Daveportivo's Cultural Evaluation Facility

France since 1997 has been the heartland of the best pure dance music, Air, Daft Punk and Justice not a bad threesome eh? I shouldn't dismiss New York but the LCD led dance is more emotional and lyrically than cool and dancy. No track however was cooler than the ice cold Kelly Watch The Stars complete with a superb video.

Okay I'm a sucker for cute and cuddly videos and I'm sure your all aware of just how good this video is but of course that's secondary to the music. Coffee & TV was a prime example of the low key ballads that Blur had oft mastered but rarely put out as sing. Graham took the lead on vocals and it was the first hint of how great he could be as a solo artist. About as charming as singles get.

The gorgeous Deserters Songs made the world sit up and take notice of Mecury Rev but every great album needs a great lead single. Goddess On A Hiway was perfect, it was tender, soulful and beautiful arranged. It also had one of insanely catchiest opening verses in human history "Well, I got us on a high way and I got us in a car / And I got us going faster than we've ever gone before" and one of the best written choruses in recent memory "When I see your eyes arrive / They explode like two bugs on glass".

Oh yes this is getting serious now. Three straight songs with mind blowing videos and songs of staggering quality. Where to start the guitar line, the wonderful croon or the beautiful lyrics? It's such a fragile and beautiful track. I'll leave you with the great line "I'll Take A Quiet Life / A Carbon Monoxide Handshake".

I already spoke at lenght about this song during Ems entrance in the greatest album list, so I won't go on too much. This song perfect combination of a genius concept with some razor sharp lyricism, it remains one of Ems greatest moments. (the vid starts with My Name Is but it switches up)

Ah Midnite Vultures the album when Beck proved his experimentation wasn't just code for "I do one creative thing that hard to define and then repeat again and again and again". Beck proved he was an genuine musical Albertross when he genuinely jumped from genre to genre. No track was more of a pleasent suprise than this slice of insane party funk who would of though the man you brought you Loser could be this much fun. I always have one MAJOR gripe with this song, I've seen Beck twice once he didn't play it (fair enough he has years of materiel) and the second time, he did requests it was requested and he did a fucking folk version ARGHH!!!!

This must be the third or forth entry from Music For The Jilted Generation it'll be interesting to see which album contributed the most to this list. One of the truely immortal club bangers. (This video if you get invited onto the stage you better know you to fucking dance)

Ah the second entry from Air and a suitably epic electro monster. This was so spacious so floaty and frankily so friggin' silly. Oh and yet another brilliant video enjoy.

Ah Roisin Murphy how wonderful brilliant a one woman one song disco revival you brought us. She went on the proved she had more than just pop hits but honestly who cares when you make pop music this darn good! Looking at the live performances now it looks like Miss Murphy would be a darn cool girl friend, although she has got pretentious with age. And no your eyes are not deceiving you this took well over Ten minutes live, including an impromtu Donna Summer cover at Glasto but luckily I've found a 9 minute version with some hilarious dancing. Oh Hell I'll include the Legendary metallic dress video as well.