I’ve been a bad, bad girl about posting lately. I just haven’t really had much to say. I took myself off social media for a day on the 29th, and then didn’t really come back properly. That’s all it took – the best part of a day away from it, and the spell was broken. And my rule with blogging is, try to only do it when you’ve got something of interest to say. I actually don’t really have anything interesting to say today (just going to put that out there right away) so I thought I’d swerve it by giving you all a list of some of my favourite ‘choons’ at the moment. I’ve included vids, so all you need to do is just press play. Happy Tuesday!

1. ‘Like this? Then try this’ by Euros Childs Wow. I heard this on Adam & Joe (as is the case with many of the things I find important) and I got sort of obsessed by it. It’s just a big slice of mental. But enjoyable mentalosity – not the awkward kind. The lyrics are amazing: ‘Hear that dog barking through the night?/Getting on my wick too/Put it in a car/And drive to a lay by/Dump it, pick out something new’. Listen out for the end, where he descends into a weird frenzy of different things he likes. Oh, and his accent is gorgeous. AND, he offered the album for free, but I think it deserves to be paid for: http://www.euroschilds.com/son-of-euro-child/

2. ‘The Man Who Sold the World’ by David Bowie. I’d never heard this until a couple of days ago. I’ve got absolutely no idea how. I’d call myself a pretty big Bowie fan. I suppose I like to discover phases of his music in an organic way (worra load of old WANK!) and hadn’t happened across this yet. Well, I have now. The song just gets me really excited, like it’s leading up to something incredible. It’s all the ascending wibbly bits (come on brain!) I can’t BELIEVE this was written in 1970. To my ears, it sounds so fresh. Enjoy.

3. ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ by Gotye. Waaaah. I wish everyone didn’t love Gotye. I want Gotye ALL TO MYSELF. I kind of thought Gotye had popped up overnight, but was intrigued to see he/they/it has been around for ages. I actually realised I’d heard ‘Learnalilgivinanlovin’ on the Whip It soundtrack years ago. I’m intrigued. He, Mr Gotye, has the voice of Sting. But if you listen to ‘Thank You For Your Time’, I’m going to put it out there that I’m reminded massively of Har Mar Superstar; which is always a good thing.

I’d encourage you all to discover the album ‘Like Drawing Blood’, but I’ve chosen something newer as I like almost every song from ‘Making Mirrors’. It feels like Mr Gotye (I must find out his actual name. I’m going to call him Gordon Gotye for now) has drawn from exactly the pool of music that I love, so there are these weird slices of, say, The Eagles, and jungle drums, or cheery swooping guitars. ‘State of the Art’ is probably my other fave, but ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ won out because it’s so moody. Listen to it it while wandering the streets in a long black coat with your collar turned up, scowling at people. Gordon Gotye really excelled himself on this. 

4. ‘Lucretia MacEvil/Spinning Wheel’ by Blood Sweat and Tears Oh man, I love these guys. That’s top of the line music criticism right there, that is! You’d be hard pressed to find much better in NME than ‘Oh man, I love these guys’. Seriously, though. If I’m having a bad day, I like to pop this on and go for a walk. Watch what your legs do. You walk in a certain way to this kind of thing. ‘Lucretia MacEvil’ has long since been my bestie of theirs, but after watching Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, I fell back in love with ‘Spinning Wheel’. This video is not great quality by any means, but I’ve put it in because I love their dance moves so, so much.

5. ‘Too Much to Dream’ by The Electric Prunes Mmm, garage-y goodness. I heard this when I was a teenager, and it was the first time music really started meaning something to me. It’s such a sweaty, pulsing, furious bit of music. While my friends were listening to Justin Timberlake or 50 Pence, or Cent, or whatever, I got into my original garage and a lot of 70s punk. Anyways, enjoy.

6. ‘If You Want Me To Stay’ by Sly and the Family Stone This is smoooooth. Again, I’m plumbing the depths of my musical collection for your benefit, and I HOPE YOU APPRECIATE IT. I really have nothing more to say about this than simply that you need it in your ears, right this minute.

7. ‘Do You Wanna Hold Me?’ by Bow Wow Wow Look, this has been pretty heavily weighted towards artists of the male variety. I felt obligated to include something by a woman. And what better woman to include than the luminous Anabella Lwin of Bow Wow Wow? God, I love this song. The lyrics, the music, the energy…I really believe that Bow Wow Wow were a phenomenal band, managing to satirise the very pop culture that they were part of – ‘Children I wanna warn ya/Cos I’ve been to California/Where Mickey Mouse is such a demon/Where Mickey Mouse is as big as a house’!