The O’Jays- Ship Ahoy
I found this track when I was researching the lyrics for ‘Coral’. It was on a list of ‘sea songs’ and although it is much more about slavery than the sea itself it was by far my favourite ‘sea song’ on the list. I’m not usually a fan of sound FX in songs but the atmosphere at the start of this track is stunning. I was not particularly familiar with Soul music until I found the O’Jays but Ship Ahoy is such a majestic song it single handedly got me into Soul or more specifically, Philadelphia Soul. Ship Ahoy is the name of the album too. It’s an album explores various social issues from slavery and greed, to the environment which is unusual for Soul and puts the O’Jays into a bracket of their own.
Polar Bear- I Am Alive
Funnily enough I was the administrator of an online avant-garde Jazz group before I had a clue what it was. My friend made the group as part of some surreal joke which has not been fully explained to me yet, and he made me one of the admins. I only logged onto the site once, just out of interest and there was a man who had requested to leave the group. I asked him why and accused him of being a Jazz hater and threatened to phone the ‘Jazz police’ on him. He threatened to phone the real police on me and report me to Facebook. I can’t remember when I actually got into Jazz but it wasn’t long after this ‘confrontation.’ I’d always had an attraction to the manic sound of brass and the smooth deep tone of Jazz bass and double bass but I found a lot of ‘traditional’ Jazz boring especially when it was heading towards blues. Free Jazz however really appealed to me and when I found it I knew I’d found the right sub-genre of Jazz for me. These young guys [Polar Bear] are phenomenal and I think the old masters of Avant Jazz would be proud of them.
Belle and Sebastian -Dear Catastrophe Waitress
Before I started delving into their earlier more folk sounding songs I was really into the more ‘indie-pop’ Belle songs. The first album I heard by them was ‘Dear Catastrophe Waitress’ which was introduced to me by a friend at university in first year. It felt like the perfect Fresher album it was fun and light-hearted and full of fleeting characters and superficial little dramas. I’d listen to the title-track of the album on repeat just to hear the line “I’m sorry that he hit you with a full can of coke- it’s no joke.” Joke or not it makes me smile everytime I hear it. It’s a great pop song too which everybody needs in their life. Murdoch proves that pop music can have intelligence and substance without sacrificing charm or simplicity.
Azealia Banks-Esta Noche
I always have a guilty pleasure in the background of my life-something non-rock which I’ve usual pulled from the radio unlike the rest of my music choices which tend to be from the archives or recommendations. This started as my guilty pleasure but the more it was played on the radio the more I genuinely enjoyed its vibe. It’s quite a classy, sexy ‘Rap’ song compared to the mainstream stuff out there at the moment and it seems to speak to me but I’m not quite sure why yet…
Pink Floyd- Pigs
We are no strangers to The Pink but I think we are in danger of over-fetishizing Echoes when they have an extensive catalogue of masterpieces. This is as much as an adventure for me as it is for you because I haven’t paid much attention to the Animals album (inspired by Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm.) I choose ‘Pigs’ because I adore the inflatable pig Pink used in their artwork for the album.
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