Category: music

Music Awards

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Couple of housekeeping bits and pieces to get through.

Firstly, I never told you about my 6000 miles… Album of the Year for 2018.

That album was Thank You For Today by Seattle indie rockers Death Cab For Cutie. Highlights like Gold Rush and Northern Lights are supported by plenty of happy, bouncy er… indie rock tracks, like Autumn Love,  When We Drive and Summer Years, together with the wonderfully loving Your Hurricane. The album ends with a surprising mix of naked upright piano and nostalgia as Ben Gibbard describes an aging rocker growing old disgracefully in 60 And Punk. It’s wonderful.

Go and listen to it.

So, with 2018 finally done and dusted, we can look at the inaugural 6000 miles… Single of the Month award for January 2019.

And, with over a week of the month still to go, this one is not going to be beaten. White Lies: Tokyo

Close your eyes and ignore the alleged hotness that is Harry McVeigh, and you could be at (a more professional version of) a Alphaville concert. Bold, commanding lyrics above unapologetically new wave synth: this is really, really good stuff.
Right up my alley.

This and some of the best tracks from Thank You For Today can be found on the 6000.co.za Inspired by 6 Spotify playlist.

I’m still adding great music

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After a brief hiatus over Christmas, I’m back adding great music to my popular Inspired By 6 Spotify playlist.

Take a look at what’s available here:

Or via this link: http://bit.ly/InspiredBy6

This week (amongst others) I have added Sleeper’s first new song in 21 years: Look At You Now.

And the poignant, heartbreaking new single from The Cranberries – with vocals recorded in the week before Dolores O’Riordan’s untimely death a year ago. Almost prophetically called All Over Now and detailing a miserable night in a London hotel, it’s weird to hear that voice singing something new.

There’s lots more as well – I think we’re up to somewhere around the 140 tracks mark, and that’s 10 hours of really good music.

Please click through, follow and share. Because together, we need to continue to fight the good fight against the dodgy popular, Ar un Bee and hippity hop waves sweeping our musical shores.

A Sheffield classic remastered

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Sheffield has a rich musical history… actually before I start – if you’re one of those readers who closes the page at the first mention of music, can I just say that this video has been sent to me by several people – including two who freely admit that they are readers who close the page at the first mention of music.

So this might be a bit different.

Sheffield has a rich musical history, including the like of Def Leppard, ABC, Arctic Monkeys, Little Man Tate, The Longpigs, Bring Me The Horizon, Pulp, Heaven 17 and The Human League. So it’s unsurprising that when looking for a Christmas single, local boys The Everly Pregnant Brothers (you may remember them from My Chip Pan’s On Fire) chose to cover a local song in a local style.

Dunt Tha Want Mi? is what the 1981 Christmas number 1 from The Human League should have been called. Local dialect, in’t it?

Add a bit of Jingle Bells and there’s a surefire South Yorkshire classic, done right.

Truth be told, I felt that this might be a bit niche for all but the most Sheffield of my readers, but apparently it’s storming up the online streaming charts nationwide in Blighty, so they must be doing something right.

Thoughts welcome.

Spotify Wrapped

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As I start writing this, I realise that it’s my first post with WordPress 5.0. As usual with a WordPress update, I chose not to read any of the instructions – something that has never mattered before – and now I find myself quite (or more) bemused by the whole situation. My God, it’s horrible. How do I go back? 

I clicked through on one of those review of the year things. This one was for Spotify, which I’ve only had for about 5 months.  Here’s my Top Artists, Genre, Songs etc. 

 

That image might not look like much, but it took me 35 minutes to upload, so damn well look at it, even though it’s probably still far too big.  

The several hours I spent solely on Ludovico Einaudi equate nicely with my air travel. His music has always been my goto on iPod or Spotify for calming, relaxing times on big planes.

 

Look at me with my lack of mainstream nonsense. And it’s not for want of being contrary. I like what I listen to. And I listen to what I like. 

Right. You can do your Spotify Wrapped here. And I’d love to write some more about it, but this editor is wearing me down already. It’s fecking awful and I want to go back to 4.9. I have no idea how to add categories or tags and they’re supposed to making it easier, better, more intuitive. 

It’s making me sad and I need to stop now. 

Dyes Inlet

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Cue song lyrics: (YES, IT’S ON THIS PLAYLIST)

I remember your silhouette on Dyes Inlet
Against the silver sheen of a moon like painted glass
Under stars out on a pier; a celestial sphere
We were weightless as the waves that disappeared

Death Cab For Cutie waxing lyrical, but what the hell is a Dyes Inlet?

Well, it’s a:

Picturesque bay featuring boating, swimming, a waterfront park, marina, boardwalk & boat launch

in Washington, USA.

It has a 4-star average on Google, with 3 reviewers scoring it as 3-star, 4-star and 5-star respectively. Let’s look more closely at that spread.

Mysterious Amy Piper went for 3 stars, but declines to tell us why. Maybe some episode of unrequited love occurred here – an event which would surely usually lead to a 1-star rating – but the sheer beauty of the place held its own and she couldn’t help but add on a couple of marks for overall attractiveness. We’ll never know though, because Amy doesn’t expand on her reasons for scoring it thus. Tease.

There’s no holding Brian Salway back though. He’s scene the light, and it’s beautiful. 4 stars from Brian. He would have given it more, but he was unaware of the access to downtown Silverdale.

Brian should have read Jerry Miranda’s review. Jerry Miranda is a huge fan of Dyes Inlet. It’s (equally) the best place he has ever been and he literally couldn’t mark it any higher. Jerry Miranda loves being out on the open ocean inlet either in his kayak or driving his boat. And while those are both great things he can do at Dyes Inlet, it’s the access to downtown Silverdale that really swings it for Jerry Miranda. Other inlets offer watersports opportunities, but there is no other inlet that has that all important access to downtown Silverdale.

Of course, alternatively to get to downtown Silverdale, you could use I3, and then head off down NW Newberry Hill Road, before hanging a left onto Silverdale Way NW, but try doing that in a canoe. Near impossible and downright dangerous. But no. Dyes Inlet has it all when it comes to symbiotic waterborne transport and means of entry to downtown Silverdale. 5 stars. Five.

I’m with Jerry Miranda. The simple fact that there is a rocky point in Dyes Inlet which is called “Rocky Point” means that I’m going to also give it a 100%, 5/5, top of the class review. Simple nomenclature wins every time. There’s also a “Mud Bay”, which (via satellite view on Google Maps) appears to be pretty much silted up; a “Windy Point”, where the trees are all leaning over, and an “Ostrich Bay” (but no: sadly none).