There are certain artists whose work I will buy sight unseen. Or do I mean "hear unheard"? They've got a new record out? I must have it now. I know there will be enough in there to tick the boxes on my musical appreciation scale whether the cognoscenti or the reviewers or the zeitgeist agrees with me or not. Of course, they won't all be winners (I point you towards Bruce's soul covers album of last year), but I still want them on the shelf.
Here are the Must Have records I bought Hear Unheard this year...
Lloyd Cole - On Pain
I wrote about Lloyd's new album after seeing him play live for the umpteenth time at the end of October. I don't have much to add to that review. It is still on rotation and most of the songs have wormed their way into my good graces, but I'd still prefer it if he got over this 80s electronica phase and went back to making nice safe guitar music. Lyrically though, he's still got it. As the album's opening lines ably demonstrate...
I can't be trusted with your money Look what I did Every time that you gave it to me I can't be trusted with your secrets Look what I did Every time that you gave them to me
Brett and Rennie Sparks returned with their first album of Gothic Americana in seven years. It's not as immediate as their earlier stuff - age brings a kind of contemplative wisdom to their songwriting, I guess - but it rewards the effort if you're willing to give it time.
Another band I've been following faithfully since the early noughties is Craig Finn's The Hold Steady. Finn has a pretty steady work ethic at the moment, alternating Hold Steady releases with his solo albums... although I have to confess, I'm starting to prefer the latter. The Price Of Progress is the band's ninth album, and it's a good listen, but not quite as good as A Legacy of Rentals, last year's Top 3 offering from Finn on his own.
Lukas Nelson & The Promise Of The Real - Sticks & Stones
One artist who's only entered my Reliable Purchase list over the last couple of years is Willie's boy, Lukas Nelson. He's incredibly prolific - this is his 8th album in 13 years - and pretty much sticks to a formula of hard luck, heartbroken country with much time spent drowning his sorrows in booze, but if you like that kind of thing, he rarely puts a foot wrong.
A late entry, but one I've no doubt I'll be listening to well into the New Year. Following on from her excellent Olivia Newton John covers record of 2018, Juliana picks another top 70s/80s artist to reinvent. (We'll skip over her Police covers record, for reasons to do with the manufacturing of silk purses from bovine ears.) Actually, "reinvent" is probably taking it a bit far, as these are pretty faithful to the originals, but she doesn't choose the obvious tracks (apart from Don't Bring Me Down) and the result is the best kind of aural comfort food.
It takes quite an effort to become an Old Faithful after only one album, but Hamish Hawk went to the top of the class following his 2021 LP Heavy Elevator. I've been salivating with expectation for the follow-up, and it may well be that I set my expectations too high (something I'll discuss again in this year's Top Ten). Angel Numbers is a great album despite my unrealistic hopes of stadium-conquering crossover glory... but there's still time, Hamish.
Wherе's my limelight? If I'm to nurse the fеver I carry inside I'll starve, I will not stifle my appetite
It's nigh-on high time I can barely make out the mountain no-one taught me to climb And frightened allies take swipes at my sides
Oh no! I tried to find a picture of Bill Maynard holding a camera, to remind you all of the TV show Oh No, It's Selwyn Froggitt... but sadly, I failed. So here's Chris Hemsworth instead. Same difference?
I've been re-reading The Shining by Stephen King recently. Two reasons for this. One, the last couple of modern novels I've read have left me underwhelmed and frustrated. Two, Louise keeps saying, "you have all these old books on the shelves that you never read," and I needed a little more evidence to back up my claims that, "I'll read them again someday". Otherwise: charity shop.
Anyway, I like reading books set in the world of my childhood. A pre-internet, pre-covid, pre-modern day bullshit world... simpler times. The Shining was first published in 1977, when I was 5, a world where a telephone in your home was apparently something of a luxury...
Wendy had insisted on a phone in spite of their unraveling finances. She had argued that with a small child - especially a boy like Danny, who sometimes suffered from fainting spells - they couldn't afford not to have one. So Jack had forked over the thirty-dollar installation fee, bad enough, and a ninety-dollar security deposit, which really hurt. And so far the phone had been mute, except for two wrong numbers.
I'm not sure when my parents got their first telephone installed, but it was there on the wall between the kitchen and the living room throughout my childhood. I remember standing there, when I could reach it, and rotary dialling the numbers... then waiting for a friend's mum to answer. "Hi Mrs. Brook. Is Liam in? Can he come to the phone?"
Of course, the alternative was the good old-fashioned phone box, recently celebrated in John's August Photo Challenge.
Now he dialed the operator and she told him that for a dollar eighty-five he could be put in touch with Al two thousand miles away for three minutes. Time is relative, baby, he thought, and stuck in eight quarters. Faintly he could hear the electronic boops and beeps of his connection sniffling its way eastward.
We take so much for granted these days. A lot of people don't even bother with a home phone anymore, and to be honest, the only time I take a call on ours is when Louise has taken Sam out and she's calling to tell me to put the tea on.
I remember explaining to a bunch of phone-addicted students a few years back that we never even had mobiles when I was a kid. A look of genuine panic crept over their faces.
"But what if you were at school and your mum needed to speak to you urgently?"
"Well, I guess she'd call the school office and someone would come down to pass a message on," I replied... but I couldn't think of any occasion when such a thing had been necessary. Nothing was so urgent that it couldn't wait a few hours back then.
"Or what about if you were meeting up with some mates in town?"
"Well, you'd arrange a time and a place and..."
"But what if they were late?"
"Then you'd wait. And if they still didn't show up, I guess you'd go home and call them later."
Here are some more songs about the telephones of our youth...
