Artist: Baxter Dury
Album: Floor Show
Released: 2005
UK Chart: —
Wikipedia
I bought this album after listening to Baxter Dury’s latest release and deciding it was the find of the yesr. This earlier release is just as good, a real beauty right from the first track.
Artist: Field Music
Album: Plumb
Released: February 2012
UK Chart: 49
Wikipedia
I’m a big fan of odd time-signatures in music, despite the fact that trying to decipher a signature for a particular track is drives me nuts. I like to give the impression that I’m a bit musical but in reality I’m rubbish.
Artist: Talking Heads
Album: Remain in Light
Released: October 1980
UK Chart: 21
Wikipedia
Artist: Aztec Camera
Album: Dreamland
Released: May 1993
UK Chart: 21
Wikipedia
Oh dear, Roddy, what on earth went wrong here? Ryuichi Sakamoto occurred, didn’t he?
I feel I can talk frankly to Roddy, we go way back. Way back, in fact, to my first week at university in October 1982. In my Freshers’ Week entertainment I was thrilled to see that we had Aztec Camera playing. At this time they’d had three singles released, none of which had troubled the main Top 40, but had all done well in the Indie Chart.
They turned out to be playing in one of the smaller venues in the student union, and got a reasonable turnout of around two-hundred people. When Roddy announced “this one’s called Pillar to Post” my sole voice called out in appreciation – “Yay!”. Practically every audience member turned round to see who this person was, who’d actually heard of these songs. “Cheers, mate”, said Roddy. “No problem”, I replied.
Artist: Doves
Album: The Last Broadcast
Released: April 2002
UK Chart: 1
Wikipedia
Artist: Kirsty MacColl
Album: Electric Landlady
Released: June 1991
UK Chart: 17
Wikipedia
Artist: Madness
Album: The Rise And Fall
Released: October 1982
UK Chart: 10
Wikipedia
Artist: Everything Everything
Album: Man Alive
Released: August 2010
UK Chart: 17
Wikipedia
I chose this one based on a list of Peter Hook’s favourite albums on the fantastic Louder Than War website, surprised that he had chosen something released so recently – unusual in lists of that sort. This album has confirmed two things for me: 1) I have a real dislike for the falsetto voice; and 2) even album artwork has the capacity to annoy me. The cover to this one reminds me of Elvis Costello’s Get Happy album (see) – it’s fake faulty album artwork for the digital age.
Oh, and this must be one of the worst band names ever. Make that item number 3 on the list of the things to dislike.
Artist: The Doors
Album: The Doors
Released: January 1967
UK Chart: 43
Wikipedia
I’m not one to partake in the mythologising of Jim Morrison, that’s for sure. If you can listen to The Doors albums and are able to put to the back of your mind, as Stuart Maconie put it, “the old footage of him, preening in his leather kecks, his self-satisfied, puppy-fat frat-boy face pursed waxily as he declaims some sententious claptrap”, you’ll enjoy them a lot more.
Artist: The Pretenders
Album: Pretenders
Released: December 1979
UK Chart: 1
Wikipedia
Another favourite album, although I didn’t really get into it at the time, it being a little too commercially successful in 1980 to be afforded a great deal of my attention. Constant playing since means I know every track on this album inside out, even if I haven’t a clue what Chrissie’s singing. I mean everyone knows the one that goes,
wakey child, pissing child, perfect noun hurts
lake child, bursting child, lakeland child hurts
Werner Herzog, whoop my baby!
I saw The Pretenders in the mid-eighties, maybe 1984, at the Edinburgh Playhouse. Martin Chambers was wearing one of those headset microphones, and one of my only memories of the gig is the way he constantly gnawed at the foam covering the mic, like some poor dog locked in the house all day on his own, destroying a pair of slippers.
Artist: John Foxx
Album: Metamatic
Released: January 1980
UK Chart: 18
Wikipedia
Everybody sing now…
bmm tsz, bmm tsz
ne noo na ne na noo noo
ne noo na ne na noo noo
ne noo na ne na noo noo
ne noo na... Underpants!
Maybe you had to be there.
Artist: The Psychedelic Furs
Album: Midnight to Midnight
Released: February 1987
UK Chart: 12
Wikipedia
Having a hit US single kind of ruined The Furs, and this album – the first one after Pretty in Pink was featured in the film of the same name – pretty much serves to prove that fact. They did have a non-album single “All that Money Wants” released in 1988, that is better than anything on this album. Nowhere near their sunken-cheeked glory days in the early eighties, though.
Artist: REM
Album: Out of Time
Released: March 1991
UK Chart: 1
Wikipedia
Why would you want to get Kate Pierson to appear on your album? I never knew if it was her voice or that of the other woman in the B-52s who annoyed me, until this album confirmed my suspicions.
Artist: Kate Bush
Album: The Kick Inside
Released: February 1978
UK Chart: 3
Wikipedia
Occasionally, just occasionally, Kate Bush’s voice jars my delicate ear a little, but Wuthering Heights is nothing but a complete musical masterpiece.
Artist: Simon & Garfunkel
Album: Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.
Released: October 1964
UK Chart: 24
Wikipedia
I saw Paul Simon at Glastonbury 2011 – middle of the Sunday afternoon, just about the time I start worrying about getting home and the possibility of getting the car stuck in mud and having to get pulled out by a tractor. Firstly, he didn’t seem on particularly good form, complaining of having a sore throat. Fair enough. Mainly I was disappointed, though, that he didn’t do enough proper Simon and Garfunkel songs, settling mainly for his 1980s’ catalogue.
Artist: Tame Impala
Album: Lonerism
Released: October 2012
UK Chart: 14
Wikipedia
I keep hearing mention of this band, and thought I’d give the album a go, only realising after I’d listened to it that it’s only been released a couple of weeks (listening to this off of Spotify on a “working at home” Friday). I only knew of the track “Elephant” before which, as it turns out, is not typical of the rest of the album. I quite like the rest of the album.
Artist: The Jam
Album: The Gift
Released: March 1982
UK Chart: 1
Wikipedia
Artist: Graham Coxon
Album: Happiness in Magazines
Released: May 2004
UK Chart: 19
Wikipedia
Like Blur, but without the annoyance of Damon Albarn’s sibilating whistle. He’s just like a smart-arsed grandad who’s not smart-arsed enough to realise that the NHS will fix your false teeth for free.
Artist: The Stranglers
Album: The Raven
Released: September 1979
UK Chart: 4
Wikipedia
“…when I was a viking, my friend he was the raven”
It’s taken until day 294 to get to the best album ever made, but for the first day back at work after a long weekend I needed the lift that this album can provide.
I can prove scientifically that the music on this album is sensational. If music can give you goosebumps (literally, actual goosebumps) then, as that horripilation is an involuntary reaction, there can be no arguing that the music’s spectacular. Right?
I can’t control it. It’s not even an opinion. It’s fact.
As someone in advertising might like to say, “only The Stranglers can do this”.
Artist: Elvis Presley
Album: Elvis Presley
Released: March 1956
UK Chart: 1
Wikipedia
Spotify providing this one as well, as driving today. Caused me to look up the provenence of Tutti Frutti, never having realised that Elvis had covered it.
Artist: Van Morrison
Album: Astral Weeks
Released: November 1968
UK Chart: 140
Wikipedia
This album is on so many “best albums ever” or “albums you must listen to before you die” lists, that it had to come up here eventually. Away from home at my mother’s, so Spotify on the iPad provides the music for today.
Any artist that appears constantly on Radio 2’s “all request Friday” immediately is deemed by me to be too mainstream and popular – “Hello, Simon, I’d like Brown-Eyed Girl by Van Morrison, please”. Oh, FFS, get yourself an imagination. I do like the fact that he’s a miserable tosser, though. Well done, there. Top marks.
Artist: Magazine
Album: The Correct Use of Soap
Released: May 1980
UK Chart: 28
Wikipedia
In contrast to yesterday, this is exactly the type of album the I would onto other people in the late seventies and early eighties. And I do mean it almost literally. In our sixth-form common room in the early eighties myself and a friend monopolised the record deck, much to the chagrin I imagine of our fellow pupils – but we both had large collections of singles and were determined that we would inflict them on others. A Song from Under the Floorboards probably hit a daily play count in double figures most days. That and The Fire Engines’ “Candyskin”, I seem to remember. Must have driven people mental. No wonder we were so popular.
Going to see if I can get a Fire Engines album online now…
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Album: Led Zeppelin IV
Released: November 1971
UK Chart: 1
Wikipedia
Still can’t quite believe that Led Zeppelin is so high up on the league table of most frequently appearing bands on this list. I wonder what my 17-year-old self would make of this, as Led Zeppelin were definitely not on the approved list in my fascistic music world of the late 1970s.
What will I be listening to in 20 years’ time that would surprise my now almost 50-year-old self? Maybe I’ll have listened to all the output of Rick Wakeman.
Unlikely.
Artist: Prefab Sprout
Album: Steve McQueen
Released: June 1985
UK Chart: 21
Wikipedia
One of the few bands where “sounds very eighties” is a compliment. Maybe Prefab Sprout defined the eighties sound rather than vice versa.
Artist: Bombay Bicycle Club
Album: A Different Kind of Fix
Released: August 2012
UK Chart: 6
Wikipedia
Hmmm, I really want to like this, but I got a bit bored by the end. Maybe next time round.
