I know it's early but..

... I'm going to stop counting albums. I'm just too lazy to write up a blog-post every time I listen to a new album.

Album 20 - Pulp - Different Class

Jarvis Cocker is a very funny man and a very witty man too, and he showcases this in Pulp's breakthrough album Different Class. Of course I'd already heard 'Common People' and 'Disco 2000' before, but the album has a lot more than that. Like the openener 'Mis-Shapes' which is so grandly theatrical it's close to being over the top, but doesn't quite get there.

Jarvis turns most of his wit on this album to sex, from 'Pencil Skirt' where he whispers "I really love it when you tell me to stop. Oh, it's turning me on" to the gleeful malevolence on 'I-Spy' where he sings about sleeping with sleeping with a married woman either as a form of class war or as some kind of revenge, you can never tell which.

But he also sings about class on 'Common People' which articulated the perverse practice of slumming it with the most insightful line: "And the stupid things that you do. Because you think that poor is cool."

Day 6 - A song that reminds you of somewhere

My form classroom in Year 13, singing along with Sufyan (despite the fact neither of us could get anywhere near the high notes)

Just a complete classic.

Day 5 - A song that reminds you of someone

Now this song could also work for an event, but it's a very specific person (as all people tend to be) that it reminds me of. Said person is a huge Smiths fan and in my mind this may well be the best Smiths song. That and the fact that the song was playing in a shop in Camden whilst I was with this person, it just got stuck in my head for days on end - thanks to her.



"If a double decker bus, crashes over us, to die by your side, is such a heavenly way to die"

Day 4 - A song that makes you sad

Sorry, this should have been yesterday, so we shall just pretend it was. I'd put myself in a bad place for this one because the obvious choice is one of the many Elliottt Smith songs that make me sad, but since I've already put two songs of his I'm going to have to change it and go for something different.



This song is playing in one of the saddest scenes ever in one of my favourite shows ever, Scrubs. It's the scene when Dr. Cox realises that his best friend - who seems to have been following him around for the whole episode - has actually died and wasn't really there. This song plays as we see the funeral, it's just heartbreaking.

Day 3 - A song that makes you happy

There are many songs that make me happy, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to go for another Elliott Smith song. Most of his albums and songs are downbeat, some sighingly so, like 'Between The Bars' but some just heartbreakingly so like 'Miss Misery.' Some of his songs are angry, chiefly the ball of rage that is the song 'Roman Candle,' some are self loathing like 'Rose Parade.'

There is only one song in his entire catalogue that is really properly happy, and that's the glorious closer to possibly the best album ever made (Either/Or) that starts and ends with the line:

'I'm in love, with the world, through the eyes, of a girl, who's still around the morning after'



The song isn't a relentless ball of light and optimism, but it has hope, something that a lot of Elliott Smith songs don't.

Day 2 - Your least favourite song

Right, from the heights of brilliance, to the depths of shite.  I had trouble with this at first because I don't often listen to songs I dislike, but after a quick think I realised there was only one real candidate.



Where do I start? 492 million views, yet there are thousands and thousands of struggling artists around, most of them thousands of times better than this pap. I don't violently hate the whole 'Bieber' phenomenon, I just find it so puzzling. Are there really that many idiots in the world?