Sweden’s best kept secret are back in glorious form. Spearheading stand-out track Babylon, it marks their sophomore album of Dark & Beautiful Secrets that was released earlier this year.
Despite sharing the name of that with a French city – despite being from Sweden – their music is a tactile missile of mystery, magic and a colossal head-bang for the ages.
Threading the line between the dark and the light of hope, Hostage, Jericho and Atmosphere lead the way in a cut-throat hard rock approach to a fine taste in music songwriting that the likes of Living in Fiction and Written by Wolves would be proud of.
Diverse, enriching with emotional depth and vision, Glass Animals are insidiously addictive.
Music of familiarity and family, ample Glass Animals are nurturing into the lores of psyechedlic electronic pop, as they bring music to the new modern age.
With the creation of Dreamland, it is another twist in the tale as their subtle sounds enter uncharted territory. 2014’s ZABA, 2016’s HowToBe A Human Being and now we have Dreamland in 2020.
Piquing our interest as he retools and rebuilds his sound, Sob Rock is Mayer’s faithful return to the tail-end of tween soft rock and delightful pop. Known for his eloquent voice, soulful bops and jazz-inspired chords, he is best known for antiques of Your Body is a Wonderland, Slow Dancing in a Burning Room and now, New Light. The next tale in straight-edged music writing. In what others may seem as boring and easy to listen to, John Mayer’s songwriting is simplistic, elegant and perfectly suited to his approach to music. And funnily enough, we listen to easy music for easy listening. It is no wonder Mayer has racked up such a loved and compelling audience, what’s not to love?
Sultry enough for 2am elegance but chill enough for a casual night-in, John Mayer joins in on the fun and shares what he’s been getting up to during the pandemic lockdown. No doubt having your own recording studio helps.
So, I finally managed to get around to tallying up the votes from my blog post about finding the best British artist (according to my amazing readers world-abound) – and you can have a look at the numbers below. Out of 50 comments received, these were the results!
<Also have a gander at my favourite bloggers’ playlist, which denotes all her favourite British artists in one handy collection. Thanks Catnip!>
THE RESULTS
DISCLOSURE: the results of this voting may bear down to listener preference, taste, demographic and influences.
Elton John, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Dire Straits and Pet Shop Boys all gathered in FOUR votes apiece, resulting in 18 votes overall for this as the TOP FIVE BEST BRITISH ACTS/ARTISTS. There’s some artists that are simply expected to top the lost, but it was surprising for me to see Elton John top the list too, but I’ve never been one to dabble into his music, so there you are.
These pioneers are shortly followed up with Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Queen and The Rolling Stones with THREE votes apiece, resulting in a total of 12 votes for the second list of artists who made the cut. With me being a massive Queen fan, it was disappointing not to see them earn more votes in the long run, but I’m pleased all the same that they were mentioned ample times.
Entering the territory of those artist underdogs or under-appreciated artists, we have: The Who, The Cranberries, The Smiths, U2, Kate Bush, The Kinks, Massive Attack and Duran Duran and rather surprisingly, Fine Young Cannibals. These artists clocked up TWO votes apiece, with resulting in 16 votes in total. WhileThe Smiths somehow outmanoeuvre their Manchester counterparts of Blur and Oasis to earn more votes, the overwhelming appearance of Fine Young Cannibals solidifies my need to have a listen to their music catalogue as I am not aware of them as an artists, as much as I’d like to be.
The final recommendations come with earning ONE vote apiece, resulting in 17 votes in total. Bearing in no particular order: The Cure, Blur, Simply Red, Ed Sheeran, Amy Winehouse, Jess Glynne, Adele, John Newman, Rudimental, Sex Pistols, Talking Heads, Tears For Fears, PJ Harvey, Joy Division, New Order, Duran Duran, Electric Light Orchestra, Judas Priest and Def Leppard.
What’s missing?
While this is a highly commendable line-up with some fantastic music artists involved, many aren’t mentioned at all. Britpop giants, Oasis, Leicester local-lads Kasabian and fanatic funks of The Police were all missed out. But this is the use of saying such a thing like the Bestof something, which usually refers to us thinking about the classic artists from back in the day, rather than the present ones we see and hear today in “popular”music.
As tough and brittle as a Rubber Factory, rock-blues natives from Ohio, The Black Keys are true realists when it comes to making the swampy work of blues-rock.
Known for spiting their differences about the music industry, The Black Keys – made up with Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney – they are a brutal force to be reckoned with as this same force goes to great depths to deliver truly raucous works of outrage, contemplation and delivery.
Their tenth studio album, Delta Kream is a swampy dredge of traditional blues-rock that harks the duo back to their collective roots of The Big Come Up in ’02 and Rubber Factory in ’04.
Despite the differences of seeing the brutish anthems of El Camino that saw the band receive commercial success from 2011, Delta Kream is a luxurious midnight-cruiser of an album that is worth every road trip in the mist of darkness.
The twelve-track listen is a stripped-back rendition of cover songs of blues artists that continue to inspire them, that ultimately remind them to never let go of the blues.
When all said and done, Delta Kream is a showing of the blues brothers-from-another-mother truly in their element. Take a trip down memory lane, because this album yearns for candlelight.
Man v Music 