The end of any calendar year is a time of reflection. Looking back on what was achieved, then using that lack of achievement to motivate yourself to achieve more next time. We tend to be pretty rough on ourselves like that

There’s a line early on in Martin Scorsese’s 2019 pseudo-documentary Rolling Thunder Revue where Bob Dylan says: “Life isn’t about finding yourself or finding anything. It’s about creating yourself and creating things”.

Well, that was a year, wasn’t it? A year that felt like a decade where the curse of 2020 began as a silly joke and ended up as a hushed fact, whispered about in darkened corners of empty saloons late at night.

It’s been a busy year, old 2019. Not sure if it’s been a fantastic year for music or not, that’s one that could go either way because it feels like one where there hasn’t really been any of those instant and enormous classics but there’ve been a whole lot of really good albums in that next tier below. All a matter of perspective.

It’s getting harder and harder to narrow down a list of albums to ten favourites each year. There are just so many records out there, all so accessible, so many creative people doing amazing things, all making their way onto the internet’s hype train until they’re replaced by the next big thing before you’ve hardly had a chance to listen.

The opening track of Parquet Courts’ latest album is the best opening track of any album this year and probably sweeps the floor with last year too. The album’s called Wide Awake! The song is called Total Football.

Visions from the edge of the culture. Messages from the groovy beyond. A lot of this stuff is a little riskier and more out there so maybe chuck on that tin foil cap before we proceed.

Maybe it was a dispute with the label, maybe personal differences within the band or maybe the artist simply decided it wasn’t good enough for release. Hitchhiker isn’t even Neil Young’s most famous lost album – he’s got at least two more legendary efforts that have never seen the light of day.

Chris Cornell was a stunningly impressive singer. He wrote great songs. His words rang true with a legion of fans and the man was, you have to admit, a damn good looking fellow. That right there is the complete package

It started with a song. All albums do, to be fair, except that this song wasn’t even on the album.

The originator, the educator, the innovator, the calculator, the captivator, the vindicator, the demonstrator, the facilitator, the perpetrator and the motorvator. That was Chuck Berry.