23. MYLENE FARMER – “Libertine” (1985)

Events overtook me – they overtook everyone – and two weeks ago, when I posted this song to Bluesky, seems a very long time indeed. I’ll try to reconstruct this ancient era.

W[…]

Re-rewind! Pausing midway through the main blurbs to go back and fill in another 10 of the nearly-made-its…

70. ORLANDO – “Just For A Second” (1996)

We’re now into the section of tracks which had a real, honest-to-goodne[…]

27. THE WATERBOYS – “Church Not Made With Hands” (1984)

This feels, to me anyway, like my most idiosyncratic choice – a 1984 single that’s very very much in their “The Big Music” phase, which is neither an ethos or a so[…]

31. ERIC B AND RAKIM – “Paid In Full” (1987)

It’s been heartening to see a lot of people picking this, though opinion has been fairly evenly split as to whether the original album cut or the Coldcut “7 Minutes Of Madness” rem[…]

35. HAPPY MONDAYS – “Kinky Afro” (1990)

At the suggestion of Bluesky’s own Jel I have been allotting each song in my UncoolTwo50 list a BAGGY RATING, indicating how they align with the most important (to me) micro-scene of my tee[…]

39. THE KLF – “Last Train To Trancentral” (1991)

I think the mystique of the KLF had probably gone about as far as it could – once you have a full length book treating the group as essentially a magical working you’re runni[…]

42. SIOUXSIE AND THE BANSHEES – “Cities In Dust” (1986)

One of the best singles artists of the early 80s – “Fireworks”, “Melt”, “Slowdive”, “Swimming Horses”, “Spellbound”. Like a lot of great sing[…]

45. PRINCE – “Alphabet St” (1988)

In the pop polls, Prince was nominated well over 30 times, something no other artist came near. He won one poll – LP closers, with “Purple Rain” – and came second in Soundtracks (�[…]

48. MOBB DEEP – “Shook Ones Pt II” (1995)

The UncoolTwo50 challenge period covers the time – roughly speaking, 1989 to 1996 – when I took a lot of my cues about music and its quality from the weekly music press.[…]

49. QUAD CITY DJ’S – “C’mon N’ Ride It (The Train)” (1996)

There was a bit of chat the other day when Pitchfork released its list of Top Tracks Of The 2020s So Far; as is often the way it was sparked by th[…]