Sufjan Stevens has named his least favourite albums of 2021.
The songwriter is known for plumbing the depths of the soul, rendering his work in an explicitly emotional fashion.
But, if his new list is anything to go by, then Sufjan Stevens is also – to put it mildly – a bit of a scream.
Yep he's named his "least favorite albums of 2021" and it moves from Sex and the City ("No. Not at all. Go away)" to J Balvin ("Black face") and Dune ("A very long Zara ad").
Amongst other bitchy quips is a neat takedown of "The Interminable Marvel Brand" and Squid Game ("I didn’t actually see it but it looks really stupid").
Dismissing the 90s revival and Adele's '30' – "We know you’re 33. It’s on your Wikipedia page." – he also slates any band "that is still together after 10 years—Please. Break up. Do your solo albums. Move on."
Check out the full list below.
These were my least favorite albums of 2021, in no particular order:
1. Squid Game—I didn’t actually see it but it looks really stupid. F-
2. A Quiet Place 2—It should have been shown after the credits for the first movie. F-
3. The Interminable Marvel Brand—If it’s on Disney + it’s for children. F-
4. Dune—A very long Zara ad. F-
5. J Balvin—Black face. F-
6. Matrix 4—Ugh. Computers. Hackers. Cyberpunks. Simulated Reality. The 90s. The color green. F-
7. Any band that is still together after 10 years—Please. Break up. Do your solo albums. Move on. F-
8. Instagram—Get over yourself. F-
9. Musicals—Please stop singing and dancing. F-
10. Baby Boomer WASPs—Get out of the way. F-
11. Sex & the City—And Just Like That? No. Not at all. Go away. F-
12. Conversations about supply chain issues—Stop making excuses. Make your own furniture. Forage for mushrooms or whatever. F-
13. Covid—Ugh. So over it. Please stop killing us! F-
14. Crypto, NFTs, The Metaverse, etc. — see #6. F-
15. The 90s revival—Please. It was bad enough the first time around. F-
16. Adele, 30—Girl, please. We know you’re 33. It’s on your Wikipedia page. B+
The on-going vinyl resurgence is one of modern music's most remarked-upon phenomenons.
A format condemned to the bargain bins during the 90s, the rise of the CD – you can famously smear jam on 'em and they'll still play – seemed to demolish all in its path.
Yet the warm audio glow vinyl offers, and its sense of heritage, brought the format back from the brink, with a new generation of fans re-claiming it. The past decade or so has brought a vast percentage increase in vinyl sales, with catalogues re-booted and fresh artists requesting that their music appear on black wax.
Yesterday – December 29th – saw the BPI unveil a new round of eye-watering percentage marks, with vinyl enjoying its best year in British music since 1988.
For those on the ground, however, it hasn't been quite simple. The architecture for pressing vinyl is now being far out-stripped by demand, meaning that small labels – who initially brought the vinyl resurgence into being – were pushed to the sidelines, experiencing lengthy delays on manufacture.
Writing for Clash, Bella Union founder and Lost Horizons musician Simon Raymonde speaks about his love affair with the format, and why the headlines don't tell the full picture.
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I feel the pain. As an artist myself and as a label owner, I feel it from all sides.
What new band, full of tension and anxiety at the world around them, wants to wait a year before their fresh exciting debut record comes out?
But many of us have seen this coming for years. Sadly not enough to make much of a difference.
There are parallels everywhere tho with our transport infrastructure and lack of investment in modernisation. Not enough trains to carry passengers in peak times, old rolling stock, blah blah blah. It’s easy to just moan about the inadequacy of the situation, but until the supply can meet the demand, this ain’t getting any better any time soon.
One of the worries for independent labels and artists is that rumours are rife that the majors are now simply jumping to the front of the queues at all the pressing plants whenever they want to by (quietly) waving a cheque. Once upon a time there was a code that seemed to work between the labels and the plants but if that is now broken and it’s all about who pays the most, then I fear this is going to all end in tears.
Clearly we need more pressing plants, and quite why there are so few in U.K. at a time when vinyl production has increased so much is something that’s puzzled me for several years. If I had Jack White’s money believe me I would do the same as he has done for Third Man by having his own pressing plant, but it isn’t just as simple as that sadly.
Until someone comes up with a greener and more cost-efficient alternative to the current process to manufacture vinyl, that also creates a product that is comparable, then we shall continue to piss into the wind.
I am sure if a gazillionaire like Elon Musk can fly passengers to Mars and back in his own SpaceX ships, buying a few vinyl pressing plants to allow Grimes to get her new record out within the same calendar year she made it, shouldn’t be beyond his capabilities.
One problem is that this is an old process that has barely changed in several decades. It’s almost miraculous that it even exists, so strange and mysterious the process from start to finish is. It is a feat of complex engineering events that should not really be possible. Maybe if Tony Stark had invented it you wouldn’t be so surprised and if Tony Stark existed even he might stand a chance of refining the process and allowing it to join the modern world.
My hope is like with everything, that it will simply right itself in time, like a boat that’s taken on too much water. Once the balance is restored, sailing becomes pleasant again. But this storm isn’t abating just yet.
Until then we will continue to make these beautiful blobs of aluminium, nickel, tin, silver and God knows what else, for all of our bands, and waiting a few extra months to see the joy on their faces as they open this magical creation, really seems like nothing at all.
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Lost Horizons will play London's Scala venue on June 21st.
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Ed Sheeran has revealed plans to use his wealth to re-wild parts of the UK.
The songwriter's one-man-and-a-loop-pedal live show is relatively light in terms of personal packing, but Ed Sheeran's success still leaves a colossal carbon footprint.
Aware of this, the songwriter has confirmed he intends to buy vast parts of the UK and "rewind" them, in order to offset the environmental damage caused by his job.
“I’m trying to buy as much land as possible and plant as many trees as possible,” Ed Sheeran told BBC Radio London. “I am trying to rewild as much of the UK as I can. I love my county and I love wildlife and the environment.”
He added: “I feel like I am going to get my head bitten off anytime I say that, as my job is not a hugely sustainable job as I go and play in cities, but I am trying my best…”
Ed Sheeran's own East Suffolk estate is already being turned into a giant “wildlife meadow”, he explained.
He said: “I have got a massive beehive. I have this massive wildlife pond with newts in it, salamanders and there’s a grass snake that lives in there and hedgehogs…”
The songwriter finished: “The thing with sustainability and being a public figure is when people support it, suddenly people try and find things to call them out on.”
Which is exactly what has happened. While his heart may be in the right place, the combination of Britain's historically backward approach to land ownership and the prospect of a multi-millionaire absentee landlord replacing people with trees caused a huge pushback online:
“I’m trying to buy as much land as possible…”
Ed Sheeran’s net worth is estimated to be £200m. Shoring up land he likely has no connection to feels like a personal project to offset his inevitably unjustifiably carbon intensive lifestyle. https://t.co/BPa8Gd6PQ5
— Miriam Brett (@MiriamBrett) December 29, 2021
/blockquote>Where would we all be without the super-rich offsetting their carbon-heavy opulent lifestyles in the countryside? https://t.co/VyQuw0sOMv
— Joe Stanley (@JoeWStanley) December 29, 2021
Instead of buying up as much land as possible to plant trees. @edsheeran why not work with farmers to deliver climate and biodiversity solutions. You could have a much larger positive impact for your investment. #naturebasedsolutions #naturefriendlyfarming https://t.co/xCrvZu9JQN
— Martin Lines (@LinesMartin) December 29, 2021
Wrong answer @edsheeran. The challenge for protecting #biodiversity and burying #carbon is to embrace #regenerativeagriculture on a massive scale not #wilding as #greenwashing https://t.co/tjO6R8zmIZ
— Jamie Blackett (@Jamie_Blackett) December 29, 2021
Are his critics being fair, however? Ed Sheeran's plans haven't been put into practice yet, and his commitment to climate activism certainly puts him ahead of many of his peers.
Guess we'll have to wait and see on this one, folks!
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Japanese garage-pop outfit CHAI have shared their take on the Wham! classic 'Last Christmas'.
The group's recent album 'Wink' landed in 2021, while the Japanese outfit also found time for a Duran Duran collaboration.
Ending the year on a high, CHAI surprised fans on Christmas Day with a neat cover on a festive classic.
Yep, they've recorded their own version of 'Last Christmas' and it's a delirious take on the karaoke evergreen.
The video features the four-piece playing with Christmas decorations, and generally having a merry ol' time.
Tune in now.
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There are several reasons why you might be even more envious than usual of Johnny Lynch’s lifestyle right now: chiefly that he lives on the Isle of Eigg, away from all the confusing madness elsewhere. Things have not been entirely rosy up in his Hebridean homeland, however. Yep, Omicron even infiltrated that 100-strong community, the catchy bastard.
Lynch – aka Pictish Trail – missed the Eigg outbreak, as he was down south doing a now-annual institution: the festive showcase for his label, Lost Map, at lovely London lunchtime bash Daylight Music. That show was filmed and is heartily recommended – particularly during this confusing few weeks (should we be in? Out? Shaking it all about?). There’s a crowdfunder below if online gigging feels too guilty a pleasure.
Actually Lynch got pretty emotional at the end of his set, while performing the title track from the forthcoming Island Family, an Eigg-themed album recorded after a lockdown Hogmanay ‘freak out’ last year. So how will New Year be celebrated there this year? If at all. What with everything?
Turns out Lynch ended up getting Covid anyway, so we Zoom him back home, post-isolation.
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Are you over the ‘cron now?
I’m OK – while I was away it was just a flood of people on the island getting it and I was like, ‘Oh, good, I dodged that bullet,’ then I think I caught it in London. A bunch of us came down, did the gig for Daylight Music, and probably infected half the room.
We do expect the unexpected at that show. I remember 2019, a really charged atmosphere right after the general election, one of the acts just read a long speech by Salvador Allende…
That was Alabaster dePlume, an amazing poet and artist, who was playing with Rozi Plain; I’ve seen him do it from memory too. We played another gig later on, and I remember being quite drunk at the end, saying, ‘come on guys, you need to move to Scotland, the dream’s over.’ They were so dejected because they'd spent so much time canvassing. What might have been.
How long have you been doing those festive showcases?
Quite a few years now. The first one I did was, like, 2014? And it was myself and Frank Sidebottom. I don’t think they filmed that one, which is a pity, because it was such a surreal gig. It wasn't very busy either.
The stream of this one was nice. It’s the first time I’ve watched that show with my cat.
Maybe there should be, like, a Bring Your Own Pet edition.
I can see it. So how is the festive season on Eigg?
It's a funny time at the moment with all the Corona stuff, and also there's been a big pier redevelopment; the tea room is the one place you can go to congregate, that's completely closed. But there are big community meals, where everyone brings a dish, that’s usually great, because Eigg has an amazing amount of great cooks.
What about New Year, with the restrictions?
Usually there’s a big cèilidh, but I'm not sure if that'll happen this time around, just with trying to get players in from the mainland. There are a few traditional players on the island, but I can't play traditional music myself. I can barely play my own music. Usually I get roped in on DJ duties.
I wish there was a record shop on Eigg, I do miss the mainland for things like that. I’d love to run that, you could really influence what people were getting into.
It does kind of feel like that sometimes, the recent Bonfire Night. They asked me to DJ a thing afterwards and I did six or seven hours, and felt like I was imposing a lot of the tunes that I like.
You said at the Daylight gig that Eigg is like one big family, which you hadn’t experienced living in other places.
Partly it's out of circumstance. Everyone has to rely on each other here, and there's a sense of community that comes with that. If you're really struggling with something, you've got a problem with your plumbing, whatever problems you might have. You do have to rely on the community and be ready to offer help and stuff.
You were doing this Visitations series, where artists came and made a record on Eigg’s bothy studio – is that still going? It was a kind of self-isolation…
I'm piecing together the next acts for the rest of the series. One big stumbling block at the moment is vinyl production. The series kind of revolves around us releasing the records on vinyl, and so now I'm trying to think of ways in which we can still do that, where we don’t have to wait months, a year before the vinyl arrives.
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It feels like every possible outlet gets pulled from musicians now. After the digital meltdown you could at least do vinyl and tours – now they’re tricky too.
It's a weird thing. The vinyl resurgence has been amazing over the last 10 years in terms of placing value back onto music when the streaming channels are paying buttons, you've suddenly got this whole wave of people prepared to spend a good bit of money on having a nice physical product. The problem is, the jump in price has gone mad over the last two years.
I was chatting to a record shop owner recently, who said there's a lot of classic albums that were always in print; they're no longer in print. But also there's just a whole bunch of new releases that have gone up in price.
So the vinyl thing has been good, but so many releases are just focused around the vinyl release, the music is kind of taking second place; it’s more about having the artefact, what colour of vinyl it is, how limited edition it is.
A huge percentage of vinyl is never listened to, apparently. So for those people, we should send out, say, a bit of wood in a sleeve, all shrinkwrapped. They’ll never know.
Absolutely, I agree! I do wonder how many of the Adele vinyls that got made will actually be listened to. It’s Christmas, people are looking for gifts. Did she make like, half a million copies on vinyl or something?
Let's not start a war between you and Adele…
Oh, bring it on: Adele, I think you should quit, you've had your time, that’s you done now.
Your next album might be an eye-opener for anyone who knows you best from those festive acoustic sets – musically, it’s pretty out there.
I lost my mind a bit. 2020, I’d just released an album, the tour got cancelled, the pandemic. I was at home, just full-on panic parenting mode and I couldn’t do any music. So the beginning of this year, Hogmanay, I had this freak out: my new year's resolution was ‘right, I need to get away for a week and just try and record.’
So I went up to the bothy where we do the Visitations thing, locked myself in for a week, took a bass guitar, sampler, drum machine, keyboard and my eight track machine and just tried to splurge on as many ideas as I could. And yeah, the result is this album.
I’m always interested in how environment affects a record: this one sounds like you couldn’t really write about anything else?
Last year is the first year where it's been a long consecutive amount of time actually on the island. Normally, I'll have to leave every couple of weeks to do a tour or meetings or whatever. It was kind of good being here for the seasonal changes, seeing how the island evolves. – I also have like a real anxiety about a sense of belonging as well. I'm not a very outdoorsy person.
Really? I imagine you outdoors all the time, wandering the cliffs. But that might be from your videos.
I mean, I do go out; I run and all that. So I do get to enjoy the outside of Eigg. But I don't know what anything is.
People would ask me, ‘Have you written any songs about Eigg, how does Eigg inspire you?’ I'd not written any songs. So my idea with this record was to write very directly about nature, isolation, the community and all that sort of stuff in a sort of tongue in cheek way. But what happened is, in the course of doing that, I discovered that it was absolutely fine for me to have that approach.
So it turned out genuine, not ironic?
There's a song called ‘Island Family’, I sang it at Daylight Music and got really wobbly. It’s about all the different places on Eigg where people's deaths have been commemorated, or happened; – It’s kind of all about all these different people from Eigg who died, and how that affects the community. The impact of every death that's happened on the island has been really seismic, over the last 11, 12 years that I've been here.
So I wanted to provide a sort of weird little map of Eigg, in this made-up folk song. I've actually not been able to perform it the whole way through without getting emotional. I’m still trying to work out why that is.
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Pictish Trail’s new album ‘Island Family’ is out on March 18th. Click here to support Daylight Music’s 2022 crowdfunder – justgiving.com/crowdfunding/daylightmusic2022
Words: Si Hawkins // @SiHawkins
Vinyl sales soared to new levels in 2021, a BPI report confirms.
The new figures show that sales of vinyl rose once more in 2021, continuing a decade-long trend of recovery for the format.
In all, around a quarter of all albums bought in 2021 were on vinyl – some 23% – with ABBA's 'Voyage' emerging as the highest-seller.
That's the 14th consecutive year of growth, with overall sales up by 8% on 2020 as lockdown fans continue to placate pandemic anxiety by purchasing vinyl.
In second place on the sales list came Adele's somewhat controversial '30' pressing, with Ed Sheeran's '=' in fourth; Fleetwood Mac's classic album 'Rumours' is in third.
Meanwhile, sales of CDs continued to fall with just 14 million discs purchased in 2021 as supermarkets continue to shed their support for the format.
It represents the lowest figure since 1988 but the BPI emphasise that this drop is "bottoming out" after years of general decline.
(via BBC)
Ashe has hit out at comparisons between her work and Harry Styles.
The comparisons have become more and more frequent, with some onlookers contrasting their work.
In a TikTok video, a visibly exasperated Ashe played a mash-up of her song 'Another Man's Jeans' and Mr. Styles:
@heyimashe helppp i wanna put this out so bad, should iiiii???
Ashe then shared a series of tweets, outlining her feelings on the "unfair, unjustified, and SEXIST" comparisons between the two artists.
Calling the conversation "fucking boring" Ashe said:
"it’s not the first time i’ve gotten hate for baseless allegations and it won’t be the last, i just wanted to make my final words on it very clear. i’m not angry or hurt and i’m done being annoyed. i think harry is one of the greats. i’m grateful to be making music in the same era as him but i’m not gonna devalue my art or my image by comparing myself to a guy. plenty of misogynistic, bitter people can do that for me suit that’s that. thanks to each of you being immeasurably kind, i love you. here’s to an unbothered 2022."
here’s to an unbothered 2022
— ashe (@ashemusic) December 27, 2021
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Related: In Conversation – Ashe
Photo Credit: Rachel Lipsitz
Charli XCX has shared a teaser of her new Rina Sawayama collaboration.
The two revealed plans for the collaboration a few weeks back, with Charli XCX sharing a text conversation between the two pop auteurs.
In the convo, Charli XCX tells Rina Sawayama that she “seriously crushed it…”
The first glimpse of the song is now online, with Charli XCX playing a snippet on her TikTok channel.
It's a club-adjacent banger, with the house-friendly beat drawing on a 90s palette; Rina sings “…Coming and going just as you please / Separated by a degree, hesitated illusion so far out of reach…”
The song is set to appear on the new Charli XCX album 'Crash' which is out on March 18th.
@charlixcx 2022 sneak peak @rinasawayamaofficial ♬ original sound – Charli XCX – – –
Patti Smith was given the key to New York City by outgoing Mayor Bill De Blasio at a press conference on Monday (December 27th).
The punk-poet has long called New York home, with much of her work being inspired by life in the city.
In a special press conference, Bill De Blasio saluted her work, awarding the key to the city to Patti Smith, and long-time collaborator Lenny Kaye.
Speaking at the ceremony, De Blasio said: "She has done so much to light the way, and she has done it here in New York City…"
It's a big week for both Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye – it's Kaye's 75th birthday today (December 28th), while Patti Smith's own 75th birthday follows on Thursday.
Receiving the honour, Patti said: "I wish I could give New York City the key to me."
"I know that we don't work to gather accolades," she continued, "but I'm the kind of person that if I get one, I really love it."
“I wish I could give New York City the key to me.”
– Music legend Patti Smith after receiving the Key to the City from @NYCMayor. https://t.co/G78ZPaxz5k pic.twitter.com/TcnyoS03sJ
— NYC Mayor's Office (@NYCMayorsOffice) December 27, 2021
Veteran broadcaster Janice Long has died, the BBC has confirmed.
Janice Long joined BBC radio in 1982, quickly becoming a fixture on Radio 1's evening schedule. Holding down a weekly spot on Saturday evenings, she also joined the rotating cast of presenters on key chart rundown Top Of The Pops.
As the 90s dawned Janice Long moved to BBC Radio London, and also played a key early role in the genesis of Radio X.
The noughties brought a hugely successful show on Radio 2 before Janice Long was invited to become a launch presenter with 6Music.
Helping to forge the station's eclectic ethos, speculation surrounding her health hit social media across the Christmas break.
A few moments ago, the BBC has confirmed that the 66 year old broadcaster died at home following a short illness.
The news was confirmed by her agent. Enormously sad news – a figure of quiet inspiration, Janice Long was the first female host of Top Of The Pops, and remained a trailblazing female voice in broadcasting right to the end.
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