One of the things that happens when you’re me is you forget stuff. Like the 2008 Rachel Unthank and the Winterset album The Bairns, which was a huge influence on me, and one I must’ve listened to a thousand times. It’s not available on vinyl, so like many other albums its ineligible for inclusion in this project, but still. Plum forgot it. Cripes I even travelled to a folk festival on the other end of Scotland to see them, then drove two and a half hours to their first show in Canada. This is why you write it all down, kids.

Anyway, 2009 saw Phoenix’s long overdue return to the hearts of those who may have forgotten that they’ve been amazing since Alphabetical in 2004, but precisely because I loved them so much back then, the new album never quite got as stuck in my brain as much as it has for some of the recent Phoenix converts I know. I’m not cool enough to be into Animal Collective or The Flaming Lips, so for me there was only one album that really grabbed hold and didn’t let go throughout 2009, and I picked it up at Other Records, not too too far from where the band formed. Hint mode disengage.

1966 is one of those years where I again lose my indie rock cred by somehow snubbing not only The Album which has been hailed as one of the greatest of all time over the past five or six years by all the cool kids, but also those same kids number two, three and possibly even number four picks for that year. My choice might even be relegated to a distant second place release from that artist in 1966. What madness is this?

The Beach Boys Pet Sounds is an amazing record, hugely influential and recognized today as being, for some, the epitome of pop perfection. Having a copy of it hanging on my wall would result in a sage nodding from those in the know. Clearly I’m not snobbish about my favourite albums though, and so Pet Sounds is pushed aside.

Oh, so you’re going to go for the classic Revolver by the Beatles then, right? Nope. The Beatles will have one record up on my wall, a similarly unhip selection though, when compared to an obvious fan favourite that also came out that year. Some of you might be smiling and say “surely he’s seen the light and has chosen Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde. I regret to inform you that I have yet to experience my Dylan ‘aha’ moment where I get past all the impediments to enjoy his music and recognize his genius.

Christ, you’re not telling me you chose the Stones’ Aftermath? Nope. I pretty much dislike the Rolling Stones wholesale. And I wish I were crazy enough to know The 13th Floor Elevators inside and out, but I don’t. Ditto for Zappa.

If you’ve worked out that my choice is a Simon & Garfunkel album, good for you. If you’ve then hoped it had the good sense to be Sounds of Silence, then I’m sorry to disappoint you. I love that record, but nothing can take the place of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. I practically wore out my Grandmother’s record player on that album, which was a sleeveless orphan I came across some day long ago. I certainly remember how much those tracks mean to me, and how intimate that whole record sounds, so despite all the other incredible music that came out that year, it was a simple choice for me to make.

After that, I was on a Junior Boys kick pretty damned hard, and would put both Last Exit and their follow-up record, So This Is Goodbye, on repeat while I was working, grooving the hours away and blurring the lines between the two albums. And even though some great shit came out in ‘06 – The Knife’s Silent Shout, Hot Chip’s The Warning, Ray LaMontagne’s Till the Sun Turns Black, even Clint Mansell’s score for the Fountain was pretty epic – the Canadian synth kids still reign supreme for me.

Once upon a time I went to see some great performers play at Ottawa’s Bluesfest. One of the best of these was the wonderfully talented Amherst, Nova Scotia native Feist, whose Let It Die was a favourite for myself and everyone I knew back in 2004. She was playing some of the great songs from that record, but the stuff she was debuting had the audiences jaws dropping. I remember wanting the then unreleased record these songs were from so hard. And The Reminder gave me those songs and a bunch more to enjoy. Then it gave Apple the song 1234 – which was one of the few tracks I didn’t really pay too much attention to. Catchy enough, but not spectacular. Anyway, the rest is a pretty well-documented, meteoric and deserved rise, which reached its zenith when Feist appeared on The Colbert Report and told its host, after being asked whether he should call her Leslie or Feist: “As long as you call me Stephen Colbert, you can call me anything you want.”

I don’t know what else to say.

The great news which may startle you as much as it did me is that I haven’t neglected the Album Art project at all, but I am only behind in posting the photos. That’s all.

2006 and 2007 were easy as pie, and we got some 2009 and 1966 on throughout July without too much trouble. August was a challenging one in more ways than one with 1996 and 1993, and this month consists of the musically slim pickings of 1980 and my favourite year I wasn’t around for, 1967.

Apologies for the little tease, but I really am getting the pictures ready. In the immortal words of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, “I’ll make it up to you soon baby, I promise.”

My choice for 2006 has even arrived already. After struggling with the quite musically varied and no-clear-winner top three-or-four contenders on my list, I stumbled upon an album I hadn’t remembered even being from that year. I had probably listened to it about two hundred times, but often as a double-playlist with the album that came before it, so the years got kinda blurred.  

There’s a pretty strong connection between my ‘06 and ‘07 choices, and I’ve seen both of them live, so feel free to guess away.  I’m just as interested in knowing: what are your favourite records of 2006 and 2007?

As much as I would love for this trend to continue, I think it’s unlikely that once a month I’ll get a bonus LP for free, but in the meantime I’m thankful to get Portishead’s eponymous album in addition to the 44 RPM edition of Third.

So here’s the finished pair for May, all ready to hang – two interesting takes on minimalist artwork.

And wholly unrelated to Album Art, I picked up these two gems at 4-Colour 8-Bit last night.

Sent from iPad.

Aaaaaabsolutely

Faaaaabulous

The record that started it all, from the inimitable duo of Tennant and Lowe.  There’s a time-lapse vhs video somewhere from ninety ninety something of us unpacking a gig to this record, and then there’s me seeing the boys less than a 7 minute walk from my old flat in Newmarket.  There’s the “I can program a computer” line which never fails to make me laugh, there’s the inevitable and inescapable romance of Love Comes Quickly, and there is the king of the heap, my gateway drug to British synthpop when I was a wee’un, West End Girls.  This landmark debut is a piece of history, and for my money, nothing else in 1986 comes close.

Portishead could have done a million things with Third. They could’ve played it safe, could’ve done the expected, and could’ve played by anybody else’s rules.  Instead they just waited, recorded and released the brilliant record that I don’t think anybody really saw coming.

I first heard the song The Rip, which is still probably my favourite track, when I was doing the washing-up in my flat in Newmarket.  There was some Radiohead thing on the radio, Thom Yorke guesting on BBC Radio 1 or something, and he had a CD-r copy of the single, had asked Portishead for permission, and played it before anybody else had really heard it.  I remember thinking something along the lines of “wow, this may not be the intelligent-make-out-session soundtrack of Dummy, but it’s pure awesome.”  I had a chance to pre-order the box set with all of its goodies, and yeah, when it arrived I was a happy pappy.  Andrea recalls the unboxing ceremony as well as I do I’m sure! It’s only about 15 feet away from me right now, but it’s in an unknown box buried under countless other boxes, so I won’t be able to pop in my ‘P’-shaped USB stick to copy the album onto the MBP, but I’ve been listening to it on my Zune all month…the verdict?  A+…would buy again!  So I found someone on eBay selling a regular-edition vinyl copy, and decided what the heck…also I’m continuing a tradition started last month, but I’ll have more on that when the package arrives.

As for my as-yet-unpurchased pick of 1986 – anybody got any guesses?  I’ve heard The Rolling Stones and Billy Idol, and of course Depeche Mode, but so far nobody’s picked the winner…

Well I got a taste of a lot of those monkey wrenches this month, when the randomizer threw me 2008 and 1986.  The trade-off is I’ve got a chance to listen to a lot of good music this weekend, as I (more or less) finalized my decisions.

2008 was a pretty decent year in music, though my problem wasn’t so much in isolating my top albums so much as it was a logistical struggle.  My favourite album of 2008 was Aaron Collier’s Love, and as much as I’ve come close to wearing out that CD, unfortunately there is no vinyl version for me to frame.  This gave me the dilemma – should I print a 12″ x 12″ version of the artwork on cardstock and frame that?  I think that would be more than a little dishonest within the framework of this project.  I’ll just have to continue gushing about the electronic opus my dear friend unleashed upon the masses that year, instead of simply pointing to a framed cover on the wall.  You’d think with one dilemma out of the way that would be it, smooth sailing from there on in.  Ha ha, no.

My number two choice is available on vinyl, and in fact I already own it.  I pre-ordered it when I was living in the UK and it arrived as a deluxe set complete with all sorts of deliciously limited goodies.  Unfortunately for this project, however, the box set contained the vinyl records and sleeves, but not the album cover. The box bore the image from the regular edition vinyl release, but I’m pretty sure I can’t cram said box into my frame, so I’m faced with either buying a second, regular vinyl copy of this album, or returning to my list of 2008 releases and looking at choice number three.  Due to its popularity, choice number three is the kind of thing I could walk into a store tomorrow and pick up without so much as the slightest difficulty, but this raises another issue.  When an album is available from an artist that is still kicking, should I make the effort to purchase it from the artist’s website directly to maximize their chunk of the change, from a retail store to maximize my convenience, or from eBay to maximize my savings?   I’ve got an idea, but am interested to hear your thoughts.

1986 was thankfully less of a problem.  Another Depeche Mode year hehe, but maybe m’colleague would be tempted by the Transformers Soundtrack?  Aaron might’ve swayed me towards our mutual love of the Labyrinth OST, which is surprisingly easy to find on vinyl. In the end though I think both of them would wholeheartedly appreciate my selection.  I believe I own this one as well, and when I head home later today I’ll check out the cover’s condition.  Might be a ridiculously quick turnaround for the 80s half of my monthly quota at least!

Any guesses as to my 2008 and 1986 choices?  What are your fave albums of those years?  Drop me a comment, and I’ll be back to post the results of this month’s album art challenge in the next few weeks.

xoxo