‘I’ve a Tin Ear, I’m afraid. I’ve never bought a single record, cassette, CD or whatever. I don’t own a record player of any kind… It’s a big defect, I admit. If my girlfriend’s playing Mozart or Serge Gainsbourg’s lovely songs, I enjoy them tremendously. But on my own I’ve never felt the need. I don’t know why. It’s just some gene that skipped me.’
J.G. Ballard, interviewed in 1996
Clearly I have too much time on my hands… here’s a Spotify playlist I devised consisting of songs that share titles with every one of Ballard’s novels.*
Most are clearly influenced by the corresponding Ballard book; with the rest, it’s just a coincidence…
* There’s no song called ‘Super Cannes’ on Spotify, so I included the song ‘When People Die in Small Rooms’ by the band Super Cannes.
PS: there’s a lot of dross on Spotify (e.g. search for ‘Drowned World’ and see what you find), so I hope you appreciate my curatorial skills in selecting the best of the best for each title. Hands up: this playlist is all over the shop, veering from thrash metal to glam to new romantic to ambient to folk to J-pop to dubious pop. In some cases, there is only one match for a particular Ballard book, so you gets what you gets….
Even so, I think the overall effect is suitably Ballardian… Long live the new flesh, eh?
PPS: to make life more interesting I avoided well-worn classics like ‘Atrocity Exhibition’ by Joy Division, and obvious choices like Ballard film cues (e.g. Clint Mansell’s High-Rise score).
Track listing:
+ Wind from Nowhere – Uzect Plaush (Paul Schutze)
+ The Drowned World – Johan Johannsson
+ The Drought – My Beloved
+ The Crystal World – Locrian
+ The Atrocity Exhibition – Exodus
+ Crash – Gary Numan
+ Concrete Island – Hari Karaoke Trio
+ High Rise – Hawkwind
+ The Unlimited Dream Co. – Cortez
+ Hello America – Carlo Grimelli
+ Empire of the Sun – Orochi
+ Day of Creation – Kamikaze Space Programme
+ Running Wild – Axe
+ The Kindness of Women – Mo Boma
+ Rushing to Paradise – Huerco S.
+ Cocaine Nights – Quills
+ When People Die in Small Rooms – Super Cannes
+ Millennium People – Life+
+ Kingdom Come – David Bowie
