Song of the Week #31
See, this Song of the Week for Sinner’s Gin is an odd one, because crucially it is headed into my birthday weekend, and I would count this (much like last week’s) as completely free reign over what I’d want to play. (Happy New Year to all you Sinners and Saints by the way!)
Believe me, I came exceedingly close to blasting some Tribe Called Quest on this fabled playlist for the week, but having sat down with a gin (Sinner’s served at any self-respecting bar or pub near you) and reflecting, I decided to hold off. Instead I looked back over the past 28 years and thought about significant music-based moments that I remembered, and small milestones along the way; turns out being born in the early-mid 90s, Lighthouse Family crops up a lot.
But a significant memory that sticks with me (as I’m sure it will with most people) is the first album that I bought myself. Saving up post-Christmas, combined with bits of pocket money scattered around, as a kid walking into HMV Wakefield, unless you were brought up on rock music (or had parents that were big music fans), any album you picked up was going to be biased towards the artwork you saw on the front. I wear a badge of honour for what I did pick up at the time (probably to see if I could chance it based on the WARNING: EXPLICIT CONTENT foil label), a black album with a sole hand, clutching a heart-shaped hand grenade.
Regardless of what you think of them now (alcoholic dads still trying to be cool in their 50s IMO), Green Day’s American Idiot is still a proper stonker of an album. End to end it’s a politically charged delight 17 or so years on, and if you’re anything like me, the lyrics of all the songs are still buried deep in the recesses of your mind regardless of how long its been since you listened to it last. As a side note, the follow-up live album Bullet in a Bible from 2006 is still for my money one of the top 5 live albums of all time - maybe a list for another day?
The song I've linked (although singular on the original pressing of the album) is actually now part of a ‘double act’ as it were - as are all the songs for some reason. 2 for the price of 1 on this Song of Week; St Jimmy (preceded by Are We the Waiting), Enjoy!