UK Music Hall Of Fame - Founding Members

Well seeing as I'm useless and missed the first episode before the repeat I'm gonna do a whilst stop run down on the program thus far, make vast generalizations, use huge brush strokes and generally question the logic of the 'Steering Panel' Behind the choices and in this post specifically the 5 artists that the Panel have chosen as founding members for the hypothetical Hall of Fame, the idea being that these sacred cows should be in there beyond any doubt, So lets have a look at the list.

The Beatles - I've seen a bit of debate in the blogosphere of late questioning the status of The Beatles, but in a TV program with a proviso of acknowledging the best UK pop music, its impossible to envisage the Beatles not being a "founder" (their words not mine)

Madonna - Now this one really did confuse me a bit, I'll touch upon the Eighties in more depth as I go through that episode, but really I can't see Madonna as one of the Five greatest artists of Pop, I can't help but wonder where it not for Michael Jackson's current legal 'difficulties' that this place was ear marked for him.

Bob Marley - At first I was a bit unsure of Marley being a shoe-in for the Five sacred cows but the more I think about it the more deserving I think he is, he music was great, he represented a whole musical spectrum, a whole country, a whole religion and 'No Woman, No Cry' is amazingly amazing.

Elvis Presley - Like it or Lump it we all saw this one coming, of late I've grown in my respect for Elvis, not only did he do the stompers, which I was too quick to dismiss he also did the heartfelt ones, @are you Lonesome' and arguably one of the best songs ever written 'Suspicious Minds' I mean that's up there with 'Tainted Love' 'Hey Jude' 'Heard it Through The Grapevine' 'Sittin on the Dock of the Bay' 'A Change is gonna come' and 'Positively 4th Street' (Blimey that list could keep going, I mean I've barely touched the eighties and none form the nineties..)

U2 - Now after Madonna being included this doesn't seem so crazy, I mean I like U2, I like them a lot but by including them you have to understand that it has been stated the are therefore better than Dylan, The Stones, The Kinks, Marvin Gaye, Otis Reding, Prince and Michael Jackson, I don't think they were the most accomplished Rock band of the Eighties or the Nineties, but I agree that they're probably more worthy than Madonna.

My new favouritest shop

I discovered the shop a while back but only now I have a little bit of money to my name have I had a chance to look properly, but the British Heart Foundation Charity Record and book shop.

For a measly £3.50 I managed to procure myself a few decent gems, and Didn't have to trek all the way back to my parents to get soaked looking through with squillion copies of K-tel compilations of easy listening standards at a carboot sale.

probably the most worthless but most rewarding is a compilation called Modern Heroes which is the first release on TV Records. As a rule I tend to stay away from compilations, the whole reason I started buying vinyl was to hear the album tracks to the great singles I already knew, but this one I found impossible to resist.

But the premise of this compilation seemed great, a few songs by artists I love, but not the obvivous ones, and a few tracks I'd never heard of but if were anything like the tracks I did know I woulda landed on my feet, I'm half way through the first side now and really enjoying it, Granted most of you won't give a flying hoot about the tracklisting, but as I couldn't find the tracklisting online at all, as I figure its long since deleted I thought I'd post it up in case should anyone ever google it.

Side One
Hungry Like The Wolf - Duran Duran
Don't Go - Yazoo
Cantonese Boy - Japan
Love Shadow - Fashion
Hanging Garden - The Cure
Today - Talk Talk
I melt with you - Modern English
African and White - China Crisis
Don't Run away from here - Strange Arrangement
I want Candy - Bow Wow Wow

Side Two
Hard Times - Human League
Bamboo House - David Sullivan/Ruichi Sakamoto
Leave in Silence - Depeche Mode
Promised You a Miracle - Simple Minds
Windpower - Thomas Dolby
Space Age Love Song - Flock of Seagulls
Made in Japan - Nancy Nova
Spirit - Bahaus
Sensitive - Mick Karn
Big Bean - Pig Bag

The most expensive of what I brought surprisingly was Lionel Ritchie - Dancing on the Ceiling, Poor Lionel everyone thinks he is an absolute joke, especially the circles I move in, personally I love the cheesiness his songs have but ultimately still respect him as one of the most enduring people to have come out of Motown, and what's a quid , to hear a crackly version of 'Say you, Say me'

There was a load of Billy Joel there and as I have nothing by him I thought I owed it to my pop collection to purchase one, I went for Innocent Man, which I'll justify to the snobs by saying I bought it so I could use uptown world to Dj with but just between me and you its cause I don't think Joels all that bad.

Again I opted for something out of the eighties (I blame Channel 4 UK Music Hall of Fame for the eighties on last night for it.) This time it was Nik Kershaw, I have loved the track "Wouldn't it be Good" since I heard a Soulwax cover of the track. I love it when you come across an Mp3 like that where it reminds you of how great the original was.

Dare by Human league has been one of the most played Vinyl I've bought so it seemed only time I invested in another album of there's, as fate would have it it's turned out to be the Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis produced Crash, I know barely nothing about the tracks on this album so expect more about that as I listen to it.

And Finally I opted for The Housemartins - London 0 - Hull 4, which has inspired a question for the up coming music pub quiz I'm organizing: Which Musician/Group is not from Brighton? Fatboy, Eighties Matchbox or Electric Soft Parade. (I love that even more for the unintentional pun on the Fatboy Slim track 'You're not from Brighton') Personally Based on the two tracks I know "Happy Hour" and "Caravan of Love" The House Martins are vastly underrated.

Not bad for £3.50

What does it say about me...

I'm dj-ing at the Union club tonight (again...) and its a school disco night

Firstly let me say that the theme had nothing to do with me, its about as old hat as trucker caps.

Anyhow as is the law with these thing fancy dress is compulsory, well not for the punters but for those organizing it and muggins, well I was searching through my large collection of acquired ties, most of which I can never conceivably see myself wearing but daren't throw them out just in case. And found myself with the predicament of having two school ties.

Firstly the fairly standard navy blue slightly tattered with multiple school logo's on, the apparent "school tie"

And also I have my bright turquoise senior prefect tie, (yes I was a swot) it is still kinda obviously a school tie but less so.

As far as I can imagine its very unlikely anyone from my old school is gonna be there, so the fact I feel compelled to wear the prefect tie will never be picked up on but I still feel like a right royal wally for choosing it.

The chav issue

My flat mate bless her decided in her wisdom to magnet to our fridge a Daily Mail double page spread about Chav's.

Oh the comedy of it all, however it really brought home to me the fundamental prejudice in the chav-baiting (as well as the need for a ban on comedy news features) Its a case of the middle class mocking working class culture. I mean admitably the group is an easy target, with the self parodying nature of the group but fundamentally any mocking of chavs is I'm laughing at you because I'm posher than you.

Is that funny?

calm before the storm

I'm really starting to panic, got a hour so free now before it all kicks off, its a real mixture of excitement and nerves.

Got a wonderful meeting in a few hours then my 21st Birthday celebration type thing on Brighton pier which shuld be a laugh.

Then tommorow for the first time since June, which the first of six gigs in eight days including two in one night.

Then the following day the fun of helping run a radio station in freshers week, oh and two hour show every day for a week.

its so hectic i nearly forgot it was my 21st in there as well.

Still no rest for the wicked, though I wouldnt exactly describe myself as wicked, but then would anyone?

Dare - Human League

This was one of the very first vinyl LPs I bought, at the time I was going through a bit of I heart the 80's phase. And what better record than Dare to exemplify that. To be honest I didn't really know what I was buying , at the time I only knew Don't you Want Me, but it was one of my favourite songs of all time but more on that later.

(the audio clips are courtesy of Amazon which is a nice if unintended touch)


1. Things that dreams are made of - I've actually had this album a few years now, back in the days when I didn't know who Richard X was, now he's probably one of my favourite producers. This song is probably the song on the album that reminds me of Mr X the most. Its weird to think when this album came out there were few pop acts making use of synths like this . Maybe it's because I'm removed from the times and not an expert but I see the synths in Human League on the same par as the Roxy Music debut album maybe its the success that Mister Oakey and co had that made them a lot less respected than Eno?

2. Open your heart - One of the Things I love about Phil Oakey is he absolute lack of ability in the singing department, but I think that is half the charm. In this song especially though he does rely on the backing vocals of Joanne and Susanne. The story of Joey and Suzie is one which I'm not older enough to really understand. If the I heart programs are to believed he just found them in a disco while they were at school, if that happened now I'd smell a Simon Fuller masterstroke but surely then was the same. Am I too Cynical?

3. Sound of the crowd The 'get it right now' and 'get around town' forever make this an electro reworking of 'I get around' which it isn't but it is a nice ode to the New Romantic club type things, and it has a good percussive Synth outro.

4. Darkness -Oakey Brings us in with some lovely 'la-la-la-laaaas' It's a bit of a darkness cliche, but I'm still a sucker for the 'I can see better in the dark cliche' it's poetic in an 'I'm a teenager writing poetry' kinda way. Which has to be admired or your condemning yourself.

5. Do or die - A little to samba for my liking, especially for a song about the difficulty of survival, a song like that. Though those early synths didn't do dark really so I'll let them off.

6. Get Carter - I have a confession to make, I've never seen Get Carter. The amount it's referenced and name-checked I feel like I've committed some kind of pop culture cardinal sin. But I like the track is that a get out clause?

7. I am the law - This is more of the darkness I was talking about for 'Do or Die' In this one I can't decide whether I like the really simple essentially spoken word chorus. It's like Fitter Happier of OK Computer, I can't work out whether its genius or a cop out. This listen its a genius next time might be different.

8. Seconds It sounds like Prince on the Intro - 1999 I think, but its the start of one of the best closes to an album, Normally in my experience the first three tracks are better than the last three. There's not many cheery songs about murdering, and this is suitably dark, and its simplicity really seems to imply the fundamental simplicity of the act which ultimately gets you to question whether there can be any mitigating circumstances to the act. Not bad for an eighties synth pop band with one song.

9. Love action (I believe in love) - Oakey has put on his best butch voice in parts of this. It just make the track even more camp. But as mantra or call to arms 'I believe in love' fulfils the role nicely. I wonder if someone called Justin might have heard this one?

10. Don't you want me -One of the best mini-narrative songs ever. It's like a premise of a pulp Mills and Boon book, plus what with Oakeys discovering the Girls in the band it has a nice blurred line between the songs fiction and the bands fact. And its more catchy than a lot of STD's

Simon and Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970)

In an attempt to contribute something worthwhile to my blog rather than just links to stuff I like I've decided my recent quest to begin collecting vinyl might provide just the kinda thing I'm looking for.
Having just sorted myself out with a proper deck hooked up to my Hi-if I've started getting classic albums that I've never had on CD. So god bless the charity shops, second hand stores and car boot sales.

For some reason my parents never had this album which seems pretty strange considering just how ubiquitous it has become. In all honesty when I got hold of this I thought I only knew title track and didn't expect a huge amount from it.
anyways a track by track run down

1. Bridge over troubled water
I doubt there's much about this that I can say that hasn't been before, it's about as beautifully powerful as it can get and is a prime example of how Popstars/Pop Idol/The Xfactor isn't all bad. It's the kinda song that inadvertently is impossible to avoid and has a place in the conscious of society but it wasn't until the accapella version by those who would become Hear'say and Liberty X , that I truly understood the sentiment and emotion of the song. Sometimes it takes something like that to truly appreciate a song that's "just there"

2. El candor pasa
For some reason this track is filed in my brain as a Christmas song rather than the hypothetical option a or option b it really is. The minds a strange thing.

3. Cecilia
The first track on the album I didn't realise I already knew, and Ive got Suggs to thank for that, his first solo album had a cover of this one there. That album was one of the first that I actually bought with my own money, and its got a strong place in my heart. I defiantly appreciate the original, show just how simple a song can be, to me like the great early Beatles Singles but with out repeated infinitum nature that inevitably goes with anything penned by John and Paul.

4. Keep the customer satisfied
A bombastic horn line crashing drums and a clever catchy lyric a pleasant surprise.

5. So long Frank Lloyd Wright
More what I expected of the album, gentle and plantive, but it's always gonna be hard to make a stormer about dedicated to an architect

6. Boxer
This song is all about three little word lie-la-lie a proper moment in a song, they don't come along like that often. The only kinda bit like that were I sit waiting for a certain point in a song recently is the breakdown in Take me Out By Franz Ferdidnand, who knows in 30 odd year people might be writing about that moment in the song...

7. Baby driver
Intro reminds me of hey little schoolboy or summin by Rod Stewart which is probably a slur on Art and Simon, though probably not as bad as an insult as the fact I think modern bands like the Libertines et al would love for a song like this. (though prob not admit it)

8. Only living boy in New York
An album were you have well crafted tracks like this reasonably late on proves to me just how lacking some albums are. I mean its not as great as some of the earlier tracks on the album, but that's the difference between a good album and a classic album where there is no weak tracks.

9. Why don't you write me
The dual harmonies get me everytime, there's a few punk bands out there like Twofold that sucker punch me with four part vocals but I'm still a sucker for a pair.

10. Bye bye love
Another one I knew, but didn't know I know. That's something I maybe a bit lacking in in songs at the moment, handclaps basic guitar and vocals that's all you need.

11. Song for the asking
Quite a romantic little sketch at the end, apparently this wasn't intended to be the final track and it's abrupt end certainly seems a bit of a disappointing end