So, here we are, Volume 50. I’m not sure I believe I’ve done so many of these, especially when you take into account the Christmas, Easter and Halloween editions which haven’t gone towards the total, and that I split the first six playlists (apart from Vol 3, which has been forever wiped from the annals of history, unless any of you downloaded it) into 22 more palatable hour-long chunks.
What follows is, as I mentioned previously, essentially a Friday Night Music Club Greatest Hits compilation, with a few others thrown in just to keep it…well, interesting, I hope. In reality, it’s just a load of my favourite records, many of which just happen to have featured in this series before. And no, not all of them are in anyway cool, but then neither am I. They do, however, make grear sin-a-long records should you elect to take drink when listening to this (which is recommended). Anyway, if I just featured the achingly-hip here, I’d be betraying the No Such Thing as a Guilty Pleasure tagline I cling to.
My thanks to my old buddy Richie, who I bombarded with the first and second goes at this, to seek his opinion and feedback. His response? “Genuinely, really good…even the dance stuff I’d never heard before”. I’m sticking that on the promo posters.
I should add that I’ve had at least another two goes at it since then. New songs added, some dismissed. The thing is, I kept haring songs and thinking: “Well, that should be on there!” I’ve had to just stop, and add those that I’ve missed to future volumes.
Let’s crack on, shall we?
Friday Night Music Club Vol 50
Here’s your track-listing with, as promised/threatened (delete as applicable), sleeve notes:
1, Saint Etienne – Join Our Club
No, I don’t know how I’ve managed to avoid including this appropriate little beauty for so long either!
2. The Cardigans – My Favourite Game
Just to hammer home the favourite records theme, here’s a couple of tunes with Favourite in the title.
I will always remember a conversation with an old mate, following the release of the Manic Street Preachers’ Your Love Alone is Not Enough, which featured lead Cardigan Nina Persson, when they revealed they hated that single becaue they hated Nina’s voice. Now, I totally get that some people’s voices just grate (see Ed Sheeran as a good example of someone who can make me turn the radio off whenever one of his dreary yet bafflingly succesful tunes is aired). But Nina Persson’s????? I haven’t spoken to this old mate in at least 20 years, and proximity is only part of the reason for that.
3. The Wedding Present – My Favourite Dress
Favourite tune #2. You didn’t really think I’d get through this without Mr Gedge making an appearance, did you?
4. PJ Harvey – Dress
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t post anywhere near enough Peej on here. Consider that partially rectified.
5. Buzzcocks – What Do I Get?
Back at college, I was in a band. Not a very good band, but a band nonethless. We mostly did covers of punk and new wave records: they were short, recognisable to the masses who flocked to our gigs (sense the tone), and most importantly, with barely more than three chords between them, piss-easy to learn. This was one of them: I even persuaded our lead singer to shout “Tricky guitar solo!” just as I’d seen Pete Shelley do on some old footage of the Buzzers (the Cocks?) do as that instrumental break hoved into view.
6. Super Furry Animals – God! Show Me Magic
You didn’t really think I’d get through this without Gruff and the boys making an appearance, did you? If this isn’t the greatest record ever to mention the lead singer’s hamster, then it has to be in the Top Ten at least.
7. Manic Street Preachers – Motown Junk
Just an absolute belter, with what would become standard Manic’s sloganeering (standard until Richie went missing. Did I ever mention I shared a cheese salad with him…? Yes I did.)
8. Half Man Half Biscuit – Joy Division Oven Gloves
Thanks to my brother, I own a pair. Best Christmas present ever. Apart from maybe the fake NME Brat Award he gave me for one of these mixes (true story).
9. Generation X – Dancing With Myself
Unlike the debunked theory that The Vapors’ Turning Japanese is about the joys of ononism, this probably is about exactly that. When I was in the aforementioned band, I wrote a song which referenced it – less subtly, it was called The Lonely Dance – and we used to dedicate it to someone we knew was in attendance whenever we played it. They felt cool because we’d name-checked them, everyone else would know we’d just called them a wanker.
10. Underworld – Cowgirl (Bedrock Mix)
You’ll have guessed from previous posts that I adore Underwold, so it’s a rare event when I hammer my flag to the mast and say: this is Underword’s finest moment and this is the finest mix of it.
11. LCD Soundsystem – All My Friends
Some years ago, my friend Matt and I were invited to provide the music for a mate’s 40th birthday, held in a little basement bar somewhere in That London. I went down the traditional route of preparing a mix, burning it on to a CD (I know? Imagine that!! So old fashioned…!) and handing it to the bar staff to play; Matt, who is much cooler than I am (I’m sure you’ll find that hard to believe) simply paired his phone to the speakers and DJ’d as he chatted, ate, drank and danced. He dropped this one, and the dancefloor emptied, leaving just me and him looking quizzically at each other as we continued to cut a mean rug between us. Where had everyone gone? Why weren’t they dancing?
Then someone approached Matt and, pointing upwards as if the speakers were in the sky, asked “What’s this? It’s ace!” (or words to that effect). And so, whilst we were baffled as to how nobody knew this absolute banger, we came to the conclusion: people around the 40 mark don’t like to dance in public to things they don’t know.
It is ace, mind.
12. Dizzee Rascal & Calvin Harris – Dance Wiv Me
I wish I could recall what Matt played next, but whatever it was it got everybody back on the dancefloor. I’ll say it was this. If not, Deee-Lite’s Groove is in the Heart (not featured here) is my go-to floorfiller.
13. Double Trouble & Rebel MC – Street Tuff (Scar Mix)
I’ve dropped this bon mot before I think, but many years ago I attended a house party in North London. Music was supposed to be provided by some DJ friends, but they had to drop out when they got an actual paid gig on the same night, the selfish sods. I was asked to help out and so I prepared 13 CDs, each an hour-or-so-long, numbered and to be played in numerical order, left them in a stack next to the CD player, so that if you were closest to the music box when one ended, you could just pop the next in the sequence in. They went from intro/welcome tunes to indie bangers to the-pills-should-be-kicking-in-by-now to comedown chillout tunes. This one featured somewhere in the middle, and a bloke I’d never met before or since approached me, hugged me, and thanked me for including it in my musical selection, before treating me to his break-dancing efforts, Which I really appreciated, obviously.
14. Lizzo – Juice
Shush! A rarity: something released in the last 10 years!
15. Girls Aloud – Love Machine
You didn’t really think I’d get through this without Sarah (RIP) and the girls making an appearance, did you? A song which will forever remind me of LlÅˇr, from when we played it in our guest DJ spot at a friend’s wedding, those attending went wild. Miss you bro, always.
16. Le Tigre – Hot Topic
At work team meetings, we now have a Hot Topic to discuss each month. I’ve suggested this as the theme tune to announce the start of the discussion. My suggestion has not yet been agreed.
17. Los Campesinos! – You! Me! Dancing!
Had any of them actually been Welsh, as opposed to having merely met and formed in Cardiff, then this would’ve featured in last week’s St David’s Day mix. But they aren’t, so it didn’t.
One of the many things I love about this record, is that bit towards the end, about it being a good idea to go paddling in a fountain on the way home from a night out. I know exactly which fountain they mean, and, as it was on my way home, the thought crossed my mind many times as I wobbled my way back home at 3am. And that’s because it really is a good idea. I was never brave/drunk/off my tits enough though. I feel like I’ve missed out, somehow.
18. Arctic Monkeys – I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor
Just wonderful. A piece to accompany the Dizzie Rascal tune which featured earlier, only with more Shakespeare references and much more sardonic intent.
19. Status Quo – Mystery Song
You didn’t really think I’d get through this without Francis and the boys making an appearance, did you?
This, from way back in 1976, just before they tipped over into cliche and parody of themselves, is unquestionably my favourite Quo song. It’s (RIP) Parfitt’s ode to a sex worker, set to a literally amphetimine-fuelled background. There’s a notorious story about how, one day in the studio, Rossi put a spoonful of speed into Parfitt’s tea, not expecting (he now says) him to drink it. But he did, and they left him in the studio, messing around with a riff – dink-dink-dink, dink-dink-de-dur-de-dink – and returned the next day to find Parfitt sitting exactly where they left him, playing the same riff – dink-dink-dink, dink-dink-de-dur-de-dink. Phew, rock’n’roll, eh?
20. Milltown Brothers – Janice Is Gone
An under-rated and generally unknown classic. The Janice in question is the much-missed DJ Janice Long, and you can read what I wrote when she passed away here, and here’s a post about an adventure I had with the band themselves, way back when (the download links are all dead on that one, let me know via the Comments if you want anything uploading again).
The only thing to add to that is a year or so later, the Milltown Brothers came round on the college circuit again. I said hello to them all post-gig, and one of them asked if we’d met before. I recounted the story about our last meeting, and, memories jogged, they plied me with booze and suspiciously constructed rollies. I passed out in the toilets, waking up after everyone had left the building, staggered home through the Welsh snow. I think I missed my train back home as a result; lawd knows what excuse I gave my parents (doubtless they will remind me if they’ve read this far).
21. Linda Rondstadt/The Stone Poneys – Different Drum
There are so many versions of this classic written by former Monkee Mike Nesmith out there – many of which have featured on these pages – but for my money this is the best, the absolute beauty, peerless.
22. Clout – Substitute
If ever there was one record that explained the “No Such Thing as a Guilty Pleasure” moniker under which this blog sits, it’s this one. I bought a compilation album called Guilty Pleasures Rides Again; this was on it and I couldn’t understand why anyone would feel guilty about liking it. I mean, it’s a stone cold banger, right? (Right!)
23. Billy Bragg – The Saturday Boy
In one of the first goes I had at doing this mix, Billy featured, but it wasn’t this tune, it was Sexuality, because it was much poppier than this. But that didn’t feel right, so I swapped it for this, Billy’s finest moment in my book. I’ve often said that, whilst his politics broadly chime with mine, it’s his love songs – or in this case, his unrequited love songs – which mostly hit the mark with me. I can never thank my old buddy Richie enough for pointing me in the direction of these songs from Billy’s back catalogue – albeit he played me The Man in the Iron Mask, and I was smitten – and since then, when I’ve wanted to persuade a mate of Billy’s relevance, this is my go-to song, because everyone has experienced the adolescent amourous rejection this song highlights.
24. The Go-Go’s – Our Lips Are Sealed
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: quite possibly the greatest pop song ever written…
25. The Waltones – She Looks Right Through Me
…although this pushes it pretty close. Pretty much the happiest night of my life was when, a few years ago, Richie and I saw The Waltones support The Chesterfields at the 100 Club in That London. After they’d played, I found myself standing next to lead singer James Knox; we discussed our ever burgeoning waistlines and our choice of t-shirt to either disguise or embrace it. He was wearing a shape-concealing black tee, I was wearing this:
…which, for the uninitiated is a reference to one of these bad boys:
26. The Chesterfields – Kiss Me Stupid
Since I’ve mentioned them, it seems somewhat churlish of me to not include something by them.
27. The Soup Dragons – Hang Ten!
Indie Banger. That is all.
28. The Smiths – William, It Was Really Nothing
Remember way back when we didn’t know Morrissey was a racist twat and could just enjoy the beauty of The Smiths’ records without feeling any guilt? Forget the current, live in the past for a few moments.
29. Kirsty MacColl – Free World
This is from 1989. You’d think things might have improved since then, wouldn’t you? But, nope: just as relevant now as it was 35 (yikes) years ago.
30. Johnny Boy – You Are The Generation That Bought More Shoes And You Get What You Deserve
Possibly the greatest song title ever. And the song’s not far off being one of the greatest anti-capitalist records ever.
31. Denim – Middle Of The Road
For my money, the song that properly kick-started the Britpop scene, and probably never bettered by any Union Jack wafting indie-kid underling. Surely, when it comes to unrecognised musical geniuses, Lawrence has to be at the front of the queue, right…?
32. Belinda Carlisle – Leave A Light On
Turns out the title of that Denim tune was an indicator to how we wrap things up here.
Apart from Johnny Marr (who I think appears on the Kirsty tune), Belinda is the only one to feature twice on this one. She was, of course, lead singer of The Go-Go’s, but it wasn’t until the band split and she went solo that Belinda became succesful on this side of the pond. I bloody love this song.
33. Dionne Warwick – Heartbreaker
Written by the Bee Gee boys, this seemingly effortless beauty is just one of the finest records ever.
34. Chas’n’Dave – Ain’t No Pleasing You
And to bring things to a close, this beauty.
Given their close association with Tottenham, I feel sorry for Arsenal fans, joyless vagrants that they are, for they can never admit to liking this.
And that’s your lot.
More soon.
A History of Dubious Taste