I’m not about to reveal my favourite albums of 2007 – these will take their usual leisurely time to appear and once again include albums that weren’t released this year. Nor am I going to reflect on specific music – it’s all in this blog anyway.
Instead just a simple acknowledgement of how the community around last.fm can do wonders. I’d like to thank all my last.fm friends and especially undrentide72 and jadedingenue for prodding me in the direction of new music. This is a roundabout way of thanking Hannah Fury for revitalising my love of music and teaching me to feel every note and every word, to wear each song and to continuously dig for more. Each listen bringing new discoveries.
It’s no coincidence that 2007 also saw more growth in the democratisation of music – bringing artists and fans closer together. Kristin Hersh and L7’s Donita Sparks launched CASH Music, Trent Reznor split from Universal/Interscope and Radiohead did their thing with In Rainbows (which in its brief ‘pay whatever you want’ run netted the band more income from digital sales than all their previous albums put together.)
Music is only the start. Direct connections between providers and consumers will grow throughout 2008. Distributors of content and the physical stores associated with them should be very afraid.
I have few expectations for music of next year, apart from a regular arrivals of something from Kristin Hersh. Surprise me! However, I live with the hope that Butterfly Boucher will release her second album, probably named Scary Fragile, early in 2008. The Breeders have Mountain Battles scheduled for release in March and Rochdale’s electronic duo Autechre should release Quaristice in April. Goldfrapp will release Seventh Tree in February, but I think most people who care will have heard it already given it leaked in November. See above. There’ll also be albums from Terami Hirsch and her tantalising side project Story Of My Ghost.
I also want more stuff from Ayria and from fellow Canadian Emm Gryner (will happen), I want Sleater-Kinney to reform (won’t happen), I want Electrelane to reform (might happen), I want to receive my Pretty Balanced albums. And finally, I want George Pringle to release something. Yeah, okay I might be a year late here and I know I can get hold of Carte Postale and I can listen to her tracks on last.fm or MySpace and I know that Poor EP, Poor EP Without a Name is due out in March, but still. All this waiting just sucks.
And I want musicians to start blogging properly. This means not using MySpace or Facebook – ‘cos that’s like trying to paint the Mona Lisa on the back of a beermat, when you’re in a pub full of strangers. Oh, and private blogs are so bizarre, so they don’t count either. No, I mean a proper regularly updated blog with music and photos and comments. For everything. None of this separation of news from other content. It’s all the same. It’s all about engaging with your audience.
