Songs of 2016

So that was 2016 hey?!  A very strange year.  But in an attempt to regain normality, I wanted to continue my annual (5th year) tradition of looking back at my favourite songs from the last 12 months.

As with previous years, there's no particular ranking, it's just a useful scrapbook to look back on.

I've tried to interpret the list for themes and whilst a few of the tracks are a bit morose, that's nothing particularly exceptional.  The one thing I'm disappointed by is the lack of new artists which means that I haven't tried hard enough to seek out new music (new year's resolution #1).

Songs listed below, but also available as a YouTube playlist.

She Drew the Gun - Poem

Standout track on an excellent debut album.  The words are a pretty good summation for the ridiculousness that we have found ourselves in during 2016 and how disappointing the human race can sometimes be.  

David Bowie - Lazarus

"Look up here I'm in heaven" - those words will never fail to hit me.  Blackstar is an unbelievable sign-off from one of the greatest artists ever.  The references to mortality throughout the album gained a double meaning as I went through a more personal grief.  The album has been an incredible comfort, but also the one most likely to make me cry.  "Just like that bluebird, I hope I'll be free".  For David, Marcus and Josh I really hope that's true.

Ezra Furman - Ordinary Life

"The human mind gets sick real easy, the human mind gets way fucking sick of beauty" - my single biggest lesson of 2016.  That it's sung from the heart by one of my favourite artists makes it even more powerful.  A deeply personal message delivered in a fantastic song

PJ Harvey - The Community of Hope

One of those songs that has been ever present on my playlist of 2016.  A national treasure sounding as fresh as ever.

Michael Kiwanuka - Black Man in a White World

What a song.  Delivers a great story and message against simple but highly effective music principles.  One of the freshest songs on this list, but steeped in tradition.  Proud that this is one of Ted's favourite songs of the year too.

Julia Jacklin - Pool Party

Laid back, effortless and full of class.  A really impressive debut effort.  This is almost my perfect type of music.

Honeyblood - Sea Hearts

Full of energy, cracking tune, love it.  "Sipping tequila, after dark, is it that which gave us the head start?!" I can imagine losing my shit watching this live (albeit I'd be about 20 years older than the rest of the crowd!).

Pixies - Um Chugga Lugga

Keeping the energy going from Honeyblood, Pixies give a masterclass in kicking the doors in.  So many things I like about this song, but makes it to this list for the muffled/screamed vocals as the chorus develops.  

Bat for Lashes - I Do

On an album that is about a woman whose fiancée dies on the way to the church for their wedding, this is a beautiful and uplifting track.  The album is an exceptional piece of art.  This song is dripping with love and incredibly evocative.  I regularly have to stop what I'm doing when listening this song to immerse myself in it.  

Random anecdote, I remember describing this album to Sam whilst driving him to his wedding.  Looking back, that might not have been the best time to mention it ...

Me - Wren's the Best Thing About 2016

Because it's my blog and no-one is likely to read it, I'm taking advantage and listing my own song.  It might sound pretentious but I've found it very hard to be creative this year.  I feared that I'd been numbed.  

What started out as something silly (and to give Wren a song as Ted and Wilf have their own), became really important to me.  What's more, I'm actually quite proud of it - some simple but effective chords and melodies, a drumtrack recorded through a cheap ipad app, and really impressive backing vocals from Ted. (for the record, Wilf was asked too but only wanted to sing the word "bum") 

There we go.  Other years can be found here:
2015
2014
2013
2012

Marco's Indie Disco

I've been dreading this birthday more than any (and I'm no fan of birthdays).  The first birthday without Marcus.  But rather than follow my instinct to hide, withdraw, mourn and cry, I want to encourage everyone to sing, dance and smile at our memories.  

So that's why I've pulled together this playlist, so that we can celebrate him with his very own Indie disco.  

This isn't meant to be a "best of Marcus" - that is a canon of work that will take me years to decipher and frankly, a whole lot of courage I don't currently have.  Instead, this is 6 songs that I can picture him jumping up and down to, singing at the top of his voice and dancing like an idiot (and I would be there right by his side).  They're not necessarily his favourites, they're not to be dissected, just find yourself 20 minutes to play them loudly and have a good old sing!  

Above all of the qualities that Marcus had, he was particularly special to me because he had a great ear for music.  Not only did he have great taste, he knew that music was electricity that powers the soul.  Consequently, he could immediately spot "authentic" music that conveyed emotion and feeling.  He obsessed about the good stuff and made no time for anything else.  They say life is too short to waste drinking cheap wine, Marcus was the same with music.  I'm going to finish with my "thoughts" here because they might never stop.

I need to make one statement about the final song on the list.  In the last 6 months, so many songs have hit a nerve as if they were talking about Marcus and me.  But REM's "It's The End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine)" always comes to mind.  It was almost not on this list because it has so much of a link to him.  But that would be wrong.  It's an unbelievably awesome song packed full of power that is perfect for this moment.  If you think Michael Stipe is impressive singing it, it's nothing compared to the speed and energy with which Marcus could recite it.  

So, if you will please:

1) Find 20 minutes of free time (preferably with a good beer)

2) Locate internet connection and loud speakers 

3) Press "play" on this playlist 

4) Sing, dance, jump, cry, laugh, throw beer etc

Happy birthday chum.  

Mukherjee's Walks

It has been a mixture of pride, excitement and envy watching the build up to the launch of my old "mucker", Abir Mukherjee's first ever book (A Rising Man) .  I spend a lot of time thinking that I have a book in me, but very little doing anything about it.  Ultimately, it's probably because I doubt I have any ability to think of and write anything substantively interesting and so I hang onto the dream of the potential instead.

Abir's efforts and the adulation he's received to date are a literary fairy tale and it's great to see if happen to such a great guy.  My copy arrived today and on reading the sleeve notes, I realised that I had a secret that provides more insight into the author than his brooding photo could ever reveal.

So Abir and I worked together at Deloitte.  We had a lot of fun there. Work was an occasional distraction to the constant benign chatter.  But the highlight of my days there would be our regular afternoon walks.  So with this, I want to take you on Mukherjee's Walks and become the first biographer of this artist.

Almost every afternoon, Abir would have an envelope to deliver to the law firm Bird & Bird.  I'm not sure I ever asked why: 1) it was to him to deliver things (he was moderately senior); and 2) why this occurred most afternoons.  But it was an escape that I welcomed (and probably should have been disciplined for).

This week, I retraced much of the walk sad at the building work that had taken parts of it away and realising that it's been about 10 years since we did the walks.  Below I set out the main route, with the my key memories (mostly the bad jokes) that will provide the insight into Abir's creative process.

We would start at Athene Place, our Deloitte office:

Deloitte - Athene Place - occasional sightings of work

This was actually a pretty nice place to work, but escaping mid-afternoon with no official mandate was a rare form of rebellion which I loved.  (I was pretty bored working there and regret not making more of it).

We would turn right out of the entrance towards "Costcutter Court", the centre of the Deloitte empire presided over by "The Big JC".  We would laugh at the pigeons who constantly set off the automatic doors of the Hill House office.

Opposite here was The Greyhound pub.  It wasn't a nice pub at all, stationed in a horrible 60's single storey building.  But when feeling particularly bored at work we would escape here for a game of pool.  I never once drank here in the evening, only whilst "bunking".  It was with real sadness when I saw that the pub now looked like this:

RIP - The Greyhound - London's progress cares not for a convenient pool table

Bird & Bird's offices - Norwich St

Remember we were on official business, so the next stop was the offices of Bird & Bird.  Abir would tell me every time that they had his favourite website address: twobirds.com .  For the life of me, I can't think what we would have been delivering.  Perhaps it was some sort of accountancy/legal drug ring.   

The fact that their office was on the corner of Norwich Street would evoke tails from myself about my homeland.  I'm sure East Anglian influences can be found in his book.

Bird & Bird's new office

Again, I was struck by the change in this part of the City when I noticed a new building being built for the firm.  This forms part of the overall New Street complex that was literally a whole in the ground that we would walk past.  It was like an industrial wasteland in the middle of the City.  A great place for us to hide.  To paraphrase Alan Partridge: "this was the scene of epic conversations, it is now an Itsu".

If we were professional, we would have turned back immediately and been back in the office in 3 minutes.  We weren't.  Instead we would head down Norwich St regaling stories from our lives.  I would laugh at the stories of his father - including one of him  answering "yes" to a question from airport security of "have you any experience with terrorists?" before recounting how they pelted stones at them growing up in India.  We did the walk so many times that the stories were often repeats, but I loved them and I miss hearing them.  I welled up when I read in Abir's thank yous that his father had recently passed on.  I know how much of an influence he was.

We would make our way down Furnival St past Macfarlanes where a girl I quite fancied worked ("Project Tiger" as she was known - a reference to the project we had worked on together  - nothing ever happened (a frequent outcome)).  Girls were a frequent topic of the conversation.  Abir was as unsuccessful and melodramatic as I was.  We analysed things a lot!  But then came a girl who he had met in a bar and was very keen on.  I even made a map for their first date.  Sonal is now his wife and probably hearing the stories that I'm now denied. 

Macfarlane's offices

We would carry on down Chancery Lane past Kings College buildings which would result in tales of why LSE was superior, before ending up at the Royal Courts of Justice which was the farthest point from home.  At less than half a mile from the office, it highlights the weakness of our rebellion!

King College, London. Not quite LSE apparently

Royal Courts of Justice - the point of return

The Inner Temple

From here we would meander back, again not the direct route, but the pretty one.  We would walk through the Inner Temple, even observing the film crew for The Da Vinci Code - an influence? I'm not sure, I've not read his book yet!.

A real literary influence appears in our next highlight which took us back to the office.  We would cut through to Gough Square to take in Dr Johnson's house.  I have no idea whether Dr Johnson was an influence but I know for sure that Blackadder was.  Even though we would walk past this every day, we would laugh about Robbie Coltrane playing Samuel Johnson (""Contrafribularites", sir? It is a common word down our way")  

Dr Johnson's House - writer of the first dictionary "the most pointless book since 'How To Learn French' was translated into French"

Cortina's, Shoe Lane - best tea and toast in London

Maybe we would pay a visit to Cortina's for the best cup of tea in London (though that was typically a morning distraction).  It deserves a mention as it trips here accounted for as much lost productivity as the afternoon walk. 

And with that, we were back at the office.  Probably 30 minutes of the day lost with only a dubious delivery the productive thing to show for it.  Looking back, I like to think that we were work-shopping dialogue for the book.  That's what I'll tell my children anyway.

So below is the route, just over 1 mile long.  I recommend you seek it out for yourself before it is overrun with tourists and the ongoing building renders this path obsolete.  London changes quickly, but you can't build over the memories.  I've got a couple of ideas for where the blue plaque can go though.

Mukherjee's Walk - the making of the artist

Songs of 2015

It might a forced tradition, but here is my fourth installment of my favourite songs of the past year.  A blog is a useful way for me to keep a history of what I liked at particular times. It is a bonus if this provides you with some recommendations.

The thing that surprises me with the list is how few "new" acts have made it onto the sheet.  I have a preference for new artists but this year it seems professionalism and favourtism have triumphed.  Other explanations are that there's been less good "new" acts, or I've just been a bit lazy.

Songs all listed below, but for convenience, here's the songs on a YouTube playlist and here's the Deezer playlist link too.

Public Service Broadcasting - Go!
Brilliant use of space-race recordings with superb musicianship.  The album is great, but the mania of the controller whose voice is sampled in this wins as the standout track.




Laura Marling - Gurdjieff's Daughter
Pure class, this song is beautifully layered and also strangely upbeat.




Father John Misty - Holy Shit
The greatest drummer turned front man since Phil Collins?  FJM's launch in 2015 was bold, arrogant and fantastic.  Very weirdly, but this is a favourite song of mine when running.



John Grant - Disappointing
It's taken me a while to get into John Grant, and even the latest album isn't a consistent winner with me.  But he has a habit for writing outstanding songs.  This is an absolute favourite of mine for the year.  How arrogant, yet fantastic, is this set of words: 
"Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Prokofiev,
Dostoevsky, Bulgakov, Vysotsky and Lev"

 

Courtney Barnett - Depreston
"Sometimes I sit and think, sometimes I just sit" is a must have album of the year.  I'm not usually smart enough to pay attention to lyrics, but her's are just super smart.  This song is beautiful, and actually about house hunting (it could have been an angrier song in my opinion!)

I love it, if only for this couplet:
"If you've got a spare half a million
You could knock it down and start rebuilding"








Sufjan Stevens - No Shade In The Shadow Of The Cross
Just beautiful.  Absolutely beautiful.  This blog is named after one of his songs and I'm happy to have him back in my life!





Ezra Furman - Lousy Connection
Everyone should buy this album.  I adore the energy, the message, the sax, the harmonies, everything!






FFS - Piss Off
For those not aware, this is the "supergroup" formed of Franz Ferdinand and Sparks.  Direct and to the point, it's a great song to sing in the car (with the windows down).



Stornoway - The Only Way Is Up
More than just a cover, this is a great recording.  Love it.





Jeffrey Lewis - Outta Town
For me, this is the most romantic song of the year.  It absolutely makes me think of how my boys and I fall apart without my wife around!





Bop English - Dani's Blues
It came out early in the year, but the riff in this song has not moved once. 



Slaves - The Hunter
Just to finish off with some real energy.  In contrast to "Holy Shit", this song has been on my running mix all year and allowed me to dig deep for energy.  All songs should be written with this energy.



And there we go.  No particular favourite, and not in any order, but a useful document of the year that has flashed by so quickly.


PS
For completeness, here's the links to the last few years:
2014
2013
2012

My Master's Voice

When I was an amorous teenager, I wrote a lot of bad poetry, songs and once the sketch of a novel, with tales of heartache and unreturned crushes. Essentially, I spent much of my teenage years (and my twenties!) wallowing in the belief that it fueled my creativity - and that my experience was unique.

I'm not sure why, but I had flashbacks of sitting in my bedroom, listening to REM whilst writing dubious verse as I considered the departure of my manager, friend and mentor, Andy Coulthurst, as MD of Motors.co.uk.  I suspect the following will make him (and possibly you) highly uncomfortable.  But I'm no longer the cowardly seventeen year old that would let opportunity pass him by, today I want to celebrate it!

In particular, I wanted to highlight the importance of a good mentor.  Someone who provides you with a new way of thinking, pushes you to new limits and helps you enjoy the journey.  

It's not always been nice words, I remember once being mentored with the following gem: "when I see you playing fantasy football at your desk, it makes me want to throw your computer through the fucking window!".  It took me a while, but I eventually realised the lesson was to be conscious of how you are perceived in the workplace.  I also no longer play fantasy football.

From each of my mentors, I have copied things in the hope that I can come near to their standards.  For Andy, it will be his boundless enthusiasm, energy and ability to always conjure new ideas.  I must no longer retreat within myself when things get hard, and fight negativity with positivity.  A true salesman's ability to move on from rejection to the next opportunity.  (an approach that would have been much more advisable as a teenager than the drawers of poor poetry I accumulated)

So whilst it might be weird to write poems about your colleagues (another mentor once told me that), I think it's fitting to remember Andy with a bad poem.  Enjoy and feel free to judge, I don't care!

My Master's Voice

"Brilliant" he said, every time.

And, for him, it always was. Can it now be for me?

From his energy I'm fully charged, 

For the next challenge on our path.

We conquered Vegas, on the front row,

of our International Leadership Conference.

The most willing and driven of servants,

In focused pursuit of our shared dream.

The Starsky to my Hutch, 

The Maggie to my Dennis,

I must now emerge from the chrysalis

He ordered me to build in his vision.

My tea is now stronger, my resolve firmer,

My energy unbounded, my accent northerner.

Ask me how I am?  And like my master

I'll always reply "Brilliant".

Outlook v Phill

I have a problem.  An addiction.  I'm a slave to my inbox.  Outlook is my Everest.  I yearn to silence it, to control it.  But (wifi permitting) emails continue to flow.  I hate to lose the fight, but I'm not smart enough to change the rules to even give me a sporting chance.

It started with a simple proposition.  If I could end the day with fewer emails in my inbox at the end of the day than at the start, then that would be a win.  This would mean that I stayed on top of my tasks (naively assuming my duties and emails were directly linked), but also I would not be one of "those people" who ignores other people's emails.  The tidiness of it appealed to the Virgo in me.

At a strategy session I was presented with a 2x2 diagram that starkly highlighted just where I was going wrong. My interpretation of it is below:

So the assumption that email represented my work duties was nuts.  Yes, I can hold my head up when it comes to  the important and urgent issues (most of the time).  But, I have definitely been guilty of putting off the important, not urgent for another day.  It's been easy to justify because I may have ended up sending a bunch of emails and even beating my inbox that day.

But my inbox is a myopic, self-centered little bastard who wants all my attention.  He also wants me to fail on my longer term tasks.  Even if I mark something as a "task" and move it, he knows that the lure of an unread email is too much for me.  In short, I am my inbox's bitch.

At this stage, you're probably expecting some insight into how I overcame this and became a better person, a better colleague, better boss, better husband, better father.  But I haven't overcome it.  I'm at the epicentre of it.  I'm slightly better than I have been in that I've acknowledged the problem.  I've even thought of things I might do to help counter it - mind maps of longer term goals, "black out" times from email, pre-defined filters.  But, I always end up being distracted by emails.

Once I've answered every email ever, I will be a free and productive man.  I will jump on Outlook's grave and celebrate, but after a few minutes I'll probably check my phone for emails.  

The thought of the silence terrifies me.

The Smartest Finger

Motors.co.uk launched it's new TV creative, Smart Finger, on Sunday.  I love the creative.  It's memorable, charming and looks great.  But more than that, it's smart.  I want to share some insight as to why.

In all honesty, I was a little nervous approaching the launch to our business. It could never be the seismic shift that our Carfuffle campaign was having never run national TV campaigns before.  The emotion of that launch was incredible, as was the impact to the business, and I guess I was worried about trying to recreate that.  But I was making the wrong comparison.  This campaign was different. It was built completely on insight (even more so than Carfuffle).  In other words, it was Smart.

Meet Smart Finger - not modelled on me!

Going into this campaign we knew what worked: how consumers responded to seeing our product on screen; which channels and programmes generated the best engagement; the need to communicate the benefits of the product; and requirement to make it enjoyable. You'd think with this that we'd be an easy client for our creative agency, Brave, to manage - but we were a pain.

The first problem is that we don't understand why other people don't find Motors.co.uk as interesting as we do.  I will never be able to rationalise this.  I simply hope that everyone will become a believer like me.

The second is that when asked to summarise why consumers should come to Motors.co.uk it takes my MD and I about 5 minutes to run through the many advantages of our site. Apparently it's not efficient to buy whole ad breaks listing the many ways in which we think people should visit.

We'd made the decision to move on from Carfuffle which was essentially a launch campaign introducing something new, but finding a campaign that would be as endearing to us was always going to be hard.  And this comes back to the emotion of the initial launch.  Could we ever fall in love again like we did with Mark, our headless chicken and Amy (feedback on the ad had a lot of people falling in love with Amy)?  But did we need to?  We knew what would work and had some great creative ideas to work with that would hit all of the areas perfectly.

Amy's ad was banned from Nickelodeon!

Mark astride his headless chicken

Then we met Smart Finger.  It was love at first sight.  

I expected this to be watered down over time as we poured over scripts and countless edits, but the attention to detail from Blac Ionica and the immensely talented pupeteers and model makers brought it to life.  Add to this Peter Serafinowicz's barking voice over and frantic 80s soundtrack, and the pace and urgency of the need to visit Motors.co.uk is brought to life.

"And the best thing about Smart Finger..." as our ad says, is that it empowers the consumer - they feel smart by using our site.  Hopefully this psychology won't be lost in the viewing.

Given what we've learnt in the last year, I always expected the ad to be intelligent and good.  But the energy and ambition that pours from the ad is the truest reflection of the team at Motors.co.uk.  Now, "get your smart finger out and find the right car for you at Motors.co.uk"!

Ok, when angry, he does look like me!