Music Video
Johnny Marr: Walk Into The Sea. 2018.
Joe Strummer: Fantastic: Unbelievable.
The Specials: A Message to You Rudy: 1979.
Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds: Riverman: 2015: Noel's greatest solo track. The guitar solo is astounding; who played it? I thought it was Noel, playing in an entirely new register. But, no, it was Paul Weller.
X: Delta 88: 1979-ish. If this punk masterpiece doesn't make you want to go to Cannery Row, stay at Bates Motel, and get drunk as hell, then nothing will, I can tell.
Joe Strummer: Burning Lights. 1990. This speaks for itself.
Amy Winehouse: 1983-2011. Back to Black.
Nico: I'm Not Sayin'. 1965. This video was reconstructed out of recently found footage. The result is spectacular, unprecedented, and almost unworldly. Imagine if every Velvet Underground-related track had filmed footage of this quality.
Kasabian: Days Are Forgotten: 2011. Is Kasabian the final great band of the rock era? Here, the vote is an easy yes.
Rancid: Devil In Disguise: 2023. I have been a solid Rancid fan from the mid-nineties straight through today circa 2024. All through my Distortions-era days, not a single friend of mine (with the exception of Bryan Murphy) ever liked Rancid. And I never understood why. For another Rancid favorite, click here and/or here.
The Brian Jonestown Massacre: The Future Is Your Past. 2022. Directed by Jean De Oliveira and Matilda Reid.
The Black Angels: Currency: 2017.
Wolf Alice: The Last Man On Earth. 2021. Two years ago, Wolf Alice's album Blue Weekend was my album of the year. I see them as somehow descended from vintage Suede. If you imagine Suede performing "By the Sea," and put that up next to this song, you might agree with me that not only could Suede have put this song on Coming Up, but also, that this would be the better of the two songs.
Pale Blue Dot Doctrine. 2019. Aggregate joy and suffering, cosmic arena, rivers of blood, fraction of a dot, one corner of this pixel, privileged positions, pale light, no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us, etc.
Suicide: Frankie Teardrop: A Film by Douglas Hart. 2022. Directed by original Jesus and Mary Chain bassist Douglas Hart. I consider this to be a masterpiece.
Kasabian: Reason Is Treason: 2004. Directed by Scott Lyon. Strangely, they made the video for the alternative mix (the "Jacknife Lee mix," as it's called). The album version of the track is actually better; to hear that, click here.
The Verve: Live in London 1993: Four songs: Star Sail, Slide Away, Virtual World, Blue. This performance, for me, is iconic, possibly for the simple reason that I saw them exactly one month after this October 1993 London show; their performance, absolutely on fire, looked exactly like this, but it was at the Variety Arts Center, downtown LA. The nineties was a horrific time for music; and in my view, the emergence of British indie like The Verve and Suede marked the beginning of an era.