Guilty Pleasures

 This is a safe space. We can talk among ourselves. No one reads this blog. I thought my brother Barry did but he denies it. It's a pretty odd thing to do - like leaving your teenage diary out, unlocked with a post-it attached reading "Do Not Read!", and still nobody is reading it. Really, these days it's just  a resource allowing me to remember where I've been and what I've done in some sort of order. 

So when I confess the uncool songs I like, it'll go no further. They're not even egregiously bad - just slightly naff. To be clear I also like some genuinely uncool music and I don't give two hairy shits what anyone thinks about that. It's this oatmeal indie that worries me - you might think it was ALL I liked. And rest assured these days I like pretty much everything. 

Is it like today? - World Party

Karl Wallinger is an odd bloke. I used to really like The Waterboys when I was a teenager and he was all over those records. Then World Party came out and I wasn't so sure. Karl looked like the bloke sitting cross-legged on the floor with an acoustic guitar at a student party. He wore prescription sunglasses. He could be a youth pastor. And there was the unmistakable whiff of Dylan off him, and the only person I like who's even a bit like Dylan is Dylan, and only then in very small measures. He's on the same spiritual journey as Roland Orzabal - all their art aspiring to the quality of late period Beatles. But he can't half write a tune. Ship of Fools is great. Even Robbie Williams couldn't (quite) ruin She's the one, and then there's this busker's delight. Wouldn't it be great if buskers did songs like this rather than Ed Sheeran and Adele? But buskers gonna Wonderwall, aren't they? Where I live it's all Snow Patrol. Urgh. 

Sing - Travis

On the first day of the shoot for my short film I retired to my room and played this song on my laptop. I like the inverted gong that sounds like feedback at the start. The next day the actor, who was staying in the same building, was asking "Did anyone else hear someone playing Travis last night?" I denied all knowledge. Sorry, Travis. I let you down. I betrayed you like Saint Peter hearing the cock crow for the third time. It's just you're quite uncool. Sorry. I like that "Flowers in the Window" one as well. 

As it was - Harry Styles 

I heard this in a taxi on my way to an airport in Cornwall and couldn't work out whether it was old or new, latterly assuming it must be new as if it were old I would already know it. It sounds like Coldplay cosplaying as Aha in the 80s. Yes, that sounds dreadful. But I really like this song. I refuse to apologise for that. 

Starstruck - Years and Years

Just a good pop song about liking someone. He boasts that he can afford his own drinks. Good for you, mate. 

The Promise - Girls Aloud

I've gone on record saying this is the best song of all time. I've calmed down a bit now. Still, as a bit of pocket euphoria it's hard to beat. Nonsense lyrics. Breathless emoting, all the girls get a go, and it's all over in a flurry of nonsense, leaving you elated without knowing why. Also, it's a bit like the Blankety Blank theme. 

That Spacehog one

Yes, this has been in the third Guardians of the Galaxy movie so it's even more uncool now. My metrics for coolness are different from yours. 

Just - Mark Ronson and Phantom Planet. 

I don't prefer this version of the Radiohead song to the Radiohead version. But I don't hate it either, as I'm supposed to do. Just as I don't hate his version of The Smiths' "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before". They're both fine. And as the latter definitely annoyed Morrissey and his lumpen fandom, I like it all the more. 

The Real Thing - Tony Di Bart

I used to sing this at soundchecks with my band. Because if you've got the range you need to show it off, baby. 

Dr Kiss Kiss - 5000 Volts

5000 Volts are a weird band. They were fronted by the actress Luan Peters, but she's not singing here - that's Tina Charles of "I Love To Love"* fame. I love that "Dr Kiss Kiss" actually shows up in the song to answer the singer's cry for help. Good screams on here too. It's sort of disco but played by a pub band with "chops". A bit like Fox but without Noosha Fox's helium gurgle. 

Kiss me - Sixpence None The Richer

What? I like it. Good chord sequence. Terrible, over-written twee lyrics that she still manages to marshal. Fuck you. I'll like what I want.   

Give Me A little More Time - Gabrielle. 

Shouldn't even be on this list. This is a very good song, but it's a self-conscious pastiche of Motown, and it loses credibility with some people for that, people who are somehow just FINE with Amy Winehouse, however. 

Charlotte's Thong - Connan Mockasin. 

I don't know anything about this song. His name sounds made up. It's noodley, mellow nonsense and does actually appear to be about Charlotte Gainsburg's thong. But I like the guitar tone, his inability to sing and the way the guitar gets steadily more and more pissed throughout the song. It's sloppy drunk by the end. 

Wide Eyed and Legless - Andy Fairweather Low

I wanted to use this on my film Goat Songs, but was told there was no way we could ever afford the licencing. I should have just e-mailed Andy and chanced my arm, but I didn't think of that. It's a blundering, louche thing, with his cracked, high-pitched vocal, and that woozy BBC light-orchestra vibe. I love this song. I'd have this played at my funeral (unless it turned out to be bitterly ironic). 

Anything by the Cardigans, really. Except Lovefool. 

I've over-listened to Lovefool,and it really isn't one of their best. The Cardigans have been a lot of bands over the years and their stupid name really only fitted the first incarnation, which was twee and cutesey and had songs called "Gordon's Gardenparty" and "Pikebubbles". By the time they arrived at Long Gone Before Daylight they were sophisticated adult contemporary, writing bruised and tender songs about emotional cruelty, self abuse and bitterness. It is the album that everyone claims "Rumours" is, and there is not one duff song on it. I've listened to this record endlessly but, really, they've never put out a dull record. Even that first one - with Nina dressed as Sonja Henie  on the front cover - is clever, sprightly and full of great tunes. They are massively under-rated. 

There are probably more - there are definitely more - but that's enough for a compilation album. My Uncool Hits Selection. 

*An 11 year old Bjork had a hit with this in Iceland.