I listened to Bastille via Music Unlimited on the way to work today. Found it very very good. Wish I'd done it sooner.
I digress. Carry on.

I'm also on the lookout for stuff I may have missed last year. Tempy has given me a bunch of stuff to listen to, just wondered if anybody had recommendations I should look into?

I still like the album format. When it's done well, it can be a fantastic experience, unfortunately it's rarely done well which is in large part the fault of CDs for being too long.

I can't imagine not listening to proper albums tbh.  I'm keen on crating playlists, but over half of my working day is spent listening to complete albums.  Zoverstocks is my friend.  I've mentioned this before, but I'm not keen on not owning the cds either (although £4.99 MP3 deals do occasionally sway me).

Bought far more new stuff this year than last (and old stuff....ramped it up a bit thanks to a better bonus system at work).  Also got an album club lined up at work where five of us will buy one album none of us own from an as-yet undecided top 100 list online/in print.  I'm pushing for the Uncut one.  I'll have to make do with the files for everyone else's picks, but it's a good way of getting five albums for the price of one.

I love albums. I have come to realise though through doing the work ipod that most people don't give a shit about them. They would rather hear something they know, even if it's music they don't particularly like, rather than something they don't know that's the sort of thing they do like.

There are a ton of album tracks that I adore, which would likely never have seen the light of day without that format.

Diluted Dante wrote:

I have come to realise though through doing the work ipod that most people don't give a shit about them. They would rather hear something they know, even if it's music they don't particularly like, rather than something they don't know that's the sort of thing they do like.

Different strokes I guess, but this is also correct in my experience (even the music they don't particularly like bit). Some people do it with films too, as if concentrating on something new is too much effort when [insert film]* will do.

One of my colleagues listed Radiohead as one of his top five artists ever on Facebook, yet hasn't heard anything in between Kid A ("shit") and In Rainbows, and only seems to own a best of that he's trimmed down to seven or so tracks. A best of a best of. Fourth favourite band of all time. Clearly it's up to him, good luck to him etc, but I don't get that.

* I struggled to think of an example that wasn't A) a good film or B ) made me look like a judgemental prick. I nearly went for The Matrix.

Liveinadive wrote:

The amount of times of heard "hoe am I supposed to dance to it, I don't know it" is far too high. Rhythm moron!

Music that isn't deemed fit to dance to seems to be a neverending source of amusement for one of my colleagues . She genuinely seems to find non-dance music laugh-out-loud funny. Given that the only time I've attempted to dance in the last ten years was to Walk the Line at my own wedding (and only after being press-ganged into it), limiting my listening habits to music I can personally dance to would leave me with an empty mp3 player.

Im not saying everyone has to dance to music or that all music is dancable.
However if you can dance you should be able to at least shuffle and bop around a bit to music on the first time hearing it, especially as most times I hear the excuse 4 to the floor house is playing.

Watching people dance to every beat in dubstep is also quite amusing.

Sounds about right.
Add a screw face and you are sorted.

You better.
*shakes fist*

Liveinadive wrote:

You better. *shakes fist*

*shakes booty*

Here are my own categories for the year...

Albums I most frequently returned to:

1) The Moths are Real - Serafina Steer  An album which I initially thought was OK, but a little pretentious, but have ended up revisiting multiple times over the year, finding new things.  I'd now say it's my favourite this year, beautiful, surprising, occasionally perplexing.  Here's the opening track.

2) Laura Marling - Once I Was an Eagle.  Marling is no longer considered remotely cool, her brief association with one of Mumford and Sons being the final nail in credibility's coffin, and yet...  This is genuinely, fiercely brilliant.  The opening 4 tracks run into one another with devastating efficiency, and the album sounds once again, like a woman who means business.  (That opener can be heard here in its entirety.)  Sadly, I suspect she's one of those musicians who's at their best when unhappy...

3)  Waxahatchee - Cerulean Salt.  Decidedly American, and reminiscent of a fair few guitar based bands of my youth, it's also better than most of the things it reminds me of.  It also confirms that this year, I clearly had a thing for female singer songwriters.  Try this one.


Bands who did more of the same, but the same was great:

1)  The National - Trouble Will Find Me  
2)  Low - The Invisible Way
3)  My Bloody Valentine - mbv


Albums which were more of the same, and felt kind of phoned in:

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Push the Sky Away.
I Am Kloot - Push the Sky Away

Sorry, but both felt like tired retreads to me at least.

Song which most charmingly asserts something that is clearly incorrect:

The Morse Code for Love is Beep Beep Beep Beep, the Binary Code is One One. - Sweet Baboo

Incredibly repetitive, utterly ridiculous, and my kids demand we all sing along to it whenever we drive anywhere.  I love it.

Song which made me laugh out loud.

Drink Nothing But Champagne - Future Bible Heroes.  I don't think it's all that funny really, but it came on the stereo when a friend was going on something of a Bowie worship, and the ridiculous Bowie impression was perfectly timed.  You had to be there, probably.

Band that was much Better Live than You'd Possibly Imagine:

 Public Service Broadcasting.  Partly because of the perfect fusion of sound and image.  The gig was particularly made however by a technical problem half way through.  Having established a gimmick of talking to the audience only through pre-recorded announcements, their ingenuity was tested to the extreme by an ever lengthening delay to get stuff fixed.  Suffice to say, they pulled it off.

I liked Paramore's new album. Apart from that playlist we made, I haven't really heard anything else. I've mostly been listening to 70's rock this year.

Still so fucking behond on this shit. Keeping telling myself I'll make a couple days of it but I always find summat else to do.

Usable word.

The problem with modern music (and source of my upthread snark) is that we no longer have a chart to speak of. No uniting river of dross.

Now, we splinter off in our many directions - for after love, there's nowt more subjective than music - to return like rude town criers, spluttering through each other's doorways, record sleeves behonded, shouting 'This is what I'm listening to!'

. . .