LIST 83 - 23/12/11 (Christmas special)

Hello there,

Time, alas, for the final That Music List of 2011, and as in the previous two years we finish off with an assortment of lesser-known and unheralded (or even unharktheheralded) festive songs.

Actually, I should qualify these as being for the greater part lesser-known, as the Frank Kelly track was actually a top 30 hit upon original release. This comedy track pre-dates his metamorphosing into Father Jack Hackett by all of 11 years - which reminds me, I hope they're going to show the priests-trapped-in-the-lingerie-department episode of Father Ted again this Yuletide. Quality.

All that remains for me to do, then, is to thank you all again for your continued interest in That Music List, and to assure you that it will return in the new year after its usual winter hiatus - I've still a backlog of so much stuff to play through during that time, never mind start to compile it into lists! Very best wishes of the season to you all, and let's make a date sometime in 2012.

Cheers,

J x



MJ HIBBETT & THE VALIDATORS – I Got You What You Want For Christmas (macho megamix) (2009)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjRzIFtjC78

JESSY & THE JINGLE BELLES – Dear Santa (live in Boston) (2008)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbfQKX5-zcQ

SCREAMING MALDINI – Restless Hearts and Silent Pioneers (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z04FSeP27oY

SONIC YOUTH – Santa Doesn’t Cop Out on Dope (1996)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7sa1eFGUuI

THE PIPETTES – Santa’s On His Way (2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5fxdcKu_8k

FRANK KELLY – Christmas Countdown (1983)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJoXCwkPVi8

MOMUS – Little Lord Obedience (1999)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iej3qBEKILE

GRUFF RHYS – Slashed Wrists This Christmas (2011)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPlZ0d-huTc

HENRY ROLLINS – ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas (1991)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFUgRRYmLvk

YO LA TENGO – It’s Christmas Time (2002)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9b8dT_OpHuQ

ELASTICA – Father Christmas (1994)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbLQYXkOfjI

SPEARMINT – Oklahoma (2001)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPLx5bokNb8

THE VANDALS – Oi! To the World (1996)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKk-2Pu2N8g

FANTASTIC EVERLASTING GOBSTOPPER – Schoolgirl Psychedelia (1999)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah9U5BHoiF4

DANIEL JOHNSTON – Rock Around The Christmas Tree (1988)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xntRjBdwYAg

BERT JANSCH – In The Bleak Midwinter (1974)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8ZYxTPhXA8

ATOM & HIS PACKAGE – What WE Do on Christmas (1998)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGC0ga4ifUE

QUASI – Merry X-Mass (2006)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SnOwOMKzf0

WILD BILLY CHILDISH & THE MUSICIANS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE - Poundland Christmas (2007)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVvVzmyDFfA

EMMY THE GREAT & TIM WHEELER – Home for the Holidays (2011)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URCNMEbgd_w

LIST 82 - 16/12/11 (a second Then And Now special)

Hello again,

Just this and the festive special to go in terms of Lists this year - hasn't it flown by again.

As the title indicates, this is the second ever List (after #66 back in September) given over exclusively to Then And Now, i.e. one song by the featured artist from the present, followed by one from as far back into their history as it amuses me to delve. Where at all possible, I'm still trying to avoid including artists (both in this special and in That Music List in general) whose recording history only dates back as far as this century, though in the fulness of time that's going to be harder to maintain. There's only so many old gimmers with mikes and gee-tars still out there creating stuff, when all is said and done...

The Sigur Ros track is purported to be new - it's certainly previously unreleased, at least, and features now on a new best-of. Equally the Stephin Merritt track is appearing at last on a compilation of rarities, out-takes and unreleased works, so may be a bit older than the 2011 date I'm compelled to give it as a previously unavailable entity.

A quick word about the new Fall album - it's patchy as anything, and the diversion into metal for one track is particularly catastrophic. Conversely "Mask Search", included here, is one of the best things they've done for ages, as well as at long last perfectly encapsulating the moment at which Mark E Smith finally turns into Captain Beefheart doing an impression of Eight Ace from Viz comic.

See if I'm wrong about that. And see also if you can't help crack a smile at the year's best non-seqitur committed to plastic ANYWHERE this year!

J x



SIGUR ROS – Lúppulagið (2011)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR_uuIFszJU

SIGUR ROS - Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása (1999)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akYuy2FMQk4

THE FALL – Mask Search (2011)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNtQ-jzKFgQ

THE FALL – Big New Prinz (live on The Other Side of Midnight) (1988)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wygQmJ59E4Q

ULTRAMARINE – Find A Way (2011)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBe-uC08hp8

ULTRAMARINE – Saratoga (remix) (1992)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSZtEVzbBiA

MAGAZINE – Burden of a Song (2011)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNoDsHksjbI

MAGAZINE – Definitive Gaze (1978)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPPWWkhRT8I

STEPHIN MERRITT – Forever and a Day (2011)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ixF2Z-i5sA

THE MAGNETIC FIELDS – Swinging London (1993)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgDIStmjCd0

BRIAN ENO – Bless This Space (2011)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7gvUMn6_YM

BRIAN ENO – King’s Lead Hat (1977)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp0k_o8gfQI

DARREN HAYMAN – I Taught You How to Dance (2011)
http://vimeo.com/31658589

HEFNER – The Hymn for the Cigarettes (1999)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Wcslx9RL-c

SPECTRUM – Mary (long version) (2011)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM7OYRKFaRg

SPECTRUM – How You Satisfy Me (1992)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9yApVj3z84

BILLY BRAGG – Never Buy the Sun (2011)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uWw7kuiCss

BILLY BRAGG – Milkman of Human Kindness (1983)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Goxm0x4dTw

GRUFF RHYS – Post Apocalypse Christmas (2011)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U3JqmNuRN8

SUPER FURRY ANIMALS – Do or Die (1999)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_mwctoW7t8

LIST 81 - 09/12/11 (1981 special)

Hello again,

Yes, you've read the title right - it's a 1981 special. Having managed to do 20th-anniversary Lists for each of the last three years planted the seed in my mind to try to go back an extra decade, and in the end I wasn't too hard pushed to find a nice sample.

Quite a few of these emanate from childhood, 1981 being both the first year (as a ghastly, precocious, trivia sponge of a six-and-a-half-year-old) that I used to watch Top Of The Pops religiously and the first I was gifted a radio, and from then on the appetite for music developed quickly and voraciously. Mind, watching the disembodied head of John Lydon floating menacingly around the TV screen c/o the BBC vision mixer's trickery could easily have put me off TOTP for life. That was frightening!

The version of "We Could Send Letters" included is that from the original 7" release, and thus from Aztec Camera's debut; whilst "Tally Ho!" is the debut single from The Clean and could as a result conceivably lay claim to being one of the cornerstones on which Southern Hemisphere indiepop developed. Discuss!

A List of songs all from the same year clearly doesn't lend itself to a Then And Now feature, but I hope the conclusion of a song by the Teardrop Explodes leading into a song about the Teardrop Explodes passes muster as an alternative. [sings] I hope it does. It really doooooooooes... Thankyou.

J x



XTC – Smokeless Zone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt9f4Lh4OD8

PUBLIC IMAGE LIMITED – Flowers of Romances
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E_0bBGjL70

AZTEC CAMERA – We Could Send Letters (original)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO_6Y4oT7UQ

FSK – Teilnehmende Beobachtungen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5bqD040YjM

WIRE – Our Swimmer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUwb5De18PQ

NEW ORDER – Everything’s Gone Green
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRgHSxWnhqk

THE HIGSONS – I Don’t Want to Live with Monkeys
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbnX_oLnJQA

SUGARHILL GANG – Apache (Jump On It)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQObWW06VAM

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY – Release the Bats
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R8pECW3UHs

IAN DURY & THE BLOCKHEADS – Spasticus Autisticus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKnBgJG9A8E

ANTI-PASTI – Let Them Free
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5x1amsbnG0

THE DURUTTI COLUMN – Enigma
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v0-GHSZuCA

JOHN COOPER CLARKE – Tw*t
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS5QMT-JUt4

THE CLEAN – Tally Ho!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVkC8W_-a-8

SCRITTI POLITTI – Lions After Slumber
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1ieWRclcfs

DEAD KENNEDYS – Too Drunk to F*ck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ7pgElCPXE

YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS - Clicktalk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-bdMST0ljI

YOKO ONO – Walking on Thin Ice
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ft7-xEiwvJw

KIRSTY MACCOLL – There’s a Guy Down the Chip Shop Swears He’s Elvis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL2GmaI3Xus

THE TEARDROP EXPLODES – Passionate Friend
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGkrkcoTILc

THE FRESHIES – I Can’t Get “Bouncing Babies” by the Teardrop Explodes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvU8MddmEkw

LIST 80 - 02/12/11 (1991 special, part two)

Hello there,

It's the second and final part of the 1991 retrospective this time, with many bases covered once again - any List that includes Po! and Public Enemy can't be accused of being samey, I reckon.

With the festive period hoving into view, it's probably worth me pointing out that the appearance of Kirsty MacColl as a guest on Billy Bragg's track here, plus in a solo capacity next week, is as close as you're going to get to seeing F******** O* N** Y*** on That Music List. Familiarity can sometimes breed contempt, and I never liked the song much in the first place.

It'll be the eleventh anniversary of her passing on December 18th, and I wish more folk would mark the occasion by championing any of her many, many better other tracks, from the painfully autobiographical "Soho Square" to the commentary of "Free World". Go discover.

In that spirit of discovery, finding out just how heavily drenched in shoegaze Moonshake's debut single had been was a complete revelation to me - I missed it completely first time around. The Boo Radleys' fuzzy beginnings were better known to me, but less so "Tortoiseshell" even so. It's a pleasure to include this earlyish b-side as well. Teenage Fanclub's wrecking of "Like A Virgin", conversely, may be something you'd want to file under "play once and then destroy"...

J x


POPPY FACTORY - Stars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05f7vzFULYI

FOREHEADS IN A FISHTANK – Happy Shopper
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1mgj9G0ntg

BLUEBOY - Clearer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTpe17LeF9s

CUBIC 22 – Night in Motion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYBlxKP0bXU

BILLY BRAGG - Sexuality
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liNnCKPeEv0

MOONSHAKE - Gravity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-cmrJBIvGM

PUBLIC ENEMY – Can’t Truss It
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am9BqZ6eA5c&ob=av3e

THE FATIMA MANSIONS – Bertie’s Brochures
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAMwzwY-UsQ

THE BOO RADLEYS - Tortoiseshell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1g7o5z7JMw

808 STATE – In Yer Face
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRCXqRHk6JU

THE PIXIES – Alec Eiffel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf20Effo6ds

THEY GO BOOM! – Body
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e03P4HlljZA

SLINT – Good Morning, Captain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoH5MPIgM7c

LFO – We Are Back (remix)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFtRDuj2SsI

TEENAGE FANCLUB – Like a Virgin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPw1ddI89Wg

PO! – Fay
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FDerh1nBaM

THE JUSTIFIED ANCIENTS OF MU MU – It’s Grim Up North
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwtSdJaPCSI