I was just thinking of back when the internet was new and interesting, how blogging wasn't really 'in' yet but we amused ourselves with email forwards. Interesting ones were like those interview type profiling type forwards where one would respond with their own answers. I used to have last remnants of this lost empire on myspace but last checking my blog is gone! Good thing I started this one. Shit I better check what's happened to my music on there...
I digress... So I have spent a few minutes thinking of five songs that made me who I am, that were a major influence on my sad little existence. It would be nice if you did too! Here they are in roughly chronological order.
1 'Take on Me' by a-ha 1985
Talking away, I don't know what, what to say I’ll say it anyway...
This song is my first musical memory. At that time I was 5 years old and my Family were going through a rough patch and we were living in some bed & breakfast temporally. I remember seeing the video on 'Top of the Pops' on a tiny white TV.The bed and breakfast had lots of corridors. I would bash myself against the walls in an effort to change myself in to a cartoon version of myself. No pretty cartoon girl would appear either. It doesn't seem to work in reverse.
A little unknown fact, there is a part 2 to the video. The next single a-ha released showed what happens to the boy and girl. It didn't work out. The video shows what happens during a 2nd date with me...
2 'Fall at your Feet' by Crowded House 1991
Who knows where that might lead…
I remember the songs from the Woodface album when it came out, but didn't really get into it till about 1995. I remember hearing a live version of 'Fall at your Feet' and it really was beautiful. I have always been a romantic at heart and it reminds of that 'first love' you have that isn't some sort of immature infatuation. Where you have something real and almost tangible.I learnt to play this song and yeah I have sung it to a few chicks... At one point during my first year of university I was convinced the creative me was dying a sad death and I was destined to be a square. I sung this song in front of one my flatmates who was in the room next to me. She wept. She hadn't realised it had been me singing out of the window all this time. Claire Whyte, where ever you are, you saved my creative soul that night.
Still to this day, after that first drink or after that walk home or after saying goodbye at the station I go home, listen to this song, and think I might be making progress...
3 'Stay Together' by Suede 1993
Stay together, two hearts under the skyscrapers…
The Manic Street Preachers very very nearly took this spot, Manics signify me and my two best buds sitting around drinking beer, trying to play guitar, and listening to music while trying to form bands together.But I choose Suede. Suede turned everything around for me. Before then I didn't really listen to anything that sounded 'weird' as such. But Suede came along with 'Stay Together' which changed my perceptions. I wanted to wear Doc Martens and look different.
'Stay Together' was the single. And it's bside 'The Living Dead'. The lyrics were very gothic, ‘urban’, and dark. And me being a moody teenager growing up in London it reflected me and what I felt greatly.
4 'Fake Plastic Trees' by Radiohead 1995
If I could be, who you wanted… All the time...
The funny thing about music is that you don't always get into music in chronological release order. And some of the best music I found while I was growing up in Barking was in the bargain bin at either Sam Goodie, Woolworths, or WHSmith. We were quite lucky to have those shops, it would save us having to get to Central London for HMV or Virgin.I remember picking up the CD single in the bargain bin of Sam Goodie. For 50p. Yes 50p. I am sure anyone that worked at any of these shops in Barking at that time will remember me hanging around contemplating whether or what I should purchase. What a great purchase it was. 50p for this great song that captured my teenage angst about rejection and the fake! Accompanied by 2 bsides! What a soundtrack to my summer that was.
Back in the mid nineties generation X was lucky as music television was at its peak of brilliance. I remember watching the video at late night. How I miss flicking through those 3 channels to find greats like this video. Now-a-days you are lucky to find any music playing on our 10+ channels and when you do it's lazy programming hosted by Z list celebrities.
Paris Hilton's Personal Enema Nurse hosts 100 greatest number 11s in the odd years of the 90s! FUCK OFF!
5 ’Settle Down' by Unbelievable Truth 1998
Every move that I make is phoney, and every word I say is lies…
This blog is named after this band. One of the most underrated artists EVER. They were dropped by the major label after the first album but ploughed on independently for the 2nd and then called it a day. They were mostly famous for lead singer Andy Yorke being brother of Radiohead's lead singer. This was a good thing and a bad thing. It was connection that got me into the band. The flipside is it meant being in the shadow of the other hugely popular band.'Settle Down' was a song that I would listen to again and again while smoking and staring at the Essex countryside out of my window in my first year of university. Usually on an album I am always a sucker for the heartfelt love song. This is it on that album.
Unbelievable Truth really connected with us fans, especially after becoming more 'independent'. They used to make available demos and rarities on their website. They may not have had the most technically brilliant site but it resonated with us fans. It was one of those sites you would check every day to see if anything new was there.
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