10 Songs You Must Hear (That Are Under Two Minutes)

By Jack Haworth /

9. €˜Mayday€™ - The Libertines

This is the most punk thing the Libertines ever did. It€™s not just a one-minute snippet of pub brawl bedlam €“ it€™s the most concise summary of the band itself and their short-lived, coke-fuelled shooting star of a musical journey ever to come to fruition. It encapsulates everything the Libertines (particularly Doherty) were; loose cannons in trilbies with short tempers and only a distant memory of sobriety, swinging from one shambolic mishap to the next without paying much attention to the repercussions and having a bloody good time in the process. A maniacal riff; a primal scream; a few barely audible descriptions of the squares he can see around him caught up in the most exciting moments of their lives; and a hell of a lot of smashed glass, and it€™s all done and dusted, cleaned up and moving on to the next one within 66 seconds. Whatever your opinions on Pete Doherty et al, this is one sure-fire way to get a bit of that inner anger out of your system (Nirvana€™s €˜Territorial Pissings€™ being another that might have made it onto this list, were it a shade shorter). Length: 1:06