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Completing my trip up  The Guardian's 50 best albums of 2017 . #1 : Masseduction  - St Vincent A kind of teasing irony is detectable on Masseduction, a musical striptease on which Annie Clark – who performs as St Vincent – exposes herself on her own terms. The results are spectacular: full of drama and gratifyingly bizarre sonic choices. Clark makes a rock-star power play by embracing thrilling glam traditions while producing something strange, new and unequivocally moving. This is only our second ever visit with Annie Clark aka St Vincent, but she's been mentioned loads of times as a guest artist or an influence. She always strikes me as someone who could have been massively popular if she'd decided to play things that way, but she's very much done things her own way, thank you very much. I listened to this back in the day when it came out and enjoyed it, but can't say I've ever revisited it, so am looking forward to doing so - and because it's #1, let'...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 08/05/26 : Fenian - Kneecap  Our second visit with Kneecap and I'm expecting this to be the same load of chaotic nonsense as we had last time . Yeah - that's pretty much where we are. I'm still unnecessarily confused by use of two languages, but there's enough English there to make it understandable enough on at least some of the tracks. There's a lot to be impressed about it, certainly the composition of the tracks and the speed of delivery (when they decide to go for it) but I can't say I found it loveable - it's just a bit of a mess really. However, I did like "Irish Farewell" with Kae Tempest - it's all very well done with a powerful message. I'd also say that if you've not seen the film it's well worth your time checking it out. We're at #2 in the charts this week with a new entry with the rest of the top five being a Michael Jackson best-of (shame!), Melanie C (a...

Continuing my trip up  The Guardian's 50 best albums of 2017 . #3 : Ctrl  - SZA Honesty is often seen as the holy grail in pop, but when it’s served up as nakedly as it was on Ctrl, Solána Imani Rowe’s debut album, it can stop you in your tracks. This is the perfect year for a record with such a defiantly female point of view, from decisions over leg-shaving to stark admissions that she can’t open up emotionally. It seemed intimate but never one-note, and signalled an artist in complete ctrl. This is another one I met on the Rolling Stone list and I was somewhat surprised because a) it was a modern album and b) I'd never heard of her. At the time, I thought the music was a bit generic, but there was more to it when I listened to the lyrics - let's see what a re-listen after all this time brings us.  OK - a re-listen brings a re-evaluation, for two reasons. Firstly, over the past five years I've heard an awful lot of generic R&B albums and that experience leads me t...

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 13/01/17 : Night People - You Me At Six Our second visit with YMAS and last time  I didn't like it as much as I thought I would - hopefully I'll be more in the mood for it now. Hmmm, yeah - it's fine, I guess. I'm not a huge fan of "rawk" but at least they generally sound like they're having a good time, even if I'm not. This lot just sound a bit pedestrian really - it's skilful enough but it doesn't raise the pulse at all. Maybe they're better live (I certainly hope so) but this just sounds like some guys going through the motions. We're at a surprisingly high #3 this week on the start of a surprisingly brief three week run - yes, this was as high as it got. The rest of the top five were  Little Mix , Pete Tong & The Heritage Orchestra and best-ofs from George Michael and David Bowie with it being three weeks since the former and a year since the latter died - we also had an El...

Continuing my trip up  The Guardian's 50 best albums of 2017 . #5 : No Shape  - Perfume Genius On his most sumptuously realised work, Mike Hadreas merely wants to be unbound, to “hover with no shape” – in part, as a consequence of living with Crohn’s disease and the binary that exists around gender. Magnificently, his inventive score and dramatic arrangements more than live up to the challenge, as Hadreas swaps forms, time and again. This is our third visit with Mr Genius, which seems a surprise until you hear that every visit is on The Guardian's year-end list - my comments so far have been "a less beepy Hot Chip" and "delicate and lush", so I'm expecting to like this. Hmmm - I'd say this is lush, but it's not particularly delicate and it doesn't really bring Hot Chip to mind either. It feels to have an indie vibe to it, but it's got an almost orchestral feel to it as well - I'd say  "hover with no shape"  from above isn...

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 20/01/17 : I See You - The XX Our second visit with The XX - again! I listened to this about a week ago as part of The Guardian's list before I realised I was going to meet it as part of this list, so had to rewrite that post - but fortunately I kept the text to be reused now, so this will be a quick one! And basically I liked it - it's got the dreamy XX kinda sound which just drifts past you, but it's not quite insignificant enough to be ignored. And I think that's pretty much all I have to say on the matter - it won't be for everyone, but it worked well for me. We're at a somewhat surprising #1 in the charts this week on the start of a fifteen week run. The rest of the top five were  La La Land ,  Little Mix , a George Michael best-of and Bonobo (a new entry) and we have two more new entries in the top ten for Rick Wakeman (#7 - which seems surprisingly high) and Wiley (#9).  Wikipedia tells us it was ove...