Top Ten Albums of 2010

In my head I'd put The Unthanks' Here's The Tender Coming as my Album of the Year for 2009. Looking back, I'd actually put it third, with Fever Ray and The xx above it. I'd probably swap them around now with hindsight.

Overall though, I was much more convinced by my Top Ten for last year than I am by this year's, other than my Number One.

Other than my definitive number one, Agnes Obel, these albums could be in any order.

Anyway, here goes, in reverse:

10. Sleigh Bells - Treats

9. Teeth Of the Sea - Your Mercury

8. Smoke Fairies - Through Low Light and Trees

7. Solar Bears - She Was Coloured In

6. Shit Robot - From The CradleTo The Rave

5. Tracey Thorn - Love and its Opposite

4. Jane Weaver - The Fallen By Watchbird

3. Phosphorescent - Here's To Taking It Easy

2. Max Essa - Continental Drift

1. Agnes Obel - Philharmonics

As suggested by @futurebehaviour, here is a single Spotify playlist of my Top 10. Tracey Thorn's album isn't on Spotify for some reason, despite the fact that the singles drawn from it are, so I've included them instead.

The Lost Art

When I'm not working on my work laptop which lives behind a corporate firewall and allows me to access internal systems and services, I'm usually using my iPad.

In pre-iPad days, I'd generally be found using one of several PCs around the place, desktop, laptop, netbook etc. Now, other for than specific tasks, they're generally gathering dust as I try to maximise my use of the iPad.

The iPad has changed my behaviour, changed my consumption habits and expenditure patterns. It has provided me with new ways to carry out all of the important things I used to do on different machines.

In the main, these new ways of working represent a distinct improvement on what went before. One changed behaviour which I regret though is the gradual tapering-off of my blogging habit.

Yes, yes,I know there are blogging apps available for the iPad, but they are all flawed. Usually, if you are able to attach a photo to your post at all, it'll be dumped somewhere incongruous in the post, which will be sprawled or centred in some bizarre machine font.

Not good.

By the time you've got on a PC to correct the mess, people have read it and gone away, thinking you're a complete amateur.

So, after a long lay-off, I'm blogging on PC for a while. Good idea?

One Tool To Rule Them All?

Lost something?

I don't know about you, but depending which PC, mobile device, app, or website I happen to be using I end up saving interesting items in different places depending one what's available...

I might add something to my Twitter favourites, add a social bookmark to Delicious, create an Evernote entry, or save it to either ReadItLater or Instapaper... all great cloud-based products, but then I can never find what I need....

Isn't it time for one tool to rule them all and aggregate all my stuff together via search?

Am I missing something?


Photo Credit: Jannem (cc)

Dear Prudence

I've disciplined myself to using Spotify for my music acquisition needs, reducing my average spend on music from about £120 every couple of months to £120 per year.

Using Spotify lets me listen to the new releases I would have bought as well as those I might well have dithered over. My overall music consumption in term of listening, rather than purchasing, is well up. What's more, I'm no longer shackled with the guilt of not listening to a new record more than once. Similarly, I can take a listen to the latest critically lauded releases without having to fork out for them or the necessity of having to ever listen to them again.

Not quite all new releases are available on Spotify, but it picks up most things, even many of the rarer 12" single and edits I was paying up to £10 for on vinyl. I'm better off and better informed. I make notes (in Evernote) of interesting reviews from online newspapers and magazines, from retailers recommendations and from social word of mouth and then go track them down.

A little discipline has now become a fun routine. All my stuff is available on the move and available to stream throughout the house.

It works... I'm sure someone somewhere is losing out... but let's be honest, making music is cheap and easy and there is more and more and more available all around us in every micro-genre.

The Spotify stuff I supplement with great live and session stuff from places like DayTrotter, Wolfgang's Vault and the great NPR iPad app, as well as from an endless array of Internet radio stations. Hell, I even get an old CD of LP of the shelf and play it now and again.

Having forced myself to get over the need to have packaging that I can touch, read and put on a shelf to gather dust, I can't see myself going back. I don't consume pirated tunes, all my listening is legit. I've reduced my listening costs by about 90% whilst increasing the amount I actually listen to by a similar amount.

Everyone can be an artist if they want, from DIY chillwave to queueing up for X Factor... Who's lost out? Where is the leak?

By the way, I'm just listening to the new Elvis Costello record on Spotify. If I'd purchased the CD I'd feel some sort of personal obligation to listen to it again. Thankfully, I don't have to.

Location:Attercliffe Common,,United Kingdom

3 Things I Learned Today

1. Trainers tossed over a telephone wire means "the drugs have arrived"

2. Fireworks in the middle of the daytime means "the drugs have arrived"

3. Teeth marks in rubber playground swings means roughnecks have been training their pit-bulls to maul.



Pic credit - Chris Devers (cc)