Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Top 100 Songs - 51 - 70

51) Greenday - Boulevard of Broken Dreams

From the most excellent album American Idiot. Absolutely love this track and it has an excellent video too.

52) David Gray - Babylon

From the album White Ladder. David has such an excellent voice and I really admire his lyric writing as well. Amazing to think that this album was recorded in his living room.

53) Tears for Fears - Head Over Heels

From the album Songs From The Big Chair. Songs is a fantastic album and is one of the few albums from the 1980s that still sounds modern today.

54) Gary Jules - Mad World

From the album Trading Snakeoil for Wolf Tickets. Another Tears for Fears track, but this version sung by the oh so soulful gary Jules. This is a haunting version of the song and it featured on the soundtrack for the awesome film Donnie Darko.

55) Faithless - Not Enuff Love

From Outrospective. D introduced me to this album when I was first seeing him so for me it has nostalgic connotations now as well as being a must-own album. This track is best listened to in a dark room with a sexy member of the opposite sex.

56) Deep Purple - Black Night

Wasn't sure whether to have this track, Smoke on the Water or something from the album Come Taste the Band. This is a true Purple landmark featuring Ian Gillan on Vocals. I was a huge fan of Come Taste the Band as a teenager but somehow it's just not so ROCK with David Coverdale on vocals.

57) David Byrne and Brian Eno

From My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Bush of Ghosts is an album that EVERYONE should own - whaddya mean you haven't heard it? It is awesome and this is just one excellent track of many...America is waiting for a message of some sort or another...

58) Iggy Pop - The Passenger

Bless his cotton socks. Iggy does some great tracks when he is concentrating on music rather than flaaping his privates around. A classic.

59) Lou Reed - Charleys Girl

From Coney Island Baby. Everyone needs some Lou Reed in their top tracks. I found it a hard task to narrow it down, but love the whole of Coney Island Baby.

60) Blur - The Universal

Was hard to pick one Blur track too - Coffee and TV was a close second and may appear yet!

61) New Model Army - Family

This is a track that holds great resonance with me - I was that lonely teenager who left home at 16 looking for a place to fit in, and a replacement family. Still chokes me up now.

62) D'angelo - Aint no Sunshine

I love this song and D'Angelo does a great version of it. I downloaded lots of versions by different artists last year as I was looking for a version that I heard in a bar in Lesvos. Never did find out who sang it (it was a woman). Other great versions are by Jars of Clay and Eva Cassidy.

63) Chemical Brothers - Setting Sun

From Dig Your Own Hole. This is my favourite Chemical album, makes me want to dance!

64) The Ruts - Something that I Said

The Ruts might have really been something if Malcom Owen hadn't died so tragically. They had already made some brilliant tracks.

65) The Boomtown Rats - Rat Trap

Was amazed when I saw The Rats on the Brit awards last year (or was it the year before). I had forgotten how full and rich their sound was. It's hard to appreciate that when the track that is always played is I don't like Mondays. Don't get me wrong that was good but there was so much more to them than that.

66) Cat Stevens - Hard Headed Woman

From the superb album Tea for the Tillerman. Love every track on this one!

67) Lightning Seeds - Love Explosion

i smile at all the moments that make me hold my breath make me tell myself
the hours were never lost on you a mystery is what you are to me
hold me tight for a million years your love in mine it's like holy wine
lost inside those big brown eyes your lips touch mine and my eyes go blind
reaching out skin touch skin reaching out my lips come down to the love explosion
mission of sin reaching out my lips come down to the love explo-osion

68) Pink Floyd - See Emily Play

From Relics. wanted to buy this on CD but was appallled to find that they have changed the cover. I was so incensed that I didn't buy it. A true work of genius none the less and early Floyd at it's weird best.

69) Hawkwind - Lighthouse/ Quark strangeness and Charm

I'm afraid that I just couldn't choose between these two tracks, so number 69 is an unprecedented joint affair. The live version of Lighthouse (from Live 79) and Quark Strangeness and Charm from the album of the same name. I had to include Hawkwind as they were such a big part of my life when I was younger. They were the first proper concert I went to at the Rainbow theatre in London, and they were supported by an awful band called Miles over Matter who I felt sorry for as they got such a bad reception. I remember that there were weird cartoon films. I later read that backstage at that gig Dave Brock and Bob Calvert had been trying to kill each other backstage while Michael Moorcock was on stage reading poetry.

ALways worry when you see men in white coats at a concert.

70) Jethro Tull - Aqualung

from the album of the same name, it was either this one or something off Heavy Horses.

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