2018 Review of the Year
Just over two years ago I decided to keep a journal of my album listening by reviewing 6 albums a week from my collection. I thought it would be interesting to actually measure what I liked most and to track how my tastes changed over the months. I also hoped to encourage both myself and readers to discover some new music and rediscover some old. Nearly 300 artists later I have reached the point of my second annual review.
This year has actually been a little longer than the previous year. This is because my blog originally started in October 2016. So last year’s review took in the weekly entries up to log #52 in October 2017. This year I’ve decided to align with the Gregorian calendar and review the year in December.
So here are my nominations for the calendar year of 2018 (including the fag end of 2017) up to and including log #118.
Some categories below are based on gut feelings, some on actual statistics. Remember the count of appearances actually shows how many weeks an artist has featured rather than necessarily how many albums I’ve played of their’s. For example an artist may have the same album appearing in several consecutive weeks, or may have multiple albums in the same week. In each case they receive one vote per week.
Unlike most annual lists entries are not limited to releases that actually came out only in 2018. All logs and reviews were for whatever I decided to play — they included some new and current releases but have mostly been taken from the rock archives. For a review of actual 2018 releases please see this entry.
Finally as it is not always easy to extract the first year’s figures from the second year’s some of the statistics below are cumulative over both years since the blog began.
1. Most Played Artist Overall: Neil Young
[last year’s winner: Whitest Boy Alive]
Neil Young has appeared in 15 logs since records began and is well ahead of the field. This is impressive after a slow start in the initial weeks — his first appearance did not occur until log #50 with Rust Never Sleeps (and Hitchhiker). His appearances were then bolstered by some consistent showings for his early 70s albums, in particular On The Beach which I now consider to be one of his 3 greatest albums, if not the greatest.
Second place goes to Tangerine Dream with 12 showings. They head a strong field of electronic synthesizer and ambient artists for whom I (re)discovered a keen interest, particularly in the last quarter. Favourite album of their’s this year has been Zeit which is still in the player as we speak. My overall interest in ambient and electronica has probably been the most surprising aspect of my listening this year. As individuals the artists don’t show much within the rankings as their effect is spread, but as a whole they have dominated many of the logs since around #106. Popular artists from last year including Whitest Boy Alive, Afro Celts, Van Morrison and Led Zeppelin did not significantly add to their tallies. They still feature high in the Top 10 of the cumulative list but have been caught up by new consistent performers like Bob Dylan, Can, Black Sabbath and Beck.
Perhaps more surprising to me are some of the other artists I didn’t really expect to be playing that often that are now vying for a place in the Top 10 most notably Radiohead who I rediscovered late in the year through their Amnesiac and Kid A albums.
Here is the current league table of appearances:
2. Most Played Artist This Year: Tangerine Dream
[last year’s winner: Whitest Boy Alive]
For 2018 alone the most played artist award goes to Tangerine Dream. From nowhere they have progressed to second place in the league gaining 11 new listens. Other big movers were Beck (from zero to 8), Neil Young (from 6 to 15), Black Sabbath (from 1 to 8) and Genesis (from zero to 7).
All old bands, so not much new that has had an impact in terms of weight of plays as yet.
3. Best Band: Tangerine Dream
[last year’s winner: Whitest Boy Alive]
It does stand to reason that often my favourite band would tend to be the one played the most, and this year I am keeping with that convention and awarding Tangerine Dream the title.
This award would have surprised me at the start of the year but the grandaddys of electronic music have not only made a fine showing on their own account, they have also been instrumental in me widening my interest in the genre generally and discovering many new exciting artists.
4. Best New Band: Stars Of The Lid
[last year’s winner: The Felice Brothers]
I’ve discovered the following new bands and artists this year: The Unthanks, Emeralds, Low, Mouse On Mars, William Basinski, Keith Berry, Caribou, Protoje, Earl Sweatshirt, and Scott Matthews.
But in the wake of Tangerine Dream the award goes to Texan duo Stars Of The Lid who I had not even heard of a few months ago yet were at the vanguard of my new interest in ambient electronica. Interestingly you couldn’t get more different from last year’s winners The Felice Brothers.
5. Most Unexpected Rediscovery: Radiohead
[last year’s winner: Afro Celts]
I rediscovered several bands and artists during the year including Genesis (particularly their post Gabriel work), Dylan (particularly his post 70s work), Beck, Rush, Richard Hawley, Laura Marling, Eno, and The Doors, but Radiohead, like Afro Celts from the previous year, take the prize for coming from nowhere and thus being the most unexpected of my rediscoveries.
In other words the other bands listed above I knew I already liked, I just hadn’t played them so much, or there were particularly eras of their music I had dismissed. With Radiohead I didn’t even know I liked them at all, hence it was a pleasant surprise to hear Amnesiac which a guest reviewer alerted me to late in the year.
The band’s only appearance in the previous year was in log #39 with their Best Of but after discovering Amnesiac I followed up with Kid A and both albums stayed in the playlist for a number of weeks.
6. Best Album: Jan Jelinek — Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records
[last year’s winner: Whitest Boy Alive — Dreams]
A difficult category this one as I have of course enjoyed many different albums over the period. In no particular order the following highlights spring to mind:
The Unthanks — Here’s The Tender Coming
Neil Young — On The Beach
Tangerine Dream — Zeit
Caribou — Start Breaking My Heart
Midlake — The Courage Of Others
Brian Eno — Music For Airports (Ambient 1)
Black Sabbath — 13
Keith Berry — The Ear That Was Sold To A Fish
Keith Jarrett — The Koln Concert
Kings Of Convenience — Riot On An Empty Street
Richard Hawley — Truelove’s Gutter
The Incredible String Band — The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter
Radiohead — Amnesiac
All excellent albums but for sheer originality I’ve decided to plump for Jan Jelinek’s masterpiece of lo-fi atmosphere Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records as my favourite album of the year.
7. Best Live Band: Pussy Riot
[last year’s winner: Afro Celts]
I caught Pussy Riot at the excellent Byline Festival and they were simply great fun. I don’t think I’ll be buying any of their records any time soon but as a live experience it was a memorable gig.
8. Most Read Blog Post: Can’s Albums Ranked From Worst To Best
[last year’s winner: Log #11 — Who Were Those Roxy Music Cover Girls?]
It is too difficult to extract readership just for the last year so these stats are for the cumulative numbers since records began although in most cases posts have a very short lifespan, meaning the vast majority of their views occur in the first couple of days. For instance last year’s winner Who Were Those Roxy Music Cover Girls? has not gained many new readers since topping last year’s count.
My most popular posts now tend to be reviews or album rankings rather than the weekly logs. Most popular post overall was the Can album ranking. This is understandable as Can are a band that have a dedicated fanbase, yet my article is one of the few comprehensive such listings on the internet so Google will pick it up. It was also controversial which helps encourage views, debate, shares and comments. I plan to do more of these rankings (especially for less well known artists where not many have been done before) but it takes a lot of research.
Next most popular post was my review of the Byline Festival. This positive review was picked up by the festival organisers themselves who were happy to share it around. As for the logs the most popular in descending order were as follows:
Log #73 — Servants of Science
Log #54 — Tangerine Dream
Log #20 — Barclay James Harvest
Everyone likes a good quiz too and this challenging album cover quiz proved popular.
All internet writers are interested in how a post or article may go viral. As the internet expands I expect this occurrence is going to become less and less likely. My most popular article anywhere is actually on this platform: Interestingly my original b(log) post on Lynyrd Skynyrd failed to capture anyone’s imagination yielding less than 100 views, yet having been reproduced here at medium.com it has gained a life of its own and now has an organic readership well into five figures.
9. Most Read Review: Rockpommel’s Land by Grobschnitt
[last year’s winner: 33 1/3 book on Led Zep IV]
Last year’s winner was actually a book. This year, excluding general essays, and album rankings, the most popular reviews to date in descending order were for the following albums:
Rockpommel’s Land by Grobschnitt
In The Jungle Groove by James Brown
Amnesiac by Radiohead
The winner is a peculiar choice. It’s a great album for sure but why has this tiny review of an unknown band been picked up? I expect it probably has something to do with being (like the Can Album Ranking) from a relatively obscure (yet fanatically followed) musical category: Prog Krautrock (and probably being shared within a dedicated Facebook group).
10. Best Festival: Byline
[last year’s winner: No Award]
No surprise here. I’ve been boring people silly about how they must go to next year’s Byline. Perhaps this will prove to be to my own detriment as one of the joys of the festival was the sense of it being an undiscovered underground secret and if it expands too much the atmosphere will change. I’ve seen this happen with other festivals but for the time being I’m happy to spread the word and I believe if you are quick you can still get discounted tickets.
I returned to the Love Supreme Festival too this year and also enjoyed the inaugural Black Deer Americana Festival which I hope succeeds in future. The competition is stiff though as I’ve noticed over the years festival attendance (both from the fans and the artists) has become more thinly spread across the smaller events.
11. Most Surprising Non Appearance: King Crimson
[last year’s winner: Miles Davis]
My pie in the sky aim is to have an entry by every artist under the sun on my blog such that the search bar will yield an answer for any enquiry. This is plainly impossible but 286 artists have been logged in only 2 and a bit years. By “logged” I mean they have an album entry (and are not just search returned as they have been mentioned or referenced).
It is therefore becoming slightly more difficult to find surprising artists who have not yet appeared at all . However there are some: The Who, Santana, Nick Drake, Metallica, Gram Parsons, Pearl Jam, REM, Lou Reed, King Crimson, Gil Scott Heron, Dr John, Free, Black Crowes, Tindersticks, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Patti Smith for example. Any one of these could win the award as I do have albums I like by all of them and I would not have thought I could have played records by 286 other artists before any from this lot.
At first I decided to nominate Nick Drake for the award as he has a close link to other artists that have had plays (such as Incredible String Band and John Martyn) and I have noticed much of my listening does follow patterns. He also featured strongly in Joe Boyd’s excellent memoir White Bicycles which I enjoyed.
so far failed to appear at 6 Album Sunday
But then I searched King Crimson and this really surprised me. I’ve written a lot about prog rock music and, being one of the quintessential purveyors of the genre themselves, no less than a dozen posts reference King Crimson, but astonishingly they don’t actually have a single album in any log to date.
King Crimson therefore pip Nick Drake for first place in this award. With classics like Red, Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Islands and In The Court Of The Crimson King in my collection I can’t believe this situation will continue into 2019.
12. Best Album Cover: The Tired Sounds Of Stars Of The Lid
[last year’s winner: not awarded]
Here I’m talking about the actual picture on the album cover rather than the overall presentation although I’m pleased to report it seems like more and more artists, notwithstanding the tide towards digital only music, are distributing their CDs in lovely cardboard digipacks.
I’ve chosen this masterpiece of minimalism as my favourite album cover of the year: The Tired Sounds Of Stars Of The Lid which graced the top of Log #108.
It’s not clear what it is with the hint of a blurry object at the bottom of a frame of lush sunshine yellow. It remains, like the beautiful music within, subtly enigmatic.
Here is the shortlist of runners up which should also include Zeit and On The Beach too to be honest, but to avoid repetition I’ve chosen these nine by Blue States, William Baskinski, Tangerine Dream, Radiohead, Kate Bush, Bonnie Prince Billy, Richard Hawley, Manitoba/Caribou and Midlake:
13. Best Music Book: Hotel California by Barney Hoskyns
[last year’s winner: by default this was 33 1/3 Led Zep IV which won best review overall, music or written word]
This year’s winner is Barney Hoskyn’s fun loving romp through the singer songwriter landscape of early 70s LA, Hotel California:
Honourable mentions go to the following books I’ve also enjoyed:
Sway by Zachary Lazar
Travelling Music by Neil Peart
The Train In The Night by Nick Coleman
Tago Mago by Alan Warner
White Bicycles by Joe Boyd
Tago Mago is one of the excellent 33 1/3 series. They are all worth a read even if you are not a fan of the particular album or band in question.
14. Classical Corner: Takemitsu
[last year’s winner: not awarded]
A new feature this year. The blog is mostly focused on rock music but occasionally I dabble off piste into jazz or classical. The album I’ve played most this year would be one that is closest to the minimalist and ambient music I have enjoyed, and thus the award goes to Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu (1930–1996) for his Quatrain album featured in log #111.
15. Local Corner: Oh Mama
[last year’s winner: not awarded]
Finally another new feature this year. A snippet from a local band that has caught my attention in the period.
This year I’ve come across Hybrid Kid, Servants Of Science and Hollow Hand, but spotlight this time falls upon this enigmatic psych gem from the Goat like Oh Mama, enjoy:
Originally published at 6albumsunday.blogspot.com on January 1, 2019.
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