Challenge

There was a bit of a craze about eighteen months back where a load of people that I know undertook the "30 Day Song Challenge" whereby they posted Facebook comments about different records for thirty days to a pre-ordained set of criteria.

Frankly, a few of those people should know better than to advertise their shameful tastes.

On receiving the questionnaire that prompts one to partake, I rushed ahead and populated a table, answering all 30 questions in one go, intending to put it on the Tumblr blog that I had at the time.

As with literally hundreds of similar ideas, it has sat on my harddrive gathering the digital equivalent of dust since then, until today, when looking for another unfinished article it came again to my attention.

Here it is in full: My accelerated (approx. 30 minutes) "30 Day Song Challenge".

30 Day Song Challenge	Artist	Song	Comment
day 01 - your favorite song	Nick Drake	Northern Sky	The only redeeming feature about the John Cusack/Kate Beckinsale chick flick ‘Serendipity’. (Apart from Kate Beckinsale).
day 02 - your least favorite song	Wannabe	The Spice Girls	I think this is a strong candidate for the worst song in human history. Why the fuck did they ever get famous based on this excrement?
day 03 - a song that makes you happy	Make It Tonight	High Contrast	Soulful, party drum & bass of the highest order. There was some brilliant tunes around when this was out.
day 04 - a song that makes you sad	Carnival	Natalie Merchant	I had a bit of a crush on Natalie Merchant as a wee lad. I used to listen to this much later going through a very, very bleak period.
day 05 - a song that reminds you of someone	Scarce	Sense of Quickness	I still shudder at the memory.
day 06 - a song that reminds you of somewhere	Let’s Stay Together	Al Green	Lagos, Portugal, Summer 2000. Wrongness.
day 07 - a song that reminds you of a certain event	Barcelona	Dee Kay & Epsilon Feat. MC Stamina	Drive By (Bristol Drum & Bass party) 6th Birthday party. DJ Patife set with MC Stamina. Heaven.
day 08 - a song that you know all the words to	Circles	Soul Coughing	1st year at university. This album was everywhere.
day 09 - a song that you can dance to	You Can’t Hide From Your Bud	DJ Sneak	This is like bottled sunshine. You can’t help but dance, grinning like a buffoon.
day 10 - a song that makes you fall asleep	Inside All The People (Harveys Sleepy Ibiza Mix)	Planet Funk	‘Fall Asleep’ used to be ‘Pass Out’, but this is one of the floatiest tunes of all time. Beautiful.
day 11 - a song from your favorite band	Funeral	Band Of Horses	A massive, massive hit, but justifiably so. As I’ve said before, Band Of Horses totally restored my faith in guitar music.
day 12 - a song from a band you hate	(The entire recorded career of…)	Muse	I really, really hate Muse. Their songs sound like prog rock versions of Jeff Buckley B-Sides. They seem like such utter, utter twats as well. Doesn’t the bloke believe the worlds being run by aliens or something? Ugh! Additionally, he plays a Parker Fly, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Fly) which are fucking grotesque. Basically, I hate everything about Muse, everything.
day 13 - a song that is a guilty pleasure	I Miss You	Blink 182	I really like songs where the bass really leads the melody. I also really like the line about ‘Halloween on Christmas’. I also really like the interplay between their voices, I basically like everything about this song. It’s a great pop record.
day 14 - a song that no one would expect you to love	Just Another Day	John Secada	I’ve got a muslin shirt that I obviously bought when I was having a ‘thin day’ a few years ago. Sometimes, I put it on and ‘do a John Secada’ for my girlfriend. The less I say about that, the better.
day 15 - a song that describes you	Ramble On	Led Zeppelin	I don’t know whether it really describes me as a person, but on a good day, this is what I hear in my head as I’m getting shit done. Winning!
day 16 - a song that you used to love but now hate	Sex On Fire	Kings Of Leon	This came out during the first few weeks of me living in New Zealand. I can’t stand it now. Firstly, I wasn’t getting on very well and secondly, it was just very, very overdone on TV and the radio at the time.
day 17 - a song that you hear often on the radio	Poker Face	Lady Gaga	And really, really wish I didn’t. If I told you why, I’d have to kill you.
day 18 - a song that you wish you heard on the radio	Tiny Dancer	Elton John	I like to hear this on the radio, maybe sitting on a coach or bus, with some of my hairy friends. Maybe we’d be somewhere in the Midwest.. Maybe we’d all start singing along?
day 19 - a song from your favorite album	Move Your Hips	The Rolling Stones	The Stones at their dirty, smack addled, bluesy best. (Off, ‘Exile On Mainstreet’).
day 20 - a song that you listen to when you’re angry	Around The Fur	Deftones	Chino Mareno has got one of the best screams in rock history. I love their first two albums, it’s just such a shame they went totally, totally off the boil after this album (also entitled ‘Around The Fur’). I reckoned their next album ‘White Pony’ should have been entitled ‘Flogging A Dead One Trick White Pony’.
day 21 - a song that you listen to when you’re happy	Until The Lead	Vic Chestnutt	This is Vic, backed by the equally great band Lambchop from their The Salesman and Bernadette LP collaboration. I last saw Vic about six months before he took his own life and feel very, very grateful for it. Based on his demise, you’d expect him to be some sort of bleak poet, but his songs are full of joy and whimsy and this is no exception.
day 22 - a song that you listen to when you’re sad	River Rat Jimmy	Kelly Joe Phelps	I probably shouldn’t, cos this is pretty bleak, but hey. I got this on a compilation off of Volume, Mojo or Q Magasine (the detail escapes me). I’ve never really got into Phelps. Based on the quality of this, maybe I should.
day 23 - a song that you want to play at your wedding	You Got Me Burning Up	Cevin Fisher	If it does get played, it means my sister is DJ’ing.
day 24 - a song that you want to play at your funeral	Love Is What The World Wants	Barry Brown	Possibly my favourite reggae tune ever. Gotta have a bit of good feeling at an event like that.
day 25 - a song that makes you laugh	Horse Outside	The Rubberbandits	Irish Hip-Hop. This is fucking ridiculous.
day 26 - a song that you can play on an instrument	Jolene	Dolly Parton	I can actually play a lot of tunes on the guitar, being a fairly technically accomplished player. I learned this because my sister was doing singing lessons and I wanted to record it and send to her as a backing track – I never got round to it.
day 27 - a song that you wish you could play	May You Never	John Martyn	This has got everything I like in an acoustic song (particularly the percussive elements in his playing, which I really mimic when playing fingerstyle acoustic). One day I’ll get round to learning. Maybe.
day 28 - a song that makes you feel guilty	No One Goes Out Anymore	Tyler Ramsey	Makes me mourn my misspent youth.
day 29 - a song from your childhood	Take On Me	A-Ha	First single I ever bought (well, my Mum bought it for me) was ‘Take On Me/Love Is Reason’ on 7” from Woolworths in Godalming.
day 30 - your favorite song  at this time last year	Watching You	In*stra*mental	Amazingly emotive minimal drum & bass. A genre changing tune.