#AtoZofTunes
Rose's Turn (Imelda Staunton) My first exposure to Gypsy was in the movie Airplane!, where the real Ethel Merman has to be restrained from singing 'Everything's Coming Up Roses'. Great joke, until you realise the real thing is madder.
Staunton is incredible.
youtu.be/0F28IYnEqKY?...
#AtoZofTunes
Rollecoaster Ride (Belle & Sebastian) I want to make a video for this song, with someone lip-syncing on a rollercoaster, completely sanguine while everyone around them is screaming, using hi-speed cameras for slow playback. Hit me up if you can make this happen.
youtu.be/BTfzPxph5xY?...
#AtoZofTunes
Roam (B52s) Putting this in to annoy B52s gatekeepers. I'm fortunate enough to bloody love this tune and album, as well as all the previous ones, all the way back to Planet Claire, and all the way forth to Keep This Party Going. Some of it's shite, but NOT MUCH.
youtu.be/iNwC0sp-uA4?...
#AtoZofTunes
Quiet (Tim Minchin) Quite apart from all the words and movement and standing on a box in front of a packed auditorium and millions of TV viewers, the interval between "everything, everything is..." and "quiet" seems like the most enormous chasm in music.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-Lx...
#AtoZofTunes
Puttin' On The Ritz (Irving Berlin) If it's tunes you're after, there are some days when I would contend that this is the most perfect melody ever written. I couldn't decide on my favourite version, so I just chose the hands-down most memorable one.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab7N...
#AtoZofTunes
Private Idaho (The B52s) I've learned that they've removed the apostrophe now. Anyway, I last heard this song in the Minecraft movie a couple of weeks back, and it was a decided high point. The B52s at the top of their vocal and metaphorical game. A joy.
youtu.be/BxHyliIspkA?...
#AtoZofTunes
Polar Bear (Ride arr The Jims) For years I felt that the Oxford accent on Ride records would suit the New York accent of They Might Be Giants, so I eventually arranged and recorded a Ride song in as close to a TMBG style as I could.
(I also did vice versa)
youtu.be/EUGEkphNqcU?...
#AtoZofTunes
Ping Pong (Stereolab) My favourite song about capitalist economics is also one of my favourite songs. "Bigger slump and bigger wars and a smaller recovery... don't worry, shut up, sit down, go with it and be happy." 💃🏻🕺
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bq8u...
#AtoZofTunes
Picasso Visita El Planeta De Los Simios (Adam & The Ants) My first album, and first exposure to words being used for sound over meaning. "As the masters rot on walls and the angels eat their grapes I watch Picasso visit the Planet of the Apes". Right on.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A0m...
#AtoZofTunes
Pearl's Cafe (The Specials) Probably the rudest song I knew at the age of 6, but as ever with The Specials, formed a burning ember of justice in my heart. It's all, after all, a load of bollocks.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKEe...
#AtoZofTunes
Paper Tiger (Beck) I had the pleasure of interviewing Justin Meldal-Johnsen, who plays bass on this track, 25 years ago. He was very expansive and accommodating, and whether he knows it or not, we've been friends ever since. This is a golden JMJ showcase.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Enka...
#AtoZofTunes
A Pair of Brown Eyes (The Pogues) Reading back the lyrics, Fairytale of New York could be a prequel to this, but now Kirsty is gone, and Shane remains with only his memories of her, and searching to find her again.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlfr...
#AtoZofTunes
One Percent (GoGo Penguin) If you can get to the 2-minute mark, then you'll know exactly what it feels like to hit the flow state of writing (for me, anyway). Then if you make it to the end, you'll know what it's like to finish a whole writing session 🤷🏻
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTwU...
#AtoZofTunes
One in Ten (UB40) There are fleeting moments, where great music and social conscience coincide. I was six in 1981, and tunes like this and Ghost Town seeped deeply into my thinking. It's the haunting quality, I think, naive but not preachy. It feels rare, sadly.
youtu.be/6IDN_71NS9s?...
#AtoZofTunes
Ode to Billie Joe (Bobbie Gentry) Just an exquisitely paced short story: I feel the mystery of what happens hinges on romance and the frog down her back.
And find me a better scanning lyric than "Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge".
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJZ_...
#AtoZofTunes
No One Is (As I Are Be) (Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks) There's a certain West Coast vibe in a song that can absolutely get me. So laid back it's horizontal, aptly encapsualted by the lyric "I cannot even do one sit-up". Perfect beat I could drum all day.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-UN...
#AtoZofTunes
Nathan Jones (Bananarama) The Supremes original is a bit of a mess, but this one, direct from my childhood, has sibiliants you could swim around in, and an intriguingly introvert chorus. (It also suffers in the shadow of Robert De Niro's Waiting... #TeamNathan)
youtu.be/iSSpPkMlb98?...
#AtoZofTunes
Nail Down The Days (The Madness) I was gutted in 1986 when Madness split.
THEN! A semi-reunion in 1988 as 'The Madness'!
Heart-of-the-band Cathal "Chas Smash" Smyth, fashioned himself as a new Bryan Ferry, and they got serious.
I tried so hard to like it.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuMZ...
#AtoZofTunes
Nah' Mean Nah'm Sayin' (The Herbaliser feat Jean Grae) I'm going back over the same album as TWO other tracks lately, so maybe you should check that out. I can't let the line "Doin' this shit with my eyes closed like Helen Keller" pass without acknowledgment.
youtu.be/JIzlDqhtGSY?...
#AtoZofTunes
My Beautiful Leah (PJ Harvey) PJ was in a dark place for this album (recorded in two sessions with a year's break in the middle, which tells its own story). I can't get enough of the bass here, grinding so hard it almost comes to a halt.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVDv...
#AtoZofTunes
Mrs Robinson (Simon & Garfunkel) There is so much to say about this song. It's the perfect blend of voices caught at the perfect age by the perfect producer (Roy Halee) singing the perfect song at the perfect stage in the perfect songwriter's career.
youtu.be/9C1BCAgu2I8?...
#AtoZofTunes
Mrs Chombee Takes the Plunge (The Herbaliser) Part two of this Chombee diptych beginning yesterday. This tingles the brain in exactly the same as the Mr Chombee tune, but in a totally different way. Mellow, dark, beautiful.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVHE...
#AtoZofTunes
Mr Chombee Has The Flaw (The Herbaliser) Mid-evening groove: stimulates all the right parts of the brain.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JqQ...
#AtoZofTunes
Mr Briggs (Blur) Dave Rowntree never got to pursue this style of drumming, the way Blur went. But watching him play this at Northampton Irish Centre just before Blur's first album came out was amazing *.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sm8...
* Apparently. I didn't go. I did my art homework.
![Lush - Monochrome [2023 Remaster] (Official Visualiser)](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:irie35dyy2jzbldwja5umnm2/bafkreidva7d6mc6droqzvyo3dokgcjgqcxw7jspvxks6jsjufvvk7setc4)
#AtoZofTunes
Monochrome (Lush) I'll never forget hearing this for the first time, live, aged 16, in a shabby Northampton venue just before it came out. Both the music and the lights made me feel as if it were snowing. I try to recapture that from time to time. Transcendent.
youtu.be/PaRAtCzkvuo?...
#AtoZofTunes Mistake of Old Time's Sake (Chimpanman) That's me on drums in a song written by my brother. Uncharacteristically high energy. We only played this song well ONCE EVER (cf uncharacteristically high energy and bad drummer) and it was this take in the studio. LUCKY. youtu.be/sh554LUzzPU?...
#AtoZofTunes
Mersey Paradise (The Stone Roses) No showboating, just easy being; hands down the best version of the Roses. I maintain the lyric was originally "Liverpool's where I belong", but it was a bit off brand for the time.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajVy...
#AtoZofTunes
Memphis Soul Stew (King Curtis & The Kingpins)
🎸 🥁 🎸 🎹 🎷 🔥
🎶🥘🎶
youtu.be/4Sm9n-6hy6M?...
#AtoZofTunes
The Madhouse (Bernard Herrmann) Lesser known part of the strings-only Psycho soundtrack is a schizophrenic masterclass: it drifts uneasily in the mid range for a minute, but by the end, the high strings and low strings are as far apart as they can be.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOyM...
#AtoZofTunes
The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum (Fun Boy Three) Man, this video. I don't care what you think of me: this entire aesthetic will do me. Emotionless hair. Neville, Terry and Lynval 4eva. (also Jerry et al, but)
youtu.be/on-y9Pv-CJA?...
