Thursday, July 20, 2006

iPod Mystery Track | Hard-Fi

Every once in a while a track pops up on my iPod while it's in shuffle mode that I've never heard of and have no idea how it got on my iPod. Perhaps a friend sent it over or I got it from a music blog or I got it from a sampler CD or some record promoter sent it over or the music gods bestowed an immaculate download upon my iPod. I don't know but it's fun to have these tracks pop up every so often to keep things interesting.

I usually don't write about the tracks because I don't know anything about the bands. But when has that lack of knowledge ever really stopped me in the past from posting about a band. So, I thought I'd throw the track up here from now on when they appear.

The track this time was "Stars of CCTV" from Hard-Fi and it came on while I was giving my kids a bath last night. The lead singer has a Billy Bragg quality to his voice and the music is half-acoustic and half-electric. The strumming makes the song feel immediately familiar and the chorus is rather catchy. Good tune.

Today, I learned the band is from England, the song came out in 2004 on a very limited release (500 copies) but was re-released in 2005 on an album of the same title. Apparently, the album got strong reviews and was nominated for a Mercury Prize.

According to iTunes, I added the song to my library on Aug 8th, 2005. So, it only took me a year to finally get my ass around to listening to it. Whoever gave it to me, thanks.

Hard-Fi | Stars of CCTV

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hard Fi have achieved a lot of commercial success over here, but there seems to be as many people who really despise them. I'm not a big fan myself but they've done well for themselves.

Flatlander said...

Unless I've completely missed it, they haven't gotten much attention in the US yet.

cj howareya said...

Hah!!
Exact same thing happened to me this very week.

Was playing a disc full of random mp3s I copied months ago and was racking my brain trying to think who that band was. Had to bring the disk in to my office and search through the files to find it. Sure enough: Hard-Fi "Stars of CCTV"

This of course speaks directly to your "drinking water from a firehose" theory. 5 bucks says Bob sent us that track. And I know I'll be stumbling across something you sent pretty soon wondering "What the ... ? Who the ... ? Where the hell . . .?"

Flatlander said...

That's a bizarre coincidence. The odds are so slim that it actually pisses me off. If I'm holding four hearts, I never get that fifth for the flush but when it comes to weird coincidences like this...then lady luck shines on me.

The fact you also have it means it probably came from the gmail list. I'm guessing Bob or Jim.

Someday, Lee Moses' "Time and Place" is going to pop on your iPod and you'll try to figure out where it came from. That one was me.

Anonymous said...

Very cool song.

I have no idea what's playing when I'm on shuffle. Probably 'cause all of that frickin' space-rock/drone stuff could be the same band. ;)

Anonymous said...

Might have been me..I don't even remember.

http://extrawack.blogspot.com/2006/01/hit-hard-fis-cash-machine-for-free.html