Hot 100 #69

If you're a music blogger, and you choose the records you write about because you think other people will think they're cool... and by extension that you are cool for liking them... then you are being a music blogger for the wrong reason. Go be a music journalist if you want people to think you're cool. Go work for the NME. (Well, what's left of it.) Some people - the ones who follow the crowd - may end up thinking you're cool. The rest of us will probably think you're a tool who occasionally gets it right, but... well, at least you'll be getting paid.

No, if you're a music blogger, you you never choose your songs because of what other people might think - about the songs or about you. You should just go ahead and pick the songs you like, write about them, and please yourself. Screw what anybody else thinks. The really cool people (not the NME journalists) will respect you for that, even if they don't agree with you.

Many fine (and cool) songs were suggested for the number 69. Here's a selection...

Serge Gainsbourge & Jane Birkin - 69 Année Erotique (The Swede)

(I quite like Bad Seed Mick Harvey's English translation too: 69 Erotic Year.)

Liz Phair - Go West (Yes, Swede, cold showers after often needed in this house following a bout of Liz Phair)

Stepping down off my platform shoes

Sixty-nine in the afternoon

And I'm waiting for someone in the know

Like Pirner tells me on the radio

Says "Take it from someone who's been there before,

You go west, young man."

The Vines - 1969 (Lynchie)

The Incredible String Band - Way Back In The 1960s (also Lynchie... but one I think we should save for another 9 weeks' time)

Mott The Hoople - Saturday Gigs (Rigid Digit's last hurrah with that one)

Sixty-nine was cheapo wine,

Have a good time,

What your sign

Float up to the Roundhouse

On a Sunday afternoon.

Stiff Little Fingers - 78 RPM (RD again, and the second mention for this one... although it could have been running for longer than The Hoople has)

Sixty-nine, it was fine

You say, but by seventy-nine it's gonna be mine

Iggy & The Stooges - 1969 (RD, C and Swiss Adam went for this... the cool choice!)

Sonic Youth - Death Valley '69 (C and Swiss Adam both going for the really cool choice)

Sandi Thom - I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker (With Flowers In My Hair) (Alyson - I was going to say the "contemporary" choice, but then I realised this is 13 years old)

Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair

In seventy seven and sixty nine, revolution was in the air

David Holmes - 69 Police (Swiss Adam with another "contemporary" offering... from 18 years ago)

REM - Star 69 (C and Swiss Adam with my runner-up)

Oh, and of course, Charity Chic had to throw in a mention for this lot, who would have been at the top of the page were it not for my favourite Magnetic Fields album...

Other contenders from my own record collection included...

Booker T & The MGs - Soul Clap '69

Babes In Toyland - Sweet 69

Adam Ant - 1969 Again

Mouse & The Boys -- Xcedrin Headache #69 (not sure where that came from - some old psychedelia compilation)

The Fuzztones - Highway 69

Rick James - She Blew My Mind (69 Times)

Albert Collins - 69 Underpass Roadside Inn

...and... wait for it... wait for it...

Ministry - Psalm 69 (a godawful racket, but it makes me smile)

Phew - 69 appears to be an inextricably popular number with popular musicians. Go figure.

In the end though, I refer you all back to my opening paragraphs. There could only be one winner this week, even though I knew it wouldn't be a particularly popular choice in many quarters. It's a song I've written about before here and may even do so again. Sorry if you don't like it: your loss.

(Oh, and in case you're going to accuse me of choosing a year song when there were some fine non-year tracks I could have had instead... well, Bryan himself claims this song isn't about 1969 at all...)



68 next week, and an equally obvious choice for me. We'll see if you agree...