Your Finest Hour

OK, DJs and DJ-wannabes, this one's for you! As you can see from my avatar, I am big into Guy's Finest Hour program. I think he does a brilliant job of putting playlists together. We have some kick-ass music gurus around here, so why don't we try putting together some playlists that might be worthy of the Finest Hour?

Guy has said in interviews that his shows are like peeks into his personal music collection. I'd love to know what y'all would choose to represent your own collections if you had two hours of airtime to do it! I am not too worried about the timing, but I checked and it seems like Guy's playlists run about 20-25 tunes per show, so let's aim for that range. And if you have a theme for your show, as Guy often does, even better! But just list whatever you would most like to play. I'm sure I'll discover new tunes here from all of you, just like I always do when listening to the real Finest Hour! I have to think about this before I post one myself, but if anyone has something to share then do your DJ thang and let 'er rip!

im gonna have a think and try to come up with a good playlist.

Ok, I'll give it a try:

1. Sam as in Samantha by Tiger Lou
2. Hurt by Johnny Cash
3. Slow by dEUS
4. Gold in them hills by Ron Sexsmith
5. I'm not sorry by Morrissey
6. All I need by Air
7. Don't let the sun go down on me by George Michael (with Elton John)
8. Heavy metal drummer by Wilco
9. Jane say's by Jane's Addiction
10. Found that soul by Manic Street Preachers
11. Release by Pearl Jam
12. Riding to Vanity fair by Paul McCartney
13. Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel
14. Who wants to live forever by Queen
15. I didn't mean to turn you on by Robert Palmer
16. New York, New York by Ryan Adams
17. Bitter Sweet Symphony by The Verve
18. Born Slippy by Underworld
19. Weak become heroes by The Streets
19. Mr. Brightside by The Killers
20. Rock the Cashbah by The Clash
21. Get back by The Beatles
22. There is a ligth that never goes out by The Smiths

No real order - but The Smiths have to be the last one!

Niiice, ElbowFreak! I like your choices, and I hadn't listened to that Robert Palmer in a while so I gave it a spin!

Alrighty, this is what I've come up with. Not as easy as I thought and I really had a tough time narrowing it down! By the way, if anyone would like to hear what this playlist would sound like, I've put it together over on playlist.com and you can check it out (hopefully, because that site is notoriously buggy and the song links tend to crap out quite often). You can find it here: http://www.playlist.com/playlist/15885291019

1. What Makes You Think You're The One - Fleetwood Mac
2. Afraid - Nico
3. I Feel So Good - Richard Thompson
4. Hold On - Tom Waits
5. Nightswimming - R.E.M.
6. Linus and Lucy - Vince Girauldi
7. Break Your Promise - The Delfonics
8. Fight Test - The Flaming Lips
9. Take Me Home, Country Roads - Toots and the Maytals
10. God Only Knows - The Beach Boys
11. Hyperballad - Bjork
12. I Want You Around - Ramones
13. My Angel (Malaika) - Harry Belafonte and Miriam Makeba
14. If I Had A Boat - Lyle Lovett
15. One Piece At A Time - Johnny Cash
16. Everybody Here Wants You - Jeff Buckley
17. Black Flowers - Yo La Tengo
18. Notion - Kings Of Leon
19. He Lays In The Reins - Calexico/Iron & Wine
20. Nothing Compares 2 U - Prince w/ Rosie Gaines
21. Last To Leave - Arlo Guthrie
22. Waiting For My Real Life To Begin - Colin Hay
23. Feed The Birds - Garth Hudson
24. Teenage FBI - Guided By Voices
25. Good Night - The Beatles (this one isn't on the playlist.com player, 'cause the Beatles and their lawyers don't roll like that, so just imagine that it's the last song!)

[quote="ChrissieInFL"]

5. Nightswimming - R.E.M.
8. Fight Test - The Flaming Lips
10. God Only Knows - The Beach Boys
11. Hyperballad - Bjork

I definitly forgot those! Alghough I would have picked Do you realise by The flaming lips! Probably one of the finest lyrics I've ever heared!
And I forgot my classic heroe Frank Sinatra! Oh dear, I should put up a second list!

ElbowFreak wrote:

I definitly forgot those! Alghough I would have picked Do you realise by The flaming lips! Probably one of the finest lyrics I've ever heared!
And I forgot my classic heroe Frank Sinatra! Oh dear, I should put up a second list!

Honestly, I was torn between Fight Test and Do You Realize, but Fight Test just sounded good to me at that moment! But I agree, ElbowFreak - Do You Realize has fantastic lyrics and is one of my all time favorite songs.

OK. Here's 25 tracks (in no particular order) that I'd play on my Finest Hour

1 Song to the Siren - This Mortal Coil
2 So Help Me - Raging Slab (Crap band name, great song)
3 Consideration - Reef
4 You Stole My Thunder - Hunters and Collectors
5 Dr. Mabuse - Propaganda
6 Pocahontas - Neil Young (Rust Never Sleeps version)
7 I Like Birds - Eels
8 Suspended in Gaffa - Kate Bush
9 Betty - Kate Walsh
10 Morning Glory Wine - Mark Lanegan
11 Entangled - Genesis
12 Downtown Lights - Blue Nile
13 I Believe In You - Talk Talk
14 Dr. Bogenbroom - Jethro Tull
15 Loaded - Primal Scream
16 Venus in Furs - Primal Scream
17 Vimbayi - The Four Brothers
18 Lasidan - Ali Farka Toure and Ry Cooder
19 Dark Moon, High Tide - Afro-Celt Sound System
20 Transmission - Joy Division
21 Telephone and Rubber Band - Penguin Cafe Orchestra
22 Hoedown - ELP
23 In The Cold, Cold Ground - Tom Waits
24 The Dark is Rising - Mercury Rev
25 Spectral Morning - Steve Hackett

Hotblack wrote:

9 Betty - Kate Walsh

Kate Walsh! I haven't listened to her in ages. Good choice.

I'll have to think about this, I'll edit later!

Hotblack - great list, and there will be some tracks I'll go hunt down since I don't have all of them! BTW, I had Blue Nile's Downtown Lights on the first draft of my list too, but ended up replacing it. Hard to fit in everything I'd like to play!

ChrissieInFL wrote:

Hotblack - great list,

Thanks Chrissie

Quote :

Hard to fit in everything I'd like to play!

Dead right. Can I have a weekly programme please? I might be able to fit everything in over the period of about a decade.

al wrote:

Hotblack wrote:

9 Betty - Kate Walsh

Kate Walsh! I haven't listened to her in ages. Good choice.

Ta! Tim's House is a wonderfully fragile album. I love it.

And I've just noticed a mistake

16 Venus in Furs

Should read Velvet Underground and not Primal Scream. Don't know how that happened.

Zero - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
One Of These Things First - Nick Drake
Breaking Us In Two - Joe Jackson (Or you could have "Be My Number Two" by Joe - both fine, fine songs)
Three Changes - The Good, The Bad & The Queen
4th Dimensional Transition - MGMT
2+2=5 - Radiohead
Six Shooter - Queens Of The Stone Age
Seven Seas - Echo & The Bunneymen
Baby Ate My Eightball - SFA
9-9 - REM
10th Avenue Freeze Out - Bruce Springsteen
Eleventh Earl of Mar - Genesis
The 12 Steps - Spiritualized

Fourteen Black Paintings - Peter Gabriel
Fifteen Minutes - Kirsty MacColl
16 Military Wives - The Decemberists
Seventeen - Sex Pistols
18th Avenue - Cat Stevens
19th Nervous Breakdown - Rolling Stones
20th Century Boy - T Rex
21st Century Schizoid Man - King Crimson
Section 22 (Running Away) - Polyphonic Spree (A bit of a cheat this one)
23rd Dub - The Upsetters
24 Hours - Joy Division
25 Years - Hawklords



A bit rushed, I'm sure there are better suggestions for some of the numbers. I am not particularly happy with numbers 3, 9, 12, 18 & 22, fine songs though they are. And there is no number 13 - I just could not think of one so I'm playing the superstition card!

Had a few goes at this and change my mind every time. Too many good tracks and different styles to pick from. Here's my latest one.
All you Good Good People – Embrace
Soma – The Strokes
Molly’s Chambers – Kings of Leon
Picture This - Blondie
Golden Brown – The Stranglers
That’s Entertainment – The Jam
How Soon is Now – The Smiths
5:15 – The Who
Graffiti – Maximo Park
One to Another – The Charlatans
Love’s Not a Competition – The Kaiser Chiefs
Slide Away – Oasis
Sign of the Times – Prince
Under The Bridge – Red Hot Chili Peppers
You do Something to me – Paul Weller
Porcelain – Moby
Teardrop – Massive Attack
Ordinary World – Duran Duran
Silver – Echo & The Bunnymen
Unforgettable Fire – U2
Waterfront – Simple Minds
Hotel Istanbul – Elbow
Amsterdam - Coldplay

ChrissyBoy wrote:

Waterfront – Simple Minds

I love that big chimeing riff. Great song. Simple Minds did some great albums in their early days.

Yeah, I really like a lot of their stuff. Some of it doesn't date too well, but they were more significant than a lot of people realise.

Hotblack wrote:

And I've just noticed a mistake

16 Venus in Furs

Should read Velvet Underground and not Primal Scream. Don't know how that happened.

Aaahh, OK...and here I was thinking that you had just tipped us all onto some obscure cover we'd never heard of! Good thing I hadn't started searching for it yet!

Mr_K wrote:

One Of These Things First - Nick Drake
9-9 - REM
Fourteen Black Paintings - Peter Gabriel

Really love these tracks, but the whole list is good, Mr_K...lots of varied sounds in there!

ChrissyBoy, your list is probably my fave so far...I would like to put that together and see how it sounds! Might need to leave out the Oasis, though...they bug me too much, but I think I'd enjoy listening to pretty much everything else on there. Teardrop is a perfect song and the Paul Weller track is one of my favorites of his.

ChrissieInFL wrote:

...Might need to leave out the Oasis, though...they bug me too much

Their reputation / attitude doesn't help them, but I think this is a superb song with great sounding guitar - reminds me of summer. Just pretend its not them

I had a look at the playlist site, but i couldn't find the first track on my list, so didn't bother going any further. Had a listen through your's though
Its quite good to see what everyone suggests, certainly opens your ears to revisit some bands and less obvious choices.

ChrissyBoy, I tried putting your list together on a different site, and was about 85% successful...had to go with live versions on a couple where the album version was not posted, and couldn't find decent versions of any type for Silver or Hotel Istanbul (figures!) . Anyway, I compiled what I could and the player is here: http://www.myflashfetish.com/user-playlist.php?id=20802873

Listening to it now and it's sounding like a good playlist so far!

Still have to form my finest hour idea...

So, i've been thinking and i still can't quite decide but here's my playlist with the loose theme of "Beards"...

Ain't No Sunshine - Bill Withers
These Are Your Friends - Adem
Re:Stacks - Bon Ivor (Day trotter Session)
M62 Song - Doves
Serpent Charmer - Iron and Wine
To Build a Home - Cinematic Orchestra
Toxic Girl - Kings of Convenience
Human Behavior - The Decemberists
UFO Sighting - Sufjan Stevens
Join the Dots - Tim and Sam Band
Faith - Boy Least Likely To
Cupid - Colin Meloy
Annie, Lets not Wait - Guillemots
Bears - Sam Isaac
Twist - Frightened Rabbit
Train Song - Feist and Ben Gibbard
Someone Great - LCD Soundsystem
One Pure Thought - Hot Chip
Bowie - Flight of the Conchords
F sharp - Tim Minchin
Love is Like a Bottle of Gin - Magnetic Fields
Salvation Tambourine - Duke Special
You Are My Joy - Reindeer Section
Murder of Birds - Jesca Hoop
May You Never - Elbow


Not perfect, but there goes.

inspiring myself with my last.fm-mix...works...just wait a minit...got my mix...

Ok, I made it now...with moderation

Main theme: those were the days

Mary Hopkins - Those were the days
I'm Katinka Koschka and this is MY finest hour...
Theme today is, like Mrs. Hopkins sang those days. Songs from the past
First will be one from an old tape of my parents. One of those singers who sings quite wry but he can. And I love the violin solo...
Cockney Rebel - Ritz
Speaking of wry singers, I heard this song first in my fave discoteque after the wall came down, Now that I live in that area the disco
is closed. Bugger.
Alex Harvey - Faith Healer
My first disco times back in old East Germany tried to find out stuff that was at least as close at it could get to the great western music
this song was very close though I never heard it in the original. I heard it first by "Balladeer" but this is the original...
Renft/Gerulf Pannach "Sonne wie ein Clown"
My old friend then, Detlef, died way too soon, but he had that lovely B-Side of Fleetwood Mac...
Fleetwood Mac - Eyes of the World
Yes, I remember how I got tickets for this rockfestival in East Germany, also for good ol' Detlef.
One band who played there and got a lot ovations playing that song was this band...
Fisher Z - Berlin
That was in the eighties. I did not really like the music of the eighties. But there was some nice stuff, I admid.
Like this one. Reminded me somehow on early Genesis. That siren keyboard...IT is here...IT is now...
Tears for Fears - Head over heals
Yea, me the 80ies hater. The guilty pleasure. Another Guilty pleasure: the fave singer of old german ladies...infamous Roger
Whitaker...but THIS song might be a diamond in the dust...
Roger Whitaker - Indian Lady
Yes. It makes me sentimental. *sigh*. But I am a sentimental type. I sob all the time.
I remember, when I was so small that I could not even walk. I heard the next song. I sobbed. My grandma asked: "What's wrong
my little one?" I just pointed on the radio and sobbed: "LALA!!"
Mr. Acker Bilk - Petit Fleur
snifff* it still works. *wipes tears away* Strange enough, the next song might sound funny to you but I sobbed to this too. Just a hint; listen to the melody in the middle part. My violin teacher says: "That song is not funny. there is some kind of sadness in it.."
Hot Butter - Popcorn
Tangier - Stranded
That song was Tangier, a melodic rock band from Pensilvania. I have this lovely photo of me standing on a long road in the Apalaches and somhow I feel, this song could be the soundtrack of this picture...other holiday music.
This is one song my mate and me listened at the radio when we were on that US-Trip
Queensryche - Jet City Woman
That was my first trip to the US, me the east german girl who have seen at least Bulgaria. In our hotel resort on the black sea
was that quite good band playing on evenings. This was one of my fave songs they played. Must admid I like their version more than the original
Neil Diamond - Forever in Bluejeans
Mostly we did not drive to far away areas like Bulgaria. Mostly to Poland. This song was on a cassette I called the "Masurian Tape" because
we listened to it on the trip to Masurian...
Led Zeppelin - Battle of Evermore
We had school travels then. Sometimes special travels for the most talented. I could paint quite well. We had that travel for painting talented.
And then there was that Girl playing guitar. She played that one:
Neil Young - Old Man
Today travels go a lot more far. This song I heard in one of the shops in our holiday place in greece, in a coverversion, but this is the original
Loreena McKennit - Marakesh Night market
I have seen an old Hero of the old times live, but he did not remember my fave song. It was that one:
Al Steward - Songs out of clay
This one was too on an old reel-to-reel tape of my parents. They also had one with I track that made me run away scared. It was too eery for
my taste. I still find it eery. But in a good way now. Beware, that song is long!
King Crimson - Court of the Crimson King
and if we are on long Johns here is another one. I used to listen to it on the door of my sister's room. She was 7 years older and I was just her
annoying little sis.
Tangerine Dream - Stratosfear
I started to record my own mix tapes then. One of the tracks I recorded then was this funny one:
Chas and Dave "London Girl"I have ca. 500 cassettes by now. When I became a Genesis Fan a few years ago I checked my cassette book and found a note that THIS song
sounds like Genesis...
Traffic - John Barleycorn
My parents have an old tape (120 minits, very sensitive when played). I knew old Steve Winwood then. This is my fave one from his short lived
project Blind Faith:
Blind Faith - Can't find my way home Yea, that strangely dark voice. What I never understood, why did those lovely Genesistracks Shepherd and Pacidy never made it on an official
record?? This is a song I wish, my beloved Elbow would do a cover of....
Genesis - Pacidy
It took a very long time until my mom and me noticed that the next song is not Leo Sayer (who strangely wrote, I wonder why we always thought it
is Leo Sayer but it was Mr. Daltrey!!
Roger Daltrey - Giving it all away
Btw. this song was on a reel to reel I named "Knuppiband" (speak it as it is written! KKKKKnooopeebaaaand) and this is the band I named "Knuppis"
god knows why.
Dave Dee Dozy...- Wreck of the antoinet
Ok. I have to end now.
Btw, did you notice, that there are a lot songs where the words "Good bye" have exactly the same melody??
Just check out the Roger Whitaker song I played before and compare it to "Ruby Tuesday" by the stones and....THIS one...
C-ya, good night
Pink Floyd - Good Bye Blue sky.

PS....I tried to make the titles in "Bold" but it did not work

TamedLamia wrote:

PS....I tried to make the titles in "Bold" but it did not work

Looks like it worked from where I'm sitting

Great choices, especially Alex Harvey (one of my all time favourite tracks) and Loreena McKennit. I didn't know anybody else had really heard of her. The Mask and the Mirror is a really good album.