Favourite Albums of the last 12 years

First off, the word is 'favourite', not 'best'...that's just my distinction.

Mojo magazine celebrated it's recent 12th birthday issue with a run down of writer's top Mojo 100 Modern Classics; LPs released during the magazine's lifetime, ie since 1994. The full line up is at the foot of this post.

Some debate has ensued amongst the Cider readership about the merits of the included records, and those which might have been in the 100 but were overlooked.
These are a few of the albums preferred by us middle class guitar playing white boy fans:

Graham:

Eliza Carthy & the Kings of Calicutt
Lambchop – Nixon (can’t believe that wasn’t in the list)
Steve Earle – El Corazon
Alabama 3 – Exile on Coldharbour Lane
Buena Vista Social Club

Andy P:

Alabama 3 - Exile....& Power in the Blood

Leftfield - Leftism
Nick Lowe - Dig My Mood
Paul Weller - Wild Wood

Mr Love Pants.

Road To Rouen.

You Are The Quarry (most important to have him back)

Tinariwen.

R.L.Burnside

Alex:

Suede - Dog Man Star

Nick Cave - The Boatman's Call

DJ Shadow - Endtroducing

Mark Hollis - Mark Hollis

Flaming Lips - Soft Bulletin

Radiohead - personally I like Amnesiac.....really!

The Verve - Northern Soul

Ravi Shankar & Philip Glass - Passages (would put this in the top 5 if it was a wee bit younger!)

The Boo Radleys - Giant Steps,

Me:

Alabama 3 - Exile On Coldharbour Lane

Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space

Mercury Rev - Deserter's Songs

Nick Cave - Abattoir Blues

Nick Lowe - The Convincer

Johnny Cash - Solitary Man

Steve Earle - I Feel Alright

Leftfield - Leftism

1. Jeff Buckley – Grace
2. Johnny Cash – American Recordings
3. Radiohead – Ok Computer
4. Bob Dylan – Time Out Of Mind
5. Oasis – Definitely Maybe
6. The Flaming Lips – The Soft Bulletin
7. Radiohead – Kid A
8. The White Stripes – Elephant
9. Nirvana – Mtv Unplugged In New York
10. Beck – Odelay
11. Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds – The Boatmans Call
12. Spritualized – Ladies And Gentleman We Are Floating In Space
13. Nirvana – In Utero
14. Massive Attack – Mezzanine
15. Bob Dylan – Love And Theft
16. Radiohead – The Bends
17. Johnny Cash – American III – Solitary Man
18. Teenage Fanclub – Grand Prix
19. Dj Shadow – Endtroducing
20. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – I See Darkness
21. Tom Waits – Mule Variations
22. Outcast – Speakerboxx/The Love Inside
23. Buena Vista Social Club – Buena Vista Social Club
24. Elliott Smith – Either/Or
25. P.J. Harvey – Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
26. Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
27. Air - Moon Safari
28. The White Stripes – White Blood Cells
29. Madonna – Ray Of Light
30. Mercury Rev – Deserters Songs
31. Lucinda Williams – Car Wheels On Gravel Road
32. Beck – Mutations
33. The Strokes – Is This It
34. Soloman Burke – Don’t Give Up On Me
35. Portishead – Dummy
36. The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
37. Brian Wilson – Smile
38. Belle & Sebastian – If You’re Feeling Sinister
39. Pulp – Different Class
40. P.J. Harvey – To Bring You My Love
41. Elvis Costello And The Imposters – The Delivery Man
42. Jimmy Page & Robert Plant – No Quarter – Unledded
43. Antonym And The Johnsons – I Am A Bird Now
44. Super Furry Animals – Rings Around The World
45. Kate Bush – Aerial
46. Supergrass – In It For The Money
47. Queens Of The Stonage – Rated R
48. Bruce Springsteen – Devils And Dust
49. Gillian Welch – Time (The Reinventor)
50. Blur – Blur
51. Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand
52. Ryan Adams – Heartbreaker
53. Bjork – Post
54. Bastie Boys – Ill Communication
55. The Beta Band – The 3 Ep’s
56. Pavement – Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
57. The Libertines – Up The Bracket
58. R.E.M – New Adventures In Hi-Fi
59. Magnetic Fields – 69 Love Songs
60. Arcade Fire – Funeral
61. Oasis – (What’s The Story) Morning Glory
62. Wu-Tang Clan – Enter The Wu-Tang
63. Morrissey – Vauxhall And I
64. Tortoise – Millions Now Living Will Never Die
65. Primal Scream – Xtrmntr
66. Neil Young And Crazy Horse – Sleeps With Angels
67. Lauryn Hill – The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill
68. Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – Orange
69. Aimee Mann – Lost In Space
70. Sigur Ros – Agaetis Byrjan
71. Al Green – I Can’t Stop
72. Blur – Parklife
73. Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds – Abattoir Blues – The Lyre Of Orpheus
74. Nora Jones – Come Away With Me
75. The Verve – A Northern Soul
76. Bruce Springsteen - The Ghost Of Tom Joad
77. Tricky – Maxinquaye
78. Eminem – The Marshall Mathers Lp
79. Tinariwen – The Radio Tisdas Sessions
80. Guide By Voices – Bee Thousand
81. Manic Street Preachers – The Holy Bible
82. Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
83. The Prodigy – Songs For The Jilted Generation
84. U2 – All That You Can’t Leave Behind
85. Salif Keita – Moffou
86. Paul Weller – Stanley Road
87. The Jayhawks – Sound Of Lies
88. R.L. Burnside – A Ass Pocket Of Whiskey
89. Red Hot Chilli Peppers – Californiacation
90. Maria Mckee – Life Is Sweet
91. Boards Of Canada – Music Has The Right To Children
92. Manu Chao – Clandestine
93. System Of A Down – Toxicity
94. Michael Head And The Strands – The Magical World Of The Strands
95. Rufus Wainwright – Poses
96. Underworld – Second Toughest In The Infants
97. D’angelo – Brown Sugar
98. Nine Inch Nails – The Downward Spiral
99. Sizzla – Black Woman And Child
100. Coldplay – A Rush Of Blood To The Head

The Decline of Civilization, part 58

A poll by dreary music channel VH1 has revealed that the nation's favourite pop lyrics are by U2, from their song 'One'. I like the Johnny Cash version of this record, which is rather less pious than the original.

I dunno, but I would have hoped that there was room for some Dylan in the list. Apparently the Pogues were in there somewhere, so that's some consolation. One would also hope that Ray Davies, Jarvis Cocker, Pete Townsend, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello and many others would be there too. Not bleeding Coldplay.

Sometimes a light don't shine

[At the police station I was told ‘Prison? or rehabilitation?’
I said it really didn’t matter, so I chose the latter
And after 47 days with electrodes in my head, I was nearly dead
Then they said I was fine
So I went outside, within five minutes contemplated another taxi ride,
back to the place where I used to score before.
I guess rehabilitation goes walking out the door]

Even the most casual visitor to this blog will assume that I have a passing affection for
Alabama 3.

I have all the albums, which I never tire of hearing. I have seen them 4 or 5 times live, some of those gigs being among the best I have ever seen. I buy the new records on the day of release, which I can't say about anyone else. I spend wasted hours searching eBay for deleted 12 inch singles, and I exchange dodgy bootlegs with similarly afflicted friends.

Sign of a great record - it will bear repeated listening over many years and will still seem fresh on the 100th play. This is the measure of Exile on Coldharbour Lane, and if you don't already own this record, then have a word with yourself.

Mr D Wayne Love:

When you woke up this morning, everything was gone.
By half past ten your head was going ding-dong
ringing like a bell from your head down to your toes,
like some voice trying to tell you there was something you should know.
Last night you was flying but today you're so low
Ain't it times like these that make you wonder if you'll ever know
the meaning of things as they appear to the others;
wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers.
Don't you wish you didn't function, wish you didn't think
beyond the next paycheck and the next little drink?
Well you do, so make up your mind to go on
'cos when you woke up this morning everything you had was gone.

Alone, Jealous and Stoned

I've been neglecting this blog for a while, but I've been busy, out and about at various gigs.

Last Monday was Ginger and the Sonic Circus, him out of the Wildhearts, with a 9 piece band playing his solo double LP. Old style rawk n roll with a country twang ...they were v good. Then a couple of days after that it was Seth Lakeman, who was terrific - good to see some folk at the Rescue Rooms.

Tonight it was Secret Machines - kind of Spiritualized, shoegazey drone with a motorik krauty beat - fantastic. Still loads of pricks sending two page text messages to their friends, oblivious to the happenings on stage.

Anway, there are more gigs in Nottm at the moment and coming up than I can ever remember...it's been at least one a week for a while now. Coming up - Jim Reid, Shack, Teddy Thompson, Black Mountain, the Lords, and dahn the smoke Pharoah Sanders, for some original avant garde jazz skronking...and Primal Scream in Wolves in a couple of weeks...

strange things happening every day

Listening to lots of the good Sister recently, she knocks seven bells out of that geetar.

those who have served

farewell Ivor Cutler, Ali Farka Toure, and The Reverend Charlie Jackson - all in the same week.

I once went to see Ali Farka Toure at the Old Vic in Nottingham, on a double bill with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, with a girlfriend whose dad insisted she was home by 11.

I knew I was in for a disappointing evening when AFT came on stage a little after 10, giving me a mere 20 mins or so to enjoy his desert blues before having to turn tail for the suburbs.

Baby, Let Me Lay It On You

Off out tonight to see a blues slide guitar player, called Charlie Parr. Nothing too unusual about that, I have been going out to see blues slide guitar players for the last 20 years. This guy was playing at the Social in Nottingham, a venue which caters predominantly for the younger hipster crowd, more used to modern indie rock stylings, as opposed to pre-war delta blues.

So, the venue was a third full, of people younger than me nodding and bopping away to this bearded geezer doing his best to recreate the sounds of Mississippi Fred McDowell and Blind Willie McTell, amongst others. Couldn't help but feel that if this character had been booked at the Running Horse, there would have been perhaps an equivalent number of old geezers in attendance, collectively thinking 'this boy is OK, but he's no Lightnin Hopkins'. Choice of venue makes a big difference to the fashionable credibility of the performer in question. I never went to a blues gig to meet girls, but my 19 year old self might have done quite well tonight...

Smoke Black Mountain

This is a good album for anyone who has an idle wonder about what a jam session between Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, and Can might sound like. After a long spell in Brian Wilson's dope tent.
Sludgey, repetitive Sabbath riffs (a good thing!) abound. The bloke in charge works at a needle exchange facility in Vancouver, and 'Black Mountain' refers to a large pile of herbally extracted recreational compounds. Not that you could tell from the stench emanating from the record...
Another recent album worth hearing, the collaboration between Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, 'Ballad of Broken Seas'.



She is ex-Belle and Sebastien (no, that didn't set my pulse racing either) and he is ex-Screaming Trees most recently observed lending sinister growls to Queens of the Stone Age.
Other records whiling away my time at the moment, Eighteenth Day of May (mp3 downloads from their website), plenty of Bert Jansch, Davey Graham and John Fahey, and twenty years too late 'Your Love' by Frankie Knuckles.

Station Approach

Went to see Elbow at Rock City last Wednesday - I'm not their biggest fan but Helen is very keen, so I got us tickets. They were very good - and I enjoyed the gig, but I was pissed off by the number of people just blatantly talking over the music or dicking around on their mobile phones, sending text messages etc.
This I don't understand - when I'm at a gig, I'm watching the band, I'm not thinking of sending a bleeding text message to someone, or starting a conversation with my neighbour about tonight's episode of Eastenders.
Young people today have either a) no attention span or b) no access to the kind of bands/acts that demand 100% attention at the expense of all other waking thought...which is pretty sad to see either way you look at it.
Enough old bastard moaning...I know, I know, it was all so much better in my day...

Bob Dylan is cool - official

This startled me - the annual NME 'who's cool in rock' list has Mr Bob Dylan at number 9.

Bob's cooler than Ian Brown! And a bunch of other guys (hmmm...it's nearly all men...well done non-sexist NME) I've never heard of!

1. (New) Alex Turner (Arctic Monkeys)
2. (New) Liam Gallagher (Oasis)
3. (New) Kanye West
4. (New) Antony (Antony and The Johnsons)
5. (9) Brandon Flowers (The Killers)
6. (17) Devendra Banhart
7. (=1) Pete Doherty (Babyshambles)
8. (New) Jemina Pearl (Be Your Own Pet)
9. (New) Bob Dylan
10. (=1) Carl Barat (Dirty Pretty Things)
11. (New) Ian Brown
12. (New) Damon Albarn (Blur/Gorillaz)
13. (New) Ryan Jarman (The Cribs)
14. (New) Julian Casablancas (The Strokes)
15. (New) Ninja (Go! Team)
16. (New) Paul Epworth
17. (New) Billie Jo (Green Day)
18. (New) Tom Atkin (The Paddingtons)
19. (New) Henry Harrison (The Mystery Jets)
20. (New) Gerard Way (My Chemical Romance)

That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore

The Helster and I met for a drink after work yesterday, and as so often happens, she accused me - harshly but accurately - of being a 'deaf bastard'. (a congenital wax problem that I suffer with nobility and great patience).
I responded, inevitably, with 'What?'.
I received a punch in the ribs and 'That joke isn't funny anymore' from the Helster. I proceeded to say that there could be a song in this, I felt strange compulsion to grow a quiff and stuff daffodils down my trousers, wear a big hearing aid, and claim to be celibate whilst in fact being as gay as a tree. (ie to be Morrissey).
So, anyway we arrive at Langtry's for a beer, and what song is playing as we sit down? 'That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore' by the Smiths...

Gigs a go go

A couple of gigs last week, of the sit down variety...for a welcome change for my tired old bones. There's only so much beer spillage and toe treading and general shoving around at places like Rock City that one can put up with.
Anyway, Monday was John Cale at de Montfort Hall; only about half full but a good night out. He kicked off with Venus In Furs, and was backed a band of lads who must have been a third of his age.
Better still was Nick Cave at the Conert Hall in Nottm - in the middle of the front row...which was exciting. I was worried that it would be a very sedate evening of gentle piano balladry, but from the off it was rowdy and clattering, a fantastic night. Terrific versions of The Mercy Seat and Abattoir Blues amongst others, and I got to shake the great man's hand. Shame about that moustache though...

Zen Arcade

Went to see Bob Mould last night, at the Rescue Rooms. He was much better than I expected; since it was billed as 'an acoustic evening' I was afraid it might be a bit intense and po faced, but it seems that these days Bob has come to terms with his Husker Du past, and happily straps on an Stratocaster to blast away through 'Celebrated Summer' etc.

There was a great moment when he stopped the show to berate a twit in the crowd who was talking loudly to his mate, with his back to the stage. Fat Bob (who is actually rather trim these days) asked this fool how much he had paid for his ticket, and since he was preferring to have a loud conversation during the previous song, would he rather have his money back? The bloke said no, and apparently shut up for the rest of the gig. Bob's blog is here, and includes a good story about being let through without a work visa at Heathrow by an immigration officer who was a lifelong Husker Du fan.

The Brakes

Now this lot are great - 16 tracks on an album that lasts 29 minutes...and covers of tunes by Johnny Cash and the Jesus and Mary Chain...

Rough Trade

This year's Rough Trade compilation is out on the 24 January...pre order on their website, and receive a free 4 track EP.

Their top 100 albums of 2005 are listed here.

Hex Enduction Hour

There are twelve people in the world
The rest are paste

GROTESQUE (AFTER THE GRAMME)

Wireless enthusiast intercepts government secret radio band and
uncovers secrets and scandals of deceitful type proportions.

Aghast goes next door to his neighbor, secretly excited, as
aforementioned was a hunter whom radio enthusiast wanted
friendship and favor of.

A new face in hell

Nearly a new face in hell!

A muscular, thick-skinned, slit-eyed neighbor is at the table
poisoned just thirty seconds before by parties who knew of
wireless operator's forthcoming revelation.

A new face in hell!

A prickly line of sweat covers enthusiast's forehead as the
realization hits him that the same government him and his now
dead neighbor voted for and backed and talked of on cream porches
have tricked him into their war against the people who enthusiast
and dead hunter would have wished torture on. A servant of
government walks in and arrests wireless fan in
kitchen for murder of his neighbor

A new face in hell!

I stole away and cried

Willie Nelson does a nice version of Dylan's 'He Was A Friend Of Mine' on the closing credits to Brokeback Mountain...

Maximo Park

What have the monthly music mags got against this group? One of the best albums of the year, nominated for the Mercury music award, constantly on MTV2 - and the grown ups mags completely overlooked it in their end of year summaries, often in preference to pish like Hard Fi.

The NME stuck A Certain Trigger somewhere in their top 20, elsewhere it was totally ignored. The risible Observer music monthly (hardly a teenybobber periodical) showed up the oversight when they ran a 'reader's best of' alongside their own top 100 - readers voted Maximo Park 14th best of the year, whilst it was nowhere to be seen in the writers list.

You know what though, if REM had released Reckoning this year it would have beaten everything. A pity they didn't quit ten years ago, the later albums are so leaden compared to this.

I work in hotel, all gilt and flash.

Well, the CDR best of the year compilations are pretty much all in, apart from a few stragglers. Looks like Arcade Fire and Gorillaz were the top albums of the year, there were 5 different tracks picked from each one. Other favourites were The Fall, White Stripes (albeit the same track chosen 4 different times - My Doorbell), Arctic Monkeys, LCD Soundsystem, Chemical Brothers, Elbow, The Tears, amongst others.

In the sales I picked up the Children of Nuggets box set, a compilation of the (very) loosely defined 'second psychedelic era'. What this means is a bunch of songs from 1976 - 1994, featuring jangly guitar bands with paisley shirts and pointy shoes. Apart from that, I've been listening to Reckoning by REM (every single track of which could well belong on the Nuggets box set), Achtung Bono by Half Man Half Biscuit, and Quadrophenia by the Who.