dEUS - Little Arithmetics

Probably the closest thing dEUS have ever had to a pure pop song. And what an utterly delightful little tune it is. Even my old flatmate who always said she didn't like dEUS couldn't resist tapping her toes to this one, when she thought I wasn't looking. (Oh yes you did, Angela. I saw you.)

It's from their second album, 1996's In a Bar, Under the Sea, easily the best thing they've ever done.

Allen Clapp and his Orchestra - She Grins and Waves Goodbye

Allen Clapp is sort of an American Martin Newell, though not quite as off-the-wall and far less prolific. (With regard to the latter point, I'd say "give him time", but he doesn't seem to have released anything for about five years.) By that, I mean he's someone who's put out a number of clever and charming twee/indiepop records that seem to have been put together largely in his bedroom; his "orchestra" may have included actual band members, but one suspects they were mostly in his head.

This is a track from his 1994 debut album, released on the marvelous Bus Stop label. It reminds me a bit of the Swirlies.

Clouds - Anthem

Australian band from the early '90s who put out a bunch of records on Red Eye (didn't they all?). There was nothing particularly distinctive about them, but they made pleasant radio-friendly pop music that could have been a lot more commercially successful than it was. Outside of Australia, I mean.

This was a 1992 single.

Cause Co-Motion! - I Lie Awake

Yet another wonderful Brooklyn band of the past few years. The high price of real estate in Manhattan has certainly been a boon to the Kings County music scene.

Cause Co-Motion!'s recipe is one part lo-fi indiepop, one part '70s punk, run through a blender for about 1.5 to 2 minutes. Yes, it's that good.

This was a 2008 single.

The Gun Club - Brother and Sister

The Gun Club came out of the LA punk scene of the early 1980s but always stood out from the crowd, thanks to Jeffrey Lee Pierce's obsession with traditional American music (at its darkest). Think a less cartoony Cramps, or Nick Cave on coke instead of heroin. Some of it I find almost unlistenable, but when they got it right, it was tremendously powerful stuff.

Pierce died in the mid-1990s, apparently from a brain hemorrhage, though it's hard not to suspect that drugs had something to do with it.

This is from their second album, 1982's Miami.

The Sugarcubes - Birthday

I never really got the hype around the Sugarcubes. Well, that's not quite true. I got it, in the sense that I intellectually understand the appeal of a band from an otherworldly country like Iceland with a certifiably-insane-yet-cute-as-a-button female singer (with an admittedly massive voice). But their music...meh. Average alternapop, most of it.

"Birthday" was a genuinely great single, though. Here's the Icelandic version.

Blur - Top Man

From 1995's The Great Escape. It's kind of a silly song, like a lot of Blur from this era - well ok, like a lot of Blur full stop - but also undeniably catchy. I'll be humming it the rest of the day.