Ten Years High & Rising - It Starts With a Birthstone - Albums of the Year 2016 - 2023

 

I started posting on It Starts With a Birthstone in 2013. Originally as a way of recording my memories, feelings and thoughts about favourite albums from the Eighties, the decade when I first started buying records. Over time this has mutated into something else that's easier to do and more organic. A prompt to encourage me to listen to and write about music that's largely being released now. Or as near to now as I can get..

 Over time the blog has begun to dictate it's own shape and character, A routine has established itself, This is the direction I will continue to take from now on. A song and record every day. Building day by week by month. Eventually to a rundown of my favourite albums of the year. as darkness falls at the end of each year.  All this supplemented by posts on books and compilations that have taken my fancy and anything else that catches my notice and interest and  that I hope might interest others.. No big deal but a nice thing to do and I'll continue in the same manner from here.. 

Three years in, from 2016 I started listing my favourite albums and songs of on an annual basis. Something else to focus me as winter approached. So that year I wrote my first annual list of favourite albums, topped with Bowie's final record and the most recent one Radiohead have released, accompanied in the Top Three by Regina Spector who I fell completely in love with for a few years.. 

Here are my top three records for each year since then. No artist has recorded two entries as of yet. Not deliberate on my part. Just the way it's gone. But something I'm quite pleased with. I try to be reasonably eclectic.

There are some pretty good records here. Perhaps I should give some of them another listen. But then the remit I've given myself here for the most point is to keep moving forward, and that for the most part is what I intend to do. Foot on the accelerator, into 2024....

2016

1. David Bowie - Blackstar

2. Radiohead - Heart-Shaped Pool

3. Regina Spector - Remember Us To Life

2017

1. Protomartyr - Relatives in Descent

2. Les Amazones D'Afrique - Republique Amazone 

3. The Feelies - In Between

2018

1. Janaelle Monae - Dirty Computer

2. The Good, The Bad & The Queen - Merrie Land

3. U.S. Girls - In a Poem Unlimited

2019

1. Bill Callahan - Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest

2. Sarathy Korwar - More Arriving

3. Vanishing Twin - The Age of Immunity

2020

1, SAULT Untitled (Rise)

2. Sufjan Stevens - Lamentations

3. Billy Nomates - Billy Nomates

2021

1. Greentea Peng - Greentea Peng

2. Little Simz - Sometimes I Might be Introvert

3. Jane Weaver - Flock

2022 

1. Joan Shelley - The Spur

2. Big Thief - Dragon New Mountain I Believe in You

3. Naima Bock - Giant Palm

2023

1. Lankum - False Lankum

2. John Cale - Mercy

3. Craven Faults - Standers