Top 30 #2

I've revisited my favourite songs playlist and there are a fair few changes to the list I published a year ago. 17 of the tracks remain the same, 13 have changed.

Meant For You - The Beach Boys (1968)
Be My Baby - The Ronettes (1963)
Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen (1975)
Sweet Jane - The Velvet Underground (1970)
Train in Vain (Stand by Me) - The Clash (1979)
Gimme Danger - Iggy & the Stooges (1973)
Optimo - Liquid Liquid (1983)
Baby Please Don't Go - Them (1964)
I Want More - Can (1976)
Bizarre Love Triangle - New Order (1986)
Everything In It's Right Place - Radiohead (2000)
Everyday - Buddy Holly (1957)
He's a Rebel - The Crystals (1962)
Young Americans - David Bowie (1975)
To Love Somebody - Nina Simone (1969)
All Along the Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix (1968)
Danny (Lonely Blue Boy) - Conway Twitty (1959)
Little Red Corvette - Prince (1983)
This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) - Talking Heads (1983)
Sound and Vision - David Bowie (1977)
Shangri La - The Kinks (1969)
Midnight Train to Georgia - Gladys Knight & the Pips (1973)
I Just Wasn't Made For These Times - The Beach Boys (1966)
Oh! Sweet Nuthin' - The Velvet Underground (1970)
The Only Living Boy in New York - Simon & Garfunkel (1970)
Late for the Sky - Jackson Browne (1974)
The Big Ship - Brian Eno (1975)
Film - Aphex Twin (1997)
Home - LCD Soundsystem (2010)
Seabird - Alessi Brothers (1977)

I've added a couple of Beach Boys tracks, including the shortest track ever to make it into my top 30. Meant For You clocks in at just 36 seconds and contains one verse and an outro. Small but perfectly formed it works perfectly as a playlist opener.

I Just Wasn't Made for These Times is from what I consider to be Brian Wilson's creative peak; 1966's Pet Sounds, just before his compositions and production techniques got so complex he drove himself crazy recording the, eventually abandoned, follow up Smile. It sums up how Wilson was feeling at the time. He was only 23 when Pet Sounds was recorded, an album that stills sounds way ahead of it's time almost 50 years later. It always amazes me how uplifting he makes the mantra 'sometimes I feel very sad' sound. Sublime melancholia.

Another 60's maverick producer who was ahead of his time makes two appearances on the list. The perfect pop of the Phil Spector produced Be My Baby, performed by The Ronettes and He's a Rebel by The Crystals, showcasing Spector's groundbreaking Wall of Sound production techniques.

I've included a couple of electronic tracks by Aphex Twin and Brian Eno, both of whom I have always felt produce music on such a different plain to everyone else they could be aliens. Their approach and intelligence hasn't dimmed with age either, releasing two of this years best albums - High Life; Eno's collaboration with Underworld's Karl Hyde and Syro; Richard D. James first record as Aphex Twin in over 13 years. I think the addition of these tracks, along with the unclassifiable Liquid Liquid and Everything in it's Right Place by Radiohead has pushed the list in a direction that seems far more representative of my musical taste than last years.

Other new entries that continue the theme of sounding timeless and not conforming to a genre include Prince's Little Red Corvette, Talking Heads This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) and New Order's Bizarre Love Triangle - all very different to anything else released around the same time in the mid 1980's.

You can hear the influence of many of the artists on the list in James Murphy's LCD Soundsystem; the drum sound of Liquid Liquid, the Talking Heads vocals, hints of Bowie, New Order, even Prince. In fact I first discovered closing track Alessi Brothers Seabird a few years back when I stumbled across Murphy performing it live with Hot Chip.