UNEARTHING MUSICAL GEMS - TFIF Five! (30/11/12)

TFIF!!! To celebrate the end of the week I thought I'd do a quick blog for the first 5 tracks that came up after shuffling my iPod. This week's selection is totally random rather than a shuffle within a particular playlist (as I've done previously for the two specials (rock and disco) that I published.

So...without further ado....

1) Picking Up The Pieces - Paloma Faith
YouTube Amazon
Whether you think she madder than a hatstand or not, Paloma Faith has one hell of a voice. I'd not seen the video for this song until doing this blog, but immediately spotted the stunning Golden Ball and West Wycombe Park, which are local to me, being used a backdrop. Telling the story of a woman whose boyfriend is still in love with his ex, this is the first release from her second album, "Fall To Grace".

2) Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic - The Police
YouTube Amazon
A 1981 classic from the legends that are The Police. Despite only having three members, The Police never sound like they are lacking in any way, I think partly due to the phenomenal drumming of Stewart Copeland. The demo version of the song, pre-1981, can apprently be heard on Strontium 90: Police Academy, and the final version has been used over and over on film and TV ever since.

3) Raspberry Beret - Prince and The Revolution
YouTube Amazon
Ah, the original purple pixie! From the album, "Around The World In A Day", this featured Middle Eastern finger cymbals and strings (most notably a violin) and came before Prince had an identity crisis and changed his name to something unpronounceable. He was a keen advocate of pushing the boundaries of sexually explicit lyrics - I remember listening to "Darling Nikki" and being mortified at the time, although of course no one would bat an eyelid nowadays. Anyway, this is a jaunty little song with some rather tame lyrics for Prince...

4) Heaven For The Weather - The Streets
YouTube Amazon
From the now-defunct The Streets' 2008 album, "Everything Is Borrowed", this one was particularly good live due to the ascending baseline. This was the last single released from that album, with only two others being released, and a studio album, before the band called it a day. Mike Skinner, the lead singer and synth programmer, is now part of The D.O.T., a more dance focused band that provided some of the soundtrack for The Inbetweeners Movie.

5) Going For Gold - Shed Seven
YouTube Amazon
Released at the height of the Britpop era, and a rather downbeat indie effort, this was arguably Shed Seven's best known song and is their biggest seller, reaching Number 8 in the UK charts. With the media circus that was the battle between Blur and Oasis, Shed Seven just quietly got on with it. Sadly that might not have been the best ploy for them.

So, just a quickie today because I have another gig review coming out over the weekend....watch this space..! :-)

So what did you think of them? Send me a comment below!

UNEARTHING MUSICAL GEMS - Rock Special (19/11/12)

So, a new set of musical gems, this time all rock based to coincide with AC/DC's decision, finally, to make their back catalogue available for digital download. As of today you can get their tracks on iTunes with, I'm sure, others distributors to follow suit (although you still can't get them on Spotify).

There will be more rock gem blogs in the future so stay tuned. As always, the tracks are generated by my iPod completely randomly via its shuffle setting, so there's no specific order or reason as to why they're on here other than they've popped up from my indiscriminately from my rock playlist.

So here are the first ten...

1) Shake A Leg - AC/DC
YouTube iTunes
So, they've finally followed in the footsteps of The Beatles and have agreed to let iTunes sell their back catalogue after years of shunning the digital download world! I think they've probably realised that continuing to rely on physical sales alone and shunning downloads if futile, and they're hurting their pocket if they don't embrace it. Whether you like it or not, digital downloading is here to stay. So, putting AC/DC on shuffle, this was the first track to come out of my iPod. This one's from their 1980 album, Back In Black, which has sold 50 million physical copies worldwide, and probably a ton more now that it's available digitally. The Back In Black album was written as a tribute to Bon Scott, the Australian band's Scottish former lead singer who tragically died at the age of 33. The black album cover was to signal that the band was in mourning.

2) I Will Break You - Skunk Anansie
YouTube Amazon
This is a relentless distorted guitar fest! From their new album, "Black Traffic" this is a great track with some huge vocals from lead singer, Skin. If you haven't heard their album yet go and have a listen, it's well worth it. I'll be reviewing them live in December so look out for that.

3) As Heaven Is Wide - Garbage
YouTube Amazon
More guitar distortion and female vocals, this time from Garbage's first album, "Garbage" from 1995. The album was produced by Butch Vig, who also produced Nirvana's "Nevermind" and is a member of Garbage, and who just happens to be one of my favourite producers. Whilst this isn't my favourite Garbage track, I have to say that the first two Garbage albums, in particular, are fantastic. The thing I like about them is that they are not afraid to mix traditional rock with synths, programmed drums and other electronic devices. In the late nineties I wanted to be their lead singer, Shirley Mason! I just love her attitude.

4) Love In An Elevator - Aerosmith
YouTube Amazon
Ok, so maybe they're slightly cheesy, but Aerosmith have inspired even the hardest of hardcore rockers to play air guitar at one point or another! Released in 1989, the video for this track features Mötley Crüe guitarist Nikki Sixx's wife (she's the one who, at the beginning, asks Steve Tyler if he's going down...) and also Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry's wife (she's the topless one canoodling with him the in elevator), as well as various random characters such as Dorothy for the Wizard of Oz (God knows what that's about!).

5) Saturday Superhouse - Biffy Clyro
YouTube Amazon
From their 2007 album, "Puzzle", this is one of my favourite Biffy tracks (although I have quite a few of them). The cover art for the single featured a man on fire and was chosen after lead singer, Simon Neil, had suffered a bereavement. The entire sleeve was meant to represent anger, grief and sanity. The album climbed to Number 2 in the UK album chart.

6) B.Y.O.B - System Of A Down
YouTube Amazon
In acronym terms, "BYOB" usually means "bring your own beer", but SOAD have cleverly changed this to "bring your own bombs" in homage to the lyrical content of this track. Whatever your view on war, this track is a superbly tight heavy metal track, produced by Rick Rubin, from 2005. I particularly like Serj Tankian's cry of "Blast off! It's party time! And where the fk are you?!?!!!". I have a bit of a thing about people who are always late and I find it's particularly fulfilling to yell that at them as they arrive...although perhaps not so good to yell that at your boss....

7) Love Spreads - The Stone Roses
YouTube Amazon
From 1994, this track was the first single from their second album, "Second Coming". The song reached Number 2 in the UK chart and has been used on TV and in the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games. Two videos were made for the track after their label was not happy with the first one (which featured home footage and hidden images amongst footage of member of the band dressed in various costumes).

8) Jailhouse Rock - Elvis Presley
YouTube Amazon
As you can see, I have quite a liberal interpretation of "rock" as we have strayed into rock n roll...from the King himself, this was released in 1957 to coincide with the film of the same name, and was his 9th US Number 1. It came a year before he was drafted off into military service, and after he had signed a $25,000 record deal with RCA in 1955.

9) Club Foot - Kasabian
YouTube Amazon
Released in 2004 and from their debut album, "Kasabian", this track was written as a tribute to a Czech student who committed suicide as a political protest. It has been used in numerous films (including "Green Street", "District 13" and "The Guardian"), TV shows, and video games, as well as being used by Arsenal Football Club as a player entrance song. If you haven't seen this band live I would thoroughly recommend it as they are great.

10) If You Wanna - The Vaccines
YouTube Amazon
From their debut album, "What Did You Expect From The Vaccines", this was their third single and was officially released in March 2011, with a demo of the song having been released on YouTube in 2010 shortly after the band formed. The band immediately drew great reviews from the likes of Zane Lowe, The Guardian and Q magazine amongst others. I particularly like the urgency of this song, which is on a par with their first release of only one minute 24 seconds, "Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra)".

So that's today's set of rock gems! As I said, I'll continue the series at a later date, so stay tuned.

What did you think of today's selection? I'd love to hear from you so if you have comments, criticisms, or even general rants, post them below!

Rock image courtesy of marklar

UNEARTHING MUSICAL GEMS - Friday Five (2/11/12)

Well, I don't know about you, but as far as I'm concerned, TFIF!! Are you ready to finish the week on a high? Or start the weekend with a bang?

Here are this weeks gems. They work best when they're turned up loud... ;-)

1) Angel - Massive Attack
YouTube Amazon
This track is absolutely fantastic. The way it slowly builds up to the climax, and then drops back out again, is genius. It's no coincidence that it has been used in many films and TV shows, from "Snatch" to "West Wing". This is in my top ten tracks to listen to after a bad day...where I shut the door of the studio, turn the light off and whack up the volume. Pure class.

2) People Are People - Depeche Mode
YouTube Amazon
Released in 1984, this track is one of Depeche Mode's most well known tracks. Depeche Mode were a firm staple of the electronic music genre in the 80s, and it was this band, along with others such as Yazoo, Human League, OMD, Tubeway Army, and Kraftwerk to name a few, that turned me into a total synth geek.

3) Aerodynamic Beats/Forget About The World (Gabrielle) - Daft Punk
YouTube Amazon
This track comes from Daft Punk's "Alive 2007" album which was recorded live in Paris and used Ableton on huge supercomputers, which Daft Punk accessed remotely from midi controllers. And it's an absolute banger! Daft Punk's unique vocoder type of house music is instantly recognisable, and hugely popular. One of the two band members, Thomas Bangalter, was also involved in the side project that spawned another French house classic, Stardust's "Music Sounds Better With You".

4) Home - Kelis
YouTube Amazon
From her 2010 album, Flesh Tone, this is another upbeat belter and, for me, the best track on the album. She worked with various popular producers on the album, including Benny Benassi, Diplo, will.i.am and David Guetta, and the change in style from some of her previous work such as "Caught Out There (I Hate You So Much Right Now)", "Tricky" and "Milkshake" seems to suit her, albeit that this album wasn't quite as quirky.

5) I Believe In Miracles - Jackson Sisters
YouTube Amazon
OMG - I LOVE this song!! It was originally written in 1973, but this song was not really a hit until the 80s when the Rare Groove scene was big. It's funkier than a funky thing!!

I hope you enjoy this week's selection. As always, I'd love to hear your comments...

What's your favourite TFIF track?

UNEARTHING MUSICAL GEMS - Tuesday Ten (23/10/12)

Things have been busy this week in the Nikki Noodles studio, as you will have seen from my other posts. So today is the first chance I've had to sort out the next set of gems for you, but I don't think these will disappoint... Here goes...

1) Situation - Yazoo
YouTube Amazon
I bought the Upstairs at Eric's album when "Don't Go' came out but I soon decided that this was my favourite track and I played it to death. The vinyl was later commandeered by an ex during a nasty split, but this is one of those songs that I credit for igniting my unwavering love of EDM.

2) Walking On A Dream - Empire Of The Sun
YouTube Amazon
At one point this song seemed to be everywhere, and like a lot of others I kept hearing it and thinking, "What is that song?". A real earworm of the chilled out genre.

3) Inertia - AutoVaughn
'Inertia' on iTunes
'Hell Of A Place' on YouTube
These guys supported Cage The Elephant when I went to see them in 2008 and they were absolutely fantastic. I can't find a YouTube video of Inertia, so I have instead included the link for another of their songs, 'Hell Of A Place', which was the highlight of the night at the gig. This was one of the rare occasions for me where the support outplayed the main act.

4) Greece 2000 - Three Drives on A Vinyl
YouTube Amazon
Arguably one of the best progressive trance tracks of the early 2000s, this is an absolute tune! A proper Ibiza anthem.

5) Cold Game - Maverick Sabre
YouTube Amazon
From the album 'Lonely Are The Brave', this is a great song from the Irish singer/rapper. His soulful voice is very current, whilst his style is slightly reminiscent of Plan B. If you haven't heard the album it's worth a listen.

6) Such A Fool - 22-20s
YouTube Amazon
Jangly guitars ahoy! The song sounds like it's constantly building up to something that never comes, in a quirky, interesting way.

7) Raver (Benny Page Remix)- Shy FX and the Ragga Twins feat Kano, Donae'o
YouTube Amazon
Great drum n bass that'll have, "When me was a yoot me used to blow my orn like a rayva!" whipping round in your head for aaaages.

8) Cry For Help - Rick Astley
YouTube Amazon
A stark contrast from the last entry, and equally different to Rick Astley's Rickroller, "Never Gonna Give You Up". This song is beautiful and shows that he's not just a Stock, Aitken and Waterman/PWL cookie cut out. He probably goes a bit far in shaking off that image with his Lion King mane though...

9) Ghost Town - The Specials
YouTube Amazon
A ska classic with great use of minor harmonic scales, it was released when there was widespead rioting in British cities, and became a bit of a theme song for them due to its topical lyrics about urban decay, violence and unemployment. I just remember loving the video!

10) Jump Around - House Of Pain
YouTube Amazon
This probably need no introduction at all! The most recognisable, incessant scream in the planet plays as a constant theme in the track. No party is complete without this blaring from the speakers and everybody in the room, well, jumping around. All together now..."Jump around...jump around...jump around...jump up, jump up and get down....JUMP, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP..."

What do you think of this week's selection? Are there any that you just can't bear? Or maybe one of them is your favourite ever song? Let me know!!

UNEARTHING MUSICAL GEMS - Sunday Seven (14/10/12)

It's that time of the week again, where we all hang on to the last few moments of the weekend in an effort to avoid the inevitable slide into the rat race and Monday morning.

To help you cling on to the weekend for just a little bit longer here's this week's Sunday Seven. So pull up a chair, turn up the volume, and lose yourself in the following hidden gems:

1) 7 Seconds - Youssou N'Dour & Neneh Cherry
YouTube Amazon
What a classic! I think this is perfect for Sunday, it's so chilled and mesmerising. From a composition point of view it's very simple but extremely effective. Their voices work really well together too. Perfect!

2) Everything Is Everything - Lauryn Hill
YouTube Amazon
The video concept for this one is absolute genius! Basically, New York is a 7" single of the song, and it's being played by a scratch DJ. Go watch it and see what I mean!

3) Golden Skans - Klaxons
YouTube Amazon
Great song, but I'm not so sure about the video. I mean, the production is good, but the concept is a bit WTF?!? Still, I guess it's memorable...but is it for the right reason?

4) Do You Love - Sigma & T-Phonic
YouTube Amazon
No video for this one, although the urge to dance is so strong when it starts that really a video would be a waste of time! Wicked!

5) Rocking Music - Martin Solveig
YouTube Amazon
Another one to shake your booty to, but this time it's funky, funky, funky!

6) Went Away - The Maccabees
YouTube Amazon
Another perfect Sunday song. The thing I like about the Maccabees is their use of soaring guitars, and this one does not disappoint on that score. For me, this is a great "feel good" song.

7) Let's Go Round Again - Average White Band
YouTube Amazon
What a disco stomper! It's the epitome of disco - strings, brass, a disco "kick, snare, kick, snare", funky disco bass and lead guitar and, of course, the feel good factor. When I first heard this song (many years ago) I thought (along with a lot of other people, I suspect) that they were a US funk band with a soulful black singer. It just goes to show that the Scots can work a glitterball with the best of them! Brilliant!

I hope you've enjoyed today's selection. As usual I would love to hear your comments on any of the gems I've put up on my blog. Indeed, if you have any comments on the blog itself, let me know!
I hope Monday's not too painful for you... :-)

UNEARTHING MUSICAL GEMS - Saturday Seven (29/9/12)

Annoyingly my iPod died yesterday just as I was going to start doing the Friday Five Musical Gems. As I pressed play all I heard was a tiny noise, like a faint scream, from within. It's not the first time it has decided to go on strike even though it was fully charged, but I can't really complain because it's a first generation iPod, it's completely full, and it has suffered more abuse in the years that I've owned it than I care to admit to. And anyway, it's probably having a bit of a sulk because I've just bought a new iPod so I can continue to load music without having to wipe anything off of the old one. Clearly the old iPod is becoming a bit like a high maintenance partner...not sure how long I'll cope with that, but today it seems to have forgiven me and has dutifully done a daily shuffle as requested, so it has earned a bit of a reprieve!

So as you've had to wait, I've decided to be extra generous and do a Saturday Seven! I hope you find a new gem or rediscover an old favourite from the following list:

Sun Is Shining - Funkstar De Luxe vs Bob Marley
YouTube iTunes
Knocked Up - Kings Of Leon
YouTube iTunes
Ready For The Floor - Hot Chip
YouTube iTunes
Celestica - Crystal Castles
YouTube iTunes
The Only One I Know - The Charlatans
YouTube iTunes
Ego A Go Go - Robbie Williams
YouTube iTunes
C'Mon (Catch Em By Surprise) - Tiesto vs Diplo feat. Busta Rhymes
YouTube iTunes

Enjoy! As always, I'd love to hear your comments on this week's selection. :-)

UNEARTHING MUSICAL GEMS - Five for Friday (21/9/12)

If you know me, you know I have quite an eclectic and very vast collection of music. You will also know that I'm never very far away from my ipod, which I normally put on shuffle once a day, and it usually unearths little gems that I had long forgotten about. Those of you who have followed me from the very beginning will know that I used to write a short blog on my Facebook page every week called "Unearthing Musical Gems" in which I shared those little gems.

It has been some time since I last did the last one, but I'm going to restart the series, here on this blog, in the hope that at least one song on the weekly list will resonate with you, be it taking you back to where you were when you first heard it and reliving some memories, or introducing you to some new music that you have never heard before. I'd love to hear from you if you'd like to leave comments to share your thoughts...

So, without further ado, I present this week's Five for Friday:

Time Is Running Out - Muse
YouTube iTunes
Spitfire - The Prodigy
YouTube iTunes
Beggin You (Armin Van Buuren remix) - Cerf, Mitiska & Jaren
YouTube iTunes
Gone To Pieces - Nik Kershaw
YouTube iTunes
Ms Jackson - Outkast
YouTube iTunes

I love all of the songs, but the one that stirs up the biggest memories for me is "Gone To Pieces" by Nik Kershaw. I love the lyrics to the song and can really identify with them at times! I remember listening to it when I was a youngster with one of my best friends at the time. We used to get together in the school holidays and "borrow" her big sister's cassette of it when she was out at work, and play it over and over. Good times!

I've included links to the songs on iTunes and YouTube (where I can) so you can have a listen.

Enjoy! Don't forget to share your thoughts...