Mostly Music

  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'...

  ALBUM OF THE YEAR - SHORT-LIST .... ALBUM #11 - November 2020 A new Smashing Pumpkins album is always likely to be a strong contender for an Album Of The Month, and so it proved to be in November 2020, but I do still have some reservations....  There is a side-helping of bollocks surrounding this album - its something that comes with the territory. There is a 5 part animated futuristic/sci-fi series for starters (I've not watched it) ... the bands previous release in 2018 was entitled 'Shiny And Oh So Bright Vol 1 - No Past, No Future, No Sun' and I think this double album (on one CD, but 20 tracks) is 'Shiny And Oh So Bright Vol 2 (and possibly 3 ...)' . Vol 1 was 8 tracks and a concise 31 minutes, this 'Cyr' is 20 tracks and 72 minutes ... It might have been better to have put out two separate 10 track albums with a bit of distance between them. This doesn't sound like a typical Pumpkins album, in fact its probably closer to Billy's 2005 solo alb...