It’s harder than you might think, choosing seven songs that in one way or another stamped themselves indelibly on your year. Far easier would be a round up of albums (which would certainly include those by lisa hannigan, robert plant & alison krauss, noah and the whale, and elbow), but that’s not, sadly, in my […]
Although I claim to be a holier than thou leftie, there are some conservative impulses I just can’t budge, one of them being a rather straightforward, no-frills list of 7 songs which encapsulate 2008 for me. Yeah, I’m a party pooper, so what? Christmas is for schmucks anyway… So in order… (1) Midnight‘s Another […]
Of all the Pavement albums, Terror Twilight is the least “Pavement-like” and of all the songs on Terror Twilight, “…And Carrot Rope” is the least Pavement-like and as such as a song it perfectly sums up the band. To some extent, only Pavement fans would follow that logic, in fact Pavement were to the […]
Even bastards get to lament and when they do, this song is for them. Those of a certain age always look down on the new generations and wonder, in a pitiful way, whether they’ll get to experience music just as they did when they were younger. The answer is usually yes of course they […]
O.k here’s the deal – I’m asked to get seven songs together that rocked my year (why seven? Maybe the editor is on a Madonna Kabalistic tip – who knows?). My clause – these are songs that I’ve played obsessively throughout the year, but they’re not necessarily released this year. Now, with that out of […]
It could hardly be more rock n’roll – the frontman dies, and the group disbands with one member going off on a crazed visionary tangent. St. John, beloved disciple – the only one, according to the gospel, to stay awake in Gethsemane while Jesus swept blood – according to tradition ended his days on the […]
There used to exist the perfect bar. It was on a sidestreet off Amsterdam’s main square, simply sitting there, waiting to be stumbled on. For years I used to go back there, sure each time that it wouldn’t dissapoint, until that dreadful winter evening when I turned up after an evening flight from Dublin, only […]
Instead of shedding tears over just how much Mike Skinner has forfeited his concrete jungle panache in a series of increasingly trend adhering, substance lacking albums since (and including it has to be said) A Grand Don’t Come for Free, let’s remember for one beautiful instance the Brummie smartmouth had perfection precariously wobbling in his […]
There’s an embarassing moment that happens to nearly all students of a foreign language, when they over-eagerly grasp to a similar sounding word to that of their own native tongue, only to find out that it’s a ‘false friend’ with a completely different meaning. Approaching Kate Rusby’s fragile and beautiful No Names, from the album […]
Caught between the devil (Britney Spears) and Gordon Sumner, the idea that an artist can reflect their politics in music has become a largely discredited notion. When putting their minds towards defeating Thatcherism artists like Billy Bragg, Paul Weller, and the Communards produced arguably some of their worst material – they may have won your […]
