The first was while I was on the motorway to IKEA (what's not to get excited about in those words on their own?) and I'd grabbed a pile of un-listened to CDs to relieve the boredom. The one that made it into the CD player first was Hidden by These New Puritans; none of the others got played as I was utterly blown away by the sheer breadth, depth and fantastic ambition of the album. I realised that this was probably the first really new (to me) band that I had "got into" for quite a long time.
The second came a few days later when I read a blog by Nick Southall (@sickmouthy), a fellow These New Puritans acolyte and former music journalist. He had written a post about his Top 2010 Albums and I realised I hadn't heard of any of them. Of course that doesn't mean that I've been living in musical isolation all year (some of the bands are a *bit* obscure) but there has probably been way too much Radio3, Radio4 and buying "best ofs" like this one. There certainly hasn't been enough listening to 6Music and discovering new stuff.
So, thinks I, the time has come to discover some new stuff and @sickmouthy's top 10 seems like as good a place as any to start. He has informed opinions on this stuff and that makes him a better guide than the album charts or Amazon reccommends.
I don't intend to write a detailed review of the albums, just a few impressions really. The reason for blogging about this is to see if I can reinvigorate my love of new music and expand my horizons rather than just extending my already huge music collection with more of the same.
So I decided to start with Laura Marling as I've been building a bit of a folk collection thanks to my complete love affair with The Unthanks (discovered by way of a session on the excellent Radcliffe & Maconie Show). Maybe this wasn't the most adventurous start but I had to pick one and... it's lovely. Not outstanding or earth-shattering but lovely.
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| I Speak Because I Can |
Laura Marling has a great voice (I would say she bears some comparison to early Sandy Denny but with the odd - alarming - hint of Alannis Morisette and k.d.lang) and the tunes here are good enough to set her apart from the slew of of female singer/ song-writers who seem to be kicking around at the moment. It's not too pop-y (unlike the tedious Ellie Goulding) and neither is it so scarily folk-y (which I admit some of the Unthanks stuff is) that it's inaccessible to your average punter.
I'm enjoying it and I'll chalk this one up as a "hit" but I wouldn't say my musical tastes have been expanded yet.
Some of the others on the list look a bit more challenging...
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