Festive Fifty 2008

Voting has opened on Dandelion Radio for the 2008 Festive Fifty. It's your votes that count.

1988 Festive Fifty Weekend: Number one

So, here we are, then, as the Bank Holiday ticks away - the number one from 1988's Festive Fifty. Perhaps surprisingly - given that The House Of Love tend not to be the first band on people's lips when remembering the post-C86 era - it's Destroy The Heart which took the honour. Snub TV provides the footage:



Buy: The Creation Years

[Part of the 1988 Festive Fifty Weekend]

1988 Festive Fifty Weekend: Number two

The Wedding Present's Nobody's Twisting Your Arm - here captured in a Chart Show indie chart top ten (from the fifth March 1988, if you're keeping notes).



Buy: Thank Yer Very Glad

[Part of the 1988 Festive Fifty Weekend]

1988 Festive Fifty Weekend: Number three

More genius from the Creation stable, as Jesus And Mary Chain kick off the top three with Sidewalking - surprisingly their only appearance in the run down in 1988:

Buy: 21 Singles

[Part of the 1988 Festive Fifty Weekend]

1988 Festive Fifty Weekend: Number four

The version which got everyone excited - the almost never-ending Take Me by The Wedding Present - was the session version. This isn't that - it's live, recorded at Wolverhampton's Little Civic Hall (presumably for people who don't feel very civil?). You might not need to look at your screen during this one.



Buy: An Evening With The Wedding Present DVD

[Part of the 1988 Festive Fifty Weekend]

1988 Festive Fifty Weekend: Number five

Another band which is currently enjoying a reunion surge, then, at five, with the mighty Freak Scene by Dinosaur Jr.




Buy: Bug

[Part of the 1988 Festive Fifty Weekend]

1988 Festive Fifty Weekend: Number six

And this, of course, is why all right thinking people were giddy with over-excitement when they returned. My Bloody Valentine's You Made Me Realise. This, live, from Amsterdam in 1988:



Buy: Remastered vinyl version of Isn't Anything

[Part of the 1988 Festive Fifty Weekend]

1988 Festive Fifty Weekend: Number seven

The highest placing for Pixies, with Gigantic. This is live, but no indication of where it was recorded.



Buy: Pixies Acoustic: Live in Newport

[Part of the 1988 Festive Fifty Weekend]

1988 Festive Fifty Weekend: Number eight

Festive 50 archivist David Gedge appears at number eight: Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now by the Wedding Present:

The official video, off of MySpace



Buy: George Best

[Part of 1988 Festive Fifty Weekend]

1988 Festive Fifty Weekend: Number nine

Christine, from the House of Love, which not only made number nine in the festive fifty, but went one place higher on the Billboard Modern Rock chart. Obviously when it was modern.

From the band's 2005 reunion tour:




Buy: The Complete Peel Sessions

[Part of the 1988 Festive Fifty Weekend]

1988 Festive Fifty Weekend: 12, 11, 10

Another slice of the Peel programme's year-end vote from two decades ago. Why did I say two decades? That does make it sound ever such a lot...

12. Morrissey - Every Day Is Like Sunday
Of its time appearance on Top Of The Pops



Buy: Everyday Is Like Sunday on vinyl

11. The Inspiral Carpets - Keep The Circle Around
A reunion tour appearance in Manchester this year



Buy: Cool As...

10. Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - The Mercy Seat
Live on the legendary Night Music show



Buy: Tender Prey

[Part of 1988 Festive Fifty weekend]

1988 Festive Fifty Weekend: 15, 14, 13

15. The Wedding Present - I'm Not Always So Stupid
Twenty years on - more or less - here's Gedge playing the song in a metal box in Derbyshire, July 2008



Buy: Live 1987

14. The Fall - Cab It Up
From the ballet I Am Kurious Oranj - and flagged by YouTube as requiring care for under 18s



Buy: I Am Kurious Oranj

13. Morrissey - Suedehead
Live on Later... With Jools Holland in 1992



Buy: Live In Dallas DVD

[Part of 1988 Festive Fifty Weekend]

1988 Festive Fifty Weekend: The thirties

Picking up, quite quickly, some of the tracks that made the lower reaches of the Fifty:

39. Pixies - River Euphrates
Live, Brixton, 26th June 1991



Buy: Surfer Rosa / Come On Pilgrim

35. Stump - Charlton Heston



Buy: Stump Box Set

31. Mudhoney - Sweet Young Thing Ain't Sweet No More
Live in Chester, Cheshire, 1989



Buy: Superfuzz Big Muff

[Part of the 1988 Festive Fifty Weekend]

Embed and breakfast man: 1988's Festive Fifty

Of course, the countdown won't actually have very much suspense in it, as you could nip off and look up the tracks anywhere, but to celebrate the long weekend, we're heading back twenty years to explore the Festive Fifty, John Peel's annual end-of-year listener's poll. We'll bring you the top fifteen in its entirety (the odd cut-off being because number 16 is the first we can't find on YouTube) but, before we get there, here's some bubbling under:

50. Public Enemy - Night Of The Living Bassheads



Buy: It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back

47. Darling Buds - Shame On You
Playing live in 1989



Buy: Pop Said

43. Mega City 4 - Miles Apart
From the tribute gig for Wiz, 2007



Buy: Inspiringly Titled

41 Loop - Collision



Buy: Wolf Flow: The Peel Sessions

The chart will build over the weekend
50 Public Enemy - Night Of The Living Bassheads
49 Wedding Present - Don't Laugh
48 Happy Mondays - Wrote For Luck
47 Darling Buds - Shame On You
46 The Primitives - Crash
45 Pixies - Bone Machine
44 New Order - Fine Time
43 Mega City 4 - Miles Apart
42 The Flatmates - Shimmer
41 Loop - Collision
40 The Fall - Guest Informant

Thirties
39 Pixies - River Euphrates
38 McCarthy - Should The Bible Be Banned?
37 Shalawambe - Samora Machel
36 The Fall - Jerusalem
35 Stump - Charlton Heston
34 Pooh Sticks - On Tape
33 James - What For
32 Spit - Road Pizza
31 Mudhoney - Sweet Young Thing Ain't Sweet No More
30 Pixies - Where Is My Mind

Twenties
29 Sonic Youth - Silver Rocket
28 Overlord X - 14 Days In May
27 The Fall - Kurious Oranj
26 Cocteau Twins - Carolyn's Fingers
25 Billy Bragg - The Great Leap Forwards
24 The Fall - Big New Prinz
23 Morrissey - Disappointed
22 Morrissey - Late Night, Maudlin Street
21 Robert Lloyd and the New Four Seasons - Something Nice
20 Sugarcubes - Deus

19 Sonic Youth - Teenage Riot
18 House of Love - Love In A Car
17 My Bloody Valentine - Feed Me With Your Kiss
16 The Fall - Bremen Nacht

15 The Wedding Present - I'm Not Always So Stupid
14 The Fall - Cab It Up
13 Morrissey - Suedehead
12 Morrissey - Every Day Is Like Sunday
11 Inspiral Carpets - Keep The Circle Around
10 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - The Mercy Seat
9 House Of Love - Christine
8 The Wedding Present - Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now
7 Pixies - Gigantic
6 My Bloody Valentine - You Made Me Realise
5 Dinosaur Jr - Freak Scene
4 The Wedding Present - Take Me
3 The Jesus And Mary Chain - Sidewalking
2 The Wedding Present - Nobody's Twisting Your Arm
1 The House Of Love - Destroy The Heart

Festive Fifty 2007

The good people over at Dandelion Records are running a 2007 Festive Fifty, along the same rules as John Peel's annual poll - although whether they'll actually be printing the poll forms out and entering the details in a large ledger as they come in isn't clear. You've got until the end of November to choose your three tracks.

Saloon bar heroes

While we were off discovering the difference between proper Egg Nog and the evil stomach bile that comes with pictures of soldiers on the side, John Peel unveiled the Festive Fifty for the year. Thanks (that's as in "We've borrowed this in a deft cut and paste") to the Peel YahooGroup, here's this year's chart in full:

1 Saloon Girls are the New Boys
2 Cinerama Quick Before It Melts
3 Miss Black America Talk Hard
4 Nina Nastasia Ugly Face
5 Antihero Rolling Stones T-shirt
6 M.A.S.S. Hey Gravity
7 Laura Cantrell Too Late for Tonight
8 Pinhole So Over You
9 Marc Smith vs Safe 'n' Sound Identify the Beat
10 Ballboy All the Records on the Radio are Shite
11 Miss Black America Miss Black America
12 Yeah Yeah Yeahs Bangs
13 Cinerama Careless
14 Half Man Half Biscuit The Light at the End of the Tunnel
(is the Light of an Oncoming Train)
15 The White Stripes Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground
16 Low In The Drugs
17 Asa-Chang & Junray Hana
18 Low Canada
19 Coin Op Democracies
20 Belle & Sebastian You Don't Send Me
21 The Datsuns In Love
22 The Fall Susan vs Youth Club
23 Jeffrey Lewis Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song
24 Ballboy Where Do the Nights of Sleep Go To
When They Do Not Come To Me?
25 Cornershop Staging the Plaguing of the Raised Platform
26 Saloon Have You Seen The Light?
27 The White Stripes Fell In Love With A Girl
28 The Cranebuilders Your Song
29 The Delgados Mr Bluesky
30 Bearsuit Drinkink
31 Ladytron Seventeen
32 Boom Bip and Dose One Mannequin Hand Trapdoor Reminder
33 The Von Bondies It Came From Japan
34 Wire 99.9
35 mclusky Alan is a Cowboy Killer
36 Low That's How You Sing Amazing Grace
37 Antihero You Got Nothing
38 Half Man Half Biscuit Breaking News
39 Cinerama Catgirl Tights
40 mclusky To Hell With Good Intentions
41 Burning Love Jumpsuit Cheerleader
42 Interpol Obstacle 1
43 Melys So Good
44 The Delgados Coming in from the Cold
45 Miss Black America Infinite Chinese Box
46 80s Matchbox B-Line Disaster Celebrate Your Mother
47 The D4 Get Loose
48 Müm Green Grass of Tunnel
49 The Aphrodisiacs This is a Campaign
50 The Dawn Parade The Hole in my Heart

As ever, the winner is slightly controversial, although this year its more of a tactical voting scam rather than the full-on Jeb Bush riggage that has happened in the past (Fat Tulips, are you still in the corner looking ashamed?). It seems that, afraid of the split vote that has consistently prevented The Fall and various David Gedge projects from taking their positions at the top of the tree in previous years, Saloon asked their fans that, if they wanted to cast a vote for them, to vote for Girls Are The New Boys. It seems to have worked for them, but we're not entirely sure it's ethical. Luckily, we hear Kissinger's free again to investigate.