Mostly Music

 It's all-out war regarding Dinosaur Jr albums .... Dinosaur - 1985   Bulbs Of Passion - 5 Forget The Swan -  6 Cats in a Bowl – 6 The Leper – 6 Does It Float – 4   Pointless - 4 Repulsion - 7 Gargoyle - 6 Severed Lips – 7 Mountain Man - 6 Quest - 7  64 points 11 tracks Average 5.81 You’re Living All Over Me Little Fury Things – 7 Kracked - 6 Sludgefeast – 7 The Lung – 7 Raisans – 7 Tarpit – 7 In A Jar –  7 Lose  - 6 Poledo  - 4 Just Like Heaven  - 7 65 points 10 tracks Average 6.5 Bug Freak Scene - 10 No Bones – 7 They Always Come – 7 Yeah We Know – 8 Let It Ride – 7 Pond Song – 7 Budge – 7 The Post – 7 Don’t – 1 Keep The Glove - 7 68 points 10 tracks Average 6.8

 Wedding Present albums duke it out  This is a work in progress. At some point, it will definitely include all the studio albums of The Wedding Present. And maybe Cinerama. And maybe B-side compilations. Doubtful I will include all the live stuff, radio sessions etc - have to draw the line somewhere *Take Fountain is technically 11 tracks. I gave On Ramp a One, and it skewed the results a lot. I'm glad its track one, I can skip it as I put the CD on. To me, its 30 seconds for silence, with 1.5 mins of a humming noise... not sure if its my CD, people seem to like this, but I suspect its in a frequency audible only to dogs.... so I am scoring it as a 10 track album - my rules .... I am kind of looking at my CD versions generally - so Valentina doesn't include the stunning 4 track 'book' tracks ...  George Best Everyone Think’s He Looks Daft – 8 What Did Your Last Servant Die Of? - 8 Don’t Be So Hard – 8 A Million Miles – 10 All This and More – 7 My Favourite Dress – 9 Sha...

 Canshaker Pi albums in a fight to the death... So a new format, if you like ... well, I like it ... so maybe I will call this blog  RE-EVALUATE THE SONG going forward....  Basically, having a readership so close to zero to need a telescope to distinguish it, i want to get something out of my time ... so I am motivated to rate albums... especially in examples where I have bought a lot of albums from one artist in a short timeframe (capturing up after discovering them) . I am rating an artists work against that same artists other work ... I'm not going to try to decide if I prefer Dinosaur Jr to Frank Black, but I am going to decide which of their albums I prefer ... I probably won't include albums less than a year old, because I think that might sway the results .... I started with Canshaker Pi, because I love them, there's only 4 albums, and I wanted to test the format. So , results, and then the scores for individual songs. Feel free to argue in the comments .... Cansha...

 Wrapping up the Album of the year 2020 So, is it finally over? yeah ... now, how to summarize what we have all learnt here ...  Firstly, the list, right? : Jan  : Canshaker Pi : Okay Decay Feb : Pixies : Beneath The Eyrie (Deluxe)  Mar : Lewsberg : In This House  Apr : Art Brut : Bang Bang Rock & Roll - Deluxe Reissue May : Jetstream Pony : Jetstream Pony Jun : Built To Spill : Plays the songs of Daniel Johnston   Jul : Lou Barlow : Emoh (Deluxe Reissue) Aug : James Dean Bradfield : Even In Exile Sep : Such Small Hands : Carousel  Oct : Emperors Of Ice-Cream : No Sounds Ever Dies   Nov : Smashing Pumpkins : Cyr Dec : Wedding Present & Friends : Not From Where I'm Standing Bonus : Stephen Malkmus : Traditional Techniques I did a little thing on Twitter and got some votes/Likes ...  Wedding Present : 10  Such Small Hands : 3 Art Brut : 3 Pixies : 2 Emperors Of Ice-Cream : 2 Canshaker Pi : 1 Jetstream Pony : 1 Lewsberg : 1 Stephen ...

  ALBUM OF THE YEAR - SHORT-LIST .... ALBUM #13 - The 'wildcard' of  2020 I knew what I was getting into here. There were so many great albums coming out in the first six months of 2020, that the idea of 'an album a month' for the whole of 2020 seemed feasible. It worked out a bit harder to choose one every month (see August) than I thought, but it was also harder to pick only one some months. Especially March. March was mad...  The winner, if you recall, was Lewsberg. No regrets. However, for Slow Readers Club, Morrissey, and Baxter Dury, they all released great albums in March, and were unlucky not to get picked. That leads us to Mr Malkmus. His third album (all very different) in 3 years is the winner of my bonus slot on the albums of the year list.  Just to repeat, its his third album in three year, all very different musically, but his voice and lyrics bring them together. That alone is worthy of recognition, but its a lovely album in its own right. The title re...

  ALBUM OF THE YEAR - SHORT-LIST .... ALBUM #12 - December 2020 If I was forced to do word association, and forced to answer with bands, and was given the word 'Family', I am pretty sure I would answer 'The Wedding Present' (or 'We Are' , or 'Cat'). From a fan-base perspective, since I am pretty sure The Wedding Present is the band I have seen the most, I do consider TWP fans as family more than fans of any other band. I chat with them on social media, and often recognize faces at gigs in the crowd ... But family is also true of the band, I guess to some degree, in the numerous ex-members, and the get-togethers at the annual Brighton festival, and here, on the album which won my Album of the Month for Dec 2020 (what a long intro, got there in the end) In truth, firstly, I didn't buy this yet, and secondly I don't have other December candidates. As its been out just over a month, I've not even listened to it that much, but that really isn'...