I Eat Music

I’m not a big fan of Lady Gaga, I’m not sure if I’ve made that clear at any point this year, but it does always fill me with a warm glow when an artist makes a slow climb to the number one position. It’s like the olden days when everything was much better and there was no war or sadness in the world. And these days, spending seven weeks on the chart before hitting the top counts as a slow climb.

Back in the olden days, I would now have spent a whole paragraph questioning whether or not she could hold out for another week and get the Christmas number one (you know, when I was seven years old and writing about this stuff). But we both know that’s not going to happen, so I won’t waste any valuable space on such things. Let’s just say, Rage Against The Machine fans will be pleased to know that the X-Factor winner’s single is one of the most boring pieces of music ever recorded.

Lady Gaga’s ascension to the top does mean that ‘The Official Children In Need Medley’ has now slipped to number two. So Gaga is now officially responsible for children continuing to be in need. Next time you see a child in need, just remind them of that.

There’s just one new entry in this week’s top ten, a track by Chuckie & LMFAO which you may know as ‘Let The Bass Kick In Miami Bitch’, or ‘Let The Bass Kick In Miami Beach’, or ‘Let The Bass Kick In Miami Girl’, or ‘Let The Bass Kick In Miami’, or just ‘Let The Bass Kick’. Whatever you’re favoured title for the track, it’s at number eight.

There are three other new entries on the whole chart. They are these: Terry Wogan & Aled Jones with the double-A side ‘Silver Bells/Me And My Teddy Bear’ at 27, ‘Ego’ by The Saturdays at 35, and Wham!’s Christmas classic, ‘Last Christmas’ at 39. The other two Christmas singles on the chart are currently fairing better, with The Pogues’ ‘Fairytale Of New York’ at eighteen and Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ at nineteen.

The album chart is really, really boring this week, so I reckon we can get it done in just one sentence. Susan Boyle is still at number one and new entries this week come from Bette Midler’s best of at 26, 30 Seconds To Mars with ‘This Is War’ at 31, and Seal’s ‘Hits’ at 37. Yep, I was right.

In fact, all of this week’s charts are so dull that, while announcing them on Radio 1, Reggie Yates had to be constantly slapped by people from The Official Charts Company.

This week I found myself with five tracks available in my monthly allowance on eMusic and no idea what to download. This is something that happens a lot. Under pressure to choose something, I experience the same thing that generally happens when I walk into a record shop, where I forget the name of every band I’ve ever heard of and just start flicking aimlessly through the shelves in the vague hope that something might trigger a memory.

The other option, of course, is to ask someone else what I should be listening to. So, I fired up Twitter and posted this message: “I have five eMusic tracks that I don’t know what to do with. Everyone name one achingly beautiful song. Please. Thank you.” Simple but, as it turned out, very effective.

There are plenty of new ways to get automated musical recommendations, on sites such as Last.fm, or Pandora, or iTunes’ Genius function. But these all have their faults. They’ll never quite match up to real human recommendations, because a computer will never say to you “I want it played at my funeral, but only as a way of forcing people to listen to and remember it,” as @marshamusic did when recommending Bread by Clem Snide. Plus a computer’s recommendation is all too easy to dismiss. But when someone’s told you that they find something achingly beautiful, you feel some kind of duty to listen to it. You can’t just click delete and forget about it.

For example, I’ve never had much time for Sigur Rós, but as you might expect, there were a number of their songs recommended. Normally I’d avoid them but today I’ve sat down and given them proper time and attention and discovered Sæglópur, which left me gasping for air when it kicked in. I also have to admit that Svefn-G-Englar was a pretty impressive track to end on.

For the most part, people recommended the kind of gentle music that would initially spring to mind when you mention beautiful music. But then there’s Thinktank by Airiel, a fast-paced rock track with shoegazer-y vocals that builds and almost runs out of control across four minutes. It’s not an obvious contender, but you can see why @_joshhall_ thinks it’s beautiful. It is beautiful. The way the guitar and vocal melodies play against each other is really lovely and there’s an upbeat feel that is completely infectious. The same could be said for Teen Angst by M83, which rushes at you and envelops you, rather than soothing you from a distance. Or even Dilaudid by Mountain Goats, which you could argue is a bit confrontational but is so simple and compelling that I had to listen to it four times in a row.

It’s also interesting to see which songs by bands whose music I know well other people rate. For all the Elbow songs that came through, no one mentioned Switching Off, which for me is their finest moment and finds them at their most beautiful. Also, the one Cure song that was recommended was A Night Like This. Not a bad choice by any means, but on the very same album (Head On The Door) you’ve got Push. And while Samson by Regina Spektor is definitely beautiful, what about Us?

But if I wanted to write a list of all the songs I think are achingly beautiful, I would. That’s not what this is about. This is much better than that. It’s been an opportunity for me to discover new music, as well as re-discovering some old things as well. If I was to write my own list now, there are some things I’ve just heard that would now appear on it, which I suppose is the point.

So, after that very long introduction, here is the playlist. We kick off with my own choice, An Ending (Ascent) by Brian Eno, before moving onto what my followers on Twitter decided was the most achingly beautiful music out there in the order it was recommended to me. If you want to contribute to my next playlist, follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/andymalt.

You can listen to all the tracks that are available on Spotify (sadly not everything at the moment) all together here.

Brian Eno – An Ending (Ascent) (Spotify | Last.fm)
TV On The Radio – Family Tree (Spotify | Last.fm)
Catherine AD – Carry Your Heart (Last.fm)
Sigur Rós – Vaka (Spotify | Last.fm)
Clem Snide – Bread (Last.fm)
Andrew Bird – Masterfade (Last.fm)
The Reindeer Section – Where I Fall (Spotify | Last.fm)
Elbow – Scattered Black And Whites
Elbow – Great Expectations ( Spotify | Last.fm)
Fionn Regan – Snow Atlas Mountains (Spotify)
Death Cab For Cutie – Brothers On A Hotel Bed (Spotify)
Regina Spektor – Samson (Spotify | Last.fm)
Sufjan Stevens – Concerning The UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois (Spotify)
David Berkeley – The Blood And The Wine (MySpace)
Richard Buckner – Lil Wallet Picture (Last.fm)
King Creosote – Admiral (Spotify)
Jenniferever – From Across The Sea (Spotify | Last.fm)
Airiel – Thinktank (Last.fm)
M83 – Teen Angst (Spotify | Last.fm)
Mew – White Lips Kissed (Last.fm)
Oceansize – Music For A Nurse (Spotify)
M. Ward – Post War (Spotify)
Elliott Smith – Whatever (Folk Song In C) (Spotify)
Great Lake Swimmers – Your Rocky Spine (Spotify | Last.fm)
Tunng – Bullets (Hot Chip Remix)
The Mountain Goats – Dilaudid (Spotify)
Joanna Newsom – This Side Of The Blue (Last.fm)
Nick Drake – Northern Lights
Bonnie Raitt – I Ain’t Gonna Let You Break My Heart Again (Spotify | Last.fm)
The Cinematic Orchestra – To Build A Home (Spotify)
Joseph Arthur – Honey And The Moon (Spotify | Last.fm)
Jacques Brel – Ne Me Quitte Pas (Spotify | Last.fm)
Doves – The Cedar Room (Spotify | Last.fm)
Elbow – Starlings (Spotify)
Bette Middler – The Rose (Spotify)
Coldplay – Yellow (Spotify | Last.fm)
The Cure – A Night Like This (Spotify | Last.fm)
Beck – Lonesome Tears (Spotify | Last.fm)
Nick Drake – Way To Blue (Spotify | Last.fm)
The Beatles – She’s Leaving Home
The Postal Service – Nothing Better (Last.fm)
Joni Mitchell – Blue (Spotify | Last.fm)
Sigur Rós – Sæglópur (Spotify | Last.fm)
Alison Krauss and Union Station – Ghost In This House
Wolfman feat. Pete Doherty – For Lovers (Spotify)
M83 – Unrecorded (Spotify | Last.fm)
Sigur Rós – Hoppípolla (Spotify | Last.fm)
Sigur Rós – Glósóli (Spotify | Last.fm)
Manchester Orchestra – Sleeper 1972 (Spotify | Last.fm)
Nine Black Alps – Intermission (Spotify | Last.fm)
Interpol – Untitled (Spotify)
Radiohead – All I Need (Last.fm)
Maria Mena – It Must Have Been Love (Last.fm)
Des’Ree – Kissing You (Spotify | Last.fm)
Smashing Pumpkins – …Said Sadly (Spotify)
Iron & Wine – Upwards Over The Mountain
Michel Polnareff – Lettre À France (Last.fm)
Bruce Springsteen – Thunder Road (‘Live 75-85’ version) (Last.fm)
The Magnetic Fields – All My Little Words (Spotify)
Sigur Rós – Svefn-G-Englar (Spotify | Last.fm)

Thanks to @MyChemToilet, @CatherineAD, @luke_is_best, @marshamusic, @adamkillip, @sesp, @_joshhall_, @mrstealeaves, @katbrightlights, @SongHooks, @charliemoo, @CaroUnLimited, @radioedit, @agoss, @Astrild, @winstonszen, @JonathanDeamer, @ianshepherd, @lsutherland, @Quiverdisc, @JackMarshall, @myrrhlarsen, @James1am, @samovarious, @JeremyMeyers, @smkng, @Mark_Mulligan, @frani_lieberman, @Jeremiah_James, @tomgillet, @tamipants

Now, you know me, I’m not one for being cynical, but Lady GaGa was in the press a lot last week, talking about how she used to be a drug addict, how she loves being naked, how she used to be a stripper, and so on. And now her single, ‘Poker Face’, is at number one, despite it being awful. But I’m not saying those things are connected, after all, that single has been rising up the charts for weeks. It’s like the charts were in the olden days, when you could get to number one just with sheer persistence. And I guess Christina Aguilera not being around much at the moment helps, too.

Anyway, GaGa’s at number one, then Flo Rida holds fast at number two (don’t worry, I’m not about to suggest that Pete Burns suffering kidney failure has helped him, it’s just a very catchy tune), and the two Comic Relief singles, the Bryden/Jones’ cover of ‘Islands In The Stream’ and The Saturdays’ cover of ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’, drop to three and four respectively. Beyonce, meanwhile, breaks into the top ten, stopping at number nine with her new single ‘Halo’, despite it not being officially released as a single yet.

Outside the top 10, La Roux just misses out, hitting 11 with ‘In For The Kill’, as do the Pet Shop Boys, who make it to 14 with ‘Love Etc’. Another single not officially released for a few weeks yet, AR Rahman and The Pussycat Dolls’ collaboration for the ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ soundtrack, ‘Jai Ho! (You Are My Destiny)’, is at 20. Franz Ferdinand’s new single, ‘No You Girls’, rises from 52 to 27, though with it being featured on the new iPhone ad, I’d expect to see it go higher this Sunday (it’s certainly got itself stuck in my head). And rounding off this week’s new entries, Enrique Iglesias and Ciara stop at 30 with ‘Takin’ Back My Love’.

Over to the album chart now, and U2 have quite embarrassingly been knocked off the number one spot (and right down to number six) by Ronan Keating’s tribute album to his mother. An album coincidentally released the same week as Mothering Sunday. Mums don’t like U2, they like ballads. Everyone knows that. Which will be why Bette Midler has risen from number 21 to number nine this week, and Lionel Richie is another new entry at 10. CMU Weekly’s recent competition prize for the mums of readers, Barry Manilow’s ‘Greatest Songs Of The 80s’ faired less well, only making it to number 22 – though possibly because people were waiting to see if they’d won it before buying it, rather than the fact that Manilow’s 80s covers only serve to remind you that the originals were much better.

Probably not a new entry powered by mums is Pete(r) Doherty’s new solo album, ‘Grace/Wastelands’, which goes it at 17. You have to travel right down at the bottom of the chart for this week’s final new entry, ‘My One And Only Thrill’ by Melody Gardot at number 40, but before that there are some re-entries worth noting. Following an actually quite good edition of ‘The South Bank Show’ on Will Young, the singer’s latest album, ‘Let It Go’, is back in the chart at 30, Enrique Iglesias’ ‘Greatest Hits’ is boosted by his new single, making it to 36, and another possibly mum-fuelled purchase, Luther Vandross’ ‘Lovesongs’ compilation (originally released for Valentine’s Day) is back in at 38. In between the last two is Michael Jackson’s ‘King Of Pop’ compilation, proving that he might be able to sell out the O2 Dome 50 times over, but people are more interested in seeing a freakshow than listening to his music. Possibly.

The chart is written on Post-It Notes and stuck on the wall by The Official Charts Company

This article originally appeared in CMU Daily on 23 Mar 2009

So, Lily Allen is still number one in the singles chart, but has she made it the double? Has her second album gone straight in at the top of the album chart? Well, you’ll just have to read on to find out.

With Lily sticking fast in the singles top 10, there’s little movement from anyone else, either. After eight weeks on the chart, Alesha Dixon has crept up to number three, and Shontelle has crept into the top 10, at number 10, after five weeks on the chart with ‘T-shirt’. Meanwhile, doing no creeping whatsoever, The Prodigy have shot straight in at number eight with ‘Omen’.

Other new entries to the singles chart have not reached such heights, however. Morrissey managed to get to just 21 with his new single, ‘I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris’, despite (or perhaps because of) the promise of a semi-nude shot of him and his band on the single’s artwork. TI and Justin Timberlake enter at 30, the re-release of M.I.A’s ‘Paper Planes’ makes it to 33, still a way off the previous release’s peak of 19, while The Fray enter at 37, and The Killers bring up the rear at 40.

Over to the album chart now and, yes, Lily Allen’s second album has gone straight to the top, bumping the ever-present Kings Of Leon back down to number two. There’s been a bit of a spike for albums with a romantic theme. Can’t think why that would be. UB40’s ‘Love Songs’ jumps from 19 to three, Luther Vandross’s ‘Lovesongs’ is up from 27 to four (so UB40 clearly win the battle of how the words “love” and “songs” should be put together), Bette Midler’s ‘The Best Of Bette’ is up from 32 to six (although, after 19 weeks on the chart, it’s not specifically a Valentine’s release), and Pavarotti’s ‘The Duets’ moves from 15 to 10. Not an event-specific release, but valid nonetheless, The Fray have a new entry at eight, with their album, ‘The Fray’.

Outside the top 10, AR Rahman’s soundtrack for ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ is a new entry at 30, The Airbourne Toxic Event make it to 35, while Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’s ‘Raising Sand’ benefits from the pair’s five Grammy win, re-entering at 38.

The charts are compiled with gay abandon by The Official Chart Company

This article originally appeared in CMU Daily on 16 Feb 2009