Best of 2009

I mentioned end of decade reviews in my last post and promised I wouldn't do something similar. However, I didn't say anything about end of year reviews...

In no particular order (this is just the way they ended up on the playlist) I'd happily lay my knackers on the line and say these were the best ten songs of 2009. Some have trod the boards on a number of these lists, others haven't. Give them a go - the albums they're from are all excellent too.

1. Two - The Antlers: Concept albums are generally a bad idea, a hangover from the three day drum solos of prog past. A concept about a terminal illness is something even the most hardened proggers would've thought was perhaps a shade too far into the ether. However, on Hospice, The Antlers have created something emotionally and aurally breathtaking, and Two is the high point (low point?) of the record.
2. Super Trouper - Camera Obscura: Before I say anything else I have to admit that has always been my favourite ABBA song from when I first heard as a child to the present day (hell, as I write this sentence I've got the video for the original open in another window and I'm in awe of the wooly cardies). As a kid I think it was the "soopapa troopapa" backing vocals that drew me to song. Camera Obscura's version is a lot more downbeat with nary a soopapa in sight but it sounds epically world weary.
3. Winter Winds - Mumford & Sons: Despite sounding like a removal company, Mumford & Sons were responsible for one of 2009's best albums. It kept me sane on many a tedious bus journey into work and for that alone I'll always be grateful.
4. The Lisbon Maru - Fuck Buttons: The Lisbon Maru was a Japanese troop carrier sunk by American forces off Shanghai in 1942. Unbeknownst to the submarine that attacked the ship it was carrying over 1800 Allied POWs at the time and only 750 survived. I knew none of this the first time I heard this song and I'm not going to claim that it acts as a fitting memorial or captures the feelings of those involved. It is simply one of the most affecting pieces of instrumental music I've ever heard.
5. We Want War - These New Puritans: Given the story behind the title of the previous song I'm thinking I should've put more thought into the running order of this top ten. Musically they do follow on from each other I think. We Want War was probably the strangest thing I'd heard in a while and it does sound like it'd be the first choice on the Four Horsemen's playlist - Apocalypse Now (sorry, I should be shot for that).
6. Moon Occults the Sun - Espers: Spectral baroque folk? Ghost blues? Morose rock? Doesn't really matter what people want to call it when it's this good and this unique. I prefer to think of it as the music I would play to misguided Emos in an attempt to demonstrate that there's significantly more to making emotionally engaging music that Kohl pencil and "woe is me" songwriting.
7. Nearly Home - Broken Records: I wrote about Broken Records before when I saw them supporting The National back in summer. Seven months later and the album's still going strong. "Build it all over and start again" - wise words.
8. Summertime Clothes - Animal Collective: Just as well this lot have been such a big hit online as the amount of coverage they've had over the past few months would've decimated several rainforests. This song's ace, 'nuff said.
9. Love Vigilantes - Iron & Wine: Lots of songs get covered and the majority are insipid or uninspired versions, usually knocked out by some TV talent show winner or jaded star trying to get their career back on track. Not all of them though. The best covers usually take a song you thought you knew inside out and show it to you in a completely different light. I'm not sure I've heard this done so effectively as Sam Beam does it here.
10. Arming Eritrea - Future of the Left: FOTL are a band who are pretty much guaranteed to get into a Top Ten playlist I put together provided they release something that year. What's not to like - visceral rage, mad lyrics that somehow make sense and excellent sideburns. Let's get them to number one next Christmas.

And that's that. Same time, same place January 2011?

It's been a while...

Happy New Year and all that. Any kind of readership I have must by now have deserted me in their droves (well, ones and twos). The last time I sat down and did this was back in October and without checking the blog I'm not even sure I can remember what I wrote about. I've just checked - it was about moving home to Edinburgh and I actually wrote the line "expect more posts." Ah well.

So, a new year and decade are upon us and with them came the inevitable slew of Noughties review supplements, shows, blog posts and the like. Don't worry, that's not why I dusted down the computer and got my writing mitts on. I've got a playlist on iTunes that's a best of the Noughties type of thing but there's no need to bombard the internet with any more of that. I'm back on the blog trail because I find myself with more time on my hands and something to write about...

It's December 22nd, I'm finishing up another day of drudgery and thinking about the Christmas presents I still haven't bought (namely all of them). I'm taken into the boardroom and we have the chat. I'm being let go. Shite. Not going to go into the nitty gritty of it all but it wasn't much fun.

Cut to today - it's the first day back for most people in Scotland and it's felt like the first day of whatever comes next for me. My CV has been raised from the dead and brought back to life with a couple of healthy shocks to the nipples. Job sites have been joined and I've even managed to apply for one job so far.

There is a certain feeling of deja vu about the whole situation. Twice in the past I've written blogs about job hunting (I can only find one of them) and it looks like it might be a road I'm going down again. However, I feel like I'll be blogging more in general as I now have the time and, more importantly, the inclination to do so again.

The last few months of my previous job were like the arse end of a shitty relationship neither side seems to have the guts to end. In that respect I suppose I'm glad I'm out of it as it was impacting on my life as a whole and that's one of the reasons I didn't write much of anything.

Of course, the financial side of things is slightly less comforting and there is always the thought at the back of my mind that this is not the best time to be looking for a new job. We'll soon see...

I'm coming home, I've done my time

It's been a while. I could make some kind of excuse but that's pretty pointless for two reasons:

• Scatman John tribute bands have played to bigger audiences than the one that reads this blog so the lack of posts has gone by pretty much unnoticed
  
• my lack of writing is ultimately down to laziness

It has been a fairly insane few weeks though and I now find myself back in Edinburgh, living with Mama and Papa Menopause and wondering just how the fuck I ended up here. The Mancunian adventure was short-lived, didn't quite work out the way it was supposed to and I'm living back in the familial bosom for the first time in ten years. Expect more posts as I try and reacquaint myself with the fact I'm back with my family and the friends who've known me longer than anyone else.

(Just realised that last sentence sounds like the tagline from some arse-clenchingly bad reality TV show - apologies)

Leaked Report: 96% of Management Consultant Reports 'Bollocks'

A leaked report, apparently commissioned by management consultants Price Waterhouse Coopers, claims that 96% of management consultancy reports are "complete and utter bollocks." The report is scathing in its criticisms of the consultancy business. The author, who has now left PWC, claims that companies would save far more money by implementing sensible hiring and business practices, rather than running "blathering, chequebook in hand, to consultancy firms and treating them as shamans and mystics who can mysteriously solve everything."

The report is particularly critical of the language used by consultants and the senior management at the companies they work with:

Most of the language used by consultants (and indeed the majority of our clients' senior management) is an attempt to sound more intelligent and important than they actually are. We tend to spend a lot of our time in meetings and giving presentations rather than doing any real work and as such we have little to show in the way of results. Rather than increasing a company's revenue, looking at ways it could develop its employees or plotting the future course of the company, we prefer to make speeches, give presentations and write motivational emails using popular buzzwords and phrases. A straw poll among my colleagues showed that "focus on focus," "mission critical" and any reference to "synergy" are our current favourites.

The report concluded by saying that the essence of consultancy is "little more than charlatanry dressed up as a form of business intelligence." It goes on to say that the leading consultancies exist "for no appreciable reason other than to charge equally pompous executives a shitload to tell them what, for most people, should be self-evident."

Senior executives at PWC today would not give any further information with regards to the identity of the report's author and why it was commissioned. However, sources have indicated that it was written at the same time as another recently leaked report, "Advertising: Selling People Shit They Don't Want or Need," written by a former employee at DDB London. The offices of both companies are close to a West London branch of Starbucks which was closed recently after traces of sodium thiopental were discovered.

Broken - Soulsavers (V2, August 17th 2009)

Like many people of a certain age, the first I heard of Mark Lanegan was Nearly Lost You, Screaming Trees 1992 song that ended up on the soundtrack of Singles (this is their network TV debut on the Letterman Show - ace but slightly unsettling due to the fact they seem to have OJ Simpson playing drums for them). Since then he's released solo albums, had stints with Queens of the Stone Age, teamed up somewhat incongruously with former Belle & Sebastian chanteuse Isobel Campbell and has now pitched up with English production team Soulsavers and their third album, Broken.

With every album and project he's embarked on, Lanegan's voice has seemed to sink deeper into the past and on Broken he sounds as if he's broadcasting from some antidiluvian radio station with the weight of foreknowledge bearing down hard on his soul. Due to my excitement and anticipation I made the mistake of listening to Broken on my way into work this morning. It's not a morning album. Hell, I'm writing this at 10pm with a glass of wine, the only light in the room is a small lamp and the glow from my laptop but it still feels I'm listening to this record at least four or five hours before I should. Tracks like instrumental opener The Seventh Proof, Palace Brothers' cover You Will Miss Me When I Burn and Pharoah's Chariot sound as if they should be filed alongside Closing Time or The Boatman's Call - melancholic slow marches to soundtrack the longest and darkest nights.

It's not all about Mark Lanegan though. Australian singer/songwriter Red Ghost takes lead vocals on epic album closer By My Side, duets with Lanegan on Rolling Sky and provides backing on You Will Miss Me When I Burn. Her vocals bring a different texture to Lanegan's but fit the tone of the album perfectly. Hopefully this cameo will give her the exposure she clearly merits (her cover of King of Leon's Molly's Chambers needs to be heard by anyone who gives two fucks about music).

Broken isn't perfect - Death Bells sounds like something Screaming Trees might've knocked off during a fag break in the early 90s - but fans of any of Mark Lanegan's past projects will find plenty to keep them going here. Just don't try using it to gee the troops.

Scotland's not for Me

According to reports in today's Guardian and other news sources, a campaign is underway in the States to boycott all things Scottish as a protest against the Scottish government's decision to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.

Leaving aside the questions about the legitamacy of the trial and the verdict itself, a lot about this campaign is questionable. The motives are clear but the logic behind the campaign is at best convulted, at worst a glaring example of hypocrisy and self-righteousness.

Firstly, take the following quote from the Boycott Scotland website:

Most especially after the horrific events of 9/11, the world needs to be reminded that terrorism must be punished and never rewarded. Terrorists must never be shown compassion or mercy, for these people have no respect for human life. The British, who ironically have themselves been victim to numerous acts of terrorism on their own soil, seem to have forgotten.

Who was responsible for the majority of the "numerous acts of terrorism" in the UK? That'll have been the IRA. In their heyday, where did a significant amount of their external funding come from? Er, that'll have been the US, especially the East Coast (this BBC article is from 2001 but it says it all really). I don't recall families of the Omagh/Enniskillen/Harrods/Warrington victims calling for a boycott of MacDonalds or shopping trips to New York.

Secondly, given the war in Iraq and the motives behind it, the following is difficult to read with a straight face:

You have shown to the international community that your government and the United Kingdom as a whole will stop at nothing to pursue the neverending and relentless acquisition of oil revenues.

I doubt that any country in the West can claim the moral high ground when it comes to their government's actions in the "acquisition of oil revenues" (or any other commercial interests), but it's especially difficult to accept criticism of this sort from across the Atlantic. Does anyone honestly believe the war in Iraq is unrelated to the millions of barrels of oil that lie under the deserts there? If the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was supposed to pave the way to Iraqi's having control over their own oil wealth the war might have attained at least a patina of justification. This simply isn't the case:

Negotiations are under way for Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners decades ago in the Iraq Petroleum Company, now joined by Chevron and other smaller oil companies — to renew the oil concession they lost to nationalisation during the years when the oil producers took over their own resources. The no-bid contracts, apparently written by the oil corporations with the help of U.S. officials, prevailed over offers from more than 40 other companies, including companies in China, India and Russia.

Noam Chomsky: It's the Oil, Stupid

Boycott BP by all means but at least be consistent and boycott any oil company that has acted in a morally questionable way, then see how difficult it is to fill your tank and keep a clean conscience.

The storm surrounding al-Megrahi's release is sure to rumble on and there are doubtless questions that need to be answered about it (and indeed his trial itself). This campaign will answer none of these questions.

To blog or not to blog (bet that's never been used before)

Just a quick post before what is hopefully a deep and uneventful kip. Two reasons behind this post - one, I want to test this app and two, I'm a-pondering.

I read this week that there are 900,000 blog posts written every day. Does the world really need the mardy-arsed musings of iMenopause bumping that up to 900,001 on the odd days when I actually write something? I've barely scraped the topsoil from the surface of the blogs that are out there and I've already uncovered enough shit to cover all the fields in the uk for the rest of time (given that the world may well end in 2012 that might not be as impressive a comparison as it first seems).

So, what am I bringing to the blogosphere (do people still call it that?). Short answer - I've no fucking idea. Maybe it's some primal need to get my voice out there and my opinions heard, regardless of how small my forum actually is. Maybe it's nothing more than a chance to live my failed dreams of a career in journalism. Any ideas? Feel free to let me know because I sure as fuck don't. If i stumble across the answer I'll be sure to share it with all three of you.


-- Post From My iPhone