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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...

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...

  IT was the year that a pandemic allowed geeks the chance to shine. Amidst a severe restriction on live performance,  super-fans were busy viewing, cutting and editing together film of their favourite artists and readying them for blockbuster release, funded  by an ever increasing demand and driven by competition from the streaming wars.       With time to kill, we were allowed to indulge ourselves in a number of gems, with Peter Jackson's "The Beatles: Get Back" , Questlove's  "Summer of Soul"  both on Disney+ and Todd Haynes'  "The Velvet Underground"  on Apple TV+ all released to great acclaim.       Each of these documentaries covered the late sixties, part of the analogue era when very little film was actually recorded, in sharp contrast to today where it is so ubiquitous. And it looks we will see more and more as super-fans endeavour to unearth rare footage and bring fans young and old upto date with classic ar...