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keresaspa @ 2011-12-31T21:31:00

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keresaspa @ 2011-12-31T21:31:00

Here’s a good post

I bemoaned yesterday how much I have become a slave to the internet to keep me amused but on the other hand one of the benefits of having internet on tap is that it allows me to keep a close eye on certain patterns of my own behaviour. My insistence of allowing all music to which I listen to pass through last.fm means that I can see which particular artists have dominated my listening this year. For my own interests I believe I will list them here. 1. Hawkwind – A firm old favourite of mine but one that had maybe a slid a bit so thankfully Hawkwind loomed large in my listening this year. 2.

I bemoaned yesterday how much I have become a slave to the internet to keep me amused but on the other hand one of the benefits of having internet on tap is that it allows me to keep a close eye on certain patterns of my own behaviour. My insistence of allowing all music to which I listen to pass through last.fm means that I can see which particular artists have dominated my listening this year. For my own interests I believe I will list them here.

1. Hawkwind – A firm old favourite of mine but one that had maybe a slid a bit so thankfully Hawkwind loomed large in my listening this year.
2. Motörhead – If you wanted to design a metal band as it should be Motohead would be that band – big riffs and hellraising! A Lemmy one-two from me as well
=. Jethro Tull – Not so many years ago my automatic answer to “who’s your favourite band”. I’m less certain now but I still love the old albums.
4. Pink Turds In Space – The official history of punk in Northern Ireland is all Undertones this, Stiff Little Fingers that but these lot were the best punk band from here ever. Let’s face it Feargal Sharkey is about as punk as Emmylou Harris and one listen to this lot tells you what true Northern Irish punk is.
5. Echobelly – The indie sound, whatever that is, doesn’t often appeal but Echobelly were different. Wonderfully beautiful music with one of the finest singers the 90s mainstream produced.
=. The Mothers of Invention – Early Zappa. Why not?
7. Hole – You can’t beat them. One of my oldest favourites whom I’ll never get sick off.
8. Napalm Death – Finally got round to listening to this lot after all this years and I was hooked PDQ. When I look back on 2011 in ten years time Napalm Death and their brutal onslaughts will be the soundtrack.
9. The Exploited – Another old favourite but one whom I explored in greater depth this year. Their punk stuff as obviously magic but the thrash stuff is top notch too.
10. Big Youth – Me top reggae lad.
11. Professor Longhair – Me top blues lad.
=. Bad Manners – First band I ever actively liked and they still crop up nigh on 25 years later.
13. L7 – They’ve been close to my heart for years now and I still love them.
=. Nightwish – Obviously they did their best work when Tarja Turunen was there but this year’s effort was decent.
15. Lacuna Coil – Smashing stuff and of course Cristina Scabbia.
16. Wolfe Tones – Republican roots die hard I suppose. Grand old folk stuff too though.
=. Brigitte Bardot – She’s a bad woman but I still can’t say goodbye!
18. The Bonzo Dog Band – Another old favourite and even their most recent album (which I got in Poundland) was tolerable despite the unwelocme addition of Phil Jupitus and Adrian Edmondson.
19. Edgar Broughton Band – I’ve listened to them on and off for a while now but this year I got big into the prog veterans.
=. Lolita No. 18 – More old faves.
21. Within Temptation – They released a woeful new album which sounded like something Heart or Pat Benatar would have put out some years ago which was a huge letdown. However the classic stuff still stands up and I remain hopeful that they can return to the glory days next time around.
22. Bikini Kill – It’s been nigh on twenty years since their heyday but they still sound as fresh as ever.
23. Shonen Knife – Well, they had to turn up eventually didn’t they?!
24. Nahid Akhtar – Another new discovery, this time a playback singer from vintage Lollywood films. If I had to pick a single song to remind me of this year it would be “Society Girl”.
25. All About Eve – Good old trad goth fun.
26. Butthole Surfers – Madder than a box of frogs and always worth a listen.
=. Edenbridge – More of that gothic metal nonsense that I enjoy. I was only vaguely aware of them until investigating much further this year and I’m pleased I decided to do so.
28. Sirenia – As above really.
29. Doom – Old school British hardcore punk. Another that I was only vaguely aware of this time 12 months ago but I’ve ate this sort of stuff up this year.
=. Emilie Autumn – More silly goth nonsense but again I love it.
=. Leaves’ Eyes – Another gothic metal band to churn out a decent new album this year.
32. Nico – Invariably lumped in with the Velvet Underground, for me her solo stuff was miles better as her hauntingly beautiful voice needs nobody else hogging the limelight.
33. Prince Far I – Along with Big Youth and U-Roy my favourite reggae man. There’s more to it than just Bob Marley you know.
34. Flagitious Idiosyncrasy in the Dilapidation – Nothing says great quite like Japanese female-fronted grindcore, as practised by this mob of funsters who were also new to me this year.
35. Metallica – They used to be one of my main bands but I left them aside for a while before going back to them this year. Nothing reminds me of my early 20s quite like “For Whom the Bell Tolls”.
=. Procol Harum – I nabbed a couple of their albums for next to nothing so they got a good rotation this year as a result.
=. Mark Wirtz – Got two of his albums for cheap late on as well.
=. Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band – Hard to believe it has been a year since the great man went.
39. Deep Purple – Oddly I found a couple of their albums going begging in Ballymena, partially explaining their appearance. Who knew the hillbillies loved to rock?
=. F.U.A.L. – Another of those wonderful underground bands ignored in the official history of NI punk. A bit more cerebral and preachier than the Pink Turds but still corking stuff.
41. Frank Zappa – The maestro obviously. I focused more on his early Mothers stuff this year but the later stuff got its turn too.
=. Sarolta Zalatnay – The big voiced Magyar chanteuse floated my boat once again.
43. Catatonia – I forgot how much I loved Cerys Matthews and her merry band way back when until these last few months. Not my usual cup of tea perhaps but they were bloody marvellous really and it is a real shame to see her hawking herself on the reality TV circuit.
=. Françoise Hardy – A double album of her sixties stuff was acquired so up she rises.
=. Uncle Dave Macon – Crazy old-timey fun from a right loon born just after the American Civil War.
=. The Move – Always worth listening to old Roy and the boys.
=. Health Hazard – I just discovered these a week or two ago but where have they been all my life? Female-fronted hardcore punk at its finest.
48. Fats Domino – A favourite amongst the older generation in my family and now me too. Must be in the genes.
=. Max Miller – ‘Ere you couldn’t have a top 100 without the Cheeky Chappie could you, duck?!
50. U-Roy – As stated, one of the reggae trinity in my book.
=. Cathedral – “The Ethereal Mirror” is still one of the first albums I reach for when I’m not sure what I’m in the mood for.
52. Tiny Tim – What’s not to love about a large man singing songs from the 1890s in a creepy falsetto voice?
=. Turisas – Finnish Viking/folk metal nonsense. Grand.
54. Bukka White – BB King’s kin, but a superior blues man for my taste, with the sort of vocal chords you could sand the floorboards with.
=. George Formby – Of course.
=. Big Tom & The Mainliners – Irish showband music makes its sole appearance in the top 100. No, I can’t explain it either!
57. Evanescence – Another to release a good album this year and move up as a consequence.
=. Solitude Aeturnus – “Into the Depths of Sorrow” is another of those classics for when you aren’t sure what to listen to. Doom at its finest.
=. Babes In Toyland – I actually thought they would have been higher but hey-ho.
=. Barclay James Harvest – Another that belongs to my younger days but when I hear then it’s like bumping into an old friend
=. Cruachan – Irish folk metal. D
ecent stuff.
=. The Idle Race – Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood as baby hippies, charming in its own way.
=. Nicki Minaj – I have already established that I don’t do guilty pleasures but the odd dalliance with pop hip-hop is about as close as I come to having one.
64. Bolt Thrower – A band I investigated for the first time this summer out of curiosity. Once again it was a wise decision as they proved to be bloody brilliant.
=. Bill Monroe – Bluegrass became an interest this year and Billy boy is its top brass to my mind.
=. Ivor Cutler – Always welcome round these parts.
67. Count Basie – The real star of Blazing Saddles (well, maybe not) and a damn fine jazzman.
=. Kaleidoscope – Actually listened to two separate bands of this name during the year, although most plays belonged to the wonderful psychedelic British band who later became Fairfield Parlour.
=. The 4-Skins – Classic 4-Skins from the 1980s with Hoxton Tom McCourt taking the lead. Without Hoxton Tom there is no 4-Skins so the horrible rabble churning out brain dead crap for English Defence League members these days can go to Hell.
=. Korpiklaani – More Finnish folk metal although a bit better than Turisas so another I’m surprised to see so low.
=. Ros Sereysothea – Is there anything better than Cambodian beat music? Possibly but not much.
=. The Web – Yet another that I have just discovered in the last month or so. Superior jazz fusion, prog type music from the mystic wilds of er Bournemouth which sounds not unlike the better work of John Bond. Check them out.
73. Woody Guthrie – Anti-fascist classics from one of the USA’s finest ever sons.
=. Tank Girl – Is there anything better than female-fronted punk from Nepal? Possibly but not much.
=. Jobbykrust – Another of those old Northern Irish punk bands that are never mentioned in the official histories. Also the only one that I believe I ever saw live way back a lifetime ago.
=. Gallhammer – I’ve talked about little else this year so their comparatively lowly finish is a shock. However given their penchant for blackened doom their songs tend to be quite long so as few as six songs can take around an hour.
77. Gene Vincent – Rock and/or roll for crazy mixed-up kids or ageing old has-beens like myself.
=. Chas ‘n’ Dave – Gertcha!
=. Frank Sidebottom – The legend lives on.
=. The Mission – Good old Wayne and the lads. I couldn’t make out a word the drunken scut said to me when I met him but he produced some great trad trout in his day.
=. Foreheads In A Fishtank – [info queenmartina got me their two albums for my birthday. A British Butthole Surfers in some ways.
82. Throwing Muses – For years I never got round to listening to this group and I am still wondering why. SUffice to say there will be a lot more of them sought out in 2012.
=. Bal-Sagoth – The band that began my love affair with extreme metal and one I still turn to from time to time. I would happily describe them as epic had that word not been robbed of all meaning by the I generation.
84. Jimmy Cliff – I was never struck on the few songs I knew by him but got his “best of” just in case. Good decision as he is a heck of a lot better than the couple of cod reggae songs for which he is widely known.
=. Jack Off Jill – Music made for sad teenage girls really. Right up my street in other words.
=. Burning Spear – Roots reggae at its finest.
=. Angelic Upstarts – One of the finest and smartest bands to emerge from the Oi movement, presenting an intelligent critique of the evils of Thatcherism as a sobering counterbalance to some of the more moronic tendencies of the Skinheads.
=. Amy Winehouse – Silly silly girl. You should have had another thirty years or more of making music ahead of you. Still, she left a fine, if all to brief, legacy behind her.
=. The Seekers – Tweer than “Acorn Green” but top notch to my mind and the group that made my favourite number one single of all time (“The Carnival is Over”).
=. Lulu’s Marble – They made my favourite song of all time so obviously they feature in the year’s top 100.
=. Zuzu’s Petals – Lovely stuff from a band who surprisingly made no impact whatsoever in their brief run.
92. Tori Amos – Like a few already mentioned I have been dipping in and out of her discography for more years than I can remember. As comfortable as an old cardigan is our Tori.
=. The Upsetters – Lee “Scratch” Perry pulling the strings on what was too all intents and purposes a collection of session musicians and with Scratch in charge you know some crazy times will ensue.
=. Gorefest – Investigated this Dutch lot expecting to find some grindcore but instead they turned out to be something called “death ‘n’ roll”. Nothing like I had anticipated but top drawer stuff nevertheless.
=. Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers – Could any band sum up dad rock more succinctly than this lot? Great old stuff though, no matter how uncool it might be.
=. Ensiferum – More of that silly Viking/folk metal stuff that cropped up earlier, probably the hardest of the Finnish threesome to appear in this list
=. The Scaffold – I don’t actualy remember listening to this mob so much this year. I’ve had an album of theirs since about 1999 and it still gets the odd spin so I guess that must have happened.
=. Kourosh Yaghmaei – Turkish psych artist whose album I picked up in Edinburgh. Nice.
=. Jimmy Shand – King of the accordion, is he not? The sort of music I would never have thought of until recently but anything goes these days.
=. Rita & Sakura – Two little sweetie-pies from Singapore who recorded a series of duets in the 60s. Silly commercial hoo-ha really but absolutely adorable nevertheless.

Of course all of the above unadulterated self-indulgent waffle was inspired by the fact that the year 2011 is about to end apparently and were we Germans it would be ordered by law that we should watch this slice of hilarity.

I’m sure Grimsby must be proud of Freddie Frinton for that little slice of mirth which in no way went on about eight minutes longer than it should have. Well, I suppose the Germans would find a lot of what we laugh at somewhat dull too (although clearly Jimmy James’ drunk act

was a million miles better). Einen guten Rutsch as they say down Bergisch Gladbach way.

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keresaspa @ 2011-12-31T21:31:00

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