1. New Art School – The Jam – A little hard to remember now but in 1977 the laws of rock were strict and unwavering: loud fast rules, love was for wimps, and the Jam were middle class pretenders in Beatle suits and Who riffs, claiming not just the new but also the old. Of course, In The City made a mockery of such rigidity: a hard swirl, double time, through punk with an eye on melody, an eye on the charts. Stateside, Anglophiles NYC took the UKs coolness to heart and all but bottled em off stage at 2nd Avenue CBGBs. Over 30 years later and the entire first album sounds fresher than anything else in their canon. The title track, “I Got By In Time”, “Away From The Numbers” and this song, a snide sneer at the new generation, brims with wit and vitality.
2.The Next Thing We Knew – Jack Phillips – Jack would like me to review the album but I try and not write as many album reviews nowadays. In the 80s I wrote a 5000 word review of the newly released Imperial Bedroom so I don’t mind the big statement review, but I prefer chewing on an album nowadays. Accumulating a sense of the album through bits and pieces. Especially one as ambitious as this of which “The Next Thing We Knew” is the title track. I have been trying to figure out who he reminds me of before it dawned on me, Phillips is to multi-instruments what Elton John is to keyboards: sometimes the vocal resemblance is overwhelming and on this song the arrangement is clear but interlocking, the vocals arresting and the enunciation singular. This is a major statement and what I am not sure is, who is left to care?
3. Piece – Deer Tick – The honest humm of alt folk rock.
4. Lingerie – Usher – Something hot about a chick who wears sexy underwear. I’m just saying.
5. Teenage Dream – Katy Perry
6. Call Me Your Man – Jump Back Jake – Cleverly constructed rock with the lick from “Needles And Pins” hidden in plain sight.
7.Acid Reign – Violens – I was speaking to some record promoters to college radio before last nights Shinobi Ninja gig and they name checked these guys. I can heard it to -it’s an absorbing sound.
8. Hot Tottie (feat Jay-Z) – Usher
9. How Long – Ramona
10. French Poetry And Rhinestones – Better live, especially the singer, but pretty good recorded anyway.