2008 on the goggle box: Comedy

[EDIT: I've changed the typo in the title of this post, so it says "goggle" rather than "google" - my fingers seem predisposed to do the latter]

My favourite comedy show this year was easily Outnumbered, which finished its second series on BBC2 just after Christmas. I feel somewhat vindicated by the extent to which this has become first a critical, and latterly a word of mouth, hit – the first series did not attract anything like the same acclaim, other than in a few places, including this blog. As last year, the outpourings of the children provided some clenchingly acute humour, while there was some seriously effective drama as well, particularly around the fate of Sue’s deteriorating father. If it had a flaw, it was maybe in the second half of the final episode, which concentrated on the adults: the children rather faded from view, without any particular scene to round off their appearances. This contrasts with the first series, which closed with  delightful  scene setting the horrors of parenthood in contrast with its joys. Still, I hope the BBC commissions a third series before the remarkable cast of child actors become too old: there would probably be little point in continuing the series if, say, Ben reached the same age as Jake was at in series one.

Lead Balloon seemed to me to have upped its game from an already high level. Last year, I remarked that I admired the show, but couldn’t warm to Rick Spleen on account of his habit of bringing misfortune on his own head through his consistent mean-spiritedness. This trait was still in evidence, but – and it might just be my imagination – Rick seemed to be on the receiving end of some genuine bad luck in this series, as well as messing things up for himself. It made the whole thing more palatable. Though the programme still regularly depicts Spleen as not especially talented, which calls into question the idea that he was ever well-known – though maybe it’s just trying to say he’s lost his magic and is destined to spend the rest of his career on the scrap-heap; the episodes in which he overtly prizes monetary reward over artistic integrity were among the best-drawn, I felt.

I recall Sean Power, who plays Spleen’s altogether funnier and better-balanced writing partner Marty, got shirty with a blogger on Off The Telly, condemning all “armchair critics”. Happily not all performers take this view of bloggers, as Robert Webb’s comment on here a couple of months back demonstrated. But it seems to me to be an unsustainable position: as an actor or writer, you’re in the position of putting an item of work in public view; it’s not rational to expect that nobody will ever form an opinion on it. Indeed, if it’s not valid for the viewer to have a reaction, what’s the point of making the work available? And if it is valid for the audience to have a reaction, why should they not express that reaction in conversation, or in writing? Maybe it’s easy for me to say that as a blogger, and it’s different if you’re on TV. But the availability of a comment function on blogs makes it easier, if anything, for unwelcome feedback to be passed to the blogger than to an actor (unless they google themselves – not quite the same thing, but see what the captain of King’s College’s University Challenge team, Kat Gold, found about herself).

I’m looking forward to the new series of That Mitchell and Webb look in 2009; and Peep Show again proved reliably excellent this year. But the outstanding sketch show I want to comment on is The Kevin Bishop Show on Channel 4. Its pace has been commented on, with over 20 sketches in probably less than 25 minutes’ airtime. They included some deadly accurate swipes at celebrities (“Mutton… the new fragrance from Madonna”) and superb parodies. Countdown USA was only very slightly implausible, while the Vietnam-set adaptation of ‘Allo ‘Allo, Harrow Harrow, was deeply un-pc, but extremely funny. Bishop’s turns in Star Stories also continued to impress – there’s no doubt much more to look forward to from Bishop in 2009 and beyond. Elsewhere in the land of sketch shows, Peter Serafinowicz’s debut series compared poorly: a lot of good ideas, but often stretched a bit thin. Though I very much enjoyed the Michael 6 robotic talk-show host.

Finally decent comedy continued to emerge from BBC3 this year, despite what some critics might tell you. Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps is perhaps a little past its best, but the seventh series was as crude and as funny as ever, particularly the live special. And I mean that without any irony at all – I genuinely think Two Pints is great, and gets a very raw deal from critics. That said, the death of Johnny has upset the balance of the cast a little; moreover, the fact that Two Pints existed in an essentially cosy world where nothing ever changed was part of its appeal – the departure of a key character and a series of grief and tragedy-stricken episodes did muck with the formula a bit. I’m glad there’s apparently a series eight in the offing… but I would have been equally content to see the programme left to rest with the ultimately happy ending to series seven.

Meanwhile, BBC3 has cancelled the superb Pulling after a triumphant second series. What the hell are they thinking? Pulling offered a superb brand of character-based comedy: like The Office and Extras, the viewer squirms on the characters’ behalf as they get themselves into the most believably dreadful situations. Karen’s feelings about her cancelled engagement, her self-deception and her unwanted new lifestyle were, at least, given a superb pay-off over the course of this series, so at least it went out on a high.

And finally, a show that was slammed after its first episode but really came into its own subsequently: Clone again existed in a cosy world where little changed but much genuinely funny silliness went on. Unfortunately this wasn’t at all evident from its first episode, which involved a rather elaborate set-up. Textbooks on writing will tell you to be wary of flashback, but I wonder if the events that led to Clone’s creation and Victor’s flight from the forces of the military might have been better told in flashback, while introducing us first and foremost to his bolt-hole and the emotional lynchpin character of Rose (Fiona Glascott completing a superb trio of lead actors with Jonathan Pryce and Stuart McGloughlin, with the much-vaunted Mark Gatiss really in a supporting role). I hope it gets re-commissioned, given the cliffhanger nature of the final episode.

2008 on the goggle box: Drama

Contains spoilers!

I wonder why TV shows do not attract end-of-year lists in the same way as records do. Maybe they do, and I just don’t look in the right places. Or maybe it’s that music is more personal: you can carry it with you; when you buy it, there is a sense in which you own it; there is a greater choice, so what you listen to reflects who you are more than what you watch. Perhaps. Certainly TV is still something you have to experience by sitting in front of a screen – albeit you can take a small screen with you on the train these days if you wish – and the number of things you can do while watching it is limited to things like ironing rather than driving.

The comparison also falls down for books and films; all attract much mainstream comment. TV shows are assessed among select bands of producers and writers, joined only recently by anoraks connected by the internet. It baffles me slightly: for me, the engagement with a drama series is every bit as deep as that with a book or a record – as with other forms, it might be more or less deep or involved depending on the scope, ambition and quality of the work, but in principle it is fundamentally similar. It certainly does not require less skill to write, produce or act in a television programme than it does to make a record or a film. So I’m going to do much the same for TV as I have for music – apart from the compiling a CD bit.

Just as Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes have been topping end-of-year album polls, a few shows would probably be making the running in TV lists if they existed. Skins, Doctor Who and Apparitions might be on the list. Unfairly overlooked might be Jericho and Out of the Blue. But if you put a gun to my head and asked me to name the best TV show of the year in my opinion, I would plump for season four of House.

The writers’ strike perhaps enhanced this show, as its story arc worked beautifully over a truncated season of 16 episodes in a way that would probably not have been the case over 25. Despite each episode being deeply formulaic, the makers of the show are still finding new ways of putting the formula into action: this year, House begins an X-Factor style talent contest to hire a new team of assistants. The drawing out of these characters over the course of the first two thirds or so of the season was masterful; the pay-off in the later part was utterly sublime, and will surely frame the early part of the fifth season.

To turn to more widely-viewed fare, I approached the fourth series of Russell T Davies’ Doctor Who with little enthusiasm: much of the preceding series had been merely OK in my eyes, and I feared we were in for a year of re-treading old ideas. Delightfully, I was largely wrong about that: this year’s series was probably the most consistently high-standard run since Christopher Eccleston’s sole series, and also contained some sublime high points. Catherine Tate’s Donna was a far more interesting, and far better-acted, character than Martha Jones; while I was amused to see a set-up at the end of the series for Martha to join Torchwood, only for Freema Agyeman to take the dosh and move to ITV. They’re welcome to her – I’m in the camp that says she just can’t act, sorry.

I found myself lacking the time to do episode-by-episode reviews, but there was barely a story I did not enjoy. The Sontaran episodes were probably the most satisfying of the many Earth-invasion stories we have now seen, bar Army of Ghosts / Doomsday; Steven Moffat’s episodes were every bit as good as you would expect; and RTD’s own Midnight and Turn Left were in my view among his very best scripts ever, starkly exploring the best and worst of human nature in totally different ways from each other. On the down side, while the finale was great fun I didn’t feel Davros added much to the story, nor did I feel the story thread with Rose added to the perfect ending she was given in Doomsday – if anything, it seems to cheapen that episode, which had provided the most emotionally resonant moment seen in Doctor Who. Still, this is nit-picking: the series was a triumph.

Happily, Torchwood found its feet as well, with a more purposeful and convincing set of characters in the Hub than the first series had presented. I still wasn’t too sorry to see Tosh and Owen killed at the end, but Owen’s journey to get there in particular was extremely inventive. Elsewhere in the Doctor Who universe, I still have most of The Sarah Jane Adventures sitting around waiting to be watched, but the episodes I did see suggested it retains its sureness of touch – though perhaps it suffered slightly from overly cute and tidy endings.

Skins was another sure-footed second series this year. Reading RTD’s views on the first series in his book is rather interesting. I think he misreads the show somewhat: to my eyes, they seemed to have got the tone right after the first four episodes or so of the first run, and then kept it running solidly to the end of the second (bar 2007’s now-notorious rubbish Russian episode): certainly it is no longer a show from which we would expect comedy characters like Mad Twatter, gloriously-named though he was. Instead, it proved a show that put its characters through the wringer like almost no other: Sketch’s downfall on-stage, the death of Sid’s dad, the unveil of Cassy when Sid and Michelle return home and Chris’s death were all utterly stunning moments in television – many programmes can’t manage a single climactic moment like that, but Skins was awash with them. Although I couldn’t manage to feel much warmth towards Cassie this time round – all she ever seemed to do was fuck things up for other people. Still, Hannah Murray’s portrayal was superb throughout. Bryan Elsley’s fearless approach to making drama continues with a new cast in 2009, and I can’t wait – I fully expect it to be brilliant, but even if it falters it is bound to do so in a fascinating way.

Another of the TV moments that sticks in my mind from this year was the revelation of Tom and Debbie’s relationship in Shameless, which I’m pretty sure actually made me say “oh God!” out loud, even though there was nobody else there. This time last year, I was lamenting Shameless’s descent into drivel and dreading the prospect of a huge 16-episode run in 2008. Once again, I was proved gloriously wrong: Shameless was on top form this year, with its characters back to being dissected in the most fascinating and rumbustuous way. A great example: Frank is in a drug-induced conversation with his younger self, who asks him when he started drinking; the realisation of the answer to the question strikes him for the first time as he says it out loud: “just after Mum died”. David Threlfall would be a great choice for Doctor Who; despite reports that Shameless will be reduced to eight episodes in 2010, it still seems that his commitment to the show will rule him out of the reckoning. Shame.

Let’s leave the high profile shows for a moment: two of my other favourites this year have in common that they were both imports, both overlooked, and both cruelly mistreated by the networks that commissioned them. Well, in the case of Jericho, that’s a bit debatable: excellent though it was, it simply didn’t attract the viewers in the US, though whether that was through network mismanagement or not I don’t know. Anyway, it’s a story you might have heard: the series revolved around a small town in rural America after a co-ordinated nuclear attack destroyed most of the country’s major cities; it follows the fortunes of the town – the titular Jericho – and its inhabitants as the USA’s rule of law, government and infrastructure disintegrate. At the same time, clues start to emerge about the true nature of the mysterious terrorist attacks.

Perhaps the superficial similarity of Jericho’s premise to a series of 24 made viewers regard it as old hat; if so, they were missing out on a totally different beast. It was a compelling programme: I picked up on the first series as part of a set of re-runs on ITV4, and could happily watch two or three episodes at a time – it’s one of those programmes where you hate having to wait to find out what happens next. The second series – only seven episodes, after which the axe fell in the US for a second and apparently final time – made its debut on ITV4 in the autumn and delivered the goods in a satisfying way. I recommend you seek the show out on DVD in the new year sales.

The second of my pair of imports was an Australian soap – the first time I’ve watched one of them since giving up on Neighbours in about 1994. I’ve written about Out of the Blue elsewhere, but I remain annoyed by the BBC’s handling of the show: with an evening repeat or weekend omibus I feel quite sure it could have picked up a strong audience. Trouble was, the BBC wanted it to pick up the Neighbours audience and gave it about two weeks to do it – it failed, and was shunted off to BBC2. It was interesting to hear Russell T Davies say at his National Film Theatre event to promote his book that, back in 2005, the BBC had made contingency plans to shunt Doctor Who off to Sunday afternoons half-way through its run if it had flopped; alas, for Out of the Blue, similar contingency plans were put into operation prematurely. The show has 20 or 30 episodes left to run in the new year, after which the BBC will stop making it; I gather, however, that at least one foreign broadcaster has commissioned another run of episodes, so I hope they will find their way on to UK screens. Alas, it looks like it won’t happen until – at the very earliest – one of Five’s digital channels has completed a run of all 150 BBC episodes, for which it has just acquired the rights. No small irony given that Five was the destination of Neighbours after the BBC opted to stop paying for it.

One new BBC commission that did manage to make it through its run in its intended scheduling position was Merlin, the second “tried and trusted formula” drama commissioned to attract the family audience that Doctor Who had re-discovered. It was a strangely uneven show: if anything, it showed how sure-footed Robin Hood had in fact been. In Hood, the characters were well set-up and consistently well-acted, and each series told a story across its run. In Merlin, the characters seemed more sketchy, the acting and production values more haphazard, and the series overall rather aimless.

But that’s not to say it was bad: rather, it seemed to give the impression of a show struggling to find its feet, not unlike the first series of Torchwood. It showed undoubted promise, and the BBC were right to show the faith to re-commission it; most notably, Merlin held its audience despite not having a consistent timeslot on Saturday evenings. The idea of exploring the start of the relationship between Merlin and Arthur was inspired; it also gives a clear “destination” for the series, as Uther Pendragon is still alive, and Guinevere and Morgana are not in their accustomed positions of legend, but are instead a servant girl and Uther’s ward respectively. Perhaps the production team were wary of taking too many strides towards the characters’ eventual destiny too soon: Morgana’s emergence as a seer has so far led nowhere, though hints of her estrangement from the Pendragons have been shown. Mordred, Excalibur and Lancelot all put in appearances, but for one episode each and really seemed to go nowhere. Hints were given too of Guinevere falling in love with Arthur, although for most of the series she seems more interested in Merlin.

Comment on the series initially focused on the identikit plots: a mysterious stranger would turn up at Camelot and be welcomed by Uther, only to turn out to be a sorcerer with nefarious purpose. Merlin would then save the day with some magic to which everyone else remained oblivious. It had the unfortunate effect of making all the characters look like idiots. Some commentators also picked up a homoerotic frisson between Merlin and Arthur – perhaps it would be more fair to say that Colin Morgan and Bradley James were among the very few pairings of cast members between whom there seemed to be any particular chemistry. Richard Wilson was invariably watchable as Gaius – without him I rather suspect the show would have crumbled. Morgana remained under-used; hopefully the second run will give her more screen time – and maybe even re-cast Gwen, who came across as both wooden and wet. Michelle Ryan’s hypnotically seductive Nimueh seemed under-exploited, while the death of Gwen’s father was rather thrown away, going unmentioned after the episode in which it occurred. Oh, and the dragon was a bit of a waste of time too; there were hints that the dragon was pursuing his own agenda here and there, but it might have been more interesting to have him manipulating Merlin to his own ends rather than just periodically whinge at him.

I’m looking forward both to new Merlin and the third series of Robin Hood, but both suffer somewhat from having to meet 13-episode runs. For series of self-contained episodes with smallish casts and only one setting, it’s too many. Doctor Who can do it because it has a new setting almost every week, but for other shows ten episodes would be quite enough.

Staying with the BBC for a moment, I can see why Dan Paton and others might write off Survivors as boring, but on balance I felt it was pretty effective… with a massive “BUT” looming in a moment. It certainly succeeded in building up a set of characters that I cared about. But it was undeniably slow-paced (that’s not the big “BUT”): almost certainly this reflects the source material – it claims to be based on the novel by Terry Nation, but (that’s not the big “BUT” either) that was itself bound up with his TV series of the 1970s, so a slow pace is not unexpected. Overall, it perhaps lacks the desperation seen in Jericho, where the collapse in civilisation was stark and immediate; in Survivors so far, things have seemed fairly cute with occasional interjections of the horror of the situation. Maybe it needed to go further in exploring the horror – then again, Jericho was about a pre-existing community trying to survive and so could juxtapose collapse and cohesiveness; in Survivors, there are no communities left to begin with.

The big “BUT” is this: after five slow episodes, gradually building the characters, the sixth offered some big pay-offs, bringing back numerous apparently guest figures, plus the putative new government… and then it ended in a dirty great big cliffhanger! Now, there’s easily enough mileage in the show for a second series, and I would guess that the second series is when the show will depart from the source material completely and tell the story that Adrian Hodges really wants to tell… But I couldn’t help but feel somewhat taken for a ride at the end – having invested in a well-made but rather slow and demanding series, I was given next to nothing for my efforts. Plus, if the BBC had opted not to commission a second series, Hodges wouldn’t have got to tell his story anyway. I wonder if the lesson is that it’s better for a show-runner to get his story hammered out at the first opportunity, and worry about leaving himself short of plots for a future series if and when it becomes a problem. House provides an excellent example of a show that apparently told all its stories after a couple of series, but found a brilliantly successful way to find new twists on its formula; Survivors has taken a different approach – I’m hopeful it will be rewarding come the second series, but I’d rather have had a bit more satisfaction from the first.

A show deliberately pitched in an eccentric way was Pushing Daisies, imported from the US and shown by ITV at 9pm in an unusually bold move for imported drama (remember when BBC1 would put the imported Perry Mason on in Saturday primetime? It seems like a lifetime ago). The programme’s heavily stylised, fairytale-cum-cartoon idiom generally found favour with viewers and critics, and it was certainly very enjoyable: Anna Friel and Lee Pace were hugely watchable, working with some very sharp scripts. That said, the overt wackiness was clearly an effort to put across an uncanny plot scenario in a way that was more palatable to the US network than the show’s predecessor Wonderfalls, which also featured Pace in the cast. Indeed, a minor character from Wonderfalls is due to appear in a second-series episode of Daisies. Ultimately Brian Fuller’s experiments with tone proved only marginally more successful than the streetwise style of Wonderfalls: Daisies has been cancelled in the US after two series rather than one. But if you liked Pushing Daisies and would enjoy something similar but with more bite, I can’t recommend Wonderfalls highly enough – it remains available on region 1 DVD.

The second series of David Renwick’s Love Soup aired at around the same time as Pushing Daisies. When I last blogged about it, I expressed doubts about the tactic of adapting it to fit the absence of the leading man from the first series. Alas, it proved enjoyable and funny, but ultimately unsatisfying: the confirmation that Alice had indeed missed her soulmate due to Gil’s heart attack made for a horribly downbeat and unsatisfying ending to the series, even though it had in every other respect been superb. Still, I’m looking forward to the New Year’s Day special of Jonathan Creek, with Love Soup refugee Sheridan Smith, whose turn in the play Tinderbox at the Bush Theatre in Shepherd’s Bush was my only serious theatrical experience of the year, and a really worthwhile one.

Finally for drama, let’s go back to the start of the year for Ashes to Ashes. I perhaps can’t add much to my comments at the time: I enjoyed the setting of the 1980s more, as it means more to me than the ’70s, and certainly don’t think the excellent Keeley Hawes deserved the stick she got for her performances. But I’m not sure I care about Drake’s backstory: the climax showing her parents’ death, with the clown make-up special effect, was mesmerising – but where can they go next? As with Life On Mars, the climactic storyline might end up being nothing to do with Drake’s modern-day life – and I seem to be the only person who felt like Life On Mars ended by taking the viewer for a mug.

Looking ahead to 2009, there are some new series of the shows above to enjoy. A programme I’m particularly looking forward to is Being Human, the BBC3 series commissioned off the back of an excellent pilot earlier this year (the same batch of pilots that gave us the ultimately unmade Phoo Action – which was fun as far as it went, but perhaps would indeed have struggled to maintain a full series). Unfortunately perhaps, the cast has been substantially retooled between the pilot and the series: in particular, Andrea Riseborough is now absent – she was brilliant in the pilot and put in an excellent, and totally contrasting, turn in Channel 4’s The Devil’s Whore this year. That said, she’s been replaced by Leonora “Sugar Rush” Critchlow so it’s not all bad. The real question is whether the sharp and sassy vision of Toby Whithouse’s pilot has been compromised by BBC3’s apparent desire to pitch it at a slightly younger audience. I do hope not. There is a screening of the first episode at the NFT on January 16th – I might report back then.

Christmas Invasion

In anticipation of this year’s Doctor Who Christmas special, here’s a deleted sequence from 2005’s The Christmas Invasion…

Have yourself an indie little Christmas

My end-of-year post has spurred me to think about Christmas songs. That, and the fact that a couple of people seem to have found this blog by googling “rude Christmas songs” (they chanced upon this post, I think). I’m getting into the habit of whacking all the Christmas songs I like into a big folder and just bunging it on my MP3 player and hitting  shuffle. But to sort things out a bit, I’ve tried putting a couple of dozen into a notional compilation – the running order is fairly arbitrary – below.

Actually finding good Christmas songs is a bit tricky: there are many compilations each year, both mainstream and indie. But they tend to be horribly hit and miss, plus there’s only really a window of two weeks or so each year when I’m interested in investigating them. A good Christmas song generally has to be, in my view: a good song; about Christmas (OR an actual carol), not just containing a reference to snow ; Christmassy-sounding, with jingle bells, choral arrangements or similar. But there are exceptions to all of those below.

1.MJ Hibbett and the Validators – The Advent Calendar of Fact
2.Johnny Domino – 3 Ships
3.Belle and Sebastian – O Come O Come Emmanuel
4.Lauren Laverne – In The Bleak Midwinter
5.Departure Lounge – Christmas Downer
6.Grandaddy – Alan Parsons In A Winter Wonderland
7.Shawn Lee – I’ll Be Fucking You This Christmas
8.Ten Benson – Black Snow
9.Broken Dog – Joy To The World
10.Hefner – Lonely This Christmas
11.Elastica – Gloria
12.Keyop – I’ll Be Dead by Christmas
13.The Lollies – You Can Make An Angel Sigh
14.The Ronettes – Frosty the Snowman
15.Darlene Love – Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
16.Diana Ross and the Supremes – Little Bright Star
17.The Meditation Singers – Blue Christmas
18.Half Man Half Biscuit – It’s Cliched to by Cynical at Christmas
19.Mitch Benn and the Distractions – Broke the Bank This Christmas
20.Low – Blue Christmas
21.Frank Sinatra – Adeste Fideles
22.Nixon – Anorak Christmas
23.John Prine – Christmas In Prison
24.The Pocket Gods – Wnking for Christmas
25.Misty’s Big Adventure – Where Do Jam Jars Go At Christmas Time?

The opening two tracks I know from the rather excellent compilation A Christmas Gift From Artists Against Success (more properly titled Kung Fu Santa With A Christmas Punch-Bag), which was generously sent out for free by Hibbett and Co to people “on the list” in, I think, 2005. Cheers Mark! There is other good stuff on there too, including Frankie Machine’s I’m Going To Kill Myself for Christmas, about the perils of having a birthday close to Christmas and suffering combined presents.

Tracks 3 to 6 are from the XFM It’s A Cool, Cool Christmas compilation from 2000. I seem to be the only person who likes Lauren Laverne’s contribution to that – her last outing on record to date bar backing vocals on that Divine Comedy single.

The next couple of songs also originate from 2000: Shawn Lee’s rudery featured on the We Love Yule compilation EP, released on two seven-inch singles – a lovely package, but it suffered from having only two Christmas songs – the other one being an instrumental – and two that just mentioned snow. The Ten Benson one was also a 7-inch single, doesn’t sound remotely Christmassy, but is an enjoyable bit of cock rock.

The Broken Dog and Hefner songs were both recorded for John Peel’s Christmas show in 1999; I dug out the tape from the time yesterday and stuck them on MP3. I really must find tapes of other Christmas shows from subsequent years – they were always lovely, and I remember Camera Obscura doing a version of Little Donkey in 2000 or 2001.

The Elastica track has cropped up on various compilations, but the Keyop and Lollies ones are more obscure: they originate from the Here Comes Santa Paws EP put out by Purr Records in 2001 – a CD-R mail-order release, no less!

Next up are a few standard Phil Spector choices. The Meditation Singers one is a soul number, and not the same song as the more famous Blue Christmas, which Low provide the rendition of. The Diana Ross track is probably the only decent cut on the A Christmas Present From Motown volume II compilation.

What’s left? The Mitch Benn track was his Christmas song for the Now Show last year. The John Prine song is a love song more than a Christmas song, but it’s still lovely (as is the Emmy The Great cover version, if you can track it down). The Pocket Gods song isn’t brilliant, but with its refrain of “all I want for Christmas is a wank” I felt I couldn’t leave it out, not least for fear of disappointing googlers in search of rude Christmas songs. The Frank Sinatra number is from his Christmas album, and gives that very American version of Christmas, but still sounds great. The Half Man Half Biscuit song is from their 2000 album Trouble Over Bridgwater and speaks for itself. The Nixon song is heavy on ’80s synth sounds, which unaccountably makes it sound incredily Christmassy to me. And finally the Misty’s Big Adventure song is lyrically nonsense – what do jam jars have to do with Christmas?? – but musically it’s Christmassy as fuck.

Christmas songs aside, there are a few songs and records that I always associate with it. I obtained Arcade Fire’s debut album on import just before I moved to London, which was at Christmas 2004; so when going up to my parents’ each year, I always listen to it as the train pulls out of Euston. The 2006 albums from Amy Winehouse and the Gothic Archies  both work as Christmas records in my mind, while the shimmering single Echo’s Answer by Broadcast was described by John Peel as having the feel of a Christmas song, and it’s in my folder of Christmas songs for that reason.

Kloot!

Well, whaddya know, the I Am Kloot album finally turned up a few days after I finalised my end-of-year posts and turned out to be brilliant. It’s a less rough and aggressive sound than on Gods and Monsters: while the band’s styles as musicians continue to shine through individually, here they are adorned with twinkles of piano, organ and pedal steel. Sitting on top of this is Johnny Bramwell’s haunting voice, delivering slices of Northern melancholia that make me want to go and watch a black and white film like A Kind of Loving. While he has occasionally fallen victim to rhyming-dictionaryitis in the past, here the lyrics are delightfully judged. Smashing.

By contrast, the album from Okkervil River – which I must admit I approached with very high expectations – has disappointed me on first listen. It seemed to be fairly unremarkable college rock, but I’ve got to stress I’ve only heard it once and will give it much more of a chance. I feel somehow cheated over Okkervil River – more than that, somehow that I’ve cheated myself. Dan very kindly gave me a compilation CD featuring them a good while back – last year, I think – and although I vowed to follow it up, their stuff seemed only to be available as expensive imports at the time. Now it’s more readily available in the UK and everyone loves them! But the track Dan gave me had strange but effective combination of an aggressive dynamism and the openness of country music; they seem to have moved away from this slightly.

2008: the also-rans

So, what about the records I’ve heard that didn’t make the cut for the compilation? What, indeed, of the albums I didn’t get round to picking up? Well, starting with the latter, I must admit I have not got round to acquiring numerous records I’d like to hear, notably those by:

• I Am Kloot (shocking omission, partly down to rubbishness by Amazon – I expect it to arrive any day now)
• Okkervil River (also on its way, but too slow by Amazon to be considered for the comp!)
• Old Crow Medicine Show (ballsed up by Sendit who were unable to deliver a product as advertised– I advise you avoid them!)
• CSS (I was disappointed by their live set at the start of the year, but have been more impressed by their new material than I expected; bizarre thing about Lovefoxx is she can’t dance for toffee)
• Santogold
• Land of Talk (I enjoyed their 2007 effort a great deal, and saw them supporting The Besnard Lakes to good effect in a sweaty venue last year)
• The Last Shadow Puppets (the hype made me wary of this, but it looks like it’s actually rather good)
• The Young Knives
• Ron Sexsmith (always makes the same record, but always worth listening to)
• Bon Iver (another one that’s been on the list to get for a long time, but still not accomplished… I fear it may not be as good as they were live, supporting Iron and Wine)

There are perhaps some omissions from the compilation that are a bit surprising, and not explained by the above list. What, for instance, about the Elbow record? A handful of the contenders they beat to the Mercury did make it on, but I left Elbow off for perhaps rather harsh reasons. I just don’t think The Seldom-Seen Kid is their best record: it’s very good, but Elbow are a band that tend to revisit the same formula with every record. It’s a worthwhile thing to do, but overall I can’t help but think it’s paying slightly diminishing returns, and their best work remains Cast of Thousands from 2003. Despite enjoying them enormously at the Brixton Academy, I still felt the record itself didn’t quite nail the songs so well – it needed a bit more oomph. Not lots – this is Elbow we’re talking about, after all – but it worked better live. Lambchop similarly have produced a very good record that I enjoyed seeing them perform live, but again it’s not their best work and doesn’t captivate on record in the way that many of its songs did in their Union Chapel gig.

I liked Noah and the Whale’s debut, though I sympathise with the view that its hit single is a bit too twee. But for some reason listening to the album always gets me down – no idea why.

There was a handful of bona fide disappointments in 2008, so let’s deal with those. The Hot Puppies and T-T records I’ve dealt with in the main post, but some records fell down much more seriously. Tilly and the Wall’s O, the follow-up to Bottoms of Barrels, spawned an excellent single: Beat Control distilled their sometimes sprawling sound into a tight and honed slice of pop. Disappointingly, the album was just a re-hash of their previous stuff that lacked the excellence of some of their earlier songs.

Sticking with American bands, The Breeders delivered another lacklustre album: bar a few production tweaks and a nice cover version, Mountain Battles contained nothing of merit. Seeing them live at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire was a bit of an “emperor’s new clothes” experience: for all their indie pedigree, Kim and Kelly Deal could frankly barely play their instruments, and had a back-up guitarist to do all the tricky stuff. They were enjoyable when playing the decent stuff from Last Splash, but otherwise made for a sad spectacle.

Still, at least they’re still going. The split of The Long Blondes earlier this year came for the most shocking reason – not unlike when snooker player Paul Hunter was diagnosed with cancer, you just don’t expect to see a young guy knocked out by a stroke like guitarist Dorian Cox was. Sad to say, therefore, that they did not go out on a high: unlike many critics, I found Couples to be a pale and unworthy successor to Someone To Drive You Home. It lacked the energy, the cutting lyrics and the mood. The icy electro of lead single Century was a false dawn; rather than taking a bold step and doing the whole album in such a radical style, the band produced a thin, scratchy and unattractively self-pitying record.

Let me also mention the squally album from The Magnetic Fields: I know they went for that sound deliberately, but too often it just drowned the songs.

Finally, let’s look ahead to 2009, which is already promising new albums from:

• Doves
• Emmy the Great
• MJ Hibbett
• Jarvis Cocker
• Howling Bells
• Camera Obscura
• Noisettes
• Fight Like Apes
• Junior Boys.

I’m looking forward to all of those. Meanwhile, if you’re thirsting for more end-of-year list action, I’ll be doing a review of the year’s telly after Christmas. For an idea of what it might contain, see last year’s reviews of BBC drama, other drama and comedy.

2008 in Music

As billed in my previous post, here’s the final tracklist for my snapshot-of-2008 compilation CD. As promised, if you know my email address you could always ask for a ZIP folder of the MP3s. Below, I’ll talk about (1) the albums included, (2) albums I’ve heard but not included, (3) albums I’ve not heard and (4) things to look forward to in 2009. The latter two pretty briefly, obviously, and the last three in a separate post.

1. Fleet Foxes – He Doesn’t Know Why (Fleet Foxes, Bella Union)
2. Sons and Daughters – Darling (This Gift, Domino)
3. The Souvenirs – What a Funny Way To Live Your Life (self-released EP)
4. Manda Rin – Typeface (My DNA, Pinnacle)
5. Elvis Costello and the Imposters – No Hiding Place (Momofuku, Lost Highway)
6. Calexico – Two Silver Trees (Carried to Dust, City Slang)
7. Glasvegas – Daddy’s Gone (Glasvegas, SonyBMG)
8. The Ting Tings – Be The One (We Started Nothing, Columbia)
9. Hot Chip – We’re Looking for a Lot of Love (Made in the Dark, EMI)
10. Destroyer – Shooting Rockets (From the Desk of Night’s Ape) (Trouble In Dreams, Rough Trade)

11. MJ Hibbett and the Validators – Do The Indie Kid (7” single, Artists Against Success)
12. Thomas Tantrum – Work It (Thomas Tantrum, Sindy Stroker)
13. British Sea Power – No Lucifer (Do You Like Rock Music?, Rough Trade)
14. The Hot Puppies – Clarinet Town (Blue Hands, THP)
15. Chris T-T – A Box To Hide In (Capital, Xtra Mile)
16. Neon Neon – Belfast (Stainless Style, Lex)
17. Half Man Half Biscuit – Totnes Bickering Fair (CSI: Ambleside, Probe Plus)
18. Jenny Lewis – Godspeed (Acid Tongue, Rough Trade)
19. The Futureheads – The Beginning of the Twist (This Is Not The World, Nul Records)
20. My Morning Jacket – Smokin’ from Shootin’ (Evil Urges, Rough Trade)

Initial observations: Rough Trade have evidently had a good year! Four of my selections! Also, for the first time I have struggled to fill the whole running time of the CD – indeed, I’ve been able to include some pretty long tracks (the Destroyer one is close to eight minutes). I’ve bought more albums this year than last, but a surprising number have failed the “must be a brilliant album, not just an OK one with a few great tracks” rule – and even then I have bent it for a couple of the selections above. More on those later. You’ll also see I’ve done the compilation in two halves – it just seems to work in terms of the running order to have a notional break in the middle. Totally meaningless in reality – I resisted the temptation to label them “side 1” and “side 2”, as it has no bearing on the CD.

The opening track from Fleet Foxes puts my selection firmly in the mainstream of critical opinion: their album seems to be topping many end-of-year polls, to the point where Dan Paton has complained of its ubiquity. Somewhat unfairly, it seems to me – as with many of the records here, I either only know them, or first heard of them, because Dan recommended them either in person or on his blog (indeed, unless I go out of my way to disagree with him you can fairly assume of the great bulk of stuff here that it presses Dan’s buttons as well). I’m not quite sure why it’s being hailed as a “landmark in American music” and so on: it contains no great innovation. It’s just bloody good – perhaps its triumph is to take essentially folky musical forms and produce a record that is true to those influences while not wandering off into self-indulgent hippy digression.

There’s a trio of Glaswegian artists on this compilation. The first, Sons and Daughters, seem to have written a load of pop songs by accident and then resented it: glockenspiels, handclaps and harmonies are all applied to the pretty melodies with a snarl, but this tension between pretty pop and spiky goth punk is brilliantly effective. The track here, Darling, remains probably my favourite single of the year – although a few other contenders are included in the selection.

While Sons and Daughters seem to be on the up, one has to feel sorry for Manda Rin. While My DNA is her first solo release post-Bis (though there was a collaboration with her then-husband under the moniker The Kitchen in 2005) it sounds pretty much as you would expect. Bis pioneered an 80s-influenced pop template with their second album and Manda hasn’t deviated from it much since. And quite right too – it’s bloody good. Problem was it came along ten years too early; if Eurodisco had been released this year instead of 1998, it would probably have been a monster hit single, and its parent album would have got more than a miserly six out of ten from the NME. Meanwhile, Neon Neon have produced what is in many respects a higher-budget version of Manda’s album and got nominated for the Mercury! Stainless Style is a brilliant record: Gryff Rhys’s melodies are harnessed to the kind of synth sounds that sounded tinny and cheesy in the ’80s but have finally been made to work; it’s well worthy of its inclusion here.

Still, Manda’s misfortune is nothing compared to what seems to have befallen Glasvegas’s James Allan in his life. Their debut album is the anguished cry of a hapless ned who realises that his life is totally fucked up and it’s largely his fault. What he doesn’t blame on himself, he blames on his father: I remain impressed by the band’s ability to fashion a substantial hit single out of such a miserable song as Daddy’s Gone. Glasvegas represent probably my biggest musical disagreement with Paton this year. I think we agree to some extent that there is a lot to be said for them lyrically: while Allan’s lyrics verge on the simple at times, this has the effect of making them powerfully direct; certainly Daddy’s Gone is an utterly ferocious rebuke that I would certainly not like to be on the receiving end of. But I don’t agree that musically they are plodding or chugging: Geraldine in particular is a successful stab at the anthemic, almost hitting riff-heavy cock rock territory. Generally the production offers a dense and distorted sound, with Allan’s powerful vocals laid clearly on top: for my money, it’s terrifically effective due to both the lyrical content and some very strong melodies. The distorted tremolo guitar on Daddy’s Gone is probably what the Raveonettes were aiming for with their unsuccessful album Lust Lust Lust in 2007. Yes, Glasvegas strike a repetitive note at times – that’s what you should do with epic hooks. Admittedly the first and last tracks, and the middling Stabbed, are dispensable; the rest of the album is consistently excellent.

To get back to the running order, the third track is probably the greatest obscurity on the compilation. I heard The Souvenirs – a Derby-based band – on Steve Lamacq’s unsigned slot in the late spring. I don’t listen to Lamacq very often, just for logistical reasons, so that was a bit of a fluke in itself. Once I had acquired their EP, it stayed on my MP3 player for quite a long time. While it’s maybe not particularly special or innovative music, it’s a pleasant change from the current “indie” hegemony, where the music is all about rhythm and the melody is weak afterthought, delivered by a nasal youth. It’s nice to hear some decent melodies sung by someone who can sing; I believe the band remain unsigned and gigging in the east Midlands, but I hope they do great things in 2009.

Elvis Costello inhabits a different universe by comparison. He had stated he would not be releasing a new record for the foreseeable future towards the end of 2007, but changed his mind on a whim, wandered into the studio with his band and some pals, knocked out a dozen effortlessly brilliant tracks and had the whole she-bang in the shops apparently within about three months. Indeed, the inspiration for this was a session he had contributing guest vocals to Jenny Lewis’s album Acid Tongue, which itself did not emerge until much later in the year despite having been started earlier. Costello’s album Momofuku is another excellent Elvis Costello record: it captures a live-ish sound from his band The Imposters and offers songs every bit as good as you would expect, from the sentimental – but not mawkish – My Three Sons to the caustic opener, No Hiding Place.

The Jenny Lewis album is also very good. While it’s not remotely ground-breaking, and has clearly been produced with a well-budgeted portion of spit and polish, it’s perhaps one of the best-judged albums released this year. It presents the expected blend of pop, rock, country and soul influences, even drifting somewhat into White Stripes territory. It’s a thoroughly American record, and none the worse for that.

A band who present a uniquely American perspective, very different from Lewis’s, are Calexico. This year’s album from them offers the excellence you’d expect: the mariachi horns are back and used to good effect, while the rock influence of its predecessor Garden Ruin is still in evidence. Indeed, this selection here Two Silver Trees reminds me of Arcade Fire with its trilling guitar lines. There’s maybe not much to say about the album overall: it’s another very good Calexico record, although as with all their albums it needs a good few listens to get the best out of it. Be patient with it and it will reward you.

Sometimes listening to BBC 6Music can be a confusing experience: one assumes that a lot of what you hear on Marc Riley’s show in particular is genuinely indie and a bit obscure, so it can be a shock to see it racing up the charts a few months later. Duffy was just someone off 6Music as far as I was concerned, and then look what happened! The rolling and majestic qualities of her debut single Rockferry intrigued, but the rest of her album proved somewhat slight and over-pretty white soul – for which reason she hasn’t made the cut on this compilation. Another 6Music act that suddenly went massive have, however: some people find The Ting Tings over-simple and irritating, but to me their music is well-honed pop. Admittedly, That’s Not My Name would probably have driven me up the wall if I was a regular listener to daytime radio, but I’m not and so I’ve not lost sight of how excellent it is. I particularly like the way that it sounds very different by the end from how it did at the start. The album is similar in the respect that it is full of hooks and maybe not much else – but it has a certain purity because of that. Be The One is probably the best of the various Cure-a-like singles that have been released this year.

The next track takes us right back to the start of the year. Hot Chip’s Made in the Dark was undoubtedly far too long, but terrific apart from that. Its floor-fillers like, well, Ready for the Floor, have grabbed the attention and been used on a lot of BBC trails; but for my money the more reflective and soulful songs are the best. We’re Looking For A Lot Of Love is one of the album’s more mellow moments, but is still not without a decent hook or two.

The compilation stays mellow to close its first half. Vinyl Exchange in Manchester remains my favourite record shop, and I make a point of popping in when I get the chance. I picked up the Destroyer album there in the spring, and the chap serving me enthused about it above all the other CDs I was buying. He was right – it’s a great record. Erstwhile New Pornographer Dan Bejar presents another exotic soundscape, over which he lays lyrics that verge on the pretentious or even ridiculous but generally manage to remain cryptic and beguiling. I admit I’ve not helped the cause here, but Destroyer deserves attention as more than a New Pornographers side-project.

Right – side two! And there was only really one way to start it. I’m looking forward to MJ Hibbett’s new album with the Validators in 2009, but this year has itself been really rather prolific for him with a solo album as part of the February Album Writing Month, er… thing. Plus three singles (Do The Indie Kid, It Only Works Because You’re Here, The Advent Calendar of Fact), an Edinburgh show and a flourishing gig night in the form of Totally Acoustic, which I heartily recommend you attend if you possibly can (www.totallyacoustic.com) – they are invariably tremendous evenings, albeit somewhat beer-fuelled. Getting back to the music, Do The Indie Kid represents perhaps the first time in the history of rock that putting the drummer in charge of the production turned out to be an exceptionally smart move: it sounds like quite a simple recording, but it undoubtedly shines. Though the follow-up It Only Works… had a bit of a “kitchen sink” feel, with some lovely strings and guitars all battling each other for prominence when perhaps they could have been allowed to take it in turns to greater effect. That’s really nit-picking… but I imagine Mark would expect nothing less. Roll on 2009 for more Hibbett!

I actually had to reduce the level of the Thomas Tantrum track on the compilation – it was mastered extremely loud, and jarred the ears somewhat after Hibbett. But the Tantrum (does anyone call them “the Tantrum”? I suppose they do now…) have produced the record that I’ve probably listened to more than any other this year: having heard them on Marc Riley’s show, I was looking forward to the album, and bought it on the day of its release. It has been on my MP3 player ever since – it’s a great one to listen to on the tube. Superficially the band sound like Life Without Buildings if they had aimed to be indie instead of arty: spiky guitars topped off with vocals that sound like pissed-off three year old girl. But there’s more going on than that: Tantrum remind me a bit of Kenickie, in as much as the songs are great shouty fun but there is some substance behind them as well. I’ll be interested to see where they go with a second album.

British Sea Power’s Mercury-nominated album Do You Like Rock Music? was another of those I picked up in the spring. As with their debut, the songs sound quite similar, but are all very good: it takes a lot of listens before they begin to distinguish themselves from one another. But the band have maintained the lovely warm sound they have traditionally had to their records, and I was pleased to see them get recognition for this record. I really should try and revisit their second album, which was probably better than I gave it credit for.

Next up are a couple of tracks that violate my “must be an excellent album all the way through” rule. In truth, I was disappointed to various extents by the albums from both the Hot Puppies and Chris T-T. With the Puppies in particular, I still find it hard to pin down exactly why: the first two tracks on the record are absolutely superb, both quite hard-edged, but after that… it falls flat, somehow. Maybe the songs aren’t quite there, maybe it’s the sequencing – it’s hard to say, but it certainly didn’t stick in my mind like their first album, which was a solid collection of quirky and dramatic indie pop. If you like the track here, I’d advise you go for 2006’s Under the Crooked Moon first, and maybe attempt Blue Hands only if you really like that.

Similarly, for Chris T-T I’d recommend his earlier albums London is Sinking or The 253 ahead of this year’s Capital. In some ways it is his most consistent record, but unfortunately it often forsakes the charm we have come to associate with T-T for the slightly ugly cynicism that seems to me to characterise the left in this country (I’ve discussed this previously). When I saw T-T earlier this year, he observed that he was grateful to Jon Clayton for producing all his music to date and always making it “sound good”. And undoubtedly it always has – but perhaps after seven albums or however many it is, Chris would benefit from trying out new collaborators (he has played on numerous projects by others – could he import some of this into his next album?). For all that I was disappointed by much of the record – relative to very high expectations, it must be said – I still found A Box To Hide In an utterly devastating lyric, both enormously touching and a scathing comment on what ten years of Blair government have done to our country. Unusually, the closing section of this album is perhaps the strongest – I nearly selected the excellent but disturbing song Ankles to go on here instead. Overall, my feelings towards Capital are complex but I still look forward to hearing what Chris does next.

Another record I approached with high expectation was CSI: Ambleside by Half Man Half Biscuit. It did not disappoint. Just buy it, OK? To go back to Steve Lamacq for a moment, I was trying to think the other day what my “Good Day, Bad Day” selections would be. The “Good Day” bit was very difficult: if I’m in a good mood, more or less any music that I like would fit the bill, surely? It’s still stumping me. The “Bad Day” selection was much easier: undoubtedly I would choose this album’s closing track, National Shite Day. Firstly, it encapsulates the idea of having a bad day. Secondly, it is very noisy, which is frankly what I need if I’m having a bad day, to get it out of my system. And thirdly, being Half Man Half Biscuit, it is acute, true and funny, and so would cheer me up.

Also noisy is the album from The Futureheads: like the Tantrum record, and probably not coincidentally, it has been mastered extremely loud. I’m reluctant to describe anything as a “return to form”: it’s a lazy compliment, and can often wrongly denigrate the previous record. But in this case I think there’s something in it: despite initially liking it, I went off the Futureheads’ second album, which seemed at times to be trying to get away from the hard-edged sound of their debut, but in a slightly half-hearted way. Here they have taken a very firm decision about which side of the fence they sit on, and the result is so-hard edged you could cut diamonds with it. Beginning of the Twist is its most accessible moment and won them a well-deserved top 20 hit; the rest of the album comes strongly recommended if you ever feel like making you ears bleed.

We finish with another record on which I’m in violent disagreement with Paton. Dan felt My Morning Jacket’s album Evil Urges was variously too mawkish, too silly and… well, go and find his review on his blog, don’t let me put words in his mouth. But I thought it was an excellent development of the band’s sound. Since the last record Jim James has clearly found lurve in a big way, and undoubtedly this makes for an extremely sentimental record in place – but I can’t really find it in my heart to begrudge it. The album has a sophisticated and seductive sound throughout, with regular dashes of Philly soul: both Touch Me I’m Going To Scream songs are particular highlights, as is the jangly pop of Two Halves. And yes, the funk of Highly Suspicious is extremely silly, but MMJ are a band not afraid to be silly at times: a viewing of their live DVD will confirm this; and I remember the first time I ever saw them live, they concluded a song by standing stock-still on stage for a good minute before they could contain their laughter no longer. It’s a brilliant record that soundtracked the early summer for me – though it is perhaps best experienced at warm temperatures, so maybe you should pop a note in your diary to buy it in the second half of May 2009.

End-of-year lists: an appetite-whetter

For the last few years I’ve been in the habit of compiling CD-Rs of my favourite tracks of the previous eleven and a bit months. Or I don’t, depending whether that would get me into trouble with some over-sensitive music industry pricks. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t like just giving people copies of albums (unless they’re by genuinely big-selling artists on whom it really will have zero negative impact): I want to support the artists by getting my music off them legitimately. And that’s also the point of the CDs: I try to encourage people who like what they hear to buy the full album, and I have known people do this – so there you go, the rights and wrongs of copyright law in microcosm.

It also affects the rules for the compilations. My usual rules apply, of course: never start or end with a closing or ending track (even putting an opener last or album climax first) – the album proves those tracks work well at the start or end of a record, so it’s down to the compiler to do something more imaginative with the sequencing. For the end-of-year efforts, other rules apply: most particularly, the tracks must come from albums that are worthwhile as a whole – I would feel guilty about directing people to spend a tenner on a record when the track that persuaded them to buy it was the only good one on there (does anyone spend as much as a tenner on a record any more…?).

Further rules: generally only album tracks from albums released in the year in question are acceptable – a 2007 single release from a 2006 album has no place on the 2007 compilation, for instance. Occasionally a single from an album due to come out next year is OK… but it’s exceptional (hence, this year, Emmy the Great and Howling Bells are missed off – the albums are due in 2009, though the singles are great).

There are yet more complications: what about records I really like but don’t get until the following year? Should they feature on the next compilation? Well, maybe – but generally I struggle to fit all the good stuff on a single CD without these interlopers. Oh yeah, that’s another one – I could just send people a folder of MP3s, or even a data CD, but I always keep myself to the running length of a single disc. Them’s the rules.

Every year I despair that the choices are getting more and more mainstream and obvious, and featuring the same artists every few years. This is probably true – I can’t claim to be as obsessively adventurous, or indeed as adventurously obsessive, about music as I once was. Then again, when I offer them to colleagues at work, the reaction is almost invariably that they’ve never heard of any of it – which is probably why I do it, frankly.

Ah, distribution – another issue! I try and leave it until mid-December, so invariably some of the people I would ideally like to hand the CDs to for their interest (and as a slightly apologetic substitute for a present – I don’t do gifts or cards for the Sky-Bully’s birthday) I end up not seeing until February, by which time the whole thing seems a hollow and out of date charade. And even then I usually forget to carry any around with me. The physical form of the things is also an issue – I try to do little sleeves with a design on the front, a tracklist on the back and a few brief words about the year in music on the back. The latter always seems hopelessly inadequate, so this year I’m just putting the URL of a blog post below the tracklisting forthose who want to read about it all! And as an alternative to the CDs, I suppose I might prepare a zip folder of low-bitrate MP3s that people who know my email address can ask me for, and I’ll happily send it (amusingly, I mistyped that as “low-bitrate MPs” at first – is there any other kind?).

So, by way of a taster for this year’s tracklist, which I’ll finalise next week, here are the listings from the last three years (album and record label given in brackets).

2007

1. The Broken Family Band – Dancing on the 4th Floor (Hello Love, Track and Field)

2. Noisettes – IWE (What’s The Time, Mr Wolf?, Universal Motown)

3. Sharon Jones & The DapKings – 100 Days, 100 Nights (100 Days, 100 Nights,

Daptone Records)

4. Super Furry Animals – Run Away (Hey Venus!, Rough Trade)

5. Emma Pollock – Acid Test (Watch the Fireworks, 4AD)

6. Paris Motel – Catherine By The Sea (In the Salpetriere, Loose Music)

7. Immaculate Machine – Dear Confessor (Fables, Mint Records)

8. Radiohead – Reckoner (In Rainbows, MP3 Download)

9. Herman Dune – I Wish That I Could See You Soon (Giant, Source Etc.)

10. Shy Child – Drop the Phone (Noise Won’t Stop, Wall of Sound)

11. Sylvie Lewis – Of Course, Isabelle… (Translations, Cheap Lullaby Records)

12. Iron and Wine – Boy With A Coin (The Shepherd’s Dog, Transgressive)

13. Laura Veirs – Nightingale (Saltbreakers, Nonesuch)

14. Lady Sovereign – Gatheration (Public Warning, Universal)

15. The Crimea – The 48A Waiting Steps (Secrets of the Witching Hour, MP3 Download)

16. The Besnard Lakes – For Agent 13 (The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse, Jagjaguwar)

17. Feist – I Feel It All (The Reminder, Polydor)

18. Roadside Poppies – People Who Never Answer Surveys (One Day You Won’t Feel A Thing, MP3 Download)

19. The Shins – Phantom Limb (Wincing the Night Away, Transgressive)

20. Rilo Kiley – 15 (Under the Blacklight, Warner Bros)

21. Arcade Fire – Ocean of Noise (Neon Bible, Music Brokers)

2006

Camera Obscura – If Looks Could Kill (Let’s Get Out of This Country, Elefant)

MJ Hibbett and the Validators – The Fight for History (We Validate!, Artists Against Success)

The Pipettes – Pull Shapes (We Are The Pipettes, Memphis Industries)

Paul Burch – John Peel (East to West, Bloodshot)

Flipron – Dogboy Vs Monsters (Biscuits for Cerberus, Tiny Dog)

The Long Blondes – Separated by Motorways (Someone to Drive You Home, Rough Trade)

The Handsome Family – Flapping Your Broken Wings (Last Days of Wonder, Carrot Top)

Colonel Bastard – Phone Box (MP3 download, www.colonelbastard.com)

The Hidden Cameras – Wandering (Awoo, Rough Trade)

Jim Bob – The Fist Big Concert for the Orchestra (School, Cherry Red)

The Piney Gir Country Roadshow – Big Apple Stomp (Hold Yer Horses, Truck)

Tilly and the Wall – Rainbows in the Dark (Bottoms of Barrels, Team Love)

Neko Case – Hold On, Hold On (Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, Anti)

M Ward – Right in the Head (Post War, 4AD)

Darren Hayman – Caravan Song (Table for One, Track and Field)

The Hot Puppies – Bonnie + Me (Under the Crooked Moon, Fierce Panda)

Stephen Merritt – Ukulele Me! (Showtunes, Nonesuch)

Calexico – Bisbee Blue (Garden Ruin, City Slang)

Hot Chip – And I Was A Boy From School (The Warning, EMI)

Grandaddy – Guide Down Denied [edit] (Just Like The Fambly Cat, V2)

Erin McKeown – Thanks for the Boogie Ride (Sing You Sinners, Nettwerk)

The Broken Family Band – You’re Like A Woman (Balls, Track and Field)

Old Crow Medicine Show – New Virginia Creeper (Big Iron World, Nettwerk)

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Honeybear (Show Your Bones, Dress Up)

Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint – Ascension Day (The River In Reverse, Verve Forecast)

2005

1. Erin McKeown – Bells and Bombs (We Will Become Like Birds, Nettwerk)

2. Sleater-Kinney – Jumpers (The Woods, Sub Pop)

3. Half Man Half Biscuit – For What Is Chatteris… (Achtung Bono, Probe Plus)

4. Doves – Almost Forgot Myself (Some Cities, Heavenly)

5. I Am Kloot – Sand and Glue (Gods and Monsters, Echo)

6. John Prine – Taking a Walk (Fair and Square, Oh Boy!)

7. Unit – The Explorer (Straight to Video EP, self-released)

8. The Young Knives – Weekends and Bleak Days (Junkie Music Make My Heart Beat Faster EP, Transgressive)

9. The Pipettes – Tell Me What You Want (Dirty Mind single, Memphis Industries)

10. Thomas Truax – The Fish (I’m Coming Home) (Audio Addiction, Psycho Teddy!)

11. The Raveonettes – Sleepwalking (Pretty In Black, Columbia)

12. Alfie – Your Own Religion (Crying at Teatime, Regal)

13. Milburn – Storm In A Teacup (Showroom single, Free Construction)

14. Colonel Bastard – Cup of Tea (Halcyon Days, self-released)

15. The New Pornographers – Jackie, Dressed In Cobras (Twin Cinema, Matador)

16. The Hot Puppies – Terry (single, Label Fandango)

17. The Crimea – Girl Just Died (Tragedy Rocks, Warner)

18. My Morning Jacket – Off The Record [edit] (Z, RCA)

19. Immaculate Machine – Broken Ship (Ones and Zeros, Mint)

20. Chris T-T – The Huntsman Comes A-Marchin (9 Red Songs, Snowstorm)

21. Misty’s Big Adventure – The Story of Love (The Black Hole, SL)

The Impossible Dream

Part of me hopes Toyota and/or Williams go out of business so we can have the top teams running a third car, which I think would be brilliant for F1.

But I suppose, more seriously, I have to say the news of Honda’s withdrawal is horrific news for F1. I’m not convinced by Mosley’s arguments that it shows the need to cut costs; rather, it shows F1 is not a valid business model in an economic downturn. It cannot pay teams enough prize money to guarantee their survival, largely because the company that owns it, CVC, is in hock up to its eyeballs.

But what about Honda? Ironically, it started to go wrong for them as soon as they bought out BAR and re-named the team in 2005. That year’s car was not as fast relative to the rest of the field as its predecessor, which had admittedly been flattered by Williams, Renault and McLaren all having less impressive machines than in 2003. Then in 2006 the team’s unimpressive form apparently continued, to the point where it sacked Geoff Willis for his failure to deliver a race-winning car… except the car then did win a race, and the squad had a strong back end of the season.

And the 2007 and 2008 machines… we all know about them. They seemed to result from the team switching to being run by corporate executives with a big business philosophy, rather than by racing men like Willis: it’s the same reason why it would be astonishing to see Toyota taking regula race wins; and surely the recruitment of Ross Brawn recognised that switching to this mode of racing had been a mistake. Would the execs have pulled the plug so readily if the mistake had never been made and the team had been a front-runner this year? We’ll never know. But there’s a case for saying the roots of the decision lie in the disappointments of 2005 and 2006 that led to the sacking of Willis.

But the team surely also suffered for its failure to attract a title sponsor: Honda had to pay for the whole shebang themselves; all that nonsense “Earth dream” branding was just disguising the lack of a big backer.

There are silver linings for the team, however. As they are the first team to fold, they are well-placed to court possible buyers: if there is a viable deal to be had, perhaps the former Honda squad will snap it up before any future failed teams can. And I hope it happens: the points Fry and Brawn have been making about the desirability of the assets in the team are sound, and it will be an agonising “what if?” of Formula One history if the 2009 Honda is never given a chance to meet its challenge of returning the team to the top.

The big loser in all this is not Button, but Barrichello: he is not under contract, and even if Honda would have retained him, it seems unlikely a new buyer will sign him up – more likely they will want a younger and sponsor-laden driver. That said, things look tough for Button: even if he is left without a drive, he will be too late to sign up for the BBC’s commentary team, which will be a real shame – I remember thinking he was an excellent addition when he made a guest appearance for Monaco in 2005.

The Advent Calendar of Fact!

Much as it goes against the grain to be making a Christmas post only a few scant days into December, I’ve got to say you should check out one of the surprisingly few decent indie Christmas songs: MJ Hibbett and the Validators’ The Advent Calendar of Fact.