An Armchair Viewer's Take On Glastonbury 2013

 

So if you didn't realise it was festival season yet, along came Glastonbury, which should have well and truly set your festival season klaxons off. As usual I was nowhere near organised enough to jump through the hoops they make you tackle if you want tickets, and like most people I've been stuck at home making do with the BBC's coverage.

They've put a generous amount of people's sets up on their website and I've been trawling through them all week. I was disappointed to find some bands' performances weren't online (I'd have loved to have seen First Aid Kit, Jagwar Ma, Suuns and Dog Is Dead in particular), but there was still more up than anyone could feasibly watch.

Anyway, here's my two cents on what I had chance to watch:

• So obviously the big headliner everyone was interested in this year was The Rolling Stones, and understandably their showing has divided opinion. Many are like "Dude they're like 70 WTF? They should quit before they pull a hip out!" while others were more "About time they came to Glasto!"
  I personally enjoyed their set (well, what the Stones allowed the Beeb to broadcast). Even though poor Keef looked a bit lost at times to say the least, and Ronnie and Jagger were basically having to carry the band. I appreciated the lack of any guest stars, especially given the standard of some of them on their US tour (Taylor Swift & Katie Perry, seriously?), and the band weren't totally resting on their laurels with "2000 Light Years" sounding great in a rare outing, and the closing "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" was about as great as the band are ever going to be in their advancing years.

 

• On the other end of the age-scale were The Strypes. With most of their members still in their mid-teens you'd have forgiven them for being intimidated by the thought of playing the John Peel Stage, but they looked right at home and played with the assurance of men twice their age. A cracking bluesy-rock outfit much in the vein of early Stones, I reckon the odds of these guys headlining a future Glastonbury were slashed after this performance.
  
  Also of note on the John Peel Stage were the uncompromising Savages. Known for taking themselves very seriously, they nevertheless delivered, with the terrific riffs of "She Will", "I Am Here" and "Husbands" coming through in spades. Deap Vally were similarly entertaining and certainly a raucous way to begin an early Sunday afternoon. When they avoided some of their more sub-Jack White numbers they delivered some great good old fashioned rock n roll.
  
  In complete contrast to the moody Savages was the positively giddy  Jessie Ware, who's voice was a delight to hear when she could keep herself from the obligatory "HELLO GLASTONBURY! OMG, YOU'RE SO FAR AWAY!". Her onstage chatter stayed just the right side of endearing ("I once saw Florence [Welsh]" climb that [stage scaffolding]. That ain't happening today!") and when she resisted the urge to get gobby mid-song she outshone her band.

• West Holts Stage featured a fair few acts that were sleeper hits in my book. The vibrant Toro Y Moi had a great outing, aided by some colourful background displays and a funky set list full of really danceable numbers. I'll have to check them out again sometime.
  
  Twitter seemed abuzz with praise for Public Enemy but I'm ashamed to say I gave up after half an hour. With Flavor Flav missing, Chuck D was left to practically carry the load himself. While he's an amazing MC, the fact that he only did his parts of their songs meant you got a couple of verses before he started preaching about "Fuck the Government" and stuff. Sorry, but I wanted to hear music not a lecture.
  
  The undisputed King of West Holts though, was Nile Rodgers, whose band Chic put on possibly the set of the festival. Pure non-stop hits - "Good Times", "I'm Coming Out", "Spacer", even Bowie's "Let's Dance" - you'd be startled these all came from the mind of Rodgers if you weren't dancing so much!

• Some acts needed very little time warming up in the ball-pin so to speak to get in their groove. When Phoenix roared out of the blocks with a blinding "Entertainment", then played "Lisztomania" only a few songs later, I was worried they'd run out of steam and familiar songs pretty quickly. However, they clearly knew what they were doing and went on to deliver a thoroughly likable set.
  Vampire Weekend similarly got right to business and delivered big time with their sharpest, most rambunctious songs like "Cousins", "Diana Young" and "A-Punk" all present and perfectly formed. With the songs from their most recent album, Modern Vampires Of The City particularly shining, they're quickly developing into a must-see act.

 

 

 

• Other bands, however, talk a little while to really settle in. Dinosaur Jr. were unlucky to be beset with technical difficulties at the start, with J Macsis' voice almost inaudible. They never seemed to recover, despite whipping out their cracking cover of The Cure's "Just Like Heaven".
  
  Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds sounded surprisingly shakey at first, but after a remarkable turnaround midway through "Jubliee Street" - where it morphed into a Pogues style ramshackle breakdown - the band seemed to kick it in a higher gear. "From Her To Eternity", "Jack The Ripper" and "Stagger Lee" (where Cave seemed to have hypnotised a young woman in white in the crowd on someone's shoulders) were all staggering (apologies for the pun), while "People Ain't No Good" and "Push The Sky Away" were delightful and poignant.
  
  Unsurprisingly given some of her health issues and past on-stage breakdowns Cat Power didn't appear to start out her set in the best of voice. She covered for herself pretty smartly however, by keeping many of the heavier songs from her recent Sun album prominent in her set so that her voice didn't have to do all the work. This bought her the time she needed to settle in and give a really terrific performance with the likes of "Manhattan", the recently emerged "Bully" and "Nothin' But Time" all sounding gorgeous.

• Honourable mentions must also go out to Portishead for a brilliant set that included a fantastically evil image of David Cameron with frickin' laserbeams coming out of his eyes during the equally unnerving "Machine Gun", Arctic Monkey for somehow making that string arrangement of "Mardy Bum" work, Rodriguez for the best onstage joke...
  
  So Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse are at a marriage counsellors office, and the marriage counsellor turns to Mickey and says, "But Mickey, being stupid is not grounds for divorce". And Mickey said "I didn't say she was being stupid, I said she was fucking Goofy"
  
  ...and a dishonourable mention must unfortunately go out to alt-J for their terrible mash up of "Slow" by Kylie Minogue and Dr Dre.

 The thing is though there's still so much more to check out. I've still yet to see Lianne Le Havas, Haim, Smashing Pumpkins, Peace, Daughter and Bobby Womack to name but a few.
It's this kind of range and depth of artists performing that really make Glastonbury the best festival in the world. I'd love to go some day, but for now I'll make do with what the BBC has generously left at my fingertips.

David Bowie Is A Work Of Art

This past weekend I grinned and bared the queasy feeling travelling on the pendilino gives me to venture down to London. I'd been looking forward to this trip for a long while and one of the things I was determined to do there was visit the V&A to attend the "David Bowie Is" exhibition.

Doing so was actually quite an undertaking - online tickets had sold out due to phenomenal demand, with 67,000 tickets sold in advance making it the V&A's biggest box office attraction for advanced booking, and the exhibition has now received over 200,000 visitors.

The only tickets still available were the 450 released daily at the V&A itself. On the Friday of my trip I arrived a little over 20 minutes before the museum opened and this is the queue I was faced with...

David Bowie is making me queue

In addition the ticket desk only had three tills, so I was in this queue for a good 80 minutes before - for the grace of God and the 430 bus to South Kensington I'd caught earlier - I had my ticket! Having booked for as late in the evening as I could, I then commuted to my conference on a cloud of optimism (which in reality was a Picadilly Line service to Green Park) and looked forward to meeting my friend and coming back for the exhibition.

At the start of the exhibition you are given a handheld audio guide, which interacts with the displays. So for instance, if you wandered over to the section on the "Berlin era", you'd hear the audio accompanying a video of an interview Bowie gave at the time about how he was at last enjoying life and how he was expressing himself with his paintings. 

(I loved the Berlin-era, you could really tell David was a lot healthier and his hair was lovely and fair in contrast to the lurid blond dye of the Thin White Duke era.)

This was a nice accompaniment, although quite often the audio would kick in when you were around the corner from the relevant display, so for example you'd wonder why as you headed further into the gallery you could hear snippets of "Boys Keep Swinging" before seeing it was part of an overview of David's androgyny.

Naturally much of the start of the exhibition was devoted to David's upbringing - to my friend's delight he grew up in Bromley, Kent just like her - along with early inspirations such as Elvis Presley and Lonnie Donegan (to paraphrase a quote from Bowie "Elvis made me want to be in music, Lonnie Donegan inspired me into thinking I actually could be a musician") and his first forays into music with The Kon-Rads and Davie Jones And The King Bees (he later changed his stage name to David Bowie to avoid being confused with Davy Jones of The Monkeys)

 Also prominent in welcoming you to the exhibition was this outfit Kansai Yamamoto created for David...

 

Yamamoto-San's work would also be prominent later on, including many outfits inspired by Bowie's love of Kabuki (a form of Japanese theatre) - one in particular left little to the imagination with its short length.

The layout of the 300 plus items on offer followed a roughly chronological order - from breakthrough hit "Space Oddity" to rough notes planning the "Diamond Dogs" tour and storyboards for the "Hunger City" film said album would have inspired, via the Ziggy Stardust era and - one of my favourite items on display - the jumpsuit he wore during his star making performance of "Starman" on Top Of The Pops. 

(Said song is one of my earliest musical memories - I once sang it when my mum took me out in my buggy past what would later be my primary school. My singing drew the attention of my future Headmaster, who according to mum had a look on his that read "Christ what am I in for if he comes here?!")

"I had to phone someone so I picked on you"

While you did sort of move through the passage of time as you progressed through the exhibition, the displays were much more thematic than they were a definitive timeline of David's career. Although said themes did re-occur when he underwent a significant metamorphosis in his career (which happened a lot!). Prominent examples included:

• His interest in performance art, including encounters with Andy Warhol and forays into mime and an interest in clowns that would come to the fore most during Scary Monsters...)

David Bowie is in full motion

• Technology used for his music, such as the synthesisers he used in Berlin and a curious computer programme that took articles from the Internet and cut up words from then in an attempt to find lyrics - like a digital version of how he used to write lyrics, cut them out on pieces of paper and shuffle them around.

• His use of the music video, with costumes, props and storyboards used in "Ashes To Ashes", "Life On Mars" and "Where Are We Now?"

• Use of androgyny to liberate a generation, especially in the Hunky Dory stage of his career and inspiration from Japan and the drag artists of Berlin.

• Fashion (obviously) - the place was littered with his outfits, with many of my favourites being from his "Stage" tour and many of the simple black and white suits from the Thin White Duke era. The further into the exhibition you got the more the focus became his live outfits, accompanied by massive screens showing infamous performances such as the final leg of the "Ziggy Stardust" tour where he broke up the Spiders From Mars on stage (without telling them beforehand!). Another eye-catcher was a ridiculous outfit he wore on SNL to promote the "Stage" tour which made him look like a bottle of maple syrup dressed in a tuxedo.

David Bowie is the height of fashion

• Album artwork, with lots of great images from the shoots for Aladdin Sane and Diamond Dogs, a massive print of the Scary Monsters sleeve and lots of interesting prototypes to The Next Day artwork.

• His film career, with posters and paraphernalia from "The Man Who Fell To Earth", "Labyrinth" and a bizarre film where he was cast as Andy Warhol.

David Bowie is The Man Who Fell To Earth

With so much to look at it was a good job I didn't attend on a day when they only gave out timed tickets, my friend and I spent two hours taking it all in!

I'd be hard pressed to name a favourite item/aspect of the exhibition, but for me seeing a lot of the handwritten stuff was a particular delight. Below are two examples - David's hand-drawn storyboard for the "Ashes To Ashes" video and rough lyrics to "Lady Stardust". Just something about these types of items added a human element to proceedings - Bowie's so often wrapped up in extraordinary characters, make-up, outfits and concepts it can be easy to think of him as being not of this planet. But it was fascinating to see the humble beginnings of some of his most famous work in his scrawled handwriting and sketches.

"David Bowie Is" runs at the V&A until August 11th before being toured 'round the globe starting in Toronto. I thoroughly recommend it for any Bowie obsessive and urge you to try and make it before it closes.

1001 Albums Update: 548 And Counting

So after holding off for so long because of exams 'n' shit (I thought I'd escaped those things ages ago) I've now made another huge chunk of progress in the past fortnight or so. Thanks to the glorious sunsheeeee-iiiiiinah we had the other week this is a little late, but anyway, let's get to it!

• Big Brother & The Holding Company - Cheap Thrills: aka "Janis Joplin sings the hell out of every note like her life depended on it".

• Sinead O'Connor - I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got: I'm pretty sure going off the absurd title this was during here "burning pictures of the Pope" phase. With music this mundane no wonder she needed such crazy publicity stunts to get by.

• The Who - Live At Leeds/Sarah Vaughan - Sarah Vaughan At Mister Kelly's/James Brown - Live At The Apollo/Deep Purple - Machine Head, Made In Japan

So a whole crop of great live albums turned up this time around.
Of course the one which gets heralded as the holy grail of all live albums is The Who's Live At Leeds. Quite rightly too, as it does what all great live albums should do and that's showcase an act at their peak and giving you a greater energy than they ever could on a studio record. "Summertime Blues" and "My Generation" were incredible. Maximum R'n'B indeed.

Equally powerful was Jame Brown's Live At The Apollo, which illustrated what a well oiled machine him and his touring band were, blistering through the likes of "I'll Go Crazy" and "Night Train".

Sarah Vaughan At Mister Kelly's is a great illustration of how the live album could showcase a jazz vocalist, with Vaughan sounding sumptuous on "September In The Rain" and hilariously improvising when forgetting the lyrics to "How High The Moon".

Deep Purple's Made In Japan is also talked about fondly, and was one of those rare live albums that proved to be the breakthrough for the band (that's how good the album was). Although listening to their best studio album Machine Head it's hard to see why people weren't getting it at first, "Highway Star" and "Smoke On The Water" were immense.

• M.I.A. - Kala: 

I love M.I.A. Her albums can be a bit patchy, but Kala in particular has a real potent mix of badassery ("XR2"), charm ("Jimmy") and flat out infectiousness ("Boyz", "Paper Planes") that makes for a great listen.

Also, this reminds me of the time my friend found this picture on Myspace(!) years ago:

As some of you know I'm a massive R.E.M. fan, so this picture put a massive smile on my face. It brought an even bigger one to my face when said friend said "This could so be us in 10 years time". I'd be the one looking like Michael Stipe, obviously, there's no way I'll ever look as good as Maya!

• Jimi Hendrix - Electric Ladyland, Axis:Bold As Love, Are You Experienced?

Oh boy, to say I was looking forward to hearing these would be an understatement. It's hard to think of Hendrix as being on the same planet as most other musicians, he was in a league of his own at playing guitar.


Axis:Bold As Love was perhaps the trippiest of the bunch and perhaps didn't make as strong an impression as the other two, but "Little Wing" and "If 6 Was 9" are undeniably great.
Electric Ladyland is full of the blistering riffs and highlights the incredible command Jimi had of his guitar - "Crosstown Traffic", "All Along The Watchtower" and my all time favourite Hendrix song "Voodoo Child" all stand out as you'd expect.
For me though Are You Experienced? is the best of the lot. Truly one of the great debut albums, tracks like "Foxey Lady", "Manic Depression", "Fire" and "Third Stone From The Sun" illustrate how masterful Jimi could fuse psychedelia and funk in with incredible guitar play.

• Korn - Follow The Leader 

I'm surprised by how much I enjoyed listening to this. I think I'm developing a taste for heavier music. "Freak On A Leash" is fantastic, possibly usurps their appearance in South Park as their biggest triumph. Well, only narrowly.

• Elvis Presley - Elvis Is Back!: You bet your arse he's back! Although in hindsight the tracks I most enjoyed/the more famous tracks ("Are You Lonesome Tonight", "It's Now Or Never") only appeared on the reissue. Ah well.

• Miriam Makeba - Miriam Makeba: This was an unexpected gem. South Afirca's Makeba mixes both America and African style jazz to great effect. Really stands out from what other female singers were doing at the time.

• Michael Jackson - Thriller

Here's Jacko's magnum opus. The title track probably seems a bit campy now, but all the other big hitters - "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'", "The Girl Is Mine", "Billy Jean", "P.Y.T." - still sound terrific. There's a reason this sold a gazillion records and it's not just because of how well Jackson's image was marketed (at the time anyway), it's because this is an album full of classics.

• Duran Duran - Rio

It'll probably depend on who you asked but these guys either defined the best or the worst of the 80s. Personally I enjoyed it but couldn't escape the feeling I should feel guilty about it. This also brings back memories of that parody of the title track they did on The Now Show taking the mick out of Rio Ferdinand when he got banned that time. I tried to get it to catch on with my mates but had no luck.

• Talk Talk - The Colour Of Spring 

Here's another act Guy Garvey's been trying to convince me are amazing and it's only just sunk in that they really are. This album was much easier to get into than their other stuff I've heard, much less synths and much more real sounding. "Life's What You Make It" in particular is pretty powerful.

• The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out: More like timeless. Often imitated, never bettered, this album is the pinnacle of jazz. "Take Five" and "Unsquare Dance" are now so ubiquitous you can't imagine life without them.

• Ali Farka Toure - Savane, Talking Timbuktu (with Ry Cooder): These albums are the very definition of chill out music. Fantastic guitar play and such a relaxing pace.

• Amy Winehouse - Back To Black

Well I was dreading this. I'm not a big fan of Amy Winehouse to say the least. I absolutely cannot stand the title track to this album. It got overplayed horrendously on radio except with "kept his dick wet" and "you love coke and I love blow" censored which made it sound even more ridiculous. C'mon, either be the retro-heartache chanteuse or be the sleazy classless druggie, don't try and pull both off at the same time.

The only tracks of hers I ever enjoyed were "You Know I'm No Good" and "Love Is A Losing Game" because Winehouse kept those two personalities completely separate. The latter being utterly timeless and proof that her voice was something to behold when clean.
Anyway I'm glad I got that off my chest.

• Morrissey - You Are The Quarry: This is often heralded as a great return to form for Moz, but I really didn't think this was anything special. Nothing lyrically holds a candle to his past work. "First Of The Gang To Die" is great though.

• Ozomatli - Street Signs: Well this one came out of nowhere for me. An absolutely fantastic blend of rock, gypsy, Moroccan and Latino jazz and hip-hop. The diversity alone makes this a complete and utter triumph, but the intensity of the delivery is the icing on the cake.

• Big Star - #1 Record: You need a lot of guts to give your album that title, but boy was this an enjoyable album. Really sweet and harmonic. Top class stuff.

• Kanye West - College Dropout

When I was at school Kanye used to irritate the hell out of me by putting vocal samples in his records and then rapping over them while the samples were still singing. It gave me a headache, especially "Through The Wire". But eventually I got used to it, and even at the time I got really into the likes of "Slow Jamz" (which featured Twista - whatever happened to him? He was one of my favourite MCs growing up) and "Jesus Walks". This and Late Registration will always be my favourite work of Kanye's.

• Missy Elliott - Supa Dupa Fly

I didn't realise Timberland did any vocals whatsoever before he worked with Justin Timberlake. Still as per usual it's his beats that stand out, and Missy is more than capable enough of an MC to make something even greater out of them.

• Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness: I enjoyed this record but not as much as Siamese Dream. There's some of their best work on here like "Tonight, Tonight" and "1979" but the trouble is this is a double album, and at time it really drags in my view.

• The Cardigans - First Band On The Moon: Before crime drama, Scandanavia's top export was good quality pop music, like this gem from The Cardigans. Nina Persson's voice has always been a favourite of mine, and really is delightful on the likes of "Lovefool".

• Pet Shop Boys - Very: I can't hear "Go West" without singing "Oooo-arrrrrrr! It's Ambrosia!"

• Frank Black - Teenager Of The Year: A.K.A Pixies' lead singer Black Francis. Ignore the Operation Yewtree-baiting title and just enjoy the exhilarating guitars at play.

• The Isley Brother - 3+3: Regular readers who aren't bots trying to share malware with me will probably have gathered I love me a bit of disco and soul. So unsurprisingly I adored this record. "Summer Breeze" sounded fantastic in the good weather the other week.

Also impressing me this time around were;

• Joanna Newsom - Ys
• Ghostface Killah - Fishscale
• The Everly Brothers - A Date With The Everly Brothers
• John Prine - John Prine 
• Count Bassie - The Atomic Mr Bassie 
• Jack Elliott - Jack Takes The Floor 
• Ray Charles - The Genius Of Ray Charles
• Air - Moon Safari

While these leaved a little to be desired

• The Icarus Line - Penance Soiree
• Method Man - Tical
• Marylin Manson - Antichrist Superstar
• Lightning Bolt - Wonderful Rainbow
• Simple Minds - New Gold Dream 81-82-83-84 
• John Lee Hooker - The Healer 
• Leftfield - Leftism
• Chemical Brothers - Exit Planet Dust, Dig Your Own Hole

So, time to get cracking on with the other 452 then. See you round.

1001 Albums Update: HALF WAY THERE! 500 Down, 500 To Go

So I've actually been sitting on this total for a while now (since the end of April) but had to stop because of exams, but now they're over so it's high time I gave you a rundown of what got me to the half way point!

• Tom Waits - Raindogs, Nighthawks At The Diner: Waits' voice is an acquired taste, but Raindogs is probably his most melodic and varied work, "Time" in particular is sublime. Nighthawks At The Diner, meanwhile, is a live album and showcases Waits at the top of his game as a beatnick - very loose and merry listen.

• Kiss - Destroyer: First time listening to a Kiss album, perhaps my expectations were too high. "Detroit Rock City" aside this was disappointing.

• Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest

This has been on a Spotify playlist of mine for what feels like forever, and I could never remember if I'd heard it the whole way through before now. There's delightful gems here like "Two Weeks" - I think the album could do with more songs of that ilk, a lot seemed pretty anonymous.

• Portishead - Third: Well this was a mighty disappointment next to Dummy. They made us wait an awful long time for this record too. Shows it doesn't always pay to be perfectionists I guess.

• Radiohead - In Rainbows

I've already mentioned my previous prejudices against Radiohead, and to be honest lots of it stemmed from this record. I couldn't stand their little "pay what you want" download launch for this album, just struck me as a massive publicity stunt and put me off bothering with this from the start.
But now I'm older and slightly less fussy I adore this record. I think it's the best of their career and succeeds much better than OK Computer did in marrying their older rockier work (see "Bodysnatchers") with a more experimental direction ("Weird Fishes") along with moments of starkness ("Videotape") and tenderness (the stand-out track "House Of Cards").
So now I'm the proud owner of two Radiohead albums, something I never thought I'd say at age 17.

• A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory/Q-Tip - The Renaissance

The Low End Theory is often heralded as a high point in sophisticated hip-hop, and certainly all the MCs in Tribe have brilliant flow and mesmerising wordplay, but nothing really stuck with me as much as I felt it should.
Tribe's breakout star, Q-Tip, is still pretty awesome though and The Renaissance blew me away. I remember hearing "Gettin' Up" in the days when I still religiously listened to Zane Lowe's show and getting really into it - yet somehow I never tracked this album down until now. Listening to it makes me wish I'd bought it all those years ago. A real high point in modern hip-hop.

• The White Stripes - Elephant: Another band that annoyed the heck out of my when I was younger. Couldn't stand "Seven Nation Army" and something about it still irritates me to this day, sorry. There's flashes of brilliance and flashes of trash here - no better illustrated than the dire "Ball And Biscuit" being followed up by the terrific "The Hardest Button To Button".

• My Bloody Valentine - Loveless: This veered from brilliant to ear-piercingly unbearable a few times too many for my liking. Although this album has basically made shoegaze cool, which I guess I should be thankful for seeing as so many of the artists I like are going down that road.

• Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, Bringing It All Back Home, Blonde On Blonde, Blood On The Tracks, Time Out Of Mind

OK, Time Out Of Mind aside (it was very late in his career and his voice was too shot to do what I think he wanted with that album) you've got four of the greatest albums ever here. It's amazing how many artists Dylan's work inspired - I mean listening to these made me think "Why doesn't everyone just give up? There's no way this isn't the pinnacle of songwriting surely?"

Take The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. The first three tracks are "Blowin' In The Wind", "Girl From The North Country" and "Masters Of War". Three absolute stone cold classics that would sound relevant and pertinent hundreds of years from now. But does he stop there? Of course not, it's Bob fucking Dylan, he goes and adds "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall", "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" and "Corinna, Corinna" to proceedings, just in case there was any doubt who the boss around here.

Bringing It All Back Home sees him start to expand beyond simply him and his guitar with the furious  "Subterranean Homesick Blues", "Maggie's Farm", "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue".

He doesn't even stop there either - ever the pioneer, Dylan realised a single album couldn't contain the ideas in his head, and hence came Blonde On Blonde, the world's first double LP, with yet more classics like "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35", "Visions Of Johanna", "Just Like A Woman" ans "Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)".

Then, not content with dominating the 60s, Dylan decides he's got another Magnum Opus in him in the 70s in the form of Blood On The Tracks featuring "Tangled Up In Blue", "Simple Twist Of Fate" and "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go".

THIS is music you have to hear before you die alright!

• PJ Harvey - Rid Of Me, Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea: Another artist I'd horribly misjudged in my teens, I thought all Polly's record were chinstroking bullshit, but these two here are both pretty rocking!

• The XX - The XX

I wasn't as head over heels in love with this as everyone said I should be. When they won the Mercury I was a little harsh and joked "Wow, maybe if I mumbled over a base guitar I could win a Mercury too!", but there's a bit more substance here than I found when listening the first time around. Not much though.

• Chic - C'est Chic, Risque

Hey, you know how Daft Punk's new single is so awesome you can't avoid it wherever you go? You know WHY it's awesome? It's because of Nile Rodgers, co-founder of Chic and creator of disco classics. These two album are full of them. Go listen and enjoy!

• Dexy's Midnight Runners - Too Rye Ay, Searching For The Young Soul Rebels

There's more to Dexy's than "Come On Eileen", which features on Too Rye Ay - an album with great strings and horns and other songs like "The Celtic Soul Brothers" that refuse to be ignored. Their debut Searching For The Young Soul Rebels goes from punchy and raging to soulful at the drop of a hat and is pretty darn good too.

• The Coral - The Coral: So breezy, "Dreaming Of You" is one of my favourite songs of last decade. Lots of cool tuneful stuff to go with it here too.

• Tito Puente & His Orchestra - Dance Mania Vol. 1: Is it bad that I still prefer the song he did on The Simpsons to the stuff here?

• Billy Joel - The Stranger: I came into this expecting "Uptown Girl" level cheese, I got classics like "Just The Way You Are" and "She's Always A Woman" instead. Well, that worked out well.

• Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story/ The Faces - A Nod Is As Good As A Wink To A Blind Horse

Before he released a seemingly endless stream of albums entitled "The Great American Songbook", Rod Stewart put those impressive pipes to use on his breakthrough solo album Every Picture Tells A Story - the title track and "Maggie May" being the real treats. He also did great as frontman of The Faces, with the likes of "Stay With Me" on A Nod... proving very enjoyable.

• Queen Latifah - All Hail The Queen: I had no idea Latifah was such a talented MC, I thought she was just an actress!

• The Fugees - The Score/ Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill: Was a bit disappointed to find so much filler on The Score, but I found Lauryn's solo album much more consistent and enjoyable.

• TLC - Crazy Sexy Cool

TLC were very ahead of their time, I couldn't believe stuff like "Waterfalls" dates all the way back to 1994! They also showed a surprising sense of humour in one of the interludes - a much welcome put down of all of those awkward sex interludes on lots of hip-hop records at the time - where a girl fools a guy into thinking she's having phone sex with him when really she's taking a dump. I know, my sense of humour can be puerile at times!

• Mariah Carey - Butterfly: OK while I'm surprisingly knowledgeable about cheesy 90s & noughties music, I still have my limits. This was it. Go away Mariah.

• Dee-Lite - World Clique: This album is very 90s. Famous as one hit wonders with "Groove Is In The Heart" (which is still irresistible), the rest of the album is very much a relic of its time.

• ZZ Top - Tre Hombres, Eliminator: While Tre Hombres didn't do particularly much for me, Eliminator was an absolute blinder with "Gimme All Your Lovin'", "Sharp Dressed Man" and "Legs" being standouts.

• The Kinks - Face To Face: How on Earth did I end up disappointed by an album that featured "Sunny Afternoon"?

Other albums which were to my liking were

• Elliot Smith - Figure 8
• Nick Drake - Pink Moon
• Aerosmith - Rocks, Toys In The Attic
• Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca 
• Echo & The Bunnymen - Porcupine
• Madness - The Rise And Fall
• Haircut 100 - Pelican West
• Kate Bush - The Dreaming
• Little Richard - Here's Little Richard
• The Crickets - The Chirpin' Crickets 
• Orange Juice - Rip It Up (that riff on the title track is just too funky!)

While the following left a fair bit t0 be desired

• 808 State - 90
• Boards Of Canada - Music Has The Right To Children (clever title, shame the music didn't live up to it.)
• Nightmares On Wax - Smoker's Delight
• Jungle Brothers - Done By The Forces Of Nature
• Sabu - Palo Congo
• Machito - Kenya
• KLF - The White Room

Right, so only 500 more to go! I can finally get back to finishing this bucket list of bucket list now. Hopefully you'll hear from me again soon. I'm contemplating doing a post about Mad Men next time, especially after this happened






Ta-ra for now.

1001 Albums Update: 443 and counting

So, another fortnight of great progress. There was absolutely tonnes of amazing stuff this time around, I can't remember liking so much of what I heard in one of these updates since I started this challenge.

The albums feature in the book haven't been the only albums I've been enjoying since I last brought you an update.
Thanks to a rather glowing review in The Fly I stumbled across the debut album by California X and found an absolutely brilliant balls out scuzzy rock and roll record. I can't remember the last time an album was really as air-punchingly good on first listen as this was.
I thoroughly recommend you check it out, especially since you can download it from Amazon at an absolute bargain price of £3.49. What are you waiting for? Go get it.

Oh hang on, that's right, wait come back! I've got to let you know about what else I've been listening to first!
So, in no particular order, here's the latest set of albums I can check off my list...

• Bon Jovi - Slippery When Wet

Cheesy as hell but you've got to love "You Give Love A Bad Name", "Livin' On A Prayer" and "Wanted Dead Or Alive".
Going off on a tangent slightly, we had someone giving a seminar the other day about fluid droplets and he used the term "wettable". Seriously, is that actually a word? It sounds like one of those quasi-words that mathematicians would invent without realising how ridiculous it sounds, like "texify".

• Meatloaf - Bat Out Of Hell

Taking The Who's rock-opera concept into overdrive, Bat Out Of Hell gave Meatloaf some of his greatest moments. As a Springsteen fan I was pleasantly surprised to see Max Weinberg and Roy Bittan played on the title track, "You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)" and "Paradise By The Dashboard Light".

• Ian Dury - New Boots And Panties!

I bloody love Ian Dury. Ever since I saw him and The Blockheads performing "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" on Top Of The Pops 2 when I was pretty young (like 7 or 8) he really made an impression on me. His lyrics combined with his vocal style made him a truly unique artist - the kind that you'd only find in Britain. "My Old Man" was a particular highlight.

• Harry Nilsson - Nilsson Schmilsson: I never expected this guy would be the person behind "Without You" ("I caaaan't liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive..."). It was a much livelier affair besides that track though, with lots of perky, quirky pop like "Let The Good Times Roll".

• Derek & The Dominos - Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs: More Clapton-based goodness. As the title suggests though, "Layla" is really the dominant song on this record and leaves the rest of the material here in its wake.

• Sade - Diamond Life: I've been hearing "Smooth Operator" for years without realising that it was Sade's big hit. Can't say much else really stuck with me beyond that revelation.

• Shuggie Otis - Inspiration Information: Really enjoyed this, such a smooth record. The title track and "XL-30" (which sounded really familiar) were really great.

• Blur - Parklife, Blur, Modern Life Is Rubbish 

 I'd always seen Blur as more of a singles band, but these three held up really well from start to finish. Blur was a lot more mellow and experimental (though it featured the quickfire "Song 2"), while Modern Life Is Rubbish and Parklife came at the peak of Britpop and were much jauntier with the likes of "Chemical World", "Advert" and "Girls And Boys".

• Brian Eno - Another Green World: Every Eno album I hear on this list gets progressively better, only to then fizzle out & frustrate me when it should really deliver a knock out blow that sends me head over heels in love. Grrr. 

• Isaac Hayes - Shaft OST: "Hello there, children."

• KD Lang - Ingenue: I literally spent years trying to figure out if KD Lang was a man or a woman. Turns out she's a woman. Pretty good singer too, to say the least.

• Nirvana - In Utero

I know the vast majority of the songs on here from their MTV Unplugged session, so it's slightly odd hearing the likes of "Dumb", "All Apologies" and "Pennyroyal Tea" in these arrangements. Fantastic record though, and the heavier moments like "Serve The Servants" stood out strongly for me too.

• Run DMC - Raising Hell: This was a riot, featuring the likes of "Walk This Way" (the version with Aerosmith) and "It's Tricky", an absolute genius reworking of "My Sharona" by The Knack.

• The Jam - All Mod Cons/Paul Weller - Wild Wood

A couple of delights from the mind of Paul Weller here. I expected  All Mod Cons to have one or two more "hits" (i.e. more of The Jam's most famous tracks) than it had but that didn't stop me enjoying the likes of "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" and a great version of "David Watts" by The Kinks.
Wild Wood is another case where I shouldn't have judged a book by its cover - its title and title track had me expecting a largely acoustic affair. While it was still pretty folky, I enjoyed the richer arrangements on show.

• The Sex Pistols - Nevermind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols

I've mentioned in passing before how I'm not John Lydon's biggest fan, but this record is near as dammit perfect. You can see why this album, in effect, started a revolution.
Lydon's sneering "anti-singing" as Noel Gallagher put it, sounds immense on the likes of "God Save The Queen" and "Anarchy In The UK" ("I-yyyyyyyy am annnnn anti-CHRIST-AH!") while the guitar riffs on "Holiday In The Sun" and "Pretty Vacant" are just to die for. This album isn't just some historical artifact, thsi is the real deal.

• Buzzcocks - Another Music In A Different Kitchen: Anyone who comes up with a title like that automatically wins points from me, but I don't think this quite held up against the other albums from punk's prime I was listening to this time around.

• Wilco - Being There: Much like Yankee Foxtrot Hotel, this was another instant purchase for me upon listening. The likes of "Monday" and "Outtasite (Outta Mind)" were unexpected delights and much heavier tracks than I thought the band were capable of.

• The Undertones - The Undertones: Surprisingly enough this album didn't originally contain "Teenage Kicks", their most famous hit, but boy could it hold up on its own without it with the likes of "Here Comes The Summer" and "Jimmy Jimmy".

• The The - Soul Mining: Only knew them as one of the subjects of a pretty crap Michael McIntyre about the north, but I was left pretty impressed with this album, "This Is The Day" in particular was fantastic.

• Donovan - Sunshine Superman: Turns out the title track's on of those songs I've heard for years (almost certainly on some advert) and not been able to put a name too (I've found lots of these whilst doing this challenge).

• The Mothers Of Invention - We're Only In It For The Money 

Oh Christ, not more Frank Zappa! The frustrating think about this album is that it's quite catchy but it's in fits and starts, so you'd just be getting into one of the tracks when suddenly Zappa comes along with one of his druggie oddball interlude things. So infuriating!

• The Clash - London Calling: An undisputed classic. The title track, "Spanish Bombs", "Lost In The Supermarket" and "Rudie Can't Fail" were all arguable The Clash at their best. The Elvis-referencing sleeve design is iconic too.

• Michael Jackson - Bad

Ch'mon! The production may have dated a little poorly, but Jacko clearly still had a lot left in the tank after Thriller. "Dirty Diana" and "Smooth Criminal" are personal favourites of mine.

• The Zombies - Odessey & Oracle

Another song I can finally put a name to: "Time Of The Season". Great song, the rest of the album is almost just as good - lots of bright jangley guitar pop, a lot more full of life than the band's name suggests.

• Tom Waits - Heartattack And Vine: I wasn't sure this would be my cup of tea since Waits' vocals can be a bit strange, but I really enjoyed this record, "Jersey Girl" and "Mr Siegal" especially were on the money.

• Rufus Wainwright - Want Two: A great illustration of how brilliant Rufus' voice is. "The Art Teacher" is sublime, even if hearing Rufus sing a song from a schoolgirl's perspective is a bit surreal.

Also quenching my thirst for good music were...

• Prefab Sprout - Steve McQueen
• XTC - Skylarking
• Blondie - Parallel Lines
• The Waterboys - Fisherman's Blues
• Bob Marley & The Wailers - Catch A Fire, Exodus, Natty Drea
• The Pogues - Rum, Sodomy & The Lash, If I Should Fall From Grace With God
• King Crimson - In The Court Of The Crimson King

While the following left me slightly disappointed:

• Alice In Chains - Dirt
• Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
• Japan - Quiet Life
• The United States Of America - The United States Of America

1001 Albums Update: 400 and counting!

I've managed to tear myself away from the stream of Bowie's new album (which I'm pleased to say is excellent) and reading Peter Ames Carlin's pretty ace Springsteen biography to let you all know how I'm getting on with this albums challenge. So let's get cracking! These past few weeks I have mostly been listening to...

• Norah Jones - Come Away With Me: Ravi Shankar's daughter! Who'd have thunk it? This didn't send me to sleep quite as soon as I thought it would and had a mice rendition of Hank Williams' "Cold Cold Heart".

• Joni Mitchell - Blue, Court And Spark: I think these two albums illustrate Joni at her best. Court And Spark was my favourite, although I've heard a rumour she hates it! Which I can't fathom at all, the likes of "Free Man In Paris" are classics.

• Rush - 2112 

I was rather excited to hear this. Over Christmas I read "Ready Player One", the brilliant debut novel by Ernest Cline, the premise is like Willy Wonka meets The Matrix. Anyway, one of the featured characters in that book had a big obsession with Rush and this album in particular with it's futuristic concept. In the end it proved to be a good listen, but I have to say I preferred Moving Pictures more. I'd definitely recommend the book though.

• Devo - Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!: Just as quirky as you'd expect, "Uncontrollable Urge" and "Mongoloid" were the highlights of a pretty patchy album.

• The Band - The Band: A really sure-footed follow up to Music From The Big Pink, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" and "Up On Cripple Creek" being amongst the highlights.

• The Stooges - Funhouse: I can't quite put my finger on it, but just like their debut this didn't click with me anywhere nearly as much as Iggy's solo stuff. Must be the drugs or something.

• N.W.A. - Straight Outta Compton: Everyone you hear sampling "Express Yourself" by Charles Wright has to live with the fact that what they do with the track will never hold a candle to what N.W.A. did with it, and that's a fact.

• Simply Red - Picture Book: Surprising bearable album considering it came from the mind of Mick Hucknall. I'm sorry every time I say his name in my head I can't help but think of Bo' Selecta Mick Hucknall.

• Otis Redding - Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul: Oh my stars, this has to be one of the most perfect soul records I've ever heard. Every track is just a show-stopper, especially his takes on Sam Cooke's "Change Gonna Come" and "Shake" and Smokey Robinson's "My Girl".

 

• Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell: This takes me back to playing the original Rock Band game with a bunch of friends from school, and "Maps" would always be our go-to song because it was relatively easy to play for all of us. Those were the days...

• Peter Tosh - Legalize It: This is a bit of a curio. The title track is about as subtle as a sledgehammer about wanting marijuana to be made legal tender. Yet there are also some nice little reggae ballads like "Why Must I Cry?" in amongst the druggie stuff.

• Tangerine Dream - Phaedra: Yet another album where I've found myself wondering if I've missed the point entirely when it comes to Krautrock.

• Echo And The Bunnymen - Ocean Rain: "The Killing Moon"! Excellent.

• Sly And The Family Stone - Stand!: I found this a much more enjoyable listen than There's A Riot Goin' On. I couldn't help but think of the Canadians in South Park upon hearing "Don't Call Me N*gger, Whitey" though. (I'm not your buddy, guy!)

• Pentangle - Basket Of Light: My first taste of Bert Jansch's work on this list, and I was very impressed. Equally impressive were the vocals of Jacqui McShee.

• Goldie - Timeless: Hard to think the bloke who's been on every kind of reality show you can think of in the noughties actually popularised jungle and drum & bass.

• Leonard Cohen - Songs Of Love And Hate: Another great Cohen album, "Avalanche" and "Sing Another Song, Boys" were my favourites.

• MC5 - Kick Out The Jams 

This album simultaneously made and set back MC5's career. With songs like the title track and "Motor City Is Burning" the band helped established their reputation as one of the most primal and livewire rock acts of the next decade. However, their introduction of the title track ("right now it's time to... kick out the jams, Motherfucker!") stirred up a whirlwind of controversy that ended up with their label Elektra dropping the band. It was worth it though.

• Curtis Mayfield - Superfly: So so funky. So good it made more money than the film it was soundtracking!

"He's got a plaaaaan, to stick it to the maaaaaan!"

• The Rolling Stones - Aftermath: Another key stepping stone (oh God I  swear I didn't mean to make that pun) for the group as their first album made entirely of Jagger-Richards written songs, "Mother's Little Helper", "Lady Jane" and "Under My Thumb" being the most famous examples.

• Frank Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim - Francis Albert Sinatra And Antonio Carlos Jobim: Frank may have been getting a little long in the tooth by this time, but there's no resisting his crooning over "The Girl From Ipanema".

• Sparks - Kimono My House: Most famous for "This Town Isn't Big Enough For The Both Of Us", which should give you an idea of how creative this album is (whilst having its tongue firmly in its cheek).

• Slade - Slayed?: Proving that Slade are for life, not just for Christmas. Lots of fantastic rock licks on here like "How D'You Ride?" and "Mama Weer All Crazee Now".

• Beck - Sea Change: Another album buried amongst my Spotify lists I can't recall getting the whole way through until now. This is about as laid back and tender as Beck ever got, with great cuts like "Paper Tiger". This album is an obvious forefather to the likes of "Chemtrails" from Modern Guilt.

• U2 - War, All That You Can't Leave Behind

This was like a tale of two U2's. War was an absolute revelation, as I had at last found a U2 I could enjoy without any pretensions or bullshit, just pure, direct, great rock and roll like "Sunday Bloody Sunday".
On the other end of the stick, All That You Can't Leave Behind finds the band realising that the excesses of the Zooropa and Pop eras were just a bit much and thus they returned to playing to their strengths with the likes of "Beautiful Day" and "Elevation". It's a very good record, but I can't help but think it lacks the bombast of their earlier work.

• Incubus - Make Yourself

I thought at the point in their careers where they made this album Incubus were a more traditional style metal act. I had no idea that 1) they were making such perfect pop as "Drive" already and 2) they were making experimental, semi-comedic tunes like Battlestar Scralatchtica.

• Genesis - Selling England By The Pound: There's no escaping it now, I'm a full on convert to Peter Gabriel's work. This was another really interesting listen especially opener "Dancing With The Moonlit Knight".

• Portishead - Dummy: Fantastic album. The tones was set from the off with the spooky "Mysterons" promptly followed by the chilling "Sour Times". An atmospheric masterpiece.

• Kraftwerk - Autobahn: Far more enticing and absorbing than any concept album designed to replicate the sensation of driving on the motorway has any right to be.

• The Replacements - Let It Be: It takes balls to give an album THAT title, but it more than delivered. A pop-punk masterpiece, the likes of "Unsatisfied" are especially brilliant.

• Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Murder Ballads, Henry's Dream

Seeing as I'm going to see the band in October, I thought I ought to further delve in their back-catalogue. Murder Ballads sees Cave put his own spin on traditional tales of crimes of passion (plus some of his own), including a blistering re-invention of "Stagger Lee" and a terrific cover of Bob Dylan's "Death Is Not The End" featuring a whole heap of guest stars including PJ Harvey, Kylie Minogue (both of whom feature on earlier tracks from the album) and Shane McGowan.
Henry's Dream is just classic Bad Seeds and the likes of "Papa Won't Leave You, Henry" and "Jack The Ripper" saw the band in riotous form.

• The Incredible String Band - The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter: This was a bit of a weird one. Imagine if The Mamas And The Papas took more drugs & moved to Scotland and you'd pretty much be able to picture what this album sounds like.

• Common - Like Water For Chocolate: This is my new favourite Common album. It starts off unassuming enough but then really kicks to life with the excellent "Dooinit" and "The Light". There's some great guestspots too, from Jill Scott, Macy Gray and Cee-Lo.

• Massive Attack - Protection, Blue Lines 

Two terrific genre-defining cuts from Massive Attack here. Blue Lines appropriately enough was the blueprint that set the standard for the trip-hop movement, with the classic "Unfinished Sympathy" and my personal favourite "Hymn Of The Big Wheel".
Protection meanwhile is an appropriately less intense affair, given the state of flux the band were in at the time without Tricky or Shara Nelson. But the likes of "Heat Miser" and the title track are sublime.

Other albums that were like music to my ears were

• The Byrds - Younger Than Yesterday
• Electric Prunes - I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night
• Gene Clark - No Other, White Light
• Lynyrd Skynyrd - Pronounced "Leh-nerd Skin-nerd"
• Love - Da Capo
• The Cars - The Cars 
• Manu Chao - Clandestino
• Joan Baez - Joan Baez
• Moby Grape - Moby Grape
• The 13th Floor Elevators - The Psychedelic Sounds of The 13th Floor Elevators

While the following weren't quite to my taste

• Country Joe And The Fish - Electric Music For The Mind And Body
• King Crimson - Larks' Tongue In Aspic
• Funkadelic - Maggot Brain
• Soft Machine - Third 
• Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Tarkus 
• Sigur Ros - Agaetis Byrjun

And with that I shall bid you adieu for now.

30 Rock: My 30 Favourite Memories

30 Rock is one of my favourite sitcoms ever. I've loved it ever since I picked up the first season on DVD for a mere £5 in the Christmas sales when I was at college. The show about the making of fictional show "TGS with Tracy Jordan" has made a star of creator Tina Fey and re-affirmed what a fantastic actor Alec Baldwin is.

But alas, after seven great seasons, 30 Rock was brought to a close and its final show aired a few weeks ago. Having now finally caught up with their final season, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to reflect on what I loved most about the show.

So, here are (mostly from the top of my head and in no particular order) thirty of my favourite quotes, plots, running jokes and characters. Most are just Youtube clips since I don't want this to be too long a read. I hope you enjoy.

1. Werewolf Bar Mitzvah

2. "Aw, blerg!" 

Just beat out "What the WHAT?" and "I want to go to there" for my favourite Lemon-ism.

3. Jenna lying about her age

4. "Dr." Leo Spacemen

There have been some great recurring characters on the show (Will Arnett's Devon Banks, Steve Buscemi as Jack's private investigator, Sherri Shepard as Tracy's wife Angie), but my favourite without a doubt was Dr. Spacemen, played by SNL veteran Chris Parnell. To call him a moron would be putting it lightly. He's had many great quotes, perhaps my favourite being "...we have no way of knowing where the heart is. See, every human is different."

5. "You take a hot dog, stuff it with some jack cheese, fold it in a pizza..."

*air guitar* "...you got Cheesy Blasters!"

6. "Where's my MAC AND CHEESE!?!"

Word of advice: don't take Liz's food.

7. Guest stars

So many great names have guest starred in the show, many have been as love interests for Liz (Jason Sudeikis, Michael Sheen, Matt freakin' Damon) and Jack (Edie Falco, Selma Hayek, Elizabeth Banks). A surprising amount of those who guest starred as themselves worked really well too, from all the musicians featured in "Kidney Now!" to Kelsey Grammer and Buzz Aldrin. A heck of a lot of star power passed through the doors at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

8. "I love this cornbread so much..."

"... I wanna take it behind a middle school and get it pregnant."

9. Tracy's films

Not only is Tracy batshit crazy and the star of TGS, he's also the star of those low-rent comedies even Eddie Murphy would turn down, such as "Who Dat Ninja?", "Black Cop White Cop" and "Honky Grandma Be Trippin' ". You can find most of the posters for these films here.
In fact, two of my favourite storylines involving Tracy in the series involved him trying to get films off the ground.
In Season 1, Tracy discovered he was a distant relative of Thomas Jefferson, which led him to pitching a biopic with him as the start entitled "Jefferson" (see the hilarious trailer below). Then in Season 5, Tracy sought the one award he had yet to earn, an Oscar, and so came up with the academy-baiting "Hard To Watch", a film loosely based on his upbringing.

10. Liz & the Co-op board

We've all been there, too much alcohol and a phone in your hand can be a dangerous mix, as Liz illustrates here: from "You know what? I'm fine." to "I AM GOING TO THE HOSPITAL! AND I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY!" to singing Alanis Morissette to "I bought a black apartment". Fantastic.

11. Season 2, Episode 13: "Succession"

If you put a gun to my head and forced me to pick my favourite episode, I'd probably pick this one - although to be honest all of the final three episodes of Season 2 are gold. Jack finds out that Don Geiss has chosen him as his successor as head of G.E. This leads to the rise of "corporate" Liz Lemon ("Hey nerds! Guess who's got 2 thumbs, speaks limited French, and hasn't cried once today? This moi!"). Also, Tracy sets out to make a porn video game. Genius.

12. Homonym/God Cop

Some of the funniest moments have come from the shows within the show itself. These two both came from Season 7 opener "Tank It!". While God Cop was hilarious ("Why is he learning ANYTHING, he's supposed to be God?"), Homonym might have been even better, the most impossible game show ever ("It's always the other one!").

13. "Shut it down!"

From the top of my head, Jack first uttered this line when it was clear Ken's game show "Gold Case" (15 models hold cases, one contains gold) was a liability. This then became a running turn of phrase many characters would use when a venture wasn't turning out right.

14. Jenna-Mickey Rourke history

I don't know what on Earth Mickey Rourke ever did to anyone on the 30 Rock team, but for some reason it was decided Jenna should create this bizarre sexual history between the two of them when they supposedly went out. The kind people at Vulture have put some of her best tall tales into pictorial form.

15. Frank's hats

At least once an episode, Frank - one of the writers for TGS - would be wearing a new hat with a message on it in felt letters. You can view every single hat he wore at this gallery MTV have painstakingly compiled.

16. "Queen of Jordan"

Another excellent parody, this time of reality television. "Queen of Jordan" saw Tracy's wife Angie star in her own reality TV series after negotiations with Jack to keep Tracy at TGS. A spot on put down of shows like "Keeping Up With The Kardashians", two whole episodes of 30 Rock were broadcast as episodes of "Queen of Jordan". Angie's entourage (particularly D'Fwan) were all fantastic. 

My favourite plot threads over the two episodes were Jack being made out to be a clumsy gay guy who farts all the time because of the show's editing, and Liz's "feud" with Tracy's two-year-old daughter Virginia.

17. Live shows

This was such a fantastic idea. Play off the fact that the show is about making a live TV show by doing live versions of the show, and performing it inside the SNL studios in 30 Rock Plaza. They did a great job of recreating the vibe of the traditional shows by having a group of live musicians performing the score, and even managed to keep the flashbacks by having Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Amy Poehler play Liz, Donald Glover play Tracy and Jimmy Fallon play Jack.
I personally prefer Season 5's "Live Show" to "Live from Studio 6H" from Season 6, although the latter did include many spot on parodies of US TV, including this amazing "how the hell did they allow that on the air?" Afro-American sitcom featuring Jon Hamm in black face.

18. Kenneth the Page

Jack McBrayer is a fantastic comedic actor who cut his teeth on the Chicago improv circuit just like Tina Fey did. Over the course of 30 Rock's seven seasons he really made the role of Ken Parcell, a naive NBC page in love with television, his own. Hearing him remember the golden days of television through rose-tinted glasses never got old. His tales of his old life in Georgia and the running gag about his age were also frequently hilarious.
My favourite quote of his though is "I don't drink hot liquids of any kind. That's the devil's temperature."

19. MILF Island

Yet another genius parody TV show, this one a mix of "Survivor" and "America's Next Top Model".

20."Workin' on my night cheese"

21. Jenna Maroney

Or to be more specific, the things Jenna Maroney would say. This sample of quotes from Season 2 barely scratches the surface.

22. "I am a stabbing robot..."/ Season 1 Episode 7: "Tracy Does Conan"

Another of my favourite episodes, playing off Tracy Morgan's real life breakdowns on talk shows. Liz and Pete have to help Tracy successfully promote the show during his appearance on Conan O'Brien's talk show.  Only problem is Tracy is "buggin' out" after taking the meds Dr Spacemen (in his first appearance on the show) prescribed him, including seeing footless blue men ("Blue Man! Where your feet at?").
The flashback to his first appearance on Conan's show is just as funny.

23. Liz's Barbara Bush outfit

One of my favourite running visual gags. Ever since the pilot episode, if Liz needed a formal business outfit - whether she's meeting Tracy for the first time or negotiating with a network from Germany or pretending to be Jack's wife - she'd dig out this little number from the wardrobe department, which was apparently from a sketch about Barbara Bush.

24. 1-900-OK-FACE

Oh the things poor Liz Lemon did for money in Chicago...

25. Season 3, Episode 10: "Generalisimo"

The first half of Season 3 holds a dear place in my heart, as I'd watch the show in my flat at the time on Comedy Central (before our hall stopped showing non- Sky Sports Sky channels). This was possibly my favourite episode.

Jack finds himself the subject of disapproval from the grandmother of his girlfriend (Selma Hayek, whose "boobs were amazing" to quote Tina) because he resembles the villain in a Spanish language soap opera (who is also played by Baldwin, another example of his great comedic range). Hence he tries to use his political stroke to get said villain killed off.

This is also the first episode Jon Hamm guests in, as Liz's new neighbour and love interest, whom she accidentally roofies on their first date!

26. The Rural Juror ("The rher jerr")

Tracy's not the only one with a substandard acting career outside of the show. In Season 1, Jenna gets a major role in made-for-TV-movie "The Rural Juror". Only trouble is her pronunciation of the title leaves the rest of the team without any idea of what it's called.
This running joke then led to a great episode that season of the same title, where Liz & Jenna fall out because Liz hate the film and Tracy invents a George Foreman grill knock off to replace the bread in sandwiches with more meat.

27. Jack roleplays Tracy's family

Just like the Jon Hamm black face sketch, this was another "How did they get away with this?" moment. Sublime.

28. "There ain't no party like a Liz Lemon party..."

"...because a Liz Lemon party's mandatory!"

29. Liz's "assistant"

30. Jack Donaghy

Last but by no means least we have Jack, played by Alec Baldwin. Super analytical and never without a scathing put down to hand, Jack has a very warped sense of the world having spent so long in corporate America.
Nothing illustrates this better than Tina's favourite quote from the show (and to be honest it could well be mine too). If you had to pick one moment that sums up Jack's character this would be it:

Liz: Why are you wearing a tux?
Jack: ...It's after six, what am I, a farmer?

Now, repeat after me...

"Good God, Lemon!"