Musings on the byways of popular culture
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Let’s do what I did and spend no more than a couple of minutes looking at this (ie scroll to the inevitable No 1 first), and then make ONE suggestion
Mine is Immigrant Song needs to be higher up than No 12
https://www.mojo4music.com/articles/the-mojo-list/led-zeppelin-50-greatest-songs/
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A Happy New Year to you all.
Before any results are posted I have to acknowledge the hard work of @salwarpe, who has done the vast, vast majority of the leg work on this enterprise this year. Any thanks that have been offered to me (and there have been plenty, thanks for your thanks) should really be directed towards him and his magic spreadsheet.
Before the excitement of this year’s results, here is a quick summary of the results from the last seven years.
2018 642 albums nominated – winner Ry Cooder: Prodigal Son
2019 563 albums nominated – winner Bruce Springsteen: Western Stars
2020 531 albums nominated – winner Bob Dylan: Rough & Rowdy Ways
2021 565 albums nominated – winner Robert Plant & Alison Krauss: Raise The Roof
2022 556 albums nominated – winner Half Man Half Biscuit: The Voltarol Years
2023 574 albums nominated – winner Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit: Weathervanes
2024 – 558 albums nominated – winner: ?????????????
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It’s that time of the year again folks. The rules remain unchanged – post your top 20 albums of newly-released material, preferably in the format: number, artist name, album name (e.g. 1. The Beatles – Revolver) and then just let Salwarpe’s magic spreadsheet do the rest.
The closing time and date for submissions is 11.59 on December 31st, with results posted early in January. If you do’t have twenty choices, just give as many as you can. Points are awarded 20 for number 1, down to 1 for number 20.
Good luck, and season’s greetings to one and all.
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Seven is the magic number – to round up the favourites from 2023 I’ve put them in groups of seven. Think of each one as a playlist for a long train journey or a day at the office. Every Magnificent Seven has ist own atmosphere, mood or approach, and although they seem wildly different, they complement each other perfectly. Random play sometimes is a good option. The one in bold from each pack currently stands out as the most enjoyed and, sometimes, most played. But these things change, of course…
N E W M U S I C
||||||||||||| »Somewhere in the distance, as if at the end of a long tunnel, monks are chanting. A bell rings, but it’s barely audible. It might not even be there at all.« |||||||||||||
Tinariwen • Amatssou Lana Del Rey • Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd? Altin Gün • Ask Steven Wilson • The Harmony Codex Dhani Harrison • Innerstanding Yo La Tengo • This Stupid World Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids • Afro Futuristic Dreams
||||||||||||| »A disembodied, echoing voice intones an introduction: »So, shall we practise a little meditation together?« To which the only answer is, » Continue Reading.
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I’ll just leave this here.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-guitarists-1234814010/
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To disambiguate: “Top” doesn’t mean “best”, apparently, it means albums you enjoy listening to better than others. Even though you might think certain albums are “better” than the ones you choose, these are the ones you like the best. Placing them in order from 1-5 should not be taken as an indication of relative artistic quality, but personal preference in terms of listening enjoyability. If you have Bobby Snodgrass’ “Live At Wallingford Corn Exchange” at number three, and The Poplins’ “It’s Tupperware Time!” at number five, this means the enjoyment value (the musical “tog rating”, if you will) of the Snodgrass album is palpably greater than The Poplins album, but in a critical sense you feel that the artistic value of each cannot be quantified in the way that enjoyment can. Apparently.
Your Top Five Albums must not appear in the Rolling Stone List Of Top 500 Albums List, even though you might feel your list is compromised by their exclusion. For instance, if you are completely off your fucking head and keen to showcase your Serious Rock n’ Pop Credibility to a peer group that apparently gives a shit about these things and rate Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Goin’ On?” » Continue Reading.
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See, the point of this is to STOP AT TWO. This means you, duco01 and tiggerlion. No “honorable mentions” running into the hundreds. Just TWO. Two songs by the Beatles. Not cover versions. Performed and recorded by the Beatles. Not MORE nor indeed FEWER. Two. 2. Deux. Dos.
Let’s do this, people! To get the show on the road, I’ll list my Top Two Beatles Songs in the comments!
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Just counting them up now – coming soon!
May take me a bit of time. 96 of us voted for no less than 620 albums – that’s an average of over 6 unique choices each. So consensus is thin on the ground. A few albums clearly stand out however, although it has still been possible to get into the Top 10 with just 5 votes.
Will try to post later this evening.
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Graig42 presents the Top 42 by Artist (not by album)
See in Comments below
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Thanks to all of you who have taken part in this poll. Total number of Albums voted for: 499 Number of AW Voters: 98 (sadly no Moose or Bingo to make 100) Total Votes: 980 [Drum roll]
……….Please note the results have been input on punched cards (Fortran77). The teletype will be back working after this batch job has run on my ICL mainframe.. Final Score 16:45 today………………….
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Dai’s Rules still apply:
1) Post 10 albums ONLY 2) Place them in order 1 to 10. Number 1 will be allocated 10 points down to 1 pt in 10th place. 3) If you post more than 10 only the first 10 will be counted. 4) If you don’t post a preference in the 10 then each will be allocated 5 pts 5) Post exactly like this : Number – Album – Artist e.g. 1 – Dare – The Human League Use proper names not The Fabs or HJHM etc If you don’t your choice may not be counted.
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Following the great efforts of @Dai and his and the suggestion from @Feedback_File – I would be delighted to compile an alternative list (don’t we all love lists) of our favourite albums from either 1980 or 1990 up to the present day. This should be a far more interesting list than one full of the Beatles, Dylan and Joni.
So can any of us think of our favourites from a time AFTER we were born or in some cases AFTER leaving education – I was only 4 when the Beatles (white album) was released.
#1 – Do we start from 1980 or 1990 – VOTE NOW! #2 – Once it is clear what preference we have, can we think, think again and… #3 – Can we then use Dai’s rulebook for presenting our Top Ten of the last 30 or 40 years?
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This appears to be all over Facebook, but why not do it here. An A to Z of a live act you’ve seen, with one for each letter. Strictly surname or band name only.
Here’s mine. Not having seen XTC or X-ray Specs, I have one letter missing:
Joan Armatrading Bjork Civil Wars Bob Dylan Eurythmics Fairport Convention Rory Gallagher Horslips Iron and Wine Tom Jones BB King Daniel Lanois Laura Marling Randy Newman Ozark Mountain Daredevils Gretchen Peters Q Tips Josh Rouse Simple Minds The Temptations UB40 Villagers Papa Wemba Yes Zutons
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After much thinking, drinking and puffing, I’ve finally decided on my 2019 retro list:
Reissues Of The Year 1 The Residents | The Mole Box (6 CDs) 2 King Crimson | Heaven & Earth (24 Discs) 3 Fats Domino | I’ve Been Around – The Complete Imperial & ABC Recordings (13 Discs) 4 Prince | 1999 Super Deluxe Edition (6 Discs) 5 Woodstock – Back To The Garden (10 CD Edition) 6 Michael Rother | Solo (5 CDs) 7 Frank Zappa | The Hot Rats Sessions (6 CDs) 8 The Fall | Bend Sinister – The Domesday Pay-Off Plus (2 CDs) 9 R.E.M. | Monster 25th Anniversary (6 Discs) 10 Ronnie Lane | Just For The Moment – Music 1973-1997 (6 CDs)
If you’re still interested you can view the complete list of 30 on th’ blog.
http://chickswithdisks.wordpress.com/2020/01/09/best-of-2019/
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Little bit of humour to brighten up this damp and dreary Friday
1. Political cartoon toilet books about how terrible the Tories are
2. Grudgingly-used pasta maker
3. Framed poster from art exhibition abroad that you actually, physically visited
4. Photography book with cocks in
5. So many canvas tote bags that it’s actually environmentally catastrophic and plastic would be better
6. Box set of The West Wing, watched to death
7. Three children to prove you can afford it
8. Two cars, complete with scrutiny-proof excuses about the terrible state of public transport in this area
9. Handcarved Kenyan wooden stool that’s not actually comfortable to sit on so is piled with magazines
10. Cabinet of artisanal small-batch flavoured gins, ignored in favour of necking a litre of Bombay Sapphire every weekend
11. Vinyl collection only embarked on because everyone else was
12. Ukelele, obviously
13. Storage unit full of all the stuff you got rid of to be minimalist like one of the homes in the Weekend magazine, then you got new stuff
14. Moleskine notebook containing unused outline for autobiographical novel, unused outline for travel book, unused outline for parody Twitter account, shopping list
15. Hilarious anti-Brexit » Continue Reading.
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They’re doing a survey, so we don’t have to.
https://www.loudersound.com/features/vote-for-the-greatest-genesis-songs-ever
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Someone called Bill Wyman has ranked all the Beatles songs; see the link at the bottom of this post. Turns out its not THAT Bill Wyman, but an American critic who shares the name. He clearly likes a list – is he perchance an Afterworder?
Some right old nonsense in here, it has to be said. I think we can all agree that Good Day Sunshine isn’t the very worst track recorded by The Beatles. I doubt even he thinks that.
https://www.vulture.com/2017/06/all-213-beatles-songs-ranked-from-worst-to-best.html
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Here are my year-end list – a top 20 of new music, and a 25 A-Z list of reissues and archive releases because “there’s more old music than new music.” (Bob Dylan)
1. THE NITS | Angst Weird chamber-pop from the Dutch masters, est. 1975 and still the best band in the world.
2. COLIN HARPER | Titanium Flag Cinematic psych-folk which I already praised here.
3. GAS | Narkopop Pulsing neoclassical techno from the deep dark German forests.
4. MARTY STUART & HIS FABULOUS SUPERLATIVES | Way Out West Twanging psychedelic country with a bit of Benny Goodman thrown in from Connie Smith’s husband.
5. ANDROMEDA MEGA EXPRESS ORCHESTRA | Vula Berlin’s avant-prog orchestra/big band goes Sun Ra.
6. STEVEN WILSON | To The Bone Wilson does strange Eighties. Also strongly recommended – this year’s other albums from him: “Blackfield V” (pop-prog with his buddy from Israel) and “Last Days Of June” (Game soundtrack album of instrumentals and remixes).
7. EMEL | Ensen Like some femme arabian version of Massive Attack.
8. PAUL WELLER | A Kind Revolution Edgy and adventurous Weller-rock with an especially groovy instrumental bonus disc. Also recommended – his other albums from this year: “Jawbone” » Continue Reading.
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It won’t be long now before someone posts an Album Of The Year thread which will quickly be filled with lists littered with names of bands that simply have to be made up… to be followed shortly after by hilarious lists of made up bands. But in this giddy excitement over the new, a sober voice will state – in the manner of the modern-day Chinese premier warning against haste in assessing the impact of the French Revolution – that the only safe way to pick a 2017 Album Of The Year is to wait a few years, just to be sure. This otherwise appealing idea is rendered somewhat fanciful on a site where the demographic means that “crazy new beat” you’re grooving to is less likely to be coming from your Rega than from the grim reaper knocking at your door. So, in the spirit of calm reflection but at the same time acknowledging the irrefutable reality that your sense is, at every moment, ebbing away like the air from a punctured tyre, I thought I might ask these questions about your favourites of last year.. (1) Which album’s greatness did you fail to grasp? Here I am referring » Continue Reading.
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I thought there might be interest in seeing what was judged to be the best films the last time there was an Afterword best film poll. The poll winners were the standard popular films, but what was more interesting was each voter’s number one favourite film. Here is an alphabetical list (first comment):
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I stumbled onto the Afterword error 404 page just now, which lists all the authors and number of posts they (we) have contributed since April 2014.
The numbers are only accurate at the moment of sampling, of course, but I thought it might be of interest to a few other list fans/ navel gazers. The list is in the first comment.
I read a book of questions and answers about horror films called What’s Your Favorite Scary Movie? by Killian H. Gore.
The questions (with my modifications) were:
Favourite horror film? Favourite horror director? Favourite horror sub-genre? Favourite ‘bad’ horror movie? Favourite horror killer? Favourite horror monster/creature? Favourite horror franchise? Favourite horror sequel? Favourite horror remake? Favourite zombie movie? Recommend an obscure horror film for a hardcore genre fan. Favourite non-horror film with a strong horror flavour? What’s the film that made you the most consistently fearful, and what age were you at the time? What’s the single biggest jump scare you’ve experienced? Any horror film that went too far in a bad way? What’s the weirdest horror film you’ve ever seen?
You want to answer them? This might be an old internet meme that I’m unaware of so sorry if this sort of thing has been done before.
——————————–
My answers are what come to me at this moment in time. I’m bound to have forgotten a bunch of great films.
Favourite horror film?
The Thing (1982) is a very strong candidate.
Favourite horror director?
John Carpenter.
Favourite horror sub-genre?
I want to say slasher even though I only » Continue Reading.
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I didn’t have much to contribute to the Best Album Poll 2015 thread, since the vast majority of my purchases last year weren’t new releases. I get the feeling this was also the case for several Afternerds and Afterbirds, so let’s have another listy thread of your fave new-to-you records of 2015; those back catalogue, second hand and re-issued albums that you discovered through the year. Do an ordered top ten if you like, or list as many or few as you want.
My faves follow in the comments, in no particular order after no.1. Most were boot sale LPs costing a quid.
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Zoom up with your zealous zillions as we zero in on the zenith of this zestful zone, zis last time zigzagging around the letter ‘z with anything ‘cultural’.
Frank Zappa – Horny 
Zipping off with Zion Train – King of Sounds and Blues An infectious song I can’t help dancing to.
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Yes, the yearlong yappy yearning to yank your yardstick for cultural contributions is nearly through. This penultimate plea is for Y.
Y not, indeed?
Art Young (one of the editors of The Masses, “…a full-fledged magazine of social protest in which editorial content and art joined in radical assault upon the social and political structure.” )
Your silent face – New Order Just beautiful, with that wry kick in the tail at the end https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybT6TLlOdKI
