A slightly eclectic Top 10 list
There seem to have been a truly surprising number of Top 10/ Top 20/ This is Australia’s favourite album type lists published recently. However, they all seem to conclude that bands who have had no impact on my life whatsoever are in fact everyone’s favourite. I neither enjoy the musical of nor particularly care about Nirvana, the Sex Pistols, or Radiohead. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones wrote song good tunes but generally this happened before I was born. And who on earth decided that a Pink Floyd album was number one in this country ever?
It struck me that there are many songs that may be their best in their field but which will never make it on to a Top 10, or even Top 100, list. So, it’s time to recognise some slightly quirky excellence.
The criteria for the following Top 10 is a bit flexible but it is something also the lines of songs that have made a significant impact on my life, songs that if I hear them on the radio now I would turn the sound right up and dance, songs that would get me to buy a whole album just for that one song, or songs that I just put on the list because I can.
10. The KLF - Last train to Trancentral
Produced by a couple of guys who clearly only had two ideas for lyrics and therefore included the phrase “Ancients of Mu Mu” in every single they ever released, this piece of stadium house still had the power to blow minds around the world with it’s sheer energy.
It’s here partly because I remember bugging the DJ to play it the very first time I ever went clubbing (at the Lizard Lounge in Prahran) and partly because I still remember hearing this while I was up at 2.00am writing an essay and listening to RRR. They played this as part of a set of three songs which also included “Hard Day’s Night” by the Beatles and a song by the slightly surprising combinations of Public Enemy and Anthrax. The combined effect of all that and too much coffee was that I collapsed on the desk at the final ‘over and out’ and could think of nothing to say except “Woooa”.
9. The Cure - Lovesong
I don’t know if anyone has ever published a list of the ten greatest basslines ever but if they have then this song should have been be on it. I learned the bassline during a brief and unsuccessful attempt at forming a band with a couple of guys who were clearly way more talented than me. It never went anywhere but hanging out and playing lots of Cure, Guns ‘n’ Roses and Baby Animals songs was a fun way to pass the time between semesters.
I was utterly blown away to find a bassline this catchy, simple and perfect anywhere ever. The lyrics are simply but heartfelt, from “Whenever I’m alone with you/ you make me feel like I am whole again” to “I will always love you”. And as a whole package this has to be one of the best songs to come out of England in the past 30 years. Or ever, really.
8. Cold Chisel - Misfits
This was not one of the songs that Chisel is likely to be remembered for, given that it was never even released as a single. It was apparently recorded for an ABC documentary that never even went to air. I found this on a greatest hits collection, and I’m very glad they included it. The song is on this list because it shows that Chisel, whilst thought of as the quintessential big loud Aussie pub band, actually had a real knack for beautifully crafted lyrics that could capture a mood or articulate an experience better than nearly anyone, whether it was “Choir Girl” about abortion, “Four Walls” about life in prison, or this song that perfectly summed up the teenage experience of isolation and alienations for those who just don’t fit in.
Most of the stuff written about various teenage experiences by bands who are somewhat older tends to be mocking or mean spirited (and yes, I’m looking at you TISM for that “homeboys” song, The Offspring for “Pretty Fly” and lets just mention Area 7 for the dreadful “Nobody likes a bogan” while we’re here). Chisel actually managed to write with empathy, which is far more difficult than taking cheap shots, and far more valuable.
7. Europe - Rock the Night
Along with Bon Jovi, this bunch of hair metal kings from somewhere vaguely Scandinavian helped get me hooked on big dumb 80s rock, and I will be ever grateful for that. This song was the follow up single to “The Final Countdown”, and it had the big advantage that it lacked any bizarre lyrics about headed for Venus and the like. This song was a wonderfully straightforward anthem for all of us who, in 1987 just wanted to “Rock now, rock the night/ Til early in the morning light”. Don’t judge me, I was 14 years old.
6. Michael Franti & Spearhead - Soulshine
I can not listen to this song (which is playing as I type) without remembering an early morning drive to Bendigo. It was a very bad week, with all the usual stresses utterly swept aside by an almost overwhelming concern for a close family member who was in hospital on the other side of the world with a hard to explain but life threatening illness. I had made the usual stop in Malmsbury for one of the local bakery’s truly awesome Apple and Golden Syrup muffins and a reasonably good flat white. Triple J was playing this song as I drove through a particularly pleasant stretch of the Calder Highway just south of Harcourt. The gentle invitation to “Take some time/ unwind your mind” was exactly what I needed.
5. The Waifs - London Still
Another song that I listened to a lot while traveling all over the place for work. The ultimate tribute to homesickness, Josh Cunningham’s guitar is heart tearingly poignant and the longing for home in Donna Simpson’s vocal reaches right out of the stereo, grabs you by the throat and won’t let go.
Only a piece of music this good could possibly get away with a lyric like “I miss you like my left arm that’s been lost in a war” but they actually do.
4. Redgum - Long Run
After ten long years of conservative government it is possible for we lefties to get a little depressed. This song was written during the Fraser years and performed with great enthusiasm on Redgum’s 1983 album “Caught in the Act”, recorded just after the election of the Hawke government. I bought this album in celebration of John Schumann’s achievement in giving Alexander Downer the scare of his life during the 1998 election, and I still play it whenever I start to feel like we will never get rid of this idiot government, and their policies, together with their disregard for any notion of responsible government, will continue to drag Australia down to the absolutely lowest common denominator until we are all stupid.
For great lyrics, it’s hard to go past “The sun streams in with power and might/ and you’re looking at your kids in a different light/ And you know in your heart as you kiss them goodnight/ It’ll be alright in the long run”.
3. The Bangles - Be with You
This was the clear highlight of the Bangles’ best album, “Everything”, released in October 1988. It’s slightly weird in hindsight that the Bangles were climbing the charts with “Eternal Flame” around halfway between the release of Guns ‘n’ Roses “Appetite for Destruction” in 1987 and Nirvana’s “Nevermind” in 1991.
I’m not sure what sort of angst other teenagers were feeling at the time, but in that period I was less concerned with feeling stupid and contagious, and more focused on the mad crush I had on a friend who clearly didn’t like me “that way” and on my awful teenaged fear of rejection that rendered me apparently incapable of so much as inviting this particular young lady to a school formal, let alone suggesting anything so radical as a movie or something.
In that context, “When I’m lost in a dream/ You are all I can see/ All alone in the night I’m waiting for you/ Every moment I’d die/ Just to look in your eyes/ The dream is alive I’m waiting” summed up my teenaged angsty feelings rather better than “Here we are now/ Entertain us” ever could.
Nearly 20 years later, I just like this song because it’s catchy.
2. Rebecca’s Empire - Atomic Electric
I found this on one of the early Triple J Hottest 100 CDs and I was hooked immediately. When I finally got hold of a CD player (a graduation present, so that would make it 1996), “Way of All Things” was the first CD I bought. It changed my taste in music forever and definitely for the better.
If there’s a song that works better as the soundtrack to a humid summer night in Melbourne, the type that makes you want to dance in a sweaty pub before wandering over to the St Kilda pier to sit on the rocks out past the kiosk and think about the world, I am yet to find it.
Shane’s O’Mara guitar solo is intense and fantastic and demands to be heard, the rhythm section is so tight you couldn’t separate it with a particle accelerator and Rebecca’s delivery of the lyrics is simply breathtaking.
1. Things of Stone & Wood - Wildflowers
This is the best, happiest, most gloriously optimistic political song ever. It should also win awards for being released in 1994 and predicting the rise of Hansonism, and subsequent adoption of said political phenomenon by our breathtakingly cynical government, with an accuracy that can only be described as “spooky”.
I love this song because it appeals to what is best about us as Australians and indeed as people, and despite the all too accurate warnings it is impossible not to get caught up in Greg Arnold’s enthusiasm as he sings “Hey Helen let’s ditch the car lets hide/ We’ll throw seeds of doubt at passers by/ They will cross onto our side/ We’ll sing our songs into the night”. Also, at a time when Hanson is trying to make ANOTHER comeback by blaming our problems on those nasty people from overseas somewhere who all have diseases, our increasingly divided country could use the reminder that “everybody dreams the same visions in the end.” And there has rarely been any better advice than “Everyone feels trapped and tired/ So if you see a strange door to your left/ Drop your things and run for it”.
So there you have it. Not the most comprehensive and definitive Top 10 list ever, but possibly one of the more offbeat ones. Did I miss any?
It struck me that there are many songs that may be their best in their field but which will never make it on to a Top 10, or even Top 100, list. So, it’s time to recognise some slightly quirky excellence.
The criteria for the following Top 10 is a bit flexible but it is something also the lines of songs that have made a significant impact on my life, songs that if I hear them on the radio now I would turn the sound right up and dance, songs that would get me to buy a whole album just for that one song, or songs that I just put on the list because I can.
10. The KLF - Last train to Trancentral
Produced by a couple of guys who clearly only had two ideas for lyrics and therefore included the phrase “Ancients of Mu Mu” in every single they ever released, this piece of stadium house still had the power to blow minds around the world with it’s sheer energy.
It’s here partly because I remember bugging the DJ to play it the very first time I ever went clubbing (at the Lizard Lounge in Prahran) and partly because I still remember hearing this while I was up at 2.00am writing an essay and listening to RRR. They played this as part of a set of three songs which also included “Hard Day’s Night” by the Beatles and a song by the slightly surprising combinations of Public Enemy and Anthrax. The combined effect of all that and too much coffee was that I collapsed on the desk at the final ‘over and out’ and could think of nothing to say except “Woooa”.
9. The Cure - Lovesong
I don’t know if anyone has ever published a list of the ten greatest basslines ever but if they have then this song should have been be on it. I learned the bassline during a brief and unsuccessful attempt at forming a band with a couple of guys who were clearly way more talented than me. It never went anywhere but hanging out and playing lots of Cure, Guns ‘n’ Roses and Baby Animals songs was a fun way to pass the time between semesters.
I was utterly blown away to find a bassline this catchy, simple and perfect anywhere ever. The lyrics are simply but heartfelt, from “Whenever I’m alone with you/ you make me feel like I am whole again” to “I will always love you”. And as a whole package this has to be one of the best songs to come out of England in the past 30 years. Or ever, really.
8. Cold Chisel - Misfits
This was not one of the songs that Chisel is likely to be remembered for, given that it was never even released as a single. It was apparently recorded for an ABC documentary that never even went to air. I found this on a greatest hits collection, and I’m very glad they included it. The song is on this list because it shows that Chisel, whilst thought of as the quintessential big loud Aussie pub band, actually had a real knack for beautifully crafted lyrics that could capture a mood or articulate an experience better than nearly anyone, whether it was “Choir Girl” about abortion, “Four Walls” about life in prison, or this song that perfectly summed up the teenage experience of isolation and alienations for those who just don’t fit in.
Most of the stuff written about various teenage experiences by bands who are somewhat older tends to be mocking or mean spirited (and yes, I’m looking at you TISM for that “homeboys” song, The Offspring for “Pretty Fly” and lets just mention Area 7 for the dreadful “Nobody likes a bogan” while we’re here). Chisel actually managed to write with empathy, which is far more difficult than taking cheap shots, and far more valuable.
7. Europe - Rock the Night
Along with Bon Jovi, this bunch of hair metal kings from somewhere vaguely Scandinavian helped get me hooked on big dumb 80s rock, and I will be ever grateful for that. This song was the follow up single to “The Final Countdown”, and it had the big advantage that it lacked any bizarre lyrics about headed for Venus and the like. This song was a wonderfully straightforward anthem for all of us who, in 1987 just wanted to “Rock now, rock the night/ Til early in the morning light”. Don’t judge me, I was 14 years old.
6. Michael Franti & Spearhead - Soulshine
I can not listen to this song (which is playing as I type) without remembering an early morning drive to Bendigo. It was a very bad week, with all the usual stresses utterly swept aside by an almost overwhelming concern for a close family member who was in hospital on the other side of the world with a hard to explain but life threatening illness. I had made the usual stop in Malmsbury for one of the local bakery’s truly awesome Apple and Golden Syrup muffins and a reasonably good flat white. Triple J was playing this song as I drove through a particularly pleasant stretch of the Calder Highway just south of Harcourt. The gentle invitation to “Take some time/ unwind your mind” was exactly what I needed.
5. The Waifs - London Still
Another song that I listened to a lot while traveling all over the place for work. The ultimate tribute to homesickness, Josh Cunningham’s guitar is heart tearingly poignant and the longing for home in Donna Simpson’s vocal reaches right out of the stereo, grabs you by the throat and won’t let go.
Only a piece of music this good could possibly get away with a lyric like “I miss you like my left arm that’s been lost in a war” but they actually do.
4. Redgum - Long Run
After ten long years of conservative government it is possible for we lefties to get a little depressed. This song was written during the Fraser years and performed with great enthusiasm on Redgum’s 1983 album “Caught in the Act”, recorded just after the election of the Hawke government. I bought this album in celebration of John Schumann’s achievement in giving Alexander Downer the scare of his life during the 1998 election, and I still play it whenever I start to feel like we will never get rid of this idiot government, and their policies, together with their disregard for any notion of responsible government, will continue to drag Australia down to the absolutely lowest common denominator until we are all stupid.
For great lyrics, it’s hard to go past “The sun streams in with power and might/ and you’re looking at your kids in a different light/ And you know in your heart as you kiss them goodnight/ It’ll be alright in the long run”.
3. The Bangles - Be with You
This was the clear highlight of the Bangles’ best album, “Everything”, released in October 1988. It’s slightly weird in hindsight that the Bangles were climbing the charts with “Eternal Flame” around halfway between the release of Guns ‘n’ Roses “Appetite for Destruction” in 1987 and Nirvana’s “Nevermind” in 1991.
I’m not sure what sort of angst other teenagers were feeling at the time, but in that period I was less concerned with feeling stupid and contagious, and more focused on the mad crush I had on a friend who clearly didn’t like me “that way” and on my awful teenaged fear of rejection that rendered me apparently incapable of so much as inviting this particular young lady to a school formal, let alone suggesting anything so radical as a movie or something.
In that context, “When I’m lost in a dream/ You are all I can see/ All alone in the night I’m waiting for you/ Every moment I’d die/ Just to look in your eyes/ The dream is alive I’m waiting” summed up my teenaged angsty feelings rather better than “Here we are now/ Entertain us” ever could.
Nearly 20 years later, I just like this song because it’s catchy.
2. Rebecca’s Empire - Atomic Electric
I found this on one of the early Triple J Hottest 100 CDs and I was hooked immediately. When I finally got hold of a CD player (a graduation present, so that would make it 1996), “Way of All Things” was the first CD I bought. It changed my taste in music forever and definitely for the better.
If there’s a song that works better as the soundtrack to a humid summer night in Melbourne, the type that makes you want to dance in a sweaty pub before wandering over to the St Kilda pier to sit on the rocks out past the kiosk and think about the world, I am yet to find it.
Shane’s O’Mara guitar solo is intense and fantastic and demands to be heard, the rhythm section is so tight you couldn’t separate it with a particle accelerator and Rebecca’s delivery of the lyrics is simply breathtaking.
1. Things of Stone & Wood - Wildflowers
This is the best, happiest, most gloriously optimistic political song ever. It should also win awards for being released in 1994 and predicting the rise of Hansonism, and subsequent adoption of said political phenomenon by our breathtakingly cynical government, with an accuracy that can only be described as “spooky”.
I love this song because it appeals to what is best about us as Australians and indeed as people, and despite the all too accurate warnings it is impossible not to get caught up in Greg Arnold’s enthusiasm as he sings “Hey Helen let’s ditch the car lets hide/ We’ll throw seeds of doubt at passers by/ They will cross onto our side/ We’ll sing our songs into the night”. Also, at a time when Hanson is trying to make ANOTHER comeback by blaming our problems on those nasty people from overseas somewhere who all have diseases, our increasingly divided country could use the reminder that “everybody dreams the same visions in the end.” And there has rarely been any better advice than “Everyone feels trapped and tired/ So if you see a strange door to your left/ Drop your things and run for it”.
So there you have it. Not the most comprehensive and definitive Top 10 list ever, but possibly one of the more offbeat ones. Did I miss any?
posted by I'm not Craig at 6:30 AM
7 Comments:
Ok, I'm with you on the KLF and the cure.. however I have to say this.. how can you not love Nirvana?
I did not really know very much about them until I saw a documentary on the Biography channel. That's one channel move I should thank Austar for, because they actually got something right for once, and now I get to see plenty of interesting shows instead of having that channel hidden in the depths of the satellite box. Though it was still annoying and I still can't remember any of the new channel numbers.
I agree that smells like teen spirit is probably the most annoying of all their songs. However some of their songs are absolutely incredible and there is no doubt in my mind that Kurt Cobain was a true genius - and like many true geniuses, he burnt out too easily and too soon.
I currently have a playlist with only two bands on it - Nirvana (the MTV unplugged stuff) and Rockstar Supernova. Maybe I'm just going through an angsty phase or something but I am really enjoying the Nirvana.. ;) So can I maybe say to you, sit down with the MTV unplugged Nirvana album, and have a listen to it.
And I just thank deities there is no whitlams on here, or I'd have to dead you personally. I hate that guy.
Well, I'm a bit poppy. I actually love just about all of your choices. But I'd add The Man Who by Travis.
BTW, have a wonderful Christmas and a much, much better New Year. You deserve the joys of the season (and more).
INCraig,
Mr Fix and I had "lovesong" read at our wedding. Is that completely naff? Probably. But I promise we weren't dressed like the White Stripes, so probably we can get away with it (ever so slightly).
Also, Mr Fix would be one of those people who love Pink Floyd despite being well outside their age demographic.
Snoskred
Even as I posted this, I was thinking uh-oh, Snoskred will have something to say about my lack of enthusiasm for Nirvana. I'm sorry, but their music does absolutely nothing for me.
It's lucky I didn't include "Blow up the Pokies". It's a bad time of year for being deaded.
Meva
Travis could easily have been on here, but I decided to keep it to ten songs or it would have gone on forever and never been posted.
I hope you have a wonderful Christmas too.
Gigglewick
That is so sweet, and not naff in the slightest.
Dressing as the White Stripes would have been on the naff side, particularly given the slightly wacky dynamic between Jack and Meg.
Please post more about your wedding, it sounds amazing.
INCraig,
I will consider posting more information about my wedding over at my place.
It wasn't that amazing, just a bunch of our friends, many of whom were wiped out by some "celebratory joints", a nice blue dress for me, and a celebrant who wouldn't shut up about God even though we'd asked her not to.
Hmmm. Maybe it's more interesting than I thought. Such is the pathology of my self-obsession.
INCraig,
I've just come back to the post to read it in more detail.
'The Long Run' is one of the most angsty songs I know, but for pure kick you in the guts impact in Redgum songs, it has to be 'Empty Page'. I can't even run through that song in my mind without thinking of a whole bag of images related to totalitarianism in south east asia during the 1970s and 80s. It's the lyric "This is the face of perfect violence". I think about it often in relation to David Hicks of late also.
I sent one of my good friends a copy of 'London Still' when she was in London still, and it made her cry. It made me cry too, to be honest. And I don't even like the Waifs that much.
Atomic Electric - like I said, what's not to like about those guys?
And finally: if you haven't already heard stuff by Schnell Fenster, can I recommend The Sound of Trees...it's probably been deleted but you might find it at Dixons. I recommend it for the following reasons:
1. It's very Cure-esque
2. None of their songs yet ruined by becoming K Mart jingles
3. It features not only the talents of half of Split Enz but also Michael den Elzen, excellent bass player and one-quarter of Rebecca's Empire.
All of this supposes that you can get past 'Fun City', their contribution to the Big Steal soundtrack, which has AWESOME lyrics like "this is fun city/gonna do what I like for the hell of it/fun city/gonna mosey on down, down to action town", for which some one should frankly have snapped Phil Judd's synthesiser in two.
GW
PS I assume from your need to purchase The Way of All Things and also the fact that I have at some time or another met three of the four members of RE that that wasn't the band you were in either.
Gigglewick
Well now you really have to post more about your wedding. I may post something about mine at some stage too, although I should say in advance that my wedding is one of very few events in my life that I actually took entirely seriously.
I may decide to write about my brother's wedding instead, because really how often does one get to use the phrases "Locked in a zoo" and "Where's the logic" in casual conversation. NOT OFTEN ENOUGH.
And on the Rebecca's Empire issue, the closest I ever got to being in that band was meeting a guy who had recently sold a guitar to Shane O'Mara.
And in closing, if I remember my year 8 German class accurately, Schnell Fenster would be Deutsch for "Fast Window". I will look for this next time I am in Dixons. How could I not?
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