The longest running saga in blogging history continues. Every single post from now that isn't a countdown of some variety will be a continuing trawl through the eight years of my Photobucket account. We're somewhere around early 2005 at the moment.
The Fabulous Rougueu Brothers and Jimmy Hart in "greatest photo ever"
Remember when "blogging" was the next big thing? Before the Herald Sun adopted the title for their grubby live chats with shit journalists? It was a great era rich with hope of a new world. I offered to let rabid fans come and live in TSP Towers - Docklands edition and pay for the glory of living my lifestyle. Surprisingly nobody took the offer up.
Disgraceful but apt scenes after the final siren. Round 20, 2005.
The random flash of South Korea beating Italy from the middle of the music video for Someday by The Strokes.
Great moments in letter writing the day after Australia qualified for the '06 World Cup.
Die scum.
I'm not sure why I created this t-shirt design. Buy it anyway.
Unfortunately the image had to be taken from microfilm as the payoff to a long running joke, but here's Rachel McQuillan sticking her racquet where the sun don't shine.
The product that does what it says on the can
See, there was this ad in England where the annoying child would bounce out as somebody was about to get on the gear and start questioning them. I couldn't find a copy of it anywhere - nor can I now - but here's one of their other classics.
How appropriate, you fight like a cow
MS Paint tells the story of another Telstra failure
Greatest graffiti ever. Altona Beach - 3.30am.
Heather Mills-McCartney makes her advertising debut.
Incredibly retrospectively wrong ad from the early 1990's
FUCKING COP THAT. One of the great moments of my life.
I guess Beazley said something about drugs? Maybe something about what his colleagues were on for re-electing him so many times.
See you for another installment of this the next time I have to open Photobucket to look for an old picture.
To say The Fall is a hard band to get into would be the biggest musical understatement since the guy who said Paris Hilton's singing was "a bit shit".
As of today, and be careful because another one is always just around the corner, Mark E Smith and his rotating cast of bandmates - and there have been plenty - have released 29 studio albums. I've not heard every track of all of them and probably never will.
Smith has been at it since 1976, I don't think I'll live long to hear them all.
But as I was extolling the virtues of them today somebody said "where do I start?" and that's a bloody good question because not one of those 29 albums is, or is likely to, keep your interest the whole way through. The content on offer is so violently different from one track to the next that even Greatest Hits compilations are patchy and miss some crackers.
So, for that person - and you know very well who you are - I present TSP's all-time top 20 Fall songs in chronological order.
1. Bingo Master's Break Out
1978 EP
Harassed bingo caller finally flips out at the pressure and tops himself.
2. No Xmas for John Quays
Live At The Witch Trials - 1979 Punky.. (feel free to sing it to the NZ PM if you see him)
3. Industrial Estate
Live At The Witch Trials - 1979
.. and punkier. For those who liked to be shouted at. If not you've come to the wrong place.
4. Music Scene
Live At The Witch Trials - 1979
This could be my favourite. Note the intense cynicism about the music industry that MES has already got two years in. If he'd known he'd still be kicking on in 30 years he may have topped himself.
5. How I Wrote Elastic Man
Single - 1980
In which Mark sings about the changes to his life that have been made by writing the song Elastic Man, despite the fact that he never actually wrote a song of that name. Later guest starred on an Elastica track off their shit second album called How I Wrote Elastica Man. Just because he could I suppose.
6. Prole Art Threat
Slates - 1981 Perversely made to be too short for the album charts, but too long to be considered as an EP for the singles charts. Song is 1.58, which is really all you need.
7. The Classical
Hex Enducation Hour - 1982 Legend has it The Fall was on the verge of being signed by Motown Records (!?) before making the moderately poor choice of playing this during the initial meeting. By the time "Where are the obligatory niggers? Hey there fuckface! Hey there fuckface!" had gotten an airing - right at the start of the song - the deal was off.
8. Hip Priest
Hex Enducation Hour - 1982 Scathing track about music journalists better known for being played in Silence Of The Lambs while all that unpleasant kidnap/murder business is going on.
9. I'm Into CB
B-Side - 1982
Go forward 19 years and change the lyrics a bit and he's effectively singing about Twitter.
10. Eat Y’Self Fitter
Perverted By Language - 1983 The song that asked the important question "What's a computer?" also features probably the cheapest, and therefore best, video ever made. 7.30 of glory.
11. Kicker Conspiracy
Single - 1983
The song that got me into the band in the first place. From the same article listing songs written about soccer football I also discovered Half Man, Half Biscuit who are almost as ace. Also the song that won MES his much vaunted reputation for saying "AH!" at the end of everything. Has any song ever nailed sports fan culture more accurately?
12. Spoilt Victorian Child
This Nation's Saving Grace - 1985
Rattling.
13. I Am Damo Suzuki
This Nation's Saving Grace - 1985 In which MES claims to be a member of Can which successful results.
14. US 80's-90's
Bend Sinister - 1986
A failed trip through US Customs in song. Top three all time for me with Music Scene and Kicker Conspiracy. I particularly like "Tha copppppps, are toppppppps" and "I'm the big-shot original rapper. But it's time for me to get off this crapper".
15. Hey! Luciani
Single - 1986
16. Living Too Late
Single - 1986 Two tracks from Smith's play (!) about the death (!?) of Pope John Paul I (!!!?!why!?)
17. Hit The North Pt. 1
Single - 1987
Wait, another contender for my favourite track. A disrespectful look at Smith's north of England. Another classic video, worth it just for the video of The Band performing into front of a baffled audience of OAP's and the campest acting in music video history at 2.55.
One of the remixes on the other side starts with the line "My cat says ACK!"
18. Bill Is Dead
Extricate - 1990
A power ballad. The man can do nothing wrong.
19. Free Range
Code: Selfish - 1992
Where else do you get opening lines like; "In 2001
A Life code:
It pays to talk to no one.
Proliferating across the earth.
Also Sprach Zarathustra
Faction Europa
Free Range."
20. Touch Sensitive
The Marshall Suite - 1999
Smith always looks about twenty years older than he actually is. In this video it's about forty years.
Bonus tracks:
Mark reads out the football scores.
Inspiral Carpets featuring Mark. E Smith - I Want You
Shuttleworth featuring Mark E. Smith - England's Heartbeat
You might remember I started this in April last year promising to follow-up with the second, and subsequent, parts not long after. How does nine months work for you?
In case you'd forgotten this is where we trawl through my old Photobucket account from 2003 onwards and ask "why did you take that photo?" and "what are you doing to that frozen chicken" (image removed for violating terms and conditions of use). Sadly Photobucket has been made basically obsolete now by Twitpic, ImageShack and various other quicker and easier sites that allow us to post photos and have them destroyed seconds later. All hail the bucket and the way it kept the best part of seven years of my life history together. But just the farcical bits by the look of it.
No idea. I think the headline is from when we tonked Carlton by 100+ points in 2004.
A sacrilicious MS Paint moment from the same era. Please note how archaic that iPod looks by today's standards.
No fucking idea
A touching piece of vigilante reporting from a trip to Sydney
The exact location of where I used to live in St Kilda. Go there and throw stones at the window.
When I was young and stupid somehow this number off the scoreboard of a suburban soccer ground came to be in my possession.
Taken from my balcony in Docklands this is significant because it's now the land that Victoria Harbour sits on. Over to you National Archives...
More great propaganda from lamp posts
The night I wore a chicken suit and some bird (see what I did there?) treated my arse like a pin cushion all evening.
A great concept which never caught on for some reason.
History's cheapest gag.
Action footage from Wikipedia just hours after the Van Nguyen execution.
The lowest moment of the worst book of all time, Around The World In 80 Babes by Nigel Gohl. I won it on the radio but presumably there are still 5000 copies sitting in his parent's garage in Mt. Waverley waiting to be pulped a'la Bouncing Back by Alan Partridge.
Higgins from Magnum PI holding up a rubber chicken. What else do you need in life?
BELTER OF A FILM. Still looking for an English subtitle version of this or the sequel all these years later. Arise SBS employees.
2006's most baffling but accurate moment.
The sadly legally defeated Hot Dogs For Gold campaign which kept the "blogsphere" (as the kids said) and the Herald Sun ticking over for about 17 seconds before TV Weak's lawyer Kevin Lynch sent a cease and desist letter and we all adjusted our collars nervously.
First a declaration - my interest in the A-League is more as a dispassionate onlooker than a supporter. The standard of football is terrible, the rivalries are manufactured, the team I support was banned for being too foreign, and the winning team is given what appears to be a toilet seat.
Realistically I couldn't give a continental whether the league prospers or winds up bankrupting everyone involved, but recognising that playing "Fantasy Chairman" is far more interesting than doing actual work I've come up with my plan to at least arrest the competition's violent decline. It may not save the 10 of 11 clubs that are either financially bollocksed or well on the way, but now that the loss of the World Cup bid has effectively harpooned their Plan A for the future (i.e. surely people will get excited for football by 2022), and there doesn't appear to be a Plan B this might be as good as it gets.
Get your red pens and hate out...
1 - Make it look like people care
Where possible, order every team to close the side of the ground with the cameras on it to 'fans'. It's no wonder that matches only have attendances of 3 or 4 thousand when people see highlights on television and there doesn't appear to be anybody in the ground.
Force people to where the camera can see them, and if you have to change the setup of the place to achieve it then do it and do it quickly. There's a big loser vibe hanging around the competition at the moment and it'll be impossible to shake if it goes on too long. Then people will not only stop going to games they'll stop watching them on TV too, Foxtel will decide that it's not worth it and next thing you know it's Central Coast vs Melbourne Heart on Channel 31. On replay. At 3.30am on a Wednesday.
2 - Accentuate the positive
Prepare a long term plan for boutique smaller grounds.
It's hard to pull a stadium out of thin air, and no doubt heaps of long term contracts were signed in haste during the first years of the competition but other than Victory, Adelaide and Perth you've got teams playing in cavernous stadiums that they're never going to fill regularly. Drop the pipe dream that you're going to get 30k to every match and pump money into the 'secondary' stadiums in each city.
Split matches between the main ground and the smaller venues as required. Make the state federations fund the creation of a 'home of football' rectangular stadium in each capital city which can be used by the A-League teams and for state grand finals.
3 - Put on games that people care about
Replace midweek games wherever possible with a national cup comp - even if it's just the 11 teams + 21 of the top state league/New Zealand for a 32 team knockout. Seed it so the 11 A-League teams can't play each other and make them all play their first game at the smaller side's ground.
If you can't find enough state league teams of a decent standard invite the national sides of Fiji, Solomon Islands, East Timor, PNG etc.. to play, it's not like their players are doing anything else on a Wednesday that they won't be able to get out of.
4 - Take it to the streets
Play more matches 'on the road' in cities without A-League teams.
Wellington have got the right idea playing one or two games a year in Christchurch and Dunedin - they get bigger crowds there than at home. Can't believe they don't play more games in Geelong, Canberra, Cairns, Tassie etc.. If I was the Gold Coast I'd much rather play a game in Hobart and get 2000 people than 1700 at home.
The main focus on the comp should how it's presented on TV, having a crowd that can't be seen by the cameras is a bonus. There's building your 'brand' and there's recognising that right now nobody in your city gives a rats and if they do they're almost certainly watching it on television. What it does give you is a chance to show why they should come to your next (heavily promoted on the coverage) home game.
5 - Know your role
Move the season so it crosses the start of the footy seasons more than the end.
There's no point starting the comp during AFL/NRL finals and waiting for people to care comes Round 5, you may as well start it against round 1 or pre-season competitions. It's still not ideal, and there should be as little crossover as possible, but you cannot launch a season against the finals of the two biggest competitions.
More importantly, drop the rhetoric about how it's the world game and how it should be so much more important than 'native' sports. Maybe it should be, but in this country it isn't - just like how it will never be in the US and their league is on a long-term upswing because they've been smart enough to target the right markets instead of annoying everyone else with a sense of entitlement.
Junior participation figures are all well and good but it means nothing if all your clubs are bankrupt and the kids chuck it in at 15 to play ping pong instead.
6 - Find teams people care about
This might be an outrageous suggestion, but they could invite massive foreign clubs to field a 'reserves' side as the 12th team? Having 11 teams makes no sense, and they could invite a different entrant every season.
Even if it's Manchester City reserves playing out of Northcote they'll probably generate more interest and TV coverage where it actually counts than having a team in Townsville.
Even if you invited more money than brains freaks like Red Bull to field a different team every year they'd probably buy enough decent name foreign players to keep it interesting.
It's a grubby path to travel, and it would be unfortunate to have to go in that direction, but the other option is to keep going with teams being propped up by billionaires until they get sick of wasting their money and let the clubs die, leaving the competition with one or two solid, viable teams and a rotating cavalcade of teams from the same city changing their name and going broke every two years.
7 - Reunite with 'old' football
Embrace state league teams instead of treating them like second class citizens, only good for having their players stolen. Don't be afraid to let them play in summer, integrate their competitions with your reserve/youth teams. Kick out local clubs that are thinly veiled political parties and concentrate on ones being run for the right reason. Play a limited number of state league games as curtain raisers for A-League games.
8 - Rewrite the past
Hush up about "the bad old days" and how the NSL was apparently a non-stop warzone of ethnic violence. It had its moments, and it's the fault of the people running the game for not doing better to stamp it out, but the majority of matches were conducted in a completely trouble free environment. I seem to recall them even playing the national anthem before every game, something they don't do anymore.
Next time somebody goes off on a rant about the 'bad old days' (i.e anyone who ever talks about the game on SEN) ask them to name off the top of their head their all-time five best NSL riots. Chances are that they'll struggle to get to three without just making something up.
Just because the so called 'football community' can draw a line between 'old football' and 'new football' it doesn't mean everybody else does and the outright lies that are told about what it 'used to be like' do nothing to get the people who think it still is like that to buy into the game.
9 - Plan for the future A "B-League" with promotion and relegation might not be viable yet, and it might never be, but identify and nurture the best clubs outside the A-League in Australia and New Zealand. Set up a "Champions League" for the best state league teams to play each other, encourage pre-season friendlies between these sides and the A-League clubs. The league has to stop pretending everything is rosy inside the tent and a complete nightmare outside of it because they're a couple of bored businessmen pulling out away from being in exactly the same situation and playing in front of cow paddocks.
10 - Admit where you've gone wrong Don't rush to add any new teams.
A second team in Melbourne was probably the right thing to do, especially considering how many sides there are in NSW and Queensland, but it's going to take a lot of time and a lot of lost money for it to work. They should have had two teams in Melbourne and Sydney straight off the bat - there was very little to be gained in building one up and then (supposedly) cutting it in half to create a second team three or four years later.
It's clear that none of the expansion teams have worked. Wellington just about get away with it despite having ordinary crowds, but they were really just a straight swap for the failed Auckland side that fouled up the average attendances of the first season of the competition. Both North Queensland and Gold Coast have been failed experiments, either on their last legs or close to. Instead of adding new sides I'd merge those two teams, rebrand them as Queensland and have them play half their games in each location with an eye to television figures instead of crowd attendance.
The FFA has already given up the idea of adding a West Sydney team for now. Despite the success of the first Sydney side they can barely string a crowd together so it was never going to work except as a tax write-off. There are a lot of places in Australia where you could put a team but you wouldn't make a dime - instead of rolling the dice and hoping for the best, pair teams up with these cities and have them share their games with them instead of expensive new sides with barely any support or financial backing.
If all else fails just accept that the whole thing is a massive waste of money and give up.
Frank Lowy, despite spending the last ten years trying to convince people that Chadstone: The Fashion Capital is better than anything Westfield has to offer I'm here to help. I'm happy to drop everything and come work for the league right now but I want to be paid up front.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the most prestigious night in international music. The TSP Top 50 for 2010. Which act will walk away with this year's David Lee Roth medal for song of the year? And here's tonight's host...
My lords, ladies and gentlemen. Before we start a quick recap of the top fives of previous years. Full counts from 2007, 2008 and 2009 if you're into that sort of thing and broken YouTube links.
Everything else was lost in the Great Blog Hosting Debacle of 2006. '07 was even extended to a top 100, the folly of which is now shown by the fact that nobody can remember how 3/4 of the songs from 51-100 went.
2005 1. Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot 2. Maximo Park - Apply Some Pressure 3. Goldfrapp - Ooh La La 4. The Killers - Somebody Told Me 5. Bloc Party - Helicopter
2006 1. The Young Knives - Here Comes The Rumor Mill 2. Giant Drag - This Isn’t It 3. Silvia Night - Congratulations 4. Lily Allen - LDN 5. Joey Negro - Make A Move On Me
2007 1. The Hold Steady - Chips Ahoy! 2. New Young Pony Club - Ice Cream 3. The Teenagers - Homecoming 4. Arctic Monkeys - Fluorescent Adolescent 5. Jack Penate - Spit At Stars
2008 1. Lethal Bizzle - The Come Up 2. Neon Neon - Luxury Pool 3. MGMT - Electric Feel 4. Empire Of The Sun - Walking On A Dream 5. Fryars - Olive Eyes
2009 1. N.A.S.A - Spacious Thoughts (featuring Tom Waits and Kool Keith) 2. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll 3. Boy Crisis - The Fountain of Youth 4. Bat For Lashes - Daniel 5. Low Fidelity All Stars - The Good Times
As we can see no artist has ever made the top five twice. Most of them have released a follow-up album of three but never managed to scale the heights of their TSP award winning performance. BUT, this year somebody breaks that trend. Who will it be? Sadly for all of us I can confirm that it's not Silvia Knight.
Before we begin, a short explanation of how we got here. Throughout the year tracks are dumped into one big f'off shortlist until December 1 when the list is culled of all the "how desperate was I to get something on the list?" selections and the remainder are pitted against each other in Thunderdome style combat to see what will crack the final fifty. This year's list opened at about 175 and was knocked down to 110ish before the final field.
The usual rules apply. Maximum of two songs per artist and no covers allowed. In the event of a chosen song later turning out to be a cover of an obscure track that nobody has ever heard of I reserve the right to leap from my 11th floor window. Alright Mr. Copperart, let's do it.
50. Savoir Adore - Sarah's Secret Sounds like a $2 Shop Arcade Fire, but rattles by in 2.42. Given the amount of albums that their soundalikes have sold it's no shame to be the second division version.
49. The Vaccines - Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra) Even better, just ninety seconds worth. Coming on like a multi-gender, pop Ramones the Vaccines have been touted as the next big thing which should mean you never hear from them again.
48. Naive New Beaters - LA Trumpets The sort of thing that you'd never get away with if you weren't French. Another ninety seconds worth. Prepare for 13 minute dirges later in the countdown to make up for this.
46. SIA - Clap Your Hands Forget Channel 10 buying the rights to this and then using it for every single promo for about six months and forget the fact that she's a seemingly insane Max Sharam for the 21st century. Most importantly try to forget the amazing similarity to 1979's Get It Up For Love by Tata Vega and concentrate instead on its undoubted pop qualities.
44. David E Sugar - Party Killer David E Sugar is not a party killer. The Manson Family were party killers. There's a touch of the hipsters about it if you're touchy on that sort of thing.
43. Lissie - In Sleep The first time I heard this it was dismissed in the first few seconds, but I got distracted and came back halfway through to discover I'd been dropped in the middle of a Fleetwood Mac reunion. If Stevie Nicks were dead I'd suggest that Lissie were her reincarnation.
42. Paul Weller - Wake Up The Nation In which the godfather of Mod tees off on Facebook and advises Britain to fire up. Not without some justification too.
40. Gonzales - I Am Europe Containing all sorts of bizarre metaphors for Europe. You'd think there was something sensible and artistic about the whole thing if it wasn't being sung by the same guy who once performed a track called Cum On You.
39. Minitel Rose - Heart of Stone More French people. God forbid Phoenix could ever do anything half as good as Too Young ever again they'd wipe the floor with the rest of the Gallic contingent. Don't hold your breath.
38. Juliana Pasha - It's All About You But for those of you who are bored of the French, here's an Albanian straight from this year's surprisingly quality song heavy Eurovision contest. After a few years of disappointment Europe delivered this season. Stand up and applaud Enver Hoxha fans everywhere.
36. Shit Browne - Artifice You'd have to be French to get away with a name like that. Video doesn't show up anywhere on YouTube and you'd be advised to turn ON safe searching before looking for it on Google.
35. Janelle Monae - Tightrope The video, and her hairdo, is baffling but the track is a triumph. 21st century soul without the need for Autotune.
34. Elton John and Leon Russell - It Wasn't For Bad Yes, it's Elton but come back it's not fruity prancing on the beach a'la I'm Still Standing or playing a piano dressed as Donald Duck. Will almost take the taste of Candle In The Wind '98 out of your mouth. But not quite.
33. Cee Lo - Bright Lights, Bigger City Ten times better than the more famous, filth friendly track that you know and love. Does not contain gratuitous obscenity. That would be shithouse.
32. Goldfrapp - Alive It's not my fault that six months after I'd heard it and decided to like it that Channel 10 would use it in the promo for their new station. Get amongst it in its full version. Or watch SBS.
31. Comanechi - Crime of Love The sort of low-fi as buggery, sung by women stuff that Kurt Cobain used to whop off over before topping himself. For added effect it ends with the young lady shouting WANKERS! WANKERS! WANKERS! at us for the last twenty seconds, and for that we are all winners
30. Plan B - Stay Too Long Motown/rap crossover from a concept album about a man in prison. It doesn't end well for him. More news at 11.
29. Hera Bjork - Je Ne Sais Quoi The other Iceland Bjork, as seen on Eurovision 2010 with her belting eurodance ballad. Have I ever told you how much I love belting eurodance ballads?
28. Egyptian Hip Hop - Moon Crooner A bunch of English kids with what sounds like Casio keyboards coming on like a 21st century Happy Mondays. Achieves and suggests better is to come in the future. No actual hip-hop or Egyptian behaviour included.
27. Brandon Flowers - Magdalena The bad news for the rest of The Killers is that this sounds exactly like one of their records but without any of the personnel. We wish the rest of the band well in their future endeavours on the Theatre Restauraunt circuit. Continues to tread the same faux-country path of the last Killers album but without the trouble of having to split up the money. Problem solved and it's hello Centrelink to old mates 1, 2 and 3. Previous Appearance - #4 in 2005 with Somebody Told Me (as The Killers)
26. The Winter Olympics - Feeling European Your standard English stodge rock but with interesting European metaphors for shagging and going through your nothing to declare aisle etc.. No passport required for EU citizens. No video available so here's an inferior single of theirs. Warning - he looks like he sort of hipser you'd want to kick in the plums.
24. Klaxons - Flashover "Nu Rave" possible users of hallucenogenic substances add crashing guitar with surprisingly positive effects. Sounds like the Jonestown Massacre - the real one, not the band Previous Appearance - #26 in 2007 with Golden Skanks
23. Hadouken! - M.A.D The frantic sound of your car being broken into somewhere in the dodgy part of North London. Previous Appearance - #73 in 2007 with Superstar
22. Grinderman - Palaces of Montezuma Nick Cave's hirsuite new band give the world a tender love song where the spinal column of JFK is offered up as a token of affection. Everybody wins.
21. Chromeo - Night By Night Proof that you can use distorted vocals and Autotuney shit without sounding like Believe by Cher or any of the 500 songs Kanye West has done since he stopped being good.
20. Chanee and n'evergreen - In A Moment Like This Regular readers will understand my long held fetish for power ballads. Therefore I make no apologies for the Norweigan Eurovision entrant finishing so high in the list. It's like REO Speedwagon cloned as a woman and married to itself.
19. Big Boi - General Patton The non-Hey Ya portion of Outkast meets what sounds like the Russian Army Choir in the world's foremost rap/choral mashup
17. Aeroplane - My Enemy This year's Ghosts 'n Stuff. No lyrics required. Like waking up in a modern Sega Megadrive
16. Keane featuring K'naan - Looking Back What's this doing here? I hate Keane. Roy, Robbie and the band. But sadly it's my duty to report that they released two tracks this year that were half decent and didn't end up on rotation in every wine bar between here and Western Europe. More to come.
15. Chromeo - Hot Mess Hello, I've just gone into a Sam Tyler-esque coma and suddenly it's 1987. I'm absolutely thrilled by this turn of events.
14. Electric Six - The Newark Airport Boogie You'd have gotten 1000-1 on the people behind Dance Commander ever making an appearance in one of my top fifties again last year. The only thing we'd heard from them since was a putrid cover of Queen's Radio Ga Ga, but against the odds here they are.
13 - Scissor Sisters - Night Work I expect this is the sound of loading up on Amyl Nitrate and going for it openly in San Francisco in 1979. Would have been destroyed like all their other songs if it had been a hit.
12 - Plan B - Welcome To Hell Right, so now he's in jail and to put not too fine a point on it is in deep shit. Thanks to the album shifting a few copies (which by today's standards was probably about 75) the story is scheduled to continue on the next album. Episodic music. Why not, nothing else is working for them.
Ok, so I'm a moderately ashamed MCR fan. Wanna fight about it? Doesn't mean I'm going to see them in concert, sit on the steps of Flinders Street Station looking like a fuckhead or wear a black trenchcoat and kill my parents. And thankfully neither are they, because the poster children for emo have gone stadium rock and it's glorious.
10. Ou Est Le Swimming Pool - Dance The Way I Feel
Feel free to ignore the messy end that came to the lead singer when he jumped off a tower at a Belgian festival (!?) and concentrate instead on what will go down as their crowning achievement, a perfect slice of pop that didn't even lose its appeal when the radio stations picked it up.
9. Arcade Fire - Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
I might be the only person in the world not to have gone wild for their first two albums but there's absolutely no doubt that the latest is a solid gold cracker. This is the not the last of them you will see in this countdown.
8 - Angus and Julia Stone - On The Road
An album track that I heard quite by accident in somebody else's car. Sure the rest of the album doesn't stack up and the guy looks like he could do with a wash but this is sublime.
7 - Arcade Fire - Modern Man
This reminds me of something that I can't quite put my finger on despite having listened to it plenty of times in the last week. Whisper it quitely but there's something Hall & Oates-ish about it. Despite that, or in fact because of it, it dominates. There's something sinister about this, like there's a subtext to it that is only told in the music and not the lyrics. Consider me converted to their cause.
6 - Chew Lips - Karen
I have absolutely nothing to say about this other than that it's a top tune and whoever's house they filmed it in needs to put in new carpet.
5 - Paul Heaton - Even A Palm Tree (audio only) In a year when I rediscovered the genius of The Beautiful South a new Heaton solo album came just at the right time. Against classic era South this would be practically undetectable as a new solo track, and that's a good thing.
4 - Keane - Stop For A Minute (featuring K'naan)
Well there you go. I never thought they'd make it into the top 100 let alone the final five, but finally after all these years somebody finally inserted a rap bit into their song which made sense and contributed positively to the overall project. This is no shonky K. Minogue Shocked By The Power rap section, it delivers the goods. In fact it steals the show so much that they should swap it around and have it as featuring Keane.
3 - Lena - Satellite
Even though I only had it second on the night, trying not to be populist, there's no doubt that this is the best Eurovision track since Silvia Night telephoned god and called him "dawg" in 2006. Almost the perfect pop song. So perfect that if it had been done by say... Kate Nash I'd probably have decried it as slop and kicked the television in. Her wonky German accent is what sends it to the next level. Deserved more.
2 - Goldfrapp - Rocket
Previous Appearances #3 in 2005 with Ooh La La, #46 and #39 in 2008 with Cologne Cerrone Houdini and Happiness.
The 'frapp did the right thing on her latest album and came over all Italo Disco.. and got nothing from the punters. This is a gem though. Perfect Eurodance magic which spent pretty much the whole year as favourite to take home the DLR before a last minute intervention knocked it out of pole position. Ladies and gentlemen, take up thy bottles and assorted garbage because I'm about to make what will undoubtedly be the most controversial #1 selection since Clive Waterhouse. I give you this year's winner *ducks*
1 - My Chemical Romance - Bulletproof Heart
There are two reasons I almost didn't make this #1. Firstly I've spent the last twenty years mocking the Triple J Hottest 100 for always turning up top songs that were released about fifteen minutes before voting started, so how much of a hypocrite does it make me to say a song that I first heard a week and a half ago is my favourite for the year.
The second reason for concern is the blatant grab for stadium rock that they're going for. Usually that should be decried and they should be bottled from the stage a'la Daphne & Celeste at the Reading Festival, but in this case it is absolutely fantastic. Like U2 when they were good injected with glam Bowie and just the slightest hint of their depressive past.
I've got a good feeling that I'm not going to look back in a year and think "oh christ, what was I doing?" Now that the controversy is out of the way let's go back to our Master of Ceremonies.
A toast to the winners and we'll see you next year for 2011's glittering prize. With REM and The Strokes both threatening to release albums they go in as early favourites, but the prospect of a shock in-studio Libertines comeback could blow the market out of the water. Exciting times ahead. Pete Smith speaking*
* TSP accepts that the actual Mr Copperart had nothing to do with this countdown because we couldn't afford him. The role of Pete was played by the former Atlanta Braves pitcher of the same name.
There must be an art to coming with a name for your armed commando group. Once somebody steps over the line and starts pinging firebombs at TGI Fridays to protest curly fry prices, the next step is coming up with a catchy name that strikes fear into the hearts of capitalists everywhere.
In Greece left-wing terrorism is practically a national sport, but as you can see from this list they are also beset with a cavalcade of baffling group names.
I'm not sure if we're missing something in the translation but surely the last thing you want to do is to set off your dinky little bomb made from wires and ping pong balls then send claim responsibility with a name that will be laughed out of the room. Apparently the Greeks are happy for their armed struggle to happen in the name of groups sounding like power ballads, decathalon events, and/or Belle & Sebastian album tracks.
Here's twenty of the best. Try and guess which one Phil Collins will name his new album after.
* We do not endorse blowing anything up. I respectfully request ASIO not to open a file on me solely on the basis of this post, please take everything else into account.
There's no point simply ranking the Bonds themselves, because every time I try and advance my theories about the genius of Roger Moore people start throwing bricks at my house and keying my car. So, power ballad fans, toss your REO Speedwagon records aside (gently, they'll be worth something one day)
Die Another Day - Madonna Where they threw away the power ballad concept and went with synthpop done by somebody nobody had cared about for a decade. Then they went and gave her a role in the film as well. A well aimed knife to the back of the entire Bond genre.
19. From Russia With Love - Matt Munro Exactly what you'd expect from 1963. Actually more like what you'd expect from 1953.
18. The Man With The Golden Gun - Lulu One of the most underrated films (come on, it's got the murderous midget from Paradise Island in it, what do you want?) but the theme song is weedy. Movie also contains the slide-whistle sound effect that makes Bond purists want to stab people. I'm for it.
17. Tomorrow Never Dies - Sheryl Crow She dealt with Lance Armstrong being short one plum, but not with being called up for the biggest job in soundtracks. We were therefore robbed of not only a Pulp theme, but an absolute belter as well. And Teri Hatcher was in it so you can cram the whole project with walnuts.
16. The World Is Not Enough - Garbage Not withstanding the fact that I would cut off two limbs to go back in time and crack onto mid 90's Shirley Manson, this is bollocks. The only thing that can be said for it is that it's better than the film which is undoubtedly the worst Bond movie ever made.
15. Another Way To Die (Quantum of Solace) - Jack White and Alicia Keys Film utter shite after a promising start to the Daniel Craig era, and theme song not much chop either. Not the worst but only because of some of the utter gash that proceeded it in the Pierce Brosnan (*spit*) films.
14. Goldeneye - Tina Turner The only half decent thing about the movie that almost killed the Bond franchise.
13. Diamonds Are Forever - Shirley Bassey Not nearly enough oomph from the Dame. Soundtracked a shock Connery return, and a return to form for the films, but even when she starts belting it out the whole thing sounds phoned in.
12. Licence To Kill - Gladys Knight The last great Bond power ballad from the last half decent Bond film for more than 15 years. Effect somewhat ruined by having a different song over the end credits.
11. All Time High (Octopussy) - Rita Coolidge The first theme to not feature the name of the film, and gee I wonder why, is alright but moves at a glacial pace. Maybe they didn't want to set the bar too high for Roger Moore to follow given that he was about 200 years old by the time the movie was made.
10. Live And Let Die - Wings Oft cited as the best but I'm well over it. Still better than most, but effect somewhat ruined by every shithouse band in the world covering it. Axl Rose I'm looking directly at you.
9. A View To A Kill - Duran Duran Marred by a shambolic early 80's video with visual effects straight out of student theatre, but quality new romantic action nonetheless.
8. You Only Live Twice - Nancy Sinatra A rare occasion where slow pace pays off. The orchestral bit at the start is a cracker and they nail the Asian feel without ever having to have daughter of Frank resort to Me No Rikey style accents and Aneka style chopsticks in the hair.
7. You Know My Name (Casino Royale) - Chris Cornell Old Mate from Soundgarden being called upon to soundtrack a 21st century Bond had all the hallmarks of disaster but god damn it the boy pulled it off in spectacular fashion. If you have to drop the power ballad motif then this is the way to do it, with a meaty rock number that nearly washed the taste of recent crimes out of our mouths.
6. Moonraker - Shirley Bassey The disco version from the end credits would push number one but I'll take this. Bassey returns and gives it what for in spectacular fashion. In space.
5. Goldfinger - Shirley Bassey Who will ever forget Alan Partridge walking to the service station along the freeway singing his own version? Everyone but me presumably.
4. Thunderball - Tom Jones Arguably done better by Ron Barassi on The Late Show, this is basically just Tom doing Welsh spoken word with a bit of bang thrown in but it's good stuff.
3. For Your Eyes Only - Sheena Easton The ultimate Bond power ballad. How good is the bit where she goes "but you won't need to read between the liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiines"?
2. The Living Daylights - a-ha NORWEGIAN SYNTHPOP MAGIC. Take me to Bond karaoke and let's sing this mother right now.
1. Nobody Does It Better (The Spy Who Loved Me) - Carly Simon Don't be fooled by the LJ Hooker ads, this is the real deal. From the piano bit at the start to the shots women swinging on giant lugers and spinning around with guns in the opening it's got it all. And the "Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaby you're the best bit?" Chilling. Never seen the film? Let Alan Partridge take you through the opening.
I have no idea if this post was finished or not, but I only found it in my TSP 'drafts' in October 2013, so now I'd may as well post it.
I've watched every World Cup since 1990 semi-religiously. Italy, USA, France, Japan/South Korea, Germany and now South Africa. And what have we learnt in the first week and a bit? That this has been a rubbish tournament so far. Good thing that my original plan to take the month off and watch every single match fell apart.
1. The crowds
It seems rude to me that there are half empty - or worse - stadiums for World Cup finals matches. I'm not surprised that the people of Africa haven't flocked South to check out the action, and I'm equally not surprised that the people of the world haven't chosen to visit a country where carjacking is a national sport but bloody hell FIFA just give the tickets away and let's get some atmosphere.
Then there's the vuvuzela, one of the greatest crimes ever to be perpetrated on sports. The organising committee claim that it's got something to do with African history and heritage. Yep, there's nothing more African than a piece of plastic made in China. Offered the chance to cut the sound from the stadium out and give us clean 1970s style commentary feeds television stations have chickened out. Why? You can't hear anything else from the ground anyway so why not just turn the effects mics off and flip them on if there's a goal scored? They know we're going to watch no matter what happens so why bother trying to make it a pleasant experience to watch right?
2. The ball
Here's a concept, get the 32 (allegedly) best teams in the world together in one place.. and make them play with a novelty ball. It's like The Wizard with Fred Savage where they got the best video game players in the world together and made them play Super Mario Brothers 3 for the first time. At least that movie was a glorified advertisement for Nintendo and not the greatest sporting contest known to man.
And what has the ball done so far? How many spanking free kicks have you seen go in so far? Not many. Stupid idea created solely to make money for already rich arseholes.
3. The refs
Ponce about, send Australian players off, just be generally shit.
4. The TV coverage
First let me say that Les Murray is nearly my favourite Australian TV personality ever (though Ian Turpie just shades him) but right now he looks like he's lost the will to live. Anything to do with being stuck in a studio alongside Craig Foster for a month? His whinging makes me want to stab myself in the eardrum whenever he talks.
5. Australia is in it
And haven't we come far enough as a football playing nation that we can drop the name "Socceroos"? It was an embarassing nickname in the 90s and is just criminal now. Strange how the FFA did a deep cleanse of everything else related to 'old football' when they killed the NSL and the old clubs but somehow managed to miss dropping this humiliatingly cartoonish name from the end of our team name. Do you need a nickname for a national team? Either people are going to watch you or they're not - and as you can tell from what's going on at the moment as long as you make the World Cup then everybody will watch whether they like the sport or not.
Plenty more where this came from. In years to come Twitpic may show up some farcical moments, but there's no way they'll keep their archives this long. The following photos from Christmas Day 2004 onwards, possibly creeping into 2006. We were young, we were stupid, and we had to carry actual cameras because phone technology was so shithouse. Onwards and upwards;
On-board shenanigans during a break in my 24-hour on-off community radio massacre with @somtum. We didn't know if other shows were going to turn up or not. When they did we pissfarted around on public transport, climbed statues and played cricket with some Indians. I was bowled by a fullish delivery that I tried to smash onto La Trobe Street.
My bookshelf in St Kilda. There's got to be something embarassing in there that I didn't consider. And look at the wild VHS collection. I think I numbered it for a blow-by-blow blog deconstruction on my life that has since been lost.
I won this tennis racket off SEN for winning a "what country is this arena in?" quiz. Came in at question 1 and ran the next ten non-stop. Didn't want it so decided to sell it on Ebay with a gimmick photo. Got me $160 you know.
Tsunami relief 20/20 cricket match between Melbourne and Collingwood. Why? I had a bonanza of a hangover I can remember that.
My ludicrous setup in St Kilda. Pure filth. That's what happens when somebody first moves out of home. Note the wildcard inclusion of Mario doing the Goatse man on the computer screen. You know that place was as big as my loungeroom but had 13 powerpoints. THIRTEEN. Why? I have no idea but you should have seen my power bill.
And here's what I did with all those powerpoints. This sat right next to my bed for 18 months and did untold damage to my brain.
The St Kilda wall. Magnificent collection of posters (all now lost sadly), but an absolutely disgraceful uneven placement. Young AND stupid.
Sadly lost graffiti at the corner of Gertrude and Nicholson Street, Fitzroy. Sound advice.
Ahh me and my first car. Poor old cubed Pierre. And yes, I already had an obsession with wearing masks but had not yet discovered the Mexican wrestling variety.
A really old one here. Scanned from a page in my year 7 school journal in response to homeroom arseclown Old Man Hale declaring himself "your bored teacher" after I wrote a scathing review of our bullshit school camp.
He's totally fucking that kid in the ear, but do you ever hear about that when they're discussing how bad a president he was?
The mini golf course at Wobbies World, taken when Somtum, Jelly and I jumped the fence to see what was left of the place fifteen years after it closed. The answer was everything. On the way out some ginger challenged us and refused to respond when I asked if he was Wobbie Jr. A few weeks later they bulldozed nearly everything. QUALITY TIMING.
You can tell how old this piece of blasphemy was not just from the fact that the Pope has died in the meantime, but because of that FUCKING ANCIENT IPOD! Another reason why I was loyal to the Creative Zen in that era.
Did I mention that I was obsessed with doing faux sinister posers?
In the good old days when people cared South Melbourne fans used to run to the fence in celebration when the side scored a goal. In a fit of contrary behaviour I decided to go the other way when they scored a winner from a spanking late free kick against St Albans.
Part two following... at some point in the next five years.
