This week the 2021 Grammy nominations were announced and immediately two things stood out to me: firstly, I get very confused by the categories at awards shows and secondly, by far the more important fact, women are having a really good showing this year!
For the first time ever, all the nominees for best rock performance are women, and the same can be said for the best country album (sort of - if you see Little Big Town as being fronted by the two women, which I do. To be honest, I see Little Big Town as being fronted by just the dark-haired one, so yea, to me it counts.)
The ongoing lockdown continues to evolve and I have found it fascinating to see how the creative types have been trying to keep themselves entertained. Plenty are trying to keep doing what they usually do just in a different way. Some are providing distraction for others, and there’s another subset who are using their time to try and impart wisdom to others.
I missed this at the time, but Radio 1 have been getting artists to give music lessons, sharing an insight into how to play one of their songs. A few people have participated so far - Niall Horan gives a good go on the guitar, Sigrid gets to grips with Strangers on the piano, but my personal favourite is Danielle Haim showing us a deceptively simple riff for The Steps.
The background:
I love Peter Kay’s Car Share, I truly believe it to be one of the best TV shows of the decade. When I shared the show with Mr C, he was also on board - comedy and music aren’t too hard to argue with.
On the flip side, one thing we argue about more than we probably should is the guilt of the protagonist of Richard Marx’s song Hazard. We’ve been talking about it for more than ten years and no doubt will continue for the rest of time.
You’ll know by now, I’m sure, that I’m obsessed with Oprah’s Book Club. The interactivity between online books, the show, the guidance, the discussion with the author, all of it appeals to me.
We recently saw the latest episode of the TV show, where Oprah talked to Elizabeth Strout about her latest work, and it was another good show - another, in fact, that Mr C enjoyed despite not having read the book. And a few days later, the next book choice has been announced, and I’m looking forward to reading it.
James Corden’s latest riff off sees him take on Camila Cabello in a slightly fake debate about which is better for music - 1999 or 2019. You can see the results below but I’m pretty sure they came to the wrong conclusion.
Even within the video itself, the older songs are so much better! Camila is a far superior singer to James, I’m sure he’d agree, but even she can’t make Old Town Road sound better than Smooth. As discussed recently, I am obsessed with that song, and you won’t convince me that Shawn Mendes can hold a candle to it.
It’s that time again! A whole year of music listening gets distilled down to a choice of five top albums and seeing if any of them can break into my top ten of all time. I don’t usually enjoy this process and this year hasn’t been any different, although if I’m honest, the choice was slightly less inspiring than usual.
It felt like the year was very top heavy in terms of stand-out albums, and as I was reviewing my shortlist, none of them were really jumping out.
If you’ve followed my adventures, you know I’ve gone back and forth on the whole album thing, but I think getting to the end of my fourth year of listening to two albums a week (400 albums!) means that I’m on board. So I was surprised when I first heard that Sheryl Crow wasn’t going to make any more records after her latest release Threads.
At the time the album came out, she talked of how happy she was that it would be her final release because the album features so many incredible guests and songs, and it was a good one. But she also said:
I had heard that a new version of Baby It’s Cold Outside was going to be released, with updated lyrics, but I hadn’t heard it until recently. Kelly Clarkson and John Legend have rewritten the old classic which has come under fire for some difficult lyrics that could be considered to fall on the wrong side of consent.
I do get why the old song is problematic for some people. That line “what’s in this drink” can absolutely be taken out of context and if you read the lyrics at face value, it does sound like a guy trying to coerce his date to stay longer than she really wants to. But that’s only if you want to read those things into it, because the other view to take is that it’s a song from 70 years ago and it doesn’t actually mean any harm. Of all the songs in the world, this one wouldn’t be my first choice to cancel.
I had seen in passing the news that James Corden was taking a break from his Late, Late show for other projects and guest hosts would be filling in. Alicia Keys kicked things off but it wasn’t until I caught the clips on YouTube that I realised just what a fab job she’d done.
We all know already that Keys is brilliant, but her take on the year wrap-up is a step above, even if only for the piano reveal with Rocky theme tune.
This time last year, I had seen zero music concerts. Basically my entire life. Plenty of theatre and musicals and stuff, but no musicians up on stage giving it their all.
Fast forward twelve months and I’ve wrapped up my fifth visit of the year with a similar number already scheduled for next year. Turns out I was missing out on quite a lot and I have a lot of ground to make up.
This past week, the BBC aired their behind the scenes documentary about how their latest Children In Need initiative came together. A handful of actors got together to record an album of covers, solo songs that are personal to them for a variety of reasons and a group track to finish it all off.
The 90 minute programme followed their journey from selecting the songs through perfecting their vocals and then the nerves of recording. I thought it was fascinating to see how the various people took to the challenge - Helena Bonham Carter went traditionally a bit off piste, Olivia Colman was insanely nervous about the whole thing, Luke Evans just rocked up and did it no problem, Suranne Jones took her song to the kids, and Adrian Lester showed off some remarkable beat-boxing skills.
I can’t commit to listening to Beats 1 on a regular basis, as much as I love what they’re doing on the Apple Music platform – but there’s one thing I try very hard not to miss, and that’s Julie Adenuga’s Friday show. It’s Fridaaaaaaaaay.
I love Julie, and her weekday show is excellent, crammed with music and interviews that sometimes veer slightly too grime for my tastes but otherwise are eminently enjoyable and listenable. However, when you get to the Friday show, things really shift into gear.
I’m sure you’ve seen this by now, but Jennifer Lopez gave a bit of a dancing masterclass on Jimmy Fallon’s talk show this week, as the pair of them demonstrated the evolution of dance in music videos.
I particularly like the bit for Waterfalls, which I didn’t know what an iconic dance but must be, the Wrecking Ball space hoppers, and the Bad Guy hoodies.
When choosing an album to listen to each week, I often end up pondering what are the rules of the game and does the potential offering fit? As Monica will tell you, rules are good, rules control the fun! Most of the rules of my album adventure have been in play since the beginning – one album choice each per week, old versus new, no greatest hits, etc, etc.
My write up of our outing to see the Spice Girls at Wembley mentions the fact that I had previously not been a concert-going person. I had practically no experience of seeing music live and in person, but that was all set to change that year. My realisation that I could now probably cope with it all coincided nicely with the Backstreet Boys going on their huge DNA World Tour. To celebrate (and encourage) me going, we decided to go VIP and make a nice big deal of my first proper concert experience.
The Spice Girls recently wrapped up a short UK reunion tour with three dates at Wembley Stadium and I was at the middle one. It turns out that Mr C saw them live way back when and when he got his hands on tickets for the Spice World 2019 Tour, he somehow convinced me to go with him.
Now I’ve previously not been a concert-going person. I’ve been to one small gig that barely counts, and I’ve abandoned a comedian halfway through their arena set because I was not enjoying the concept at all. So a hugely popular reunion tour full of excitable fans, at Wembley stadium no less, seemed like the perfect event to change things.
Backstreet Boys have been celebrating the launch of their new tour, 20 years of their best album Millennium, and a host of other things. Lots of content, tweets, videos, competitions, the works. I really liked the recent videos they released featuring their videos from the Millennium album with added information.
It’s like the good old days when MTV was actually comprised of music videos, and you could sit all day and watch pop videos with bonus trivia in the lower thirds. Ahh, there is a gap in the market for that, surely?
Beats 1, Apple’s live streaming radio service, has a lot of great content. It can be hard to keep on top of it, and I’ll admit it does lean towards the cooler end of the music spectrum than I would place my own listening habits. However, what they do well is getting a variety of guest presenters in to host a show and therefore airing lots of different tastes and views.
Mr C and I don’t go much in for the Valentine’s Day thing but something happened this week that it’s important to document. After years of searching (more than a decade), I have finally found OUR SONG.
It turns out, this On the Record thing that I’ve been studiously documenting for the last 3+ years has finally been worth it. This week, Mr C selected Huey Lewis & the News (he doesn’t always get his picks from Carpool Karaoke, honest), who of course I only know from Back to the Future.
Weezer surprised everyone last week by releasing a covers album stacked full of proper tunes. I had a listen through and it’s good, although I’ll be honest, I’m not a big fan of covers for the sake of it. Many of their versions sound just like the originals, so then you’re left wondering exactly what the point of it is. Having said that, their version of No Scrubs is fabulous, a stand out song.
Before we get into the album adventure for 2019, it’s worth a quick reminder of why this project even started and if we have made any progress on the original premise. Three years ago, it all kicked off when a conversation on Peter Kay’s Car Share caused a real life debate in our household.
I was on Kayleigh’s side, that you could have whatever album you wanted as your favourite, whether it is a compilation or not. Mr C was firmly on the side of Peter Kay/John, who rejected the idea of a compilation album being eligible for selection as your favourite.
For the second year in a row, Mr C’s top five lists have been limited to songs rather than both music and films - and that’s partly because we spent a lot of the year watching 80s movies, and partly because he could only think of Black Panther as a stand out watch.
I don’t think film-land is so bad but hey, this is his space to get listing so please find below, Mr C’s thoughts on the year in music, followed by the top five songs from the past twelve months, and finally the shortlist from which he was choosing.
Hooray and eek in equal measure, it’s time for a round up of my year in albums! Another 100 albums listened to and enjoyed (for the most part), hours of songs consumed and pretty much the same amount of time deciding which belong in my top five of the year - and which, if any, can break through into my top ten.
I feel like it’s been a good year for music, perhaps not as strong as last year, but solid. Lots of good albums were released but I found there were many that I enjoyed but had just one or two things that sort of put me off: too short, too long, one dodgy song, a change in tone that didn’t fit, that kind of thing. It’s interesting for me to feel this way because the whole point of this adventure was to teach me about the concept of an album, and to be picking up reasons why it’s not quite working for me means I’m obviously starting to understand what an album is.
A while back, I talked about how I was just starting to figure out how awesome Manic Street Preachers were, and that I felt I’d missed out on a significant chunk of their career. On the flip side, good friend Lukeh is an absolute expert on the subject and should be considered a super-fan.
So, Mr C plied the man with mango-flavoured beer and demanded that he concoct an incredibly specific playlist of ten songs that would introduce a new fan (me) to the band, digging a little deeper than the obvious but not being too obscure as to be off-putting. All this after a drink or two and completely on the spot with no research.
I love Julie Adenuga’s Beats1 show, airing in the UK between 2 and 4pm every weekday. I try and listen to as many as I can, usually on demand, and there’s often little snippets of conversation that make you laugh or make you sit up and take notice.
On Friday’s show, where Example and Rebecca Judd joined Julie in the studio to take a look at the new releases that day, there was an example of the latter. Example was discussing the time he bought a car for a fan – as you do – and his co-hosts were sharing their shock and awe at such a kind gesture. Example was having none of it though:
We watched the Westworld edition of Carpool Karaoke yesterday, and thought “Yea, I know there’s a Paul McCartney one out but it can’t be as good as this.” Evan and James had great chemistry, great fun and got up to some fab antics with bonus Westworld memes thrown in there for good measure. So, we turned to the Paul McCartney and James Corden episode and… well, we couldn’t have been more wrong, could we?
The BBC hosted their replacement for the absent Glastonbury festival this weekend, putting on four huge shows across the UK and welcoming the great and the good of the music world to play at them. There was far too much content to enjoy in one weekend, so I’ll be perusing the iPlayer for at least the rest of this week and maybe longer.
I’m due an album update on the site but in the meantime, let’s just say I’ve been totally loving George Ezra’s Staying at Tamara’s. It’s unfortunately timed, really, because it would work so much better in glorious sunny weather and we’ve only been lucky enough to have a day or two of that. In a couple of months though, I’m hoping this album will totally come into its own because it’s sunny and peppy and cheery and I really love it.
U2 made an appearance at the Grammy’s last night, playing in the apparent freezing cold grounds of New York’s Statue of Liberty. Now, I’ll be honest, Adam Clayton isn’t exactly one of my bass heroes, but I’m rapidly rethinking that after seeing his instrument of choice for this performance.
I’m still not clear on how one plays guitar with gloves on - fingerless or not. But I don’t blame them, it looks flipping freezing out there.
This annual tradition has had its ups and downs. Initially, Mr C enjoyed the process of selecting his top five songs and films of the year gone by. Then he started agonising over the choices and gradually began to hate this time of year. But I care not! It’s a tradition and we’re doing it for 2017 just like all the years gone by. This time, to appease him and because we really weren’t inspired by cinema so much, I’ve said just songs, not films.
I’ve been dreading this moment pretty much from the second I hit publish on last year’s round-up of my musical adventures.
Now it’s time for me to pick not only my top five albums of the year just gone but also update my top ten albums of all time. Naturally, this only includes the ones I have listened to in the course of this album adventure nonsense, so it’s actually the top ten albums of all time out of 200 options. But that’s double last year, and the more I listen, the more I learn.
We’ve been working on a Christmas playlist for a Sidepodcast friend, and finally have come up with the goods. As I say over there:
During the past week, I listened to Apple Music’s attempt at a Christmas playlist that had one or two classics but for the most part featured party songs, tangential festive tunes, and those slowed down advert covers that are so very popular these days.
That didn’t impress me too much, so I set about making a better playlist, published on Apple Music and fabulously called: How a Christmas playlist should be done.
I always think November is a colourful month. Autumn is really kicking in, so the trees are rapidly changing hue and shedding their leaves. There are leftover Halloween themed items around, so orange and purple and green are scattered on doorsteps and in shops. Plus, of course, firework night – as annoying and loud as it can be – has a main promise of lighting up the sky with various shapes and colours.
I was really looking forward to Taylor Swift’s new album. I’ve been racing through her back catalogue in preparation, and was captivated by the four songs that were released ahead of launch day. Mr C, previously the biggest TayTay fan in this household, hasn’t been convinced by the new stuff but I’m all in.
Except, I’m not all in because I can’t listen to the album yet. Reputation has been kept off streaming services for at least a week, in a well-planned and manipulative launch schedule.
I’ve been rallying for more music television content since they took Top of the Pops off the air, and the BBC have delivered somewhat in the form of Sounds Like Friday Night (half an hour isn’t really long enough for that kind of show, but I’ll take anything at the moment). Now I think we’ve got time and space on TV for the return of music quizzing as well, and that brought to mind Name That Tune.
Apple Music recently launched public profiles so that you can properly share playlists. My profile is here, and it’s small at the moment, but I’m hoping to publish regular playlists. This first one, Oct 17 - Eclectic Selection, features songs that I have been listening to and loving over the past month in an effort to show just how mixed and bizarre my musical adventures can be.
Some of the tracks are from albums that I’ve been listening to for On the Record, but others are songs I’ve listened to having been inspired by TV, film and musicals, as well as trying to play bass lines and generally listening to a lot of Beats1.
I was kind of in two minds about Carpool Karaoke branching out on its own. It works brilliantly as a sketch on the James Cordon late night show, but to stand on its own two feet? How would that work? Could it sustain a longer show? And what would it be like without James?
Well, the answer is that for the most part, it’s still as brilliant as it was before. There are some niggles, but the overall result is an entertaining and still laugh out loud funny programme.
I’m still quite new to the whole bass playing thing and I’ve been looking around the App Store for instructional apps. Whilst the scope is limited for bass guitar itself, the arena of musical tuition is incredible. I so wish these things existed when I was a kid and was trying my hand at all kinds of different instruments.
For now, though, I’ve settled on Yousician, an app that covers four instruments including bass. They have instructional video and exercises that can pick up your playing and make sure you’re doing it properly. Of course there are badges and rewards, and a daily goal, but for the most part, Yousician is just a good encouragement to pick up the bass each day, learn something new, and get a bit of practice.
As if I wasn’t obsessed with Haim enough at the moment, they’ve only gone and covered Shania Twain for a radio segment in Australia. Turns out they’re pretty fond of the country/pop sensation, and they do a fab job of covering That Don’t Impress Me Much.
Okay, so you’ve got a car!
As an aside, I can’t figure if the segment title ‘Like a Version’ is genius or not. It’s a good pun, but does it work in this context? Undecided.
Oh hi, yea, I’m a bass player now.
It’s not like I need another hobby at the moment, but this is the end result of a Friday night when you watch Glastonbury on iPlayer catchup with a glass of wine, and there just happens to be a seriously gorgeous bass guitar lying around the house.
Of course after just a couple of days of this, I can’t feel my fingers anymore but hey, bass players are cooool.
This year, in anticipation of their new album, I’ve become a fully paid up Haim fan. Somewhere along the line, these girls wormed their way into my heart. Whether it was listening to their album, or their radio show (currently on hiatus), or just following them on Twitter… I’m in love. Quirky and unique, with their own style and a comfort in their own skins, these ladies are also supremely talented.
They released the video for their new track ‘Want You Back’ and it’s one of those one-take wonders that is worth watching for many reasons, but above them all, for the three part air drum roll. I wish I had sisters to do this with.
So, you know that feeling when you’ve loved the soundtrack to a movie for years and years, and then you start listening to more albums and catch up with one that you probably should have already known about, that quickly becomes one of your top ten, and then you realise that one of the artists actually sings on that original soundtrack, one of your favourite songs? Happens to us all, right?
I was having a bit of a panic over the last few weeks that I’ve listened to lots of albums but can’t remember them all. What do I like? What don’t I like? Why so manyyy? And then I took a step back and realised this project isn’t about learning every single song I listen to. I compared it to the Film Watch odyssey, which isn’t about remembering all 700+ films consumed. Both projects are about immersing yourself in a medium, soaking up the general love and enjoyment of the genre, learning, growing, and, dare I say it, being in the moment.
I’ve had a love/hate relationship with streaming music. At first I hated it because I wanted to be more in control of… well, everything. And then I loved it because I wouldn’t have been able to afford to listen to 100 albums in a year if I had to purchase every single one. Plus, I would have had to buy Drake’s album and that would not have made me very happy.
Now I’m in a neutral place because for the most part I’ve let go of controlling my music, and I’m happy to just stream as and when I want. But I am a bit confused. I wanted to listen to Kelsea Ballerini’s effort again after she was nominated for a Grammy, but found this:
It all started with this note from my Zombieland Film Watch post:
5:06 – Recognise that petrol station from that music video.
Because there was a shot of a petrol station right at the beginning, when he was laying out some of his ground rules for surviving the zombie apocalypse.
Now, I know what you’re thinking - it looks like any petrol station ever, and… well, we’ll get to that. For now, stick with me. It rang a bell in my head as the same fuel depot as spotted in a country music video that I’d seen a year or two ago.
James Corden continues to do fab and fun things for his late night US talk show, but his latest exploits with Queen grabbed my attention like no other. A faux battle between him and current front man Adam Lambert saw the pair having something of a riff off with Brian and Roger backing them on guitar and drums.
I’m so jealous of the things James gets to do and this tops the lot. Singing with actual Queen must be the biggest dream of all.
I love Demi Lovato, but I realised recently that she is an expert at picking songs to be featured on. Whilst her own work is plenty good enough, when she is featured on a song, it’s always a brilliant one! Don’t believe me? Let’s review.
First up, The Vamps.
Yeah, you! Then she teamed up with Olly Murs for the catchy Up, and took on the myth created by N Sync in Irresistible. Teaming up with Fall Out Boy, Demi stomps her way around a toy store, looking at the action figures and generally having a good time.
