Seven Songs for the Week #128 - 17th Sept 25

If bands were like stocks, the investment I made in Sparks when they were at their nadir (January 1994) would have paid out massive dividends in recent years. Number 2 album in the charts, new EP coming out soon, and prominently featured in this (kinda comeback) new single from Gorillaz.

Good article on Willie in the current Mojo.

Found a new thing on YouTube this week, Track Star* where people are interviewed on the street and asked to identify songs over headphones and chat about them. David Byrne was the gateway guest. Soon enough I was watching Charli xcx talking about pop music. She played this song as a key influence on how she got into music, investigating what was out there on a parent's laptop (I feel old). I'd never heard of it, or Uffie. This song is 19 years old, it originally appeared on YouTube, and yet you can hear someone totally ahead of their time and the direct line to 2024's brat summer.

Not sure why this song came to mind this week, but it did. It's locked in that noughts iPod-listening netherworld where things were post CD and pre-streaming. It's a track with more hooks than a foot of velcro.

The video is quite excellent, directed by Edgar Wright with some top celebrity cameos: https://youtu.be/k28EvIFcdug

Bryan popped up on my Atmos listening this week. Can you remember where the handclaps are?

Re-watched Fantastic Mr Fox this week, it's very very good, and I'd forgotten Jarvis appeared in it as "Petey". Zibbasoozippaye, etc.

This is quite something. Welcome To The Machine was always my least favourite song on the Wish You Were Here album: Overwrought, unsubtle, a harbinger of future-Rog's excesses. However this demo is much, much, better: Rog is in his lower voice, it's more weary and resigned in the vocal, with the music ominously looming behind.