A Song A Day

Back in the mists of time, I bought a Nick Drake compilation, the first track of which was ‘Cello Song’. I bought it because it was given 9/10 in the NME. I’d never heard of Nick Drake. I’d certainly never heard any of his music (this was a long time before the try-before-you-buy era of Spotify, kids). Quite reasonably, as soon as I listened to the album, I fell in love, like many others have before and since, and found my life indescribably enriched.

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Everyone and their dog will be writing about Michael Jackson today. So why am I adding to the noise? For the same reason that anyone passionate about music talks about Michael Jackson: he was a star of such stature that he absolutely demands it.

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The internet has killed the gatekeepers. 20 years ago, if you managed to scrape enough money together to put out a 7 inch (and your music was good enough) you were pretty much guaranteed a review in the NME and a spin on John Peel’s show – a direct line to your target market, basically. Now, even if you’ve conjured up the best song since ‘God Only Knows’, you put it up on Myspace and Last.fm and watch it get lost in the noise of a million other tracks liberated by the democratizing nature of the web.

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Today I discovered a charity called Upbeat, which in its own words is “a user-led arts organisation with a focus on providing an inclusive service to individuals recovering from mental health issues.” I found out about Upbeat through this interview with the charity’s Vice Chair, Phil Harvey, who also happens to be Coldplay’s manager (and who I also happened to go to university with, before he decided to drop out and pursue the wild dream of taking his friend Chris Martin’s band to the top of the pop stratosphere).

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Image via Wikipedia

Let’s debunk some myths about music in the digital age, using Burial’s ‘Untrue‘ as the focus.

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This is a post inspired by today’s Pirate Bay verdict. I’ve never really used the Pirate Bay (it’s a bit like the MySpace of torrent sites, messy and childish), but I have of course downloaded music for free from similar sites, specifically songs like the one that headlines this post, a rare alternative version of one of Bob Dylan’s mid-’60s singles.

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Rihanna’s ‘Umbrella’ has probably the most recognisable hookline of any song of the past 5 years (don’t think I need to point out which bit I mean). The last track with such a memorable hook was Beyonce’s ‘Crazy In Love’. Both were massive hits. This is not a coincidence. With a good hook you can rule the pop charts.

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This is a post about dumbness. After yesterday’s piece about a song with smart, witty, articulate lyrics, this is about a song that only has two lines in it. In fact, there’s only 20 words in the entire thing: “What you do to me”, followed by, “I know, I can’t believe, there’s something about you got me down on my knees.”

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Lloyd Cole and the Commotions’ ‘Are You Ready to Be Heartbroken’ came on the radio today, and despite not having heard it for 15 years, I knew every word. I was a fan of Cole’s in my teenage years, but still, that doesn’t explain how I could remember all the lyrics so many years later.

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There are over 30 songs called ‘I Want You’. Indeed, four of popular music’s greatest composers – Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Marvin Gaye, Elvis Costello – have written songs called ‘I Want You’.

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