Annie Lennox - No More I Love You's

A cover apparently. But this is much better.

LCD Soundsystem - Drunk Girls

"Drunk Boys, They steal, they steal from the cupboards." True words those. Got a good bounce to it, this. Invigorating!

Bootsy Collins and the Cinncinnati Bengals - Fear Da Tiger

Bootsy Collins, a bunch of American football players and a man dressed as a tiger. The song performed by a sports team gets a bad rep, but you can't really go wrong with a line up like that.

The Charlatans - A Man Needs To Be Told

A few few years ago, I was working in a factory where the speakers where tuned to a fairly dreadful radio station. This track was high up ion the playlist for a long time though and it always brought a smile to my face as I pushed a useless broom around. Great falsetto and Piano hook.

Booze Party - Three Aces and a Joker

First you fill it up, then then you drink it down.
Again you fill it up, Again you drink it down.
First rate Rockabilly wisdom there.

Finley Quaye - Love Gets Sweeter Every Day.

Not the nicest of chaps Finley Quaye, but he made one rather nice album and this is a lovely cut from it. Great example of how a simple chorus can be very effective.

The Stone Roses - I Am The Resurrection

Sometimes it's good to be obvious. Listening to this again one is reminded what a bowfin singer Ian Brown can be and what a bloody tremendous drummer Reni is.

Seth Lakeman - Kitty Jay

Dark and terrible folk music from the west country. Lakeman plays a right menacing fiddle. The roots of folk music are pretty grim generally and it's good when today's folkettes acknowledge that.

Freelance Hellraiser - A Stroke of Genius

Mash up magic.

Air - All I Need

Always my favourite track off Moon safari. And I count that album as a classic, one of the best of the past twenty years. Could could be made by Frenchman and is uniquely suited to lazy afternoons in the sun.

Nerina Pallot - Patience

Always had a soft point for this one.

Moby - Extreme Ways

Remember when Moby was a relevant part of the culture? I do. God I'm old. Anyway I've retained a soft spot for the tiny balding electro tinkerman and this song in particular. Not just because of it's role as a recurring motif in the excellent Bourne movies either.

Har Mar Superstar - Tall Boy

Of Har Mar Superstar didn't look like Ron Jeremy would he get any media attention at all? Is it just his oddity that has granted him a career? Perhaps but this is still quite good and the video has Maebe Bluth in it.

Bon Iver - Skinny Love

Another one that's grown on me. Rubbish beard though.

Macy Skipper - Bop Pills

Stop drop and roll kids. Stop drop and roll.

Credance Clearwater Revival - Run Through The Jungle

Not one key change in this whole song. Interesting.

The Byrds - Jesus Is Just Alright With Me

Psychedelic Jesus is my favorite Jesus.

LL Cool J - Mama Said Knock You Out

Don't call it a come back.

Fruit Bats - When U Love Somebody

What I like about this is, it's simple. Yet there seems to be more to it each time I listen.

Starship - We Built This City

Fuck you.

Belly - Gepetto

Great performance.

ABBA - The Name of the Game

Creepy intro, haunting vocal. Doesn't go where you'd expect. Chorus is a bit cheesy but the rest makes up for it.

The Riptides - Machine Gun

Pounding instrumental excellence.

Rufus Wainwright - Cigarettes and Choclate Milk

His best song.

AC/DC - I Feel Safe In New York City

An allmighty Rock powerhouse of a track. I remember the first time I heard it, at a friends house 5 in the morning, the sun coming up and drunk out of mind. Good times.

The Low Anthem - Charlie Darwin

That's a nice soothing backing vocal. Nothing like a good OooohOooohOoooh totake your mind of things.

Sebadoh - Brand New Love

There was always something about Sebadoh I found a little off putting but this is a great track.

Juliana Hatfield - This Lonely Love

Mucho love for this piano intro.

Little Eva - The Locomotion

A celebration.

Caribou - Odessa

Weird pulsing Canadian Magic.

Paul Simon - The Obvious Child

This was the follow up single to the massively successful Graceland album and at the time (1990) was widely regarded as a critically and commercial flop. With the benefit of twenty years hindsight however I reckon It holds up as some of his best work. For all Paul Simon comes across as a right prick in interviews and doesn't have a hugely strong voice, he has a way of giving a vocal performance that really sells a song to to you. Very useful on a song like this, which is really just drums and vocals. Though to be fair the drums are tremendous and the lyrics strangely affecting.

Vanilla Fudge - You Keep me Hanging On

Sensational Supreme's cover. Apparently these characters are the missing link between metal and psychedelia.

Pet Lions - Roman History

Enjoyably bubbly strokes-esque pop from this Chicago four piece. Inaccurately named though, not a single reference to Cicero, Pompey or anything.

Clem Snide - Moment in the Sun

The theme song to the late unlamented US TV show Ed, this is some rather relaxingly pleasant alt country. The vocal is verging on the weedy but it seems not to matter.

dEUS - Little Arithmetics

Charming Beligan indie pop.

DJ Fresh - The Pink Panther

This appears to feature a light aircraft with serious flatulence and is all the better for it, frankly.

Stardust - Music Sounds Better With You

I've always thought you could do a great hard rock cover of this. Tons of guitars....Thumping drums. It's pretty much perfect as it is mind, so prehaps it's best left alone.

TV On The Radio - Staring At The Sun

I remember seeing this gang performing a the hot sweaty subclub half a dozen years ago. They put on a decent show but in they years since they've verged on being too clever by half and they've never done anything as good as this song. Still it's a belter.

The Associates - Party Fears Two

Poor old Billy MacKenzie. Despite the greatness of the this song and the sadness of the lyric I will always associate it with the radio 4 sketch show Week Ending.

Peter Sarstedt - Where Do You Go To My Lovely

I have a very clear memory of watching my mum singing along to this song when it came on the radio. She was in the kitchen peeling some potatoes and I was playing with toys on the floor. Ever since them it has remained in my head as definitively "French".

Climax Blues Band - Couldn't Get It Right

Sometimes comments beneath a youtube video can tell you more about a song than a thousand hours of study. Beneath this smooth seventies groove I found, "Takes me back to The Wheatsheaf in Stoke" and "i love wanking over this track." Which is surely more than the members of the Climax Blues Band could ever have hoped for.

Bonnie Prince Billy - Nomadic Revery

This is just a great song. "Instead of seeing monkeys fighting, I lay on the ground, while my hectic traveling partner wanders all around." What a voice, what a beard, what a man.

gorky's Zygotic Monkey - Patio Song

A fantastically summery song wholly inappropriate for the utterly shit weather currently afflicting Glasgow. It's odd how Welsh voices sound wonderful when singing but when speaking they speak total nonsense. The retard brother of the celtic family. Still what wonderful music they make.

Louise McVey and the Cracks in the Concrete - Love Lost Tales

Atmospheric Glasgwegian noir folk. I love the way the title is sung and the sound effect that sounds like a crow landing on the drum kit.

Gnarls Barkley - Gone Daddy Gone

Cee-Lo Gree is a soul machine, and in my dreams my voice sounds like his. This is an Violent Femmes cover, which is suitably offbeat choice. Great Glockenspiel!

Spirit of the West - Home for a Rest

The best Pogues song not by the Pogues. An old flatmate of mine can this on a "Frosh" compilation many years ago and we listened to it with a regularity that would have been monotonous if this song wasn't so excellent.

Crocodiles - I Wanna Kill

I just heard this in a shop. It's hard to imagine it sounding any more like the Jesus and Mary Chain but that's not a bad thing to sound like. The refrain of "I want to kill tonight" at the end is bloody tremendous.

Crooked Still - Ain't No Grave

Some mixed up twisted country. Best kind usually.

Rick James - Ghetto Life

Tenements, slums and corner bums, Playing tag with winos, The only way to have some fun. True dat. True dat.

Chris Andrews- Yesterday Man

The brass in the song is almost as amazing as the belt buckle Mr Andrews is wearing in the video.

A.C. Newman - The Changeling (Get Guilty)

Mr Newman, also of the New Pornographers, turns in a pretty wonderful tune from last year's Get Guilty album. For a fella cursed with red hair he's made the most of his life which is nice to see.

Lulu - Morning Dew

This is a wonderfully odd and moving song about the end of the world, and her vocals suit it perfectly. I also really like the xylophone intro.

Edited to note the fact that this song is sung by Lulu not Cilla Black as I originally wrote. My mind is not what it was.......

Cloud Control - Gold Canary

Something new and interesting. A little bit Vampire Weekend, a little bit Fleet Foxes, a little bit Sea Shanty and a lot of great. I know nothing of them save this is their first single and they hail from Sydney Australia but I urge you to enjoy.

Marcy Playground - Sex and Candy

This one hit wonder belongs to a genre I like to call "Lazy Rock". It typically involves mid nineties American bands who singers sound like they can barely be bothered to go to the bathroom so all encompassing is their ennui. I still harbour a soft spot for this though, mainly because the way the singer pronounces "Candy" is pretty great.

New York City - I'm Doing Fine Now.

This is great, firstly because it's got some amazing strings in the background but also because it's a pop song about a subject you don't hear much about. There's a million and one songs about heartbreak, but not so many about just getting on with your goddamn life.

Nat King Cole - Let There Be Love

Sheer undiluted Class. A voice as smooth as marble and as rich as the finest caviar. And not a terrible sentiment for Valentines Day.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The Tenure Itch

Very Stone Roses, Very Smiths, I'd stop short of saying very good, but It certainly has a profound appeal to that part of me that hid in his bedroom listening to CDs by the afore mentioned for many teenage hours.

Aberfeldy - Summer's Gone

Twee as can be but still pretty great.

Best Coast - The Sun was High (So Was I)

One for Jesus and Mary Chain fans this. Great big echoy distortian. And a loopy big vocal. Much better than the title would suggest.

Peter Gabriel - The Book of Love

I some point, I will write of my love of '69 Love Songs' by the Magnetic Fields. Suffice to say it's wonderful miracle of a thing. This song however was never a stand out for me though. So I was somewhat surprised to by absolutely capsized by this Peter Gabriel cover of it. In this interview Stephin Merrit wryly comments that "If I could sing like Peter Gabriel, I wouldn’t have to write songs." And it brings something to this tune that is indescribably potent.
Gabriel is often wrongly regarded as a world music obsessed joke, so it's good to seem him getting some of the credit he deserves.

The Vaselines - The Day I Was A horse

Sadly not about actually being a horse for a day but not without merit.

Dr Feelgood - Roxette

Apparently there's a pretty tremendous documentary out about this lot called "oil city confidential" which is a good, good title. This is one of their best, magic in the rasp of the voice and squeal of the harmonica.

Beerjacket - Barricade

This is good. Decent work from a local glasgow fella. Touch of Smalltown boy about the melody which is always splendid to hear.

The Wonderstuff - Don't Let Me Down, Gently

One of the most unfashionable of bands, Miles Hunt had a hell of an ear of a melody as this shows. Didn't really help themselves by making records with Vic Reeves mind.

Art of Noise - Moments in Love

Maybe it's just the video, but these song seems hella creepy to me. Ghost Robots singing songs about the lives they never lead.

The Beloved - Sweet Harmony

The Beloved where formed after the following ad was placed in the NME. "I am Jon Marsh, founder member of the Beloved. Should you too wish to do something gorgeous, meet me in exactly three year's time at exactly 11am in Diana's Diner, Kings cross."
Three years later the Beloved were born. What I like about that is the lad had a plan, and he stuck do it. Good work.
This song, at the risk of engaging in rather indulgent mid nineties vernacular, is "blissed out". And though it may be more than a little cheesy, the saxophone at the end is tremendous.

Loudon Wainwright III - Daughter

I like this song because it displays a real joy in fatherhood. Given Wainwright's very public disputes with some of his children, I like because it shows just how complicated these things are. It's real possible to be a good father and a bad father simultaneously. Or a bad father while trying to be a good one. It will be know to most as the song that plays over the closing credits of knocked up, and like that film, is humorous and emotional all at the same time.

Goldfrapp - Rocket

My first awareness of this track was that it sounds very much like "Physical" by Olivia Newton John, and as such was pretty tremendous. I cannot disagree. This is cracking.

The Dropkick Murphys - Shipping Up To Boston

Tremendous Irish Anger. Odd that was is a rather odd rocked up bit of Celtic grugdery, has become such a firm favourite with sports fans across the states though one can understand how it could be used to gee up fifty thousand drunken Bostonians.

Fretne! - Bizarre Love Triange

Good cover this. Brings out Summer's sensitive side.

Eels - I like Birds

If you're small and on a search, I've got a feeder for you to perch on. Wise words. What's great about Mark Everett, for all he's not has troubles to seek over the years and much of his music has dwelt on them, he's not afraid to knock out a happy little number like this from time to time. Always good to have a bit of contrast.

BJork - Hyperballad

This is an astonishing, amazing, lunatic song. A collage of imagery and bleeps that coalesces to a moment of brilliant emotional truth in the chorus.

Richard Thompson - 1952 Vincent Black Lightning

A great story and a great song. What I love about this, is the that Thompson manages to invest so much emotion in an old motorbike. As so often, it represents escape, freedom and ultimately death.

Turbonegro - Sell Your Body (To The Night)

It's not to see Turbonegro as anything other than characters who have somehow escaped from the World of the Mighty Boosh into reality. Still this is a mighty stomping Glam metal good time. It also features a pretty awesome bear in the video. AND BEARS ALWAYS WIN.

Maxwell - This Woman's Work

I think this version is maybe not quite as good as Kate Bush's original, but it certainly has something. Plus the video for Kate Bush's version is just too damn sad. Poor Tim McInnery. The instrumentation on this is just a little too lush, but it's a beautiful vocal. Plus changing the gender of the gives a nice twist to the lyrics.

Hell feat Bryan Ferry - U Can Dance

Many years ago I remember saying to my brother, "you know if Jesus returned to earth I bet he would look like Bryan Ferry, He have instant respect." "That's ridiculous," replied my sibling. "Jesus wouldn't want to look so sleazy."
On the basis of this excellent elctro collaboration my brother is likely had a point. This is Ferry at his sleaziest. Which is saying something.

Alicia Keys - Empire State of Mind (Part II) Broken Down

This is something wonderful. It sneaks out of the radio and gets into your head. There's real joy and sorrow in it. There's something about hearing someone sing about their home, their home that they love that gets me. It's beautiful here.

Randy Newman - Short People

Newman's always claimed this song is satrical but I prefer to see it as an honest look at a vile cancer that is eating away at your society.

Withered Hand - No Cigarettes

Another song from a murky east Coast folky type. This is becoming a habit. This kind of thing can come off as annoying twee and needy but there's a real sorrow in the vocals that rescues it from such a fate and makes it truly affecting. It also works fantastically well as the soundtrack to some rather active fancy dress debauchery in the video.

Wet Wet Wet - Sweet Little Mystery

Marti's finest moment. There's a joy in his voice in this song that puts a spring in the step every time.

Sam Cooke - Twistin' The Night Away

This is just great. If your toes don't get a tapping listening to this, you have no soul.

Kate and Anna McGarrigle - Talk to Me of Mendocino

Apparently Kate McGarrigle has passed on. Sad news. I saw her once, in Glasgow, at one of the concerts that seemed to involve every member of her ludicrously talented family. A special night, I recall it fondly. They say that siblings can have a special harmony in their voices, because of their genetic similarity. It certainly seemed to be true in the case of her and her sister. This is one of her songs. Soft, sad and beautiful.

Silly Wizard - Donald Macgillavry

I like my folk music dark and bloody, and this fits the bill nicely. This song sounds ancient yet it's still alive with iron and fire.

Tasmin Archer - Sleeping Satellite

The opening twinkles in this introduction are perfect. Just perfect. As is Tasmin Archer's voice on this song. And it's about space exploration and the cold war. It's an odd little diamond in song form, ideal and totally unlike anything around it.

Jónsi - Boy Lilikoi

It's goddamn Eskimo jazz! Now obviously there's an long way between Iceland and the inuits, but this Jonsi chap does sound like a baby boy child bjork. So clearly he is eskimo jazz to his bones. What he also has though, is that weird nordic joy that is particular to Bjork's early records. And like those records it's all the more wonderful for it.

The Peddlers - On a Clear Day You Can See Forever

Weirdly wonderful sixties pop. What I love about this firstly is the voice, which is as rich and English and smooth as honey. And then there's a bonkers little organ solo halfway through which is hard not to take to ones heart.

I've Been Thinking - Handsome Boy Modeling School feat. Cat Power

Intriguing little number this one. Cat Power has a wonderful voice, but as her own material tends towards the dark and downbeat it's good to hear it in an altogether smoother, more seductive setting. "White People", the album this is taken from, is a odd duck. A curate's egg of a record, but there a few tracks, like this one which are quite special. It also has a collaboration with Jamie Cullum, which is astonishingly good. It's not that good, but by the jazz midget's usual standards it's quite something.

Bettye LaVette - Streets of Philadelphia

I love me some Springsteen, and this is probably the best cover of one of his songs I've ever heard. Lavette's voice cracks in a way that is just hearbreaking, and underlines what a fine, fine sad song this is. So much pain, so little time. And yet, it is still joyous in it's own way.

Cheers to Last Year's Girl for tipping me to this.

Journey - Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'

Watching the Glee pilot last night, I was primarily reminded about what a great song this is. though it helped that it ws involved in the best joke in the show. Journey are a bit of an eighties joke band to many, but my word could Steve Perry sing. There wouldn't be a whole lot to this song without his vocal, but with it, it soars.

Hurts - Wonderful Life

Hurts are widely tipped to be the sound of 2009, which would be something of a turn up as they seem intent of being the sound of 1984. Nothing wrong with that though, as this single seems intent on mixing hefty dollops of various wonderful things including the Pet shop boys, Smalltown boy by Bronksi Beat and 1963 by New Order. It's the last which I find most interesting, as unreliable narrators in pop music are in pretty short supply. It also makes me think Hurts are too clever by half, which tends to prevent massive success but I'd be happy to be proved wrong.

Alejandro Escovedo - Always a Friend

There's a lot to be said for the aging process. As joints creek, and neuronal connections flash more softly in the brain, the vigour of youth seems better and better. At the time though you're inevitably a mess of confusion and What you lose in vibrancy however you tend to make yo for in smarts. Like anything else, life tends to get easier the more you do it.
This song is partly a celebration of being a veteran of too much life, too many mistakes but knowing just enough, to cling on to what's important.

Buddy & Julie Miller - Gasoline And Matches

Gasoline and Matches is a bloody tremendous metaphor for an affair of heart. Explosive uncontainable unstoppable passion that burns away to nothing in the flash of an eye. Whole story great there in that first line. A whole novel in a dozen words.

Joan Armatrading - Love and Affection

A lovely song sung by a wonderful voice. It's an odd thing that for all the million love songs they rarely talk about relationships as bluntly and as affectingly as this song does. Some truly wonderful seventies outfits on the backing band as well.

Hot 8 Brass Band - Sexual Healing

This is some serious work. Marvin Gaye's classic is transformed into a weird mash of brass band and hip hop that sounds tremendous. Discovered thanks to the wonderful Microkhan website.

Lightning Dust - I Knew

Firstly what a tremendous name for a band Lightning Dust is. Great energy to this as well, building from a simple little acoustic riff to a snapping flick of a tune. Lithe like a snake. Vocal reveals more and more as it goes alone, seems weedy at first but then displays more and more depth and power as it goes on. Great stuff.

Rodrigo y Gabriela - Buster Voodoo

I would never have imagined that merging thrash metal and Flamenco guitar would sound so wonderful, but by god it does. By far the best thing on Jools Holland's hootenanny this new year, this Mexican duo had to go to Dublin to find success, which seems a surprisingly long way, given their talent.

Two Door Cinema Club - No One Can Talk

The sound hipsters will be grooving to 2010. This is a fanatic mix of ideas, melodies and oddball noises. It sounds a little like The Bravery, but with a brain involved. It also has a fantastically clever video. Oddly enough for a band are too cool for school, TDCC come from Bangor in Northern Ireland ,which I would never have guessed in a million years, but find rather heartening. I suppose the internet is helping to ensure that even the murkiest backwaters aren't so turgid these days for wackjob teenagers.

Everlast - Ends

Not as dated as I feared. Oftimes "deep" at seventeen sound trite at 28 but this holds up. Certainly it's as good a mix of country and hip hop as your likely to find.

Emmylou Harris - Wrecking Ball

A new year hangover tends not to properly kick in til the 2nd I find. This seems like a perfect hangover song to me. It's got to be soothing and sad and this ticks both boxes. It also showcases Harris' voice wonderfully, a voice that I suspect is one of the wonders of the world. IT can convey a universe of suffering and joy in a single line. Neil Young, who wrote this song, must listen to this in delight because she makes it damn near perfect.

Roots Manuva - Witness(1 Hope)

For the start of year, it's good to have something rather positive and this fits the bill. What a voice, commanding. Great squelching bass as well. Happy new year.