Thank You, PR People

Last week, a link materialised on my Twitter feed from a fellow (albeit far more popular) music blog called Just Music I Like. It was a link to this blog post, which featured the following statement:

"I have taken a decision to stop accepting submissions from PR's and label representatives with immediate effect and I shall be unsubscribing from every list I have found myself on."

Why? Because:

"I have a very limited time to listen to, let alone write about music for this blog (a lot my blog posts are written after midnight and during lunchtime) and I want to start to discover music organically again and not through perceived bias or constant communication through emails."

Now, upon reading this, my immediate reaction was one of empathy. I know what it is to have an inbox filled with music I don't care about from people I've never met, and again, The Album Wall's following is pretty small compared to JMIL's, so I can only imagine the levels of inundation this person has experienced.

I also understand that urge to "discover music organically again". Music is more meaningful when it's recommended by a friend, or by that hip-looking sage behind the counter at your local record shop. When you start listening to music because some PR person asked you for a write-up - when it's not fate but marketing that dictates what you'll listen to next - then being a music fan ceases to feel like an adventure. Instead, it becomes a series of assignments.

October Playlist: Keep it a Secret

What have I been stuffing in my ears this month? Well, since you ask, here are ten tracks that have rocktobered my October:

1. Daisy - Fang Island

(from Fang Island)

I bought Fang Island on a whim earlier this month, and I'm pleased to report that Fang Island's description of their own music as the sound of "everyone high-fiving everyone" is as applicable to this album as to Major (which I bought ages ago - why did it take me so long to pick this one up?!)

Robert Chaney the 21st Century Troubadour

Back when I still bought Uncut magazine on a semi-regular basis (that is, before I got bored of their apparently unchanging cycle of cover stars - Dylan, CSNY, The Band, repeat), I came into possession of a CD called Homeward Bound: 21st Century Troubadours. This was a compilation of songs by earnest folky types like Josh T. Pearson, The Tallest Man On Earth, et cetera, and it remains one of the best albums I've ever found gunked onto the front of a magazine. It's no Michael Stipe Presents..., but then what is?

Floridian singer-songwriter Robert Chaney may well have picked up that particular issue of Uncut too, because Cracked Picture Frames - Chaney's debut album, released earlier this year - calls that four-and-a-half year-old free-with-a-magazine CD to mind as readily as if I'd acquired it yesterday. While Chaney's album appears to feature only two voices (his own and his guitar's), he manages to cover a diverse range of different styles over the course of those ten tracks; some, like Does Your Love Pay Out in Full? are gentle and wistful, while the likes of Birds and Bees sound more playful and skirt closer to a more traditional definition of folk music. Still others, such as Black Eyed Susan and Patch it Up, are kind of harsh and grungy-sounding, like they were recorded in a rickety wooden shack inside a guitar amplifier.