2004 singles #s 58,57 and 56

58. “Terrorist Song” - Muscular Christians. Let's start off with a simple, happy folk tune that simply lists some facts about, and the names of, some of America's bogeymen.

57. “Hounds of Love” - The Futureheads. It has always been a great tune, so why shouldn't a young rock band want to sing it? Because it is physically, intellectually and spiritually impossible for them to ever be Kate Bush, they settle upon a novel and quite sensible approach: they play it dead straight in their new rock and roll way.

56. “Frontline (Creepy Crawler Mix)” - Big E.D. A troubled sonic environment that is filled with disconcerting sounds, like an aural representation of the bottom of your garden at root level. Slow and writhing, like a centipede or a big big spider. Shudder.

2004 fits into this nutshell here

2004 was a troubled year and one that didn't feel like it had a particular shape, musically. The war and the US election were major themes, although they were mostly left to reactionary country singers and more obscure figures when they went against the incumbent and his defenders.

There was a few good new rock bands, and quite a lot of good music by people we'll certainly encounter again as we move backward in time. There was some good American hip hop, although not as much as in other years that valued beats more than grandiose soundtracks. There was even some excellent country, including one of the best vocal performances I've ever heard. And the best middle of the road band since Fleetwood Mac features a female singer songwriter of quite uncommon depth and economy.

There also was quite a lot of British rap, a possibly inaccurate umbrella term for a set of genres I can't entirely distinguish between (UK Garage, Grime, 2-step etc). I don't care - I don't really think genres are very important. I think the motor of the music is, and although it has different sounds that may effect me slightly differently, it often gives me the same type of euphoria when it revs up just right. And sometimes there was enough melodic and thematic smarts going on that I got the message even when the car was just idling.

I found 58 remarkable records that I was happy to call singles, and happy to call fine records, and that can't be bad. Toward the top they started to feel great indeed.

58 remarkable singles of 2004, only two the same single...

I can count back almost the whole way, by which I mean I could probably find a few dozen remarkable songs each year back until sometime in the 1920s. So, why not, I'm going to countdown another year here.

Why? This blog was partly to give me some structure for my hobby, which is discovering music and understanding its shape a little bit. Counting down a list of remarkable records for each year, going backwards, may give me some real insights into what has happened. It already has, in fact - those boogie woogie piano players in the late 1920s could almost sound like rock and roll, and did you know that John Lee Hooker invented hard rock in the late 1940s?

It takes a bit of effort to make up one of these lists - ensure I've heard at least the obvious candidates, develop a way to put them in order, find something that isn't completely boring to say about each of them. So I don't know how far I will get. But hey, each step is a record I like listening to, and thanks to the power of youtube, you could learn to love a few things here too.

Song of the day, 4 November 2009

"Democracy" by Leonard Cohen

The main themes for today were

• strawberries and ice cream!
• the wind
• headlines are all we are allowed
  

Song of the day, 3 November 2009

"Me and Jesus the Pimp in a '79 Grenada Last Night" by the Coup. Deeply sad, but Boots Riley is a real writer.

The main themes for today were

• lots of walking
• all meeting'd out
• I can soon order the new Blackadder DVDs!
  

Song of the day, 2 November 2009

"Who's Got the Crack" by the Moldy Peaches

The main themes for today were

• uneventful day
• curry for tea
• updated blog
  

Coming Soon

2004. I'm gonna keep going.

2006 singles, # 1

1. “Road to Peace” – Tom Waits. Possibly the major political song of our times, so powerful it took a bit of an internet life of its own, which is why I feel able to include it even though it isn't a true single, although few things were in 2006. He should have thrown it right out there in the world's face, but perhaps the time seemed wrong. So clear eyed about the mire that is the Israel/ Palestine conflict, Waits simply states the situation as he sees it, combining narrative and commentary. It is actually what a Pulitzer winning piece of reportage might sound like put to a blues-damaged clop and sung by a giant-voiced reporter over his fifth whiskey.

What's in yr changer? part 32

Bob Dylan and the Band – Before the Flood. So, having spent a decade defying the expectations of his audience at every turn, he then does the most perverse thing he can think of: gives them exactly what they want. He and the Band pull out crowd pleaser after crowd pleaser, Dylan in a huge, arena-ready voice, right down to a flame-raising finale consisting of “Rolling Stone” and “Blowing in the Wind”. They also make it work brilliantly, evacuating weighty material of its meaning and substituting a new role for it: props for a cultural icon to use in his public role. He even plays up “It's All Right Ma” for a Nixon-troubled public.

The Klezmatics – Wonder Wheel: Songs of Woodie Guthrie. Brilliant players and singers lend fine melodies to one of America's greatest geniuses. Like Billy Brag and Wilco before them, they find treasure in Guthrie's lost song book.

David Bowie – Hunky Dory. Settles for accessibility and winds the sci-fi back a bit; a record that you can enjoy listening to.

Amy Rigby – Diary of a Mod Housewife. The 90s was a decade of female singer-songwriters, but some truly great ones missed out on the rewards. Major but unknown.

McEnroe and Birdapres – Nothing is Cool. Impeccable rhyming and impeccable beat-mastery, two Canadians lay some wisdom upon us: “The price we're paying for a late Mercedes/ Might just take us to the gates of Hades...”

Tom Waits – Orphans: Bastards [Disc 3]. The dog, it is shaggy.

The main themes for today were

• a buck and a half's sleep
• annoying day
• huge market research survey
  

2006 singles, # 2

2. “Kick, Push” - Lupe Fiasco. Skateboarding is a symbol for the way life can draw parameters around someone's potential, especially someone who is young and black. The sampled strings loop and swell and then are cut off only to try try again, reflecting how the circles of frustration tighten, even if love can break through. It breaks my heart, it is so perfectly yet economically drawn, the main character so vividly realized, every avenue of self expression stopped by authority before it can grow into something.

The main themes for today were

• The Trouser Incident
• All action, all the time
• Rainy night
  

2006 singles, # 3

3. “The Devil You Know” - Todd Snider. An exciting race from the law – its fast fast fast. Snider's performance here, and the rage behind the song's politics, are qualitatively no different from Creedence's “Fortunate Son”. He's unerringly on the side of the underdog, even where the underdog's on the lam. And even if this is a war the poor can't win, we can at least help our fellows out.

The main themes for today were

• poor night's sleep
• leaky bus - directly above me natch
• Planet of the Daleks
  

2006 singles, #s 6, 5 & 4

6. “What You Know” – TI. It is all music, folks, even the words. TI and friends' country grammar is so smooth that it flows just like the fake string section it floats upon. The whole package just goes down smooth, right down that waterfall where you can't hear what they are actually saying for the babbling of the water.

5. “Sexy Back” - Justin Timberlake. I'm sure he's as good as he claims. But he gets help from the heavy pop-funk groove that his producers give him. The critics were right to fear the new music in the 1950s . Rock and roll was a threat to the prevailing sexual mores, and these were cornerstones of the social norms of the time. But these social norms were racist and sexist, and they were eroded beyond recognition within a generation. Rock and roll really did change the world, to the point that a major pop star can make this a smash. Brilliant, innit?

4. “(A Tale of Two Frat Brothers) You Got Away With It” - Todd Snider. In a year in which the dear President's popularity shifted terminally to where his inherent abilities and integrity suggest it ought to have been all along, music followed more decisively than ever before. If only the musical landscape wasn't irreversibly fragmented, meaning that there will be no single authoritative account of it, this period would be remembered as being just as politicised as the more unified late 1960s. And this song would be remembered as leading the charge, rather than as being the obscurity that it is. Heck, it's even sung by a folk singer. In 2006, good folk singers aren't dewy-eyed naifs, but experts in character, and this is a devastating, decisive skewering, and substantively true to boot.

The main themes for today were

• another flat-out busy day
• "Dalek War" box set arrives!
• uncontrolled sneezing
  

2006 singles, #s 9, 8 & 7

9. “My Love” – Justin Timberlake. In a masterpiece of layered production and falsetto R&B, JT gives his audience the words they long to hear. Maybe he really does love us.

8. “Dance like a Monkey” - New York Dolls. In which David Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain embrace creationism because it inexorably gets us to our ape-like nature (plus lets them lust after a “pretty little creationist”). After all, “Abel died, Cain took his life/ And headed straight to the jungle to find a wife”. Which in turn increases the dexterity we need to perform all sorts of fun dance steps! In related news is the delightfully ironic “jungle music” the new Dolls lay on this, carrying on a tradition that the old group started with "Stranded in the Jungle" way back in 1974.

7. “Airborne” - Wussy. The most vivid song about post-breakup accounting I can recall, sung as a duet by a soon to be (or possibly already) new couple, and with a guitar sound that is to fall in love for.

Song of the day, 8 October 2009

"Heaven" by Talking Heads

The main themes for today were

• totally flat out
• fish and chips on the run
• rain in the evening
  

2006 singles, #s 12, 11 & 10

12. “Ya Man” - Balkan Beat Box. East meets west and creates hot new jazz.

11. “Dancing on the Lip of a Volcano” - New York Dolls. “Thrown in the dance with the mystics/ Burning me up with its music/ Sensualistic/ Ritualistic/ Alchemistic/ Polytheistic.”

10. “Shooter” – Lil' Wayne and Robin Thicke. A bank robbery is a metaphor for the subjugation of African Americans and also for self-expression, always Wayne's first priority. As memorable a piece of mid tempo rock and soul as you are likely to hear.

Song of the day, 6 October 2009

"Because" by The Beatles

The main themes for today were

• Still really cold
• delayed breakfast
• broadband is up and running!