Friday Night Music Club

Having finally polished off the six parts of Volume 6 last week to less than rapturous applause, we move swiftly on to Volume 7, and a return to the Indie disco and *gulps* a ‘theme’.

I would imagine that most of you will spot the theme when the first track drops. If you don’t, then I would suggest you’re probably the sort of person who should be out handing out Covid conspiracy and anti-mask leaflets with Piers Corbyn.

I really enjoyed putting this mix together, and had a good old sing-a-long to it when listening back to it to check for ‘quality’ purposes (feedback and training, y’know the sort of thing).

Not that you should take that as me likening it to telephone hold music, far from it: here you’ve got 22 songs crammed into 70 minutes, only two of which dare to outstay their welcome by venturing past the four-minute mark. There’s the usual mix of songs you may have forgotten about, scattered amongst the ones you’ve never heard before, and maybe some you never want to hear again, there’s pop, there’s balls-out rockers (or whatever the female equivalent is….realises that L7 feature, and they literally showed us when they appeared on The Word), there’s a couple of tremendous cover versions. Something for everyone, in other words.

So without further ado – and look: not even a disclaimer this week! (although their are a couple of skips, but you know why that is by now) – here we go:

Friday Night Music Club Vol 7

And here’s the track listing. Look away if you want to avoid spoilers:

• Maxïmo Park – Girls Who Play Guitars
• The Breeders – Cannonball
• Veruca Salt – Seether
• The Runaways – Cherry Bomb
• L7 – Pretend We’re Dead
• PJ Harvey – Dress
• Girls at Our Best! – Getting Nowhere Fast
• Lush – Ladykillers
• The Long Blondes – Separated By Motorways
• The Flatmates – Happy All The Time
• The Pretenders – Middle of the Road
• The Go-Go’s – Can’t Stop the World
• Vanessa Paradis – Be My Baby
• `Voice Of The Beehive – Don’t Call Me Baby
• Dua Lipa – Levitating
• Stereolab – Wow And Flutter
• Belly – Feed The Tree
• Suzanne Vega – Left Of Centre
• The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – Young Adult Friction
• Asobi Seksu – Never Understand
• Toquiwa – Kennedy
• Pixies – Gigantic

Hope you like!

More soon.

The 100 Greatest UK Number 1 Singles – #94

This is the series where I feature The Guardian’s idea of the 100 best UK #1s ever, and we see what I have to say about them.

Yeh, I’d forgotten about this series too.

So, we last visited The Guardian‘s Hot 100 countdown back in January with a song from 1979, but today’s entry brings us bang up to date (almost), and features an artiste I recently described on these pages as one of “…the finest female pop stars going.”

Here’s what The Guardian had to say about it:

After a fitfully successful start, this was the song to turn the Kosovan-British pop singer into a global star. You can almost feel her clamp a hand on your shoulder as she adopts a stern, schoolmarmish tone to dispense those rules for breakup survival: don’t answer your ex’s calls, let them pop round or even be their friend. She’s not telling us or her mates, though, but rather herself, making for a powerful pop psychodrama.

And here’s the tune:

Dua Lipa – New Rules

And here’s what I have to say: I agree.

Worth the wait, that, wasn’t it?

More soon.

Friday Night Music Club

For quite some time now, I’ve been pondering what it is that is preventing me from posting with the same regularity as I was last year.

I’ve worked it out.

Regular readers will know that I generally sit on a Friday night, have a few drinks and write posts for the next week. But for a while now, I’ve become preoccupied on doing a new mix.

Warning: artist at work excuse incoming.

See, whilst they seem remarkably unpopular, I really enjoy piecing together a long playlist/mix/call it what you will, and that inevitably means a few drafts which don’t quite, to quote Echo & The Bunnymen, cut the mustard.

So, I’ve been working on this mix for some time now, but somehow something always seemed to prevent me from finishing it, be it me tinkering with the running order, or thinking of new tunes to toss in, or some kind of technical calamity, or (more often) listening to it and realising I’ve utterly messed up a mix and I simply can’t bear to have anyone else listen to it.

I’m not going to pretend all of the mixes between tunes here are perfect – there’s at least one which I know isn’t – but I’ve reached the point where it’s close enough to let it go and move on to something else, before I drive myself mad searching for perfection.

So here’s my latest mix, imperfect though it may be; frustrating as it has been, I really like this one, which starts off in the usual way – slowly – before getting into a groove which includes Kings of Leon from before they went stadium and knew how to use a cowbell, a new(ish) track by The Chemical Brothers, an obligatory Soulwax remix, two of the finest female pop stars going: Miley Cyrus & Dua Lipa (not on the same tune, sadly), the occasional hidden ‘joke’ (by which I mean it seemed funny when I first put the songs together, less so now), via Madonna having a short chat with Johnny Cash.

It’s the usual mix of songs you love, songs you’ve forgotten about, and songs which make you think “What the hell has he put this on here for??”. Some might say eclectic, but I couldn’t possibly comment. Think mainly Indie guitar stuff, with a few dance tunes, 80s pop songs and a couple of timeless classics – at least one of which you probably won’t have heard before – thrown in.

As always, no track-listing – I like to imagine your faces when the next song kicks in – but there’s a list of featured artists on the right hand side in case you want to see what you’re letting yourself in for. Which is a treat, obviously. If you desperately need to know what a track is, either Shazam it or, if you’d like to feed my ego, ask me via the Comments at the bottom of this post.

Usual disclaimer: any skips and jumps are down to the mixing software; any mis-timed mixes (and, as I say, there is at least one) is down to me. Either way: Sorry!

One more thing: you may recall that last time out I mentioned that my brother had said he managed to predict what I was going to play next, which annoyed me greatly. No such criticism of the last mix, although he told me he listened to it whilst out on his morning run, so some of the sudden gear changes weren’t helpful. I’ve tried to rectify that this time, with a relatively steady beat and tempo maintained throughout (after you’ve got past the traditional slow start) for those of you who listen to this whilst doing your exercises (not that I really understand what that means). The danger was that it would denigrate into either a Ministry of Sound pumping dance mix or a Top Gear/Best Driving Songs…in the World…Ever! playlist, but I think the song choices just about keep us on the right side of that happening.

Let’s say it starts slowly, gets into a groove, and then has more false endings than a Status Quo single.

I’m a bit annoyed that since I first decided to include it, at least on song here has popped up in an advert – and you know how I feel about them – for burgers, of all things. Rest assured, the advert in question was not the inspiration for the song’s inclusion. You’ll know it when you hear it, I think.

Oh and there are several songs which feature effing and jeffings – “sexual swear words” as Simon Bates used to say at the start of videos – so please avoid if you are easily offended by unfettered vulgarity and sauciness. Look, there’s a Goldie Lookin’ Chain tune which is probably the rudest and most inappropriate (but funny) thing I’ll ever post, so beware.

For a limited time (until I do another one, so y’know, could be months), you can stream or download it via Soundcloud here.

More soon.