OK, for want of a better idea, I'm going to condense some of my most strongly held "opinions" on music, the things I might, if "parties" still existed, find myself forcefully saying at such an event and then stutteringly attempting to back up. Apologies if you've heard any of them from me before ...
1. Debbie Harry is the Greatest Rock Star of All Time, actually. To me, that's a truth hiding in plain sight. No one else did quite what she did. The bravest, truest, coolest, most contained, most diffident, most glorious. Everything you need in rock'n'roll exists within Blondie's brief supremacy and really, though there were great co-writers, great covers, a great producer, it was all her, really.
2. Kanye West is really just Morrissey to the power of six, and at the moment he's Morrissey in the late 90s. There'll probably be something which sounds really good again soon, and people will forgive and forget what a poison he is, but then it will quickly emerge again.
3. There was a point around the turn of the century when the Super Furry Animals were right there, if that's what the UK wanted, to be a mainstream chart-topping national treasure. But that's not what the UK wanted, and that says everything about everything. I truly believe (kind of, maybe not really) that if that had happend, a different and better chain of events would have been set in motion.
4. I've said this one before, but Otis Redding's death was the most signifcant death in the history of rock'n'roll.
5. To me, Waxahatchee's 'Saint Cloud' is the modern 'Blue'. Invidious as it is to compare any and every album by a woman to Blue, this, for me, is the one that stands next to it. It doesn't sound like Blue, but it's shaped like, and feels like, 'Blue'. It's dark and then joyous, and then both at the same time. It's also perfect. Definitely the best album of the last five years for me.
6. I love music journalism, reviews, rankings, scores and all and I take it for what it is. I switched a decade ago from NME being my main regular source to Pitchfork. The moment that really crystallized the whole thing as silly bollocks was Drake's 'Hold On We're Going Home' being named Pitchfork's Number 1 song of the Year for 2013. I'd not heard the song when I read their paean of praise to it. When I listened I kept waiting for a different song, or any song, to start.
Well, there is a song there. A creepy song. There are lots of the major pop acts I don't really like, or like occasionally, but, usually, in some sense, I get it. Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish, Frank Ocean, Nicki Minaj, Adele, Ed Sheeran even, whoever, I get it. Drake ... I don't get it. Not one tiny bit of it.
7. Joanna Newsom is on a different level to everyone else this century, which is not a criticism of anyone else. But she's not only in a different column to other major acclaime artists, be it St Vincent, Sufjan Stevens, Kanye West, Beyonce, Janelle Monae, she's just higher up. What she did over her 2nd, 3rd and 4th albums was just a higher level of song. I really think that.
I'll add some more sizzling opinions as and when I think of them ...
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