Doctor Blind

Voted - Semi 2 really delivered!

I'm also loving this, the guitars throughout are heavenly! The intensity really matching the deeply personal lyrics and heartbreaking subject matter. I really liked “INHOSPITABLE/HOSPITAL” too, though mainly because it sounds like The Cure; that opening guitar riff. *.*

Doctor Blind Chart - 15th March 2026 TW - LW / Artist / “Song” / (Peak- if not current) 01 - 02 Lauren Auder “praxis” ✮New #1✮ 02 - 01 Fcukers “L.U.C.K.Y” (01) 03 - 05 Kim Gordon “Not Today” 04 - 03 100%WET “Delete Forever” (03) 05 - 11 Grace Ives “Stupid Bitches” 06 - 09 Miss Grit “Stranger” 07 - 12 RIP Magic “5words” 08 - 04 DJ Seinfeld “Plush” (02) 09 - 13 Ms. Gloom “Dumb 4 All” 10 - 06 Anna von Hausswolff “Struggle With the Beast” (01) 11 - 14 Geese “Au pays du cocaine” 12 - 16 Mandy, Indiana “Cursive” 13 - 08 hemlocke springs “w-w-w-w-w” (08) 14 - 07 Father John Misty “The Old Law” (05) 15 - 18 Hannah Hu “Love Is Easy Chaos” 16 - 24 Lip Critic “Legs in a Snare” 17 - 10 Sharp Pins “Popafangout” (02) 18 - 19 After “Cold” 19 - 22 James Blake “Death of Love” 20 - 27 Kiss Facility “Cheap Poetry” 21 - 29 By Storm “And I Dance” 22 - 26 YARD “Auto Erotic” 23 - 20 Charlotte Plank “crybby blue” (20) 24 - 15 Jenny on Holiday “Good Intentions” (03) 25 - 37 The Orielles “Tears Are” 26 - 33 Wendy Eisenberg “Meaning Business” 27 - 36 TVAM “Powder Blue” 28 - 21 Gretel “Darkness, be my friend” (09) 29 - 17 KAVARI “Iron Veins” (12) 30 - 34 Lana Del Rey “White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter” 31 - 31 miaw “Moving In” 32 - 38 Lykke Li “Lucky Again” 33 - 23 The Twilight Sad “Waiting For The Phonecall” (02) 34 - 40 Anna Prior “Silence” 35 - NE R. Missing “Thisworldly” ✮Highest New Entry✮ 36 - 43 Aldous Harding “One Stop” 37 - 25 Maria BC “Marathon” (19) 38 - 50 The Itch “Drugdealer” 39 - NE Adult DVD “Real Tree Lee” ✮New Entry✮ 40 - NE deary “Alfie” ✮New Entry✮

30 years ago today, 18 March 1996 - The Prodigy released “Firestarter”, the first single to be taken from 1997s The Fat of the Land, and what would become not only the beginning of the groups commerical peak, but serve as an iconic influental 90s anthem that spent 3 weeks at No1 in the UK. The track started out in 1995 as a simple guitar loop and was initially an instrumental with that guitar loop serving as its distinctive distorted main riff, with Liam now heavily influenced by the guitar heavy anthems of the early-mid 1990s from American bands like Rage Against The Machine, The Breeders, Foo Fighters and Nirvana. Indeed Kim Deal (who was not asked at the time, and was not pleased about this..) gets a writing credit on the single as the guitars on Breeders' track “S.O.S.” were heavily sampled to add tension to the song. In addition to this the 'Hey, hey, hey' sample is taken from Art of Noise's “Close (To The Edit)” - a sample for which Liam apparently had to pay heavily for, despite it being easily available as a studio sample since the late 1980s. Liam was apparently happy to use a good sampled vocal on the track but Keith Flint had other ideas. Keith, who up to this point was primarily an onstage dancer and MC, and who Liam was not keen to have sing on the track, was inspired to write and provide vocals for the track, the distinctive and passionate invective which completed the piece and gave it its title. Firestarter literally describing the man himself - the person who ignites the fire in people, puts life into the party, and gets people pumped. Some of the angry and self critical lyrics are deeply personal to Flint and it clearly fires him up to sing them live, that is part of the beauty of the track, and I think the thing that most resonates with the audience. Of course the title did spark some controversy in the media at the time naturaly, but that doesn't explain the singles success here. It is simply one of those rare moments in music where an anthem is born. They don't make number 1s like this anymore! There's a great interview with the band from 2019 about the making of the track here: https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/mornings/inspired-the-prodigy-firestarter/10780224

The Tories losing their deposit. hahahaha. Honestly that has made my day! Honestly just great to see such an amazing candidate win on a hopeful platform that defeats the rhetoric of the far-right, when the legacy media were all working against her. You'd hope Starmer would now completely change course and tack left, but I don't hold any hope of that whatsoever. Failing to recognise or even just not be completely deaf to the voting coalition that put them there in the first place has finally come to bite them. The weakness of blocking Burnham standing just epitomises his premiership. All the wrong decisions, capitulating to the smallest pressure and ending up in the worst possible position, every single time. Just for example in recent weeks when they were forced into holding the elections that they were going to delay. Trying to claim that they were always for removing the two child benefit cap when in reality they were forced into that position by the PLP and pressure from the left.. and when a year ago they were suspending MPs who voted for the SNP amendment, I'm sorry but they are reaping what they sowed. I think it's clear that Starmer will be gone after the disasterous May local elections. I guess we'll have Wes 'startled pigeon face' Streeting to look forward to. 😔

salty bitches Looking forward to the result, let's hope it is an emphatic win for Hannah.

Ooh I know (and love) both Smerz and 2charm, so immediate hype to those! OK, well next time I plan to send a song that is all chorus and no verses to hopefully make the AI explode.

“You Get What You Give” was the first ever single that I bought and I still have the CD single! My memory isn't totally clear but I think I went in to Our Price intending to buy Divine Comedy “National Express” but couldn't find it? I do distinctly remember that chart because I was so happy that B*Witched fell hard from 1-9 as I hated that single with a passion (!!) and we also had new entries at 14 and 16 from System F “Out Of The Blue” and Aphex Twin “Windowlicker” which kind of opened my curiosity about electronic music. One thing I love so much about reflecting and reminiscing on these 90s charts is the diversity, there's also this unbound optimism that seems to permeate. *.*

Very jealous of your back catalogue, there are some really amazing entries there - particularly opening your BJSC account with 2000s electro-pop banger “Destroy Everything You Touch” and “Unfinished Sympathy” (which is my Mum's favourite song of all-time!) From your early entries I've also got that Télépopmusik CD single somewhere and ofc love that Röyksopp pick from an album that I really obsessed over at the time, a great shame that I wasn't participating then to point those first entries. From your recent resurgence I really loved that Linda Perhacs track, a great retro pick. I also love Regina Spektor! My sister got me in to her music, she played “On The Radio” and “Fidelity” a LOT and listening to those tracks along with many others she played from artists like Lily Allen, The Dresden Dolls, Kate Nash (who was relatively unknown at the time) brings back lots of fond memories of when we drove down to the south coast one summer - I guess it must have been 2006?

Good riddance! Starmer looks like he'll be out in May regardless. Hardly lasting longer as PM than Sunak, so much for - 'ending the chaos'. I couldn't believe at the time the amount of political capital that was risked on Mandelson given the amount of information already out in the public domain, and am not surprised that it has blown up this government. I also can't stand all this 'I was lied to' excuses, as though that makes the decision any less reprehensible. It makes him look weak and naive and demonstrates his poor judgement. The fact that even the idea (with the knowledge known at the time) that Mandelson was considered for this high profile role, let alone accepted, is a total disgrace. This government has been treading water since it came in, and to quote Starmer himself.. indulges in the 'tepid bath of managed decline'.

Bring back the seven minute melody-free vocals over a repetitive unchanging dance beat bloc!

75k for an osteopathy course?? we should be getting 75k for therapy after subjecting us to that photo of him in his pants.

White Stripes “Fell In Love With a Girl” is a great shout. I used to have a playlist with all my favourite songs under 150 seconds! I do enjoy a short, punchy single that doesn't waste a second. For me, and of those not selected so far, I've always really loved The Concretes “You Can’t Hurry Love” [2:01] (#55 in 2004) which features Victoria Bergsman, who eventually managed to get a Top 40 hit with “Young Folks” (as guest vocalist) in 2006. Quite a lot packed in to just 121 seconds here, the guitars, the horns, the trumpet solo. *.* I also love “In The City” which is just 2:16 but packs a punch and has much more to it than most other songs of that length. It's something that the Strokes were able to pull off with ease in the early 2000s, have at least 3 different hooks each crashing into each other and competing for your attention. My feeling towards this is more because I strongly remember my Dad playing this in the car, but what a debut single too!

They also playlisted Jacob Alon ( nonbinary) last year, and have also playlisted Mykki Blanco, Arca, SOPHIE, Janelle Monáe and Christine and the Queens in the recent past. I unfortunately don't know about R1, I'd have thought that they've playlisted Christine and the Queens as “Tilted” went Top 20, but you can find everything 6Music playlisted last year here. I have managed to have 6Music on in the office for many years now, I love how diverse the music they play is and have discovered so much music through doing so. I also used to enjoy it when Mary Anne Hobbs was doing the mid-morning show, as it was always interesting to see the reactions from everyone when she started playing some banging techno at 10.30 am. *.*

Hyped for this, and especially.. the end of civilization as you know it. Struggled to find anything MUNA-esque sadly, so I'm afraid you'll have to make do with some Ecuadorian art-pop from us this month.