We've all spent the last eleven days reading our friend's resolutions for the year MMXV, trawling through the ubiquitous 'exercise more' and 'eat fewer cakes' for the slightly more unusual ones like 'flying my kite' or 'writing the date in roman numerals'.
I've got nothing to offer other than the predictable parameters of improvement but I feel that I should probably note them down somewhere other than a scrupled bit of paper on my desk or the equivalent neuronal network in my newly hungover brain.
So when I find myself answering a question with a question I am going to explain to myself that it is okay to answer things, to generate a debate about the answer if needs be and to back myself and my reasoning. I am a person with opinions and, in election year, that is probably a good thing to be.
I am also going to try to resist the comfy, hyggeligt confines of the sofa and the television. I know how How I Met Your Mother ends, I don't need to watch repeats. Time runs out on everyone, like the folklore housewife with the milkman, and it is best to run with it than to repeat ad infinitum a routine to which you have become too accustomed and too dulled in the mind to break.
My other resolution is to write more than I did in 2014. I've always found it cathartic to put down in words a feeling or thought in my head and last year I felt that I let that slip. 2015 will be a year in which things are written and about which things will be written. Life, however mundane, is worth documenting, for each is peppered with hopes and dreams that come true.
Feed your Head said the graffiti on the cubicle wall and I obeyed.
This song has been my yuletide ear worm. It is in no way christmassy or festive but I think the sentiment often sums up the 25th in all its wacky glory.
I've gone and done a list of things that made my ears happy this year and, because nobody wanted to read it on the student newspaper website, I decided that you lot out there in the internet wonderland may be more inclined to give a monkeys. So here it is, a countdown from ten to one of my favourite albums released in 2014. (But, obviously, I've only really been listening to the R Kelly musical.)
10 The War On Drugs - Lost in the Dream
To open an album with a nine minute epic is a bold move but when that epic is as strong as Under The Pressure is then you’re on to a winner. Of course Lost in the Dream is not short on long songs — only three of the songs clock in at under five minutes (and one of those by a sliver at a comparatively brief 4:59. This is an album that pays homage to the garage guitar jams of yesteryear, once thought to be extinct. The album opens with a brilliant 1-2 punch, the aforementioned personal favourite is followed up with critics’ favourite Red Eyes. Though the album is heavily indebted to Springsteen, it never feels dated. In fact it feels like a road trip to reinvention, a road trip with a truly superb soundtrack.
9 Juan Wauters – N.A.P. North American Poetry
Up until just a few weeks ago, I had no idea that this Uruguay born New Yorker even existed. For the last week or so though my life, or at least my listening life, has revolved around his debut record N.A.P. North American Poetry – and poetic it undoubtedly is. As well as the all-too-brief All Tall Mall Will Fall, the singles Water and Sanity or Not are standout moments, with the former’s motif of ‘Who is it that I am? What is it that I’m for?’ shuffling its way into my favourite lyrics of all time. This collection of thirteen little songs, some in English and some in Spanish, has rapidly become my crutch whilst walking home in the early evening murk.
8 Bombay Bicycle Club – So Long, See You Tomorrow
In a world saturated with the paint-by-numbers, copycat garbage of 21st century electronic dance music it is refreshing to see a band or artist with an interest in exploring what electronic music and samples in particular can achieve. For BBCs fourth record, Jack Steadman and Co. have delved further into the world that they toyed with on their previous record and, in doing so, have moved further away from the jingly guitar pop of their 2009 debut. Yes, those elements are still there, but they settle lower in the mix and coexist perfectly with both synth and sampler. The dark sweaty beats of Carry Me set the tone before the Bollywood-sourced intro in Feel segues into a samba inducing floor filler.
7 Jamie T – Carry on the Grudge
The world has missed Jamie T, of that there is no doubt. His return from the wilderness is that of a maturing talent that is playful when it wishes and passionate when it needs to be. Zombie is a hark back, a doff of the cap, to the Jamie T of a few years ago who wrote anthems for the indie kids in Hoxton dives. Songs like Mary Lee and They Told Me It Rained are cinematic in their sound and their scope. Throughout however it is evident that this is a cathartic record, soothing the untold sores of his exodus. For an artist who has made a career out of peering through the glass into the excesses of urban youth, as the big ‘three zero’ approaches it is he himself who is subject to that observation. This is a heartfelt and raw record that exposes the soft underbelly of the twentysomething.
6 Real Estate – Atlas
It was on a train back to London that I truly fell in love with Atlas. This is a record for staring out of a window in stifled silence watching the world undulate and melt away as commuter town after commuter town plod by. This is an exercise in melancholia, about places where you grew up and the places that you find yourself now and how when returning to those childhood haunts everything seems to have lost its lustre a little; your life now lived through an Instagram filter. Opener Had to Hear is strong enough to draw you in but it is moments like the instrumental April’s Song that keep you there. The album is awash with beautifully crafted textures that conjure up a world where an arrested sunset shone over the entire recording process. This is an accomplished and beautiful record.
5 Avi Buffalo – At Best Cuckold
Much like Jamie T, Avi Buffalo is also a man returning from self-imposed exile. I last bear witness to him at Latitude 2011, visibly drunk at midday, playing an almost infinite guitar solo at the end of Remember Last Time off his debut record. He’s returned three years later with the sentimental and oft sexual At Best Cuckold. For a man who so easily slips between The Shins and Simon & Garfunkel, the album never feels disjointed, with faster songs like So What and Memories of You sitting happily beside the delicate and delicious Two Cherished Understandings and Overwhelmed with Pride.Think It’s Gonna Happen Again is a pop song that could have been written at any point between 1960 and the present day and is a fine example of the surreal, bordering on hallucinatory nature of Avi’s lyrics. This is another exemplary record from the Californian prodigy, that is both whimsical and earnest and damn near close to the perfection of his craft.
4 Damon Albarn – Everyday Robots
Since his Blur days, Damon Albarn has had his fingers in many pies — Mali Music, The Good, The Bad & The Queen and of course Gorillaz. Each one of those projects can be heard on this his first proper solo record. By the end of the eponymous first song you know that you are one of the robots that Albarn is singing about. This is a record about a Londoner — and this is undoubtedly a London record — so concerned with their virtual life in digital media that they’re unaware of the real world passing them by. Coupled with the intimate and reflective lyrics, Everyday Robots feels like a glimpse into Albarn’s inner workings and with the singsongs of first Mr. Tembo and then Heavy Seas of Love, sung by the great Brian Eno, you feel part of an exorcism of those 21st century demons and, even better, that exorcism is so personal that it feels like it takes place in Damon Albarn’s living room.
3 Fear of Men – Loom
Loom is a debut dripping in despair or, at least, deep internal turmoil. At times lead singer Jess alludes to being haunted by feelings for a past lover and at others she laments the suffocation that was felt in that relationship. At a gig in London a few months ago, I was impressed by the band’s ability to transition with relative ease from frenetic energy to thoughtful tenderness although, in hindsight, this shouldn’t have come as a surprise given the rumbling ascent to crescendo in the epic Inside. And, although Luna is the standout track — perhaps the only one strong enough to stand alone — the album as a whole is a triumph and one that I’ve enjoyed from start to finish. Loom is a dish best served in the bleakness of a weeknight and one that on many occasions has warranted second and even third helpings.
2 Alvvays – Alvvays
Some may argue that Alvvays warrants inclusion based solely on the strength of Archie, Marry Me, undoubtedly one of the best songs of the decade. However, this isn’t just a vehicle for a great song, this is a fantastic guitar pop record. Adult Diversion, the tale of an awkward crush, is the shimmering instigator of many a bopping head as are the equally catchy Next of Kin and Atop A Cake. When the momentum slows, there are also great moments to be heralded, the drum-machine-backed Ones Who Love You being a personal favourite. This is an album that feels like it was written between house parties and centrepiece Party Police alludes to this, with Molly Rankin’s vocal at its most emotional and raw, “you don’t have to leave, you could just stay here with me, forget about the party police, we could find comfort in debauchery”. Since its humble beginning as a tape handed out after shows in Toronto, Alvvays is a record that demands and deserves to be listened to.
1 Mac DeMarco – Salad Days
For the uninitiated, Mac Demarco is a New York based Canadian slacker who through the simple art of pitch shifting has created a gap in the market in which to fit his off-kilter alt-pop. On his third offering, we find Mac seemingly disenchanted with his life as a touring artist and as an onstage joker. The lyric, always feeling tired, smiling when required from the title track is a sentiment that many can empathise with; these are tales from the treadmill and Mac desperately wishes to disembark. Salad Days deserves the number one spot for many reasons. This is a record that sounds different to almost everything else I’ve listened to this year, it’s a record that is innovative and most of all it has some of the strongest songwriting of 2014. It isn’t afraid to disappear briefly into the realms of psychedelic rock at the end of Brother, before meandering back to a delicate and stripped back love song about preventing immigration from deporting his girlfriend in Let My Baby Stay. For Mac, the inclusion of synth led tracks is a departure from his previous record, Chamber of Reflection is rapidly ascending the fan’s favourites list for its synth motif and The Beatles-esque imagery. Some may never fall for Mac’s charms but I, for one, am besotted with this oddball, a man with music in his veins, and stardom waiting in the wings.
I'm back home for Christmas, we've put the tree up and my schedule is as blank as the Arctic tundra. It is time to relax for the first time since July.
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