Christmas is, apparently not like London buses.

"I'm having too many ideas" I thought on the way back from Sainsburys. I should have stopped to strip each one back but I was worried about the fish in my bag. Well, not that worried or else I wouldn't have bought the thing in the first place. I am assured that humane methods were used in the farming and killing of this fish but as the most popular human methods of death are starvation, malaria and the bullet, I really ought to rethink the whole buying strategy.
So, if I've forgotten any of the greatest songs of as and when they occurred to me over the last six months then you (and by you I really mean me, after all which other sad git is reading this tosh) will have to forgive me. But how would you know? Why would you care?
Anyway here we go. Each one of these songs were, as far as I am concerned the greatest song ever for around fifteen minutes each over the last six months (Did that make sense? Too late).
Erasure - A Little Respect. Although really, did they have to make the most literal video ever.
Teenage Fanclub - Cells. I love the Fanclub but I avoided buying the last album for months but I'm pleased I waited because I wasn't ready for it then. I needed to suffer a bit first. Cells highlights the dangers of overlistening. What is a beautiful, simple, eloquent song has started to sound perilously close to an old time folk songs. If they played stump, kettle and par-boiled potato instead of guitar, bass and drums it would only be half a "hey-nonny-nay" away from a Morris Dancer's delight.
Edwyn Collins - The Campaign For Real Rock. A great song but as it's six minutes long that means it only gets two and a half plays before it ceases to be the best ever and that's just not value for money.
Arctic Monkeys - A Certain Romance. Obvious really. Man that boy can bang the drums.
Oasis - Go Let It Out. Only for the "Click on the bass" moment.
Decoration - Candidate. "Don't let me down/I can do it for myself thank you/ Let me do it for myself thank you" "In the eighties they had electric dreams/I just dreamt of you" "Don't build you hopes up/I will only knock them down she said/I guess it's something to do" Evidence? Case closed.
Billy Bragg - The Saturday Boy. Ahh Billy, you were the king of sad geeky broken hearted teenage boys.
Beta Band - Dry The Rain. Got bored of this one ages ago. Great song though. That's the danger of the ipod shuffle.
U2 - Stuck in a song title you can't get out of (or something like that). I finally started listening to the boys again. They're not boys anymore. Shame really, they were more fun when they were pretentious rockers. Now they're uber-pretentious rockers I just wish Brian Eno would get them in a headlock and rub their heads (or beanies) until they go bald. Balder.
Talking Heads - Naive Melody (This Must Be The Place) What a fucking brilliant song and a superb title to rank alongside the likes of Country Feedback (it's a country song with feedback of course).
Blur - He Thought of Cars/Entertain Me/Yuko and Hiro. The Great Escape is turning in their lost album, loved on release, discarded for being cold fairly soon after. Have a listen (selectively), it's more fun than peeing in a wet suit. Just
But for now it's back to Teenage Fanclub and from ManMade, the current best song ever. Born Under A Good Sign. The one note guitar riff is a killer and in terms of structure the song has got to be everything their fans have wanted since Bandwagonesque.
Phew, thank god that's over...

When the title wont go to the mountain...

Bands should have to approach a committee before releasing a song that includes the band name. A few can get away with it. No, actually none can get away with it. The otherwise sublime Talk Talk released the single Talk Talk with the catchy chorus:
All you gotta do is talk talk,
talk talk talk talk,
all you gotta do is talk talk,
etc.
And I have no doubt that it dragged Mark Hollis towards madness which improved his music no end.
And who can forget the wonderful:
I'm a living in a box (living),
living in a cardboard box,
I'm a living in a box (living)...
Guess who that was by. Gone on, give it a go...
Other contenders springing readily to mind are Boxer Beat by Jo Boxers (god almighty, where did I dig that one up from?), Etienne Gonna Die by St Etienne, Bluetonic by the Bluetones, Madness by... (Madness, madness, they call it madness) and ABC got a bit near the mark with things like Alphabet Soup and A to Z. I'm sure you have your own examples.
It's a shame that Fine Young Canibals and the Pet Shop Boys didn't seek to release eponymous singles, they could have been revealing to save the least but on the whole, when it comes to songs it's a bad idea.
And the worst contender of all is the great imposter himself who had so many names he started to refer to himself in the twelth person, yes it's not only the Thin White Duke but also Ziggy Stardust and Spanners from Marks. Oh how we laughed Dave. Oh yes, I'm chortling still.
And yet for albums it's fine. Dave can name an album after the Zigster and it's ok. But a song? You pretentious merde. And then REM first IRS compilation was called Eponymous. I quite liked that. But then I was a teenager.
So, in the words of Nick Heywood, "Where do we go from here?" Well we go into the territory of the band with some of the coolest album names ever with More Songs About Buildings And Food and (this is where is starts to make sense) The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads. But the best song ever is not from that album but from their worst (in title and content), ladies et monsieurs, I give you an entry into the world of ballards. For the next fifteen minutes the best song ever is Dream Operator by Talking Heads.
After which it shall be uncerimoniously removed from my ipod and we'll never speak of it again.

Really, it's about time I went to bed. Or read a book. Or did anything other than this.

Slight variation on a theme. Found this on another blog (a good one too but forgot to note the bloody address down) put up by someone with the balls to go pop crazy and proper pop too. I thought I'd have a pop (do you see what I did there?) at rustling up a few of my favourite albums and covers. So, for the next fifteen minutes, these are the greatest albums ever.


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With the benefit of hindsight

Previous best songs ever today include:
Girls want to be with the girls - Talking Heads
Stand by me - Oasis (please don't judge me, it wormed its way into my brain by being on the soundtrack of a programme on TV although now I can't remember which one)
Just - Radiohead. If only these boys could get their act together and write more songs like this it would make this self-indulgent blog thing an awful lot easier. All day long I'd write, Radiohead followed by Radiohead. The secret's in the guitars you know. Two lead guitars, two different styles, two different sounds in the one song. Beautiful. Damn your integrity, can't you leave that to Chris Martin? He's got more than enough to make up for the rest of us.