Never Ending Mixtape part 63

 

Welcome to a list of the latest additions to my Never Ending Mixtape, my Spotify playlist where I add songs as I listen to them and write a catch up blog every month.

This month we have new wave pop, an outrageous cover of Otis Redding's classic, the quite incredible Scott Walker (an artist whose catalogue I have yet to fully explore), we have plenty of soul, electronica, The Beatles in a psychedelic groove, an Amy Winehouse demo and The Stones cutting loose with the brilliant Jigsaw Puzzle. Plus loads more to explore.

As always I hope you rediscover an old favourite or something new to fall for. There are 2,155 songs at the time of writing to explore. Dig in. Thanks very much if you follow the playlist.

Search for Everything Flows Never Ending Mixtape on Spotify or CLICK HERE

Mannequin - Wire

Birds - Electrelane

You Make Me Weak At The Knees - Electrelane

To The East - Electrelane

You Made Me Like It - The 1990's

You're Supposed To Be My Friend - The 1990's

See You At The Lights - The 1990's

The Old Man's Back Again - Scott Walker

Dock Of The Bay - Peggy Lee

Burning - The Whitest Boy Alive

Gentle On My Mind - John Hartford

Message Personnel (Arab Strap remix) - Dot Allison

Time Doesn't Matter - Margie Day

Sunday Morning - Margo Guryan

It's Not Easy - Ofege

James Brown - Nancy Dupree

7 AM - Jacqueline Taieb

Inspiration Information - Shuggie Otis

The Seed - Cody Chestnut

Heart of Gold - Charles Bradley

This Time (I'm Gonna Try It My Way) - DJ Shadow

Drop - Cornelius

One Too Many Mornings - Chemical Brothers

See Those Eyes - Altered Images

Atomic - Blondie

Happy Place - Saint PHNX

Tears Dry On Their Own - Amy Winehouse

Love Is A Losing Game (demo) - Amy Winehouse

Get On Top - Tim Buckley

Bra- Cymande

No Dark Things - Echo and the Bunnymen

It's All Too Much - The Beatles

Jigsaw Puzzle - The Rolling Stones

rom com 2004 - Soccer Mommy

Heart of Glass

 

Cover version of the month #60
The Associates cover Blondie

There is a Scottish indie club night called Simply Thrilled that has quite an active Facebook Group page. I love the chat and passion for music that is regularly displayed on the page and recently started a conversation about cover versions and someone commented on The Associates cover version of Blondie's Heart of Glass.

The Associates are a Scottish band that I have yet to fully explore. Plenty of other people have explored and fallen for them, largely thanks to singer Billy MacKenzie who had a voice and style that many admired.

However I instantly fell for their cover version of Heart of Glass. But lets start with the original. 

Written by Debbie Harry and Chris Stein, Heart of Glass appears on their seminal Parallel Lines album in 1978, eventually released as the third single from the album, reaching number 1 in the UK and USA.

The song was actually written as far back as 1975 with the working title Once I Had A Love/The Disco Song. They had tried it in various guises before Parallel Lines producer Mike Chapman asked them to play everything they had, they then teased the pop out of it.

Parallel Lines was the bands breakthrough album, spawning classic singles Hanging On The Telephone (a cover of The Nerves song), Heart Of Glass, One Way Or Another and Sunday Girl.

Heart of Glass has disco at its heart and the punk pop band experimented with new drum machines and synths to get their sound. It grooves, it shimmers and it inspires. The extended outro on the album version just brings a smile to my face and makes me want to dance.

Debbie Harry smoulders in the video, her falsetto is glorious, she looks incredible and just seems in complete control. The band look like they are having fun, making exceptional music with a super cool singer. Blondie were on absolute fire.

The Associates, who formed in 1979, released their version 10-years after Parallel Lines. I absolutely adore it. The music is pretty true to the original, but MacKenzie's voice just changes the song completely. 

On the Blondie version it is Harry's falsetto that introduces the song, with The Associates it feels more like MacKenzie is talking to the listener personally. The vocal is more controlled and assured, but come 1 minute 23 seconds in and for the second verse, MacKenzie moves things up a little notch.

The synths bubble throughout and if Blondie looked and sounded like they were having fun with the original then that is echoed throughout The Associates version.

The post solo yeeeeaaaaahhh, ooooohhh, lost inside, adorable illusion and I cannot hide, we coulda made it cruising section is absolutely euphoric.

When the Simply Thrilled boys throw their first post COVID club night then I sincerely hope that this is blasted out of the speakers in The Admiral bar in Central Glasgow.

Search for Everything Flows cool cover versions on Spotify for a playlist of the covers I have blogged about and read on for a full list and links to previous cover of the month blogs.

Previous covers of the month

1. You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' 

2. Going Back To My Roots

3. Nirvana play The Vaselines

4. Slip Inside This House

5. Top 10 covers by Teenage Fanclub

6. Only Love Can Break Your Heart

7. Time For Livin' 

8. Sound and Vision 

9. All Along The Watchtower

10. I Am The Walrus 

11. Guiding Star

12. You’ll Never Walk Alone

13. Hurt

14. This Guy's In Love With You

15. I Wish I Never Saw The Sunshine

16. California Soul

18. Wonder wall 

19. Dancing In The Dark

20. Always On My Mind

21. Ceremony

22. Heroes

23. Different Drum

24. Wild Horses

25. Respect

26. Mr Tambourine Man

27. I Heard It Through The Grapevine

28. Superstar

29. Twist and Shout

30. Purple Rain

31. Baker Street

32. Not Fade Away

33. Stop Your Sobbing

34. I Don't Want To Grow Up

35. Serious Drugs

36. Dancing With Myself

37. How Does It Feel To Feel?

38. Love Buzz

39. ABBA-esque
40. Jumpin' Jack Flash

41. Discoland

42. Varshons 2 by The Lemonheads

43. The Langley Schools Music Project
44. Witchi Tai To
45. Our Lips Are Sealed
46. Sunshine Of Your Love
47. Here Comes The Sun
48. I Think We're Alone Now
49. Don't Let Me Down 
50. It's Oh So Quiet
51. Alcoholiday 
52. Summer Holiday
53. Who Do You Think You Are?
54. Head On
55. Nothing Compares 2 U

56. Hey Jude

57. Seven Days Too Long

58. L.O.V.E Love

59. Into Your Arms

Never Ending Mixtape - Part 19

Welcome to the latest additions to my Never Ending Mixtape (one of my Spotify playlists). The playlist is now over 450 songs, so please dig in and discover an old favourite or maybe something you haven't heard before.

Bowie kicks off the latest additions to the playlist. Memory Of A Free Festival gets better as it goes on and the closing mantra is brilliant. Changes remains a real favourite, while Kooks is just so playful and delightful. I've almost finished reading Dylan Jones' superb book on Bowie, well worth checking out, the stories are unbelievable!

Elsewhere we have some soul courtesy of Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, the funky Clean Up Woman and the glorious Last Night Changed It All that I discovered via a Bob Stanley/St Etienne compilation - just listen to that vocal!

Modern day Blondie are represented with the storming Long Time, age does not matter a jot in music and the fire in Debbie Harry and co still burns brightly on this evidence, sitting easily alongside the classic Hanging On The Telephone. William Onyeabor has a couple of cool tracks I discovered via my friend Craig, there is old school Underworld and Moby, while young guitar band The Orielles feature ahead of the debut album coming out on Heavenly in February.

Hot Chip have 3 songs from their stunning The Warning LP, we have a lysergic lullaby style remix of The Charlatans who also feature with Happen To Die and The Kinks, The Who, The Animals and the Small Faces close with a blitz of glorious mod guitar pop. Oh and no apologies for 3 tunes from Teenage Fanclub from their Man Made album that I listened to for the first time in ages recently.

We close with the psych garage brilliance of The Misunderstood - a band I became interested in in my late teens/early 20's after reading that they once nipped out of a radio session to have a smoke and left their guitars feeding back and then came back in and just resumed the song! Then the epic Slip Inside This House by the 13th Floor Elevators takes us on a trip, Primal Scream would later cover this on their Screamadelica album.

You'll need to scroll down to the bottom of the playlist to play these tunes, or dig in anywhere, put it on shuffle - enjoy. Click this LINK or head to Spotify and search for Everything Flows Never Ending Mixtape.

Memory Of A Free Festival - David Bowie
Changes - David Bowie
Kooks - David Bowie
Show Me The Way - Martha Reeves and the Vandellas
Happen To Die - The Charlatans
Slow Fade - Teenage Fanclub
Cells  - Teenage Fanclub
Born Under A Good Sign  - Teenage Fanclub
Clean Up Woman - Betty Wright
Last Night Changed It All - Esther Williams
Long Time - Blondie
Hanging On The Telephone - Blondie

Atomic Bomb - William Onyeabor
8-Ball - Underworld
Porcelain - Moby
Let Your Dogtooth Grow - The Orielles
Lets Fall In Love - William Onyeabor
Out Of Time - Blur
So Oh (Brian Jonestown Massacre remix) - The Charlatans
Boy From School - Hot Chip
Colours - Hot Chip
No Fit State - Hot Chip
One More Time - The Lemonheads
Stop Your Sobbing - The Kinks
Lola (Coca Cola version) - The Kinks
Strangers - The Kinks
We Gotta Get Out Of This Place - The Animals
I Can See For Miles - The Who
The Kids Are Alright - The Who
Sha La La La Lee - Small Faces
My Minds Eye - Small Faces
Never Had A Girl - The Misunderstood
I Cried My Eyes Out - The Misunderstood
Slip Inside This House - The 13th Floor Elevators