My Favourites

This will be a very silly list which couldn't be as far from any idea of making considered judgements. These are my favourite people in music, and I've ranked them just to make it even sillier. I don't know any of these people, not even the tiniest bit, I don't know if they're nice or nasty, but I think,  if we consider ourselves serious music fans, sometimes we underplay the extent to which we sympathize with the people making the music. We think they seem nice or funny, they represent something, they have a story to tell. Bear in mind that, usually, to me nice means dryly humorous and self-aware, rather than "nice".

I like the music by most of these folk, though not all of them, I doubt they're all delightful. Dylan and Bowie have probably, for example, been sly, ruthless devils down the years, but, not only do I love their music, I love the way they present themselves, the searing intelligence, the way they've had people interested in what they're doing for 40/50 years without seeming to seek it, the ideas, all of it.

There are all kinds of things in play in this - it might just be an interview I once read where I thought "Oh, he seems decent" or it might be a recognition of their greater place in the world. Sometimes there is something genuinely heroic about people. It's such a daft list, but also, I hope, quite fun.

You'll note I don't like my rock'n'roll stars too rock'n'roll. Liam Gallagher, Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards, Pete Doherty, Axl Rose, heroes to some but they never meant shit to me. Nor Elvis... I did once read an interview with the Wu-Tang Clan where the ODB seemed the most grounded and witty, but, well, i think i got that one wrong.

 I'm not passing judgement on people's characters. I expect Bono really is a lovely chap - the reality of what people are like is somehow not key to this. It's just an honest look at the people who I've warmed to.

1.       Gruff Rhys

2.       Joe Strummer

3.       Debbie Harry

4.       Paul Robeson

5.       Emmylou Harris

6.       James Dean Bradfield

7.       Martha Reeves

8.       Bob Dylan

9.       Bill Withers

10.    Joan Baez

11.    Roots Manuva

12.    David Bowie

13.    Robbie Robertson

14.    Chuck D

15.    Mark Morriss

16.    Tom Waits

17.    Beyonce

18.    Bruce Springsteen

19.    Bill Drummond

20.    Jeff Tweedy

21.    Billy Bragg

22.    Jenny Lewis

23.    Paul McCartney

24.    Liam Clancy

25.    Johnny Cash

26.    Nick Drake

27.    Tim Wheeler

28.    Odetta

29.    Otis Redding

30.    Labi Siffre

31.    Warren Ellis

32.    Jason Orange

33.    Mavis Staples

34.    Dolly Parton

35.    Joni Mitchell

36.    Smokey Robinson

37.    George Michael

38.    Dusty Springfield

39.    Hamilton Leithauser

40.    Nick Cave

41.    Johnny Marr

42.    Paul Westerberg

43.    Janelle Monae

44.    Karen Carpenter

45.    Stevie Wonder

46.    Roni Spector

47.    Kevin Rowland

48.    Ghostface Killah

49.    Jimmy Cliff

50.    Stuart Murdoch

51.    Steve Winwood

52.    Badly Drawn Boy

53.    Leonard Cohen

54.    Damon Albarn

55.    Linda Thompson 

56.    Glenn Campbell

57.    Bernard Butler

58.    Nick Mason

59.    Jazzy Jeff

60.    Martha Wainwright

61.    Mos Def

62.    Darius Danesh

63.    Dionne Warwick

64.    Suggs

65.    David McAlmont

66.    Robyn

67.    Gil Scott-Heron

68.    Emeli Sande

69.    Pete Seeger

70.    Roy Orbison

71.    Bob Marley

72.    St Vincent

73.    Chrissie Hynde

74.    Lamont Dozier

75.    Pink

76.    Missy Elliott

77.    Neko Case

78.    Ella Fitzgerald

79.    Roddy Frame

80.    Tegan and Sara

81.    Carole King

82.    Steve Van  Zandt

83.    Edwyn Collins

84.    John Paul Jones

85.    Kate Bush

86.    MIA

87.    Alex Turner

88.    Nile Rodgers

89.    Art Garfunkel

90.    Laura Marling

91.    Solomon Burke

92.    Glenn Tilbrook

93.    King Creosote

94.    Loudon Wainwright III

95.    Vince Clarke

96.    Ian Stewart

97.    Carleen Anderson

98.    Sam Beam

99.    Eddy Grant

100.Josh Homme

Songs 63 and 64: Lean on Me/Gimme Some Lovin'

What links these two songs? Not all that much. But do you ever come across songs which are hits, which are standards, which you've heard, probably several times, on adverts or on TV soundtracks, maybe occasionally on the radio, which, therefore, you think you know and have the measure of. A year of two ago, someone with some semblance of authority might have said to me, "'Lean On Me' is one of the greatest, most beautiful songs in all popular music" and I'd have listened respectfully, acknowledged whatever affection they had for it and quietly thought to myself "Hmm, I know 'Lean on Me', it's fine, it's pretty enough but this person can't know their music very well to think it's really one of the greatest songs".

And now I'd be that guy, speaking with authority, telling people that 'Lean On Me' is one of the greatest songs in all music. I'd missed it before. It's not like I know more about the song, have a more advanced understanding of song, it's just it caught me when I was ready not to miss it. You're all there reading, going "Well, of course 'Lean On Me' is one of the most beautiful songs ever recorded. Are you some kind of moron?" ...

And what of 'Gimme Some Lovin'', by the Spencer Davis Group? A 60s hit, their second most well-known song, behind 'Keep On Running', just  another steady, solid beat group stomper. Well, my view hasn't exactly changed, but, again, I'd just missed it ... I'd missed that it was perfect, that it was the sharpest, cleanest, most exciting of all those garage band stompers. I mean, I think it's more perfect than all the Stones singles, all the Who singles, all the Nuggets. The intro, the riff, the organ, Steve Winwood's killer voice, the shouts, the chorus, what a construction! Nothing's wasted.

Maybe you've been in the same camp as I have on this one. It's a less famous song than 'Lean On Me', so maybe it's just a footnote for you too. Give it a listen, ideally loud. I'm not even sure how this one crept up on me. I just suddenly wanted to listen to it all the time.

There are always new ways to listen to songs. That's obvious, but it can be surprising when they're fairly simple, well known songs. I've got no excuse not to have loved 'Lean On Me' all along really (apart from, perhaps, that it was in a commercial for cat food), especially as no more distinguished a guide than Kevin Rowland pointed me to it in a song I've loved for years, 'Plan B', where he sings "Bill Withers was good for me, pretend I'm Bill and lean on me" yet still I didn't (nor have I listened to all that much Geno Washington, shame on me).

The music industry has always found it hard to place people like Bill Withers, soul and singer-songwriter, written off as easy listening, never really part of anything. Either way, he seems to have left it all pretty easily behind. A recent interview he did, his first for years, was prompted by belated induction to the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame. He sounds truly tremendous. As, generally, does Steve Winwood.

Perhaps that's why, subconsciously, I love these songs so much now. I like the ones who are pretty relaxed about the whole writing and performing timeless songs thing, and then happy to relax and be nice for the rest of their life. Probably not. I think it's just I'm more and more interested in the perfect song, something straight and true without a moment's fluff, something that gets right to the heart of it. There can only ever be a few songs like that, a few songs so representative, so archetypal, because after that everything sounds like a forced copy (not that these songs are, as such, original, but they just get it spot on). Maybe I will end up a boring old dude who listens to the blues after all ...

So, what's the obvious thing to say if you read this blog and my other blog and you see all my attempts to simulate objectivity? - a year ago these songs were nowhere on my list of the supposed finest 1001 songs of all time and now I'm championing them like I'm the first person on earth to hear them. Where's the credibility in that?

Well, of course, perhaps now's a time to clarify that I don't actually think i'm capable of accurately, objectively compiling lists of "bests", not in music, not in sport, not in anything. But I flatter myself I can do it as well as anyone else can.


And, more than that, it's a process for me, a process where I remember things about truth and good judgement, where, the more i seem to strive for an objective truth, the more happily I come to terms with the fact that there isn't one. But there is huge value in laying things before one's critical faculties and comparing them. There is value in that, whatever gushing Oscar winners tell you. Keep judging, even though you know your judgement is imperfect.

Today I judge 'Lean On Me' and 'Gimme Some Lovin'' two of the most perfect things of the last 50 years. Trust me.

Smashing Indie Smashes

These days, indie is a dirty, dirty word. Indie schmindie weedy twee indie landfill, stodgy dadrock boring tired genre. Post Britpop and the revisionist contempt it engenders, British guitar music has had nowhere to go and gone nowhere. Bands have come and gone, got a song on the radio and then disappeared.

Some guitar bands have become successful, oh yes, but few of them were "indie", indie like the Bluetones or Gene. Coldplay, Kasabian, Arctic Monkeys, Muse etc they're as far from indie as Beyonce (well, maybe not Arctic Monkeys ...)

Anyway, I'm babbling. I'm not here to write a thinkpiece. I'm here to sift through the dregs of post-Britpop indie-pop and stand up for a few songs that got lost in the whitewash, songs that are actually really rather good if you ask me thanks very much.

I'm not talking about great songs by great bands who got acclaim. I'm talking about songs by fly-by-nights which they hoped might make them stars but got tossed out with the rest of despised indie trash, or actually decent songs by bands that got reasonably big but people kind of hate. Sappy cack. Drippy shit. Hollyoaks manrock. Etc.

These are good songs. I swear.

1. Trains to Brazil - The Guillemots
2. She's Got you High - Mumm-ra
3. Suzie - Boy Kill Boy
4. Monday Morning 5.19 - Rialto
5. What a Lovely Dance - Hal
6. Blossoms Falling - Ooberman
7. This Feeling - Puressence
8. Four to the Floor - Starsailor (you had me til Starsailor, you're thinking)
9. Never Lose Your Sense of Wonder - John Hassall
10. What You Want - Spector
11. Might Be Stars - Wannadies
12. She Fell Into My Arms - Ed Harcourt
13. Emily - Steven Fretwell
14. If You Can't Do It When You're Young, When Can You Do It? - theaudience
15. It's Not About the Weather - Alfie
16. Julie Christie - Spearmint

1. How to be Dead - Snow Patrol (yes, I'm extending this to Snow Patrol, but no further ...)
2. Re-Instated - Shack
3. On and On - Longpigs
4. Into the Blue - Geneva
5. The Underdog - Turin Brakes
6. Let Your Shoulder Fall - Matthew Jay
7. Language of Fools - Tom McRae
8. My Brittle Heart - Lucky Soul
9. I Would Fix You - Kenickie
10. To You - I Am Kloot
11. The Hymn for the Cigarettes - Hefner
12. You'll Never Walk Again - Gene (talking of Gene)
13. If - Bluetones (talking of ...)
14. If You've Never Been I Love With Anything - Embrace (oof, pushing it now)
15. Lose Yr Frown - Electric Soft Parade
16. What I Meant to Say - Ben and Jason

If that doesn't bring a solitary tear to your eye ...