Panadola Diction

Fresh Cherries and almost every other musical blog around have been doing this, so here’s my list of the best album from every year I’ve been alive. This was done in quite a hurry, so it’s subject to change if I find that I’ve forgotten something.

1981 - The Cure - Faith
1982 - The Cure - Pornography
1983 - David Bowie - Let’s Dance
1984 - The Smiths - The Smiths
1985 - The Cure - The Head on the Door
1986 - The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
1987 - The Smiths - Strangeways Here We Come
1988 - Morrissey - Viva Hate
1989 - Pixies - Doolittle
1990 - The Breeders - Pod
1991 - U2 - Achtung Baby
1992 - Pavement - Slanted and Enchanted
1993 - PJ Harvey - Rid of Me
1994 - Weezer - Weezer
1995 - Radiohead - The Bends
1996 - Beck - Odelay
1997 - Pavement - Brighten the Corners
1998 - Beck - Mutations
1999 - Beck - Midnight Vultures
2000 - PJ Harvey - Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
2001 - The Strokes - Is This It
2002 - Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights
2003 - Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell
2004 - Interpol - Antics
2005 - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
2006 - Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
2007 - The National - Boxer
2008 - Stephen Malkmus - Real Emotional Trash

Some notes - Yes, I would prefer to listen to Achtung Baby than Nevermind or Loveless. I don’t know why. 1992 is a killer, as I love PJ Harvey’s Dry more than most of the albums on the whole list, and I also like Your Arsenal a lot. Yes, I would prefer to listen to Brighten the Corners than OK Computer. 2004 was a good year, with many contenders. I couldn’t find room for any Suede anywhere. Funeral is great, but I still prefer Antics. I was struggling to come up with anything for several years, such as 2006, 1981 and 2008. I’ve obviously got quite limited tastes, given the amount of repeat artists. Either that or I haven’t listened to many pre-1996 albums. Odelay was the first album I ever bought. Somebody stole it, but I still have the CD case, without the inlay card.  

So Mr. Merrick has ‘tagged’ me with a ‘meme’. I was wondering how to pronounce meme - does it rhyme with beam and team, or is it like French, as in ‘le meme histoire’, which has one of those pitched-roof accent thingies over the first ‘e’. Then I thought, ah, me me. A me me. Is it a me me?

The last time I heard ‘tag’ used a verb, it was said by one Wexford man to another, something like this “Well boss! Did you tagg’er?”

Anyway, I like picking songs, especially when there are constraints, so I’ll give this a whirl, partly because it might amuse me, and partly because I feel like a Thai elephant driver has passed me whatever it is he is smoking.

So firstly, here are the instructions:

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your [summer]. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to.

This is not easy. I don’t want to use any song I’ve used in a recent muxtape, or one that I’ve mentioned on the blog recently. I’m also very limited in my listening lately, as my PC got electrocuted (the one with all the music on it), and my Zen committed shoeicide, leaving me with a 2gb ipod and no way of changing the songs currently on it. I’m going to try to include songs that I’ve not been skipping when it’s on shuffle, because I skip most of them. I reckon I must like the ones I don’t skip… So, here’s what I’ve come up with:

Radiohead - Down Is The New Up. This song just works in my head, it makes my spine straighten. That chord progression + that voice. It has that menace that’s so hard to capture in a song (or, at least if it’s easy, not many people seem to do it). Here’s the In Rainbows disk 2 version, complete with drums and strings, which I want played at my funeral. Unless, that is, Thom Yorke outlives me, in which case I want him to come in person, and play it like this.

Magneta Lane - Ugly Socialite. I came across this Toronto girl-band quite by accident a couple of years ago, and there’s nothing particularly remarkable about them, but for some reason I never skip this song. It’s just simple, melodic power-pop fuzz, but Lexi Valentine’s voice ticks a box for me somewhere. I suppose it’s a bit deadpan-Chrissie Hynde fronting.. er, The Bravery. Which should be awful. Can’t find a decent video of it either. I’ll put it (and the other six) in a muxtape when/if my PC can be resuscitated.

Jeff Wayne - War of the Worlds. I acquired this on vinyl lately. Check out the crazy video with full orchestra, someone’s dad conducting, floating-head man narrating, etc. Worth hanging around for the 6 minute mark, where the old dude comes on and sings. It’s fantastic, reminds me of the two best tunes of all time. The Ulysses 31 and The Mysterious Cities of Gold soundtracks. (I’m not joking either, I want them played at my funeral also).

Rory Gallagher - Tattoo’d Lady. I love this song. And this video is great - it’s got a few minutes at the start where he’s in some backstage dump tuning up and chatting with his band. The bit where he talks about his famous battered old Stratocaster is great. It’s the most obvious Gallagher song to pick, but there’s nothing wrong with that. This man has a corner named after him, not a street, a fucking corner. Dublin, doing things by halves since 140 AD.

The Rolling Stones - Brown Sugar. I don’t have a link to this either - I wasn’t crazy about any of the youtube videos, but I’m picking it anyway. It’s another song I rarely skip. It’s pretty much got everything you’d want from a Rolling Stones song - instantly recognisable intro, bluesy rock rhythm, those open-tuned chords that define many Stones classics, and a pretty dubious and controversial lyric on top. If you don’t like the Stones get off my blog.

Port O’Brien - I Woke Up Today. This tune is starting to get some mainstream radio play over here now, and deservedly so. They were enjoyable at Tripod a while back. It’s also a pretty apt song for me at the moment, as I’m having great difficulty getting up in the morning. Maybe I should make this my alarm. Fun, shouty, and a silly video.

And I’m supposed to tag seven other people. I generally hate forwards and chain emails and such shite, so I’m reluctant to do that. But I’ll tag Chanberry, and Indie Limerick, and Milkbox. And anyone else who wants to tag themselves - go right ahead.

I’m a bit slow with the review I know, but I’ve been busy managing at the frontline. I bought tickets to BSS a yonk ago, and as I had not seen them before I was looking forward to it, despite the other blogs which suggested that Sunset Rubdown or No Age might have been a better allocation of Tuesday night funds. Meh.

And it was great. The publicised no-support-act, three hour set did not materialise. BSS member, Charles Spearin opened the show with the first public performance of his ‘Happiness Project’ - an interesting piece of linguisto-musical experimentation, whereby he recorded conversations with his neighbours and subsequently chopped them up to find interesting melodies in their speech, to later be played over live. It worked quite well, was short and amusing, and seemed to lighten the mood in the slowly filling Vicar St.

I think there were eight BSS members present in total last Tuesday, including Brendan Canning, Amy Millan, Justin Peroff, Evan Cranley, a couple more whose names I didn’t catch, and of course Kevin Drew. They played a great set with plenty of crowd-pleasers and lots of amusing anecdotes in between, including details of what they had for dinner, and musings on Men At Work. A more detailed review and the setlist can be found here on this nice blog I’ve not read before.

For the last hour of the gig I had the dubious pleasure of standing behind a flailing crazy lady. She seemed determined to injure, and her repeated combo attacks of elbow-arse-stamp left me leaning backwards holding my arm in front of my face for safety. She then called me a bastard and complained that my friends were mocking her (they were merely laughing at my predicament). I told her to fuck off in a light-hearted manner, she seemed harmless enough. A few minutes later, after a wrist-elbow combo to the face, she turned around and hugged and kissed me like I was a long-lost puppy. All very confusing. Her male friend/bag-holder tried to distance himself throughout, and looked relieved when she suddenly announced that she was going home.

Anyway, yes, good gig, impressed, disgustingly talented musicians, good crowd, free tickets in exchange for fake email addresses (a choice of Tapes ‘n Tapes, Joy Zipper, Stephen Malkmus, De La Soul, etc. (already had T’n'T and Malkmus, De La Soul disappeared pretty quickly, so took Joy Zipper), not a bad Tuesday night at all.

I’m not ever going to try and compete with cutty edge music blogs, or laboriously listen to everything that comes out to save you the bother. No. Why would I do that? I prefer to listen to some new stuff, and lots of old stuff, and catch on to things five months after all the really advanced musotards*.

Also, having demolished my 30gb Creative Zen, and having borrowed a 2gb iPod Nano from a child, I’ve been forced to somewhat streamline my portable collection. Here be a few notes on newish stuff I’ve been listening to of late:

• The Breeders - Mountain Battles: I really like this album, it’s gone onto my ‘play all the way through’ album rotation.
• Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Real Emotional Thrash: Again, I really like this, it grew on me steadily with each listen. It’s not quite Pavement, but it’s a near as we’re going to get these days.
• Black Lips - Good Bad Not Evil: Entertaining in parts. I like the sound of ‘Bad Kids’ for some reason.
• Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid: Only put this on this week, so not sure yet. I love ‘Grounds for Divorce’, but the rest of it is of a different ilk. Possibly a grower.
• Lykke Li - Youth Novel: Likable stuff, though I generally flick after the first half of the album. Nice summery sounds though.
• Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig!!! Lazarus, Dig!!!: Only put it on the iPod last night, but already liking the sound of it.
• Santogold - Santogold: Again, it’s very new to me, but I don’t know what to make of this. Lots of genre-hopping, and I’m strugging to listen to ‘I’m a Lady’ with a straight face.

That’s about it, there’s other stuff on there too, old reliables, digital comfort blankets, jam on toast, pints of Smithwicks, but I’m not going to list those.

Here’s a muxtape with some songs on it. It may change whenever I feel like changing it, rendering its link to the above list obsolete, or at least rendering my telling you what’s actually on it now pointless. What’s a muxtape? Go see.

2gb really isn’t enough. I don’t like not being able to select an album from an extensive collection when I’m walking somewhere, and I’m not organised enough to plan ahead and predict what albums I’ll want to listen to tomorrow. I’m glad I didn’t like music** back in the days of CD’s and tapes, I would have had to carry a rucksack around.

In other news, there’s a new branch of Real Gourmet Burger in Ballsbridge (there’s been one in Dun Laoghaire for a while). It’s great (polite staff, good burgers) and it’s jammed. Why someone didn’t open a chain like this years ago is beyond me, it seems like the most obvious idea in the history of dining.

*No offence, musotards, I’m just sulking in your shadows.

**Pre 2000ish I led a sheltered musical life, surrounded largely by people who liked dance compilations, like Best of Euphoria 4 for example. But dancing is wrong. I dabbled in bits and pieces of good stuff (the first album I ever bought was Beck’s Odelay, quite by accident, I bought it with a book token. That’s quite iron-ee.) But I generally wasn’t that fussed with music, or audio in general.

I have no inclination today. Inclination to do what? Exactly.

Here are some of the things floating around on the millpond of my brain:

• Why are Queens of the Stone Age supporting Linkin Park?
• Why do people buy novelty or retro bicycles? For example, the orange ‘high-nelly’ ones that used to be sold in that pointless shop on George’s St, which is now a pharmacy I think. Or, those San Diego style ‘cruiser‘ bicycles, which have no proper brakes. These both cost more than your average bicycle, they offer no advanced functionality (in fact they commonly offer reduced functionality), they make you look like a pretentious ‘tard, and they make people like me aware that you have no common sense. I’m all for novelty and retro in general, but not with bicycles.
• I won the Spanish lottery for the 2nd time yesterday. This time, I won €785,120. I have to call the nice lottery man on the premium telephone number later.
• Why won’t Stinging Fly hurry up and send me a rejection letter in response to the story I sent them? I need closure. (I know, it’s not even been two weeks…. I have no patience.) 
• It’s work-drinks tomorrow night. We accidentally invited a government minister who’s email is similar to that of one of the chaps here, he can’t make it, shame. He did ask us (via his personal secretary) to let him know how it goes though, as he was amused by the twelve “reply to all” emails that followed the group-invite, written in pirate-speak.
• Prague on Saturday.
• I have purchased a day-ticket to the O2 Wireless Festival in Hyde Park, for July 4th. Morrissey, Beck, The National, Guillemots, Siouxsie Sioux, Dirty Pretty Things, New York Dolls and Lightspeed Champion will be on show. I’ve never seen Morrissey live, and haven’t seen Beck since Witnness 2000, so, yes, good.
• I am definitely not going to Oxegen this year.
• I hope they add some more quality to the Electric Picnic lineup. But I’ll go for the pies anyway.
• Shouldn’t deodorant actually be called ‘odorant’?
• Is eating a whole block of cheese in one sitting worse for you than eating the same amount of cheese over the course of a week?
• Robots can ride bicycles (see above).
• I’ll stop this now.

Here’s the second half of that playlist from July ‘07. It’s probably slightly more interesting than the first half. And I presume I’ll be heading back to album land for a while after this….

Oh! You Pretty Things - David Bowie
Changes - David Bowie
Queen Bitch - David Bowie
The Man Who Sold The World - David Bowie
Apocalypso - Mew
The Man With The Child In His Eyes - Kate Bush
Girl Inform Me - The Shins
Don’t Dance Her Down - The Fiery Furnaces
A View To A Kill - Duran Duran
Hungry Like The Wolf - Duran
Girls On Film - Duran Duran
Birdhouse In Your Soul - They Might Be Giants
The Last High - Dandy Warhols
Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth - Dandy Warhols
St Christopher - Ham Sandwich
The Chain - Fleetwood Mac
Radiation Vibe - Fountains Of Wayne
Hang Me Up To Dry - Cold War Kids
Hospital Beds - Cold War Kids
Start! - The Jam
Sure The Boy Was Green - Horslips
The Chad Who Loved Me - Mansun
The Rover - Led Zeppelin
House Of The Holy - Led Zeppelin
Immigrant Song - Led Zeppelin
Out On The Tiles - Led Zeppelin
Who? - Brian Jonestown Massacre
Nailing Honey To The Bee - Brian Jonestown Massacre
Lets Make Love And Listen To Death From Above - CSS
Music Is My Hot Sex - CSS
Ebow The Letter - REM
Sunday - Sonic Youth
Grace - Supergrass
Jailbreak - Thin Lizzy
Waiting For An Alibi - This Lizzy
In God’s Country - U2
Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt - We Are Scientists
This Scene Is Dead - We Are Scientist
My Name Is Jonas - Weezer
Buddy Holly - Weezer
Say It Ain’t So - Weezer
Undone (The Sweater Song) - Weezer
Icky Thump - The White Stripes
Blue Orchid - The White Stripes
In Shock - Kristen Hersh
Stuck Between Stations - The Hold Steady
Chips Ahoy! - The Hold Steady
Wondering - Dirty Pretty Things
Making Plans For Nigel - XTC
Generals And Majors - XTC
I Was A Lover - TV On The Radio
+81 - Deerhoof
Fake Empire -The National
Mistaken For Strangers -The National
Abel -The National
Karen -The National
Friend Of Mine -The National
Mr. November -The National
Insistor - Tapes’n'Tapes
Crazy Eights - Tapes’n'Tapes
Broken Boy Soldiers - The Raconteurs
Out There - Dinosaur Jr

I really can’t explain why Duran Duran have three songs on there….

It being a Monday, and suffering from brain stiffness, I decided to throw on an old crowd-pleaser playlist I made for a party last July to amuse myself for the day. I didn’t even bother to press shuffle, so it is mostly alphabetical.

It has 133 songs, so I’m not even half way through. For those of you who like to read lists, here it is so far:

Black Mirror - Arcade Fire
Mixed Bizness - Beck
Banquet - Bloc Party
An End Has A Start - Editors
No I In Threesome -  Interpol
Take You On A Cruise - Interpol
PDA - Interpol
I Am The Walrus - The Beatles
Remember Me - British Sea Power
Some Loud Thunder - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
The Skin Of My Yellow Country Teeth - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
7/4 Shoreline - Broken Social Scene
A Forest - The Cure
A Strange Day - The Cure
Instant Street - Deus
Promised Land - EDAN
Shopping For Blood - Franz Ferdinand
Dress - PJ Harvey
Sheela-Na-Gig - PJ Harvey
Jump Around - House Of Pain
Chance Meeting - Josef K
Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
Shoot The Runner - Kasabian
Smile Like You Mean It - The Killers
The Good Ones - The Kills
King Of The Rodeo - Kings Of Leon
Charmer - Kings Of Leon
The Boy Looked At Johnny - The Libertines
Baby You Should Know - Joy Zipper
Graffiti - Maximo Park
Going Missing - Maximo Park
Float On - Modest Mouse
Steam Engenius - Modest Mouse
Starlight - Muse
The Sad Face - Hey Hey Bon Bon
Stereo - Pavement
Shady Lane - Pavement
Bone Machine - Pixies
Gigantic - Pixies
Weekend Without Makeup - The Long Blondes
Bad Company - Bad Company
The Gold It’s In The Mountains - Pink Floyd
Make It Wit Chu - Queens Of The Stone Age
Sulk - Radiohead
Paranoid Android - Radiohead
We Are All Animals - The Rakes
We Danced Together - The Rakes
Gimme Shelter - The Rolling Stones
Midnight Rambler - The Rolling Stones
Nobody’s Diary - Yazoo
Jealous Guy - Roxy Music
Send Me A Postcard - Shocking Blue
Spellbound - Siouxsie And The Banshees
Hand In Glove - The Smiths
How Soon Is Now? - The Smiths
What Difference Does It Make? - The Smiths
Heart In A Cage - The Strokes
The Modern Age - The Strokes
Animal Nitrate - Suede
Obsessions - Suede
Treason - The Teardrop Explodes
Reward  - The Teardrop Explodes
If You Want - Tom Vek
C C (You Set The Fire In Me) - Tom Vek
Mystery Girl - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Turn Into  - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Way Out  - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Drive In Saturday - David Bowie

Feel free to pigeon-hole me, and to point out the worst song on the list. That would amuse me tomorrow. But for today, well, I’m amused enough already.

I have a terrible memory. Here is an undefinitive, unordered list of new songs I liked in 2007:

• Mistaken For Strangers - The National
• Make It Wit Chu - Queens Of The Stone Age
• No I In Threesome - Interpol
• Ukraine - The Minutes
• Hospital Beds - Cold War Kids
• Suffer For Fashion - Of Montreal
• Beatific Visions - Brakes
• The Philadephia Grand Dury - Fiery Furnaces
• The Con - Tegan & Sarah
• Delivery - Babyshambles
• Show Your Hand - Super Furry Animals
• Those Dancing Days - Those Dancing Days
• Timebomb - Beck
• I Feel It All - Fiest
• You And I - The Flaws
• Leave It Alone - Operator Please
• St Christopher - Ham Sandwich
• Lend Me Your Face - Fight Like Apes
• Charmer - Kings Of Leon
• Bodysnatchers - Radiohead
• Our Bovine Public - The Cribs
• Kingdom Of Doom - The Good The Bad And The Queen
• Phantom Limb - The Shins
• Pillar Of Salt - The Thermals
• Antichrist Television Blues - Arcade Fire

If any of these didn’t come out in 2007, I don’t really care. And I’ve probably forgotten a lot.

As you may have noticed, I’ve limited it to one song per artist, but I probably liked all the songs on Our Love to Admire more than most of the songs listed above.

Albums, old songs and random stuff lists to follow…….