The Daily Growl

OK, so it’s December. End of the year. And in blog-land time for LISTS. If you care about such things, I’ll be starting mine next week, probably. Albums first, then gigs and songs. And of course it being the end of the decade, I’m going to have to do something for that. A list of [...]

I know, this should have been done two weeks ago at the year’s true halfway point, but I’ve been on holiday, and y’know, busy. For what it’s worth, here are my favourite albums of the year so far, in a top-tenular fashion. It’s based on a combination of what I’ve admired and (much more so) what [...]

So, this year I thought I’d have a go at doing a Festive Fifty, folllowing in the footsteps of the great John Peel and some other estimable bloggers. However, it’s been a bit of a strange and unsatisfying exercise. I’m sure that when it comes to deciding the top 50 albums and songs of the [...]

This year was my leanest one for gigs in a very long time, but with good reason. Despite my changed life, I managed to get out about once a month to gigs, so I can still do an end-of-year chart. But it won’t be a top 10, because that would involve me just listing most [...]

Without, further ado here’s my top 10. Unlike 2007, this year had no really obvious stand-outs, well ahead of the pack. What we have here are 10 solid performers, but there’s probably not much to choose between the top five at least. But for better or worse, I’ve ranked them.
10. Lambchop – OH (Ohio) (City [...]

So this year’s list starts here, the distillation of well over 100 albums into a top 20 that’s almost inevitably not quite in the right order even before it’s finished. I mean, just how do you rank them? What sort of criteria do you use? For what follows, mine is fairly simple. These aren’t albums [...]

List season has begun in earnest. A couple of weeks ago, Rough Trade shops were among the first to throw their hat into the ring with their top 50 albums, in what’s always one of the more interesting lists of the year. This year is no different. In addition to the ones you’d expect to [...]