Pursuing the light too hard is a form of hiding

  

Continuing my trip down The Guardian's top 50 albums of 2022. 

#36 : We've Been Going About This All Wrong - Sharon Van Etten

At the dawn of the 2020s, Sharon Van Etten, like so many others, began to feel the natural world revolt. Her sixth album is her response – not a raging polemic, but an attempt to answer the question she asks on Darkish: “Where will we be when our world is done?” Over a thunder of synths and guitars, she writes love songs to her child and partner, attempts to make peace with her anxieties about motherhood, sex and self-image. As the album crescendos with the magnificent Mistakes, she unleashes a torrent of intermingled pain and joy: “Even when I make a mistake / It’s much better than that!”

I could have sworn we'd previously met Shazza, but a quick trawl through the archives proves me wrong - I definitely listened to her last album though and quite enjoyed it with "Seventeen" being a fine track indeed.  So I was looking forward to this...

And yeah, it's pretty much up my street - maybe slightly too downbeat to be an absolute fave, but an enjoyable listen nonetheless.  I was reminded of Lana del Rey in places - it's all quite slow and langourous, but enjoyably so.  I reckon it would sound good listened to in the dark - no one track particularly jumped out but there are quite a few potential growers on there.  The Guardian reviewer listened to the words much more carefully than I did though - they're not the easiest to make out.

She managed one week in the charts at the reasonably high position of #28 - that's three albums she's had in the charts now and one of them even managed two whole weeks!  Wikipedia has a  surprising amount on the album which says surprisingly little - the album came out, there were some singles off it, the critics generally liked and it did OK commercially in the US and a few other (very) random countries.  And the album title comes from a line of dialogue from The Sandlot, which is film Sharon has seen 100 times - and I hadn't even heard of.

"Customers also listened to" Angel Olsen, Perfume Genius and Hurray For The Riff Raff - if the other two are like Perfume Genius, then they're not all that much like Sharon.  I liked this though - it was comfortably unchallenging in comparison with some of the recent visits.

#35 : Fossora - Björk

If Björk’s last album, 2017’s Utopia, was about an idealised version of life, she told us in August, then Fossora represented the real world: “Let’s see what it’s like when you walk into this fantasy and, you know, have a lunch and farrrrt and do normal things, like meet your friends.” Naturally, Björk’s musical rendering of domestic life didn’t hold much truck with verité depictions of daily life. Instead, she twisted an artillery of bass clarinets, gabber beats and that famously abundant vocal range into a typically idiosyncratic vision of community inspired by mushrooms and matrilineage.

I've liked Bjork's voice since way back in her Sugarcube days (note - not Sugababes) but I have to admit that her latest albums (by which I mean the last 20 years) strike me more as pieces of art to be admired at in their composition, rather than wholeheartedly enjoyed.  And, despite her declaration that this album is about "farrrting", I very much expect things to be the same here.

And yeah, it is.  It's very tricksy and clever, but it just requires far too much listening for me.  The nice bits are very nice, but there's more not so nice bits on here than I was expecting - especially the title track which is, how can I put this, a BLOODY RACKET.  She's a very talented lass but, for the most part, I'd prefer her to direct those talents elsewhere - but if you like her later stuff, then you'll probably like this.

You don't get to trade on past glories in the charts these days (particularly not if you're a woman) - she got to #11 but only managed the one week.  Wikipedia has quite a lot on the album, most of which is, as expected, utter bobbins.  The album deals with themes of isolation, loss, grief and, obviously, mushrooms and it's available in seven different colours, depending upon where you buy it from.  A lot of the entry is taken up listing the various instrument players (often multiple times) - there were seven clarinetists, five violinists, two violists, two cellists and TWELVE flautists.

"Customers also listened to" PJ Harvey, Massive Attack, Dry Cleaning and Wu-Lu - and if that last one isn't a result of the Guardian list, I'll be amazed.  I admired large portions of this album but there wasn't an awful lot of it I liked - and there were bits I positively disliked.  I was pleased enough to experience it, but won't be repeating the activity, I'm afraid.

Two strong ladies producing interesting music, but one of them was a more pleasing listen for me.

#38-37 - Somewhat different levels of success

#34-33 - Two I wasn't expecting much from, but really liked