Wednesday 30 December 2015

1001 7" Records You Must Own No.41 Magoo – Holy Smoke / Pink Dust / A Meeting Of Minds


Magoo were a strange band, veering all over the place with different styles and experimentations, but when on form they wrote perfect indie pop songs that deserved a much bigger audience, ‘Holy Smoke’ is one of those songs, beautiful melodies it’s an excellent chilled out song. ‘Pink Dust’ on the other hand is a masterpiece of simplicity and should be heard by everyone everywhere “take your head on the ground, there’s a deal going down, and you might as well stay, the final act of the play, is being written for those, who sneak a peek at the prose…” it’s one of my favourite songs.

Saturday 26 December 2015

1001 7" Records You Must Own No.40 Kings Of Leon – Four Kicks / Head To Toe


Sometimes a bands biggest hit can ruin everything that was good about them, up until ‘Sex On Fire’ Kings Of Leon could do no wrong, three excellent albums back to back each with a different twist on their own stlye, then that ass-rock of a song ruined everything! ‘Four Kicks’ is the best track off their second album and uses a great quite loud dynamic to explode the chorus into a rush of adrenaline which thank god they back up with an equally as good song. ‘Head To Toe’ will most likely have never been heard by even the older fans, tucked away here in b-side obscurity it’s a gem of a track and makes me miss when bands released more 7” records, it’s better than some of the other singles off the second album and it definitely pisses all over that earlier mentioned pile of shit.

Tuesday 22 December 2015

1001 7" Records You Must Own No.39 The Horrors – Sheena Is A Parasite / Jack The Ripper


The Horrors now considered a pioneering psychedelic post punk and various other genre’s band were once mocked for their image and sound at the beginning, not by me, I fucking loved their early records. Seeing them at Leeds University made me not feel quite as bad that I never got to see The Birthday Party, they were chaotic and reckless and outstandingly noisy, debut 7” ‘Sheena Is A Parasite’ perfectly showcased what they could do in just under two minutes of screamed chaos. If that wasn’t enough their roaring cover of ‘Jack The Ripper’ almost put The Gruesomes to shame.

Friday 18 December 2015

1001 7" Records You Must Own No.38 Guns N’ Roses – It’s So Easy / Mr. Brownstone


It’s not that I don’t like the Use Your Illusion albums, it’s just they were a bit watered down and sappy at times, something Guns debut album definitely wasn’t. Appetite For Destruction’ is essentially a perfect album from start to finish there’s not a dud track and will forever be hailed as a landmark in rock history, here we have my two favourite songs from the album. ‘It’s So Easy’ which is one of the lesser famous singles yet one of their best showing everything that was great about this band from Axl Rose’s venomous spitted lyrics to Slash’s untouchable guitar lines. On the flipside you get ‘Mr. Brownstone’ a song about the spiralling drug addiction that had already started taking its toll on the band to a Bo-Diddley beat, untouchable single.

Monday 14 December 2015

1001 7" Records You Must Own No.37 Green Day – 1,000 Hours / Dry Ice / Only Of You / The One I Want


Like most people in the UK I got into Green Day when I saw the ‘Basket Case’ video on MTV and was instantly hooked by their pop-punk greatness, but it didn’t stop me begging my parents to buy me the first two independent albums to hear more. Back then these 4 songs were on the extended ‘1,039 Smoothed Out Slappy Hours’ release but this was in reality Green Day’s first EP released on 7” and contains the first fruits of their labour. Even back then they had an amazing knack for catchy as hell melodies and heart tugging lyrics they became famous for ‘1,000 Hours’ is a love song pop songwriters would kill for. ‘Dry Ice’ continues in the same vein showing Billie Joe was always a romantic at heart, ‘Only Of You’ has the classic Green Day guitar sound while having a harder edge. Culminating in ‘The One I Want’ which hints at Mike Dirnt’s future brilliant bass playing and brings to close a perfect EP.

Thursday 10 December 2015

1001 7" Records You Must Own No.36 Foals – Hummer / Astronauts And All


While Foals debut album was good the decision to not include this or Mathletics on it was a big mistake both singles surpassed a number of songs they did include and would have made for a much better record. ‘Hummer’ with its rhymic cowbelling rumba of a sound was something fresh at the time and really broke the band big. B-side ‘Astronauts And All’ shouldn’t have made the album because it’s an excellent b-side and should only be known by those who picked up this single, it’s arguably better than the main track with an even bigger melody running throughout.

Sunday 6 December 2015

1001 7" Records You Must Own No.35 The Datsuns - Lady / MF From Hell


One of their early self-released singles, both tracks would make their debut album and rightly so, first up you have ‘Lady’ while not a slow track it shows The Datsuns softer side while still being classic garage rock and is a great intro to the record, but it’s on the other side of the coin that really interests. ‘MF From Hell’ is a rip-roaring rocker of a song that doesn’t let up for a second and is the reason I’ll never let this record out of my collection.

Wednesday 2 December 2015

1001 7" Records You Must Own No.34 The Cramps – Naked Girl Falling Down The Stairs / Let’s Get Fucked Up


Ahhh, The Cramps took psychobilly garage rock to new schlock levels and were all the better for it, I’m still working my way through their early works but in college I came across this single someone had left in the radio booth and was instantly hooked.  It’s literally a song about a naked girl falling down the stairs, but b-side ‘Let’s Get Fucked Up’ with its stop start rhythm and ode to forgetting tomorrow “when we’ll feel like we’ve been hit by a  truck” and enjoying literally getting fucked up makes it a double a-side worth picking up