A Tender Victory

Today I was listening to the number 20 album on the Guardian’s top 50 albums of 2023, ‘Dreamer’ by Nabihah Iqbal.

This is totally Guardian music. Beautiful for lift music…almost instrumental with some breathy vocals over the top.

Not only did I dislike this album but my car hated it so much that it kept disconnecting from the bluetooth while it was on. It did not disconnect when I was listened to the Taskmaster podcast or when I was listening to the Audible of ‘The Eyre Affair’ by Jasper Fforde.

Long as I’m Not the One

Today, I decided that since I’m not going to be able to listen to all of the new albums in the chart this week, I decided that I would listen to the lowest new album in the chart.

This is ‘Blu Wav’ by Grandaddy which is number 93 in the chart.

I have not heard of Grandaddy before. This is their 6th album and is the first since their bassist died.

It’s a really beautiful album…apparently, a bunch of the tracks are waltz which means that the album is both beautiful and technically beautiful. I approve of that a lot.

I may have to stop listening to albums so early in the morning because when they’re like this they often lull me into sleep again.

The reason why I’m trying to listen to my albums first thing is because I’m listening to the sequel to Jasper Fforde’s Shades of Grey, ‘Red Side Story’ and I need to listen to that later in the day so I can completely concentrate on it. I’m very not disappointed by this sequel…totally worth the 10 year wait.

Now It’s Yours

Today I listened to the current 93 album ‘It Leads to This’ by The Pineapple Thief.

The charts come out on a Friday now. I say now, it’s been 9 years. Before that they were on a Sunday and the Sunday afternoon singles chart was a great background sound to homework and assignments and general quiet afternoons. Then they moved to a Friday. That was the sort of beginning to the end of me keeping up to date with chart music.

So, this is number 93 on the chart that came out yesterday and you may be wondering why I’ve started at the bottom of the chart. Two reasons, one – sometimes I don’t get to listen to albums which enter the chart near the bottom because they fall out of the charts; two – the current number 2 album is Kanye and I’m sure I want to listen to that album. I have listened to a Kanye album before and I believe I found it to be ok but nothing special.

The current number one album is Stick Season by Noah Kahan which I blogged about here. Good times.

The thing is I wonder how out of step I am with the musical world because Stick Season was just fine, however, It Leads to This is a great album. 8 tracks and 40 minutes so if only they’d created 4 more tracks it would have been perfect.

This was a beautiful album. The individual tracks are good but as an entire album each track is a chapter in a book you’d want to read again and again.

Talking about books, the sequel to Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde is out. This book came out before 50 Shades of Grey and was ruined by the book of almost the same name. I have mentioned this before on the blog. Shades of Grey is the book I tell people to read when they ask me for a book recommendation and it is the book I would claim I was reading if anyone ever asked me that question during an interview. I wouldn’t tell them about this excellent ghost-fighting book I’m currently reading.

However, I’m on my third read of this excellent ghost-fighting book and I’ve only read Shades of Grey once. I need to re-read it now so that I can read the sequel – I always re-read the books in the series before reading new books – that’s why I’m reading the ghost-fighting book. There’s a new book in the series out so I need to read the previous 7 books. But these books are easy to read. Shades of Grey isn’t and that what makes it so good.

Also, all other Jasper Fforde books are also good and re-readable. I very much love the Thursday Next series.