This fourth effort from Sheffield’s indie darlings was somewhat overlooked this year, despite it being right up there as one of their most consistent and interesting albums to date. Perhaps it’s because they’ve been around so long and delivered great albums so consistently that a new, great Arctic Monkeys album has now just become an […]
Category: Blog
Top Albums of 2011 – No. 2: PJ Harvey, ‘Let England Shake’
Who says there are no great protest songs any more!? PJ Harvey proved this year that there is still plenty of room in the music world for a politically charged protest album about the horrors of war – winning the Mercury Prize along the way. The most striking thing about Let England Shake, though, isn’t […]
What Amazon Prime Music needs to do to succeed
This past January, one of the biggest news stories in the music industry occurred when Beats Music launched in the U.S. Since then, there have been even more, and perhaps even bigger, stories making headlines. Beats has remained a prominent figure, as expected, and upped its share of the market after being purchased by Apple for […]
Top Albums of 2011 – No. 1: The Horrors, ‘Skying’
Number one in our run down of the top albums of 2011 unsurprisingly goes to The Horrors, for their rich, textured and nuanced third album Skying. After a spot of label trouble the Southend band decided to go it on their own and produced Skying themselves – a decision which led to them making an album […]
Why is Adele so popular?
This question has been bugging me for ages now, so I thought it was about time I tried to answer it – and get a few things off my chest while I’m at it…. Now, before I go on I just want to make it clear this is in not intended to criticise Adele in […]
Top albums of 2011 – No. 5: Florence And The Machine, ‘Ceremonials’
Second albums are supposed to be difficult for everyone. In the case of Florence Welch, whose debut album was the ridiculously successful Lungs, this follow-up album was supposed to be more in the realms of impossible than difficult. Luckily for Florence, she doesn’t seem to give a damn about all this and just concentrates on […]
Our top albums of 2011 – numbers 6-10
With Christmas fast approaching and the thick end of 2011 behind us, it’s time to take stock and look back at the albums that soundtracked our year – and what better way to do that than a good old fashioned top 10 list!? We’ve gone back through all of our album reviews over the past […]
Top Albums of 2011 – No. 4: Kasabian, ‘Velociraptor!’
2011 was the year Leicester lads Kasabian released their fourth album and became arguably the biggest rock band in the country. After West Ryder… established them as a much more inventive and cerebral band than the ‘lad-rock’ naysayers gave them credit for, the superbly titled Velociraptor! upped their populist appeal and added sweeping melodies to […]
What were the best albums of 2013?
We’re coming up to the end of the year, which means there’s currently a deluge of ‘best of’ lists hitting us from all angles online. I don’t like to dwell too much on picking out the ‘best’ when it comes to albums as to pick one excellent album out as ‘better’ than another seems a […]
Top 50 Christmas Songs – Part 5: 10-1
Top 50 Christmas Songs – Part 5: 10-1 And now, as Christmas is practically upon us with the presents bought and the crackers ready to be pulled, here are my ten favourite festive tunes to get you into the mood for food and the mind for wine, and without doubts for sprouts, etc… 10. Mickey’s […]