Northern Synth-Rockers OFFICERS Have Made You A Playlist Of Their Favourite Songs And It’s A Cracker

One on One HQ·June 16, 2017·2 mins read

These guys have great taste in tunes

OFFICERS aren’t bad at all, are they? In case you’re not familiar with them, here’s the low-down: they’re a band from Leeds/Manchester who make infectious guitar-pop music, and they sound quite a bit like this:

Turns out that their taste is as good as their guitar skills

Now, if there’s one thing we’ve learned from our time here at One on One, it’s that people who write great music usually have pretty great taste in tunes themselves. That’s why we couldn’t resist asking OFFICERS to put together a playlist of their favourite tunes, exclusively for the listening pleasure of you lovely lot. You can find their full playlist at the bottom of this page: but, for now, here’s a few words from them about why they chose some of the songs:

Pharoahe Monch – Simon Says

‘This is a lesson in beat-making and sampling. An absolute sonic juggernaut of a song that never fails to bring a smile to my face when it kicks in. My favourite beat of all time.

David Bowie – Fashion

‘I wanted to add some of our favourite tracks from NIN, RATM, etc. in here, but knew we’d run out of space – so, I thought this was a capture of all of them, as it undoubtedly inspired those bands on the industrial/funk front. As far as the guitar goes, this was one of those songs that shows it doesn’t have to sound like you always expect. Robert Fripp always gets a lot of credit next in line to Mick Ronson for Bowie contributions, but it’s the session guy Carlos Alomar who’s frequently inspired me. Pure cool.

Sabres Of Paradise – Tow Truck

‘We’ve been friends with Jagz Kooner (Primal Scream, Oasis, Kasabian producer) for many years and he has always been a big source of inspiration. It was a case of ‘always meet your heroes, as they’re often cool as fuck’ for us. This is one of the tracks from his seminal band with Andy Weatherall. The guitar is so sublime on this: we always wanted to nick it, but Death In Vegas‘s Tim Holmes beat us to it with his remix of our own track Afraid of Your Love…

Shed Seven – She Left Me On Friday

‘No-nonsense unexpected riffarama party anthem. Includes a solo John Squire would steal, and a distorted bass slide – what else could you want in 1998? While other bands at the time were sounding bloated and taking themselves ultra-seriously, this was just swaggering, bonkers, cool fun. I skived off school to watch the video, and it soundtracked many a summer club night.

Placebo – Bosco (MTV Unplugged Version)

‘Simply a beautiful song that must speak to so many of us. It would be my torch song. Hopefully we all have someone we can dedicate this sentiment to. If you haven’t, or don’t need that type of person in your life – strive to be it for someone else.

Gary Numan – Lost

There’s so many obvious tracks we could pick of Gary‘s – Cars, Are Friends Electric, We Are Glass, Metal, Prayer for the Unborn, I Am Dust, to name just a few. His influence on us has been a constant; indeed, it’s hard for it not to be when you’re brought up in a family in the 1980s who love both electronic and guitar music. It’s now become well-documented how influential Gary’s music has been on multiple genres, and his recent Ivor Novello is a testament to that. This is a track that’s both ghostly, introspective, optimistic and uplifting in equal measure. It’s such a clever and unexpected arrangement, too. The fact that it’s from his latest record shows just how much he’s still on top of his game. We’ve been honoured to collaborate, remix, and tour with him a number of times now, and this is always absolutely spellbinding and captivating live.