It's The New Thing - 10 songs about newness for the New Year

So 2014. A brand spanking new year. And yet here's me sticking to a tried and trusted old theme, a music chart. But in with the new, the theme of this one is all things new. There are lots of bands with 'new' in their name, New Order, Brand New Heavies, New Puritans, New York Dolls, New Kids On The Block (um).

So here's to the optimism a new year and fresh start brings. Or sumpting...


1) U2 - New Year's Day
Ha ha ha, Bono's hair and dancing. never really liked U2 but I'm feeling charitable and all celebratory for the turn of the year.



2) Joy Division - New Dawn Fades
Didn't last all that long to be honest. "A loaded gun won't set you free". This song represents their musical epicness as it builds, an epicness built on a very stripped down, clean mix of just the 3 basic instruments of guitar, bass & drums.



3) James Brown - Papa's Got A Brand New Bag
Let's get the mood back up and who better to do that than the Godfather of Soul himself? The song that launched a thousand hip-hop samples. BTW there ought to be a show called "Shindig" on TV these days too.



4) Queen Latifah - New Jack City
I went to see this film in the cinema when it came out. It was my introduction to hip-hop. Taught me everything I know today. Okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration. The film was considerably better than this theme tune



5) Clipse - Chinese New Year
Actually, if you want an introduction to hip=hop, you could do a lot worse than Clipse's debut album Lord Willin'. Unfortunately this isn't a track from that album.



6) The Fall - New Face In Hell
Probably wouldn't be one of my music charts without a track from the Fall. But then with about a hundred albums to their name, they have song titles to cover every single theme eventuality I could come up with. They had another song called "New Puritans" just to make my point and yes, that band took their name from the Fall song.



7) 23 Skidoo - The Gospel Comes To New Guinea
Great title, great song. They seem to be back around playing live after 25 years away. Think I may just try and come out of my own gig retirement and catch them if I can.



8) Tricky - Brand New You're Retro
Must be cold up on stage under all those lights, but Tricky has come prepared with a nice big coat. But he won't feel the benefit once he steps outdoors...



9) The Stylistics - You Make Me Feel Brand New
It is an abomination when you type the song title into YouTube, you are first offered Simply red's version. I had the same thing on the radio last night when "swing Low Sweet Chariot" was a version from UB40. Gaaaa! When you listen to some of the early reggae collections from Trojan & Studio One, you realise how UB40 built a career on the backs of other, better artists. "Red, red wine" anybody? Or "red, red whine" as UB40 made it. Rant over.




10) Dizzee Rascal - Brand New Day
Ah, Dizzee counsels da yout to do their homework. A case of 'don't do as I do, do as I say'.

Music For the Sinful

The seven deadly sins. How many have been enshrined in song? Surely there's never been a song penned to sloth?

Here's my best stab at them for your delectation and indulgence!

NB There will be no U2 in this chart, as I don't think Bono was being ironic when he sung of pride and glory...

1) The Undertones - "The Sin Of Pride"
Good Catholic boys from Derry warble on about pride



2) Earth Wind & Fire - "Pride"
Pride in the costumes of soul funk yeah that sounds about right!




3) The Bug featuring Tipper Irie - "Angry"
Yep, they sound impressively angry, but not as much in The Bug track "Politician's and Paedophiles"



4) Public Enemy - "Prophets of Rage"
Actually I always thought with so much righteous anger behind them, Chuck D kept it respectful, while co-vocalist Flavor Flav was the clown in his delivery.



5) The Fall - "Eat Yourself Fitter"
I used to own this very video on Sony Betamax format. Yes The Fall have been making great music for THAT long!



6) Buckcherry - "Gluttony"
I didn't know about this band, but since they don't have Marianne Faithfull's "Gluttony" on YouTube I had to resort to this. Poor show. And do stop swearing, it's not big or clever or RRRRRRock




7)  Dizzee Rascal - "Money Money"
"Money money girls girls cash cash..." The history of rap is littered with male rap singers complaining about female gold diggers



8) Mos Def - "Sex, Love, Money"
More of the same



9) Rainbow - "Jealous Lover"
Sensitive heavy rock, whatever next?



10) Bill Withers - "Who Is He And What Is He To You?"
Good question, great song



11) Buzzcocks - "Just Lust"
Punk-pop at its finest



12) The The - "The Dogs Of Lust"
Funny, I remembered them as a synth band



13) Small Faces - "Lazy Sunday Afternoon"
Has there ever been a more English voice in rock & pop? It was this or The Kinks "Sunday Afternoon" - there really wasn't much to do in Britain in the 60s when the pubs were clsed for the Sabbath was there?

14) Charlatans - "Can't Get Out Of Bed"
It wasn't called the 'Shoegazing' movement in music for nothing you know. Shoegazing was what William Burroughs remembered from his heroin addiction, for hours on end apparently. He described it as boring...

My Top 25 Albums - Part 1, 25-13

Who has the patience to listen all the way through an album these days? Hell, most bands failed to sustain the standard across a whole album anyway, beyond a couple of stand out tracks, which were probably released as singles anyway.

But I have to admit, I'm still a sucker for an album. Following its flow all the way through, between great, good and filler tracks. I don't buy that many albums now, but my I-Tunes tells me I have 10.4 days worth of tracks, of which only the 0.4 are individual tracks flying free of albums.

Here is a chart in two parts of my 25 all-time top albums, with a representative track from each. I hope some of them you share a liking for and maybe others you've never heard of you may come to try out.

25) Husker Du - "Zen Arcade" 1984

All 3 band members were really accomplished musicians, all three contributed songwriting and despite the internal pressures that ultimately ripped the band apart, they came together seamlessly to produce this double album of power guitar pop with a despairing edge.

24) Dizzee Rascal - "Maths And English" 2007

What I like about this album is that it's a quintissentially English retort to US Hip-Hop. Sure Dizzee presents a similar tale of gangs, violence and laddish lairiness, but it's done in London argot, with British rhythms and lashings of cheek. Check out his duet with Lily Allen if you don't believe me.

23) South Central - "The Owl Of Minerva" 2008

I was never a raver. Never into summers of love and being spaced out dancing in a field. And yet I do really like this Nu-Rave album, and yes it does make me want to get up and dance. But not in a field, holding a glo-stick.

22) Funkadelic - "America Eats Its Young" 1972

Beam me up to the Mothership and take me to your leader George Clinton. This a music that puts you in a mood like no other style. Fabulously mad, but oh how funky! With tracks on the album like "Loose Booty" and "I Call My Baby Pussycat" rubbing up against the more politically astute "If You Don't Like The Effect, Don't Produce The Cause" this double album is just a joy to sail along to (I'd say 'drive' but I don't have a car. Nor an 8-Track to play it on).

21) Clipse - "Lord Willin" 2002

This was Clipse's debut album and though I had other of their LPs, I only came by this recently and it just blew me away. I think what I really like about it is the tight musical theme, a recurring set of beats and distorted electronic squalls. Yes the lyrical content is the usual hip hop fare of street dealing, girls and male prowess, but there is just something here musically that carries it to a higher level.

20) Gun Club - "Miami" 1982

If their debut album was a wonderful mess of swamp blues, this follow up was a lot tighter and polished. Confusingly stand out track "Fire Of Love" was actually the name of their debut album, although it's actually a cover version of a Jody Reynolds song, but the Club's version is just about the most primal rock and roll you could ever wish to hear.

19) Gang Of Four - "Entertainment" 1979

A few years ago and this would have been in my top 10. I do still love it, but years of playing it endlessly have slightly jaded my palate for it. I still think the track "Anthrax" is one of the most radical (anti-?) rock and roll songs musically and lyrically as it deconstructs the pop love song.

Andy Gill's choppy guitar style is still jaw droppingly amazing to listen to.

18) The Specials - "The Specials" 1979

Like I suggested above, every new musical movement produces one great album that knocks all the others into a cocked hat. You can keep your Madness and The Beat, for me Ska was The Specials and this wonderful debut. The range of world wearyness to pleading in a band so young was like a punch to the solar plexus. A wake-up call to us all back in the dark days of the early 1980s. But then there were also the really cheery, dancey upbeat numbers too, just so we didn't get too downhearted.

17) Spacemen 3 - "The Perfect Prescription" 1987

It was really hard to decide which of the first 2 Spacemen 3 albums I prefer, so almost perfect are they. Consummate stoner rock, paeans to other worldly states of mind and the gentle (sometimes distorted in feedback) ambient guitar rock to soundtrack such journeys. Blissful is the only word and I've never even smoked weed in my life. Listen to this record and it's succumb to the effects of secondary inhalation!

16) The Fall - "Grotesque After The Gramme" 1980

And by way of complete contrast, the snarling, state of the nation address by one Mark E Smith. In truth there are many fine Fall albums, but for me this one marks them for greatness, not least for the two singles that preceded it (both of which made John Peel's all time favourite songs) but never made it on to the original album in that perverse way of Smith's. Fear not pop pickers, I'm pretty sure both tracks are included on any current version of the album.

15) The Bug - "Pressure" 2003

Dub-Step. Atmospheric, minimalist slices of the urban cityscape rendered in sound. What I really like about The Bug, is that he fills in some of those tripped out spaces with some really heavy sounds and some of the vocals doff their backwards baseball caps in the direction of Rastafarianism's relationship to the Old Testament. The visions on this album are truly more apocalyptic than the usual dub step incoherent vocal fare.

14) Big Black - "Atomizer" 1986

Intense, relentless, blue collar post-punk Mid-West of America. Live they played their strings so hard, their fingers bled. Lyrically they only dealt with taboos. I love it.

13) Mos Def - "The Ecstatic" 2009

Don't let the heavily lisping delivery mislead you, this is rap of the highest intelligence. There isn't a duff track on this album, it's that good.