Albums Of The Year

[alexsarll]

I can't be faffed with all these lists of the decade which are doing the rounds - not least because I haven't been keeping an ongoing list through the decade, so I'd end up with some sort of half-remembered mess I'd be regretting within the week. But this I do every year, and keep a running tally for, and justify because I know it's got a couple of friends into a few great records over the years and really, how much more than that can any of us hope to accomplish with our LJs?

1. The Liberty of Norton Folgate - Madness
2. Wonders Never Cease - Mr Solo
3. It's Not Me, It's You - Lily Allen
4. Truelove's Gutter - Richard Hawley
5. London - Philip Jeays
6. You've Created A Monster - Brontosaurus Chorus
7. Art Brut vs Satan
8. Dark Young Hearts - frYars
9. Let's Change The World With Music - Prefab Sprout
10. Found Wanting - Rob Britton
11. The Bachelor - Patrick Wolf
12. Primary Colours - The Horrors
13. The Sound-Board Breathes - Gyratory System
14. The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman - Sparks
15. Someday All This Could Be Yours (Pt 1) - The Paper Chase
16. The Glare - McAlmont & Nyman
17. God Help The Girl - Stuart Murdoch et al
18. The Duckworth Lewis Method
19. Liebe Ist Fur Alle Da - Rammstein
20. The Fame Monster - Lady Gaga
21. Islands - The Mary Onettes
22. Journal For Plague Lovers - Manic Street Preachers
23. Through The Devil Softly - Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions
24. Until The Earth Begins To Part - Broken Records
25. Forget The Night Ahead - The Twilight Sad
26. Hombre Lobo - Eels
27. Slow Attack - Brett Anderson
28. The Life Of The World To Come - The Mountain Goats
29. 21st Century Man/Achtung Mutha - Luke Haines
30. The Hazards of Love - The Decemberists
31. Fight My Battles For Me - Pagan Wanderer Lu
32. Twitter Tracks - The Streets
33. The Yellow Mini - Jonny Cola & the A-Grades
34. Kicks - 1990s
35. We Used To Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River - Richmond Fontaine
36. Pram Town - Darren Hayman & the Secondary Modern
37. The Performance - Shirley Bassey
38. The Resistance - Muse
39. Begone Dull Care - Junior Boys
40. Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle - Bill Callahan

But blazes, haven't there been a lot of disappointments? Franz Ferdinand, Pet Shop Boys and Jarvis were among those who made a brave effort to work with new production teams who ought to have produced the goods, but they all came a cropper by so doing, Morrissey, Depeche Mode, Eminem and Marilyn Manson, meanwhile, were among those content to churn out more of the same old same old - especially disappointing in Manson's case, when the preceding Eat Me Drink Me had been the first sign of any new direction in his work for years. And Springsteen...well, for someone so blue collar he's never really been reliable, but this year's album was still one of his more leaden efforts, and in the theme from The Wrestler contained quite possibly his worst song ever. I don't think he's lost it, you understand - there have been bad albums from him before, and will be again, but always interspersed with greatness.
Nor, I thought, was there really a Song Of The Year, something ubiquitous and inarguable, not even a covert Johnny Boy-style one within certain circles. I would ask whether I missed it, but the nature of a 'Get Ur Freak On' or 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head' or 'Umbrella' is that it's unmissable right through at least the summer, and then as the nights close in, as nostalgia for summer, however bad that summer was. I suppose the closest this year came would be the offerings from Cheryl Cole, Lady Gaga and La Roux - but I stumble on not having actually liked any of them, in spite of the first two at least being things which on paper should have been right up my street. Or at least, that was how I felt until Gaga's deluxe reissue of the album which had failed to impress me turned out in fact to be another, better album, trailed with 'Bad Romance', and suddenly she had the material to match the concept, and just as the year stuttered to a close, suddenly it had its anthem. It doesn't normally work this way but then, isn't it a song about precisely that?

Comments

[p-dan-tic.livejournal.com]

so you are saying that you'd get more joy from listening to pram town, than you would from listening to on a boat, where there was no video, no people doing impressions of videos and no people on boats.........

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Is music necessarily always about joy? What about all the other emotions? But yes, if I am for instance wandering down a half-empty suburban street with my headphones on, I'm more likely to find 'Pram Town' fitting the mood than 'On A Boat'.

[p-dan-tic.livejournal.com]

well done, you've honestly got me speachless, which I hope you know is no mean feat

pram town is *terrible*

[moleintheground.livejournal.com]

Dan, it's subjective, you spanner.

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

Cor, what a concept!

[p-dan-tic.livejournal.com]

dude, there are some things, like david mantel's face, which are *so* bad they're beyond subjective

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

Pram Town is awesome! Though the fact that I like it so much probably does make it objectively terrible on some level.

[p-dan-tic.livejournal.com]

yeah that's right

so awesome that the person who's defending it on this thread thinks there are 35 better albums released this year

*awesome*

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

I think just making it into Mr Sarll's festive forty is a mark of some kind of quality... after all, he's leaving out all sorts of stuff that he found "disappointing".

Darren Hayman is one of those people that I wouldn't recommend to anyone, because folk seem just as likely to loathe him and his weak chin and his stupid voice as love his witty lyrics and adorable effeteness. But for people who like his stuff, I think Pram Town is the best thing he's done in ages...

[p-dan-tic.livejournal.com]

yeah having totally read his comments on he muse album, I totally agree with you..... no wait....

and assuming that someone doesn't like the darren hayman album because they don't like darren hayman is a total faux pas (look under h on my el jay interests)

in ages eh? and how long would ages be? a year? because my gross assumption is that you haven't listened to the album he did directly before pram town (the hayman, watkins, trout and lee one)......

so in short: do better

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

I have checked out, if not bought, everything DH has done since the first Hefner album! I don't enjoy the backwoodsy folk style of Hayman, Watkins, Trout & Lee, if I wanted that I would listen to actual Alabamans; I much prefer Pram Town's trapped-in-numb-suburban-hell stuff, which is what makes Hayman one of my very favourite lyricists about the Britain no one much talks about, alongside luminaries like Jarvis Cocker, Luke Haines and Morrissey. In MY opinion, Pram Town is easily the best thing Hayman's done since the first French album, hands down :P

[p-dan-tic.livejournal.com]

oh my - the best thing he's done since he went shit

what praise