Uptight - Hooverphonic

Countdown to 2019: -3

Uptight - Hooverphonic

Unlike 2017, which has pretty much been a constant flow of awesomeness in terms of music, at least in the first half / three quarters of the year, 2018 has been unfolding more in sparks, something great coming out and then laying low for a while till the next great thing. The last such spark has been the release of Hooverphonic's latest album. They changed singer again, and after not following them closely in the previous era, I immediately found myself immersed in their new music, and I am enjoying their new album quite a lot! It's funny, because the lyrics of most of the songs are describing situations, throughts and characteristics that are pretty much the opposite of mine, but I still found myself entrenched in the listening. 'Uptight' is a perfect example of this: I can't think of any recent situation in which I've been more uptight than I should've (rather, the opposite), but I still can't help loving this song, and I'm quite confident it's gonna stick in my head well into next year!

#yearinmusic A song or two per day - Best song and album of 2016

2016 has been a pretty good year for me under many points of view, but A song or two per day has not been one of them, and the two things are probably related: I have been having such a good time that I found it hard to find the time and (mental) energies to sit down and write blog entries constantly, which ended up in me posting very rarely. The music point of view is another one in which 2016 lacked with respect to its predecessors, which is maybe another reason why I didn't post as much. These two reasons are also the ones why I procrastinated the posting of my 2016 music summary, as I am pretty much at a loss in finding a best song and best album released this year...

Best song 2016: Line of fire - Junip

Best song: Line of fire - Junip

Given that 2016 has mostly been the outcome of life decisions made in the past years, with a lot of change that took place thanks to triggering moments that had happened in the years before, I am actually quite ok with choosing a song that was actually released 3 years before as my 2016 Best song pick. Junip and José Gonzalez have been hugely meaningful for me in the last couple of years, probably the most influential new music discovery I made lately and 'Line of fire' in particular has been a soundtrack of many big moments of 2016, mostly the ones related to me moving to Hong Kong. "What would you say if you had to leave today? Leave everything behind even though for once, you're shining."

Best album 2016: Shura - Nothing's real

Best album: Shura - Nothing's real

2016 has been quite a disappointment for me mostly because some of my favourite artists released albums that were not nearly up to my expectations or to the level of what they have been releasing before. The biggest one of these disappointments has been PJ Harvey's 'The hope six demolition project': PJ made us wait 5 years for new music, and all the expectations built in this time crushed against an album I personally find weak and pretty much pointless, the only low of her career together with 'White chalk'. On a similar note I can place the new releases by OneRepublic, KT Tunstall and, to a lesser extent, Sia. Their albums have not been all bad and feature some quite awesome songs, but overall lack a consistency that would allow me to classify them as great albums. I have been tempted to pick Sia's 'This is acting' as my favourite album released in 2016, as notwithstanding its not being nearly as good as '1000 forms of fear', it's a quite good album, but in the end I decided to go for something that I discovered towards the end of the year, here in Hong Kong: I found out about Shura thanks to Clockenflap, the music festival I attended in Hong Kong this past November, and I fell in love with her debut album quite quickly. It will not go on to enter my music olympus, but it's a good representation of my life in this past year: new, enjoyable and linked to Hong Kong!

After a hectic, full and great 2016, which has been mostly about consolidation under the music point of view, I hope 2017 will take me back to previously unseen heights with some new, great music! And I also hope I'll be able to post a bit more consistently on the blog (even if I have a hard time believing myself)...!

Happy 2017!

#yearinmusic A song or two per day - Best song of 2015

Happy new year, you all people who follow the Gregorian calendar! I hope this 2016 will bring you (and us all) joy, happy moments and even more great music than last year!

Best song 2015

Here I am once again giving the last look back at this beautiful 2015 in music, this time looking at singles / songs. And this time too, there has been no contest. This past year was the time when I reached 100 plays for the first and only of all the songs that I started listening to from 2012 on, i.e. The XX's 'Crystalized' (which I started listening to in 2013). A few days later I reached 100 plays for a song that was released in mid-2015. And that is my song o the year, without ANY doubt. I'm talking about Florence + the Machine of course, and the song is 'Delilah', a beautiful masterpiece off their new album. I have fallen in love with this song immediately after it's been released, a few days before the whole album came out last June. I have no words to describe just how strong the connection with this song is and how quickly it built up. I will just give it its well deserved 1st place and go on!

Runner-ups (Best song 2015)

I decided to make a ranking of the best 10 songs of 2015 because there have been soo many great
ones! Some of them were released in (late) 2014, but they are all pretty recent!


10 - Mountain at my gates (Foals)
9 - I put a spell on you (Annie Lennox)
8 - Failure (The Ting Tings)
7 - The blackest day (Lana del Rey)
6 - Queen of peace (Florence + the Machine)
5 - Dream (Imagine Dragons)
4 - How big, how blue, how beautiful (Florence + the Machine)
3 - I'm so sorry (Imagine Dragons)
2 - London thunder (Foals)
1 - Delilah (Florence + the Machine)

I hope you can somehow relate to this ranking, please comment with your personal favourites of this past year!! I'll be back soon!

#yearinmusic A song or two per day - Best album of 2015

Best album 2015

It usually takes me a little while for me to get ready and make this kind of decisions... the best album of the whole year, it's not so easy to say most of the time! In a year like 2014 the fight has been tight till the end... this year instead the winner was already kind of expected and what can I say... it even exceeded the expectations. I think I haven't been feeling any music as strongly as I did with 'How big, how blue, how beautiful' for at least 3-4 years. So many great songs on it, there's just a couple that I have not been overly excited about, but it happened with previous Florence + the Machine albums too. This doesn't take anything away from the greatness of their music, from the reverence that I rightfully devote to this woman and her fellow musicians. Their music is a perfect example of the incredible effect that music can have on our lives and of the reason why I started writing this blog. I cannot be thankful enough to them for sharing their art and work with us.

Runner-ups (Best album 2015)

But 2015 has been indeed a great year for music not only thanks to F+tM. There has been plenty of other albums that I've felt strongly and which have left a mark on me. Among others, I need to mention Kodaline, Of Monsters and Men, Carmen Consoli and Leona Lewis. Yet two albums in particular have been one step above the others to me, and (be it a coincidence or not), they are by artists that I have recently seen / will see in the next future live in concert. The first one in chronological order is Imagine Dragons' sophomore 'Smoke + mirrors', through which they absolutely confirmed of being one of the greatest new bands around: great music once again and a big following, I foresee a bright future for them and I'm happy about it. The other album, which would've probably won this year's contest if it weren't for Florence, is Foals' 'What went down'. I have been utterly in love with their 2013 'Holy fire' and I think that this new work is almost (if not) on the same level with it! Their songs have been the (only) ones able to make me detach from HBHBHB a few weeks after it came out, so thanks to them for putting a stop to my obsession (and giving me a whole new one)!! I really can't wait to see them live next month!

A few words about a couple of disappointments: Mumford & Sons and Lana del Rey. I have absolutely loved the Mumfords' first two albums, but I can't really process this new stuff they have put out... I just found a couple good songs on their album and that's it. I have completely forgotten about the rest. For Lana the situation is not very different: I have absolutely loved 'Ultraviolence' and I really had high expectations about 'Honeymoon', expectations that were mostly unmet. I know her music always takes a while to get under my skin, but a while has passed and I have only been able to feel some 4-5 songs (to be optimistic) on the whole album. Maybe she should have waited a little longer, anyway let's see if my relationship with it will change next year.

This is all for 2015, I can just say goodbye to this awesome year in music with the hope for many, many more like it in the future!

Bye!