Fresh onto the web comes an interview for Shortlist Magazine with Mr Smith about some of his favourite musical tracks. I've reproduced it here in full, and included the youtube links you'll need to check his selections out.
EDITORS' ULTIMATE PLAYLIST
22 Sep 2015
The release of Editors' fifth album is on the horizon and, in an age when many bands struggle to even get to the second record, it shows just how much they've achieved, cultivating a massive loyal following of fans through ten years of quality music.
We've already heard enough of In Dream - via early release tracks No Harm, Marching Orders and Life Is a Fear - to know it's going to be another special one and, while we wait for its release on 2 October, we decided to catch up with frontman Tom Smith to discover his Ultimate Playlist.
Read on for some fantastic choices, including a legendary large-trousered rapper...
FAVOURITE SAD SONG
"Broken Heart by Spiritualized, which is on Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space... That whole album is incredibly sad, but that song in particular... just about being ruined by a broken heart, It's the most glorious but sad string arrangement that you're likely to hear. The whole thing is almost unbearable in its beauty."
FAVOURITE MOVIE SOUNDTRACK SONG
"The film Magnolia is one of my favourite films and the soundtrack to that is all done by Aimee Mann. I think actually some of the lyrics of the songs influenced Paul Thomas Anderson in the making of the film. It's an incredibly emotional, heavyweight film - I think there's twelve different stories that all intertwine - incredibly heavy going. There's this moment at the end, when, just after all the stories all kind of connect - and just before it starts raining frogs - all the characters sing this song to the camera, it ruins me every time. The song's called Wise Up, it's a beautiful song. It sounds terrible doesn't it, that all the characters start singing this song in the film, but it's incredible."
FAVOURITE SONG NO ONE ELSE KNOWS
"One of the songs I always think, 'Oh more people should know this', maybe they do...a band called Wheat and they've got a song called Don't I Hold You, it's an album called Hope and Adams which I think came out in the late nineties. Again, it's beautiful, it's like an American alt-rock band, like quite a lot of those American melodies, just like a kind of beautifully uplifting melancholia to it all, and the groove's wicked... more people need to hear that band and that song in particular."
FAVOURITE SONG FROM YOUR CHILDHOOD
"I was trying to think back, and I do have pretty strong memories of doing choreographed dance routines with my youngster sister in the living room to MC Hammer - U Can't Touch This. So I have pretty vivid memories of trying to tell my sister to do exactly what I was doing in our little dance routine. Our trousers weren't to the extent of Hammer's, but they were pretty baggy."
FAVOURITE CLUB ANTHEM
"All My Friends by LCD Soundsystem, off the Sound of Silver record, which is a club record and is probably, almost, a club anthem - it's not your most obvious club anthem. But what I like about the whole of this record - and particularly that song - is it's dance music, but you don't have to dance to it, because, apart from my MC Hammer days, I'm not one for dancing, so yeah: All My Friends."
FAVOURITE WEDDING SONG
"My favourite wedding song is a cliched wedding song, but that's because it's fucking brilliant and that's Come On Eileen by Dexys. It's just an incredible song. I don't know many songs that can pull off speeding up and time changes, and pull 'em off without being completely naff. I mean Dexys were just superb anyway, but I love Come On Eileen and I don't think I'll ever get bored of hearing it."
FAVOURITE LYRIC FROM A SONG
"It's another sad one - but God Only Knows by The Beach Boys:
"If you should ever leave me/Though life would still go on believe me/The world could show nothing to me/So what good would living do me/God only knows what I'd be without you"
"What's brilliant is that it's heartbreaking, but it also makes you believe in love at the same time. So there's a nice contradiction there. Simple, to the point, but just said in a way that takes you off-guard."
FAVOURITE ONE-HIT WONDER
"White Town - Your Woman. Remember that one? I think it was a number 1. I remember hearing it on Mark and Lard when they were on Radio 1 - he was just some dude from Coventry wasn't he? He just knocked out this absolute smash! It was wicked, such a cool tune. I'm not quite sure what genre that song is, it's kinda like...well, it's just a hit isn't it?"
FAVOURITE CURRENT SONG
"My favourite song off that new Weeknd record is this track Losers, with Labrinth. It's unbelievable. I really like half the record, much like all of The Weeknd's stuff, I really like half of it and half of it's a bit too much for me, but this tune is kind of an off-kilter, piano, pop-club song. It's banging."
FAVOURITE SONG FROM YOUR OWN MUSIC
"It's probably a B-side from our Back Room-era days. On our debut record, one of the B-sides was called Let Your Good Heart Lead You Home and it's a song that we [recorded when we] were invited by Elbow to hang out with them and we recorded it with them in Manchester. They were an inspiration - one of the bands that were important and the reason that we formed in the first place.. so to hang out with them in their gaff, in their studio, because Guy loved the tune and wanted to record it, and they produced it - him and Craig - and it's one of my favourite songs. I love the song too but it has wonderful memories attached to it also, so that was an immensely exciting time for us all."
stream it here
brought to you with lots of lemming-love :) x
stream it here
brought to you with lots of lemming-love :) x
