Top Twenty Favourite Songs 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” →

0

Album Review: Gwen Stefani – You Make It Feel Like Christmas

We all need a little bit of festive cheer to get us through the rest of 2017, a year that somehow managed to even surpass the hell that was 2016. Every year I enjoy those few weeks in December when I can listen to any old cheesy Christmas song on repeat. I was looking for a new Christmas album to review this year and stumbled onto Gwen Stefani’s Christmas special on TV the other day and it had enough sparkle to cheer up any Scrooge. The accompanying album You Make it Feel Like Christmas is a flourish of festive fun from start to finish. Continue reading “Album Review: Gwen Stefani – You Make It Feel Like Christmas” →

0

E.P. Review: Lydia Loveless – Live from the Vinyl Emergency Podcast

 

Vinyl Emergency is a podcast presented by Jim Hanke which discusses the importance of vinyl records with a host of different artists, music industry people and collectors. Previous guests have included Rosanne Cash, The Secret Sisters and Lilly Hiatt talking about topics such as their childhood memories of music right through to their thoughts on the recent vinyl resurgence. The latest episode features Lydia Loveless and the three tracks she played live during the show have also been released as an EP called Live From the Vinyl Emergency Podcast. Continue reading “E.P. Review: Lydia Loveless – Live from the Vinyl Emergency Podcast” →

0

Should We Still Listen to Phil Spector’s Christmas Album?

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?” →

6

My Musical Lowlights of 2017

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” →

2

Album Review: Mavis Staples – If All I Was Was Black

When The Staple Singers started out in the sixties they had a simple mission, as outlined by Pops himself: ‘We want to sing about what’s happening in the world today, and if it’s something bad, we want to sing a song to try to fix it.” Fast forward fifty years and the world is as broken as ever. You’d forgive Mavis Staples if she was disillusioned with the mission. As she says ‘lately, things are looking worse than they have ever looked.’ And yet, as she sings on this album, there’s no time for crying. If All I Was Was Black is an album concerned with bringing harmony and hope back to the poor huddled masses.  Continue reading “Album Review: Mavis Staples – If All I Was Was Black” →

1

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑