Friday night and everyone's moving... Saturday morning, we all need some soothing. Fortunately, Snapshots is here to stop you looking out a dirty old window and start you thinking about the clues below.
Who are they and what connects their songs?
10. Modestly morphing into someone else.
9. Questionnaire may contain the answers too.
8. When Homer mixes his drinks, he uses this to the measure the shots.
7. The King's wives.
6. Rippling berets.
5. I am Jordana Grant.
4. Graceful antelopes.
3. Mulder & Rocky.
2. Formerly The Doc Thomas Group.
1. Give him just a little more time.
I'll keep you hanging on till tomorrow morning... then you can get Wilde about the answers.
I forgot all about this feature last week. Probably a sign that I have too many series on the go. Or that the old memory cells are dying off a little quicker now that I'm rapidly approaching the big 5-0.
We had Ofsted in this week. At The Bad Place, that would have been like the Four Horsemen riding in... but at the new place, it was all very calm and civilized.
In the end, the inspector who was supposed to be coming to see us tested positive for Covid, so our side of the service never even got a visit. Somebody high up in a fancy office somewhere lamented the fact that we must all be terribly disappointed...
Gloria Gaynor's glorious empowerment anthem is a peerless disco classic. (Could I get any more superlatives into that sentence?) There are some mighty fine covers of it too, including Cake and REM (although Michael appears to only know half of the lyrics). Gloria is none too fond of them herself though.
Art Brut's entirely different song of the same name really doesn't bear comparison. And Art Brut are such an acquired taste, I hesitate to even mention it. But I love Eddie Argos, so I can forgive him anything... and you can't copyright a title, even if it's iconic.
I'm young and nothing can harm me
I've sold all my records to pay for a party
I'm still drunk, but that's alright
I've been staying out every night
You're always welcome to crash on my floor
There's no key or lock for the door
I'm ignoring my grown-up problems as
I've got no idea how to solve them
If you don't care for that, you could always try the completely unrelated I Will Survive by Mötley Crüe. Horses for courses...
Louise and I binge-watched the first series of Yellowjackets over the past week. It involves a girls' football team (or "soccer" team, as this is the US) that crash-lands in a remote area of the Canadian mountains in the mid-90s and remain stranded there for almost two years. The show also catches up with four of the survivors in the present day, with a stand out performance from Melanie Lynskey, and a savage double act of Juliette Lewis and Christina Ricci that regularly had me laughing. Out loud. Although I shouldn't need to add those last two words, since laughter is generally out and loud. It's rare we internalise laughter and if it's quiet then it's not really laughter, is it? It's a snigger, at best. But I digress...
Yellowjackets mixes horror, suspense and black comedy to great effect. It's Lost with cannibalism, and more of a sense of humour. The soundtrack is pretty cool too, featuring a lot of carefully selected 90s hits, including welcome returns for Belly, Liz Phair and The Offspring. (I was also surprised how many of the more poppier tunes I felt an affectionate twinge of nostalgia for... step forward, Montell Jordan.) It's not all 90s all the time either: occasionally the soundtrack ventures further back, with Kim Wilde's Cambodia getting a rare spin, alongside... well, this...
Although I have a small amount of time for early Ultravox, I'd long since dismissed their biggest hit as over-played radio twaddle. However, it cropped up prominently in two separate episodes of Yellowjackets, and hearing it again after all this time sent a fair few shivers down my spine. Suddenly, the gated reverb sounds menacing, Midge Ure's desperate vocals truly tragic, and the elliptical lyrics bordering on meaningful. Proof positive that a new context can make you reconsider any song... Midge's moustache, on the other hand, still looks like something the cat could lick off with a spot of well-placed cream... and I somehow doubt the ladies from Yellowjackets would stop there.
The latest album by bubblegum indie punk pop heroes Helen Love is a thing of great joy. It's Born To Run for kids who grew up in Swansea then grew older and stayed there, but continued making pop music in their bedrooms. It's the most mature record Helen Love has ever made (which Helen herself refers to as "a pile of self-indulgent shit" in one interview I've read), it's an autobiographical lockdown-inspired concept album, it's heartbreaking in places (listen to Clearing Out Mum's House if you don't believe me), yet it preserves the sense of tongue-in-cheek DIY fun that all their best records possess.
In a parallel universe where Top of the Pops still airs every Thursday night, this has been at Number One since January...
I've stood in bus stops
Trying to hide my tears
I've walked through spiders' webs
To confront my fears
I've spent a lifetime with Joni Mitchell's Blue
I've walked my little girl to her first day at school
I've stood on bridges, thinking maybe I'll jump off
Just as I thought I could put this series to bed, up rises Vlad The Invader to take us all back to the end times.
Swiss Adam and Charity Chic both posted songs by English band The Ukrainians in support of the resistance, so here's my two-penneth... courtesy of our old friend Chip Taylor and his backing band The New Ukrainians...
For the benefits of this post, let's just say that Vlad obviously considers himself one of the Perfect People. Therefore...
