Songs you may not know but i think are good and music guilty pleasures.

 As explained before Sian and I have a bit of a quiet period going on at the moment before we have a crazy 18 days starting in June, Foo Fighters and Calgary, what a great combination, think we may have a sneaky weekend somewhere first though just to chill out.

Now as you all know i love my music, my collection is vast and we love going to gigs no matter how small or large they are. I have quite a wide range of music tastes pop, rap, opera, ballads, soul, tiny bit of country and western (3 songs)  but 90% is bands, rock, punk, indie you get the drift anyone who can sing live without needing effects and anyone who can play their instruments live, hate backing track bands/singers or artists who use voice decoders which many use these days to make them sound amazing as they can't hold a note.

So this blog is to play you a few of my guilty pleasure songs and a few i doubt you've every heard of.

I'll leave embarrassing myself until the end so here are a few obscure songs that i have listened to for years that are still on my playlist.

This is an 80's band from Sheffield in 1982 who never charted inside the top 80 which is a shame as their second single i think is pretty good and better than some of the dodgy stuff that got in to the top 10 in that era. Their vocalist, Geoff Barradale is now the manager of Artic Monkeys.

Vitamin Z - "Circus Ring"

My next song is from a band who came from Glasgow who were formed in 1981, Talking Drums. I think i took to this song as the vocals are very strong and i liked the harmonies. Not sure where i first heard this song, think it may have been on The Tube TV show, i may be wrong, unfortunately there is no video anywhere of this song but i found an audio video for you.

Talking Drums - "Pretend a stranger"

Now you all know the crazy but shy, angry but quiet Bjork but did you know she was in a band  before she became a huge solo star. Her band was called  The Sugarcubes. Now this song is a bit weird and screechy but there is something about it that i loved but can't put my finger on it. Her vocals are like car tyres screeching along the road with its brakes fully on trying to avoid a cat but then hits the cat and you get both screech's from tyres and cat combined lol 

The Sugarcubes - "Birthday"

The next song is by a band who really didn't hit the dizzy heights they should have in the UK when it was hair metal era of Motely Crue, Poison, Twisted Sister etc They were a bit more extreme with their stage show, more shock rock and their name was suggested as being We Are Sexual Perverts = W.A.S.P. but this song i think shows they can produce a great song with a softer feel to it.

W.A.S.P. - "Forever Free"

So my next song is from a Black rock band, you don't see many Black rock bands around but this band were excellent and should have been massive all over the world i think. You think of some of the pioneers of true rock and roll who were black, Chuck Berry, Little Richard and they were in the US charts a year before Elvis and Little Richards first single release was 1951 a good 3 years before Elvis so Elvis wasn't even the pioneer.

Living Colour - "Love rears up"

Can't remember where or when i heard this next singer but her voice just blew me away but it didn't do that well in the UK charts, i thought her voice was very unique at the time and should have gone allot further than she did.

Toni Childs - "Don't walk away"

I won't go through all the songs i have that you may not have heard of but i'll give you 3 more to be going on with.

Tokio Hotel are a German band who are huge in Greece. I remember in the Zakynthos Town "Rat, ti, tat, ti, tat" market there were more t-shirts of this band than any other band and they were selling like hot cakes so i thought i would have a listen and this song is the one song of theirs that stood out for me.

Tokio Hotel - "Dark side of the sun"

I was introduced to this band by a good friend of mine who is no longer with us sadly but he was a crazy mother f**ker as i used to call him, he was killed in a freak snow mobile accident in Finland and his name was Mikko. The band are from Finland and called HIM, they are a goth rock band who again were quite big in Greece. They have hit the UK charts a few times with highest entry being at No.9 but i think they still went unnoticed.

HIM - "Join me in Death"

And finally a more modern band who also won Eurovision, no not ABBA, blurgh, that is one band i will never like i'm sorry to say i just don't get it. No, this band are Italian and the song has a very similar sounding start to Nirvana's "Smells like teen spirit" perhaps that's why i like it.

Maneskin - "Supermodel"

Does anyone remember Pop Up Video on VH1? It was the best music video programme i have ever seen, i don't think it's on TV anymore, it maybe, i don't know. So for those of you who missed it here's a taste of what it was like. They are videos with little pop up fun facts added to them.

R.E.M. - "Man on the moon"

Nirvana - "Smell like teen spirit"

Motely Crue - "Dr. Feelgood"

Queen - "Bohemian Rhapsody"

BRING BACK POP UP VIDEO!

Why do i do these things to myself Uuuggghhh! So now for my guilty pleasures, we all have them, we're not all cool dudes and classy ladies, we all have musical skeletons in the closet and here are just a few of mine but at least i'm being honest. To be fair most aren't that bad.

We'll start with maybe a cool song that is my happy track. If ever i'm feeling a bit "meh" then this song can bring me right out of it. The lead vocalist Shannon Hoon also lent his voice for backing vocals with Guns N Roses, i also saw this band live supporting Guns N Roses.

Blind Melon - "No Rain"

I suppose this next song could also be cool as the lead singer of this band is Nikki Sixx from Motley Crue's idol but it's my guilty pleasure. I remember this song so well from my childhood i can even remember what the 7 vinyl looked like as it had a transfer sticker of a soldier with a bazooka stuck on it in the middle by someone from one of those scratch off transfer books you used to be able to get.

Sweet - "Little Willy" (No laughing)

Hmmm ok, got to find something that is really bad out of my guilty pleasure songs. How about this one.

This song is a bit of a bizarre one as they were one hit wonders, the video has forever stuck in my head from the first time i saw it because he wore a boxing head guard and it's all a bit cheesy but a good sing along happy song.

Jimmy the Hoover - "Tantalise me (Wo wo ee yeh yeh)"

I thought i had more musical skeletons in my closet than this, there must be more somewhere.....

Ah i know, a bit of country and western that i used to hate so much but now i like 3 songs lol

Tim McGraw & Gwyneth Paltrow - "Me & Tennessee"

Off to the musicals we go. I've seen quite a few in my time even a musical based on "Lord of the Rings" which cost a fortune to put on in the west end and flopped without a trace but it was really good and really bad all in one musical, just weird. 

Rocky Horror Picture Show - "I'm going home!"

I know what your thinking, "He's holding back, there must be a girl band in there somewhere" GOD DAMN YOU! You know me so well. Where there is one song in my playlist and thank god it's not the Spice Girls, they truly are crap but great PR and marketing got them where they were, not great singing or songs. This is a girl band from the emerald isle to be sure. I'm starting to feel ashamed.

B*witched - "Blame it on the weatherman"

The next song needs no introduction whatsoever, if just say Mormons, Salt Lake City and huge white teeth and the guitar riff is pretty heavy for this pop band, would love to hear Foo Fighters or Metallica take on this song think it would be f**king awesome.

The Osmonds - "Crazy Horses"

How do i start this intro as the bottom of my barrel is truly scraped......OK, dickhead male vocalist and one of the most beautiful women out there at this time, have you guessed yet???? Dollar. David Van Day and Thereza Bazar, i think they came from a pop group called "Guys 'n' Dolls". If you ever watched "Re-born in the USA" which is a fascinating watch if you can find it online, David Van Day is a complete knob. I think this song is just a good pop song but the video is the most shocking awful crap i've ever seen.

Dollar - "Mirror, Mirror"

I'm not sure my street cred can get any lower after that song so i'll leave it there.

This will now take years to build my self esteem back up after me baring my music soul lol.

So until i can show my face in public again......

Serve All, Love All, Peace All......Kevlar Out!