Beatastic's Famous 5 playlist
Smashing Pumpkins- Starla
"I was working part-time with my dad and at lunch time this record stall set up outside the cantine. My dad asked me if I wanted something, I chose the Singles soundtrack because it had 2 Pearl Jam tracks on it. The last song was Starla. I just sat there in disbelief at what I was hearing.
They did exactly what I wanted music to do: epic, psychedelic, ambitious, melodic, aggressive, groovy, everything in the space of 9 minutes, more than most bands achieve in their whole career. They became my favourite band, instantly. As each new album came out they evolved, fearlessly, sometimes it was great, sometimes it wasn’t but it was always interesting and courageous."
Teenage Fanclub- The Concept
"I grew up on metal and then grunge came, I loved it. I heard of this band who opened for Nirvana, Teenage Fanclub so I got to the library in my hometown and checked them out. It was different, noisy but melodic. It opened a new path for me, melody through noise."
Ride- Polar Bear
"I was playing in my band in France, we were like a new wavey version of Smashing Pumpkins, with Alice In Chains thrown in. The singer took me to see one of his friends who was a couple of years older and had lots of music. He made me a mixtape with some metal like Atheist, trip hop like
Earthling and electronica like Chemical Brothers but the track I really liked was Ride. It was taking the melody through noise approach of Teenage Fanclub and amping it up. I loved it.
When I moved to Oxford I played in a band and the singer was friends with this guy who played keyboards in a band with Mark Gardener, called Animalhouse. We even shared a rehearsal place and went to a couple of parties at his place."
LCD Soundsystem- Daft Punk Is Playing At My House
"They’re basically the reason why I started Beatastic. I wanted to make electronic music hiding behind a character called Beatastic who would be a ladies man, boasting about his exploits , being ridiculous without knowing it. It didn’t turn out that way at all in the end but the name stayed for some reason."
Air- Kelly Watch The Stars
"They were important because they proved you can be French and make good music and even sing in French and be known worldwide, not many bands before them could even have pretended to try and also they had a different approach, songs as jingles. Only one sentence repeated, like dance music but in rock songs. Suddenly you didn’t have to write 4 verses. I liked that."
