Nostalgia for Hothouse Flowers and even B*Witched with The Ultimate Irish Playlist
Don't Go by the Hothouse Flowers; C'est La Vie by B*Witched and the Sawdoctors' N17 all feature in The Ultimate Irish Playlist
(RTÉ and RTÉ Player) is a good idea. It’s just a shame that they tried to wedge in a long-form advert for 2FM at the start.
The idea was to pick the top 60 Irish songs of all time, with only one song per artist. The execution of this idea started like an away day for 2FM DJs, where they sit around a table and pick their picks, over-laughing at Dave Fanning’s jokes as if he was the boss.
In fairness, Dave is good, playing a kindly curmudgeon who can’t understand what young people like these days. Tracy Clifford is a lively host in the live part of the show from The Helix, helped along by Fanning and singer-songwriter Ruth Anne Cunningham as they count down the top 20 songs, chosen by you, the listener to 2FM.
10% of the show has passed before we get to hear the first song. That’s a long time listening to Tracy and friends chatting about whether everyone will like all the songs. I was getting ratty at this stage, a bit like Dave Fanning, except I wasn’t putting it on.
And then Hothouse Flowers came on and song 'Don’t Go' and I calmed down. Not just because I remember when they sang it at the Eurovision interval in 1988, making all the songs in the competition sound like shite. This was good in itself — a brilliant, sad song and Liam Ó Maonlaí still has it as a performer.
He’s a good interview afterwards as well, telling Tracy and co that everyone at the Eurovision was in the toilet when they performed, so they had no idea of the impact it had on the world outside.
Next up was B*Witched and 'C’est la Vie'. I’d like to be able to say I hated this, but again there was the tug of nostalgia back to my pretentious days, when I didn’t see the lure of a girl band in double denim.
There were some good takes on old classics. I never liked 'Ride On', but Dana Masters gave it real soul, and she wasn’t even drunk in a pub in Clare, which I always assumed was the only way to sing this song.
There were few mis-hits on the way to number one. 'The Boys Are Back in Town' was given the Michael Bublé treatment, completely missing the point. The fresh take on 'Nothing Compares 2 U' felt a bit stale.
I shouldn’t complain. The Ultimate Irish Playlist showed that it’s ok to change your mind. I hated 'N17' by the Saw Doctors when it came out, or at least I pretended to hate it so I could appear attractive to girls who liked French cinema. It was number four here and I almost sang along.
On to number one, and it’s 'Zombie', by the Cranberries. Nadine Coyle did it justice, it was decent just listening to it, thinking about all the people that have come and gone.
