I suppose it is some sort of sense of responsibility caused by the occasional evidence that there are in fact people who read this, but I do feel bad when this thing goes unupdated for weeks. These things happen every now and then – I love writing about music, but sometimes writer’s block strikes or my attention shifts away to other things for a while and this little thing goes a bit quiet. Add to that that we’re still only in February and that there’s been barely any new music released that’s got the creative juices flowing with first impression things, and that my current listening habits have been very scattershot rather than focused enough to make me write about older music in passionate fervour. Good thing this is just a hobby rather than something I’m paid for!
In any case, as an attempt to show some signs of life till things get properly going again, here’s a small listener’s diary of what I’ve been spending time with lately.
Videowatch: December 2011/January 2012
This month, we’re winding down from a busy exam/essay period with a double-whammy of videos from the last legs of last year and the first hops of the new one.
Welcome to the grand final of the official ten best albums of 2011. If you’ve somehow missed the past two entries where we looked at the first five albums and the ones that not quite made it, or just feel too lazy to go back to the front page, you can access them easily via making a handy new browser tab from this tag list.
What will be #1? Does anyone but me care? Click the cut or scroll down to find out!
The top 10 countdown of 2011 proper begins now! After the cut, the bottom quintet of great 2011 music.
Happy new year ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another year of infrequent random updates by yours truly. Maybe this year I’ll even get a new banner sorted that isn’t as horribly five-minute-photoshop-rush-work as the current one (not to mention the amazing Irfanview work on the official best of banner above).
As is tradition among the music writing world, it’s time for best of 2011 lists. Well, for me – most of the world already released theirs in December but I like to stretch it to January, if only to give me more time to think about the whole thing while listening to the albums over and over again. This year it’s been especially hard – 2011 was a very good music year. Whilst it lacked the sort of albums that legends are made of, it produced an overwhelming number of great, exciting and constantly rewarding releases that made music snobbery such a fantastic pastime throughout the 12 months. In fact, the number was so overwhelming that when it came to making a top ten list it became downright painful to strip away some albums from the coveted ten slots.
So I came up with blatantly stole this idea: runner-ups and honourable mentions. Albums that didn’t make it to the top ten but which nonetheless form a big part of why the year was such a good one. So before we tackle the medal winners, we’ll first touch upon five albums that didn’t quite make it to the finals but which are definite highlights of the year for me, one reason or another. Presented in alphabetical order.
Foxy Christmas
Rambling Fox is taking an appropriate Christmas / New Year’s break, and will be returning some time in January with all the obligatory best-of-2011 lists. Hope you have a great holiday season! After the break, some tasty Flint-approved Christmas treats to tide you over the season.
Viola Music Club 2011 roundtable
Time for another roundtable of the Viola Music Club releases for the past year; changed opinions, evolved thoughts and such alike. Which also seems to be like the last roundtable for a while, after the duo’s recent announcement about going on an indefinite hiatus. Which is a bummer. Viola‘s been one of those names I’ve followed since their debut album and it’s always been rather nice to have some new release of theirs coming around the corner, especially with the monthly treats on VMC. Still, they’ve left us with loads of fantastic songs with a lot of great memories involved, and the faint optimistic glimmer of some more music coming up someday is still there.
Each VMC year so far has had its own distinct personality in terms of the general style and nature of the songs. For the third year, there’s a sense of adventure and exploration in the music. The whimsical freedom of expression that VMC2010 was filled with has been retained, but is now being used in a more cohesive sense to serve an overall vision rather than going off on random sidepaths. While you have the token giddy summer songs and other occasional sidepaths, VMC2011 is mostly about atmosphere and mood: taking the moodiness that Viola have often been good at and stretching that into grand, evocative soundscapes. A lot of songs break new ground in terms of sound, but most of them emphasise the same aspects. There’s a cohesiveness to VMC2012 – whether planned or simply my delusions, it’s hard to say.
Without further ado, Viola 2012 according to moi.
Though I wish I didn’t have to.
“”So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good night”
There’s a time and place for everything and our time has come to put this project aside for the time being.
Starting next year we will be some thousand miles apart from each other so making music as Viola will be quite difficult for now. Still, we wanted to bring the third calendar year of Viola Music Club to completion.
This is not definitely the end of Viola. We might surprise ourselves and you by suddenly activating ourselves at some point of time, but that’s all in the unforeseeable future for now.
So with a song we bid you adieu.”
Oh for sod’s sake, I only just got over R.E.M. splitting up and now I have to get used to months without new Viola songs?
The official goodbye song has been posted on the website. Thoughts about it will follow when I do my end-of-year Viola roundup. Thoughts about the whole thing in general will probably be there too.
Have a great future whatever it is you’re doing next, guys!
Videowatch: November
Random Youtube video of the day
You know a song is good when someone can edit out all of its lead parts, leaving only the things in the background mix, and the final result still sounds amazing. Which is what someone on Youtube did to Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ “Snow (Hey Oh)” in order to highlight John Frusciante’s backing vocal work in it. And the resulting “version” of the song is actually really, really good – John’s peaceful vocals together with sparse and sometimes distant instruments (the latter thanks to the home-made editing) is a downright wow-level ‘reinterpretation’ of the song. And did you ever even realise how the song actually has bongos and a piano?
Seriously good, out of the most unexpected and random things.
You know, we could really do with another Frusciante solo album now that he has so much free time.
