“Alligator Rock & Roll
Flowers for my soul
Sharks in the Doo-Wop Hotel
My fast times, miss her, I look up to you Sister
There’s a Dream World and a lonely Sandgirl
Baby she’s all I need.”

Around three years ago I wrote a 5-star review for a magazine about a new album I’d fallen completely in love with. It was a concept album about the love between Emma and Johnny, frontman of imaginary combo the Doo-Wop Spacemen. I went to see its creators at a tiny subterranean venue in Glasgow. There they were – the Doo-Wop Spacemen. Them very selves. The gig was sparsely attended but there was magic in the air. Trudy came across as a cartoon version of the cast from Happy Days, all slicked back hair, baggy shirts and trousers so short that two furlongs of white sock were visible. The singer sported a mile-wide grin which was at first unnerving, before you realised he was probably just thrilled to be playing music he clearly loved. As your eyes scanned the room, every face in the audience had begun to wear a similar expression. The earnestness and joy was utterly infectious. I soon became completely mesmerised by the bassist. He had a haircut to kill for – imagine JJ Burnel being unpunked by an elderly gents’ barber – and an attitude to match, nonchalantly turning his back on the audience at times and occasionally sharing a shy smile. You felt like you wanted to wrap your arms around him. Adorable.

I harboured faint hopes the magazine would let me interview Trudy for a short feature but the assistant editor responsible for that section of the publication told me in no uncertain terms how much he disliked the band’s music. So that was that. I played the album to death and then began listening to other things. But I couldn’t really get Trudy out of my head…

I don’t know if it’s a romantic thing to still be listening to old music in 2022. More likely it’s acute melancholia. But I‘ve rarely felt any guilt about being largely oblivious to new music. So much of what we choose to listen to is determined by our association with the past – people, places, the loss of youth and so on. The poignancy of those moments often hinders any genuine objectivity, especially now that dreams about our future have been consigned to the past. They say the past is a foreign country but it’s often the most comfortable and familiar place we know. Maybe that’s because we never remember things very accurately – our memories are usually devoid of the rawness of the original experience. But those memories are almost always soundtracked by songs as much as they are enlivened by people and places.

In pop music the same patterns are repeated endlessly. When was the last time you heard a song and thought: ‘now that is really new’? I’m thinking it was probably in 2006. Everything is cyclical – history repeats itself and pop music continues to do and say the same things. Stylistically, it evolves slowly with concentrated bursts of adventure innovation and experimentation. When I resign myself to that reality, it doesn’t seem so bad to fall in love with what seems on the surface to be a goofy 50s retro act. Trudy & The Romance don’t even have a Wiki entry. They’re hardly radical innovators. But why should they have to be? And anyway, they are much more than that. They make my heart do funny things. They make me smile and stare into that faraway space when I listen to them.  Sometimes, they come across as the Cramps playing doo-wop on ecstasy (minus the acres of naked flesh) or Orange Juice working through the Modern Lovers’ eighties catalogue (‘Midnight’s Blue Girl’) or Doves after gorging on too many Disney movies.

It doesn’t really matter that they can play too, but the musicianship is superb. They’ve clearly spent as much time learning their instruments (there’s pedal steel, sax and harp as well as guitar bass and drums) as they have perfecting their 1959 jukebox café image. Singer Olly Taylor cheekily borrows the little quiver in his voice from Elvis, or maybe Marc Bolan. Except he smiles even more than either. The band borrow quite liberally from other sources too. ‘Doghouse’ for instance boldly splices together a clanking take of the title theme from Whistle Down The Wind with the heartmelting melody from The Beach Boys’ ‘She Knows Me Too Well’. ‘Candy Coloured’ borrows the first few bars from Groove Armada’s ‘At The River’. The attention to detail is always there. They even employ a multi-cultural community choir and let them sail into the stratosphere alongside some magically tremelo-fried atmospherics on the brief but glorious ‘Sand Orchestra’ – like Grizzly Bear after they’ve finally ascended to heaven.

They did write a number one single as well. It’s just that no one bought it. If only someone had given it a few spins on the radio. That’s all it needed. It’s called ‘The Original Doo-Wop Spacemen’. Maybe it will be a number one single one day. It surely has to be. “She bop she bop…doo-wop.” I tell you good people, the world has made a mistake and Trudy & The Romance should be on your radios, on your television sets, Lord have mercy, even on your Home Screens and airpods. But they’re not, so we still have Boris Johnson as PM. There’s absolutely no way he’d be PM if Trudy & The Romance were number one in the charts. As soon as they get to the toppermost, he’s out. But for now they’re my little secret and I don’t care what you think of them. I can escape this world and its problems any time I play Sandman or remember that night at the Admiral in Glasgow. All I have to do is dream. (JJ)

DELIVER THE WORD – WAR (1973)

Don’t mention (the) War? Hardly anyone seems to these days. While many of their contemporary soul/funk siblings – Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, Parliament/Funkadelic, Sly and the Family Stone, Gil Scott-Heron – rightly continue to reap plaudits for their complex and intoxicating sorry-state-of-the-union addresses, War have been largely, with one notable exception, been banished to the periphery.

Despite a modest but respectable haul of hits, in both the US and the UK, they’re now as often cited for their supporting roles – as the last musicians Jimi Hendrix played with, at a Hyde Park festival days before his death, and as Eric Burdon’s accomplices in his post-Animals venture.

That one exception is their biggest UK hit, on which their legacy rests most heavily – Low Rider, a sumptuous groove laced with Morse code cowbell and athletic timbales, stoked by a Morris Dwayne ‘BB’ Dickerson bassline which crams every Long Beach street into a hand-held box, the birdsong of Dane Lee Oskar, who proves the real difference between mouth harp and straight harmonica, and the growl of the late Charles Miller, with sidewalk steam in every breath. Yet for many in Britain, this is not even how the song is known; it gained a second life when adapted for the advert for a famous brand of yeast extract. This advertising campaign, in turn, quickly hardened into a cliched metaphor for polarisation (I have no strong views either way on the stuff; give me humous or peanut butter any time) and the song was more recently misused yet again in the name of a leading supermarket.

It was my introduction to War as well when it was a hit in early 1976 and Top of the Pops showed the video, which featured the disconcerting sight of the grinning, gold-toothed cartoon face on the cover of parent album Why Can’t We Be Friends? reciting the verses. Awakened interest in the band prompted the issuing of a Best Of album and the repromotion of their earlier albums, the covers of which captivated my seven-year-old mind in an advert in Sounds. The superficially cheery, albeit satirical on closer inspection, cartoon on the cover of the World Is A Ghetto made me think, blessedly ignorant of the word’s fearsome past and turbulent present, that ghettoes looked like fun places to be, while Deliver The Word intrigued me because of the shadowy figure lurking in the corner. He seemed to be striding down an urban street or alley of the kind that looked so thrilling in Kojak or Starsky and Hutch; getting the album some 16 years later, I found it was a cut-out from the inside sleeve and that he was walking on a otherwise empty (long?) beach. Mistaking tranquility for tension would prove to be significant in a record which has both in abundance.

War’s story had more than its share of drama and trauma, with gangs, death, murder and internal friction all figuring. They’ve also been a fertile source for many insatiable samplers, including De La Soul, DJ Shadow, the Beastie Boys and Portishead. Yet still they’re on the margins; I have no real explanation, except maybe the lack of a truly identifiable leader, but all of this make them prime candidates for the type of reappraisal we specialise in here.

Deliver The Word was their fourth album – or sixth, counting the two they made with Burdon. The 1973 milieu it was released into – a tumutuous ferment of Watergate squall, post-Vietnam agony and increasingly narcotic ghettoes – is so well known that it scarcely needs to be recounted here but suffice to say that War chronicled that endemic madness as acutely and expressively as any of their peers. They depicted their time and place as luridly as anyone I’ve mentioned in the intro and were orators as stirring as any of them.

The first sound heard when Deliver The Word is played may come even before the needle, laser or bytes have struck; it might be groans at the wretched opening pun of H2Overture – water dreadful title, truly (their wordplay would improve; their 1983 album Life Is So Strange included a song titled U-2, in the tit-for-tat traditon of Nick Lowe’s Bowi EP).

But soon it becomes clear that the purpose of this curtain-raiser is to be a show of strength putting War’s full artillery on display. It’s all there: balmy wind chimes; discreet strings; woodpecker cowbell; harmonica and sax simutaneously evoking leisurely twilight strolls and threat-filled midnight returns; glissanding piano which upends I Will Survive to Will I Survive?; a tussle between Hustle flute and Shaft brass, before more discreet strings escort a reprise in. The final note is discordant, not only in itself but in its departure from the preceding, hyper-lush four-and-a-half minutes. This, of course, means that it makes perfect sense.

As I’ve mentioned, War have been extensively mined for samples. I’m not aware of anyone having helped themselves to the intro of In Your Eyes but it screams out for the magpie treatment; a knock-knock-who’s-there pulse straight out of Hitch Hike on wah-wah and flute. The former, in particular, creates a suitably squelchy soundbed for a song at Prince levels of carnality. A lusty chorus of War-mongers declaims in epic and terrifying terms (“In your eyes, I can see the signs of the ages/Staring me, tearing me, almost tearing my soul from me…In my mind, I can see the flames of my destruction”) and soon gives way to what we could call a Birkin/Gainsbourg-style dialogue, where groans and screams readily fill in the gaps of anything unintelligible, on a bed of rimshot shuffles and yet more, agitated this time, wah-wah. It’s intoxicating and more than a shade unsettling, not least as, once again, it ends with discord that’s almost, but not quite, obscured by the fade-out.

At 11:35, Gypsy Man is 44 seconds shorter than Tim Buckley’s distaff song from four years earlier and bears little other resemblance to it. Opening with the sound of wind possibly blown in from that near-deserted beach, the song emerges from the surf – in a manner not unlike Can’s Future Days from the same year (and some Leibzeit drum flourishes soon follow) – pulled by Dickerson’s pirouetting bass, Oskar’s wing-beat harmonica and a tambourine placing itself centre stage like an exuberant child at the front of a parade. Spectral organ, near-comical violin swoops and garrulous congas get in on the act before voices clamber through the door at just under three minutes. What they sing is succint, extending little beyond receiving the title “‘cos I don’t stay in one place too long” and the curious ambition to find “a nice sharp baby to make my home.” You could call it a jam but it’s too restless, too kinetic for that and doesn’t get trapped in a groove – as in rut. It’s a shade too long, particularly after Oskar’s harp takes charge for the final third, but conversely, the sliced-in-half single version – all you get on the album on Spotify – is like a novel with the final pages ripped out. Get the full delivery just to make sure – whatever the opposite of cutting your losses is, this must be it.

Me And Baby Brother became an overdue but comprehensively deserved UK hit on the back of Low Rider’s success. As so often, rhythm is the key, not so much stop-start as repeatedly interrupted, its Trans-Europe Express locomotion studded with potent pauses at regular intervals. The action is much more on the street than on the rails and, unfortunately, the tense of “used to run together” gives Baby Brother’s fate away early on. The song discloses little else but “they called law it and order” tells us all we need to know – a sentiment heard repeatedly in the US and elsewhere from well before the mid-’70s to well beyond. The anguished swell of organ by Lonnie Jordan removes all doubt and the closing chant of “come back, baby brother” stings in its ambiguity over his fate. It was fitting that the song appeared in the third series of The Wire but it does the song, and War themselves, little justice to focus too closely on the gloom; that fantastic, invigorating groove is what prevails.

Deliver The Word itself is the album’s centrepiece, despite being far less frantic and more contemplative than anything around it. Or rather because of it – it’s about as contemplative as pop music gets, as spiritual as Curtis Mayfield at his most soothing-with-an-edge (To Be Invisible, We The People Who Are Darker Than Blue) and, at slightly under eight minutes, this time there isn’t the remotest hint of longueurs. It simmers like the most soothing of Philly sounds and offers a message of healing and balm that’s better understood, and more are receptive to, than would have been at the time: “They don’t dig the urgency that this is an emergency/So make it heard, deliver the word…When that feeling gets to you/And that feeling you ain’t had in a long, long, long, long time…It makes you scream full of joy.” As words get beyond Jordan’s grasp and he resorts, like so many before and since, to rhapsodising “la la la la la la la la la”, the Delfonics are inevitably recalled but the rapture of Deliver The Word is beyond even the thrill of their condensed symphonies.

The groove of Southern Part of Texas rides the same train as Me And Baby Brother but in even harsher conditions, giving the songs a similar relationship – albeit less deliberate – to that of Sly and the Family Stone’s Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) and Thank You For Talkin’ To Me Africa. The tempo of Southern Part of Texas is only slightly slower but it somehow seems worn down where Me And Baby Brother is lithe and limber, as if it’s weighed down by the grim story it tells. The song’s subject was “born in a hurricane” but is denied the luxury of everything turning out to be a gas, thrown into jail without bail or remission. Worse still, this comes after “Her mama died for freedom/She got hung by Jesse James.” There’s still a percussive exuberance – this time it’s the timbales’ turn to chatter and the bass drum pounds like blows exchanged by Ali and Frazier, but each of those blows is accompanied by a Chain Gang exhalation that’s all too apt.

The equally exhausted Blisters is tersely announced with its title and sets off on a strange, Depression era-soaked instrumental trudge. Where are the blisters and how did they get there? On the hands, from interminable toil or diligent practice? On the feet, from walking in hopeful search or running in desperate fear? Or simply an instrumental title chosen as seemingly arbitrarily as Last Night or Let’s Go Away For Awhile? Either way, it has a curious echo both of the Stones’ version of You Gotta Move and Led Zeppelin’s Hats Off To (Roy) Harper, each the closest those bands ever came to genuine Delta blues. Oskar applies two layers of harmonica, each vying to be the more sorrowful, (paradoxically, when he arrived in America in the mid-60s, supposedly seeing it as his instrument’s true home, he was making the opposite journey to many jazz musicians who found a far more cordial welcome in Scandinavia than they had ever had at home) and Miller’s sax builds from a mumble to a plea to a demand, as a lengthy fade-out brings Deliver The Word to a weary, though nowhere near wearying, conclusion.

Deliver The Word is a record of strife, fear, anxiety, rage, sorrow. It’s also a record of compassion, hope, empathy, resilience and even some mirth. Amid turmoil, everyday life proceeds and, even as they report on the overarching turbulence, War find magic in the millions of individual episodes involved. We’re all well aware that the subjects dealt with on Deliver The Word are as relevant as ever and that its sound is far more bound to a specific time, but it reaches across and beyond as effortlessly as Innervisions, What’s Going On, Stand! and Roots; that’s the company it belongs in. Word delivered. (PG)

Right, first things first. Where the hell is James Brown?! As I sat down to analyse the results of our latest poll, it wasn’t simply that inexplicable omission which was making me feel decidedly anxious. In fact, to all you good folk who contributed: you got good taste (although The Cramps – with three collections splitting the vote – also missed the cut). Rather, it was the questions racing round my head which were making me jittery: what actually constitutes a ‘compilation’ album anyway? Why have some people included soundtracks on their lists while others have assiduously avoided them? Most crucially, one question began to niggle at me me more than any other: just how many klassic Kinks kompilations are actually out there? (The answer apparently, is seven)

With our previous polls, the inclusion of compilation albums had only been a mildly divisive issue, as among the majority of contributors there seemed to exist an unwritten code that selecting them was off limits. A few people voted for them, but it didn’t really matter. That is until now (would anyone have really noticed the trifling anomaly of The Clientele’s Suburban Light making an appearance in two polls – this time round as a compilation – without me pointing it out? Dang!)

So, the compilation album: some lovingly curated by obsessives; some thrown together randomly to become perfect accidents; label samplers; genre samplers; greatest hits packages; collections of rarities and out-takes; artist retrospectives; box sets and anthologies; mail order cassettes. They come in all shapes and sizes and most of us either love them or hate them. For many of us they may have played a pivotal role in introducing us to a band or a particular genre of music. For me a cassette of Can’s Opener was a revelation in my musical education, handed to me by a TNPC colleague and spun faithfully on those wheels until it tangled itself forever inside the machine. But by that point I’d bought most of the studio albums on vinyl. I am sure most of our contributors and readers could point to similar formative experiences.

Another reason compilation albums are important is that they ensure some genres of music (folk, reggae, R&B, soul, garage punk in particular) are adequately represented when it comes to celebrating the great and the good. Some of us are albums geeks – the LP is our bread and butter – but how much our lives have been enriched by hearing an old rocksteady tune – probably recorded on the singer’s one visit to a Kingston studio shack, singing her heart out for her three glorious minutes of fame – played on a scratchy slab of lumpy vinyl. And how much heritage and history would have been lost to us without the efforts of Harry Smith? Or even the good folks – with their exceptional taste – at Soul Jazz.

We made a late decision to disqualify Original Soundtrack albums (American Graffiti, Wattstax, The Harder They Come etc) from inclusion in the final poll. Most people omitted them in any case, and there was a certain degree of confusion regarding their eligibility. Apologies to anyone who voted for them. You shall have an opportunity to rectify that in a future TNPC venture.

What we are left with are 100 albums celebrating everything that is great about popular music. Despite my anxiety, of all the polls we’ve done, this may well be the one we are happiest with. We hope you’ll like it too. (JJ)

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Part One: Various Artists Collections

50. Pebbles Volume 3: ‘The Acid Gallery’ (BFD, 1979)

49. It’s Different For Domeheads (Creation, 1985)

48. Goodbye Babylon (Dust-to-Digital, 2003)

47. Club Ska ‘67 (WIRL, 1967)

46. Bumpers (Island, 1970)

45. Ultra Lounge 2: Mambo Fever (EMI, 1996)

44. The Psychedelic Snarl (Bam-Caruso, 1984)

43. (Thanks to Rough Trade for) A Constant Source Of Interruption (Rough Trade, 1990)

42. 20 Mod Classics (Tamla Motown, 1979)

41. This are Two-Tone (Two-Tone, 1983)

40. The In Crowd: The Story Of Northern Soul (Castle, 2001)

39. Pebbles Volume 1 (BFD, 1979)

38. Country Got Soul Volume 1 (Casual, 2003)

37. Tougher Than Tough: The Story of Jamaican Music (Mango, 1993)

36. Time To Go: The Southern Psychedelic Moment 1981-86 (Flying Nun)

35. Take Me To The River: A Southern Soul Story 1961-77 (Kent, 2008)

34. Perfect Unpop: Peel Show Hits & Long-Lost Lo-Fi Favourites Volume 1 1976-80 (Cherry Red, 2008)

33. The Look Of Love: The Burt Bacharach Collection (Rhino, 2008)

32. Wanna Buy A Bridge? (A Rough Trade Compilation of Singles) (Rough Trade, 1980)

31. This Is Soul (Atlantic, 1968)

30. Doing It For The Kids (Creation, 1988)

29. Disco Not Disco: Leftfield Dance Classics From The New York Underground (Strut, 2000)

28. Deutsch Elektronische Musik: Experimental German Rock & Electronic Musik 1972-83 (Soul Jazz, 2010)

27. Lee Scratch Perry: Arkology (Island Jamaica, 1997)

26. Tighten Up Volume 2 (Trojan, 1969)

25. On The Soul Side: Sixteen Soul Grooves (Kent, 1983)

24. Gather In The Mushrooms: The British Acid Folk Underground 1968-74 (Castle, 2004)

23. Bob Stanley & Pete Wiggs present English Weather (Ace, 2017)

21. The Pebbles Box (Hit / Ubik, 1987)

20. Another Saturday Night (Oval, 1973)

19. A Christmas Gift For You from Philles Records (Philles Records, 1963)

18. The Sound Gallery Volume One (EMI, 1995)

17. For Dancers Only (Kent, 1982)

16. The Rock Machine Turns You On (CBS, 1968)

15. Mutant Disco: A Subtle Discolation Of The Norm (Ze, 2003)

14. If Deejay Was Your Trade: The Dreads At King Tubbys 1974-77 (Blood & Fire, 1994)

13. Fast Product: The First Year Plan (Fast, 1979)

12. Get Primitive: The Best Of Pebbles (Ubik, 1986)

11. 100% Dynamite (Soul Jazz, 1998)

10. I’m Your Fan – The Songs Of Leonard Cohen (Atlantic, 1991)

9. Dave Godin’s Deep Soul Treasures: Taken From The Vaults Volume 1 (Kent Soul, 1997)

8. C81 (NME / Rough Trade, 1981)

7. Back To Mono (1958-69) (ABKCO, 1991)

6. New Wave (Vertigo, 1977)

5. C86 (NME / Rough Trade, 1986)

4. Pillows and Prayers (Cherry Red, 1982)

3. Anthology of American Folk Music (Smithsonian Folkways, 1997)

2. Motown Chartbusters Volume 3 (Tamla Motown, 1969)

1. Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era 1965-68 (Elektra, 1972)

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Part Two: Artist Collections

50. Transparent Day – The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band (Edsel, 1986)

49. Floored Genius: The Best of Julian Cole & The Teardrop Explodes 1979-91 (Island, 1992)

48. Ten Bloody Marys & Ten How’s Your Fathers – Elvis Costello & The Attractions (F-Beat, 1980)

47. The Great Twenty-Eight – Chuck Berry ( Chess, 1982)

46. Future Crayon – Broadcast (Warp, 2006)

45. Greatest Hits – Diana Ross & The Supremes (Tamla Motown, 1967)

44. The Very Best of The Byrds (Columbia, 1997)

43. 1 – The Beatles (Apple, 2000)

42. Bauhaus: 1979-1983 – Bauhaus (Beggars Banquet, 1985)

41. The World of Arthur Russell (Soul Jazz, 2004)

40. Discography: The Complete Singles Collection – Pet Shop Boys (Parlophone, 1991)

39. Terminal Tower: An Archival Collection – Pere Ubu (Rough Trade, 1985)

38. The Sun Sessions – Elvis Presley (RCA, 1976)

37. Golden Hour of The Kinks (Golden Hour, 1971)

36. Louder Than Bombs – The Smiths (Rough Trade, 1987)

35. Big Hits (High Tide & Green Grass) – The Rolling Stones (Decca, 1966)

34. Still – Joy Division (Factory, 1981)

33. 40 Greatest Hits – Hank Williams (Mercury, 1978)

32. Suburban Light – The Clientele (Pointy, 2000)

31. Bolan Boogie – T.Rex (Fly, 1972)

30. Substance – New Order (Factory, 1987)

29. Hit Singles – The Kinks (PRT, 1987)

28. Big Sixteen- The Impressions (ABC, 1965)

27. Chronicle: The 20 Greatest Hits – Creedence Clearwater Revival (Fantasy, 1976)

26. Greatest Hits – Four Tops ((Tamla Motown, 1967)

25. Snap! – The Jam (Polydor, 1983)

24. Kaleidoscope World- The Chills (Flying Nun, 1986)

23. Songs To Learn & Sing – Echo & The Bunnymen (Korova, 1985)

22. The Glasgow School – Orange Juice (Domino, 2005)

21. Cannibalism – Can (United Artists, 1979)

20. The Kink Kronikles – The Kinks (Reprise / US, 1972)

19. The Ultimate Action – The Action (Edsel, 1980)

18. Meaty Beaty Big & Bouncy – The Who (Track, 1971)

17. 20 Golden Greats – The Beach Boys (Capitol, 1976)

16. Rolled Gold: The Very Best of The Rolling Stones (Decca, 1975)

15. Fire Escape In The Sky: The Godlike Genius Of Scott Walker (Zoo, 1981)

14. Andy Warhol’s Velvet Underground featuring Nico – The Velvet Underground (MGM, 1971)

13. ChangesOneBowie – David Bowie (RCA Victor, 1976)

12. Relics – Pink Floyd (Starline, 1971)

11. Greatest Hits – Sly & The Family Stone (Epic, 1970)

10. Greatest Hits – Al Green (Hi, 1975)

9. The Original Singles 1965-67 Volume 1- The Byrds (CBS, 1980)

8. Boy Child: The Best of… 1967-70 – Scott Walker (Fontana, 1980)

7. Greatest Hits / The Best of… – Leonard Cohen (CBS, 1975)

6. 1962-1966 – The Beatles (Apple, 1973)

5. VU – The Velvet Underground (Verve, 1985)

4. 1967-1970 – The Beatles (Apple, 1973)

3. Hatful Of Hollow – The Smiths (Rough Trade, 1984)

2. Decade – Neil Young (Reprise, 1976)

1. Singles: Going Steady – Buzzcocks (United Artists, 1979)

Contributors:

Andy (Birmingham 81), David N Atkinson, Marc Baines, Billy Bell, Matthew Berry, Darren Betts, Caroline Binnie, Andy Blamey, Andy Bolton, Lloyd Bolton, Stephen Boyd, Johnny Browning, Rob Chapman, Ben Cook, Stuart Cosgrove, Bob Cveticham, Laura Lee Davies, Steve Davies, Michael Deane, Jon Dennis, Mick Derrick, Andrew Divine, Philip Downer, David Everall, Peter Ferguson, Jim Ferry, Paul Gallagher, Stephen Gallagher, Ben Graham, Robert Hodgens, James Hornsey (The Clientele), Jim Howie, Maartje Jansma, Johnnie Johnstone, Harris King, Jim Lambie, Peter Latimer, Huw M, Leon Massey, Stephen Mcauley, Jim McCulloch, Raymond McGinlay, Grant McPhee, Felonious Monk, Jason Myles, Richard Oxley, Nick Portnell, Johnny Purcell, Mark Raison, Ian Rankin, Seamus Reilly, Steve Rhodes, Chris Roberts, Martin Ruddock, Keith Shackleton, David Sharp, Simon Shaw, Jonathan Small, Jason Spence, Iain Stansfield, Terry Tochel, Joan Valdes, Judah Warsky, Helen Whiteley-McPhee, Dominic Whittingham

One Vote Wonders

Here are 100 of the more curious nominations – each received only one vote.

IF’N – FIREHOSE (1987)

“Utter fizzle” was the sniffy dismissal of If’n which appeared in the 1992 edition of the Rolling Stone Record Guide, with a rating of one and a half stars out of five appended. It mainly referred to the sound of the record and, ok, its production is of a plain, brown paper bag variety but, at a time when what were purportedly drums were actually often the sound of doors being slammed, its understatement verged on a political declaration and was the only way fIREHOSE could have sounded without ceasing to be fIREHOSE.

It’s also the sound of a band taking its own shape but, of course, this comes with a vast caveat – if things were as they should be, fIREHOSE would not have existed at all. They came into being in the wake of the fearfully abrupt end of the Minutemen, when Dennes ‘D’ Boon, their guitarist, singer and torrential political conscience, died in a road accident. Everyone seeks to cope with bereavement in their own way; in music, bands who irrevocably lose key members have the – equally entirely valid – options of ceasing or continuing. Led Zeppelin and Nirvana chose the former; Joy Division/New Order, the Who and AC/DC decided on the latter.

The remaining Minutemen ultimately carried on but not as the Minutemen and D Boon’s colleagues required some persuading. Bassist Mike Watt and drummer George Hurley had lost a bandmate, a friend, a kindred spirit like few others; D Boon was irreplacable and, even after fIREHOSE were established as a captivating band and pyrotechnic live act, no one ever claimed otherwise. Just as Joy Division and New Order have always been rightly seen as different bands, the Minutemen and fIREHOSE had, inevitably, significant elements in common but Ed ‘FromOhio’ Crawford in no way resembled D Boon; as a performer and lyricist, he didn’t share his predecessor’s explicit political ire but anything resembling a direct imitation would have been not only pointless and contrived but in questionable taste – a charge which could never be levelled at either the Minutemen or fIREHOSE.

With the likes of Double Nickels On The Dime and Three Way Tie For Last in contention, there’s a strong likelihood we’ll return to the Minutemen (for now, their story is comprehensively covered in their chapter in Michael Azarrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life – the title copped from Minutemen song History Lesson Part II – and in Tim Irwin’s definitive band documentary We Jam Econo.)

If’n’s title derives, depending on who you believe, from an arresting turn of phrase in the opening verse of Dylan’s Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right or from a hippy pastiche sung by Samantha in a 1968 episode of Bewitched; the former is the story told at the time of release and is the one my money’s on (either way, a song with the same title showed up on 1989’s fROMOHIO). It may be stoury in its presentation and production but this links to the philosophy which gave Irwin’s film its title. And in any case, like every Minutemen album – and fIREHOSE’s debut, Ragin’ Full On – it combusts with ideas, the notion of limitations to a guitar-bass-drums trio scrunched up and tossed in the bin like so many empty crisp packets. The limitations, naturally, are imposed not by the instruments themselves but by the minds and ambition of those who brandish them.

Take Anger, side one’s closer and a joint composition between Watt and his then partner, Kira. It does a fine job of imitating the eponymous emotion – ebbing, flowing, simmering and unleashing – but is all the more potent for never quite reaching an outright eruption. It’s a particular showcase for Hurley as a Terpsichore of the traps – a bit like the unwavering focus on Nick Mason during One Of These Days in Pink Floyd at Pompeii – but overall, the Minutemen’s legendary tightness didn’t slacken one degree in fIREHOSE. It wouldn’t have been demanded by the hardcore crowds both bands were often in front of – let’s face it, it would have sent quite a few less than open minds scurrying – but it was what set them apart. It came over less as the product of musicians rehearsed to destruction than, as some have observed, intuitive, jazz-oriented performers taking leaps together like synchronised divers.

It’s there again on Honey, Please, a straightforward enough title which gives little indication of the lyrical pandemonium Watt unleashes: “Meter reading, facts a-feeding/ Got a place in book o’ mason/ ‘Pert near hahd koa, almoat nearly more/I’m embarassed for showing you the other door.” Later, “Watch the watching men watching Washington” is a reminder that, however improbable things may have got in the District of Columbia over the past couple of years, it’s not actually all that far removed from certain past eras, and that fIREHOSE were still well disposed to flinging the odd political ball bearing. All to the fingerest, snappingest rhythm and a guest appearance from the most Jerry Lee of pianos.

Watt’s penchant for holding both rock music and the English language in painless halfnelsons recurs throughout If’n’. Try Making The Freeway, which hitches fIREHOSE’s distillation of funk – James Brown mashed in Gang of Four and fermented in Bad Brains – to hip-hop’s by then Mach speed juggernaut. Watt’s rhyming follows the Rapper’s Delight meter, which, in the face of advancements by Public Enemy and Rakim, was already becoming outmoded and can now sound somewhat quaint even on pioneering rap records, but how about the lines he volleys out: “Pounds, let’s say pounds is the weight of the town/Coming down all around, grinding me into round/Like the noun that’s found when you’re looking straight down/A handgun barrel firing off a round, yo!” This is bleak stuff – repression, drudgery, threat, fear – yet Watt’s delivery has a timbre of wit and swagger offsetting, but never disguising, the grimness.

Little grim, though, about Me And You Remembering. A year before Watt’s literally phoned-in appearance on Sonic Youth’s Providence, he recounts a conversation with Thurston “You” Moore about (sorry, ’bout) Richard ‘Dick’ Hell, repeatedly entreating his illustrious pal”‘member?” before it somehow reaches the sudden punchline of “You and me singing songs ’bout…Madonna!” while the not too material boys’ chattering funk and Watt’s gruffly droll delivery place it at the exact midpoint between a hip-hop skit and a Tom Waits monologue. He veers into Marlowe/Mike Hammer gumshoe territory on Operation Solitaire, a curious, twilit study of solitude written by Minutemen associates Dirk Vandenberg and John Rocknowski, where instrumentation which would dissolve if it became more muted gives way halfway through to the gentlest feedback you’ll ever hear. The meaning of “men’s machines wake ma” is pretty ambiguous – perhaps just as well – but “Showers of morning rinse away nightmares” has a good deal more unfortunate clarity. And you’d be hard put to find a couplet which evokes the gulf between the have and have not, the ostentatious and the ordinary, the getting on and the getting by more eloquently than: “Some lives cause some to stare/Others try to win operation solitaire.” Not the only game in town but how often must it seem like it for many.

The variety and the plethora of forms that fIREHOSE hewed from a traditional palette while recording If’n (over a total of 85 hours, according to the characteristically detailed sleevenotes) is even more apparent with Crawford and Hurley’s contributions. The latter raises the curtain with the album’s single, Sometimes, which is concocted from a reliably momma-used-to-make recipe – the slightest tweak to the venerable Gloria riff, a slender twist to the time-honoured tale of going on tour (“Now I’m up and on my way/Rolling night and day/Highway’s been calling my name” but also “You know sometimes, almost always/ I remain”) but Hurley’s drums, drilled to Marine standard, smuggle in an extra ingredient of a lurching rollercoaster around the toms which turns on a farthing and gives way in the chorus to the kind of tightly pinched military tattoo that general’s son Chris Frantz brought now and again to Talking Heads (Tentative Decisions, Thank You For Sending Me An Angel and, most famously, Road To Nowhere).

He has a couple more showcases before the day is done. Closer Thunder Child could legitimately be called fIREHOSE’s Toad, their Moby Dick – I’m afraid so, it’s mainly a drum solo – but, at 100 seconds of a four and a half minute songs, it’s concise as these things go and its jazz-wristed dexterity at least as close to Blakey and Krupa as Bonham and Baker, possibly closer. After all, few rock rhythm sections have ever swung like Hurley and Watt and if an economical drum solo seems like an oxymoron, it harks back, of course, to that Minutemen maxim once more. Then he contributes Backroads, a sleepy stroll which could have slipped drowsily from the pen of JJ Cale – an unlikely influence, it might seem, but, again, it carries on from the Minutemen’s variegated palette of covers; while they reinterpreted the Meat Puppets and Roky Erickson, they did the same with Van Halen and Blue Oyster Cult, not to mention Creedence; an autograph from John Fogerty to Crawford adorned the label of Ifn’s side two.

Back with Mr FromOhio, he has the loud-quiet dynamic going, firstly loud on Soon, which revolves on a recurring volcanic harmony of power chords and tom-tom detonations; the resulting thud resembles one huge rock smashed downwards on to another and Crawford’s breathless strumming in between resembles the water spring it uncovers. All of which makes it completely worthy of joining in the Namesake Series alongside the carnival of sweet noise that My Bloody Valentine unleashed a couple of years later. Then quiet on In Memory Of Elizabeth Cotton (sic), an unexpected but heartfelt eulogy for folk singer Elizabeth Cotten, who died at the age of 94 a couple of months before If’n was recorded. Crawford is sincere in his homage, admitting “I couldn’t shed a tear, I never knew you well” but, as so often happens, goes back to the music of the departed: “I am listening and it makes me grin.” When Phranc takes the notes high on a chorus which explicitly nods to Freight Train, Cotten’s best known song, it’s almost certainly the most beautiful moment ever to have appeared under the SST banner.

And so For The Singer Of REM. Possibly If’n’s most conventional song, certainly one of its strongest and probably its most discussed by virtue of its title alone, which continued a Minutemen tradition of songs – Under The Influence Of The Meat Puppets, Bob Dylan Wrote Protest Songs, Political Song For Michael Jackson To Sing – which were neither ostentatious namedrop nor unctuous homage but simply a door to another room in their house of a hundred possibilities. Once the title was chosen, the question: “so what does Michael Stipe think of it?” would be asked as surely as Justin Vernon will be asked about wintering in a log cabin. It’s not all that clear how he reacted but Watt is quoted as saying the Minutemen had heard of, but not heard, REM when the invitation came to tour with them and, while flattered, couldn’t fathom what Berry/Buck/Mills/Stipe saw in them. He then proceeded to tell a lengthy and extremely odd yarn about Stipe offering him treatment for burns sustained from an exploding Volkswagen and following it up with a, seemingly unfulfilled, offer to collaborate on songwriting. But Watt came up with this song for starters and while it’s something of a mystery how all this translates into “First you dream next you’re scheming, searching through your drawer/For an oar for your trip bound for a yet uncharted shore,” the song’s locomotive pace, teeter-totter melody and battle to disentangle itself before verses make it fit to pull up a seat alongside REM’s finest moments. Some saw it as a dig; it isn’t but it’s also not so much pastiche as a proud and visceral wink of kinship. And, as we learn from We Jam Econo and Our Band…, REM were, not for the first or last time, adamant on their choice of support; the last of these gigs turned out to be the Minutemen’s last, ending with both bands together covering Television’s See No Evil.

And so that’s If’n, fIREHOSE’ “second wailer” as billed on the back cover. It’s a dripping roast of invention, gusto and, if I might be so bold, fun. That fun multiplied deliriously when they were caught live; the first time I did so, they were supporting Sonic Youth at Glasgow Rooftops (see Sister, review no 18). As well as filling us in on the highpoints of their formidable debut, Ragin’ Full On, they expressed undisguised glee at visiting Alex Harvey’s home city and the headliners were required to be on Olympic form to avoid being blown offstage; they achieved it on this occasion, though they fell short when supported by Teenage Fanclub at the Barrowlands three years later.

The return visit by fIREHOSE, though, at Glasgow Tech in 1989, gave even more reason for their namesake apparatus to be deployed. For the Singer of REM singed; Operation Solitaire smoked; a cover of Public Enemy’s Sophisticated Bitch scalded. Watt sealed it all as he clasped his fists together and declared: “Glasgow – San Pedro – it’s a BOND!” He may have said that to all the towns but his sincerity ran through everything like a solo, not on his bass but his thunder broom.

That bond had been cemented earlier in the day, during a signing session at the long-vanished Rat Records in Buchanan Street; my request to have my Husker Du album signed (confusingly, fIREHOSE placed a picture of their mighty peers on the cover of If’n; fast imploding at the time of release, gone forever by the time of autographing) resulted in ‘Ed FromOhio’ being scrawled on the front and “Beads are now missing: Mike Watt” on the back. He’d circled the picture of himself, bass slightly askew, with a set of blue beads around his neck plotting an escape route which, he told me, they would soon find after one agitated flight too many. Truly, this man was a future Stooge (oddly, the picture of Hurley shows him similarly in the thick of performance and wearing identical-looking beads with a similar urge for freedom).

Perhaps even more than the Minutemen, fIREHOSE were a new kind of power trio, relying less on brute force and (apologies for the first and last time to Def Leppard) bludgeon riffola than on agility and fleet-footedness – but still capable of sticking it about when required. If Cream were a heavyweight boxing champion then fIREHOSE were a seventh dan in judo, casting up flicks and throws when least expected and ever alert to pounce. Fizzing? Definitely. Fizzle? Not a chance (PG).

Goes on a bit, dunnit? Anything which elicits this response from you will have had no place in your submission to our latest list, of songs lasting seven minutes or longer. 

Making a song last for this duration is a venture fraught with danger which should not be undertaken lightly. Essentially, for the listener, lengthy songs need to be handled in much the same way as a well-refreshed guest; if they start to ramble aimlessly, repeat themselves unnecessarily or generally outstay their welcome, then it’s time for them to go. If, on the other hand, they continue to hold you rapt with charismatic presence and engaging storytelling, then let’s open another bottle. Let’s face it, anyone can drone on for a quarter of an hour or more (insert feeble joke about the House of Commons here) but commanding undivided attention for that length of time is an art in itself.

Speaking only for myself, it’s why I have Heroin on my own list but not European Son. You Can’t Always Get What You Want bit not Can’t You Hear Me Knocking. Dirt but not We Will Fall. This doesn’t mean that I dislike any of the songs I’ve rejected, far from it. It’s just – well, I find they do go on a bit. For me at least, strip away the Iconic and Canonical status and they just don’t hold my attention in the way that the best seven-plussers do. But what’s meandering for some will be mesmerising for another.

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The Top 100

100. ‘Little Red Riding Hood Hit The Road’ – Robert Wyatt (from Rock Bottom LP, 1974)

99. ‘B Movie’ – Gil Scott-Heron (from Reflections LP, 1981)

98. ‘Rapper’s Delight’ – Sugarhill Gang (single – long version, 1979)

97. ‘Southbound Jericho Parkway’ – Roy Orbison (single, 1969)

96. ‘Good Times’ – Chic (from Risqué LP, 1979)

95. ‘Poptones’ – Public Image Ltd. (from Metal Box LP, 1979)

94. ‘The Rainbow’ – Talk Talk (from Spirit Of Eden LP, 1988)

93. ‘As’ – Stevie Wonder (from Songs In The Key Of Life LP, 1976)

92. ‘I Think I’m In Love’ – Spiritualized (from Ladies & Gentlemen…We Are Floating In Space LP, 1997)

91. ‘Small Hours’ – John Martyn (from One World LP, 1977)

90. ‘Mogwai Fear Satan’ – Mogwai (from Mogwai Young Team LP, 1997)

89. ‘Low Spark Of High-Heeled Boys’ – Traffic (from Low Spark Of High-Heeled Boys LP, 1971)

88. ‘Paperhouse’ – Can (from Tago Mago LP, 1971)

87. ‘1983 (A Merman I Should Turn To Be’ – The Jimi Hendrix Experience (from Electric Ladyland LP, 1968)

86. ‘When The Levee Breaks’ – Led Zeppelin (from Led Zeppelin IV LP, 1971)

85. ‘Voodoo Chile’ – The Jimi Hendrix Experience (from Electric Ladyland LP, 1968)

84. ‘Future Days’ – Can (from Future Days LP, 1973)

83. ‘In A Silent Way / It’s About That Time’ – Miles Davis (from In A Silent Way LP, 1969)

82. ‘Losing My Edge’ – LCD Soundsystem (from LCD Soundsystem LP, 2005)

81. ‘New Grass’ – Talk Talk (from Laughing Stock LP, 1991)

80. ‘What Goes On’ – The Velvet Underground (from 1969: The Velvet Underground Live LP, 1974)

79. ‘So What’ – Miles Davis (from Kind Of Blue LP, 1959)

78. ‘Love From Room 109 At The Islander (On Pacific Coast Highway)’ – Tim Buckley (from Happy Sad LP, 1969)

77. ‘Shine A Light’ – Spiritualized (from Laser Guided Melodies LP, 1992)

76. ‘Little Johnny Jewel (Pts 1 & 2) – Television (single, 1975)

75. ‘Sinnerman’ – Nina Simone (from Pastel Blues LP, 1965)

74. ‘Good Morning Captain’ – Slint (from Spiderland LP, 1991)

73. ‘A Love Supreme Part 1: Acknowledgement’ – John Coltrane (from A Love Supreme LP, 1965)

72. ‘Soon’ – My Bloody Valentine (from Glider EP, 1990)

71. ‘Loaded’ – Primal Scream (from Screamadelica LP, 1991)

70. ‘Free Bird’ – Lynyrd Skynyrd (from Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd LP, 1974)

69. ‘Pictures Of You’ – The Cure (from Disintegration LP, 1989)

68. ‘War Pigs’ – Black Sabbath (from Paranoid LP, 1970)

67. Für Immer‘ – Neu! (from Neu! 2 LP, 1972)

66. ‘Interstellar Overdrive’- Pink Floyd (from The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn LP, 1967)

65. ‘LA Woman’ – The Doors (from LA Woman LP, 1971)

64. ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Pts I-V)’ – Pink Floyd (from Wish You Were Here LP, 1975)

63. ‘Fun House’ – The Stooges (from Fun House LP, 1970)

62. ‘Matty Groves’ – Fairport Convention (from Liege & Lief LP, 1969)

61. ‘MacArthur Park’ – Richard Harris (single, 1968)

60. ‘Layla’ – Derek & The Dominoes (from Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs LP, 1970)

59. ‘One Nation Under A Groove’ – Funkadelic (from One Nation Under A Groove LP, 1978)

58. ‘All My Friends’ – LCD Soundsystem (from Sound Of Silver LP, 2007)

57. ‘Jenny Ondioline’ – Stereolab (from Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements LP, 1993)

56. ‘Melody’ – Serge Gainsbourg (from Histoire de Melody Nelson LP, 1971)

55. ‘A Very Cellular Song – The Incredible String Band (from The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter LP, 1968)

54. ‘Hurricane’ – Bob Dylan (from Desire LP, 1976)

53. ‘The End’ – The Doors (from The Doors LP, 1967)

52. ‘Echoes’ – Pink Floyd (from Meddle LP, 1971)

51. ‘Idiot Wind’ – Bob Dylan (from Blood On The Tracks LP, 1975)

50. ‘Oh! Sweet Nuthin’ – The Velvet Underground (from Loaded LP, 1970)

49. ‘The Mercy Seat’ – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (from Tender Prey LP, 1988)

48. ‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes’ – Crosby Stills & Nash (from Crosby, Stills & Nash LP, 1969)

47. ‘BlackStar’ – David Bowie (from Blackstar LP, 2016)

46. ‘O Superman’ – Laurie Anderson (single 1981)

45. ‘Hey Jude’ – The Beatles (single, 1969)

44. ‘Some Misunderstanding’ – Gene Clark (from No Other LP, 1974)

43. ‘Riders On The Storm’ – The Doors (from LA Woman LP, 1971)

42. ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ – The Beatles (from Abbey Road LP, 1969)

41. ‘Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands’ – Bob Dylan (from Blonde On Blonde LP, 1966)

40. ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ – Bauhaus (12″ single, 1979)

39. ‘Can’t You Hear Me Knocking’ – The Rolling Stones (from Sticky Fingers LP, 1971)

38. ‘Down By The River’ – Neil Young & Crazy Horse (from Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere LP, 1969)

37. ‘Come Together’ – Primal Scream (from Screamadelica LP, 1991)

36. ‘I Am The Resurrection’ – The Stone Roses (from The Stone Roses LP, 1989)

35. ‘Purple Rain’ – Prince (from Purple Rain LP, 1984)

34. ‘Ambulance Blues’ – Neil Young (from On The Beach LP, 1974)

33. ‘The Message’ – Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five (12″ single, 1982)

32. ‘Halleluwah’ – Can (from Tago Mago LP, 1971)

31. ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ – The Who (from Who’s Next LP, 1971)

30. ‘Papa Was A Rolling Stone’ – The Temptations (from All Directions LP, 1972)

29. ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ – The Rolling Stones (from Let It Bleed LP, 1969)

28. ‘Living For The City’ – Stevie Wonder (from Innervisions LP, 1973)

27. ‘Jungleland’ – Bruce Springsteen from Born To Run LP, 1975)

26. ‘Neon Lights’ – Kraftwerk (from The Man Machine LP, 1978)

25. ‘Like A Hurricane’ – Neil Young & Crazy Horse (from American Stars ‘n’ Bars LP, 1977)

24. ‘Astral Weeks’ – Van Morrison (from Astral Weeks LP, 1968)

23. ‘Frankie Teardrop’ – Suicide (from Suicide LP, 1977)

22. ‘Walk On By’ – Isaac Hayes (from Hot Buttered Soul LP, 1969)

21. ‘Cowgirl In The Sand’ – Neil Young & Crazy Horse (from Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere LP, 1969)

20. ‘Madame George’ – Van Morrison (from Astral Weeks LP, 1968)

19. ‘Land’ – Patti Smith (from Horses LP, 1975)

18. ‘Mother Sky’ – Can (from Soundttracks LP, 1970)

17. ‘I Feel Love’ (extended version) – Donna Summer (12″ single, 1977)

16. ‘Europe Endless’ – Kraftwerk (from Trans-Europe Express LP, 1977)

15. ‘Move On Up’ – Curtis Mayfield (from Curtis LP, 1970)

14. ‘Visions Of Johanna’ – Bob Dylan (from Blonde On Blonde LP, 1966)

13. ‘Cortez The Killer’ – Neil Young & Crazy Horse (from Zuma LP, 1975)

12. ‘Blue Monday’ – New Order (12″ single, 1983)

11. ‘Maggot Brain’ – Funkadelic (from Maggot Brain LP, 1971)

10. ‘Heroin’ – The Velvet Underground (from The Velvet Underground & Nico LP, 1967)

9. ‘This Is What She’s Like’ – Dexys Midnight Runners (from Don’t Stand Me Down LP, 1985)

8. ‘Slip Inside This House’ – The 13th Floor Elevators (from Easter Everywhere LP, 1967)

7. ‘Desolation Row’ – Bob Dylan (from Highway 61 Revisited LP, 1965)

6. ‘Street Hassle’ – Lou Reed (from Street Hassle LP, 1978)

5. ‘Hallogallo’ – Neu! (from Neu! LP, 1971)

4. ‘Autobahn’ – Kraftwerk (from Autobahn LP, 1974)

3. ‘Sister Ray’ – The Velvet Underground (from White Light / White Heat LP, 1967)

2. ‘Station To Station’ – David Bowie (from Station To Station LP, 1976)

1. ‘Marquee Moon’ – Television (from Marquee Moon LP, 1977)

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Bubbling Under: 101-200

101. ‘Oh Yeah’ – Can

102. ‘Dirt’ – The Stooges

103. ‘It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)’ – Bob Dylan

104. ‘This Corrosion’ – Sisters Of Mercy

105. ‘Private Psychedelic Reel’ – The Chemical Brothers

106. ‘Leave Them All Behind’ – Ride

107. ‘A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Centre Of The Ultraworld – The Orb

108. ‘Fools Gold’ – The Stone Roses

109. ‘Perfect Kiss’ – New Order

110. ‘The Donor’ – Judee Sill

111. ‘Slow Life’ – Super Furry Animals

112. ‘Sea Breezes’ – Roxy Music

113. ‘I Dream A Highway’ – Gillian Welch

114. ‘Dark Star’ (Live) – The Grateful Dead

115. ‘Court Of The Crimson King’ – King Crimson

116. ‘Don’t Worry, If There’s A Hell Below, We’re All Gonna Go’ – Curtis Mayfield

117. ‘Higher Than The Sun (A Dub Symphony In Two Parts) – Primal Scream

118. ‘Metronomic Underground’ – Stereolab

119. ‘Rain Song’ – Led Zeppelin

120. ‘My Favorite Things’ – John Coltrane

121. ‘Djed’ – Tortoise

122. ‘Summertime In England’ – Van Morrison

123. ‘Deacon Blues’ – Steely Dan

124. ‘Got To Give It Up’ (Pts 1&2) – Marvin Gaye

125. ‘A Sailor’s Life’ – Fairport Convention

126. ‘I Believe’ – The Buzzcocks

127. ‘Safe Surfer’ – Julian Cope

128. ‘Thick As A Brick’ – Jethro Tull

129. ‘The Width Of A Circle’ – David Bowie

130. ‘Listen To The Lion’ – Van Morrison

131. ‘Love To Love You Baby’ – Donna Summer

132. ‘Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymystic’ – Isaac Hayes

133. ‘You Doo Right’ – Can

134. ‘Tam Lin’ – Fairport Convention

135. ‘Chasing A Bee’ – Mercury Rev

136. ‘Kashmir’ – Led Zeppelin

137. ‘Refractions In The Plastic Pulse’ – Stereolab

138. ‘Murder Most Foul’ – Bob Dylan

139. ‘Free Your Mind…and Your Ass Will Follow’ – Funkadelic

140. ‘Willie The Pimp’ – Frank Zappa

141. ‘No.1 Song In Heaven’ – Sparks

142. ‘Scum’ – Bark Psychosis

143. ‘I Trawl The Megahertz’ – Prefab Sprout

144. ‘It’s A Rainy Day Sunshine Girl’ – Faust

145. ‘Expressway To Your Skull’ – Sonic Youth

146. ‘Listen, The Snow Is Falling’ – Galaxie 500

147. ‘Protection’ – Massive Attack

148. ‘Higgs Boson Blues’ – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

149. ‘I Walk On Gilded Splinters’ – Dr. John

150. ‘Let It Happen’ – Tame Impala

151. ‘Father Cannot Yell’ – Can

152. ‘By The Time I Get To Phoenix’ – Isaac Hayes

153. ‘You Going Miss Your Candyman’ – Terry Callier

154. ‘The Osmonds’ – Denim

155. ‘Take Me’ – The Wedding Present

156. ‘Lily, Rosemary & The Jack Of Hearts’ – Bob Dylan

157. ‘Hip Priest’ – The Fall

158. ‘Moon In June’ – Soft Machine

159. ‘Ballerina’ – Van Morrison

160. ‘Dead Flag Blues’ – Godspeed! You Black Emperor

161. ‘The Payback’ – James Brown

162. ‘Space Is The Place’ – Sun Ra

163. ‘This Is Just A Modern Rock Song’ – Belle & Sebastian

164. ‘All Blues’ – Miles Davis

165. ‘Faith Healer’ – The Sensational Alex Harvey Band

166. ‘No Bulbs’ – The Fall

167. ‘Water Get No Enemy’ – Fela Kuti

168. ‘Memory Of A Free Festival’ – David Bowie

169. ‘Cypress Avenue’ – Van Morrison

170. ‘Hero’ – Neu!

171.’La Ritournelle’ – Sebastian Tellier

172. ‘Be Thankful For What You Got’ – William deVaughn

173. ‘Yours Is No Disgrace’ – Yes

174. ‘When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease’ – Roy Harper

175. ‘La Femme d’Argent’ – Air

176. ‘Pass The Hatchet, I Think I’m Goodkind’ – Yo La Tengo

177. ‘Babe I’m On Fire’ – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

178. ‘Frittering’ – Mercury Rev

179. ‘Disco Devil’ – Lee Perry

180. ‘The Bogus Man’ – Roxy Music

181. ‘svefn g englar’ – Sigur Ros

182. ‘Starless’ – King Crimson

183. ‘Three Days’ – Jane’s Addiction

184. ‘Blindness’ – The Fall

185. ‘This Train’ – Bunny Wailer

186. Run Christian Run’ – Super Furry Animsls

187. ‘One Sunday Morning (Song For Jane Smiley’s Boyfriend)’ – Wilco

188. ‘Riding On The Equator’ – Felt

189. ‘He’s Simple, He’s Dumb, He’s The Pilot’ – Grandaddy

190. ‘The Diamond Sea’ – Sonic Youth

191. ‘Revolution 9’ – The Beatles

192. ‘Sea Within A Sea’ – The Horrors

193. ‘Never Never Gonna Give You Up’ – Barry White

194. ‘Paid In Full’ – Eric B & Rakim

195. ‘Man-erg’ – Van Der Graaf Generator

196. The Creator Has A Master Plan – Pharoah Sanders

197. ‘Death Of A Ladies’ Man’ – Leonard Cohen

198. ‘Right Off’ – Miles Davis

199. ‘Melting Pot’ – Booker T & the MGs

200. ‘Bel Air’ – Can

Long But Not Forgotten…

For many of you, this has been the most enjoyable part of our polls – particularly for the more adventurous listener, and this is a list of wonderful curios which were nominated for inclusion but didn’t quite make the Top 200. Enjoy!

‘Love Is Peace’ – Amon Düül (from Paradieswärts Düül LP, 1970)

‘Stone In Focus’ – Aphex Twin (from Selected Ambient Works Vol 2 LP, 1994)

‘Amboss’ – Ash Ra Tempel (from Ash Ra Tempel LP, 1971)

‘Quick Canal’ – Atlas Sound featuring Laetitia Sadier (from Logos LP, 2009)

‘Rhapsody In Druz’ – Robbie Basho (from Zarthus LP, 1974)

‘The Breaks’ – Kurtis Blow (from Kurtis Blow LP, 1980)

‘Happy Cycling’ – Boards Of Canada (from US release of Music Has The Right To Children LP, 1996)

‘Let’s Start The Dance’ – Hamilton Bohannon (12″ single, 1978)

‘Folk Song’ – Bongwater (from The Power Of Pussy LP, 1990)

‘In A Mist’ – Duncan Browne (from Duncan Browne LP, 1973)

‘Funky Drummer’ (long version) – James Brown (from In The Jungle Groove LP, 1986)

‘Fire Eater’ – Rusty Bryant (from Fire Eater LP, 1971)

‘Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet’ – Gavin Bryars (from Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet LP, 1993)

‘The Crown’ – Gary Byrd & the GB Experience (12″ single, 1983)

‘Ides Of March’ – John Cale & Terry Riley (from Church Of Anthrax LP, 1971)

‘Kandy Korn’ – Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band (from Mirror Man LP, 1971)

‘Time Has Come Today’ – The Chambers Brothers (from The Time Has Come LP, 1967)

‘It’s Broken!’ – Bob Chance (from It’s Broken LP, 1980)

‘Forest & The Shore’ – Keith Christmas (from Pigmy LP, 1971)

‘Ritz’ – Cockney Rebel (from Psychomodo LP, 1974)

‘Here In The Year’ – Cold Sun (from Dark Shadows LP, 1989)

‘Peace’ – Ornette Coleman (from The Shape Of Jazz To Come LP, 1959)

‘Something About John Coltrane’ – Alice Coltrane (from Journey Into Satchidananda LP, 1971)

‘The Side of Man & Womankind’ – Tony Conrad & Faust (from Outside The Dream Syndicate LP, 1973)

‘Saddle Tramp’ – Charlie Daniels Band (from Saddle Tramp LP, 1976)

‘Gondwana Pts 1 & 2’ – Miles Davis (from Pangea LP, 1975)

‘Outside’ – Dead C (from The White House LP, 1995)

‘Out To Lunch’ – Eric Dolphy (from Out To Lunch LP, 1964)

‘Season Of The Witch’ – Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & The Trinity (from Open LP, 1967)

‘Silence’ – The Durutti Column (from Without Mercy LP, 1984)

‘Lost In The Cold Sun’ – Earthless (from Sonic Prayer LP, 2005)

‘The Great San Bernardino Birthday Party’ – John Fahey (from The Great San Bernardino Birthday Party & Other Excursions LP, 1966)

‘Panther Phobia: Manifesto!’ – Tav Falco’s Panther Burns (from Panther Phobia LP, 2000)

‘The Stagnant Pool’ – Felt (from The Splendour Of Fear LP, 1984)

‘Supper’s Ready’ – Genesis (from Foxtrot LP, 1972)

‘Timeless: Inner City Life’ – Goldie (from Timeless LP, 1995)

‘I Didn’t Know’ – Al Green (from Al Green Is Love LP, 1975)

‘Sun In Your Eyes’ – Grizzly Bear (from Shields LP, 2012)

‘Chameleon’ – Herbie Hancock (from Headhunters LP, 1973)

‘Sehr Kosmisch’ – Harmonia (from Musik Von Harmonia LP, 1974)

‘You Shouldn’t Do That’ – Hawkwind (from In Search Of Space LP, 1971)

‘Living In The Heart Of The Beast’ – Henry Cow (from In Praise of Learning LP, 1975)

‘Cropduster’ – High Llamas (from Checking In Checking Out  EP, 1995)

‘Boy In The Moon’ – Julia Holter (from Ekstasis LP, 2012)

‘Morale…You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling’ – The Human League (from Reproduction LP, 1979)

‘Reoccurring Dreams’ – Hüsker Dü (from Zen Arcade LP, 1984)

‘Trieulogy’ – Kak (from Kak LP, 1969)

‘Cemalim’ – Erkin Koray (from Elektronik Türküler LP, 1974)

‘Somehow The Wonder Of Life Prevails’ – Mark Kozelek & Jimmy LaValle (from Perils From The Sea LP, 2013)

‘Time’ – La Düsseldorf (from La Düsseldorf LP, 1976)

‘Rainy Day Bergen Women’ – Jackie Leven (from Creatures Of Light & Darkness LP, 2000)

‘Amazing Grace’ – Low (from Trust LP, 2002)

‘What Went Wrong’ – Grant McLennan (from Horsebreaker Star LP, 1994)

‘Lay Down (Candles In The Rain)’ – Melanie with the Edwin Hawkins Singers (from Candles In The Rain LP, 1970)

‘Pithecanthropus Erectus’ – Charles Mingus (from Pithecanthropus Erectus LP, 1956)

‘Only Skin’ – Joanna Newsom (from Ys LP, 2006)

‘Confessions of 349-18-5171’ – Ken Nordine (from Word Jazz Vol. 2 LP, 1960)

‘A New Dress’ – Nurse With Wound (from Automating Vol 2 LP, 1989)

‘Atomic Bomb’ – William Onyeabor (from Atomic Bomb LP, 1978)

‘Planet Of The Shapes’ – Orbital (from Orbital 2 LP, 1993)

‘War On The Bullshit’ – Osiris (from War On The Bullshit LP, 1986)

‘Vibrate Onn’ – Augustus Pablo Meets The Upsetter (single, 1977)

‘Jack Orion’ – Pentangle (from Cruel Sister LP, 1970)

‘Hundred Syllable Mantra’ – Phurpha (from Gyer Ro LP, 2017)

‘Acid Tracks’ – Phuture (12″ single, 1987)

‘Otče’ – Agon Orchestra & The Plastic People Of The Universe (from Pašijové hry Velikonoční LP, 1978)

‘Flex’ – Prolapse (from backsaturday LP, 1995)

‘Who Do You Love (Suite)’ – Quicksilver Messenger Service (from Happy Trails LP, 1969)

‘Katy Song’ – Red House Painters (from Red House Painters LP, 1993)

‘Poppy Nogood & The Phantom Band’ – Terry Riley (from A Rainbow In Curved Air LP, 1969)

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‘Strings Of Life’ – Rhythim Is Rhythim (12″ single, 1987)

‘Faith’ – Paul St. Hilaire & René Löwe (from Faith LP, 2003)

‘Ask Me No Questions’ – Bridget St. John (from Ask Me No Questions LP, 1969)

‘Upper Egypt & Lower Egypt’ – Pharoah Sanders (from Tauhid LP, 1966)

‘Inspiration’ – Section 25 (from From The Hip LP, 1984)

‘Up In Her Room’ – The Seeds (from A Web Of Sound LP, 1967)

‘Measuring Loneliness’ – Shizuka (from Planning For Loneliness LP, 1994)

‘A Meditation Mass’ – Yatha Sidhra (from A Meditation Mass LP, 1974)

‘Se Lest’ – Sigur Ros (from Takk LP, 1995)

‘This Fear Of Gods’ – Simple Minds (from Emires & Dance LP, 1980)

‘Illegal Bodies’ – Simply Saucer (from Cyborgs Revisited LP, 1989)

‘Khidr & The Fountain’ – Six Organs Of Admittance (from Dark Noontide LP, 2002)

‘Dopesmoker’ – Sleep (from Dopesmoker LP, 2003)

‘Man Next Door’ – The Slits (from Cut LP, 1979)

‘Patchwork’ – Laurie Spiegel (from The Expanding Universe LP, 1980)

‘Vito’s Ordination Song’ – Sufjan Stevens (from Michigan LP, 2003)

‘Atlantis’ – Sun Ra Arkestra (from Atlantis LP, 1969)

‘In An Autumn Garden’ – Toru Takemistsu (from In An Autumn Garden LP, 1973)

‘Journey Through A Burning Brain’ – Tangerine Dream (from Electronic Meditation LP, 1970)

‘Closer To God’ – Television Personalities (from Closer To God LP, 1992)

‘White Punks On Dope’ – The Tubes (from What Do You Want From Live LP, 1978)

‘Hi-Tech Jazz’ – Galaxy 2 Galaxy / Underground Resistance (12″ single, 1993)

‘Barely Breaking Even’ – Universal Robot Band (12″ single, 1982)

‘Melody Laughter’ – The Velvet Underground (from Peel Slowly & See Box Set, 1995)

‘The View From Her Room’ – Weekend (12″ single, 1982)

‘The Visitation’ – White Noise (from An Electric Storm LP, 1969)

‘Youth Of America’ – Wipers (from Youth Of America LP, 1981)

‘Harpooned’ – Wire (from Wire LP, 2015)

‘Volga Delta’ – La Monte Young & Marian Zazeela (from The Black Record, 1969)

‘Moon Revolutions’ – The Young Gods (from Only Heaven LP, 1995)

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