30 Day Song Challenge - Day 04

A song that reminds you of someone you'd rather forget.

No soul searching or delving into my murky past. I'll save that for my printed-on-demand memoirs which are pencilled in for 2023. A cheap choice, I know, but I'm playing catch up with this one. Could have picked any number of songs about Mrs Thatcher, but Costello's 'Pills and Soap' has cropped up a lot recently on Spotify and, more often than not, I've not skipped it. Still a great track after all these years:

The shit I post on Facebook . . . musical edition (Day 5)

Day 5 of my task, to choose 10 albums that greatly influenced my taste in music. One album per day for ten consecutive days. No explanations, no reviews, just album covers. Every day I will ask someone else to do the same... today I nominate PC Thank you for nominating me MR . . .

"No explanations, no reviews, just album covers . .  ."

Total bullshit, of course. My early love for Shalamar meant that I didn't fall into that snot-nosed trap of sneering at dance music as not relevant, not deep and not, quite simply. fucking wonderful.

It also helped that Jody Watley was drop dead fucking gorgeous.

A Gray Day

So you want two world class goals in one game? . . . and for them both to have been scored by the same player?

Step forward Eddie Gray . . . and I fucking hate Leeds:

Teenage Superstars (2017)

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 03

A song that reminds you of summertime.

 If it's one particular summertime, it has to be New Order's 'World in Motion'. Not the greatest summertime song - hi Jazzy Jeff and the other one, that's on you - but if you were a young bloke into football and music in England in the summer of 1990, this was THE song for the obvious reasons. And if you were Scottish in England in the summer of 1990, it was a real love/hate song:

The shit I post on Facebook . . . musical edition (Day 4)

Day 4 of my task, to choose 10 albums that greatly influenced my taste in music. One album per day for ten consecutive days. No explanations, no reviews, just album covers. Every day I will ask someone else to do the same... today I nominate MF Thank you for nominating me MR . . .

"No explanations, no reviews, just album covers . .  ."

Total bullshit, of course. Quite simply, this compilation album opened my eyes and ears to left of centre music that never get near Saturday morning kids TV in a million and a half years. Bought on vinyl for a knock down price in Watford Market many, many years ago.

The Death of Stalin (2017)

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 02

A song with a number in the title? 

One of the quicker choices to make. I have that old man habit of rediscovering old music and hammering it to death on either Spotify or YouTube  . . . until I move onto the next (new) old band. The middle of last month caught me in a My Life Story binge, so I immediately thought of '12 Reasons Why I Love Her', arguably their known song. 

I always had a soft spot for MLS. I guess they'd be dismissed nowadays as Brit Pop also rans, but I loved their debut album Mornington Crescent - another piece of music from my past record collections which has disappeared into the ether - and always thought they were London kindred spirits to Pulp. I'm not going to pretend that they are some kind of lost classic band. They never had the tune on a par with a Common People or a Girls and Boys, but they did have a certain something. Maybe Jake Shillingford tried a little too hard, wanted to be a pop star too much and he was sadly a set of cheekbones away from reaching the big stage at Glastonbury. (Yeah, I know that sounds better in my head.)

Honorable mention also to Spiritualized's '12 Steps'. On another day, I would have picked that burst of noise, and it's another song discovered via a music magazine compilation.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 01

What do you mean I can't do two song challenges simultaneously? It's End Days; I can't do whatever the fuck I want.

The Ten Album music challenge was bestowed upon me by an old schoolmate on Facebook. This one is also from Facebook, but this one I nicked from one of Kara's oldest friends back in the Mid West. I've been itching to do a good Song Challenge for ages now, and the good thing about this one is that I've been participating in it since the middle of last month on Facebook, so I don't need to think about it too much over the next few weeks. It's already sorted.

First up, a song with a 'color' in the title. I cheated, and picked a song title with two: the beautifully haunting 'Scattered Black and Whites' by Elbow. In retrospect I may have picked this song too soon in the Song Challenge, as it could have fitted a number of the upcoming days. (It might get a mention in later days.) I'm sure I discovered it via a music magazine compilation, which I'm not too sniffy about because I've found some great songs down the years via compilation tapes or CDs attached to the front of music papers or magazines. One of the few songs in my life that has actually moved me to tears. It must have been an especially bad day . . . 

The shit I post on Facebook . . . musical edition (Day 3)

Day 3 of my task, to choose 10 albums that greatly influenced my taste in music. One album per day for ten consecutive days. No explanations, no reviews, just album covers. Every day I will ask someone else to do the same... today I nominate JL Thank you for nominating me MR . . . 

"No explanations, no reviews, just album covers . .  ."

Total bullshit, of course.  I think I loved Heartland a bit too much when I was a kid. I'm guessing I was about 14 or 15 when this came out, and I probably did think the revolution was just one catchy three minute single away.