Music

It's time to break from the norm a bit. For whatever reason I've spoken a lot about art, film, and writing, but never really talked about music. Admittedly it's had less of an effect on my work than most things immediately, but it's almost certainly had an effect at shaping how things have gone this year work-wise, and definitely informed my choices of soundtracks. And given how I constantly listen to music when I work, it's bound to have fed into the work I've done this year.

At the very start of the year I was just coming down from the stuff I'd been listening to over summer. Mostly a rather brilliant band called The Naked and Famous. I'd picked up their fist album at the end of the holidays and was thoroughly in love with it around that time. It's an astonishingly good album, and has that perfect mix of poppy fun-times and LOUDNESS I like in my music.



Over summer I was also beginning to listen to my favourite band, Metric, a bit more. They're a Canadian synthpop band with an amazing collection of albums and one of the best singers out there. They have this really great mix of great pop tunes with just enough of an edge to make it work. And those vocals are amazing. I knew they had an album out towards the end of the year and their singles were starting to slip through from the album. Shortly afterwards the album itself arrived in the post and I listened to nothing else for a few weeks. Not too long after that I saw them live in Glasgow with two of my old school friends. Without a doubt the best night of my life. Boy do they kill it live.



A bit after that I bought a lot of CDs. Mum came up for a trip, and we both went CD shopping then, and I also grabbed another album or two in later visits. The main albums of note were Be Your Own Pet's first album, a joyously loud medley of loudness. I listened to their second album a lot over summer so it was fun to get another one. I also found Art Brut's second album, which completely won me over after their questionable debut. It began a fascination with them that lasted until the summer term. And thirdly came Grouplove who formed the charming nicey-nice part of the new album triangle.



Those three kept me going until my birthday and beyond. Using some of my birthday money i went on another album shopping spree. The main albums of note were Froot by Marina and the Diamonds and Kindred by Passion Pit. I'd got into Marina and PP last year, so I was eager to finish off the Marina collection and get a bit more PP. The better of the two, Froot is a genuinely fantastic album. It's not just my strange tastes talking. It's so good. probably her best record, and after that debut that's really saying a lot. Kindred was also pretty ruddy good. It's very synthy, and has some fantastic bouncy fun tracks and it's very good.



Afterwards I picked up The Naked and Famous's second album. it's not as good as the first by a long shot, but after a while it grew on me. It's just a bit slow and doesn't really go to any very interesting places. Apart from the lead single though. One of the best songs I've heard in ages. Well, since Metric did The Shade over summer. It's such a good song.



I didn't get anything new after that until Christmas. My uncle worked his magic and got me a few more as a christmas present. Whilst I'd requested all of them, the only properly good one came from Franz Ferdinand. It was their fourth album and was filled with ten different reminders about why Franz Ferdinand are brilliant. And every single song is as catchy as heck. I had fun with that one.



As those albums weren't as good a music fix as I wanted, i dug through my CD collection and found that I hadn't put Of Monsters And Men's first album on the computer. So I did that and really liked it. It also tied really nicely into Stand Still Stay Silent, which I'll probably talk about later. I think we need another Webcomic Roundup soon. It's a really good album full of vaguely folksy nice tunes. Which provided a nice foil to Dananananaykroyd



Dananananaykroyd kicked me back to the Be Your Own Pet school of music. It's loud, fast, and surprisingly catchy indie-punk and it's a whole lot of fun to listen to.



The rest of the year was far less rooted in terms of music. As I bought less, I began looking back a bit more, and pulled some neglected albums off the shelf and gave them some more. Klaxons' third album finally got some appreciation. I also dug back into The Flaming Lips' recent albums but found nothing close to love. They're a bit too far from what I like right now.



And in the last few weeks I've been listening to the RWBY Volume 3 Soundtrack as well as rediscovering just how good Calvin Harris's 18 Months album is. I've also got back into The Naked And Famous again, especially their first album, after finding a concert video from that era on Youtube.



There are definitely traces of what I'm into in the music of the animations. The Naked and Famous fed into the darker introspective music of Daily Mail Dystopia, whilst Of Monsters And Men really fed into the YCN brief. The Production soundtrack spring from me getting back into Klaxons, and the Motion Go music was...well...pretty blank. Maybe there's a bit of recent Flaming Lips in there? Maybe?

Either way, I figured it would be interesting to discuss part of the year that I hadn't discussed before.