Music in the 80's

While I write, I'm listening to Southern Sun by Boy & Bear, a tune I heard on BBC 6Music about five minutes ago and subsequently downloaded to my iPod. By comparison, in 1985, there was a song I'd heard on an episode of 'Moonlighting', the American detective show starring Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis. I wasn't too sure what it was so I wrote a letter to Annie Nightingale who had a request show on BBC Radio 1 on Sunday evenings and I tried to describe as best I could what the song sounded like. A week or two later, she read out my letter on the show and played me said song. Sympathy For The Devil by The Rolling Stones. That was how I discovered music in the 80's.

It is not overstating the case to say how important Annie Nightingale's show was to me in the 80's.  It was my ritual every Sunday night, once the chart show was over, to lay on my bed, usually in semi or pitch darkness, with the glow of the tuner on my hi-fi the only light in the room, listening to her playing music that opened up my mind to the possibilities of other worlds and sounds beyond what was played on Top Of The Pops or Radio 1. Don't get me wrong, I was a regular and avid watcher of TOTP, but to hear artists like The Cocteau Twins, Joni Mitchell and Led Zeppelin being played, well it was too exciting for words.

TV also had a big part to play in my discovery of music. In 1982, Channel 4 was launched and with it a music programme featuring presenters who, to an impressionable teenager like me, were unbelievably cool because they tripped over their words and swore on live television. The Tube, broadcast live on Friday evenings from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne was ground-breaking television and paved the way for shows of a similar ilk, such as The Word. Jools Holland, Paula Yates and Muriel Gray were witty, stylish and cool. Then there was The Old Grey Whistle Test on BBC2 with presenters like Bob Harris, John Peel and Mark Ellen. Not as cool perhaps, but no less important.  And I was always deeply envious that I didn't live in the North West so I could watch Tony Wilson on Granada Tonight. Another ground-breaker.

Television continues to produce shows profiling new music. Later with Jools Holland is a great show to discover some amazing new artists. And Channel 4 and BBC4 produce some quality late-night output. But it's fair to say that television's role in launching new music is not as vital as it once was.

Because now we have the internet.

It has never been easier to gain access to an incredible stockpile of music than it is now. Anyone born after say, 1985, doesn't know what it was to try to find music that was a bit more interesting than the normal chart fodder. Now it is literally at your fingertips with sites like MySpace, Spotify, LastFM, iTunes, Facebook, Bandcamp etc. The list is pretty endless.  And then there are the thousands of digital and internet radio stations out there.

These days, I find most of my music through BBC 6Music and Twitter. 6Music is my new Annie Nightingale.  The DJ's care about the music they play, a vast majority of them are or were musicians themselves. You can hear the joy in their voices when they play a song they love or when they share a new album with their listeners.

Twitter is also an amazing resource for discovering new music. There are people I follow who are musicians, who work in the industry, who write about music and then there are those who just love music in all its forms and with whom I can have great conversations and share recommendations. You can even talk to (or stalk) your favourite bands and DJs about music.

You can also just wave your smartphone in the general direction of a piece of music and an app will tell you what the song is!  How incredible is that?

Festival No 6

A festival like no other in a place like no other.

Songs that make you cry...

Following the recent revelation by Nick Clegg in The Guardian that there are songs that make him cry, various contributors then went on to list the songs that bring a tear to their eyes. The list included songs by people as diverse as Spiritualized, Patsy Cline, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young and Will Young.

This week the public chose the songs that make them cry. Again, the list is quite eclectic, but there are a number of artists that feature more than once. Artists such as Radiohead, The Cure, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits, The National, Elbow, Bon Iver and LCD Soundsystem. This is a subject quite close to my heart as I regularly have a good cry over a song. In the article it says, “music needs an extra emotional connection to have a lasting effect. A sad song only becomes poignant when it reminds you of something or someone, else.” I agree with that statement to a greater extent, but sometimes a song doesn’t need to remind me of someone or something. Sometimes just the song alone is enough to set me off.

Songs that remind me of a time, a place or a person are poignant, certainly. Ride On by Christy Moore would fall into that category. It reminds me of a time, a place and a handsome Irish boy, and it gets me every time. There was a Christy Moore session on BBC4 recently that I watched through misty eyes. Maybe it’s the masochist in me, but I fast-forwarded to Ride On, just so I could remember.

Sometimes, though it’s the lyrics that get you. The lyrics to Somebody by Depeche Mode are simple and beautiful. It’s about loving someone and wanting to be loved in return. It reminds me of a summer I spent in America and playing the song quietly on a late-night bus trip home so as not to wake the others. Coles Corner by Richard Hawley is a similarly poignant song about loneliness and wanting to find a connection with someone. It breaks my heart.

Then there are the songs that don’t hold a particularly strong emotional connection for me but nevertheless still have the ability to hit me with a punch. It might be the chord structure, it might be the minor key change, it might be the lyric. Codex by Radiohead is one such song. It floors me. The feeling starts almost from the opening bars of the piano, but it’s the horn section that just sets me off bawling. Most recently on a crowded train.

Another song that packs a punch is Sacrifice by Lisa Gerrard from the album Duality. The song is best listened to on headphones with your eyes closed and with your mind cleared of all distractions. Each time I emerge at the end of the song, I feel drained, purged and oddly euphoric.

I remember shedding quite a few tears at Ray Davies’ Glastonbury set last year as Ray and the choir sang Waterloo Sunset, followed by a spine-tingling rendition of Thank You For The Days, sung as a tribute to a friend who had recently died.

Of all the artists in my record collection though, the ones that have induced most tears is Elbow. At their recent concerts I found myself crying on a number of occasions. Firstly to Lippy Kids, then to Great Expectations. But the song that never fails to hit me with a punch is Friend of Ours from The Seldom Seen Kid album. I played it when someone close to me died and it reminds me of them. The sweeping strings, the horns, the “love ya mate” lyric leading into Craig’s beautiful piano riff just kills me.

There are probably many, many more songs I could mention. A good cry every now and then is something I can recommend. Why not dig into your own record collection and do the same…