With all the year stuff I mean. This is a virus free zone, and I’m happy in my little bubble (damn nearly mentioned it there)…
The last couple of weeks of the year were stupid busy for work, so I’ve not done a proper end of year review, again. I think I gave the same excuse last year. Anyway I’ve done plenty of rounding up elsewhere amongst other things I can point you at for satisfying new year reading.
First up my review of the Americana year over at AUK. You can read that here. I kept up the fire on the streaming services, and talked about Bandcamp, again. Also some great albums. Jack Henderson’s was fab, but was beaten by a whisker to Americana album of year by Emma Swift’s ‘Blonde on the Tracks’. You can read the whole team’s choices here. Alec Bowman wrote a piece explaining all the stuff I’ve been going on about from the artist’s point of view for AUK as well. Read it here and turn your back on Spotify in 2021.
Over at Duggystone Radio I talked about December, normally a time for stocking filler compilations, which has turned in some cracking music this year. You can read my views on McCartney, Swift, Kim Edgar and Magic Dance, the latter two I’ve championed before and have turned in the best albums of their careers so far.
The one album that didn’t get a mention in all this that has been my most played since its release is Blue Note Reimagined. London Jazz News summed it up as well as I could. It also provides pointers to the original versions. The dominance of Wayne Shorter is interesting with 5 of his tunes covered. Following my February “Giving Snobbery the Byrd” piece, the 70s get a good look in as well, although I’m not sure I can take the credit there…
So, we’re still here, and it has been the busiest year yet at 160gigblog. a third more posts than 2019, which probably means I had nothing else to do. If you have been thanks for reading, and those figures are up as well, and here’s looking forward to whatever 2021 has to offer.
