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Do you remember what the music meant?

00:42 / 29.08.04

Right-ho, I'm listening to Dead Girls Make Graves - Speakers Push the Air - early Sunday morning.

Right then, this is a thread for triumpho pop tunes. What are they, and why are they so good.

Personally, I love the aforementioned because it forgets to build and kicks you in the face immediately. Two seconds in and the chorus is prepared to fight for the crown. It's ACTION through and through.

I challenge you to kick my arse out of the park.
Please kick my arse out of the park.
Can you remember when you could have put it away?

No star here laces

03:37 / 30.08.04

Dizzee Rascal - "Stand up tall"!!!!!!!!!!!

17:20 / 31.08.04

Cheap Trick - 'Surrender'.

You will be powerless not to obey the title.

Best lyrics in history too.

Jack The Bodiless

11:35 / 01.09.04

Black Flag - 'Rise Above'. 'Cause it's the only time they came close to a rallying cry/anthem in one of their songs, and they're one of the most influential punk bands of all time.

19:12 / 01.09.04

Right, this may not fit the bill, but Rachael Stephens' Some Girls is perfect pop to me. I don't follow the charts too closly, but I heard this and I can't get it's catchiness out of my damned head, and not in an annoying way. I'm really loving it, and it's prefectly stupid, makes no sense lyrically, but just has a great vibe!!

Bent's So Long Without You makes me all emotional because it reminds me of my girlfriend, who is so very very far away at the moment, and I miss her, sniff.

20:56 / 01.09.04

Kim Wilde, "Kids in America," mainly for that moment near the end where all the guys in the band are death-chanting "We're the kids! We're the kids! We're the kids in Amerrrica!" and the synthesizers go all "woooooaaaaAAAAAAT!" "BEEEEeeeeoooooooooaauuUP!" and you feel like marching out into the streets and waving a tattered flag at the uncaring traffic.

Looking out your dirty old window....

00:11 / 02.09.04

Hoo rah hoo rah hoo rah yea
Over the hill with the

SWORDS!
OF A THOU! SAND!
ME-E-EN!!!

00:20 / 02.09.04

(which reigns for so many reasons, from top to bottom: thrumming bass with hoofbeats-and-hunting-horn at the intro, and then those big bonecracking drum fills, the guitar riff so crude and simplistic it's practically barbaric, Eddie Tudor-Pole's louche sneer on the verses exploding into the monster football-chant chorus, the self-conscious, triumphal silliness of it all, the solo's raucous fizz tripwires into the tape-reversed piano chord that ushers in the final verse, and you realize for a second what a well-produced and cleverly-arranged bit of songcraft this is, and also that its careening energy is such that you never notice the toolset that's in play, only feel the effect as you grin wide despite yourself and try to keep yourself from singing along, and fail, gloriously, shamelessly, and you klnow your throat will be sore in the morning but you don't care and then there's no more need for words as drums stop on a dime and then all is hoo rah hoo rah hoo rah yea, hoo rah hoo rah hoo rah ye-e-e-eah)

16:38 / 02.09.04

Right-ho, I'm listening to Dead Girls Make Graves - Speakers Push the Air - early Sunday morning.

,,,and i thought i was the only one (sniff),

L'amor Stories by the lovely Deerhoof . God they're just perfect, super pop-hooks and random but sensical noise.

not-so-deadly netshade

18:33 / 05.09.04

There are few songs as perfect as "Anyway You Want It" by the Dave Clark Five. YEARS ahead of it's time, this song was. While the Beatles were still dull, this tune is all needles in the red, drums too loud, overmodulated vocals...and probably recorded well before any of these guys ever tried a psychedelic.

10:28 / 07.09.04

there's demonstrations
and demonstrations
listen to the weathermen
they're not saying anything
they're tripping flags for you
this crazy face for you
you don't have a point of view
you don't have to say you do

no tears, no colours, yeah

there's conversation
and conversation
talk about yourself again
talk about the rain again
another lie for you
another point of view
how can you believe in them?
don't believe in anything

no colours, no tears, yeah

there's demonstrations
and demonstrations
listen to the weathermen
they're not saying anything
there's conversation
and conversation
talk about yourself again
talk about the rain again

no tears, no colours, no you now!

14:08 / 07.09.04

You think? I mean, different strokes for different folks and all, but "No Tears" is a bit of a mid-tempo crooner—not exactly the thing to get the heart racing, y'know?

Now, "Into You Like A Train," on the other hand...

18:36 / 07.09.04

tip o' the hat to ye, jack.

you're right of course - but i'm getting on a bit, and those mid tempo crooners begin to sound quite racey to me.

for sheer visceral thrill then, i'd have to choose the magazine track "because you're frightened" - opening track off 'correct use of soap'. in fact just leave the whole album running, and you can't go wrong.

Brigade du jour

21:31 / 07.09.04

Kim Wilde, "Kids in America," mainly for that moment near the end where all the guys in the band are death-chanting "We're the kids! We're the kids! We're the kids in Amerrrica!" and the synthesizers go all "woooooaaaaAAAAAAT!" "BEEEEeeeeoooooooooaauuUP!" and you feel like marching out into the streets and waving a tattered flag at the uncaring traffic.

Looking out your dirty old window....

grant, you have to check out the Lawnmower Death version, you just have to!

Haus of Mystery

11:54 / 10.09.04

Currently being blown out of my socks by 'He's a Doll' by The Honeys, off the Brian wilson 'Pet Projects' album.
It's an absolutely poerfect pop song, full of heartache and longing, with sumptuous, strident Wilson production, and a beautiful Spector-ish Girl group sound. The moment in the chorus where they sing 'Why's he such a doll?...He's so gorgeous' makes me want to cry. May well surpass The Ronettes 'Be My Baby' as the most perfect girl group song ever.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

14:20 / 10.09.04

"Go West" by the Pet Shop Boys

A

12:17 / 11.09.04

I'ts PRETTY Girls Make Graves. That song is great.

14:33 / 18.09.04

Prefer This Is Our Emergency Myself...

Currently, I'm grooving with the man. I'd try to let him speak for himself and let you all know why he's so good, but, well, he don't give a fuck about anybody else.

"Out-of-focus ideology/ Keeps the masses from majority"

Brilliant, brilliant song, The Man Don't Give A Fuck. A critique of focus-group politics and the loss of ideological certainty couple to a great tune and a load of swearing - which is both big and clever. I've also managed to get my sweaty little paws on a promo version of the new single they're bringing out with a 22-minute live version on it, the full Bill Hicks sample-looping-into-the-song-transorming-into-
a-pounding-techno-beat-transorming-into-another-
pounding-beat-going-back-to-the-song version.

I had an hour's drive with it yesterday and just played the whole thing over and over three times. And it still wasn't enough.

God, I love that song...

17:02 / 18.09.04

I said this elsewhere last year and still stand by it:

Right at this moment, I'm certain that The Only Ones' Another Girl, Another Planet is It, The One, The Best Song Ever Written. Every time I hear it I come to the same conclusion, so it must be true.

It's got the perfect lead-in - a steam train getting closer and closer and closer and then WHOOOOMF, it turns into the one from the end of Back to the Future Part III, only it zips straight off the tracks and fucks off into space instead of just hovering there and looking a little bit silly. And that bit in the middle, the bit where you go "another girl, another planet, anothergirlanotherplanet WHOO WHOOOOO!" and the stupid guitar climbs higher and higher and gets faster and faster, like it's trying to cover the middle section of Daft Punk's equally ludicrous Aerodynamic. And then the bass goes all Dick Dale for two seconds.

It's perfect for shaking off the shit for three minutes, which is what all great music should do. It makes me jump all the way down the stairs just so that I can run back up them and do it again. Its special sprinkling of magic powder hasn't worn off since I first heard it. It *will* be played at my funeral, when my corpse is stuffed into a circus cannon and fired into a brick wall.

17:06 / 18.09.04

It's also the only song ever written - pop or otherwise - that gives my goosepimples every time I hear it. Every. Time.

04:16 / 21.09.04

The Smiths?

07:00 / 21.09.04

Look who's stumbled into Music for the first time! (Must have always missed the door before...)
Smiths? Cemetry Gates.

for sheer visceral thrill then, i'd have to choose the magazine track "because you're frightened" - opening track off 'correct use of soap'. in fact just leave the whole album running, and you can't go wrong.
Ahh, for me it has to be the opening guitar on "Give me Everything" (the live version from "Play"). Haven't heard that for YEARS. I needs to fix me up a record player. "Redneck" from Unanswerable Lust gives a similar thrill to my old Devoto-fan goosepimples. What's he doing these days?

Regrettable Juvenilia

07:01 / 21.09.04

What about The Smiths?

19:50 / 21.09.04

I'd have to agree with Another Girl, Another Planet. The absolutely ludicrous amount of anticipation that they somehow manage to load into every single one of those first 50 thrilling seconds. Then, just so the song doesn't explode too soon, the excitement is punctured, briefly, by the cool as fuck nasal nonchalance of Peter Perret's opening lyric, "Always flirt with death / I look ill but i don't care about it". 30 seconds later we get the most exhilarating guitar solo EVER recorded, which somehow even surpasses the euphoria of the intro. And to finish: "Space tra vel's in my blood / There ain’t nothing I can do about it / Long journeys wear me out / I know i can't live without it". He's resigned to his addiction, but in the music the defiance is palpable.
Actually, looking back at what I’ve just written, i don't think i could even begin to adequately explain why i love this song. Or why it's so good. It just is.

14:37 / 22.09.04

I'ts PRETTY Girls Make Graves.

Bothered.

This is a thread about ACTION! not pedantry.
It is great though, isn't it.

Hmm, gonna have to check a bunch of these suggestions out

00:36 / 25.09.04

Oops. Didn't see Magazine mentioned upthread before. I'd go for Rhythm of Cruelty, personally. It kicks in like a pure pop single straight from the off - you don't get more immediate than having the main riff over a pure 1234 drumline quickly followed by a "wa-hoo!"

Pop revenge song, guys! Complete with "oo-oo-oo"s and that daft repeated "meantime" running through the chorus. I remember reading... somebody, somewhere saying that the way to write a song that hits the audience right in the knackers is to remember to make sure that the tune has plenty of rising/descending scales in it. The idea, I presume, is that rising ones pull the listener right up to bursting point with them, building the excitement and all that, and the descending ones act as both a release for that pressure and a lead-in to the next climb. The reason I presume that? This song. It's fucking chocka with the things.

Plus, totally memorable from the first time you hear it - riff, marching drums, "oo-oo-oo"s make for absolutely superb lodged-in-brain, leaping-off-the-bed poppery goodness.