#3: "Rabbit in Your Headlights" - UNKLE (feat. Thom Yorke) Release Date: 1998 Director:Jonathan Glazer Fun Fact: The title of the track and lots of the sampling in the song are from the 1990 film "Jacob's Ladder"!
This is the second and last video on the list directed by Jonathan Glazer, the other was "Virtual Insanity" by Jamirquai, that got to #83 in my list! So this is probably the video highest up the list that is unlikely that you've seen. And that's one of the reasons why I did this list. Sure, it's to show you my favourite music videos, but it's also to put the spotlight on some videos that are absolutely underappreciated, or in this case, are too obscure and chances are you haven't seen it. For a video that isn't even on YouTube properly (there is half the proper video on there, and another video that uses a mixture of the real video and some "behind the scenes" style footage), this video has done quite well for itself. It has won numerous awards and is often considered one of the best music videos of all time... to those who have seen it. I actually tried to upload the video on to YouTube myself but it got immediately blocked. It's really annoying - the video deserves to be up on YouTube for your viewing pleasure but for some reason, whether it's the music director or the record label or if its UNKLE themselves, the video just isn't on there. Anyway, so... yes. This is one of my favourite videos of all time. I could explain what happens in the video but I'd rather you just watch it. I will say this though. When life knocks you down, over and over again, get yourself back up and kick life in the face. Note: This is the third and last video from the year 1998 in this list.
#83: "Virtual Insanity" - Jamiroquai Release Date: 1996 Director: Jonathan Glazer Fun Fact: The song won four awards at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards including the Best Video of the Year! It was actually nominated for 10 different awards!
Another music video that brings me back to my childhood. I remember being just completely and utterly mesmerised by this video, questioning the laws of physics at a young age. Jamiroquai does a fantastic job of making the unreal seem real with his dance moves on the moving floors, and the bleeding couches at the end were an odd yet symbolic image of things doing thing that seem impossible. "Virtual Insanity" is just a fantastic video that will always be remembered as a classic.
Where is Jamiroquai nowadays though? He seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth!
Here's the video for your enjoyment!
Click here to see #82 on the list or here for #84!
Yesterday I posted my favourite UK #1 hits between the years 1952 and 1981. Why? Because the UK #1 is now sixty years old. We've had sixty years of popular music, and the charting of the popularity of it. So I decided I wanted to celebrate the past sixty years of music by revealing my favourite #1 hits. Because sixty years is such a long time I've made two lists, and this is the second one.
This Mixtape celebrates my favourite #1 hits from 1982 to 2012. This list of songs isn't as good as the list I put up yesterday, in my opinion anyway, because my favourite songs from the past 30 years hardly chart, nevermind get to #1. But there are some great tracks here, I'm sure you'll appreciate.
Don't know much about Mixtapes? Here are the rules.
A Mixtape is a playlist of a certain genre, band or era. The
list is generally 80 minutes long, the same length of a blank CD, with further
recommendations if some of the songs aren't to your taste. Remember kids,
downloading is wrong!
So here we go! Here's a list of my favourite #1 hits from 1982 to 2012, with the date it got to the #1 spot! Enjoy!
This
Mixtape is now available to listen to fully on YouTube so subscribe to me if you want to listen to it properly. Enjoy!
So that's it! I hope you enjoyed both of these playlists, or Mixtapes as I call them. Sure, I complain about the lack of quality songs getting up the charts nowadays, but that's obviously my opinion, an unpopular one based on the fact that in the end, it's a popularity contest for musicians. But we have had some great songs get up to the top, and I used to really love listening to the chart show when I was younger, so this was a trip down memory lane in a certain way. I hope it was for you too. This will be my last piece of work before Christmas. As you have probably noticed, I don't write much at the moment. I would like to see if I can address that properly in the New Year, but we'll see. Either way, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas if you celebrate it, and a Happy New Year. Take care!
Hello there, we’re finally here, the penultimate listing and part of the Noughtie Series. Here is my biased list, my personal favourite 100 songs of the decade. I actually found this listing harder to do than the unbiased one. There are songs I’ve left out of the 100 I desperately wanted to include, but you can’t say it’s the Top 100 and have 120 songs in it can you? So, this is how we’re going to do this. For the next 10 days I’ll be revealing the next 10 songs in the listing. There is a 3 song artist cap on this listing, to make room for more artists to be mentioned. All of these songs you will have already seen in my Mixtapes, naturally, as they are biased like this listing.
Today, you’ll get #100 to #91. I’ll include some videos in here too, to the more obscure songs, if you haven’t heard them. After this is finished, we’ll be at the huge finale, the 100 day 100 song unbiased marathon! But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, this list may be more interesting for you, or maybe it won’t! Let’s get to it!
#100. “Rabbit Heart (Raise it Up)” – Florence and the Machine
Released: 21/6/09
Album: Lungs
I kick off my Top 100 with this little cracker. Florence is a fantastic singer; this is one of her best songs vocally on the album. The chorus fantastically catchy too. If you’ve never heard of this band and think you need an introduction, search on YouTube for this because it’s probably the best song to start from. But chances are you have heard of it and hopefully you like it!
#99. “Beast and the Harlot” – Avenged Sevenfold
Released: 6/3/06
Album: City of Evil
Listings: My Favourite Riffs
As it says above, this was featured on my favourite riffs listing. The guitars are truly great from start to finish, from the intro riff to the main riff, to the guitar solo, everything. It’s truly a fantastic guitar track and sounds brilliant.
#98. “Pressure Point” – The Zutons
Released: 19/1/04
Album: Who Killed… The Zutons?
I described this track back when I was praising this band as one of the best new artists of the decade. I just love Dave McCabe’s vocals in this entire song, he’s a very good vocalist. His shouting of the word “pressure!” over and over again at the end is brilliant, and the song slowly builds up to that fantastic climax. Great stuff.
#97. “Feels Just Like it Should” – Jamiroquai
Released: 6/6/05
Album: Dynamite
It’s odd praising Jamiroquai because for the most part, he doesn’t interest me. He always plays between the lines of funk, electronic, alternative and pop music but one thing is for sure is that this song is brilliant. It really kicks ass, it’s definitely my favourite song by the chap with the weird hats. It’s a brilliant song that uses his human beatbox skills with electronic music. It’s plainly, a very good song.
#96. “Mass Destruction” – Faithless
Released: 31/5/04
Album: No Roots
Once again, this is another band/group that I don’t have a great lot of praise for. Difference being I do respect Faithless, they’re a unique group that do things their way and have almost a cult fanbase. This is definitely my favourite track by them as well, and it has some great lyrics to add to the great sound on the track. Good stuff.
#95. “Processed Beats” – Kasabian
Released: 18/9/04
Album: Kasabian
This isn’t featured in my favourite riffs listing but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad riff. It’s a pretty cool riff actually. This was probably the song that caught my attention first of this band. I knew the tune, but didn’t know the name of the band. Then a few years later it all came back to me and it was like “oh, that was Kasabian? Cool…”, and the rest is history.
#94. “Four Kicks” – Kings of Leon
Released: 10/1/05
Album: Aha Shake Heartbreak
Another great riff, this is one of my favourite Kings of Leon songs. Shame it’s so damn short though, but the two and a bit minutes really are good. It’s a shame really as their newer stuff is nothing on how good these songs were. This is a fantastic little ditty by KoL here.
#93. “Ghetto Love” – Spinnerette
Released: 11/12/08
Album: Spinnerette
Spinnerette, if you didn’t know, is Brody Dalle’s new band after disbanding The Distillers. The sound is very different, it’s a lot less punk and riot grrl and a lot more electronic, alternative rock. I prefer the sound personally, and this is the first single from their first and only album to date. It’s a very good video and I must say, for someone who doesn’t think too much of Brody’s looks usually, she looks pretty fine here.
#92. “Spread Your Love” – Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Released: 1/6/02
Album: B.M.R.C.
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club are one of those odd bands, that can produce really good quality tracks, but don’t do it very consistently. They’ve been compared to the Jesus and Mary Chain, a resemblance I can understand but I think JaMC were certainly a more consistent, better band. Regardless of that, this is a good quality track, possibly my favourite by this band.
#91. “The Way I Am” – Eminem
Released: 7/9/00
Album: The Marshall Mathers LP
Eminem is the first artist in this listing that has reached a three song cap. So there’s two more songs in this listing by him. But first, this song is just brilliant. This is Eminem’s response to all the critics who want to tell him how to make his music, and try to put pressure on him to top his most popular song at the time, “My Name Is”. He really lets rip in this song and it’s one of my favourite raps by him. The remix by Danny Lohner that had Marilyn Manson provide some back vocals was also fucking kickass. Yep, so I like this song, and that’s just the way I am!
So there we go, Part 1 of my Top 100 Favourite Singles of the year ends here. I’ll be back tomorrow with Part 2, counting down from #90 to #81. See you then.
