Hot 100 #21

Yes, I could have chosen the logo of Twenty One Pilots to illustrate this post, but I don't think they ever recorded a song as good as this. Feel free to disabuse me of that notion should you wish. Jim In Dubai also suggested another 12 group...

Jim's Twenty One - Throwaway Friend

...which I don't think is his own bad, but it's pretty good regardless.

Welcome to the 80th post in this series (look, I did the Maths, you work it out)... which means The Key To The Door: Number 21.

Let's start with Martin, who appears to be struggling somewhat this week...

Erm. 21. Feels like there should be loads.

Well, I found a fair few.

So Solid Crew - 21 Seconds

That... wasn't one of them.

Alanis Morrissette - 21 Things I Want In A Lover

Neither was that. Although it's a step up from So Solid Crew.

Sigue Sigue Sputnik - 21st Century Boy which is probably the first time they've rubbed up against Alanis...

Blimey, you really are scraping the barrel this week.

The Who - 1921

That's more like it.

ELO - 21st Century Man

That's not bad either. Not a winner though.

While we're in the 21st Century, we might as well get these out of the way too...

The Soundtrack of Our Lives - 21st Century Rip Off

Mike Peters - 21st Century

Laptop - 21st Century World

Toto - 21st Century Blues

Frank Hamilton - 21C

Glenn Frey - Love In The 21st Century

Frank Turner - 21st Century Survival Blues

Jamie Cullum (yes, Jamie Cullum, deal with) - 21st Century Kid

Midland - 21st Century Honky Tonk American Band

Jim in Dubai offered Luke Haines - 21st Century Man

C tried King Crimson - 21st Century Schizoid Man

The Swede had T.Rex - 21st Century Stance and The Membranes - 21st Century Man, but curiously not The Mebranes - The 21st Century Is Killing Me.

And Rigid Digit supplied Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown, which hails from the same album as Green Day - 21 Guns. Not their best, no, but no their worst either.

Finally, Douglas offered...

Bad Religion - 21st Century (Digital Boy)

But... well, let's face it: the 21st Century is pretty horrible, so I think we'll skip all those, fine songs though they may be.

Back to The Swede...

Luxuria - Lady 21

Bon Iver - 21 Moonwater

Juana Molina - Wed 21

Sounds like John Shuttleworth on the keyboards there, Swede.

Snailhouse - Twenty One Years

Personally though, The Swede concludes, I'd like to suggest Twenty One by The Apartments. What a truly wonderful band they are.

That is very nice, I have to admit it. Doesn't exist in my own record collection (yet), which is the one stipulation to be a winner on this series. But I definitely have to investigate it further.

Where's Lynchie? Putting all his eggs in one basket this week, it seems...

Well, it's obvious the winner is Twenty-One by The Eagles.

I was very tempted, I'll admit it.

Here comes Brian, who's backing The Swede's final suggestion, but also throws in this...

The Flaming Lips - One More Robot / Sympathy 3000-21 

...which I'm glad he did, because somehow the trawl through my own 21s missed that. Here's a few more of those, if you're at all interested...

Jim Bob - Coach A Seat 21

Dave Gahan - 21 Days

Frank Black - 21 Reasons

The Charlatans - Come In, Number 21

Ash - Death Trip 21

Blink 182 - 21 Days

The Divine Comedy - 21st of May

Jeff Rosenstock - June 21st

And finally, Douglas had a couple more suggestions...

The Cranberries - 21

(Which owes quite a debt to Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time, if you ask me.)

Chuck Berry - 21 Blues

These lead us quite nicely into the subsection "Songs about being age 21", to which I can add...

The Paddingtons - 21

Jack White - Freedom At 21

Wilko Johnson & Roger Daltrey - Turned 21

The Shirelles - Twenty-One

The Lonesome Pine Fiddlers - Twenty One Years

And... of course... this, which was our opening suggestion this week, from Charity Chic, who almost begged...

The Adverts - No Time to Be 21, please, Rol.

C seconded that too, and, well... why not?

Life's short, don't make a mess of it
To the ends of the earth, you'll look for a sense in it
No chances, no plans
I'll smash the windows of my box
I'll be a madman
It's no time to be 21
To be anyone

To be honest, even though I'm not particularly enjoying 47... I don't think I'd fancy being 21 again. Would you?


And so we finally reach the Top 20. On your marks... get set...

Go!

My Top Ten Infamous Murderer Songs

Pretty gruesome subject matter this week... but real life murderers have often inspired some fine pop songs as their legacy. Rap and metal are full of tributes to serial killers and mass murderers, but here's ten more mainstream tunes inspired by macabre murderers...

10. Sun Kil Moon - Richard Ramirez Died Today Of Natural Causes

It should come as no surprise to anyone that Mark Kozelek is obsessed with true crime stories. Later, in the song Stranger Than Paradise, he even checks into a hotel where Richard Ramirez stays and starts creeping around like a shoddy detective.

9. Elliot Smith - Son of Sam

David Berkowitz shot a number of people in New York City, 1977, taunting the police with letters while he did it. Some believe he was also the inspiration for Psycho Killer by The Talking Heads, though apparently David Byrne has denied this.

See also Diddy Doo Wop (I Hear The Voices) by Hall & Oates. No, really.

8. Sufjan Stevens - John Wayne Gacy Jr.

The sweetest song about a serial killer you'll ever hear. The very definition of "haunting".

7. The Indelicates featuring Jim Bob - McVeigh

Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people in the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing, in direct reprisal to the goverment for the way they handled The Waco Siege two years earlier. All of which is retold in blistering satirical fashion in the Indelicates' 2011 musical David Koresh Superstar, featuring guest contributions from (among others) Carter USM singer Jim Bob.

6. The Adverts - Gary Gilmore's Eyes

Imagine you woke up in hospital after a transplant operation to find out you'd been given the eyes of a murderer...

5. The Rolling Stones - Midnight Rambler

Albert DeSalvo, The Boston Strangler gets the full Stones treatment here...

Well, you heard about the Boston...

It's not one of those

Talkin' 'bout the midnight... shit!

Run and close the bedroom door

I'm called the hit and run raper, in anger

The knife sharpened, tippy toe

Or just a shoot 'em dead, brainbell jangleur

4. Luke Haines - Leeds United

Peter Sutcliffe, The Yorkshire Ripper. Another ghost who haunted my childhood.

No leads for the West Yorkshire police

In Victorian Leeds, concrete Leeds

There's a killer on the terraces, better call in Doris Stokes

The devil came to Yorkshire in the silver Jubilee

It could be Kendo Nagasaki, Jimmy Savile or the Queen

3. The Boomtown Rats - I Don't Like Mondays

Brenda Spencer. Killed two people and injured 9 more at the Grover Cleveland Elementary School shooting in January 1979. When a reporter asked her why she did it, she replied, "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day."

The silicon chip inside her head

Gets switched to overload

And nobody's gonna go to school today

She's going to make them stay at home...

2. Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska

Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate inspired the movies Kalifornia and Natural Born Killers. They also led to one of Bruce's darkest moments...

I saw her standin' on her front lawn just twirlin' her baton

Me and her went for a ride sir and ten innocent people died

From the town of Lincoln Nebraska with a sawed-off .410 on my lap

Through to the badlands of Wyoming I killed everything in my path

They declared me unfit to live, said into that great void my soul'd be hurled

They wanted to know why I did what I did

Well, sir, I guess there's just a meanness in this world

1. The Smiths - Suffer Little Children

Myra Hindley & Ian Brady. Where I come from, just a stone's throw from Saddleworth Moor, their crimes will never be forgotten. They had a pretty big impact on Morrissey too... but at least he cheers himself up with the idea that the ghosts of their victims will haunt the Moors Murderers forever.

Oh, find me...find me, nothing more

We are on a sullen misty moor

We may be dead and we may be gone

But we will be, we will be, we will be, right by your side

Until the day you die

This is no easy ride

We will haunt you when you laugh

Yes, you could say we're a team

You might sleep

You might sleep

You might sleep

But you will never dream...

The world would definitely have been a better place without the evil, loathsome individuals described above. But would it have been a better place without these ten tunes? When life gives us lemons, the least we can do is try to make some lemonade...