Thursday, February 05, 2009

LET'S GROW OLD TOGETHER


I was asked today what I really liked doing, among other things. I said listening to music and playing football. I really do like listening to music. I'm actually listening to music right now, hence the title of this missive. I like music, football, friends, family, reading and film. I'm also a little into pop culture and art but not enough to talk about it with any confidence, but let's not get started on confidence again.

So here's another small dip into the world of my iPod. I initially wanted my iPod to be Hughesie FM, playing only the best cuts from my record collection. As time has gone on, I find it more difficult to find time to sit down and listen to albums. In the good old days, I got an album and listened to it religiously for a week, and then onto the next one, now I get 5 or 6 at a time. Occasionally, I get an album I've been after for ages (and I haven't nabbed it from the interweb) and I give it a really good listen. The last of these was the recent Fall Out Boy and Snow Patrol. Again not very fashionable, but before that it was The Bronx and Wintersleep, so fuck you. So what I do now is stick full albums on the pod, listen on album shuffle and then systematically take tracks off that don't grab me. I'm obviously not giving these songs as much time as I would have done in times gone by, but these songs need to prove their worth. They're sharing the stage with Postcards From Italy, Little Arithmetics, 1979, Lateralus, Eleanor Rigby and Born To Be Wild.

So here we go, song shuffle, press play, no skipping and let's look at 5 of the 9427 on there.

1. Oasis - My Sister Lover
Ah the halcyon days of Oasis. Yes, even in the Be Here Now era they were putting out singles which had B-sides worthy of inclusion on an album. This one, from the Stand By Me single (their worst single in my opinion) isn't the best B-side though, and it's probably more likely on the pod because I decided to sell my post What's the Story singles on ebay. And I got a tidy sum too. I think I sold them for £10 for 6 to a guy in Argentina, so I got work to pay for the £12 postage. This song is a stomper, much like the new album, and sung by Liam, which is rare for a B-side. Many people will say that The Masterplan was the best B-side was either Stay Young or Underneath The Sky. But listening to it now, it's pretty good.

2. A Camp - Love Has Left The Room
Case in point. I added the A Camp (her from the Cardigans) album just the other day. I've already taken off two songs that I heard on the tube this week but I think I'll keep this one. I wouldn't normally have added this album but I remember liking I Can Buy You. Wasn't there a rumour that Nina Persson was gay? Or did my friends just make it up? Well it turns out she isn't. I did enjoy the My Favourite Game video. Jonas Akerlund promised so much from his music videos, and then he made Spun, which was rubbish apart from the Zwan cover of Number Of The Beast.

3. A - If It Ain't Broke, Fix It Anyway
This reminds me of house sitting my sister's place when they went to Mexico about 7 years ago. I listened to this album, Tom McRae and the first Slipknot album that week. My brother-in-law was good friends with A, doing their website and being thanked in all the albums. Unfortunately A went the way of all quite good British rock bands, and that's down. They plugged at it over 4 albums but never really got anywhere, getting larger and having children along the way. Jason and Dan wrote a McFly album though. I also remember holding hands with Jason Perry at a party of my sister's while we soft rocked it out to REO Speedwagon's 'I Just Want To Keep On Loving You'.

4. Dear & The Headlights - Sweet Talk
An album bought on the strength of Run In The Front, which is truly majestic. The rest of the album really doesn't match up to the heights of that song. Sweet Talk had a video and the singer wears a nice jacket in it, but it's not the best song. I almost felt I needed to justify buying the album by putting on more songs from it, whereas in reality the best song is the one I got from the website. There may be another album out now but I haven't investigated. And finally....

5. The Turtles - Happy Together
Now this is just all about Dylan's wedding. For some reason Benny, Reilly, Macca and I would break into this for no reason. Looking back it's quite heart warming that 4 grown men would sing about being happy together when we were sharing sofa beds in what was quite frankly the hottest house in the world. I also remember Weezer covering it live and I thought it was a Beach Boys song.



1 comment:

Caroline said...

WHEN YOU'RE WITH ME BABY
THE SKIES'LL BE BLUE

etc