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[…]

50. THE AUTEURS – “The Rubettes” (1999)

This song is now as old as “Sugar Baby Love” by The Rubettes was when Luke Haines borrowed its hook for “The Rubettes”. It’s been squatting in my head for those 25 years; it[…]

A third instalment of tracks which didn’t make my #UncoolTwo50 list – which starts TOMORROW; there is still time to enter, all you need is a list of 50 singles from 1977-1999. In fact what you could do is take the 30 I’ve put up so […]

A second set of songs from the #UncoolTwo50 project, launching on Monday night/Tuesday on Bluesky – have you finalised your 50 tracks yet? This set is still in the “nearly-made-it” category, though we’re starting to see things[…]