List #2: Summer Playlist

I'm far too lazy to bother writing a proper list today, because that requires brainwork; so I've got a 5-song summer playlist for you today, which comes from a post I co-wrote for my good friend Bee over at Vivatramp whilst she's on holiday (: This is a bit of an elongated (and is the original) version.


Rightie, my choices are:

Move on Up - Curtis Mayfield

    The perfect summer playlist – you can dance to it, you can relax to it, it makes you feel happy. Right? Then where better to start than Curtis Mayfield’s stone cold classic Move on Up?  WHAT. A. TUNE. It's played at Arsenal after we win, so reminds me of the good times; trumpets blazing, it's impossible not to get into - whether it's head nodding or hand-drumming to that goddamn bongo rhythm you'll proper enjoy it, although you might crash the car (I recommend trying the Single Ladies dance with it (I'm not joking - do it)).  Perhaps it would benefit from losing a bit of the extended instrumental, at least for a mixtape, but it's hard not to forgive him when you see how amazing his outfit is in that video.  This song is good enough to dissuade me from putting Isaac Hayes’ Shaft on the playlist, which is probably the best compliment you can pay a song.

Sunny Afternoon - The Kinks

    It’s hard to be a member of my family without liking The Kinks (Dad used to live next door to Dave (the guitarist with the luscious locks)) and Sunny Afternoon is candidate for my favourite song of all time as well as being just generally amazing.  Sit back in your hammock and enjoy whilst you're basking in the sun.  Far too good to not be mentioned.

Sunday Sunday - Blur   

    Blur are my favourite band - and Sunday Sunday is a song from their best album.  This was such a hard choice: I only allowed myself a single Blur and picked it above For Tomorrow - also on Modern Life is Rubbish - and Girls and Boys on the basis that it doesn't need to be 'listened to' to be enjoyed (you can dance) but neither is it limited by in depth listening.  It features on the best 'passage' of the album - Blue Jeans / Chemical World / Intermission / Sunday Sunday / Oily Water - and manages individual excellence without interrupting its flow.  It also has some ace slide guitar at the end.  Amazing but not overshadowing? Playlisted.

Surfin' USA - The Beach Boys  

    Beach Boys are a quintessentially summer band, and one of those which I discovered through the medium of 50p charity shop records.  I've stuck to it: I have 4 Best of The Beach Boys 12"s and only one full album, Pet Sounds, and that on a scratched CD.  I originally had Girls Aloud's Love Machine in this slot, but you can't really leave BBs off a summer playlist and Love Machine was a very definite sixth choice.

Set The Tigers Free - Villagers  

    Does everyone here like Villagers? Set the Tigers free is a lovely song to relax to.  Every precedent for a superb summer song is filled: sounds so clean, consistently fresh and amazing on vinyl.  I think that the line 'I'll be cheering from the sidelines / with a sandwich and a beer' clinched its place here.  Let's not forget we're in Britain, and embrace the line 'and all at once I step outside / into the wind and rain' as an example of it working brilliantly for sitting around inside during a humid storm.  Sounds amazing in the morning.

Things I very nearly put in include The Girl under the Tree, Zorbing and Girls on Film.  Does that sentence count as cheating?  I didn’t even consider The Beautiful South because the choice of song would have been nigh-on-impossible.

What are your favourite summer songs/what would be your playlist/how would you amend mine? I'd love to hear from you on this issue, which is one of my fave questions - love a good mixtape - so comment comment comment

Chaaaars

So how about that Nicola Roberts, then?

Old man verdict - I can scarcely hear above that electronic racket
Young indie teen - not bad, not bad
Current indie'n'Gaga Jamie - really really good, almost at 'amazing' level. Mildly rubbish video, tho'

These are my views on Nicola Roberts' new single, Beat of My Drum.  They're hardly secret, and I waxed lyrical about it on twitter when I first heard it, but I just wanted an excuse to put up this video of my brother Andrew and myself doing a bit of an owl-ey cover, inspired by And's friend Taylor giving him her drawing of an owl in a suit.  It's lovely and a little bit jubbly.  Excuse my incest joke at the end.

For something completely different, the majority of you will probably like this a lot more.  The band's called Daughter, and the EP sounds quality.

Also Bee did her vlog, which is amazing.  And I got her to talk about Nazis.  My favourite bit is when my stupid question confuses her and she says she would listen to music if it came in the form of 'a cake made of shit'.

That is all; I am meant to be revising now... I'll come back on, probably, Tuesday, but Friday the 24th's my last exam, so I might do a blog party - Zoe's idea, with a post every hour, and guest bloggers - or a vlog the following Saturday.  Something special to get all my thoughts over the past few weeks in without making a really stupidly long attention-losing post, and then I'll readjust the features schedule to get more blogging in in the absence of school commitments so to try and get my follower count up a bit and have a bit more fun with it here.  Might sort out my background and stuff too - let me know your thoughts, I'll be back soon to chat away, this paragraph's grown a bit long so I'm going to cut myself off here


P.S. so Gabriel Duquette who is ace mentioned me on his walking blog, big win