Archive for the ‘What Gerry’s groovin’ to’ Category
My Favourite Music of the Year: 2018
December 21st 2018
Gerry Hassan
This is my fourth year of doing a comprehensive music list of things I have bought, been listening to, and had come my way in the past year. It has been as usual an eclectic year musically but highlights include the Southside Record Club (meeting at Some Great Reward record shop) and listening to some great sounds through that, some stellar live gigs – with often the smaller the better (and a big hat tip to the Bungalow in Paisley), and some fantastic bootleg recordings.
But as with every year pride of place has to go to the new musical sounds that have impressed me this year – and here in reverse order – as in the old chart rundowns are my top ten spins of the year. Read the rest of this entry »
My Favourite Music of the Year: 2017
December 19th 2017
NEW ALBUMS
- The Visitor – Neil Young and Promise of the Real
Neil Young’s roving and rocking spirit look at the America of today. Hit and miss in places – but some hard rock and roll such as opener ‘Already Great’.
- Dark Matter – Randy Newman
Newman in typical sardonic form with his first album in nearly a decade and trademark laidback musical style and acerbic lyrics, ‘Putin’ being one of the best.
- Damn – Kendrick Lamar
Not as stellar and pathbreaking as ‘To Pimp a Butterfly’ from 2015 but this is R ‘n’ B with personal reflection and social conscience.
- How the West Was Won – Peter Perrett
The uplifting music story of the year – once singer of new wave legends The Only Ones gets his life in order and returns with great tunes, lyrics and guitars.
- Soul of a Woman – Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings
Jones made it as a star in her 40s and her soul sound gave Amy Winehouse her ‘Back in Black vibe. Sadly she died in 2016 and this is her last album filled with the spirit and passionate vocals she was known for. Read the rest of this entry »
MY YEAR IN MUSIC 2016
December 16th 2016
2016 will be certainly be remembered as a year and for more important things than music. But it was also a year of musical genius and of great losses – which words are not adequate to describe. Without further to do my musical highs:
MY BEST ALBUMS
- David Bowie – Black Star
A magnificent goodbye. Bowie’s best album since the early 1980s. Not easy listening and with added pathos.
- Nino Katamadze and Insight – Yellow
A Georgian Goldfrapp – only more melodic without losing the experimental edge. Latest in a series of themed albums: ‘Black’, ‘White’, ‘Blue’. Love them all.
- Solange – A Seat at the Table
Solange finally delivers the big album and promise after years of changing and shifting styles.
- Michael Kiwanuka – Love & Hate
A beautiful sounding album of soul reflections. So good and smooth that on first listening you miss its depth. Read the rest of this entry »
MY FAVOURITE MUSIC OF THE YEAR: 2015
December 16th 2015
NEW ALBUMS
1 C Duncan, Architect
One man’s vision – part classical, ambient, other worldly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvbJS3YVae0
2 Kamasi Washington, The Epic
Jazz is rarely like this: mixing big band, soul & funk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCIAMO3Al1A
3 Floating Points, Elaenia
Stunning harmonies, spaces and silence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfYP7uTZX8Y
4 Tame Impala, Currents
Real departure for guitar sound into dance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFptt7Cargc
5 D’Angelo, Black Messiah
Rarely has political funk/R&Bsounded so good
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2r5yqjlVrI Read the rest of this entry »
Gerry’s Desert Island Disc Grooves
Gerry Hassan
August 10th 2010
For some reason over the last few weeks I began thinking about my Desert Island Disc choices. In part it has been listening to the show a bit more of late – usually by accident, rather than design – caused by an increase in Radio 4 listening.
Then there is my rising dissatisfaction with the conservatism and smug self-satisfaction with what modern pop culture has turned into. People going on about the Beatles. Give it a rest. The sixties. Punk and new wave which turned out to be even more insufferable and filled with aged bores and dinosaurs than the hippies. The indie scene of the 1980s. The Smiths, New Order or whoever else was at that Sex Pistols gig in Manchester they all lie about!
I used to love the Beatles. I still do, but maybe one day I will really like their music again. And it is getting that way for me for a lot of popular music which is just too over-exposed and too the received wisdom of what you are meant to like. You know the Mark Kermode/Stuart Maconie view of life: Joy Division as the central defining point of the musical universe. Then on thru the usual reference points.
All of this got myself thinking – what records would I want to take from the mainstream pop and rock culture of our times since the 1960s. Not many. I could happily live without nearly all of them. So here is my eight …. No Beatles or 1980s indie rock or lots of other things. Just an oddball list of things I think filled with something …. grace, style, affirming life and something special …. Read the rest of this entry »
