# best ever (blogs) — RSS Amplifier Recent posts from the 1 feeds in the RSS Amplifier directory that cover best ever. Page: Feed: --- ## [Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,330 Genesis - Invisible Touch](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/best-ever-albums-2000-1001-1330-genesis.html) _2026-08-20 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ It was difficult to know what Genesis were really wanting to do during these years. The album covers were ghastly, they'd lostall the wonder of the Gabriel incarnation and it was clear they wanted to make money. Phil Collins had some Pop nous but frankly it was all rather ghastly. ## [500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 84 Deerhunter - Microcastle](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/500-greatest-albums-of-2000s-84.html) _2026-08-20 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ Deerhunter are an odd blend. The Avant Gard and Esoteric. Jagged introspection. Fencing in a shadow world. Then odd moments when everything comes into focus suddenly and you have expelled melodic pop noise, You get the impression that these elements are inextricably linked. You can't really have one without the other. I've had a wonderful day so I'll listen to this again. You have to do your time… ## [It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 135 Sotto Voce - The Sound of Trying?](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/it-starts-with-birthstone-200-albums_01329313565.html) _2026-08-20 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ What is the Sound of one Hand Clapping? Your guess is as good as mine. Never mind that; The Sound of Trying? Give up? Well it's the new album by Sotto Voce the alter ego of Brooklyn's Ryan Gabos. I've been listening to this on / off for a week now and it's compelling. Trying in the best sense of the word. Engaged rather than annoying. Bringing something to the table. Low fi sinew.. ## [Days # 4 Echo & The Bunnymen](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/days-4-echo-bunnymen.html) _2026-08-20 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ Ian McCulloch was and is a strange one but then aren't we all. But he had a distinct Pop Gift as did the Bunnyman. Crystal Days glides for a hundred seconds and is gone ! ## [Song(s) of the Day # 4,485 Nina Winder-Lind](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/songs-of-day-4485-nina-winder-lind.html) _2026-08-20 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ Nina Winder-Lind of the New Eves' latest album Wild Love has something of the uncanny, wide eyed wonder of Joanne Newsom, Bjork and Life Without Buildings records. It's self consciously bold and desirous, quite deliberate in its aspirations to Outsider status and acclaim in the way that The Slits and The Raincoats were way before it. These days there are established markets and audiences for this… ## [Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,331 Geordie Greep - The New Sound](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/best-ever-albums-2000-1001-1331-geordie.html) _2026-08-19 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ A New Sound perhaps but a rather frantic one. Out of Black Midi and the Windmill Post Punk scene. For me I'm afraid this tries far too hard, which is not always the best way to get to a new place and offers little respite. ## [500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 85 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/500-greatest-albums-of-2000s-85-nick.html) _2026-08-19 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ My mood is momentarily soured by the prospect of yet another Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds album to listen to. Don't they ever sleep. This is really kitchen sink stuff. It even has two titles. I'm not quite sure what you're supposed to do while listening to it. It strikes me as smart marketing. ## [It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 136 The Menzingers](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/it-starts-with-birthstone-200-albums_0795256637.html) _2026-08-19 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ '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… ## [Days # 3 The Drums](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/days-3-drums.html) _2026-08-19 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ The third song in a series called Days. A song called err Days . A band that always seem to be one that have listened to an an enormous amount of New Order. ## [Song(s) of the Day # 4,484 Kiwi Jr.](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/songs-of-day-4484-kiwi-jr.html) _2026-08-19 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ Kiwi . Jr Canada's reponse to Pavement twenty five years on are back on the siewalk and in a rich vein of form indeed on Blowin' Up their 4th album. In Pitchfork's words ' it radiates a frantic, bottom of the ninth hopefulness'. Drilling a winner into centerfield just before the lights go out. to send the crowd home jubilant. Kiwi Jr strike me as the sort of band that enjoys wordplay and… ## [Hire AI-Powered Professionals (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/GcavKRJNqAG3) _2026-08-19 · **Sponsored**_ Browse public gigs, message candidates, and run video interviews — free to start. ## [Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,332 The Pop Group - Y](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/best-ever-albums-2000-1001-1332-pop.html) _2026-08-18 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ I struggle with The Pop Group. Y stretches the limits of my openness to the avant garde. I can see the skill of the playing, the resourcefulness, poetic bravura and artistry. I just don't want to listen to much of it which isn't the case with Josef K, Mission of Burma or Pere Ubu. ## [500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 86 Doves - Lost Souls](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/500-greatest-albums-of-2000s-86-doves.html) _2026-08-18 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ The second song in three days on this rundown but this is the one I bonded with. In a large bedroom in a cool student flat in Catania, Sicily in the year it came out where I spent one of the best years and made some of the best friends of my life. I was 35 and came to Sicily to write my novel but mostly to decide what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Catania in every way was a Golden Dawn.… ## [Song(s) of the Day # 4,483 Above Me](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/songs-of-day-4483-above-me.html) _2026-08-18 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ Above Me's Soften The Blows is a gentle floral, ambient thing. Like a flower opening its petals to the sun in spring or slow motion camera effect. An act and album that would have been on4 AD or Creation back in the day. Chapterhouse and Cocteau Twins join forces and don't enunciate their words properly or get to the chorus. Why would anyone expect them to. ## [Days # 2 Television](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/days-2-television.html) _2026-08-18 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ 'Watching all of the silver. No-one will ever spend...' The second song from Adventure was not disimilar from Venus , the second track on Marquee Moon . But like Adventure it was day to Marquee Moon and Venus' Tight toy night.The traces from this song to the Go Betweens and R.E.M. seem abundantly clear. ## [It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 137 Haiver](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/it-starts-with-birthstone-200-albums_01599617396.html) _2026-08-18 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ Haiver come from the ashes of Frightened Rabbit and plough a similar furrow. Latest album The Ghost Dance is distinctly and immediately Scottish. Anthemic and defiant. It occasionally threatens to topple into the Abyss of Mundanity but makes its way with no little grace to the other end of the wire and the grassy path leading inland.. ## [1967 Top 40 8th June # 1 Procol Harum](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/1967-top-40-8th-june-1-procol-harum.html) _2026-08-17 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ 'The room was humming harder...' The idea of a life fully lived. ## [500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 87 Sonic Youth - Sonic Nurse](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/500-greatest-albums-of-2000s-87-sonic.html) _2026-08-17 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ Sonic Youth are very Post Modern in terms of their placement in the scheme of things. They always seemed conscious and slightly sensitive in this respect. They bhad become rather formulaic by Sonic Nurse (the most self consciously Rock & Roll name for album titles) but plenty love and honour formulas. ## [Days # 1 The Kinks](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/days-1-kinks.html) _2026-08-17 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ I've been thinking about days recently. It's my parents 69th Wedding Anniversary today. 25,000 days give or take a few. I'm fortunate enough to be with them. I'll set this ball running with one of the stand out tracks about days and see how long the stone rolls. Endless and sacred. ## [It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 138 James Ellis Ford - Lost To Another World](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/it-starts-with-birthstone-200-albums_0726388854.html) _2026-08-17 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ An album about the emotions inspired by partially crossing the river and coming back to tell the tale. James Ellis Ford who has produced Arctic Monkeys, Blur and Fontaines D.C.underwent hostipal leukemia treatment in 2025 and experienced the 'uncanny valley'. Now he tells the tale in Lost To Another World . . It's alll starngely Eighties. Burbling synths and drum machines. China Crisis, Blue Nile,… ## [Song(s) of the Day # 4,482 Swapmeet](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/songs-of-day-4482-swapmeet.html) _2026-08-17 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ Huurah Lads ! Darren Jones, first mate of this blog has has shown his face on deck at It Starts With a Birthstone chucked a few tasty mortals on deck and vanished with nary a word. I'm immensely grateful . Off we go into the coming week with Swapmeet's Mount Zero. Swapmeet hail from Adelaide, Australia which may be fresh territory for It Starts , but probably isn't. They're a spirited looking… ## [Stream Torrents & IPTV Instantly (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/3d0Ud0kDjxPU) _2026-08-17 · **Sponsored**_ Search magnet links and stream movies, music, books, and live TV in-browser ## [Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,333 Sleigh Bells - Treats](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/best-ever-albums-2000-1001-1333-sleigh.html) _2026-08-16 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ ## [500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 88 Doves - The Last Broadcast](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/500-greatest-albums-of-2000s-88-doves.html) _2026-08-16 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ 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](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/1967-top-40-8th-june-2-tremeloes.html) _2026-08-16 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ Somehow this seems to be a song whose time had already gone by 1987. ## [Song(s) of the Day # 4,481 Getdown Services](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/songs-of-day-4481-getdown-services.html) _2026-08-16 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ 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](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/best-ever-albums-2000-1001-1334-depeche.html) _2026-08-15 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ Depeche Mode shift into another gear. 'Toto, this doesn't feel like Basildon anymore' ## [1967 Top 40 8th June # 3 The Kinks](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/1967-top-40-8th-june-3-kinks.html) _2026-08-15 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ 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](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/it-starts-with-birthstone-200-albums_0224017377.html) _2026-08-15 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ 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](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/500-greatest-albums-of-2000s-89-pulp-we.html) _2026-08-15 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ 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](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/songs-of-day-4480-menzingers.html) _2026-08-15 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ '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](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/1967-top-40-8th-june-4-englebert.html) _2026-08-14 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ Why does Englebert Humperdinck always have to come along and spoil everything. ## [Marketplace for AI-Powered Professionals (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/PQtHeLOArFu9) _2026-08-14 · **Sponsored**_ Find professionals who use ChatGPT, Copilot, and Claude to deliver work faster. ## [It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 140 Land Hekt - Lucky Now](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/it-starts-with-birthstone-200-albums_01278103358.html) _2026-08-14 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ 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](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/best-ever-albums-2000-1001-1335-sharon.html) _2026-08-14 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ 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](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/500-greatest-albums-of-2000s-90-coral.html) _2026-08-14 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ 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](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/songs-of-day-4479-phoebe-bridgers.html) _2026-08-14 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ 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](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/500-greatest-albums-of-2000s-94-walkmen.html) _2026-08-13 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ 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.](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/it-starts-with-birthstone-200-albums_01978410186.html) _2026-08-13 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ 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](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/songs-of-day-4478-hobknobs.html) _2026-08-13 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ 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](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/songs-of-day-4477-grapes-of-grain.html) _2026-08-12 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ '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](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/best-ever-albums-2000-1001-1336-dead.html) _2026-08-12 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ 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](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/songs-of-day-4477-ravyn-levae.html) _2026-08-12 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ 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](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/it-starts-with-birthstone-200-albums_0896973978.html) _2026-08-12 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ 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](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/500-greatest-albums-of-2000s-95-simian.html) _2026-08-12 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ 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](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/500-greatest-albums-of-2000s-95-robert.html) _2026-08-11 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ 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](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/songs-of-day-4476-true-green.html) _2026-08-11 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ 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](http://itstartswithabirthstone.blogspot.com/2026/08/it-starts-with-birthstone-200-albums_01412233724.html) _2026-08-11 · Brush Box · It Starts With a Birthstone..._ '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…