Friday 4 December 2009

3WTM's Album of the Year

Deciding on the album of the year has been a difficult one this year, some years an album just takes it by a country mile. This year it's not been so simple, no one album has stuck out that much for me. There have been a lot of notable albums from already established artists such as Doves, Muse, Kasabian, Reverend & The Makers, The Maccabees, Jarvis Cocker and returning The Prodigy. Add to that debuts from Ed Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros , La Roux, Florence and the Machine and The Airborne Toxic Event. It gave me a whole heap of albums to look at. Before you say anything I was disappointed with Green Day and Arctic Monkey's latest albums, I hope you are enjoying them more than me, that's all I can say.

Anyway on to the album of the year, in fact for me this band pick up two awards, album of the year and live band of the year. The second title being an unfair contest as I have been to very few gigs this year and that tips it in their balance. If you haven't guessed yet the winner is White Lies, early promise was matched with a cracking album, one that had a consistent theme throughout yet the songs were varied. Seeing them live just impressed on me even more what good artists they are, from the lead singers voice to the sound they created. Not always easy in the not-so-good O2 Academy in Bristol. To celebrate them winning I thought I'd post the cover they played at the gig, Heaven, originally by Talking Heads. This recording is from their gig in Berlin this year, thanks to Just Music That I Like for the track, Jessica you're a star.

If you don't own White Lies album you know what you need to do...

2 comments:

Schönberg said...

Good choice for album of the year. My top 5 would have been:

1. White Lies - To lose my life
2. La Roux - La Roux
3. The Cribs - Ignore the ignorant
4. Jarvis Cocker - Further complications
5. The Horrors - Primary Colours

Anonymous said...

Couldn't agree more......I bought tickets to see them in Manchester long before Glasto and took my 15 year old nephew for his first Apollo gig........and what a gig.
A brilliant voice, thought provoking lyrics, presence on stage and well, simply WOW! And not just in front of 2500; went to see them at FAC251 on Valentines Day with only 450 other dedicated fans and the atmosphere was dripping off the walls.
I was lucky enough to see about 15 or so gigs last year and White Lies & Doves far outshone them all. (That said, there wasn't one that was a bad gig either!)