Yesterday, all the answers seemed so far away. Now it looks as though they're here to stay...
Due to holidays in the sun, I can't award points in the post today, but I'll try to congratulate the winners in the comments section later (wifi permitting).
10. The sound of double strength executives. I can do a pretty good William Shatner.
B-side to the first ever Crystals single, There's No Other (Like My Baby), from 1961. Pretty standard Wall of Sound production... Spector may have been a nutter, but he knew how to make a great record.
From
the third B4L album, the one where Natasha Khan appears naked on the
cover apart from a strategically placed (also naked) man. You're going to have to google that, aren't you? Lately, she's been
doing Sexwitch stuff with Toy (not a euphemism). About time for a proper
comeback, I think.
A pretty standard bluesy-country ballad, enlivened by the mundane detail of the lyrics contrasted with the constant reminder of the title. Brad does this kind of thing so well.
Sounding like Welwyn Garden City's answer to The Strokes on this one; The Subways' secret weapon was the male-female vocal combo of Billy Lunn and Charlotte Cooper. It works well here.
Forgotten cartoony-Britpop band who deserved to be bigger than they were. They don't even have an iffypedia page... the only reference I can find for them is on the page for [dweeb], another indie guitar band who came along a few years later and had a similar level of success. Obviously not a name that was destined for greatness.
I'm not sure I ever really got Roxy Music, but this is one of many decent singles from them. It's a little bit too wine bar to be rock 'n' roll, but it still sounds nice when you hear this band playing on the radio, with its rhythm of rhyming guitars... (whatever that means).
How many truly great triple albums can you name? I can only think of one, and it's The Magnetic Fields' finest hour (well, 2.8 hours): 69 Love Songs. Here, Claudia Gonson tries to mend bridges with her estranged "husband", played by Fields mastermind Stephin Merritt, but he's having none of it...
When we met I thought Money was everything So I let you buy the house, The car, the ring But I can't take your perpetual whining And you can't sing!
A summertime teenage romance writ large with anthemic guitars and Tim Wheeler's angel faced vocals. Can't help but remind me of being a teenager... even though I was 24 when it came out.
If Sparks had come from Switzerland (rather than LA), they might have been Yello. Dieter Meier and Boris Blank were conceptual artists first, popstars second. (Arguably, Meier didn't need pop success, he was a millionaire industrialist before Yello were even formed, not to mention being a professional poker player AND a member of the Swiss national golf team.)
Oh Yeah oozes 80s from every pore. The stop motion video is like Morph meets Peter Gabriel meets Tales of the Unexpected. Although the song wasn't a big chart hit, it did soundtrack three big 80s movies - yuppie-com The Secret of My Success with Michael J. Fox, cop buddy movie K9 with James Belushi and a German Shepherd, and most memorably of all, possibly the greatest 80s movie of all (after Back To The Future): Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Gummy bear?
Time for another name-based Top Ten, dedicated to Laura Marling, Laura Viers, Laura Cantrell, Laura Mvula, Laura Nyro and any other famous musical Lauras I've forgotten.
It's weird - I've been doing Top Tens on this particular blog for going on 4 years now, and yet only four of the artists I feature this week have appeared here before. My record collection is getting out of hand.
With Twin Peaks soon to return to our screens (hopefully with David Lynch still on board), it seems an appropriate time to listen to this noise again... but it's not the only song on this list that owes its inspiration to Sheryl Lee's infamous dead prom queen. Remember: the owls are not what they seem.
Surely the most recorded song with Laura in its title, this was originally written for the 1945 movie of the same name starring Gene Tierney. So if I've got versions by Frank, Ella and Charlie Parker to choose from, it seems rather perverse to choose a recent recording by the Family Guy guy and Father of Ted. What can I say? Call me weird.
Billy does his best angry John Lennon impression, right down to the sweary stuff. As to who this particular Laura was that got him so upset... let's ask Billy himself.
I've reached the age where I look upon many of the popular acts of the day (Bastille, Hozier, George Ezra) with curiosity. Not because I don't appreciate their work; they've each produced some excellent records. However, much as I may admire their music, there's a sense where I know they're not written for me, that I'll never fall in love with them in quite the same way I did the pop acts of my teens and twenties. And maybe I shouldn't. Maybe that's contrary to the laws of pop.
Anyway, Laura Palmer. Good song... although I have to wonder how old Dan Smith was when Laura first got wrapped in plastic on our TV screens. Was he even born?
Yeah, that's the real problem with contemporary pop music. It makes me feel old even when I enjoy it.
It's always good to see artists become successful later in life rather than in their teens or 20s when it's as easy as taking your clothes off or punching the drummer. Gregory Porter is just a few months older than me, yet he's only been releasing music since 2010. His third album, Liquid Spirit, has received all kinds of accolades, and Hey Laura is one of its standout tracks. Those in the know describe Porter's music as jazz, but to me it sounds like classic soul: you know, the sort they don't make anymore...
Classic teenage tragedy track from 1960, when dead teenagers sold more records than just about any other subject; this was re-recorded in the UK by Welsh singer Ricky Valance who took it all the way to Number One. Although Valance has the more rock 'n' roll name, Peterson's version just wins out for me.
Something else I've said here before: it's high time someone revived the teenage tragedy genre. The pop charts are crying out for it.
Natasha Khan's finest hour. And hours of internet research went into trying to find out who it was about. Various websites suggest another Laura Palmer tribute, but BFL herself says it's just some anonymous mate, although that we're all, like, entitled to interpret it however we want. So if you know a Laura, it's about her... and she's more than a superstar.
1. The Scissor Sisters - Laura
Whenever I think about the genesis of the Scissor Sisters, I always wonder if some A&R bloke was on his way home from a B52s gig thinking "they were good...but not quite camp enough". Then he got some mad scientist to cobble together these guys, a band whose original name was "Dead Lesbian" (if Iffypedia is to be believed).
Laura was their first hit (in the UK at least: they never enjoyed much chart success in their native US) and it remains my scuzzy favourite.
Those were my favourite Lauras... but which one would you take to the prom?
