Decayed III: 2004

Side 1 of a cassette compilation that never was, travelling through the 2000s.

Guitars are back! Back!! BACK!!!

Not that they ever go away, but the press likes to enforce a death/rebirth cycle when it comes to guitar-based music and based. It's nonsense of course, and completely disregards the dizzying array of other popular genres and the blending and mashing up of most of them by creatives. Does it even sell column inches? Who cares?

Today's selection is quite guitar-heavy, for all that. U2 were back (along with that man Jacknife Lee) with one of the best songs they'd released in years, even if the rest of the album couldn't match up.

Beastie Boys were also back, revisiting the rap rock golden age of (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!) with Triple Trouble, thanks to a rifftastic remix by Graham Coxon.

New kids on the block, all delivering fresh and exciting music, included Art Brut, The Vines, Bloc Party and Franz Ferdinand, whose debut album got my vote for one of The Top 20 Greatest Eponymous Albums Of All Time over at No Badger Required.

Aside from Jacknife Lee, another producer who seemed to be everywhere was Mark Ronson, here popping up with a remix of AIR, featuring Chicagoan rapper Che Smith aka Rhymefest. Licenced to Ill(inois), you might say.

After last week's guest appearance with wife Beyoncé, Jay-Z is back in his own right with Dirt Off Your Shoulder. Another example of the creative ways that labels would deal with the F's, MF's and N's that peppered rap music in order to get it played on the radio. Not so easy to sing along to, I can promise you.

Another returning guest star from last week is Jake Shears, this time in his day job as front person with Scissor Sisters. What a breath of fresh air they were. A cover of Pink Floyd in the style of Bee Gees' disco pomp, it shouldn't work, but Comfortably Numb is glorious. And there was plenty more where that came from.

After my contrived attempt to ensure that Andrew Weatherall appeared in every year of my 1990s series, a welcome return for Lord Sabre under his own steam, with old mucker Keith Tenniswood as Two Lone Swordsmen. Sex Beat is a cover of The Gun Club's 1981 song and a surprise UK Top 25 hit in August 2004.  

The opening and closing songs of today's selection represent artists that I didn't connect with at first, but later grew to love.

Gwen Stefani fronted No Doubt, who had a #1 in 1997 with Don't Speak, an atypical ballad compared to the pop/rock/ska that was their stock in trade. I wasn't a fan. However, Gwen's solo single What You Waiting For? is up there with the best pop songs of the decade and her album Love.Angel.Music.Baby. had lots to enjoy, even if not quite at the same stratospheric level. 

I'm astounded that What You Waiting For? only got to #4, losing out to Girls Aloud, Destiny's Child and Lemar from Fame Academy. No Doubt? No justice, more like!

2004 closes with Slow Life by Super Furry Animals, which I was reacquainted with during the summer thanks to The Robster's must-read series on SFA singles, featured at The Vinyl Villain. 

I'd strongly recommend that you read the entire series from end to end, it's amazing. Here's an extract from The Robster's post on Slow Life:

It was the third and final single from Phantom Power, 

but its release, in April 2004, was far from conventional. 

It, along with its two b-sides, was initially available digitally 

only from the website of Placid Casual, the band’s own independent record label, 

which suggests that Epic may have been reluctant to release it themselves, 

possibly due to its length. 

They did, however, put out a single-sided 12” promo. 

It then featured as a CD single  in the special limited edition of 

the Phantom Phorce remix album  in its own slipcase sleeve. 

Needless to say, it didn’t chart due to the nature of its release.

In the opening paragraph, The Robster writes that Slow Life "really does stand up as one of the finest moments of their existence" and, even in the truncated edit featured here, he is absolutely right.

Decayed is now at the halfway mark and has hopefully demonstrated that the first decade of the 21st century had plenty to offer, musically speaking. Can 2005 hope to keep up?

1) What You Waiting For? (Album Version): Gwen Stefani

2) Alpha Beta Gaga (Mark Ronson Vocal Mix): AIR ft. Rhymefest

3) Vertigo (Jacknife Lee 7"): U2

4) Triple Trouble (Graham Coxon Remix): Beastie Boys

5) Formed A Band (Album Version): Art Brut

6) Comfortably Numb (Album Version) (Cover of Pink Floyd): Scissor Sisters

7) Ride (Album Version): The Vines

8) Take Me Out (Album Version): Franz Ferdinand

9) Helicopter (Original Version): Bloc Party

10) Dirt Off Your Shoulder (Radio): Jay-Z

11) Sex Beat (Remix) (Cover of The Gun Club): Two Lone Swordsmen

12) Slow Life (Edit): Super Furry Animals

18th January 2004: Franz Ferdinand (#3): 8

25th January 2004: Scissor Sisters (#10): 6

14th March 2004: Winning Days (#25): 7

4th April 2004: Bang Bang Rock & Roll (#52): 5

25th April 2004: Phantom Power (# n/a): 12

16th May 2004: The Black Album (#12): 10

1st August 2004: From The Double Gone Chapel (#22): 11

15th August 2004: Talkie Walkie (#44): 2

19th September 2004: To The 5 Boroughs (#37): 4

31st October 2004: Silent Alarm (#26): 9

11th November 2004: How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb (#1): 3

21st November 2004: Love.Angel.Music.Baby. (#4): 1

Side One (45:36) (GD) (M)

If you enjoyed this, why not check out the corresponding mixtapes from 1984 and 1994?

Cut, Copy, Paste, Align, Write Text, Repeat.

Melbourne combo Cut Copy returned this year, half a decade on from their last album, with a trio of new singles followed by a new full length offering, Moments.

Belong To You is the third and most current single, featuring guests Kate Bollinger on shared vocals and “Evil” Graham Lee from The Triffids providing pedal steel. 

All three singles - BelongTo You, When This Is Over and album opener Solid - are available via Bandcamp. The latter comes with an exclusive non-album B-side, A Decade Long Sunset.

 

Moments isn't currently available on Bandcamp, but you can find digital formats in the other usual places. If you prefer something more tactile, CD and coloured vinyl can also be purchased elsewhere. Have a browse.

Coming to Cut Copy in the late 2000s via free MP3 downloads courtesy of RCRD LBL and The Hype Machine, I was really only familiar with remixes, either of their own songs or those that they had done for other artists. 

As we're a couple of weeks away from the final Bandcamp Friday of 2025, I've picked four from the archives for your consideration. If you're feeling flush/generous, I'd recommend the full release in all cases.

 

 

 

Upon A Mouse #9: A Stomach Full Of All Bran

For the last of this week's look at my votes for The 20 Greatest Eponymous Albums Of All Time, as prompted and published by No Badger Required last month, I'm skipping #10 and focusing on #9 and #8, respectively occupied by Blur and Gorillaz.

Yep, it's a Damon Albarn double bill.

If this has immediately got your hackles rising, then I can only offer by way of consolation that you will not be seeing Mali Music (2002), The Good, The Bad & The Queen (2007) or Rocket Juice & The Moon (2012) in next week's final three posts, as none of these Albarn-fuelled projects made it to the NBR longlist, let alone shortlist. 

So, let's start with Blur, the self-titled fifth album by Blur from 1997.

I didn’t mind Blur, but I was just never really into them. And I only really rooted for them during the fabricated Blur vs. Oasis face off because I found the Gallagher Brothers and their band tedious. Truth be told, I couldn't really give a shit either way.

In February 1997, I didn't own any Blur albums and I was not inclined to buy their latest release. I ended up hearing it a lot because my friends Vicky and Simon played Blur by Blur pretty much every time I visited them for a couple of months in early 1997. 

That in itself was weird as, with the exception of Pulp who they both loved, their music tastes veered very much towards either the Spice Girls and Kylie, or the kind of kitsch deep cuts and 60s and 70s TV theme tunes to be found at the World Of Cheese club night in Bristol that we frequented.

But there was something about this album that clearly appealed to them both, and then me. And not just for Song 2, which is still bloody brilliant, nearly thirty years later. 

I've mentioned previously that, with a few exceptions, the Britpop movement did little for me and although Blur predated the label, previous albums Parklife and The Great Escape were cited as defining records.

The eponymous Blur was something of a reaction against this, angry and introspective with sharper edges yet losing none of the singalong melodies that the band were renowned for. Each of the four singles displayed a different facet of the band, and there was more to be found in album tracks, such as Death Of A Party and Movin' On. 

Although I didn't bite straight away, Blur's fifth ended up being the first album of theirs that I acquired. Given how fragmented the band reportedly were at the time of writing and recording Blur, it has stood the test of time as a surprisingly cohesive record.

 

 

Gorillaz beat Blur by a point in my scores because frankly it’s the best thing that Damon Albarn’s done. Ironically, Albarn has been quoted as saying that On Your Own, the third single from Blur's eponymous fifth album, is "one of the first ever Gorillaz tunes".

Collaborating with Jamie Hewlett and Dan The Automator and (possibly literally) a cast of thousands and hiding behind simian-based cartoon alter egos may have looked good on paper. In reality, their 2001 debut album was even better than that. Geniuz, even (sorry!)

Subconsciously, what I like about Gorillaz the band and the album is that although Damon Albarn is clearly the creative driving force, he's also in the background, regardless of whether it's a true democracy in reality. Yes, you hear his voice pop up throughout, but on singles like Clint Eastwood and 19/2000, the stars of the show are Del Tha Funkee Homosapien and Miho Hatori.

And, if you're a fan of Jamie Hewlett's art, as I was, then the visual aspect of Gorillaz, which shaped not only the music releases and videos, but also the translation to live performances and the interactive elements of the website were unlike anything else out there.

My love of Gorillaz' debut extends to it's remix companion, Laika Come Home, released later the same year. In characteristically contrary fashion, I ended up buying this one before the album that birthed it. I'd never heard of Spacemonkeyz before (or since), but the promise of Gorillaz songs given a dub and reggae rinse was irresistible.

 

 

At the top of the page, the unrelated telly swipe is a scene from the Adventures Of Robinson Crusoe, the 1954 film adaptation of Daniel Defoe's 18th century novel, directed by Luis Buñuel. 

The titular character is played by Dan O'Herlihy, seen here having just taken a big glug from a barrel of grog, discovered in the bowels of the shipwrecked vessel that marooned him in the first place.

Upon A Mouse #8: Voting Slip (Ups)

With today's double header of The Velvet Underground and The Doors, I'm now over halfway through the countdown of my expanded notes for The 20 Greatest Eponymous Albums Of All Time, collated, counted and curated by No Badger Required.

From a longlist of suggestions by members of the NBR Musical Jury, we were asked to vote and comment on our Top 20, with no guarantee that our personal choices would achieve a similar ranking or even appear in the Top 20 at all.

So it is with today's selection: one of these made the Top 5; the other didn't make the final countdown at all. But which?

If you haven't read or committed to memory the published Top 20, I will share it again in the final post here as a compare and contrast with my personal picks.

Without giving too much away, SWC noted that some of the Musical Jury voted for The Velvet Underground's third album from 1969, rather than their 1967 debut, The Velvet Underground & Nico, as intended. This inevitably split the votes and impacted on the band's final placing.

Yep, I was one of those people who did that.

I even went so far as to comment that "I won’t pretend that this is my favourite VU album"... no, that would be The Velvet Underground & Nico, dummkopf! 

Even the Iffypedia page on the third album opens with the warning message "Not to be confused with The Velvet Underground & Nico"!!

That aside, The Velvet Underground (1969) is an album that I’ve grown to appreciate far more over the years since I first heard it in the 1990s.

Back then, it felt too safe and straightforward by comparison with what had gone before, and as a fan of John Cale, I was predisposed to dislike the material following his sacking from the Velvets less favourably.

Time at least has enabled me to better appreciate the nuances and, let’s be honest, some pretty beautiful pop songs. My opinion still stands that Paul Quinn and Edwyn Collins recorded the definitive version of Pale Blue Eyes in 1984, but the song started here and it's one of Lou Reed's finest examples of pop songwriting.

Unfortunately due to the unfortunate case of mistaken identity, The Velvet Underground only managed a #12 placing on my voting slip.

 

 

At least I didn't make the same mistake with The Doors' debut, which stormed in at #4 in my Top 20 eponymous albums. 

Like The Velvet Underground & Nico, a Sixties album that is very much rooted in the Eighties, as far as my experience of the band and their music is concerned. And inextricably linked to the VHS era, too. 

The thrill for me of going to the local video shop to rent tapes was as much about feeding my insatiable appetite for music as it was for films, as there were growing number of music video compilations and concert recordings available, which would never be broadcast on the four TV channels in the UK, BBC1, BBC2, ITV and the relatively new Channel 4.

So, on a personal level, The Doors’ first album goes hand-in-hand with the Dance On Fire video compilation, the thrill of Break On Through (To The Other Side) and Light My Fire matched on vinyl by the respective promo clips and appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Not a duff song amongst the first ten, and number eleven is the eleven-minute epic The End, which took Dylan’s bar and raised it, bringing the album to an incredible close.

Incredible then, that I thought – and I still think – that second album Strange Days is even better! But that's a story for another post.

 

 

Heading up today's post is Dr. Sam Beckett, the character played by Scott Bakula in the US TV series, Quantum Leap, which ran for four years, five seasons and 97 episodes between 1989 and 1993.

That perplexed facial expression was Sam's default in pretty much every episode, as he found himself in a new scenario - and time, and body - before spending the next forty-odd minutes doing the right thing. This snap off the telly is from the very final episode, Mirror Image, the ending of which has caused endless speculation and debate since.

Upon A Mouse #7: Two Specials Clash

The Clash and The Specials open this week's trio of contenders for The 20 Greatest Eponymous Albums Of All Time, as definitively counted down last month at No Badger Required.

No question that both are amongst the most important bands of my lifetime, respectively producing some the most incredible music of the 1970s and 1980s, inspiring and influencing countless other artists that have followed. 

Both made the final 10 in the NBR Top 20. Neither did on my voting slip, coming in at #13 and #14 respectively. How come?

Well, to be honest I listen more often to London Calling and Combat Rock than The Clash’s first album, probably Sandinista! too, though not Give ‘Em Enough Rope and certainly not Cut The Crap.

So, does that mean it’s either my third or fourth favourite Clash album? Hmmm....

The doubts start kicking in as soon as Janie Jones opens the album...

…and The Clash contains their superlative cover of Junior Murvin’s Police & Thieves...

...and it’s a great album, by anyone else’s standards. 

It's just not the greatest album by The Clash.

 

 

I was still at primary school when 2-Tone hit it's stride. I ended up sticking with Madness and never going quite so deep with The Specials, making the leap (frog) to secondary school with Fun Boy Three aka Terry Hall, Neville Staple and Lynval Golding.

The first - only - record of theirs that I bought as a teen was Nelson Mandela by The Special AKA in 1984. Jerry Dammers and John Bradbury aside, it was essentially a different band, to the best of my knowledge only Dick Cuthell also appearing on The Specials' debut album.

At the start of the 21st century, I bought Stereo-Typical, the definitive 3CD singles A’s & B’s collection, but somehow I never got around to The Specials' albums.

To my shame, it was The Vinyl Villain, and JC’s companion to my Terry Hall Imaginary Compilation Album in February 2021 that first introduced me to the sublime version of Too Much Too Young from The Specials’ eponymous debut that gave me the kick up the arse to track down and listen to the album in full. 

Opening with a superb cover of Dandy Livingstone's 1967 classic A Message To You Rudy (not that I knew that it was a cover when I first heard it, age 8), the mix of versions and originals only highlighted how strong The Specials' own writing was: Nite Klub, Concrete Jungle, (Dawning Of A) New Era. 

As an album title, Specials not only states the name of the band, but also the quality of the songs within. 

Less than two years later after my and JC's compilations, and my first proper listen to The Specials' incredible first album, Terry Hall was gone. The impact of this album has gone deeper and deeper with every listen. 

 

 

 

For today's tenuous topper photo, we move from 11 angry men (The Clash and The Specials' combined headcount) to 12 Angry Men, the 1957 film directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Henry Fonda. I 'recorded' it a while back when it was screened on Turner Classic Movies and really should get around to watching it again.

I Put The Ass In Blasphemy

Lynks released a new single and video last week.

I Didn't Come Here For Art is utterly wonderful and utterly exhilarating in every way.

If you experience a better song or video today, please send me the, er, links.

For more Lynks links, visit their artist site on Heavenly Records, try their Bandcamp page for back catalogue brilliance, and visit The Guardian for the interview in March 2024 which supplied today's title.

So he invites me out, 

Said he's going to this really cool night

And I said, 

"Wow, that sounds really cool"

So I step out the Uber

Everywhere I look, 

Turtlenecks, crochet berets, distressed linens, 

Ugh

I walk inside, 

The DJ's playing ambient noise

There's a huddle of people watching an interpretive dance performance

Someone's painting a wall with their hands

A girl's in the corner drinking orange wine 

Talking about how her flip phone saved her life

And no one was dancing

 

So my friend turned to me and said, 

"Isn't this cool?"

And I said, 

"No"

So I told him

 

"I didn't come here for art, I only came here to dance

I didn't come here for art, I only came here to dance

I didn't come here for art, I only came here to dance

I didn't come here for art, I only came here to dance"

 

Don't ask me about Almodóvar when I'm tryna get a drink at the bar

I'm not here to think, just here for fun

Someone tell the DJ, 

"Play a song with drums" 

My god, is that too much to ask for?

People wanna dance on the dancefloor

And if the beat's hard, they're gonna dance more

Guess they didn't teach that at art school

So tell your arty friend, tell 'em, 

"Put down The Guardian"

Tell 'em, 

"Take off your cardigan,

You ain't in Central Saint Martins"

What's a trilby to a snapback?

What's a quiche to a Big Mac?

What's a vape to a cig pack?

I don't care just lemme fuckin' hit that

A girl blows a cloud of Banana Ice Lost Mary's in my face

And asks, 

"What's wrong?"

So I say,

 

"I didn't come here for art, I only came here to dance

I didn't come here for art, I only came here to dance

I didn't come here for art, I only came here to dance

I didn't come here for art, I only came here to dance"

Right, people, we need to act now

'Cause it looks like they're about to set up life drawing

Are you sick of it? 

Yeah

Do you wanna dance? 

Yeah

Good

Well, repeat after me

No more try hard, spoken word, art school shit

(No more try hard, spoken word, art school shit)

No more, "How the fuck am I supposed to dance to this?"

(No more, "How the fuck am I supposed to dance to this?")

No more try hard, spoken word, art school shit

No more, "How the fuck am I supposed to dance to this?"

No more try hard, spoken word, art school shit

And if the DJ sucks, then he asked for it 

 

"I didn't come here for art, I only came here to dance 

I didn't come here for art, I only came here to dance 

I didn't come here for art, I only came here to dance 

I didn't come here for art, I only came here to dance"

 

(Woo)

(Dance)

(Mmm)

I...I...I came here to dance

I...I...I came here to d...

I...I...I came here to...

I...I...I came here to d...

I...I...I came... (Woo)

I...I...I came here to d...

I...I...I came here to...

I...I...I came here to d...

I...I...I came here to dance

I...I...I only came here to... (Uh-huh?)

I...I...I only came...(Yeah?)

I...I...I only came here to... (Okay)

I...I...I only came... (Mmm)

I didn't come here for art (Yeah?)

I only came here to dance

I didn't come here for art (Uh-huh?)

I only came here to dance