Right, brainses, listen here. This is not "John-John's albums of the year". I'm not trying to claim that these are the best records of 2003. All I'm doing is picking out a set of CDs that have come out this year, that I've bought, and that I think would be well worth adding to your collection if you haven't already. There's diversity as well as quality in this selection, and relative popularity doesn't come into it - if it's played a significant part in my listening habits, it's in, and I don't care if it's sold a million copies or a dozen. In my book, if these were the only CDs you'd managed to purchase all year, you'd have done pretty well for yourself.
Elbow - Cast Of Thousands I stopped a hundred unimaginative fucking mongs that think they're quite cool in the street and asked them to describe the new Elbow album in one word. 46% of them said 'depressing', 32% 'dull', 15% 'miserable' and 7% 'plodding neo-prog stadium rawk', completely ignoring the 'one word' part of the question. Ladies and gentlemen, these people are CUNTS. Elbow produce beautiful, melancholy songs, laden with evocative imagery and tender sentiment. Now is simply not a good time to be making honest, heartfelt music - if you're not some kind of posturing postmodern fuckwit standing on the shoulders of giants and pissing on their shoes, you're just not cool, it would seem. Well, fuck that. I don't think parodying something that was a parody in the first place is very fucking clever, so The Darkness can fuck off. I'm not naive enough to be suckered into thinking that twatting about in incredibly self-conscious fashion whilst knocking out half-arsed, mumbled Stooges pastiches is the height of cool, so The Strokes can kiss my arse an'all. No, I want to listen to a fat Manc bastard lying about what a stud he is to hide the fact that some hoor's broken his heart. Again. Because he's good. And they're not. And that's fucking that. If you've an ounce of sense, you'll do the same.
The Matthew Herbert Big Band - Goodbye Swingtime Heh. This'll throw them. A big band? Yes, a big fucking band. Better yet, a big band led by a bloke with a very individual take on this whole music making thing, who gets them to do things like play just the mouthpieces of their horns without the instruments attached, and drop telephone directories of varying thicknesses onto the stage to provide persussion sounds, while a girl with a lovely, smoky voice sings over the top, making some sort of ridiculous cross between Irving Berlin and deep house. It should be an utter fucking disaster. It should be the absolute height of pretentious, self-indulgent shite. But it's not. It's fucking ace. Aye, all right, it's not for everybody by any means, but if you're a reasonably open-minded sort, it might just turn out to be a bit of a revelation for you.
Super Furry Animals - Phantom Power How do they do it? How do they manage to be so effortlessly, ceaselessly inventive whilst never lapsing into self-indulgence? How do they churn out unending streams of witty, observant songs dressed up as perfect, nonsensical pop ditties? And how come absolutely nobody else can manage to sound anything like them? They're awfully clever boys, for sure. Even though they come across as a bunch of amiable, bumbling Welsh stoners, they quite clearly know exactly what they're doing. And this album's their most complete package yet. It's got the charm of Fuzzy Logic, the intelligence of Radiator, the fun of Guerrilla, and the polished production of Rings Around The World. It's got three-minute pop songs, three-chord punk thrashes, epic acid workouts, and gentle ballads. It's got songs about parents realising their ambitions through their children, it's got songs about abuse of power in the name of global capitalism (oh, hang on, there's a parallel there...), and songs about going for a drive to Lithuania in a silver Nissan Bluebird. Peerless.
Various Artists - Verve Remixed 2 Well, here's another album that could and perhaps should be a trainwreck of wine-bar soundtrack, coffee-table Nathan Barley cuntfodder, but isn't. It's a load of old jazz records by the likes of Nina Simone, Dizzy Gillespie and Ella Fitzgerald, handed over to a variety of dance artists and given a thorough modernising makeover. Matthew Herbert does his thing here once again. So does Mr. Scruff, so obviously it's scoring high on the Bertometer from that alone. The album covers a fairly broad spectrum of contemporary styles, and all are nicely done, neither holding the originals in too much reverence nor oblitering them with heavy-handed beatz. And yes, it will sound just delightful floating out of your high-mounted Bose speakers and passing both literally and metaphorically over the heads of the assembled posing twats below, but it's also bloody good fun and it'll work equally well whether you're getting ready for a big night out or keeping the party going back at yours after one.
Manitoba - Up In Flames Well, now, here's a thing. You know those sunny days in early summer when you sit out in the garden reading a book and the whole world's springing into life around you? Insects buzz, flutter and crawl all around you. Soft, freshly-sprouted leaves shuffle gently in the lightest of breezes while birds hide in among them and warble away in sheer pleasure at being alive. A lawnmower buzzes a hundred yards away, a sprinkler hisses next door, a dog barks in excitement as a kid throws a ball for it. Well, this album's the aural embodiment of one of those days, basically. It's absolutely bloody lovely. It's like a butterfly that lands on that book you're reading in the garden - it appears out of nowhere and brightens everything it touches. Try to get too close to it and it flits off and lands again, just out of reach and as pretty as before. I realise that none of this gives you the faintest idea what it actually sounds like, but to do so would take all the magic out of it - it'd be like describing a painting. The best I can do is to say it's a bit like Spiritualised doing dance music. Oh, just go and check it out, will you?
The Black Keys - Thickfreakness White Stripes my arse. If you insist on listening to two-piece blues combos, at least choose one where the drummer's not a total flid. Forget the image and the self-conscious posturing for the NME mongs, listen to the tunes. These boys show how it should be done. One hell of a dirty racket from the guitar, tight, strong drumming propelling it along, and a seen-it all, 60-a-day-and-a-bottle-of-Jack-Daniels voice belting out the lyrics which, amazingly, emanates from the body of a white fella in his early twenties. It's just straightforward, honest-to-goodness stuff nicely executed, and there's always plenty of room on the Bert shelves for that sort of thing.
Broadcast - Haha Sound Now, this list isn't in any particular order, and I'd be hard pushed to rank them if I tried, but I think if I was pushed to pick an absolute favourite, this might well be the one I'd plump for. It's very, very special, and a real grower, slowly revealing its charms over a period of weeks and months and rewarding perseverance anew with every listen. What we have here is the soundtrack to a moody 60's French B-movie, produced by a bunch of shameless nerds who quite clearly like nothing more than tinkering about in the studio. The production here's a class apart. It's intricate and dense, yet never heavy-handed or indulgent. It's obvious that an awful lot of time and care has been put into it, and quite frankly I wish there were more people about who did so, if this is what can be done when you put your mind to it. Having said that, all the production genius in the world's bugger all good to you if you can't write a decent song, and there's a ton of them on here. What we have here, when it comes down to it, is a pure pop album. In fact, it verges on nursery-rhyme levels simplicity in places. But nursery rhymes have stood the test of time pretty well, wouldn't you say? And to cap it all is that voice. Oh, it's lovely. It's the voice of that posh, sophisticated girl you fancied the arse off at uni, all aloof and worldly, yet warm and sincere. She's a perfect fit for the songs, and brings the whole thing together into something that sticks out like a sore thumb from the endless reams of unimaginative nonsense of all styles that's likely to dominate the idiotic music press's end-of-year roundups. Too good to miss.
DJ Format - Music For The Mature B-Boy Not really a great deal to be said about this one. It's light-hearted hip-hop in an old school style, produced by a white English fella, ably assisted by a rather gifted white Canadian MC, who despite their obvious socio-cultural disadvantages, manage to "keep it real" in pretty convincing fashion. His affection for the likes of De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest and guest stars the Dream Warriors shine through, and he's managed to produce a well-observed, good-natured, witty tribute to his heroes without taking the piss in any way. A lesson certain other much-lauded current acts would do well to learn. The twats.
Cody Chesnutt - The Headphone Masterpiece Fair enough, it came out in 2002 in America, but it's only been released here fairly recently, so it's in, thankfully. It's something else altogether, this one - if there's one album out of this list that is guaranteed to elicit a smile, a guffaw, a whistle, a few shakes of the head, and no end of toe-tapping from absolutely ANYBODY who listens to it, here's your man. Thirty-odd tracks of insane, diverse genius spread across two CDs is what you get for your money, all wrapped up in packaging that looks like it was knocked out using an inkjet printer, some Pritt Stick and a pair of scissors. Which is in keeping with the no-budget ethos of the tracks themselves, apparently knocked out in Chesnutt's bedroom by the man himself and his cousin, and captured in all their rough-hewn glory on an ancient four-track which occasionally makes it sound like the recordings were conducted in a tin shed during a downpour. It's a two-hour long demo tape, basically, full of bum notes, ad-libbed lyrics, giggling in the background and, well, charm. It's as rough as hell, and while it'd be interesting to hear some of the tracks tightened up and produced properly (compare the version of "The Seed" on here with what happened when The Roots got their hands on it, for instance), the resultant album, whilst undoubtedly brilliant, would be just another slick R'n'B effort to add to your collection. Instead, what you have here is something really special - he's like a black, American version of Badly Drawn Boy before he got successful and content. Buy it - you might well hate it, and what higher recommendation can there be?
Grandaddy - Sumday And so from a rough diamond of an album to a polished gem from an act loved for their ramshackle brilliance. Yes, yes, I know it's a bit samey, and that it's missing some of the charm which made their previous efforts so compelling, and that the quirky choices of subject matter are starting to sound a bit forced. I hope they manage to find some new tricks for their next album because they've taken this one as far as it can go now. But just bloody listen to the thing - it's proper majestic in places. They still know how to do a catchy, happy-go-lucky single, judging by "El Caminos In The West" or, particularly "Stray Dog And The Chocolate Shake", and you surely can't fail to feel a bit bowled over by "The Warming Sun" or "The Saddest Vacant Lot In All The World" belted out at great volume. It's not going to change the world or anything, but it's the logical conclusion of what they've been working towards up until now, and it's really rather lovely.
Hmm. That's ten. I'm off.
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