The Next 30 Day Song Challenge - day 30

Day 30 - The song with the best video. Ever. 

Last day of the challenge.

And, as that's the case, I thought I would go with something unusual. Is this the best music video ever? Probably not, and technically it's not even a music video. Add to that, I don't even know the music being played in the video. Sounds hipsterish. Craft Spells or someone like that. However, it is my favourite video at the moment, and sometimes that's enough.

I found the video -  a wedding video, no less -  via a link on Facebook. Kudos to that original linker who's name currently escapes me, and I understand that he or she posted the link in response to that Portland marriage proposal video that was in everyone's inbox a month back. This video could be cheesy as hell, but it just works:





GREG & MEL from tony benna on Vimeo.

The Next 30 Day Song Challenge - day 29

Day 29 - A song from a film soundtrack

I was going to go with a Michael Nyman piece from Michael Winterbottom's 'Wonderland' for this challenge, but I'll save that for another day.

Instead, it has to be Kristen Vigard singing Costello/Bacharach's 'God Give Me Strength' from Allison Anders 1996 film 'Grace of My Heart', and for the following reasons:

• Probably my favourite Costello song of all time. Just pips out 'I Want You', 'London's Brilliant Parade', 'Shipbuilding' (spoiled by too many shite cover versions) and 'Alison'.
• Discovered this song - and the film - in the good old fashioned way*. Late night, half asleep, flicking through channels 'cos you're bored and there's nothing's on and you stumble across a film you've never heard of before, looks half interesting, so you stop flicking for a few minutes and then this scene pops up and your eyes and ears pop out. It's only months later that you discover that Illena Douglas doesn't have the voice of an angel, but in fact that she's miming to Kristen Vigard's vocals. Costello's version isn't half-bad either.
• Either the first or second song I ever downloaded from the t'internet. I can't remember if it was this or 'Love Grenade' by The Cavedogs.  Both great songs that should be heard by more people. The world would be a better place.

Footnote

good old fashioned way* - I miss those days of stumbling across an unknown film late night on the telly. We're all so overloaded these days that there's little or no surprises out there. Everything comes via a tweet or a shared message on your facebook wall. Honorable mention to these two other great films also discovered in the same half-assed fashion as 'Grace of My Heart'.

The Next 30 Day Song Challenge - day 28

Day 28 - Your favourite song from the 90s


Favourite song from the '90s? You kidding me? I don't have a scooby.

Give me 72 hours, plug me into Rocklist and give me access to a Spotify account and I could maybe come up with a top 30 but, unfortunately, the nineties - and the noughties for that matter -  don't instantaneously throw up tracks and memories like the seventies and eighties do. I'm sure it's an arrested development thing and, now that I think about it, any decade that can throw up garbage like Arrested Development perhaps doesn't deserve the distinction of having a favourite song.

Off the top of my head, I could pick any one of 10 or 13 tracks for this challenge but I'll stick with this 1993 classic from Stereolab. Like a lot of great songs from that era - The Cavedogs 'Love Grenade'/Blur's 'Girls and Boys'/ Pulp's 'Lipgloss'/Portishead's 'Sour Times' - I first heard it on Mark Radcliffe's evening show, and I had the good sense at the time to tape the show. Played it to death until I was able to pick a copy of it up on the Jenny Ondioline CD.



I don't think the performance from The Word does it full justice so, if intrigued, check the original version below:

The Next 30 Day Song Challenge - day 27

Day 27 - A song where the title isn't mentioned in the lyrics

I was going to cheat on this challenge, and a quick google search threw up such great songs as Blur's 'Song 2' and Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' but at the last moment I suddenly remembered this everything and the kitchen sink classic from Dexys:

I never knew it was their debut single, and I've no idea why the video suddenly cuts off just as Kev's is about to go into full overdrive rant mode but I do know that the next time I'm drunk I'll use it as a perfect excuse to recreate that dance of his. The kids will love it.

The Next 30 Day Song Challenge - day 26

Day 26 - Your favourite song by a group

I think today's challenge is a bit confusing, to be honest. Am I being asked to pick my favourite song that happens to have been performed by a group, or is just a case of picking your favourite song by a random group?

For the sake of variety I'm going for the latter suggestion. I'm then going to immediately contradict myself by plumping for a jingly-jangly song from the eighties. Step forward Brisbane's finest, The Go-Betweens, with 'Right Here'. If this song and video doesn't raise a smile, I'd suggest you lay off the botox for a while:

The Next 30 Day Song Challenge - day 25

Day 25 - A song that reminds you of school


First year of Secondary School, watching Thursday night's episode of Top of the Pops during Friday morning's Metal Work lesson on the school's only video recorder. Back in the day when a teacher could bribe you so cheaply for a quiet life:



I'm sure the wee kid from the video is the english bloke from Doug Liman's 'Go'.

And those boots, that jacket and that playful punch with Andrew and it took us another 14 years before we discovered George was gay? What were they putting in our tea in the 80s?

The Next 30 Day Song Challenge - day 24

Day 24 - A song that reminds you of a holiday

Not a great song - three weeks at number one in August 1983, what the hell? - and an even worse holiday but the upside is that I have put KC's jacket on my watch list on eBay:

The Next 30 Day Song Challenge - day 23

Day 23 - Your favourite song from 2000-2010

Haters are going to hate but until you provide me with evidence of a better pop song from the noughties than this S Club 7 classic from 2001, then all I can say is very short and not so very sweet: STFU





I bet you played the video all the way to the end.

The Next 30 Day Song Challenge - day 22

Day 22 - Your favourite song from the 80's

These two songs are probably my two favourite songs of the 80s - if not of all time - but you knew that already, so why repost them again?

Instead I'll plump for another song which (probably) also features in my all time top ten, and which is quintessentially 80s, and you can't necessarily say the same for the aforementioned classics by The Smiths and The Jam.

Possibly the last great new pop single of the 80s - hyperbole anyone? - it's cited by everyone and their mother as one of their all time favourite singles and yet it only reached 21 in the charts when released in '85. If only a tenth of the people who gush about it now on music blogs bought it at the time, it would have knocked Jennifer Rush off the number one spot:



And, of course, I didn't buy the single either. I bought the album, A Secret Wish . . . secondhand . . . for a pound . . . in a junk shop next to a laundrette about seven or eight years after it was originally released.

Sorry Claudia . . . and the others.

The Next 30 Day Song Challenge - day 21

Day 21 - A song that mentions a famous person


Until someone writes a song that namechecks (the young) Charlie Nicholas, it will have to be this six-for-one classic by The Who:



FYI, it's Leary that answers the challenge.

PS - How many drugs was Townsend doing back in the day that led him to believe that he'd look good in white dungarees?

The Next 30 Day Song Challenge - day 20

Day 20 - Your favourite song by a male solo artist

They may hide behind band names but either one of these two classics by two of my all time favourite male solo artists could have been used for today challenge. I'll play both those songs till the day I die.

However, and Kara can testify through gritted teeth about this, this 1948 classic has been the soundtrack of my mind these past few days. I could never get sick of this song . . . unless it's Big Star's version:



And you've got to love the story behind eden ahbez, the bloke who penned this Nat King Cole classic. Hippies in the 1940s! He should have been in the SPGB.

The Next 30 Day Song Challenge - day 19

Day 19 - A song that tells a story


Sadly I've already mentioned Joel and Rosselson on the Another 30 Day Song Challenge, so those two great singer-storytellers are out of consideration. This song and this song immediately sprang to mind when thinking about the challenge but I think that has more to do with my unresolved issues concerning Red Wedge and my unread copies of Marxism Today from the '87/'88 period.

So I'll get off the eighties lefty schtick - if only for a moment - and plump for Janis Ian's 'At Seventeen'. Drop dead gorgeous:

The Next 30 Day Song Challenge - day 18

Day 18 - Your favourite song by a female solo artist


A no-brainer. Male or female, probably the greatest voice of all time. Of course, that can only mean Ms Patsy Cline:

The Next 30 Day Song Challenge - day 17

Day 17 - The song with the best intro ever

Bear with me on this one. 

I'm not necessarily suggesting that the intro to Hurrah!'s 'Sweet Sanity' is the best intro ever. The Smiths' 'This Charming Man' and Stone Roses' 'She Bangs The Drum' - amongst many others -  both give it a good run for its money, but 'Sweet Sanity' has it's own category of 'The song with the best intro ever that never fulfilled its promise after the 30 second mark':

The opening verse is brilliant, godlike, but it's the chorus that smothers it. The song tries to recover itself in the subsequent verses but you're already thinking, 'Shit, that crappy chorus is going to crop up again any second now'. I bought the album on cassette on the strength of that opening thirty seconds. Not one of my wisest music purchases but not my most foolish purchase either.

What might have been. And it appears I'm not alone in thinking this. The video cuts out after 2.49 seconds and that's from an upload by Hurrah!'s old record label, Kitchenware Records. However, if you're desperate to see the full (tinnier) version of the video, then click on the link.

The Next 30 Day Song Challenge - day 16

Day 16 - A song that reminds you of first discovering the opposite sex

I'm sure that there's other earlier moments but this song - or rather video - sticks in the mind. It's '83 or '84 and for some reason I'm watching Richard Skinner presenting Whistle Test (the title had been shortened at this point) and he cues up this video by The Bangles video: 

'nuff said.

The Next 30 Day Song Challenge - day 15

Day 15 - A song that your parents influenced you to like


Probably the hardest challenge so far. How can I put this? Both my parents tastes in music make Susan Boyle sound like Nurse With Wound. Very MORish, very 'Breadish . . . if you get my drift.

I've racked my brains and I found that this song is embedded in my brain:



I guess if you hear a song enough times as a kid at 11 o'clock at night when you're trying to sleep, it eventually seeps into your sub-consciousness. And it helps that it is a timeless classic.

The Next 30 Day Song Challenge - day 14

Day 14 - A song you influenced your parents to like

My Dad is incredibly proud of the fact that I introduced to him this track. I think it's his proudest moment concerning myself. I shamefacedly admit that I still think Whitney Houston's 'Saving All My Love For You' is a good song, but only because my Dad would never let me forget anyway:

And yes, dear reader, I bought the single.

The Next 30 Day Song Challenge - day 13

Day 13 - The worst cover version you've heard

Thank you, Duran Duran, for making this too easy for me.

I have a soft spot for Duranies - my first ever bought '45 and all that - but this is moider. Poor Grandmaster Flash:



I'm sure Kara would disagree. Especially as I accidently clicked on this *cough* reworked classic earlier today on Spotify:



If looks could kill. Apparently, All Saints never made it stateside.

The Next 30 Day Song Challenge - day 12

Day 12 - A song from an album with amazing cover artwork

Don't ask me why, but I've always been very much taken by the artwork for the 1981 Au Pairs album, 'Playing With A Different Sex':

Maybe I have some soft-maoist politics lingering in the background somewhere. Chairman Bob, here I come, comrade. Or maybe I just want it plastered on a T shirt. (Probably a combo of the two.)

Until YouTube and Daily Motion tell me otherwise, the Au Pairs were too hardcore and post-punkish for music videos, so please settle for this performance of one of the best tracks from the album, 'Dear John', from the 1982 Pinkpop festival in the Netherlands ('Dear John' is 3 minutes 18 seconds into the clip):

What's with the bright sunshine in the clip? There's no sunshine in my Au Pairs world.

The Next 30 Day Song Challenge - day 11

Day 11 - Your favourite one-hit wonder

A hard 'yin. 

I guess (technically) this qualifies as a one hit wonder, though I know so much of their other work that I could never think of them as a one single band. And there was so much great dance music back in the day that could fall into the category of OHW, but when I think of 'one hit and they were gone', for some reason, I think of The Lotus Eaters and their number 15 hit from 1983, 'The First Picture of You':

Despite the fact that I've always loved this song, I was always a bit hard on them for some reason.   Something about them really irritated me. I think it was the guitarist's haircut. I guess I wasn't the only one, and despite possessing a clutch of good songs, they'll always be remembered for just the one.