1001 7" Records You Must Own No.49 Ed Harcourt - She Fell Into My Arms / I've Become Misguided

Ed Harcourt’s first album Here Be Monsters is pretty much a masterpiece, which spawned a number of excellent singles and was a huge step up from his decent mini album Maplewood. It’s not that the songs were bad on Maplewood it’s just they were stripped down almost demo like needing the extra instrumentation that would make the album such a leap forward. ‘She Fell Into My Arms’ is a lush painfully cracked love ballad done only like Ed Harcourt can do. ‘I’ve Become Misguided’ was originally on Maplewood but it was nowhere near as good as it is on here, when Ed half dementedly screams the chorus it’s almost like a different song altogether. Having also had the pleasure of seeing him live I can truly say that it’s an experience worth seeing and hearing.

1001 7" Records You Must Own No.48 The Stone Roses - She Bangs The Drums / Standing Here

Come on, if you haven’t heard ‘She Bangs The Drums’ there’s no hope for you, you don’t even need to be a Stone Roses fan to have heard this one it’s a classic and nothing else needs to be said. ‘Standing Here’ you’ll be forgiven for not knowing, it’s been tucked away in b-side limbo and unless you picked up the single or Turns To Stone or Collection albums you’ll likely have never heard it, which is a crying shame as it’s actually my favourite Stone Roses song. Kicking off with Squire’s trademark squeal of a riff it’s like an air raid siren played on guitar and when Ian Brown croons "i'm standing here, i really don't think you could know, that i'm in heaven when you smile" it becomes a song that is damn near perfection, this is the very definition of a desert island disc.

1001 7" Records You Must Own No.47 Redd Kross - Get Out Of Myself / So Cal V8

If you have never heard Redd Kross shame on you, over the last 35 years they have been honing their sound from the hardcore songs of their youth to the bubblegum power-pop of their later years and have churned out some of the best music you’ve never heard. While there’s countless singles to choose from I’m starting with one of my favourites.  ‘Get Out Of Myself’ is lifted from their 1997 album Show World and is one of the standout tracks from the album chock full of the McDonald brothers harmonies. However it’s when you flip the record over that things really get interesting ‘So Cal V8’ should have been a single itself, it’s got more energy than a crate of Red Bull and blasts by in 2 and a half minutes of power pop perfection, there’s many bands who deserved more recognition than they’ve had but Redd Kross are near the top of that list.

1001 7" Records You Must Own No.46 Mainline – Black Honey / Once More (Because Of You)

Bit of an obscure one here, Mainline were an Irish band who released this single and another EP called ‘Where The Ghosts Meet’ and that’s apparently all she wrote, however it appears some members went on to form a band called The Brothers Movement who I plan to check out. First look at the sleeve and it brings to mind Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and once the needle hits you’re not far off ‘Black Honey’ is fuzzed up rock’n’roll that wouldn’t have been out of place on the first BRMC album and should have gained the band more recognition than it did. On the flipside we have ‘Once More (Because Of You)’ less BRMC more of a bluesy rock feel and a great song that makes me think of early 22-20s which is definitely no bad thing, after listening to this again I’ll definitely be checking out The Brothers Movement to see if its more of the same.

1001 7" Records You Must Own No.45 Ash – Return Of White Rabbit

Another one of the few single sided records on this list, ‘Return Of White Rabbit’ was an introduction to Ash’s A-Z series of singles a sort of pre-cursor to the whole thing, written by bassist Mark Hamilton it was a breath of fresh air after a few dodgy years of average indie rock from the band. I’d go as far as to say it’s one of the bands best tunes and shows how Mark should write more especially after he was also responsible for the standout track ‘Innocent Smile’ on their debut as well, it’s hard to get hold of and a tad expensive but definitely worth getting.

1001 7" Records You Must Own No.44 Anti-Nowhere League – Streets Of London / So What

As debut singles go Anti-Nowhere League’s cover of Ralph McTell’s busking anthem ‘Streets Of London’ may not have been an immediate choice but adding their own punk spit and stomp to it made it ever more thrilling and less depressing while still keeping the integrity of the original. On the other side we have probably the most offensive song in existence made even more famous by the Metallica cover ‘So What’ is a just a torrent of swearing and don’t give a fuck lyrics about fucking goats and it’s brilliant for it, it’s a must for any school disco.

1001 7" Records You Must Own No.43 Blind Melon – No Rain / Tones Of Home

No Rain was a right hippy anthem of the 90’s and was all over MTV, it has an irresistible charm and brightens up any day, Blind Melon were a great band who could have gone on to even bigger highs if weren’t for the tragic death of frontman Shannon Hoon backed by the equally as good album track ‘Tones Of Home’ you have yet another exceptional 90’s single, only available on coloured jukebox promo it’s a search for a copy but well worth the effort.

1001 7" Records You Must Own No.42 The Music – Take The Long Road And Walk It / You Might As Well Try To Fuck Me

As debut singles go, The Music’s Take The Long Road… was excellent another Fierce Panda masterpiece of band finding, it’s b-side was an instrumental which generally I’m not a fan of and if it hadn’t been for this American promo wouldn’t have made the list. Luckily the yanks finally got something right when it comes to records and scrapped the instrumental for non-album single ‘You Might As Well Try To Fuck Me’ perhaps one of the bands best songs of that era, after ‘Getaway’ that was a fucking tune, so now if you pick up the Yank promo copy you get two amazing songs, well done lads.