It's 200 days until Christmas Day. At least according to my calculrions. So we're starting from here. I get more and more cynical about musical lists. For all kinds of reasons. Which I won't bore you with any further on here. Unless I'm provoked. But at the same time, on the surface at least lists becomes more and more the organising rationale of It Starts With a Birthstone. If you can't beat them join them I guess.
But I'm nothing if not stubborn. I'm doing this my way. I have just over 105 albums I've liked and reviewed on here so far this year. I'm pretty confident that should tick slowly upwards so we have a list of 200 worth talking about by Christmas Day. These are not really in any coherent or remotely serious orer. That won't happen until we get to December I imagine. But I like them all. We start with Richard Hawley which came out about a week ago.
Richard Hawley is one of those musicians you're encouraged to have an opinion about. I'm sure friends and acuaintances of mine that frequent music discussion hroups have strongly formed opinions of the man and his oevre.' His best album is....' 'It's all been downhill since...' I preferred him when he was in The Longpigs.' And so on.
I have no real opinion of him, not having extended exposure to any of his albums or seen him play. I listened to his latest album In This City They Call Love yesterday and quite liked it.
He's an odd fellow Hawley. He's not a particularly good looking man. He doesnt have a particularly good voice or write particularly outstanding songs. He's alright. He'll write a song like Heavy Rain which turned my head four songs into the album and you got the impression that it would inspire couples that loved each other to turn to each other on the sofa and share a moment.
He strikes me as a Sixties performer in some respects. His songs evoke the peculiarly English melancholy of a film like David Essex's That'll be The Day. This City They Call Love is haunted by a particularly distinctive melancholy.that reminds you of fairground rides. Del Shannon and Roy Orbison albums and the joys of browsing second hand shops on bleak Autumnal afternoons,
This isn't a particularly great record but it's difficult to find fault with it either. This is another Richard Hawley album to discuss with the Richard Hawley fan in your life.
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