The five hundred seventy-second song: The Message - Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five

One of the earliest successful rap track, there's a growth from the socially conscious spoken word albums that came before his one, looking at poor inner city life while getting the beat in there a lot stronger.

The five hundred seventy-third song: 365 Is My Number - King Sunny Ade & His African Beats

The contrast with the previous track is pretty great - the very chill sound is a lot slower and the track obviously doesn't have those same highs.The experimental nature means that we're still bouncing between a lot of different sounds, but I don't think it works well for the nearly eight minutes the track lasts for.

The five hundred seventy-fourth song: Do You Really Want to Hurt Me - Culture Club

There's a classic new wave sound and song here, a slow but focused hook that sticks with you while the rest of the track guides you through the slow sound of loss in the song.

The five hundred seventy-fifth song: Electric Avenue - Eddy Grant

It's hard to remember for sure, but I don't think this is the first reggae-rock track - but this is one where it works for sure. It's a good tune while having some meaningful lyrics to go with them and the song still holds up really well. It's genuinely just fun to listen to.

The five hundred seventy-sixth song: Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) - Eurythmics

This title track of the album it belongs to was its standout and it still works well here in isolation, a full bodied sound that's still as attractive to listen to. If anything, the track sounds that much fuller compared to everything else. It's its own bizarre world in places, but it works.

The five hundred seventy-seventh song: Atomic Dog - George Clinton

While there are parts of the refrain that feel like they've lasted, it's the funk throughline of the full song that works for me here, incredibly accessible and easy to listen to. It's a lot of fun to listen to, which stays as its main attraction.

The five hundred seventy-eighth song: State of Independence - Donna Summer

Unlike everything - and perhaps because of the energy of the previous tracks - State of Independence didn't connect with me as much. The vocals are excellent and work, but the production around it overshadows it a bit too much, and I don't think it actually sounds as good as it could be. There's just too much that I don't think works here.

The five hundred and fifty-fourth album: #554 Big Black - Atomizer

Atomizer is a hardcore punk album (even as that genre had gone out of fashion at the time) - loud, repetitive and distorted guitars combined with unfiltered, politically engaged lyrics that really set the theme. The lyrics are more comprehensible than some others, but that doesn't dilute the impact - they aggressively make some pretty points even when they can feel too confrontational, something I was more braced for when listening. At that point, the songs feel really strong and the album feels cohesive and good to listen to.

The five hundred sixty-fourth song: Walking on Thin Ice - Yoko Ono

How much of this song's notability comes from one of its contributors, with this being John Lennon's final creative output? The music itself is fairly avant garde, Yoko Ono's vocals feeling like the impenetrable sound that feels closer to that of a performance artist than pure vocalists, but there's also a beauty in how it all comes together. It still feels like it needs visual - something to enhance the performance - but as her starring performance, it certainly feels like it makes its point.

The five hundred sixty-fifth song: Please Don’t Touch - Motorhead/Girlschool

Please Don't Touch is an aggressive rock song, the drive of the music amplified by two big heavy metal bands - the more well known Motorhead and the all female Girlschool, whose contributions come through equally in the track, with the vocals in particular blending amazingly well. It's short, it's straightforward in how it hits its marks, but it sounds so good and engaging when it does.

The five hundred sixty-sixth song: Super Freak - Rick James

Super Freak's riff is known well for the other places it's sampled, but it also immediately brings this song to mind - it's memorable chorus sticks in as much, and just the opening lyrics feel memorable on their own. It's smooth and sexy and a fascinating listen that keeps up so well, still that bundle of joy.

The five hundred sixty-seventh song: Don’t Stop Believin’ - Journey

Oh man, how much damage has Glee and its decline done to some tracks? There's a vulnerability to the song that musical kid energy just can't bring in, not needing the flourishes they added. Instead, just a piano and an almost cracking voice starts the track, slowly building as it continues. It works incredibly well, and the subdued anthem theme stays well here.

The five hundred sixty-eighth song: Pretty In Pink - Psychedelic Furs

The rough vocals of Pretty In Pink stand in contrast to that, making the meaning of the song harsher through its darker tone. It's a fine punk-y song, its title feeling at odds with its sound, but befitting the darker message of the track. It's a good enough song, even if I don't feel it held together as well as it should have.

The five hundred sixty-ninth song: Ghost Town - The Specials

As the title implies, there's something ethereal about this track, sounding a lot more subdued and ghost-like than most reggae-inspired songs do. The instruments are there, but the way they're layered, fading in and out, works so well here that they create a far more interesting track and become a highlight in their own right. It's unexpected, but really - yeah - feels special.

The five hundred seventieth song: I’m in Love with a German Film Star - The Passions

This feels like it feels the new wave style - a bit punky, a bit dreamy, everything feeling a bit odd and offset. It's decent, lyrically slightly changed, but I don't know if I can say it feels as good as others either - new wave took the music so much further than this.

The five hundred seventy-first song: Radio Free Europe - R.E.M.

There is a cadence to R.E.M. tracks that is why they feel so good. Radio Free Europe doesn't feel like it quite has that identity there, but the irrelevant lyrics, good rock tempo and different touches are already there to make this feel more artistic. The song is still really good.

The five hundred and fifty-third album: #553 The Mekons - Fear and Whiskey

It's interesting how much country is included in this punk album, considering how it's felt the edgier rock genres moved away from it. There's a decent sound to it, but it feels like it doesn't quite fit - there's not as much conviction to the songs as I'd expect even if that's felt. As a combination, the two genres are a bit too much at odds for me to properly enjoy them.

The five hundred and fifty-second album: #552 Prefab Sprout - Steve McQueen

Musically, there's just a lot of well performed new wave to this album. It's quite a big production, there's a bit of punk still lingering in the background and the occasional effect that you can only pull off on an album and wouldn't work as well on stage. The main vocals aren't exceptional, but that allows for a larger focus on the lyrics, which poetically create a story that stays quite engaging with more depth than others. It works really well here.

The five hundred fifty-sixth song: In the Air Tonight - Phil Collins

There's a sadness and longing in the lyrics of this song that plays well with the unsettling musical choices in it - rather than a plain ballad, it applies a lot of effects on the vocals, creating an echo and what feel like shifts in location that become quite powerful as the track plays on. It means the appearance of the heavy drum track is underscored as much, really strengthening the sound of the lyrics in the mix.

The five hundred fifty-seventh song: Edge of Seventeen - Stevie Nicks

For a song about death and loss, there's a remarkable amount of energy in the lyrics, a feeling of being at peace with it even as the sadness is present in the lyrics as well. It's esoteric, allegorical and a nice amount of slightly off that works really well.

The five hundred fifty-eighth song: Via con me - Paolo Conte

Via Con Me is a track that I feel I should recognise, but I feel it's mostly from the use in a commercial somewhere than anything deeper. I've always like the sound of it though, the dark, gravelly Italian lyrics contrasted with some English lyrics that feel slightly off, a fake impression that doesn't really matter. The bridge adds to that, as well as the almost mumbled Italian lyrics contrasting with the English ones - a track that stays intriguing somehow.

The five hundred fifty-ninth song: Under Pressure - Queen & David Bowie

And then a song that I know well enough. It makes complete sense that Queen and David Bowie would work so well together, both from a similar glam rock perspective, and vocally Freddie Mercury and David Bowie support each other so well that it supports the message, an ethereal sound with something darker and more grounding. It still remains an incredibly powerful song.

The five hundred sixtieth song: Our Lips Are Sealed - Go-Go’s

Here we've got a strong, pretty good new wave song, While I don't want to reduce it just to gender, there's a different sound from the all-female band, a lightness a lot of bands going for an androgynous sound fail to entirely reach. It's very poppy, in one of those ways that feels nicely accessible.

The five hundred sixty-first song: Genius of Love - Tom Tom Club

Genius of Love feels defined for me by its oddness, an electronic, beeping track with some strange, distorted lyrics and some odd choice in their vocals. It's a song that doesn't give you much to hold on to, as every time I thought I'd settled in, the track changed it up again and gave me something odd. It's an experience for sure, one that's good but doesn't quite give you all you need to hold on to.

The five hundred sixty-second song: Ghosts - Japan

Ghosts is an apt title for the ethereal, distant nature of the track. While I found their listed album faded into the background, ambient more often than not, the unsettling nature of Ghosts keeps you on your toes far more as the track remains less accessible and more distant, the bells and other sounds feeling like they belong to a ghost story. The tension is present through the track, which is a miraculous sound in its own right.

The five hundred sixty-third song: Tainted Love - Soft Cell

Sometimes it really requires a specific artist's flair to elevate a song, and Tainted Love feels like it wouldn't work without Soft Cell's synth music and specific vocals - a little bit staccato to make it that much more unsettled and, I suppose, tainted. It's just incredibly strong and good to listen to.

The five hundred and fifty-first album: #551 Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms

Brothers in Arms is, for the most part, a nice and accessible pop rock album. It's mostly fast, quite upbeat, with some catchy lyrics and some good hooks. Some tracks deviate from that a bit - Your Latest Trick is far jazzier, for example - but there's a formula here that works quite well and is pretty straight forward. The more atmospheric pieces like Ride Across The River are as strong, a nice and gentle scenic piece, but the core pop rock is where the album stays strongest even when the experiments work well.

The one hundred and eleventh comic: #189 Gomer Goof

For me, Gomer Goof - or Guust Flater as I know it, or Gaston in the original language - is a childhood throwback for me. I loved the tales of the inept office worker/inventor and I read each of the albums I could find in the library. Even without knowing the office, it hit all the beats - decent gags, good interplay between who's on top, with our protagonist and nemesis/friend both coming out on top and there being some really nice moments in there. Reading it now, there's even some nice story build up through the gag strips - nothing too big, but it does feel like a consistent world it builds on. A lot of the comedy is unforced, coming from the established characters, who don't quite reach caricature level. It's actually pretty well balanced to read and while there's enough of a reset, Gomer Goof's laziness and inventions are nuanced enough that they don't come out of nowhere. It's a comic that still works quite well reading it many years later, and I enjoyed going back and reading some again.

The one hundred and ninth comic: #30 Barney Google & Snuffy Smith

The early comics list, as a result of the development of the medium, is dominated by newspaper strips. Barney Google is one of those that survived for over a century, although it shifted what it was about in a way that made it almost unfamiliar. The original are (by now) overdone gags based around Barney Google, with a lot of relationship jokes at first but evolving away from that. Snuffy Smith came in years later, but started to dominate the strip, as it became more of a yokel story set in the boonies, with the original character barely showing up. The hillbilly humour is even further removed from what I care for, and it feels like such a relic looking at it now, without moving much after the earlier larger shifts.

The one hundred and tenth comic: #347 Hagar the Horrible

In contrast, Hagar the Horrible comes in from a similiar angle, especially Barney Google's earlier city life, The daily gag strips aren't the best - again, there are a lot of known jokes, with the setting making it a bit more interesting as a contrast to the modern world. It's the longer stories that are more interesting, which there have been a few of from what I can tell. There's a lot of room for references, bu tthe longer format really helps set up the additional context for the humour.

The five hundred and fiftieth album: #550 Tears For Fears - Songs from the Big Chair

That this album features both Shout and Everybody Wants To Rule the Earth says it all - anthemmy songs with a clear chorus and some memorable lines. It's catchy, but with an ominous undertone at times that feels like it reflects the state of the world at that time, with its cold war allusions. It's still got a lot of variety, with some good ballads, but on the whole it's the energy that makes it work so well.