The Go! Team - Buy Nothing Day

Some songs fill you with such a sense of unadultered joy and good feeling you can scarcely believe they truly exist. They don’t quite seem real, more like something conjured out of dreams and fantasy, a blurry memory of happiness that flashes only for an instant through the humdrum grey of ordinary life. The Go! Team’s Buy Nothing Day is one such song, and as a first single from their new album Rolling Blackouts, it really is perfect. The ideal lead single from a record is one that hits the listener with a bang, that cry of ‘We’re back!’, the call of an old friend from across the road.

And Buy Nothing Day is all this and more. With lovely 60s harmonies and twangly guitar reminiscent of the Mama’s and Papa’s this is a song of sunshine, smiles and pure radiance. The verses are almost childlike in their punky outlook on the world. And then comes the chorus, which is quite simply one of the best I’ve heard this year so far. They really don’t come like this anymore. Think back to the likes of the Manic Street Preachers, big sing-along choruses that fill you up with sheer emotion.

In a perfect world, a song like Buy Nothing Day would be Number 1 for a month at the very least, and you’d hear it playing from every car radio across town. But for the time being at least, when this song comes up on your iPod shuffle, you can guarantee you’ll be feeling better than before. Pure happiness in sonic form.