Monthly Archives: October 2015

A song for today #20

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The1975

To be honest, the 1975 haven’t done anything for me before now. I’d been asked to cover them several times and, frankly, I really wasn’t fussed.

So, it’s actually quite the volte face that I’m covering them – but that’s because this song ‘Love Me’ is so utterly fantastic. It’s got wonky synthesizers, it’s like Duran Duran at their very best not just covering but channeling David Bowie’s ‘Fame’ (which actually did come out in, er, 1975 – see what they did there?)

It’s still so spectacularly new out that -even though it’s been ‘The Hottest Record In The World Right Now!’ on Radio 1, and has topped the iTunes chart, there’s no proper video, so check this out:

And if this goes the way of ‘Happy’ or ‘Get Lucky’ or ‘Uptown Funk’ I would not be surprised. I still can’t dance, but if I could, I’d want to dance to this.

The Cure vs. Ride

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Robert Smith - the cure

It’s now 25 years since Ride released their debut album, Nowhere. To these ears, the shoegazing legends were at their finest on their debut album, and their first four EPs.

November 6 will see the album re-issued, and Robert Smith of The Cure has remixed the album’s closing track ‘Vapour Trail.’ Although it’s not on the forthcoming re-issue, it can be downloaded as a two-track single via iTunes. There are two versions – a longer version that comes in at nearly seven and a half minutes…

…and a shorter one at five minutes.

Robert Smith and The Cure have been busy of late. Whilst rumours of a sequel to 4:13 Dream continue to circulate, the band have announced they will tour the US in 2016 (see their website for details). Support comes from 17 Seconds favourites The Twilight Sad, who earlier this year featured Robert Smith’s cover of their song ‘There’s A Girl In The Corner’ as the b-side to their single ‘It Never Was The Same.’ You can hear that here.

And if anyone doubted The Cure’s legacy, it’s telling that in recent months, both Natalie Imbruglia (on her album Male) and Yo La Tengo (on their album Stuff Like That There) have covered ‘Friday I’m In Love.’ You can hear them by clicking on the links. Maybe I should do a post dedicated to cover versions of The Cure…

* note: the original release of the album on cassette and LP had ‘Vapour Trail’ as the closing track. The CD added three tracks from the Fall EP, the lead track on the EP being ‘Dreams Burn Down’ which was on the album. Just to add to the confusion, some versions of the album on CD also add all four tracks of the subsequent Today Forever EP. However, as far as I am concerned, the original album is eight tracks long, and closes with ‘Vapour Trail.’