Been meaning to post this for ages.

Some time ago I was honoured to be asked to be guest-editor/curator of the marvellous Twitter account @thelostrecord and post a top ten of my favourite band the Mountain Goats.

As I tend to do with these things, I've just copied the original tweets, and I hope you enjoy the tunes...

So here we go, get ready for some treats from the man The New Yorker called "America's best non-hip-hop lyricist" Mr John Darnielle #tMG10

Before we get to the #tMG10, a couple of the "Big Hits" to get out of the way. 

tMG have a cycle of Going to... songs & here's the seminal Going To Georgia 

Next, from wonderful The Sunset Tree LP, the uplifting This Year. A live singalong favourite

Another with a proper video, from the beautifully fragile Get Lonely LP, Woke Up New 

One here which didn't quite make it into the #tMG10 but that means a lot to me personally 1 John 4:16 

So off we go with the @maffrj "Completely-subjective-definitive-Mountain-Goats-top-10-no-returns" #tMG10

#tMG10 10: Heretic Pride isn't my favourite tMG album by some way, but Autoclave is a cracking tune 

While I'm thinking about Heretic Pride, here's a glorious live version of San Bernadino from Manchester Academy 2011 

#tMG10 9: From The Sunset Tree, an LP about Darnielle's relationship with his abusive step-father, Love Love Love 

#tMG10 8:"Bill Gates will singlehandedly spearhead the Heaven 17 revival" Cubs In Five always brings a smile to my face 

#tMG10 7: Snow Crush Killing Song 

#tMG10 6: Twin Human Highway Flares

Halfway through the @maffrj #tMG10 so we'll have a break with a few covers & oddities that I didn't feel right including in the 10.



Next, from Darnielle's side project The Extra Glenns here's Baltimore #tMG10

From Black Pear Tree tMG's collaboration with Kaki King "Thank You Mario But Our Princess Is In Another Castle" #tMG10 

Before we kick back off, an amazing cover of Trembling Blue Stars' Sometimes I Still Feel The Bruise #tMG10 

#tMG10 5: There Will Be No Divorce "If I ever want to drive myself insane, all I have to do is watch you breathing" 

#tMG10 4: A room full of people singing "Hail Satan" to The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton is the most fun thing 

#tMG10 3: How beautiful can a song about 2 alcoholics called International Small Arms Traffic Blues be? This beautiful 

#tMG10 2: The 1st @mountain_goats track I ever heard, from the stunning Tallahassee LP, the other Big Hit, No Children 

The #tMG10 #1 was also #1 in my list of my all-time favourite tracks so if you know me & if you've been paying attention this will be no surprise.

#tMG10 1: From the opening "She came in on the red-eye to Dallas Fort Worth" Color In Your Cheeks = shivers down my spine 

So there you go, my (current) top 10 @mountain_goats songs. Just have to thank @eifion for being a 4AD nut & buying Tallahassee in 2002.

Matt's written a new blog post - that must mean he's made another list...

Yes, you guessed it, another Twitter-inspired list. Books this time.

I think over the years I've mistaken reading a lot for being well-read seeing as how I appear to have read very few acknowledged classics. 

I stuck to novels, meaning Julian Cope's Head On/Repossessed autobiography missed out, and also left out children's books, meaning Dr Seuss's Green Eggs And Ham is sadly ignored.

I did consider including Graphic Novels just so that I could put Art Spiegelman's Maus in there, but decided against it.

So here it is, a list of 15 books that I like. Comments just copied from the original tweets...



15 DBC Pierre - Vernon God Little. Bought on a whim for a holiday read and was blown away. By the book, the weather was fine.

14 Patrick Süskind - Perfume: The Story Of A Murder. You wouldn't think a story about smells would work so perfectly.

13 Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood. Maybe I was just swayed by the fancy edition I had but I'm pretty sure it was the story.

12 Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time. Ingeniously written. I love a concept like this...

11 Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse-Five. You know this surely?

10 Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory. Even though I guessed the ending I still loved it. Should really read more of his.

9 Nick Hornby - High Fidelity. From back when music lists didn't give me a cold sweat! Need to re-read to reignite the spark.

8 Donna Tartt - The Secret History. A murder mystery where they tell you the ending at the start. Brilliantly written.

7 Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett - Good Omens. I love Pratchett but here Gaiman brings out the best in him.

6 Douglas Coupland - Microserfs. Coupland tends to disappoint me, especially recently, but this one's a peach.

5 JD Salinger - The Catcher In The Rye. An obvious one I guess. I read it at the right age, which I'm sure helps.

4 Jonathan Safran Foer - Everything Is Illuminated. This book is so clever, so thoughtful, so happy/sad, so funny. Perfect.

3 Irvine Welsh - Trainspotting. I remember cramming this in before I saw the film. Wasn't a problem - couldn't put it down.

2 Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Laugh-out-loud funny and SO FAR ahead of its time. Genius.

1 Harper Lee - To Kill A Mockingbird. The only thing that made O level EngLit bearable. Really haven't got the words for it.

The mother of all lists

I'll be honest with you, I'm sick of lists. This will be a temporary thing obviously, but right now if I didn't see another list for a month or two I'd be quite happy.

The reason for all this list-hate is, slightly paradoxically I guess, a big-ass list that has taken up a lot of my time for the past month. 

You may have seen from my previous 2 posts that I compiled a list of my top 50 albums as part of a "thing" that a bunch of my "friends" on Twitter were doing. 

There was only one rule for those compiling lists, and that was that a maximum of 3 albums per artist were allowed in your list. Pretty much anything else was fair game - live albums, compilations (although the majority of people shied away from best-ofs). Some people took it upon themselves to limit themselves further to the extent that they only allowed themselves 1 album per act. I did this myself and found that it made for a more varied list - you would have had more Mountain Goats, Pixies, Pavement, Prince, Teenage Fanclub etc otherwise.

So fool that I am, I went and volunteered to compile everyone's lists into one big list and post the results. Now, I did this last summer on a much smaller scale for a few people's lists of favourite songs. It was during the time when MrsJ was working 4 nights a week so I had a lot more time to myself of an evening. This time it got a bit out of hand.

We ended up with 40 people submitting lists, and by that stage I was ruing the fact that my spreadsheet skills aren't on a par with my nun-chuck skills. I gave points to each album/artist depending on their position in people's lists - 50pts for first place down to 1pt for 50th place.

And, after much hard work, I did it. It hurt a lot, but I did it. I'm going to post a link to it in a minute so you can see it in all its glory, but here's a quick preview.

The most popular artists ended up looking like this...

...and the top 30 albums were...

I had 6 of those artists & 3 of the albums in my list, so maybe I'm not as mainstream as I tend to think I am.

Anyway, here's the link to the big spreadsheet for you peruse at your leisure. Just don't ask me to do it again.

The album list, part 2

Yeah, part 2. I should point out that these are just copied & pasted tweets from my Twitter account @maffrj.

25: The Durutti Column - The Guitar & Other Machines (1987). Vini Reilly & Bruce Mitchell are geniuses (is that right?)

24: Paul Simon - Graceland (1986). But then who doesn't love this?

23: Tricky - Maxinquaye (1995). Another that would have been higher previously. Even top 10 at one point. Dark & stunning

22: Carter USM - 101 Damnations (1989). Torn between this & 30 Something until about 20 seconds ago. Pun-tastic

21: LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening (2010). Possibly the finest band I've ever seen live. In fact ignore that "possibly"

20: The Boo Radleys - Giant Steps (1993). Sprawling, yes, but the tunes! Such great tunes!

19: Airhead - Boing!! (1992). Bring back Airhead! They were ace.

18: The Streets - Original Pirate Material (2002). Couldn't wait for this to come out. Must have been in my CD player for months.

17: The Sundays - Reading, Writing & Arithmetic (1990). Jangly indie-pop perfection.

16: Sugar - Copper Blue (1992). Or Beaster. Doesn't really matter. They're both fantastic.

15: Belle & Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister (1996). Yeah, that's pretty much perfect really isn't it?

14: Cornershop - When I was Born For The 7th Time (1997). Can't think of anything to say other than "It's bloody great"

13: Buffalo Tom - Let Me Come Over (1992). Best support band I ever saw. Should've been huge.

12: The Lemonheads - It's A Shame About Ray (1992). The original issue, not the one with Mrs Robinson tagged on the end

11: Pixies - Doolittle (1989). Completing a nice little Bostonian triumvirate, a real big hitter outside the top ten

10: The Beloved - Happiness (1990). I guess very much of its time, but that time is very much my time.

9: The Lilac Time - The Lilac Time (1987). Stephen Duffy is one of the finest songwriters this country ever produced.

8: Underworld - Dubnobasswithmyheadman (1994). Before "the big hit" was this amazing album of not-really-dance-as-such music.

7: The Wedding Present - Seamonsters (1992). Saw them play this this year and it's as great as it was when I saw them in '92

6: Spiritualized - Lazer Guided Melodies (1992). Without the wig-outs of its younger siblings, this is all about the (lazer guided) melodies

5: a-ha - Scoundrel Days (1986). This is ONE HELL of an album and I'll stake what's left of my indie cred on it.

4: dEUS - Worst Case Scenario (1994). I love dEUS. I love this album. From the violins on Suds & Soda onwards it's faultless.

3: Teenage Fanclub - Songs From Northern Britain (1997). It could have been Bandwagonesque or Grand Prix, but this just just shades it.

2: the Mountain Goats - Tallahassee (2002) If you know me I'm sure you expected tMG to take top spot. Not quite, not today anyway.

1: Prince - Sign "o" The Times (1987). I'd say this has been my favourite album for maybe 18 of the past 25 yrs on & off. Genius.

So that's it. Quite glad I limited it to 1 per act, added to the variety & the challenge I think. Hope you enjoyed it.

Another list. An album list this time...

I did another list. I know, ANOTHER list! What am I, the NME? It's a top 50 albums of all time list. There's nothing pre-1985 although not deliberately, and only 1 album per artist.

Here's the first 25...

50: Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend (2008). Possibly the most recent thong on the list. Wonderful summer pop record.

49: Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins - Rabbit Fur Coat (2006). Can't be doing with Rilo Kiley, but his is fantastic

48: Colorblind James Experience - Colorblind James Experience (1987). Brilliant. And with polkas!

47: Turin Brakes - The Optimist LP (2001). Not the coolest thing on the list, but great tunes

46: PJ Harvey - Dry (1992). Bought this in Germany with money I should have used to buy food. Best hungry week I ever had.

45: Money Mark - Push The Button (1998). Mark's Keyboard Repair has Cry on it, but this just shades it

44: Cake - Fashion Nugget (1996). I bloody love Cake me. Could have been any Cake album but this has The Distance, Frank Sinatra etc

43: The Breeders - Pod (1990). Almost too short. And standard really quiet Albini production. But my favourite Pixies offshoot LP.

42: The Bluetones - Expecting To Fly (1996). Yay Britpop! Or something. Just pop really I guess. Ace though.

41: The Extra Glenns - Martial Arts Weekend (2002). A Mountain Goats record by any other name & an entry level tMG recommendation.

40: Throwing Muses - The Real Ramona. Throwing Muses can do no wrong.

39: Sisters Of Mercy - Floodland (1987). Hated This Corrosion on 1st hearing on but grew to love it in the 6th form revision room.

38 They Might Be Giants - Flood (1990). Reminds me of the car park of The Ship in Rhos On Sea for some reason. Mental & brilliant.

37: Kristin Hersh - Hips & Makers (1994). Officially the nicest person in indie. Saw her & Vic Chesnutt that year. Stunning.

36: De La Soul - 3 Feet High & Rising. (1989). I own very little rap. That this makes my list shows how much I love it.

35: Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Sings Greatest Palace Music (2004). Yeah I know, a travesty, ruins the lo-fi Palace stuff, don't care.

34: Lou Barlow - Emoh (2004). Love Sebadoh but this is the best thing Lou's done in my opinion.

33: Air - Moon Safari (1998). A few years ago this would probably have been top 20. Still a respectable placing mind.

32: The White Stripes - Elephant (2001). Played this non stop for about 6 months that year.

31: Beth Orton - Trailer Park (1996). Folktronica was a shit name for a genre wasn't it? This LP can easily reduce me to tears.

30: Pet Shop Boys - Behaviour (1990). Blimey, surprised this was 1990. A stunning distillation of the PSB sound.

29: The Wave Pictures - Instant Coffee Baby (2008). This is a properly fun catchy indie LP that you should all investigate please.

28: Pavement - Brighten The Corners (1997). Close call between this & Crooked Rain. Always preferred their more tuneful LPs.

27: New Order - Technique (1989). Own this on CD, cassette & vinyl. And all the 12"s. In fact ALL the New Order Factory 12"s.

26: Bettie Serveert - Palomine(1992). Impulse purchase at a record fair in Cov Poly SU. Love it. Played it today.