winter discontent: sleeve notes
It's that time of year again! And also time for my Christmas / Yuletide / Solstice / end of year compilation, which is < 25% Christmas by weight, and almost certainly < 100% enjoyable for everyone except me.
I hope you find something you like, and maybe something that's a pleasant surprise. Comments, feedback et cetera very welcome. Also please let me know if the links don't work.
Listen on Spotify!
Download from Google Drive!
Jing-A-Ling / Harbour Lights
Cheery cover version of the Andrews Sisters’ original from 1950, with a pleasingly artificial faux-antique flavour.
Skeletons / Brothers Osborne
First heard on the soundtrack of Netflix’s Sandman series: I wasn’t optimistic about the adaptation, but was (mostly) pleasantly surprised. And it did introduce me to this band, who I find I rather like.
Baby Don’t You Know / Ciel
This has shown up on several ‘best of indie rock/pop 2022’ lists, but I first heard it while driving to the Eastbourne Air Show back in the summer, a day of which I have fond memories. The sound reminds me of 90s favourites like the Cranberries and Lush.
The Lightning I, II / Arcade Fire
I don’t think I’ve loved recent Arcade Fire albums as much as 2004’s Funeral, but this year’s We has some good tracks: I especially like the tempo/melody modulation into the second half of this two-part song. (See also: ‘Here Comes the Nighttime’ from Reflector, 2013.) And the exuberance of that second half is uplifting every time I hear it.
Kentucky Fried Christmas / Anne Wilson
There is something about Christmas country music that clicks for me, when typical country music emphatically does not. I first heard this on a Spotify playlist and instantly bought it. NB: My friend Anne Wilson claims that this is not her side gig.
Picturesque / Editors
Super-intense (‘bludgeoning’ according to the NME) song about blinkered nostalgia and sunlit uplands. Or so it seems to me. Probably not about Brexit, given that it’s from 2013.
Hard Times / Paramore
A bouncy pop song about depression, which turned out to be what I needed. (The song, that is.)
Why Not / Unloved
A gothy pop song about depression. Strongly reminiscent of Siouxsie and the Banshees at times, mostly because of the vocal timbre.
I Belong to You/Mon Coeur S'Ouvre a Ta Voix / Muse
This is from 2009 but is highly relevant this year, as my sole opera experience was the utterly splendid Royal Opera production of Saint-Saens’ Samson et Delilah, which Muse quote here. My prog-rock tendencies are largely due to the blend of classical and rock, and this track does it brilliantly: it flows.
Ghost From Christmas Past / Christone "Kingfish" Ingram
There are a lot of ‘Christmas Blues’ but they are mostly about being alone on Christmas Day, which does not appall me as much as it’s supposed to. I like the guitar on this.
The Chain / Fleetwood Mac
I’d added this to my handwritten list of ‘Xmas CD Maybe?’ quite a while back, because it’s the soundtrack to one of the most compelling (and beautifully filmed) scenes in Our Flag Means Death, my fandom crush this year. (Coming to BBC in 2023! No piracy necessary!). … Then Christine McVie died, which I was sad about: Fleetwood Mac, and especially Rumours, brought joy to my childhood.
Kick the Balls (Of Patriarchy) / Goldstein
Sometimes you just want a short feminist transformative work. Especially when the next track starts ‘I’m not stupid: I’m a man’.
Only Losers Take the Bus (I'm Not Stupid) / The Fatima Mansions
RIP lead singer Cathal Coughlan. I played this track on repeat when I first heard it back in the 1990s, and made tapes of the album Against Nature for several friends. Never got to see Fatima Mansions live, sadly, though I’m fairly sure I saw Microdisney, who he also fronted.
Rocket Ship / Kathy McCarty
Another soundtrack discovery, this time from the rotoscoped space-age film Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood. The soundtrack was mostly contemporary music from the 60s and the 70s, but this song fitted very nicely.
Winternight Whisperings / Valentine Wolfe
Gothtastic wintery song.
I Want Bad Moon Diamonds / Dan Mei
A mashup featuring Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Bad Moon Rising’ — a song I like, though slightly less than I did before seeing Travelin' Band: Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall, which featured at least three renditions. Though the mashup phenomenon seems to be dying out (I blamethe government recording companies), there are some good ones out there, and this is especially well-edited.
Breathing / Kate Bush
An Eighties favourite from the Cold War and the years of fearing nuclear war: resurrected for this CD in homage to one of the best books I read this year, The Half-Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley, set at a nuclear research facility in Soviet Russia in the 1960s. Honourable mention, too, for An Evening Without Kate Bush, one of the highlights of my Edinburgh Festival trip this year.
A Distant Light / Blaqk Audio
Winter nights, not nuclear winter. Probably.
Groovy Xmas / The Linda Lindas
Light and cheery Christmas song from all-female, all-teenage LA punk-pop band who appeared in the film Moxie).
How Valencia Stole Christmas / Valencia
Less-light, less-cheery but great fun: (mostly) anti-Christmas song riffing on old seasonal classics. ‘You should see the lyrics on the cutting room floor,’ they told Prelude Press.
I hope you find something you like, and maybe something that's a pleasant surprise. Comments, feedback et cetera very welcome. Also please let me know if the links don't work.
Listen on Spotify!
Download from Google Drive!
Jing-A-Ling / Harbour Lights
Cheery cover version of the Andrews Sisters’ original from 1950, with a pleasingly artificial faux-antique flavour.
Skeletons / Brothers Osborne
First heard on the soundtrack of Netflix’s Sandman series: I wasn’t optimistic about the adaptation, but was (mostly) pleasantly surprised. And it did introduce me to this band, who I find I rather like.
Baby Don’t You Know / Ciel
This has shown up on several ‘best of indie rock/pop 2022’ lists, but I first heard it while driving to the Eastbourne Air Show back in the summer, a day of which I have fond memories. The sound reminds me of 90s favourites like the Cranberries and Lush.
The Lightning I, II / Arcade Fire
I don’t think I’ve loved recent Arcade Fire albums as much as 2004’s Funeral, but this year’s We has some good tracks: I especially like the tempo/melody modulation into the second half of this two-part song. (See also: ‘Here Comes the Nighttime’ from Reflector, 2013.) And the exuberance of that second half is uplifting every time I hear it.
Kentucky Fried Christmas / Anne Wilson
There is something about Christmas country music that clicks for me, when typical country music emphatically does not. I first heard this on a Spotify playlist and instantly bought it. NB: My friend Anne Wilson claims that this is not her side gig.
Picturesque / Editors
Super-intense (‘bludgeoning’ according to the NME) song about blinkered nostalgia and sunlit uplands. Or so it seems to me. Probably not about Brexit, given that it’s from 2013.
Hard Times / Paramore
A bouncy pop song about depression, which turned out to be what I needed. (The song, that is.)
Why Not / Unloved
A gothy pop song about depression. Strongly reminiscent of Siouxsie and the Banshees at times, mostly because of the vocal timbre.
I Belong to You/Mon Coeur S'Ouvre a Ta Voix / Muse
This is from 2009 but is highly relevant this year, as my sole opera experience was the utterly splendid Royal Opera production of Saint-Saens’ Samson et Delilah, which Muse quote here. My prog-rock tendencies are largely due to the blend of classical and rock, and this track does it brilliantly: it flows.
Ghost From Christmas Past / Christone "Kingfish" Ingram
There are a lot of ‘Christmas Blues’ but they are mostly about being alone on Christmas Day, which does not appall me as much as it’s supposed to. I like the guitar on this.
The Chain / Fleetwood Mac
I’d added this to my handwritten list of ‘Xmas CD Maybe?’ quite a while back, because it’s the soundtrack to one of the most compelling (and beautifully filmed) scenes in Our Flag Means Death, my fandom crush this year. (Coming to BBC in 2023! No piracy necessary!). … Then Christine McVie died, which I was sad about: Fleetwood Mac, and especially Rumours, brought joy to my childhood.
Kick the Balls (Of Patriarchy) / Goldstein
Sometimes you just want a short feminist transformative work. Especially when the next track starts ‘I’m not stupid: I’m a man’.
Only Losers Take the Bus (I'm Not Stupid) / The Fatima Mansions
RIP lead singer Cathal Coughlan. I played this track on repeat when I first heard it back in the 1990s, and made tapes of the album Against Nature for several friends. Never got to see Fatima Mansions live, sadly, though I’m fairly sure I saw Microdisney, who he also fronted.
Rocket Ship / Kathy McCarty
Another soundtrack discovery, this time from the rotoscoped space-age film Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood. The soundtrack was mostly contemporary music from the 60s and the 70s, but this song fitted very nicely.
Winternight Whisperings / Valentine Wolfe
Gothtastic wintery song.
I Want Bad Moon Diamonds / Dan Mei
A mashup featuring Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Bad Moon Rising’ — a song I like, though slightly less than I did before seeing Travelin' Band: Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall, which featured at least three renditions. Though the mashup phenomenon seems to be dying out (I blame
Breathing / Kate Bush
An Eighties favourite from the Cold War and the years of fearing nuclear war: resurrected for this CD in homage to one of the best books I read this year, The Half-Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley, set at a nuclear research facility in Soviet Russia in the 1960s. Honourable mention, too, for An Evening Without Kate Bush, one of the highlights of my Edinburgh Festival trip this year.
A Distant Light / Blaqk Audio
Winter nights, not nuclear winter. Probably.
Groovy Xmas / The Linda Lindas
Light and cheery Christmas song from all-female, all-teenage LA punk-pop band who appeared in the film Moxie).
How Valencia Stole Christmas / Valencia
Less-light, less-cheery but great fun: (mostly) anti-Christmas song riffing on old seasonal classics. ‘You should see the lyrics on the cutting room floor,’ they told Prelude Press.
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