My favourite albums of 2011

Last year I was fairly underwhelmed with the music that was coming out, but thought that Robyn's album was the best.

This year, the music has been miles better, here is me top five, with a few notable runners up afterwards.

5. Lupercalia Patrick Wolf

A bit cheery compared to his earlier efforts, but still very successful, miles better than his last foray into happiness AKA the disaster that was Magic Position.





4. The Rip Tide Beirut


My only complaint about this album is that it's a bit too short, at only nine tracks. It's such a gorgeous album, best tracks are A Candle's Fire, Goshen and Santa Fe.



3. Let England Shake PJ Harvey

Never thought she'd release another album that I loved as much as White Chalk, but alas, she proved me wrong. Really pleased this got all of the credit it deserves.



2. Feel it Break Austra

I love having new bands to get excited about, and Austra is definitely my favourite new music of the year, it's pretty much my ideal type of music, female vocals, dark and maudlin electro pop. It's a stunning album, and the delux edition has a load of extras as well, including a b-side called Trip, which definitely should have made the album.



1. Biophilia Bjork

I'm sure people are bored of hearing me shiting on about how beautiful this album is, I shall direct you to my earlier gushing review of it.



The runner ups include: Collapse into Now R.E.M, EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK Glasvegas, 21 Adele is good if a little overrated, Born this Way Lady Gaga, Wounded Rhymes Lykke Li, In the Pit of the Stomach We Were Promised Jetpacks, Ordinary Alien Boy George, Ceremonials Florence and the Machine, and of course 50 Words for Snow Kate Bush, which I love, but it's not as good as I had hoped, I really don't like Elton John's vocals at all, and her son's singing drives me bonkers, I thought the album would be as good as disc two of Aerial, but for me the concept just falls a bit short, a colleague's review of it made me laugh: 'it's a shame a producer didn't think to say, perhaps you should stop at 35 words?' Misty is one of the stronger songs but does it really have to be 13 minutes long? I appreciate the pace, and the fact that the songs are quite spacious, but it just doesn't work for me. I thought Director's Cut was stronger. Another runner up, is Mount Wittenberg Orca Dirty Projectors, which was technically released in 2010, but came out as a physical release this year, check that out it's wonderful. The new Amy Winehouse release is alright too, obviously not a patch on her two studio albums, but it's worth having.

beaaautiful things

Just been clearing out some old stuff from uni, and found a big pile of records I bought when I was in my first and second year (2004-2006ish). I went through a phase of buying them to stick on my wall, I don't have a record player so they're not a great deal of use to me beyond their aesthetics. Luckily, my favourites are all pretty beautiful.

When I first got into music (1994) Cyndi Lauper and Sinead O'Connor were the artists that excited me most, perhaps odd choices for an eight year old boy, but never mind. They still stand out as two of the best pop singers in the world for me, I've seen Cyndi Lauper live three times now, and get to see Sinead for the first time in July as part of the Manchester International Festival (also get to see Bjork for the third time the following day).













(detail)





I love the artwork for True Colors, particularly the back. The newspaper skirts is one of my favourite things she wore, nice little nod to her first album too in the bottom right hand corner.













She's so bloody beautiful:



I normally like quite abstract and concept-heavy album artwork, but I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got is one of my favourite album covers ever, and it's just her face:





Here's a bit of miscellaneous:







Also, me and the mother went to Durham today (mainly to get my glasses fixed, but alas specsavers was closed). We went to the Oxfam bookshop and she bought me this:



If it's anything as good as the Naked Civil Servant or Englishman in New York then I'm in for a treat.

Political Spectrum...

I've just done this Political Spectrum Quiz, which is fairly interesting, once you get the results you can see the average, and also compare your views with other demographics.

Apparently the average is Left Libertarian, but only slightly.

You are a left moderate social libertarian.
Left: 4.85, Libertarian: 3.47

My Political Views
I am a left moderate social libertarian
Left: 4.85, Libertarian: 3.47



Foreign Policy:

On the left side are pacifists and anti-war activists. On the right side are those who want a strong military that intervenes around the world. You scored: -3.76

My Foreign Policy Views
Score: -3.76



Culture:

Where are you in the culture war? On the liberal side, or the conservative side? This scale may apply more to the US than other countries. You scored: -6.7

My Culture War Stance
Score: -6.7



Try it yourselves!

for richer, for richer...

This might seem a bit irrelevant now, I wrote it ages ago, but never mind...



I resent the need to tick a ‘Mr’ box when filling in a form, I resent even more that women are bullied into ticking a box that denotes not only their gender identity but also indicates whether or not they are shackled in marriage. I resent that anyone should feel obligated to a title that only relates to them as an individual because society dictates that we should be shoehorned into vague and meaningless subcategories. The only titles that have my approval are those that are earned; Doctor, Professor, at a push Reverend (but don’t get me started on that...). That said it is probably unsurprising that the royal family is an institution I don’t hold in very high regard.

If a Tory government-induced class war and a sea of mass employment hasn’t done it, then April’s royal wedding certainly reminded us that we are living in the 1980s all over again, but this time we don’t have The Smiths to document our melancholy, and extreme make up and skinny jeans are so common place now that it is difficult for our rebellion to be a visual one.

With bland upper-class heteronormativity rammed down our parched throats, I can’t help but beg the question: were we really expected to care about this? I am stunned that even well rounded and forward thinking people seemed to be over-awed with blind jingoistic hyperbole over the importance of the wedding that stretched far beyond the desire for an extra day off work. I would happily have attended work that day and seen the royals flock out in market-stall civvies and concede that they are a superfluous institution that has no place in our beautiful, diverse and progressive country in 2011.

Some would argue that the royal family is an imperative part of our tourist trade, this I don’t doubt, but no one visits London to actually physically see the queen. If the royals all spontaneously evaporated the history would still remain. What’s more, Buckingham Palace could be opened as a public heritage site, which would become a tourist attraction of world wide importance. The queen could perhaps work in the gift shop, so that she could contribute more effectively to the country as a tax payer. As it stands, we perch on eager tip-toes in vain attempts to peer through a far distant and well-guarded window because a cocked flag informs us that an elderly woman who we’re told is of importance and worthy of our affections and attention is in residence.

The very same dangerous right-wing red-tops that, when taking a break from blaming immigrants, gays and New Labour for AIDs, climate change and cancer, berate our benefit system and those who abuse it, seem rendered gooey-eyed and overcome with syrupy sentimentality for the royals, a family that, essentially, do not work and are living off the state.

Their various charitable commitments are purely obligation, partly because they have little else to do with their time but also because they have to justify their existences somehow. Diana broke this mould by investing her heart as well as her face and time to worthy causes, including controversially challenging the taboos surrounding AIDs.

No one should be applauded or celebrated just because of who they are. You will not have seen me lining the roads waving my St. George’s flag like a raving nationalist, more likely was I at home screaming into a pillow at this bizarre royal fever that seems to be contagious. As it happens, I cranked Kate Bush up full volume and had a large scale spring clean of the flat and garden, I didn’t leave the house, I didn’t switch on the TV and I didn’t read a newspaper, I successfully avoided it.

As someone who works in Higher Education, fearing for the implications of the Tory cuts and barbaric fee increases whilst struggling to make ends meet, and as a proud member of the LGBTQ society for whom equal marriage rights with our heterosexual brothers and sisters are denied, was I genuinely supposed to feel enthused about this wedding? Am I expected as a British citizen to feel that a man born into gross and unearned privilege and a woman (who has patronisingly been referred to as ‘common’, which in this case simply means ‘not yet royalty’) tying the knot to induct her into an archaic, patriarchal and irrelevant institution at lavish and unjustified expense is cause for me to celebrate?

I will take a lot of convincing.

My favourite albums of 2010

I attempted to draw up a list of my favourite albums of 2010, but realised it had been a fairly poor year for music because I couldn’t manage a top ten, I could manage a top three. This might be my own fault, as I have spent the vast majority of the year listening to Fever Ray’s album (from 2009), which I got into a little later than everyone else.

3. ‘Tomorrow, in a year’ The Knife in collaboration with Mt. Sims and Planningtorock



An electro- opera about Charles Darwin, sounds a bit niche (and is) and is fairly hard to listen to initially but once you can start picking out the melodies it becomes easier on the ear. My favourite review of this said: “as a continuous hour and half movement that mercilessly evokes the sheer, fuckoff, awful, inhuman immensity of the natural world, it bloody well works.”

Best songs: Annie’s Box, Colouring of pigeons, The height of summer (that said the album works much better a whole rather than as individual songs).

2. ‘Swanlights’ Antony and the Johnsons



I think this is their most solid and mature album yet, bit more challenging than their last three, but a little more rewarding too. The version of Thank you for your love that he did on Jools Holland was infinitely better than the album version, musically and lyrically (he modified the lyric to say ‘I am the enemy/ the enemy of the earth,/ I don’t know how/ how to stop giving birth’), so my only complaint would be that the album version of that wasn’t - for me- the definitive version.

Best songs: The spirit was gone, Ghost, Salt Silver Oxygen, Christina’s farm.

1. ‘Body talk’ Robyn



Robyn is easily the best thing in pop right now. The trio of albums worked well as far as I’m concerned, I enjoyed the consistent output- it could have failed miserably but didn’t, because the quality of the music was always very high. It’s astounding that someone could produce so many brilliant songs in one year. This review of the lead single ‘Dancing on my own’ in the Guardian is amazing.

Best songs: Love kills, Call your girlfriend, Time machine, We dance to the beat, Indestructible, None of Dem (with Röyksopp) and Dancing on my own.

Honourable mentions: ‘Grey Oceans’ CocoRosie, ‘Memphis Blues’ Cyndi Lauper, ‘Senior’ Röyksopp, ‘Nobody’s Daughter’ Hole, ‘The Family Jewels’ Marina and the Diamonds.

Albums I'm looking forward to in 2011: Adele, R.E.M, PJ Harvey, Nelly Furtado, Hercules and Love Affair, Lady Gaga, Amy Winehouse.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas, and have a healthy and happy 2011!

my booooots

look at my beautiful boots!

some more work on my arm

I had some more work done on my arm. I'm really pleased with it now, it's really starting to look like a really cohesive and complete sleeve. It consists of a new flower (which was done free-hand and is the best one yet, I think), some writing on the inside of my forearm and a bit of shading around Flaubert:









So next I need to get another flower on my elbow, to join up the other two, and then complete the shading around Flaubert and the newest flowers. Exciting times!

most recent ink addition

Here's the most recent work I've had done on me sleeeeve. I had it done two weeks ago or so on 29th Feb at my usual place in Leeds (http://www.inkvssteel.co.uk/ if you're interested, which you should be- highly recommended).

I got a new flower on my elbow-pit, three new little leaves and Flaubert Flament got an outline:

Obviously the leaves will be green eventually.

Here's the flower up close, it wasn't very painful but definitely the tattoo of mine with the most traumatic healing process - wrapping it up with clingfilm restricted my arm movement, and it was much more tender to the touch than any of my others, also right along the elbow crease it didn't really get the chance to heal, so scabbed over, and is ever so slightly faded there:

And here is Flaubert up close, he's positively glowing now. I actually saw him smile for the first time once he'd been outlined. It might have been wind though:

Here's a picture of it in context with the rest of my arm:

So next I'll get the leaves filled in, and some shading around the flower and Flaubert to match the top of my arm, then I'm getting a flower here: (excuse the crude drawing, I'm no Paint expert)

and some writing here:

Hopefully I'll be able to get more work on it in early April, Ideally I'd like it all done by my birthday on the 17th, but that all depends on my finances.

love love x

Flaubert le flamant

C'est Flaubert le flamant sur mon forearm.

Salut Flaubert! C'etait le deux semaine anniversaire de Flaubert hier.

Félicitations mon Flaubert!

x