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.