SoundsXP Message Boards - Indie, Indiepop, Nu-Folk and Alt-Country Forums

Good year? Bad year?

I think it's been a fairly good year - with loads of good singles. There have been less in the way of great LPs - but more than enough decent efforts.

Erm and the results have confirmed why I didn't bother voting - who the fack is/are Okkervil River??
I am so out of touch and not in the zone at all bar the loungs and Saint thomas calls - oh and Herman Dune's single.
Anyway merry christmas all and a happy new year. I think this year has not been that great for me music wise.
Love Amy Winehouse though.

_________________
Cavey Cocker, Cup Cake Queen, Saint Thomas.

Erm wow thats kinda surprising, wasn't expecting Okkervil River to win. Although they are quite clearly the best band in the world so I'm happy. Generally, looks like a pretty good list, although as ever I haven't heard quite a few of the singles. Hmmm, not sure where you find these people. I seem to remember asking who Shrag were last year and I still don't know.

I didn't vote either Cavey because I don't classify myself as a Sounds XP writer any more (just the label/gig side of things now). Even when I did vote rarely did any of my choices appear!

I presume I listen to different music to most of the writers these days. Never heard of Okkervil River and after reading Ged's review I don't wish to either. Just doesn't grab me but I am glad it tickled the writers fancy (how many voted by the way?)

2007 was the year of the single for me and I rarely brought any albums. Nice to see Fanfarlo and Envelopes in the top 10 singles. Nothing else in the poll really reflected my 2007 listening which also included me getting into techno again! Luckily the Sounds XP forums are the best out there is to keep dragging me back!

For those who are bothered:

My top 10

and why we are at it
Trev's.

_________________
Records I Like - The Culture Bunker- Festive 50 Spotify Playlists

Oooohhhh.... there's some horrendous chin stroking bollocks on this years list isn't there?

Ok, there are a couple of decent acts making an appearance but on the whole 80% of those featuring won't be heard of next year. Was there any need to run the list down to 20th place when surely 10th place would have more than sufficed? Did we really need to see the acts that recieved 1 ramdom vote in the final charts? Nah, not really....

Would be interested to see how many votes each artist recieved in the end tho.....

Oh, and I didn't vote cos I didn't feel that I was in a position to offer an honest and fair overview of the years Indie, Folk, Electronica, Alt-Country, Punk & Armenian Bum Trumpet musical output. Also, I couldn't be bollocksed either if I'm being really honest....

_________________
GREENFORD ROCK CITY!

Well, I'm sure I'd feel much worse if I weren't under such heavy sedation.

As long as there's sex and drugs, I can do without the Rock 'n' Roll....

My thoughts exactly but I am guessing there wasn't a lot of votes cast this year judging by the lack of response to my question earlier in the thread.

Can the Ed's stick Banana's request in the writers only forum?

_________________
Records I Like - The Culture Bunker- Festive 50 Spotify Playlists

What would you describe as chin-stroking bollocks? Probably not a terribly popular viewpoint but I reckon that's a far far better list than last years as far as the albums go at least, its less full of dull middleoftheroad indie and irritating novelty crap anyway. Any list without I'm From Barcelona is an improvement in my opinion really

It's always a bit of bollocks, but harmless eh? Strangely them as didn't vote especially don't like the results...

If anyone's interested this was my list - though I'd probably have put Fionn Regan in somewhere had I remembered. Okkervil River wouldn't have made mine in recent years but it's been a bit thin on the albums front.

Album

1 Monkey Swallows the Universe - The Casket Letters
2 Future of the Left - Curses
3 PJ Harvey - White Chalk
4 The Hellset Orchestra - Spectre at the Feast
5 National - Boxer
6 Richard Hawley - Lady's Bridge
7 Akron/Family - Love is Simple
8 Okkervil River - The Stage Names
9 Half Cousin - Iodine
10 Malcolm Middleton - A Brighter Beat

Single

1 The Bridge Gang - London Sky Tonight
2 Slow Down Tallahassee - So Much for Love
3 Misty's Big Adventure -I can't Bring the Time Back
4 Meat for a Dark Day - Vanity Unfair
5 Brakes - Beatific Visions
6 Monkey Swallow the Universe - Little Polvier
7 Future of the Left - adeadenemyalwayssmellsgood
8 James Yorkston - Woozy with Cider
9 Dennis Hopper Choppers - Little Johnny
10 Richard Hawley - Serious

Live

1 Misty's Big Adventure
2 The Hellset Orchestra
3 The National
4 Jarvis Cocker
5 Monkey Swallows the Universe
6 Untitled Musical Project
7 Broken Family Band
8 Malcolm Middleton
9 Fanfarlo
10 Clinic

Comp/Reissue

1 The Fatima Mansions - Viva Dead Ponies
2 Microdisney - From Daunt Square to Elsewhere
3 James Yorkston - Roaring the Gospel
4 Hallam Foe Soundtrack
5 Songs For the Young at Heart

_________________
Embrace the margin

Do you have any official figures to back that up?

The point of the listathon isn't to pick bands that will be 'popular' next year 'cos if it was the lists would be full of crap, it's about listing records we love rather than listing record sales. Personally, I think this years list is interestingly varied and a lot more promising and exciting than last year.

I did a festive 10 on another board too...

Albums:

1. Black Lips - Good Bad Not Evil
2. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Baby 81
3. The Tiny Dancers - Free School Milk
4. The Ponys - Turn the Lights Out
5. Ceremony - Disappear
6. Good Shoes - Think Before You Speak
7. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
8. Candie Payne - I Wish I Could Have Loved You More
9. The Raveonettes - Lust Lust Lust
10. Sister Vanilla - Little Pop Rock (UK)

Singles / EPs:

1. Slow Down Tallahassee - So Much For Love
2. British Sea Power - Krankenhaus EP
3. The Manhattan Love Suicides - Keep It Coming
4. The Ting Tings - That's Not My Name
5. The Duke Spirit - Ex Voto EP
6. The Tiny Dancers - Hannah We Know
7. The Bridge Gang - London Sky Tonight
8. Arctic Monkeys - Flourescent Adolescent
9. The Warlocks - So Paranoid
10. Mono Taxi - Sound of You

Hey Gav - nice list there. I'd not even remembered that Little Pop Rock came out again this year. I see The Ponys LP must've grown on you a lot since you've first heard it. And it's always nice to see The Manhattans in any list and it's even better that it's our release!

They're playing London on 29th February (A Friday) @ The Buffalo Bar - you should come down for it - they're even better live.

It's not a question of that SPT as it was a question of how many people voted to give it some credibility. That's been addressed in the writers forum although I am surprised that I don't have that much in common listening wise to the sounds XP writers judging by the poll results. And that's a good thing

I gave my reasons for not voting earlier in the thread.

_________________
Records I Like - The Culture Bunker- Festive 50 Spotify Playlists

I've loved it since the get-go. It's a cracking album. It was Celebration Castle that I didn't really warm to.

It could easily have made it into the top spot but I think I'd just seen BRMC when I made that list and was listening to the Black Lips disk a lot as well. It's been a difficult year to pick out a number 1 as there hasn't really been an out-and-out standout this year... I think you said the same thing in your review. I do really love The Tiny Dancers album as well. That's been my feel good album of the year. And I thought the Good Shoes disk was better than you obv. Small Town girl aside, I don't really think it's suffered too much from the extra production.

Ah yeah, that's it. My memory ain't what is used to be, it seems.




That's exactly what I think - there have been loads of good LPs but no LP that wins it all. The Manhattans record is my most played by a considerable distance. But it came out on CD at the end of 2006 - so can't qualify. Bugger.



They've lost me I'm afriad. A good singles band for me. In all honesty I have only played the LP 4 or 5 times - it just sounded a bit clean for me. Great fun live, though. And I'd wager the singles of any 2nd LP will be pretty good too. I'll buy a best of in 5 years time, I guess.

That's probably true to be fair. Their best songs are still the first 4 or 5 singles but I think the others are great as well. "Morden" is the only one I don't really like - I still don't understand why they chose that song to be the showpiece single when the album was released.

It was very easy to pick 10 great (well for me anyway) singles this year. The hardest thing was deciding which ones couldn't make the final cut. Slow Down Tallahassee was an easy choice for number 1 as well. Simply because all 3 tracks deserved their own release. They've nailed the perfect pop single/EP as far as I'm concered. I've not seen them live and the demos are very patchy afairs but I'm really excited to hear what they come up with next. I read somewhere that there's an album on the way.

They're currently down to a three piece. Not sure what's going on there. I saw them live this year. A little stuttering and nervousness aside they were good. One of the girls is also in the very different sounding Navvy - who are great live.

How strange - a good concept for an election but I prefer the dictatorship approach to the end of year poll - lots of voices just subtracts credibility and slides it towards the morass.

The thing that detracts credibility from my choices is that I completely forgot about the British Sea Power EP - dur.

_________________
Embrace the margin

Here's a bloggers collective 2007 list: http://sweepingthenation.blogspot.com/

and Rough Trade's list:
http://www.roughtrade.com/site/content. ... _2007.html

2007 was a great year for music. Some top new albums & reissues. Some great gigs as well which all seemed to take place in Liverpool (Amsterdam's 2 unplugged shows at The Phil and the International Pop Overthrow Festival).

Here's my list -

Top 7 Albums:
1. 'Soundtrack To The Daily Grind' - Graham Day & The Goalers
2. 'Getting A Little Help' - Edgar Jones
3. 'Girls & Weather' - The Rumble Strips
4. 'Now ... And Again' - Mod Fun
5. 'The Good The Bad & The Queen' - The Good Bad & The Queen
6. 'Lavoroedignitá' - Ned Ludd
7. '1 2 3 4' - Amsterdam

Reissues & Compilations:
1. 'The Projected Passion Revue' - Dexys
2. 'Our Favourite Shop' - The Style Council
3. 'Go! With The Times' - The Times
4. 'The Legendary Lost Exits Album' - The Exits
5. 'Soup' - The Housemartins/Beautiful South
6. Any compilation on the Psychic Circle label ('Hide And Seek', 'On The Brink', 'Mix A Fix', 'Who Needs Tomorrow?', etc)
7. The Northern Soul Story (Volumes 1-4)

_________________
Pressure Drop: http://www.pressuredrop.info