Found myself in a strange town...

Congratulations  to the amazing Elvis Costello on his first Grammy win for and album, the fantastic Look Now. Like every year I watched the Grammys with my wife this past Sunday. I don’t really care for the Grammys (haven’t in over 15 years I think) but it’s a tradition I can’t get rid of, like watching the Oscars or Golden Globes. But unlike the other two awards I mentioned, the Grammys seem to be worse and worse every year. It’s probably a sign of me getting older but the performances and winners interest me less and less every year. This year I only really cared about two of the nominees I saw on the show (both for best new act): Black Pumas and Yola. Unsurprisingly neither won, still wouldn’t make a difference to me if either got a Grammy or not, I like what I like and a Grammy would certainly not change my opinion, but it would still be nice to see something I consider really good get some recognition…I feel like it would give me some hope for the future...

Number five in this series of ten (in no particular order) belongs to 1 of the 2 really obvious ones for those who know me well (I’ll save the other obvious one for #10), The Beatles. My love for The Fab Four goes way back, can’t really pin point when exactly it began, but I must admit I became obsessed with them after I got into Oasis (I know, should be the other way around), it was then that I began to listen to their albums as a whole instead of just my fav songs and that’s when I really got to appreciate the genius in them. My favorite Beatles album is Abbey Road, followed closely by Sgt. Peppers, but objectively speaking I think their best album is Revolver which is an absolute work of art. But I love every single one of their albums. From the first chords of their debut to the perfect closing line of Abbey Road, their discography plays like a perfect script to my ears. Even their supposedly weakest moments like Beatles For Sale...

After a break in December choosing my favorite albums of the year and the decade, it’s time to continue with our fourth act in this series of ten (in no particular order). It’s Bruce Springsteen, my favorite American artist. No need for an introduction here as I am pretty sure everyone (fan or not) knows about the Boss. Bruce is a fantastic story teller and a perfectionist when it comes to his art. I remember on a Jimmy Fallon interview years ago about his unreleased album The Promise (made up of outtakes from the Darkness On The Edge Of Town sessions), Bruce said he wrote about 100 songs for the album and then reduced it to 10. Jimmy laughed and said “A hundred songs! That’s what a crazy person does”, I agree with Jimmy, only that I see genius instead of crazy there. I knew of Bruce since high school probably but it was in college that I was really exposed to his music and got into it. Born To Run was the album for me back then as I felt identified t...

After listening back to my favorite and most played albums of the past 10 years, I finally came up with my top 20 favorite albums of the 2010’s. Coming up with this list is much harder than I thought as 20 is too small a number for all the great records that have been produced in this past decade. I am not a music critic (hate that term actually) so I am not saying these are the best records of the decade (although I am pretty sure they are lol 😂 ), but these are my favorite records: 1-. Stone Foundation – Street Rituals: One of my all time favorite albums and without a doubt my album of the decade. My love for this band has been well documented, if we talk about current acts (by that I mean still active), Paul Weller is my favorite solo artist and Stone Foundation is my favorite band... and this album in my opinion sums up everything I love about SF: soulful, uplifting, makes you want to dance at times while at moments it will get you teary eyed...and t...

In a year full of great new music, here's a look back at my favorite albums of the year. I am doing this a bit earlier than usual as I am now revisiting my favorite albums from the decade (and will hopefully come up with that list in a couple of weeks). Here are my top 15 albums of 2019: 1. Ian Prowse - Here I Lie 2. Michael Kiwanuka - Kiwanuka 3. The Pearlfishers - Love & Other Hopeless Things 4. Durand Jones & The Indications - American Love Call 5. Black Pumas - Black Pumas 6. Steve Mason - About The Light 7. Kelly Finnigan - The Tales People Tell 8. Elbow - Giants Of All Sizes 9. Yola - Walk Through Fire 10. Liam Gallagher - Why Me? Why Not. 11. Van Morrison - Three Chords & The Truth 12. Bruce Springsteen - Western Stars 13. Lee Fields & The Expressions - It Rains Love 14. Richard Hawley - Further 15. Raymons Meade - Episodes Of Mania *Bonus: Paul Weller - Other Aspects: Live At The Royal Festival Hall The top spot belongs to my mu...

  For the third act in this series of ten (in no particular order), we have our favorite troubadour, Mr. Steve Pilgrim. Most of you know Steve as the drummer in Paul Weller’s band and I must confess that’s how I knew him at first too. It was Ben Gordelier who recommended I check out Steve’s albums and boy am I thankful he did. While I am a big fan of acoustic singer-songwriters, at our house Steve is the king in that genre. Keep Falling Down is one of those songs that can’t be absent from any playlist we make and my kids will sing it despite not speaking English yet. It's such a contrast to see Steve bang the drums like the wildest of rock drummers and then to hear him singing these lovely lullabies with the sweetest of voices. But it’s not just that he’s a great singer and superbly talented multi-instrumentalist that does the trick for him, it’s the fact that he’s such a fantastic songwriter that makes him the complete package. He’s released 4 albums/1 li...

The Rifles have been one of my favorite bands ever since I stumbled upon the video for Local Boy online around the time their superb debut album No Love Lost was released. I remember hearing Local Boy for the first time and feeling an urgency to get their album, a feeling I could only compare to the same urgency I felt the first time I heard The Jam or The Clash. Most of my favorite artists and bands back then had been around for a while and I’ve gotten into them with (at least) a few albums already under their belt. That’s what made The Rifles so special for me, they (along with Arctic Monkeys) were the first new bands I discovered that I still listen to regularly today. I have waited anxiously for each of their releases and bought each of them on their release date. The Rifles’ biggest strength for me lies in the fact that their entire catalog is strong. They have no weak tracks, there’s no album of theirs where I want to skip a single track. It’s all gre...