[11] The Phoenix Foundation, ‘Give Up Your Dreams’

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Hopelessly unfashionable bands, we got ’em. New Zealand’s Phoenix Foundation are unspeakably great without even seeming to try – certainly without picking up much attention. I like ‘Give Up Your Dreams’ because of its droll resignation to these solid facts. They’re “thinkin’ ’bout getting a job” and there’s no truck with aspirational talk about the world being your “oyster”.

On the contrary, “the world is a cold dark planet falling through space on an infinite journey to its own destruction – and all that we can do is get on with things and be all right about stuff.”

The best advice you’ll ever hear. Somehow it’s still life-affirming, and it gets Junior air-drumming. A motorik rhythm, you see. “Does that mean it goes through the whole song?” That’ll do.