The Festive Fifty

Festive 50 1986 Number 42 – The Flatmates – I Could Be In Heaven

Tom — Thu, 16 May 2013 19:34:17 +0000

In light of the recent news that The Flatmates are reforming albeit with Lisa Bouvier on vocals and Brian from Peru on drums here is their entry from 1986′s Festive 50 which reached number 42 in that years chart.

Play I Could Be In Heaven in Spotify

The band will be playing the following gigs in August and September:

Friday August 23rd – Bristol, The Exchange. With Design and Flowers
Saturday August 24th – London Bridge, The Miller. With Flowers and Design
Sunday August 25th – Brighton, At The Edge Of The Sea Festival @ The Concorde 2
Saturday September 14th – Nottingham, Indiepop Alldayer

Play The 1986 Festive 50

The Wedding Present Festive Fifty Entries

Tom — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 07:40:38 +0000

The Wedding Present were (and still are I guess!) the second most successful act in the history of the Festive Fifty in terms of entries sandwiched between The Fall #1 and The Smiths #3. In fact front-man Dave Gedge was the originator of the scoring system used to calculate the Festive Fifty.

Almost all the tracks are on Spotify with the exception, in the UK, of The Peel session version of Take Me and the bands output on Island Records between 1995/97. However they are all on You Tube.

The playlist was based on this Peel Wiki entry.

Play The Wedding Present Festive Fifty Entries

Homepage

Altered Images – Dead Pop Stars

Tom — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 20:46:46 +0000

Dead Pop Stars was the début single by Altered Images and was originally released in 1981. It made Number 15 in that years Festive 50. Additionally it reached Number 21 in the All Time Festive 50 of 1982.

It’s not on Spotify at this time.

1981 Festive 50

All Time Festive 50 (1982)

Festive 50 2012 Number 45 – Martha – 1978, Smiling Politely

Tom — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 16:47:35 +0000

Not on Spotify – you can download the whole of this excellent EP for free from here.

Festive 50 2012 Number 48 – Forkeyes – Fell Off The Penalty Spotty Spot

Tom — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 22:49:14 +0000

Not available on Spotify

Forkeyes Soundcloud page

Festive 50 2012 – The Playlist

Tom — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 21:00:53 +0000

Spotify has 34 of the 50 tracks from 2012′s Festive 50 with the rest being on Bandcamp and Soundcloud. I will post those another time when I the chance to listen to the two God Speed You Black Emperor tracks that clock in at over 40 minutes between them!

Play The Festive 50 2012

As usual the playlist counts down from 50 to number one. Here are the results in full.

Festive Fifty 2012

Tom — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 14:08:08 +0000

The Festive Fifty 2012 is currently streaming at Dandelion Radio. Due to their licensing arrangements they cannot publish the the chart until the end of January. You will have to tune in to find out what has made the top 50!

As soon as it is published I will compile the playlist.

Dandelion Radio

John Peels Online Music Collection

Tom — Tue, 01 May 2012 12:40:06 +0000

“John Peel’s family, The John Peel Centre for the Creative Arts, Eye Film and TV, and website company Klik, are working together to create an online archive of John Peel’s record collection, including specially created videos of key artists, John Peel’s home movies, John’s hand-typed note cards, and other content.

John Peel’s personal record collection consists of over 26,000 LPs, 40,000 singles and many thousands of CDs. The project will release the names and song titles of 100 records a week from the collection, for 26 weeks between May- Oct, featuring the first records from one letter of the alphabet each week. People will be able to listen online to many of these records via links compiled by the project.

Each week, one artist will be chosen for a video interview, which will feature alongside the collection- these artists are being chosen by Sheila Ravenscroft (John Peel’s wife) and their children.

Releasing the contents of the whole collection and digitising it is a long term goal. The John Peel Centre for the Creative Arts will therefore be looking for further funding to continue the project after October when the Arts Council funding finishes.

The John Peel project is one of 53 creative arts projects being funded by Arts Council England with BBC partnership, as part of a new digital arts and culture media service called The Space. People will be able to access the John Peel archive and other creative arts projects on The Space by going to www.thespace.org“

Via (John Peel Centre For Creative Arts)

Alex Petridis from The Guardian has already taken a look.

Festive 50 Number 46 2011 – Lord Numb And Julien Auroux – Facile

Tom — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 21:08:09 +0000

Not currently available on Spotify

Festive 50 Number 50 2011 – The Phantom Light – Echoes Of Ghosts

Tom — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 20:54:12 +0000

Not currently available on Spotify