Boards

I woke up at like 5am in this shitty motel to jump in my car and drive north to San Francisco. As soon as I got on the freeways, just as it started getting light, (there was barely any traffic) "It's Not Unusual" came on the radio.

Think it could've been pretty much any fucking song but it felt like the time of my life...I'd never liked that song much but I was like "yeeeeeah" and I've appreciated it ever since.

It doesn't have a chorus. Weird.

by Frank Wilson. I was never a big Northern Soul kid but I really love this. It was on the soundtrack of Cemetery Junction (most unrealistic night club scene ever) which made me realise how good it is. I do this a lot with songs: I might be indifferent to them and then hear them in a film and love them as a consequence.

3 or 4 on there.

then realised What's Going On is a fucking masterpiece.

MY GIRLLL
GEO-R-GIA-S MY GIRL

Fucking Bohemian Rhapsody.

Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Any More

Particularly Jive Talkin'.

i find it genuinely touching

It was just one of those songs that I'd heard and been all like 'meh' about. But then I saw him belting it out at the AFL grand final a few years ago with bagpipes and shit and 100,000 people going nuts for it. Properly made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

hated it until i saw the Sopranos

I adore it. Wish I heard it more.

Mine was always 'Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For' by U2. Then again I don't always hear that song, but because I hate U2 I never try and listen to them or it. But when you rarely hear it, WOAH.

like no seriously there's something in it which really CONNECTS with people, listen to the little drum bit, and the lyrics, don't you see how clever that metaphor is?

It's probably quite annoying to those around me.

But in one of these drunken reveries I once discerned Carly Simon's You're So Vain to be a genuine and indisputable masterpiece.

walker bros

but it's really, really good when not played on repeat for three hours. Does that count?

but I got this with Streets Have No Name a month or two ago. It's so cliche these days, it almost doesn't mean anythign but I watched a documentary about making it and all the problems they had and how Brian Eno tried to delete it and got into a fight and how when the Edge came up with it he was jumping around his house in joy.

It all makes for an amazing story. Then you actually here the finished article and it's like "wow" and for a moment you forget everything shit that you associate with it.

and yellow came on by coldplay and i thought 'this is actually really good' then i realised that i was with people i loved and i think that was one of my highest points, now i adore that song

whenever I hear The Pogues' Fairytale Of New York

Usually it's some R&B tune I slagged off on here 7 years back and now realise to be AMAZING.

This week: Alicia Keys' 'Fallin''

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9gKyRmic20

alot of these songs never got cliched for me

Come on Eileen and Video Killed The Radiostar, yes

http://youtu.be/HFZmRVjUJnY

Normally I dislike both kinds of music - Country AND Western - but I make an exception for this.

Heard it a million times and never cared for it, then a few weeks ago found myself waiting at the bar in a total dive in Reading, drunk, 10 years older than everyone else, with that song blaring. It's an amazing song.

The entirety of "Dare," really.

its a fucking incredible song, much as it pains me to admit it.

It has that slight desperation about it that can really get you in the pit of your stomach when you're in the right mood.

When I first heard it in clubs it just struck me as annoying cheesy 80s track.

It still does. But now I think it's GREAT.

Cheesy wedding discos aside, the production and arrangement is utterly sublime.

'You Got It' and 'I Drove All Night' from the late 80s/early 90s were big hits, but also big turn-offs for me at the time. Then a couple of years ago it went from being "gah, that ol' crooner again", to "woah, this guy is a definite cut above".

All gold:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8ZVFngqvzA

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PLq0_7k1jk

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls2lC7DQFMI

www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8s9dmuAKvU&t=0m40s

They've been part of the cultural wallpaper for so long that they become remote and routine. Then one day you hear Black Dog playing on a good stereo and suddenly realise: fucking hell, this was a BAND. And they played like THIS. It's quite amazing.

Not Stairway To Heaven, though. That song will never fail to make me cringe.

The Sun Always Shines On TV

But I always feel this way about "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepson. I don't think I'll ever be sick of that song.

Listened to Bad reissue the other day, there are an amazing amount of singles on the album and found myself singing along to 90% of it plus the live at Wembley gig is just too good.

believe...

I went to Manchester Uni between 1991 and 1995 - I don't know how things are now, but then students were OBSESSED with Abba. We didn't have 70s nights, we had Abba nights. Even if you went to a night that wasn't specifically about Abba, Abba came on... time and time again. I came to absolutely loathe them.

But you look at their stuff now and firstly, a lot of it is really really odd. Like properly strange. "Money Money Money" is MENTAL. There has been nothing like it before or since, and a lot of it borders on genius.

struggled to think of something for this, but this fits perfect. every time i hear it i realise it's top 20 of all time material, but i forget about it so easily. dunno why. it's always a nice surprise when i remember it tho.

every element of it is complete perfection.

I think its because instead of being that same old cliched song you've heard so many times its because I'm hearing it through the experience of someone else, hearing the song fresh again.

Pump this up loud, perhaps in the car on a cold night when you are driving a car down a motorway back to the one you love. Brings tears to my eyes, lovely tune.

JFC.

There's some belters on those Eagles albums. Country rock and 4 part harmonies is a winning combo