The Quiet Road

It’s a blog meme. Another one.

This time though, it’s not about music but about literature. Specifically it’s about the books nominated by the BBC’s “Big Read” as being the 100 best in the English language. Actually, scanning the list, there’s a few translations on it (The Bible, Anna Karenina, One Hundred Years of Solitude, etc.) so I assume it’s “the best ever” rather than the best in the English language (though the small number of translations obviously reveal the Anglocentric nature of the list).

That said, the fact that there’s not a single book by Thomas Pynchon — who would have at least 3 in my top 10, let alone top 100 — suggests that whoever compiled the BBC’s list (possibly “the public”) don’t share my view of what makes good literature. In fact, the more I look at the list, the more I cringe at the utter dross to be found on it, and all the excellent writing not there. I suspect my response to this meme will be relatively controversial as I can count on the fingers of two hands the number of books written prior to 1920 (or thereabouts) that I consider worthwhile.

Anyways, the BBC apparently reckons that “the average adult” has only read 6 of the top 100 books. It kind of goes without saying then, that I’m a long way from “average”, though to be honest, I feel certain that the BBC is short-changing the public with that claim. Surely most people have read more than six from the list, even if only at school.

So yeah, via Phil at The Gaping Silence, on with the memery…

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you love.
4) Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or hated.
5) Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve only read 6 and force books upon them.

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
   Let’s kick off with a sound kicking. Jane Austen (like the Brontes, Thomas Hardy, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens) is staggeringly over-rated. Criminally so. It still mystifies me how anyone can read this pre-modern toss and not find it contrived, stultifyingly-dull bullshit.
2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
   Read this when I was a kid and it had a deep and lasting impact on me. Looking back on it, there’s flaws a-plenty, but it’s definitely some of the finest children’s literature ever written (even if that wasn’t JRR’s intention).
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
   See #1
4. The Harry Potter Series – JK Rowling
   I read a quarter of the first one and saw the film. Neither made me want to journey any further with Rowling. Ursula K. LeGuin did it so much better.
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
   A work of genius. My taste in literature tends towards the American. I blame a shop-lifted Bukowski when I was 11 years old for that. To Kill A Mockingbird was borrowed from the library soon afterwards, though.
6. The Bible
   I’ve read it start-to-finish (skipping a few chapters of who-begat-who) twice. Both times it left me feeling confused and a little depressed. I mean, most of it isn’t even particularly well-written; how the hell did it cast such a dark shadow on the human heart?
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
   See #1
8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
   I suspect regular readers will already know my opinion of this book, and of Orwell’s writing in general (finest essayist in the English language). This is his crowning achievement as a novelist.
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
   I’ve heard the rave reviews. But it just doesn’t appeal to me for some reason.
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
    Fucking Charles motherfucking Dickens! What a complete waste of paper. Yeah yeah, shining a light on Victorian society blah blah fricking blah. I read this at school and recall thinking very early on, “hang on a second, even back then nobody spoke like this”. It’s sanitised, soul-less writing that fails to evoke even a single emotion in me. Just as with Shakespeare; it’s British colonialism that has secured the worldwide reputation of Charles Dickens; nothing to do with innate talent. Nothing at all.
11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
    Don’t need to read it. Hardy is shit. End of.
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
    This was so highly recommended that I recall being a little disappointed when I finally read it. Still a worthy thing. Not a patch on Vonnegut though, who did this kind of thing so much better, and is unsurprisingly not on this list.
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
    Oh come on! The complete works? That narrows it down to a few fools with more time than sense. I’ve read most of the famous ones, a couple of lesser-known ones and a handful of sonnets. None of them roused more than a yawn. Yeah, I know that puts me firmly in a tiny minority. But then, that’s where I’ve always been happiest. Shakespeare is a great writer, Oasis is a great band, Last of The Summer Wine is great television. Seriously, what the fuck does “the majority” know about great art?
15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
    Always felt it was a wee bit over-rated to be honest. But again, like Catch-22, a worthwhile read all the same.
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
    First one on the list I’ve never even heard of. Guess there were bound to be a couple…
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot
    Read it at school. Rather wish I hadn’t.
21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
    One of the few great examples of pre-modern literature. Though obviously, published in 1925, it’s actually in the modern era, this is not a post-Ulysses novel in anything but chronology. All the same, it rises above the dry, emotionless bullshit of pre-modern literature thanks to some wonderfully crafted characters. It’ll probably be the only novel of its type that I’ll end up underlining.
23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
    Don’t even get me started on this one. I read this as part of a book club I joined at university. I read it under duress (having made my feelings about Dickens well known) but decided I’d stick it out… after all, I wouldn’t like it if the others in the group refused to read my picks. I left the club soon after though… everyone but me claimed to get a lot out of Dickens. And hell, maybe they did. Maybe they weren’t just dazzled by the emperor’s presence. But clearly it wasn’t the book club for me. Thankfully I met my friend Justin soon afterwards, who was reading Gravity’s Rainbow at the time. A far better class of comrade.
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
    To my shame, I’ve still not got round to it. Pre-Joycean Russian literature doesn’t seem to suffer from the same lifelessness as almost all of the English-language stuff (obviously there are exceptions to that, by the way). Or perhaps it’s just the fact that we’re only aware of the exceptionally good stuff over here beyond the translators?
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
    A fine book. And the follow-ups were largely excellent too.
26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
    A fine novel, but if you’re new to Dostoyevsky, then you should really start with The Idiot, which didn’t make this list.
28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
    Complete wank.
33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34. Emma – Jane Austen
    I read this. See #1
35. Persuasion – Jane Austen
    I didn’t read this. See #1
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
    Overwrought. Over-rated. Over-long.
40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
    A classic. A work of towering genius.
41. Animal Farm – George Orwell
    This is a decent novel, but it doesn’t scale the heights of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Orwell was best as an essayist anyway.
42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
    Frankly I’d rather eat my own flesh than read this airport-novel nonsense.
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
    Far From The Madding Crowd? Bollocks, more like.
48. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
    I actually thought JG Ballard’s quasi-retelling of this story in Rushing To Paradise was ultimately better. Golding’s is a fine book though.
50. Atonement – Ian McEwan
    Enduring Love was a good novel (shit film though. Really shit film). I’m not sure he’s really written anything half as good though. Certainly I thought Atonement was very weak; like so many on this list, frighteningly over-rated; and more concerned with making sure the reader spots the intricate allusions to literary “greats” than telling a story. A let down.
51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52. Dune – Frank Herbert
    I read all the Dune novels as a teenager. Yes, even the later ones when he was obviously milking a cash-cow. That said, God Emperor of Dune turned out to be the best in my view (in the sense of the most mind-bendingly far out, which is kind of what you want from your science-fiction)
53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
    Second one on the list I’ve not heard of. Am I missing out, I wonder?
54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
    Just fuck off, will you. How much “I’m told this is great, so I’ll vote for it” shit is on this list anyway?
55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
    Meh. Over-rated.
56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
    I’m surprised this made the list as it’s pretty obscure (I think) as well as being rather good. It’s heavily influenced by Borges (of course) and kind of suffers by comparison in my eyes. All the same, well worth reading, both as a commentary on Franco’s Spain, and as a well-spun yarn.
57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
    Not read this one. Safe to say I never will. Fucking Dickens!
58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
    One of my favourites. For the ideas, not the writing (which I grant you is a tad ropey at times). One of the few “must reads” in my opinion.
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
    Any good, this? I’ve heard all the praise, but am yet to be convinced.
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
    Third one I’ve not heard of.
64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
    This one’s been recommended by a couple of people whose views I respect. And the synopsis certainly sounds intriguing. On the “will get to it eventually” list.
65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac
    A classic. People call it over-rated, and then go back to reading Charles Fucking Dickens. They need a good slap, frankly. This is a hugely important novel, and a wonderful read. Another on the “must read” list.
67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
    It’s just bad writing. OK? Read some Pynchon ferchristsakes! Something with soul. Something with balls!
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
    There’s a bigger chance of me eating my body-weight in goldfish than of reading this novel.
69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
    Rushdie is another writer I find somewhat overwrought and over-rated. This is probably the best of the three of his books that I’ve read. Still quite dull though.
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
    When you look at the number of books on this list that I’ve read and hated, it’s a wonder I’ve not been put off literature for life. Because this is real, passionate, deep-seated hatred here not some casual dislike. I hate the way Dickens writes English. I hate every word that emerges from the mouths of his cardboard cut-out characters. And I find the social commentary trite and obvious to the point of absurdity.
72. Dracula – Bram Stoker
    Meh. Good for its time. But that’s not saying much.
73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
    Bryson holds no interest for me whatsoever. I’m willing to be convinced on the matter, but frankly, I’ve never met anyone who felt strongly enough about his writing to bother trying. Which says all I need to know about it.
75. Ulysses – James Joyce
    Let me start by saying that if I was compiling this list, Ulysses would be #1. It’s one of the very few books that deserves the incredible critical acclaim it has received. In my view, you can firmly locate the beginning of ‘the modern era’ with the publication of Ulysses. For better or worse. It’s one of the very very small number of novels that I’ve read more than once (three times so far, and I’m planning on a fourth next year) and one of the very very small number of things that makes me positively proud to be a human being. If aliens from SpaceLand arrive and threaten to obliterate us unless we can demonstrate our worth as a species, I’ll be there, clutching a copy of Ulysses, and insisting that a species that can produce this novel deserves to survive. People tell me it’s an impossible book to read. I just look at them as though they’re mad. For me, it’s an impossible book not to read.
76. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal – Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
    Meh. Over-rated but worth a read if you’re interested in 19th century England. I was when I read it. I’m not really anymore, but I’m glad I was when I was. Y’dig?
80. Possession – AS Byatt
    It’s been recommended. Not sure I’ll get round to it any time soon, but it’s another for that “eventually” list.
81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
    Never read it. Scrooged was a funny film back when I was seventeen, though. But that had more to do with Bill Murray than Charles Dickens I wager.
82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
    Supposed to be wonderful. I doubt it somehow, but it’s on the “eventually” list nonetheless.
86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
    I was given this as a gift just prior to a trip to the States. I never finished it, and wound up watching Mr. Bean re-runs on the plane instead. Which tells you a lot about the book. I find Mr. Bean very irritating.
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
    I’ve read them all. Every single one. At least twice. Holmes was a hero of mine (still is to an extent) and I could read those stories again and still get a huge amount from them.
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
    I have fond memories of these books from when I was 7 or 8. Not sure how well Enid Blyton would stand up to an adult-reading, but heartily recommended for 7 year olds!
91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
    Not as good as some of his subsequent novels (The Crow Road still being my personal favourite and one that would be underlined were it on this list), but a classic all the same. Filled with disturbing imagery though.
94. Watership Down – Richard Adams
    Neither the novel nor the film ever really grabbed me the way they grabbed lots of people I know. Not a complete waste of time though.
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
    Not content with having this on the list once (as part of the complete works) the BBC have insisted on putting it in twice. And sadly, Shakespeare’s no better a writer second-time round. Dumb nonsense filled with unlikeable characters, plot holes and incomprehensible dialogue. Fuck off Mr. Shakespeare and take your rhyming couplets with you, you big arse.
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
    Not a patch on Danny The Champion of The World. But a good kids book nevertheless.
100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

So yeah, 64/100 and some controversial statements, no doubt. But what else is a blog good for, eh?

To wrap up, let me add a short list of books that would have made the top 100 if it had been compiled by someone concerned with good writing rather than tradition. No particular order, by the way, and consider them all ‘underlined’.

• Vineland – Thomas Pynchon
  Considered the least of his novels, I think Vineland is damn-near perfect. Gloriously absurd and vitally important all at once. I would also, genuinely, add every single other novel he’s written to the top 100 list. There’s only seven of them, so if you take out Dickens, Austen, Hardy and Shakespeare you’ll have plenty of room for them.
• Vermillion Sands – JG Ballard
  One of his lesser known books, Vermillion Sands is actually a collection of 5 or 6 short-stories set in the same town. It’s my favourite of his books, but isn’t the only one that merits mention. Rushing To Paradise, The Day of Creation, Concrete Island, Cocaine Nights and all of his short-story collections are highly recommended.
• Timequake – Kurt Vonnegut
  Like with Pynchon’s Vineland, I seem — even with those authors I love dearly — to gravitate towards the less critically-acclaimed novels. Timequake is a bleak, depressing and very funny book and is probably my favourite Vonnegut novel. Others I loved… Slaughterhouse-Five, The Sirens of Titan, The Breakfast of Champions, Player Piano and Slapstick (or, Lonesome No More).
• Collected Essays – George Orwell
  Utterly essential. There’s more wisdom and insight contained in the essays of Orwell than can be found in the combined literature of the preceeding 6 centuries.
• Dubliners – James Joyce
  It’s not Ulysses. But then, other than Ulysses, what is?
• Huckleberry Finn / Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain
  Only read these quite recently, oddly enough, and they are far far better than any pre-20th century writing has a right to be.
• Nova Express – William S. Burroughs
  And you can add pretty much his entire output to the list. To me, Nova Express is the absolute zenith of the cut-up technique. It manages to deconstruct not only language, but the very thought-processes of the reader, while simultaneously telling a story. It’s the novel that The Ticket That Exploded was trying to be, but just fell short of.
• Tales of Ordinary Madness – Charles Bukowski
  The collection of stories that made me decide to become a writer (after The Lord of The Rings had sown the initial seed). It was the first time I’d read a book that felt genuine and real to me. It’s dark and unpleasant at times, and entirely inappropriate for an 11-year-old. But if anyone wants to trace the major influences on my own strange writing style, then pick up a copy of this book and all will be revealed.
• Stone Junction – Jim Dodge
  It takes balls to walk in Pynchon’s footsteps. Jim Dodge has them. And isn’t doing too bad a job of it.
• Steppenwolf – Hermann Hesse
  A huge novel for me in my teens. Helped me realise I wasn’t just mad, and that other people had thought the same things as me. Which was comforting if nothing else.
• Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said – Philip K. Dick
  Not the greatest writer in the world (technically speaking) but a man with more great ideas than almost anyone else. His short-stories tend to be better than his novels (in my view). No doubt there’ll be those who point to his final three novels as being The Great Ones, and they are indeed Great, but this is the one that had the greatest impact on me when I first read it and the one that has lingered most prominently in my memory.
• Pattern Recognition – William Gibson
  Although I’m a big fan of his early cyberpunk stuff (I loved his cameo in Wild Palms… “Hi, I’d like you to meet William Gibson, he’s the man who coined the term cyberspace, you know?” Gibson (under his breath); “yeah, and they won’t let me forget it!”) I feel he’s really started to come into his own as a writer more recently. Like Jim Dodge, his later stuff is — dare I say it — “Pynchonesque”.

And there’s plenty more of course. Those are ‘top of the head’ suggestions. My fiction is in another room, so I’m probably missing out someone utterly vital. Looking at the bookshelf in this room, however, I’d suggest that the complete works of Freud (all 24 volumes) should be on the list, as should The Politics of Ecstasy by Timothy Leary, Robert Anton Wilson’s Quantum Psychology, Einstein’s Ideas and Opinions as well as Relativity, Colin Tudge’s So Shall We Reap, Carl Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections, the collected works of Nietzsche, Lacan’s Écrits (still not read most of it, but I recognise its worth) and — it goes without saying I’m sure — Gregory Bateson’s Steps To an Ecology of Mind.

Wikipedia Album Generator. Utter genius. My favourite thing ever. Today.

I know. I still owe you folks a sequel to the last entry. But I figured I’d turf this out of draft and onto the web while I’m putting that together. It’s another music meme. Words you dread to read, dear reader. As always it’s a pretty simple concept… this time, “Pick an album for every year of your life”. And why not?

I guess anyone born much before the mid-50s is going to have trouble with the early years. “Long play” records had existed for years, of course, but — love him or loathe him — it wasn’t until Sinatra’s post-war golden era that albums, as “deliberately self-contained musical worlds” entered popular consciousness in a big way.

In my case, born in 1971, I’m spared the dilemma of choosing a single album for 1968 (for the genuine music fan, an activity that carries with it a high risk of seizure or stroke). On the other hand, I’m inventing some kind of “Wild Card” or “Joker”. Or “cheat”, if you will. And I’m playing it in 1980, allowing me to take both Remain in Light and Closer. Expecting me to choose between those two is entirely unreasonable. Well, OK, I know that’s the point of the exercise and I’m going to end up choosing Remain in Light, because it is — after all — the best album ever recorded. But I’m doing so under duress.

And don’t get me started on 1989. No, I’m serious, don’t get me started. I mean, how is it even possible to compare Disintegration with Rei Momo with The Crushed Velvet Apocalypse (just ‘cos you ain’t heard of it doesn’t mean it isn’t one of the finest things ever recorded) with Doolittle with Floating into the Night with Mind Bomb? “How is it possible?” I ask you, “HOW?!”

The answer, of course, is that it’s not possible at all. You end up making arbitrary decisions… well, Prince already has one on the list so I’ll rule him out of the running for that year… and so you start making tiny compromises here and there to reward those artists who have enriched your life immeasurably but had the temerity to release a masterpiece the same year Parade came out. I’m looking at you, Mr. Simon.

The meme arrived, as they occasionally still do, via email. It was sent by my friend Mahalia — a man with remarkable music taste, responsible for turning me onto more great artists than I could mention, but who appears to briefly lose his mind in 1977. I’m not saying New Boots & Panties isn’t a fine thing, but anyone who even suggests that 1977 wasn’t A Bowie Year is living in some bizarre alternative dimension, the rules to which I cannot even begin to fathom. When you get to 1977, the question becomes a very simple one: “Heroes” or Low?

Except it’s not. This is more of a desert-island discs kind of thing. I just wanted everyone to know that I chose Low also under duress. No, this list is about the albums that have most enriched your own life. Screw the critics. And damn the expectations of millions.

So yeah. Onto the list, I suppose. Only one year was any way easy, 1976. No real dilemma there. One towering record and nobody else releasing much of anything. Most were difficult and aside from ’76 there was at least one more album that, on another day, might have graced this list. Oddly enough, if you look at the first three years, the main contender to Lennon in ’71 was a Bowie album and the main contender to Bowie in each of the years 1972 and 1973 was a Lennon album.

1971 — John Lennon — Imagine
1972 — David Bowie — The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars
1973 — David Bowie — Aladdin Sane
1974 — David Bowie — Diamond Dogs
1975 — Patti Smith — Horses
1976 — Bob Marley & The Wailers — Rastaman Vibration
1977 — David Bowie — Low
1978 — Brian Eno — Ambient 1: Music For Airports
1979 — Talking Heads — Fear of Music
1980 — Talking Heads — Remain in Light
1981 — The Cure — Faith
1982 — Brian Eno — Ambient 4: On Land
1983 — The The — Soul Mining
1984 — Prince — Purple Rain
1985 — Prince — Around the World in a Day
1986 — Paul Simon — Graceland
1987 — The Smiths — Strangeways, Here We Come
1988 — Talking Heads — Naked
1989 — Julee Cruise — Floating Into The Night
1990 — World Party — Goodbye Jumbo
1991 — U2 — Achtung Baby
1992 — R.E.M. — Automatic For The People
1993 — The The — Dusk
1994 — Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds — Let Love In
1995 — David Bowie — 1. Outside
1996 — Tricky — Pre-Millennium Tension
1997 — Spiritualized — Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space
1998 — Beck — Mutations
1999 — Tom Waits — Mule Variations
2000 — The The — NakedSelf
2001 — Björk — Vespertine
2002 — The Streets — Original Pirate Material
2003 — The Polyphonic Spree — The Beginning Stages of…
2004 — Stina Nordenstam — The World Is Saved
2005 — Laura Veirs — Year of Meteors
2006 — Beck — The Information
2007 — Arcade Fire — Neon Bible
2008 — Who knows? But I’ll eat my hat if anything better than Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! gets released this year.

Obviously if anyone wants to play with this meme, then have at it. I’ll not officially nominate anyone, though let me know in the comments if you decide to take a shot. I’d be interested in seeing how my choices compare with others.

UPDATE (13-07-08): I’ve been thinking about it, and if this really was a “desert island” type thing… “Only those albums and none others forevermore”… then I couldn’t not take Sign ‘O’ The Times. I just couldn’t. But there’s no way in hell I’m sailing off to that island without something by The Smiths. So I’d probably end up taking Meat Is Murder instead of Around The World In A Day. No, it’s not Strangeways… but it’s got some cracking stuff on it.

It’s a music meme. Isn’t it always?

Via Phil at Gaping Silence comes this simple set of instructions…

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your [summer]. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to.

(UPDATE 2: Following Justin’s lead. I’ve added links to each of the songs where possible).

1. Well, I’ve been listening to a lot of Michael Franti & Spearhead recently (and still haven’t given up hope that they’ll play a Dublin gig this year). Franti is one of the great protest singers of our time. His attacks on the establishment (whether government or corporate) can be quite savage, but there’s always a powerfully positive aspect to his songs. That said, the Spearhead song that’s been on heavy rotation on my mp3 player lately isn’t a protest song at all. It’s that classic chilled-out summer groove, Ganja Babe, from Songs From The Front Porch. Harking back to early Bob Marley, this hymn to the herb is a perfect sunny day track. How can you not like a song that rhymes “heavy medicine” with “Thomas funky Edison”?
2. Spiritualized played Dublin the week before last. It was a great gig (and Sian Alice Group rate as the best support act I’ve seen since Daau supported The The about six years ago). In the lead-up to — and in the wake of — the gig, I’ve been listening to a lot of early Spiritualized (the new album hasn’t really grabbed me the way past ones have, though I suspect it could be a bit of a grower). Anyways, the debut album; Lazer Guided Melodies; still ranks amongst the best records released by anyone during the 1990s and Shine A Light, a beautiful version of which was performed at the gig, is really doing it for me just now. (Note: for some reason, the only version I can find on Youtube is used to soundtrack a sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Go figure)
3. This summer is a fantastic one for live music. I’m getting to see some of the great singer-songwriters of the past few decades; the top tier probably consists of four artists… Leonard Cohen, Prince, Tom Waits and Ireland’s own Christy Moore. All quite different, but all wonderful in their own way. Curiously it’s not one of Christy’s original compositions that makes this list, however. Over the past few weeks I’ve been entranced by his cover of Shane McGowan‘s Aisling from the fairly recent retrospective box-set. Just voice and acoustic guitar, it’s a heart-breaking love song and a lament for times past, never to return. Gorgeous. (Note: can’t seem to find this song online anywhere, so instead I chose this classic song of Christy’s for your appreciation; Viva la Quinte Brigada, his ode to the Irish volunteers who sailed to Spain to fight against Franco during the Spanish Civil War.)
4. A significant shift in pace here. Leaping backwards about 20 years to the power-pop of late 80s girl-band Voice of The Beehive. One of the better pop bands of the era in my opinion, they seem to be curiously overlooked and I’m constantly suprised by how few people even know their singles. Back when it was released, I recall buying the 7” of I Say Nothing and almost wearing out the stylus on my record-player as I played it over and over. The vocal harmonies and jangly guitar blend together and form as perfect a slice of summery pop music as has ever been recorded.
5. From roughly the same era, though perhaps from a parallel dimension, my next track comes from Isn’t Anything? — the first of the two Great albums released by My Bloody Valentine; the rest of their output being merely Very Very Good indeed. The fact that they’re playing gigs again is really exciting, though currently the only Irish performance scheduled is a festival. Sort it out! Anyways, it’s difficult to imagine a track that so perfectly captures the MBV sound than Lose My Breath, the second track on that flawless album and currently the first track on the “Summer Walks” playlist on my mp3 player. (Note: the only version I can find online is a badly recorded live bootleg. Not going to link to it as it really fails to do the track justice.)
6. Most people don’t know who Stina Nordenstam is. Most people wouldn’t like her music even if they did know. Most people have poor taste. Her last album, 2004’s The World Is Saved is one of the best records of recent years (and she’s releasing a new one soon… very exciting news). On it, Stina appears to have finally perfected the fragile, claustrophobic, filtered-through-a-magical-industrial-haze sound that typified, though occasionally overpowered, her past output. There’s nothing on this album that quite compares with 2001’s heart-breaking Everyone Else in The World (the opening track from her previous album), but the beautifully weird 125 comes very close and has been delighting me over the past few weeks… “They shut down the experiment / It had long gone out of hand / But the nation’s funds were well spent / To the pride of modern man…” (Note: Can’t find ‘125’ online, but this video for Everyone Else In The World somehow succeeds in being almost as heart-breaking as the song.)
7. This last one is a bit of a cheat. It’s not a song at all. It’s a singer. Specifically it’s Cibelle, the London-based Brazillian singer. Her solo records, as well as her collaborations with producer, Suba, have a splendid dreamlike quality to them that fits well with sunny days and balmy nights. Most of her vocals are in Brazillian Portugese (which I love the sound of, but don’t speak) so it’s not really possible to pick out a specific track. I just love the way the trance beats, odd instrumentation, psychedelic soundscapes and Cibelle’s caramel voice all blend to create a tiny slice of Brazil right there in your room. I’d recommend either Suba’s Sao Paolo Confessions or Cibelle’s The Shine of Dried Electric Leaves if you’re interested in checking out this sound for yourself. (Note: I sooo want to see Cibelle live. Check out this amazing performance)

If you fancy taking this meme out for a spin, then go for it. I’m not going to tag seven other people, but I’ll just say; if you can be arsed, I’d be interested in reading your response: Merrick, Gyrus, Justin, Rachel, David, and Larry.

UPDATE: it just struck me that I put together a compilation CD for a recent car-journey which — excluding Cibelle — includes the above tracks plus a few more. So, in 70 minutes, this is summer 2008 thus far…

1. Lose My Breath — My Bloody Valentine
2. You! Me! Dancing! — Los Campesinos!
3. Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! — Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
4. I Say Nothing — Voice of the Beehive
5. Summertime — The Sundays
6. Shine A Light — Spiritualized
7. 125 — Stina Nordenstam
8. Dance Tonight — Paul McCartney
9. Do I Love You? (Indeed I Do) — Frank Wilson
10. Ganja Babe — Michael Franti & Spearhead
11. Tangled Up In Blue [Bootleg Series version] — Bob Dylan
12. My Funny Valentine — Slumberwall
13. Strange Apparition — Beck
14. Iron Man — The Cardigans
15. Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes — Paul Simon
16. Aisling — Christy Moore