The Friday Music Shuffle (2nd October 2026)

Hi pop-pickers,

Welcome to the Friday Music Shuffle where my music device selects ten songs from my collection, I tell you what it’s chosen and by way of magic you can listen along. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to click on the song title and let the music play.

I hope you play along. You may even find something you like.

1. Half The Lies You Tell Ain’t True by The Stereophonics. Back to the previous millennium – 1999 to be precise – for a rocking joint from their LP Performance and Cocktails. What a great singer Kelly Jones is.
2. How Can You Mend A Broken Heart by The Bee Gees. 1971 now and a pre Saturday Night Fever Bee Gees with a track from Trafalgar, a hugely underrated record. Brilliant.
3. She Still Thinks I Care by John Fogerty. Every voice, every instrument played on 1973’s Blue Ridge Rangers LP was former Creedence Clearwater Revival genius John Fogerty. Pure country and pure brilliance.
4. Techno Shinkansen by Underworld. 2024’s Strawberry Hotel was a stunner, as was this little banger. Gotta love Underworld.
5. Perfect Day by Harry Nilsson. Not THAT Perfect Day, but a lovely tune from latter day Harry’s 1997 LP Knnillssonn. 
6. Wild Thing by The Troggs. And now we go back 60 years for this all-time classic by Reg Presley and the boys.
7. Life, Love & Hope by Boston. Unmistakably Boston from 2013’s album of the same name. Here, the late, great Brad Delp’s replacement lead singer Tommy DeCarlo takes the mike and he was very good. Sadly, Tommy too died earlier this year aged just 60.
8. Dance, Dance, Dance by The Beach Boys. 1964 now. Typical of their pre Pet Sounds music and very nice it is, too.
9. Razor Face by Elton John. 1971’s Madman Across The Water remains, in my view, Elton’s finest album. I’ve never understood his strange ‘American’ accent employed on most, if not all, of his songs, but if you can get through that, this is excellent.
10. So Easy by Röyksopp. And just in time, here comes this week’s Desert Island Disc, this beauty from the Norwegian band’s perfect 2001 album Melody A.M. Trust me, you need this record.

See number 10 for this week’s Desert Island Disc. It was a long time coming but as soon as the opening bars appeared, it was no contest.

Well, that was fun. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you enjoyed the header photograph of me gurning alongside Beach Boy Al Jardine around a decade ago.

Have a good week till next week.