I WISH I WAS A PUNK ROCKER (WITH FLOWERS IN MY HAIR) - SANDI THOM
Ending Gnarls Barkley’s brow-raising seven-week run, Scottish folk-pop newcomer Sandi Thom already has scored a No. 1 U.K. single with this naked a cappella anthem that relies on her strikingly potent pipes, sparse percussion and a lyric that commands immediate attention. “I was born too late/To a world that doesn’t care,” she sings with an achy, old-soul voice that suggests Janis Joplin waking up in an Internet cafe, dazed and confused. Born in 1981, Thom “misses” the days “When record shops were on top/And vinyl was all that they stocked/And the super info highway was still drifting out of space.” Intelligent and moving, this gorgeously stripped ballad is building top 40 airplay; whether it will become a massive radio hit is unlikely, but not impossible. Nostalgia is a powerful thing. Billboard
