The Sonic Journal

I have been very lucky to attend some memorable gigs over the years. One surreal, brilliant experience was watching The Strokes while stood right in front of a massive dinosaur skeleton at the Natural History Museum in London.

Now, I don't have The Strokes in the 1000 Songs archive, but they were undeniably pivotal. They heralded a massive explosion of brilliant guitar music throughout the early to mid 2000s, freeing bands just to be bands and make catchy, guitar driven tunes without overthinking it.

So, in that tradition of simply making joyful, infectious guitar music, I was delighted to receive the latest single from The Cuts, titled "Fire with Fire".

The Cuts hail from Paisley, Scotland. The core trio of Neil Walker, Kieran Docherty, and James Robertson first joined forces years ago before drifting down separate paths, only to reunite in 2025 and enlist drummer Craig Brown to complete the lineup. Refreshingly, the band embraces a playful, tongue-in-cheek irreverence while keeping their songwriting genuinely sharp.

"Fire with Fire" was written by Neil Walker late last year and recorded on analogue equipment at Glasgow’s intimate Green Door Studio. That was a fantastic call. It captures all the raw excitement and energy of seeing a band live in a small room, so you aren't left trying to pick out a brilliant song through dense layers of over production.

Musically, the song rolls along with effortless momentum. For me, it kicks off with a sharp, punchy Buzzcocks type vibe to begin with, but quickly builds with the energy and attitude of Bloc Party before launching into a brilliant, peak Franz Ferdinand strength of a chorus.

That chorus is so relentlessly catchy it will lodge itself in your brain until you can't help singing it aloud. In fact, I wager, you’ll find yourself standing in a queue, singing, "I've got to fight fire with fire." A stranger will look at you confused and say, "Excuse me?" To which you'll have to reply deadpan, "Oh, sorry, it's just a song stuck in my head. You should check it out, it's by a band called The Cuts."

Fire with Fire by The Cuts is out on 28th August 2026.

Bessie Smith was Blues. Bessie Smith was folk. Bessie Smith was Jazz. Bessie Smith was Punk.

She also released a lot of records prior to 1930. Which is not particularly useful when your archive starts in 1930.

She was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, she survived her childhood by busking on street corners.

She eventually rose to become the highest-paid Black entertainer of her day. She even had her own custom rail carriage.

She championed the African-American working class. She was a true pioneer who helped invent the market for "race records" and female blues singers in the 1920s.

She incorporated biting commentary on poverty, the convict lease system, capital punishment, and female empowerment into her songs.

To represent her in the archive, I’ve chosen "Blue Blue." from 1931.

Blue Blue by Bessie Smith

But I'd also recommend reading about her amazing life and listening to some of those brilliant 1920s records. Just proving to me genre never really existed!

Hans Zimmer (he of the Going for Gold theme fame) is taking over the BBC Maida Vale studios. It's the end of an era. One of my favourite albums, Hatful of Hollow by The Smiths, features tracks recorded there, and it's the site of Delia Derbyshire's electronic triumphs. It's also famously where Bing Crosby made his last ever recording in 1977, just days before he died. Fontaines DCs final session there was broadcast today on 6 Music.

However, for me, it was where I saw Gomez (with Chilly Gonzales playing, and Colin Murray booking us in on the door). Gomez were such an important band for me. In this 1000 Songs project, I have engaged in a bit of late-1990s revisionism. For me, as someone who likes British guitar music, the era at the time wasn't particularly good for it, especially just after 1997.

Gomez were important because they decided to look way back and do something different with it when others tried to let Britpop limp on. Hailing from Southport, Merseyside, they were a unique outfit comprising Ian Ball, Paul Blackburn, Tom Gray, Ben Ottewell, and Olly Peacock. They brilliantly juggled three different singers and four songwriters. Their sound was a complete anomaly at the time, effortlessly blending blues, folk, and psychedelic experimental rock.

Bring It On felt very different. Looking back on it nearly 30 years later, for me personally, it hasn't dated too well. But it was authentic, raw, and much-needed, especially compared to what was on TV. It was actually won the Mercury Music Prize in 1998.

For the archive, I had a choice to make. I was considering "Whippin' Piccadilly" or even the later "Shot Shot".

Shot Shot by Gomez

But for me, it was the opening track to Bring It On,"Get Miles", which told me they were trying to do something that others just weren't doing at the time.

Get Miles by Gomez

Up next is Walt Disco. Firstly, the name is great. Secondly, they sound great. Thirdly, they put on a great live show, and that's enough for me!

Walt Disco are an art-pop-alt-rock band based in Glasgow. They are releasing their new self-titled album, Walt Disco (as I said, great name!), on 2nd October 2026. Apparently, the band recorded the album live together as a full unit for the first time.

But I am looking back. I first came across them during lockdown as part of the SXSW British Council showcase. We had just seen Porridge Radio right before lockdown hit, and it was still a possibility that that group of bands were going to make it across the pond, but alas, no. But all that crop made up for lost time.

Anyway, when I heard Walt Disco's "Cut Your Hair," a standout track from their 2022 debut album Unlearning, it completely grabbed my attention. It’s tongue-in-cheek and perfectly blends glam-rock with new-wave. Its message rallies against passing judgment on people for how they look or who they are, and who can argue with that? Unless you like passing judgment on how people look or who they are. But that wouldn't make you very nice, would it?

Cut Your Hair by Walt Disco

I hope the new album continues their excellent start, the single "Lies" precedes it, and I am sure they will be touring it.

But for 1000 Songs, "Cut Your Hair" is in at the moment. Let's see if there is another one by 2030!

An actual couple of decades ago, I bore witness to the wonderful Electric Six. Dick Valentine, co-founder, frontman, and singular survivor of the band (formerly known as The Wildbunch), is perhaps the nicest man...ever? Post-show, he did not merely pose he conducted a bespoke wave for our camera (one with film in it!). Prior to this he had been executing choreography I had not seen the likes of before...or since!

The songs that have endured for me seem to be the ones I first heard when they achieved widespread recognition in 2003. Again, like a few of my other picks, they sit just on the right side of novelty, combining elements of rock, disco, garage rock, metal, new wave, and punk rock.

Dick just seems to be someone who loves being in a band who have now released 20 albums. The current lineup features incredible monikers like Johnny Na$hinal, Tait Nucleus?, Herb S. Flavourings, Dr. Jay, and Mr. Poison.

When I first heard "Danger! High Voltage" I could hardly believe Jack White got in board with absurdity. But he did. "Gay Bar" endures too, but a favourite at the time was "Dance Commander."

Dance Commander by Electric Six

I have gone with the classic though remembering first time I heard it

Danger! High Voltage! by Electric Six

Back around 2008, I was at The Windmill in Brixton waiting to see The Brakes.

The support act wandered to the front, Joseph Mount. He had originally started Metronomy as a bedroom project down in Devon.

Now some would say a guy standing alone in a South London pub could look like a bloke desperately trying to steal the pub's Wi-Fi. Not for me. This is exactly where I want to be. The amplification of happiness in large venues is too much for me.

Anyway, Metronomy did eventually evolve into a brilliant live act featuring synchronized dance routines and wearing pound-shop push lights, which made a lot of people happy en-masse at the same time.

If we are talking about songs that capture a specific indie-electronic crossover moment, "The Bay" is a mandatory addition to the 1000 Songs archive. It's got that perfect, infectious rhythm that immediately locks you in.

The Bay by Metronomy

The Fireballs embody a bit of raw 1950s for me. Formed in Raton, New Mexico in 1957, they started as an instrumental group driven by George Tomsco's lead guitar.

They had some great early instrumental releases, most notably 1959's "Torquay".

Torquay by The Fireballs

I also find it highly amusing that that Torquay is also a town in Devon.

A view...you say madam how about ...a bunch of New Mexico teenagers playing some twang!

Yes, absolutely nothing screams rock and roll rebellion quite like the English Riviera! (Although it didn't stop Metronomy literally calling an album that.)

Anyway...Norman Petty, who ran the Clovis studio where The Fireballs recorded, was also Buddy Holly’s producer. After Holly died, Petty obtained the rights to Holly's early acoustic demos and had The Fireballs overdub them throughout the 1960s. 1960s DIY remix culture at its finest!

Now, you might notice Buddy Holly himself isn't in the 1000 Songs archive. The Fireballs are. For me they kind of represent the pioneers who actually built a sound, and that is why they fully deserve this spot.

The date was 17 September 2002, a night "etched in my memory" as the debut gig of Razorlight (I googled it). I was at Dingwalls in Camden, watching them get introduced simply as "Johnny Borrell and the somethings." At London venues back then you kind of stood at least two meters back from the stage for the earlier bands (you'd basically paid good money to pretend you weren't interested). So I was "at the front".

However, this is about The Greenhornes. Hailing from Cincinnati, Ohio, the garage-rock outfit was heavily championed by Jack White (who would later go on to form The Dead Weather with their bassist, Jack Lawrence).

As The Greenhornes took the stage, the crowd grew, and suddenly I found myself shoulder-to-shoulder with Jack White himself, alongside his then-girlfriend, Marcie Bolen of The Von Bondies. Over by the side of the stage, Meg White stood quietly, facing out toward the crowd, soaking in the atmosphere.

Once The Greenhornes got going me and my illustrious company were just enjoying the gig. I was already heavily invested in their 2002 album Dual Mono, so to see it live was brilliant. It is well worth a listen if you have any affection for gritty, blues-rock revivalism. The first four tracks alone are great.

For today's pick, however, I have to go with their collaboration with British singer-songwriter Holly Golightly. The track later found wider fame on the soundtrack for Jim Jarmusch’s film Broken Flowers, giving it a well-deserved cultural longevity. Beyond being a brilliant tune, it serves as a perfect time capsule of an era when bands would seamlessly cross-pollinate, casually name-drop each other, and still retain an aura of untouchable mystique.

So, here it is:

There is an End by The Greenhorns

As part of the 1000 Songs project, I'm doing one review a week of new releases from emerging artists. Following up on my recent piece about the band untitled, this week I am spotlighting Massey's Cross.

Hailing from Calgary, Alberta, this duo brews a potent blend of classic rock and blues, laced with jazz and folk sensibilities. Their upcoming EP, "Unbroken After the Storm" (dropping this September), delivers absolutely everything you crave from a classic rock record: heavy grooves, brilliant guitar work, and deeply personal storytelling.

1000 Songs is all about tracks that immediately grab you by the collar, and their opener, "Donner Party and Sadly Forgotten," does exactly that. What I love most is how it captures a massive, Zeppelin-esque swagger while maintaining the gritty, authentic production I obsessed over during my early-2000s blues-rock phase. The energy channels the early days of The Black Keys, that raw, unpolished magic where a duo locks in and conjures an absolute wall of sound.

While the opener might be my personal favorite, you need to stick around for the whole ride. The EP naturally swells into the kind of epic, sprawling soundscapes found on the very best classic rock records, so look no further than the track "Never Odd or Even" for proof.

Whenever I listen to a new release, I want to understand the engine driving it. The band explained to me that, at its core, the EP explores the psychological terrain that follows a life-altering event. It’s not about the event itself, it’s about the aftermath, the trauma, the upheaval, the loss, the reinvention, and the brutal confrontation with the truth, events that, unfortunately, seem to happen more frequently as we get older. The main idea behind the record is that you emerge from the storm neither triumphant nor defeated, but simply changed.

The EP traces this slow, cinematic process of coming to terms with that change. Massey's Cross describes the project not just as a collection of songs, but as a single, dramatic gesture. After listening to it, I wholeheartedly agree.

A great addition to the 1000 Songs radar.

If we are talking about songs that capture a specific moment in time, which is basically the entire point of this 1000 Songs project, it is genuinely impossible to ignore Aldwyn Roberts, better known to the world as Lord Kitchener, or simply "Kitch."

He wasn't just a musician; he was the undisputed Grand Master of Calypso.

There are three key things you really need to understand about him to get why he's so vital to this archive.

Firstly, the man literally soundtracked history. In 1948, he bought a ticket on the HMT Empire Windrush. When the ship pulled into Tilbury Docks, bringing some of the first post-war West Indian immigrants to the UK, a reporter for Pathé News shoved a microphone in his face. Right there, on the spot, Kitchener sang a specially written song into the camera. No studio, no auto-tune, just a man and a heavy dose of optimism stepping into the freezing English breeze. That song was "London Is the Place for Me."

Secondly, he became the absolute voice of those first 5,000 West Indian migrants. Imagine leaving the Caribbean for a grey, post-war Britain. His music was a vital lifeline. It spoke of a home they desperately missed, but also documented the reality of the life they were trying to build.

Thirdly, he was a relentless innovator. He didn't just have a brief stint in the UK and fade away. He eventually moved back to Trinidad and completely dominated the calypso scene. We're talking winning the Road March competition 10 times. He ran his own calypso tent, nurtured a whole new generation of artists, and basically helped pioneer the transition into Soca music in the 70s.

And of course I put in...

London is the Place for Me by Lord Kitchener

Many of the artists featured in this archive have appeared on the BBC TV show Later... with Jools Holland. Like everything, it has its critics, but I have very much enjoyed the show over the years, and most series it either uncovers or highlights a band I love.

I have been lucky enough to be at a couple of recordings of the show. The first of which was in 2003 and featured Jane's Addiction. (Also on the bill that night was John Cale, who performed a tremendous version of "Venus in Furs.")

Jane's Addiction are, of course, from Los Angeles, pioneering that distinct collision of heavy alternative rock, punk, and funk. On the show, they performed newly released "Just Because" alongside "Been Caught Stealing," a track released 13 years earlier. Now, 36 years after its original release, I have added it to the 1000 Songs archive.

I know others will say they prefer Three Days or Jane Says or specific deep cuts, and "Been Caught Stealing", especially coupled with its iconic music video, could be considered a bit of a novelty. But it grabs your attention immediately. It tells you they are a great band and are well worth listening to and exploring their back catalogue! So it's in...and.. live it was amazing!

Been Caught Stealing by Jane's Addiction

Moondog was one of the artists I only found out about after starting 1000 Songs.

Firstly, you can't go wrong with referencing the moon. Surely. It's like the cooler sun. While we are all projecting our happy vibes onto the sun, I swear it is instead looking at itself in the moon, thinking it's fronting Echo and the Bunnymen.

Anyway...

Moondog (born Louis Thomas Hardin) was a blind composer and musician who famously "lived" on the streets of New York dressed as a Viking! I think this is a bit of lore. But he wasn't just an eccentric street performer. He made brilliant, complex music, and not only that, he was the inventor of his own instruments, most notably a triangular percussion instrument called the "trimba."

Truly innovative, he was the inspiration for legendary minimalist artists such as Philip Glass and Steve Reich, who actually championed his work and viewed him as a peer.

I absolutely love the looping, repetitive phrases in his work, and the production quality is just unbelievable for the 1950s. It sounds so far ahead of its time.

For the archive, I have gone with "Theme", "Dog Trot", and "Oboe Round".

Oboe Round by Moondog

I loved Ormside Street. It had this brilliant industrial estate aesthetic. The buildings literally went: church, church, food warehouse, property management company, church.... amazing creative space. That amazing creative space was DIY Space for London. It was the site of the first Decolonise Fest, which was put on by the next band on my list: Big Joanie. Big Joanie were formed by singer and guitarist Stephanie Phillips. She posted online looking for bandmates to start a Black feminist punk band, eventually joining forces with drummer Chardine Taylor-Stone and original bassist Kiera Coward-Deyell.

They actually played their very first set at First Timers. First Timers also happened to feature at one of my other favourite venues, Power Lunches. But that is another story for another day.

Their music is wonderfully stripped back,a brilliant mix of DIY post-punk and riot grrrl energy. I went with tracks like "Used to Be Friends" and "Fall Asleep".

Used to be Friends by Big Joanie

I didn't actually see Big Joanie back then, but I did see Charmpit and Witching Waves, who shared members (like Estella Adeyeri, who would later join Big Joanie on bass), as was the way in the scene at the time.

Stephanie Phillips also soon has a book out called We Were Here, which is all about reclaiming the history of Black artists in alternative music and rock 'n' roll. It's out in August, but can be pre-ordered.

My first thought. Brave. To call a band untitled. A search nightmare. But then they have 40 million streams so what do I know.

I recently came across the LA-based four-piece called... untitled ...on BBC news music fix.

Apparently towards the end of 2025, their debut single "Restless" basically became the fastest streaming rock song on the planet.

Restless by untitled.

They grew up listening to the grunge. Didn't a lot of us? So why can't I write "restless" or their 2026 release "Say It Again".

Like with brilliance in any field. I think they are just doing the basics really really well. They want to make garage rock. So they made rock in their garage. They are good at it. They get streamed. Easy?!

We're midway through the year so still a long way to go for the 10 again the end of the year. But I missed out last year so thinking they have got to be in contention this year.

I caught Man/Woman/Chainsaw live at MOTH the end of 2023, and I am writing this just before the release of their debut album, Cannonball.

Man/Woman/Chainsaw are a six-piece art-punk collective from London., they have a highly collaborative, orchestral approach to their songwriting, allowing them to cram elements of avant-garde noise, punk, and classical instrumentation into a single track.

I hadn't seen a band before be able to create a pop song, absolutely destroy it, and then build it back up again within the same song. I think they are able to do this because they have grown up together and genuinely appreciate and play to all the distinct strengths within the band.

They are a truly brilliant live act. I think inevitably, the songs they have been putting out to promote the album lean slightly more into their pop tendencies. These tracks are brilliant in their own right, but to truly appreciate them, you need to see how they blend it all together on stage.

For the archive, I have gone with "The Boss" and "What Lucy Found There." When I first heard "What Lucy Found There," I was thinking they were leaning more toward a Black Country, New Road style. However, I think they are a more cohesive band and collectively know exactly where they want to go.

What Lucy Found There by Man/Woman/Chainsaw

Their music is equally chaotic and reassuring. It's like you know your breaks have failed but it didn't matter because you were driving a marshmallow.

So, I set an "Elbow rule" and how if a track is soundtracking a shopping trip, I won't put it on the list.

Well, it doesn't apply all the time.

I included "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)". Yes, it is played absolutely everywhere. Yes, it will follow me around for the rest of my life. But I don't get bored of it. It's catchy. I try and avoid it. It's in.

Sweet Dreams by Eurythmics

But the main reason I am writing about them today is because of "Never Gonna Cry Again".

Never Gonna Cry Again by Eurythmics

I caught this on a clip from The Old Grey Whistle Test. It was right at the beginning of their career, after The Tourists had split.

It's got a hypnotic, almost Krautrocky feel. Then Annie Lennox whips out a flute.

It's a slightly fragile tune from two people trying something different. Who kept trying to do things different.

So I reserve the right to break my own supermarket rules, especially if you have a flute. Flutes rule.

When I hear a piece of recorded music, I always think of the effort it must have taken to reach my ears. To think that someone, or a group of people, had to learn how to do it, record it, not be self-conscious about sharing it with other people, and those people then investing a degree of marketing and plugging. I think my main point is that there has to be a degree of skill involved in making it. The rest of the stuff probably has a set of mechanisms that can be enacted. So, taking the skill of making something away in the first place removes the quality control, which means my neighbour's music makes my ears bleed.

Elbow aren't that. So, Elbow. Elbow. Elbow. There is skill in what they do. Every week I used to go to Koko in Camden (formerly Camden Palace) to watch bands being filmed for a TV show (I can't remember what it was called), and to my great pleasure, there was Guy Garvey and the lads. To my greater pleasure, this was the first time I heard "One Day Like This" and "Grounds for Divorce". Both good songs. Both songs I liked. I thought to myself oh Elbow. I like them.

But I won't put them on the list.

I have heard the songs too many times.

The songs will follow me around.

Their lead singer has a radio show. He plays music I don't like.

They are also a bit calculated, formulaic, and predictable.

But I think, most importantly, it is because everyone else likes them and that is enough.

This list is about personal discovery, not public consensus. If a track is already soundtracking every stadium montage and weekend supermarket trip in the country, it certainly doesn't need my help. I want music that still feels like it belongs to me, rather than just serving as the polite background noise to everyone else's lives.

I think the moral of this story is that supermarkets need to play more Radiohead.

Drenge are one of the best live bands I have ever seen. They are two brothers, Eoin and Rory Loveless. Their name literally means "boys" in Danish. I saw them at an XFM gig that DJ John Kennedy put on at the Camden Barfly. They were on the same bill as Nadine Shah and Wolf Alice (who!?).

They were originally from Castleton, Derbyshire, and they play a kind of raw, grunge-infused garage rock.

They wrote brilliant tunes, and what made them so great was that they seemed like they genuinely didn't care. They always seemed to be trying to outdo each other, so those brilliant songs rattled along live seamlessly.

I saw them around the same time Tom Watson stepped down from the Labour Party's Shadow Cabinet and told the leader at the time, Ed Miliband, that they were a great band.

Watson widely received ridicule for this; however, I totally got it! I would have done the exact same had I been in his position, having watched Drenge!

Unfortunately, although this got them a lot of attention, it kind of took away the edge from them, and their stuff immediately after wasn't quite as good.

But they were a truly great band at their peak.

I have gone with a couple of their more friendly-on-the-ear, work-friendly songs for the archive, but that first self-titled album was a masterpiece.

Bloodsports by Drenge

On 1000songs.co.uk I am going to have well over 600 artists. So I have said to myself I will write the blogs as and when.

Today it is Foals. Foals are an indie rock band from Oxford, England.

They actually met at the same school that Radiohead met.

When I first came across them, I think it was on Later... with Jools Holland. I really didn't get them at first. However, once I started hearing "Cassius", and I think seeing it in terms of the video, it began to make a bit more sense.

Cassius by Foals

Then again, I saw them again on Jools Holland and felt they took it up a level later with "Mountain at My Gates" and the one that goes "When I see a man, I see a lion" ("What Went Down").

What Went Down by Foals

I was lucky enough to see them live much later into their career at a big festival show. It ended with "Two Steps, Twice". Just a brilliant ending to a festival set.

Two Steps, Twice by Foals

The reason why I am writing about them today is because every time I have to do a two-step verification for a website, I sing that song in my head. Makes it a much less frustrating process!

On 1000songs I also included "Spanish Sahara", again, I think with this I am more kind of trying to sketch my mood out at the time. I was losing connection with what I enjoyed about music around then. What I was hearing was not what I liked, and I couldn't particularly find what I liked, but Foals were there as a constant seeing me through.

So, these 1000 songs are mainly just what I have heard over the years. However, I think there was a natural starting point for my taste prior to embarking on this project. I think that starting point was Howlin' Wolf. Specifically, "Smokestack Lightnin'" 1956.

When I had gone backwards through my 90s bands to the 60s, and then forward to the 70s, "Smokestack Lightnin'" was where it started.

Smokestack Lightnin' by Howlin' Wolf

Now... little did I know that Mr. Wolf, born Chester Arthur Burnett, cut his teeth with a certain Charley Patton and was discovered by Ike Turner (yes, Tina's husband, who turned out not to be such a nice man).

Howlin' Wolf was also came to the attention of Sam Phillips, who then went on to launch Elvis's career.

He was a pioneer of turning Delta blues into Chicago blues, of course, with the help of electrification. Add to that the fact that he stood at an imposing 6 foot 3 and weighed close to 300 pounds; his massive physical presence perfectly matched his booming, gravelly voice.

But I am picking these on sound. And "Wang Dang Doodle" is right up there, and of course,

Wang Dang Doodle by Howlin' Wolf

I could not include Howlin' Wolf without including something from 1951, when the records started: "Crying at Daybreak".

To wrap it all off, I included "All Night Boogie" from 1953.

All Night Boogie by Howlin' Wolf

But yes, Howlin' Wolf is someone who I'll keep returning to while I keep stitching all these together!

The great Sydney Bertram Carter poetically wrote,

"Time is a thing like a bird on a wing, coming or going away."

I have gone with: time = songs.

Time has always been measured in different ways, whether it was the ancient Egyptians who measured time by tracking the stars and inventing the first sundials, or the French revolutionaries who completely changed the calendar and tried to force everyone to use ten-hour decimal clocks.

Speaking of clocks, we have Chris Martin's great-great-grandfather, William Willett, who decided to mess up our sleep patterns forever more with daylight saving time. (Which is ironic, considering how many hours of sleep we've all lost just trying to figure out how to change the time on the oven.) And yes, no Coldplay in my thousand, by the way, but I did like it when they used to completely rip Radiohead off—they were good then.

Bigger Stronger by Coldplay

(I actually bought this . Then sold it. Last time I checked it was worth a bit!)

But yes, I have gone with the idea that time is 10 songs a year. If you are 1, you are 10 songs; if you are 10, you are 100 songs. It's a nice way of recording the years. A bit like an audio journal. You could think of those songs as a way of conjuring up a special memory of a special time, or you might just want to spin around. I think spinning around can happen at all ages. You might need a padded room, but it's possible.

I don't like genrefying things for this reason, because like all art or communication, you have what is spoken and what is received. Art is created, and art is interpreted.

So the feeling you may associate with a song is potentially completely separate from the intention and inspiration of the original artist.

So this is not about an algorithm feeding you something because a bunch of artists were inspired by a similar set of ideas or used a similar set of technology.

This is about how you or I feel and experience music, and therefore those 10 songs can mean anything. The fact that they are collected together and selected by an individual is what makes that collection meaningful to them. (Even if it just is Monkey Magic)

Monkey Magic by Godiego

Intro by The Prodigy

"So, I've decided to take my work back underground to stop it falling into the wrong hands"

Actually quite the opposite. I am making it very publicly available. The idea is to try and not have everything behind logins and paywalls. By making a list and being to just able to download that list easily feels like you are in control. Like sharing a mixtape. Without having to sign your life away to a subscription!

The Prodigy

While we're on the subject. Weren't the Prodigy great. I have only included one track in my list but they were a formative band. I think music for the jilted generation has to be my favourite album. Fat of the land then came along and was much more polished and chart hit ensued. But gilted generation felt like something genuinely new and exciting. This is again something I want to try and get this list to represent the songs have to excite someone somewhere at sometime!

Something...dangerous?!

Mindfields by The Prodigy

Was the rest of 1997 this dangerous?

Ten songs is a harsh constraint, but a necessary one. Depending on the year you're looking at, hitting that exact number was either easy or a brutal exercise in "kill your darlings." Some years I genuinely struggled to find ten tracks, while others there were far too many!

The mid-to-late 1960s were particularly difficult for me to narrow down. This was the music I listened to growing up. Furthermore, it's the specific era that a lot of the bands I subsequently listened to during the 1990s were referencing, sampling, and pulling inspiration from. Whittling a momentous year like 1966 down was just rude. anyway!

But yeah, without the limit, an archive just becomes a playlist. It becomes passive. Forcing a ten-song cap means you have to make hard decisions about the narrative of that specific year. I have also tried to mold the 1000 songs as a narrative as a whole, so adding blue boy in 1997 looks back to Marlena Shaw's "Woman of the Ghetto" and that's on purpose!

10 Songs a Year

So yeah, I am trying to create an interesting, cohesive audio story spanning exactly 100 years, from 1930 to 2030. With heaters. That are a bit catchy.

• Resonance: Does it actually mean something. Does it bring to mind physical spaces, late-night radios, and specific human context over simple passive background listening?
• Me: Is the catalog a true reflection of personal, ear-crafted taste rather than an algorithmically optimized collection?

When building a 100-year archive, you need a place to stand. A vantage point. It came about by trying to truly reconnect with music, searching for historical connection points. This is why I often suggest people start their journey through the archive in 1996.

1996 was a pivotal year for me personally, but more importantly, it serves as the perfect starting point for the entire project. Standing in the mid-90s allows you to look deep into the past, while simultaneously casting an eye forward into the digital future. Well, a little forward, anyway. Then we stop. We stop at 2030 because this archive is not an open-ended projection of the future; it is about encapsulating a highly specific, relatively short era: 1930 to 2030.

The anchor year is 1996. Consider how Your Woman by White Town sounds so intrinsically of its era—a bedroom-produced electronic hit—yet it relies entirely on a muffled, crackling trumpet sample.

That sample is ripped straight from the 1932 track My Woman by Lew Stone (featuring Al Bowlly). By placing these two tracks in the same overarching archive, suddenly 1996 and 1932 are inextricably linked. The archive isn't a straight, boring chronological line; it's a web of influences, much like how Bronski Beat laid the groundwork for the synth-pop that would follow them.

This is why understanding the lineage matters. A hundred years is enough time to watch these cultural echoes bounce back and forth.