I have only included songs that I really like, so for instance there is no place for Los Del Rio's Macarena
Australia. A fairly straightforward choice Wide Open Road by the Triffids. A song that the first time I heard sounded like a classic,,,and still does. A beautiful song, where the pain of the singer is laid bare.
I wake up in the morning
Thinking I'm still by your side
I reach out just to touch you
Then I realise
It's a wide open road
It beat out Travelling (Ups & Downs). Plenty of others that would have made choices: Know Your Product (The Saints); The Way I Made You Feel (Ed Kuepper), Pressure Sway (The Machinations), One Perfect Day (Little Heroes), Streets Of Your Town (The Go-Betweens), Berlin Chair (You Am I), Suspicion Bells (Effigy) and Pedestrian At Best (Courtney Barnett).
Austria. Not a county I know a lot about musically. It came down to which Falco song I chose. And the winner is Der Kommissar. It was released at the same time as an English version by After the Fire and did much better in the charts (and rightly so).
It also led to one of the better moments in Scrubs.
Belgium. Ce Plane Pour Moi - Plastic Bertrand
Brazil. I only came across Brazilian punk about a year ago. Have listened to a bit since and it's pretty damn good. Punk was very much a working/marginalised class music, so I suppose it's understandable that Brazil would produce some good punk.
Not being able to understand the lyrics doesn't really hurt it, as it then just becomes about the power of the music.
I'll pick Panico Em SP by Inocentes as my favourite.
I do like Seu Jorge's Bowie covers, but I am trying to avoid covers (with one exception).
Canada. A country that seems that has produced lots of great acts (Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen & Neil Young). And a lot more that are truly awful (Avril Lavigne, Bryan Adams, Celine Dion, Justin Bieber, Nickelback etc).
Another fairly simple choice Echo Beach - Martha and the Muffins. A song that sounds great from the opening beats and still sounds as good as when it was released. A wonderful song about wanting to be in a place you love rather than having to put up with the drudgery of work. I used to really love this song when I worked for Centrelink.
England. The most difficult choice just through the sheer volume of songs that I like. Starting with my favourite bands/singers: The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill (The Beatles), Waterloo Sunset (The Kinks), I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself (Dustry Springfield), Life On Mars (David Bowie), Working Class Hero (John Lennon), Start! (The Jam), She's Lost Control (Joy Division), The Magnificent Seven (The Clash), Open Your Heart (Human League), The Perfect Kiss (New Order), A Forest (The Cure), World In My Eyes (Depeche Mode), Uncertain Smile (The The), Greetings To The New Brunette (Billy Bragg), Big Mouth Strikes Again (The Smiths), Everyday Is Like Sunday (Morrissey) & I Wanna Be Adored (The Stone Roses). Of these I'm going to plumb for The Perfect Kiss.
Then there are the songs from others: Tin Soldier (The Small Faces), Golden Brown (The Stranglers), Spellbound (Siouxsie & The Banshees), Fade to Grey (Visage), Free World (Kirsty MacCall), This Mess We're In (PJ Harvey & Thom Yorke), Little Lion Man (Mumford & Sons) & Rolling In the Deep (Adele).
In the end it came down two others. I came across Buoy by Mick Karn & David Sylvian on the B side to Sylvian's Let The Happiness in. Two members of Japan, a band who broke up just when the looked on the verge of success in large part because Sylvian moved in with Karn's girlfriend. They did some work together after Japan split and years later recorded even recorded another Japan album. Written by Mick Karen Buoy apparently reached #63 in the UK charts in 1987. It deserved much better. I find the switch from the verses to the chorus a bit clunky and that cost it the top spot.
Which leaves Temptation by Heaven 17. Two thirds of the band came from another favourite of mine, The Human League. Temptation is a classic pop song, big sound, some interesting lyrics, searing vocals and works up tempo as the song progresses. And it was used in Trainspotting.
France. Daft Punk would be my favourite band to come out of France, however my favourite song goes to I'll Kill Her by Soko.
It's hard to do humour in pop/rock without turning into a novelty song. Brilliant executed in showing how nuts the singer is, you can't help but think the bloke who was the object of her love made a great decision not to call her back.
Germany. I'm not a fan over the overblown or stadium rock songs/band. For instance I really don't like Queen and Bohemian Rhapsody is the embodiment of overblown rock songs I don't like.
I also tend to think most movies run too long. No love story should ever run more than 100 minutes, because that's all Casablanca needed and I doubt anyone will ever make a better love story movie.
However, I am a fan of the overblown pop song. Clocking in at almost 10 minutes is Sea Of Time by the Rainbirds. The longest song to 'win' and probably the most obscure.
99 Luft Ballons (Nena) and Tour de France (Kraftwerk) were considered.
Iceland. This was the closest choice and might have been the best 2 way battle since Bonecrusher and Our Waverly Star in the 1986 WS Cox Plate (I was on Our Waverly Star that day).
Probably my 2 favourite acts from the last decade or so have been from Iceland, Sigur Ros and Emiliana Torrini. It was hard enough deciding on my favourite songs from each. I decided upon 2 of their most well known Hoppipolla (Sigur Ros) and Sunny Road (Emiliana Torrini).
Hoppipolla is musically brilliant. Sung part in Icelandic and part in a made up language, I think the fact that we don't understand the lyrics really helps Sigur Ros. Their music is truly beautiful and the listener can make up what the song is about.
Sunny Road is a beautiful song, a love letter to an old flame, where the singer looks back on her life and expresses her regret at choices made and asks for one more chance to a person they haven't seen in quite a while. At the end we don't know how it turns out.
Listening to both now I was tempted to call a dead heat, but I don't want to wuss out. And therefore Hoppipolla races into music immortality. Bjork's Army Of Me completes the trifecta.
Ireland.I did want to avoid covers. However Sinead O'Connor's version of Nothing Compares 2 U is just too to ignore (and the original is barely known). The pain in Sinead's voice is clearly evident. Probably the best song Prince ever wrote. Plus it has a wonderful video.
Rat Trap (Boomtown Rats) is also fantastic and I'm a big fan of Summer In Siam by The Pogues.
Jamaica. I quite like reggae but know shockingly few songs from Jamaica. In the end it was what Bob Marley would I chose and I Shot The Sheriff just beat out Jamming.
Bob's name always appear on list's of celebrity Spurs fans. I think there is little evidence to suggest he really was a Spurs fan, but we've claimed him. And in a list of coolest people to have ever lived, Bob is very close to the top so I'm not going to poop on that parade.
Japan. Forbidden Colours by David Sylvian & Ryuichi Sakamato. Ok this is cheating a bit...well a fair bit. However the music (that Sakamato wrote & played) on this is absolute beautiful.
Netherlands. I'm not a big fan of stadium rock but I do like Radar Love by Golden Earring. If you're going to have a big rock song at least make it fun.
Good enough to beat Shocking Blue's Venus.
New Zealand, Split Enz would be my favourite band from NZ.
However the two in the running were Counting The Beat by the Swingers which was edged out by Gasrankinstation by the Headless Chickens. Fantastic how it reveals the story of Ivan, a bloke working at a petrol station whose life sounds unfulfilled. Ivan sounds like a man who would now have supported Brexit and Trump. The music really compliments what is a dark story.
The Headless Chooks also had another great song with Cruise Control.
Northern Ireland. The great rock songs still sound fresh decades later. And that certainly applies to Gloria by Them.
Her name is G-L-O-R-I-I-I
G-L-O-R-I-A
Gloria!
Norway. I know somebody who traveled to Norway for A-Ha's farewell tour. Now that is devotion. Take on Me was their biggest hit, but my favourite is The Sun Always Shines On TV.
Scotland. Time for another overblown pop song. At almost 8 & 1/2 minutes it's the extended version of Don't Talk To Me About Love by Altered Images. A pop song that is better in the extended format.
Just beats out New Gold Dream by Simple Minds, which wasn't released as a single. However with Promised You A Miracle; Glittering Prize; and Someone, Somewhere in Summertime that was an album with great songs.
Being a cover ruled out Sleeper's version of Atomic.
Sweden. A country that has produced more than it's fair share of great pop songs.
I'm just old enough to remember Abba winning the Eurovision in 1974 with Waterloo. Abba almost won here with Voulez-Vous. Instead they were beat out by The Cardigans with My Favourite Game. I love the changes of tempo in this.
Switzerland, Oh Yeah by Yello. Probably my least favourite 'winner' but still pretty darn good and an excuse to show some of Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
USA. Otis Redding was taken from us way too early. In my opinion Try A Little Tenderness is just about perfect. I love the way it starts with just Otis singing with him really elongating the words. Then slowly more instruments get added, but that are secondary to Otis's vocals. Then the song speeds up. Otis vocals get quicker. By the end the song has built to a magnificent crescendo. The music is loud. Otis is quickly belting out the words. And the song has a brass section (which always helps).
Atomic by Blondie would have won for any other country.
Others worthy of some love: Midnight Train To Georgia (Gladys Knight & The Pips - yes, this was a cover, but it's easily the most well known version), Say A Little Prayer (Aretha Franklin), Love Is Like An Itching in My Heart (The Supremes), I Wanna Be Your Dog (The Stooges), Ain't No Sunshine (Bill Withers), Let's Stay Together (Al Green), Hazy Shade Of Winter (Simon & Garfunkel), Because The Night (Patti Smith), Controversy (Prince), Crosseyed & Painless (Talking Heads), Teardrops (Womack & Womack), Candy (Iggy Pop & Kate Pierson), Mockingbirds (Grant Lee Buffalo), Tom's Diner (Suzanna Vega & DNA - DNA who are English did amazing stuff with that song), Disarm (The Smashing Pumpkins), Tomorrow Wendy (Andy Prieboy), Grace (Jeff Buckley - really I could have nominated anything of that album), Professional Widow (Tori Amos), Sleep Now In The Fire (Rage Against The Machine) and Seven Nation Army (The White Stripes).
Wales. Underworld are sort of Welsh. At least one band member is/was Welsh and they were formed in Wales. Anyway I'm going to count them as Welsh. The question then becomes if I pick Underneath The Radar or Born Slippy. Born Slippy has the advantage of being used in Trainspotting, but in the end I plumped for Underneath the Radar.
I do like the Dakota by the Stereophonics and I really should listen to more Los Campinisos! as I like most of the stuff I've heard of theirs (By Your Hand is probably my favourite).
