2014 RETROSPECTIVE - DAY 8

BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB - SO LONG, SEE YOU TOMORROW

I'm going to try my best to prevent it, but today's post is likely to descend into a complete gush-fest because today's album is more than gush-worthy. Sometimes we listen to music when we are sad, to justify our sadness; sometimes we listen to music when we are happy, to accentuate our happiness. Sometimes an album comes along and makes you feel what it wants you to feel, completely disregarding your natural emotional state, and So Long, See You Tomorrow is one of those albums. You just can't ignore this kind of happiness. 

I saw Bombay Bicycle Club on tour in March, a show which has become a live highlight of 2014 for me. One of the reasons that BBC are so good live, aside from the fact that they write a darn good tune, is that you can feel the joy of playing live roll off the band in waves, a tangible and infectious effect. It seems to me that with each album, the band get closer and closer to transmitting this joy on record as well as live, and with So Long, See You Tomorrow they might just have made it to the summit. Getting to know this record over the course of the year has been, quite simply, a pleasure. 

2014 RETROSPECTIVE - DAY 7

JESSIE WARE - TOUGH LOVE

The world is full of people who are either in love, out of love or, to crudely paraphrase Shakespeare's Romeo, "out of favour where I am in love". For those who fall into the latter two categories, never fear; in Tough Love, Jessie Ware has released an album so full of the stuff that there is more than enough to go round for all us lovesick pups. If debut record Devotion is concerned with the thrill of the chase, Tough Love is more of the opinion that there can be just as many thrills in the capture. 

Now I am a grumpy sod; every time I see a couple holding hands in the street I lurch for the nearest bin to hold my vomit. But when I listen to Jessie Ware, my cynicism melts away and is exposed for what it really is: a mere defence mechanism to cover up my singleton sadness. Having torn down this wall down, the tracks on Tough Love take pity on me and allow a peek at the sleeping monster that is love; a counterfeit version, but convincing all the same. In this weakened state, I cannot help but listen to songs like 'Say You Love Me' and 'Sweetest Song' and melt along with my cynicism. "Can you hear it?" Jessie asks on 'Sweetest Song'; yes Jessie, good god I can hear it!

My defence mechanisms kick back into gear, as they always do, but Tough Love will always give me a little glimpse of what I might be missing. 

2014 RETROSPECTIVE - DAY 6

METRONOMY - LOVE LETTERS

Firstly, a confession: I only began to listen to Metronomy 6 months ago. I am truly ashamed to have arrived so late to the Metronomy party but at least I made it, and for this I have Love Letters to thank. I stumbled upon the video for 'I'm Aquarius' by chance and got hooked in by the murky synths, and there are many more myriad electronics to be found across the record and of course, as I have since learned, throughout Metronomy's whole back catalogue. I'm listening to Love Letters now, trying to pin down exactly what it is that I like the most, and I'm finding it difficult. It could well be that there is a track called 'The Most Immaculate Haircut', or that on 'Never Wanted' Joe Mount manages to give a holiday packing list a heart-sinking gravitas, or even that 'Reservoir' makes me yearn for a non-existent long-lost lover. Hell, it might even just be that 'Boy Racers' is my unadulterated jam. After some thought these tracks rise to the top, but only after some coaxing; if I were to describe Love Letters in one word, it would be 'unassuming'. It's a record that waits for you to find it, and rewards your effort and endeavour in discovering it.

2014 RETROSPECTIVE - DAY 5

DAMIEN RICE - MY FAVOURITE FADED FANTASY

When I die, I want it marked down in my obituary that I survived the Great Damien Rice Drought of 2006-2014. There was such a long gap between Damien's second album 9 and the release of My Favourite Faded Fantasy last month that I almost forgot he existed ... and then I remembered and fell to my knees because Damien Rice makes me feel things like no other artist does. The first piece of music to ever make me cry was 'Accidental Babies'; just typing the words brings a lump to my throat. You may notice the weak attempts at hiding my affection with humour; to be quite honest, the effect Rice's work has on me makes me feel uncomfortable. He is, by far, the most arresting songwriter in my music library, and if you disagree I will fight you (see? I did it again. I can't handle this level of sincerity and yet the work demands it). 

You see, the reason that I find his music so compelling is that I believe every word he sings. With some music you don't believe a thing, and then other music is quite compelling and you believe it and just let it sit, and then there's Damien Rice. When his voice cracks on 'The Greatest Bastard', more than once, you better believe I'm slumped forward in my seat, reaching for tissues, utterly devastated. It's not a pretty image, but then the emotions on My Favourite Faded Fantasy are not pretty; no one could say they don't recognise them. All through 'The Greatest Bastard' Rice toys with my faith in his words as he constantly questions himself; almost whispering he says "I made you laugh, I made you cry, I made you open up your eyes ... didn't I?" By the end of the album, as with every Damien Rice album, I just want to give him a big hug. And I'm not a hugging person. 

It's good to have him back. 

2014 RETROSPECTIVE - DAY 4

TAKING BACK SUNDAY - HAPPINESS IS

It has been nearly 10 years since I first encountered Taking Back Sunday, watching them support Green Day at the Milton Keynes Bowl, and it's been about 8 years since I started seriously listening to their work. I found them at the perfect time; I had just discovered boys and, more importantly, their tendency to hurt you endlessly. Taking Back Sunday provided the pointed, bittersweet soundtrack to this awkward stretch of adolescence, and they have stayed with me to this day; a little bit like the Harry Potter books, I've grown up with TBS always around.

The Harry Potter comparison may seem a bit strange, but the final track of Happiness Is, 'Nothing At All', gave me the same kind of feeling as reading The Deathly Hallows. The realisation of the journey from adolescence to adulthood is a serious one for those that feel it, and 'Nothing At All' is the beautiful, lingering coda of an album which is undoubtedly Taking Back Sunday's most adult body of work yet. The reason that I still listen to Taking Back Sunday when other music from my younger years has fallen by the wayside is that as I have grown, so have they; in the same way that they have never sounded as adult as on Happiness Is, I have never felt so adult as at the time in which I first listened to it. When so many bands around them kept still, Taking Back Sunday never stopped running. I hope they don't stop any time soon.