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Obligatory summary of 2017

January 22nd, 2018 · Posted by Skuds in Life/Music · No Comments · Life, Music

Come the end of the year I believe it is customary to post a round up of the previous 12 months, or they take your blogging licence away or something, but I never really got round to it and now that 2018 is three weeks old already it is probably too late.I think that 2017 was a bit of a depressing year anyway, and nowhere near as exciting at 2017 with our 15th anniversary wedding re-enactment and second honeymoon. Lots of depressing events around the world, and a snap general election coming straight after our local council elections.

I listened to a fair bit of new music. Having finally ‘got’ grime I enjoyed going through some back catalogue of Bugzy Malone, Giggs and Skepta after hearing the Stormzy album. The big obsession was probably with Sleaford Mods, who I had heard of but never heard and are now one of my favourite thing. Other acts that were new to me, but got a lot of play were Father John Misty, Jane Weaver, Nadine Shah and the Moonlandingz.

Other than that I enjoyed new albums by Public Sector Broadcasting, Sparks, Paul Weller, Morrisey, Leon Russell and Blondie, but the year ended strongly for me with two albums full of cover versions. They had been released earlier in the year but I only heard thenm in the last week: Under Cover by Motorhead and Laune der Nature Spezialedition mit Learning English Lesson 2 by Die Toten Hosen, which were special for different reasons.

The Motorhead album was special just because it exists. With Lemmy dying last year I assumed that was it, but they must have had this in the can. OK, so there are no surprises; just covers of the sort of thing you would expect like Judas Priest, the Ramones and the Sex Pistols but still enjoyable. Maybe if Motorhead had tried doing something by Fleetwood Mac or Steely Dan it would have been interesting, but I suspect it would still have sounded like Motorhead.

Die Toten Hosen’s album was special for two reasons. Firstly the special edition came with a second disc that is entirely covers of English punk records. It is framed as an English lesson with some inter-song language lesson skits that are genuinely amusing – something the rappers should try. Secondly, one of the songs was Where’s Captain Kirk, with Spizz as a guest artist. As Die Toten Hosen are quite big in Germany and elsewhere, the album went platinum and so Spizz finally got himself a platinum disc!

The year ended strongly on TV because I finally discovered The Detectorists. Somehow the first two seasons passed me by, but there was so much chat about the final one that I went onto Netflix to binge-watch the earlier ones and then on to iPlayer to binge-watch the new one. It really was a delightful bit of TV and a great way to spend part of the holidays. That was on top of suprise ressurections of the League of Gentlemen and Vic & Bob’s Big Night Out.

Apart from that though, I shan’t be too sad to see the end of 2017 and I am hoping that 2018 has fewer general elections in it.

 

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