Russell Davies

gibson

Here.

day 11 - a song from your favorite band - the look of love

ABC - The Look Of Love
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Favourite band? Jeez.

If it was based on a lifetime of scrobbling it would be Genesis, Pink Floyd, The Carpenters, The Pet Shop Boys or Trouble Funk.

But my absolute favourite band, acknowledging they're not necessarily the best band is ABC. For their restlesness in trying always to make different sounding albums. For always trying to meld together dance music and the avant garde and big proper pop songs. For being from Sheffield and appreciating gold lame. For writing songs which are brilliant to sing, chock full of meaningless meaning. For letting Trevor Horn do his thing. For making the best, brightest sound ever. It has to be ABC.

And a song from ABC has to be The Look of Love.

(And look, there's Morley, at 1.35.)

day 10 - a song that makes you fall asleep - Brahms Symphony No 4

This was the main piece I did for music A level. And I suspect my eventual E grade was due in some part to my complete inability to listen to it without falling asleep. We would sit in class with scores open in front of us and my head would gradually dip lower and lower until I was snoring into the manuscript. This isn't just anti-classical bias. I can stay awake through other pieces, just not Brahms 4.

It's handy sometimes. But it's only good for sleeping, there's none of the reassuring comfort of permanentbedtime.

day 9 - a song that you can dance to - love train

Well there are loads of songs I can dance to. Not very well, but, you know. And there's at least one song I think I can dance quite well too. But there's only one song I can never resist dancing to.

We got married on New Year's Eve, in a Scout hut. I did the DJing in order to keep social interactions to a minimum. And at midnight, for playing in the new year, it suddenly occurred to me to play Love Train instead of dreary old Auld Lang Syne. A splendid decision. Appropriately sappy sentiment and irresistibly foot-tappy tune.

day 8 - a song that you know all the words to - wham rap

There are only really two contenders for this. Genesis - Supper's Ready and Wham! - Wham Rap. And while the level of technical difficulty is higher with Supper's Ready I have to admit that while I know the sound of all the words - I can make the right noises at the right time - I don't know what all the words actually are. No such problem with the Wham!. That George Michael - such lovely diction.

Why do I know all these words? Because everything about this is brilliant and I used to listen to it all the time. Now George has soften and mellowed it's easy to forget how sharp and bright those first singles were, how subversive they were. I always think of Wham Rap as the flipside of UB40's One In Ten; another great song about unemployment but so miserable and whiny. I'm not going to suggest that Wham's response to joblessness is more accurate or valid, more reflective of the reality of recession and it certainly shouldn't be the basis for policy - but when you were 16 and surrounded by unemployment you didn't need telling you were 'a statistical reminder of a world that doesn't care', you needed showing that you could get an incredibly cheap holiday to Fuengirola and buy espadrilles. And in a Thatcherite world a statement of pride in joblessness was somehow radical and certainly appealing.

The radicalism is underscored by the changes made to the original release (1982) which flopped but was big at The Blue Note and the Co-Op disco. The hit version you've probably heard was from 1983 and it downplayed the 'DHSS' in the chorus. And apparently the BBC weren't happy with the 'make a claim, sign your name's all you have to do' bit.

Oh, and just listen to the sound of it. It's one of the definitive records of that age. Big, bright and beautiful.

Do you enjoy what you do? If not, just stop.

away from it all

day 7 - a song that reminds you of a certain event - the final countdown

We start every Interesting with this. I'm not really sure why, but it's a great start, everyone singing along to these stupid lyrics and this great tune. Every year I've been convinced that there's no way people will join in, what could be a sillier way to start a conference? But they do join in and as soon as they do I know it's going to be a good day.

day 6 - a song that reminds you of somewhere - cruel

More Prefabs I'm afraid. This time in honour of the Blue Note club in Derby; the closest I've ever come to being in any sort of trendy scene. It was a splendid place in the early 80s. Mentioned in the The Face and iD enough that it felt cool but small enough that it was still mostly just people from school. First time I watched someone mix two records together was there. (I think the two records in question were Being Boiled and Homosapien by Pete Shelly.) And it was probably at the Blue Note that I worked out drinking wasn't really my thing.

I saw Prefab Sprout there just after Lions In My Own Garden and before Swoon. They didn't make a huge amount of sense live. You probably needed to get to know the songs first, but they were still fascinating. It was a tiny room and I spent most of the time watching Martin McAloon careering up and down his bass. And they wore those fantastic Kitchenware shirts made out of halves of other shirts. They were supported by The Daintees who were also brilliant, and I seem to remember Dave Ruffy played drums for them (and did some impromptu toasting between the sets).

more campaigning dataviz

This is nice-looking, detailed and clever.

But this is all of that, and also incredibly clear.

day 5 - a song that reminds you of someone - faron young

I can never listen to this without thinking of my friend Ben. He once persuaded me to drive to a New Year's Eve gig in Newport - a special bill featuring Bogshed, The Three Johns and other assorted luminaries. Not music I was a huge fan of, but I'm always up for a pointless drive so off we went. I think our friend John came too and Ben's friends Dennis & Edna Healey (not that Denis & Edna Healey). All in my Mum's Ford Escort Estate. The only tape I had in the car was Steve McQueen, and while Faron Young went down quite well, due to it's almost rockiness, the rest of it was not popular with the Bogshed/Three Johns massive. So we listened to Faron Young a lot.