Friday Random Five: Nifty tunes!

Tonight the ‘Refresh’ button brings you the swellest songs you’re likely to get.

Windy by The Association
Here’s a delightful little tune from the year I was born, and it’s still getting airplay on AM radios all over the country. Sing along! You know the words!

Here are some interesting facts about the name ‘Windy’.

• It is apparently a real name that some people have.
• ‘Windy’ was the 1473rd most common first name for women in the 1990 U.S. Census, not as popular as Clementine or Dorcas, but more popular than Bambi or Latrina
• About 4 women in 100,000 are named Windy. This means that in the USA, there are about 11,829 women walking around with the name ‘Windy’.
• An important stage in the psychological life of a ‘Windy’ is learning to be at peace with the song.
• They also probably have to explain a lot that their name is not ‘Wendy’.
• The name ‘Wendy’ is much more popular than ‘Windy’. It ranks at number 115, somewhere between Gladys and Ethel.
• When I was six, my teenage sister brought home a friend named Wendy, and I annoyed her by constantly calling her ‘Windy’ after the song. “But everyone knows it’s Windy,” I explained.
• She never came over again. I was a pesty kid.

Kingsize (You’re My Little Steam Whistle) by Haircut 100 Album: Pelican West
Oh, no, you say. Not Haircut 100. And what an embarrassing title. But that’s because you’re not listening. If you were, you’d hear the sunniest, jazziest album of 1982. Don’t say anything bad about Nick Heyward, by the way, because he still has a lot of fans that monitor the Net and they may come to your house and bop you over the head with a wet plimsoll.

I will say, however that this is an album that you have to be in the mood for. Albums are like that when they’re really heavily marked by a certain musical style. Full marks for musicianship, though.

In Between Days by The Cure Album: The Head on the Door
Now we’re talking. The Cure was just coming out of a dark patch, what with Faith and Pornography, and they were getting on a happy track that would eventually lead them on to “Friday I’m in Love” and so on. I got into the Cure about the time this album came out, and though it’s not my favourite (that would be Seventeen Seconds), but lots of good songs, and this one causes my ears to perk up whenever I hear it in supermarkets, which I sometimes do.

Fever by Love & Rockets Album: Sweet F.A.
Bringing it down a bit. The charred guitar on the cover belonged to Daniel Ash; it was ruined in the fire that destroyed producer Rick Rubin’s house. I wasn’t sure about this album at first because I wasn’t in a L&R mood when I got it. I wisely put it away until I could approach it with the right mindframe. And now I think it’s right up there with their best. The dance thing cuts through the hippy thing, and there’s lots of drug things going on, which is probably how the fire started.

Song’s got a good groove. All the Bauhaus guys have been behind a lot of great music.

(Dawning of a) New Era by The Specials Album: The Specials
This is absolutely the coolest album that I know of. You can always pull this out and it always works. Forget what I said about albums being marked. This one’s as ska as they come, but it pulls you along even if you’re not in the mood. I don’t think I even know what this song’s about. I’m singing the chorus anyway.