Haven’t done this for a while but I shuffled the iPod recently and this was what it gave me –
“Fame” – classic Bowie to start us off, this was a live version from 1978, and darned fine it was too.
“Instant Karma” – Peter Murphy’s cover of the Lennon song, from 2009. The Murph more than does the song justice. Great fun.
“No Reply” – the Fabs from before I was born. What a great track this is.
“Jealous Guy” – again a live version, from Ferry’s 2007 tour. Always a popular live song, and Ferry always delivers on this one. The whistling is a bit of a show stopper too.
And then I realized that the first four songs all had Lennon’s hand in them in some way! Weird or what. But we moved on from John and next up was –
“North Star” – lovely stuff from Robert Fripp and Daryl Hall. Gorgeous vocals and a lovely laid back guitar part, which comes about 3 years before the very similar and also very lovely “Matte Kudasai”.
“Frozen Roads” from Brett Anderson’s 2009 album Slow Attack. This is a superb album from start to finish and is by quite some distance Brett’s best album – all tracks were co-written with and produced by Leo Abrahams. “Frozen Roads” is a stunningly good piano led ballad which seemed very appropriate with all the snow around.
”Distant Lights Of Olancha Recede” – a Harold Budd poem (these are always welcome – his well worn recitations are tremendous) was followed by another Budd track from By The Dawn’s Early Light – “Boy About 10”, which has that wonderfully mournful violin on it. This is one of my favourite Budd albums.
“River Deep Mountain High” – the classic Ike ‘n’ Tina Turner song. Pretty epic stuff I think you’ll agree.
“Zannat” from the Hector Zazou and Zwara album – quite a contrast to the super high energy of the Spector production of the previous track. A marvellously atmospheric meld of modern and ancient.
“Its-a-happening” from the Magic Mushrooms! This is from Nuggets and it’s charmingly loopy. Imagine what you think a song called “Its-a-happening” from 1968 by the Magic Mushrooms would sound like. And it does. It’s exactly like that.
“Ohm Sweet Ohm” from a Kraftwek show just a few nights ago in Dusseldorf where Ralf and the boys are playing Der Katalog over eight nights with all the 3D gubbins (like they will at the Tate Modern later this year). I grabbed the Radioactivity show that appeared on Dime the other night. The quality is pretty good and having the full Radioactivity album played live is a real treat - new performances of tracks like “Antenna” and this one, the always good “Ohm Sweet Ohm” – a joke that surely only works in English?
“Third Uncle” from the 801 Live album. Furious guitarwork from Phil Manzanera, and Eno belts out the vocals which he’s never done since. What a great track.
“Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps Please!” the one and only hit from Splodgenessabounds. I’ve always liked this one – it still makes me laugh, the way that the singer is getting progressively more and more frustrated.
“”Life Is A Minestrone” - 10cc – I have
a handful of 10cc tracks, and they are terrific. Pity they got so dull
after a while, but for a time between 1973 and 1977 they turned out some absolutely impeccably constructed pop songs.
And to end the iPod came up with –
“Upon The My-O-My” from the unique Captain Beefheart.
This is one of his more commercial songs, from the Unconditionally
Guaranteed album that most Captain fans dislike, but which I think has
some cracking songs. And it’s not as willfully bonkers as something like Trout Mask Replica, or later albums like Ice Cream For Crow. He performed this one on the OGWT in 1974 and this clip often crops up on those Sounds Of The Seventies type programmes – the good Captain keeps leering at the camera and reaching out as if to grab the viewer through the television, and you feel that he could actually do it!
