My Musical Highlights of the Year
My Musical Highlights of the Year Gerry Hassan Bella Caledonia, 17 December 2021 This year in music does seem to have been incredibly long, with what I was grooving to at the start of the year seems eons ago. Part due to COVID and the lack of live music, and part it being a year of two halves - one in Glasgow, one in Kirkcudbright – with the resulting upheaval of moving a lifetime’s worth of music. Without further ado, here are my best new albums of the year, best reissues and older albums that I have turned to for
My Favourite Music of 2020
My Favourite Music of 2020 Gerry Hassan Some Great Reward, December 17th 2020 For the past six years I have put together my sounds of the year. This year is a special one: 2020 was unique for obvious reasons and it is the first time I have undertaken this for Some Great Reward, the wonderful record shop run by Olly and Faye on Victoria Road, Govanhill on Glasgow’s Southside. For the past two and a half years we have run a monthly record club – Southside Record Club - at the shop with the support and input of Olly and
Gerry’s Favourite Music of the Decade
Gerry’s Favourite Music of the Decade Gerry Hassan January 3rd 2020 My countdown of the grooves I was listening to over the past decade. First, this is my chart so the criterion is mine alone! It is dominated by new things from the last ten years, but includes compilations, reissues and even a few albums from previous decades. Second, nearly as important as what is in a looking back exercise such as this is what is missing. Thus, even though this is a fairly eclectic list it consciously has no Beyonce, Kayne West (his early promise degenerating into celebrity Trump
My Favourite Music of 2019
My Favourite Music of 2019 Gerry Hassan December 23rd 2019 This is the fifth time that I have compiled a list of music that I have bought, listened to, and that came my way in the past year. This has been an even more varied, diverse and fantastic year of music listening and experiences this year, aided by a number of factors. One was obviously just becoming aware of more great releases, and a number of artists being brave enough to follow their muse and not the mainstream. Another was upgrading my hi-fi streaming to Qobuz along with using
My Favourite Music of the Year: 2018
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
My Favourite Music of the Year: 2017
My Favourite Music of the Year: 2017 December 19th 2017 NEW ALBUMS
- The Visitor – Neil Young and Promise of the Real
- Dark Matter – Randy Newman
- Damn – Kendrick Lamar
My Year in Music 2016
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
- Nino Katamadze and Insight – Yellow
My Favourite Music of the Year: 2015
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 (more…)
Gerry’s Desert Island Disc Grooves
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
Gerry’s Top Sixty Albums of the Decade Part Six
Gerry's Top Sixty Albums of the Decade Part Six December 18th 2009 Nos. 10-1 Into the final furlong. This has been both exhausting and exhilarating; now I know how much work those boys and girls at ‘NME’ and ‘Uncut’ work on their end of year lists. For me personally it has been an even more varied, stimulating and utterly captivating decade in music than ever before. There are though some interesting (and some ominous signs) in the state of music (and I am not just taking about Cowell and the X Factor). There is the state of pop and plastic
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