Something Old: The Go-Betweens/ You Can't Say No Forever

This is one of the few songs that completely takes over your faculties as you listen. Visceral, heartbreakingly raw and shatteringly honest; as you listen you momentarily shift and you are left ever-changed past its end. Incredible guitars and a vocal approach perfectly executed.

"You can't say no forever/I've tried"

Something Old: Hurrah!

From Newcastle, Hurrah! were one of the first bands signed to Kitchenware Records. For fans of Close Lobsters, Orange Juice and The Bodines. Which is me.

Something Old: Biff Bang Pow!

Loves Going Out Of Fashion



Biff Bang Pow! were an oddity. Starring Alan McGee, they formed in around 1983 and between then and 1991 released 6 albums and a handful of incredible singles. Love's Going Out Of Fashion, was their third single from 1984. It's carrion call delivery is clearly at the upper limits of it's singer's ability but the strained sadness only serves to haunt your memory of the hook. Clipping, electro-acoustic six strings sounding like Spanish guitars twist in and around the entire song, ill mixed as they are, until it finally gives into a wailing harmonica that it's fought with throughout. "Love's going out of fashion", he sings, almost shouting, and you believe him. You could be in the throes of a deeply passionate romance and, unbelievably, Alan McGee has just made you think twice.
Perhaps this is part of the problem with this bands legacy though, the sticking point that Alan McGee is a fairly unlike-able man and maybe somebody that you wouldn't ask for relationship advice in the first place. He certainly isn't a fashionable influence to name check any more.

That aside, the song that follows is one of the finest pieces of throwaway, half-finished jangle pop that I have ever heard.

Sunny Days

Something Old: "there's nothing to worry for, things will look after themselves". Stereolab - Ping Pong

Since first hearing this song when I was perhaps, fifteen years old, this song has been constantly relevant. Of course, that is the point; that war and peace and boom and bust perpetuate and are inextricably intertwined. What I love about this song is how the less than subtle lyric is set to a piece of beautiful, swinging pop music that you'd be forgiven for being distracted by, and from the meaning of the song. If you care to listen again, and this time listen more closely, you'll hear that everything is not quite right. We have economic stability and we quickly forget how it came about. A new flat-screen television and 'ipad' and we are happy, oblivious. A pop song that bears repetition and close inspection? Sacrebleu!