scaryblog

    So, having got to the end of a hasty run through The Guardian's Top 50 albums of 2017, how have they done this year?   Overall, for what has been a pretty average year for the albums I've met in the main chart, I thought that, once we ignored the left-field offerings to make the list "interesting", this was a pretty decent list with some top albums that I'd missed out on. I'd only actually heard ten of the albums before, with eight of them having been previously written up.  Best 16 Best 16?!? What kind of nonsense is this? Well, just wait until I explain the thinking behind it... I've always done this exercise by listing the albums I like or admire and seeing where that leads us - generally, it's been somewhere between ten and fifteen albums so all has been good. But this year? Not so much... ...but for good reasons! I got to about 23 when I was still halfway through the top ten and decided desperate action was required - so all albums in the top ...

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 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 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 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...

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...