Film Tournament: 2nd Round, Division I

The last month we paired the top 64 films voted by thesoapbox members, we then voted for our favorite film on each match. Now that thesoapbox members and the readers of the blog have made their decision, we bring to you the next batch of matches for the second round. I highly encourage everyone to vote for your favorite movie on each match and help us decide the champion of the tournament.

Division I

1. Pulp Fiction (1994)

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Country: USA
66 pts, 9 votes
Beat Braveheart (24-5)
Top rated by monkeytennis, moz, and backstreets
IMDB: #6

32. Memento (2000)

Director: Christopher Nolan
Country: USA
12pts, 2 votes
Beat Before Sunrise (14-7)
IMDB: #29

16. Fight Club (1999)

Director:David Fincher
Country: USA
17 pts, 3 votes
Beat 2 Days In Paris (21-4)
IMDB: #18

24. Lost In Translation (2003)

Director: Sofia Coppola
Country: USA/ Japan
14 pts, 3 votes
Beat Stand By Me (17-7)
IMDB: n/a

8. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Director: Frank Darabont
Country: USA
25 pts, 3 votes
Beat Ghost Busters (16-9)
Top rated by Unintended
IMDB: #1

25. In The Name Of The Father (1993)

Director: Jim Sheridan
Country: Ireland/ UK
12 pts, 2 votes
Beat The Best of Youth (8-3)
IMDB: n/a

56. Heat (1995)

Director: Michael Mann
Country: USA
7 pts, 3 votes
Beat Empire of the Sun (11-8)
IMDB: #122

17. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

Director: Wes Anderson
Country: USA
17 pts, 2 votes
Beat Once Upon A Time In The West (12-5)
Top rated by Ana, Dressed in Cobras
IMDB: n/a

Notes:

• Only one lower ranked film won (Heat). It’s hard to beat the likes of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro.
• English spoken films only live on Division 1.
• 7 American films, 1 British film
• 5 out of the 8 films are ranked on IMDB

Eliminated:
#. new ranking; (#) original ranking

33. Empire of the Sun (9)
34. Before Sunrise (33)
35. The Best of Youth (40)
36. Stand By Me (41)
37. Once Upon A Time In The West (48)
38. 2 Days In Paris (49)
39. Ghost Busters (57)
40. Braveheart (64)

Mahoney’s Guide to the 70′s: 1971

A brief look at what happened in ’71 plus my favourite records & films

1971

What was happening in ’71

• A stairway crush at the Rangers vs. Celtic football match in Glasgow, Scotland kills 66.
• Charles Manson and three female “Family” members are found guilty of the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders
• Joe Frazier defeats Muhammad Ali at Madison Square Garden.
• Jim Morrison, leader of The Doors is found dead in his bathtub in Paris, France.
• Val Venis, American professional wrestler is born

Favourite records of 1971

01: The Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers 

Arguably their greatest album with every single song being a complete classic. The sound of the worlds greatest ever rock n roll band at their absolute best.

02: T. Rex – Electric Warrior

The album that made Marc Bolan a superstar & the album that caused the glam-rock era in the 70’s. Electric Warrior has always been seen as T-Rex’s finest work (though I prefer The Slider), fun, sexy, groovy songs topped off with Bolan’s uniquely bizarre lyrics. A stone cold classic.

03: Lee Hazlewood – Requiem for an Almost LadyAn underrated gem by a hugely under appreciated artist. Requiem for an Almost Lady originally was only released in the UK & Sweden which is goes a long way to explain why it isn’t widely considered one of the great records of it’s era. A record of heartbreaks & relationships gone wrong delivered with Hazlewoood’s usual wit & humour. Without a doubt one of Lee’s finest LP’s.

04: Al Green – Al Green Gets Next to You Outside of ‘Call Me’ this is my favourite record of Al Green’s. I’ve never been overly keen on the cover of Light My Fire but the rest of the record is pretty much perfect. What a voice.

05: Leonard Cohen – Songs of Love and HateHave recently got into the work of Leonard Cohen & this was the record that turned me onto him. I can’t think of a better album title in terms of trying to describe what’s on the record. The simplicity of these songs are what make them so appealing to me.

06: John Lennon – ImagineMost people seem to prefer Plastic Ono Band but for me this is Lennon’s best solo work & I’d go as far as to say it’s up there in terms of quality of some of The Beatles best work. I know people can be put off by the title track, it’s one of those famous songs that is almost as big as the artist that created it but I still absolutely fucking love it, lyrically it’s such a simple ideal that anyone with half an inch of soul inside themselves must of at least thought about a few times in their life. ‘Oh Yoko!’ also gets some stick partially because it’s a cheesey love song & also because most people don’t like Yoko but still as far as cheesey love songs go it’s one of my favourites. The rest of the record being top notch also.

07: Curtis Mayfield – Roots
08: David Bowie – Hunky Dory 
09: Flamin’ Groovies – Teenage Head
10: Funkadelic – Maggot Brain
11: Sly and the Family Stone – There’s a Riot Goin’ On
12: Alice Cooper – Love It to Death 
13: Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin [IV] 
14: Faces – A Nod Is as Good as a Wink… to a Blind Horse 
15: Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On 
16: Gil Scott-Heron – Pieces of a Man
17: Joni Mitchell – Blue 
18: Rory Gallagher – Deuce
19: Can – Tago Mago
20: Groundhogs – Split

Favourite Films of 1970:

01: Straw Dogs [Sam Peckinpah]One of my favourites of all-time. Hoffman at his best, Susan George at her hottest. Always felt the final 10 minutes felt a bit needlessly ‘Hollywood’ though the rest of the picture is a psychological masterpiece.

02: Vanishing Point [Richard C. Sarafian]Vanishing point pretty much defines what a cult movie should be. IMO the best car related film theres ever been. Kowalski trying to deliver a car on time being chased across America by the cops, such a fucking blast.

03: A Clockwork Orange [Stanley Kubrick]Just one of many of Kubrick’s films considered a masterpiece. I assume everyones seen it, if you’ve not sort your life out.

04: The Panic In Needle Park [Jerry Schatzberg]Not one of the first films people would mention when thinking of Al Pacino but for me it’s one of his best. A dark, bleak miserable film about drug addiction, happy days.

05: Duel [Steven Spielberg]Who’d of thought the directer of such huge hits as Indiana Jones, Jaws & E.T would of started out making a carsploitation film made for TV. Spielberg shows his talent with this simple film which is essentially a truck chasing a car for 90 minutes, astonishingly impressive the levels of tension built up with such a simple premise.

06: Get Carter [Mike Hodges]
07: Diamonds Are Forever [Guy Hamilton]
08: Dirty Harry [Don Siegel]
09: Fright [Peter Collinson]
10: Two-Lane Blacktop [Monte Hellman]
11: Play Misty For Me [Clint Eastwood]
12: Shaft [Gordon Parks]
13: A Fistful of Dynamite/Duck You Sucker [Sergio Leone]
14: Il gatto a nove code [The Cat o’ Nine Tails] [Dario Argento]
15: The French Connection [William Friedkin]

A Modest Proposal regarding the payment of musicians.

There has been, as I’m sure anyone reading this will be acutely aware, much in the media over the last few years regarding the renumeration of musicians, whether it be regarding the dwindling record sales, mp3 piracy, rocketing prices of gigs or one of many other things. I’m sure all of us don’t want bands we like to starve or have to quit and get proper jobs, nor do we want them ruined by the excesses that come with too much cash, so to that aim I have two proposals:

1) The Nationalisation of all music.
2) A Maximum wage of £50,000 a year for all musicians.

1) is pretty simple, big record companies are shit and don’t really do anything and would happily just fill everyones ears with aids if it would make them a few quid. 2) might be harder to justify but heres three words that might make you more ameniable to my view : ‘kings’ ‘of’ and ‘leon’, once they smelt the dollar they’ve slowly changed from a fairly interesting if unspectacular band to THE WORST THING EVER CREATED. (witness their latest step in their conversion to u2 in the form of their new video, which I won’t post here on the grounds of taste) at the same time we have the bizzare stories about them at the v festival (which itself probably shouldnt happen and would be hard to justify with a maximum wage for musicians).
Songwriting could form a pension for those who indulge in that and bands could also count on a pension proportionate to their longevity, also shit bands could be encouraged to stop with the promise of an early pension. This might seem a bit unfair but well, who can’t live on 50 grand a year? and has anyone very very rich made anything worth listening to since John Lennon died?

Also its worth considering that U2 probably wouldn’t still be together if it wasn’t for the epic sums of money they get each year for touring, and even if they were Bono would be far less of an intolerable cunt.

Fantasy Football Week Somthing

Welcome back one and all, Johnny Football here with your sometime fantasy football blog. Quite a lot’s happened in the last couple of weeks, but I don’t remember much of any of it so let’s crack straight on. We are very privileged this week to be talked through the movers and shakers of the FF world by none other than the king of fantasy himself, Mr Samuel Allardyce MBE.  Play it urbane Sam…

“Have you seen that Twitter account taking the piss out of me? It’s a fucking disgrace. Making out like I love Fergie and my own mam hates us, fucking rotten behaviour. Do you see them doing that to  Gandhi or Michael Jordan? Once again it’s one rule for the foreign lads and another for ‘Big Sam’. Does Jordan know the Prozone website url off by heart? Is Gandhi at Manchester police station at 4 in the morning with a spare pair of trousers and Diouffy’s bail money? No he isn’t, so fuck off. But anyway, on with the show – I’m a professional and I’m here to do a job. And first off, the lad Berbatov bagged a smashing haul this week (17pts) and I’ll not lie, it shocked me. For a white lad to be popping a couple of headers in, it rocked my world. I know I used to have Kevin Davies, but he didn’t look half the anorexic poof that this one does, impressive.

Poofs: Everywhere

And speaking of poofs, I see Arsene Wenger’s been bullying referees again – it wouldn’t surprise me if he knocked his wife about that one. And I’ll tell you now if that animal of his (Alex Song – The week’s lowest scorer with -2) tries any of his snide shit on my boys I’ll stab him in the eye with my complimentary Opta fountain pen. Then we’ll see… well, one of us will, eh.”

Ominous as ever, thankyou Sam. Continuing the the foreboding tone, the vultures seem to be hovering over poor SuperFurryGills after they posted the week’s lowest score (A paltry 22 points). Manager brad arrived at his post-match press conference red eyed and unshaven claiming to have lost the keys to his office. Sources suggest his wife’s thrown him out after discovering his involvement in the recent Wayne Rooney scandal. No doubt it was a tender and majestic night brad, but if your fantasy football’s suffered, was it really worth it? Contrasting fortunes though for Gaga Romama, who shot up the league with a cheeky 69, while Future ITV pundits still straddle us all confidently, their bronzed, muscular thighs squeezing tightly as we gaze up in wonder.

Terry: A walking wound

Man On The Street

On his recent visit to the UK the Pope peeled himself away from playing Gameboy in his hotel room to shout deranged obscenities about some of our Fantasy Football teams from his balcony. Sandinistas (‘Satan’s shit’), Baldock’s Beerguts (‘a septic puddle of fucking discharge’) and icanmex (‘Sound a bit black to me’) all came in for a tongue lashing. His final  criticism though was saved, perhaps harshly, for newcomers Roman Candles, of whom he simply stated ‘Arse candles’.

The code to join the Classic League fun is 33421-11939

Soapys Film Tournament: First Round, Division IV

For the past month a group of selected film connoisseur members from The Soapbox community picked their top 10 films of all time. A total of 153 films were mentioned but only 64 made the final cut to the tournament. The films were ranked from 1 to 64 according to the voting and have been paired against each other in the following order: 1 vs 64, 2 vs 63, 3 vs 62 and so on. For the next days I will be posting the matches for the first round, I encourage everyone to be part of the tournament and vote on the polls or leave a comment.

Division IV

4. Inglorious Basterds (2009)

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Country: USA/ Germany
33 pts, 6 votes
IMDB: #78

61. Midnight Cowboy (1969)

Director: John Schlesinger
Country: USA
7 pts, 1 vote
IMDB: n/a

29. In Bruges (2008)

Director: Martin McDonagh
Country: UK/USA/Belgium
13 pts, 2 votes
IMDB: #192

36. The Squid and the Whale (2005)

Director: Noah Baumbach
Country: USA
10 pts, 1 vote
Top rated by JP
IMDB: n/a

13. City of God (2002)

Director: Fernando Meirelles
Country: Brazil
18 pts, 3 votes
IMDB: #19

52. Jackie Brown (1997)

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Country: USA
9 pts, 1 vote
IMDB: n/a

21. One Flew Of the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

Director: Milos Forman
Country: USA
15 pts, 2 votes
IMDB: #9

44. Le Doulos (1962)

Director: Jean-Pierre Melville
Country: France
10 pts, 1 vote
Top rated by Autobahn 66
IMDB: n/a

5. Back to the Future (1985)

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Country: USA
32 pts, 6 votes
IMDB: #73

60. Into the Wild (2007)

Director: Sean Penn
Country: USA
7 pts, 1 vote
IMDB: #143

28. High Fidelity (2000)

Director: Stephen Frears
Country: USA
13 pts, 2 votes
IMDB: n/a

37. Oldboy (2003)

Director: Chan-wook Park
Country: South Korea
10 pts, 1 vote
Top rated by TheMex
IMDB: #110

12. Jaws (1975)

Director: Steven Spielberg
Country: USA
19 pts, 2 votes
Top rated by Z Diddy
IMDB: #106

53. Cinema Paradiso (1988)

Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Country: Italy/ France
9 pts, 1 vote
IMDB: #84

20. Stars Wars:  Episode V- The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Director: Irvin Kershner
Country: USA
16 pts, 2 votes
IMDB: #10

52. Gladiator (2000)

Director: Ridley Scott
Country: UK/ USA
10 pts, 1 vote
Top rated by Fungi
IMDB: #96

Division I vs Division IV

Division II vs Division III

When I Was a Lad… JP’s Look at Football Nostalgia

THE T.V

Today I watched Soccer A.M for the first time in about ten years. Even though it’s a bit crap these days it still filled me with nostalgia for being a kid in the 90s and thinking Lovejoy was hilarious and having naughty thoughts about Helen Chamberlain and the soccerette.

It got me thinking back to those days and football in general back then. I already made a post about the genius that was Fantasy Football with Baddiel and Skinner and that alongside Soccer AM were the real highlights of football discussion shows, getting the perfect balance between humour and football talk. For more serious discussion I used to love watching Jimmy Hill’s Sunday Supplement, featuring Hill and a load of tabloid hacks sat around in “Jimmy’s kitchen” talking about the weekend’s events. Soccer Saturday is obviously still the daddy, a premise that sounds ridiculous on paper but works so well in reality. I’m not sure if it’s just nostalgia talking or what but the lineup I remember watching as a kid with George Best, Rodney Marsh and Frank McLintock was the true golden era but it’s still a fantastic show to this day.

Of course Match of the Day has a special place in my heart also, it’s not great, especially these days, but it could be a lot worse (remember ITV’s THE PREMIERSHIP ffs) and that theme tune just is football. I also have vague memories of first getting into football and enjoying Big Match on ITV and also Saint and Greavsie before Sky took over and dominated everything.

THE MAGAZINES

I still remember getting my first ever football magazines, my dad bought me the trio of Shoot, Match and 90 Minutes one weekend in about 92 and they remained my three favourites for many years to come. I didn’t get 90 Minutes quite so often but I’d come to purchase Match and Shoot most weeks for most of the early and mid 90s, there was even a spell where I subscribed to Match and had it delivered through the door. An issue I remember in particular had John Beresford as the special guest editor, huge times.

One of my most vivid memories of cool freebies with football magazines was getting a set of cards free with an issue of 90 Minutes magazine featuring a load of footballers doing weird things. I found a few pictures of them online…

There was also obviously the infamous wall charts with the little cut out kits you’d get free at the start of each season, put up on your wall with the best of intentions each August and then by September you couldn’t be arsed updating them anymore and they’d sit there untouched until about January when you finally decided to take them down and lob them in the bin.

As I got slightly older I moved onto Match of the Day magazine and Four Four Two. Whilst those two were obviously aimed more and the adult market and were much better reads, they never quite captured the same feeling of having Match arrive through my letterbox.

CARDS/STICKERS/FIGURES ETC

My first ever sticker album was the Panini one for the 91/92 season, the last of the old Division One before the Premiership took over the world. Once the Premiership started then Merlin proved themselves to be the true king of the football sticker world and I think I had every album up until about 97/98 when I thought myself far too cool to be collecting stickers anymore.

There were also various football card fads over the years too. My favourite were the “big head” series, I can’t remember who made them but they featured caricature type pictures of the footballers and had top trump style ratings on the back.

Talking of big heads, the Corinthian figures were another huge playground phase in the mid 90s. Before them though, I remember building a small collection of Tonka football figures but you rarely hear people talk of them these days. They were bigger than the Corinthian ones and were more prominent in the late 80s/early 90s I think.

Anyway back onto Corinthian big heads, I used to love lining them up on the carpet in dream teams and different formations and stuff. One man who would always make my team is the don down below.

I also remember for a short while Netbusters videos seemed to be all the rage. A fairly low budget and short video that would come out every month or so that were pretty shit on reflection.

There was also a stupidly large amount of cock ups videos. My favourite of which was Neil Hancock’s Football Nightmares. I actually got my copy free with Four Four Two magazine and watched it fucking tons of times. He tries to get a lift to a Stoke game but ends up in another Stoke or something – HILARIOUS TIMES.

Other football collectables I remember from the time were football pogs, and also something I really struggle to find any evidence of it actually existing and that no-one seems to remember but I swear existed – little marble type things with pictures of footballers inside. I swear they were called “flick a balls” or something like that and there was a little game you could play with them too. Can’t find any pictures or anything though so you can have a huge one of an Ian Snodin pog instead.

THE VIDEO GAMES

This is just my personal journey so I’m well aware I’m missing out lots of classics here (I never played Sensible Soccer as a kid for instance). I’m pretty sure the first ever football game I played was Italia 90 round a friends, a bit of a crap game really but I thought it was amazing just because I had nothing else to compare it to.

My first ever console was a Sega Master System and the football game I played most on that and properly came to love was Super Kick Off. I also owned World Soccer but as I said, Super Kick Off was the daddy for me.

The first game of the Fifa franchise I ever owned was Fifa 96 on the Sega Saturn. I remember being stunned at its realism and it was my football game of choice on that console for quite a while as the only other one I had was the rather pony Euro 96 game based on the Actua Soccer game engine.

In 97 however, whilst I still purchased the updated Fifa game, Sega Worldwide Soccer was launched and blew it out of the water. It’s one of my favourite games of all time in fact and is hugely underrated to this day. I must have spent weeks playing on it.

So yeah that’s my recollections of being a football obsessed kid in the 90s. Have you got anything you’d like to add or that I’ve reminded you about? Post below or on the forum then innit.

Led Zep were just a covers band, like Westlife.

I’m sure everyone knows that they ripped off a lot of blues riffs for their tunes, but did you know the extent of just how much they plagiarised?

We’re not talking Noel Gallagher style re-using bits of songs and sticking them in his own, I mean actually taking other peoples songs in their entirety and claiming them as their own! This set of Youtube vids has a lot more about it



I bet you didnt know it was that bad did you?

Soapys Film Tournament: First Round, Division III

For the past month a group of selected film connoisseur members from The Soapbox community picked their top 10 films of all time. A total of 153 films were mentioned but only 64 made the final cut to the tournament. The films were ranked from 1 to 64 according to the voting and have been paired against each other in the following order: 1 vs 64, 2 vs 63, 3 vs 62 and so on. For the next days I will be posting the matches for the first round, I encourage everyone to be part of the tournament and vote on the polls or leave a comment.

Division III

3. The Godfather (1972)

Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Country: USA
41 pts, 6 votes
Top rated by Mahoney and caughtbytheriver
IMDB: #2

62. Life Is Beautiful (1997)

Director: Roberto Benigni
Country: Italy
7 pts, 1 vote
IMDB: #75

30. The Godfather II (1974)

Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Country: USA
12 pts, 2 votes
IMDB: #3

35. Forrest Gump (1994)

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Country: USA
10 pts, 2 votes
IMDB: #36

14. The Big Lebowski (1998)

Directors: Ethan Coen and Joel Coen
Country: USA
18 pts, 2 votes
Top rated by Bakester
IMDB: #135

51. Dazed and Confused (1993)

Director: Richard Linklater
Country: USA
9 pts, 1 vote
IMDB: n/a

22. The Graduate (1967)

Director: Mike Nichols
Country: USA
15 pts, 3 votes
IMDB: #162

43. The Dark Knight (2008)

Director: Christopher Nolan
Country: USA
10 pts, 1 vote
Top rated by icanmex
IMDB: #11

6. Taxi Driver (1976)

Director: Martin Scorsese
Country: USA
28 pts, 6 votes
IMDB: #41

59. There Will Be Blood (2007)

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Country: USA
8 pts, 1 vote
IMDB: #137

27. The Lives of Others (2006)

Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Country: Germany
13 pts, 4 votes
IMDB: #58

38. Swingers (1996)

Director: Doug Liman
Country: USA
10 pts, 1 vote
Top rated by part brut
IMDB: n/a

11. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Director: Michel Gondry
Country: USA
21 pts, 3 votes
IMDB: #60

54. Aliens (1986)

Director: James Cameron
Country: USA
9 pts, 1 vote
IMDB: #54

19. Amelie (2001)

Director: Jean- Pierre Jeunet
Country: France
16 pts, 2 votes
IMDB: #47

46. Buffalo ’66 (1998)

Director: Vincent Gallo
Country: USA
9 pts, 2 votes
IMDB: n/a

Division I vs Division IV
Division II vs Division III

Legendary #football matches part 4: #RealMadrid – #AFCAjax

The Champions League season is starting again this week and since my favourite club Ajax are playing Real Madrid in Madrid this week it’s time to look back on one of my favourite matches ever, from the 1995/1996 season.

22 November 1995, Estadio Santiago Bernabéu, Madrid

1995, Ajax won the Champions League, European Super Cup, World Cup for club teams and what not. 1994/1995 was one the most succesful seasons in the club’s proud history but probably Ajax’s best ever match was in the season after, against Real Madrid. In Madrid.

I still remember the match, even though I was only 7 at the time. I was in the car with my parents, brother and sister as we came home from a holiday or something and thus listened to the first half of the match via the radio.

Patrick Kluivert scored the opening goal but for still unknown reasons the referee disallowed the goal. Later in the first half Ajax scored another goal (Litmanen’s free kick was clearly a goal) but neither the referee and the linesmen noticed it. 0-0 at half-time. In the second half two brilliant attacks are enough to humiliate the biggest club on earth in their own stadium, 0-2. After the final whistle the Ajax players received a standing ovation from the shocked Real Madrid audience.

Untill this day videos of this match are being used in Real Madrid’s youth academy, to show the youngsters how football should be played.

Jorge Valdano, Real Madrid’s manager at the time, said after the match: “Ajax are not just the team of the nineties, they are approaching football Utopia. Their concept of the game is exquisite yet they have a physical superiority as well. They are Beauty and the Beast.”

Going Solo – JP’s Top Ten Solo Artists Who Are Better Than The Bands They Were In

Many try their hand at being a solo artist after being in a successful band and fail miserably or just are a bit crap (Richard Ashcroft, Gary Barlow, Slash, I’m looking at you). However this is a positive post about positive things. So this is going to be about solo artists who not only left a band to forge out a successful solo career it is about artists whose solo career went on to PISS ALL OVER the material of the band they were in and in my opinion is their finest work.

So here we go with the top ten countdown…

10; Elliott Smith (Heatmiser)

To be honest I’ve never really given Heatmiser that much of a listen but they’re not going to be better than Smith’s solo work are they? I’m not even the biggest Elliott Smith fan in the world but he left us some brilliant material behind when he died and several beautiful albums. He deserves his place on this list.

9; Darwin Deez (Creaky Boards)

Slightly controversial one maybe as he is still pretty knew to the whole solo artist thing and only has the one album. It’s an excellent album though and he’s been one of my favourite breakthrough acts of the year. His old band Creaky Boards sounded a bit shit to me so that’s good enough for him to make the lower reaches of this list. I’m pretty sure he didn’t do his amazing dancing in his old band either.

8; Panda Bear (Animal Collective)

Another controversial move for different reasons. Yeah everyone bums Animal Collective these days but I’ve been a much bigger fan of Panda Bear’s solo stuff if I’m honest. AC have never made an album as good as “Bros” and probably never will. I can’t wait to hear his newest offering when it comes out later this year.

7; Scott Walker (The Walker Brothers)

Yeah The Walker Brothers were a nice group, no doubting that. But Scott Walker’s solo stuff really takes things up a few notches. His solo stuff is much more up my street, especially on albums like “Tilt” where he gets all avant garde and discordant. The numbered albums are obviously all well known for being great too. So yeah much better than the pop ballads of his Walker Brothers days, no doubting it.

6; Syd Barrett (Pink Floyd)

Syd Barrett’s “The Madcap Laughs” is better than anything Pink Floyd ever did. Pink Floyd were only any good when Barrett was in the band.

The sooner you accept these facts the sooner you will be able to move on in your life.

Thanks.

5; Four Tet (Fridge)

Fridge were okay I guess, I find them a little dull though. Four Tet however is my favourite electronica artist and his album “Rounds” is in my top five of the 00s it is that damn good.

A definite example of someone whose solo work pisses all over that of the band they were once in.

4; Bjork (The Sugarcubes)

I know The Sugarcubes are still pretty highly thought of and yeah they are decent, but they’ve never really totally clicked with me. Bjork however has managed to have a solo career so good that it has made her probably the best female solo artist of the last two decades.

3; Neil Young (Buffallo Springfield)

I like Buffallo Springfield don’t get me wrong. But I really don’t think there’s many people out there who when asked what their favourite Neil Young related album is would pick one of the Buffallo Springfield lps. The Solo career he has had since the end of that band has been phenomenal and certainly PISSES ALL OVER anything they ever did.

2; Nick Cave (The Birthday Party)

I’m not sure about this one tbh, does Nick Cave even count as a solo artist? I think a lot of people think of him as one, myself included but in reality he’s a band leader with The Bad Seeds being an important part of the whole thing. I’m going to include him though as he is the one that counts, I know the likes of Mick Harvey have down some songwriting and stuff over the years but in reality The Bad Seeds are an everchanging lineup and basically a backing band. Cave is the showstopper and the main event and writes all the big hits lets face it. It’s no different to Neil Young having a few nobodies backing him up, he’s still a solo man. (BTW if you read this Warren Ellis please don’t beat me up, I think you’re amazing really).

Also I really do like The Birthday Party too, but Cave’s SOLO career has been a lot more adventurous and simply BETTER.

1; Robert Wyatt (Soft Machine)

Look at him, what an absolute hero. I’ve gone on about how much I love him on these pages not so long ago so I won’t repeat myself too much today. But I just find him to be one of the most interesting and amazing musicians Britain has ever produced.

The day he dies I will cry.

So yeah that’s my list. Is there any you disagree with or think I’ve missed out? LET ME KNOW