26 July 1965 It's remarkable how The Byrds' three biggest hits have become TV and cinema's go-to evocative signifiers for '60s America: 'Mr. Tambourine Man' for the dawning of age-of-Aquarius optimism; 'Eight Miles High' for LSD-spun hippie-ana; 'Turn! Turn! Turn!' for a coming of age either wistfully in suburbia or traumatically on the battlefields of … Continue reading The Byrds – ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ →

20 May 2010 Inevitably, Lady Gaga's influence comes to market. 'All Night Long' is clearly a record that loves 'Just Dance' from its dance-centric lyrics to its robotic-verse-melodramatic-chorus EDM architecture and back around by its house party video. Alexandra in her video (below) also throws some Gaga-esque Weimar-cyborg shapes. If only Gaga herself had followed … Continue reading Alexandra Burke ft. Pitbull – ‘All Night Long’ →

19 July 1965 The sunny doo-doo vocal harmonies and shimmering tremolo guitar at the start of 'I'm Alive' suggest the influence of an innovative '60s US group we won't be seeing in the Irish number one spot: The Beach Boys. Still, after tunnelling through a sewer of showband hits I'm relieved to hear a chart-topping … Continue reading The Hollies – ‘I’m Alive’ →

13 May 2010 Really, this is from as late as 2010? In my mind I had carbon-dated 'Hey, Soul Sister' to the late '90s and early '00s, when Matchbox Twenty and the Goo Goo Dolls stalked the Earth. Also: really, this is the same band that did the blustery, pretentious soft rock hit 'Drops Of … Continue reading Train – ‘Hey, Soul Sister’ →

28 June 1965 'Crying In The Chapel' sees Elvis entering his Tiny Tim phase. Not Tiny Tim the whimsical '60s falsetto folkie: Elvis here goes all-in on his low, sonorous, serious croon. No, I mean poor little Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol, hoping people would see his small, frail figure in church and be … Continue reading Elvis Presley – ‘Crying In The Chapel’ →

14 June 1965 Bom! Buh-bom! Bom! Buh-bom! That's the sound of '60s UK and US pop swinging mildly to a borrowed calypso beat: we hear it in hits like 'It's Not Unusual', 'Do You Know The Way To San Jose' and this. 'Long Live Love' in its final verse even replicates the brassy calypso blare … Continue reading Sandie Shaw – ‘Long Live Love’ →

29 April 2010 That's OMG as in "oh my gosh" and not "oh my God", just in case you were worried about Usher and Will.i.am blaspheming against their creator - conservative Christian corporate America. Jesus wept. No such considerations of offence against taste or intelligence, of course. 'OMG' tends more towards Will.i.am's dumbed-down EDM inanity … Continue reading Usher ft. Will.i.am – ‘OMG’ →

24 May 1965 Dickie Rock's version of 'Every Step Of The Way', a minor 1963 US hit for Johnny Mathis, is a wedding-day marriage-lifetime ballad with a key change at the end. In that regard it provides Irish precedent to Westlife's '00s songbook of life-sentence domestic commitment. Appalling moral culpability, I know, but I don't … Continue reading Dickie Rock and The Miami Showband – ‘Every Step Of The Way’ →

26 April 1965 1965 is when The Beatles kick on from '50s rock n' roll-flavoured mop-top Merseybeat and hit their masterpiece stride with a new, nuanced '60s guitar-pop sound. 'Ticket To Ride' still has one foot in the old ways: that mid-section and outro are familiar bluesy rockalongs. But those are tack-ons: the main thrust … Continue reading The Beatles – ‘Ticket To Ride’ →

22 April 2010 In a world where Ben & Jerry's had an ice-cream called Black and Tan, and Kia once named a prototype car the Provo, it's clear that international creative agencies don't have little ol' Ireland on their market research to-do list. Still, I like to amuse myself by thinking that at least one … Continue reading Glee Cast – ‘Gives You Hell’ →