Shiny Happy People

Last week Kat suggested I devote an entry to discussing duets. I've been wracking my brains ever since and I don't think I actually have that many duets in my music library. If I do, I don't know them well enough to think of them immediately. So I'll discuss a couple of duets I like that I definitely do have.

This Mess We're In, Thom Yorke/PJ Harvey
This track appears on the PJ Harvey album Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea and Thom Yorke does most of the singing, but PJ Harvey chips in a little later on with some spoken word stuff. This is a great song- very angsty and emotional, with some atmospheric minimalist guitar in the background.

Shiny Happy People and Me In Honey, REM and Kate Pearson
If anyone doesn't know, Kate Pearson is/was from the B 52s. These tracks are on the REM album Out of Time, one of their less brilliant but featuring their most famous song Losing My Religion. These two songs are among the album highlights. Shiny Happy People can border a little on the saccharine sweet side of the pop genre, but the other track is a little more edgy. It's the album closer. Apparently Michael Stipe is a bit of a duet junkie. I've also heard a duet by he and Asher Bholse called The Way You Dream and of course the duet he did with Ninah Cherry which has the line in it 'children need to learn about sex in school', but I don't remember what it's called. Trout, I think.

The Ballad of Tom Jones, Space
I've dealt with this elsewhere (see above entry on one-off favourites in my library). A great duet. I remember when Triple J featured duets in a J Files episode and this was one of the good ones.