Something about the Cars leaves me a little cold, like the songwriting is too formulaic - I love nothing more than curveball record, but is this an interesting album broadly, or only for automobile fans?
A speckled-black brown dunnock, in a bare thorny bush
A lunchtime dunnock's tea cake #birb
Lovely song - how strange this was their biggest UK hit (at the modest position of #58)
A red-breasted robin, perching on a branch, head tilted slightly as if to say "Well, are you going to take my photo?"
The same robin as before, now staring to the side
A chonky blue tit perches right up a branch. Bright yellow
An unspecified bird. Big and grey, with a big bushy tail and clinging to a branch while it monches on some berries with its hands
A robin came and sang me a song #bird
Speaking of, @bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social how many votes did Echo Park get for 2001? I don't think that or Free All Angels have aged especially well but they're still fun throwbacks
I've only seen them once, as it stands at their final ever gig! This year will change that, I'm unintentionally seeing them twice - they're great
I'd say Rings was their commercial and reach peak, nothing after this is considered to be bad but they certainly lost quasi-mainstream interest during their next album. Maybe Love Kraft was more *nsync with what was popular in the US around the time, compared to this or say Radiator
Is this take an American one? In the UK I wouldn't say Love Kraft is all that fancied but I've heard many Americans speak of Love Kraft as if it's their peak
Emma-Jean Thackray - Weirdo: A heavy, deadpan hour with nooks of joy amidst its troubles
Nuovo Testamento - Trouble: Brisk, unambiguous joy that needs not complicate pleasure
Say Sue Me - Time Is Not Yours: Sleepy shoreline sounds are eschewed in favour of a vigour and urgency previously unexplored
Annahstasia - Tether: Be it a barely-there wisp, or a captivating boom, no matter which hand Annahstasia plays, she wins
Gelli Haha - Switcheroo: A character all parties can do with
The Beths - Straight Line Was a Lie: As shrewd and astutely economical as always
NiechΔΔ - Reckless Things: A haunted record unsettled by ears privy of its belonging
The New Eves - The New Eve Is Rising: The sound of the 60s, and I mean any century's 60s
UNIVERSITY - McCartney, It'll Be Ok: Frequently sets its own momentum ablaze in a feat of pure bravado
Ale Hop & Titi Bakorta - Mapambazuko: Two albums in each ear, melding in haromony
McKinley Dixon - Magic, Alive!: Sincere thought and musical wizardry in a digestible package
Erika de Casier - Lifetime: The nascent blinks of a new planet
Anna von Hausswolff - ICONOCLASTS: Sometimes commanding fear, sometimes capturing hearts; these are songs to follow someone into battle to
PinkPantheress - Fancy That: A 100m pop sprint with new details every metre
CMAT - Euro-Country: A strange paradox of a self-deprecating, razor-sharp wit who you really should take seriously, even if she doesn't
Lucy Gooch - Desert Window: Wonderful layers of sound, drifting between the intelligible and sage to the illucid and mesmeric
A belated review of 2025 in music (though I published this on New Year's Eve, so all is good) musicisalright.wordpress.com/2025/12/31/a...
A headline on BBC Sport saying: "Rosenior - Chelsea camp hit by 'virus'"
A followup quote from Rosenior saying "I do not have number ones or number twos"
Geez, that's an awful virus to have
A red-breasted robin soaks up the apricity on a wooden ledge
Look, it's a reliant robin soaking up the apricity #bird
A man stares agape at a TV showing a football scoreboard with an UNFATHOMABLE 100 minutes on the clock
You can always rely on Spurs and Liverpool to produce a holy hundred. The real question is what if Spurs got that much sought-after third red card - who knows where it'd be displayed #HolyHundred
Cracking apricity out there today lads
Free Association is a wonderful song
