a music blog
Since starting the blog in March this year I have reviewed over seventy albums and listened to many more. These albums have been inspiring to me in so many ways, not least because they got me writing again. Continue reading “Top Thirty Favourite Albums of the Year”
Picking favourite songs of the year turned out to be a little more challenging than I thought – some songs were easy to choose as they connected instantly, others slowly worked themselves into my consciousness after listening over a longer period of time. My only criteria for inclusion on the list was that the songs must appear on albums released in 2017, so any singles from albums released last year or next year were excluded. I have loved so many songs this year – writing the blog has opened my ears to so many amazing artists and it was so hard to decide on only a few but here goes my top twenty, for what it’s worth. Continue reading “Top Twenty Favourite Songs of the Year”
For this month’s vinyl shopping I decided to venture away from my usual Edinburgh haunts to seek out what the rest of Scotland’s retailers have on offer. Continue reading “December Vinyl Haul”
The unmasking of many powerful men in Hollywood as abusers and serial sexual harassers has been a long time coming. The music industry too has been rife with troubling behaviour for decades, from Ike Turner to Michael Jackson to Kesha’s recent case against Dr Luke. This year has proved what women have known all along: the voices of victims must be heard and respected no matter who is being accused. Continue reading “Should We Still Listen to Phil Spector’s Christmas Album?”
I try to make this blog a positive place to promote music I love but I’m not against negative reviews per se (except those that turn into character assassinations) even if I do believe that everyone has the right to make whatever music they want. Still that doesn’t mean all music is enjoyable to me personally. So in the interests of balance I have decided to outline some of my musical lowlights from this year. Continue reading “My Musical Lowlights of 2017”
In October I committed myself to supporting the work of female artists and expanding my vinyl collection by actually buying some new (and old) music every month. Since I started running this blog I have realised how easy it is to just use streaming services and forget that investing in music is required to keep many artists creating and surviving. Continue reading “November Music Haul”
Earlier this year I bought a book in a charity shop for 25p called ‘The Happiness Project’, which is kind of a self help manual for privileged people with too much time on their hands. Despite the simple writing style I freely admit that THIS BOOK CHANGED MY LIFE. The writer Gretchen Rubin encourages people to start their own blogs, explaining how blogging gave her ‘a new identity, new skills, a new set of colleagues and a new way to connect with people.’ After reading this I felt inspired and started Highway Queens the next week. I had a simple purpose: write about the music I love. Gretchen’s book proves that not every piece of writing has to be high art in order to have value. Continue reading “In Defence of Music Blogging”
In Celtic mythology the shriek of a banshee was the sign of death approaching. Some women even worked as banshees, wailing laments for lost souls for a price. The sound of a woman screaming had power to strike fear, but at the same time it was also a howl of pain which was understood by all.
Researchers into use of language in literature identified that women invariably are described as ‘shrieking’ and ‘screaming’ while men are more likely to be said to be ‘shouting’. Therefore you could argue that screaming is seen by many as an expression of unwanted emotion, as though such outbursts are a sign of weakness or madness.
You’d think then that this would mean women would be known as the best screamers in music. Somehow the music industry bias means even this accolade is skewed in the favour of men. Quite a few publications have run ‘the best screams in music’ lists and women are poorly represented on them all. Paste magazine’s list included zero female screams, Pigeon and Planes had a few but nowhere near 50% and The Independent actually said: ‘Great female screams are quite scarce, it seems.’ That of course is totally wrong and insulting. Women have been screaming on record for a long time and they still are, just listen to the new Bully album.
So in honour of all banshees everywhere and since it’s Halloween here are my five favourite female screaming songs.
Continue reading “Favourite Female Screams”
When I was younger I couldn’t wait until Saturday so I could go to the next town and spend what little money I had on albums and singles. Of course I lived in the middle of nowhere so the next town only had a small Woolworths shop but beggars couldn’t be choosers. I want to tell my 14 year old self one day you will be able to listen to whatever album you want instantly for FREE. I’m sure my head would explode. Yet if I explained how we got here and what we lost on the way I don’t think I would be so overjoyed at the prospect. A system which threatens independent record shops and hurts the artist is not something to celebrate. When I was a kid all I dreamed of was shelves stacked with CDs and vinyl. I have that now but I admittedly buy a lot less, leaving my collection a little frozen in time.
With those concerns in mind, and inspired by the shopping haul posts of other bloggers I am committing myself to getting out to a record shop once a month and buying something by a female artist (to keep with the blog theme). I am also hoping to expand my second hand vinyl collection so I will also show you what treasures I find. Continue reading “October Music Haul”
Highway Queens 