It Starts With a Birthstone...
'To boldly go where no blog has gone before....
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500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 88 Doves - The Last Broadcast
Doves always strike me as a band at a certain point of life who have come to the realisation that life is not going to be what it might.
1967 Top 40 8th June # 2 The Tremeloes
Somehow this seems to be a song whose time had already gone by 1987.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,481 Getdown Services
Getdown Services seem to me the kind of act that if they didn't exist, someone would feel obliged to invent them. A pair of unshaply lads with inadvisble hair and worse moustaches prone to taking their tops off and looking bemused in photoshoots. Minehead's finest. No less. They've describes their sound as 'disco and seventies infused groove music.' That's only half the story,Generally I would run…
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,334 Depeche Mode - Ultra
Depeche Mode shift into another gear. 'Toto, this doesn't feel like Basildon anymore'
1967 Top 40 8th June # 3 The Kinks
Such a fundamental song to so many people. 'A sense of longing for something that;s just gone.'
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 139 The Pale White - Inanimate Objects of the 20th Century
Newcastle's The Pale White supply Queens of the Stone Age related fun for the 21st Century.
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 89 Pulp - We Love Life
Pulp meet up in the year 2001 and gather their congregation. Life on the margins. It's more Rockist than they ever got. Less Roxy more Free.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,480 The Menzingers
'I'm a zero. I'm a hero. I'm a struggling superhero.' Stay in your lane. One of the current adages which describes our culture. The Menzingers were sixteen once but they never will be again. No one's coming to save them so they head out on the road with best intent from their base in Scranton, Pennsylavania. On latest album Everything I Ever Saw they resolutely stay in their lane. The one paved…
1967 Top 40 8th June # 4 Englebert Humperdinck
Why does Englebert Humperdinck always have to come along and spoil everything.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 140 Land Hekt - Lucky Now
Young love. Exetre's finest. The spirit of Dolly Mixtures meet Billy Bragg sign up to Tapete Records and settle down in the West Country and live happily ever after !
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,335 Sharon Van Etten - Remind Me Tomorrow
I arrived late for Sharon Van Etten. But the important thing was getting there. Here's what I wrote at the time: An altogether fabulous gift to arrive in January, which this record did in 2019. She also played a just fabulous gig at the Tyne Theatre which I was fortunate to witness in early Autumn: New Years generally take a while to kick off music wise. But 2019 really set off in fine form for me…
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 90 The Coral - The Coral
When The Coral came out in 2002 I was in Poland I wondered whether I was missing anything . I was aware of where they were coming from Forever Changes . Piper At The Gates of Dawn. Kilimanjaro. Crocodiles. Listening to The Coral now I wish I'd spent more time with it. It has the Baroque Charm of youthful misadventure and wideyed wonder. Tales of yore and imagined yesterdays and tomorrows. But it's…
Song(s) of the Day # 4,479 Phoebe Bridgers
Waiting for the Encore. It's Friday morning. The sun is rising in the heavens. What better to do than absorb yourself in someone else's melancholia? So to Phoebe Bridgers first solo album for six years; Lost Weekend . Well it's almost the weekend. Why not ? And what's the first thing you get? Vocoder. And drift. Thirty Something drift. Weightlessness and reference to loss and despair. References…
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 91 The Walkmen - Bows & Arrows
In 2001 I went to New York City with a good friend with a half baked view to living there. We went to see Walkmen play with Interpol. It was the times. I was very taken with Walkmen. Lees so with Interpol who reminded me of .... Bows + Arrows still sounds like a realised bohemian dream.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 141 Pye Corner Audio - More Songs About The Sun.
What more could you want on a Friday morning than More Songs About The Sun. Just on cue here come Pye Corner Audio with just that. Feelgood electro throbbing chugging into clear waters and heading for the distant horizon. It seems clear we have the wind in our sails !
Song(s) of the Day # 4,478 The Hobknobs
Reasons to be cheerful, Part erm..... well four thousand four hundred and seventy eight. And counting.... The Hobknobs and their debut a;bum Helmets Off takes the biscuit frankly ! From the Dutch Lou & Mo school of Indie strum. No lack of ennui and boho poetry. Every one's a monochrome winner baby !
Song(s) of the Day # 4,477 Grapes Of Grain
'Season of mist and mellow fruitfullness.' Dutch masters Graps of Grain's fourth A Muted Hey embraces a rustic palette and moves into a field of its own . A beautiful set of songs that hark back to Darryl Anne, Bette Serveert and The Nits.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,336 Dead Can Dance - Within The Realm Of A Dying Sun
Some quite extraordinary albums came out on 4 AD Records during the Eighties. Not least of them the ones by Dead Can Dance. They were a band who made every effort to live up to the spectral potential of their name. A lot of this seems incredibly ahead of its time.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,477 Ravyn Levae
Blue Island by Ravyn Levae is a slightly Old School Dancefloor /Workout. Reminiscent of Janet Jackson and Janelle Monae. A familiar dream. It's undemanding but wholesome.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 142 Fake Canadian - Fellow Traveller
Howard Ingerman of Fake Candian asks the question on the lips of all discerning Pop Pickers. Namely was Andy Partridge circa 1978, the most irritating voice in the History of Rock & Roll? The jury is still out on that one. Fake Canadian's Fellow Traveller spins on in best skinny tie New Wave fashion, if New Wave had happened in the suburbs of San Jose.. Timothy Is In Danger is a Generation Z…
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 92 Simian - Chemistry is What We Are
Protean and slightly worthy. But more-ish ! Feels like being on a Mission to Mars on a shuttle crewed by vegans.
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 93 Robert Wyatt - Cuckooland
There's a wan melancholy about Robert Wyatt record's that is very distinctive. And very English.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,476 True Green
True Green's Hail Disaster is that rare thing. A dappled and consistently revealingmodern album that presents fresh territory to explore at every turn without having inhibiting influential sources . Minneapolis novelist and musician Dan Hornsby works melodic guitar, drum bass and keyboard as his basic ingredients, the human condition as his terrain but sets forth from there with ceaseless…
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 143 Liam Hayes
'Wearing canvas sneakers in the freezing snow....' Being happy to remain a cult is never a bad idea. A hidden secret to those in the know. Liam Hayes, the Chicago artist formerly known as Plush seems happy with what he is and what he does. Latest album Dancing Backwards is a good case in the argument that if it ain't broken why change things.Just change gear, Into the smooth lane. Why indeed. This…