🎵 Music
🖋️ Abba - Meet Pink Floyd
I don’t really understand the concept of listening within a genre or making music within a set of stylistic limitations.
Crucial Track 🎵 May 22, 2026
"Hurry On Sundown" by Hawkwind
Came to mind this morning after reading 🔗 this. As a lad - Hawkwind definitely hit a nerve. Still does. Lemmy's successor - not so much. This is the first track on their first album - (a couple of albums before Lemmy became a full timer) .. because there are again too many to choose - but like other occasional references to tracks in this world - the first of the first started me on this particular journey.
Crucial Track 🎵 May 21, 2026
"Green Tambourine" by The Lemon Pipers
Continuing yesterday's 'theme' .. another 'one hit wonder' - same kind of time - same kind of sound and definitely my jam - then and now. It's just that this one is from the other side of the Atlantic.
Funny👁️ how suddenly things just come to mind. Take 🔗🎵 Russ Conway - not thought of him for decades - my mum was a fan (which is why I even know his name), but I still have no idea how he suddenly cropped up in my brain.
Crucial Track 🎵 May 20, 2026
"Kites (Stereo) [2004 Remastered Version]" by Simon Dupree & The Big Sound
If you know Stackridge - you may know The Korgis.
I know both. Love Stackridge. Like The Korgis.
In case you don't know ...Stackridge made quirky, melodic English pop-rock that mixed progressive, folk, and vaudeville, whilst The Korgis made highly melodic British pop with thoughtful lyrics, strong vocal harmonies, and irresistibly catchy hooks.
Interesting then that the creative forces of Stackridge were the same as The Korgis - Progressive Rock 70s 'albums' band transitions to melodic harmonies 80s 'singles' band.
I have known the connection forever.
If you know Simon Dupree and the Big Sound - you may know Gentle Giant.
I know both. Love Simon Dupree. Love Gentle Giant.
In case you don't know ... Simon Dupree and the Big Sound blended blue-eyed soul and R&B with a psychedelic-pop sheen, whilst Gentle Giant played highly complex, fiercely inventive progressive rock that fused hard rock with classical, medieval, folk, and jazz .
Interesting then that the creative forces of Simon Dupree and the Big Sound were the same as Gentle Giant - Soul/R&B band from the 60s (just about a one hit wonder) transitions to one of the most avant-garde and influential progressive bands of the 70s.
I never - ever knew this - discovering it just this morning as I was being a squirrel around today’s crucial track. 🤯
I guess you can't hold great creatives down and great creatives are not one trick ponies.
Have a better than expected day (tip o’ the hat to ‘JW’)
Crucial Track 🎵 May 19, 2026
"Flowers in the Rain (2007 Stereo Mix)" by The Move
The last song you heard on the radio
Another prompt - but going to bend the rules on this one ...
Radio? What's that Daddy? So long ago that I can barely remember doing it - BUT - my choice would be a Crucial Track anyway - so let's call it a 'twofer'. Except this is a 2007 stereo remix - so it definitely wasn't this track. Mono all the way baby.
The first song ever played on Radio One in 1967 in the UK - and yes I was there on the end of the speaker listening to it. The Move - and their descendants have a permanent place in my heart. Tony Blackburn? Cough - not so much.
Crucial Track 🎵 May 18, 2026
"Chicago" by Groove Armada
And Another 'Prompt' Entry ...
Hit shuffle on your music library and post the first song played
I generally post an image in my 'Crucials' that is connected to the song - but in an odd way.
Bonus points today if anyone can tell me whatthat might be today.
Twelve years ago - 🔗📼🎵 I was there. Love you man.
Crucial Track 🎵 May 17, 2026
"The City: Grass and Concrete / Taxi To Brooklyn / Speak Easy It's a Whiskey Scene" by Mark-Almond
One of those bands that are so far under the radar in 2026 that subterranean doesn't even start to describe it - and they have so many 'CRUCIALS' - that I ended up choosing this one because it is over 10 minutes of total bliss. Originally from the Mayall School of Music - look it up kids.
And it's Mark Almond - NOT Marc Almond - who one day will get his own entry.
Crucial Track 🎵 May 16, 2026
"Oh Well (Live)" by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Talking of superb covers … as I wrote 🖇️ here not even a month ago - a glorious cover of track by Fleetwood Mac. Before John and Stevie. Even before Christine.
Bonus Round ...
🔗🍎🎵 PartONE that Tom covered.
🔗🍎🎵 PartTWO that Tom did not cover - totally different and Peter Green's favourite part.
both performed by Fleetwood Mac.
Crucial Track 🎵 May 15, 2026
"I Write the Songs" by Barry Manilow
Never a fan of Barry. Too saccharine, too schmaltzy. Not my style - but there is always an exception to the rule (still looking for Rush’s exception - but that remains another story.)
When I first heard this in 1976 - my instant reaction - was - ‘TYPICAL - BLOODY BARRY. ’I’ write the songs … seriously? The arrogance.
But it hooked me. Totally - and still to this day remains on my Apple Playlist called Just Good Songs.
Of course he didn’t write the song, something I learned a little later - and so my dichotomy was resolved. Of course it was a great song - it was written by a ‘Beach Boy’ - and the claim ‘I write the songs …’ as certainly more defensible. Even more so when I realised that;
The ‘I’ in the song is God, and that songs come from the spirit of creativity in everyone.
💬 Bruce Johnston
(Why not share Bruce's version? In my mind - just not as good - so sticking with the version that hooked me.)
Crucial Track 🎵 May 14, 2026
"Une Nuit a Paris, Pt. 1 / The Same Night In Paris, Pt. 2 / Later the Same Night In Paris, Pt. 3" by 10cc
Thought I would follow a prompt for a change:
Share a song you call something other than its official title. What do you call it?
That's the way the croissant crumbles
Epic - from one of the most underplayed bands in the history of 'oldy goldys' - 10CC - and this offering will always be 'One Night in Paris' - I am English for heaven's sake.
Crucial Track 🎵 May 13, 2026
"Perfect Day" by Lou Reed
Whenever it doesn’t seem right … Lou sets me straight.
Crucial Track 🎵 May 12, 2026
"The New Math (What He Said)" by OSI
I was sat on a plane reading an interview with Bowie who talked about this band he'd just heard. Made a note of it, and ordered it online. Their first album arrived and this was the first track and I was IN. How could you not be?
Crucial Track 🎵 May 11, 2026
"Thank You for the Music" by ABBA
Today’s post is a sister post to this one.
My memory … sitting alone tin a large Odeon(?) cinema - South London - Streatham. I really can’t recall the movie - except the closing credits - as Wiki says:
The song also plays over the closing titles as the camera pans out from the band performing in a hut on an island in the Stockholm archipelago to views of the archipelago itself.
That is my only memory and on that day, for whatever reason found it so uplifting. Where are we now? What 47 years later - and that memory is locked. That song. Locked. Loved it then. Love it now.
Abba? Sure I have great respect for what they did. The songs they wrote and recorded - but in all honesty - never really my bag.
Except this one.
Crucial Track 🎵 May 10, 2026
"When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease" by Roy Harper
I wouldn’t describe myself as a fan of cricket .. but this one is nothing to do with cricket and everything to do with life. Been in the soundtrack of my life for 51 and counting years and hard to reach the end without life memories coming to the fore.
Crucial Track 🎵 May 9, 2026
"The Ocean" by Richard Hawley
Hawley’s voice has me … every time. You can … I do .. just fall into his songs .. not just the ocean,
Crucial Track 🎵 May 8, 2026
"Infected" by The The
The first track of Matt’s second album left the speakers in my living room and arrived in my ears nearly forty years ago. I never looked back .. the power of this opening track hit me like a sledgehammer and does a stunning job of introducing the ‘tour de force’ that is the album.
