RADIO contact resumed after a tough month at work and we start off with another doozy of a subject beloved of saloon bar bores in fading tour t-shirts the world over - Top 5 albums.And we're kicking off with one of the most contested of all - a Liverpool Top 5.
As an introduction, below is a wonderful wee slice of the late and much lamented Brian Reade Show on City Talk. I contributed to the show and guest hosted it on a couple of occasions too, but that's enough self-regarding nonsense.
Here Brian (right, looking like he's heard Gillett and Hicks have called for Liverpool to move out of Anfield and on to Stanley Park's public pitches) talks to Al O'Hare of The Trestles in his day-to-day guise of music journalist, Ian Prowse former lead singer of GM faves Pele and now the main man in Amsterdam and award winning journalist Mike Chapple about a survey conducted in 2008 to see Liverpool decide its own Top 50 greatest albums.
That was dead good, mate. A few in there I'd agree with; Crocodiles and maybe The La's, but not my own personal faves. Oh yeah, and I don't really think of Costello as being a scouser but I guess he is.
ReplyDeleteOff the top of me head I'd pick;
1) Modern Eon - Fiction Tales. Post-punk album came out circa Bunnymen Comsats et al and was ace. Perennial best-of list fave of mine. Spooky high voice not unlike (ahem) Jon Anderson, with dead good drums and effects. Try to hear it if you can. Not on CD. I have a burned version of it. Recently featured in Mojo's Buried Treasure section.
2) Half Man Half Biscuit - This Leaden Pall. I mean, come on. Space and The Farm were in top fives over this? Scousers, man....
3) It's Immaterial - Life's Hard and Then You Die. Class. Dead good words. Unique sound.
4) Dalek I Love You - Compass kum-pass. Weirdo nutters but dead funny and with great tunes.
5) The Coral - Singles Collection. I bought this a few years back and it's fantastic. What, no greatest hits? Bollocks.
PS: I didn't put The Beatles in just to be different, you know, but I probably like them more than at least four of this lot. These were off the top of me head, but two are for deffo.
Beatles aside, here are my five.
ReplyDelete1. Crocodiles - Echo and the Bunnymen. Very short, and should have been shorter with the dodgy Happy Death Man lost, but what goes on beforehand is dazzling. And I'd have put Heaven Up Here in my list, too, simply on the strength of its first three songs, what Julian Cope called summat like the greatest opening (three songs) to any album. Sadly, it falls away badly after that.
2. OMD debut - Good songs forged ambitiously by synths that still sound unusually eerie. Messages is a storming groove!
3. The La's. Masterful songwriting and great tunes and attitude. Feelin' always has been, and probably always will be, on my mix tapes/CDs.
4. Kilimanjaro - Teardrops. Sounds thin and dated thesedays, making you wonder what the hell they were all thinking. Still, at the time, it was another pop triumph for the Liddypool bands we were seeing week in, week out, and we were jolly proud.
5. English Boys/Working Girls - Deaf School. Call me square, la, but this was their best album. Little they'd done before would have worried the charts, but brilliantly executed pop songs like the riotous title track, Refugee and Bobby, sorry, Ronnie Zamora are among the greatest Mersey songs.