Sorry. Went a bit Sesame Street there.

Memery - via lanyn

How to Play: Comment to this entry and I’ll give you a letter. List ten things that you love that begin with that letter and then post that list on your journal.

My List: Ten Things I Love That Begin With The Letter C

Cats: Well, I couldn't rightly leave the little dears out, could I? :-D

Coffee: Otherwise known as fuel.

Cynicism: Pretty much my modus operandi - and I'm perfectly happy that way, thank you very much...

Creative: No, I'm not talking creativity here, I'm talking Creative. As in Creative Labs, who made my Zen MP3 player, without which...well, I might have to buy a bloody iPod. *shiver*

China Mieville: Okay. Now I'm talking creativity. Mieville is one of the best, most creative exponents of New Weird fantasy out there. You should read him. Yes, you.

Calenture: "You what, now?" I hear you cry. Many of you may not have heard it, but Calenture is one of my favourite albums, by 80s Aussie band The Triffids. Give it a listen. You might like it.

Castle: Now, I do like castles, but I'm actually on about Castle, the detective show with Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic. It's one of the few things I tune in for week in, week out, and I love it.

Caramel Wafers: The best chocolate-based snacks in the world. Bar none.

Candide: Yeah. You know I mentioned cynicism earlier on? Well, here it is writ large, in Voltaire's brilliant satire. One of my favourite books ever.

Cissé: Papiss Demba Cissé. Newcastle United's fabulous new Senegalese striker, who has scored us 13 goals in 12 games - including two absolute stunners in this evening's match against Chelsea. He scores whenever he wants, or so it seems.

So. I guess this just goes to prove that my brain can't resist a meme...even when it isn't really a meme. Oh, and yes, I know I did a list of movies a couple of posts back. This is different. Those were simply movies chosen to fit a purpose - for their alphabetical qualities more than for my own love for them. Which is not to say I don't like those movies. I do.

Hang about. I'm waffling. Already.

Allow me to start again. A few days ago, I read a post lanyn put up about her 25 favourite movies. Now, I'm a listy sort of person (anyone who's seen me walk will know this...boom boom); I like making lists, and I like seeing what other people pick on theirs. It gives me a chance to nod sagely at our similarities, and to shake my head sadly at our differences (because...well, because if there are differences, that means the person doesn't agree with me - and that clearly makes them wrong).

This one was no different. Well, except it was. Kind of. See, although I like making lists - and although I very much liked lanyn's list - I've never even thought of making one like this. A top 25 films? I wouldn't have the patience. Or so I told myself.

Ah, but then I had forgotten something crucial. I had forgotten that when my brain starts turning over on something like this, it does not stop. Seriously. I have no way of applying the brakes when my brain starts mulling over lists. Actually, I'm not sure I even have brakes.

Point is, once I'd started thinking about it, I was set on a path. There were no ifs or buts - I was going to put my own list together. My brain simply wouldn't countenance my not doing one. And so here we are.

Blimey, and I pulled myself up for waffling earlier. :-P

Anyway. After five days of thinking, and six or seven sheets of paper (indecisive? moi?), I finally have a list. It's a varied bunch: there are dramas, a couple of thrillers, a nice smattering of sci fi and fantasy (of course), and a wholly unsurprising amount of whimsy and silliness. Some I could watch on a more or less daily basis - my comfort movies, if you like - while others might get watched once a year at most. And, despite my hopeless predisposition for indecision (yes, I really did just write that), I'm pretty confident that they are my 25 favourite movies of all time. And here they are...

1) Blade Runner - (1982)
2) Leon (The Professional) - (1994)
3) Papillon - (1973)
4) The Fisher King - (1991)
5) La Cité des enfants perdus - (1995)
6) A Matter of Life and Death - (1946)
7) High Fidelity - (2000)
8) Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas - (1998)
9) Pulp Fiction - (1994)
10) Princess Mononoke - (1997)
11) To Kill A Mockingbird - (1962)
12) Alien - (1979)
13) Monty Python's Life of Brian - (1979)
14) The Fifth Element - (1997)
15) Dr Strangelove (or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb) - (1964)
16) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance - (1962)
17) Memento - (2000)
18) Spirited Away - (2001)
19) Withnail & I - (1987)
20) The Princess Bride - (1987)
21) Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid - (1969)
22) Serentiy - (2005)
23) The Hunt For Red October - (1990)
24) The Libertine - (2004)
25) Manhunter - (1986)

Dear lord, but I've been a bad blogger of late. I mean, seriously: no posts since mid-February? Three posts total in 2012? Bad blogger. *slaps self*

There have been reasons. Well, kind of. Well, no, there haven't, really. There have been excuses, but you don't want to hear them, believe me. They're old and hackneyed, and I'm not entirely sure I believe them myself.

Anyway. What have I been doing? Um...

New job. Yes. After that big, ranty post I put up in January, I ended up not leaving the civil service after all. Instead, I managed to get myself moved to a job where I don't have to sit and deal with the general (or, to be more accurate, the very specific) public face-to-face. Which was something of a relief, let me tell you. Instead, I moved to a different office and have, for the last month, been training up as a benefit processor. For those not in the know, this means I essentially work out why people don't qualify for a specific benefit and then ring them up to let them know we're taking their money away.

Yeah. Trust me, it's almost as much fun as it sounds. Suffice to say I have precisely zero intention of staying there, but it's a slightly better stop-gap than I would otherwise have had. Or wouldn't have had, given that hell has - as far as I'm aware - not yet frozen over, and it would have taken such an event to get me working in a jobcentre. This current job may not be the best, but it is just about preferable to being unemployed. Just. Even so, you can probably imagine that a fair amount of my time has been spent searching for something better. More news on that when I have it...

What else? Oh, yes. Reading. What with the job search and all, I haven't read as much so far this year as I'd have liked. Still, there have been a few: I very much enjoyed Even The Dogs by the rather excellent Jon McGregor, The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross, and...oh, what was it again? It's on the tip of my tongue. Uh...oh, yes. A rather excellent debut novel from someone called Cat Hellisen; When The Sea Is Rising Red. I'd heartily recommend them all.

I'd give a slightly more stifled recommendation for Owen Jones' Chavs: The Demonisation of The Working Class. Stifled for a number of reasons, but mainly because - though I agree with most of what Jones is saying - it's a wee bit repetitive.

And then there are two I really wouldn't recommend. I know a lot of people rave about his writing, but after trudging through Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, I seriously doubt I'll be bothering with David Foster Wallace again. Ye gods, but it was dull. Dull, dull, dull. With a side order of dull. I also - rather sadly, in this case, find myself unable to recommend The Noise Revealed, the second in the space opera series from Ian Whates. Now, I should preface this with the fact that I've met Ian and like him very much; I also kind of liked the first book in this series, despite some occasionally clunky dialogue and plotting. Despite the flaws, I found some of the ideas in the story interesting and wanted to see where he was going with them. Unfortunately...well, unfortunately, the answer to that was "nowhere special". The second novel just didn't grab me at all: the plot was thin (and hole-ridden), the dialogue was poor, the characters weren't engaging... I struggled to finish it, if I'm honest, and I feel kind of bad admitting that. But there it is.

And so to the writing. There hasn't been much, if I'm honest. Quite apart from anything else, my brain just hasn't been in the right place for it. I want to be writing, and I've made a couple of abortive attempts at starting the new novel (a dark-ish fantasy called The Gods Of Our Fathers), but haven't yet found anything that sticks. It's probably seepage from the whole job-wangst: once I'm more settled - or at least, settled in a better job - I've no doubt things will improve on the writing front, too. For the time being, I'll struggle on as best I can. I've half a mind (no jokes, please) to work on something smaller; short story length, perhaps, or maybe novella. I have a couple of ideas kicking around at the back of my brain: maybe now's the time to dust them off and give them a go. We shall see.

Uh...yeah. That's about it. Gosh, but what a whirlwind life I have. :-P

Well, hello February. Where in the hell did you come from? This year; I swear it's disappearing before my very eyes.

Anyway, in lieu of a proper, productive post (I know, there haven't been many of those lately) and because I'm an incorrigible procrastinator, I've nicked another meme from lanyn. I give you movies. Alphabetised movies, no less...

( And here they are... )

Funny, isn't it? No matter how much lead-in time you have, how many pointers there are along the way and how much precedent there might be for you to work with, it's always a surprise when the time comes and you find that, yes, this time it really is you who's getting screwed over.

I should explain. I am, as most will know, a civil servant.

Hoy. Stop gnashing your teeth like that. It isn't nice.

Anyway. Yes, I'm a civil servant. I've been a civil servant for going on 11 years, spending five years doing a variety of admin jobs before moving across and very, very slightly up into an job testing government IT systems. For the last three years, it's been my job to try and break on-line benefit systems so that, once they go live, the customers can't.

Now, look. If you don't stop with the teeth-gnashing, I'm going to get cross.

Where was I? Oh, yes. User testing.

It would, I think, probably be something of an exaggeration to say that I enjoy my job. I mean, it's not the most thrilling work in the world: I - we, our team - spend most of our time designing scenarios in order to test the parameters of IT systems, for heaven's sake. We sit at a terminal in an office all day; if we're really lucky, we might find a problem in one of our tests and have to report it to the designers so they can fix it. It isn't exactly a whirlwind of excitement. Still, it's nice. I work with a nice bunch of guys: the job might not be thrill central and we aren't paid a huge amount (despite what the government and most of the newspapers would have it, most civil servants earn the national average or less), but we do have a good laugh most days.

Spin back about a year and a half. May 2010, to be precise, and shortly after the last election. The Tories have got into office (kind of; it's easy to forget that they're just part of a coalition sometimes), and there's change afoot. They have big plans for the welfare system in the country and, as we quickly discover, for us, too. Turns out we're not going to be needed any more; our work is to be handed out to private sector suppliers, apparently because this will be cheaper (*cough* bullshit *cough*) and more effective (*cough* unbelievable bullshit *cough*). Needless to say, we weren't overly happy. It probably didn't help that this news was delivered to us by perhaps the most obnoxious individual I've ever had the misfortune to meet, who essentially seemed to be telling us "you're all going to be out of a job - and that's a GOOD thing".

Well, we all kind of braced ourselves...and for a while, very little happened. We got on with our job. Time passed. We knew bad stuff was coming, but for the moment it still seemed a little distance away.

Spin forward a year. By this point, the organisational review was well under way, and we had seen its effect on some of the departments and colleagues around us. The old admin team I'd worked in before moving to the testing job was folded up with a suddenness (and callousness, it has to be said), which kind of took the breath away, the staff members compulsorily transferred out to often completely unsuitable jobs with little or no notice. That, I have to say, was a bit of a shocker.

Shortly thereafter, my own little team - along with everyone else in our department at the same grade, I should add; I don't want it to sound like we were singularly targeted in this - were told that as part of the ongoing review, we'd have to go through a "match and selection" exercise. Essentially, we'd be assessed and marked, and from those marks a determination would be made on which role we would be placed into. Well, it sounded pretty crap, as you can imagine, but hey; at least we were getting an exercise. Some hadn't been so fortunate. And at least the final decision on our placements was going to be done on the basis of our skills and our overall marking...

I'm sure you can already see where I'm going with this. A few weeks back, just before Christmas, we were given our markings. Now, obviously I don't know what marks everyone got; even if I did, it would be wrong of me to disclose them. I know what my normalised score was, and I know it was supposedly quite high on "the curve" they were supposedly using to grade people. I don't know how it compared to others, but I think it's fair to say I was relieved. I would, it seemed, be okay. Naivety, thy name is Rob...

You see, I'd made this naive assumption that, as my score was decent and as we'd been told that postings within the department would be based on these scores, that I'd be posted somewhere...well, that I'd be posted somewhere. Possibly somewhere decent, perhaps even to one of the places I'd expressed a preference for.

I wasn't. I wasn't placed anywhere. I was, as the letter put it, unassigned.

This kind of stunned me. Perhaps it's a sign of arrogance or naivety on my part, but it had never even occurred to me that I would literally be placed nowhere. I was in good company, too; just in my office, there were dozens of people in the same boat. As the initial surprise wore off and people began to talk, it became clear that the scores - which were supposed to be the deciding factor in postings, or so we had been told - had apparently meant little in terms of outcomes. People - myself included - began to wonder just how these decisions had been made. Not that we could do anything, you understand. The decisions had been made. We were just kind of stuck with the aftermath.

Still, at least we didn't have to worry about redundancy. Roles, we were assured, would be found for us. Again, somewhat naively I assumed that these roles, once found, would be suitable. I mean, they wouldn't place people in jobs they couldn't do. Right? Wrong.

This last Friday, I received notice of my posting. I'm to be transferred to a jobcentre, where I'll work as a personal adviser. For those not in the know, this essentially means that I'll sit at a desk at the front of the jobcentre and deal with new and returning benefit claimants as they come in.

I cannot begin to describe how angry this makes me. I just can't. On a scale of 1 to 10, it scores somewhere north of 100. Two days on, I'm still incandescent with rage every time I think about it. I mean, someone has effectively looked at my skill set, shrugged, tossed it to one side and decided that they'll put me into a job that I have neither the skills nor the temperament for. They've posted me to a job that would - and I'm not exaggerating here - cause me so much stress that I can all but guarantee I'd be off sick within a week.

Well, fuck them. It ain't happening. I don't want to leave the civil service like this, but they really don't leave me much choice. I'll work to the end of my current posting, however long that is, and then they can get stuffed. I'll find somewhere else to work. Preferably somewhere they treat you like a human being.

/rant

Right. Here we are, then - the business end of my listiness mini-marathon, my five absolute favourite songs of the year. This is where it gets serious. Or rather, it would do if it were being compiled by anyone other than my sort-of-good self. As it is...well. Let's just get back to that countdown, shall we?


5. TV On The Radio - Will Do
Actually, I will be serious for a moment. It was with some sadness that I heard of the death from lung cancer of TVOTR bassist Gerard Smith earlier this year. He was a great musician, and way too young to go. This song was always going to be somewhere near my top ten at year's end, but I'd be lying if I said that circumstances haven't maybe pushed it a little higher than it might have otherwise been. RIP Gerard, and thanks for the music.


4. Scroobius Pip ft. Sage Francis & P.O.S - Let 'Em Come
And now I need a mood changer...and I've got one. I don't listen to a lot of hip-hop, but there's something about Pip's rhymes and flows that always seems to grab me, and that's certainly true on this track. Given how frustrating and occasionally plain shitty this year has been, I think I might just adopt this one as my own little anthem... :-P


3. Lykke Li - Get Some
She made number five on my album list, but when it comes to the best songs of the year Lykke Li makes it just that little bit higher (see what I did there? No? Oh, well; never mind...). I could have picked two or three tracks from Wounded Rhymes and actually nearly went for Sadness Is A Blessing, but at the end of the day I really can't deny the raw power of this one. Damn, but I love this song.


2. PJ Harvey - The Words That Maketh Murder
This is the hardest pick I had to make, by some considerable distance. Choosing just one of the twelve tracks from Harvey's frankly brilliant new album is all but impossible. Quite apart from the fact that they're all kind of intertwined with one another (on a thematic, if not musical level), there's the simple fact that whatever I pick I'm going to be left with the nagging feeling that I should have gone for that one. Or maybe that one. As a result, and while I'm perfectly happy for this track to sit at number two on my list, it's pretty much there representing the whole rather than just itself.


And so to the top spot. Drum roll, please...

1. My Brightest Diamond - Be Brave
Did you guess it? Did you? Of course you did. Peej might have produced a stunner of an album, but from the first time I heard this I knew - for absolutely certain - that it was going to be my number one track of 2011. It is, simply, marvellous. The orchestration! The voice! The finger bells! :-P

Seriously, though. This isn't just my favourite song of the year. It's in serious contention to be my favourite song ever. It's that good. Shara Worden, I love you for this. I bloody love you.

Right. I've got the albums out of the way - now for the really hard list. Mind you, it probably goes without saying that there's likely to be a certain amount of crossover between this and my albums list. Well, you wouldn't expect me to love an album and then tell you I wasn't all that keen on any of the songs on it, would you? :-P

And backwards we go once again...

10. Tom Waits - Hell Broke Luce
Bad As Me didn't quite make it onto my album list - it's more a slightly disjointed collection of songs than a proper album, really - but this track just blew me away. This is Waits at his roughest, stompingest best. Love it.


9. The Decemberists - This Is Why We Fight
And by way of contrast, we have The Decemberists. I'm kind of torn between this and Down By The Water as my favourite track from the new album, but this one just pips it, I think. I do so love the thundering drumbeat on here, and the chunky guitar riff that comes in about halfway through...ah. Nice.


8. St. Vincent - Cruel
And so to the first crossover. The reasons I love this song are pretty much the same as those I gave when I talked about the album: Annie Clark's fabulous, almost hypnotic vocal; the ever-so-slightly eccentric beats; the brilliantly bizarre guitar riffs (particularly the brief and almost brittle solo). Oh, and the video's great, too - always a bonus. :-)


7. Woodkid - Iron
If you haven't heard/seen this before...where the hell have you been the last few months? I can't think of another track this year that's had such an immediate impact on me, and its appeal hasn't faded over time. It's like a force of nature the way it drives along, propelled by drum and brass and beat. Oh, and did I mention the video? Best video this year. By a mile.


6. Laura Marling - Sophia
My favourite from an absolutely cracking album. Remember I mentioned the comparisons that have been made between Marling and Joni Mitchell? I give you exhibit A - not that I'm complaining, mind you. Not even a tiny bit...


Now, how's that for a bit of an eclectic mix? More to come tomorrow, including my absolute favourite track of the year - which the more perceptive among you may have already guessed. :-P

Right. Where were we? Ah, yes, that's right: I was being indecisive halfway through my list, wasn't I? Yes; wangsting over whether I'd really got my top five, or whether one of the ones I'd already mentioned should be higher, worrying that I'd post this up and then BAM! Something would come along and force its way into my affections. Well, I'm wangsting no longer. Decisiveness has been restored. Let the countdown recommence...

5. Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes

Lykke Li's début album, Youth Novels, didn't do a lot for me. There were moments of inspiration on there - particularly the single Dance Dance Dance - but the whole wasn't anything I was going to get excited about. As a result, I wasn't expecting too much from the follow-up. To say I was pleasantly surprised would therefore be something of an understatement.

Wounded Rhymes is a totally different beast to its predecessor. It's darker - much, much darker - the teasing tone that filled some of the songs on Youth Novels replaced by one that swings between melancholy and almost vicious cynicism. With the often jagged guitar riffs and primal drumming underpinning Zachrisson's vocals, it's about the rawest thing I've heard this year - and all from someone who is, after all, still only 24. Scary. But brilliantly so.

4. Gillian Welch - The Harrow & The Harvest

Gillian Welch has a terrific voice. That much has never really been in doubt - so why is this the first album of hers that I've not only gone out and bought, but really enjoyed? Well, I think it all comes down to style. Although Welch is firmly rooted in Americana and bluegrass traditions (and, yes, old-style country, which I'd normally steer well clear of), she's also been one to play around with those traditions. Now, that's certainly not a bad thing, and some of the stuff she's done in the past I've been quite fond of, but to my mind her albums have always been a bit...inconsistent. There'll be stand-out tracks, but there'll be a fair amount of meh in there as well.

Not so here. The Harrow & The Harvest is perhaps the best thing she's ever done, and it's also possibly the simplest. I don't think that's a coincidence. A good number of the songs here are stripped back to little more than a couple of acoustic guitars and Welch's gorgeous vocals, and the tone - with the exception of the jaunty The Way It Goes and Six White Horses - is one of mournful longing. It's not an album that's going to raise the spirits, but it's one of the most beautiful things I've heard in a while.

3. My Brightest Diamond - All Things Will Unwind

Ah, Shara Worden.

Actually, I'm tempted to just leave it at that. Shara Worden is one of those musicians I simply won't have a bad word said about. She has probably the best voice out there, in my opinion, and I'd happily sit and listen to her singing along to the phone book while accompanied by someone playing the spoons. Really. The fact that she actually produces the kind of wonderfully offbeat tunes as populate the latest MBD album are kind of an added bonus (albeit a pretty big one). I've already raved about Be Brave (and, needless to say, will do so again), but there are half a dozen absolute belters on here, and not one tune that I can see losing its appeal any time soon. I LOVE this album. Fiercely.

2. Patrick Wolf - Lupercalia

Who says you need to be depressed or troubled to create great music or art? Not Patrick Wolf, that's for sure. Lupercalia has a couple of downbeat moments, but they're very much the exception to the rule, and the rule is pretty much jubilant. This is clearly Wolf in a very good place, and bless him for sharing it with us.

1. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake

There was never really much doubt about this one, to be honest. Let England Shake has been my favourite album of the year since I first picked it up back in February, and nothing has even come close to ousting it from that position. I could give a hundred reasons why I love this album so much, but suffice to say that it's Harvey at the very top of her game, and there's not many who can match that. Not many at all.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I said I'd do my album list yesterday. You didn't really think I'd be able to keep to that, did you? I mean, this is me we're talking about.

Anyway. As I mentioned in my last post, it's been really tough to pick out a top ten list this year (and the top ten tracks list was - is - even tougher to put together, so much so that it's still kind of in flux). This one isn't, though. Well, not at the moment, anyway. Ask me again in a week and I'd probably give you a slightly different list, though I do at least reckon seven or eight of these would still be there in some order or other. Probably.

Right. Time to count backwards...

10. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues

I was a little slow onto the Foxes' début album, to the extent that I didn't even hear it until early last year. It took a while for me to appreciate their sound, too: the harmonies were sweet, of course, but at first they just sort of drifted over me a bit. After a few listens, however, I started to get it, and if pressed I'd now have to say that the album was one of my favourites of that year.

I didn't have the same problem with this. Maybe it's down to the added instrumentation - there are a couple of tracks on here I'd almost classify as rock - but there's something a bit more immediate about Helplessness Blues. It's hookier, more varied, and yet retains the same beautiful harmonies and sweetness of purpose as its predecessor. It's a great album.

9. The Twilight Singers - Dynamite Steps

A lot of people won't like this album, and most of them would probably quote the same reason - Greg Dulli's voice. It's certainly one of those rock voices - like Tom Waits, in some ways - that is often more about the feeling of the piece than the notes. Actually, Waits isn't a bad marker for anyone listening to this album: Dulli never gets raucous in the same manner as Waits, but there's a similarity of purpose and sensibility in there, and the dark, brooding intensity should be instantly familiar to Waits fans.

Which is not to say Dulli is copying the great man. He absolutely isn't. The Twilight Singers have always been, and remain, more of a straight-up rock band than I suspect Waits would ever want to be, and Dynamite Steps doesn't deviate too far from their previous releases. It's dark, intense, and yet imbued with a groove and a swagger that I for one find hard to shake off. Not that I try, you understand...

8. Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't Know

Laura Marling just keeps getting better and better. This is the third album from the 21-year-old singer-songwriter, and it's another step up both lyrically and technically. It's also a little rougher around the edges and a little tougher than last year's I Speak Because I Can, and for my money that's not a bad thing. Marling's voice remains as excellent as ever: there'll always be the comparisons with Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell, but I'm yet to hear anyone actually come up with a reason why this should be a bad thing. Baez and Mitchell were both wonderful singers. So is Marling - and if she carries on the way she's going, it wouldn't surprise me if she outshines both of them. She's that good.

7. St Vincent - Strange Mercy

Ah, how to define Annie Clark? Um...nah. I'm not even going to try. There are some artists and musicians out there that just don't fit neatly into boxes, and Clark - AKA St Vincent - is very definitely one of them. She may have added a rockier feel to this album than her previous releases, but that doesn't mean that she's gone mainstream. Even a quick listen to opener Chloe In The Afternoon should disabuse you of that idea, the off-kilter guitar riff grinding along while Clark's voice floats above it.

And what a voice it is, too. There aren't many purer voices out there, in my opinion; fragile and beautiful, yet imbued with an underlying strength. There are, I think, certain vocal similarities between Annie Clark and Bjork: they employ their voices very differently, but both share an almost ethereal quality, and there's something in the delivery, too. In the end, though, any similarities are outweighed by Clark's own very individual style. As I said at the start, she doesn't fit neatly into any box. She's a one-off, and that's both wonderful and a little bit of a shame. :-D

6. Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will

Hmm. You know, I think I may have mentioned this one somewhere before... :-P

I can't really add much to what I've already said,about Mogwai's latest. Suffice to say it's a terrific album, and after the best part of a year's heavy play, it isn't even beginning to lose its appeal.

And I'm going to leave it there for now. This post is long enough already. I'll come back and do my top five later. Once I've worked out the order. :-D

Okay, this gets sillier every year, and it's entirely my own fault. I buy stupid amounts of music (hello, my name is Rob and I'm an audioholic), and each year it gets harder and harder to pick ten favourites out of the bunch. I have - just about - managed it again this year, but not without dropping stuff that I really, really like.

So, in a slight break with my own rather short tradition, here are a few bits and pieces that didn't quite make my top ten lists this year.

1: The Indelicates - David Koresh Superstar
Yeah, I know I've raved about this lot in recent months. I absolutely love them, too, but the truth is that most of the stuff I love comes from their first two albums. Their latest is very good, but with a couple of exceptions there aren't the standout tracks here that there are on American Demo and Songs For Swinging Lovers. Still, I can't let it go entirely unremarked, and this song is probably my favourite of the bunch.


2: Lisa Hannigan - Passenger
Lisa Hannigan's debut album, Sea Sew, was one of the nicest, loveliest, sweetest things I'd heard in a long time when it came out a couple of years back. Her new album hasn't grabbed me to quite the same degree - yet - but there are some excellent tracks on there, and possibly my favourite is this one, Safe Travels (Don't Die).


3: The Dears - Degeneration Street
One of the first albums I bought this year, and it's been on pretty heavy rotation ever since. It's not the best thing they've ever done, but then their average is - to my mind - a fair distance above most people's best. And I could listen to Murray Lightburn all day long.


4: Wild Beasts - Smother
This is one of those albums that kind of knocked me sideways when I first heard it. I've always liked the band, but with this release they just nailed their sound perfectly. The guitars are dialled down, the synths float, and the vocals...Hayden Thorpe has never sounded so good.


5: Okkervil River - I Am Very Far
Another album that I picked up early in the year, and another whose appeal hasn't waned. It's not quite as consistent as The Stage Names or The Stand-Ins, but there are two or three really top tracks on there - none more so than opener The Valley.


And that'll do, I reckon. Tomorrow, I'll start on the ones that actually made the cut - starting with my top ten albums of the year.