There’s been a hell of a lot of end of year lists floating around, here’s the breakdown of where some of the British artists have featured….
Pitchfork is one of the major trendsetting music websites in the U.S and a great place to gage the success and critical appraisal of some the homegrown UK acts….
#48: The Long Blondes - Someone to drive you home [rough trade]
#44: The Pipettes - We Are the Pipettes [Memphis Industries]
#39: Fujiya & Miyagi - Transparent Things [Tirk/Word and Sound]
#30: Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit [Matador]
#29: Lily Allen - Alright, Still [Parlophone/EMI]
#26: Hot Chip - The Warning [DFA/EMI]
The “Heart on a Stick” Blog also used end of year lists to calculate the albums getting the most love in end of year polls from hundreds of blogs (including this one). Again, here’s where British artists featured in the top 50. Possibly a more indicative poll than Pitchfork due to a vast number of sources used, and the wide range of writers contributing. Not a particularly good year for the Brits in my opinion, the tracks were good; but I didn’t quite feel excited by any album releases. Get’s hope 2007 offers more….
#37 Lily Allen - Alright, Still [Parlophone/EMI]
#24 Muse - Black Holes and Relevations [Label]
#19 Hot Chip - The Warning [DFA/EMI]
#18 Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I am, That’s What I’m Not [Domino]
#6 Thom Yorke - The Eraser [Beggars]
All albums are purchasable @ Amazon or you can download a couple of the albums for free @ Emusic by using the 25 free downloads that you get if you sign up for a free trial. The albums highlighted in bold are available at Emusic.
Some British artists you might expect to see on next year’s lists:
Bloc Party #2 / Arctic Monkey #2 / PJ Harvey / Radiohead / Klaxons / Art Brut / British Sea Power and of course the new album from The Go! Team. I predict a riot. But not from the Kasier Cheifs. I expect they will gain slightly more weight and put on a terrible show at Glasto The Go! Team will rock - as long as Sony/BMG keep their distance.
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20 JFGs, one of the best UK Mp3 blogs, offers one of the few lists that matters, is thought out, and contains some incredible suggestions that past my by this year, including a superb track by Grabba Grabba Tape. I brought the album immediately.
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The latest edition of my podcast ‘Take Your Medicine’ is out. An extravaganza of the best of the year, and an equal amount of brand spanking new music from across the globe. A 1 hour show. Go to the T.Y.M site, or subscribe immediately in Itunes by using this link. Fill you brand new shiny mp3 player with new music….
I was a Cub Scout have a great video for their single, which I spoke about down the page a bit. Go watch it on the Youtube
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The NYUB podcast is out again, containing some fantastic new music, all played a little faster, using more digitalisation than the music I favour on my podcast. If that’s your sort of thing, head on over. Tracks 1, 3, and 15 are absolutely incredible.
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Stay tuned for a 2007 preview before January hits us…
For me, 2006 has been all about folk and electro - a lot of new music I’ve new really explored suddenly sounding a lot more accessible, intricate and less pretentious. Making the occasional transition was easy enough when I was pointed in the right direction, but I Was A Cub Scout and their ilk are keeping the majority of my musical endeavours grounded in Drive-Thru rock and guitar inspired/ led pop that has been the mainstay of my music taste + purchases since I got into music in a big way circa the very late 1990’s.
XL have recently signed are very interested this Nottingham based 2 piece, after an initial release on Fear and Records. It doesn’t sound British in an obvious way - just in the restraint applied, and attempts they’ve made to avoid overriding the vocals with mentalism, which will quite likely come out - to fans delight - in live shows. Drowned in Sound called it “rousing, rambunctious package of disco-pop joy, wrapped in punk-rock language and indie electronica.”. I think that is seven genres they managed to fit in there. But to me it’s all about the keyboards and a U.S/ L.A punk attitude that doesn’t often find home on this blog.
As always, you can click the band name to access the bands web sites, right click the track title to download it (right click, then select save target as/ save link as or similar to download the track to your hard-drive). Or alternately just click the play button to hear a stream of the track!
My long thought out list. The best music I have heard all year, and enjoyed consistantly. I’ve tried to make as many as possible downloadable, or at the least listenable.
A perfect instrumental. The one song that hasn’t gone way past it’s best before date, it still sounds fresh, and it’s just as unnerving. Athens, Georgia based Hip-Hop producer Jamie Radford has created an incessant piece of music
rotating and creating shapes of electronic pulses, lounge piano and people laughing. A veritable musical Spirograph.
2. Joanna Newsom - Emily
[listen @ hype machine]
The first track from my album of the year, and longest track in this years list. Folk, classical arrangements and over-production to match the over-the-magical-hill-and-down-to-the-magical-sunken-city story telling. Scores of wonderful moments, 12 minutes of harp led, you must wonder where she gets all the energy from. Probably some sort of pixie-dust.
Minimalist electro loops evolving from recorded from guitar riffs, and the quite possibly the sound that the sea would throw back at you after it swallowed the London Philharmonic.
One of tracks I’ve listen to the most, and has been talked about the most on blogs this side of the atlantic. I keep hearing Broken Social Scene comparisons but it is way to twee and indie-pop for that.It’d be pure 100% brew twee without the overlap, and tangled melodies that unravel themselves to reveal a 7 headed, multi-coloured, glokenspiel wielding indie pop behemoth who just wants to sit outside your house and harmonise with the chimney pots.
And further to the last post, my top ten British artists of the year. All but 2 feature in the above list.
1. Victor Scott
2. Slow Club
3. Sleeping States
4. Sky Larkin
5. Los Campesinos
6. Emmy the Great
7. Movern Callar
8. D_Rradio
9. The Bridge Gang
10. Muse
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What sort of music would you like to hear more music similar to on this blog? Use the numbers above as reference points if that helps….
Last year, we had the Hottest 47 British acts of 2005 which was voted by for prominent British music bloggers. Girls Aloud won. This year, it’s the top 47 artists again, with a similar panel deliberating over the results…
Sean: Finally a genuine UK take on the yelp rock that’s saturated North America of late. And double bonus: it’s great. Lanzafame is an album of spirit and bleat, discobeat drums as guitars ring and wrangle.
40. Radiohead: Tim: They have to be on the list … it’s obligatory.
40. Movern Callar. Mike: A late entry for the charming Scottish folkist. 2007 written all over her. Catch Jane playing at SXSW next year.
35. Chris Corsano. Sean: The gob-smacking American drummer has become a resident of Edinburgh. Free-jazz percussion that left my mind doing full orbits on itself.
35. Alasdair Roberts. Tim: Talent and touching folk music … what more do you need?
35 Bertel Haugen
35. The Charlatans. Simon: Especially so in a year when the Inspirals and Northside (Northside!) have returned as cyphers of their former selves
25.The Fakrays.
25. Uncle John and Whitelock. Sean: UJ and W RIP. After storming Mono’s “Get Off My Pavement” festival, second only to Herman Dune on a bill that included Arab Strap, The 1990s and a Delgados solo-project, it’s been announced that these death-blues merchants are calling it quits. They were one of the most exciting bands in Scotland - despite a lackluste LP - and I look forward to one more blow to the head as they play their final gig at the end of December.
25. Dirty Pretty Things. Simon: The boy kicks back, a lot fucking harder. It’s clear where the heartof the Libertines was.
25. Bromheads Jacket
25. Art Brut. Eddie: Fears about a sophomore slump seem to be wrong thanks to an EP of great new songs and new versions of the old ones. The best live band in the country
25 McFly
25 Isobel Campbell
24. Emmy The Great. Mike: Emmy blew me away at Truck, and I’ve loved every songs of her, folk songs that make me pretty happy.
21. Jeremy Warmsley
21. Four Tet / Kieran Hebdon Tim: The Exchange Sessions are heavily played in my headphones.
21. 4 or 5 Magicians. Eddie: Britain’s very own Pavement - pitch perfect anthems for middle class slackers.
16. The Maccabees
16. Luke Haines. Simon: One day - probably not until he’s dead, sadly - he’ll be given the “greatest British songwriter” praise he deserves
16. Belle and Sebastian
16. Arctic Monkeys
16. Slow Club. Mike: The best folk band in Sheffield this year. The nicest people, the sweetest pop songs.
Sean: A late arrival to this list, ‘breaking’ on the internet only at the close of November. He’s already in the middle of a label bidding war and it’s easy to see why: sleepy urban folk with just the right dose of beats and harmony. Belongs in a bag with Jens Lekman, Grizzly Bear,and Beirut’s Zach Condon. A voice to stop sunsets.
Mike British born, Canadian raised, my artist of the year. A near perfect album of funky sonic delights. More of a collection of songs that a story you can follow all the way through the album.
9. The Pendulums. Sean: This scampering Glasgow gang have gone tragically unrecognised, plowing a crooked furrow between freak-folk, childrens’ music and Scottish sing-along. In songs about gnomes, witches and brand new Commodore 64s, The Pendulums make a sound that’s at once kindly, daft and breathless. Their debut, Moon Mountain, was self-released this year and it’s the absolute opposite of the hipster-folk that crowds most New York lofts.
9. The Long Blondes. Simon: The sort of band you like to think you’d be hanging out with, although you’d probably be too in awe to approach them.
7. Kate Nash. Eddie: One of the finest songwriters the UK currently has to offer. Will be huge in 2007
6. Lily Allen. Tim: Yes .. I know .. but ‘Nan you’re a window shopper’ is a work of genius. Sean: “LDN” was enough to make me sew a little Lily Allen patch to my heart. There’s something so lovely, sassy and British to the lilt of her voice; a chip-stain, crisp-crackle, horn-honking and willow-tree pop.
5. Jarvis Cocker Tim: I’ve missed him since ‘his and hers’ and I think he might just be back. On the list mostly for ‘cunts are still ruling the world’.
4. Pipettes. Simon: Of course it’s all slightly arch - that’s what pop music does
Sean: Who are these people?! And how can I get them to write the new British national anthem?! Like some breathless mash-up of Ballboy, The Delgados and the Go Team!, “You! Me! Dancing!” is enough to make these Cardiff kids one of my brightest hopes for 2007. Eddie: Simplest the most fun band I’ve heard in years
Eddie: So much talent, such a unique sound. Mike: The most exciting unsigned band in the UK, one of many unsigned bands making the list. Sky Larkin are separated from the others by the frequently overwhelming, dark, upbeat, frantic and utterly charming songs they’ve shared with us. They are on a par with absolutely no-one. Not because their music is obscure and unplaceable, but because every track will angrily shake off any comparisson you try to stick on it.
Sky Larkin had this to say on receiving the award:
“We’ve always been grateful for the warmth we’ve received from the internet- as i’ve been finishing my studies in london we’ve had to spend long periods of time hundreds of miles apart, so we’ve used the net to keep in contact with each other as well as to make contact with the outside world. Its opened up many experiences for us and we haven’t released anything ‘officially’ yet so to be voted the band of the year is pretty overwhelming, so thanks!”
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Winners and Runners-Up, Sky Larkin and Los Campesinos play a 5 date tour together in Nottingham, Birmingham, Glasgow, Machester and London in the first five days of March. Go see the LOSKY CAMPELARKINOS! NME also report L.Camp are to release “We Throw Parties/Don’t tell me to do the math(s) on Wichita Records early next year.
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My own top ten, my top ten British tracks, and my podcast will be available tomorrow!
Hastily compiled: the best albums of the year. Not a vintage for year albums, a little worse for British artists with only two featuring in my list. Click artist for artist website, and album title for a link to buy the album…
10) Massive group album of the year I’m from Barcelona - Let me introduce my friends
An album i’m not excited about. Nor would I find myself recommending it top impress girls. But: I have listened to it a hell of a lot and when I consider it - It’s one of the best albums of the year. Indie-pop from guess where. Sweden. I could build a treehouse… but I spent way too much time listening to this superb work of pop from large groups of people who apparently aren’t actually that nice. But I haven’t met them all. So we’ll let the music sum them up….
"...Afrobeat has gone all desert-storm, with instrumental precision: an assault of funk and drum... the sandstorm churned up behind it betrays kilowatts of energy and a solar rhythm" [11th May: more] | [Photo credit]
"...like Sigur Ros recorded deep underground, only the roof has just caved in: the sky, echoes and space come together and begin to explode apart. Music shoots up, and rain falls in."
[27th December 2007: more]
