Category: Features

Album Review: Courtney Marie Andrews – Valentine 

Sharing memories of 2016 is the social media trend of the moment and ‘Honest Life’ by Courtney Marie Andrews was one of the albums released towards the end of that year which inspired me to start this blog. 

Ten years later she’s still going strong having been one of the most prolific artists I’ve covered on the blog. Between 2016 and 2022 she also released May Your Kindness Remain – a stunning Americana epic, Old Flowers a quieter and darker pandemic era offering and Loose Future a lighter, breezier collection.

In the four years since that album she’s been busy with painting as well as releasing her second poetry collection ‘Love is a Dog That Bites When It’s Scared’. 

This new album ‘Valentine’ was self-funded, recorded with only two other musicians – her producer Jerry Bernhardt and drummer Chris Bear. While it doesn’t return to the country-tinged sound of her earlier records, it does offer us a deeply emotional and impressive sounding collection of songs.

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Celtic Connections 2026 Preview

The best roots festival in the world begins on Thursday, bringing together artists from Scotland and across the world to play in Glasgow. Every year I’m so thankful for this beacon of live music light in the January gloom, and the festival line up never disappoints. 

There’s so many gems this year the only issue is deciding what to see. I’ve rounded up some of the women in Americana, indie and folk who are playing the event this year to give you a flavour of what’s on offer!

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Against the ‘Mood Machine’: How I Listen to Music in the Spotify Age

I recently finished the fascinating book ‘Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist’ by Liz Pelly, which brutally exposes the flaws in the streaming giant. She takes us through the history of music in the digital age and how we ended up living in the ‘Spotify era’, before an eviscerating takedown of the flaws within the company itself and how damaging its rise has been for musicians and the wider music industry. 

Of course I already knew the payment model was hugely flawed and hurting artists but what I was most surprised to learn about was the impact Spotify has made on the way most people consume music. 

The concept of the ‘mood machine’ itself was just completely alien to me. I use streaming services so differently than the way it was being described in the book. I realised with a sinking heart that my kind of passionate, obsessive music listening might be seriously endangered. 

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Blogging Resolutions 2026

At the start of each year I re-read Woody Guthrie’s list of ‘New Year’s Rulins’ from 1943 and try to capture a little of his spirit. My favourites remain the same: Work more & be better, work by a schedule, eat good, write everyday, read lots of good books, listen to the radio, learn people, don’t get lonesome, stay glad, keep the hoping machine running, beat fascism, love everyone, wake up and fight. 

In the past I used to write yearly blogging resolutions but haven’t done since 2021. Maybe that indicates how the past few years have been challenging in the blogosphere. Looking back at that 2021 list feels crazy now as it’s all about the pandemic and trying to find ways to cope without live music. Now five years later, I thought I’d take stock and write my blogging resolutions for 2026. 

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What I Learned From Blogmas 2025

At the start of December I challenged myself to complete Blogmas – where you post something every day in the lead up to Christmas. Some bloggers/vloggers make this Christmas themed but for me it was more an attempt to write a few reviews and articles that I had wanted to finish before the end of the year. 

Despite a couple of difficult days I managed to complete the task, so I thought I’d round up some lessons learned. 

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Albums of the Year 2025

We’ve made it to the end of blogmas and I’ve saved the best of the year until last. It’s been great writing a post every day in December and I want to thank everyone for reading the blog this year!

So now for my favourite albums of the year by women artists. The list reflects my own personal listening and is not intended to be any kind of ‘best of’. 

Please share yours in the comments! Click below to read my reviews of each album. 

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Songs of the Year 2025

This year I made a rolling playlist of my favourite songs on Apple Music which has been hugely helpful in keeping track of what I’ve enjoyed listening to. I’ve always kept a list of songs from albums I review on Spotify but that doesn’t catch every single. 

Another useful app for me is Last FM which I’ve been using since 2006 to count what I listen to. Sometimes the numbers are skewed because I have to listen to something more to review it, or just because a song came out at the beginning of the year but it still helps me to see what music I’ve gone back to. 

So using those metrics alongside my own gut instinct here are my top 20 favourite songs of the year sung by women. Apologies to the artists who I just haven’t had a chance to listen to this year. Share yours in the comments and let me know what I missed! 

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