I had a terrific reaction from Twitter to my article about Bob Stanley’s history of popular music, “Yeah Yeah Yeah” back in May 2014…
Like a nervous boy asking out the prettiest girl in school to the disco, I enquired as to whether anyone would like to help set up a page of playlists to accompany each chapter of the book, and started the ball rolling with one of my own.
Never mind that whole “going to school” nonsense to get an education: all the (musical) schooling you would ever need would be contained in such a combination of book and playlists. What we sought to do here was no less than Make The World A Better Place.
Of course it turned out that someone cleverer and, let’s face it, quicker than me had already made a Spotify Playlist of the whole book. With two thousand nine hundred and sixty tracks it was quite an achievement. You can find the playlist here:
There’s another “whole of book” playlist by Keith Beattie via Twitter here:
There was also a YouTube playlist of a few chapters for those without Spotify from @AlbFreeman which is excellent. Here’s one for chapter eight:
But for those who didn’t want to chonk through three thousand songs in one playlist, there was still a gap in the market. My idea was therefore to devote a page of Every Record Tells A Story to sixty-five different playlists of each chapter of Bob’s book. In the same way that each chapter of Yeah Yeah Yeah features a particular period of time, or genre, or band, so would each playlist.
Bob said (via Twitter) about the idea, “It’s a noble project: I’m intrigued to see what people come up with”….
It’s now October 2014 as I write this – and the playlists are complete. What you have before you is a complete set of playlists for every chapter of Yeah Yeah Yeah – except the Beatles one – but then you know about The Beatles, right?
Part One
1. Feet Up: The First British Hit Parade –
2. Flip, Flop and Fly: Bill Haley and Jump Blues
3. A Mess of Blues: Elvis Presley
4. Put Your Cat Clothes On: Sun Records and Rockabilly
5. Teenage Wildlife: Rock n Roll
6. Fifteen Miles From Middlesbrough: Skiffle
7. Rock With The Cavemen: British Rock n Roll
8. Whispering Bells: Doo Wop
9. 1960: It Will Stand
10. Walk With Me In Paradise Garden: Phil Spector and Joe Meek
11. The Trouble With Boys: The Brill Building and Girl Groups
Part Two:
12. Act Naturally: The Beatles
13. Needles and Pins: The Beat Boom
14. Who’s Driving Your Plane? The Rolling Stones
15. This Is My Prayer: The Birth of Soul
16. The Rake’s Progress: Bob Dylan
17. America Strikes Back: The Byrds and Folk Rock
18. Up The Ladder to the Roof: Tamla Motown
19. 1966: The London Look
20: Endless Summer: The Beach Boys
21. The Golden Road: San Francisco and Psychedelia
22. Pop Gets Sophisticated: Soft Rock
23. Crying In The Streets: Deep Soul
24. I Can’t Sing, I Aint Pretty and My Legs Are Thin: Hard Rock
25. Bubblegum Is The Naked Truth: The Monkees
Part Three
26. 1970: Everything’s Gone Grey
27. An English Pastoral: British Folk Rock
28. Freddie’s Dead: Electrified Soul
29. State of Independence: Jamaica
30. It Came From The Suburbs: Marc Bolan and David Bowie
31. Deluxe and Delightful: Glam
32. The Sound of Philadelphia: Soft Soul
33. Progressive Rock (and Simpler Pleasures)
34. Young Love: Weenyboppers and Boy Bands
35. See That Girl: Abba
36. Beyond The Blue Horizon: Country and Western
37. Before and After The Gold Rush: Laurel Canyon
38. 1975: Storm Warning
Part Four
39. Courage, Audacity and Revolt: The Sex Pistols
40. Cranked Up Really High: Punk Rock
41. Pleasantly Antagonistic: New Wave
42. Supernature: Disco
43. Islands In The Stream: The Bee Gees
44. Routine Is The Enemy of Music: Post-punk
45. Back to the Future: Two Tone and Mod
46. A Shark In Jet’s Clothing: America After Punk
47. This Is Tomorrow: Kraftwerk and Electropop
48. Adventures on The Wheels of Steel: Early Rap
49. Here Comes That Feeling: New Pop
50. American Rock (Ooh Yeah)
51. Just a King In Mirrors: Michael Jackson
52. Highs in the Mid Eighties: Prince and Madonna
53. Some Kind of Monster: Metal
54. Poised Over The Pause Button:The Smiths and The Birth of Indie
55. 1985: What The F- Is Going On?
56. We Were Never Being Boring: Pet Shop Boys and New Order
Part Five
57. Chicago and Detroit: House and Techno
58. Smiley Culture: Acid Culture and Manchester
59. 1991: Time For The Mu Mu
60: All Eyes on Me: Hip Hop
61. Bassline Changed My Life: Dance Music
62. This Is How You Disappear: Bristol, Shoegazing and a New Psychedelia
63. As A Defence, I’m Neutered and Spayed: Grunge
64. Ever Decreasing Circles: Blur, Suede and Britpop
65. A Vision of Love: R&B
Every record tells a story 
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