I had planned to start this a couple of weeks ago, but didn't for a number of reasons. Now I'll start it today, although a day later than the name suggests (I like alliteration, and I forgot about it yesterday, alright?). Basically, every Monday I shall be posting up a mixtape of stuff I've been listening to, or if I'm in a funny mood, songs with a certain link (like the Supergrass mixtape below). Most of the time it may be some obvious stuff, but hopefully with some cool weird shit in it too, or maybe the latest single from the new trendy band of the moment (never been one to plunder the up and coming, I like to listen to what I know will be good - that being said, Two Door Cinema Club and The xx are a couple of new bands that currently float my boat).
There will also be a bit of bumph about why the song has gone into this week's mixtape, or something vaguely connected to it that the song reminds me of, or anything to fill up a page, really. This week, I've chosen 10 of what I feel are the best songs of the past decade, so expect a lot of waffle.
Tally ho, pip pip, hurrah and huzzah. I've got to stop watching Blackadder.
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Ryan Adams - Touch, Feel & Lose
Only got into Ryan Adams in the past 6 months, and even then, I've hardly delved deeper than Gold and quick swatches of Heartbreaker and Rock N Roll. That being said, I've liked the song Rescue Blues from Gold for a while due to its inclusion in an episode of Scrubs, it was good for conversations such as "oh aye, Ryan Adams is quite good, my favourite's his song The Rescue Blues... er... oh aye and his cover of Wonderwall's awreet too... erm..." and so on.
One of the benefits of having my dad's old MP3 player is that there is a lot of music I wouldn't normally acquaint myself with, and one day I must've just said "right, I'm gonna give Ryan Adams a chance" and now Gold is (probably) my favourite album. Touch, Feel & Lose is one that stood out for me even on the first listen to the album, as its gospel chorus bit is one of those hooks that I've obviously heard years ago and it's lodged into my conscience without really registering. Like, one of those "ahhh, he did THIS song? Cool." moments. I do seem to have a thing about gospely backing singers in modern rock music - Blur's Tender, Stereophonics' Madame Helga or Kasabian's Happiness are others that I love. And while Tender is still probably the best, that was last decade, so TF&L wins. And while on Blur...
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Blur - Out of Time
I still haven't listened to Think Tank all the way through. In fact, I've not listened to any of it except this and Crazy Beat, really. Maybe it's because it seems a much more difficult album to get into, or I just love Coxon (careful now) and his guitarage, but Think Tank never became a part of my massive Blur binge last year, where they rocketed up to my most played band on Last FM in about a week. But most of that was taking in their 90s output, most of all the wonderful 13 album, which kinda showed the direction they were going in, and eventually came to with Think Tank. Still, I love this song, mellow as hell, and is one of my favourite Albarn vocals. While he can do the silly Britpop twang well, he's definitely at his best on the slower songs like the aforementioned Tender, or 13's other classic ballad No Distance Left to Run.
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Supergrass - Roxy
I already covered this one in the Supergrass playlist, so there's not much to say about it really. Was going to put in Diamond Hoo Ha Man originally, but after going away and listening to every 'Grass album five times again I deduced that this is a clear winner.
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Manic Street Preachers - William's Last Words
A song featuring Nicky Wire on lead vocals should not be included in any halway good lists, but this is the exception. He can't sing, yeah, but it doesn't matter, this song has enough emotion and lyrical quality to let it pass (this is what got Dylan by, I think). Journal for Plague Lovers was one of the best albums of 2009, and instantly became one of my favourite albums ever, and it was difficult choosing one song from it for this list, as JCEQT, All is Vanity, or This Joke Sport Severed could easily fit the bill too. But as well as the initial quality of this song comes the tragic undercurrent of the song as Richey's suicide note, and this brings it to a higher level than the other songs, however much they rock too. What's quite funny is that I can never fully get into the Manics without Richey's involvement; Generation Terrorists is awreet, I love Gold Against the Soul and The Holy Bible is good, but apart from the singles, nothing comes close after his disappearance. Except Journal, which is, in my opinion, their best album.
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Porcupine Tree - Mellotron Scratch
Porcupine Tree are not as big as they should be. They're regulars the mags like Classic Rock, but they are still something of a cult band. I'm waiting for the album they release that catapults them into the mainstream, because if an album like Deadwing didn't then the one that does will have to be an absolute classic. I got into Porcupine Tree around the time Deadwing came out in 2005, and was surprised that pretty much all the songs I really loved at my first PT gig were all off the new albums, and not their "big" songs, as I'd thought - Halo, Open Car, Start of Something Beautiful, and Arriving Somewhere But Not Here, which had already gained a reputation as a great live number. This is my favourite song from the album, however, and even just to observe its structure and harmonies is fantastic, and as a complex and layered work, it is probably the best of the 10.
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Green Day - Homecoming
I don't care that 21st Century Breakdown was kinda shite, I still love Green Day, and American Idiot is still one of the top albums of the past decade. Of the two medley songs on the album, this is by far the best (I've kinda been put off Jesus of Suburbia due to its crap short version for the single, and the accompanying music video, uber-angsty to da max, like). Nothing beats my initial reaction to Nobody Likes You... "hmm, he sounds weird here... wait, is that... IS THAT MIKE SINGING?! HOLY SHIT." Nothing. Well, maybe the song right after it does. The build-up ("Jeez....") before Tre Cool's Rock 'n' Roll Girlfriend is genius, as you just know you're about to have yer socks blown off. As with their Foxboro Hot Tubs side project, it's a joy to see Green Day, in that one minute, ridding themselves of any attempt at musical complexity and just rocking the shit. It may be 9 minutes long but it hardly feels like it, and just as I write this I'm getting to the....
(Note: I have had to cease writing in order to air drum.)
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Arctic Monkeys - Cornerstone
I've been a fan of the Arctics since their first album came out, and more than that, I have always taken them at more that their face value and properly absorbed Alex Turner's lyrics. It's quite easy to see that my favourite songs of theirs are the especially excellent lyrics - Mardy Bum, Fake Tales, etc - either cynically deriding someone worth deriding or being a hopeless romantic. Cornerstone is of the latter. Its imagery is second to none in the Monkeys' canon, and it has the Penny Lane effect where its lyric just ABSOLUTELY fits the music (what the fuck is letraset, anyway?). I had considered sticking in A Certain Romance (note - while on autopilot I wrote that out as My Chemical Romance, I'm disgusted with myself) as it was probably their best song before Cornerstone, and there's a certain hesitation to instantly hail a song as a classic, therefore one would be inclined to go for the song that's got a couple of years of time to sink in as a bona fide classic as Romance has, but I'm being the early bird and choosing Cornerstone. In a couple of years, I think everyone will be saying it's one of the best of the noughties. Or at least, they should.
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Bruce Springsteen - Waiting on a Sunny Day
This one can be seen as an odd one out, as its inclusion is not down to the song, per se, meaning the actual recording of it that I'm currently listening to while writing this out. It's more to do with the live version I saw at the Springsteen Hampden gig last year, still the absolute best gig I've ever been to, and Waiting on a Sunny Day is probably my favourite gig moment ever - in the singalong section, Bruce walks down to the front of the crowd, where a young girl of about 6 with a pink cowboy hat is being held up by (presumably) her dad, and the Boss has her sing into the mic. As a wiser person than myself blogged at the time, in anyone else's hands it could've been naff, but in the Boss's hands it was just such a touching moment.
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Audioslave - Cochise
Out of all 10, this would probably come as number 10 - although not entirely because it was would be the weakest song out of the 10, but because it would be the first one played in a standard countdown. Undoubtably one of the most powerful opening numbers any band could ever have. The only reason I'm not more heavily into Rage Against the Machine is because Zack De La Rocha's rapping gets grating after a while, but the band always set up awesome riffs and grooves. Teaming up with, in my opinion, the best singer alive today, meant these riffs that often went to waste on bloody rapping can become more traditional rock songs. It's a shame they only managed 3 albums, I could honestly listen to them forever.
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Muse - Knights of Cydonia
Just as Cochise is the perfect opener, Knights of Cydonia is the perfect closer (which makes it all the more insane that Muse often decide to open their shows with it). It's just so nutty that I can't imagine anything coming after it without seeming unbelievably tired and bland. For me anyway, it's become the headbang-to-Bohemian-Rhapsody-in-the-car anthem of this generation, and if I say anymore about it I'll just start saying awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome STOP IT.
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Monday Mixtape #1 (Spotify)
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Well there you go. See you next Monday, hopefully I'll blurb less.
Ciao for now.
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