Superstar D.J.

A couple of weeks ago I was pondering what to do for a New Year's post. Annual reviews and predictions were already beginning to pop up across the blogosphere.  People seemed keen to get started on looking back.

I enjoy reading those kind of posts but my memory is so unreliable I can barely recall what happened last week let alone twelve months ago so the thought of composing a retrospective of my own fills me with dread. Then I had an idea.

If there's one thing I associate with the turning of the year more than any other it's music. I think it's a legacy of Eighties' partying combined with decades of New Year's Eve music specials on TV, from Jools Holland's inevitable Hootenanny to Darlene Love on Letterman. Okay, that's Christmas but I have a habit of watching it on YouTube at New Year's. We never got the Letterman Show on broadcast T.V. in the U.K., more's the pity.

Anyway, it occurred to me that the three constants throughout the lifetime of this blog have been MMORPGs, screenshots and music. When I started this thing back in 2011 I had the idea I'd include a song and a link to an audio file in every post.  That turned out to be a straightjacket that didn't fit so I shrugged it off but I still try to shoehorn in as many musical references as I can manage.

This year, like every year, I've used a lot of song titles and snatches of lyrics as titles for posts. I always hope someone will comment and occasionally someone does but mostly I have to take it on trust that the pitch is landing.



So I thought how about dragging the whole thing into the light for a New Year's post. I have a YouTube channel, after all, even though I don't make much use of it. I've never made a playlist but how hard could it be?

Not at all. The hardest part was choosing the versions. I'd always rather link to a live performance or a video than a static image but sometimes there wasn't a live version that did the song in question justice. The first one is a still image, unfortunately, but I did them in the chronological order of the posts.

More awkward than that there were a few times where I'd picked a title that's been used for more than one song and I couldn't always remember which I'd had in mind when I wrote the post. Then there were the handful of post titles I'd unadvisedly let slip past quality control without due consideration as to whether I really wanted to associate myself with the band in question. I ended up leaving one or two off the list - I am really not prepared to put my name to anything that features The Eagles...

In the end I was left with forty-two songs and here they are. It makes for an incoherent playlist and there's way too much old stuff on there for my liking. My tastes these days run far more to music made in the last decade or two than this playlist suggests but the unfortunate fact is that, when I rack my brain for titles and quotes to run at the top of a post, it's the ones that got burned into my brain when I was younger that pop to the surface most readily.

Regardless, it is what it is and I stand by everything on this list. Yes, even Kylie.

There's a full listing, in order, below and the little widget on the top left of the YouTube panel opens a drop-down so you can select anything you fancy. If you just let the whole playlist run then I'm not responsible for the effects on your sanity. And the post title was Mrs Bhagpuss's idea!

So here you are - a bit early but who cares?

Happy New Year!

Buzzcocks - Moving Away From The Pulsebeat
The Style Council - My Ever Changing Moods
Cat Power- Keep On Running.
Genesis- I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)
Chubby Checker - Pony Time   
Tyrannosaurus Rex - King Of The Rumbling Spires
The Bluetones - Slight Return
Lloyd Cole and the Commotions - Brand New Friend
P.J. Masks - Ready. Set. Go!
Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel - Don't Give Up
Snowpony - Easy Way Down     
My Life Story - You Can't Uneat The Apple
Pizzicato Five - Magic Carpet Ride
Johnny Cash - I See A Darkness
Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Welcome Back My Friends
Captain Sensible - Glad It's All Over    
The Beach Boys - Busy Doin' Nothin'
New York Dolls - Stranded In The Jungle
Kylie Minogue - I Should Be So Lucky
Scooby-Doo! Camp Scare - Here Comes Summer
Kate Bush - The Big Sky
The Jam - This Is The Modern World
The Smiths - A Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours   
The Shangri-Las - Past, Present, Future
Desperate Bicycles - The Medium Was Tedium  
The Mighty Wah - Come Back
Manfred Mann - Blinded By The Light  
Prefab Sprout - Lions In My Own Garden
Seers - Sun Is In The Sky
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark — The Punishment Of Luxury
Yardbirds  - Over Under Sideways Down 
Television Personalities - Psychedelic Holiday
Sandy Denny - Let's Jump The Broomstick
The Barons - Hitchin' A Ride
Rolling Stones - Tumbling Dice
Dolly Mixture - Side Street Walker
Roxy Music - Remake / Remodel
Buck 65 - Super Pretty Naughty
Belle and Sebastian - Photo Jenny
The Seeds - Pushin' Too Hard
The O'Jays - Give The People What They Want
Dolly Mixture - Winter Seems Fine