One thing I didn’t like from Spotify Wrapped was this:
Apparently, Spotify considers you to be some kind of mysterious shaman if you listen to albums all the way through – that is, if you approach the art as the artist attended.
Boo to that. I’m far from a purist, but I don’t like how disposable things feel these days.
These festivals were remarkable for a number of reasons. First, their lineups were almost entirely hand-picked by a guest curator, who was usually a musician. Second, many of the festivals took place in the most refined environments possible – Butlin’s holiday camps! Yes, this means that for one glorious evening it was possible to see Patti Smith play on a stage usually used for knobbly knees contests.
For me, it’s either:
The music they play in my gym is none of these things. I could write multiple paragraphs about how much I hate it, but I’m not quite at my “yelling at cloud” stage of life yet. Suffice to say: You know your playlist is in bad shape when G**rg* *zr** is a highlight.
But whatever. I can blank that out and listen to my own stuff. What I can’t ignore, though, are the videos that accompany these songs. There are TVs everywhere. Even if you don’t actively watch them, there they are. You’re going to notice them.
And notice them I have. And I’ve noticed that the various music videos they play in my gym fit into one of five categories.
Let’s explore these categories, together. I’ll list them in order of preference, from those I can tolerate (and even, sometimes, admire!) to those which, as music videos, are about as engaging as CCTV footage of the Winnersh branch of Allied Carpets on a drizzly Saturday afternoon in 1992.
I shall not be embedding any videos, soz. This is because I have no idea who’s responsible for most of the inanities that make it to the gym playlist. I could seek them out, but such behaviour could get me blackballed from the Drones Club.
Mostly these would feature a recording of a live performance. But sometimes they were collections of music videos, or even specially-made “behind the music” documentaries. The best music DVDs contained a combination of the above.
Each DVD is a time capsule of an era that was very similar to our own, but also profoundly different. This is the era just before the mass adoption of smartphones, and before social media made everyone and everything significantly worse.
I’m here to present my favourite albums from 2022.
Despite everything, I’m feeling much calmer than I was this time last year, thank you.
2021 was significantly worse than 2020, and I’ve no doubt that next year will be even worse. All hope has gone.
But at least it was another good year for music.
Let’s explore what I think to be the 20 best albums of the year, together.
But one thing for which I don’t think Radiohead get enough credit is just how sinister their music can be.
In the best way possible, their music can be thrillingly creepy, fabulously unnerving, and chillingly atmospheric like a midnight tour of a haunted waxwork museum with Peter Cushing as your guide.
But Peter Cushing died 27 years ago!!!
So this is my tribute to Gothic Radiohead. Let’s not waste any time in discussing just what I mean by “gothic”. But in terms of sound, feel, or subject matter, these are the Radiohead songs that wouldn’t sound out of place on your Halloween playlist alongside The Cramps, Alice Cooper, Rob Zombie, and the others.
I still make mix CDs.
These days I only ever make mix CDs for other people. I used to make them for myself. I got my first MP3 player long after everyone else had got one, and I used it long after everyone else had moved on to streaming on smartphones. But before that, I made myself a lot of CDs.
It was my travelling music. I’d travel everywhere with a portable CD player (is that what we called them? Or was it a personal CD player?) and a wallet full of my own mixes.
I had a CD for every conceivable journey and every conceivable mood. I also had a reserve of CDs that I’d turn to when I couldn’t decide what else to listen to.
I followed certain rules when making these CDs – unconsciously at first, but they soon became very important indeed. And I realise that I still follow these rules when I’m making CDs for other people.
I also follow these rules when I’m putting playlists together. To some extent.
Let’s talk about the rules for making a good mix CD, together.
It’s a good book! A very good book. You can see what’s in it here.
It was my l*ckd*wn project to listen to every single album from this book. And that’s the first and last time I’ll ever reference this atrocity of a year on this site.
Reader, I managed it. Shall I tell you what I thought?
A lot of prog bands have Christmas songs. For a while, I wondered if there was something about Christmas that appealed particularly to proggy types. Then I realised that there are also multiple Christmas folk songs, punk songs, rap songs, jazz songs, and yep, new age songs. Christmas isn’t just a wonderful time of year for the proggy. It’s a wonderful time of year for everyone.
Nonetheless, there’s something especially beautiful about a Christmas prog song. But then, I would think that.
One thing I find endearing is that Christmas tends to bring out the proggy side of non-prog artists. The Pogues’ Fairytale of New York is operatic in its structure. Cliff’s masterful Saviour’s Day is a sweeping Goliath of a song, complete with stirring pan pipe solo. Clearly, there’s something in the air at this time of year.
Let’s explore some of the best Christmas prog songs, together.
Lord Gloom 