I know it's Tuesday and that friday & the weekend looks a long way off, but here's something to look forward to: 10 songs around the themes of partying.
1) Beastie Boys - "Fight For Your Right To Party"
The granddaddy of all party songs, or perhaps the snotty grandson might be more appropriate. Crass, crude and a killer guitar riff sample, this one should get them flocking on to the dancefloor, fists pumping the air. The video even has custard pies to underline its schoolboy level. There's a wonderfully fey version of this by Scottish indie band BMX Bandits and a typically mournful & lugubrious version by Coldplay on the occasion of Beastie Boy MCA's death from cancer last year.
2) Velvet Underground - "All Tomorrow's Parties"
From the ridiculous to the sublime... Art noise Velvets with the uninflected emotionless vocal of Nico, is anything but inviting. I used to get stuck in a corner at parties with dead-eyed men or women like Nico trying to extol the virtues of whichever god they followed. I don't go to parties anymore...
3) Bob Marley And The Wailers - "Punky Reggae Party"
Bob Marley recognises the kinship between the 1977 punks and reggae, as punks like Johnny Rotten and Joe Strummer acknowledged their love of reggae and DJ Donovan Letts spun reggae tunes before the bands at London punk venue The Vortex Club. He was a bit late on the bandwagon, as reggae band Culture had already released "When Two Sevens Clash" (two sevens as in 1977), which is a far better song that this pretty lame effort. Can't see the punks pronouncing it as 'par-tay'
4) Minutemen - "Maybe Partying Will Help"
Punk-funksters Minutemen slice up another slice of jerky rhythms to set the hips in motion. God I loved this band and was one of my regrets that I never got to see them play live before lead singer/guitarist D.Boon died in a road accident.
5) Black Flag - "TV Party"
Black Flag with Henry Rollins at the helm were always regarded as this intense hardcore punk band, but they had a sense of humour too, as this witty ditty suggests. Sort of Frat Boy level like the Beasties, but done with a little less leaden satire I feel. When I was growing up, America seemed to have a slightly different take on partying to us in the UK. There it was sex, cocaine and weak beer. In the UK it was sexual repression, heaps of booze and maybe a spliff or two. Times have changed and we've caught up.
6) Nelly - "Party People"
I don't have this song in my collection, but YouTube didn't have the Parliament song of the same name so you're stuck with this piece of audio and visual dreck. How hard can he be, he's got a girl's name for flipssakes! Parliament's song is much better believe me...
7) Beat Happening - "Pyjama Party In a Haunted Hive"
I'm really surprised this is on YouTube so low-fi underground were this band, but delighted all the same. Very off the wall and with those deep, deep vocals, bliss!
8) Lesley Gore - "It's My Party (And I'll Cry If I want To)"
You just knew this was going to appear right? Well it was either this or that godawful Whigfield song. Pop music just wasn't made to party... You need something a tad stronger with all those emotions flashing around!
9) Cool Kids - "Basement Party"
Restoring the cool quotient a tad, Cool Kids are a contemporary hip hop that only do old school stuff. And more power to their oscillating elbows I say
10) Happy Mondays ' "24 Hour Party People"
For the ultimate hedonistic dance band, this sentiment summing up everything about them is actually pretty terrible. But what's interesting to me about it is how trained and all played out Sean Ryder's singing is on this track. Like it's all caught up with him and left him on the precipice. We all have to come down eventually.
Bonus Track
Tupac Shakur - "California Love"
Doesn't have 'party' in the title, but the lyric says it all, "California knows how to party"
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