Brisbane’s finest, formed in 1977, led by the exemplary
songwriting team of Robert Forster and Grant McLennan with top notch support
from Lindy Morrison, Robert Vickers and Amanda Brown. McLennan’s death in 2006
brought the curtain down on the band for good, but Forster remains a strong
solo voice to this day.
I’ve chosen their very first single because, basic
though it is, it’s still one of my favourites.
Something to do with the German football team SV Darmstadt
in the year 2000… perhaps a tribute album or some such? Google translate would
only take me so far, although the song title translates as “Football can be so
beautiful”… which I’ve yet to see any evidence for myself, but hey ho.
I thank you for your patience during this difficult time... year end countdowns can be such a drag, can't they?
6. Manic Street Preachers – Critical Thinking
The best Manics album in some time is a strange beast, because with one notable exception, the best song are sung by Nicky Wire, not James Dean Bradfield, and to quote Ben...
Not really a fan of [Nicky's] voice. I mean, when you've got JDB, why ever would you let anyone else sing?
I've been trying to work out why Nicky would choose to croak so many of these songs himself, rather than letting James be his proxy voice as his usually the case. Maybe James is finding a full concert of belting them out is starting to put a strain on his vocal chords, so the band want a few Nicky tracks in their catalogue to give him the occasional break?
Or maybe these were a particularly personal batch of Wire lyrics, and he felt the only way the band could do them justice was if he stepped up to the mic?
Whatever the reason, the songs that Nicky gives to James (still the majority of the album) don't feel as personal or as raw... they feel more like standard Manics songs... with that one notable exception...
I've written about Dear Stephen previously, and I probably said everything I had to say about it in that post, but it's still one of my songs of the year. And it's not the only time the band steer into Smiths territory on this record. You'll hear a very Johnny Marr guitar sound on this track too...
5. Pulp – More
I've also written before about the perils of impossibly high expectations... but here's a prime example.
The first Pulp album in 24 years was a record I'd only ever dreamed of. A little context here - every Pulp album from the1993 compilation Intro to their final, Scott Walker-produced, unappreciated epic, We Love Life in 2001 - every one of them was my album of the year.
'93, '94, '95, '98, '01 - five years, five albums, nothing to touch any of them. The penultimate disc, This Is Hardcore, is also my favourite record of the 90s. So you see what an impossible task Jarvis, Nick, Candida and Mark had set themself by making a new Pulp record? Was it always doomed to be an ever-so-slight disappointment?
The crazy thing is, More gives you everything you could ever want from a Pulp record, starting with a wonderfully Jarvisian confession about why they went away, and why they chose now to come back.
Something stopped me dead in my tracks
I was heading for disaster and then I turned back
I was wrestling with a coat hanger, can you guess who won?
The universe shrugged, shrugged then moved on
Not a shaman, or a showman, ashamed I was selling the rights
I took a breather and decided not to ruin my life
I was conforming to a cosmic design, I was playing to type
Until I walked back to the garden of earthly delight
I was born to perform
It's a calling
I exist to do this
Shouting and pointing
No one can ever understand it
And no one will ever have the last word
Because it's not something you could ever say
So swivel
Far more of the wit and wisdom of Mr. Cocker is to follow, including the usual meditations on sex, death, growing old, grubby backstreets and old girlfriends who might have been the one...
They even threw in a genuine pop hit... or it would have been a hit, if they'd released it three decades ago, when they originally wrote it...
More then, is a truly great comeback record. It's everything you could want from a Pulp record, and only a Pulp fan who was a complete idiot wouldn't make it his album of the year... but clearly I was expecting More.
By contrast, it's much easier to write about the new Craig Finn album. The main man from The Hold Steady always places towards the top of my countdown for his superior storytelling skills, creating heartfelt vignettes of the people who fall through the cracks. Always Been is no different.
What does make this one different though is that this time Craig enlisted Adam Granduciel and The War On Drugs to be his producer / backing band with the clearly intent of making a big 80s-sounding L.A. record. And they succeed on every level, crafting an album that shimmers in the heat haze like The Boys of Summer... with that unmistakable Craig Finn voice shining through the smog.
I've always found The War On Drugs to be a very frustrating band - being a child of 80s American rock, I love the sound they make... but they never seem to have anything to say lyrically, so their records rarely catch with me. Here though, they're working with one of the premier lyricists of their generation, and the result is pure magic.
I hope you all had a nice Christmas. No rest for the wicked here at Top Ten Towers, as I continue to count down my favourite records of the year. What number did we get to? 8? So this post will therefore feature 6 & 7?
You'll only get that if you know any young people. And even then, you won't get it.
For mor information, google "What is 6 7?" - but don't blame me if it makes your screen go funny.
8. The Waterboys – Life, Death & Dennis Hopper
For truly, it is the year of the concept album – but this one’s definitely the easiest to comprehend, because it does exactly what it says on the tin. Following on from the stand-out track on the last Waterboys album, Good Luck Seeker, which was a tribute to the actor Dennis Hopper… here’s a whole album dedicated to his insane story. And somehow, Mike Scott resists the urge to revisit that original tune… he’s got more than enough ideas to fill this record with as it is.
This is a story of sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll – plus plenty of movies too, from Easy Rider to Blue Velvet and beyond – with a host of special guest Dennis Hopper fans invited along for the ride, including Steve Earle, Fiona Apple, Taylor Goldsmith and some guy called Springsteen, who’s not allowed to sing… just deliver a spoken word monologue in those reassuring, gravelly tones… a master-stroke of restraint on Mike Scott’s part.
All this and a song celebrating Hopper’s finest hour – playing this hideously terrifying Frank in Blue Velvet. If you know the film, you'll understand why I'm not sharing the title here. Much of this record isn’t about Hopper as an actor though, it’s about his place in history (particularly the 60s), as a counterculture icon, and as an observer at some of the wildest moments of the 20th Century. So maybe you'll dig it even if you're not a Hopper-head. Or maybe not...
Clearly not a man who believes in sleep, the artist formerly known as one half of Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine this year released two new albums on the same day. Just like Guns n Roses did with Use Your Illusion, and Bruce did with those early 90s albums that weren't as good as Use Your Illusion. Jim Bob promoted this twin-release with his usual verve and vigour...
Well, I bought them both, of course. And they're exactly what you want from a pair of Jim Bob records - lots of angry, maudlin songs about how shit the world is, and quite a few that make you realise he's not actually as misanthrope despite all that, because he writes with such empathy for ordinary folk that at times it just breaks your heart.
I've broken a promise that I made to myself
I'd never write another one of these songs
I'd turn my attention to something else
I've tried but the pull is too strong
God knows real life is hard enough
Without the need to fictionalise
But it grinds my gears and it breaks my heart
To think of all the wasted young lives
Two albums deserves two videos...
...and you might wonder whether those two albums are both 6 and 7?
No. Gen Alpha, I'm sorry... because I'm stopping there today. Just so that 6 is on a separate post to 7. (And also, that leaves me three albums x two more posts. Which seems neater.)
Join me next week for my Top 6 albums of 2025... if you can be bothered.
Start placing your bets now for what's still to come...
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