(Every Christmas, I compile an eighty-minute CD of the stuff I was listening to during the year. This is a tradition that Andy Humphrey started and that I have seen fit to reciprocate. It's the sort of exercise that really gets you thinking about what was important to you....the new discoveries, the old gems that for some reason took on new resonance, or - more recently - the stuff your children liked. I try to go for eclecticism but maintain something resembling a thematic unity.
Once again, I've decided to put my liner notes up here, but this year I've kipped the downloadable extracts and gone straight for the YouTube links. It's easier...!
This year was another exercise in back catalogue exploration, at least earlier on. Later I found there were several albums I seemed to want to listen to over and over. So there are more forgotten gems, but also quite a bit of new stuff...)
1. Queen – Fat Bottomed Girls
I went back through Queen’s entire back catalogue while the snow was still lying thick on the ground, and my goodness, isn’t this tremendous? Unshackled from the confines of its radio edit, Brian’s guitar growls and roars, while Roger stomps, John rumbles and Freddie bellows. Queen rocked out all too frequently, but seldom with as much conviction as they had here.
Available on: Jazz (EMI)
2. Mumford & Sons – The Cave
I always come to these things late, usually when the CD drops in price. Mumford & Sons have had the ‘boy band folk’ insult thrown at them quite a lot over the past few years: I think what’s at the heart of this is that folkies don’t like folk music to do too well, because then it ceases to be niche, and becomes popular, and joins the racks in Tesco and Sainsbury alongside a whole load of music that they never buy. So when Mumford & Sons got huge, there were accusations of manufactured banality and overproduced pomp. Neither is fair, and a lot of this is sour grapes. The truth is that Sigh No More was full of clever, insightful lyrics, rich in textural variety, and boasting some of the most amazing harmonies since the golden years of the Beach Boys. The first time I heard this, my jaw dropped to the floor of the car, and I almost crashed the thing trying to pick it up again.
Available on: Sigh No More (Island)
3. Gerry Rafferty – Baker Street
2011 seemed to be the year we lost a lot of good people. Gerry Rafferty was a burned out shell by the time of his early departure, but he left a string of good records (including an inspired appearance on the Local Hero album that I must dig out again). But it is for this, perhaps, that he will be most fondly remembered – the best sax break in any pop song, and a thumping guitar solo to boot.
Available on: City To City (United Artists)
4. John Grant – Sigourney Weaver
I miss the Radcliffe and Maconie show. They played great songs, their banter was fun and innovative and they eschewed the praiseworthy texts and emails from fawning sychophants. The vacuous Jo Whiley is frankly no substitute. In their last week of broadcast, they had a session from John Grant, who played this. I remember it chiefly for them, but it's a damned good song in its own right.
Available on: Queen of Denmark (Bella Union)
5. Andrew Gold – Thank You For Being A Friend
I used to absolutely love this song. That was before I realised it was dreadful: over-produced, as corny as an Iowa farm and replete with terrible, utterly insipid lyrics. It did, however, seem a fitting testimony for the departed Andrew Gold, who died at 59, leaving a few great records, and some utterly dreadful ones. For all its inadequacies, it was the one that sprung to mind as soon as I heard about it, and it worked very well as Doctor Who montage material.
Available on: All This and Heaven Too (Asylum Records)
6. Murray Gold – The Sun’s Gone Wibbly
Ah, Doctor Who. Seldom has any TV show provided so much joy and irritation rolled into one. The 2011 series suffered from being overcomplicated (it’s not that I couldn’t follow it, it’s just that the series arc was needlessly convoluted and far too clever for its own good). On the other hand, there were episodes like ‘The God Complex’, which was as good as anything the show has produced since its 2005 revival. The leads (Alex Kingston aside) continue to be delightful, and some of it has been tremendous. This little number – used for most of the trailers and frequently throughout the show – has been playing off and on in my head for the bulk of this year.
Available on: Doctor Who: Original Television Soundtrack – Series 5 (Silva Screen Records)
7. Bat For Lashes – Two Planets
If Bjork and Kate Bush had a child together, it would be Natasha Khan. Bat For Lashes were one of my earlier discoveries this year: their catalogue is still relatively light, but both Fur And Gold and its successor, the even better Two Suns, are full of quirky, synth / piano-driven treasures and Khan’s distinct, fragile voice. This particular one, the first time I listened to it, was accompanied by a wave of mental images, most of them Doctor Who related. Fire up the video-editing software.
Available on: Two Suns (Parlophone)
8. Jean Michel Jarre – Calypso
I grew up with Jean Michel Jarre: his records (particularly the 80s stuff) formed a musical soundtrack to my coming-of-age years, perching uneasily alongside the likes of Guns ‘n’ Roses, Cypress Hill and…erm, Enigma. Said albums then sat on a shelf for some years, rarely played until I revisited his back catalogue on a whim. This infectious up-tempo jaunt is, like most of his music, utterly devoid of anything that could be referred to as ‘catchy’, but as a soundscape it works quite well. I was bouncing along in the car all the way home.
Available on: Waiting for Cousteau (Disques Dreyfus)
9. Steppenwolf – Born To Be Wild
July. A warm summer’s evening in a crowded yard outside The Six Bells, in Bishop’s Castle, in the company of friends. The climax of the beer festival. The house band grooving to Steppenwolf and the rest of us roaring along. The smell of sweat, ale and greasy hamburgers, and my darling wife at my side. What a fantastic evening.
Available on: Steppenwolf (ABC Dunhill)
10. Our Broken Garden – Breathe
In August, Mojo ran a cover CD of two reworked Pink Floyd albums, in honour of the imminent release of the remastered and expanded editions of most of their back catalogue. The Dark Side of the Moon recording was patchy, but Our Broken Garden brought new life to this one, simply by doing something very different with it.
Available on: Return To The Dark Side Of The Moon / Wish You Were Here Again (cover CD; good luck finding it!)
11. Roger Waters / David Gilmour – Comfortably Numb (Live)
In May, Pink Floyd fans got the moment they’d dreamed of since…well, Live 8. While touring with The Wall, Roger Waters did a show at the O2 arena that saw companion vocalist Robbie Wyckoff and guitarist Dave Kilminster ousted for one night only by none other than David Gilmour. The euphoria of the crowd is so intense you can practically touch it, and Gilmour shows he can still rock with the best of them, even if he does forget the words.
Available on: Unavailable (I ripped it from the YouTube link)
12. Elbow – One Day Like This
At the end of a mild October, Elbow did a Radio 2 live set at Manchester cathedral. They were one of those groups I’d always been aware of but never really experienced. By the time they’d finished ‘Weather To Fly’, my curiosity was piqued. By the time they’d finished this one, I was enraptured: a record I’d heard any number of times over the years but never really heard until now; a ball of wonder and amazement, and that feeling you get when you wake up next to someone and realise you love them (which, of course, is what the song’s about). “Anyway,” sings Guy Garvey, “It’s looking like a beautiful day / so throw those curtains wide / one day like this a year would see me right”. Frankly, it’s hard to disagree with him.
Available on: The Seldom Seen Kid (Fiction / Polydor)
13. Mumford & Sons – After The Storm
More Mumford. I remember listening to their live set at Glastonbury, having not seen them before, and wondering if they’d be able to recreate that unique studio sound (the work of Markus Dravs, who produced Arcade Fire) on a stage. They could, and did. It was the night before my brother’s wedding, and so I was already in a strange mood; this was potent and heady and wonderful, and soooo much better than the dross that was U2.
Available on: Sigh No More (Island)
14. Cast of Glee – Somebody To Love
I’ll let you in on a little secret: I’ve always loved this song, but the Queen recording hurts my ears. I think it’s the distortion on the harmony vocals. It’s frustrating, although I’ve got used to it, but it does explain why I’m perhaps more comfortable with what is effectively a karaoke version than I ought to be. The other reason for loving this, of course, is the wonderful lipdub performed by students at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem – a sweeping one-take wonder.
Available on: Glee: The Music, Volume 1 (Columbia / 20th Century Fox Television)
15. Glen Campbell – In My Arms
The news that Glen Campbell was retiring from recording came as a bit of a shock, but he’s left behind a slew of wonderful songs and an absolute corker of a final album: atmospheric, thoughtful and with some terrific material (as well as distinctive special guests). His version of ‘In My Arms’ doesn’t compare with Teddy Thompson’s original (it never had a chance, really, given that the original is one of my favourite songs of the last five years), but it’s still a swinging, lively and ultimately infectious jaunt. And it has Chris Isaak.
Available on: Ghost on the Canvas (Surfdog)
16. Bruce Springsteen – Born To Run
The loss of Clarence Clemons, back in June, was devastating for Springsteen, who lost a key component of his sound, a blistering sax player who brought seemingly limitless energy to the E-Street band’s records and live performances, and with a fine voice to boot. Here’s one of Clemons’ finest commercial moments, in a solo that seems to encapsulate everything he stood for.
Available on: Born To Run (Columbia)
17. Peter Gabriel – San Jacinto
I’ll Scratch Yours, the promised second half of Peter’s covers project, has still to appear after a two-year wait, and unofficially it looks like it’s been canned. Early signs were never particularly encouraging: Thom Yorke was, it’s said, less than impressed with Mr Gabriel’s take on ‘Street Spirit’; David Bowie pulled out, and after a couple of download releases the imminent flood of Gabriel covers appeared to have dried up. Instead we got New Blood, which featured orchestral re-recordings of timeless classics, free – as Gabriel said – from the trappings of guitars and drums. Thus liberated, the songs take on a new life, and nowhere is this more potency more concentrated than the overwhelming emotion in ‘San Jacinto’, which tells of an Indian brave surviving an initiation ritual, where he’s bitten by a snake and left on top of a mountain. Does he survive? Well, he survived to tell the story to Peter…
Available on: New Blood (Real World / Virgin)
18. Bon Iver – Flume
Some years ago, Justin Vernon dealt with various problems in his life by holing himself up in a cabin for the winter. For Emma, Forever Ago was the result. I didn’t get round to buying it until earlier this year. I wish I hadn’t waited. This really is amazing.
Available on: For Emma, Forever Ago (4AD)
19. Seal – Future Love Paradise
I picked up the first Seal album in Cancer Research one afternoon in the spring, reflecting that it was one of those albums I’d always heard in bits here and there but never actually owned. It’s actually a fine, polished collection of well-written songs, thoughtfully and artfully produced, variant in mood from powerful dance tunes to quiet, introspective melodies. This one somehow seems to sit squarely in the middle. I have no idea what it’s actually about, but perhaps it’s better that way.
Available on: Seal (Warner Music UK)
20. Lia Ices – Wish You Were Here
Track number two from the Mojo CD. This really is quite beautiful.
Available on: Return To The Dark Side Of The Moon / Wish You Were Here Again (cover CD)
21. Foy Vance – Guiding Light
This year’s “mystery guest” at the performance café on the final night of Greenbelt was none other than Foy Vance, which came as no great surprise, given his absence from the rest of the festival. Feeling like we were playing truant, we slipped away from mainstage and Mavis Staples (highly competent but clearly reading from an autocue) and strode across the racecourse. It was standing room only but the Mash Shack was still open so we bought ice cream milkshakes and breathed in the night, while inside Foy sang songs of love and loss and finished, once more, with an unplugged (after hours), audience-heavy rendition of his traditional show-closer, which was just the perfect end to Greenbelt. And this time, Emily was with me.
Available on: Not currently available (again, I ripped it from the YouTube link – although Foy hopefully has a new album out next year, so…)
22. Elbow – Friend Of Ours
More Elbow. This immediately follows 'One Day Like This' and the guitar work is frankly stunning.
Available on: The Seldom Seen Kid (Fiction / Polydor)
23. Kate Bush – Lake Tahoe
Only Kate Bush could produce a song about making a snowman and humping it and walk away with her artistic dignity intact. This is not that song. However, it is its immediate neighbour on the quite mesmerising 50 Words For Snow, the second of two Bush albums that appeared in 2011. Early in the year we were graced with (whisper it) the not terribly good Director’s Cut, in which Kate’s voice appears to be fracturing and stretching when tackling vocals that, to be honest, she did far better twenty-odd years ago. Its wintry follow-up contains all new material, with guest appearances from Stephen Fry (reading off the eponymous fifty words while Kate cheers him on) and Elton John, as well as Kate’s son Bertie, singing about being a snowflake (which, as good as the song is, just reminded me of interpretive dance). But it’s ‘Lake Tahoe’, a story of ghosts in the Sierra Nevada, that stands out – guest vocals from Stefan Roberts and Michael Wood, some haunting (excuse pun) piano, delicate orchestration, a beautiful, solid vocal from Kate, and rather lovely.
(I couldn't find this on YouTube. Buy it. Trust me.)
Available on: 50 Words For Snow (Fish People / EMI)
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