Wednesday 16 January 2008

Pounding, by Doves, single released from their 2002 album, The Last Broadcast. Check out the stunning video here.

Lola Stars And Stripes, by The Stills, from their debut 2003 album, Logic Will Break Your Heart. Sample the rest of the brilliant album here.

I Will Follow, debut 1980 single by U2. I saw them play this live in a Sheffield pub with about 40 other fans in the week of its release. So there.

In This Home On Ice, by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, from their debut, eponymous album from 2005. Sample the rest of it here.

Lowdown, by Electrafixion, from 1995. The band was the joint project of Echo and the Bunnymen's Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant, and released one album, Burned.

Winning, by The Sound, from their second, 1981 album whose title makes no sense at all because of a missing apostrophe: From The Lions Mouth. It's not certain whether this grammatical lapse contributed to lead singer Adrian Borland's depression which culminated in his suicide in 1999. Or it may have been to do with the fact his band were never as successful as their labelmates, the aforementioned Echo and the Bunnymen. The Sound's five albums were remastered and re-released by the excellent Renascent label in 2001.

Driving Away From Home, by It's Immaterial, released as a single from their 1985 debut album, Life's Hard And Then You Die. Sample more from the album here.

Trains To Brazil, the irresistable debut single by Guillemots, released in December 2005. Would have made a brilliant Christmas number one. Was included on their wonderful debut album, Through The Windowpane, released in 2006. A new album is rumoured to be imminent. I can't wait. Note: Neither trains nor Brazil feature in the story or the video of the song......

Favourite Shirts(Boy Meets Girl), the debut single by Haircut 100 which reached number four in the UK charts in October 1981.

The World Is Outside, by Ghosts, from their debut 2007 album of the same name.

Everything Is Everything, by French band Phoenix, from their second, 2004 album, Alphabetical. This band came to my attention after one of their tracks was featured in the 2003 film Lost In Translation.

Wood Beez(Pray Like Aretha Franklin), by Scritti Polliti, released as a single in 1984. The fact that it got to number 10 in the UK but a mere number 91 in the US tells you everything you need to know about the cultural divide between our two nations....

Slave To The Rhythm, by Grace Jones. This is the eight-minute, "Hot Blooded" version from her 1998 album, Private Life: The Compass Point Sessions. Sample the rest of it here.

Tanto Tempo, the title track from Bebel Gilberto's 2001 (UK) debut solo album. She's the daughter of Joao Gilberto, the Grammy Award-winning Brazilian singer and guitarist credited as the "Father of Bossa Nova". Chill out to more of her music, including tracks from her most recent album, Momento, here.

Casually Unkind, from the only, eponymous album released by Scottish singer/songwriter Jerry Burns in 1992. She's got a voice to die for, yet never released another album. Information on her is hard to come by - so if anyone reading this can tell me anything at all about her, please leave a comment below - but she has contributed to the occasional film soundtrack. There is a fan website here and some new(er) tracks available at her MySpace page here.

Where Happiness Lives, by Magnet(aka Even Johansen), from his exquisite 2003 debut album, On Your Side. This gifted Norwegian - he writes, sings and plays most of the instruments - recorded the album near Lockerbie in Scotland, where he lived for a while. Sample more from it here.

Falling And Laughing, the debut, 1979 single from Orange Juice.

Will I Ever Be Inside Of You, another grammatically-challenged song title, this time from Paul Quinn And The Independent Group, from their 1995 album of the same name(and still missing a question mark). Glaswegian Quinn had previously played and provided backing vocals for Orange Juice. He formed this group with Alan Horne, founder of Postcard Records(who released Orange Juice's material). Sample more from the album here.

Lost In The Plot, by Montreal's The Dears, from their 2003 album, No Cities Left. Sample the rest of it here.

There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, by The Smiths, from 1986's The Queen Is Dead.

Horse Overboard, by Microdisney, from their 1987 album, The Clock Comes Down The Stairs