Town Trip Part II: Upstairs, Downstairs

So, after picking The Killers shirt and briefly flirting with the idea of getting a Velvet Underground one (which I didn't in the end) it was time to see what records to buy. This was when my plans sort of went out the window. I wanted to get Pretty Hate Machine by Nine Inch Nails. Did they have it? Not at all - in fact they had no Nine Inch Nails records whatsoever. Great.. Hm, what to buy? I checked the DVD section for Simon & Garfunkel's Central Park show - no luck. So I just went with the CD version of the concert. Decided to look for Fleetwood Mac's The Dance live album. Gone (although stupidly enough, they had put it by the till. I only found it once I had paid). What a stupid display move that was. Then I remembered I had spied Route 19 Revisited, which was a book about the making of London Calling. Was it in still in the display where I found it? Nope! So, back downstairs I went to the book section. Found it, along with two other Clash books. Joe Strummer & The Legend of The Clash and The Clash Talking to were the titles. I've been considering purchasing the latter, but I've never seen the former in town before though I knew of it. Stupidly I forgot to look inside Joe Strummer &The Legend of The Clash although it has good reviews. As for The Clash talking it was a stupidly dear price - £12 if I remember - for a rather short book that is just a compilation of quotes. I want it, but £12 just seemed excessive, I can get it online much cheaper. Anyway, back upstairs and I still wanted more records. Then I remembered I had liked Vampire Weekend's new album. They didn't have that either. Honestly I think they were in the midst of doing a display revamp or something. Then I remembered Disclosure's debut. Surprisingly I found the deluxe edition of that for a decent price, so I snapped it up. Then I spotted The Essential Paul Simon. I have Songwriter ripped to my hard-drive because I bought it for my Dad for Father's Day, but this collection had a lot of songs on it absent from Songwriter. I only have Graceland & The Rhythm of The Saints on CD myself. By this point, I had about enough money left for two postcards, and to my surprise they had a new Clash one in. Ironically, the first Clash item I ever got was a postcard from HMV. The only other one that caught my interest was the Nevermind cover. After that - I just wanted to get out. HMV can be very draining. I do love what I got (I always do), even if it was a slightly unexpected batch though!

Albums of the year (so far)

Well, June is now ending (scary) which means it's officially halfway through the year. This year I have absolutely loved for music so far. I think it's been one of the strongest years for music in a while actually. This year we've had great comebacks and great new talent. I've already found more albums I've loved this year than I did in the whole of 2012. The best part? Not only is there a half a year still to go - I haven't even heard all the albums already released that I want too! But - my albums of the year so far are:

• Jagwar Ma - Howlin (best)
• David Bowie - The Next Day
• Fitz & The Tantrums - More Than Just A Dream
• Disclosure - Settle
• Depeche Mode - Delta Machine
• Capital Cities - In A Tidal Wave Of Mystery
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Mosquito
• Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of The City
• Hurts - Exile
• Little Boots - Nocturnes

At 10 albums, I've been left suitably impressed with this year. In fact, only three albums this year didn't make the list: Palma Violets, Phoenix and Daft Punk's latest offerings. And that's not counting the albums that have been released that I haven't heard yet: OMD, Johnny Marr and Primal Scream for instance. And there's still plenty of new albums to come this year that I can't wait for: Alunageorge, Pet Shop Boys, MIA, Foster The People, Goldfrapp and Nine Inch Nails. I'm still holding out hopes for Friendly Fires too. Not to mention other various musical releases like New Order's live album and Sound System boxset for The Clash. Cannot wait to see how the year progresses musically!

Sound of the week: albums

Hello all from (yet again) a Belfast that spent most of the day spent drenched in glorious sunshine. I've actually knuckled down and listened to some new albums this week. There's not much point in doing a sound of the week song this week - it would just be another post on Nine Inch Nails new single Came Back Haunted and it basically would be a reiteration of all that I've said in my previous post on it (which would make for very dull reading). These aren't the only albums I'e listened to this week - just the new ones I've enjoyed the most

So - the first album I listened to this week was Settle, the hotly anticipated debut offering from Disclosure. Disclosure are receiving a lot of hype here in the UK. They were actually playing a club here in Belfast yesterday or the night before. I had only heard one song of theirs, but I had really liked it. Not to mention that they collaborate with two of my favourite current artists: Jessie Ware and Ed McFarlene (Friendly Fires). Not to mention that they also have collaborated with Alunageorge (who's debut album I'm eager to hear). I have to say I really like their style of soulful house! And at the risk of sounding controversial - I prefer it to Daft Punk's Random Access Memories. I think its because Settle is more of what I was hoping Random Acess Memories would be like. Nevertheless, definitely an album I will be purchasing!

 So, another album I've (finally) heard that's newly released is Yeah Yeah Yeah's fourth album, Mosquitos which came out in April (on my birthday actually). I've tried to listen to this album about three times and every time I've made it roughly halfway through before being interrupted. This week, I finally listened to the whole thing! I have to say I really liked it, particularly Under The Earth, Subway, Buried Alive, Mosquito and Sacrilege. Yeah Yeah Yeahs are a band I've been meaning to listen to for a while, and they've impressed me with Mosquito! I've definitely got an increased urge to listen to their previous three studio albums now, I just hope they match up to the quality of Mosquito!

Now a trip back in time for this one, I've started listening to the back catalogue of Nine Inch Nails. Only one place to start, with the debut album. So far this is the only album I've heard in full. I did start listening to Downward Spiral earlier on but I only got three or four tracks into it before having to do something - Sundays can be a bit of a busy day for me. Anyhow this was an album I really liked - sadly the opening tracks of Downward Spiral didn't hit me quite as much. I've got a feeling Nine Inch Nails will be a slow burner for me, but we shall see. Anyhow, I liked all the songs on this album, particularly Ringfinger. I'm still very much deciding whether to go or not to their upcoming Belfast show... as I know so little about their music at the moment it's very much undecided and could go either way to be perfectly honest.

So another week is over, time flies eh? I've no doubt this coming week is going to be another busy one on the blog: my new purchases are due anyday now (most likely Tuesday) and I've no shortage of music related material to discuss anyway, so thanks for reading and stay tuned!