Same playlist, other songs

As promised, here are some brief thoughts on some more songs from the same playlist:

Some Girls - Rachel Stevens Firstly, this is a brilliant song. I liked it at the time and I like it even more now. It's also just about the most 2004 thing that exists. Richard X, who wrote it, refused to let Geri Halliwell record it and she locked herself in a car to try to persuade him. He then wrote a mean song 'Me Plus One' (recorded by Annie) about her. The video, for Sports Relief, of Some Girls, has Colin Jackson, Pat Cash and Audley Harrison (!) in it! It's so far from the song, an uneasy, dark, glam stomp about nasty music industry goings-on. Rachel Stevens, voted by FHM magazine in 2013 the sexiest woman ever (for ever ever?) does a good job with her simple vocals. A "better" singer wouldn't have carried the concept of the song so well. There are layers and layers to this that require greater detail than I can give it now.  When people talk about poptimism, this is, for me the good side of it - a whole raft of great, clever, UK pop singles in the early 2000s. Critics judging that every bloated album by a superstar is a masterpiece ... that's pooptimism.

Orange County - Gorillaz featuring Bizarrap, Kara Jackson, and Anoushka Shankar This is the nearest thing to a hit on the latest Gorillaz album. The combo of Jackson and Albarn singing a duet about grief was my unexpected delight of the year. Kara Jackson's Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love?, about her best friend who died, was my favourite song of 2023, and Albarn is of course singing about his father Keith who organised the exhibition where John Lennon met Yoko Ono, so technically broke up the Beatles.

Hasta la Raiz - Natalia Lafourcade This was on Rolling Stone's fairly recent list of the 250 Best Songs of the 21st century, and it was my favourite that I'd not heard before, at least I thought I'd not heard it before- when I was going through playlists recently I found it on another playlist of songs to listen to from a list. Well, anyway, it's a beaut. I don't know what it's about. I do usually like to have a rough idea what songs are about, I am what they call "a lyrics guy", but hey, you know what they say, Hasta la raiz, baby ... but, anyway, this is a beguilingly excellent song.

Coming in from the Cold - The Delgados Masters of sweet melody tied to mean lyrics, the Delgados. "Not to blame, no one's telling you you're not to blame" - "take your tantrum trailer out of town" here. And the melody of the chorus of Coming in from the Cold has probably been the thing I've whistled more than anything else in the last 20 years. It's my whistle of choice!

Hammond Song - The Roches Ha, the Delgados and the Roches ... what next, the Fignons? The Hinaults? Anyway, this is truly an unusual, unsettling, song - there are various different voices on it and they sound completely different and then they join together and sound like one.

6th Avenue Heartache - The Wallflowers I often think about the extremely handsome son of Bob Dylan with the pleasantly conventional radio voice who is always polite and forthcoming in interviews, and was briefly a big rock star in the late 90s. Anyway, this was the Wallflowers' second biggest hit, and it's good. It sounds a little like Knockin' on Heaven's Door at certain points. Nice work by the Jordi Cruyff of music (don't mean that as an insult).

Drop the Pressure - Mylo This may just be my favourite straight-up dance track of all time, and I couldn't understand (notwithstanding that's it's one line is "motherfucker's gonna drop the pressure") why it wasn't a supermassive hit. Anyway, if I'm to pick out one specific moment from it, it's probably the bit where he goes "motherfucker's gonna drop the pressure".

Stop! - Erasure This, on the 'Crackers International EP' was one of the first singles I bought. You don't need me to tell you how many great singles Erasure released. This was bang inbetween A Little Respect and Drama!. What a run that is ... I think the "we're gonna be we're gonna be together again" bit was one of my first headly thrills from pop music. 

Don't Delete the Kisses - Wolf Alice Wolf Alice are, there or thereabouts, the biggest, most consistent, most acclaimed UK indie band of the last 10 years, and this is their biggest song, and it reached Number 100 in the charts. It's a lovely song, this, and gets better with age. Both the whispered verses and belted choruses are, in their way, gloriously romantic.

Hard to Handle - Otis Redding Every second in this is golden. Well I guess I first heard it in The Commitments, as is the way with too many soul songs if you're my age. This is the most alive song ever, and yet it was first released after Otis Redding's death. What would that have been like to hear? Unfathomable. I've said it before - everything in music is different if Otis Redding hadn't died. I truly think that.

All Your Favorite Bands - Dawes This is California band Dawes' absolute best attempt to write a classic American soft rock song, and they do succeed, and they have famous friends like Brandon Flowers and Conor Oberst in the video, it just wasn't a hit. The stately piano, the specific American nostalgia, the feelgood hook, this song kind of had everything for a just world where the people like cheesy singalongs, like I do.

London - Benjamin Clementine "London London London is calling ..." obviously pops into my head when I go to London, and I'm a little more surprised this song isn't better known. Pretty idiosyncratic, Mr Clementine, with his great voice and great face, and a bit of success in films and in music, but clearly just a guy who does his own thing.

Serious Drugs - BMX Bandits Beloved of Nirvana and the first band Oasis supported on tour. I cannot say I am a big BMX Bandits but this is, in a way, the definitive Scottish indie pop song - the defining sound. A lovely song.

Hey That's No Way to Say Goodbye - Roberta Flack There was a tribute album a few years ago, which I really liked, of Tom Waits songs sung by women, and you could do the same with Cohen (I mean, that probably already exists, doesn't it...) This somehow manages to be even gentler and stiller than the original.

I'll Say Forever My Love - Jimmy Ruffin Kevin Rowland bloody loved that soul music, didn't he? Never stopped going on about it. I knew this song for years only from its title/chorus being interpolated into 'Reminisce' from 'Don't Stand Me Down'. Turns out it's a nice song. I have bought Kev's autobiography and apparently it's brilliant, but haven't got round to reading it. Hopefully he will talk about walking down the Edgware Rd and listening to I'll Say Forever My Love.

I Know It's Over - The Smiths It feels embarrassing to say it now, but this was the song that really sold me on the Smiths - I'd been ambivalent for years, and then, I guess, bought The Queen is Dead when I was about 20, and this is the second track. I loved the melody, I loved the guitar (i think i bought it before Christmas and it reminded me of The Pretenders' 2000 Miles) and when Morrissey sang "It's so easy to laugh, it's so easy to hate, it takes guts to be gentle and kind" I didn't know enough about him to laugh it out of town.

Superstar - The Carpenters I think it was on the first series of X Factor or maybe it was Pop Idol and one of the contestants did this in the live shows, and it's funny, really, at the start they'd just do quite old-fashioned songs the judges liked - I remember someone doing Monday Monday by the Happy Mondays. Anyway, I think this is the best Carpenters song - in some ways, works quite well alongside Some Girls, smuggling some darkness into a pop setting.

Busby Berkeley Dreams - Magnetic Fields In the really quite icky recent NYT list of the 30 Greatest Living American songwriters, Stephin Merritt was pretty much the only male indie/alt guy, which somehow was even more annoying than there not being one at all. Still, this is a beautiful song, and, as far as I know, it still awaits the big choreographed Hollywood cover it cries out for.

Hurricane J - The Hold Steady I saw the Hold Steady early evening at a festival in 2007 and I loved it - the puppyish won-a-competition enthusiasm, the geekiness, the chanting, the long dense lines, the crowd play, but I remember some of the people I was with not enjoying it at all. I was really into them for a while, but developed a certain "well, here's the Hold Steady doing what the Hold Steady do" weariness. It had certainly set in by the time of Hurricane J from 2010, even though it's an excellent song. But I listened to it again recently and thought "yeah, that's just great". "You're a beautiful girl and you're a pretty good waitress [pause leaving vocals isolated] Jessie I don't think I'm the guy (guitars crash in]" - lovely stuff ...