Suggestions for a cd of 'odd' tracks

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I am compiling a cd of tracks which, while conforming to many of the criteria defining a pop song can be best described as 'odd'. There's a good reason for this but it's too long winded to go into here.

I don't mean in an arty or consciously experimental way, just pop songs which are more than slightly quirky, preferably ones which actually charted and got played on daytime radio.

So far I have the following:

Rock on. David Essex.
Sugar me. Lindsey DePaul.
Money. Flying Lizards.
Flowers of romance. Public Image Limited.
Oh Superman. Laurie Anderson.
Radiohead. Pyramid song.

Also a couple of tracks by Missy Eliott and one or two others which I can't quite recall at this moment in time.

I'm up to about 40 minutes and could do with some help. Any ideas?

― Ant, Tuesday, 7 March 2006 15:06 (nineteen years ago)

Family, In My Own Time

... got to No. 4!!!!!!!

― Rotatey Diskers With Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 15:09 (nineteen years ago)

Crazy Horses by the Osmonds, with the neighing synthesisers.

― Neil Stewart (Neil Stewart), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 15:12 (nineteen years ago)

Roxy Music? Kate Bush?

― NickB (NickB), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 15:13 (nineteen years ago)

Steeleye Span, Gaudete

― Rotatey Diskers With Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 15:13 (nineteen years ago)

Japan, "Ghosts"

― Lotta Continua (Damian), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 15:37 (nineteen years ago)

Will Young- "Friday's Child"

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 15:43 (nineteen years ago)

Timmy Thomas "Why can't we live together?"

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 15:44 (nineteen years ago)

i was just about to post timmy thomas mark! how about happy birthday by altered images?

― dr x o'skeleton, Tuesday, 7 March 2006 15:48 (nineteen years ago)

Rupie Edwards, Ire Feelings (Skanga)

... No. 9 in 1974??!?!?

― Rotatey Diskers With Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 15:50 (nineteen years ago)

"Feel Good Inc." would fit in well with this.

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 15:54 (nineteen years ago)

Anything from the Beach Boys Love You album. Especially Solar System & Roller Skating Child.

― kornrulez6969 (TCBeing), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 15:56 (nineteen years ago)

A couple of vaguely related threads which may be of help:
songs so brilliantly eccentric you can't believe they were hits
"I dunno how that was such a big hit, but I'm glad it was"

― Lotta Continua (Damian), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 16:00 (nineteen years ago)

I've always thought that "Ante Up" was one of the weirder top 10 singles of the past ten years, because:

a) Rap singles _never_ chart higher in the UK than in the US
b) it's a song that's explicitly about mugging people at gunpoint, and yet it still got daytime radio play sandwiched between, I dunno, Alien Ant Farm and Travis.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 16:06 (nineteen years ago)

Sparks: "Looks Looks Looks"

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 16:08 (nineteen years ago)

The Wurzels - "Oi Am a Zoider Drinker"

― Raw, Uncompromising, and Noodly (noodle vague), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 16:25 (nineteen years ago)

Howbout Blood, Sweat & Tears' "And When I Die"? It's got about a dozen changes in tempo, texture and instrumentation, lurches from pseudo-Broadway standard to ragtime hoe-down to Vegas soul-schmaltz to funky hard rock, and manages to cram in three false endings, in just over 4 minutes. Very impressive as a stitched-together Frankenstein monster, although none of the parts of the whole are weird on their own. (And I don't think that any hit will ever overtake "O Superman" on the unlikelihood scale.)

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 16:49 (nineteen years ago)

kelly family - "fell in loe with an alien"

― nico van der watt, Tuesday, 7 March 2006 17:08 (nineteen years ago)

O superman's just too ruddy long! For a CD like this.

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 17:09 (nineteen years ago)

"how bizarre" by er, omd, omz, ??

― dave k, Tuesday, 7 March 2006 17:11 (nineteen years ago)

Art of Noise - Close to the Edit
Yello - The Race
The associates - Party fears two
The Cure - Lovecats

How weird is weird when it's been on day time radio?

― sonicred (sonicred), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 17:32 (nineteen years ago)

Thanks for all your suggestions. I already have Ghosts, that was one of the ones I had forgotten about along with Belfast by Boney M for the odd lyrics and subject matter. The Family track I had never heard but it is so bizarre it has to go on there. The Steely Dan track, almost likewise although I have been debating between about 6 different ones of theirs. The Associates track already appears on quite a few of my compilations, as does 'Ante up' and I don't want to repeat myself too much. The Timmy Thomas track is a definite too.

Rupie Edwards, Ire Feelings (Skanga) Wonderful stuff. I just love this song.

Sparks: "Looks Looks Looks" I was thinking 'Number 1 song in heaven' but I might well be having a rethink.

Would 'Banana republic' by Boomtown Rats be worth considering? I can't decide...

regarding Oh Superman. I was worried about the 9 minute length of this but it's so unbelievably strange, possibly the strangest ever UK top 10 hit and seems perfect for the last track so it stays, for now.

― Ant, Tuesday, 7 March 2006 17:54 (nineteen years ago)

What about "Neanderthal Man" by Hotlegs?

― Rotatey Diskers With Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 17:56 (nineteen years ago)

Hard to help as all the "odd" songs I can think of seem to be either arty or experimental. AMG seems to think that "Some Velvet Morning" is pretty odd, though:

http://tinyurl.com/lkbpr

― mitya is really tired of making up names, Tuesday, 7 March 2006 18:08 (nineteen years ago)

It is very odd

― Rotatey Diskers With Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 18:09 (nineteen years ago)

i love O Superman. In fact I blame it both for the original spark that formed my music fandom (one of the first songs I ever remember), and also for introducing me to ILM when I randomly googled a thread in 2000.

― dog latin (dog latin), Tuesday, 7 March 2006 18:16 (nineteen years ago)

Mouldy old dough by Lieutenant pigeon has just gone on there, as has Alone again naturally by Gilbert O'sullivan.

Anyone want a copy when it's done? might well be a double when I'm finished...

― Ant, Tuesday, 7 March 2006 18:19 (nineteen years ago)

Any ideas for more dancy/up tempo stuff? Hi-tension by Hi-tension has just gone on there. Maybe something from that E.S.G. EP I've got somewhere...

― Ant, Tuesday, 7 March 2006 18:25 (nineteen years ago)

Um - htf is Flowers of Romance an 'odd pop song'? Maybe I need to relisten.

― jcartledge (jcartledge), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 03:54 (nineteen years ago)

The Associates track already appears on quite a few of my compilations

Try "Club Country," then. "Neanderthal Man" is a fine choice.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 03:58 (nineteen years ago)

rock lobster

― electric sound of jim (and why not) (electricsound), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 04:05 (nineteen years ago)

taxi mary by jo jo zep

― electric sound of jim (and why not) (electricsound), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 04:06 (nineteen years ago)

national divides always make threads like this impossible.

― The Good Dr. Bill (The Good Dr. Bill), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 04:38 (nineteen years ago)

adam and the ants - digital tenderness ?

― grady (grady), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 06:00 (nineteen years ago)

Money. Flying Lizards

Heh heh...I'll never forget my mum's reaction when she caught me listening to this on the radio back in '79/80: Practically scandalized! "They're not even SINGING!" The fact that she recognized the song itself made her hate it all the more. She liked Neil Diamond and Burton Cummings and couldn't handle her first exposure to "punk rock" on the radio. I tried to explain that it was "new wave, not punk" but wasn't entirely sure of the difference myself.

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 19:54 (nineteen years ago)

Um - htf is Flowers of Romance an 'odd pop song'? Maybe I need to relisten.
-- jcartledge (jcartledg...), March 8th, 2006.

One of the oddest of them all.

A 1-note drome juxtaposed very roughly onto an odd tribal drum-beat with a few fuzzy hi-hats and rimshots, with no Guitar or bass guitar, mental violins and then a sudden fade into nothing...

And that's before you even evaluate that voice which still sounds like nothing that could have been born of man...Seems pretty odd to me and as for the lyrics:

Now in the summer
I could be happy or in distress
Depending on the company
On the veranda
Talk of the future or reminisce
Behind the dialogue
We're in a mess
Whatever I intended
I sent you flowers
You wanted chocolates instead
The flowers of romance
The flowers of romance
I've got binoculars
On top of boxhill
I could be Nero
Fly the eagle and start all over again
I can't depend on these so called friends
It's a pity you need to defend
I'll take the furniture and start all over again

also it made the lower reaches of the UK charts and was performed on TOTP as well as making playlists on daytime radio 1.

― Ant, Thursday, 9 March 2006 00:18 (nineteen years ago)

three weeks pass...

How about David Essex's "City Lights". This track is unusual as the base plays lead. Alternatively, you might consider "repetition" from David Bowies albu"Lodger" ("dreary" would have been a better title). My seventies odd track favourite is Radar Love by dutch group Golden Earring. A better title might have been "driving under the influence of cartain substances". There is something faintly disturbing about the track which I have never been able to put my finger on. It sounds as if the recording engineer spliced togetrher two takes of the same song then raided the library to graft a couple of dragging chords onto the begining of the mix. Listen to this track and you will appreciate why Holland was not in the forefront of 70s music seen.

― Justin Smith, Thursday, 30 March 2006 09:35 (nineteen years ago)

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