Earlier this year, in the middle of the last full lockdown, on 7 weeks of shielding, and with my 45th birthday mere months away, i decided to compile my 45 favourite 7 inch singles. Partly as an exercise to stave off boredom (my attempt at learning another language coming in fits and starts) and partly a test to see if it was possible to whittle down 40 years of musical fandom to such a concise number. I had to lay down some rules: the song in question must have been released after 2nd August 1976, been available on 7 inch vinyl on initial release, been released in the UK, and be either an A or AA side or lead track on an EP - that is, the song promoted with a video and or chosen for radio play and tv appearances i.e "Too Much Too Young" from The Specials Special AKA LIVE! or "Night Boat To Cairo" from Madness' Work, Rest And Play. A few long standing favourites began to drop from the initial list due to their non-vinyl status - "Karma Police" by Radiohead, " Jöga" by Björk - or because the version i had always loved turned out to be the 12" version - The Specials "Ghost Town", "A Forest" by The Cure, " Vision Incision" by late nineties indie/dance cult favourites Lo-Fidelity Allstars. Other singles that i have always favoured highly went into the list - an actual playlist i put together on Amazon Music to assist with my judgement - only to be dropped after a while when i remembered another record that i realised i liked just that bit more. Few songs from recent years made the cut, largely because of their download or streaming only availability, with any 7" release being an import. In fact, there is nothing in the final list that dates from after 2006. 7" vinyl releases really became scarce from the early noughties as artists and record companies saw the cash saving benefits of online music stores. And since any song available for downloading, streaming, or even watching on YouTube is eligible for the UK Top 100 "singles" chart, artists rarely release actual singles these days. But i digress. After several months of, listening, playing and replaying, and agonising over why i like one song more than another, here are my Top 45 45's since i was born in 76.
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