Saturday, February 28, 2026
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,441 Donovan - Sunshine Superman
A Donovan album from 1966 with a wonderful cover and a lush texture. It's a lustrous record frankly. It takes you there. Donovan is making like a turtle and diving fot your pearls in the sea. Then he's bringing gold apples. A veritable feast unfurls.
Plenty mock Donovan . Dylan mocked hum brutally at the time. But this is one of those 'How beautiful to be young and alive for that golden dawn records.
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1986 Singles # 2 The Smiths
Like anyone who went to unoversity in the Mid Eighties Yhe Smiths furnish me with enough memories to write a book. To furnish a mansion. There has been no band like them. Before or since. They say something about the human condition and spirit at its best and also sometimes at its worst. . This song chimes with me particularly.
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500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 236 Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz
Yeah Yeah Yeahs do their Electro Post Punk shriek and scream thing to wonderful effect ! 'Off With Their Heads !'
1979 Top 40 - # 19 Bill Lovelace
There were always tunes like this in the Top 40 and it always seemed like a good idea.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,325 Gorillaz
I'm rising on Satirday mornong and taking to a Tibetan mountain top to listen to... erm... The Mountain ... the latest album by Gorillaz. They've been around for 25 years now And this feels like it. A relax into late middle age record. A set of comfy cushions..
Damon Albarn... It's hard to knock the man. He's spread his wings since his Parklife years, headed off for the Global Horizon. This album is haunted by the past. Most notably here, loss of Albarn and Jamie Hewlett's fathers. The ultimate loss of innocence.
This record sounds like what it need to. A celebration of all the contradictions and conflicts of life . The reluctance to let go of youth and the inevtable drift into the void. It's a marvellous record frankly. Give it a listen. Embrace Spring !
Friday, February 27, 2026
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,442 The Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely
I generally bristle slightly before listening to a record that's related in any way to Jack White/ I don't particulalrly like him I confess and am not particularly grounded in the tradition he draws on or the scenarios he dabbles in, In this case what if Free or Led Zep had formed thirty years.on, If that's your bag, This is your album.
250 Albums- An Arbitrary Rumble Through My Record Collection # 51 Big Country - The Crossing
I liked Big Country well eniugh at the time as a 17 and 18 when The Crossing and the initial singles came out. I liked the tunes, the shirts, the guitars the genuine sentiments.It just seemed like positive, admirable stuff TBH. Big Country fitted in with the construction of identity that was going on within myself. Taking place in books, films and records. A construction of identity.The person I wanted to be. I still want to be that person.
Big Countryfitted in wuth R.E.M., The Smiths, The Go Betweens, Triffids, Lloyd Cole & The Commotions, Prefab Sprout and so on. And the reworking back to the Velvet Underground, Doors, Byrds and so forth that was going on within me from there. I didn't actually buy The Crossing until relatively recently.
But I listened to the record last night after listening through to a podcast about the sad story of Stuart Adamson the band's guiding light. And I realisde exactly what a vision the album is. How good it is. It's almost a mythic record tol isten to now. Young men placing themselves in a huge landscape and exploring and nailing exactly what that means an dhow others can relate and identify with that, How the album was clearly a fundamental statement to Adamson as a differentiating declaration from The Skids and Richard Jobson his foil and the fronttwo of The Skids, the Dunfermline Punk band he'd first come to prominence in.,
The Crossing is a set of songs that stand very much within theur tume and place. The messianic and inspiring lighters aloft wave of guitar bands that was rising at thet point in time; U2, Simple Minds, Bunnymen, Psychedelic Furs. But there's something incredibly stirring about The Crossing and one that's also underpinned with sadness that's actually recognisable within the melodies,massed vocals guitars, drums and lyrics of the record itself that brackets Adamson and his sad, eventual destiny as a Caledonian cousin of Ian Curtis, Adruan Borland and Bily McKenzie.A depressed celebrant.
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 237 Super Furry Animals - Love Kraft
Super Furry Animals approach every album as the artform should be approached. As if they're plotting out before you a new planet in your solar system. Somewhere you haven't visited before. This is one where you find yourself wondering about the source of oxygen and how the inhabitants procreate as the third sun starts its rise in the southern heavens.
1979 Top 40 - # 20 Dave Edmunds
This is a good one. Dave Edmunds seemed like nothing less than a hip Uncle to me and he churned out loads of groovy, rockin' 45a with catchy tunes and rockin' ryhthms. All power to your elbow Uncle Davy !
Song(s) of the Day # 4,324 Bill Callahan
It's coming up to the end of February . Spring is on its way. Bill Callahan is 'driving through the dark. Arriving in the rain.' To sing hs songs again and again,
Why Do Men Sing? Why indeed. Bill is here to tell us om latest record and I imagine this will keep me engaged with new album Days of 58 as I make my way across the morning.
Bill Callahan is a droll troubadour and he sticks to his script as the clock ticks. 'He laughs in the face of death'. Just as it should be. This will syrely tick the boxes for those for whom previous Smog and Callahan excursions have ticked boxes. It's important to not treat your lifeboat like a yacht. Well done Bill. I'm aboard!
Thursday, February 26, 2026
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,443 Tom Waits - The Heart of Saturday Night
If there was ever a man who knew his way to The Heart of Saturday Night Tom was he,
1979 Top 40 - # 21 Sad Cafe
Even at thirteen I sensed instinctively that Sad Cafe were just beyond the pale. The name. The photoshots. They were everything you didn't want to grow up to be, It's a song that should be put down.
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 238 Death Cab For Cutie - Plans
From a Vegas Water Taxi to a Death Cab For Cutie one. We all have to make our way through life. To pay the bills. Death Cab For Cutie make it sound like a rather bland passage for the most part although sometimes the sun peeks from behind the clouds.. Monochrome Shins.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,323 Vegas Water Taxi
Long time Caller, First Time Listener. Vegas Water Taxi ..An album that immediately heralds itself as coming from a familiar place and goes out to a designated audience. For people with Teenage Fanclub, Belle & Sebastian and Big Star albums in their record collection.
They concern themselves with Thirty Something Concerns. Which seem to be the same as Thirty Something Concerns always have been.
Vegas Water Taxi are East Country slackers who don't wish to surprise, disappoint or innovate frankly. This is an instantly familiar album that feels like you're being beckoned onto a marshmallow sofa.
Wednesday, February 25, 2026
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 239 Diefenbach - Set & Drift
Get ahead of your cooler than cool friends. Listen to this,Cool Danish Indie that finds a beautiful poetic space,
1979 Top 40 - # 22 Al Hudson & The Partners
I haven't heard this since 1979. Now I have . It's good to be alive !
Song(s) of the Day # 4,322 Annabelle Chairlegs
Waking Up with Annabelle Chairlegs. Well actually it's getting on to three in the afternoon and I've already done half a days work but it's a charming experience nonetheless. I can recommend it highly if you ever have the opportunity,
The lady in question works out of Austin , Texas in a vein which would be familiar to those prone to Kim Deal. I.e. anyone with an ounce of sense. Fabulous stuff !!!
Tuesday, February 24, 2026
Song(s) of the Day # 4,321 Lucid Express
Lush it seems did not gaze in vain. For here are Lucid Express Hong Kong's finest all these years on. Tremelo pedals afflutter, Instant Comfort is an album you have heard on many an occasion but it's a good one so once more to the breach dear shoegazers. Once more.
Monday, February 23, 2026
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 241 Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
The kind of album that Uncut syaffers paper their walls with. But that's no slyr. Rather a recommendation. I've just made myself a cup of tea and cut myself a slice of Madeira Cake and lead back in my desk chair as if it's a long hot bath to luxuriate in this. Sometimes the bills can wait.
1979 Top 40 - # 24 Squeeze
Squeeze spoke of a world I knew nothing of in 1979. Of people sleeping with each other for whatever reason people slept with each other. I'm still not quite entirely I confess . They made it seem like quite good fun all round. They were also a band that took risks which made them stand out and seemed to know their way round a pub which seemed wholly admirable.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,320 Hemlocke Springs
Not an albim I particularly understand. I am not its natural constituency. It doesn't sound like The Velvet Underground ir Pavement. There are no traces of David Bowie or Bob Dylan's DNA on here. It doesn't have lyrics which speak to me.whatsoever.
But I found Hemlocke Springs album The Apple Tree Under The Sea decorative for a couple of tracks.The colourse were nice. The Guardian liked it. Perhaps I'm missing something. So It's todays Song of The Day. Then I decided it was rather moronic went away and found something else to listen to.
Sunday, February 22, 2026
The NME - 1986 Year of the Triffids ? # 10 Africa Albums Review
Mark Sinker reviews 15 albums. Mostly from Central Africa. This suff is such a publuc service that it makes you wonder. How were you expected to tell your Soukous from your Makossa?Well, you could try reading the NME. Exquisite music journalism.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,446 Big Black - Songs About F ******
Not one to leave at the front of a row in your room for your mother to walk into your room and notice.
1986 Singles # 3 Prince
When you're young, (and for the record I no longer, at sixty consider myself really young), you really have no sense that things won't continue forever and songs like this won't just keep pouring out of the taps.
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500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 242 Hal - Hal
The kind of Singalong Pop that made the world go round in the early Seventies. Rather saccharine and ersatz after five or six of Hal's variants on this.
1979 Top 40 - # 25 Boney M
Boney M were a complete fixture in the singles chart throughout the Seventies and looking back you realise that this was a completely great thing because they were invariably wonderful ! ABBA, Blondie and Boney M ticked all the boxes. Pay no attention to NME types although I confess I am one of that number myself.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,319 Mandy, Indiana
I had a severe Industrial Noise episode when I went to see Mandy, Indiana live at Zerox on Newcastle Quayside de just over a couple of years back. But it seems I'm a glutton for punishment as I'm back in the queue for my latest dose of medicine. An album called.... wait for it.... URGH.
I love Mandy, Indiana's schtick. They're a band called Mandy, Indiana, from Manchester who sound like a French railway announcer having some kind of fit at the height of the rush hour at Paris Nord.. These aren't tunes so much as shots to the couer and Mandy, Indiana are to blame! They give love a good name ! Get in line if you know what's good for you, .
Saturday, February 21, 2026
1986 Singles # 4 R.E.M.
R.E,M.for five years consecutively span my world in terms of my consciousness. That's no exaggeration, They were my imaginative life. I drove my love half mad as we fell helplessly in love because I never ever stopped playing them to her. My imaginative debt is incalculable,
i went on a interrail in the symmer of 1986. One of the great imaginative journeys of youth. The time when you mught to all intents and purpises actually be a Scott F. Fitgerald charracter, Paris, Nice Barcelona, Florence, Rome. Geneva Locarno, Munich (where I slept in the station and was woken by police dogs, Stuttgart, Tubingen, Frankfurt and home. An unrepeatable imaginative journey. And all the time dreaming of the arms of Venus de Milo.
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 243 The Fall - Imperial Wax Solvent
Whenever I come across a Fall album on one of these countdowns it feels rather like work . The same applies when Nick Cave pokes his head round the office door. It feels like work.My heart sinks and I' m back on the conveyor belt. Back on the chain gang. Back in the typing pool . Under someone's thumb. In the name of the novel. Under the frog. As low as it gets.
I realise what seems like ten minutes through the opening lumpenproletarian dirge Alten Towers which for thousands of others this sems like the height of ecstasy and adrenalised thrill. Imperial Wax Solvent has its moments. But I've been here to may times pn this mortal coil and I've given my take on The Fall here too often too. That man in the corner of the pub is shouting at me again. 'I'm a fifty year old man. What are you going to do about it?' Leave the pub mate,. 7/5.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,447 The Wrens - The Meadowlands
An album that has come to be seen in mythic dimensions in the eyes of believers likr a great coming of age novel or film that you must experience before you die. Catcher In The Rye in 12 inch form. It's the sound of failure essentially and what exactly it i that's so appealing about it.
Released in 2003 by an independent guitar band from New Jersey. Formed in the late eighties and infamous for their prevarications and intense intrigue and struggles with erm just about everything. The Meadowlands represents everything that makes Rock & Roll so intriguing and remunerative. It's why I write It Starts With a Birthstone. Why I return to the mine seam with a pick and shovel on a daily basis.
Any album that starts with The House That Guilt Built is unlikely to concud with I am the Resolution. The Wrens sensed that the New Millennium was not likely to be fitted for such gestures. The precedent for this as with so much that I write on on It Starts is Murmur.
The guitars are sturdy if the vocals bleaat somewhat. But instrumentation provide solid foundations and tetify to why this album had had such an enduring and powerpful legacy
Song(s) of the Day # 4,318 Hen Ogledd - DISCOMBOBULATED
Spring has sprung. It Starts With a Birthstone can officially proclaim. DISCOMBOBULATED from Hen Ogledd has landed for ousisders and refuseniks to pretend that they are a tree or fish ir whatever it is they wish to. In the words of The excellent Guardian review: 'What to do when the word's falling apart ? Take to the streets? Run to the hillsThe latest album by this British folk-rock quartet suggests that a blend of fantasy and realism can provide a better way of living.'
DISCOMBOBULATED is the gentlest and most regal unravelling. The album is certainly barmy . But frankly, aren't we all. We have been since childhood amd here is a record that recognises this better than Boards of Peace which break International Law and seek to oppress, divide. The centre cannot hold as the adage tells us. Perhaps the margins can.
This is certainly a good place to start a Saturday morning. Bard Rap (in Welsh when it chooses) apparently decrying capitalism and celebrating grass roots resistance. Hen Ogledd are pitching their tent and inviting you to join their pagan happy hour.
Friday, February 20, 2026
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 246 Mansun- Little Kix
Mansun were truly runts of the Brit Pop litter. For the odd teenage boys who hung around the library on gloomy afternoons and spent their teenage years with their collars turned up against the wind.
1979 Top 40 - # 27 The Jags
'You only come here when you're feeling blue. You tell me I don't pay attention to you...'
We didn't know what one hit wonders or that Jags were they. We knew that they sounded like Elvis Costello and that they had your number written on the back of their hand. They were a bit more Ford Fieta than Jaguar to be frank but the sog hung around for months. Quite right too.
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Song(s) of the Day # 4,317 Cardinals
Cardinals the Cork band and their debut album Maverick have everything I would wish for if I was 16 rather than 60. They're the kind of band you could fall in love with which let's face it is what you should be doing when you're 16. They have a front row of the grid understanding of Pogues, Libertines and Fontanes D.C that bodes very well. After all. There's no beating. A little Catholic angst and guilt.
U2 are at the far end of the Rock & Roll pike now but I think sensed the value of all this went they set off too. And they understood too that you need Wilde, Joyce and Yeats and the luck of the Irish, insouciance, a quality bookshelf, a sense of where they came from, a taste fora drop of the hard stuff and a drop of mischief. Here's mud in your eye and a bit of what you fancy for the weekend.. Maverick is a rather beautiful set of songs and no mistake.
Thursday, February 19, 2026
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