Happy 70th Birthday Stevie Wonder!!

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2021 - Year In Review Pt.2 - Albums

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Following the  first part of my 2021 review, below is a breakdown of my ten favourite albums of the year as well as a quick overview of songs which I enjoyed: Favourite 10 Albums of the Year 1. Blank & Jones -   Relax Edition 13 At the forefront of the late-90s rise in trance, the German duo of Piet Blank & Jaspa Jones turned to ambient thereafter with the release of their Relax series. This is the latest, a double album of chillout, tasteful funky house and balearic beats and a much needed tonic for lockdown despondency in 2021 - my choice for best album of 2021. 2. St. Vincent -   Daddy's Home A concept album about her father's return from prison, this album's real treat though is how Annie Clark recalls the atmosphere of early seventies downtown New York, the sleaze, the dirt, the funk. A melting pot of Lou Reed, Bowie, Steely Dan even Beatles (on the psychedelic Sun King-esque Live The Dream). 3. Cleo Sol -   Mother The singer in the mysterious London based col
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Looking back at 2023 - for the record

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A music critic could look at 2023 through the same prism as the years 1973, '83, '93, 2003 and 2013 - years that let's be honest did not set the world on fire. But unlike those years which were very much on a journey as music continually evolved, 2023 was driven not by exciting new genres or even artists but my new challenges that haven't impacted any of those years above, namely climate change and technological change, principally AI. And Taylor Swift... This was the first year that AI created the possibility we could be listening to artificially created music and possibly an artist's work being  mimicked . Climate change is now far better understood than ten years ago but such inspiration appears largely lost in today's musical artists. Russia continued their assault on Ukraine whilst Israel-Palestine conflict became brutally and sadly physical. My song of the year is a beautiful and timely reminder on how beautiful music can be: Saint Levant's From Gaza,
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Year In Review - 2022

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The first full uninterrupted year post pandemic saw us enjoy gigging and clubbing again and I was thankful to get to see a lot more live music than I had the previous few years with The Killers, Anne-Marie & Manic Street Preachers all providing memorable sets. The range of music released was perhaps wider than ever with the blurring of house and hip hop not letting up, indeed there was a reported revival of sorts with house identified as having a rebirth. Whilst this was largely spearhead by big name pop acts in the charts, for the primary product - the album, LP, Playlist - it was the hip hop that artistically made the most noise with great albums by Black Thought, Kendrick Lemar and Nas (again) whilst Pusha-T, Little Simz and Drake made vital contributions as well. This got me thinking back to Black Thoughts comments to Complex in 2017 about the crossroads that hip hop and its culture are at: are we now starting to see a subtle change in direction? With the huge social change see
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