Welcome back to the blog for another year - and decade! I hope 2020 is finding you content and well. If not – well, music is a great elixir, and there are a ton of beautiful tunes in this post to help soothe what ails you :).

As has become tradition, my first post of the new year is a look back at my favourite records of the previous year, with a playlist for you to sample songs from each. As a bonus, I've added a playlist of my favourite releases of 2018 as well, since I wasn't blogging this time last year, but had been saving a list of records I loved.

Wow, there were some killer albums that came out in both 2019 and 2018. Once again, I'm extremely heartened by the state of new music – it just takes a little digging to find the good stuff ;).Here are my lists of top 10 albums for each year (in no real order, except for the top 3 in each list):

Now onto the fun stuff - the playlists! These represent what ended up being a fairly random number of my favourite releases. For the 2019 playlist, I was ready to go with a nice, neat 25 albums and 5 EPs and singles, but discovered I'd forgotten a couple of essential inclusions, and struggled to cut anything further. Then I realised one of the benefits of running my own blog is I can do whatever the fuck I want! So, 27 albums it is! (or 32 releases including EPs and singles).

If you are new to my contemporary music tastes, what you can expect is lots of neo-psych, avant-pop, shimmery dream pop, pop noir, and otherwise songs with irresistible melodies and strong songwriting, usually in a retro or classic vein. My playlists tend to be female-dominated - it's not by design, it's just that somehow my tastes lead me to more women making the type of music I love. I've never liked to make a statement of it; in some way, I think it's more interesting and powerful not to point it out, because why should it be unusual? That said, I am pleased to celebrate some extremely talented, sometimes overlooked female artists and present them to an audience who may not yet know them.

These were made on Spotify (RIP my fave playlisting service, 8tracks), but if you have another preferred streaming platform, visit the Soundsgood link beneath the playlist artwork for more listening options (the playlists, however, may be incomplete on some platforms).

Best of 2019: Spotify playlist | Soundsgood (more listening options)

Okay, so it's nearly March, which probably makes this the world's most untimely 'Best of 2017' list! First I'll get to the music, but there's a personal note at the bottom of this post explaining why I'm sometimes much later with posts than I'd like, and why I think they're still worth doing anyway.

Wow, I was really blown away by the musical offerings from last year! There's some truly spectacular music being made by incredibly creative artists who are dedicated to their craft. and to making brilliant music for the sake of it. Though it's easier than ever to find music from all over the world to suit your particular tastes, I'm pretty convinced there's also just more and more amazing music being produced. This playlist features a song from each of my favourite 2017 albums. It's pretty long, with fifty-five tracks, coming in at around three hours and forty minutes of listening. I heard so much great stuff, this was as much as I could narrow it down! And you'll notice this is only Part One.... 

One of the absolute best albums of the year is Rose Elinor Dougall's Stelullar. Released January this year, the long-awaited follow-up to her excellent 2010 solo debut, Without Why, has exceeded even my rather high expectations.

This is a contemporary take on pop that is just exquisitely executed. Influences across many decades and styles are expertly synthesised and distilled into something earnest, fresh, modern and personal. You can hear The Smiths and other indie eighties, classic sixties songwriting, punk and its artier cousins, eighties synth pop, Britpop, as well as more recent influences from the world of today's avant-pop. I know music reviews can often be an annoying shopping list of improbable references, but I genuinely do hear all those! It's to Dougall's credit that these don't compete or sound unnaturally glued together, and that they aren't there for the sake of showing off what's in her record collection. The different pieces blend beautifully and always serve the songwriting and the essence of the song. The tracks are complex enough to offer up new delights on repeated listens, but not overly worked at the expense of what makes a good pop song so appealing: memorable melodies, addictive hooks and emotional immediacy.

Image via Discogs

I love a good depressing seasonal tune, and it doesn't much bleaker than one set in a desolate, post-apocalyptic world!

'Juste quelques flocons qui tombent' ("Just a few flakes falling") isn't really a Christmas song, but is apparently associated enough with this time of year to be included on Christmas compilations. This is curious, because the lyrics don't reference anything related to Noël, and from what I can find, the track seems to have been released not around Christmas time but in February, 1967. Perhaps the association comes from its snowy imagery, or the chiming bells that unusually punctuate its psych-folk-pop sound, or perhaps it's because of the story of how Antoine came to write the song.

The idea for the song came to Antoine on Christmas Eve, 1965, according to Anthologie des tubes rock: Soixante ans de musique pour les kids (François Grimpet & Daniel Lesueur, Camion Blanc, 2016), This was shortly before he would score a huge hit with 'Les Élucubrations d'Antoine' early the following year, becoming not only an overnight pop superstar, but a major force in reshaping the French pop scene in the post-yé-yé years. At this point however, he had a debut EP under his belt that hadn't made much of a splash, and was still a struggling musician. Having performed that evening for a modest fee, Antoine had just enough to dine out with his girlfriend but nothing left over for transport, so they footed it home. Walking toward the Marais district, the couple looked back to see a snow-covered Paris, nothing visible except their footprints in the snow, leaving them with the feeling of being the only two people in the world. With his songwriter's imagination and having keenly absorbed the pacifist themes of the likes of Bob Dylan, Antoine soon turned this image into a song about a world decimated by nuclear war, where he and his lover are the only survivors.  

If I'm understanding the lyrics correctly, the final verse sees Antoine comparing himself and his girlfriend to Adam and Eve, but cautioning they must avoid repopulating the world – since the last world was such a flop! What a sentiment to hear in a track that gets billed as one of "Les plus belles chansons de Noël"!

While flipping through my collection of vintage French magazines the other day, I came across an interesting little segment in the October 1966 issue of Salut les copains, France's enormously popular and influential youth music magazine that launched in 1962 to complement the radio show of the same name. It features Françoise Hardy sharing her ten current favourite songs, as part of a running segment where popular music stars were asked to create their own 'hit parade'.

Hardy's tastes encompassed a variety of popular genres of the time, from the easy listening of Frank Sinatra and Petula Clark to the garage rock of Syndicate of Sound and The Troggs, whose 'Wild Thing' she calls "breathtaking". Most of the picks here are from the USA and UK, as was more fashionable by that time than homegrown music. Hardy, though, was no bandwagon jumper and had long been a fan of Anglo-American sounds. She often had the chance to hear new British music when she ducked across the channel to record an album or play some venues, and she mentions buying Syndicate of Sound's 'Little Girl' in London and seeing Dusty Springfield perform 'Goin' Back' on Ready Steady Go! A couple of her fellow Gallic singer-songwriters are represented here in Michel Polnareff ("She could have cited any other of Michel's songs, she loves them all equally"), and Antoine, who had debuted nearly a year earlier and transformed the local scene.

I've playlisted her choices so you can immerse yourself in what the wonderful Ms Hardy was grooving to 50 years ago:

It's my first post of the new year and, though late to the game, I wanted to share my favourite music from last year. 2016 was a notoriously terrible year (not that this year is exactly peachy so far!), but thankfully the same can't be said of the music that came out last year. It was, to quote Lisa Simpson's insensitive future fiancé, like a flower that grew out of a pot of dirt. I feel spoiled by the amount and variety of quality music I've been enjoying from last year's offerings. There are the gorgeous vintage European pop sounds of The Yearning and Lia Pamina, the visionary retrofuturism of Adrian Younge, the moving, classic songwriting of Big Smoke, the raw garage rock of The Mystery Lights, some fresh takes on dream pop, and many outings in psychedelic-influenced, experimental pop. Some of these albums have quickly become all-time favourites, not just favourites of the year. Below is a playlist of songs from my most-loved releases of 2016, including albums, singles and EPs, in no particular order. A list of my top eleven albums (I could not narrow it down to ten!) of the year – again, in no specific order – follows it.

Pop-up player | 8tracks tips

If you prefer Spotify, listen here. Update: By request, now also on Deezer (but missing the Samara Lubelski song).

Tracklist:

Like so many, I am angry, confounded, saddened by the state of the world. 2016 just keeps kicking us in the arse. I won't spill any trite words about the power of music in troubled times. I don't even think making ourselves feel better is entirely the point. I'm wary of self-tranquilising to the point of becoming numbed or complacent; we need that sense of horror and anger to foster meaningful action. Anger, I think, is not something to be afraid of if it is not hateful or violent or self-destructive. That said, I'm aware good people need to draw strength from where they can – to be inspired, to experience catharsis, to feel soothed, to preserve their mental health – in order to be effective, to go on, to heal. And that's where music can come in. What I like to turn to runs the gamut from angry and cynical, to inspiring and thought-provoking, to calming and reassuring. Here are a few songs I thought I'd share.

Jarvis Cocker - Running The World

Starting at the angry, cynical end of things, Jarvis Cocker's blunt song 'Running The World' from 2006 pulled no punches in describing exactly who has the power in the world, and is unfortunately truer than ever. The song is an incisive, darkly funny critique of capitalism and politics.

Barry McGuire's classic scathing protest song, 'Eve Of Destruction', perfectly captured the countercultural mood of its day. Written by nineteen-year-old P.F. Sloan, it was a number one hit for McGuire in 1965, and it's hard to imagine anyone spitting out these lyrics of disgust and frustration better than he does in his blistering growl. Many of the lyrics are, obviously, specific to political circumstances of the time, but much of it still resonates and could apply as readily today. Particularly potent is McGuire's delivery of the line about religious hypocrisy: "Hate your next-door neighbour / but don't forget to say grace." Also, message aside, I am a fan of the fact the word 'coagulating' is incorporated into a rhyme.

It's interesting when a work of art's message feels relevant again and you find its meaning becomes clearer than before. I guess I always saw this as a somewhat fatalistic song about impending doom in an age of atomic fear, but now it's hitting me as a rebuke against complacency, against refusing to see potential catastrophe, and against the normalisation of things that should rightly invoke alarm. Sloan saw it as "a love song to and for humanity" and "a prayer" and hoped it would help "open a dialogue", but instead he and McGuire were ousted from the music industry.

"This is a cold war, you better know what you're fighting for" sings Janelle Monáe so powerfully on 'Cold War', from her 2010 Afrofuturist pop masterpiece, The ArchAndroid. The line 'I was made to believe there was something wrong with me' always chokes me up, and now more than ever, too many are afraid of their children growing up to feel like this. Monáe has said of this and other songs of hers: "I try to create songs that are uplifting because this world can drive you insane". 'Cold War', though it faces a sense of pain and injustice head-on, is not a bitter resignation; it ultimately uplifts:

So long, Leonard. Thank you for the achingly beautiful words and music.

A guest mix by Jonathyne Briggs, author of a fascinating and highly recommended book on French pop history, Sounds French: Globalization, Cultural Communities, and Pop Music, 1958-1980 (Oxford University Press, 2015):

1971—the transition. The destruction of Les Halles in Paris began in 1971 in order to make way for a more modern marketplace, and this action symbolizes how the French found themselves in a period of transition. Just prior to the economic and social problems that would emerge with the oil shocks of 1973, the French were still very much enjoying the economic boom of the economic miracle and continued to embrace new ideas and technologies, albeit with some hesitation manifest in the protests against expanded military bases at Larzac. The Events of 1968 and the death of Charles de Gaulle were just a few years past and the centenary of the Commune reminded many of the revolutionary hope symbolized by the student protests and strikes. In the realm of popular music, French audiences continued to fragment with more and more stylistic influences emerging in different subgenres with the appearance of new artists. And yet, established artists began to experiment with new styles and ideas. 1971 in many ways is a watershed moment in French pop, in which the adventurousness of the French underground is echoed in the music of more popular acts and there was a moment of brief harmony of leisure and introspection. – Jonathyne Briggs

1. Stone et Charden “L’avventura”
2. Serge Lama “Superman”
3. Jean-Jacques Perrey “Baroque Hoedown” (1971 rerelease)
4. Michel Polnareff “Computer’s Dream”
5. Serge Gainbourg “L’hôtel particulier”
6. Catharsis “Masq”
7. Leo Ferré “La solitude”
8. Françoise Hardy “La question”
9. Johnny Hallyday “Fils de personne”
10. Alan Stivell “Pop Plinn”
11. Dalida “Mamy Blue”
12. Nino Ferrer “La maison près de la fontaine”
13. Claude Nougaro “Un grain de folie”
14. Catherine Ribero + Alpes “Diborowska”
15. Jacques Higelin “Aujourd’hui Blues”
16. Mouloudji “Le Temps des cerises”

Links: The Great Albums: History Of French Pop Music