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All Quietus on the Afterword front

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retropath2 on Poll up a chair!

Tim for our usual contemptuous snickers at what the young and hip are listening to, poor devils.
Actually, I have around 5 of these, remarkably, if all either from Irish of Hebridean artists.
Anyhoo, anyone seeking a last minute addition to their personal top 20, fill yer boots……

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  3. I own three of these (=I have heard three of these…)
    Two of them will feature much higher in my list, one won’t make my list at all, probably.
    The rest, I fear, are just strange names I don’t have the time to investigate. Some of them are probably very good, but I’ll never know.

  5. Well, that’s a first for me – I have heard precisely none of these. I recognise some of the names, of course, but this is the first year I can remember where I haven’t heard a single one…

  6. I have 3 of them, but only 1 has made it into my essential selection.
    Same as every year though, I start to read through the list and think that they’ve just made the names up. I got to number 78 before I started to believe that might actually be real.
    And also at number 78, I’m now considering the Nicky Wire album (based on 1 track) as the album I missed out on this year.
    Looks like it’s only download though – much rather have a version CD
    (sounds pretty good though, and for 3 quid I can always burn a copy to support my luddite tendencies)

  7. Imagine my surprise when I wade through the list and, as usual, think “What a load of pretentious drivel, and why haven’t I heard of all these artists?”, only to discover that I own the number 1 album!

    Lankum’s is the only one of the hundred that I (a) have heard and (b) own, but still – it means I must be hip and trendy and keeping it real, daddio (or whatever us hep cats are saying nowadays). Finally!

    • Very amusing comment, @Captain Darling. I’m with you there!

      I am always desperately hoping that my finger is somewhere near the pulse.

      “All Quietus on the Afterword front”

      What a wonderful headline!

      I’m with @Locust here. Too many names, too little time!

      Talking of which, Locust, let’s try and start to decide on a venue for that AW fika!

    • Likewise. I forgive them everything. I’d heard of 5 others, but hadn’t heard any of those albums.

      If nothing else, it shows how much is going on in what I believe we are calling the music scene.

  11. In defence of their list, those who like the Lankum might probably like the ØXN album, being not too dissimilar, and a whole lot better than the 70 odd places between them. Also contains Radie Peat, whose eerie vocals arguably are the lynchpin of both bands. (Or, in an in-joke, the lankpin.)

  12. Hmmm … interesting to see the Brìghde Chaimbeul album holding down the coveted no. 13 spot. I meant to buy that record, but somehow never got around to it.

  14. Yikes, yikes and thrice yikes.

    Of course, the irony of all this one-up-man-ship is that the average Joe on the street couldn’t name you three Fats Domino songs, let alone the po-faced vinlys crew at Quietus!
    There is so much post-war popular music that all but 1% of it is genuinely obscure.

  17. 18 artists that I’ve heard of, a handful that I like to varying degrees. A few that I heartily approve of but will not buy. One or two that I cannot stand.
    Not a single album there that I’ve actually heard, which is remiss of me in a couple of cases, i.e. albums by John Zorn and Bill Orcutt.

  18. It is the nature of things these days though. Different music fans listen to a different bunch of acts from each other. This is an extreme example but there is a tendency in that direction. On the other hand there’s Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran, universally known but heard? Not quite so much.

      • Obviously (duh!) but many are oblivious if they don’t actively seek out their music. It took me quite a while to realise how they sounded. The point is you can stay in your bubble and ignore the rest.

        • You sound like a certain other poster. Twas ever thus, my parents were only in their 30s in the 60s, their interest in Beatles, Stones, Motown, Dylan etc? Negligible at best. They were hardly on TV (not sure they owned one) and the radio station they listened to didn’t play them

            • But there is a tendency from some to think e.g. The Beatles were ubiquitous in the 60s. Their name was known by everybody in the Western world of course but did my parents hear Revolver or Sgt Pepper? No they didn’t. If you were over 30 at the time you probably knew very little music that they made. On this “blog” we have mainly people in their 50s, 60s and 70s. We know the old stuff ….

                  • The Beatles and the Stones were on TV a lot.

                    Besides, I don’t think that’s the point… your parents, if they visited any High Street, would have seen/heard pop music. Now, it doesn’t exist on the High Street, not on my local four or five anyway. A far cry from the 60s, and even from 30/40 years ago.

                    • Like I said don’t think we had a TV until later, maybe 1969 or so. Personally I can’t remember much of being on High Streets in the 60s (born in 62), but not sure hearing recent hits in stores became that prevalent until late 70s or so (except in record shops). Jukeboxes in pubs I suppose, but my religious parents didn’t visit those dens of iniquity. Personally first Beatles song I became aware of was Yellow Submarine, was probably on Junior Choice 1969 or 70.

                    • I find shops, bars, cafés etc are all very clever about their playlists. Morrison’s play old fashioned pop and soul that all generations would like. New Look play banging tunes young people like but repel older folk who aren’t going to buy anything. Coffee shops play a mix of Soul and Jazz that sound very appealing at first but after ten minutes sitting down, the rhythms clash and cause enough discomfort to encourage you to sup up, get out and leave seats available for the next customer. Restaurants have a 90 minute loop so that you suddenly realise you’ve heard these songs before and it’s time to go.The

                      The High Street play Pop Music all the time but they’ve weaponised it.

                    • No, no. I’m doing loads of research on a local town and on Saturday mornings I have first-hand testament that via record shops, boutiques, the outdoor market etc. pop music was blaring out in the 60s, and it would have been the hits of the day.

                      Just for you, Dai, I’ll be doing that experiment I promised last year… namely, on a bright, sunny Saturday morning in March/April, I will slowly walk the hour or so around my local town to try to hear any current – that is the word, remember, ‘current’ – pop music anywhere, and if there is loads I will tell you.

                    • 60s tv had occasional appearances but overall 60s and 70s tv was a mostly bleak wasteland of drabness interspersed with silence. Regarding the High Street, who was playing this music? Not sure you could just blast out music to all and sundry in those days. Yes you could choose to go into coffee shops and pubs. A choice. Of course there was that time when someone opened their window and played the newly released Sgt Pepper and we all smiled knowingly and held hands and danced with flowers in our hair, stoned and beautiful. Everybody.

                      Nowadays music is everywhere, it’s too much. It’s hard to escape. There are even some who just play songs on their telephones without headphones. The scum. And so on.

                    • 1960-1966 you’d only hear pop music at funfairs, in trendy clothing shops or from jukeboxes in some pubs, social clubs and cafés but by no means all of them.
                      In the later ’60s music began to be played in other kinds of shops but often it was ropey cover versions to avoid paying royalties. Most pubs had jukeboxes by then. Factories, offices and cafés would have a radio on but not necessarily Radio One. Not until the ’70s did public pop music really start becoming ubiquitous and you’d hear it blasting out of record shops and boutiques into the street.

  19. Wow, this is by far the closest I’ve ever felt to being in sync with the Quietus. Two of the albums I nominated in our own chart on the AW have made an appearance here. One (the Lankum album) is at No 1 (!) And I quite like the write-up for the No 23 entry for my other favourite, the Shirley Collins album: “It also accentuates the new contours her voice has taken on since that time. It now sits closer to the gravelly earth and closer to our ears, more intimate-feeling.” – very nice, and that describes what I love about that album.

    Just call me the zeitgeist. I’m suddenly more relevant than all you lot. 🙂

  20. I’ve heard four of these and three will be on my list. The one that won’t is Lankum – after repeated listens I have come to the conclusion that I really just don’t enjoy it that much – unlike most people here who have heard it, it would seem. Not that they are necessarily comparable, but I much prefer the Lisa O’Neill.

  21. I’ve heard of 12 of the artists on there and have actually got 2 of the albums, the PJ Harvey and House of All. I look at this list every year and that’s probably a record for me there

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