• Exodus – Together Forever (Vocal Mix)

• Rainbow Brown – Till You Surrender (1981 Special Remix by Ray “Pinky” Velazquez)

The more I hear the Sex Pistols, the more I hear a British band. In many ways, the reason Punk didn’t work around the world is because the rest of the world just didn’t have that Britishness (see the American invention called “punk pop” for one example) …

This song has been called one of the most conservative songs of all time, but not quite … It couldn’t have been made in this way somewhere else. If it had been an American band, it would have had specific politics and the band’s look and public life would have matched those politics; and it would have all been sold in one neat package to those who share those politics. And it would have been just another a product, just another political statement, and the art would be lost, and it would be just another loud song, with a single loud “message”, by just another loud band.

“A girl from Birmingham used to bother the hell out of me, turn up at the doorstep one night with a see-through, clear, handbag that had a fetus in it … That song is not anti-abortion, it’s not pro-abortion … Don’t be callous like that with a human being but don’t be limited to such a thing as ‘morals’ either, because it’s immoral to bring a kid into this world and not give a toss about it.”

Johnny Rotten

• Sex Pistols – Bodies

Years ago, a music journalist gave a review to what is arguably the most important album of the last 30 years; almost certainly the most important album of my generation; maybe the most important album in Dance music. An album which questions Sgt. Pepper’s, Nevermind the Bollocks, and The Chronic. THE album that put France on the world stage …

These were his genius words:

“… This isn’t exactly a good album by any stretch of the imagination. Aside from tracks like ‘Revolution 909’ and ‘Fresh,’ Homework is the work of a couple of DJs who sound amateurish at best. Just about all of the songs follow the same formula of starting off with a drumbeat for the first minute-and-a-half and then slowly bringing in other elements … If you already own Homework, best to bring it to the record exchange before it floods the second-hand market … “

Forget about whether you like Daft Punk for a minute, this is a bit more serious.

As you can see, this review reads no better than any old random twitter post by a self-appointed music critic in 2022. And this, I would say, is strong evidence that crappy music journalism was the precursor to the sewage fire that is social media.

So the only conclusion is that we should blame music journalists, and this review specifically, for social media and everything bad that it has contributed to these over the last decade: the erosion of democracy, “fake news”, “bot farms”, environmental destruction, identity politics, racism, both of Obama’s presidencies, Trump, Biden, much of the war in the middle-east up to the failure in leaving Afghanistan, the invasion of Ukraine … (I would blame China’s crimes on this review, as well, but I’m not sure what their approach to social media is, and I doubt they would allow this kind of publication.)

“ … that was the bad thing about the New Journalism. Cop a bit of Tom Wolfe or Hunter S. Thompson, get a bit of ellipsis down your grammatical throat and any fuckwit could sound cool and intelligent and actually did. Despite having the sense and sensibilities of a bucket of silage, any modern music journalist with a grasp of the new prose could hold his own as a knowing counter-culture hero and guardian of the gates of fame. Tossers. Silence is, of course, the lesson. The press are frequently the most dizzyingly incompetent arseholes that God has put on this earth. The mistake is to reply to them.” — Tony Wilson

• Daft Punk – Alive

• Terry Hunter – Sweet Music

Fade me how?

• Scarface – The Diary

The Beatles – I Should Have Known Better

• George Harrison – My Sweet Lord

• Sam Cooke – A Change Is Gonna Come

Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side.

• Lou Reed – Walk on the Wild Side

• Maria McKee – If Love Is A Red Dress (Hang Me In Rags)

This song is from 2001. In 2010 American “EDM” was destroying the world, so getting on stage and playing this “old” song mattered.

Watch the way we drop it in a mixed timing

• Groove Armada – Superstylin’ (Glastonbury 2010)

Beef is not what Jay said to Nas,
beef is when working niggas can’t find jobs
so they’re trying to find niggas to rob;
trying to find bigger guns so they can finish the job.

Beef is when the crack kids can’t find moms,
’cause they’re in a pine box or locked behind bars.

Beef ain’t the “summer jam” for Hot-97,
beef is the cocaine and AIDS epidemic.

Beef don’t come with a radio edit, beef is when the judge is calling you “defendant”.
Beef, it comes with a long jail sentence handed down to you in a few short minutes.

Beef is when your girl come through for a visit talking bout “I’m pregnant by some other nigga”.

Beef is high blood pressure and bad credit,
need a loan for your home and you’re too broke to get it.
And all your little kids is doin is getting bigger;
you tryin not to raise them around these wild niggas.

Beef is when a gold digger got your seed in her;
a manicured hand out like “pay me nigga
or I’m telling your wife,
or starting up some foul rumor that’ll ruin your life.”

Beef is when a gangster ain’t doin it right,
and other gangsters done decided what to do with his life.

Beef is not what these famous niggas do on the mic,
beef is what George Bush would do in a fight.

Beef is not what Ja said to 50,
beef is Weldon Irv not bein here with me.

When a soldier ends his life with his own gun,
beef is trying to figure out what to tell his son.

Beef is oil prices and geopolitics;
beef is Iraq, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip

Some beef is big and some beef is small
but what y’all call beef is not beef at all.

Beef is real life happening everyday,
and it’s realer than them songs that you get at Kay Slay.

This has been a Black Star PSA
From Mos Def, Pretty Flaco, Black Dante,
and the Black Star embassy, B to the K

Black Star – What’s Beef?

• Morphine – Mary, Won’t You Call My Name?

So, you think you can sing?

• Al Green – Let’s Stay Together

Why is it that most bands don’t cut it when it comes to playing Funk?

Because they consider the Funk to be a music genre to be learned, copied, packaged and sold. They think that adding all the elements together will equal the desired result—so they get the wah-wah pedal, the slapped bass, and sometimes they even hire old musicians who’ve been there—but there’s something missing. Oh, if I named names this would turn into a political statement …

All I’m going to say is: there is no doing the Funk halfway.

• Kool & The Gang – Be My Lady

Donald Fagen: … I had an idea for a chorus: If a college football team like the University of
Alabama could have a grandiose name like the “Crimson Tide,” the nerds and losers should be
entitled to a grandiose name as well.

Walter Becker: … “Crimson Tide” didn’t mean anything to us except the exaggerated grandiosity
that’s bestowed on winners. “Deacon Blues” was the equivalent for the loser in our song.

• Steely Dan – Deacon Blues

• Double Exposure – My Love Is Free (Tom Moulton 12″ Mix)

Absolute Disco classic

• Dan Hartman – Vertigo/Relight My Fire (feat. Loleatta Holloway)

• Tom Jones – I’ll Never Fall In Love Again