Monthly Archives: December 2007
You’re kidding yourself cos everything else is old
I really loved the song “The World Is Outside” by Ghosts this year. One of the things I get from the song is that, well, as the title of the song says, the world is outside. Get out of your inner head and get out there. (This could be totally wrong in terms of their […]
1. Making It, Whatever That Means
1. Favourite Worst Nightmare – Arctic Monkeys Lets look at it this way. Two years ago, my favourite album was a piano album by a dude pushing 40, about kids, loss and growing old. Last year, it was a record by guy 6 albums in, an adult pop record about maturity and love. This year, […]
2. I Survived, That’s Good Enough For Now
2. Sky Blue Sky – Wilco Let the calls of loyalty buying die down, please. Thank you. How does this band keep managing to nail where I am in life? As I come crawling out of that cesspool called the Indie scene, and that dark sky known as the Early Twenties, I have become a […]
3. A Thousand Different Versions Of Yourself
3. Wincing The Night Away – The Shins This record came out at the start of the year, and I still listen to it. The Shins, I think, will go down as my favourite band of the decade. Their two previous albums, Oh Inverted World and Chutes Too Narrow have soundtracked the last six years. […]
4. Easy As Humming A Song
4. At My Age – Nick Lowe Nick Lowe’s last three albums have found him exploring a new sound. Gentle, country-soul, match against his fantastic wit, and songs that sound simple because they are. At My Age is no different. It’s a subtle record, but it’s a red wine, late night record. It’s country, but […]
5. My Thoughts Keep Returning To You
5. Time On Earth – Crowded House When I first fell for Crowded House, everything about music was a mystery. I couldn’t tell a bass from a banjo. I couldn’t tell a bridge from a coda. At best, I could tell you a key change is where the song gets a bit more exciting. As […]
6. Now I Have To Start All Over Again
6. Angie Hart – Grounded Bird Some facts-y stuff: Angie Hart was the former singer for Australian pop band Frente. They had one massive hit (Accidentally Kelly Street), then burnt out after their second album (Shape, 1996, a personal fave). She then left Australia with her husband, musician Jesse Tobias, and formed a second band, […]
7. The Devil And John Berryman
7. Boys And Girls In America – The Hold Steady The name that gets dropped with this band is Springsteen. They mix that urban poetry, that hopeless romance, that growing old feeling, with grinding guitars and rapid fire lyrics. But many have done this before (hello, Marah) but the Hold Steady have gone for the […]
8. Don’t Care If It Sounds Cliché
8. Structure And Cosmetics – The Brunettes Oh, great, glorious, silly pop music. The Brunettes are Jonathan Bree and Heather Mansfield, two New Zealand multi instrumentalists (and perhaps to two sexiest people in music) who have put out previous albums of indie pop fare. Adorable little Jonathan Richman tributes, with titles like ‘When Ice Met […]
9. You Gotta Have A Problem To Invent A Contraption
More ramblings on my fave albums this year. 9. Icky Thump – The White Stripes I completely gave up on this band until I heard the first single and title track on Icky Thump. The riff sounded like a machine gun, Jack White howling over the top. Like John Spencer says – the blues are […]
