Music For Your Tape Recorder

In light of my underwhelming tenth year on Blogspot, I thought the least I could do might be to upload my 2015 playlist on time. Well here it is, the ninth in the series. A little short as with last year because for whatever reason once I hit August I don't seem to hear anything new that catches my ear until December. That's likely because I hold off on buying any CDs so there's something to put on the wishlist for my birthday - critically needed because I really don't want much these days. If anything I need more shelves to store all the physical media I prefer to have and to hold.

Music For Your Tape Recorder

I know. You don't need to tell me. Suffice to say I've not been motivated to write much this year and when it came to putting my playlist together it's apparent I haven't listened to that much music either. You can imagine I was dissuaded from bothering with that in mind when I realised I'd only left a few hours of 2014 to write it up. Here I am, though, two weeks later in what is my 10th year of blogging with a sense of obligation to drive myself to produce something. It may not be a long list this year (the shortest duration in the nine years I've done this), but there is plenty I want to get off my chest regarding some releases.

Music For Your Tape Recorder

This year started slowly as Lone's Galaxy Garden was still in hard rotation - or whatever technical phrase applies in the iTunes era. In the latter half of last year it suppressed everything else and continued to do so into the first half of 2013. 'Dream Girl/Sky Surfer' overtook 'Roygbiv' as my most listened song and is now beyond five hundred plays. Last time I checked I was listening to it twice a day on average, though I've slowed down a lot since it passed that mark. The rest of the album isn't far behind. Lone released a standalone single in June which you can see only six places into the list, giving you an idea of how little anything else caught my ear. It's a slightly shorter annual list than usual and probably more padded than I'd prefer, but that doesn't mean that there's little to talk about.

Music For Your Tape Recorder

How fitting that in a year when everything I think about seems to be from a decade ago the average year of release for the below is (rounded up) 2002. Once again, though, the tracks are skewed toward the first half of the year as one album has truly dominated since then, thus I've stuck with 2011's format.

A couple of years back I said there was always a drive toward finding new material and never giving something a second chance and an opportunity to grow on me. Three years ago I bought Be Your Own Pet's two albums, but they never really meshed, though Bicycle survived on my iPod all that time until I decided to offer them a make or break chance to sit alongside the other compact discs. Well now they do. Coincidentally the other album I gave a second chance was Wire's 154 which I obtained that same summer three years ago. Perhaps I hadn't been in the right mood at the time.

Music For Your Tape Recorder

This year started with a rich mixture of contemporary releases and older hidden gems thanks to "legal downloads", until May or halfway through the list when I was recommended Trademark Ribbons of Gold. I almost didn't listen to anything else for four months until the pace picked up again when I finally purchased GTAIV and Rockstar did once again provide some well playlisted radio stations. Come the end of November I remembered to check for new releases which led to a cascade of new material for consumption. The below playlist is no longer by month as it would be pointless listing one track for each between May and September.

Music For Your Tape Recorder

This year was by far the most contemporary year I've had since I stopped listening to Radio 1 - only two songs from this year's selection pre-date my living memory. This is probably because I stumbled into the "chillwave" genre and am currently consuming all the in-print material available. The lack of releases from the eighties or earlier is also because I haven't obtained any offbeat and out of print albums. Or rather, I'm not willing to shell out £30+ for an out of print album (again) and can't get it by 'alternative means'. As such, there is no now-out-of-print-good-band-your-parents-shunned award this year. Since this is the year of chillwave, I will instead present the Roygbiv-eargasm award to Imprint After by Toro Y Moi. Not since said BoC track has a song withstood incessant listening and accelerated toward the top of my most played Top 50.

Music For Your Tape Recorder

This time last year I was quite excited about La Roux. Here was a band I thought was going to finish what Yazoo started. But the voice and the bleeping began to grate. Music in the early eighties sounded like that because of hardware limitations. Consider these words from All Music Guide on Simple Minds' second album: "It's where [they] ventured beyond the ability to mimic their influences and began to manipulate them." I hope their next effort will endear itself more, but I'll probably forget to check up - which is why it took me till May to find Fujiya & Miyagi's Lightbulbs disappointing. Unfortunately life is too short to spend it listening to stuff again in the hope you might appreciate it second time round.

Only with a band as good as Boards of Canada would I do that. Having devoured Twoism, Music Has The Right to Children and Geogaddi last year, I started searching for In A Beautiful Place..., The Campfire Headphase, and Trans Canada Highway, which were not included in the set I procured (Bought them all since). When I came across Macquarie Ridge, I swore I had heard it before. I listened to it endlessly, trying to remember when I thought I had heard it, before realising it had actually overwritten a memory of hearing Kelly Watch the Stars on a school trip in 1998. That is the genius of BoC.

Last year Dalek i was my now-out-of-print-good-band-your-parents-shunned of 2008. This year it's The Passions. Bet they could only remember through Ashes to Ashes.

Music For Your Tape Recorder

Largely thanks to Introducing, I heard some music that's actually recent. I've shattered last year's record number of album purchases (1, 2, 3), though Nights Out has yet to arrive, and Amazon is still looking for a copy of Fourth Drawer Down two months on. Also, Roygbiv is the greatest thing I've ever heard.

Music For Your Tape Recorder

Here we are, another orbit around the Sun...

I got three CDs in the last six weeks of the year. It's a bit difficult to explain everything between March 2006 and then.

Music For Your Tape Recorder

How does one reconcile the fact that I only bought 3 CDs this year, and yet managed to hear all the below listed? *cough*

Since there was no Christmas Top of the Pops this year, and everyone got along fine without it, see below my soundtrack of the year: