UKFF Album of the Decade

[HarmonicGenerator]

That’s the stuff!

[Divorced Dad]

It's an album that gets regular airplay in my car. 

[Harry Wiseau]

I'm beginning to think that not only did none of my selections make the cut but nothing I own made the cut. I've heard of that last one though, the guy who did that Christmas song in the 80s, right?

I'm sure I'll own the top two though, they'll be the bee's knees

 

Keep up the good work Frankie!

[PunkStep]

I'm beginning to think it's a Bruce top 3.

[Frankie Crisp]

He only released two studio albums in the decade (High Hopes doesn’t count as it’s covers and reworks).

Kate Nash released two others that haven’t been mentioned yet, FYI.

Edited March 7, 2020 by Frankie Crisp

[PunkStep]

You need to watch the Horrible Histories movie for some Nash, Frankie.

[SuperBacon]

4 hours ago, PunkStep said:

You need to watch the Horrible Histories movie for some Nash, Frankie.

Don't encourage masturbating over PG films mate.

[lanky316]

She's the original Woad Warrior!

Incidentally, I'm disappointed there hasn't been a Horrible Histories album to nominate. Some great songs on that series.

[HarmonicGenerator]

22 minutes ago, lanky316 said:

She's the original Woad Warrior!

Incidentally, I'm disappointed there hasn't been a Horrible Histories album to nominate. Some great songs on that series.

I’d absolutely have nominated that if it existed! 

[Frankie Crisp]

NUMBER 2

Bruce Springsteen - Western Stars (2019)

The critics:

"Bruce Springsteen will be 70 years of age later this year and Western Stars, his first new album in 5 years, see’s him recording solo in a reflective mood, turning his incisive eye and ear to the American landscape.

In the past few years, Springsteen has released his autobiography, Born to Run, and completed a 236 run of a one-man show on Broadway, which gave him the opportunity to look back on his life, explain his inspiration, and do some debunking of his own myth. One of the first things that surprise about his autobiography is when he describes the first time his band travel across the country and his inability to drive nearly ruined everything. The man who gave us Racing In The Streets, couldn’t drive at 19? And again, as he says on Broadway, he’s never done a day’s work in his life, yet based a career on singing about the working man. Then adds, “that’s how good I am.”

Of course, rock ‘n’ roll heroes, like that other great American icon the cowboy, is based on mythical legends and larger than life characters. What you see on stage, what you hear in those grooves, isn’t the real person who sits eating breakfast and watching the news. The psychological damage that affect so many entertainers can occur when the edges become so blurred that the artist themselves aren’t sure where one begins and the other ends. Springsteen himself is too self-aware to fall into this. But because the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle is part rebel myth, doesn’t mean those who follow the path are following a lie. What they are following is a dream, because they themselves are in love with the myth, and want a part of it, so they create themselves in the image of the myth. It’s a self-creating prophecy. When Springsteen sings about the working man, it isn’t a lie, he’s singing about his father. When Springsteen sings about racing cars, he’s singing about what he saw in his formative years growing up in Jersey. Springsteen is a real deal rocker who walks the walk, talks the talk, doesn’t take his image too seriously, but takes his craft very seriously, and may well be the last great rock ‘n’ roll superstar. In these days of a decline in interest in rock music, few performers in that genre can fill stadiums like the Boss.

But Springsteen is more than just fast cars and blue collar workers. On Western Stars, with its untamed horse jumping free in a prairie landscape on the cover, he presents 13 songs peopled by drifters, thrill seekers, loves lost losers, grizzled old timers and young adventurers. There is a theme of constantly moving on, looking for something that can never be found, and sometimes regret for what has been left behind. Narrators looking back on their lives and wondering how many more chapters there are to write. Lyrically he has always nailed beautiful street poetry, in earlier times he was thought of as a Dylan impersonator but he quickly showed how to turn rock lyrics, the street, the concern of working folk, into true grit poetry, in the same way that Lowry turned scenes of northern working life into art. Musically there is deceptive simplicity in the acoustic guitar, which is surrounded by orchestration that brings a sweeping soundtrack to the mix, creating an epic landscape from some cool 60s road movie. At the centre of the music is Springsteen, the loner, the drifter, the searcher, the voice now more grizzled, thoughtful, imbued with years of touring, people, places, but always with an American vision of freedom and wide open possibilities in wide open landscapes.

Opening track, Hitch Hikin’, sets the tone with its narrator standing at the side of the road, thumb out. The voice weary, but happy, a rolling stone hitting the road. A banjo arpeggio, surrounded by lush strings, the soundtrack to a country whizzing by as another new journey starts. It’s a trip where no maps are needed, for there is no destination in sight, just the journey. The song sounds like morning breaking, dawn spreading its musical wings over the drifter, the thumb stretched out, not in hope, but just because there’s another road to travel down.

The Wayfarer starts with a juddering tension that builds up into a symphonic celebration as the wayfarer drifts from town to town because he can’t settle, wandering is in his blood. When he sleeps, he can’t count sheep for the white lines flashing past his eyes. But there is the lingering question of where are those people he left behind, what are they doing, and what if he had put down roots?

Tucson Train builds on this idea of what has been lost by the wandering. It opens with a snare drum train clattering down the tracks, a fanfare cinematic opening, and the singer explaining how he had been down and out in Frisco, tired of the pills and the rain, and set off for the sun, but left a good thing behind. He had fought with the good thing, fought hard over nothing, but now she is coming out to him on the Tucson train. He had wanted a new beginning, but the new beginning only showed him what he had lost, and now she’s coming back to him on the Tucson train. Sometimes you got to get away to see what you have.

The titular track, Western Stars, has a haunting opening, the music a backdrop of deserts, prairies and the scorching heat; a landscape that offers endless escape and freedom. It’s a song of that ultimate symbol of freedom, the cowboy, yet it’s tinged with melancholy as those days pass more and more into memory. Next up, we drop in at Sleepy Joe’s Café which has a mariachi beat to it, as the wanderer stops off  at a diner on the highway, those eateries that cater for the transient, the passing through, and  a place for locals to dance on a Saturday night and meet lovers who will be gone in the morning.

Drive Fast is the tale of a stuntman who lists his injuries like medals won and delves into the classic Springsteen trope of the American fascination for cars, that love of petrol and speed. The stuntman tries to figure out if his life path was worth it, tries to explain to a loved one why he does what he does, but in the end, it comes down to the refrain “drive fast and fall hard.”

Chasin’ Wild Horses is an elegiac number, the acoustic guitar backed with violins and Springsteen’s voice imbued with too many mornings, too many long nights, too many long roads.  Here we have another tale of a wanderer, but this time there is regret at just taking off after a temper lost and chasing wild horses, all those goodbyes never uttered.  A steel guitar wails mournfully at the end of the song to accentuate the regret of always moving on. Sundown has shades of Bacharach whilst Somewhere North of Nashville is a short, moving song that sits at the side of the road, outside truckstops and laments to us as we pass by, as we hear only a snatch of verse. But the song remains in the mouth of the singer. The song remains the same down the ages, just those who pass it on, pass away.

Stones is another big cinematic feeling song about living with lies, whilst There Goes My Miracle (a classic Springsteen song title if ever there was one) has an upbeat feel to it, like a 60s pop song with big orchestration.  You could imagine some troubadour singing this on prime-time Saturday night TV, swinging snake hips and whipping the mic lead, in a suit, natch. Hello Sunshine starts with a very cool drum pattern with a driving, chugging sound. It’s a song about the traveller deciding to leave the rain, the walking shoes, the blues, the lonely road before he himself becomes lonely, and settle down in the sunshine. It’s a big, lush record with a 70s feel of grandiose themes and larger than life characters.

The album ends with Moonlight Motel. It’s an achingly beautiful elegy to a forgotten hotel on a road no-one travels anymore, with a vandalised pool and chain links rusted away, with warning signs to keep out. But it’s become a place where kids hang out, a place to spend a lazy afternoon amongst the wilted flowers. It’s nothing but an empty shell now and a place that nobody travels to. Is it a metaphor for what happens when you stay in the same place for too long, or a metaphor for everything having a second chance, even if it’s just kids playing in the ruin of your life? Whichever, the singer pours out one more shot for the Moonlight Motel.

With Western Stars, Springsteen covers familiar territories. It’s both the American dream and the rock n roll dream which are entwined with the spirit of freedom – almost a sacred, religious belief within Americans – even when they don’t see the dichotomy in bringing freedom with a gun and liberating people who don’t want liberating. He is a master at pinpointing the small moments of people’s lives that are gigantic to them. It turns the mundane into something meaningful and spiritual. Yet behind it lurks the dark nihilism that has haunted Springsteen’s own life (his battles against depression are chronicled in his autobiography).

Western Stars gives us slices of Americana, of loneliness, of canyons and prairies, truck stops and metal and gas, horses and lost dreams and melancholy hope, of an elegiac beauty in decay and forgetfulness. Of death and rebirth. Springsteen still has the power to make beauty and myth out of rock ‘n’ roll. Long may he do so"

The forum:

"A masterpiece. Over the years, Springsteen has reinvented his style - sometimes within a single album - but this feels like a journey through all of his previous releases. A less than subtle nod to his ageing years, he opens his soul about his life, experiences, struggles and worries, whilst adopting his familiar character-based approach to songwriting. Sleepy Joe's Cafe aside, there's not a single song on this record you couldn't imagine people choosing as their favourite. Drive Fast (The Stuntman) is so intricate in its detail you can picture the story unfold - something Bruce mastered on the Born to Run album - whereas Chasin' Wild Horses and Stones wouldn't be out of place on the Nebraska era recordings. They're that good. The highlight of highlights, though, is the title track. Exposing his vulnerabilities and age ('Then I give it all up for that little blue pill, that promises to bring it all back to you again'), is, for me, the most incredible song he's written and recorded since the 1980s. And that's not a statement I make lightly. Did I mention on here that I like Western Stars before?"

Has old man Frankie heard of them?

Edited March 8, 2020 by Frankie Crisp

[Harry Wiseau]

I'm genuinely excited to see what's nabbed the top spot now, presumably the Boss shot himself in the foot having two albums out this decade and split his top scores. Christ knows what it'll be if it's not Springsteen...  It's Tay Tay isn't it?

[Frankie Crisp]

12 minutes ago, Harry Wiseau said:

I'm genuinely excited to see what's nabbed the top spot now, presumably the Boss shot himself in the foot having two albums out this decade and split his top scores. Christ knows what it'll be if it's not Springsteen...  It's Tay Tay isn't it?

Thankfully @Keith Houchen didn't vote in this one, so Swift failed to make the convoluted top 10. I'll stick number one up in a bit.

[Frankie Crisp]

NUMBER 1

Kate Nash - Girl Talk (2010)

Nah I'm only messing. I'll do number one after the footy.

 

 

Edited March 8, 2020 by Frankie Crisp

[Frankie Crisp]

NUMBER 1

M83 - Hurry Up We're Dreaming (2011)

The critics:

"Since 2003's Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, M83 mastermind Anthony Gonzalez has created increasingly colossal records. His latest, a double album that serves as a framework to realize the marvelous capability of our dreams and daily lives, could be his best record yet.

Late last year, Anthony Gonzalez announced his next album was almost complete and would be "very, very, very epic." With all due respect, consider the redundancy of that statement: Since 2003 breakthrough Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, every new and increasingly colossal M83 studio record has led to widespread crowdsourcing of synonyms for "epic." What exactly was he promising other than simply another album?

Well, throughout the past decade, the 30-year old Gonzalez has honored the tremendous impact of growing up during the golden age of CD buying by implicitly serving as a patron saint for those who treat the weekly trip to the record store as a pilgrimage and still covet the album as a physical proposition: His output always comes stylishly packaged, with cover art worth obsessing over and credits that need to be scoured in order to spot the guest appearances. Unsurprisingly, he ups the ante here by aspiring to what is still the paradigm of artistic permanence, both in terms of legacy and tactility: the double album, that occasionally ambitious, usually decadent, and almost always fascinatingly flawed endeavor of musicians convinced (rightfully or otherwise) that they're at the peak of their own powers. Hurry Up, We're Dreaming might be all of those things, but above all else, it's the best M83 record yet.

But let's talk about restraint for a moment: While each side of Hurry Up would be oddly slight for an M83 album, the demands of its 74-minute runtime are hardly daunting. It's actually the easiest M83 album to consume in one sitting, a reverse accumulation of past strengths that makes for Gonzalez's most compact and combustive music yet. He continues the path set by Saturdays=Youth by easing out of the mini-movie business in exchange for pop songcraft, while trading that LP's pretty-in-pink pastels for the urban neons and fluorescents of Before the Dawn Heals Us and embodying Dead Cities' mile-wide expansiveness.

But the most crucial change is how touring with the likes of Depeche Mode has inspired a newfound showmanship in his vocals: Previously, Gonzalez enlisted outside help, piped in plot-advancing narratives, or sang in a low, tentative murmur that submitted to its massive surroundings. But here, within the first minutes of "Intro", he's matching blows with the juggernaut bellow of Zola Jesus' Nika Danilova to the point where it's much tougher than you'd think to tell them apart. It's really not too different from the first chords of "Planet Telex" or Lil Wayne's "Tha Mobb" in terms of being an unmistakable sign that you're going to be listening to this familiar act differently.

M83 have never stood for half measures in any aspect, but Gonzalez is absolutely going for it here in a way that sheds new light on known tricks: The hair-triggered drum rolls of "New Map" recall Before the Dawn's searing car-crash fantasy "Don't Save Us From the Flames", but Gonzalez's nervy punctuation at the end of each line sells the idea that he's along for the ride this time rather than being a passive observer. Dead Cities' "In Church" was the sound of blissful acquiescence, but amidst the swaggering synth-metal of "Midnight City", Gonzalez hollers, "The city is my church!" empowered and present, finding a voice for the evangelical zeal always implicit in his work.

Gonzalez has stressed Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness as a major inspiration (and by extension, its forefather, The Wall), and its influence can be spotted in Hurry Up's power ballads "Wait" and "My Tears Are Becoming a Sea", sumptuously arranged tracks that could still be played solo on an acoustic guitar. Thankfully, he didn't retain much from "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" or "The Trial", and rather than one man lashing out at the world from the safety of his own thematic construct, you feel that Gonzalez is trying to connect with it.

As such, the moments of indulgence are in service of the album's most endearing and silly emotions: Some might consider "Raconte-Moi Une Histoire" a throwaway because it's "the one about a magic frog," but besides embodying the whiplash emotions of youth by following the magnificent melancholy of "Wait", its almost eerie brightness and Windows 95-era sound effects capture a technological optimism better than a lot of artists who are trying only to do that. Meanwhile, "Year One, One UFO" attempts to distill the percussion-mad, organic ecstasy of Vision Creation Newsun into three minutes, while on the opposite side, "Claudia Lewis" and "OK Pal" show a mastery of slapbass-poppin', corporate funk-rock comparable to Ford & Lopatin or Cut Copy without the twinge of pastiche.

As with any double album, there's a temptation to strip away the instrumental tracks or simply pick the best 50 minutes for your daily commute. But the interludes here are intended to be every bit as purposeful as the singles: The shorter the track, the more evocative its title ("Where the Boats Go", "Train to Pluton", "Another Wave From You"). While many of them stand as intriguing meditations on their own merits, they reinforce Hurry Up's intentions to be an immersive universe-- check in whenever you want, but the magic's in the exploratory phases. And why leave out what falls in between, like the thermite burst of the two-minute "This Bright Flash" or the stately "When Will You Come Home?"-to-"My Tears Are Becoming a Sea" triptych that serves as the connective transit between Side 1 and Side 2.

Then again, I can't blame anyone who takes shortcuts, since the traditionally structured songs here are some of the most thrilling pop music released this year. The heavily saturated synths Gonzalez favored early in his career invited plenty of My Bloody Valentine comparisons, but whereas pure shoegaze of that nature attempts to overwhelm and obliterate, Hurry Up is like a sonic planetarium, penetrable and totally geared toward enhancing the user experience. Few artists make more ingenious use of the sheer physics of rock to this extent-- defining which synth pads strike which emotional pressure points, using percussion as explosives rather than mere elements of timekeeping, coiling the tension of a verse to make every chorus feel phenomenally cathartic even without any words.

At this point in the year, you'd think a saxophone solo would have lost all the novelty it had accumulated over decades of disuse, yet when one pops up at the end of "Midnight City", it triumphantly squires the track out at the highest point possible. After a streak of staccato guitar chords and splashy cymbal hits rev up "Reunion", the shouts from its chorus could come from a soccer stadium or a speedboat chase. "Intro" is typical of Gonzalez's love for zero-gravity arrangements of massed choirs and cathedral reverb, but there's nothing buzzy or clouded about it-- as high as he takes things, you can still see everything underneath in crisp, butterflies-inducing depth and detail.

And then there's "Steve McQueen", which somehow makes the preceding hour of music feel like its prelude. Point blank, it's as close as most of us will get to being strapped inside a space shuttle, as midway through an almost unbearably tensile verse, you don't hear drums so much as afterburners kicking in. By the chorus, it simply cannot go further up, and it explodes at the perfect moment into hair-metal guitar chords and synth-led skywriting. And yet, because it's almost impossible to say what "Steve McQueen" is about (certainly not the actor), it's capable of glorifying anything you choose-- a slow motion shot of Kirk Gibson rounding the bases in the 1988 World Series, a holiday fireworks display, or getting into your car and simply celebrating the end of an exhausting day.

Is it a lot to handle? Of course, and those who have yet to connect with M83 may wonder if the sort of incapacitating longing expressed by "Wait" can possibly be experienced by anyone over the age of 16 or whether they'll ever be able to afford the stereo equipment seemingly required for its intended effect. But remember, it's called Hurry Up, We're Dreaming: It doesn't attempt to be a comprehensive or even realistic purview of the human experience, and lord knows there's plenty out there that's meant to capture small moments.

It's easy to mistrust something so irrepressibly optimistic about the affective possibilities of music and to attribute these feelings to the domain of some "other," whether it's the 1980s, teenhood, or a pop product. Does it share some sort of commonality with "Born This Way" or "Firework", or any other entry from 2011's chart music that attempts to convince you of your own superstardom? Surely, but Gonzalez never comes off like he's selling a brand, a lifestyle, or even himself-- his lyrics remain as opaque as ever. Hurry Up instead serves as a framework to realize the marvelous capability of our dreams and daily lives, should we be open to experiencing it"

The forum:

"Mr Seven turned me on to M83 and I have been thankful for that since. Sadly 'Midnight City' has become more recognisable as 'that Made in Chelsea theme', but there's still so many great tracks on this double album it's almost hard to start discussing them"

Has old man Frankie heard of them?

[Frankie Crisp]

And here are your top artists of the decade:

1. Bruce Springsteen
2. David Bowie
3. M83
4. Childish Gambino
5. Nero
6. Frank Turner
7. Arctic Monkeys
8. Original Cast Recording
9. The Mountain Goats
10. Seafret

That's it. That's the real quiz.