Hello, and welcome to BrokenFM. Which is like BrokenTV, but about music.
Back in space year 2005, stumbled across a compilation project by Stu “TV’s Mr Crisps” Campbell, listing a total of one hundred songs could be crammed onto a standard 80 minute CDR, entitled Big Songs For Small Attention Spans. It was so good, BrokenFM’s Mark X cobbled together his own counterpart, the not entirely snappily-titled Gone In 48 Seconds* (*On Average), which was quite good. Then BSFSAS2 appeared, and it was also good. Then: nothing happened. At least, nothing in the world of compilations containing ludicrous numbers of songs.
Then, BrokenTV’s Mark X noticed how easy it is to sort all your songs by duration in iTunes, and an idea was born. Well, revived. See you at the bottom of the list where there might, just might, be some sort of download link. If you're good.
Ninety-nine songs that can fit onto a single CD. Not a hundred, because track numbers only go up to ninety-nine. And just to make it a bit more interesting, we’ve set ourselves the following rules:
- No more than two songs by the same artist.
- No using You Suffer by Nepalm Death, the official shortest song in history. That would be too easy.
- The same goes for They Might Be Giants’ album-within-an-album Fingertips.
- No more than two songs that were on Big Songs For Small Attention Spans or Gone In 48 Seconds* (*On Average), they have to be ‘fresh’.
- Only things can be properly classified as songs. No spoken word only tracks, or dialogue clips from movie soundtracks.
- And get that hair cut. You look like a hippy.
With that in mind, BrokenFM set off, CD collection and track-ripping function of iTunes at the ready, to come up with the following list…
1. Luscious Jackson - Intro (0.05)
And we’re off. And breaking two of the golden rules straight away. Eep.
2. Joby Talbot - Blast Off (0.16)
From the soundtrack of the largely disappointing HitchHiker's Guide To The Galaxy movie. Are far we were concerned, the best thing in that movie was the laser that slices bread, cooking as it goes, making instant toast. Excellent. Although it does mean the side of the bread still attached to the loaf will be toasted, even though it's going back in the bread bin, thereby causing staleness and a wasted slice-worth of bread next time round. So, even that isn't very good.
3. Arm of Roger - Counting to Zero (0.49)
From their excellent 'The Ham and Its Lily' CD, which anyone lamenting the end of Grandaddy should investigate.
4. Arling & Cameron - Olympic Intro (0.18)
We’re quite disappointed A&C have yet to release an album called “I’m Arling, and he’s Cameron”, you know.
5. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Sunshine and Clouds (and Everything Proud) (1.01)
This is a great tune, plus you could use it as a ringtone that would really annoy the sort of people who like what they’d probably call ‘proper music’ like Razorlight.
6. The Fisticuffs - Don't Play In Old Refrigerators (0.29)
From a compilation album called 'Til Someone Loses An Eye, which has a selection of tracks dispensing advice to children. A bit like that Charley Says DVD, but in music. Anyone remember the pre-Neighbours voiceover warning about the time Joe Mangel’s son clambered into an old fridge? Just us, then? Oh.
7. Blur - We've Got A File On You (1.00)
Nice to see Damon’s set up another side-project to get all of those dull songs out of his system, hopefully ensuring the new Blur album will be full of ace stuff like this.
8. Fear of Pop - Interlude (0.21)
Also known as Ben Folds, as a side project from the days when he still had his Five. The self-titled album containing this track had Folds’ first collaboration with Bill Shatner on it, called In Love, which is every bit as tops as the cover of Common People, you know.
9. Ben Kweller - Jerry Falwell Destroyed the Earth (1.21)
From the commie pinko terrorist liberal MoveOn.org fundraiser album Future Soundtrack To America, which is home to all sorts of good stuff. Like this.
10. Pitman - Food Interlood (0.24)
Probably all you need to hear from Pitman, really. Once you’ve heard this track, you kind of get the ‘joke’, and don’t need to listen to anything else from him. Not necessarily bad, just a bit one-note.
11. Freeland - Physical World (1.17)
Talking over music counts as a proper song, by the way. After all, that’s what our dad says rap music is.
12. The White Stripes - Passive Manipulation (0.34)
A lot of people like to slag off French & Saunders these days, but given the fact they used a good five minutes of a BBC One Christmas Day special doing a sketch about Meg White’s drumming, they’ll always be alright by us.
13. Pavement - Serpentine Pad (1.16)
Is there a British Pavement tribute band called Sidewalk? Because there ought to be.
14. Ben Folds Five - Dick Holster (0.28)
If we were ever going to become an actor in ‘adult’ movies, we reckon a good name to use would be Dick Holster. It’s better than Buck Naked, anyway.
15. Nirvana - More Than A Feeling (0.56)
From the Lost and Found rarities album. “You’re been a great audience! Stay in school! Hi there, you remember my wife?”
16. Radiohead - At Ease (0.30)
Not actually by Radiohead, but from a remix project called Me & This Army. As we’re not sure who did this, we’re attributing it to Grumpy Thom and friends. And are we the only people in the world who think Fitter Happier is one of the best tracks on OK Computer?
17. Front 242 - Geography II (1.10)
Early phase 242, and while it’s not a patch on last-but-one album ‘Off’, it’s better than most of the tracks on the last-but-none album ‘Pulse’, which we’d hotly anticipated for ten bloody years, only for it to be rubbish. Gah.
18. Them Ickies - Don't Sit Too Close To The Television (0.29)
Another public information song. Don’t sit too close to expensively bought large LCD televisions, because you’ll realise that Freeview channels look really crap on it in close up. Nine hundred and fifty bloody quid!
19. Free Kitten - Secret Sex Friend (0.41)
We wish we had a secret sex friend. (nb The previous sentence should be read in the voice of Mark from Peep Show episode one, lamenting his lack of a Fuck Buddy.)
20. Dungen - Tack Ska Ni Ha (0.31)
One of the albums was received as part of a lovely “get five random albums for £10” online offer was this one. And it’s very good. Although we don’t know much more about it, so that’s all we can offer for this track. Look, all of the song titles are in foreign.
21. Super Furry Animals - Chupacabras (1.26)
You know, we’ve never managed to see SFA live, and the one time, the ONE TIME they come to our home town to play a gig, Liverpool were in the Champions League final, so went to the pub to watch that instead. As anecdotes go, it’s not very good, but it has used up some space.
22. Lost Soundtrack - Run Away Run Away (0.32)
Just when you’re really enjoying this album and are looking forward to a sequel, Sky are going to open up their own music blog, then put it on there, and you can’t listen to it unless you pay them lots of money. Okay, that reference isn’t actually very good or makes any sense, but we’ve got a lot to get through.
23. Shonen Knife - Tortoise Brand Pot Scrubbing Cleaner's Theme (Green Tortoise)
(1.22)
One of the reasons we stopped buying the NME (apart from the fact it had clearly gone rubbish by then), was when they headlined an article on the musical recommendations in the late Kurt Cobain’s diary with “Who The Fuck Are Shonen Knife??”. Ingrates.
24. MC Solaar - Aubade (0.35)
We love French rap music, us. If we can ever find our audio recording of the night of French rap MTV2 played one night (when it was still good), that’s a future upload right there, we reckon.
25. Cake - Race Car Ya-Yas (1.21)
Cake: they released loads of albums, and yet we’ve only ever heard a few songs by them. This is one. Of them.
26. Tied & Tickled Trio - Radio Sun 1 (0.35)
T&TT play Donkey Konga, and record the results onto tape, then put it on their album.
27. Tiga - Who's That (1.12)
We’re glad this track is by Tiga on his own, because we can’t spell Zygtherious.
28. The Beastie Boys - Country Mike's Theme (0.35)
As close as we’re ever likely to get to liking a country and/or western song.
29. Baby Bird - No Children (1.08)
Babybird are back, by the way. Their new album is utterly splendid, and should be all over the radio like a groovy rash. But, the entire world is rubbish, so it isn’t.
30. Ben Folds - Radio Jingle for Tokyo's Inter FM (0.53)
It’s got jam on it.
31. Takako Minekawa - Flash (1.21)
An excellent track, and one that reminds us a bit of the intro sounds to the lake level in WaveRace64. Ah, happy days.
32. The Flaming Lips - Michael Time To Wake Up (0.31)
From back when they were experimental and not quite as good as they are now. We command everyone to watch their Fearless Freaks film next time it crops up on Artsworld, by the way.
33. Family Guy - The FCC Song (1.20)
From the only brilliant episode of Family Guy since it rose from the dead, which means we have to keep sitting through every new unfunny-cutaway-pop-culture-reference-joke-packed episode, in case another good one happens. We’re still waiting.
34. Field Trip - Don't Run On The Side Of The Pool (0.28)
More advice for wayward American children.
35. The Damned - Stab Your Back (Peel Session) (1.03)
Replete with introduction and, er, outroduction from The Peel himself. Tops.
36. John Linnell - Proccessional (3) (0.36)
The Gospel ‘Accordion’ To John. Ha ha! (Sorry, everyone.)
37. Moldy Peaches - Grayhound Bus (1.15)
Despite the name, they’re not from Mold at all. They’re from somewhere in America. Good, because Mold is a rubbish place with too many roadworks and no good pubs*. (*Reference local to North Wales. Apologies to our viewers in other regions.)
38. Pizzicato Five - Pizzicatomania (0.36)
No relation to Ben Folds Five. Well, obviously.
39. Mercury Rev - Moving On (1.20)
Around the time of Goddess On A Hiway, you couldn’t move for people praising the Revs. Then, for reasons that escape us because they’re still excellent, everyone stopped. We can’t help but feel that if they’d changed the band name to The Revs, they’d still be massive in a post-Strokes musical universe.
40. They Might Be Giants - Call Connected Thru The NSA (0.37)
Specially recorded ringtone track from The Giants, socking it to the man. And it’s the only track by them on here*, because using lots of Fingertips would have been too obvious, and we’re trying to make it more difficult for ourselves. (*Apart from the John Linnell, Mono Puff and John Hodgeman tracks, but we’re hoping you won’t have picked up on that.)
41. Ramones - R.A.M.O.N.E.S. (1.24)
BrokenFM remembers the time Tim Lovejoy was wearing a Ramones T-shirt on his Sky One chat show, and was challenged by Martin Freeman to name two of their albums. The best he could come up with was “erm… the Best Of The Ramones?”. Hah. No, don’t think you can try that same trick on us to see us swinging from our own petard, because we haven’t got a Ramones T-shirt. And anyway, Rocket To Russia, and Animal Boy. Hah!
42. Faithless – No Roots (Introduction) (0.28)
Mass Destruction is one of the ten greatest pop songs released so far this decade. Fact. And this is off the same album. Another fact (just not a very good one).
43. Clint Mansell; Kronos Quartet - High On Life (0.11)
From background-music-in-edgy-documentary mainstay Requiem For A Dream Music From The Motion Picture.
44. Run D.M.C. - Son Of Byford (0.27)
Things that annoy us, number one: having to listen to tinpot local radio in someone else’s car, then get quite pleased when the local DJ says “and after another track from sodding Texas, one from Run DMC”. And then our smile turns to a frown as we realise it’s going to be Walk This Way, because even though we love Runny DMC, we hate Aerosmith almost as much as we hate Texas. This is usually followed by us leaping out of a moving vehicle.
45. John Hodgeman - Campaign Ad #2 (1.06)
“It’s time to rebuild.” It’s the bloke off of The Daily Show, those Apple adverts, and a TMBG DVD, if you weren’t sure.
46. The Go! Team - Air Raid Gtr (0.38)
We’ve named our workplace fantasy football team “The Goal! Team” in tribute to them. And only one year after it would have a clever thing to do.
47. Chris Morris - Whiley Sting (0.13)
If we’re playing Six Stages To Kevin Bacon on ourselves, we can use Chris Morris as step three, meaning David “Day Today/Mission Impossible” Schneider is step four, meaning Tom “A Few Good Men” Cruise is step five, with Kevin Bacon. That’s right, look impressed. We’re not going to bother telling you step two, though.
48. Grandaddy - Oxygen-Aux Send (1.08)
We’re kind of hoping their split is only a KFMDM-type hiatus, and they’ll soon be back. If The bloody Verve could do it, why can’t more bands we actually like do it?
49. Pizzicato Five - Readymade FM (0.13)
We’ve just thought of another P5 song we can use on another upcoming secret BrokenFM Special Edition. Hurrah!
50. Manic Street Preachers - Glory, Glory (0.35)
From the new special edition Everything Must Go including all the stuff out of Nicky Wires’ bins. See how up to date we are, and how Sony’s lawyers are about to kill us with knives for including this.
51. Tassilli Players - Russia (0.42)
From their An Atlas Of World Dub album, which we only bought because there’s a song called ‘Wales’ on there, because we had some spare eMusic downloads for that month. It all a bit like this, really.
52. Peter Sellers - Peter Sellers Sings George Gershwin (0.16)
Does what it says on the tin, certainly.
53. Ersatz Glow - Don't Pet Wild Animals (0.28)
More advice. And one of the better tracks from it. You can find the whole album for legal download on the internet somewhere, by the way. It doesn’t get a bit wearying listening to it all in sequence, though. There’re about forty tracks on it, for flips sake.
54. DJ Tall - Tout a 10 Balles (0.09)
It’s the Argos Kid Koala!
55. The Breeders - Roi (reprise) (0.42)
We’ve just got into Last Splash, you know. Only about thirteen years too late, we know.
56. Stephen Jones - Intro (0.43)
From his Almost Cured Of Sadness album. You’ve got to admire the fact he made an entire album of disturbing pop songs, then got most of them played on daytime Radio One when Ugly Beautiful came out.
57. Slurp Deluxe - Stop, Drop, & Roll (0.29)
More advice. We’ll stop using these for the next compilation, if there is one. The songs are still quite good, mind.
58. Brainstorm - Chinese restaurant (1.02)
Off the Lumines soundtrack. We’re not buying Lumines 2 until we see it in a sale, because it can hardly be that different to the last one, can it?
59. Action Biker - Gothenburg, Sweden (0.28)
Reasons Sarah Nyberg Pergament is excellent, one: She named her band after the Mastertronic game of the same name, which even all the more wonderful because it wasn’t even a very good game. It’s - at best – merely the third-best crisp tie-in videogame! Reasons Sarah Nyberg Pergament is excellent, two: when she replied to BrokenFM’s email about where to get hold of some of her tracks, she’d not only replied telling us just to nab them off Soulseek*, but she’d opened her email with a Day Today-esque “Hello you”. Excellent. (*We’d already got them from there, but would have been happy to pay for them on ‘proper’ CD, as is our policy. We can’t imagine U2 saying the same to us if we’d asked them, mind.)
60. Whale - Born to Raise Hell (1.12)
Completing our list of our top two all-time Swedish bands (here’s a quick recap for you all - two: Action Biker, one: Whale), here’s Cia Soro and friends, with their musical manifesto. Their second album sits proudly in our top ten of all time, and Hobo Humpin’ Slobo Babe is one of the greatest pop songs of the ‘90s, but try to tell that to people and they just stare at you nervously. Society, eh?
61. Múm - Sleep/Swim (0.50)
Despite the title, this isn’t from ‘Til Someone Loses An Eye, about the dangers of sleeping whilst swimming.
62. Bis - Black Pepper (0.54)
Bis: ace. That is all.
63. CunninLynguists - Where Will You Be? (1.03)
Our favourite rap album of the last year, apart from the DJ Format one, even though they were probably both out last year anyway. At least our finger’s somewhere near the pulse, you’ve got to give us that.
64. Lemon Jelly - It Was (0.24)
We wish we’d had room for All The Ducks Are Swimming On The Water, that’s an ace record. Oh well, this’ll have to do.
65. The Shirehorses - Sheena Easton (Punk Rocker)/Joe's Fucked Off (1.05)
From The Worst Album In The World Ever, which was great. You don’t see any Chris Moyles compilation albums in the shops, do you? At least, we hope not. We haven’t looked.
66. Frank Sidebottom - We Will Rock You (1.20)
Sticking with people from Radio Five’s Hit The North programme, here’s Big Frank (and Little Frank) with a stab at the Queen classic. Has one of the best endings of any cover version ever.
67. Jurassic 5 - J. Resume (0.38)
J5 on the microphone, there. To be honest, we’re running out of steam for writing these descriptions.
68. Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band - Joke Shop Man (1.23)
We should do a compilation with the lowest possible number of tracks on it. Track one: Blue Room, by The Orb. Or not. Here’s some Bonzos.
69. Ciccone Youth - Hi! Everybody! (0.58)
Sadly not featuring Dr Nick from off of The Simpsons.
70. Yellowcard - Three Flights Up (1.23)
A beautiful track, which really should start a whole ‘lovely chillout moods’ segment of the compilation…
71. Half Japanese - Face Rake (0.59)
…oh well.
72. Super Furry Animals - The Sound Of Life Today (0.21)
Second track from the SFA in here. Unfortunately, our strict ‘nothing over ninety seconds’ rules prohibits God! Show Me Magic from getting in here.
73. Sonic Youth - Nic Fit (0.59)
Can you believe we’re still waiting for Richard Clayderman to do a cover version of this track? We know, it’s astonishing.
74. Pop Will Eat Itself - Poison To The Mind (0.57)
Younger viewers might be surprised that this track features the same person responsible for track 98. Mind you, we might be surprised to learn we had any younger viewers.
75. Joy Zipper - Drugs (0.25)
Tabitha Tindale and Vincent Cafiso. How come Joy Zipper get better band member names than every other band in the world, eh?
76. The Hotel Alexis - Broken Sparrow (0.49)
Ah, kick back and relax to this with a nice cup of hot Vimto. Or Ribena if you must. What? Well, we like hot Vimto. (Yes, we’re still struggling to come up with decent descriptions.)
77. DJ Shadow - Why Hip Hop Sucks in '96 (0.43)
His new album – not great is it? If we didn’t have a policy of hating emoticons, there’d be a sad smily face right about here.
78. Goldie Lookin Chain - Eggsies Lament (0.43)
From the olden days, when they gave all of their albums away for nothing over the internet. Back then, they were just about worth it. Now they cost money and have Nick Cotton advertising them in the ad break on Emmerdale, we’re not going to bother any more.
79. Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine - The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time (0.55)
Opener on their final album, which is all wrong, as it should clearly have been the finale. This is what happens when people don’t consult us on records before releasing them.
80. April March - Resume (0.46)
Pop fact! Elinor “April March” Blake was once principal animator on Ren and Stimpy, and sang Don’t Whiz On The Electric Fence. And she’s the best thing we’ve found on eMusic since rejoining it. Yay for her.
81. A Hawkshaw - Dave Allen At Large Theme (0.47)
Best. Theme. Tune. Ever. Interesting show to see repeats of, too. The sketches were quite informally weak, but Dave Allen’s stand-up (well, sit down) comedy in between was rarely less than wonderful.
82. Bikini Kill - Star Fish (0.51)
Is the Bikini Kill woman the one out of Le Tigre who looks a bit like Cheryl Hines, or the other one? The other one? Aw.
83. Bangs - Fast Easy Love (0.47)
Shouty rock music songs by girls with guitars clocking in under a minute is our 17th favourite thing ever, in between pancakes and My Name Is Earl.
84. Client - Cracked (0.48)
Client are wonderful. If it was still 1997, they’d be all over the airwaves like Dubstar were. It isn’t and they aren’t. We’d like to blame Colin Murray for this, for no particular reason.
85. Stereo Total - Push It (0.59)
One of those cover versions that pees all over the original. Because we can’t stand Salt “And” Pepa, and adore Stereo Total.
86. Richard Cheese - Milkshake (0.48)
All you ever need to hear from Richard Cheese, what with him not being anywhere near as good as Aussie ironic cover merchant Frank Bennett, who was doing that sort of thing fifteen years ago. And was much better at it, too. Still, this track is in and out of your head quick enough. We’re not selling some of these songs very well, are we?
87. Plus-Tech Squeeze Box - CartooomTV (0.56)
Remember that odd band who cropped up in the final episode of Adam And Joe Go Tokyo? With the backing dancers with boxes on their heads? Who were ace? Well, this is off their second album, which BrokenFM had to go to the trouble of ordering from Japan, because it’s not out over here, and you can’t buy it on iTunes in the UK, only from iTunes Japan, which you can only buy stuff from if you live in Japan, because Apple hate us all.
88. Duncan Disorderly - Don't Play With Matches (0.28)
Last track taken from 'Til Someone Loses An Eye, which some listeners might very well be glad to hear by now. We still like it, though.
89. Half-Handed Cloud - Tongues That Possess The Earth Instead (0.51)
Lo-fidelity pop music at it’s best.
90. Tatu - Dangerous and Moving (Intro) (0.49)
The start of BrokenFM’s favourite pop album of the decade, and very good in it’s own right. Even if, as it’s an instrumental, it doesn’t feature vocals from official BrokenFM pin-up girl, The Dark Haired One Out Of Tatu. Or the ginger one. No, we don’t know their names.
91. Monty Python - Penis Song (Not The Noel Coward Song) (0.46)
A little number Eric Idle tossed off recently in the Caribbean. And is still churning out at every opportunity to extract money from Americans, we shouldn’t wonder. Ooh, get us.
92. Clinic - DJ Shangri-La (0.52)
Do they still have photos taken in surgical get-up? Bet that’s annoying in summer.
93. Mono Puff - Nixon's the One (1.06)
First album finale from the self-styled "alt. rock supergroup", with a tribute to what, contrary to popular opinion, BrokenFM considers one of the less bad Republican presidents.
94. Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players - Why Did We Decide To Take This Decision To You? (0.54)
Ladies and gentlemen, the longest group name and song title combo ever, beating the record previously set by The Pet Shop Boys' with Where The Streets Have No Name/I Can't Take My Eyes Off You.
95. Cub - Mom and Dad (1.28)
It’s a nice version of the song coming up 58 seconds after the end of this one. There should be a birthday card with a tinny electronic version of this tune for Mothers or Fathers Day. Speaking of which, we’ve got a joke about a gangsta rapper phoning his mum on ‘Mother***ing Sunday’, if Saturday Night Live want to contact us about our rates.
96. Bran Van 3000 - Highway to Heck (0.57)
From their criminally underrated album Glee, which had at least six songs on it every bit and good as Drinkin’ In LA, and they still remained one hit wonders by not bothering to release any of them as singles after hitting the top ten. Those crazy Canadians.
97. Sarah Silverman - You’re Gonna Die Soon (1.30)
Her ‘Jesus Is Magic’ DVD was a bit of a disappointment, we’re saying. Way too much of a reliance on ironic racism and ‘shock’ humour. This bit was quite good, even if it’s not as good a song as the ‘Jewish People Driving German Cars’ song from the DVD which doesn’t make it onto the CD.
98. Clint Mansell; Kronos Quartet - Winter Overture (0.19)
From, of course, the soundtrack to Requiem For A Dream, the source for trailer background music for about a trillion over films since then.
99. The Beatles featuring Morecambe and Wise - Moonlight Bay (0.49)
What better way to round off the compilation with The Beatles performing a classic, replete with comments from Eric and Ernie, performed on their 1960s ITV show? None better, is what.
Total duration: 79 minutes, 36 seconds.
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So, there you go. A stupid amount of time writing a load of guff that’ll take as long to read as it would to listen to the album. Meanwhile, an amazing thing has happened. Someone has only gone and collected all of those songs, in the exact same order, and placed them in a zip file, and uploaded it to Rapidshare, so that anyone reading this could download the songs and hear them for themselves.
Of course, doing so would be horribly illegal, and so we must ask all our viewers not to download the zipfile available at this link: here, because it really oughtn’t be there. Tch. Nothing to do with us, honestly guv. We wasn’t even here. When someone else was uploading all those songs. Those songs that are available from that link. Up there. You know, this link.
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