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Promise to get a little better as I get older

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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...
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Say no more, I'm out the door

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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...
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Oh how fast the evening passes clearing up the champagne glasses

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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...
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They say we're in danger but I disagree

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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...
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It just stopped raining I'm stepping out into the world

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Continuing my trip up  The Guardian's 50 best albums of 2017 . #8 : Drunk  - Thundercat When the world outside is weird, let’s hear it for an album that processes it with absurdist humour and George Clinton-shaped surrealism. Drunk is the third release by LA jazz dude Steve Bruner, AKA Thundercat, and has finally taken him from being a kooky bass-playing Robin to super-producer Flying Lotus’s Batman all the way to headline solo artist and one of this year’s breakthrough names. Our third visit with Thundercat and my opinion has gone all the way from "mediocre 70s funk" to "reasonably skilful mediocre 70s funk" - will the upward trend continue? Nope - but it doesn't get any worse either. There is indeed plenty of skill involved but I just don't see why anyone would want to listen to it. It does have a George Clinton shape to it, but it's merged with Shalamar and Christopher Cross to make some kind of smoothie-yachty-funky thang. And who wants that? It...
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On horseback, I'd rather be here

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Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts. 27/01/17 : Return To Ommadawn - Mike Oldfield Our third visit with Mike and it's fair to say I've not been all that impressed with our previous visits - I just don't see the point to Tubular Bells and, considering the fact that this is two twenty-plus minute tracks, I believe this will be in a similar vein, which doesn't fill me with confidence. Ah yes - this is very much in the same vein with a pretty decent musical hook which he then plays around with to greater and lesser effects. However, whilst I'm not going to get all gushy about this, I do have to admit that he's less wedded to the hook here than he is on Tubular Bells and he's also less concerned about doing weird stuff obviously different from the hook - both of which are to the album's credit. It also some lovely clear production on it - it sounded absolutely gorgeous in places. So it was definitely better than expected, but there's no...
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Seven in the morning - when they wake you gotta be ghost

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Continuing my trip up  The Guardian's 50 best albums of 2017 . #11 :  Modern Kosmology - Jane Weaver Icily clear vocals provide a satisfying foil to the spacey psych-revivalism of Liverpool-born singer’s newest album – the latest chapter in a three-decade career that has taken in Britpop and folktronica. Modern Kosmology is at once earthbound and otherworldly, with mesmerising vocals balancing on a whirring undercurrent of steadily throbbing synths. Only the second ever mention for Ms Weaver, so I only have what's above to go on - and it's safe to say it doesn't really help. Hmmm - Goldfrapp or Roisin Murphy would probably be as good a ballpark comparison as anything, I guess. With the exception of "Ravenspoint" (which I REALLY didn't like), it's all bearable and I'd even go as far as saying I liked "I Wish", but a whole album of it was just a bit boring really - it was all very underwhelming and I've no real clue what this is doing a...
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