Lists of 2006

Joanna Newsom 1
(originally uploaded by Coastal)

Albums

• Ys - Joanna Newsom
  No doubt the best album of the year - beautiful, ambtitious, unique and utterly engrossing - it deserves a bit of effort.

• II - Espers
  Sweet, cool and enveloping folkiness
• I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass - Yo La Tengo
  A mish-mash of all the good things about Yo La Tengo, probably shouldn't work as an album but it does.
• The Cannibal Sea - The Essex Green
  I sort of missed blogging about this but I keep coming back to it.
• The Greatest - Cat Power
  Another darling of the critics - I maybe am more mainstream than I'd like to think!
• Let's Get Out Of The Country - Camera Obscura
  Sweet, sweet, sweet Scottish pop made in Sweden.
• Visible Forms - Audrey
  Sweet, sweet, sweet Swedish pop made in Sweden.
• On Leaving - Nina Nastasia
  She is turning out such consistently great albums.
• Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain - Sparklehorse
  More of the same from Linkous, but you won't find me complaining.
• You Are My Home - Rivulets
• Citrus - Asobi Seksu

Gigs
These days it's hard for me to drag my old and aching body out to gigs but here are a few I enjoyed (and can remember) this year...

• Espers + Edith Frost @ The Bush Hall
• Yo La Tengo @ The Bush Hall
• J. Spaceman @ The Queen Elizabeth Hall
• Audrey + Musika 77 @ The Water Rats
• The Clientele @ The Spitz

Played artists (according to last.fm)

1. Galaxie 500
2. Low
3. Luna
4. Yo La Tengo
5. Stereolab
6. Joanna Newsom
7. Ballboy
8. The Clientele
9. Cat Power
10. Camera Obscura

Films
Some I saw and loved in 2006 (some I'd seen before, some I hadn't)

• Corpse Bride (2005)
• Almost Famous (2000)
• Brazil (1985)
• Adaptation (2002)
• Twelve Monkeys (1995)
• The River (1951)
• Batman Begins (2005)
• A Mighty Wind (2003)
• Fight Club (1999)
• Serenity (2005)

Things that made me feel good

• Hazel
  if it's possible we seem to be getting on even better than we ever have - even if she doesn't get Joanna Newsom (yet!)
• Adam
  Occasionally infuriating, but funny and fun and when he tries talented!
• A Head Full of Wishes and the Galaxie 500 Mailing List
  OK - a pretty quiet year for both but I still get a buzz out of them - and it's because of them that I ocasionally have email from Dean, Damon and Naomi - and nothing can surely make a fan feel better than that!
• Music
• Films
• The Internet

Things that made me feel depressed

• The British government
  I can't seem to put into words just how pissed off I am with Blair and the spineless folk around him.
• The Music Industry
  Evil, greedy, selfish and rich. They don't care about music and one day everyone will realise that they don't need them anymore.
• My job (and the BBC)
  Slowly falling apart and being sold off to the highest bidder with little care and long-term thinking - it too will finally fall apart and become little more than a commissioning house.