17.1.06
Something to watch
Inspired by a comment on one of the reviews of Heartbeats here, here is that advert which everyone apparently loves and has elevated José Gonzáles to the top 10. Although it's never been on TV when I've been watching.
16.1.06
Heard about your band brake-up
Yes, Eamon has left British Sea Power.
Meanwhile having discovered that Beyonce's new single is actually a decent pop song and not another awful ballad, and with Shane Wayrd still going strong we eagerly await tomorrow's midweeks to see if Arctic Monkeys can can trigger another round of articles about getting to number one by the power of the interweb alone.
Meanwhile having discovered that Beyonce's new single is actually a decent pop song and not another awful ballad, and with Shane Wayrd still going strong we eagerly await tomorrow's midweeks to see if Arctic Monkeys can can trigger another round of articles about getting to number one by the power of the interweb alone.
15.1.06
New year, new bands #1
Guillemots
Who?: Anglo-Scots-Brazilian-Canadian quartet with, apparently, names like Aristazabal Hawkes and Fyfe Dangerfield (respectively adorable bassist and even more adorable singer). They play music which makes jazz-pop actually sound like a great idea, with parping saxophones and busy experimentalism kept in balance by glorious swooning choruses and everything shot through with a sense of innocently magical wonder which just doesn't come around very often.
Progress so far: Their debut EP on Fantastic Plastic (former home of Buffseeds and Ikara Colt), I Saw Such Things In My Sleep, sold out far too quickly for my liking and fetches around 40 quid on ebay these days. Helped by supports for Rufus Wainwright and a mention on The Culture Show, the follow-up Trains to Brazil might well have made the top 40 if it wasn't ineligible due to a sticker included in the single. An album is currently being worked on and the only note of caution personally is that the last new band I was this excited about was Hope Of The States, and things didn't go too well at that stage there...
Website: http://www.guillemots.com
Listen to (click to download):
Who?: Anglo-Scots-Brazilian-Canadian quartet with, apparently, names like Aristazabal Hawkes and Fyfe Dangerfield (respectively adorable bassist and even more adorable singer). They play music which makes jazz-pop actually sound like a great idea, with parping saxophones and busy experimentalism kept in balance by glorious swooning choruses and everything shot through with a sense of innocently magical wonder which just doesn't come around very often.
Progress so far: Their debut EP on Fantastic Plastic (former home of Buffseeds and Ikara Colt), I Saw Such Things In My Sleep, sold out far too quickly for my liking and fetches around 40 quid on ebay these days. Helped by supports for Rufus Wainwright and a mention on The Culture Show, the follow-up Trains to Brazil might well have made the top 40 if it wasn't ineligible due to a sticker included in the single. An album is currently being worked on and the only note of caution personally is that the last new band I was this excited about was Hope Of The States, and things didn't go too well at that stage there...
Website: http://www.guillemots.com
Listen to (click to download):
14.1.06
New year, new bands #2
Lisa Brown
Who?: Misleadingly named Manchester band, first heard in mid-2004 playing delicate, dreamily uplifting songs which still had a certain urgency and immediacy to them. Apparently favourites of Elbow's Guy Garvey, although for once I only found that out afterwards...
Progress so far: Things have gone slightly slowly for them since, but they have expanded their range to include incredibly cute synth-disco and finally released a single, What's That Sound, showing off that side of the band in December 2005.
Website: http://www.lisabrown.net/
Listen to:
Hey I Really Love You
Who?: Misleadingly named Manchester band, first heard in mid-2004 playing delicate, dreamily uplifting songs which still had a certain urgency and immediacy to them. Apparently favourites of Elbow's Guy Garvey, although for once I only found that out afterwards...
Progress so far: Things have gone slightly slowly for them since, but they have expanded their range to include incredibly cute synth-disco and finally released a single, What's That Sound, showing off that side of the band in December 2005.
Website: http://www.lisabrown.net/
Listen to:
Hey I Really Love You
Resigned from life
Slightly inevitable news reaches us that Minuteman have split. Led by Matt Jones, former keyboard player for Ultrasound, they released one album of glam-prog-pop in 2002, which included singles 5000 Minutes Of Pain and Big Boy, memorably rereleased because ITV started regularly using about five seconds of it on The Premiership. They had played gigs intermittently since but a second album was looking increasingly unlikely.
13.1.06
New year, new bands #3
My Latest Novel
Who?: Scottish five piece playing ambitious, sweet and unsurprisingly literate indie, incorporating poetry and sweeping drama with occasional nods to The Delgados and yes, ok, Belle And Sebastian.
Progress so far: They've supported Stars and released one single on Bella Union, with an even stronger one The Reputation Of Ross Francis to follow next month and an album, 'Wolves', to be released on March 6.
Website: http://www.mylatestnovel.com
Listen to: (click to download)
Who?: Scottish five piece playing ambitious, sweet and unsurprisingly literate indie, incorporating poetry and sweeping drama with occasional nods to The Delgados and yes, ok, Belle And Sebastian.
Progress so far: They've supported Stars and released one single on Bella Union, with an even stronger one The Reputation Of Ross Francis to follow next month and an album, 'Wolves', to be released on March 6.
Website: http://www.mylatestnovel.com
Listen to: (click to download)
12.1.06
New year, new bands #4
Jeniferever
Who? Swedish four-piece who make very long songs of rather stunning brittle beauty and have a marginally better grasp of the English language for songwriting than Mew.
Progress so far? Several tours including a couple of the UK (including a date at Margate last year!) and a couple of (very long, naturally) EPs. They have now been signed to DrownedInSound recordings, of Martha Wainwright and, briefly, Kaiser Chiefs fame, and release their debut album 'Choose A Bright Morning' in March. Can't wait.
Website: http://www.jeniferever.com/
Listen (click to download):
Who? Swedish four-piece who make very long songs of rather stunning brittle beauty and have a marginally better grasp of the English language for songwriting than Mew.
Progress so far? Several tours including a couple of the UK (including a date at Margate last year!) and a couple of (very long, naturally) EPs. They have now been signed to DrownedInSound recordings, of Martha Wainwright and, briefly, Kaiser Chiefs fame, and release their debut album 'Choose A Bright Morning' in March. Can't wait.
Website: http://www.jeniferever.com/
Listen (click to download):
11.1.06
New year, new bands #5
Battle
Who? Four-piece post-punkers who formed at university in Canterbury (hurrah!) and previously got some minor attention under other names, mainly Killing Moon. Bloc Party are the most obvious recent reference point, but there is a certain raw desperation and hunger in the music and lyrics which is something else completely. Very good live, too.
Progress so far: A couple of singles have been released: Isabelle/Stay The Same on Fierce Panda and the rather brilliant Demons on Transgressive, with another, Tendency, to come in March and an album currently being recorded.
Website: http://www.thisisbattle.com/
Listen (click for download):
Who? Four-piece post-punkers who formed at university in Canterbury (hurrah!) and previously got some minor attention under other names, mainly Killing Moon. Bloc Party are the most obvious recent reference point, but there is a certain raw desperation and hunger in the music and lyrics which is something else completely. Very good live, too.
Progress so far: A couple of singles have been released: Isabelle/Stay The Same on Fierce Panda and the rather brilliant Demons on Transgressive, with another, Tendency, to come in March and an album currently being recorded.
Website: http://www.thisisbattle.com/
Listen (click for download):
10.1.06
New year, new bands #6
iLiKETRAiNS
Who? Leeds post-rock quintet who are infinitely better than their name. Post-rock not in the sense of ten-minute instrumentals and no real songs though, but that of a slightly unconventonal take on things (somehow writing movingly about Bobby Fischer and historical railway politics) and skyscraping guitars, strings and epicness all round, not completely unlike a less try-hard Hope Of The States.
Progress so far: A couple of limited edition vinyl singles, Before The Curtains Close and A Rook House For Bobby, have sold out very fast indeed, and new material is being worked on at the moment.
Website: http://www.iliketrains.co.uk/
Listen: (click for download)
Who? Leeds post-rock quintet who are infinitely better than their name. Post-rock not in the sense of ten-minute instrumentals and no real songs though, but that of a slightly unconventonal take on things (somehow writing movingly about Bobby Fischer and historical railway politics) and skyscraping guitars, strings and epicness all round, not completely unlike a less try-hard Hope Of The States.
Progress so far: A couple of limited edition vinyl singles, Before The Curtains Close and A Rook House For Bobby, have sold out very fast indeed, and new material is being worked on at the moment.
Website: http://www.iliketrains.co.uk/
Listen: (click for download)
A belated link
...to the results of Sweeping The Nation's poll of UK bloggers for their favourite albums released in the UK in 2005. The winner is not especially surprising (and quite deserving, methinks) but some of the others are pretty interesting.
Click here
Click here
9.1.06
New year, new bands #7
I'm hedging my bets somewhat less this year and merely writing about 7 new bands (one each day this week with any luck) who I expect big things for and/or really like.
First up...
The Feeling
Who? Their biog's description of them as 'the new gods of cool MOR' and explanation of how there's no need to be ashamed of liking non-credible music any more is perhaps a little too knowing and self-defeating. Their songs show no such self-consciousness though and are breathtakingly immediate, sounding not unlike a supercharged version of Keane's best moments (with added guitars of course). If this doesn't sound a good idea, you may be one of many annoyed by the end of the year... oh, and apparently one of them is married to Sophie Ellis-Bextor.
Progress so far: Well, they have a majot label contract with Island and a suitably flashy website. Their only release so far was the single Fill My Little World, which didn't trouble the charts but does seem to have now sold out.
Website: http://www.thefeeling.com
Listen: (click for download)
First up...
The Feeling
Who? Their biog's description of them as 'the new gods of cool MOR' and explanation of how there's no need to be ashamed of liking non-credible music any more is perhaps a little too knowing and self-defeating. Their songs show no such self-consciousness though and are breathtakingly immediate, sounding not unlike a supercharged version of Keane's best moments (with added guitars of course). If this doesn't sound a good idea, you may be one of many annoyed by the end of the year... oh, and apparently one of them is married to Sophie Ellis-Bextor.
Progress so far: Well, they have a majot label contract with Island and a suitably flashy website. Their only release so far was the single Fill My Little World, which didn't trouble the charts but does seem to have now sold out.
Website: http://www.thefeeling.com
Listen: (click for download)
8.1.06
New year, new bands - 20 for 05 and how they did
At the end of 2004 I made a CD for friends with songs by 20 bands who hadn't released albums yet, with their inclusion based on if I liked them and (very importantly) if their website had easily downloadable songs as much as if they had any chance of success. OK, that is partly just an excuse for the large number of all-round failures here, but it's very interesting to look at what happened to them all. The tracklisting was as follows:
Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot See Sound Of 2005 piece.
The Departure - Be My Enemy I made fun of The Dead 60s for a rerelease of a number 30 single making the same place again, but the rerelease of The Departure's debut All Mapped Out actually managed to make 3 places lower. A big failure, suffering from the start from a general perception of artifice even more than The Bravery did, as well as the fact that their album was decent but unspectacular.
Bloc Party - Helicopter See Sound Of 2005 piece.
The Boxer Rebellion - Code Red I came across them in 2003 when they won a competition to play the Glastonbury new bands tent, beating Keane in the process. Their atmospheric Cooper Temple Clause like rock found a slightly unlikely home on Poptones, who did at least release an album, Exits (more than some bands here managed) which puzzlingly failed to include either this or their previous single. They are apparently already at work on a second album.
Saint Rose - Call For Calm Dramatic, slightly shoegazey indie and brilliant live, their website triumphantly announced a major label deal towards the end of last year, but now doesn't even exist. A bit of searching around finds that they are now The Bright Space.
Fans Of Kate - Tape 23 A keyboard-driven power pop band with a brilliant live set full of great and immediate songs, I'm genuinely surprised that they weren't more of a success in 2005. They've lost a member but are currently recording an album hopefully due for release before summer.
Arctic Monkeys - Scummy Now called When The Sun Goes Down, this is their next single. I don't think that I could have imagined at the time, having heard this one song on a CD from a friend and seen the occasional mention of them on messageboards, that it will be a surprise if it isn't number one, but there was a certain obvious spark here.
Vib Gyor - Church Bell Prog-indie discovered on the same CD, they have one of those names which sounds cool til you work out where it comes from. Not much mainstream attention here yet but they have supposedly been called 'a heavenly hybrid of Coldplay and Sigur Ros' by Entertainment Weekly in the US. Mmm. Can be heard on Myspace.
Mellowdrone - Fashionably Uninvited American and slightly electronic take on new wave, they haven't got anywhere yet but have an album 'The Box' coming out in a couple of months and sound like this.
Mystery Jets - On My Feet The most odd song they've put out so far, full of chanting and generally offbeat. More commercial (and Coral-like) songs like Alas Agnes and relentless publicity have managed to push them to the edge of the top 40, although whether they get any further and if their album is any good may depend on whether they manage to balance the two styles well.
HAL - Worry About The Wind Possibly their biggest problem was the massive gap of about a year between the release of this sweet, breezy single and the next one. Either that or The Thrills going out of fashion. Whichever, their album failed to make much of an impression in any sense, but Play The Hits was another great single.
Cranebuilders - So What Could I Do Nowhere at all on the commercial radar despite Elbow connections (supported them, on their label, Guy offers backing vocals throughout) but they did at least get a really good album full of haunting songs like this released.
Cherryfalls - In Your Arms Again A bit of a cautionary tale for new bands this one - they were signed to Island and released two fairly impressive singles in 2004, predictably slightly like later Coldplay but with a certain added force (some loud guitars and Standing Watching did contain the line 'I want to find you, I want to fuck you up') and supported Feeder, gradually becoming more known. They then in March 2005 released the astonishingly drippy My Drug, which sounded like it was written by a focus group and put anyone else's supposed critical grabs at success (Athlete, Snow Patrol) in perspective... and it did worse than Standing Watching did. At this point Island of course dropped them, before actually releasing their promising but inconsistent album 'Winter/Winter' but after sending out promos of it to the press.
At the moment they are trying to recreate themselves and confusion reigns - they may or may not be named The New York Fund. Or Ten City Run.
Mirima - Twister Mirima might still wish that they were Cherryfalls, though, as their site descriptions are starting to appear increasingly desperate.
Grand Transmitter - Under The Wheel Released one excellent EP of Muse/Buckley-like angst rock on Morning Runner's original label and have now seemingly vanished. The link to their official site from the label one goes here. Ulp.
Engineers - Come In Out Of The Rain They achieved surprisingly good reviews on the likes of Pitchfork but despite the NME's best efforts shoegazing never took off again here. Personally their album was one of the biggest disappointments of the whole year, failing to build on the promise of some gorgeous singles and managing to almost all go at a crawl but still achieve no atmosphere, until a fantastic final song which made the rest of it seem all the more limp in comparison. Oh well.
Pioneers - Slow Down Similar in sound as well as name, a mini-album was recently released and a full album may emerge sometime this year - perhaps they'll do a better job.
Pellumair - Iris One of three bands on here to no longer exist, which is quite a success rate! They split just before releasing their debut album of hazy acoustica 'Summer Storm', which is something which some other bands should have considered doing in the past, perhaps...
Morning Runner - Oceans Checked out on a the basis of a mention as Parlophone's priority for the year, this simple and beautiful piano song turned out to be unrepresentative of their sound in general, and they seemingly spent the year being forced down the throats of the public (Seemingly millions of support slots, most notably for Coldplay) to only a little avail. It's not difficult to see why, especially after Starsailor adopted a similar sound to almost as bad a response, but they have enough fine moments (second single Work the best example) to suggest that they might eventually win over a few more.
Lisa Brown - Picture House See forthcoming feature on new bands for 2006!
Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot See Sound Of 2005 piece.
The Departure - Be My Enemy I made fun of The Dead 60s for a rerelease of a number 30 single making the same place again, but the rerelease of The Departure's debut All Mapped Out actually managed to make 3 places lower. A big failure, suffering from the start from a general perception of artifice even more than The Bravery did, as well as the fact that their album was decent but unspectacular.
Bloc Party - Helicopter See Sound Of 2005 piece.
The Boxer Rebellion - Code Red I came across them in 2003 when they won a competition to play the Glastonbury new bands tent, beating Keane in the process. Their atmospheric Cooper Temple Clause like rock found a slightly unlikely home on Poptones, who did at least release an album, Exits (more than some bands here managed) which puzzlingly failed to include either this or their previous single. They are apparently already at work on a second album.
Saint Rose - Call For Calm Dramatic, slightly shoegazey indie and brilliant live, their website triumphantly announced a major label deal towards the end of last year, but now doesn't even exist. A bit of searching around finds that they are now The Bright Space.
Fans Of Kate - Tape 23 A keyboard-driven power pop band with a brilliant live set full of great and immediate songs, I'm genuinely surprised that they weren't more of a success in 2005. They've lost a member but are currently recording an album hopefully due for release before summer.
Arctic Monkeys - Scummy Now called When The Sun Goes Down, this is their next single. I don't think that I could have imagined at the time, having heard this one song on a CD from a friend and seen the occasional mention of them on messageboards, that it will be a surprise if it isn't number one, but there was a certain obvious spark here.
Vib Gyor - Church Bell Prog-indie discovered on the same CD, they have one of those names which sounds cool til you work out where it comes from. Not much mainstream attention here yet but they have supposedly been called 'a heavenly hybrid of Coldplay and Sigur Ros' by Entertainment Weekly in the US. Mmm. Can be heard on Myspace.
Mellowdrone - Fashionably Uninvited American and slightly electronic take on new wave, they haven't got anywhere yet but have an album 'The Box' coming out in a couple of months and sound like this.
Mystery Jets - On My Feet The most odd song they've put out so far, full of chanting and generally offbeat. More commercial (and Coral-like) songs like Alas Agnes and relentless publicity have managed to push them to the edge of the top 40, although whether they get any further and if their album is any good may depend on whether they manage to balance the two styles well.
HAL - Worry About The Wind Possibly their biggest problem was the massive gap of about a year between the release of this sweet, breezy single and the next one. Either that or The Thrills going out of fashion. Whichever, their album failed to make much of an impression in any sense, but Play The Hits was another great single.
Cranebuilders - So What Could I Do Nowhere at all on the commercial radar despite Elbow connections (supported them, on their label, Guy offers backing vocals throughout) but they did at least get a really good album full of haunting songs like this released.
Cherryfalls - In Your Arms Again A bit of a cautionary tale for new bands this one - they were signed to Island and released two fairly impressive singles in 2004, predictably slightly like later Coldplay but with a certain added force (some loud guitars and Standing Watching did contain the line 'I want to find you, I want to fuck you up') and supported Feeder, gradually becoming more known. They then in March 2005 released the astonishingly drippy My Drug, which sounded like it was written by a focus group and put anyone else's supposed critical grabs at success (Athlete, Snow Patrol) in perspective... and it did worse than Standing Watching did. At this point Island of course dropped them, before actually releasing their promising but inconsistent album 'Winter/Winter' but after sending out promos of it to the press.
At the moment they are trying to recreate themselves and confusion reigns - they may or may not be named The New York Fund. Or Ten City Run.
Mirima - Twister Mirima might still wish that they were Cherryfalls, though, as their site descriptions are starting to appear increasingly desperate.
Grand Transmitter - Under The Wheel Released one excellent EP of Muse/Buckley-like angst rock on Morning Runner's original label and have now seemingly vanished. The link to their official site from the label one goes here. Ulp.
Engineers - Come In Out Of The Rain They achieved surprisingly good reviews on the likes of Pitchfork but despite the NME's best efforts shoegazing never took off again here. Personally their album was one of the biggest disappointments of the whole year, failing to build on the promise of some gorgeous singles and managing to almost all go at a crawl but still achieve no atmosphere, until a fantastic final song which made the rest of it seem all the more limp in comparison. Oh well.
Pioneers - Slow Down Similar in sound as well as name, a mini-album was recently released and a full album may emerge sometime this year - perhaps they'll do a better job.
Pellumair - Iris One of three bands on here to no longer exist, which is quite a success rate! They split just before releasing their debut album of hazy acoustica 'Summer Storm', which is something which some other bands should have considered doing in the past, perhaps...
Morning Runner - Oceans Checked out on a the basis of a mention as Parlophone's priority for the year, this simple and beautiful piano song turned out to be unrepresentative of their sound in general, and they seemingly spent the year being forced down the throats of the public (Seemingly millions of support slots, most notably for Coldplay) to only a little avail. It's not difficult to see why, especially after Starsailor adopted a similar sound to almost as bad a response, but they have enough fine moments (second single Work the best example) to suggest that they might eventually win over a few more.
Lisa Brown - Picture House See forthcoming feature on new bands for 2006!
3.1.06
New year, new bands - (an honest) mistake
Lots of people are at the moment trying to predict the bands which will be success stories this year (well done to anyone sticking their neck out and going for Arctic Monkeys) which we will be doing shortly.
Some are also looking back at their predictions for 2005, including the BBC with a review of their Sound of 2005 roundup of 'music pundits' views here.
Yes, The Bravery were top. It seems like longer than a year ago that they were achieving a top 5 album and top 10 single, so quickly did they fall - the inability of the followup singles to even make the top 40 was comically remarkable, and they've been notably absent from any end-of-year lists.
Bloc Party never quite made the breakthrough into real stardom, not helped by a general perception of them as being boring and/or miserable in interviews, but did sell consistently well and just about dodged a huge backlash.
Kano did manage one more top 40 single than The Bravery, but his album went largely unnoticed. UK hip-hop chosen in these doesn't seem to fare well in general, in fact.
The Game was indeed a success although didn't seem to achieve a public perception much beyond being an extension of the 50 Cent brand.
Kaiser Chiefs managed the fourth best selling album of the year, so choosing them could be seen as a success if it wasn't for the fact that by the time the poll was published I Predict A Riot had already been a hit once (rules from the previous year dictating that acts shouldn't already have had a top 40 hit being diluted to exclude only those with top 20 ones - maybe this year they will go the whole way and include Arctic Monkeys...) and Oh My God was picking up airplay widely, and yet they were still only fifth.
KT Tunstall was a slightly more surprising success, perhaps, with Black Horse And The Cherry Tree seeing to suggest a slightly different proposition to her later more successful singles and a gradual buildup of momentum throughout the year to also reach the top 10 bestselling albums of the year.
The Dead 60s' Riot Radio reached number 30 back in October 2004 before the poll, and on its rerelease just under a year later reached... number 30. So well done there. Admittedly they did have some marginally bigger hits, but with album sales lukewarm and Hard-Fi doing a similar thing to better effect all round they were far from a success story.
The Dears, not actually at all new at the time having released their second album in North America in 2003 and the UK in 2004, look an even more puzzling choice when compared with the success of non-included fellow Canadians the Arcade Fire, who were picking up a lot more critical support already at the time and who had a really great year. 'Funeral' is now on sale in Tesco(!)
Tom Vek also never really got anywhere, with singles charting at 45, 60 and 59.
The Magic Numbers, in contrast, have achieved impressively massive album sales as well as generally good reviews, and having not even released a full-scale single at the time are behind only KT Tunstall in this list as a prediction of chart success which wasn't already happening.
Some are also looking back at their predictions for 2005, including the BBC with a review of their Sound of 2005 roundup of 'music pundits' views here.
Yes, The Bravery were top. It seems like longer than a year ago that they were achieving a top 5 album and top 10 single, so quickly did they fall - the inability of the followup singles to even make the top 40 was comically remarkable, and they've been notably absent from any end-of-year lists.
Bloc Party never quite made the breakthrough into real stardom, not helped by a general perception of them as being boring and/or miserable in interviews, but did sell consistently well and just about dodged a huge backlash.
Kano did manage one more top 40 single than The Bravery, but his album went largely unnoticed. UK hip-hop chosen in these doesn't seem to fare well in general, in fact.
The Game was indeed a success although didn't seem to achieve a public perception much beyond being an extension of the 50 Cent brand.
Kaiser Chiefs managed the fourth best selling album of the year, so choosing them could be seen as a success if it wasn't for the fact that by the time the poll was published I Predict A Riot had already been a hit once (rules from the previous year dictating that acts shouldn't already have had a top 40 hit being diluted to exclude only those with top 20 ones - maybe this year they will go the whole way and include Arctic Monkeys...) and Oh My God was picking up airplay widely, and yet they were still only fifth.
KT Tunstall was a slightly more surprising success, perhaps, with Black Horse And The Cherry Tree seeing to suggest a slightly different proposition to her later more successful singles and a gradual buildup of momentum throughout the year to also reach the top 10 bestselling albums of the year.
The Dead 60s' Riot Radio reached number 30 back in October 2004 before the poll, and on its rerelease just under a year later reached... number 30. So well done there. Admittedly they did have some marginally bigger hits, but with album sales lukewarm and Hard-Fi doing a similar thing to better effect all round they were far from a success story.
The Dears, not actually at all new at the time having released their second album in North America in 2003 and the UK in 2004, look an even more puzzling choice when compared with the success of non-included fellow Canadians the Arcade Fire, who were picking up a lot more critical support already at the time and who had a really great year. 'Funeral' is now on sale in Tesco(!)
Tom Vek also never really got anywhere, with singles charting at 45, 60 and 59.
The Magic Numbers, in contrast, have achieved impressively massive album sales as well as generally good reviews, and having not even released a full-scale single at the time are behind only KT Tunstall in this list as a prediction of chart success which wasn't already happening.
31.12.05
Albums of the year
Before we start, my favourite two albums released in the UK this year are Stars' 'Set Yourself On Fire' and The Arcade Fire's 'Funeral', but neither are included as they were originally released last year and I had heard most of both of them by the very end of the year.
40. Hooker's Green No. 1 - On How The Illustrious Captain Moon Won The War For Us
39. Röyksopp - The Understanding
38. The Most Serene Republic - Underwater Cinematographer
37. David Ford - I Sincerely Apologise For All The Trouble I've Caused
36. Sigur Rós - Takk...
35. The Coral - The Invisible Invasion
34. Gemma Hayes - The Roads Don't Love You
33. Cranebuilders - Sometimes You Hear Through Someone Else
32. dEUS - Pocket Revolution
31. Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene
30. Death Cab For Cutie - Plans
29. Kaiser Chiefs - Employment
28. Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have It So Much Better
27. The Shortwave Set - The Debt Collection
26. Editors - The Back Room
25. Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock & Roll
24. Doves - Some Cities
23. Tom McRae - All Maps Welcome
22. Clor - Clor
21. Maxïmo Park - A Certain Trigger
20. Final Fantasy - Has A Good Home
Owen Pallett gained attention through aranging strings for The Arcade Fire and Win Butler is on guest shouting duties here for Please Please Please, but this steers firmly clear of injoke irrelevance despite some titles suggesting the opposite. Largely played with a violin, a few effects and little else, the variety of layered backdrops conjured up to the surreal, humorous songs is incredibly impressive as a result, and a few of them, like the This Is The Dream Of Win And Regine would undoubtedly be great however they were played.
19. Brakes - Give Blood
It's difficult to talk about this without mentioning the length of songs because its breakneck speed is its biggest asset - on the rare occasions when they slightly misfire the song doesn't hang around long enough for it to matter, and more often than not it makes for perfect songs like Heard About Your Band and Hi How Are You, hilarious and thrilling rants. It also beats Art Brut by a few places becasue there is even some depth beyond the initial rush, especially in morose closer Fell In Love With A Girl.
18. Coldplay - X&Y
Lyrically abysmal in places ('you cut me down a tree and brought it back to me and that's what made me see...'), but otherwise a logical progression of their advance to be the best stadium rock band around, with Guy, Johnny and Will all taking more of a chance to shine than ever.
17. Gorillaz - Demon Days
Inventive and dramatic but also, in the biggest advance from the debut, cohesive, it makes diverse sounds seem made for each other and still contains glorious pop moments among all the atmosperics and darkness.
16. Hard-Fi - Stars Of CCTV
Hard-Fi make their anthemic, combative songs sound almost too easy, but you only need compare to The Dead 60s' attempts at similar to see that there's real ability at work here.
Stealing mercilessly, not least from The Clash, but turning it all into something definitively now, their rise to success was inevatible as every song here hits its mark and who can't relate to the overall theme of wanting to escape their life?
15. Wolf Parade - Apologies To The Queen Mary
Never quite lives up to the incredible taut and propulsive opening song, but its all great fun regardless - pitched about halfway between The Arcade Fire and Modest Mouse (whose singer Isaac Brock produces here) with fine impassioned songs and some of the most awesome bloopy keyboard noises around as well.
14. Architecture In Helsinki - In Case We Die
An ever-changing kaleidascope of musical styles, occasionally resembling a sweeter version of The Coral's debut album, it would be easy for this to become annoying (which is the view that a few reviews seemed to take) but it is just too well done and the band too in love with life, the world and the music they can make for it to be anything but exciting and fun.
13. The National - Alligator
Blessed with a deep, rich voice perfect for the dark songs on offer here, Matt Berninger is the star of an album which is personal and dramatic but never loses hold of its wit and a certain lightness of touch.
12. The Decemberists - Picaresque
It's easy to get lost in talking about the lyrics - rich and wonderful stories throughout - but the music here makes just as many of the key moments work, from the dramatic build in The Bagman's Gambit to the swing of 16 Military Wives and the devilish finale of The Mariner's Revenge Song.
11. Turin Brakes - JackInABox
In a year when the previously reliable Doves, Tom McRae and to a lesser extent Coldplay released disappointing third albums, this was the first one to reassure that it wasn't just me going off the music which I pretty much started off with a few years ago. Although ignored or panned in most places, this is a complete turnaround from the constrictive MOR of most of 'Ether Song' to simple, joyful pop. There are acoustic beauties like Forever and Road To Nowhere, but the biggest joy is the new territory they throw themselves at - on the funky likes of Over And Over and the title track, it sounds like they could try anything and succeed.
10. Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
This was the year when Conor Oberst came good, ditching the sprawling self-indulgences which made previous albums so individual but so frustrating and turning out not one but two albums that were focused and near faultless. This one was full of moments of stripped-back beauty with Emmylou Harris helping out with some amazing backing vocals and First Day Of My Life his sweetest, simplest song ever.
9. Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
Perhaps just a little longer than it needs to be, but with songs as tight and inventive as these it was difficult to care - there were few rushes this year as good as Like Eating Glass or the end of So Here We Are and Blue Light and This Modern Love showed that they could even do slow and moving as well as frenetic dance-rock that put all peers to shame.
8. Bright Eyes - Digital Ash In A Digital Urn
The general verdict on his two albums this year seemed to be that 'I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning' had all the songs and this all the experimentation, but for me the songs here are every bit as strong, if more melodramatic. It's my favourite of the two because the uneasy electronica seems to be a tighter fit with the subject matter and offers a wider scope for variety, from the minimalism of Time Code to the Postal Service moment Take It Easy and the flamenco-ish dance of Arc Of Time, probably the most joyful song about death all year.
7. Iko - I Am Zero
Kieran Scragg may sound like a girl, but his voice is one of astonishing purity and, crucially, believable enough in its emotion to sell the songs here which other bands could easily come across as whiny or sappy. Almost bereft of the brittle rock that his former band Buffseeds specialised in and stripped down to little but his voice in places, it also has an air of hopelessness which makes lines like 'stay just as you are, you're the nearest thing that I have to art' all the more affecting.
6. The Tenderfoot - Save The Year
Funnily enough, I first saw The Tenderfoot supporting Buffseeds in 2003, and wasn't especially impressed, completely forgetting about them before coming across their mini-album 'Vale Industrial' at the start of the year. Perhaps it's not surprising as this is gentle, unobtrusive music (helped by Darren Moon's soft voice which bears quite a resemblance to Gruff Rhys') which only gradually seeps into the conciousness until one day grabbing you completely and refusing to let go. Probably the day you first really notice the lyrics - near-perfect witty and affecting tales of being stuck in dead-end monotony, featuring some of the best one-liners around. Afterwards the music seems to make much more sense, subtle and economical but never repetitive or boring. They do seem doomed to be less succesful than their bassist's side-project band though.
5. Patrick Wolf - Wind In The Wires
Thanks to its reamining but sparser use of electronics than his debut it's almost possible to summarise as the perfect combination of the two Bright Eyes albums this year, but there is an added wonder and sense of place - it's beautifully evocative of howling storms and windswept cliffs and ruins. And among its ghostly beauty there is also still bite, especially in the madly hollering Tristan and the hugely entertaining and grandoise rant of The Libertine ('they sing through the bars of cliché and addiction' indeed...)
4. Super Furry Animals - Love Kraft
Immensely disappointing on first listen, it's best to forget that this is a SFA album altogether as, perhaps apart from 'Mwng', it bears little resemblence to any of their others. Bar the slightly awkward red herrings Lazer Beam and Psyclone! there is no musical wildness or immediacy, and the previously everpresent pop is all but gone from their sound.
Instead, though, there is dense, crafted, gorgeous detail which reveals itself over time, and the decision to allow all members of the band to sing for the first time pays off multiple times, with Cian in particular sounding innocent and vulnerable on the breathtakingly sweet Walk You Home.
3. Mew - And The Glass Handed Kites
It is perhaps lazy to describe this is where Muse meet Sigur Ros (Nearly the same name! And nearly the same country!) but it's also kind of true. Exhilaratingly daft and yet often incredibly pretty at the same time, the way in which the songs are linked together make it seem like it is permanently building towards an ever bigger climax, with the Apocalypso-Special-Zookeeper's Boy section most astonishing of all.
2. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
I saw someone recently say that they liked this album more in theory than in practise and it's easy to see where that comes from - the idea and artwork, nevermind the song titles, have so much character by themselves that there could be barely room for the music itself to get noticed.
Indeed, the only way that it does is by generally being on the same thrillingly massive scale, with big orchestration stuck on almost everything, but despite this the personal moments like the heartbreaking Casimir Pulaski Day fit perfectly, the quality of songwriting holding everything together.
1. Elbow - Leaders Of The Free World
I'm almost guilty about the extreme inevitability with which this tops the list, but there is simply no other band that can compare in my eyes, and this is in many ways their finest moment to date, more accessible and complete than ever before, if without quite the depth and desperation that made some parts of 'Asleep In The Back' so unbeatable.
A lot of the stranger experiments of the past have been dropped, which could be seen as a move towards too comfortable MOR but they are just too good and when it gets close, like on the warm affection of An Imagined Affair, it is undercut brilliantly, in this case by the revalation that Guy Garvey's happy love is a drunken fantasy. Indeed, every song is filled with lyrics showing Guy on incredible form ('A callgirl with yesterday's eyes was our witness and priest/Stockport supporters club kindly supplied us a choir' from Great Expectations is breathtaking and a perfect example of the way he can make the everyday into the romantic) and the band succeed as ever in making the complex seem so simple that you barely notice how varied and inventive this music is, just how great it sounds.
40. Hooker's Green No. 1 - On How The Illustrious Captain Moon Won The War For Us
39. Röyksopp - The Understanding
38. The Most Serene Republic - Underwater Cinematographer
37. David Ford - I Sincerely Apologise For All The Trouble I've Caused
36. Sigur Rós - Takk...
35. The Coral - The Invisible Invasion
34. Gemma Hayes - The Roads Don't Love You
33. Cranebuilders - Sometimes You Hear Through Someone Else
32. dEUS - Pocket Revolution
31. Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene
30. Death Cab For Cutie - Plans
29. Kaiser Chiefs - Employment
28. Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have It So Much Better
27. The Shortwave Set - The Debt Collection
26. Editors - The Back Room
25. Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock & Roll
24. Doves - Some Cities
23. Tom McRae - All Maps Welcome
22. Clor - Clor
21. Maxïmo Park - A Certain Trigger
20. Final Fantasy - Has A Good Home
Owen Pallett gained attention through aranging strings for The Arcade Fire and Win Butler is on guest shouting duties here for Please Please Please, but this steers firmly clear of injoke irrelevance despite some titles suggesting the opposite. Largely played with a violin, a few effects and little else, the variety of layered backdrops conjured up to the surreal, humorous songs is incredibly impressive as a result, and a few of them, like the This Is The Dream Of Win And Regine would undoubtedly be great however they were played.
19. Brakes - Give Blood
It's difficult to talk about this without mentioning the length of songs because its breakneck speed is its biggest asset - on the rare occasions when they slightly misfire the song doesn't hang around long enough for it to matter, and more often than not it makes for perfect songs like Heard About Your Band and Hi How Are You, hilarious and thrilling rants. It also beats Art Brut by a few places becasue there is even some depth beyond the initial rush, especially in morose closer Fell In Love With A Girl.
18. Coldplay - X&Y
Lyrically abysmal in places ('you cut me down a tree and brought it back to me and that's what made me see...'), but otherwise a logical progression of their advance to be the best stadium rock band around, with Guy, Johnny and Will all taking more of a chance to shine than ever.
17. Gorillaz - Demon Days
Inventive and dramatic but also, in the biggest advance from the debut, cohesive, it makes diverse sounds seem made for each other and still contains glorious pop moments among all the atmosperics and darkness.
16. Hard-Fi - Stars Of CCTV
Hard-Fi make their anthemic, combative songs sound almost too easy, but you only need compare to The Dead 60s' attempts at similar to see that there's real ability at work here.
Stealing mercilessly, not least from The Clash, but turning it all into something definitively now, their rise to success was inevatible as every song here hits its mark and who can't relate to the overall theme of wanting to escape their life?
15. Wolf Parade - Apologies To The Queen Mary
Never quite lives up to the incredible taut and propulsive opening song, but its all great fun regardless - pitched about halfway between The Arcade Fire and Modest Mouse (whose singer Isaac Brock produces here) with fine impassioned songs and some of the most awesome bloopy keyboard noises around as well.
14. Architecture In Helsinki - In Case We Die
An ever-changing kaleidascope of musical styles, occasionally resembling a sweeter version of The Coral's debut album, it would be easy for this to become annoying (which is the view that a few reviews seemed to take) but it is just too well done and the band too in love with life, the world and the music they can make for it to be anything but exciting and fun.
13. The National - Alligator
Blessed with a deep, rich voice perfect for the dark songs on offer here, Matt Berninger is the star of an album which is personal and dramatic but never loses hold of its wit and a certain lightness of touch.
12. The Decemberists - Picaresque
It's easy to get lost in talking about the lyrics - rich and wonderful stories throughout - but the music here makes just as many of the key moments work, from the dramatic build in The Bagman's Gambit to the swing of 16 Military Wives and the devilish finale of The Mariner's Revenge Song.
11. Turin Brakes - JackInABox
In a year when the previously reliable Doves, Tom McRae and to a lesser extent Coldplay released disappointing third albums, this was the first one to reassure that it wasn't just me going off the music which I pretty much started off with a few years ago. Although ignored or panned in most places, this is a complete turnaround from the constrictive MOR of most of 'Ether Song' to simple, joyful pop. There are acoustic beauties like Forever and Road To Nowhere, but the biggest joy is the new territory they throw themselves at - on the funky likes of Over And Over and the title track, it sounds like they could try anything and succeed.
10. Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
This was the year when Conor Oberst came good, ditching the sprawling self-indulgences which made previous albums so individual but so frustrating and turning out not one but two albums that were focused and near faultless. This one was full of moments of stripped-back beauty with Emmylou Harris helping out with some amazing backing vocals and First Day Of My Life his sweetest, simplest song ever.
9. Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
Perhaps just a little longer than it needs to be, but with songs as tight and inventive as these it was difficult to care - there were few rushes this year as good as Like Eating Glass or the end of So Here We Are and Blue Light and This Modern Love showed that they could even do slow and moving as well as frenetic dance-rock that put all peers to shame.
8. Bright Eyes - Digital Ash In A Digital Urn
The general verdict on his two albums this year seemed to be that 'I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning' had all the songs and this all the experimentation, but for me the songs here are every bit as strong, if more melodramatic. It's my favourite of the two because the uneasy electronica seems to be a tighter fit with the subject matter and offers a wider scope for variety, from the minimalism of Time Code to the Postal Service moment Take It Easy and the flamenco-ish dance of Arc Of Time, probably the most joyful song about death all year.
7. Iko - I Am Zero
Kieran Scragg may sound like a girl, but his voice is one of astonishing purity and, crucially, believable enough in its emotion to sell the songs here which other bands could easily come across as whiny or sappy. Almost bereft of the brittle rock that his former band Buffseeds specialised in and stripped down to little but his voice in places, it also has an air of hopelessness which makes lines like 'stay just as you are, you're the nearest thing that I have to art' all the more affecting.
6. The Tenderfoot - Save The Year
Funnily enough, I first saw The Tenderfoot supporting Buffseeds in 2003, and wasn't especially impressed, completely forgetting about them before coming across their mini-album 'Vale Industrial' at the start of the year. Perhaps it's not surprising as this is gentle, unobtrusive music (helped by Darren Moon's soft voice which bears quite a resemblance to Gruff Rhys') which only gradually seeps into the conciousness until one day grabbing you completely and refusing to let go. Probably the day you first really notice the lyrics - near-perfect witty and affecting tales of being stuck in dead-end monotony, featuring some of the best one-liners around. Afterwards the music seems to make much more sense, subtle and economical but never repetitive or boring. They do seem doomed to be less succesful than their bassist's side-project band though.
5. Patrick Wolf - Wind In The Wires
Thanks to its reamining but sparser use of electronics than his debut it's almost possible to summarise as the perfect combination of the two Bright Eyes albums this year, but there is an added wonder and sense of place - it's beautifully evocative of howling storms and windswept cliffs and ruins. And among its ghostly beauty there is also still bite, especially in the madly hollering Tristan and the hugely entertaining and grandoise rant of The Libertine ('they sing through the bars of cliché and addiction' indeed...)
4. Super Furry Animals - Love Kraft
Immensely disappointing on first listen, it's best to forget that this is a SFA album altogether as, perhaps apart from 'Mwng', it bears little resemblence to any of their others. Bar the slightly awkward red herrings Lazer Beam and Psyclone! there is no musical wildness or immediacy, and the previously everpresent pop is all but gone from their sound.
Instead, though, there is dense, crafted, gorgeous detail which reveals itself over time, and the decision to allow all members of the band to sing for the first time pays off multiple times, with Cian in particular sounding innocent and vulnerable on the breathtakingly sweet Walk You Home.
3. Mew - And The Glass Handed Kites
It is perhaps lazy to describe this is where Muse meet Sigur Ros (Nearly the same name! And nearly the same country!) but it's also kind of true. Exhilaratingly daft and yet often incredibly pretty at the same time, the way in which the songs are linked together make it seem like it is permanently building towards an ever bigger climax, with the Apocalypso-Special-Zookeeper's Boy section most astonishing of all.
2. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
I saw someone recently say that they liked this album more in theory than in practise and it's easy to see where that comes from - the idea and artwork, nevermind the song titles, have so much character by themselves that there could be barely room for the music itself to get noticed.
Indeed, the only way that it does is by generally being on the same thrillingly massive scale, with big orchestration stuck on almost everything, but despite this the personal moments like the heartbreaking Casimir Pulaski Day fit perfectly, the quality of songwriting holding everything together.
1. Elbow - Leaders Of The Free World
I'm almost guilty about the extreme inevitability with which this tops the list, but there is simply no other band that can compare in my eyes, and this is in many ways their finest moment to date, more accessible and complete than ever before, if without quite the depth and desperation that made some parts of 'Asleep In The Back' so unbeatable.
A lot of the stranger experiments of the past have been dropped, which could be seen as a move towards too comfortable MOR but they are just too good and when it gets close, like on the warm affection of An Imagined Affair, it is undercut brilliantly, in this case by the revalation that Guy Garvey's happy love is a drunken fantasy. Indeed, every song is filled with lyrics showing Guy on incredible form ('A callgirl with yesterday's eyes was our witness and priest/Stockport supporters club kindly supplied us a choir' from Great Expectations is breathtaking and a perfect example of the way he can make the everyday into the romantic) and the band succeed as ever in making the complex seem so simple that you barely notice how varied and inventive this music is, just how great it sounds.
6.12.05
Sorry
For the lack of updates of late, it has been caused by work but mainly by going to just too many gigs. I should probablydo some kind of overview of them soon.
I have also been working on writing about my favourite songs.
Just briefly, I find the current pop reviews at DiS fascinating. They were only grudgingly positive (6/10) and still stirred up abuse! Including the apparently serious
''your site is confirmed as being a total joke when you can give Girls Aloud 6/10 and Babyshambles' album 4/10. disgusting.'' !!
I have also been working on writing about my favourite songs.
Just briefly, I find the current pop reviews at DiS fascinating. They were only grudgingly positive (6/10) and still stirred up abuse! Including the apparently serious
''your site is confirmed as being a total joke when you can give Girls Aloud 6/10 and Babyshambles' album 4/10. disgusting.'' !!
27.10.05
If You Unhappy With You Need Blame Something
I'm not especially surprised to read that Alfie have split as they do seem to have been struggling frustratingly against indifference despite reasonable promotion and a Parlophone deal for quite some time. Even as someone whose distaste for James Blunt is well documented this seems a really unnecessary sour note to end on though:
"As you know, we have always endeavoured to stay 'true to ourselves' musically, and we perhaps somewhat naively thought that this would be sufficient to catapult us into the upper stratosphere of the popular music world. It wasn't, and unfortunately, although it's true that a single note of one of our songs holds more worth than ten thousand James Blunt albums (a chilling thought) this has never been apparent to the record buying public as a whole.''
They do make up for it a bit by actually thanking the fans too, I guess.
"As you know, we have always endeavoured to stay 'true to ourselves' musically, and we perhaps somewhat naively thought that this would be sufficient to catapult us into the upper stratosphere of the popular music world. It wasn't, and unfortunately, although it's true that a single note of one of our songs holds more worth than ten thousand James Blunt albums (a chilling thought) this has never been apparent to the record buying public as a whole.''
They do make up for it a bit by actually thanking the fans too, I guess.
23.10.05
One more reason to go see Elbow
They're being supported by Mew!!
Unless you go in Leeds or Sheffield that is, but Cranebuilders are pretty good too.
Unless you go in Leeds or Sheffield that is, but Cranebuilders are pretty good too.
20.10.05
That thing under the blog title
...is there because that title would seem even more crap and irrelevant otherwise really, at least until I get round to explaining it.
Anyway, when I changed it to Biology / Chemistry a few days ago I actually had, erm, Semisonic in mind for the Chemistry part, but I appear to have predicted the new Girls Aloud album title without actually trying.
Anyway, when I changed it to Biology / Chemistry a few days ago I actually had, erm, Semisonic in mind for the Chemistry part, but I appear to have predicted the new Girls Aloud album title without actually trying.
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