Uncut January 2006/John Peel's Festive 15 CD

The Smiths grace the cover of Uncut 20 years after their classic album The Queen is Dead. Mike Joyce, Johnny Marr, and Andy Rourke discuss the making of the album and much more in separate interviews. According to Uncut, Morrisey was "finishing his new album in Rome and unwilling to participate in this celebration of his finest hour."

As for the prospects of a reunion, Uncut asks "why wouldn't they reform?" Joyce: "Because of Morrissey's hatred toward me, I suppose." Rourke: "I'd like to say 'never say never', but I think it's pretty unlikely, for one reason or another." Marr cites "an awful lot of very dirty water gone under the bridge." He says if asked to reform, "I think we'd have to go to some new age retreat in Arizona, all wear muslin and get up every morning to share the dawn. For several months. Go on meditation walks and then share." Laughing, he repeated, "Share! Share! Share! That's a very Smithsy thing to do, isn't it? Or we could all go for a walk around Ancoats, and sort it out."

Also interviewed in this issue: Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, The National, rock writer Nik Cohn, and directors David Cronenberg and John Waters.

Plus, Uncut weighs in on the top films, DVDs, and books of the year.

Uncut's Top 10 Films of the Year:

1. A History of Violence
2. Downfall
3. Broken Flowers
4. Million Dollar Baby
5. Sideways
6. Last Days
7. Batman Begins
8. Dig!
9. Team America: World Police
10. Sin City

The new "Brokeback Mountain" landed the #11 spot. The goofy noir "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" took #19.

Top DVDs ("Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" lands the top spot), TV DVDs ("Deadwood: Season 1"), and music DVDs ("No Direction Home: Bob Dylan") are also named.

Uncut's Top 10 Books of the Year

1. Lunar Park - Bret Easton Ellis
2. Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984 - Simon Reynolds
3. The Darling - Russell Banks
4. The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood - David Thomson
5. Trance - Christopher Sorrentino
6. Hotel California - Barney Hoskyns
7. Drama City - George Pelecanos
8. The Bob Dylan Scrapbook 1956-1966 - Text by Robert Santelli
9. How We Are Hungry - Dave Eggers
10. The Story of Film - Mark Cousins

Uncut's free CD this month honours the late DJ John Peel and his annual listeners' poll, the Festive 50. Listeners were asked to list their top 3 songs from the past year on the back of a postcard. Peel always calculated the results himself, by hand.

Uncut Presents John Peel's Festive 15 Track Listing:

1. Half Man Half Biscuit - The Trumpton Riots (#14 in the 1986 Festive 50, from the Back in the DHSS/The Trumpton Riots EP. The group's latest album Achtung Bono is dedicated to the memory of John Peel)
2. Camper Van Beethoven - Take the Skinheads Bowling (#47 in 1986, from Telephone Free Landslide Victory. Sadly, their only showing in the Festive 50)
3. Spizzenergi - Where's Captain Kirk?
4. The Mighty Wah! - Remember
5. The Sugarcubes - Birthday
6. The Woodentops - Well Well Well
7. Billy Bragg - The Saturday Boy (John Peel mentioned a craving for a mushroom biryani on the air one night in 1983. Billy Bragg brought him one, along with a demo tape, and became a regular...)
8. The Field Mice - Sensitive (#26 in 1989, from Snowball. In 1991 their song "Missing the Moon" was #45 in the Festive 50. Singer Bobby Wrattan made it to #19 in 1996 as a member of The Trembling Blue Stars with "Abba On the Jukebox)
9. The Bhundu Boys - Foolish Harp/Waerera (#30 in 1987, from Friends on the Road. John Peel called The Bhundu Boys "the most perfect music I've ever heard.")
10. Pavement - Gold Soundz
11. Felt (Featuring Elizabeth Fraser) - Primitive Painters
12. The House Of Love - Destroy The Heart (#1 in 1988, from 1986-1988: The Creation Recordings. The song was first recorded in a Peel Session. NME later named it Single of the Week, calling it "brilliant... "the same innocent yet liquid and wise.")
13. The Wedding Present - Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft
14. Robert Wyatt - Shipbuilding
15. The Fall - Eat Y'Self Fitter

Hidden Track:

16. John Peel - The Smiths and the Nightingales (John Peel briefly compares the two)