After The Noise
Everything Is Equal
Monday 20 April 2026
Bernard Manning – Ugly Bastard (2022)
The playlist has properly lost the plot now.
Bernard Manning turning up on a dodgy recording in an unspecified social club. You couldn’t plan this if you tried.
Old-school northern comic. Very much of his time. And that time shows. Even when it’s relatively tame, there’s still that edge to it. The style, the delivery, the room it comes from.
It sounds like bad recording equipment, cheap mic, people half-listening with pints in hand. You can almost see it. Low ceiling, sticky carpet, laughter rolling in waves.
I can literally smell the fag smoke.
He’s just going through it. Ripping into whoever’s in range. The rhythm of it more than the content sometimes. That old circuit style.
It’s not something you’d sit down and choose now. Not really. But dropping into the middle of this kind of playlist, it becomes something else.
A strange little time capsule.
One thing into another with no logic at all. And somehow that’s the logic.
You don’t need to keep all of it. Some of it just passes through. But it still adds something to the moment.
Even if that something is just:
what on earth is this doing here?
Having no idea is all part of the charm. From one comedian to another.
Harry Hill – Lady Zookeeper Song (2025)
I feel like I’m stumbling into some bizarrely warped BBC Radio 4 Extra programme.
Going from Manning to Hill in one foul swoop.
No context. No warning. Just suddenly a song about a lady zookeeper… in a toilet. Which is exactly the sort of sentence that makes perfect sense in Harry Hill’s world and absolutely none in anyone else’s.
I’m trying to work out where this even comes from. Children’s album? Comedy record? Something buried on a random compilation? Who knows. Past you clearly made some bold curatorial choices and then walked away.
But it works. For that one minute, it works.
Harry Hill has always had that knack. Completely daft, slightly surreal, but delivered with such commitment you just go along with it. You don’t question it. You can’t.
Still think his peak was that Morrissey impression on Stars in Their Eyes. Ridiculous and weirdly accurate at the same time.
And that’s what this feels like. One minute of nonsense, perfectly formed. In, out, gone before it overstays its welcome.
The playlist, once again, proving it has absolutely no interest in behaving itself.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way. Next.
Duran Duran – All Along the Water (1990)
Oh, look at that. An actual band.
Still recovering from a heavy night on the sauce, Saturday night.
Started listening to some of my archive recordings from the early 90s. Sounded better than I envisaged. Amazing how blinkered you can be when you’re slightly sozzled. I even came up with the bright idea of doing a Listening Log based on my own recordings.
Anyway, Duran Duran…
From Liberty, the one everyone quietly skipped while pretending the 80s had never happened. Or Duran Duran: The Lost Years.
I always loved the lead single “Violence of Summer (Love’s Taking Over)”. Proper 1990 single. Big, brash, slightly over the top. By then, the pop kids had started drifting away from Duran Duran. Mad, really. They were still writing cracking tunes.
Their 90s rebirth was three years away.
Liberty is one of those albums I somehow never got round to. Loved the single. Ignored the record. Classic behaviour. So today I jostled the playlist around — good word, jostled — and stuck the whole thing in properly.
And “All Along the Water”? Predictably good. Slick, melodic, that unmistakable Duran sheen. They always had that ability to sound polished without sounding dull. Big choruses, tight rhythm section, Simon Le Bon doing what Simon Le Bon does.
One of the tweaks I’ve made to the playlist is trying to keep things chronological. Less compilations, more studio albums in their proper year. It makes the whole thing feel more grounded somehow. You hear bands in context instead of cherry-picking the obvious hits. Can’t always do it, but when you can, it’s worth it.
Duran Duran never really went away. People just stopped paying attention for a bit. Their loss.
Very good. Very, very good. And finally…
Dolly Parton – I Don’t Want to Throw Rice (1967)
From her debut Hello, I’m Dolly, and what a way to introduce yourself to the world.
Early 20s, and already writing like someone who’d lived three emotional lifetimes. That early run of songs is full of heartbreak, betrayal, sharp observation, and a kind of steel under the sweetness. By the end of the album, you almost feel sorry for her… until you realise she’s not weak at all. She’s documenting it. That’s power.
“I Don’t Want to Throw Rice” is scathing in the politest possible way. The title sounds playful, but the sentiment is pure fire:
Don’t expect me to smile sweetly while you marry someone else.
That’s not bitterness. That’s backbone.
A few years ago, I listened to this album a lot. No excess gloss. Just story after story of a woman navigating lousy men with wit and grit. It’s early Dolly before the rhinestones fully took over, and there’s something raw about it.
And that line — wanting to throw rocks instead of rice — is deliciously dramatic. Young Dolly didn’t do passive acceptance. She did sharp country realism wrapped in a melody you could hum.
It hits because it’s honest.
And honestly? Early Dolly was formidable.
The Listening Log 