Category
Music
-
01.21.06The Gits Music Awards: 4 - The Just Can’t Get Enough award(for the album which you played and played and played and played and played - doesn't have to be a 2005 release) Elbow - Leaders of the Free World I quite like Elbow - have done ever since the brooding mantra-like Any Day Now - but I'd never really given their albums a particularly good listen, because I much preferred the singles to the rest of their output. Having said that, Leaders of the Free World is in a different class entirely. I certainly wouldn't say it was the best album ever or anything, but it has a pleasing wholeness ...
-
01.20.06The Gits Music Awards: 3 - The Can’t Get You Out of My Head award(for the song that - good or bad - got stuck in your brain for days/weeks/months on a permaloop) Nizlopi - JCB Song I have a problem. Sometimes, when I'm particularly stressed by things, I find it difficult to switch off in the evenings. If I'm particularly wound up, then I find it difficult to fall asleep at night. Things keep going round and round and round in my head, and I just can't stop them. Sometimes it's a thought, or replaying a particular situation. Sometimes it's a phrase or bunch of words which just keep on churning. And sometimes, the ...
-
01.19.06The Gits Music Awards: 2 - The Fungal award(for the album that grew on you) Kate Bush - Aerial When I first heard the single King of the Mountain, I was fairly underwhelmed, and assumed the rest of the album would be much the same. After the first listen through of the whole thing, I thought she'd gone mad, or at very least continued to feed the madness of the early years. It was kooky, strange, screechy in bits, odd prog-rock opera in others, and it had Rolf Harris doing a guest appearance. There was a song about a washing machine, and one about Pi, in which she ...
-
01.18.06The Gits Music Awards: 1 - The Better Than Expected award(for the album you expected to hate, but you actually ended up liking) Hard-Fi - Stars of CCTV I thought they were going to be another bunch of hyped-up scruffy twenty-somethings with a good-looking lead singer and one catchy track. I ended up really liking this album, and I was surprised. Plus it was recorded in an old cab office in Staines or Slough or something, which is cool. Straight out of West London / just like a loaded gun / the cognoscenti don't like us / they don't like us... Yeah, but I do.
-
10.04.05MusingcalI was going to further this musical meme, spotted over at Mike's gaff, but I haven't got the attention span at the moment to interpret the lyrics and try to manipulate them to fit the teenage-psych-test questions. So instead, here's my version of a meme: Musical Musings, in which I note down the first twenty songs which appear when I put my itunes player on mad shuffle, and what they make me think of, in real time. This list, whatever it ends up being, may well be more revealing about my personality than any amount of pop-psychological internet questioning. Or, indeed, ...
-
06.27.05Rockin’ all over the worldOff to Live8 on Saturday. Managed to score a couple of gold circle passes for myself and him indoors. Rock. I didn't attend the original - I was eleven - but I have vivid memories of the event, not least watching hours of coverage on telly, listening to Michael Jackson's bit on the car radio and driving through Neasden (not sure why) wondering whether we would be able to hear the sound of the crowd from Wembley all the way over on the North Circular. I think we did, but it may have been at least partly imagined. Not this time, though.
-
04.22.05Now That’s What I Call MusicOr at least, that's what we called it in 1983. Over on her site, Anna writes about our musical youth (that's our youthful exposure to music, not these guys specifically, though we did have the album, IIRC) Ah, Now That's What I Call Music. The one with the pig in sunglasses on the cover. I must confess that I actually have our copy of this tape, though no way to listen to it these days. The other one she mentions wasn't called Hits of 83, it was a two volume effort called Superchart 83, one with a yellow cover, and one with ...
-
03.07.05Quick linksWho's on first? In the video shop. Bricktastic. My favourite is the Into the Forest one, if only because I've had that track playing in my head for days.
-
02.01.05Recently playedI have itunes on shuffle most of the time. It throws up the most eclectic playlists sometimes. Who would have chosen Dr Dre, Carmen Miranda, Edith Piaf and Hendrix, in one span? I'm glad my itunes doesn't have a brain. That means it doesn't think about whether tracks "go" together.
-
10.26.04Interesting old John Peel interviewInteresting old John Peel interview which lets him talk in his own words, and not just about music. Plus, answers the big question: was he actually there when Lee Harvey Oswald was shot?
