right in the gods, and so the sound was hard going. He didn't play anything from Freewheelin', sadly, indeed he hardly played anything from the 60s, which is pretty bold. He plays a lot of his recent stuff, and the fact is that's the stuff that wounds best and often gets the best reaction now.
I've seen him play 'Blowin in the Wind'  and 'Hard Rain' and that may be about it from this album. He probably has a pretty good idea of which songs from his back catalogue he can do justice to. These songs deserve to be sung by a young guy with an old voice and an acoustic guitar. 50 years on, it's incredible that Bob Dylan can still perform new songs that people want to hear.

Oh, and I realise I didn't do a Bob Dylan compilation. Got to keep it to 20 songs. I toyed with imposing one from each album but then, how about non-album tracks? So this would be my Bob Dylan compilation, with no restrictions.

Like a Rolling Stone
Lay Down Your Weary Tune
Idiot Wind
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
Isis (Live)
Mississippi
Workingman Blues
To Ramona
Boots of Spanish Leather
Visions of Johanna
Simple Twist of Fate
When the Ship Comes In
I Threw it All Away
She's Your Lover Now
Hurricane
One Too Many Mornings
Not Dark Yet
Positively 4th Street
Love Minus Zero
Every Grain of Sand

Something like that, anyway

1993: Blur - Modern Life is Rubbish

This is another wonderful album cover, and the album that is seen in some ways as the "start" of the Blur we know and love and the seminal album of British music of the decade.

Perhaps. Perhaps it's more about what it represents than what it is. It's not my favourite Blur album - 3rd or 4th favourite really. The tale of its genesis, though, is fascinating in itself.

Blur's first album 'Leisure' was significantly more successful in both the UK and the US, but it's also a bit rubbish. There are a couple of great baggy singles, 'There's No Other Way' and 'She's So High' which showed Damon Albarn's gift for pop songs, but it was generally dismissed as copycat trendhopping.

Funnily enough, I do remember Blur on Top of the Pops in around 1991, and thinking they were rubbish, disconcerting and interesting (legend has it they were on ecstasy, which might explain a bit) so I kept a look out for the name. The early 90s was a musical black hole for me, however and if I'm honest, Blur between 'Bang' and 'Girls and Boys' passed me by entirely. Which is when all this stuff happened.

So the story begins ... they had a terrible US tour where they all psychologically disintegrated and fought each other and were ignored and hated their own music and most of all hated America. So they determined to become a proper British band. First up was the single 'Popscene', all stabbing brass, which was a big flop but is now seen as one of the best singles of the 90s.

Then came the recording of Modern Life is Rubbish, which had the working title Britain Vs America. The eventual title is a lot better. Albarn says that the rubbish means garbage, detritus, i.e. the modern world is just the leftovers of the clogged up past. Nice.

Here's an interesting thing. OK, it's now seen as a classic and proof of Albarn's genius in defiance of prevailing trends and the record company, but perhaps that's not the whole story.

Blur submitted the original album and were told it needed more in the way of singles, so Albarn wrote For Tomorrow. Then they wanted another "more American" single so they recored Chemical World.
So, really, who's the genius? Would this be half the album without those two songs, two of the finest in Blur's canon which they still play to this day? OK, Damon Albarn is a magnificent songwriter but it was not his instinct to include the two best songs on the album.

It was still be a good album with a great idea and great theme without those songs and Blur would probably still have gone on to do Parklife because it's not like For Tomorrow and Chemical World were career-boosting hits at the time. But, still, they make the album.

It's funny to think that before Modern Life, Damon wasn't thought of as much of a lyricist. For Tomorrow, the first song on the album, is one of his great tours de force, a lovely splurge of words, a romantic London song which really was the definition of the music I loved back then.

Starshaped is another cracking song (and the name of a mad Blur documentary of the time) and the song which really epitomises the cliche of oompah-loompah gor blimey guvnor Blur is Sunday Sunday - I've got to say I love it.

There are plenty of other good songs on the album, Advert and Colin Zeal and Oily Water etc. Still, few would say they didn't improve on the template with Parklife.

Seeing Blur in 2009 at Hyde Park was an indescribably awesome gig, especially since, for my own sins, I'd missed them first time around. It was a massive gig and it felt like I was part of a generation of like-minded people, which truly is a feeling I've hardly ever had in my life.

Blur were my band like they were for tens of thousands of others, the band that got me into modern music, to indie music, to real music. It was End of a Century, from Parklife, which really did it, I loved the lyrics and the brass. I loved the tracksuit tops. Later on, I loved the guitar, the ideas, the intelligence, the personalities (apart Alex James, who I always thought seemed like a cock, which he probably is, but his book is really a hoot. However, he's done a lot of TV in the last decade or so s if people think he's going to be more louche, witty and debonair than he is. Really, he's just a guy that got oh so lucky).

Albarn and Coxon isn't quite Lennon and McCartney, Albarn is always the major talent, but it's a pretty tremendous meeting of talents and gifts. And the drummer Dave Rowntree is some people's favourite band member, of course, though he probably won't be prime minister any time soon.

Modern Life is Rubbish was apparently born of hatred of both America and Suede. I'd have to be a pretty one-eyed Blur fan not to recognise that Suede's first two albums were as influential or in fact far more so than Blur's. It's a genuinely bitter rivalry, that one, a personal and professional hatred that has never gone away. Well done to Suede for coming back rocking and with some very decent new songs but Blur took it to a significantly higher level as the two bands progressed.

Damon Albarns turned out to be arguably one of the five most prodigious, most varied, most consistent talents in the history of British pop music, and that, more than ambition, concepts and capturing the zeitgeist was the key to Blur's success and influence.

Still, perhaps if Modern Life is Rubbish had been rubbish, they'd have been dropped, split up and he'd have gone straight to making soundtracks for obscure films or something, so thank goodness for it.

Here's a compilation from the Blur members. No Fat Les.

For Tomorrow
Song 2
Popscene
Best Days
Tender
He Thought of Cars
Bittersweet Bundle of Misery - Graham Coxon
A Soldier's Tale - The Good, the Bad and the Queen
Sunset Coming On - Damon Albarn
Under the Westway
Chemical World
This is a Low
Battery in Your Leg
End of a Century
19/2000 - Gorillaz
Good Song
Beetlebum
The Universal
On Your Own
To the End

There were really far too many to choose from. For the sake of one Coxon song and a song from Mali Music, I've missed Badhead and Out of Time. Are there more great combined Albarn/Coxon songs (many Albarn, really) than almost anyone, even Lennon/McCartney?
I think the most amazing thing about Damon Albarn is that he's headlined big festivals with three different, entirely distincts acts, Blur, Gorillaz and the Good, the Bad and the Queen (yes, they headlined Latitude one year i went, not entirely triumphantly, but certainly atmospherically). Four if you count his operas Monkey and Dr Dee headlining Manchester International Festival.
Still, i'd easily swap everything else he's ever done for one more decent Blur album.

1978: Blondie - Parallel Lines

1978, the year I was born, and a classic album cover. What a tremendous concept Blondie was, a punk band, a pop band, a rock band, a disco band, hip-hop pioneers, slick and shiny, grimy and druggy, as a notion they're one of the greatest bands ever. They probably didn't make enough great music to actually be one of the greatest bands ever, but this is an iconic band in the truest sense of the word.

Parallel Lines is considered their one great album, apart from Greatest Hits, obviously, and it's a virtual Greatest Hits in itself.

Like the Clash, Blondie broke down the barriers in the music of the time - it didn't have to be punk versus disco, pop versus rock, style versus success. Rather as I once mentioned with Martha Reeves vs Diana Ross, there's a megastardom Blondie didn't hold on to which means they might play tents at festivals in Suffolk and Madonna never drops below stadium level.

Deborah Harry was/is a star, but always an odd, cult, slightly dangerous one. She's the same age as my mum, already in her mid-30s by the time mega-success came. She dominates the band, embodies the band, of course, but they were always at pains to say they were an actual band. Perhaps they shouldn't have called themselves Blondie then ...

Does one see Deborah Harry in today's female stars? Well, no, not that much, nobody really has that coolness - you just see the grim version of blonde ambition which Madonna co-opted. Both did a fair bit of acting too - Deborah Harry was better but then, again, that's not saying much.

In indie music, there have been a fair few of those female-fronted, male instrumentalist bands - and then, perhaps Gwen Stefani is Blondie's most direct and obvious successor. Not a notion that fills me with great joy.

This is a great album - my favourite track, in fact my favourite Blondie song, is Sunday Girl. No real secret to why, it's just a cool tune. I loved the random French as well, I suppose. Then there's Heart of Glass, their disco pop sensation, which was probably the first Blondie song I heard, on a TV advert for the Best of Blondie. Shortly afterwards, on a school holiday, in dormitories, we listened to an awful lot of that album. Bizarrely, I remember the compliment of the time and place was "raj", and I remember the phrase "Debbie Harry is raj" ... being used. Odd.

It was also rather marvellous that, starting from 1998, they had a whole new career with new material and everything. Maria was a great comeback single and deserves its place amongst their biggest hits.

With Blondie, you can't look too far beyond the singles, I think. This would be my Blondie compilation

Atomic
Rip Her to Shreds
Dreaming
Sunday Girl
Maria
Heart of Glass
Rapture
One Way or Another
Fade Away and Radiate
Call Me
Denis
Hanging on the Telephone
Picture This
Dreaming

Basically, a greatest hits, sorry. With no Tide is High. Because Atomic Kitten ruined it for me.

1983: Billy Bragg - Life's a Riot with Spy Vs Spy

1983's a bit of a funny year, isn't it? Thatcher got re-elected, Thriller had just come out but Madonna hadn't hit yet, the Jam had split up to be replaced by the Style Council, new romanticism was a dominant commercial force, and I, I was not yet conscious. I mean, I was conscious, but I was not conscious that it was 1983. 1984 was my first year of historical understanding. Not much, but a bit, so it's quite hard for me to know what to make of 1983. It seems like a bit of a non-year to me. What were the classic albums? Anyone?

So I've gone for the first album (I say album, it's 7 songs in 15 minutes) by a quietly powerful presence in British music. Bragg's right there at the heart of the 80s alternative, with the famous Red Wedge which famously made absolutely naff-all difference, with that sturdy, strong voice from the left.

30 years he's been doing it, and he's made himself a kind of national treasure, a figure beyond music. Blackwell's, Charing Cross Road, 2001-2, we got a lot of famous folk in - I'll never forget my shock on my first day when Laurence Fishburne strolled in and asked to be directed to the drama section. But in my Social Sciences department, we were never so close to being starstruck, or at least wishing to go up and pat a celeb on the back and say "good on you" as when Billy was browsing the History section. He seems like a good one.

I was listening to this album earlier, and, to be honest, I wasn't enjoying it that much. It's got A New England, which is Bragg's most famous song, The Busy Girl Buys Beauty, The Milkman of Human Kindness, it sets a very nice template for his career, but it's obviously very one-paced and basic. Thriller it ain't.

I was reminded of something Jeff Tweedy slightly churlishly said after Billy Bragg and Wilco collaborated on Woody Guthrie lyrics for the Mermaid Avenue album. There was a bit of tension on the closing stages, apparently, and a falling out, which was least partially repaired. But I remember Tweedy being asked what he'd learnt from Billy Bragg in the sessions and him saying it was more along the lines of what Bragg had learnt from Wilco.

I kind of get his point. Tweedy is a master, a man who has gone from style to style, who creates all different types of songs, creates classic albums, makes strange and daring noises. I can imagine him making the simplicity of Billy's form seem a bit amateurish.

Not to say it was not a fruitful collaboration. There are some wonderful songs on Mermaid Avenue and Mermaid Avenue Vol II. And not to say that Billy Bragg is not awesome, with some awesome songs, but I think a 10 song compilation will be about right for him.

He's an astute, witty, lyricist, but I'm not sure there's that often enough in his songs to get lost in them over and over again.

His career's mainly been on the fringes, not many big sellers. Bizarrely, there's a Number 1 single from 1988, on a Double A side in aid of Childline with WetWetWet - they did With A Little Help from My Friends, he did She's Leaving Home - I've a feeling there's was the more popular number. Apart from that, a few Top 40 hits, Sexuality, Between the Wars, one called Take Down the Union Jack. He's never quite been able to move beyond being a one (no, two, Mr Love and Justice) trick pony.

Still, 1983 felt like Billy Bragg's year to me. The left is coming, I tell you. The left is coming.

Here's a list. Despite whatever negativity I've expressed, I like all these songs a lot, and two or three of them, I like an awful lot.

New England
Upfield
Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key
Brickbat (oh I love this one!)
The Busy Girl Buys Beauty
All You Fascists Bound to Lose
St Swithin's Day
Between the Wars
Waiting for the Great Leap Forward
Greetings to the New Brunette

That's be mine. There should be more like Billy Bragg

2006: Beyonce - B'Day

I'm not going to lie to you, I don't own this album. I wanted to put together a Beyonce/Destiny's Child compilation, so needed to pick an album. So i chose the one with hilarious title, released on her birthday but beloved of fans of posh bathrooms. Also released the same year was 'Respect M.E.' by Missy Elliott, but not sadly 'R's Soul' by R Kelly.

Anyway, the title was a rare misfire for Beyonce, who is by a huge huge distance the great pop star of our age. Who are our megastars of pop? Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, Bieber, Eminem, Rihanna, Timberlake, even maybe Adele. Well, how much better is Beyonce than all of them?

Though still in her early 30s, she's a proper veteran - Destiny's Child's first hit was 16 full years ago, and they were immediately awesome, tight, futuristic r'n'b. And there's barely been a let-up sibce. That's a hell of a career. A hell of a lot of hits. And - perhaps someone can answer me this, what's not to like about Beyonce?

The worst one hears is that she's very focused, very driven, has a big, slightly imposing entourage, but she's pretty much entirely avoided the diva stories, the accusations of unpleasantness, stupidity, talentlessness, wild egocentricity and messiah complex, mentalness that accompany a lot of the biggest stars in pop.

And, sorry to sound like a grandad from Tunbridge Wells, but she's frankly a better role model, whatever the fuck that is, than the rest of these garish goons. She's a pro. She says measured, intelligent things. She doesn't slag people or groups off, ya de ya. I realise there's PR and reality, so I'll stop boring on about all that, and just remember how many awesome songs she's been a part of.

On 'B'Day' there are one or two crackers, including "to the left, to the left" Irreplaceable and Deja Vu (which I actually think is a little bit of a mess).

Being such a fan of Beyonce, I do wonder why I haven't actually shelled out on a full album, rather than the individual songs I own. Is that the essence, for someone looking for a little bit more in their music and believing it really is an art form, of the limitations of pop music? I can't lose myself in it and I don't hear enough different stories. I'll flirt with it then return to my folk, rock, country, whatever.

I do think Beyonce is capable of an album I would love and maybe next time I'll bite the bullet. She is capable of glorious soul music, songs you lose yourself in, she's capable of lots of different textures and moods. I actually think her voice isn't perfect, it's not effortless grace, you can really hear her putting the effort in and it sounds surprisingly shrill sometimes near the top. But, you know, it's a pretty great sound.

She gets songwriting credit on pretty much all her songs - what role she's played one doesn't know exactly but it seems she comes up with lyrics and melodies more than beats and instrumentation. Either way, there's no reason to doubt she's not got a real talent in that area.

There's a song on her latest album, called '1+1' which is quite a spare power ballad, but it really is a thing of wonder, which pushes close to breaking point, but is actually moving beyond what we've any right to expect.

Here would be my Destiny's Child/Beyonce compilation (it doesn't include their work with former Coronation Street star Matthew Marsden in the late 90s)

Crazy in Love (being the best song of the 2000s, according to the NME and pretty much everyone else)
Bills, Bills, Bills - Destiny's Child
Irreplaceable
Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)
Independent Women Part I - Destiny's Child
Jumpin, Jumpin - Destiny's Child
1+1
Listen
Countdown
Lose My Breath - Destiny's Child
Nuclear - Destiny's Child
Say My Name - Destiny's Child

Pretty damn good that, and there's plenty more where that came from. Beyonce is the outstanding pop artist of our time, and just for once, you can stick your boys with guitars and beards.

1966: The Beatles - Revolver

Right, no fucking about with this one. 1966 - Revolver, The Beatles. If you were to collate all the lists ever of Best Album ever, this would surely come Number 1. Because it's the Best Album Ever, I suppose.
And if it's not the best, no one's going to say it's not one of the ten best.

14 songs, which is quite a lot, but the hits keep on coming. Does anyone disagree with me that it's McCartney's album primarily? His finest hour. His songs on this one are Eleanor Rigby, Here There and Everywhere, Good Day Sunshine, For No One and Got to Get You Into My Life. For me, all of those except are Good Day Sunshine are stone cold classics, in my favourite 10 Beatles songs. Here There and Everywhere is the one Macca consistently says is his own favourite.

Though I'm generally of the McCartney beats Lennon persuasion, there are other Beatles album where I accept Lennon has the best moments and gives the album its heart. I even think Lennon is pulling away on the later stuff, but on 'Revolver', Lennon's stuff is great, Harrison's burgeoning but not quite at its peak. McCartney is at his most beautiful and perfect. And Ringo sings Yellow Submarine. Which is the best you can hope for, really.

I do understand why Sgt Pepper's was for a long time considered the best Beatles album. The concept is dazzling. The package is dazzling. The colours are beautiful. But we all know it's a bit silly, really, and there are really only about four great great songs on it.

Whereas Revolver is just a magnificent collection of talent. They give Harrison the first number, which is nice - Taxman - sounds great, but it's a bit moany. Then Eleanor Rigby, which only suffers because it's the pop song most patronisingly appreciated by dumb classical fans who think pop music actually has to justify its existence to them. Shitbags. Anyway ... it's a good song

As is I'm Only Sleeping. Better than the Suggs cover. Then more Harrison, Love You To. Well, ok, it's not necessarily a classic song in and of itself, but it's a real eye-opener, a real "look what we're doing now" moment. A nice bitter before the sweet sweet of Here There and Everywhere.
Then the heart of the album, with Yellow Submarine, She Said She Said (which sounds better to me now than ever), Good Day Sunshine and one of my favourite ever Lennon songs, And Your Bird Can Sing. 1.20 in "Tell me that you've heard every sound there is ...", that surely is one of the great "Here, this is the Beatles, this is how good they are" moments.
And then, wonder of wonders, For No One. Is this the Beatles' most mature, heartbreaking song? Did it create MOR? Either way,  it's an all time favourite of mine.
Then, a little dip, but perhaps a necessary dip and not much of a dip. Doctor Robert and I Want to Tell You, another one where Harrison is not quite fantastic yet but close enough. You can sense his muse coming.
Then time for the big finish. You can understand why Lennon's Tomorrow Never Knows gets the big finish. The way of the future. The way of the future. I wouldn't say I love it but I do remember how enormously impressed I was in the 90s that The Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers sounded no more modern than it, and it seemed that every strand of successful popular music was in thrall to the Beatles.
But anyway, McCartney's last shot is Got to Get You Into My Life, just as much a drugs song as Tomorrow Never Knows, but couldn't be more different in sound and feel. What a melodic gift he had!
And that's it - 14 songs but only 35 minutes. Perhaps it's not right to call it the perfect album, the best album, but it's surely the perfect "band" album, where there is space for different styles, different personalities, different aims, but it all sits together beautifully.
The debt we as pop music fans have to the Beatles and to this album is immeasurable. This is what gave it the momentum to be what it still is. It's a minor, trivial point, but this album was Number 1 in the same summer England won the World Cup. Was this as good as it got for this little country?

Anyway, I'm not going to write much else about the Beatles. I've heard a bit of McCartney's new album, and it's rather good, sounds like the Beatles, not just a pale facsimile.
Their story is the perfect happy accident - how did it happen that there was not one, not two but three of that amazing, world-changing talent (sorry Ringo) all in that part of Liverpool, all at that time? What are the chances? Seriously, statisticians, what are the chances?

How long should a Beatles compilation be, bearing in mind I'm allowed to incorporate the best of their solo careers too? 100 songs? Maybe 50? Jeez, this is tough.
I'll limit myself to 20, but I'll miss some of the greatest songs ever written, just because of the mood I'm in.

We Can Work It Out (this, by the way, is what I would call the perfect Beatles song. The perfect Lennon/McCartney song, if you will)
Penny Lane
Revolution
In My Life
For No One
All Things Must Pass - George Harrison
I Want to Hold Your Hand
Day in the Life
Drive
You've Got to Hide Your Love Away
Here There and Everywhere
Happiness is a Warm Gun
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Band on the Run - Paul McCartney
Ticket to Ride
Yesterday
Eleanor Rigby
God - John Lennon
Got to Get You Into My Life
And Your Bird Can Sing

What have I missed? I mean, seriously, the songs I've missed are still pretty much better than every other band in history's career, aren't they?

2013: Arctic Monkeys - AM

So the most recent happens to be by the band that comes first in alphabetical order. I'd have quite liked to write about Ash's 'Free All Angels' for the letter A, which I think is one of the unsung perfect albums of recent times, but 2001 was a bit of a busy year for albums, and the Arctic Monkeys work for 2013 in a way that nothing else does really.

So here we go, 'AM' - a title shared with Wilco's 1st album, a nice little pun which was no doubt carefully thought through. And it's the Arctic Monkeys' 5th album, which means they've already caught up with Coldplay, who started 6 years earlier, and bearing in mind Alex Turner has also had time for a Number 1 album with the Last Shadow Puppets and a very good soundtrack to the film 'Submarine' he can fairly be described as prolific.

It's time for the cynics and doubters, who have included myself, believe me, to accept that the Arctic Monkeys are an all together good thing. They're Kaiser Chiefs, but good. They're Blur, but still together. They're Oasis, but consistent. They're Oasis, but nice. They're Oasis, but smart. They're Oasis, but not really Oasis, cos they're way better. They're every other British indie band, but enormously successful. In a good way.

When their first album came out to phenomenal success and they were 18 and I was 27, they were quite frankly a bunch of precocious smartarses. And so they remained for quite some time. I begrudged their success, their talent, their Northern wit. I was interested, but from a distance.

I'd bought the first album, but truly not enjoyed it all that much. Nothing else sounded as good to me as 'I Bet You Look Good On the Dancefloor'. Looking back, it's a phenomenal work by teenagers, a fine album ful lstop, but thankfully, and impressively, it's not their best. And it's reasonable to hope they'll only get better.

'AM' from 2013, is probably their most critically aimed record and the one where I finally realised resistance was futile. It's just really good. Every song is good, it's imaginative, it rocks, it's eclectic, it's got a bit of heart, it's just really good.

How often has a band who exploded on the scene like they did been able to cope with the gradual and inevitable decrease in sales and acclaim, while still keeping it at a very acceptable level (all their albums have gone to Number 1 in the UK and Top 25 in the US) and then rediscovered huge success and acclaim again on their 5th LP?

'AM' was recorded in America and has a slighly American feel, incorporating a bit of a hip-hop feel and also heavy rock and a few tales from the rock'n'roll road, but Yorkshire is unmistakeable.

America has often embraced British music but rarely has it embraced British bands who sounded totally and unmistakeably British and dealt in British idiom. Maybe the last one was  the Beatles. Are the Arctic Monkeys the new Beatles? I thought I'd give a shit about answering that question, but it seems I don't, thank goodness.

They're a bit of an anomaly, a proper indie band for whom success has come easy and stayed easy, who haven't blanded out. Now they're in their later twenties, I do confess it's easier to like them than it was. It's hard when the footballers and rock stars are all younger than you (Michael Owen will always be young Michael Owen to me) but I was dealing with it quite well til the Arctic Monkeys came along. 18? You're 18? Piss off.

It's not been perfect. They erred in that their one line-up change (bassist Andy Nicholson swapped for Nick O'Malley)  came after, not before, the first album (unlike, say, the Beatles!) creating the impression of disharmony or manipulation.

But there's a lot to like now. Including great drumming and great backing vocals (who's not a sucker for ooh-la-las?). Although most of the focus is on the lead singer Alex Turner, the drummer Matt Helders might well be the power behind the throne.

Perhaps both a strength and a drawback of the band is the pure attention to detail of Alex Turner's lyrics  - it can sometimes seem almost too perfect, too showy, like you can hear him slaving over it, rather than just coming naturally. There's a slickness and smartness to the internal rhymes and the long, elegant lines which is frankly enviable.

So, there we go, Arctic Monkeys, the band of the present, the band of the future.

Here is a 12 song Arctic Monkeys/Alex Turner compilation

I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor
Fluorescent Adolescent
Stuck on the Puzzle - Alex Turner
Snap Out of it
Cornerstone
Knee Socks
Fake Tales of San Francisco
Do I Wanna Know
The Age of the Understatement -  The Last Shadow Puppets
Arabella
505
A Certain Romance

50 Years of Rock'n'Roll for Grown Ups

It always helps with this blog to have a concept to work through at length, otherwise it can be a bit directionless, so first I had "Songs about ..." which was a big exhaustive concept, then I had "31 songs" which was a really fun and simple way to go off on a tangent when writing about songs.

So I've got another concept, quite a nice one. Rock'n'roll has been a grown-up for 50 years, hasn't it? No dissing Chuck Berry and Roy Orbison and Elvis and all those cats, but 1963 was the year Dylan and the Beatles really broke, Motown really started coming into its own. There were still a few more years before it got really grown-up, but 1963 is Year 1 for me.

I'm going to list one album for each year since (51 in total, therefore), write a little about the act and give a playlist for that band. The playlist will be 10, 12, 16 or 20 songs depending on what I think would be the best compilation for said act.

So it doesn't get a bit boring and predictable (for me more than you), I won't do it in chronological order. It'll be in alphabetical order of the acts, so will jump around the years a fair bit. So you can predict, if you wish, what year and act comes next. What fun that will be!

I reserve the right to change an album from my original list so the alphabetical thing might not hold perfectly. I've already made the list and some other albums/bands I really want to write about might come up.

These won't necessarily be my 51 favourites. Indeed, I've already found some irritating instances where I can't include some great albums/acts and then some years are a bit weak. So be it. Also, there might be some acts/albums I'm not a massive fan of, but I just think are worth writing about.  I'm really going to try not to just write about the same old shit I'm always going on about, the alt-country middleweights and the mystery white boys, but you know, there'll be a fair bit of that.

Also, I often discounted great albums because the acts in question only really did one great album so didn't actually make for a great compilation e.g. The Stone Roses and Love's Forever Changes. And I've given room for manoeuvre on what can appear on the compilation - it can be one band and related acts. It could be 'N Sync's ' Celebrity' for 2001 and then the album could contain the best of 'N Sync and all JT's solo stuff as well as his bandmates' solo wonders. It won't be.

There are some, like the Velvet Underground/Lou Reed recently, who I've already provided a good playlist for, so they'll only miss out because of that. Perhaps this concept will tell the true history of rock'n'roll.

Here's a random compilation to start - a massive 26-song list of one song for each letter of the alphabet. I'm making it up as I go ...

Side 1

Arcade Fire - Wake Up
Beta Band - Dry the Rain
Common - I Used to Love H.E.R
Del Amitri - Nothing Ever Happens
Echo and the Bunnymen - Ocean Rain
Frank Ocean - Bad Religion
Glen Campbell - Guess I'm Dumb
Harvey Danger - Flagpole Sitta
Idlewild - When I Argue I See Shapes
Janis Joplin - Cry Baby
Kenickie - Punka
LCD Soundsystem - New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down
Matthew E White - Steady Pace

Side 2

Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
OutKast - Ms Jackson
PJ Harvey - Sheela-Na-Gig
Queens of the Stone Age - Feelgood Hits of the Summer
Robyn - Dancing on My Own
Squeeze - Tempted
Tom Waits - Martha
Ultrasound - Stay Young
Vashti Bunyan - Just Another Diamond Day
Wu-Tang Clan - Can It Be All So Simple?
XTC - Senses Working Overtime
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Bang
Zombies - Time of the Season

Super. Not quite the conclusive story of rock'n'roll, but a nice start

He's set free

So Lou Reed's died. When I was told, my initial reaction was strangely, a bit like "Well, that's sad, but that means more to other people than me". True to an extent, I wasn't part of the Lou Reed cult, and I haven't bought any recent solo records of his.

But ... I do love a lot of Lou Reed songs. Love them, not just like them. And it's never been any question that he holds an unimpeachable place in modern history, that he was cool beyond cool. The Velvet Underground & Nico, almost uniquely among all the great music of the 60s, is utterly modern. It's also a perfect album, like only a handful of albums in music history are.

It's possible you'd get as many great rock'n'roll musicians who'd say Lou Reed was their biggest influence as Bob Dylan.

There's very little doubt he was, for whatever reason deep in his psyche, a pretty impossible human being (having said that, if journalists find you impossible, sometimes the opposite is true. It's funny how journalists can't stand Sir Alex Ferguson but everybody else speaks about him in glowing terms. Perhaps Reed was a secret softie who just wouldn't put up with bullshit. Perhaps).

I'm not going to write much more. I wasn't an in-depth Lou Reed fan and I'm not grieving and I wasn't one of the people that listened to that album and formed a band. So I'll leave the real eulogies to more deserving folk.

But I love a lot of Lou Reed songs. And these are they.

Sweet Jane - The Velvet Underground
Rock'n'Roll Heart - Lou Reed
Oh Sweet Nuthin' - The Velvet Underground
Pale Blue Eyes - The Velvet Underground
Coney Island Baby - Lou Reed
I'm Set Free - Lou Reed
I Found a Reason - The Velvet Underground
All Tomorrow's Parties - The Velvet Underground & Nico
Perfect Day - Lou Reed
Rock and Roll - The Velvet Underground
Fistful of Love - Antony and the Johnsons with Lou Reed
Waiting for the Man - The Velvet Underground & Nico
There She Goes Again - The Velvet Underground & Nico
Satellite of Love- Lou Reed
Femme Fatale - The Velvet Underground & Nico
Walk on the Wild Side - Lou Reed
Tranquilize - The Killers with Lou Reed
Vicious - Lou Reed

Those are the ones I honestly love. See, I'm not a deep Lou Reed fan. But, that's a pretty great bunch of songs, ain't it?

Dangerous minds etc

I'm going to take a brief detour from music (though the subject does relate to music) to something which I've been thinking about a fair bit lately. I'm going to keep it as short as possible because the more I go on the more I'll expose myself as out of my depth.

But there have been various stories lately about inner city schools banning various urban slang terms, and there has been this guy saying this (do read it, it's the first and only time I'll link to the Daily Mail).
Needless to say, being one of those metropolitan liberals he mentions (as opposed to a metropolitan egomaniac, which he clearly is), it made my skin crawl on a number of levels, but I'll try to keep it to just one of those levels.
[Initially, it got me thinking a lot about Shakespeare, and how important Shakespeare actually is, and whether actually it is possible to enjoy it initially without various forms of sweetening the pill. But that's for another time]

But there's a line in his speech which really stands out for me: "with, what's more, I'll wager, absolutely no hip-hop whatsoever". And that's where he loses entirely.

Because that's impossible. Because "hip-hop" is everywhere now.

The argument that the kids need to be kept from using their own language reminds me of when doctors and lawmakers and politicians and, dare I say it, parents pontificate on the dangers and social ills of alcohol. The classic Chris Morris line "Alcohol's not a drug, it's a drink" comes to mind. People seem not to accept that booze is everywhere, intrinsic to all our lives in an overwhelmingly good way. To me, it is wilful hypocrisy to talk about the downside of alcohol without fully explaining and accepting all the manifold positives for everyone. Who are people trying to kid?

I feel rather that way about hip-hop culture. It has so infused into every part of our culture, not just youth culture, that it is wild hypocrisy to try and hold back the tide. You think I'm exaggerating?
I was a posh white teenager 20 years ago with no great love for hip-hop music, but the slang, the language, the clothes, the style, was in everything. And I'm sick of people being negative about that, to talk about silly white kids ironically taking up black culture or trying to be cool etc ...it's not a bad thing, it's awesome. It's because, languagewise,  it is rich. It's fun. It's imaginative. Hip-hop leads and the rest of culture follows.

And it is a true global phenomenon and a force for good. Don't take my word for it. Take another West London early middle aged white boy's word for it Where You're At - Patrick Neate.

Or just watch fucking Made in Chelsea, where their speech is covered in "bro" and "wassup" and "wack". Yes, it can sound ridiculous, but it's become intrinsic rather than affected. So they're allowed to use it but not the poor black kids?

Yes, the old argument that people won't get jobs if they don't know how to write formal English. Well, durrr. Twas always thus and always thus will be. Kids from Inverness to Sheerness need to be able to distinguish between their spoken and informal language and their written language. I did. You did. If you're smart enough to do that well, good on you. It's got nothing to do with slang.

I haven't made this point well. I know I haven't. I've got too involved. But really, all I'm saying is look around. Wherever you are. I'm in Sevenoaks, for goodness sake, the least hip-hop town in Christendom. But you'll see it, you'll hear it everywhere. Doesn't matter if you think that's good or bad (it's good!). It's just where it's at.

What does the NME say?

Good old NME. They've relaunched with the DEFINITIVE Top 500 albums of all time. Good on them. And they've revealed the methodology, which seems very fair and well-rounded (ask loads of NME journalists young and old to give their Top 50 and then score accordingly), though if i'm not mistaken there is a flaw (including NME's Official Top 50 Albums of the Year list on top) which weights the list towards more recent albums.

Still, I come to praise the NME, which served me so well as I was growing up, and, though I hardly get it anymore, strikes me as, on reflection, one of the fairest, purest, most honest and unpseudy music publications out there.

So, sure, the Queen is Dead by the Smiths came Number 1. That's the NME. No problem.

You may recall I did my own list a few months ago 51 Albums, which in my arrogance was an attempt to come up with a DEFINITIVE list of my own rather than just my favourites.

So hopefully the lists stack up pretty well. Do they? I employed various factors which occasionally produced slightly surprising results in my list. Funnily enough, one of those was how low the NME's top album The Queen is Dead came in my list, in the 70s. I'm surprised at that looking back. It's an album I love and it's certainly been a favourite at times. However I stand by it having 2 or 3 total dud tracks which seriously counts against it. Come on, Vicar in a Tutu and Some Girls are Bigger than Others are not even filler, they're active horror.

In terms of the NME's 500, I own or have owned in their entirety almost exactly half and own some part via downloads of another 130, so I think I'm pretty well placed to compare.

Anyway, let's look at my Top 50 and the NME's Top 50 and see where they fell in the other list.

NME

1 The Queen is Dead (David's list 77)
2 Revolver (1, hurrah!)
3 Hunky Dory (68)
4 Is This It (13)
5 The Velvet Underground and Nico (8)
6 Different Class (unplaced, oops)
7 The Stone Roses (27)
8 Doolittle (unplaced, to be fair, i mainly came at the Pixies via Greatest Hits and never have been able to quite get into their albums)
9 The White Album (35)
10 Definitely Maybe (26)
11 Nevermind (32)
12 Horses (unplaced, never dug this album)
13 Funeral (47)
14 Low (unplaced)
15 Let England Shake (34)
16 Closer (unplaced, will never get this band's status)
17 It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back (31)
18 Loveless (unplaced, sorry, never got this)
19 Whatever People Say I am that's What I'm Not (102)
20 OK Computer (4)
21 My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (unplaced, and I've never heard it all the way through)
22 Parklife (37)
23 Ziggy Stardust (5)
24 Exile on Main Street (90)
25 What's Going On (112, this album is OVER RATED!)
26 Pet Sounds (23)
27 Screamadelica (unplaced, I hate this band, but I'm clearly wrong, i do know this is a great album)
28 Back to Black (unplaced)
29 Marquee Moon (unplaced)
30 Enter the Wu-Tang (60)
31 Dog Man Star (unplaced)
32 Paul's Boutique (unplaced, and, as with Kanye, haven't listened to)
33 Modern Life is Rubbish (75)
34 Abbey Road (50)
35 In Utero (unplaced)
36 Blood on the Tracks (45)
37 Forever Changes (28)
38 Never Mind the Bollocks (unplaced)
39 London Calling (15)
40 Unknown Pleasures (unplaced)
41 Daydream Nation (unplaced, and have never listened to all the way through)
42 Innervisions (79)
43 Rubber Soul (10)
44 The Holy Bible (91)
45 Parallel Lines (58)
46 Debut (unplaced, again, an artist I haven't really experienced via album)
47 Strangeways Here We Come (unplaced)
48 Hounds of Love (unplaced, i do like it though)
49 Sound of Silver (36)
50 Dusty in Memphis (142)

Not bad

Here's my Top 50 and where the NME put them

1 Revolver - The Beatles (NME 2)
2 Automatic for the people - REM (65)
3 Blue - Joni Mitchell (63)
4 OK Computer - Radiohead (20)
5 Ziggy Stardust - David Bowie (23)
6 Grace - Jeff Buckley (86)
7 Come on Feel the Illinoise - Sufjan Stevens (138)
8 The Velvet Underground and Nico - The Velvet Underground (5)
9 Tapestry - Carole King (82)
10 Rubber Soul - The Beatles (10)
11 Searching for the Young Soul Rebels - Dexys Midnight Runners (118)
12 Have one on Me - Joanna Newsom (unplaced)
13 Is This It - The Strokes (4)
14 Astral Weeks - Van Morrison (68)
15 London Calling - The Clash (39)
16 Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco (458)
17 The ArchAndroid - Janelle Monae (unplaced)
18 Songs in the Key of life - Stevie Wonder (172)
19 Ys - Joanna Newsom (unplaced)
20 If You're feeling Sinister - Belle and Sebastian (113)
21 Talking Book - Stevie Wonder (unplaced, bafflingly)
22 Times they are a Changin - Bob Dylan (likewise)
23 Pet Sounds - The Beach Boys (26)
24 Blonde on Blonde - Bob Dylan (62)
25 Hour of the Bewilderbeast - Badly Drawn Boy (unplaced)
26 Definitely Maybe - Oasis (10)
The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses (7)
28 Forever Changes - Love (37)
29 Freewheelin Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan (306)
30 Fuzzy Logic - Super Furry Animals ( 245)
31 It takes a nation of millions to Hold Us Back - Public Enemy (17)
32 Nevermind - Nirvana (11)
33 Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes (unplaced)
34 Let England Shake - PJ Harvey (15)
35 The White Album - The Beatles (9)
36 Sound of Silver - LCD Soundsystem (49)
37 Parklife - Blur (22)
38 Songs of Leonard Cohen - Leonard Cohen (232)
39 The Boatman's Call - Nick Cave (257)
40 Everything Must Go - Manic Street Preachers (182)
41 A Ghost is Born - Wilco (unplaced)
42 22 Dreams - Paul Weller (unplaced)
43 Moondance - Van Morrison (unplaced)
44 What's the Story, Morning Glory? - Oasis (67)
45 Blood on the Tracks - Bob Dylan (36)
46 Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space - Spiritualized (156)
47 Funeral - Arcade Fire (13)
48 Thriller - Michael Jackson (131)
49 Bringing it all Back home - Bob Dylan (73)
50 Abbey Road - The Beatles (34)

 So not bad, eh? A few misses on both side, but I can't squabble too much with the NME. They're more Anglocentric than me, but why shouldn't they be?
My list is better though, isn't it? And certainly more DEFINITIVE!

Song 62: Cut Your Hair

Cut Your Hair - Pavement

I went to All Tomorrow's Parties in 2010, curated by Pavement. My friends were going and asked me if I fancied it. I'd been to ATP before, in 2007, and really enjoyed ever aspect of it (the music and the fact you can watch the music in relative comfort, and go bowling, and sleep in a bed etc) so I said yes, though not a fan of Pavement.

I expected lots of bands I loved to be added to the line-up, but it didn't really happen. In the end, that was a good thing. I was in the rare (for me) position of checking out lots of bands I didn't know that well, and there was some real treats - Calexico, Broken Social Scene, Mark Eitzel, Blitzen Trapper, Avi Buffalo, all very pleasant surprises, and that was the first time I saw The Walkmen properly.

And as for the headliners? Yeah, they were good. I'd actually done my preparation, buying lots of Pavement songs and giving it a good listen in advance, so, since it was a crowd-pleasing reunion tour, I already knew a lot of what they played.

And, as you'd expect, the crowd went nuts. The indiest of indie fans loving the indiest of indie bands. I thought it was alright.

Good little song after good little song. Bit boring after a while.

Pavement are good. But do they pass my "Yeah, but are they as good as the Bluetones?" test? No, they don't. No one thinks the Bluetones are the greatest band in the world, not even the Bluetones. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, but the best bit of frontman chat I ever heard was by Mark Morriss at the Bluetones' farewell gigs "It's time to go out and tell the world that they missed a really quite good band ..."

But some people seem to think that Pavement are the greatest band in the world. Including some reasonably influential American rock critics. They seem to be the very definition of a great band for Pitchfork people, just like the Smiths are the definition of a great band for NME people, and the Beatles are for everyone else..

I really like Pitchfork. Its reviews are often very well written, and get to the bottom of what is or isn't great about an album. They've done some really good hatchet jobs on shoddy albums, and they have an amusing contempt for the more lumpen elements of British rock. All good. But just like the man called Toby in a tweed suit who took apart my taste in films saying, good-naturedly, things like "that's just the kind of thing someone with your level of film scholarship would say", before revealing that his favourite film of all time was 'Pineapple Express', an indie fan's devotion to Pavement might lead to the question "Is that all you got?"

'Cut Your Hair' is Pavement's best known, and, arguably, best song, a real first among equals, and it's pretty great. I get pretty excited when it comes on the radio and I love the "oh-o-oh-oh-oh-oh" bit, but you know, I kind of wish it was a bit better after that. Just a bit.

Here's the thing, I've never heard a Pavement song that has broken my heart, and I can't conceive of a Pavement song that could even touch anyone's heart. In that sense, they're a very pure band, you might say, but surely sardonic and witty (but, you know, hardly laugh out loud funny) and slightly off-key can't be the only shade of a great band.

There are plenty of clever-clever bands, from Blur to The Strokes to the New Pornographers, whose greatest gift is that they can suddenly floor you with something sad and beautiful. Can Pavement do that? Really?

I've got a foot in both camps, really, the clever, lo-fi, pure indie, no bullshit camp, and the manipulative heartstrings man-rock side, but I kind of thing the best bands should have a foot in both camps too. We don't want everyone to be Keane but we don't want everyone to be Pavement either.

Song 61: St. Patrick

St Patrick - James Yorkston

I never really got Elliott Smith. He seemed to fit perfectly into my realm, that kind of articulate, sad Americana which was my taste then and still is now.

But he just didn't really work for me. As if I was some kind of Take That fan or something, I found his songs boring. Didn't go anywhere. Ambled along.

It's only in recent years I've opened myself a bit more to his songs, still not in great breadth, but whenever one of the few Elliott Smith songs I own comes up, I listen closely and appreciate what I hear.

I suppose I "get" Elliot Smith now. I hear the hushed beauty, the melodies, the charm and sadness. The ... some other word. Some other word which is something I love, not all the time but when I love it I love it a lot.

What's the word? I still can't find it. If I tell you it can be found in Elliott Smith, Kurt Wagner from Lambchop, Leonard Cohen, Paul Buchanan and, high above all in my favour , in James Yorkston, does that help?

It's a kind of dignity, of calm and poise, a lack of desire to please or excite, but extraordinary mastery of the craft. Or, prosaically, perhaps, it's a limited, but perfectly honed, vocal range and a way with words.

What greater compliment have I received than when a brusque and knowledgeable friend of a friend said to that friend suddenly "I've got it! McGaughey IS Yorkston"? Sadly, he was not referring to my songwriting skills, magnificent folk guitar playing, rich, sad voice and quiet charisma, but, I presume, to the big Irish forehead (yes, I know he's Scottish and I'm English) and hairlessness I share with the man. And even that comparison does me some favours ...

But I do feel a certain kinship, I imagine as many as his fans do - there's something recognisable and applicable in his lyrics, something, as the cliche has it, which makes you think it's written especially for you.

This, the first song I heard of his, more than any others. Oh, dear St Patrick. Or, as we say as we watch countless goons in black and white hats roaming the cities in packs, Oh dear, St Patrick's ...

It was a double a-side with a song (I can't even remember which one) by the Lone Pigeon, which I was actually more interested in, and I remember hearing it on Radio 1 late at night, shortly before I was due to go to a little Fence show in London town.

I went to the show with a friend who left fairly early, but it went on and on and I stayed on alone getting more and more entranced and more and more pished. Various highlights from the evening - I walked in on the Lone Pigeon (Gordon Anderson) saying to himself in the mirror in the loos "You're a funny wee man with a funny wee beard", I offered to buy Lou Barlow from Sebadoh a drink (declined gracefully) and I heard Yorkston sing this song - at least, I think I did. Maybe he wasn't even there. I've certainly heard him sing it at least once.

It actually makes me feel rather emotional, this little song, and there's no harm in that. It's nice to imagine one has a patron saint.

It's a song with a certain hopefulness which emerges from a perfectly rendered solitary despair. It has a rich maritime feel, evokes the waves lapping on the shores of the Fife we all know and love. It's effortlessly poised, like everything of Yorkston's really.

This is a man who doesn't leave the stage for the bit between the end of his show and the encore. What's the point?

Perhaps an even greater achievement from this quietly magnificent artist is 'When the Haar Rolls In' from the album of the same name, another seaside song with several lines which you'd give £1000 to have written.

But it's St Patrick which is my favourite.

These aren't always the types of song you want to listen to. Sometimes you want something louder, more vibrant, less delicate, but when the mood to listen to a song like this does take me, I never regret it. Quiet is the new quiet.

Songs to listen more to ...

I made a playlist, a really long one to listen to while working. It's proved a spectacular hit with me and is really too good not to share.
It's not my favourite songs, it's just the songs I went through and just really fancied listening to, or thought I ought to give more of a listen to.
Unusually for me, it's entirely devoid of self-consciousness. This is proved by the fact its 495 songs rather than 500. I struggle when things are not round or notable numbers.

I ought to make more of an effort to make the songs possible for you to listen to, but you wouldn't anyway, would you?

The only self-conscious act now is deciding how I filter my iTunes to produce the order in which you see the songs. This is important to me. Reverse alphabetical bands? Alphabetical songs? I've gone for Reverse Order of How Much They've Been Played in my iTunes History, so I suppose the least obvious ones are at the top, and my standards at the bottom.

I know no one will get even halfway through reading it, but still, it's a great list ...


Songs to Listen More To

This is for Leonard, if he's still here

Have you heard that line? It's from a live recording of Bob Dylan doing 'Isis' on the Rolling Thunder Revue, which is one of the greatest versions of a Dylan song you'll ever here.

As detailed in Larry Sloman's 'On the Road with Bob Dylan' (a great read) it's Dylan calling out to Cohen, who was in the audience that night, and who he'd tried, without success, to get to join him on stage.

Cohen and Dylan. Those are my gigs this autumn. Not bad, eh? I used to go to about 7 gigs by 20+ year olds a season, now it's 2 gigs by 70+ year olds.

Cohen was a couple of weeks ago. Pretty amazing. How about a gig where someone plays for 3 hours, has a perfect band, plays every song by him that you love (yes, there was Suzanne, Famous Blue Raincoat, So Long Marianne, Hallelujah, If It Be Your Will, Going Home, Bird on a Wire, Tower of Song, Chelsea Hotel etc), gives tremendous banter AND you get to pay £8 for a spongy hot dog.

Perfect gig. Is it the best I've ever been to? What are the factors that make a great gig?

I love factors.

But, you know what, fuck factors. More than most things in music, the best gigs are the ones that feel the best, the ones you enjoy the most. Simple as that. How, really, can it be anything else?

You experience it once and once only. It's not like an album or even a song where there's context and the opportunity to think about it and listen to it again and again.

A gig's a gig. It's a happening. I've been to 100s, seen even more bands if you count all the festivals too.

Sometimes they're great, sometimes they're good, sometimes they're ok, they're rarely awful these days. Well, not the ones I go to. I once watched Editors from a distance at Benicassim. They were awful.

What are the best I've been to, besides Leonard (if he's still here).

Blur. Blur at Hyde Park, 2009. That was probably the best. That was every 90s boy's dream come true and more.

These are the others, the ones that really stand out. Some of them are at festivals, some at small venues, some were folk, some were bands who aren't even that great but know how to put on a show. Some are about great singers, some are about rock'n'roll, some about drunken dancing, some about euphoria, some singing along, some hushed reverence, some were evocative, some were gone in an instant.

Band of Horses at Brixton Academy.
The Walkmen, mid-afternoon, at Latitude.
Ash at Somerset House.
Franz Ferdinand at Benicassim.
Joanna Newsom at ATP.
Brian Wilson at the Royal Festival Hall.
Embrace at Glasgow Barrowlands.
Belle and Sebastian at the Roundhouse.
Super Furry Animals at Brixton Academy.
Iron and Wine at Green Man.
Arcade Fire, headlining Latitude.
Mark Eitzel, an unexpected pleasure in a bingo hall at ATP.
Nick Cave at ATP.
Adam Ant, for goodness sake.
James Yorkston, Scala, I think, one of those London venues which is usually a bit rubbish.
The National, Latitude.
Bob Dylan tribute concert at the Barbican. How wonderful that was. Liam Clancy and Odetta.
The Bluetones farewell concert at Shepherds Bush.
Polyphonic Spree, an unexpected feelgood hit in Spain.
Sufjan Stevens, with all his finery, Royal Festival Hall.
Josh Rouse, Union Chapel.
Madness in the blaring sun at Benicassim.
Badly Drawn Boy being mental in Glasgow.
And the best band I've seen (officially, technically, taking in all factors!), the one who've come up trumps the most, Wilco.

I've left out a few other crackers. I've even left out Bob Dylan, maybe in the hope that the next Bob gig will be the best of them all, or maybe in the hope that I'll magically be transported back to 1963 or 1974, when I really wish I'd seen him ....

But I've seen some good ones, that's for sure.

Play my game!

Hello!
I'm coming back to music again in some form or another.

So far I've got two blog titles.

-The Arctic Monkeys are the nearest thing to the Beatles this century.

-Madonna is  the Margaret Thatcher of Pop Music.

I'll spare you those for the time being.

Instead, I'll invite you to a game I play in my head often (my head is not an interesting place).

I imagine I'm being interrogated and having names of bands/artists thrown at me in rapid succession (so I let my brain throw things out as much at random as is possible) and I have to name the one song I'd take on a desert island by each act.

Acts from the full spectrum of popular music, acts you like, acts you hate, you've got to take just one song.

It's not that much fun, but it's a bit of fun, more fun for my brain than my other main activity, which is deciding on the Top 10 English cricketers of the last 25 years ...

I'll get you started

Wham - Edge of Heaven
Britney Spears - Toxic
The Clash - Spanish Bombs
Pulp - Something Changed
Amy Winehouse - Love is a Losing Game
Wet Wet Wet - Goodnight Girl
Frank Sinatra - You Make Me Feel So Young
Dusty Springfield - You Don't Have to Say you Love Me
Slade - Cum On Feel the Noize
Bruce Springsteen - Thunder Road
East 17 - Deep
Joanna Newsom - In California
James - Ring the Bells
All Saints - Pure Shores
Michael Jackson - Billie Jean

etc forever

Simple as that. What fun [NB Black Eyed Peas came into my head, and I couldn't I just couldn't, so I cheated. Don't cheat!]

Oh Sport

So, while this blog takes a bit of a break, feel free to check out my other one, where I'm undertaking something pretty immense, a definitive list of the 200 Greatest British Sportspeople of All Time.  Go on, give it a shot. http://takingsporttooseriously.blogspot.co.uk/
I'll be back here soon, but a bit of sport will do us all good.

Song 60: Between the Wars

Between the Wars - Billy Bragg

Billy Bragg is sometimes so much of a poster boy for the lovable left that I think his actual songwriting is rather undervalued.

There's no point in my talking about the voice - there it is, you either hate it or kind of love it. It is what it is, so forcefully English it's as utterly mannered as anything else - though, in recent years Bragg has begun singing with a slightly absurd transatlantic accent, what with the Woody Guthrie albums and the move into more American sounds.

But how about the songs?  Well, rather splendidly, his most famous line defines exactly where he stands as a songwriter - "I'm not looking for a New England, I'm just looking for another girl" - that desire not be pigeonholed as a political writer, that feeling that actually he's a writer of love songs, and with a line like this actually being both. Wonderful.

And so it is that 'Between the Wars' is definitely a political song but it's also so pretty a song that it brings a lump to the throat. The Guardian put it Number 1 in its Thatcher playlist this week, and I think that was a wonderful choice - it doesn't mention Thatcher, nor is it per se an angry, bitter song of hope and comradeship. It is actually what leftism should be, not the unpleasant tit-for-tat meanness occasionally seen this week that can really make you think there's no difference, no hope, it's just a matter of different ways to be an arsehole.

But that's not what Billy Bragg thinks - cos his is a faith in his fellow man. On 'Upfield' from his 1997 album William Bloke, he calls it "a socialism of the heart" - yes, I know, it's cheesy, it's sentimentalism as politics, entirely unrealistic, but few people make fairness, hard work and being nice to each other being the key to everything in the world as realistic as Billy Bragg.

There's another song on 'William Bloke' which is even better, called 'Brickbat', which shows how conscious he is the dichotomy within his songwriting persona - a wondrous lovesong called 'Brickbat' whose key line is "I used to want a plant bombs at the last night of the proms, but now you'll find me with the baby in the bathroom with that big shell listening for the sound of the sea".

"La bombe seule est juste" - i always remember that line - for the last century or more where some people have believed that planting bombs in the name of what they believe are just causes will help their cause - and though plenty of those causes may well have been just, no one ever looks back at those bombs as helpful, do they? And the warmth and humanity of that simple fact is what Bragg's brand of revolutionary politics is all about.

This version of 'Between the Wars' is from 'Top of the Pops' in 1985, so fabulously anachronistic - god know what my 7 year olf self would have thought of this tuning into watch god knows what - Jennifer Rush? Madonna? Wham? One other thing about it is how underused Billy Bragg's one-man-and-an-electric-guitar shtick is - I often think it's a great sound - Jeff Buckley did it a lot too, but you really don't hear it much. There's something immediately edgy about it.

Anyway, I first heard 'Between the Wars' in 2001, I think, and it's one of the clearest, warmest, most romantic songs of the left I've ever heard. There are times in my life when anyone being anything but a leftie baffles me, and I think it's a songs like this that made me that way - the simple juxtapositions between good/bad, left/right, helping hand/iron fist, green field and the factory floor/skies all dark with bombers. And then, the pay-off - "Sweet moderation, heart of this nation, desert us not, we are between the wars". Moderation, eh? Such a particular word to use - there are so many others he could have used rhyming with "ation" which could have been more obvious, but moderation, well, I'm all for that.

Song 59: One Day Like This

One Day Like This - Elbow

Sport and music do mix, though sometimes not quite in the way that people like me who love both things to the core of their being would like. I've despaired at the number of utterly admirable athletes who have been asked their playlist/inspirational music and said the key to their magnificent gold-medal winning performance was either 'Eye of the Tiger' or ''You Raise Me Up'. Just as one will tend to discover sportspeople's political beliefs, such as they are, usually veer in the direction you'd hope they wouldn't, and when you think about it, that's entirely logical, so it is with their musical taste. You might get the odd Leighton Baines or Pat Nevin, kings of footballing indie cool, but generally, let's keep it uplifting, let's keep it inspirational, shall we?

So you want uplifting, inspirational? Elbow seem to be the band. Elbow seem to be a sports band, initially through thousands of sporting montages (I mean thousands ... I watch A LOT of sport, and I know), and latterly through their coronation as "band of the people" in 2012, when they performed two songs at the Olympic Opening Ceremony and composed the BBC's Olympic theme song.

And it was 'One Day Like This' that made it so - the second last song on their Mercury-winning 2008 album 'The Seldom Seen Kid' - this big, positive anthemic hymn of a song, which drew so many hundreds of thousands of people to Elbow that I'm sure they couldn't give a monkeys that its grandiosity and obviousness and Coldplavity put it beyond the pale for a small enclave of music fans.

Well, I like it. I still like it. I've always liked Elbow. Ironically, when I first heard them in 2000/2001, being mentioned in the same breath as Coldplay, I was turned off them a little because they weren't anthemic/obvious enough. 'Any Day Now' was, I think, their first song to get radio play, and it seemed oddly static, oddly menacing, not warm and soaring. So I wasn't entirely sure about them at the start, though it didn't take me too long to be won over - there were several fine songs on that first Mercury-nominated album, my favourite being 'Scattered Black and Whites'.

Indeed, some people (i.e. me) might say that they haven't really topped that first album. Equally, the same people (yes, that's me) would say that none of their albums are much worse than it either. I'd say that may be the very thing about Elbow - startling consistency. All of their albums are very, very good, but perhaps none of them stand out as absolute classics. The fact that it's 'Seldom Seen Kid' that has the Mercury Prize is pure twist of fate, I think.

Consistency is not be sniffed at (watch me not mention Ryan Giggs now, though how many Ryan Giggs compilations do you think there are on youtube soundtracked by 'One Day Like This'). Elbow work painstakingly over each album and have as yet not failed to produce the goods. And they are not, altogether not, a band to be defined by the huge sentiment of 'One Day Like This'.

I've seen them close a festival set to 20,000ish people with 'One Day Like This' and it certainly is a song for huge crowds - that's its point. And I suppose what might be objected to about it. This wasn't Elbow's first "big crowd" song. 'Grace Under Pressure' from their second album 'Cast of Thousands' involves a recording of their Glastonbury crowd singing "We still believe in love, so fuck you" and perhaps this was the germ of 'One Day Like This', how Elbow became a BIG band - festivals give bands who oughtn't really be playing for vast numbers the opportunity to do so, and why then, shouldn't they harness and embrace that power? There isn't that much great popular music which is actually best served by being played to tens of thousands (just ask the Beatles) but since some bands do end up playing to that many, shouldn't they develop their style so that it works for those kind of numbers (just ask the Rolling Stones). Surely this is U2's only conceivable excuse.

So, Elbow wrote a big song, and it got as big as they hoped. And since then they've written one or two more big songs, but, you know, not that many. 'One Day Like This' lacks what a lot of other Elbow songs have - whether its space, sharpness or surprise. If you know Elbow's back catalogue, you know that they have a lot more of those things than you might think.

Elbow have a few secret, or not at all secret weapons 1. they're a really good band. They've been playing together for about 20 years. They're as expert in the studio as on stage 2. Guy Garvey has a really nice voice. Doesn't he? 3. Guy Garvey writes really good lyrics. I think so. He constructs some lovely lines. He's spare and subtle usually. 'One Day Like This' is not typical. 4. Guy Garvey has an endearing personality which has made him an alternative personality and heartthrob. Good for him. So, Elbow have got rather massive, but impressively, the album that followed 'The Seldom Seen Kid', 'Build a Rocket Boys' in no way stepped up the anthem factor, indeed was probably sparer and quieter in general.

I thought I'd do a little Elbow playlist to lure you in, though actually they're so consistent, that picking ten standouts was rather tricky.

Ribcage
Red
Scattered Black and Whites
Lippy Kids

Asleep in the Back
Starlings
Switching Off
Fugitive Motel


Leaders of the Free World
The Everthere


I might go for that if it was just 10, though there are at least another 10. I've tended towards the quieter, sadder songs. If you really want a standout, try 'Switching Off', which John Cale named as one of his Desert Island Discs.

So, Elbow, they've become a sport band, but if any band is to be played over montages to inspire us to deeds of derring-do, I'd rather it was this bunch of sensitive skilled souls than plenty others I can think of.

Song 58: In California

In California - Joanna Newsom
News just in that Joanna Newsom is engaged to her long term boyfriend Andy Samberg. Andy Samberg has also done quite a few songs I've enjoyed enormously. Here are a couple of them.

Jack Sparrow

Dick in a Box

So, a somewhat different style from his paramour, but not without merit. If you're a fan of the show 'Girls' you'll have noticed that another member of Samberg's comedy singing troupe The Lonely Island plays the tremendously named Booth Jonathan in the show.

All that being so, it's quite possible that Samberg (who also starred in the quite amusing BBC3 sitcom 'Cuckoo' with Greg Davies) is part of the inspiration for this song, because although an awful lot of Joanna Newsom's songs are story songs without much of a hint of autiobiography, this monumentally beautiful song has a tinge of truth about it.

Monumentally, you say? That's a big word. But yes, this song is a monument to the concept of beauty in music, and yes I have taken into account the fact that Joanna Newsom has a funny, squeaky voice.

That was also a hindrance to my enjoyment of her work for some time. I did not get the first album, and was having none of it - "Svetlana sucks lemons", this sucks ass, i thought.

But a couple of very positive reviews of her second album 'Ys' (which also said that her voice had got less squeaky, which was somewhat true) and then a freebie CD which contained 'Cosmia', persuaded me to purchase it, and I was partly converted. Even more so when I saw her live at ATP - that same festival where I saw Nick Cave walking along staring at the birds, I saw Newsom a couple of times, and thought it really quite mesmerically tremendous. I mean, the harp is a cool instrument.

'Ys' is really a fine, fine album, orchestrated by Van Dyke Parks, with the most fabulous arrangements on just the five long, long songs. You can tell that every word, every syllable has been pored over - it's rich and magical and really unlike anything you've heard before. My favourite song from that album is Emily but all five are little masterpieces in their own right.

Whether you prefer 'Ys' to its follow-up 'Have One on Me' is a question of what you're after. 'Have One On Me' is enormous - 18 tracks to Ys's 5, looser, less ornate, more varied, still with a few monster magna opera, but with a few more that could almost be considered pop songs.

I prefer 'Have One On Me'. Indeed, I went through a good year or two preferring Have One On Me to everything else there had ever been in music. Rather like Jacques Kallis has done in cricket in recent years, I felt 'Have One on Me' built up an indisputable weight of evidence for being considered the greatest album of all time. I really feel it's at a level of ambition and artistry which popular music has not seen before. And why do I prefer it to 'Ys'? Well, it's got soul. It sounds not like a precocious genius at the height of her inventive talent (like Ys), but like a genius at the height of her inventive talent who's lived a little, and wants to show it.

And 'In California' is the height of that. iTunes records that I have listened to it 101 times all the way through, which, considering it is 8 minutes and 44 seconds long, is a fair bit of time devoted to one song (especially since most of those listens were probably in a six-month period).

And yet I'm still not that much nearer the heart of it. I'm not a musician or a songwriter but, let's be honest, most songs aren't that difficult to understand how they've come about, even fabulous songs, even initially complex songs. Chords, tunes, words, piecing bits together, playing together, this and that, I kind of get it.

But I can't conceive of how Joanna Newsom came up with 'In California', where she started, whether she had the overall structure first, or whether there were a few lines here and there - it seems like an immense mystery. It actually gives me a little idea of why some people prefer classical music (though I'll always be a pop music man) - to have something which you know you'll forever be hearing new things in, which you'll never tire of. That's 'In California' for me.

It is possible to compare Joanna Newsom to Joni Mitchell, though they don't necessarily sound all that much alike, and one imagines Mitchell's best songs will always appeal more immediately (and she is, obviously, a much better singer), and this song, almost alone among Newsom songs, has the intimacy and rawness of the songs on 'Blue'.
Of course, one of the great songs on 'Blue' is 'California' so those are two very nice songs to listen to back to back. Searching for something to say about that has led me to this rather tremendous pitchfork review, which makes a lot of the points I've been trying to make about 'Have One On Me' but rather better. But so be it, I provided you with a link to 'Dick in a Box', so i win.

Song 57: Heat Wave

Heat Wave - Martha and the Vandellas

Martha and the Vandellas were probably Motown's second biggest girl group behind the Supremes. There's a big difference between biggest and second biggest, which means Martha Reeves occasionally turns up to play gigs in places like Hull or at small London clubs, while Diana Ross is in the rarefied atmosphere of megastardom which means you probably can't even discuss getting her to do a gig for the money that Martha Reeves would do a whole tour for.

Don't get me wrong, I've come to fully understand the greatness of the Supremes and Diana Ross, having been quite sniffy for a long time - if they got, for the most part, the best of the great Motown production line, so be it.

But I don't think there's a better Motown song than 'Heat Wave', one of the great encapsulations of ecstacy and uncontrollable romance in the history of pop music, almost exactly 50 years old. Reeves had a wonderful voice, girlish, yet strong and bell-clear - in later years, it has had an odd tendency to shrillness whenever I've seen her on telly (I tried to get tickets to see her at the Jazz Cafe once but they were sold out). This song brings out the best in that voice but also makes great use of the other Vandellas, especially the brilliant call and response section at the end where she sings "yeah yeah" and they sing "go ahead girl", egging her on to follow her heart.

It's a full-on classic, though not quite a universal standard like 'Baby Love' or 'I Heard it Through the Grapevine' - it's also lent itself very well to various covers, including The Who and a blistering version by The Jam. The Jam's love for Motown was barely concealed, to the extent that many people would wrongly say that 'A Town Called Malice' was stolen from 'You Can't Hurry Love'. Not the case. It was in fact a direct steal from a Martha and the Vandellas song called I'm Ready For Love.

I suppose the difference between Martha and the Vandellas and the Supremes is roughly the difference between TLC and Destiny's Child, between stardom and megastardom. As well as 'Heat Wave' there's 'Jimmy Mack', 'Nowhere to Run' and 'Dancing in the Street' - a nice collection of classics, and a place beloved of afficionados.

Martha Reeves seems to be delightful character, ebullient and funny in interview, and even served as councilwoman in Detroit recently, which you can't imagine Diana Ross doing. My main thought about 'Heat Wave' is getting very excited about hearing it out and about a few times, and then dancing woefully badly, even by my own woeful standards, to it, as if. fittingly, I suppose, overexcited.