Top 5 Albums released in 1981

I promise not to swamp you with year based musical lists but this could definitely be a recurring thing for a while. Another Twitter influenced top five based on the excellent @LPGrp monthly theme. A communal record listen which is a great way to discover new music. This weeks' theme was albums released in 1981 for which we were asked to vote for our favourite five.

I figured that was a quick route to a new top five but it turned out 1981 was not a great year for music! I struggled to find five albums I really liked but in the end I was pretty happy with my list. The great and the good of the @LPGrp also showed me there were other interesting albums released that year. The winner was Faith, by The Cure, which I thoroughly enjoyed and has kicked off a bit of a Cure renaissance for me.

Having done 1981 as well as all of the 1990s I can feel the urge to fill the gaps. I'll do my best to space these out if I do.

1. The Gun Club "Fire of Love" - Debut album from Jeffrey Lee Pierce fronted original Garage Punks. The Gun Club are one of those bands I was aware of for some time and left me kicking myself when I eventually found out how good they were. A nod to Japandroids who, thanks to their fantastic cover of For The Love Of Ivy, were the catalyst for me finally making the effort to get hold of this album.

2. Minutemen "The Punch Line" - This is the Minutemen's "full length" debut, though it rattles through all 18 songs in 15 minutes. Originally a trio the band disbanded following the death of D. Boon (guitar & vocals) in a van accident. I saw Mike Watt (bass & vocals) and George Hurley (drums) play as a duo in support of Shellac and was blown away by their intensity. Watt has become one of my favourite bassists too and is currently a member of Iggy & The Stooges touring band.

3. Motörhead "No Sleep Til Hammersmith" - If you only buy one Motörhead album it should probably be this. They're a band who built their reputation on live performance and this comes as close to capturing the experience in your own home.

4. Iron Maiden "Killers" - Have I done top five Maiden albums yet? I don't think I have but I'm pretty sure Killers would do well. It was the second of two albums to feature original vocalist Paul Di'Anno, who has a deeper tone and punkier edge to his voice than Bruce Dickinson. I've a bit of a soft spot for it.

5. The Cramps "Psychedelic Jungle" - It's taken me some time to warm to The Cramps, I blame this largely on being forced to listen to Lux Interior's Purple Knif Show when I wasn't quite ready. However, I recently made the effort, partly due to the Gun Club connection, I found I really liked this debut album.

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Top 5(0) Albums of the Nineties

Don't worry, this won't be a regular thing. Some people I follow on Twitter decided to do their Top 50 Albums of the Nineties and I thought it would be fun to join in. It certainly proved to me it's easier to do top fives than lists this big. I spent weeks listening to old albums and trying to place them in an acceptable semblance of order. Typically the top 5 proved pretty easy and with only one slight change (Godspeed usurped Cornershop) remained in the same positions from my original rough list to the final article. Organising the rest was like trying to complete a Chinese puzzle. It has also provided me with an extra ten top fives, which I suspect you'll be seeing here sooner rather than later. I had a lot of fun doing it, even if it did start to take over my life, and it was an excellent way to listen to some old albums I'd not played in ages. Here's the full fifty then, in reverse order, with my top five at the bottom.

50. Inspiral Carpets "Life" (90)
49. The Flaming Lips "Transmissions From The Satellite Heart" (93)
48. Portishead "Dummy" (94)
47. Slint "Spiderland" (91)
46. Mercury Rev "Deserters Songs" (98)
45. Elastica "Elastica" (95)
44. Faith No More "Angel Dust" (92)
43. Blur "Parklife" (94)
42. Fugazi "In On The Kill Taker" (93)
41. PJ Harvey "To Bring You My Love" (95)
40. Sparklehorse "Good Morning Spider" (98)
39. Massive Attack "Blue Lines" (91)
38. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds "The Boatman's Call" (97)
37. Bjork "Debut" (93)
36. Pearl Jam "Vitalogy" (94)
35. Cat Power "Moon Pix" (98)
34. Sonic Youth "Goo" (90)
33. Tom Waits "Mule Variations" (99)
32. The Breeders "Pod" (90)
31. Palace Music "Viva Last Blues" (95)
30. Les Savy Fav "3/5" (97)
29. Lucinda Williams "Car Wheels On A Gravel Road" (98)
28. Spiritualized "Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space" (97)
27. The Flaming Lips "The Soft Bulletin" (99)
26. Sugar "Copper Blue" (92)
25. Nirvana "In Utero" (93)
24. dEUS "The Ideal Crash" (99)
23. PJ Harvey "Rid Of Me" (93)
22. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds "Murder Ballads" (96)
21. PJ Harvey "Dry" (92)
20. Sleater Kinney "Dig Me Out" (97)
19. Mogwai "Come On Die Young" (99)
18. Jane's Addiction "Ritual De Lo Habitual" (90)
17. Calexico "The Black Light" (98)
16. R.E.M. "Out Of Time" (91)
15. The Black Crowes "The Southern Musical Companion" (92)
14. Mark Lanegan "Whiskey For The Holy Ghost" (94)
13. Bonnie Prince Billy "I See A Darkness" (99)
12. Smog "Knock Knock" (99)
11. Lambchop "What Another Man Spills" (98)
10. The Breeders "Last Splash" (93)
9. Radiohead "The Bends" (95)
8. Johnny Cash "Unchained" (97)
7. Cornershop "When I Was Born For The 7th Time" (97)
6. Pixies "Bossanova" (92)

5. Godspeed You Black Emperor! "F♯ A♯ ∞" (98) - Debut album from when they were still a shadowy collective and the ! was still at the end of their name. The mystery was certainly part of the draw for ages all I had to go on was a blurry photo of the band by a rail track. It took ages to find out all their names and even longer to put faces to the names. This was the one album I didn't have in my original draft top 5 but replaying it confirmed how much I still love it.

4. Jeff Buckley "Grace" (94) - Jeff Buckley's greatest moment, sad he didn't stick around for more. An album I've played so often I don't expect to enjoy it anymore but always find I do. Bizarrely I discovered Grace via a recommendation from the Jethro Tull fanzine editor.

3. Fugazi "Repeater" (90) - Got into them late but they're now one of my favourite bands and this is their best album. Wish I'd bought an album sooner than I did. Known as much for their self-sufficient DIY ethic and dislike of the commercial music business, they're currently on an indefinite hiatus. The band I would most like to see reform.

2. Radiohead "OK Computer" (97) - 1997 was the year my faith in new music was revitalised and this album was the main reason for that. I think this album took ideas from Prog Rock but delivered them in a way the cool kids could enjoy.

1. Nirvana "Nevermind" (91) - I think I first heard it on a trip to the wilds of Scotland to see Fish (out of Marillion). Whispering Bob Harris played several tracks during a late night drive on a very dark road. I bought the album as soon as I got home. It marked the end of my METAL days and the start of new musical adventures.

Top 5 Old Bridges on Placemats

OK, I accept that even by my standards this is a little weird. Back in the days when I was growing up and living with Mum & Dad we'd have big family get-togethers which would pretty much be the only time we all ate together sat round the big table. Mum & Dad had some placemats that dated back, I think, to their wedding and had pictures of old bridges on them. I spent a lot of time looking at the pictures. Big family meals involved a lot of "grown up" talk I often wasn't interested in or didn't have much to contribute to so I'd amuse myself looking at the bridge on my placemat and imagine what life might be like living in the picture.

Obviously I had my favourites. Actually, I had one favourite. Dachet Bridge. I really liked the look of the old higgledy piggledy bridge and what was going on in the picture. I always wanted to visit it in real life and see what it looked like. Dachet isn't far but for whatever reason I only got there late last year and had a huge shock. The bridge was demolished in 1848 and never replaced. Here's an exert from Wikipedia which explains why this happened.

The first Datchet Bridge was a wooden bridge commissioned by Queen Anne as the crossing was a convenient back-way to Windsor Castle. Responsibility for the upkeep and maintenance of the crossing later passed to the counties of Berkshire and Buckinghamshire over whose boundary the bridge spanned. There followed many decades of dispute between the counties over who should pay for what. This culminated in 1836 with each county deciding to build their own half, in different materials and not touching in the middle. The resulting "crazy erection", Buckinghamshire's side in wood and Berkshire's in iron, known as The Divided Bridge, was demolished in 1848 and is the only case on the Thames where an established bridge crossing site has completely disappeared.

So, I was down at Dad's the other day and he still has those placemats. They're looking a little faded and shabby now (and my photo skills haven't helped) but I couldn't resist taking a set of pictures. They are all of bridges or places (we've got Eton College & Windsor Castle too) that are near to where I grew up but provide a glimpse of a time long forgotten. Now I'll never get to see Dachet Bridge I felt I wanted to somehow commemorate my love of a bridge I'll never cross.

1. Dachet Bridge

2. Hampton Court Bridge

3. Henley Bridge

4. Richmond Bridge

5. Kew Bridge

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Chop's CD Roulette - H33 "The Presidents of The United States of America" by The Presidents of The United States of America

My CD rack has 11 rows of occupied shelves and approximately 68 slots from left to right. If you pick a letter (from A at the top to K at the bottom) and a number between 1 and 68, I play that CD and blog (or tweet) about it. What could be simpler? #chopscdroulette #chopscdrH33

Guest Top 5 Songs by The Walkmen by Justin Howell

Justin writes the prodigious website Station To Station which has enough music content to keep you amused for years. He recently ran a Top Artists of All Time readers poll which spanned several months and was a lot of fun to take part in (even if the Pixies failed to win). So, I'm delighted to hand the reigns over to Justin for his top five songs by American East Coast indie rockers The Walkmen.

I'm usually not good at picking a topic for a list but once I've got one lodged in place (a random thought or usually, a moment with the IPOD) I can get a clearer vision of what that list will be. This list came to me when I dropped my 5 1/2 month old daughter Sydney at daycare Wednesday. It's funny, the first thing I thought of when Chop asked me for a Guest Top 5 was Five Songs I'd Sing To Entertain A 5 Month Old...but each 5 month old is different and mine is really digging only 4 songs I sing to her right now (James Brown medley of Get On Up/I Feel Good, Passion Pit-I'll Be Alright, R.E.M.-Stand and Elton John-I'm Still Standing which she REALLY is fascinated by). Anyways, we get in the car and "Sound & Vision" is the first song that bops us along on a gorgeous spring day for the 4 minute jaunt to home care for Sydney. The IPOD in the car is usually set to a mix of new stuff I'm digging (Foxygen, Phosphorescent, Kurt Vile, Mikal Cronin, etc.) and favorites from my past. Sydney seems impartial to Bowie when I stop to drop her off. Her mood is neither enlightened nor frustrated from the glimmering keys and stutter beat of the "Low" classic. Maybe she'll dance to it when she's older. It's when I get back in the car and start my way to work that the next song jump starts this Top 5 in an instant. "Little House Of Savages" from The Walkmen's 2004 LP "Bows + Arrows".


I'm staring at 40 in late September. The first thing that comes to mind is reflection when I hear the pulsating drumming of Matt Berrick and the wail of Hamilton Leithauser reminding me "Someone is waiting for me at home." The Walkmen have officially taken up a decade of my life...my 30's. Is it tough to stomach that 9 years have gone by since the first time I saw them perform "The Rat" on late night TV? Not at all. But it seems like such a long time ago now. I rushed out the next week and bought "Bows + Arrows" and a few weeks later got their debut "Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone." They were in modest rotation for me for awhile but their follow up "A Hundred Miles Off" left me a bit cold with the band. Maybe I'd had my fill after two LPs (though "Louisiana" from the album which just missed this five is still a great horn driven fiesta). It wasn't until a friend mentioned to me how great "You & Me" was in 2008 that I got back on The Walkmen train for their next three albums. The Walkmen have usually been consistent to me. Born out of the garage revival of bands like The Strokes and The White Stripes but much more savvy to just stay juxtaposed to just that sound. Their "rockers" are tour de forces...in a Walkmen sort of way. Their mid-tempo songs aim to make you nod your head in cool and cocky agreement. Their ballads make you swoon along with Leithauser's torch song like delivery. They are as complete a band as there is in the decade of my 30's. Their lack of a real pop sensibility is the only thing that has held them back from mass appeal.

I got to go see them live in my hometown of Pittsburgh in 2010. Seemed like a great bill with Japandroids opening up for them (another favorite band from my "late" 30's period). And it was a good show even if a Japandroids fan who accidentally snatched my PBR for a moment insisted that The Walkmen pretty much blew. I shrugged that off quickly. Sure they aren't an anthem laden machine like Japandroids are. They are their own entity with a hint of underlying loneliness brought together by strong songwriting and a whole lot of yearning instead of righteous declarations. Maybe the bill was a mismatch. But it was worth the 350 mile trip back home to just see "New Country" performed in the Walkmen's encore. Give me back my beer.

Oddly enough, I wouldn't point to them as the band that defined the past ten years for me either. There are several artists I'd put ahead of them (Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem, The National, TV On The Radio, Animal Collective, Spoon, Drive By Truckers to name a few). If this was a list to name ten bands from my 30's I'll hold dear forever, I'm afraid the Walkmen would even fall out of that group. They're the guys you want to hang out with at the pub and eat spaghetti with before their concerts. Not the rock stars who are going to exhilarate you to pump your fist in the air and tell a stranger "Hey, have you ever heard of the Walkmen before?" If other artists I've admired from the past 10 years were honor roll students, The Walkmen were the B+ students who took the same classes as the smart kids but didn't participate in extra curricular activities for anyone to take any notice. I've never pushed for anyone to listen to the band or recommended them to anyone. But yet here they are with a decade worth of strong material as I look at a new decade for myself peaking it's head at me around the corner. And they keep popping up on my IPOD this Wednesday. "The Love You Love" from their 2012 release "Heaven" has me singing along as I edit at work on Wednesday morning. I find myself crooning along with Leithauser to "Stranded" and it's gorgeous horns from their Portugal infused and aptly titled "Lisbon" from 2010. It's like the band and My IPOD are telling me to dust off my 5 favorites and send them to a blog overseas because though I've visited England once in 2010 for a vacation of London and Dublin, I didn't leave a mark behind. Only an Oyster card for the Tube that I didn't use all the pounds I paid for it. So here's what I'll send back to the UK. My TOP 5 songs from the Walkmen....we'll say my 18th or 22nd favorite band of my 30's. (Looks like I need to get on that list of bands in October).

The Walkmen: Dad's 18th favorite band of his 30's

5. In The New Year
Anytime Leithauser is waxing shiny optimism on the surface you have to take it as either a comical or sarcastic approach. So the fact that he croons "It's gonna be a good year" comes off as hokey (See Lisbon's "Victory" for another happy ironic loser). And the jangly guitar intro is standard Walkmen fare. So what makes "In The New Year" great then? That brilliant Christmas time organ that rises up from the fire like a phoenix and holds on to each chord with stranglehold force. Oh, and Leithauser delivers my second favorite Walkmen line of all time "Out of the darkness, and INTO THE FIRE!" with so much conviction you want to buy the guy a pint and listen to his gospel. Is this a good song to play every New Year's Eve. Absolutely! Especially if your sisters have married all your friends and if your family is asking you how long will you ramble. Damn straight the next year is gonna be a better year.

4. Angela Surf City
You say the Walkmen can't do surf music? Yeah it doesn't seem plausible but here's a song where all of The Walkmen's strengths click at once. Silky romanticism, a roaring chorus, persistent percussion and a whole lot of great guitar work. And Leithauser sings this one to the rafters instead of shouting it out to the neighbors across the street. It showed the band maturing and incorporating a lot of great elements on a terribly underrated album with "Lisbon." It's coda ends with a bittersweet reminder that it's back to work and school and that life goes on all around you. I wonder if he won that girls' heart or not?

3. Heaven
2012's release of "Heaven" by the Walkmen left me thinking the band had lost a fire they once kindled on the first few listens but I admit it grew on me slowly through the year. This wasn't the same band that exhibited an uncanny passion for sloppy but smart nocturnal songs anymore. They sounded more mature in their songwriting. Nowhere is that on display as much as on the self titled song from that album. The chorus is angelic in every sense of the word. Leithauser delivers the line: "Remember, remember...all we fight for" with a conviction he never showed before. And the band sound as convincing as ever too. Growing up is hard to do especially in music but they pulled it off on songs like "Heaven."

2. The Rat
"When I used to go out I knew everyone I saw, now I go out alone if I go out at all." Favorite line in a song in my 30's? Well it's pretty close to perfect. And "The Rat" is pretty much perfect all together as a song. It rages without being pretentious. It tugs at your emotions with thoughtful simple call outs. Sure Leithauser sounds like a gravelly Rod Stewart to me even nine years on. His one line call outs of a relationship deteriorating is nothing short of breath taking. And as for the rest of the band on "The Rat"? Well they play with as much REAL intensity as anyone in the past decade. I love the way the bass comes in on the second line of each verse. "The Rat" is a locomotive in all terms of a song, one of the best of the 00's. "Can't you hear me I'm pounding on your door!!!!!"

1. Four Provinces
So I've got two "You & Me" songs in my 5 (along with "In The New Year"). "Four Provinces" has all the trade marks that make me want to feel alive in a song. A bossa nova backdrop, jangly high end guitars, stories of heartbreak, gin, cigars and an actual bar I believe called Sophia's Place, and that bridge where the guitars glide alongside a tambourine....I absolutely love "Four Provinces". Leithauser in the chorus garbles with a drunken undertone to his love "Hey Leah, am I getting through?" And then tries a little bit of flirtation "Your shining eyes are brighter in the moonlight." That one's for each of us that have tried a dumb line or twenty in a bar before. For all the heartbreak and half drunken tales of frustration that the Walkmen have crafted, nothing tops "Four Provinces" for me. It would be my number 1, although "The Rat" is probably their best moment.

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Chop's CD Roulette - G57 "So Far ... The Best Of" Sinead O'Conner

Chop's CD Roulette - A43 "Pretty Little Lightning Paw" by A Silver Mt Zion

Top 5 Songs of 2013 - March/April (& the first half of May)

It's Thursday night and too late to be thinking about writing a new top five from scratch, but it's been far too long since my last and I reckon I can do this one quickly. 2013 has continued to offer up exciting and brilliant new music so I'm fairly positive I can keep this going as a semi-regular post.

1. Anaïs Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer "Willies Lady (Child 6)" - I'd not clicked with Anaïs Mitchell until I heard this track on a Cerys Matthews session. The Child Ballads are a series of traditional ballads originating from England and Scotland and collected by Francis James Child in the late nineteenth century. Mitchell & Hamer's album of selected tunes really bring them to live and Willie's Lady is the tune that most captures my imagination. It tells a great story, features some spellbinding guitar picking and is beautifully sung.
http://anaismitchell.com/
http://www.jeffersonhamer.com/



2. Wire "Love Bends" - Marc Riley's influence over my musical taste is becoming all encompassing. I'm not a long standing Wire fan (I do have a compilation tucked somewhere in the dark recesses of my CD collection but I never really took to it) but the lead single from their excellent new album, Change Becomes Us, really caught my attention. There's a corking bass line rumbling along throughout and some wonderfully angular guitar and keyboard noises flying about in between.
http://www.pinkflag.com/



3. Charlie Boyer & The Voyeurs "Things We Be" - More 6music goodness. Charlie Boyer & The Voyeurs not only have a good look and a cool name they also have an impossibly thin front man. I've a feeling I'm going to feel massively out of place if I ever catch them live, not that that's ever stopped me, but I love this tune especially the 12 string guitar riffage.
http://charlieboyerandthevoyeurs.bandcamp.com/



4. Public Service Broadcasting "Signal 30" - British Sea Power pick the best support acts you're likely to see. Unfortunately I missed PSB play with BSP but their name caught my eye and when I finally heard their music (2012's Spitfire) I wasn't disappointed. Public Service Broadcasting use samples from archive public information films and splice these seamlessly into their music. This track rocks out inbetween some brilliant dialogue - "No drinking & driving", "Not even beer?", "Not even water!"
http://publicservicebroadcasting.net/



5. Purson "Leaning On A Bear - Another band it took me a while to like, another band introduced to me by Marc Riley and another band who have supported. This song sounds like some long lost rock classic from the seventies. It's a bit of a psychadelic wall of sound but the tune shines through.
https://www.facebook.com/pursontheband



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Chop's CD Roulette - J11 "Copper Blue" by Sugar

Chop's CD Roulette - K9 "Fever To Tell" by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs