This is a variation on something I was messing around with a couple of years ago. It all began – wait for it – on a Sunday morning. The TV was on with the sound down, I was my normal groggy morning self, and the missus was engrossed in school work with a deadline fast approaching. “Put some music on,” I was instructed. But what to play ? I wasn’t really in a jazzy frame of mind, and clearly Anal Cunt were out of the question. And then it hit me. Quicker than you can say ‘anal moronic idiot’, a self imposed challenge was issued. My mission would be to provide an ‘easy listening soundtrack’. Easy listening – that most odious and vile of genres. Sounds stripped of any cultural connection, with all jagged edges smoothed down. A musical land where Manilow is king, the here and now is neither here nor there, and any potential zeitgeist is buried beneath a mountain of denial and refusal. A bit like Richmond really, only with a big nose. “Challenge accepted,” I pompously muttered to myself, and set about my task as though the very future of music itself depended upon my success.
69: SUNDAY MORNING
1. The Velvet Underground and Nico – Sunday Morning
2. Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds – Deanna/Happy Day
3. Dennis Brown – Money In My Pocket
4. Nina Simone – My Baby Just Cares for Me
5. Gil Scott-Heron – Save the Children
6. The Specials – Do Nothing
7. Billie Holiday – Do Nothin’ Till You Hear From Me
8. Nick Drake – Hazey Jane 1
9. Neil Diamond – Do It
10. Buffalo Springfield – Flying on the Ground is Wrong
11. Mary Wells – You Beat Me to the Punch
12. Dionne Warwick – Do You Know the Way to San Jose
13. TLC – No Scrubs
14. Nouvelle Vague – Teenage Kicks
15. David Bowie – Kooks
16. Scritti Politti – The Word Girl
17. John Holt – It’s a Jam in the Streets
18. Lee Dorsey and Betty Harris – Love Lots of Lovin
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