I Say... Thank You For The Music #8 - #7 - #6

#8 Basket Case – Green Day

Original Release Year – 1994 (me aged 18)

For starters I can’t believe this track is 15 years old. This was back in the day when Green Day still passed (to a degree) as a punk act, and this was their breakthrough track. I came across thanks to its major airplay on MTV, which in those days played music and was presented by Davina McCall and Cat Deeley. The video, set in a lunatic asylum was bright, brash and loud. Like the song in fact, which is a perfect 3 minutes long.

The Pachabel’s Canon chord sequence is always a winner for me, but this took it to a whole new level, and it peaked for me when I saw the band live at the Wulfrun Hall in Wolverhampton. Aside from the awesome tunes, I couldn’t believe how many songs they got through that night (I’d never been to a “punk” gig, where some songs are only a minute and a half long), and I came away blown away by the whole experience. I’m so pleased I saw them then, and not now.



#7 Concrete Schoolyard – Jurassic 5

Original Release Year – 1998 (me aged 22)

Well, if you know me, you can see I’m clearly a west coast hip-hop fan. My middle name is B-Boy. Sort of. I can take or leave most rap and hip-hop tunes, particularly the gangsta stuff produced by 2Pac and B.I.G, but Jurassic 5 blew through like fresh air for me in the late 90s. “Original beats with real life MC’s”.

There is a beautiful synergy between the 4 MC’s (my favourite the basso profundo of Chali 2na), and at the time it reminded me a lot of “A Tribe Called Quest”. The background riff (taken from an old Ike Turner track) is pure summer, and the vibe is “feel the beats, hear the words, hum the tune”, something I think hip-hop should make more of. This single from 1998 inspired me to buy not just one, but three albums from this now defunct outfit.



#6 If I had $1,000,000 – Barenaked Ladies

Original Release Year – 1993 (me aged 18)

I am so pleased I discovered Barenaked Ladies when I did, and this is the song that did the trick. Thanks to a guy on my corridor at University called Sam Smith, who would play this song as part of his acoustic routines in the bar, I learnt this song pretty quickly. Being the creation of an oddball Canadian band, its lyrics are surreal, ludicrous and infectious; “If I had a million dollars, we wouldn’t have to walk to the store, if I had a million dollars, we’d take a limousine cos it costs more”.

Aside from some of the silliest lyrics in memory, it is a song that is easy to learn and play, and is a song that my brother and I played at our sister’s wedding. The live versions are never the same twice, as halfway through the vocalists will go off covering goodness knows what.