Jimmy E's Music List Mania

Greetings folks. While I’ve been moving backwards in time, revisiting years prior to my first one of these end-of-year-best-of-round-up blog thingies back in 2009, you’ll be pleased to read I have no intention to do any ‘best of the decade’ meanderings. No, just the usual drill, like so: Disappointments It’s not like any artist did anything bad, per se, it’s more like too much hype killing any chance of something meeting expectations let alone exceeding them. Or the bands give an inch but the punters wanted the whole hand. Or subjectivity. Something like that. Except for 65daysofstatic with “replicr, 2019”. Goodness knows what that’s supposed to be. There is better ambient and better post-rock out there, so this was sadly a waste of time for all involved. Oh, and Raised Fist with “Anthems”. It’s like the band outsourced the writing of the music and lyrics, and their social media post, to a bunch of 12 year olds. Fans and critics seem to like it though; goodness knows what pla...

See “Best of 2008” for a general introduction, and the 2006 one for comments about how the years around now seem to be where it all came together. Antony and the Johnsons – I am a Bird now I thought this wasn’t my sort of thing at the time , and I couldn’t have cared less about the Mercury Music Prize and the controversy around singer/pianist Antony Hegarty’s (now Anohni) UK vs US eligibility. But with a little encouragement from a friend far more forward-thinking and open-minded than I can be (hopefully just sometimes, I flatter myself), I gave it the time of day and then I fell in love with it. A totally unique and beautiful sound. Coheed and Cambria – Good Apollo I’m Burning Star IV, Volume 1: From Fear Through The Eyes of Madness Less pop-pun k than its two predecessors, this record wears its prog-rock influences on its sleeve (Led Zeppelin – Welcome Home, Pink Floyd – The Final Cut), perhaps, but this is definitely an example of great artists stealing than mere g...

See “Best of 2008” for a general introduction, but otherwise…what a year 2006 was! And 2005 before it! I can’t remember without looking, which I haven’t done yet, whether 2004 and earlier can be added to make a several-year block, but I’ll find out soon enough. Some of my favourite albums ever were released in these years. I would have been in my second and third years of university so perhaps these were formative years – while I was 20/21 and this may seem a tad late I think perhaps my formative years were a bit later than a lot of people’s. But anyway, get a load of these gems. Converge – No Heroes One of my favourite records ever, and in my opinion the Salem, Massachusetts hardcore kings’ second greatest, after Jane Doe. I gather many would pick You Fail Me for this accolade but for me No Heroes has more to offer. I recall Jeremy Bolm from Touche Amore picking this record as one of his favourites, and saying the first five tracks were all classics. Agreed, certainly, but ...

For an introduction, see the "Best of 2008" entry. Battles - Mirrored I find it difficult to describe exactly what it is about rock bands that aren't straightforward, especially without using the word "quirky". Quirk-rock, how's that for a genre name? Anyway, what are some words and phrases I can use for Battles? Experimental. Keyboards. Maths? Odd sounds. Off-kilter. A drummer who is a machine in a man's body and yet wears a collared shirt to play gigs (Mike Portnoy and Danny Carey wear vests, but then the old jazz drummers wore full suits back in the day.) If it's a successful experiment does that mean it's not an experiment anymore? This is not beautiful music to shed a tear to late at night, but it is jolly good fun to listen to, especially with others. Between the Buried and Me - Colors I've quoted it before and I'll quote it again, but BTBAM are the "thinking person's hardcore band". Hardcore because it has...

Nostalgia's big right now. Has been for a while. But I'm quite a nostalgic person anyway. With mixed results - replaying old Zelda games (Ocarina onwards) rarely fails to bring me pleasure, and I even enjoyed Wind Waker and Majora's Mask more the second time through, but then as good as Breath of the Wild was, it didn't ultimately feel like a Zelda game to me and I wouldn't rate it in my top few. And I have a bit of a weird thing about Christmas, daydreaming about it from Spring onwards, being really sad when it's over, never quite enjoying it as much as I wanted to, or did when I was a materialist little child in the snow. I keep a few traditions - munching my way through all the Christmas sandwiches, the Radio Times double issue, celebrity University Challenge, a ritual listen of AFI's the Art of Drowning (even when it doesn't snow) and Tool's Lateralus (a Christmas present from my sister), rewatches of The Nightmare Before Christmas (no explanatio...