Thursday, August 6, 2026
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,341 White Stripes - Icky Thump
I confess I sometimes struggle with Jack White and wonder whether I should be listening to a record he likes instead.
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 98 Radiohead - Amnesiac
I try not to be a music snob though in some ways I realise I am. Music has been my major experience over the course of life really. There are other strands but music strikes me as the most important channel and source.
I'm not a competist as far as Radiohead go. I don't know all their records intimately. But frankly I'd say they dwarf most other bands in terms of their scope and ingenuity
Song(s) of the Day # 4,472 Gentle Brontosaurus
I love music that seems to come at you from another time and that seems to be a characteristic of music of these times. Gentle Brontosaurus hail from Madison Wisconsin and their vibe parks its tent midway between Alvvays and Belle & Sebastian.
But Three Hares their latest album takes me back further still. To the early to mid Eighties and the set of the more wholesome and tuneful bands of the American Alternative Invasion; the sweeter side of R.E.M., True West 10,000 Maniacs, Let's Active et al. Three Hares is at once and act of reclamation and rediscovery. It's sweet as American Ppie
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 147 CS Cleaners
'Start spreading the news....' Where shall we start with CS Cleaners. Art Punk New York ingenues and their debut album What's This? . So What's This? Is This It? I wonder . It may as well be . I've been driven back 25 years already today as my sister has been posting wonderful pictures of her Wedding Day on her 25th Wedding Anniversary and dragging me back to that day. Sometimes you need to be dragged back in order to be dragged into a new space . Life is funny like that.
What's This? may not be Is This It? . But it exists in a not disimilar, unapolagetic space. It's uncomfortable in its own skin and that's contagious. It has quite the worst / best album cover you'll see this year. A mangey, mishappen but deeply loveable panther that's highly artistically improbable but deeply desirable at one and the same time. The record makes you feel like you're back in CBGB's or the Knitting Factory having one of the best nights of your life. Apple Art ! Cor !!!!
1967 Top 40 8th June # 8 Jimi Hendrix Experience
;The traffic lights they turn blue tomorrow.'
To live in a moment when a song like this was im the Top Ten.
Wednesday, August 5, 2026
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,342 Led Zeppelin - Presence
Led Zep weree winding down but you wouldn't really have known it.
1967 Top 40 8th June # 9 Arthur Conley
120 seconds. A roll call. Some dances you might like to matser. No chorus to talk of but no real need for one.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 148 Drained Aeroplanes - Childish
The kind of record I'm immediately drawn to. An Australian band called Drained Aeroplanes. A name to conjur with. Childish. The title distils the essence of the record. Dreaming Sydney Indie. Short and sweet. Awkward and imprecise. Feels like as good a way to spend your youth as any.
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 99 Goldfrapp - Seventh Tree
Song(s) of the Day # 4,471 Fazed On A Pony
There are times on It Starts when it feels like I'm on a hitting streak. Like a midwest hitter rounding the bases with the ball long gone. I've got a few more up my sleeve for the coming days. Today Fazed On A Pony's swan. Out of Auckland and in the best Flying Nun traditions.
This one skims across the lake like a perfectly judged pebble.VBut it's a verstile pebble. arying its delivery and intent with each suceeding track. It's a record that makes you glad to be alive which is all you can really ask of any album. Wire meet The Chills.
Tuesday, August 4, 2026
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,343 Pearl Jam - Yield
I had my moments with Pearl Jam. An important friendship. Earnestness was the band's essential quality, but hey. I can be earnest myself. They also cannot resist drawing a metaphorical line in the metaphorical sand. Wuth them a song on every album comes along and my reaction is 'Yes'. There were actual several such moments on Yield.
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 100 Jim O'Rourke - Insignificance
You feel like you are in safe hands here. A verteran of Wilco and Sonic Youth.. A craftsman. This draws on Harry Nilsson and is all the more weathered and inscrutable for that.
1967 Top 40 8th June # 10 The Who
Remarkable given what this was surely about that it was allowed to reach the Top Ten without excessive comment,
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 149 Jose Gonzalez
I'm listening to Richard Thompson and thinking about Kevin Morby today. Jose Gonzalez' Against The Dying Of the Light has been chiming with that. Plugging into that primal Folk energy. Revving up the motor and presseing your bootheels on the accelerator and bombing down the woodland road until dawn.
There's some Nick Drake inspired poetics and picking and that's always welcome. This is some record. It has plenty of company in 2026.. 'Do not go gentle until that night.; You heard what the man says.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,470 Shearwater
There are records I think are slightly affected and I struggle while listening to them as to whether I like them or not. There's a line between ambitious and pretentious which can be akin to tightrope walking.
Shearwter's The New World is such a record. The band have two decades and seven albums behind them A long established artistic pedigree so it's probably a bit late in the day to take pot shot at them so I let it spin instead and it won me over presently and utterly. Orchestral Art Rock. But that's not always a bad thing. Daydream unbelievers.
Monday, August 3, 2026
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,344 Eno - Take Tiger Mountain
I suspect I should have more Brian Eno albums.
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 101 The National - Boxer
The National came to prominence at a time when I wasn't paying much attention to music. I've tried to catch up but suspect I never will. I confess I find this rather bloodless. I like the drumming but that's not in itself enough.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 150 Michael Ian Cummings - Godzilla
I was in two minds for today's Song(s) and Album(s) of the day because it's generally the latter these days on It Starts With a Birthstone. Should I share my thoughts on Make Up Is a Lie, The latest chapter in Morrissey's increasingly unhinged, slightly unpleasant and ridiculously self indulgent musical and personal narrative. He has opinions and he will not be silenced it seems.
That can wait I decided, for another day. Instead I decided Michael Ian Cummings, another suggestion from the ever reliable Darren Jones. An Art Rock album called Godzilla from the ashes of New York band Skaters. that's much to my liking.
There's a certain sadness here. A sense of life and experience receding in the rear view mirror but something exciting appearing round the next bend. Keep your foot pressed on the pedal. This is rather lovely. We're into the day
Song(s) of the Day # 4,469 Mallory Hawk
Texture. One of the distinctive qualities of the 4AD record label. Such an important ones to the likes of myself. Texture is there in abundance on Mallory Hawk's debut album Chinook. Light and shade. It's a record that's been a while in terms of its gestation and appearance but it's clearly worthy of the wait. Frankly this is a a special and magical record indeed.
Albums like these stand or fall on the investment and emotional stake cultivated in the listener for the musician or musicians behond it In this case I'd suggest that Hawk scores highly. I was won over in three songs.
This reminds me of Throwing Muse, Breeders and This Mortal Coil records, Willing to shift gear and move into space of one moment, then become more ruminative the next. Chinook is a pure state of being. Exceptional.
Sunday, August 2, 2026
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,345 The Beach Boys - Smiley Smile
I think what I love about the great Rock & Roll stories is that there always seems to be pretty much everything at stake. 'Oceans fall and mountains drift.'
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 151 The Chutes - The Chutes
'Let's go out tonight'. No let's not lest's stay in and feel sorry for ourelves. 'Do you remember when we used to hate the sunshine.' It seems that in 2026 the Spiritual home of the jingle jangle sound of C-86 and Sarah Records is San Farncisco. Latest piece of evidence for the prosecition The Chutes. The debut album by.... erm. See if you can guess.
This is wan, knowing and doesn;t stray from the Twee formula for a moment. It's all highly crafted, sticks to the script and that's all fine by me. A night that never ends. Well actually this does. After seven songs and twenty two minutes,
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 102 Loretta Lynn - Van Lear Rose
An archive of beauty. Splendor.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,468 Of Montreal
Of Montreal's latest album aethermead is from the off driven by an arthouse persona driven conviction which has been worked on and refined for years. Athens, Georgia band always goes down well on It Starts With a Birthstone. Particular one with no obvious resemblance or DNA of their obvious antecedents B52s, R.E.M., Pylom amd so on and so forth,
This has a more particular set of reference points. The Wainwrights, Southern Literature and Films. A glass of wine from a good year. The finer things in life. This is gossamer light and deft. A rewarding as a rich meal in the company of cultivated company.
Saturday, August 1, 2026
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 152 Bill Orcutt - Music In Continuous Motion
I may have got to that age. The age where I can happily gaze at a fly wnadering across a pain of glass facing out on the street below While listening to Bill Orcutt's Music In Continuous Motion on my television set as the sun goes down. Then going over and cooking my tea. There are wirdse ways to spend a Monday evening in April,
The record is like something that Tom Verlaine and Tichard Lloyd might have dreamed up. Otcutt has been round the block more than most. He was apparently initually unspired to create by seeung Muddy Waters perform on The Last Waltz.. He's supported Sonuc Youth. He has nothing left to prove. But Music In Continuous Motion proves it. Just the facts !
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 103 William Basinski
There are four volumes of this should you have an afternoon free. There are worse ways to spend your time. Reflections on mortality and time conceived after 9/11.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,467 Land Whales
It's 2026. Where are we going? Your guess is every bit as good as mine. I have no crystal ball and I'm just back from my free eye test in tolwn where the optician said to me that the world would be completely unrecognisable in ten years time. I suspect he may be right. I needed new glasses but didn't buy any . Given the exorbitant cost.
I'm an EFL Teacher. I don't kid myself otherwise any longer. What you get in an EFL teacher is that they don't know very much about anything but a little bit about virtually everything. Enough anyhow to keep the conversation going.
I'm reasonably conversant and interested in music too. Hence this blog, which was launched in 2013. I started writing about the records I bought when I started building a record collection back in the Eighties. Now I try to focus on 'new' music. Although some of it doesn't sound completely 'new' to me,
Take Land Whales. Formed in La Habana in Cuba in 2021. They used to go under the name of Hey Joni, which tells you what you need to know.
If I consider myself remptely knowledgeable about anything apart from the rudiments of English lexis and grammarowaLand Whales are fond of Sonic Youth. They used to call themselves Hey Joni . They owe a debt to that band which they will never fully pay and their latest album How To Make A Breakfast sounds like a dogs dinner of distortion. feedback and inchoate rage in Sonic Youth's best tradition. You have to hane it to Land Whales. They're doing their legacy proud.. As someone else said 'It's a dirty job but someone's got to do it.' Land Whales sound far from beached.
Friday, July 31, 2026
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,346 The Waterboys - Fisherman's Blues
There was a gig during my first year at university which became the stuff of legend. I wasn't there. Isn't that always the case. I bought Fisherman's Blues which came out therefter. The Waterboys night still remains full of soul. Like all the best nights.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 153 Chanel Beads - Your Day Will Come
The second Song of the Day album in as many days from New York musicians. Start spreading the news, again lads. Sophomore album Your Day Will Come sounds neat in my living room on a Thursday evening.Endorsed by big hitters like Lorde, Rosalia and Billie Eilish. The record is elusive and high;y seductive.Chanel Beads
Song(s) of the Day # 4,467 Pye Corner Audio
What more could you want on a Friday morning than More Songs About The Sun. Just on cue here come Pye Corner Audio with just that. Feelgood electro throbbing chugging into clear waters and heading for the distant horizon. It seems clear we have the wind in our sails !
Thursday, July 30, 2026
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 100 Squarepusher - Kammerkonzert
The best way to be drawn unto a new record I find is to hear it first time in a record shop.Yesterday I wandered into Canterbury after a long day teaching. I made my way down St Margarey's Lane and poppped in at Vinylstore Jr to see my pal Nick making last minute preparations for Record Store Day. He had the new Squarepusher album Kammerkonzert on his turntable.
It sounded great and now it sounds great again as I'm listening to it in my parent's living room as the evening draws to a close.. Punchy, Jazzy exercises that might surprise those who associate Tim Jenkinson with more obviously 'Street' exercises from way back when . This is a thrilling record
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,347 Sam Cook - Night Beat
Sam Cooke is one of the great 'What ifs...' The hanging question marks.
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 154 Jesse Ware - Superbloom
I listened to Jesse Ware's latest album Superbloom last night. I'm listening to it again now. She takes the heady essential ingredients of original Seventies Disco. Distuls them to the essence and then unleashes the cork and allows you to rise to the ceiling like Uncle Albert in Mary Poppins. So you're floating up towards the ceiling. With all your favourite people. The helium fuelled staircase to heaven !
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 104 Broadcast - Ha Ha Sound
I have this album on record and every time I play it it immediately makes me want to own all of Broadcast's albums on vinyl. They were a quite extraordinary band . A band that sound as if they are turning the world spinning backwards in time.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,466 The Fragiles
It's that Velvet Underground sound ! Full of great tunes this one. A good song to me is like a narrative. Something that takes you in and takes you away. That has a melodic, lyrical, rhythmic or dissonant resonamce that transports you to a magical space and rises up to the challenge of your rival.
The Fragiles third album Sing The Heat Of The Sun is full of such narratives. And they knit together with propulsive and compelling energy. Kicking off like The Feelies adandoned offspring. They switch and change throughout the album but always take the weather with them. Heaven ! Independent heaven.
This is by turns wan and suburban. But it's also rather fearsome and deceptive. Fragile and wan. There's something just beautiful about this sound even if its instantly familiar
Wednesday, July 29, 2026
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,348 Phil Collins - Face Value
This album was so ubiquitous in the Eighties that it's difficult to write about without severe jaundice and melancholy sinking into my bones. I have to take it off.
500 Greatest Albums of the 2000's # 105 Coldplay - Parachutes
You can buy a vinyl copy of Parachutes in Waterstone's if you wish to. Well 'We live in a beautiful world' as the song goes. I was in Sicily when Coldplay broke. I found them a bit wet . Then I went to Poland. A Rush of Blood To The Head came out and a beautiful Polish woman drove me from Katowice To Krakow and back one wonderful day and I came round to them rather. But I'm listening to this and it still sounds rather wet
It Starts With a Birthstone - 200 Albums for 2026 # 155 Lenny Kaye - Goin' Local
Lenny Kaye strikes me as an admirable man. A Rock & Roll Man. Goin' Local his debut solo album at the age is simplicity and wonder and really rather lovely. This strikes me as tapping on a seam of honey. Into an essence. It's a quite beautiful record of childlike wonder.
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