YOUR Number 1

While your mother was squeezing, shrieking and sweating...others were singing.

While your father was dealing, dossing and dreaming of a boy...others were dancing.

While doctors and nurses panicked as your umbilical cord wrapped around your neck, one band were basking in the sweet celebration of success.

Little did they all know that it was more about the good vibrations, than those first contractions.

In fact, the date you were born follows the yellow brick road to your destiny. The importance of your birthday is not determined by the time of year, the extent of your birthday gifts or even the conception date of your small, irrelevant gamete alliance. In reality, your future is founded upon one fact:

What was the number one single and album, on the day of your birth?

What song could have soothed your mother’s cries?
What jam could have given your father the strength to stay in the delivery room?
And which beat could have focused those NHS professionals to perform a medical marvel (and not mix you up with the baby in the room next door)?

Truth is, the song that was number one on the date you were popped out is, whether you like it or not, a life path. It determines whether you are fat (Pavorotti), or thin (and a bit of a trainwreck – Amy Winehouse. It decides whether you are gay (Boy George), and/or ginger (Elton John). It will turn you into a reject (‘The Kids From Fame), short lived (The Weather Girls), or a even a slut (Madonna).

May this be a lesson that when you do decide to bring a child into the world, the responsibility lies with you to make sure it is born at an appropriate time in pop chart history.  Unfortunately for you, your fate is set in stone.

To see where you’re heading...

http://www.everyhit.com/dates/

Leap Year Love

Some once-in-a-4-year-moon songs to LEAP around to.

1. Meg & Dia - Monster (DotEXE Remix)
2. Miike Snow - Paddling Out
3. Ghost & Misty - Stories (Dream Remix)
4. Django Django - Firewater
5. ABC's - K'nann ft. Chubb Rock
6. Kito ft. Reija Lee - Sweet Talk
7. The Other Tribe - Skirts
8. Floating Points - ARP3
9. NERVO ft. Afrojack and Steve Aoki - We're All No One
10. Flo Rida ft. Sia - Wild One

Playlist - Snow Tears

Some easy listening to potentially provoke those icy tears frozen to your face this January.

1. James Vincent  - We Don't Eat
2. Emily and The Woods - Never Play
3. Ben Howard -Move Like You Want To
4. Peter Gabriel feat. Kate Bush - Don't Give Up
5. Soley - Smashed Birds
6. Adam Holmes - I Can't Be Right When I'm Wrong
7. Wretch 32 feat. Delilah - Don't Be Afraid
8. Lucy and The Catepillar - Beans on Toast
9. Blk Jks - Lakeside
10. Marcus Foster - I Don't Mind

Infamously Unheard-Of - Lucy Rose

Sometimes confused with passion, I have a stubborn, childish attitude towards many artists and songs.

They are mine. I found them first. I liked them before they made it big. I want them to be big, but only if it is accepted that I am one of their best, original fans. I have developed embarassingly protective, jealous and thieving behaviour in this way. You can't have him, her, them, this music video, those lyrics, that song...

This is obviously ridiculous . Instead of imprisoning my passion, I should boast about it, and better yet, have proof of my apparent findings. My great taste. My ungeneric, under the radar, unmainstream music. I should 'musicalshair'.

And so, just as Bombay Bicycle Club, Laura Marling, The Vaccines, Ben Howard and Ellie Goulding have made it in some way - and some more than others - I am now growing rather fond of Lucy Rose (if she 'is yours', and 'you found her first', sincerest apologies.)

I posted her song 'Middle of The Bed' a few months ago, and since then I have become a little obsessed. It's very easy listening, and perhaps a little too slow and bare to become mainstream. But I love her. And so do many others.

Her London shows were all gobbled up before I could get my hands on a ticket, and now she's off to the US with Bombay Bicycle Club to hopefully not become too famous over there.

She is cool, natural and fun. Her songs represent something true, unaffected by the pressures of The Mainstream (dun dun dun), and they are pretty.

My favourite, 'Be Alright' is charming. The lyrics are painfully honest, and the melody is magically simple.

Rose represents something shy but talented. Something beautiful yet private. Something that I don't mind sharing, and something that I am sure - however big she 'makes it' - won't change.
If music be the food of love, then I am sharing this January lunch time. Help yourself.

Legend Lyrics: Ed Sheeran - Drunk

"There must be other people like us,

Who see the flicker of the Clipper when they light up"

That's deep man. You see your Clipper lighter make sparks (bearing in mind it's a lighter) when you light a ciggy.

Quite fun to say though, 'flicker of the clipper when you light up'.

Legend Video

Noah and the Whale - Love of an Orchestra

Did NOT see this one coming. What a brilliant man. RESPECT.

Cover vs. Original

Song: Take Care


Original: Gill Scott-Heron

How different is the original from the modern versions! 

 Also, does it not sound a wee bit like Chef from South Park (see Chocolate Salty Balls)?

Cover: Drake feat. Rihanna

Pretty fun version. Personally I am not a big fan of Drake's music but this it just delightful!




Cover of a Cover (of a Jamie XX remix Cover: Florence and the Machine

This one my favourite. Just lovely.

Favourite Formula

It is generally accepted that favourite songs are, at the moment of re-hearing them again, ‘definitely and positively one of my favourite songs in the world, like, ever’'. But the reasoning behind such classification and favouritism is often hard to explain...

Craftily, presumptively and stab-in-the-darkily, I have formulated a unique formula which may help put your finger on what it is exactly that makes each song definitely and positively one of my favourite songs in the world, like, ever.

The formula is simple:
                                      AmA x zI x nG

AmA – Where, when and how were you when you first heard it?

zI – Does the song, video, or lyrics represent or remind you of something?

nG – What makes the song different?

Multiply these factors together and the reason for it being so magical is suddenly clear.

For example:

Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip – Look for The Woman...

Definitely and positively one of my favourite songs in the world, like ever because...:

AmA – I first heard this song on a sunny afternoon at a festival and was therefore drunk. My friend told me to come along and see Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip, and with some minor Strongbow bribery and major stumbling, we made it to the stage. I was in a happy place.

Zi – For me, this song is beautiful. It’s a perfect mix of cunning lyrics and a beautiful comforting chorus. My favouritest of favourite bits is towards the end of the song when there is a turning point; the song slows and the lyrics change into self questioning,
‘but then surely that I’m still in love with you, means there’s something we can do, to get us through and to pursue, a brand new point of view, of how this gap grew, between me and you...So there’s a weight over me....’. 

nG – This song tells a story. It’s about someone completely different, with nothing I can really relate to, but it is a story with a beginning middle and end, and is told simply and beautifully.

Every time I go to see Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip play, I think they are geniuses. The lyrics, the song...it’s a mix of little things which make it AmAZinG.

Nos

Something to funimise the nitrous oxide gigglies.
Safe blud.

1. Pretty Lights - Finally Moving (Shane Martz Remix)
2. Jack Beats - End of Love
3. Avicii - Range
4. NEUS - Feel That
5. Bertie Blackman - Black Cats (Last Japan Edit)
6. Air France - It Feels Good to Be Around You
7. Miami Horror - I Look To You (feat. Kimbra)
8. Lofticries - Purity Ring
9. Teki - Les Martins De Paris (Surkin Remix)
10. Rustie - Dreamzz
11. Zomby - Labyrinth
12. Muchuu - Dancing With A Ghost (Jack Random Remix)
13. Chase and Status - Flashing Lights
14. Niki and The Dove - The Fox
15. Birds Escape - You Don't Know Me
16. DJ Mehdi - Signature

Legend Video

Brilliant.

Rizzle Kicks - Mama Do the Hump

One of the best videos I've seen in a long time!!

This video has
- MUMS (Rapping and dancing),
- A LOOK INSIDE A COZY HOUSE,
- JAMES CORDEN
- A NEW DANCE MOVE (the hump hump...)
- FUN

Something very different in this depressing, desperate time.