A Sense of Doubt blog post #3772 - Top 50 Singles according to Kieron Gillen - Music Monday for 2506.16
I have been sitting on this post for over a year, so it's time to publish it, even though I was going to do more with it.
It's a decidedly British and Kieron Gillen-esque list, which focuses on charting hits not all songs in a top 50. Anything released as a single, which in Jolly Old England used to be a very big deal with hordes of kids queueing up at the shops and glued to the radio.
Mainly, this is a great list to explore old music one may have overlooked, like MOTORHEAD in the top ten at seventh or do you remember Sister Sledge?
https://news.sky.com/story/uk-singles-chart-hits-70-years-but-its-impact-on-the-nation-has-dwindled-12747407
#Let5D0It
I'd followed the previous poll - #FearofMu21C – but this time decided to jump aboard. This time it was #Let5D0It and a compilation of folks Top 50 singles from 1954-1976. There's a few extra rules , but basically means everyone posting one song a day and a brief blurb about them. I jumped on with not nearly enough time to prepare, so was winging it – which gives a certain energy, but does mean it's got big holes in. But so do all lists. That's the point. The results will be posted now, and in the weeks to come, so you can follow that here.
Next time – 76 to 99, I think – I'll be preparing the list in advance, so may actually do it in order of preference – I front load a lot of my absolute faves this time. Or maybe me trying to do that will mean I don't do it, as my brain will break at the effort. I have a tendency to take lists way too seriously.
If life is the 3 questions bridge of death sequence in The Holy Grail, I am the Blue, No, ARGGGH knight.
The next one is also about my lifetime, and includes the period where I was most intensely part of music culture. It continues into the 00s, and I'm still someone who clearly loves music, but it's not the sort of knowledge where I know what's out in any given week. Bands surprise me with releases. I miss releases. That didn't happen in the 90s.
This has been a top 50 which has relatively few obscure tracks in, but certainly a lot of bangers. I suspect they'll be more marginal stuff in the next one... or maybe not. 50 is a very small number.
Anyway – here you go. I'll stick a playlist at the bottom so you can listen to them.
Tutti Frutti - Little Richard (1955) This is apparently winning, but there's no way I can't include it. Long Tall Sally and Lucielle may turn up later but I always think of my serious, collected mother in law talking about being a young teen, waiting for a bus down an italian mountain in a cafe, and this comes on the jukebox and her HOWLING ALONG TO THIS AT THE TOP OF HER VOICE. That's pop music.
Papa Was a Rollin' Stone - The Temptations (1972) I basically grew up in 1960s Soul Household, so expect a lot of Motown, but let's start with something cinematic from the 70s. Full body memories of being in the back of the car, obsessed while this played.
Voodoo Child (Slight Return) - Jimi Hendrix (1968) I have a low tolerance for guitar heroes, which I suspect comes from coming to Hendrix first and comparing them all to him. If you were going to re-do Phonogram chronologically, teen me listening to this may be the inciting incident.
You Keep Me Hangin' On - The Supremes (1966) From the SOS of the guitar to the "and there ain't nothing I can do about it", the Supremes at their most urgent and desperate. When McKelvie told me he preferred the Wilde version, I knew it could only be time until we never spoke again.
Paint it Black - The Rolling Stones (1966) No Stones in my house growing up. My Dad was a big fan, but had all his albums borrowed and not returned - which obviously infuriated him.
I came to them as a teen. I was a goth. And so.
Say A Little Prayer - Aretha Franklin (1968) Pure phonomantic ritual. By now, there must be a whole year of my life by now when my day started with this.
Gloria - Patti Smith (1976) For a second, I thought it was going to be hard to choose between this and Land. But this was the only single, so it turned out to be easy. There are times I think this may be the greatest rock and roll single of all time, usually whenever it's playing.
California Dreamin' (1965) - the Mamas and the Papas (1965) There won't be a lot of West coast 60s here, but this is an extraordinary record I find absolutely petrifying. I'm going to bust out the word "numinous". It's also amazing if you slip one ear or the other off your headphones.
Patches - Clarence Carter (1970) Never wrote about this one. Hell, I don't think I've ever talked to another music fan about it. But once, 20 clear years before my dad died, I heard it and it took my head clean off.
Telstar - The Tornadoes (1962) Number one during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which makes it feel like an SOS from the sci-fi future yet to come.
Be My Baby - The Ronettes (1963) When you've made bank from a record, I don't think I have much choice but include it. I'm not rude.
Reach Out I'll Be There - The Four Tops (1966) I'm listening to this now, for the millionth time, and find myself thinking maybe it's just about the bassline and then the "now if you you/HAH!/feel you CAN'T go ON!" hits me in the face, and no, it's all of it, ever note
I Can See For Miles - The Who (1967) A band I've always wanted to like more than I do, but the exceptions are notable. This is the biggest note stretching out, for miles, and miles, always finding a few more inches to stretch then just soars away, never to be seen again
Shout - The Isley Brothers (1959) If I got to pick a single job to do in all of pop, it'd be to do is the OOOOHs in the back half of this.
Dancing Queen - Abba (1976) On the list of Phonogram scenes that never was, imagine Kohl's head against a speaker in a basement club, with this playing at full volume, to turn the harmonies to static as he tries to hallucinate what a heaven may be like. Petrifyingly good pop music.
Born To Run - Bruce Sprinsteen (1975) When talking about Warhammer 40k, I like to say that some people think less is more. 40k argues that, no, more is more. That's what "more" means.
And so.
Heatwave - Martha Reeves & the Vandellas (1963) When I normally rant about Heatwave, I talk about the closing Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but the moment it really buys a place here is Reeves' vocal kicking in and just hitting like the cool breeze on the hot day, and sweeps you away. This is my classic fave MR&TV, but last time I DJed I played Nowhere To Run To and I found myself thinking maybe I've been lying to myself. Nowhere's a more muscular record and hit really hard... but hitting in a London basement isn't the only thing a song can do. Listening to now, made me go back.
20th Century Boy - T. Rex (1973) If I went with "more grace" over "more muscular" with the Vandellas, I'm going the other way with T Rex. This just attacks your face with an axe, as if Jack in the shining was having the time of his life, and you're really into it too.
Try A Little Tenderness - Otis Redding (1966) My brother's favourite artist of all time, so clearly one pick, and perhaps another later. Listening to this, while we all live for the explosion, the restraint and the slow striptease of the whole band dancing with Otis is a perfect launchpad. 
Jesus Was a Cross Maker - Judee Sill (1971) Only came to her around WicDiv, and my general singer/songerwriter aversion was circumvented by Sill. Somehow a bisexual with a taste for the ornate and a complicated Donne-esque relationship with god hit me. Mysterious!
Twist And Shout - The Beatles (1963) The Beatles are unfortunate. If they were 6 bands, they'd have 6 slots. So... what? The more I think of the Beatles, the more I think of them as gleeful music nerds. And so: the cover which shows they're the band most likely to do #let5d0it
Please Don't Let Me Understood - Nina Simone (1964) I've given up trying to wrestle a choice for this one down (what monster can choose between the stars in the sky?) so I'm going with this, a live version of which is still my choice to play at my funeral.
This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us - Sparks (1974) First time this exploded from the car speaker as a teen, I was thrilled and confused. I had no idea. Was it current? What decade was it from? What PLANET was it from?
I've never really moved on from that.
Life on Mars - David Bowie(1973) I'm days behind, so let's not think too hard. I knew I'd have Bowie, so I scan the singles in the period and think "Well, it's Life on Mars, innit?" which is a graceless a process in inverse proportion to the melodramatic grace of this.
Papa's Got A Brand New Bag - James Brown (1965) I wanted to choose Sex Machine, to tell the anecdote which shows the level of actual practical musical knowledge in my household - my parents were convinced "The Bridge" was an actual place. But instead, this perfect thing
Like a Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan (1965) I'm only a relatively recent convert to Dylan - as someone who treats pop as a fantasy game, getting into him seemed like getting into Runequest. Except now, I kinda fancy runequest and I fancy bob too. This one I always loved.
Summer in the city - The Lovin' Spoonful (1966) 1st day back in CO comics, and this basically inspired the whole opening scene in The Power Fantasy, my next book, and I've been looping it for months and still makes me want to walk, and miss London before I've left her.
The Tears of a Clown - Smokey Robinson & The Miracles (1970) I keep on trying to put a slower Motown pick, but I gravitate to the dancefloor. The two Tears were as close as any, but I'm still going for this which sounds like the happy mask it describes so precisely.
96 Tears - ? and the Mysterians (1966) That we've gone 30 songs into this without hitting a misogyist-y garage rock revenge song is probably something of a miracle, given the 60s of it all. It's not even by the Stones.
I still go DUUH! DUUH! DUUH! DUUH! every time.
What's Going On? - Marvin Gaye (1971) I'm surprised. I thought I was going for another, but it just came on and I was transfixed by how a song about the absolute bleakest stuff can, by by the nature of its sonic properties, showcase exactly why life is worth living and fighting for.
(Ed Note: I genuinely can't believe I didn't include Grapevine.)
Heartbreak Hotel - Elvis Presley (1956) If you want an image, imagine me as a teenage goth and bouncing between Sisters of Mercy and this.
Move on Up - Curtis Mayfield (1971) Wait, this didn't chart in the US? WTF? Guys!
Superstition - Stevie Wonder (1972) I’ve been going back and forth on my Wonder, and it’s come down to “what’s the song I most want to hear whilst walking rapidly across London” and this is absolutely it.
(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher - Jackie Wilson (1967) It glides in, assembles before my ears and just fills me. Our first dance, for the record. Witnesses to that describe us as looking like giddy children who surprised and delighted we had found a secret. That.
War - Edwin Starr (1970) While What's Going On argues shows sonically what we could have, War's muscular intensity sounds like what it decries, and makes me want to punch war in the fucking face. I will even forgive it for generations of Game Journos using it for strapline jokes.
Young Hearts Run Free - Candi Staton (1976) Somehow makes being trapped in a hellish relationship to a faithless man make you giddy. The line between wise and euphoric is narrow, but this builds churches there.
God Only Knows - The Beach Boys (1966) Well, exactly. I haven't a fucking clue.
Johnny B. Goode - Chuck Berry (1958) When I was in terrible bands, and we were auditioning drummers, this is what we plugged into, played at time and a half and howled, and if the drummer didn't quit, they were in. This is some primal rock band stuff.
Rescue Me - Fontella Bass (1965) When Bass comes in with the first "Rescue Me" I'd literally do anything for her. And the bassline, off in the corner, idly trying to solve the secrets of the universe. I'm don't want to write. I want to point at it and gesture wildly.
Give Him A Great Big Kiss - the Shangri-las (1965) "WELL, I HEAR HE'S BAD!" "He's good-bad, but he's not EVIL"
To some, it says nothing, to others, they somehow turn trying to turn lines like that into a whole comic career.
Where Did Our Love Go - the Supremes (1964) First artist to have two songs, born of me listening to it on Friday and having a "This is one of the greatest achievements of humanity" moment with it and proof that a boot stomping on a human forever could be pretty amazing.
I Love To Love - Tina Charles (1976) "So explain this thing, Kieron." "Singles, 54-76, basically. Pick 50." "You're including that one about loving to love, right?" "I feel love is later." "No, not that one. The one you play all the time and ramble about." "Oh. That one."
You Really Got Me - The Kinks (1964) As we hit the back end, I realise I haven't got two things - Kinks or a brit band plugging in and doing it. Hence, this with its insistent insouciance, the balance between not giving a fuck and really wanting to fuck.
Paranoid - Black Sabbath (1970) I am many things. I'm a writer. A husband. A bisexual with complicated feelings around gender. A mediocre but enthusiastic dancer. A fantasy fan who uses fantasy to attack fantasy.
But, beneath and above everything else, I am a midlander.
Band of Gold - Freda Payne (1970) Across the last twenty years or so, all my attempts to make an impotence themed mix-tape have been foiled by hitting this and just getting stuck here on repeat. Now I write it, I realise this is probably ironic.
Respect - Aretha Franklin (1967) First (and only, unless I change my mind) double artist in the list. When I had her doing one certain sort of magical thing with Say A Little Prayer, I couldn't not have her doing the OTHER thing.
Lazy Sunday - Small Faces (1968) How much more bearable would Blur's britpop-period records be if Damon pulled off the mask in the back end and revealed he actually had one of the best voices of his generation?
Then he kissed me – Crystals (1963) Exit music for our wedding. I hear it and it soars out the room and keeps on running.
That said, every time I hear "And he kissed me in a way that I'd never been kissed before" I imagine he's licking her forehead or something and she's going WTF.
Merry Xmas Everybody - Slade (1973) I once requested this to a DJ to play in a club. He was genuinely shocked. He said no. I asked why. "It's July." Really, these are the people I have to work with.
Tramp - Otis Redding & Carla Thomas (1967) Otis gets a double appearance too, with this banquet of moments. If I had to choose, I'd choose Otis impossibly aggrieved WHAT?!? when Carla, once more, refuses to understand what manner of man she is speaking to. I had so much fun doing this, I wanted to end with one which just makes me happy, every single time.
#Let5D0It #Let5D0It · Playlist · 50 songs · 5 likes |
I've done tracks of the years for as long as I can remember – often very, very late, but always. I'm not sure if I'm going to do it this year. I'll go through my notes, but my listening has been weird and i'm not sure the list will be that useful. I liked all the big bangers. I played all the big bangers in the quarterly club night my chums and I run, even. See – that's a weird thing: for the first year I've not felt the need to do a list, it's been the year that I've played music most regularly in public.
The other side is the shape of what I've been listening to. Firstly, it's the parent thing. Any time I'm not expressly being distracted by something, and my brain gets a chance to return to its basal state, all I am thinking is “CONSIDER THE COCONUT” from terminal Moana over-exposure. But it's not even just that – the work I've been doing is historical. Forget the fact The Power Fantasy's playlist is from 1945-1999 – most of my TPF writing hasn't been to it. It's been listening to vinyl from the period, bought from the local record shop, ideally from the bargain bin. It's been a year where I've been listening to Count Bassie Plays The Beatles more than any new album. Perhaps there's a list in that too.
But there is one other thing I did in the back half of the year which may be interesting. Basically, as part of the project to work out the best 1000 singles, I took part in 1977-1999 bit, and took it seriously. Well... relatively seriously. I did some thinking, and took it more seriously than the previous 1956-1976 one (which I came to late and winged). That meant compling a list of your favourite 50 singles from the period, and posting one a day, and then everyone's results were compiled into a master list.
This was both fun, thought provoking (it's digging over a bunch of personal stuff, obv) and also vaguely useful for The Power Fantasy. Most my listening research was pre-1975 stuff for that, and this covered the gap nicely. It got me thinking a lot, which is always the point.
I obviously regretted my list the instant I made it, which is also always the point. It definitely has some regency bias, in terms of whatever my present obsessions are.
Anyway, my whole list in playlist is here and if you're interested in how the final 250 turned out, you can find a playlist of the 250 here and gawp at what made it and what didn't. And here's my Top 50, with what I wrote about each. You can probably tell the days when I was rushing to catch up or was busy.
It’s also much longer than I had realised. Procrastination is a smooth high.
#UncoolTwo50
Bouffant Headbutt - Shampoo (1993)
To quote what the great music critic Huggles4Everyone said 11 years ago in Bouffant Headbutt's youtube comment thread: "Shampoo were always at their best when they were terrifyingly psychotic."
So, it was my birthday yesterday, so I had the day off, working on a draft of an indie RPG and doing my Uncool list. Which is very me - my birthday treat was working on something else. An old friend messages me quoting the lyrics to Delicious, and I'm so deep in the pop music hole my brain ignites. "Now, Simon, I'm working on my list of top 50 singles of 77-99, and Delicious isn't in there but MAYBE BOUFFANT HEADBUTT IS?!!?"
Which changed my lens on the project, with a certain awful clarity. I saw the futility in the endeavour, and the joy inherent in that. Like many people doing this, the 77-99 was my absolutely my formative years. My first memories of pop music are in 1980. It includes the period when I was embedded enough to be able tell you months for single releases and all that. It's the peak Phonogram period, basically.
(There's an irony that all the Phonogram stories are about coming down from that, but that's another story - specifically, Phonogram stories. I digress.)
And there's the other irony - that I know the period better than any other period, I know my list is going to gravitate hard to the basic bitch I am. There will be a lot of fucking obvious, as I'm not going to lie and claim I'm not into Mount Everest.
However, listening to Bouffant Headbutt, I realised the other truth - I absolutely would rather listen to this than (say) Ghost Town.
("Too much fighting on the dancefloor" vs "I am not fighting on the dancefloor - instead, we will fight outside.")
And I love Ghost Town! I dug further, and realised I'd rather listen to Bouffant Headbutt than any individual single by (say) Nirvana or the Wu-Tang, two of my favourite bands of the 1990s.
So they're out, and Bouffant Headbutt is in.
Which is why it's Number 50 for the list. My guiding principle is "anything else has to at least make me as glad to have ears as Bouffant Headbutt. This is my Bouffant Headbutt scale. Your pop single must rate 1.0 or higher on the Bouffant Headbutt scale, or you're out, you're fucking dead."
Oh yeah - why do I like it? It's plain feral, a rabies sugar-rush , vinyl sharpened into a shiv, an inversion of another song that won't be in here - it's Happy, Violently. Frankly, Carrie makes Steven King's Carrie look like she's not even trying. 
you, Shampoo, you.
Still D.R.E. - Dr Dre feat. Snoop Dogg (1999)
I empathise with this one hard. I too still have love for the Streets, though as their first single was in 2001, that love is presently irrelevant. Last time we did this, I talked about the number of days I started with a phonomantic listen to Say A Little Prayer. I've started as many with this - though a different kind of magic, for a different kind of mood. I don't drive a car, but if I did, this is here. I certainly shower with posture.
The production is relentless in the best way, and hanging off it is just all these moments I adore. Honestly, the bit where Dre explains all the scientific precision of a twitter quote dunk, why a hater's position on him having "fell off" is clearly ludicrous is my everything. So, yes, as a working creative (and one that is all too sensitive) this is a suit of armor and I wear it often.
More - The Sisters of Mercy (extended version) (1990)
Hmm. It seems that "Music that sounds great in the shower" is the theme of my early choices. The Sisters were one of my iconic bands of the period, and this one of the most iconic songs. Also, Steinman. Also...
Okay, I was in Vancouver, with the guy who inspired Kid With Knife, driving in his open top army-surplus land rover, on a sunny afternoon, blaring this loudly as we headed off out the city. Another friend was with us - who is one of nature's pure indie kids. A quiet epithany person.
He's beaming. The Sisters aren't a band he'd ever listened to, but that THIS is a thing one can do in one's life clearly had remixed his brain a little.
I found myself wishing I could have travelled back in time and given him the Sisters as a teen, when they could have made a difference. Because the Sisters, at their best, were a gift to smart kids who were vulnerable to falling down the hole called the Smiths - this monochrome smart cartoon world where you don't hide that you've read a few books but also rock out. That the rage can not be a bomb, but also fuel, and take you places. Because Eldritch clearly had many flaws, but in the best records, made being smart actually look not a curse, but a whole lot of fun.
I think if you get that early, it frees you and powers you and makes you want more, and gives you more. And this is the song which just says it.
None more more.
Somewhere In My Heart - Aztec Camera (1988)
"Summer in the city where the air is still/a baby being born to the overkill"
If you were a ghost following me around, this is the line you'd catch me singing to myself most often. Worryingly often
Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick - Ian Dury & The Blockheads (1978)
This vs Push It was my final choice to bring me down to 50, which says something the scale of this endeavour. How? How?!
So: a big groove seasoned with industrial levels of WTF.
(How did I make the call? I was just chewing it over as I was getting Iris down and got down to which would just give me the biggest thrill if I heard it randomly. There may also be some element of that I've dropped Push It a bunch when DJing and never lands as hard as I feel it should.)
French Disko- Stereolab (1993)
I never quite loved Stereolab as much as I wanted to love Stereolab. Except this. I loved this beyond all cool, measured Marxist reason.
Groove Is In The Heart - Dee-Lite (1990)
If you'd asked me on the year of release, I'd have said "I will literally kill myself if this reaches number one", rockist scum that I was.
For many years since? Top 10, easy. But this year, only here.
Gloria - Laura Brannigan (1982)
are those voices in your head, calling ggggggglllloorrrRRRRRIIIIAAAAA
Girl/Boy Song - Aphex Twin (1996)
One surprise when doing this list - there's much less dance in it than I was expecting... but this found its way in, which I often dance to, because I am a centipede. I remember at the time there was some chat saying it was a drum and bass piss-take, which never felt right to me - it's playful, sure, but it's also beautiful and weird and just delighted at what it's doing.
Waiting For The Great Leap Forward - Billy Bragg (1988)
Part of me has a lot of time for that bright socialist eighties pop - the sadness of a burst of belief that just burst. But it's probably telling that this is the one which reaches the list.
Race for the Prize - The Flaming Lips (1999)
I always remember being in hospital in the early 00s, when I was not in a great state. Over a week in, I finally got some music. I try listening to this. It's too much. I had to turn it off. That's the story which most resonates with this BIG RESONATION music, but there's another, which makes me laugh, and is arguably more important in my life.
I was at the Reading Festival. I was covering it for the NME. It was 1999. I was doing it because I entered a competition, tapping out 150 words and forgetting about it, until I got a call. I'd spent the weekend basically working it. I sense I did a lot more than anyone was expecting, as that's basically the only gear I have.
So Sunday night comes, and the online editor says he wants a word. He takes me to one side and basically says how impressed he was, and that while I'm in the south west, there's work down there, and I should contact some relevant desks.
I didn't walk away, but flew.
Because I wanted to be a music writer, and had wanted it for a long time, and something I'd worked towards for some years, and I'd just been told by someone that in this race for the prize... you get it. Really, I can't think of a night I was happier.
I headed across site to the Lips. Which was the case of the perfect band to fit that particular perfect moment, in their psych-indie carnival in full effect, filling the tent and filling my head.
I felt like I was part of the sun. I went back to my tent, and slept.
In the morning, I woke up and stared at the ceiling. I remembered the night, with its huge cathartic joy.
A realisation hit me. I said it aloud.
"But I don't want to work for the NME."
I never made any serious attempt to make a career of music writing ever again.
Final Day - The Young Marble Giants (1980)
It sounds like it was recorded in the ruins as a nuclear-age folk song. It's on a tape, which you've found, and everyone on it is long dead, as is everyone other than you, at least for now.
The logical collision between choir-kids after school in a practise room and the radiophonics workshop, plus the logical collision between a neutron and uranium 235 creating not energy but an audible silence.
Also: so short that if you hear the four-minute warning, you can play it twice.
Heaven Is A Place On Earth - Belinda Carlisle (1987)
I have a soft spot for Belinda Carlisle. The soft spot is me. This is a machine which when activated basically fills the room with ice-cream. Who hates Ice-cream? Not me. I'd drown in ice-cream.
Atmosphere - Joy Division (1980)
Just been walking in the rain, wearing black. And so.
Atomic - Blondie (1980)
Pictures and 1000 words? Let's give you 12,000 words of pictures.
This story was 16 pages, and we use 1/8th of the time we have available to do this. Imagine if Trainspotting used 15 minutes of its run-time for its Atomic scene. That's what we did it.
I really like Atomic, and made Jamie spend several days drawing this to prove it.
Faster - Manic Street Preachers (1994)
As someone who was at least Intensely-intense adjacent, the Holy Bible was my favourite album for at least the first half of my 20s, and this my favourite track. If I had tattoos, I'd be covered in this script.
Child Psychology - Black Box Recorder (1998)
I was a Luke Haines fan, writing him as a virgil in a britpop hell, but I've circled back to Black Box Recorder's introduction, as, even now, what it does remains invigoratingly audacious in its cruelty
California Uber Alles - Dead Kennedys (1979)
Punk rock can be many things, which includes fucking horrible.
Modern Love - David Bowie (1983)
If I had to sum up Phonogram I'd say it's a book about not believing in modern love, but believing in Modern Love.
There's significantly grander musical achievements by Bowie in the period, but I come back to this, again and again. It will almost certainly be played when I DJ. It was the second to last song to be referenced in Phonogram. It's a lot. Also: "I know when to go out/when to stay in/get things done" is a useful oracular message whenever I hear it. Yes. I'll try to remember that, Bowie.
The Winner Takes It All - Abba (1980)
When pulling together the list, I was in a "are these iconic sacred cows actually something I want to listen to?" space, and put this on and thought maybe it wasn't, but then I was just in tears. So yes.
Hot Topic - Le Tigre (1999)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
They may have fucked up by having more than 50 picks on their list, but they certainly don't fail the Neil Kulkarni clause.
(Er... that's one of the challenges rule. You must have at least one third of your picks be bands/artists who are not all white dudes.)
Gentlemen - Afghan Whigs (1993)
About a decade back, I saw them live. Many men my age, arms around heir partners, singing along. I wanted to grab random partners and say "You know he's singing about cheating on you and MUCH worse, right? Right?"
One of my favourite albums of the 1990s, and this is where the softness of the opening is kicked out the window with Dulli's precise, awful NOW, the guitars are unleashed and it does world-class glower.
The whole album is basically like a warning on a cigarette packet, with the cigarettes being men.
Renegade Master (Fatboy Slim Old Skool Mix) - Wildchild (1997)
Still have this one ear-marked for a DIE sequel themetune. It even namechecks a D4.
Clearly anyone involved in this project has moved past concepts of guilty pleasures. However, this is in exactly the sort of spot in an much unloved aesthetic that I say it and expect hard side-eye. I know and love every beat of over-engineered, toytown pneumatic performance.
Sabotage - The Beastie Boys (1994)
Let's complete our Boy Stuff sequence with this, which really does go off. Also, my 3 year old daughter started shouting the last word in every line of her books at me, so this is a Beastie household now.
I realised this actually takes the place of all the other rap metal that may have got on the list. That it was something that was more a side-line than anything else for them makes it more impressive. Sometimes you really do just need a dilettante. This is one which I don't actually always drop when I'm DJing, but when I do, it always goes off big.
Party Fears Two - The Associates (1982)
Epic Flouncing In Your Bedroom music, anxiety so intense that it's humping the furniture.
Celebrity Skin - Hole (1998)
Never has "I really want to sell lots of records now" sounded as inspired, as horrified and as delighted with itself. Circa this, Love really was the best rock star I've ever seen in my life, and it's all here.
Only Love Can Break your Heart - Saint Etienne (1990)
Quintessential Singles Band starting as they meant to go on, by singling quintessentially. Just a sad, blissed universe summoned in the magic circle of a 7".
Also - I just realised with Santa Valentine and Etienne Lux, I've just broke up Saint Etienne's name in half to name two of the Power Fantasy characters.
Lazy Line Painter Jane - Belle & Sebastian (1997)
The interesting thing is that it's a sub-average B&S single until Monica arrives, and then it's something else, and the rest of the song is Stuart weaving around a distinctly un-B&S presence.
For example: the middle-eight where the vocals double, and we build towards one of B&S's biggest moments of "Wondering how you got your name/and what you're going to do about it" and then it just takes off, a church organ removing your organs. Also, casual, sad bisexuality. They're playing my song, baby.
Welcome To The Jungle - Guns N' Roses (1987)
It's only when writing this did I realise that it took me 10 years to go from a Guns N' Roses fans to a Belle & Sebastian one. Oh, the descent of man.
The first band I loved in a way which changed I dressed, the entry to my compulsory Midlands Kid Metal Phase. The first band I wrote a piece of criticism on - for an English class, which a friend of mine quoted back at my 30 years on, so it must have had something to it. It was about Welcome to the Jungle. Was it "A scum's eye point of view of a city of scum"? Something like that. Welcome To The Jungle is the entry to the sordid world of pop for me, my MTV Stones, and this is the one where you can imagine them as the perfect bar band on the strip and/or strip bar band.
Paradise City was the one which ensured they could entertain a stadium. Sweet Child of Mine was the one which ensured they could fill a stadium. But this is Guns N'Roses at their most thrilling, and even atmospheric. I started Phonogram with Kohl being passed a stick of eyeliner by Britannia at 19, but there's another version of Phonogram which started him at 12, passed a C60 of Appetite for Destruction from a very different Goddess and Kohl being dragged to hell, and liking it.
In short: whatever I became, I started becoming it here.
Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've) - Buzzcocks (1978)
Buzzcocks were an obsession for me, and sometimes one cannot deny the fucking obvious. A spurt of pure pop even bigger than Orgasm Addict's impure popping spurt.
Bring the Noise - Public Enemy (1988)
Nearly 40 years old, and still sounds like a specifically inspiring racket, entirely defiantly sonically of its moment and still sounds like a tank load of WTF.
When Love Breaks Down - Prefab Sprout (1984)
An example of temporality and pop. Were I a few years older in 1985, I'd have been all over Steve McQueen, but it took until 2020 and terrible life stuff and Covid and... here it was.
Cloudbusting - Kate Bush (1985)
Despite one of the most direct story inspirations, the most mysterious of Bush's big hits. The momentum just takes you there, in its own good time, and it bursts, and then it rains, or at least you find your face is wet, again. Also, dead dad stuff, innit?
Plan B - Dexys Midnight Runners (1981)
A lesser band's commercial suicide great song being released in a not-great single cut would be in trouble for my doomed romance inclusion. But Dexys are no lesser band, and can commercial suicide at will.
"Hey, Kevin, what are you gonna do?"
"I was thinking I'd shit the bed in a genius way"
"Again?"
"JIMMY!"
Honestly, I listen to this, and feel Lloyd from Phonogram coming on hard. I was never particularly good at maintaining being a serious young man, but I had my moments, and when I did, this was here for me.
Also, I was in a local pub recently, who had a pun-based menu, which included Dexys Midnight Hummus.
Insomnia - Faithless (1995)
Obviously, parenthood has made this one even more relevant.
Bills Bills Bills - Destiny's Child (1999)
There's less of the hypertech R&B in this list than I'd have thought, but there is this. The verse which is just an extended argument over celllphone use is one of my faves in this whole period
Also, as someone who is very much a formalist, the First Destiny's Child Album Cover to Second Destiny's Child Cover is one of my favourite 2 panel comic transitions.
Common People - Pulp (1995)
Earlier in this list, we chewed over mixing pop and politics, asking what the use is. Now, we resolve the equation by adding the essential binding ingredient: sex.
And that this is the day I'm fully back in Bath, and my first coming to Bath was fundamentally my Peak Britpop period seems nice timing. It will never mean as much to me now as it meant then, and even now it means everything. I did it in Karaoke in NYCC the other week, and my urge to scream it as it heads towards its denouement overwhelmed me, again, always.
Doin' the Do - Betty Boo (1990)
I remain really impressed.
Could have been higher, but I made a recent disastrous US karaoke take on this, due to karaoke programming which had clearly been made by someone who'd never heard the record, like everyone in the whole continent. Where Are You Baby?'s wistful sci-fi nonsense was the one which I loved most in the period, but the level of Pugnaciousness in Doin' The Do is the one I find most useful now.
Always On My Mind - Pet Shop Boys (1987)
The last song in Phonogram, in a story about loading it with a charge to never forget it and what it means to me, so, etc. Music is magic and magic is real.
Follow The Leader - Eric B. & Rakim (1988)
One of the most perfect machine generated pieces of music in... ah, I'm trying to do a bit, and failing as my copy of THIS IS UNCOOL is in a box
The title of this exercise comes from Garry Mulholland's excellent 2002 This is Uncool - his selection of 500 songs in the period. Sorry for the amazon link, but it's seemingly hard to get now. When I read it, I though it the single book about pop I wish I could send back in time to my 13 year old self. It was as a single volume catch up of where I should start digging, and an example of how ones life can be in conversation with pop. This is the attitude I think best to approach it all.
(Now it strikes me that it would allow me to know what was going to be hot shit before it happened, allowed a Biff Tannen-esque pop-critic cheat mode. But that's not I was thinking when I thought it. That's really not the point.)
Point being - even as someone who was in the late 20s at that point, there was a lot of stuff which I came to as Mulholland batted for it in the volume. When compiling this list, I was struck by the number of things I'd included I came to through him - which was a bit embarrassing, but also good.
Because the point of list games like this - or lists full stop - isn't to fossilize a canon, but to share what one loves, in hope that others love it too. Relevantly, I followed the leader to Follow The Leader, which has become part of my go-to psychic armoury ever since.
(My opening bit was me trying to write Mulholland's entry on Follow The Leader from memory, and failing, btw.)
This is the highest track which I came to through the book, but I do think 9 of the 10 that follows were in it. It's a wonderful book, and if you haven't read it, and have enjoyed seeing all folks posting about pop like this, I really recommend getting a copy.
Lost In Music - Sister Sledge (1979)
Were I the sort to self-mythologise, I'd say that my Mum went to see Sister Sledge when she was eight and a half month pregnant with me, so I likely heard this live, in utero. Sadly, anyone capable of basic math would know it's a lie. It was in their pre-Chic era in 1975, so none of the hits would have hit me in the womb. Anyway - one of the two working titles for Phonogram was Lost In Music, and in many ways was it was both its theme tune and its theme.
Total Eclipse Of The Heart - Bonnie Tyler (1983)
Seth Bingo turned to me and said "All roads lead to Total Eclipse of the Heart." He was talking about how he structures the last half hour of a karaoke session, but the lesson applies more widely.
Last Train to Trancentral (Live from the Lost Continent)- The KLF (1991)
Whenever we do our club night, one of the clean generational gaps is when we drop this, and everyone over 35 goes wild and both the people under 35 look very confused I'm trying to find something smart to say here, but I'm basically reduced to howling: MU MU! MU MU! MU MU! MU MU! MU MU! MU MU! MU MU! MU MU!
Minor factlet: I wrote a demo Phonogram issue for McKelvie, to show him what I wanted to do - it was basically Beth's plot from Rue Britannia, but done in an issue. The first song which Kohl deliberately uses to create a magical effect is this. It's that kind of song.
We will never see their like again, and that so much of the KLF about how easy it was to be their like, that's profoundly depressing.
The Ace of Spades - Motorhead (1980)
A thrilling piece of New Games Journalism from Lemmy and the boys.
(I wish I had the brain to include this in my and Keith's list of Top 10 pieces of NGJ when I wrote it for the Guardian back in the day, as it would have annoyed people even more.)
Hyperballad - Bjork (1995)
I remember an old Everett True review of a Bjork Festival Gig, just before Post, glancing at the crowd, seeing so many people mouthing along and having a moment when he realised... wait. She's actually speaking to people.
And I was "Well, YES, ET."
That there was so much else going on with Bjork one can get why you'd make the mistake, but the angles she approaches songs are something else, and never more so than here, which stands at the edge of that cliff and decides to fly.
Oh Bondage! Up Yours! - X-Ray Spex (1977)
If there was a building full of every punk single and it was on fire, and I could only save one, I'd have a lot of questions about how this unlikely series of events came about.
But this is the one.
When I was in the judgmental mid-20s-arsehole period most critics seem to go through (and some never come out of), this was certainly one of the records that if someone didn't GET, I'd move them from one column to another in my head, and just assume they liked women to be seen and not heard. I still think it's one of the most freeing and free sounds ever recorded, and makes me think No More may be possible.
Skillex EP - Kenickie (1996)
Obv.
Come Out 2nite is the lead, and I loved with an infatuation which burned white hot which I included in the very first issue of Phonogram. Kenickie just reminded me of my friends at their best, and put it down.
The off-handed WE DON'T HAVE TIME TO BE SAD, of course, was protesting too much....
...because Come Out 2nite was an infatuation, and it only turned to love and website making devotion when a few weeks later when I flipped the vinyl and found How I Was Made waiting for me. Of course, they're Catholic. And they have found a theremin.
Now this is where it gets a bit foggy, and I've studied the rules and can't quite work out whether this is good or not. Because the vinyl was released in 1995 with 2 tracks, and then in 1996 on CD with another two. Scared of Spiders is fine, but it's just a B-side. But then there's Acetone.
Acetone, for some years, was my choice for song to play at my funeral, because I was both sad and cruel and wanted to spit my dying wish. My tumblr is still called "Another way to breathe", lifted from this.
Also, a Marie song.
Because that highlights one of the many thing I loved about Kenickie - this dichotomy of mood (Bedrooms/nightclubs) and Lauren and Marie tended to lean one way (Lauren way too sensitive, Marie would murder you) it was never that simple, because none of us are that simple. We all contain Maries and Laurens, even Marie and Lauren. As the full EP, starting with Lauren's best take on Marie's terrain and ending with Marie's best take on Lauren's makes it just a wonderful thing.
I loved this band, beyond all reason.
WE DRESS CHEAP, etc.
Unfinished Sympathy - Massive Attack (1991)
Days after the Brexit vote, I went to see them in Hyde Park. I found myself thinking: whatever I love about this country, is in Massive Attack. Given the chance, I will always vote for it. Overplayed, one may say, but I'd disagree - I've played it as much as one can, and it's still not there, not over. Clue's in the title, guys. Unfinished, and I doubt I'll ever be finished with it, and it with me.
The Mercy Seat – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (1988)
Looks god in the eye and says "Come at me, bro."
Which isn't quite true, of course (I've always been surprised the number of fans of the record have never noticed the twist in its final line) but certainly manages to act like it. Pop music, at its best, sets your mind on fire. A song about having someone's mind set on fire does exactly that. I think also the song that's most ended up on my comic playlists - I do tend to see a big chunk of what I do as taking my characters on a long walk to their Mercy Seat. It's a useful magnetic north: can you be this good?
Once In A Lifetime - Talking Heads (1981)
Thanks to everyone who's shared. It's been amazing to watch and be part of. Once in a lifetime. Or twice, as it's the second run of this, which does blow the joke, but same as it ever was, etc.
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- Days ago: MOM = 3637 days ago & DAD = 291 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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