Each year, despite my better judgement, I write a little about the music I've listened to in the year. Some years, there are many songs and albums that reach out and grab me, and I write enthusiastically and at length, while some years, for whatever reason, there is very little that quite takes me there. This has been one of those years.
I've still been listening to 'Song For Our Daughter' by Laura Marling and 'St Cloud' by Waxahatchee, both from 2020, more than almost anything from this year - particularly the latter, which I would simply say is one of my three favourite albums of the century, and an endlessly rewarding, involving masterpiece of perfect songwriting.
I still have listened to a lot of new music, I always do, but often not with my full attention, or sometimes asking myself questions like "do I like this?", "what pat phrase would i use to describe this if I was asked?" and "am I feeling anything?"
Looking at the year end aggregator on albumoftheyear.com, their consolidated Number 1, by some distance, is 'Sometimes I Might Be Introvert' by Little Simz, which is very pleasing and extremely good on her. The singles 'Introvert' and 'Woman' were among the few songs that were genuinely thrilling this year, and the first few times I listened to the album, I certainly thought "yes, this is it, this is the universal masterpiece the year's needed" and I don't, per se, disagree with that now, I just haven't kept on listening to the album as much as I thought I would.
Still, it's a wonderful-sounding, beautiful, skilled and heartfelt record, and deserves all the praise it's getting.
There've been significant, well-reviewed albums by several of the artists who've been the bedrock of my listening for the best part of thirty years, like Damon Albarn, Gruff Rhys, Paul Weller, Manic Street Preachers, James Yorkston and Nick Cave, but again, none of them, as whole albums, quite did it for me for more than a couple of weeks. Not a slight on any of it, more just a reflection on my listening. Saying that, I do love the song 'Albuquerque' by Cave and Warren Ellis, and I love the chorus line of Gruff's 'Loan Your Loneliness' where he sings "Loan me your unholy lowly loneliness" and it's just such a classic piece of Gruff Rhys silly-brilliant lyricism set to a a good tune that it is, in and of itself, one of my favourite things of the year.
The Mercury Prize was won by Arlo Parks' 'Collapsed in Sunbeams', one of the few albums I did have a strong opinion on, if, "no, really, that's a bit meh, that's interesting-debut-EP quality, not award-winning-debut-album quality" counts as a strong opinion.
I really like the album 'Jubilee' by Japanese Breakfast, and have gradually warmed to 'Ignorance' by The Weather Station, but more through perseverance than inspiration.
I didn't listen to Sheeran, didn't listen to Adele, but I did listen to ABBA, and I've never been anywhere near an ABBA fan, but I found something so endearingly true to itself, in all its naffness and knack for the tune, about the album that I've actually ended up listening to it more than most others.
My favourite song, one of the songs that really felt like it had a sense of occasion, was the one-off 'Like I Used To' by Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen. Felt like a hit. Probably wasn't, in the scheme of things, a hit.
And my favourite album definitely wasn't a hit. I can, for once, fairly proudly say that I'm going to be out on my own on this one. I've not seen this album going around the lists at all, but it really deserves to.
Stephen Fretwell, a Scunthorpe-born songwriter who briefly looked like he was going to be the next big thing in the sad white boy boom of the early 2000s that was reduced to a husk by Blunt then eaten alive by Sheeran, who is only known to most folk for being the forlorn voice of the theme music to 'Gavin and Stacey', who released a couple of albums then disappeared for a decade, came back into my consciousness this year with a couple of somewhat heartrending interviews, then put out, to a small handful of gently supportive reviews, an album ironically called 'Busy Guy' which was, whilst sounding like he'd been hermetically sealed since this spare, sad, solipsistic stuff was all the rage, a giant leap from his previous work, a full, mysterious expression of a real, adult life by someone with that rare ability where the song, the simple song itself, is enough, and the rest, all the other stuff they do these days, is irrelevant.
I know, I sound like a proper old man music bore, but sometimes someone hasn't thought about anything else but the songs, and the songs are memorable and intriguing and actually make you, someone who used to feel something all the time when listening to music, feel something.
So, that's my album of the year, and I'm actually right, despite what anyone else might say.
I listened to loads of other albums, but I don't think I've anything interesting to say about any of them, so, without further ado, before I start telling you my favourite artists of the year were actually The Beatles, Bob Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel, here are the songs and albums.
SONGS
1. Like I Used To - Angel Olsen and Sharon Van Etten
2. The Long Water - Stephen Fretwell
3. Albuquerque - Nick Cave and Warren Ellis
4. Introvert - Little Simz
5. Loan Your Loneliness - Gruff Rhys
6. Got Me - Laura Mvula
7. I Have a Love - For Those I Love
8. White Dress - Lana Del Rey
9. Hard Drive - Cassandra Jenkins
10. Thumbs - Lucy Dacus
ALBUMS
1. Busy Guy - Stephen Fretwell
2. Sometimes I Might Be Introvert - Little Simz
3. Jubilee - Japanese Breakfast
4. An Overview on Phenomenal Nature - Cassandra Jenkins
5. Voyage - ABBA
6. We're All Alone in This Together - Dave
7. Ignorance - Weather Station
8. Pink Noise - Laura Mvula
9. They're Calling Me Home - Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi
10. The Wide Wide River - James Yorkston and the Second Hand Orchestra
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