Let's dance!

30 years ago, it was impossible to imagine I'd ever be 50, but here we are. Today, I've been part of this absurdity called life for exactly half a century. When you're young, you think you'll be young forever. I like to think that I am still young in many ways, but then my body decides to remind me that I'm actually an old git and to sit back down with a nice cup of tea. 50 is only a great age if you're a fine cognac or a bottle of Scotch...

I don't have much in the way of plans. I hate parties (something that 30 years ago I never thought I'd write) so it'll be a strictly family affair with good food and good music. Speaking of which...

This is the third attempt at writing something to mark this occasion. The second attempt was the definitive one before I changed my mind. It featured a song for each decade of my life so far, mainly centred around the letter L, which as you know is the Roman numeral for 50. I've decided to replace it with this one today, but I've divided that other planned post into six daily ones that will appear here throughout the week.

So today, despite my aversion to parties, I'm giving you a party mix which will be played this evening during a family dinner. It's very different to what you may expect from me as it's rather electronic-based, but I like to think I can still spring the odd surprise even at this ripe old age. I initially aimed to make it 50 minutes long, but I quickly realised that wasn't nearly enough time to include everything I wanted. So it's 20 songs over 70+ minutes. Please don't expect a professional-sounding DJ-type job, I'm not nearly skilled enough for that. Some of it is quite rough, in fact, but it does the job.

If you fancy having a birthday dance with us, please feel free. I'll probably be sitting on the sofa tapping my feet with a warm blanket over my lap whilst trying to remember the days when I could dance like Bez for hours on end without having to worry about feeling stiff as a board the day after! And the day after that...

Anyway, enjoy. Dance if you want to. And stay tuned for daily posts all this week...

50... and counting
compiled by TheRobster

Donna Summer - I Feel Love
Django Django - Glowing In The Dark
Björk - Big Time Sensuality [Fluke minimix]
Primal Scream - Don't Fight It, Feel It [Graham Massey mix] (segment)
New Order - Paradise [Robert Racic remix]
Arcade Fire - Sprawl II [Thunderlust remix]
Public Service Broadcasting - Theme From PSB [D/R/U/G/S remix]
Gulp - Morning Velvet Sky [Richard Morris remix]
M.I.A. - XXXO
Saint Etienne - Tonight
James - Wherever It Takes Us
Madonna - Sky Fits Heaven
Chemical Brothers - Hey Boy Hey Girl
Utah Saints - New Gold Dream 81-82-83-84
Depeche Mode - Enjoy The Silence [reinterpreted by Mike Shinoda]
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero
Stone Roses - Begging You [radio edit]
Yeasayer - Ecstatic Baby
David Bowie - Dead Man Walking [edit]
Hafdis Huld - Fucked Up Mind

Grab it here

Compiled #4

There was a trend in the 80s for compilation albums to be issued in two volumes - two separate records sold together as a kind of 'buy one get one free' offer, though some unscrupulous retailers would inevitably sell each record separately at full price. I bought a few of these back in the day, usually chart compilations. They pre-dated the Now That's What I Call Music dynasty and were often rather diverse.

Chartbusters '82 was one such pairing I owned. I was 11 at the time and was still finding my feet in the world of pop music. The quality obviously undulated, but there were some gems among the guff, and in a few cases it led to me finding out about artists I subsequently went on to love or admire. Looking back at the tracklisting now, I really can't remember some of the songs or even the artists. Anyone recall Panama? Paul Lorenzo? Oxgen? Or most obscure of all, the Tottenham Hotspur FA Cup Final Squad? (Sorry Jez...)

To be honest, you could easily take the best bits of both volumes and make a pretty decent single record. Sandwiched between Dollar and Aneka at the start of Volume One was Haircut One Hundred, a diamond between two turds. I still have a fondness for Love Plus One, even though it sounds soooooo 1982. There's no way you could get away with sounding like this now.

• Love Plus One - Haircut One Hundred (from 'Chartbusters '82 Volume 1')

Head Over Heels by Abba also featured, which got a thumbs up from me. Also, there was I Could Be Happy by Altered Images, and XTC's Ball And Chain (which I'm not going to post purely because JC will get round to it as part of his excellent Saturday series very soon). And then there was this one, one of the first reggae songs I remember that wasn't Bob Marley. 'Tis a real ear worm, too.

• Your Honour - Pluto (from 'Chartbusters '82 Volume 1')

But it's Volume Two where the real fun lies. It opened with a song that actually pre-dated 1982 by a few years and had been rather obscure, buried away on a soundtrack album. It had, however, been re-issued owing to the enormous success of the band over the previous 12 months. Of course, this was a very different Adam & The Ants to the line-up who became huge, but it mattered not. Ant fever was in full swing so any cynical marketing ploy was welcome, especially for an 11-year-old Ant fan like me.

• Deutscher Girls - Adam & The Ants (from 'Chartbusters '82 Volume 2')

Volume 2 also gave us Party Fears Two by the Associates (which I posted back here), Bow Wow Wow's Wild In The Country, Gary Numan with Music For Chameleons, and surprisingly (mainly because it wasn't a big hit), this utterly superb tune:

• Listen - Stiff Little Fingers (from 'Chartbusters '82 Volume 2')

I actually forgot this track completely for years until I discovered SLF properly during the 90s through my older punk friends. I couldn't place where I'd heard it before, and it's only when I researched this series that I found it was on this compilation. I still don't remember it being on there, if I'm being honest, so clearly it wasn't a big influence on me at the time, but hell - I was 11. It makes this post because it remains one of my fave SLF tracks.

I should also mention that Listen was followed by Kick In The Eye by Bauhaus which I actually do remember from back in the day. But, again perhaps because of my age, I never investigated Bauhaus any further, despite learning of their huge influence on the later indie and goth scenes. Good track though.

• Kick In The Eye (Searching For Satori) - Bauhaus (from 'Chartbusters '82 Volume 2')

Finally, we'll brush aside the inclusion of Tight Fit, Starsound and Huey Lewis to mention a band who went on to become one of the biggest in the world. Depeche Mode were still a plinkity-plonkity synth-pop band in 1982, yet to properly discover their dark side. In a few years they would be making brilliant songs like Blasphemous Rumours, Stripped and Strangelove, but when you consider some of the dross on Chartbusters '82, See You would easily make the single highlights album without a second thought. I'm not posting the song though - that's a sure-fire way to get the site taken down by "The Man". Dave Gahan would never be able to afford those leather jackets if we all gave away low-quality digital rips of 35-year-old Depeche Mode songs now, would he? So here they are, with Dave looking like he's only 11-years-old himself, on Top Of The Pops.

50 albums to take to my grave #47-50

Tough. That's how this series has been. Many people would struggle to name 50 albums they've ever heard, but when you've been listening to music obsessively for nigh-on four decades, it's hard to set yourself a strict limit of records you'd take with you to your grave, particularly when you factor in other self-imposed rules (one LP per artist, mustn't overlap with songs in the other list, etc...)

My 50 songs series was the same, and if I revisit these lists in 5-10 years, I'm sure there would be a few changes. But they are what they are. This list has to end now, but I still struggled to decide what to include and what to leave out. You see, there are plenty of 'proper' albums I could include, but there are some acts whose music I really want to take with me but I just can't narrow down to one album over another. One reason is that with some artists, I'm most likely to play a compilation of singles over any particular album.

This might be seen as a bit of a cop out to some, but I'm going to conclude this series with four 'best of' compilations. I make no apologies for that. I kind of have a bit of a problem with it myself though, in that no 'best of' comp is ever going to be perfect. Truth be told, I generally compile my own so I get what I want. But the rule I'm setting myself here is they must all be commercially-available compilations. Box sets and special editions are not permitted either.

#47: 'The Singles' - Inspiral Carpets
Put simply, Inspiral Carpets were one of the best and most consistent singles bands of the 90s. Even their new stuff is decent, but there's not a bad track on this. Their albums got progressively better, but their singles remained top notch throughout, even if little ever topped This Is How It Feels for me (though there's probably a reason for that...)


    

#48: 'Best Of' - The House Of Love
This is a particularly good collection as it includes album tracks as well as singles. OK, so it's missing the really early singles (Real Animal and the original Shine On) as well as anything from the final pre-split album 'Audience Of The Mind', but it covers pretty much everything there is to love about the House Of Love, including Destroy The Heart. Especially Destroy The Heart!


    

#49: 'Great Expectations: The Singles Collection' - New Model Army
'Thunder And Consolation' so very nearly made it onto the list, but I decided it would mean leaving too many other great tunes behind (like No Rest and Here Comes The War), so I plumped for this US-only set instead which covers material from 1983-2000. OK, so the recent stuff is missing, but there hasn't been an update. A shame, as the most recent three NMA albums have been excellent.


   

#50: 'The Singles 86>98' - Depeche Mode
This was so nearly The Coral 'Singles Collection', but I opted for Depeche Mode in the end as there is a distinct lack of electronic music on this list and it would satisfy any craving I have. This period of 'The Mode' is easily my favourite. The early stuff is too 80s synthy for my liking, as good as the songs are. Some of their recent stuff is decent, but from 'Black Celebration' to 'Songs Of Faith And Devotion' they were pretty much flawless, certainly from a singles perspective, at least.

    


So that's it, another series complete. At last! Thanks for humouring me.

Autumnal Covers #10

Ssshhhhhhhh...... *silence* ...


Strangely, pop music has long heralded silence. Simon and Garfunkel sang of the Sound Of Silence back in 1965. It remains one of the finest songs of the 60s, one that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stick up with its brilliance. Kimberley Anne, from South London, has great hair and could prove to be a name worth watching. I wrote of her earlier in the year when I saw her support First Aid Kit. MrsRobster is a bit of a fan and was understandably moved by Kimberley's eerie yet sublime take on Sound Of Silence. It is spine-tingling. Few things make me say "Wow!" out loud after hearing them, but this was one of them. She does a cracking version of Womack & Womack's Teardrops too. 

One of Depeche Mode's greatest moments came in the form of Enjoy The Silence, a pivotal moment on the career-defining album that is 'Violator'. What. A. Song. What an album! Many have attempted their own versions of it, with mixed success. Tori Amos likes a cover. In 2001 she released a whole album of them, taking on songs by the likes of Tom Waits, Joe Jackson, Eminem, the Velvet Underground and Slayer. Yes, Slayer! She also did Enjoy The Silence, and her execution of it is masterful. It's minimal and sinister. Say what you like about her - she may be as barmy as a bag of badgers, but Tori is a treasure. I have a soft spot for her, anyway.


Soundtrack:

• Sound Of Silence - Kimberley Anne (digital release)
• Enjoy The Silence - Tori Amos (from 'Strange Little Girls')