anyway, I guess it's over....

Earworms of the Week

“Kinky Afro” – Happy Mondays

GJ is on holiday, but he felt the need to share with me that he was off to see the Happy Mondays this evening. I’ve no idea what kind of a show they put on these days (or indeed, what kind of a show they were even able to put on in their heyday)…. But the fact remains that Shaun Ryder was/is a scally genius and a poet. You’re twisting my melon man. Not many lyricists like him, eh? Funnily enough, they’re another band… like the Stone Roses … that I hated back in the day when I was lost in my heavy metal world, but have come to discover properly when I was a little older. Never got the whole flares thing, mind. I’ll be interested to hear what a Monday’s audience looks like too. My first thought about the Stone Roses reunion gigs that are happening in the summer was that the crowds would be awful…. Can you imagine the beer chucking, swaggering, middle-aged monkeys that are going to be there? Good lord.

“Welcome to the Jungle” – Guns ‘n Roses

GnR are playing in Nottingham tomorrow night. Well, Axl Rose will be, anyway…. I’m not sure if anyone else that I would identify with Guns n’Roses is still involved anymore. Mark will be there, and he asked if I wanted to come along, but I had to respectfully decline. I saw G’n’f’n’R at Wembley Stadium back in the day, shortly before the “Use Your Illusions” albums came out. I think it was Izzy Stradlin’s last gig with the band, actually. They kept us waiting for HOURS, of course, but they were amazing. I’m not sure I could summon up the energy to watch a pale imitation of that amazing band now. I listened to “Appetite for Destruction” almost non-stop for a year. It’s an incredible album and still sounds amazing now. In fact, I had it on earlier today. It’s gonna bring you to your tra-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na knees. KNEES. Huh!

“Lonely Boy” – The Black Keys

Good running band, the Black Keys. I’m not sure that’s the market that they’re aiming for, but it works for me.

“Helplessness Blues” – Fleet Foxes

I heart the Fleet Foxes. They sound like they could have come from either the Middle Ages or Laurel Canyon-era LA of the 1960s as much as they do a band from the modern day, but I wouldn’t change them. Who doesn’t wish that they had an orchard from time to time?

“John Taylor’s Month Away” – King Creosote and Jon Hopkins

Well, as I said last week, I missed this album last year, but it’s definitely retrospectively my favourite album of the year. I love the gentle pace and those thoughtful lyrics delivered with a soft Scottish brogue. It’s a lovely album. This song is a great opener too, introducing us to the world of the Scottish fisherman. Their really aren’t enough songs written about Scottish fisherman, are there?

“First it Giveth” – Queens of the Stone Age

You know I was saying that the Black Keys are a good running band? Well, they’re not as good as QotSA. Nope. It’s probably something to do with Dave Grohl’s drumming on “Songs for the Deaf” in particular. Probot are pretty handy too, as it happens. I’ll have to try Nirvana to confirm the theory.

“Life’s a Happy Song” – The Muppets

Because this is a happy song. There’s enough depressing music in my collection, so let’s just rejoice for a moment in a genuinely uplifting song and dance number. Life’s a fillet of fish? Hmmmm. Yes it is. Bret Mackenzie was worth every bit of that Oscar he won this year, wasn’t he?

“Together in Electric Dreams” – Phil Oakey and Giorgio Moroder
“I Feel Love” – Donna Summer

I can’t say that I’m a massive fan of disco, but there’s something thrilling about switching on a serious, news-orientated BBC radio station and hearing them playing the throbbing Giorgio Moroder beat and to hear Donna Summer’s timeless, breathy vocal soaring over the top. On almost every level it’s an incredibly simple song, but so instantly recognisable and so, so influential. It’s only a shame that it took Summer’s death for me to be reminded of that. I could have lived without the Twitter tributes that the radio station read out after the snippet of the song , though. Does the world really need to know what Billy Ray Cyrus thinks of Donna Summer’s death? Really? What a legacy though, eh? Summer, not Cyrus (although Miley is probably better than achy-breaky heart. We can surely agree on that much?).  The Phil Oakey thing just popped in because by now I was in a Giorgio  Moroder frame of mind.

“Fool Again” – Westlife

I loathe Westlife with every fibre of my being. As does every other right-thinking human being. So imagine my surprise when I realised what it was that I had been singing all day. I’m ashamed to say it, but the news of Donna Summer’s death was awful but at least provided me with instant relief from the most unwelcome earworm I think I have ever had. Ugh. Just thinking about it now, I can see them all standing up at the key change. Awful, relentless shite.

And on that bombshell, that’s your lot. Have a great weekend, y’all.