Top 10 mp3 blogs, in alphabetical order:

• And Before The First Kiss
• All That Ever Mattered
• Filles Sourires
• Heaven is Above Your Head
• I’m Not Always So Stupid
• Indie MP3
• Skatterbrain
• Stereo
• The Blues Are Still Blue
• Tullycraft’s blog

In 2007, I mostly let circumstances decide what I listened too. Circumstances were that I spent more than half my days (and nights) away from home; I don’t think I’ll ever be able to listen to France Gall or Die Fünf Freunde again without being reminded of those long first weeks in Oxfordshire, when I was wondering where life had taken me and what it all was leading to. It was mostly mp3s, downloaded from the aformentioned blogs –and, of course, a dozen others, as well as some great blogs for inspiration– that took me through the nights spent alone. The idea of being unable to listen to new songs when I first saw them being blogged about didn’t sound very exciting, but it worked out well: I never was at a loss of things to listen to really and neither was I really overwhelmed about the amount of things I could have listened to.

I saw seven gigs in 2007 if I counted well –more than in 2006– of which The First Division in Exeter back in April stands out, mostly because it was our gig after all. But the best moment was when Rose Melberg played Cast Away The Clouds, in Oxford in August. In case I’ll reread this in 25 years, when writing my autobiography, I should mention the pretty good perfomances of Sodastream, Electrophönvintage and Los Campesinos! as well.

As for albums, I listened to fewer than in fifteen years. I could probably write a lot of blah blah about why albums are so twentieth century and songs are the new thing, but it just happened to be this way for me, right now. One or two really good songs just was enough, most of the time. I did hear a few good ones though, like Tullycraft, Trembling Blue Stars, A Smile And A Ribbon, Club 8, Eux Autres and that Filles Fragiles compilation. But when I’m 75, and thinking back of the autumn of 2007, I hope I still remember how I completely and utterly fell in love with The Lucksmiths. And that it’ll still mean as much to me.

Music didn’t play as big a role as in my life as it used to, but it still means a whole lot to me. Even more, perhaps.

It’s been a good year.

We haven’t sent any Christmas cards. Our excuse being that Christmas came so early this year. I mean, I might have been complaining here –by way of not posting, mostly– about being busy, tired and unmotivated all of December, but it does feel like November was yesterday and May only last week. Have we really arrived at the last Tuesday of the year? Well, we have it seems, as the shops are closed, trains don’t run and I’m typing this wearing an apron, while the oven is taking further care of the food.

To treat yourself with some fine non-Christmas tunes for Christmas, you should hop over to Cloudberry and download the songs by The Occasional Flickers and The First Division (and, if you feel like it, the 71 other songs too). The former is the band of Greek-turned-Scotsman Giorgos, whose Rucksack might be his best song to date and the latter by the band who played their first and only gig during Exeter Goes Pop!, back in April and whose Cloudberry release is their debut EP.

And then you should browse to All That Ever Mattered. That is a brand new mp3 blog, which took its moniker from a Shop Assistants song, and blogs about the likes of Henry’s Dress and the criminally overlooked Girls At Our Best. And, most importantly perhaps, it is written by a compatriot of mine.

A few years ago, I went through a phase of trying to listen to as many different kinds of music as possible. I thought that was what you were supposed to do, if you were serious about this music thing: breeding an eclectic-yet-personal taste. But after trying all possible genres but metal, all I found was that I always liked the pop bit best. So then, tired of trying, I gave up and stopped bothering about how my it might appear to others and just listen to pop and (almost) nothing but pop. Only to start two new obsessions straight away: one for 1960s girl groups and one for female French singers: so-called filles fragiles.

As Guuzbourg, who both does the Filles Sourires blog and compiled the Filles Fragiles compilation, recently put it on Dutch radio: ‘these girls might not always sing in tune, but they mean it very well’. There you go: this might be the essence of what I’ve always liked in music. And though, apart from having been an avid Tour the France follower, I’ve never had any strong connection to France or the French culture –I have, for instance, never read a French book– I do like the sound of the language. In fact, I’ve always done and old personal favourites like Watoo Watoo, Souvenir and Fotomoto fit in very well with héroïnes françaises of the past and present: France Gall, Fabienne Delsol, Miou Miou, Constance Verluca and Yelle, all of whom entered my world through Filles Sourires.

Of these artists, only Souvenir is featured on the compilation which can (and should) be seen of a celebration of the blog. This, however, says a lot more about the abundance of good French singers than about wrong choices having been made. It is supposed to be an introduction after all. And a damn good introduction it is, to the point where I can hardly point out my favourites: just when I have decided I kike the more electronic tunes by Division Kent and Emilie Simon best, I find myself deeply touched by a more old-fashioned chanson like the one by Agnès Bihl. Let’s just say I really like the compilation as a whole. And, something that with ageing has become much more important than it being an example of my eclecticism: it is a brilliant album to listen to while working too.

Filles Fragiles came out on the Dutch Sound Not Scene label and can be ordered through, among others, Amazon.

2007 Christmas songs top 3:

1. Eux Autres – Another Christmas Time At Home [via]
2. Fireflies – X-mas Song [via]
3. Rose and Gregory – Merry Christmas (I Don’t want To Fight Tonight) [via]

If at school we were to do ten exercises, I always gave up halfway through the tenth one. That is, I didn’t just abandon it, I just made it appear as if I had tried really hard, but totally overlooked the second part. I’m awful like that. I suppose it explains the lack of motivation I’ve felt through most of December, which is the Friday afternoon (or the last exercise) of the year after all.

And it’s not like work is very stressful at the moment; in fact it might be one of the most quiet times of the year. I actually have more problems with other things, like sending emails or even listening to music, that seem to require a much bigger effort from my brain than spending an extra hour debugging some perl code. Which says a lot about me, probably.

I did develop a new musical obsession though, on the aforementioned Eux Autres, whose new album Cold City was released earlier this month. And I managed to write a post for Filles Sourires about Ukrainian Fotomoto. I also read a couple books, of which I found JPod annoying and Norwegian Wood very sweet, even despite the overabundance of sex.

But most of all I spend my time looking forward to Friday, lunch time, when my Christmas holidays will start. More than ten days of doing nothing, of not being able to bury my already dead brain in some perl code any more. Perhaps I’ll even start making sense by then.

You might not be aware that there is a Facebook group for Exeter Goes Pop! I wasn’t until very recently, when I found out a London based friend is a member. The fact that our Facebook group has more members than our club night’s highest attandence says something about the incredible coolness of the nights. If you aren’t on Facebook, you might just want to come to the club night’s next editon, which happens to be tonight. As usual, it’s at the Phoenix, from 8pm to 11pm and we won’t charge you anything. To make things even better, local act The Young Sensation will play a couple of acoustic songs.

Krrrr. Pwwwwwrrrt. Tchkchkchk. Tttttttttrrrrrrrt. Oh, hello. That was my head, which is going slightly bonkers after three days of fighting with a server that just didn’t want to listen. And no, it is not life threatening if the server doesn’t work properly, and wouldn’t even have been had it ceased to exist altogether, but I can tell you, that doesn’t make it any less frustrating. Though now, after days of soothing words, less soothing words, changing some screws and the occasional kick –all of them virtual of course– it seems to be back to its normal, well-behaving state. And, I think, not because of anything I had done to it.

So I’m slowly getting back to planet earth, only to discover my various inboxes and mailing lists are overflowing with unread messages. And oh, people are posting end-of-year lists everywhere it feels like I’ve only been listening to the Lucksmiths and Tullycraft this year. Which is nonsense, of course, and I’ve only been working under some high self-induced pressure for a couple of days, but it goes to show how easily one loses touch these days.

(I have a feeling I’m losing touch with what I wanted to say too. I didn’t meant this to digress into a self-portrait up to elbows in self-pity.)

I did listen to a couple of podcasts though, including Pa pa pa pa ra pa pa pas, a popcast of songs that share pa pa pas and ba ba bas in their lyrics, by the Not Quite Rocket Science people, as well as Loud and pop, a Hey Hey Honeypopcast of happy uptempo songs. Both of them worked well inducing fun, reducing stress and replacing caffeine, so you might want to give them a listen too.

And ff you happen to be Santa Claus*, then you might like to know about my two latest additions to my wish list. One is a new instalment of the Sound of Leamington Spa series, with 20 songs by as many bands of which I only know three or so. The other is Filles Fragiles, the official soundtrack to the Filles Sourires blog, which actually can be listened to by clicking this link.

* Don’t take this too literally, if only because I might get hold of the second one already.

** Using footnotes makes this blog suddenly look like a brother of Symbolic Forest, doesn’t it?