Category Archives: Songs from 2009

Album: I Told You I Was Freaky, 2009

Justification: I wasn’t sold on the second series of Flight of the Conchords at first. All my favourite songs were in series one, I fel like they were reaching in a few episodes, I’d already experienced the giddy thrill of discovering them for the first time and one can’t fall in love twice, etcetera. And this seemed cutesy but slight, little more than a wry retelling of Paul Simon’s ‘Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover’ (which it references in the lyrics).

Yes,apparently the cover was deliberately meant to look like a 70s soft rock LP.

However: my beloved pal Sarah loved this song. LOVED. IT. And so every time I heard it, it made me think of her and I’d grin from ear to ear. And then when I saw the Conchords live (with Sarah and her equally-awesome chap Tristan) and they started playing this, I knew Sarah would be getting her mad boogie on. And then it dawned on me just how clever – not to mention catchy – this song actually is.

Lyrically it has rhymes worthy of Carter USM (I think my favourite is “Felicity said there was no electricity / Emily, no chemistry”) while getting all meta and self-referential in the chorus – and I defy anyone not to laugh out loud at Jermaine’s soulful “mmmmm, shut up.” Also, as someone with more than a few exes, the nightmare scenario of them forming a choir does instill a certain degree of existential terror. Although to be fair, a couple of them do have excellent singing voices.

This entire episode was directed by Michel Gondry, so it’s no surprise the clip’s so damn good.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2011: Big Audio Dynamite attempt to escape the shadow of the Clash with ‘The Bottom Line’.

AND HERE’S THE LAST FIVE…

519. Elliot Smith: Son of Sam (8 Nov)

520. The Birthday Party: Nick the Stripper (22 Nov)

521. The Stone Roses: Elephant Stone (7 Dec)

522. Gene: Be My Light, Be My Guide (25 Jan)

523. Space and Cerys Matthews: The Ballad of Tom Jones (30 Jan)

Album: Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, 2009

Justification: As with most Franz Ferdinand singles, to my enduring shame, I didn’t love this on first listen. Or second. Or fifth. But then about the tenth time I heard it, it was suddenly the greatest song I’d ever heard in my life and what the hell was wrong with me?

Seriously, look at him. JUST LOOK AT HIM.

Incidentally, it was when the band were (pre-)touring this album that I met Alex Kapranos. He was standing in line behind me for Pavement‘s reunion gig at the Enmore Theatre. As we waited for the guestlist he asked his friend who the promoter was because he couldn’t remember what name he was down under. I told him, we chatted briefly, and he enthused greatly about Time Out (which is, in case you are unaware, the magazine for which I work). True story.

Also, he was the most breathtakingly beautiful man I have ever spoken to. Honestly, if he’d kissed me right then and there I’d have melted into a puddle. Alex, if you’re reading this, please know that this whole “heterosexuality” thing of mine is clearly nothing but a multi-decade phase I’ve been in while waiting for the right guy to come along. I think we’d have a beautiful future together.

Also, that leather jacket you were wearing? You look stunning in it.

Seriously. Call me.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2010: Roxy Music were right at the sweet spot with ‘Love Is The Drug’.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2011: Paul McCartney, you can surprise us: how awesome is ‘Coming Up’? Fucking, is how.

AND HERE’S THE LAST FIVE…

497. The Bamboos feat. Megan Washington: King of the Rodeo (16 July)

498. The Charlatans: I Never Want An Easy Life… (17 July)

 499. The Hollies: Carrie Anne (18 July)

500. The Smiths: This Charming Man (19 July)

501. The New Pornographers: Sing Me Spanish Techno (26 July)

Album: Get Color, 2009

Justification: I’ve spoken of bands that I fell deeper in love with after seeing them live, and band whose hold over me diminished when I discovered they do kinda shit gigs. Health are a band who I fell out of love with basically because of a mix.

“Hello, is this Health? It’s Dr Peterson from the oncology department: we’ve just seen your cover and, well, can you come in right away?”

See, when I was a kid I heard about “industrial” music and had a very clear idea in my head of what it meant, although when I actually heard industrial music it sounded nothing like what I imagined. Sometimes that was a good thing and the music was fascinating (Throbbing Gristle, Einstürzende Neubauten), other times it was bad metal played on keyboards (Nine Inch Nails, every band that formed in the wake of Nine Inch Nails), so I was entranced when Health turned up with ‘Die Slow’, the exact sound I had in my head. Mechanical beats, hissing guitars, weird discordant overtones – this was what I’d been waiting for, and I fell hard and fast for them.

And then I saw them at the Oxford Art Factory, and they were awful.

Actually, they were fine (although they played for what seemed about half an hour): the problem was the room and the PA. OAF never sounds great unless it’s packed out, and this show was definitely not. And the mix was entirely bass-free, meaning that what sounded searing and brash on recorded was keening and shrill in the room. I left with a splitting headache and a strongly diminished love for the band.

Still, this is a hell of a song.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2010: How apt! I’m interviewing Peter Holmstrom this very morning, guitarist with the Dandy Warhols, who were this day two years ago with ‘Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth’.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2011: Number 300, and it was Jimi Hendrix’s mighty take on ‘Hey Joe’.

AND HERE’S THE LAST FIVE…

490. Headless Chickens: Donde Esta la Pollo (5 July)

491. Visage: Fade to Grey (6 July)

492. Modest Mouse: Satellite Skin (9 July)

493. The Trammps: Disco Inferno (10 July)

494. The Waitresses: I Know What Boys Like (11 July)

Album: No-one’s First and You’re Next EP, 2009

Justification: This is going to be short, because I’m still recovering from the wonderful celebration that was my 40th over the weekend – I know, don’t look a day over 25, my youthful exuberance would put a teenager to shame etc etc – which has involved most of my body going “OK, we made it to the party, right? Obviously this means that we’re good to get seriously ill now”. So this is a song I adore but don’t have a whole lot to say regarding, beyond that this was a song that wasn’t completed for Modest Mouse’s 2007 album We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank because Isaac Brock has that many great songs in him.

FLIDERS!

This mini-album was made up of cast-offs and left overs and is as strong as anything the band ever did, which leads me to ask the question: if this is the rubble that’s just lying around and needs carting to the metaphorical tip once the album’s done, why the hell is it five years since the last proper MM record? Come on man: as this weekend has demonstrated, I’m quite literally not getting any younger.

Oh, and that moment when Brock spits “Well, happy fuckin’ congratulations”? Perfect.

Creepy damn video too.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2010: It was the perfect ‘Berlin Chair’ by You Am I, which I haven’t written up and, for a few reasons, probably is a mite raw to do for a bit. So let’s go with the 8th, which was Eels and ‘Novacaine for the Soul’.

AND HERE’S THE LAST FIVE…

487. Sly Fox: Let’s Go All The Way (28 June)

488. Ween: Push th’ Little Dasies (29 June)

489. Lloyd Cole & the Commotions: Jennifer She Said (4 July)

490. Headless Chickens: Donde Esta la Pollo (5 July)

491. Visage: Fade to Grey (6 July)

Album: Sounds of the Universe, 2009

Look, sometimes it's just hard to draw an upper-case Q

Justification: This amazed me when it came out, simply because I’d more or less forgotten Depeche Mode existed. Well, I knew they existed – I still adore their music, especially the Music for the Masses/Violator one-two punch, but once they’d finally descended into internal fisticuffs and Dave Gahan’s smack addiction/redemption it all got a bit dull. Also, at first glance the album cover for Sounds of the Universe looked less bold-and-elegant than inept-and-hasty – but then I put it on and my whole opinion about late-period-career-slumps changed dramatically: the album – and especially this song – are as good a thing as they ever did. And that’s reassuring because there are precious few bands I can think of that are still hitting anything approaching creative highs three decades down the track.

Gahan looks well too, in the very brief shot he’s in. He’s finally grown into his face.

The video is by Patrick Daughters who, as it turns out, has a couple of previous SYSRTBIIA credits: he did ‘Maps’ by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Feist’s ’1234′.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2011: The late, great Mark Linkous and one of Sparklehorse’s finest moments: ‘Piano Fire’.

AND HERE’S THE LAST FIVE…

424. The Mavis’s: Cry (7 Feb)

425. Cheap Trick: Surrender (9 Feb)

426. Bluejuice: The Reductionist (13 Feb)

427. Absentee: We Should Never Have Children (14 Feb)

428. The Johnnys: Injun Joe (15 Feb)

Album: Zounds, 2009

Justification: This didn’t grab me when I first heard Zounds beyond a vague “hmm, yes, nice song” but at some point thereafter it came up on shuffle on my iTunes at work – as so often happens, for I am cavalier with playlists – and suddenly hearing it out of context really hit me in the guts. That moment leading into the chorus where an incredulous Tim Derricourt bellows “And something should be holding us BACK!” never fails to send a shiver down my spine.

They’ve got a new album coming shortly, which I’m absolutely expecting I will listen to upon release, go “yeah, that’s a good album,” then go back to six months later and go “how the hell did I not notice this was the best Australian album of last year?” So apologies in advance, Dappled Cities. I do get there eventually, for what little its worth.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2010: The Breeders made their indelible mark on the popular culture with ‘Cannonball’.

Album: Ladyhawke, 2009

Justification: Most pop hits outlive their welcome after a few weeks. Take ‘Kids’ by MGMT, for example: first few times I heard it, I thought it was excellent. Then, for the subsequent nine months, I wanted to kill everyone involved with it – and going by reports of the band’s gigs it appears that they feel the same way. ‘My Delirium’, on the other hand, had an initial honeymoon period, then became ubiquitous and irksome, and then in the last couple of months has roared back into my personal jukebox in ways that other songs by Ms Pip Brown have not (I’d happily toddle through life without hearing ‘Paris is Burning again, unless anyone has that amazing Dimitri from Paris mix floating around).

Is it about her suffering from Asperger’s Syndrome? Is it about being romantically toyed with by a thoughtless lover? Is it, as she has claimed, about feeling jetlagged and homesick? Who cares? That insistent two note guitar riff and late-night-driving-pop-song-vibe shakes me up in a wonderful way.

It’s also her biggest hit, going #8 in Australia – one higher than in her native New Zealand. Maybe Australia just loves rotoscoping that little bit more.

Also, this album was the soundtrack of Time Out Sydney for a good six months after its release. Former Editor Dan Rookwood, this one’s for you.

THIS TIME IN 2010: Nothing. Probably a weekend.