Countdown To 40: A Song A Year - The First 10 Years...

So, March 19th 2012. That's the date. The date my life finally begins. I can hardly wait. Maybe Marvel will call me up and ask me to write Spider-Man, Morrissey and Bruce will pop round for a coffee and Kate Winslet will pop round for... unlikely, really, what with Louise's shotgun and everything.

Or perhaps it'll just be another day like all the rest.

To mark the countdown to this momentous milestone, I thought I'd look back on my life so far through the medium of song. Some time ago, I ran a feature here called My Life In Music in which I chose a favourite album for every year I'd been on this earth. This will be sort of like that, except this time it'll be just a single song. It won't necessarily be my favourite song from each particular year... but one that's meant more to me throughout my life than most others released that year.

0 (1972) Harry Nilsson - Without You

The record that was at Number One as I came squealing out into the world on that grey Sunday lunchtime. Although this was Harry Nilsson's biggest hit, he's made far better records and this one was both overplayed and then tragically eviscerated by Mariah Carey. I've always been a huge Nilsson fan though, so I'm happy to settle on this as my original birthday tune.

1 (1973) Billy Joel - Piano Man

As I turned one, the record at the top of the charts was Cum On Feel The Noize by Slade. A fine tune, even if I always had issues with Noddy's spelling. But the autobiographical Piano Man was Billy Joel's first big hit and one of the records that first attracted me to his songwriting as a teenager. Yes, I was that cool.

2 (1974) Harry Chapin - W.O.L.D.

Another great singer-songwriter of the 70s, Harry Chapin never matched the level of fame achieved by Joel or even Nilsson, but his excellent story songs always manage to bring a smile to my face or tear to my eye. W.O.L.D. is probably his best known track, the story of a has-been DJ... I'd meet plenty of those once I started working in radio.

Number One as I turned 2? Billy, Don't Be A Hero by Paper Lace. I can live with that, given that my first name is William, though I always preferred The Night Chicago Died.

3 (1975) Bruce Springsteen - Thunder Road

Could this be the hardest choice I'll have to make on this countdown? In any other year, the winner would have been Bohemian Rhapsody. Hands down. Queen were my first big band as a kid and Bo Rap just blew me away. And then a few years later, I discovered Bruce. Born To Run and this. Two songs from my favourite album of the 70s, a record that has meant more to me than just about any other in my life.

So you're scared and you're thinking that maybe we ain't that young anymore

Number One on my third birthday? Bye Bye Baby by The Bay City Rollers. Oh.

4 (1976) Queen - Somebody To Love

So I had to pass on Queen last year - hopefully this will make up for it. One of the most joyous songs about being a sad sack lonely bones I've ever heard. Thank you, Freddie, this one kept me going throughout my teens.

Cheesy disco at #1 as I turned four: I Love To Love by Tina Charles. I wouldn't necessarily turn off the radio if that came on. You become more tolerant of old cheese as you become an old cheeser yourself.

5 (1977) Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell

Ah, Jim Steinman, another hero of my teens. Nothing succeeds like excess. I don't care what you say, this record bleeds rock 'n' roll all over your carpet.

Number One on my 5th? Chanson D'Amour by Manhattan Transfer. A ratty-tatty-tat.

6 (1978) The Boomtown Rats - Rat Trap

As with Bat Out Of Hell, here's another song that owes more than a little debt to Born To Run. For about five minutes there, Bob Geldof was the Irish Springsteen. Then he lost his muse and went off to try and save the fookin' world.

I'm 6. If you're coming to my birthday party, you might hear today's Number One song playing from my sister's record collection. Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush. Fantastic.

7 (1979) Elvis Costello - Oliver's Army

Another of my early songwriting heroes - though like Bruce, Billy and Jim I didn't really discover him till I was a teenager. Costello gleefully admits he stole the jubilant piano chords in his biggest hit from Abba. That's the way to do it.

My 7 year itch birthday song? I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor. Excellent.

8 (1980) Robert Palmer - Johnny & Mary

Because I might not have room to squeeze Batley's finest in to my countdown later in the decade, here's one of his finest moments. I was a huge Robert Palmer fan growing up - he left us far too soon.

Alternatively, I might gone with Hungry Heart, Geno or Ashes To Ashes... or perhaps even the Number One as I turned 8: Going Underground.

9 (1981) Queen & David Bowie - Under Pressure

The bassline not even Vanilla Ice could kill. And here's my confession: I almost gave this year to Making Your Mind Up by Bucks Fizz. Not because it's a record I've spent a lot of time with over the years, but at 9 years old I thought it was just about the coolest thing ever. And not just that bit when the girls tear off their skirts... although that might well have been the first time I showed an interest in such things.

Number One at 9? Jealous Guy by Roxy Music. Better than the Lennon version.

10 (1982) John Cougar Mellencamp - Jack & Diane

And yet another Man Who Would Be Bruce. I've always loved this track - I think it might be the combination of power riff followed by acoustic plink. That and the romantic Americana... though it was years before I understood what "sucking on chilli dogs outside the Tastee Freez" really meant. Oh, and the mid-song drum-breakdwn before JCM goes into his glorious gospel refrain. There's so much to love about Jack & Diane. No wonder it edged out Come On Eileen and the entire contents of Nebraska...

Oh yeah, life goes on
Long after the thrill of living is gone

As I hit double figures, the song at the top of the charts was The Lion Sleeps Tonight by Tight Fit. Which is a good point to pause as any... I'll be back soon with my terrible teens. And some songs from Manchester, I reckon...

Top Ten Escape Songs

I've been thinking a lot about escape recently. For obvious reasons. So here's my top ten songs about getting the hell out of Dodge while you still have time...

10. Rupert Holmes - Escape (The Pina Colada Song)

Let's start with the obvious, as usual, and the only one that actually mentions the word 'escape' in its title. Much mocked, but this is a classic slice of 70s story-song cheese with that wonderful wink of a twist in the tale. Two cheating spouses find love... with each other. I believe that's known as irony, but I could be wrong.

(From 'Escape...The Best Of'.)

9. Pulp - The Boss

I'm gonna leave town
I'm gonna catch a train
I'm going somewhere where I can start again...

After 7 long years down a dead end road I'm gonna get off here
I'm gonna let it go,
Let it go.

7 long years, Jarvis? Try 23, mate.

(Demo track taken from 'His 'N' Hers (Deluxe Edition)'.)

8. Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak

I'm not sure there's a whole lot of metaphor to Lizzy's jailbreak. But if you feel like you've spent half your life trapped in a situation... say, just for example, a job... that feels like a prison sentence... then this track is pretty damned apt.

(From 'Greatest Hits'.)

7. Billy Joel - Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)

Billy Joel drops some profound nuggets that ring more than a little true...

Ah but working too hard can give you
A heart attack, ack, ack, ack, ack, ack

You should never argue with a crazy mi mi mi mi mi mind
You ought-a know by now

Good luck movin' up cause I'm movin' out

(From 'The Stranger'.)

6. Noah & The Whale - Tonight's The Kind Of Night

Noah & The Whale were my Glastonbury-on-TV highlight. Having said that, I did miss Paul Simon, Morrissey and The Wombles.

There's a boy with his head
Pressed up to the window
Of a bus heading out of town
In his breath on the glass
He draws with his finger
A map of the roads they go down
Circles of street lights
Are the only signal
That there's people out there in the black
He waves goodbye, to the town he grew up in
He knows that he'll never come back

They say you can't ever go home again.

Sometimes when you leave a place, you've no desire to ever go back.

(From 'Last Night on Earth'.)

5. Frank Turner - This Town Ain't Big Enough For The One Of Me

God, how did I survive before I discovered Frank Turner?

This town is growing old with me, so I'm making a move.
Everybody round here's been out with everybody else,
Which makes talking to girls hazardous to my health.
They've been in this gene pool so long they've got wrinkled toes;
I don't want all her exes to be people I know.
There's millions more fish in the sea, so I'm making a move.

I'm bored of this town, bored of this scene, bored of these people, yeah.

(From 'Love Ire and Song'.)


4. The Animals - We Gotta Get Out Of This Place

Shame on you if you didn't see this one coming.

(From 'The Complete Animals'.)

3. Boomtown Rats - Rat Trap

There's a huge Springsteen link to the top three... and we start with Bob Geldof doing his very best Boss impression, making Dublin sound like New Jersey...

Billy don't like it living here in this town
He says the traps have been sprung long before he was born
He says "hope bites the dust behind all the closed doors
And puss and grime ooze from its scab crusted sores
There's screaming and crying in the high rise blocks"
It's a rat trap, Billy, but you're already caught...

It's only 8 o'clock, but you're already bored
You don't know what it is, but there's got to be more
You'd better find a way out, hey, kick down the door
It's a rat trap and you've been caught

(From 'A Tonic For The Troops'.)

2. Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell

What do you get when you turn the ideology and romanticism of Springsteen up to eleven?

Jim Steinman.

A demented genius who lives in some crazy Wagnerian netherworld where fanatical teenage emotions live forever, heaven and hell have both broken loose and everything's louder than everything else. Nothing succeeds like excess.

If you're looking to make an escape, I can suggest no better mode of transport than a silver Black Phantom bike.

(From 'Bat Out Of Hell'.)

1. Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run / Thunder Road

One of the greatest albums ever made, and it's essentially an ode to liberation. Each side opens with a quintessential escape song: how could I ever choose between them?

Oh-oh, baby this town rips the bones from your back

It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap

We gotta get out while we're young

`Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run

It's town full of losers

And I'm pulling out of here to win!

(From 'Born To Run'.)

So... they were my favourites... which of your favourites escaped me?

2010 - Albums Of The Year (20 - 11)

And so I conclude the 2010 review with my customary countdown of my favourite albums of the year. The usual provisos apply... including the one about me no longer caring about being seen as remotely cool, so nyah nyah if you don't like Meat Loaf, get over it, you fake hipsters... and the one about me not having heard every single record that was released in 2010 - not even every single one I might actually want to hear, and there being loads of stuff I'm either just getting round to or haven't even bought yet that may well blow some of the albums listed below completely out of the water...

But really, if you need all that spelling out to you... what are you, an idiot?

These were the records that kept me from ploughing into the back of countless Audis throughout the course of 2010...



20. Everybody Was In The French Resistance... Now! - Fixing The Charts Volume 1

With no new Art Brut record to big up, Eddie Argos teamed with his girlFREN, Dyan Valdes (of The Blood Arm) for an album of amusing answer songs. It filled the gap till the Brut get back.



19. The Courteeners - Falcon

Difficult second album syndrome plagues the Courteeners - yet that debut really took some beating...



18. Superman Revenge Squad - Dead Crow Blues

A songwriter I seriously learned to love in 2010, though his latest release wasn't quite as marvellous as the previous three. Newbies should start with 'This is my own personal way of dealing with it all' and work their way up. The older records are available for an insanely cheap £3 (inc. P&P) from Ben's website.



17. James - The Night Before / The Morning After

Tim Booth and the gang came back with a bang with two themed mini albums, the first an upbeat Saturday night record, the second a thoughtful and touching comedown. Stand out track of the latter is told from the perspective of Booth's elderly mother, now living out her twilight years in a retirement home. It's a choker.



16. Meat Loaf - Hang Cool, Teddy Bear

Meat Loaf without Jim Steinman is like toast without butter, but as it's unlikely those two will ever kiss and make up, Marvin's latest stab at OTT immortality manages better than most. As you'd expect, he throws in everything it can get its hands on - from Justin Hawkins to Jack Black to the kitchen sink - turning it all up to 11 and praying. One track even features Hugh Laurie on piano. If we can't have Jim Steinman... this is about as good as it gets.



15. The Divine Comedy - Bang Goes The Knighthood

Now officially a national treasure. So treasure him!

This video features Neil and his blow-up doll. A love story for the ages...



14. Thea Gilmore - Murphy's Heart

Still the greatest contemporary British female singer songwriter... still criminally unappreciated.



13. Lloyd Cole - Broken Record

Another national treasure, though he long since deserted us for the States. Growing old gracefully, he even brought a proper band along with him for his latest album... but stopped just short of causing a commotion.



12. The Hold Steady - Heaven Is Whenever

The best and worst that can be said of this is that it's just another Hold Steady record. Hardly groundbreaking, but it does exactly what it says on the tin.

She said I just can't sympathise with your rock 'n' roll problems...

11. Evelyn Evelyn - Evelyn Evelyn

My second best new musical discovery of 2010 (the first will be revealed tomorrow), Amanda Palmer's debut solo record was one of my top five most listened to discs this year. Unfortunately, it was released in 2008. This is the record she did release this year, a cabaret concept album that tells the story of two Siamese twins, Evelyn and Evelyn, their circus life and tragic romantic demise. It's unlike anything else I heard this year, which is always a good thing.



Tomorrow... the Top Ten (d'oh!).

Top Ten Monster Songs

If you're expecting a Top Ten Snow Songs, go elsewhere. Me and snow, we're done. The divorce papers are with my solicitor and I want possession of the shovel. Bloody snow.

Instead, because I already did ghost songs, and because there's a new movie out in the UK this week called... erm... Monsters... here are some monsterrific tunes from my collection. No vampire or werewolf, Frankenstein or Dracula songs, maybe I'm saving those for a list of their own...

10. Bobby Boris Pickett & The Crypt Kickers - Monster Mash

It was either here, or at Number 1. this was, after all, a graveyard smash. The Vincent Price version is also worth a click.

9. Ryan Adams - I See Monsters

Every time I include a Ryan Adams song in these lists, I have to ask... Ryan... what went wrong?

8. L7 - Monster

From their square name, L7 should have been a band of geeks like Weezer. Not a band of hot indie-chick psychos. This isn't quite as good as their greatest moment in the sun, Shitlist, but it's not bad.

7. Voice Of The Beehive - Monsters & Angels

I am a child of the 80s, hear me roar.

6. Meat Loaf - The Monster Is Loose

From Bat Out Of Hell III: A Sequel Too Far. Not written by Jim Steinman, which explains why it's not at #1.

5. Shrag - Long Term Monster

They're from Brighton, they're not on youtube, they deserve your love.

4. David Bowie - Scary Monsters (And Super Freaks)

She had a horror of rooms she was tired, you can't hide, beat

David Bowie sure could write an opening line. Complete nonsense, but pure wonderful.

3. Eels - My Beloved Monster

From the Shrek soundtrack, but don't hold that against E.

2. The Automatic - Monster

What's that coming over the hill
Is it a monster? Is it a monster?

Could also have been #1, were I not 160% predictable.

1. Morrissey - November Spawned A Monster

Yes, yes. What-ever.

But if the lights were out - would you even dare?
To kiss her full on the mouth... or anywhere?

A punch in the face for the first person to mention the REM album.

June Listening

Where the Indelicates meet Meat Loaf... it's a scary place to live!

Been a while since I did a post on what's filling up my music player at the moment, so here's a quick run-through of some of the tracks that are keeping me from driving off the road on my way to work...



Frank Turner is the best new artist I've discovered this year. Not that he's particularly new, he was originally singer with 'post-hardcore' band Million Dead. I've not heard anything by them, but I guess they were pretty heavy. Around four years ago he went solo, reinventing himself as an angry, lyrically-charged and politicised singer-songwriter, half Billy Bragg, half Springsteen. He's released a number of albums since then, but his most recent, Poetry Of The Deed seems to be the one that's breaking him. It features the semi-hit single The Road, which was enough to convince me to buy the album... and the song above, Try This At Home, which was enough to convince me to buy his entire back catalogue.

Because the only thing that punk-rock should ever really mean
Is not sitting round and waiting for the lights to turn green
And not thinking that you're better 'cause you're stood up on a stage
If you're oh, so fucking different then who cares what you have to say?

'Cause there's no such thing as rockstars there's just people who play music
And some of them are just like us and some of them are dicks
So, quick turn off your stereo; pick up that pen and paper
Yeah, you can do much better than some skinny half-arsed English country singer...

Although I adored the Courteeners debut album, St. Jude, I'd been discouraged from buying the follow-up Falcon after a lacklustre live show at Christmas convinced me their lead singer was a bit of an arse. Still, it's only a fiver now, so I thought I'd give it a go. Glad I did. Liam Fray may have flunked the entrance exam for the Liam Gallagher School Of Humility, but he still writes far better lyrics than those Oasis boys ever managed. A welcome surprise.



My front runner for Album Of The Year continues to show no sign of wilting. Like all classic records, you peel off another layer of intrigue every time you hear it. More diverse in style than their debut, it boasts a lyrical and musical confidence that few other bands have demonstrated in the 21st century, and the fact that it's not been number one on the album chart for the last ten weeks... and it's been all but ignored by the music press... just goes to show. What it shows, I'm not entirely sure, but it's a damning indictment of something.

Because you'll never take enough of those pills
Yeah, you're too clever to be mentally ill
You'll never fashion your damaged soul
Because you're too clever to lose control...

Remember, you can download both albums by the Indelicates here - and choose for yourself exactly how much you want to pay for them. Whatever you decide, it won't be enough.



Normally when I confess my love of classic Meat Loaf, I'm all about praising the Wagnerian genius of Jim Steinman, his songwriter and collaborative loon from the days of Bat Out Of Hell, Dead Ringer et al. Sadly Meat and Stein haven't worked together in getting on for 15 years now, so when I talk about the new album Hang Cool, Teddy Bear - it's all about the Meat.

The truth is, much as I love him, Meat hasn't released a great album since he fell out with Jimbo. And sadly, Hang Cool changes nothing . It's full of overblown nonsense in search of a tune, and I wouldn't recommend it to any but the most diehard Meat fan. That said, as with previous Jimless records, there's usually one or two tracks that make it worthwhile, and this time that's down to lead single Los Angeloser. It's a work of Elvis-In-Vegas camp OTT genius, as is the video. This is music as pure entertainment, and if it doesn't make you at least crack a smile, there's no hope for you, daddy-o!



The laziest slacker in music, Evan Dando, quietly released a new Lemonheads album last year, but it came as no surprise that he couldn't be arsed to write any new songs for it. Instead, he plumped for that time-honoured tradition of lazy slacker songwriters everywhere: the covers album. A fine selection of re-interpretations they are too, including Townes Van Zandt's Waiting Round To Die, Wire's Fragile, Leonard Cohen's Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye and Tim Hardin's How Can We Hang On To A Dream? There are a couple of misfires: a bizarre stab at Dutch electronica (Dirty Robot, featuring Kate Moss on vocals) and Christina Aguilera's Beautiful, which has already been covered by everyone from Clem Snide to Elvis Costello to our cat Murphy. But they're more than made up for by the song above, Layin' Up With Linda, originally recorded by shock punk GG Allin (and if you want to know what I mean by 'shock punk', wikipedia him... but only if you've got a strong stomach). It's one of those songs that hooks in your head on first listen, and it's perfect for the Evan Dando growl.



You know when you start properly listening to an artist and you wonder how you ever survived without them? When's the last time that happened to you? For me, it was a couple of weeks ago when I finally got round to buying the first 3 homemade albums by Superman Revenge Squad (you can order all three here for just £2.50 each + 50p p&p - another bargain). The track above explains exactly why he's making music, and why you should be buying it.



Hoyt Axton is perhaps most famous as Zach Galligan's dad in Gremlins. But long before that he was a successful songwriter, penning hits for Three Dog Night (Joy To The World), John Denver, Steppenwolf, Ringo Starr and others. Probably the most famous track he recorded himself was Della and The Dealer, a song I remember hearing Terry Wogan play regularly before the radio went arrogantly ginger. It's a little nugget of country genius, and I can't get enough of it.