Green Day – Nuclear Family
Upbeat track encapsulating the best of punk’s key messages; get up, get out, be proactive, focus on the pma. Brilliant video.
Kanye West – All of the lights
Kanye’s most forward-thinking, original, LP so far must surely be My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. 8 years old and still way ahead of the competition in sonics and visuals. Inspiring in the structure of it’s honest narrative, All of the Lights remains utterly brilliant.
Replacements – Message to the boys
Punk with a melody and message accessible to anyone with a heartbeat; never asked twice how the bills got paid. I should have seen them in London..
Adam and the Ants – Ant music
Punk-pop brilliance from the pirate stripped provocateur. Try another flavour.
Billy Idol – Dancing with myself
You can’t have one punk pop pinup without having the other. Idol does his sneer, dons his leathers and pushes buttons.
Green day – Fell for you
Pop punk comes out all romantic. The sound of youthful infatuation.
Crash into you.
Eurythmics – Thorn in my side
The only song I can remember which got a car full of 20 something too-cool-for-school kids singing along. The fact that we harmonised to the ‘woah o woah o woah’s‘ says enough about the catchiness of this pop masterpiece. God I miss those days.
Tranvision Vamp – Baby I don’t care
Staying with a sassy, forceful, female vocal and a fuck you attitude – Wendy James kicks and screams us into repenting all of our sins. But we don’t have to say we love her.
Sub Motion – Soccer Mom
The find of the month. Middle finger up – Shampoo meets Sonic Youth meets Bikini Kill meets the Strokes.
Michael Buble – God only knows
I so wanted not to like this version. Buble does his best Jeff Buckley impression and makes the best song of all time perhaps even more emotive than even Carl was able to do so. Which is almost a sinful remark. Respectful in all of the right places and pushing the orchestral sound even further, this is a credit to it’s interpretation. If love is the start of loss, then this is the loss.