One at a Time

A few years ago - back before I got myself an iPod and grudgingly switched over to iTunes - I had a WMP playlist called 'Recent Stuff'. I listened to it loads. It consisted, at all times, of ten songs: one from each of the last ten albums I had purchased. Every time I bought a new album, I would change all ten songs, which meant that, by the time an album had been pushed to the bottom of the list, almost all of its tracks had had a turn in the limelight.

This was a great way of getting to know the CDs I bought - even if I didn't like an album enough to listen to the whole thing over and over again, its presence in the 'Recent Stuff' playlist ensured that I didn't completely forget about it.

Manilow

Yesterday, I took a step I never expected to take.

That's right: I purchased a Barry Manilow CD. I had it on in the car this morning, in fact, and it was certainly one of my more memorable commutes. From the majestic I Write the Songs to the slightly too forward I Wanna Do It With You, there's seldom a dull moment on this disc.

But why, you ask, did I decide to buy Music & Passion in the first place? Well, reader, I've got two words for you: Bermuda Triangle.

I heard this song on Simon Mayo's Radio 2 show a couple of weeks ago, and since then, I've been all over it. I even attempted a somewhat abortive cover version. Eventually, this obsession reached the point where I simply had to add Bermuda Triangle to my library, even if it meant adding 19 other Barry Manilow tracks along with it.

January Playlist: Let's Not Think About Tomorrow

So here's a new thing. From now on, my last blog of each month will take the form of a playlist, a recap of what I've been listening to (and indeed blogging about) each month. I'm afraid I can't be bothered to compile and share a proper Spotify playlist, but I do encourage all of you to do so for yourselves.

Anyhow, here are 10 of the songs I've been loving since New Year's...

1. Summer Here Kids - Grandaddy
(from Under the Western Freeway)
My first blog of 2015 was all about Grandaddy's debut album, and how it's arguably just as good (and as depressing) as its more popular sequel, The Sophtware Slump. This song in particular is a corker, and what better way to kick off a January playlist than with a song about summer?

Decemberists: Doing It for the Fans

Here are some facts about The Decemberists:

• Prior to this month, they hadn't released a new studio album since 2011.
• Their last album, The King is Dead, was something of a departure from their previous work. It scrapped the epic prog-rock structures and fantastical narratives that had characterised albums like The Hazards of Love and The Crane Wife, and it erred instead towards a more folksy, down-to-earth sort of songwriting.
• While The King is Dead was reasonably well-received by critics (its metascore of 77 trumps the meagre 73 achieved by The Hazards of Love), I personally consider it their weakest album to date. It had far less personality than any of its predecessors, and fewer stories to tell; furthermore, the album's musical backdrop was significantly blander than the band's spectacular, accordion-pumping norm.

With all of the above in mind, you can probably guess how I felt going into What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World, the first fresh batch of Decemberism in almost precisely four years. I was excited, certainly, but that excitement was cut with more than a little trepidation; any artist could be forgiven a small foray into the ho-hum after a project as ambitious as Hazards of Love, but if this new album had proved as ordinary as The King is Dead, I'd have had no choice but to assume that the Decemberists I had once loved were dead, buried, and surreptitiously replaced by indieblah clones of their former fun selves.

Review: Innovation In The Trade by Pulco

Ash Cooke (a.k.a. Pulco) describes his new album, Innovation In The Trade, as an effort to "immerse myself in a growing love of all things Dada...reject reason...prize nonsense, irrationality and intuition."

If you're unfamiliar with Dadaism and its ideas, this song is as good an introduction as any.

All of which sounds like great fun, but it does make my task as a reviewer rather tricky - how can one find meaning in deliberate nonsense? Short of producing an equally surreal, equally Dadaist write-up, how might I shed light on an album that goes out of its way to avert all reason and logic?