That Music List: 2018

Friday, 11 May 2018

LIST 236 - 11/05/2018 (a third Eurovision special)

Hello all,

It's that time of year again... If you want the Song Contest joy to endure beyond 11.30 on Saturday evening (or whatever time the results process does actually finish - want to take bets?), why not have a run through this latest selection of Eurovision and Eurovision-related tracks.

Plenty of recent entries and a smattering of oldies, naturally. In addition, however, this year I've thrown in:

a number of what-they-did-later tracks from several Song Contest winners (Lulu, Sandie, Nicole),

a couple more tracks that tried to win A Song For Europe and didn't,

and to start with, the best half-time entertainment there ever has been, and in all probability ever will be (until the next time Sweden win, at least).

Enjoy!

J xx

Click on the video or link to play each tune (links last checked as all working 21/11/2025).

Click here for a directory of updated older Lists.

MÅNS ZELMERLÖW AND PETRA MEDE - Love, Love, Peace, Peace (2016)

LULU – Where the Poor Boys Dance (2000)

BASIM - Cliché Love Song (2014)

FRANCE GALL - Poupée de cire, poupée de son (1965)

BLANCHE – City Lights (2017)

BEATHOVEN - Þú og þeir (Sókrates) (1988)

RASMUSSEN – Higher Ground (2018)

THE FRUIT EATING BEARS - Door in my Face (1978)

JUSTIN HAWKINS & BEVERLEI BROWN - They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To (2007)

MADAME MONSIEUR – Mercy (2018)

SANDIE SHAW – Nothing Less Than Brilliant (1989)

IVAN - Help You Fly (2016)

SHANE MacGOWAN AND THE POPES – What’s Another Year (1998)

ANDRáS KáLLAY-SAUNDERS - Running (2014)

LAURA RIZZOTTO – Funny Girl (2018)

FRANCESCA MICHIELIN - No Degree of Separation (2016)

NAVIBAND – Historyja Majho Zyccia (2017)

THE SHADOWS - Let Me Be the One (1975)

SAARA AALTO – Monsters (2018)

NICOLE – Wer schläft schon gern allein (1998)

DoReDos – My Lucky Day (2018)

KENICKIE – Save All Your Kisses for Me (1998)

Friday, 23 February 2018

LIST 235 - 23/02/2018

Hello again,

Right, the Valentine's Special has been and gone now, so put each other down again. That's better. Thankyou. Honestly...

Please enjoy a selection which includes the return of Superchunk, Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance having found enough time to spare from the demands of running Merge Records (needless to say, a far, far bigger undertaking now than when they set it up in 1989 to put out their own band's releases) to vent their collective spleens on all things Trump and Trump-endorsing America.

The high-octane delivery remains intact, likewise the knack for a killer tune - it's grand to have them among us again.

It's also great to be able to revisit the opening track of their 1991 Steve Albini-produced No Pocky For Kitty LP, a tune whose cover version by Good Grief is also well worth the entry money.

Rather more serene is Sarcophagus, taken from Hamilton Mausoleum Suite, a tribute to the eponymous South Lanarkshire building (and one in which an echo can reportedly take fifteen seconds to travel) in the form of a minimalist chamber piece by Teenage Fanclub drummer Francis MacDonald.

Soloists from the Scottish Festival Orchestra help MacDonald realise the ambitions for this project. Thoughtful and lovely.

Lovely in a somewhat different way is the track by Superorganism, a big, daft piece of sample-heavy day-glo pop which those of you (okay, us) hoping to see the resurgent Daphne & Celeste on tour in March and April will surely embrace fondly.

With my Day Job hat on, the presence of a proliferation of correctly cited Creative Commons CC BY copyright licenses for the snippets of videos in the accompanying promo is very pleasing :-)

In "I wish they were still around" corner this week is Coping Saw, one of that phalanx of jagged, female-fronted punk-pop acts of the late-1990s that would've deservedly strolled onto an Indietracks line-up were Indietracks already a thing back then (see also: Lung Leg, Sally Skull, Dick Johnson, Golden Starlet, International Strike Force - I could go on!).

In "I never knew that was off of that!" corner, meanwhile, we have Theme For Great Cities, an eerie 1981 instrumental by Simple Minds which everyone else on the planet probably already (i) knew about, and (ii) knew was the basis for The Real Life, the 2001 top 20 hit for producer Dave Lee (Joey Negro, Jakatta, etc.) under his Raven Maize alias. Either way, it's certainly representative of the era of Simple Minds' career on which I prefer to dwell.

J xx

Click on the video or link to play each tune (links last checked as all working 21/11/2025).
Click here for a directory of updated older Lists.

SUPERORGANISM - Everybody Wants To Be Famous (2018)

BMX BANDITS - Love Me Until My Heart Stops (2017)

ANNE BRIGGS - Blackwaterslide (1971)

JENS LEKMAN - How We Met, The Long Version (2017)

PANDA BEAR – Principe Real (2015)

CUBAN BOYS – Oh My God! They Killed Kenny (1999)

THEN AND NOW: Superchunk

SUPERCHUNK - What A Time To Be Alive (2018)

SUPERCHUNK - Skip Steps 1 & 3 (1991)

FRANCIS MACDONALD - Sarcophagus (2018)

GIRL RAY - Don't Go Back at Ten (2017)

SIMPLE MINDS - Theme for Great Cities (1981)

HALF JAPANESE - Why Not? (2018)

ALELA DIANE - Émigré (2018)

COPING SAW - Amateur Cops (1997)

J WILTSHIRE - Large Mammals (2017)

SIASSIA AND TOKOBINA - Pointe Noire (2017/1980)

THE BLANCHE HUDSON WEEKEND – River’s Edge (2011)

HATCHIE - Sure (2018)

THE CHATS - Smoko (2017)

Wednesday, 14 February 2018

LIST 234 - 14/02/2018 (Valentine's Day special)

Hello there,

Yes, it's a Valentine's Day special.

Yes, any friend of mine who's had an Indiepop Love Songs mix CD from me in recent times will recognise most of the contents.

Yes, all bar about half a dozen of these have appeared on previous Lists over the past nine years.

Yes, there's two XTC tracks (and there would have been two Allo Darlin' and two Slow Down Tallahassee and about five The Field Mice tracks as well, had space permitted).

Yes, one of these tracks was the first dance at my and Linda's wedding last autumn (see if you can guess which).

And yes, I'm utterly unapologetic on all counts.

However you choose to celebrate today, if indeed you do, hold your loved one close.

J xx

Click on the video or link to play each tune (links last checked as all working 21/11/2025).
Click here for a directory of updated older Lists.

SIR JOHN BETJEMAN – The Licorice Fields at Pontefract (1974)

BILLY BRAGG - The Milkman of Human Kindness (1983)

THE SCHOOL – Do I Love You ? (2015)

THE FIELD MICE – Couldn’t Feel Safer (1989)

SLOW DOWN TALLAHASSEE – UR Grace UR (2008)

XTC – The Mayor of Simpleton (1989)

THE MINI SKIPS – Evil/Shy (2013)
(No video available - please click on this Bandcamp link)

THE MONTGOLFIER BROTHERS – Pro-Celebrity Standing Around (1999)

THE MAGNETIC FIELDS –The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side (1999)

ALLO DARLIN’ – Heartbeat Chilli (2009)

GANGWAY – My Girl and Me (1986)

HEAVENLY – Wrap My Arms Around Him (1991)

MILKY WIMPSHAKE – I Love You, You Weirdo (1997)

DANIEL & NORBERT DENTRESSANGLE – Bobby McFerrin (2013)
(No video available - please click on this Bandcamp link)

STANDARD FARE – Dancing (2009)

THE THYME MACHINE – We’re In Love (Like Hayley and Roy) (2016)
(No video available - please click on this Bandcamp link)

THE DIVINE COMEDY – I Like (2010)

HOVIS PRESLEY – I Rely on You (1997)

TREMBLING BLUE STARS – Hurry Home Through the Crowds (2005)

BMX BANDITS – The Day Before Tomorrow (1986)

PETE GREEN – Pilot Light (2013)
(No video available - please click on this Bandcamp link)

XTC – Stupidly Happy (2000)

Friday, 9 February 2018

LIST 233 - 09/02/2018

Hello again,

Back to the more regular mish-mash sort of List this week after a couple of recent diversions, but back also, alas, to the need for an in loving memory inclusion, following the passing of South Africa's jazz figurehead Hugh Masekela a fortnight ago at the age of 78.

From the American pop success of the 1960s to the protest songs of his subsequent output via numerous professional collaborations and social initiatives, here was a life fuller than most.

Wiggy Giggy, the second single to be taken from The Lovely Eggs' forthcoming fifth LP This is Eggland, appears from this remove to be gaining the single-minded Lancaster duo the sort of traction and airplay that nothing else previously has; is stardom beckoning, all entirely on their terms? Mmmm, possibly not quite that, but I'll just settle for a headline slot at Indietracks for them this July, ta.

Elsewhere, it's a pleasure to include the whipsmart Rainbow Reservoir, heading to a fine indiepop venue near you on the 22nd of March, so long as near you happens to be Shakespeares in Sheffield. I'll see you there.

Choosing Kate Moss with a Moustache is also all the excuse I need to segue into my favourite Moustache of Insanity track straight after.

Dead Moon Night by Dead Moon would have made the cut for last week's eponymous tracks List had I been prepared to bend the rules on wording slightly. But I wasn't, so I didn't.

The New Wave-tinged Mark Goodier session version of Babylon by Pop Will Eat Itself, meanwhile, is so far superior to the underwhelming ambient version which eventually saw light of day on the band's Dos Dedos Mis Amigos album that to this day I still can't work out why they favoured the latter over the former - fortunately the expanded reissue of said album on Cherry Red includes both.

Finally, here's a question for you. Which is the one item of music you've left the longest between buying or receiving and actually playing?

The reason for asking: the Arcwelder track included is one of several I'll be adding in the coming weeks that will have been taken from the triple CD compilation that was given to all attendees at the Camber Sands renewal of the All Tomorrow's Parties festival... in 2002.

I can't honestly give you any sane reason or excuse as to why it stayed in the unplayed pile for a decade and a half when plenty of other things tend to get retrieved from there inside weeks if not days - more fool me, as there are so many splendid tracks on there which could have been enriching my life for years already!

It's not the worst example - somewhere I have an industrial/EBM magazine and compilation which has remained sealed ever since I acquired it during a year spent living and working in Germany in 1995-6, exactly half my lifetime ago. I wonder if it will ever get a spin...

J xx

Click on the video or link to play each tune (links last checked as all working 21/11/2025).

Click here for a directory of updated older Lists.

THE LOVELY EGGS – Wiggy Giggy (2018)

BILLY BRAGG - The Sleep of Reason (2017)

ARCWELDER – Never the Same (1999)

THE GO! TEAM - Semicircle Song (2018)

KHRUANGBIN - Maria También (2017)

POP WILL EAT ITSELF - Babylon (Mark Goodier session) (1994)

RAINBOW RESERVOIR - Kate Moss with a Moustache (2016)
(No video available - please click on this Bandcamp link)

MOUSTACHE OF INSANITY - Jad Fair Drew Me a Duck (2011)
(No video available - please click on this Bandcamp link)

SHOPPING - Asking for a Friend (2018)

DEAD MOON – Dead Moon Night (1990)

THEN AND NOW: Nightmares on Wax
NIGHTMARES ON WAX - Shape the Future (2018)
NIGHTMARES ON WAX - I'm for Real (1990)

THE MONOCHROME SET - I Feel Really Fine (2018)

FEVER RAY - Plunge (2017)

OLD MA CUXSOM - Don't Scare Me (1986)

DRAB MAJESTY - Oak Wood (2017)

TOYLETTES - Omi (2015)

IN LOVING MEMORY
HUGH MASEKELA – Stimela (1974)

Friday, 2 February 2018

LIST 232 - 02/02/2018 (eponymous songs)

Hello again,

Now this was great fun to compile - a whole List's worth of songs sharing their names with the performers performing them.

Other than Rappin'/Rapping in the case of Rappin' Is Fundamental, I allowed myself no concessions whatsoever in terms of alternative spellings or additional words in the title, meaning that otherwise corking tracks such as Dead Moon Night by Dead Moon weren't permitted. No matter, they'll definitely see light of day on here in due course.

Elsewhere, the temptation to include the enduringly splendid Talulah Gosh was resisted, for no reason other than it's already managed to appear on two Lists over the years.

An observation. Over half of the contents of this List date from the 1990s, even without having gone overboard with inclusions from dance/techno acts in which the practice of eponymous track-naming seemed to proliferate the most.

Indeed, only one selection dates from this century - is this a phenomenon which has all but died out, or was I just looking in the wrong places? Probably the latter...

J xx

Click on the video or link to play each tune (links last checked as all working 22/06/2026).

Click here for a glossary explaining TML features.

Click here for a directory of updated older Lists.

TALK TALK – Talk Talk (1982)

MOTORHEAD – Motorhead (1977)

LFO – LFO (1990)

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS – They Might Be Giants (1990)

MINOR THREAT – Minor Threat (1981)

MURDER INC – Murder Inc (1992)

GOD HELP THE GIRL – God Help the Girl (2009)

STARE – Stare (1991)

READY FOR DEAD – Ready for Dead (1993)

BO DIDDLEY – Bo Diddley (1955)

SLOWDIVE– Slowdive (1991)

DAG NASTY – Dag Nasty (1987)

RAPPIN’ IS FUNDAMENTAL – Rapping is Fundamental (1990)

BELLE AND SEBASTIAN – Belle and Sebastian (1997)

SECRET SHINE – Secret Shine (1992)

THE COLOUR FIELD – The Colour Field (1985)

LA DÜSSELDORF – La Düsseldorf (1976)

JILTED JOHN – Jilted John (1978)

Friday, 26 January 2018

LIST 231 - 26/01/2018 (a Mark E Smith tribute)

Hello again,

Somewhat inevitably, this week's List serves as my tribute to Mark E Smith, finally claimed two days ago by the poor health to have afflicted him for a number of years.

Obtuse, cantankerous, drunken, sometimes rather hard to love but frequently touched by genius, his was a single-minded, uncompromising approach to his craft, as the long procession of former members of The Fall (a list of personnel, admittedly, added to at a lesser rate in more recent years) would likely attest to.

Always different, always the same, as Peel himself once said. Rest easy, Mark.

There have, of course, already been plenty of Fall/Smith tributes online and over the airwaves, but hopefully this one isn't too much like more of the same. As well as a handful of personal Fall favourites, I've added:

a selection of Smith's collaborations with other artists (named or unnamed),
a couple of tracks inspired by Smith (by Tocotronic and the very appropriately named Container Drivers), and
a version of Hit the North by Frank Sidebottom - sometimes it takes a northern maverick to cover a northern maverick.

J xx

Click on the video or link to play each tune (links last checked as all working 09/08/2026).
Click here for a directory of updated older Lists.

THE FALL - Kicker Conspiracy (1983)

EDWYN COLLINS [ft MARK E SMITH] - Seventies Night (1997)

THE FALL – Ladybird (Green Grass) (1993)

LONG FIN KILLIE [ft MARK E SMITH] –Heads of Dead Surfers (1995)

THE FALL - Edinburgh Man (1991)

TOCOTRONIC - Ich habe geträumt, ich wäre Pizza essen mit Mark E. Smith (2004)

THE FALL – Way Round (2000)

THE FALL with COLDCUT – Telephone Thing (live on Snub TV) (1990)

THE CONTAINER DRIVERS - The Ex-Members of The Fall Club (2004)

THE FALL – Rebellious Jukebox (1978)

VON SÜDENFED – Fledermaus Can’t Get It (2007)

THE FALL – Second House Now (2017)

MARK E SMITH – Pander! Panda! Panzer! (excerpt) (2002)

THE FALL – It’s The New Thing (1978)

FRANK SIDEBOTTOM - Hit the North (1988)

THE FALL – Theme from Sparta FC #2 (2004)

SHUTTLEWORTH [ft MARK E SMITH] – England’s Heartbeat (2010)

THE FALL - Bill is Dead (1990)

INSPIRAL CARPETS ft MARK E SMITH – I Want You (1994)

Friday, 19 January 2018

LIST 156 (repeat) - 19/01/2018 (the many guises of... Tim Smith)

Hello everyone,

A first for That Music List this week, in the guise of the first List I've ever repeated. The reason, however, could not be clearer to anyone familiar with my deep love of the music of Tim Smith and Cardiacs.

I first posted this selection in May 2015 as part of an occasional series of "the many faces of... [insert musician here]", and alluded to the fact at the time that Tim Smith's near-fatal, and irrefutably life-changing, heart attack and stroke in 2008 appeared to have effectively terminated the playing and producing career of one of modern music's most fertile imaginations.

A terrible, terrible shame as it already stood, the public declaration earlier this month of Smith's precarious position vis-a-vis continuing to receive the round-the-clock care and rehabilitation that would enable his condition to continue its necessarily grinding improvement has sparked Cardiacs fans from all corners of the earth to thrust their hands into their pockets to the tune of over £80,000 already at the time of writing this. A stupendous effort, and no more than the big man deserves.

Needless to say, further contributions will not go amiss. If you haven't already done so, and have ever loved a Tim Smith-penned, produced or played piece of work, please go to Tim's Justgiving page, where Smith's tower of strength, Mary Wren, explains the big man's situation and need for funding far more effectively than I ever could.

Many, many thanks to you in advance.

So, then, for the second time in That Music List's history, here's something celebratory by which to remember Surrey's finest at his best, then - 20 songs all either starring Tim (Cardiacs, Tim Smith, Sea Nymphs, Panixphere), originally by him (former Cardiac William D Drake's sublime cover), or else featuring him on production and/or instrumental duties (everything else).

I couldn't not finish with the short film "Jim's Shame", featuring an archetypal Tim tantrum and eventual storming off - to return to the recording studio who knows when, if ever.

J xx

Click on the video or link to play each tune (links last checked as all working 10/08/2026).
Click here for a directory of updated older Lists.

CARDIACS – Jibber and Twitch (rehearsal) (2003)

TIM SMITH – Rat Mice Lice Time (1990/1995)

SIDI BOU SAID – Wormee (1995)

THE SHRUBBIES – Carefree Clothes (1997)

PANIXPHERE – To Go Off and Things (1992)

ADRIAN BORLAND – I’m Your Freedom (1997)

NORTH SEA RADIO ORCHESTRA – End of Chimes (2006)

THE MONSOON BASSOON – The King of Evil (1999)

PINHEAD NATION – Where’s Herne Bay? (1993)

SPRATLEYS JAPS – Secret (1999)

GERTRUDE – Dirty Windows (1997)

WILLIAM D DRAKE – Savour (2010)

EAT – Double Bubble (1993)

THE TRUDY – Lost Summer of Love (2007)

LEVITATION – Cloud Shine (1992)

THE SCARAMANGA SIX – The Poison Pen (2004)

FLINCH – Spoonz (1995)

STARS IN BATTLEDRESS – Secrets and Signals (2003)

THE SEA NYMPHS – Shaping the River (1992)

THE SOUND – Counting the Days (1986)

CARDIACS – Jim’s Shame (2003)

Friday, 12 January 2018

LIST 230 - 12/01/2018

Hello again,

More stories behind the older selections than the new this time, with the recent passing of France Gall and the announcement before Christmas of the temporary reactivation of magnificent 1980s polemicists Microdisney (any of you going to their Dublin or London gigs this June?) obvious reasons for their respective inclusion.

The reissues of early-1980s works by Solid Space (imagine Young Marble Giants on the moon) and Welwyn Garden City's angriest bards The Astronauts seemed like excuse enough to fashion a trio of space-themed performers in succession, brand new fare by impressively doomy electronics prodder Stupid Cosmonaut completing the dose.

Not from another planet but from another land come the Moomins, and the compilation by Andy Votel's Finders Keepers label of the theme tunes and incidental music from the 1983 British import of the Polish fuzzy felt animated version of the Moomins story was, by a very long way, my favourite reissue of any description last year.

By turns minimal, doleful, experimental, playful and sinister, the soundtrack was conceived and realised not in Lodz, but in Leeds, on a budget of buttons, by post-punk performers Graeme Miller and Steve Shill at the behest of Anne "Teletubbies" Wood. One wasp synth, one flute, and most of the time not much else, other than a boundless sense of imagination - this week's contribution is unlikely to be the only one to feature on a List.

Finally, this week's Then and Now features tracks from Secret Shine 24 years apart, making them the second Sarah Records act still active enough to warrant this treatment in the past four Lists. Their appearance at an all-Sarah line-up in Leeds this coming July, alongside Even As We Speak, Action Painting! and Boyracer, was additionally confirmed on social media only this week.

Who'd have thought they'd last that long, eh? Well, not the late NME writer Steven Wells, who actually recommended the band finish themselves off with a warm bath and razorblades in his "review" of the 1993 single Loveblind included this week.

To this day that remains the singlemost vituperative, hateful and irresponsible piece of music journalism I've ever seen committed to print, something that transcended simply not liking a record, and it's to Secret Shine's credit they were not cowed out of continuing by it.

Folks, dislike a piece of music by all means. Dislike anything and everything on this List, even, if it doesn't agree with you. But keep things in some sense of perspective when appraising that music, please.

It's not worth recommending killing people for.

J xx

Click on the video or link to play each tune (links last checked as all working 11/08/2026).

Click here for a directory of updated older Lists.

SPARKS – What The Hell Is It This Time? (2017)

NACHTHEXEN - Trapped (2017)

THE PRIMITIVES – (We’ve) Found a Way (to the Sun) (1986)

ERRORSMITH - I'm Interesting, Cheerful and Sociable (2017)

THE CLASH – Somebody Got Murdered (1980)

ODESSEY & ORACLE - J' Ai Vu Un Croco (2017)

GRAEME MILLER & STEVE SHILL – Moomins Partytime (1983/2017)

THEN AND NOW: Secret Shine
SECRET SHINE – For You (2017)
SECRET SHINE – Loveblind (1993)

PUSSY LIQUOR - Kitty Kitty (2017)

MICRODISNEY – Birthday Girl (1985)

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE - Man of Oil (2017)

JULIANA HATFIELD – Short-Fingered Man (2017)

SOLID SPACE - 10th Planet (1982)

STUPID COSMONAUT - Digitalis (2018)

THE ASTRONAUTS - It's All Done by Mirrors (1983)

PEANESS – Same Place (2017)

PROFLIGATE - Black Plate (2018)

IN LOVING MEMORY: France Gall
FRANCE GALL - Bébé requin (1968)

Friday, 5 January 2018

LIST 229 - 05/01/2018 (a 2008 selection)

Hello again,

A very happy New Year to all List readers, and I hope that the flu that seems to have visited my own particular corner of the globe just recently is keeping a respectable distance from yours.

Considering there were only four Lists in the entirety of 2017 the usual "it was 10/20/30 years ago this year" sort of specials didn't make an appearance, and I'm not necessarily going to be looking to do two or three editions' worth of stuff from each of 1988, 1998, etc. this year either.

I did, however, have about an hour and a half's worth of stuff already stockpiled that just all happened to be released in 2008, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to share it with you.

None of this lot should have appeared on a previous List (unless I've erred), which is perhaps surprising in the case of the MJ Hibbett track, appearing as it has on practically every indiepop love song mix CD or playlist I've compiled for almost as long as it's been out; and also in the case of the Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip selection, being the title track of an album I probably played more than any other hip-hop long-player for many a long year.

Elsewhere, it's a particular pleasure to include:

something by long-time John Peel faves Freiwillige Selbskontrolle, aka FSK (have I remembered correctly that they were the foreign act to record the most Peel sessions?),

an instrumental from The Magnetic Fields' feedback-driven Distortion concept album,

two acts in The Zebras and The Electric Pop Group whom I'd have loved to have seen at that year's Indietracks festival had line-up clashes permitted,