Songs for the dumped

After self-pity comes bitterness; here are three prime musical examples, especially recommended if you like your Swedes bitter. And trust me, if you've ever been dumped (as I'm sure most of us will have at one time or another) you'll not hear a more staisfying, or indeed better, bitter song all year than Lucky You. Let the catharsis commence.

The Wannadies - Lucky You mp3

Hello Saferide - Last Bitter Song mp3

The Bear Quartet - What's Your Virtue? mp3

Hometown Boys & Girls

Swedish indie classic ahoy! It's The Wannadies' 1990 gem My Home Town...



And here's Min Hemstad, a Swedish language cover of the very same song from Annika 'Hello Saferide' Norlin's other project Säkert (which, thanks to having known and liked the Wannadies' version for years, now becomes the first Säkert song I've ever understood the lyrics to!)



The Wannadies - My Home Town mp3

The Säkert version of the song can be found on the new Razzia Records compilation, There's A Razzia Going On Volume 2, which also, rather thrillingly, includes a previously unreleased Hello Saferide song, I Fold, and which can be ordered here.

With friends like these...

The Wannadies - Friends mp3

I was originally intending to embed another Wannadies video with a slightly deranged bent - Big Fan - today, but sadly that one proved completely unembeddable (we'll forget for a moment that that's not actually a word). Ho hum. You can watch it by clicking here though. I know it's a chore following links people like me throw at you sometimes but this one's fab - honestly! - and well worth three and a bit minutes of your time. There's a great twist towards the end, too. Keep watching to get the full picture!

Buy Wannadies stuff

Hit me baby one more time

I was going to describe today's featured track as the perfect three-minute pop song. But it's only two minutes twenty-five.



The Wannadies - Hit mp3

The Wannadies have at least twenty other songs as good as that in their canon, by the way, so get buying!

By the by, you've had a lucky escape today, because if Greg Norman had won the Open I was going to foist Fred Wedlock's The Oldest Swinger In Town on you! As it was, I was thrilled - not to say relieved - to see Padraig Harrington (officially the nicest man in sport) successfully defend his title.

Tonight, Matthew, I'm going to be Andrew Fletcher...

Crash Calloway over at Pretending Life Is Like A Song (the first blog I ever used to read regularly, and still a big favourite) recently posted an extended, remixed version of Depeche Mode's Just Can't Get Enough - which, together with the fact that his blog is named after a Wannadies lyric, caused my addled brain to remember that I have a couple of energetic early Depeche Mode cover versions by the Swedish indie poppers knocking around, which would seem perfect for putting up here, being that both are blummin' well fantastic. Spike originally put these on a birthday mix CD six years ago after I'd been bugging her to track them down for me for a while (I didn't have much of a clue about all this new-fangled downloading malarkey myself back then. How times change). Anyway, I digress. Here be the songs!

The Wannadies - Just Can't Get Enough mp3

The Wannadies - New Life mp3

(mp3s available for 7 days)

If you enjoy these, I'd thoroughly recommend you download the Wannadies' sublime 1992 album Aquanautic in its entirety for a bargain £5.95 here. It is quide liderally the best thing since sliced bread!

Three of a kind #1

Three-pack of early-to-mid-nineties Swedish guitar pop anthems, anyone?

Popsicle - Hey Princess mp3

The Wannadies - Lucky You mp3

Brainpool - Bandstarter mp3

(above tracks all available for seven days)

Buy Swedish music here