Spectre

Just parking this for later really:

https://soundcloud.com/radiohead/spectre

Q albums of the year

I remember years ago thinking the Q list was a bit fuddy duddy and more of a 40something's take on the music scene. Well, guess what:

http://m.albumoftheyear.org/list/436-q-magazines-top-50-albums-of-2015/?s=asc

Monteath

NO categories skipped.

Best Album

Pink Shiny Ultrablast – Everything Else Matters

PSB - Race for Space

Courtney Barnett – Sometimes I Just Sit and Think...

Beirut – No No No

Father John Misty – I Love You Honeybear

Best Song

Blossoms – Blown Rose

Kagoule – Made of Concrete

Mbongwana Star - Malukayi

Maccabees – Marks to Prove It

Matthew E White – Rock and Roll is Cold

Best Musical Re-discovery

Lots of Eno – but especially Apollo

Dylan – Blood on The Tracks

Mark Knopfler – Music from Local Hero

The Elastica album

Mogwai in general

Best Middle-Aged Man/Men Doing Excellent – If Hardly Ground-breaking - Stuff

New Order

FFS

Gaz Coombes

Belle and Sebastian

Suede

Best Film

Grown-Up: While We’re Young

Kids: Penguins of Madagascar

Best Book

The Girl on the Landing – Paul Torday

Best Gig/Event

Lancs vs Surrey LV County Championship Div II

Best TV Programme

At either ends of the could-I-watch-with-my-mum? comedy spectrum: Detectorists and Catastrophe

Best Radio Programme

Leaving aside all the obvious 6 Music/Radio 4 recommends: Pick of the Pops with Tony Blackburn

Best Website

swimtag.net

Best Sporting Moment

Jessica Ennis-Hill – and setting various alarms throughout the night to watch it.

Revelation

Liking Dylan a lot more than I thought. An age thing, I suspect.

Worst Purchase / Disappointment

That Robbie Williams’ cover of Creep wasn’t all I’d hoped.

(and that I didn’t like The Magic Whip as much as I wanted to)

Best Child-Related Thing

That they can get their own breakfast on a weekend morning

Best Lifestyle Change

Occasional babysitters

Sort

Julie Dray (Miss Blondel/Cradle to Grave)

Person, People or Thing You’d Most Like to See Set Upon By a Pack of Wolves

George Osbourne – smug, evil and lucky. Clearly in a satanic pact.

The Winning Thing You’d Most Recommend Your Fellow Judges to Own/Have/Consume/Do

Pink Shiny Ultrablast or either TV choice

Kelly

Here goes. Skipped a few categories...

Best Album

Villagers – Darling Arithmetic

Duke Garwood – Heavy Love

John Grant – Grey Tickles Black Pressure

Everything Everything – Get to Heaven

Father John Misty – I Love You Honeybear

Best Song
New Order – Tutti Fruiti

EL VY – Return to the Moon

Bowie – Blackstar

Roisin Murphy - Unputdownable

Best Musical Re-discovery

A House – On our Big Fat Merry-go-Round

Best album of yesteryear
PJ Harvey – Let England Shake

Best Middle-Aged Man/Men Doing Excellent – If Hardly Ground-breaking – Stuff

I’d suggest that this category was invented for the new New Order album.

Best Film
The Theory of Everything

Best Book
Herman Melville – Moby Dick

Best Gig/Event
Teenage Fanclub – Hebden Bridge Trades Club

Best TV Programme
Breaking Bad (acknowledging that it’s hardly current)

Catastrophe

The Hunt

Best Radio Programme
Radconie

Best Website

www.monteath.co.uk

Best Sporting Moment

Japan beating South Africa in the rugby.

Worst Purchase / Disappointment

Even though expectations were low, ‘The Interview’ was absolute dross.

Best Child-Related Thing

Saturday morning football club

Person, People or Thing You’d Most Like to See Set Upon By a Pack of Wolves

I suppose ISIS would have to be the obvious choice. Then Trump. Then Hopkins.

The Winning Thing You’d Most Recommend Your Fellow Judges to Own/Have/Consume/Do

If you haven’t yet: Breaking Bad

DarBARTshire 2015

 Best Album

Tame Impala - Currents

Everything Everything - Get to Heaven

PSB - Race for Space

blur - Magic Whip

Django Django - Born Under Saturn

Best Song

Laura Marling – False Hope

Chemical Brothers feat. Beck – Wide Open

Tame Impala – Let It Happen 

New Order – Tutti Frutti

Maccabees – Spit it Out (could easily have been Marks to Prove It but don’t like to do two by same artist)

Best Musical (Re)discovery/

The three line whip inspired trip into Talk Talk's Spirit of Eden. Curious album...but an interesting listening experience.

Best Middle-Aged Man/Men Doing Excellent – If Hardly Ground-breaking – Stuff

Covered by blur, New Order and Chemical Brothers elsewhere.

Best Film

Haven’t been to the cinema this year so probably all released in 2014. Interstellar was the best I’ve seen, the first two hours so superb they made up for a ropey last 15 minutes. Pride, American Sniper and Wild were pretty good too.

Best Book

I bought the Roy Keane book last winter and finished it this spring. Brilliantly written by Roddy Doyle Ha ha ha. Yer man Keane is a fascinating character but it loses a bit of steam when he goes from playing for United to managing, say, Ipswich.

Best Gig/Event

New Order

Best TV Programme

Fargo Series 2, outstanding television. Second series of Penny Dreadful was good too. They’re currently pulling out all the stops for the final series of Peep Show.

Best Radio Programme

Unequivocally, Radcliffe and Maconie.

Best Website

Twitter

Best Sporting Moment

That time when United did an attack and scored in Spring...the 4-2 Manchester derby maybe. Failing that Andy Murray pretty much single handedly wining the Davis Cup. Oh, and Lancashire winning the T20 thing.

Revelation

The amount of decent new material from old men...something I’ve often thought was 6music’s Achilles heel in the past.

Worst Purchase / Disappointment

I need to listen to the new album properly, but after eulogising the previous Foals album I’ve been left a bit uninspired by their new stuff.

Also General Election 2015.

Best Child-Related Thing

The burgeoning, 100% independent of us as parents, friendship of the kids.

Best Lifestyle Change

Ha, 2 years ago I mentioned our new house...and thanks to our neighbour what a nightmare that turned into. But we really like our new new house.  

Sort

Eva Green

Person, People or Thing You’d Most Like to See Set Upon By a Pack of Wolves

Tories generally.

The Winning Thing You’d Most Recommend Your Fellow Judges to Own/Have/Consume/Do

Watch as many series of Fargo as you haven’t already seen.

And Premier Inn breakfasts. 

Toast

Thoughts? I like a lot (esp Clem Fandago interchanges/Ray Purchase) but feel quite ambivalent about a lot of it.