Top ten Music Therapy tunes of 2021

When we set out to do our radio show, I honestly thought I would be delving into the past for our soothing Sunday soundtrack. But the greatest thrill of the last year of dispensing Music Therapy to Tameside has been discovering new music. So, here are my top ten new tracks of 2021, as featured on our show. And they’re all British artists. I Do This All The Time - Self Esteem. This isn’t the only end of the year list that will feature Rebecca Lucy Taylor’s spoken word lament, but it was a huge breakthrough track that propelled her album Prioritise Pleasure throughout the year. It’s raw, honest and superbly composed. Winter Solstice - LYR. A low key band fronted by the Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage, who also use the spoken poetic word technique overlaying intelligent pop music. I envisage this self-pitying plea to a lost lover to be the gaslighting response to Self Esteem’s agony. It isn’t, but I discovered the two in the same week, and I possibly love this because it borrows a line from Prefab Sprout’s Desire from one of my favourite ever 80s sophistipop albums. Feet Don’t Fail Me Now - Joy Crookes. Sometimes new music roots you in the present, but great music can also be timeless. This cracker from young Londoner Joy Crookes has all the glitterball uplifting joy of 1970s soul, with a touch of Amy Winehouse. Ritchie Sacremento - Mogwai. Manchester’s iconic Piccadilly Records had Mogwai’s album, As The Love Continues as their new release of 2021. For a largely atmospheric and instrumental band, this vocal track for me is the most awesome of a very hot batch. There’s also a version knocking about that’s been remixed by Stephen and Gillian from New Order. Pond House - Saint Etienne. Lockdown has been rubbish, but one of the unexpected pleasures has been how it has perversely unlocked the experimental in many artists forced to make do and mend. Saint Etienne’s 2021 album I’ve Been Trying To Tell You is a heady mix of samples and random memories, as is the glorious accompanying film made by fashion photographer Alasdair McLelland. It’s easy to lose yourself in the beautiful Pond House, featuring Natalie Imbruglia on loop with smatterings of Massive Attack’s Protection. Everybody Knows - The Specials. No stranger to the protest song, The Specials recorded a whole album of protest reworkings in 2021, and this Leonard Cohen cover is the cream of the crop. For covers to really work they have to respect the original and bring something new to the party. This does just that, with Terry Hall’s take just right. Heartlow - Jane Weaver. We call her the Kate Bush of Marple Bridge, but our near neighbour just keeps on producing incredible mesmerising music that pulses with energy and beauty. Hooked - Cobain Jones. Another local, this time the Tameside Troubador himself, young Cobain Jones. He’s had his diamond well and truly polished by the Coral’s James Skelly and this 2021 release is a delightful jaunty pop tune. Really chuffed for the lad, who got a record deal and a support slot with Paul Weller in 2021. Lover Undiscovered - The Coral. The whole Coral Island project lit up the middle of the year with a collection of conceptual pop songs that reminded us that the water supply of Liverpool has something special in it. Glad Times - Paul Weller. How the Modfather keeps delivering the goods after all this time, I’ll never know, but I’m so chuffed that he does. His sixteenth solo album sees him pushing the boundaries of perfect pop music again. This is a great track, but at a time when we’re told no one listens to albums anymore, this should be an entree into Weller world, and just a glorious way to make life feel better again. On our Boxing Day show I'll be reviewing our highlights of the year and adding a few gorgeous surprises to the mix.

A link to the show is here.

My Sounds of the Season 1983/84

So I've done my Sounds of the Season on Rovers Radio, like a Desert Island Discs for Blackburn Rovers fans. Usually, I do the interviews, but this was my turn to be in the hot seat.

You can link to it here. But this is the preamble.

Honestly, in many ways 1983/84 was a bang average season for Blackburn Rovers, not many memories feature in the history books, compared to what came several years later. The crowds were really low, in fact, we hit a new low. But it was really memorable for me for all sorts of different reasons, just going to Rovers, them becoming part of my life, was one of the emerging pillars of my identity, as were music, ideas, fashion, amongst others.

On the pitch, Simon Garner had a great season. Norman Bell got injured in the first game and never played again. So Garner was partnered with Chris Thompson mostly while Miller or Brotherston or Patterson provided the crosses. This season saw the emergence of Simon Barker alongside an ever-present John Lowey in the centre of midfield.

At the back, it was still Baz, Faz, Keeley and Branagan, in theory, but David Glenn filled in for Baz for most of the season, and all-rounder David Hamilton popped up wherever he was needed. Terry Gennoe was a solid presence in goal, with a cup run, an unbeaten league run, strong home form, on paper it looks like a good season, but too many draws meant although we finished 6th, it never felt like a promotion push. Chelsea and Sheffield Wednesday were comfortably ahead, Newcastle finished third and Manchester City had to endure another season down in the doldrums. 

It was however a great year for music. A massive turning point, a breakthrough. Just look at the choices I make and think what it must have been like to be alive and excited by all of that happening for the very first time.

Culturally, this period of time probably had a more profound and lasting influence on me than many of the later years. I bailed out of my Grammar School a year into sixth form and enrolled at Lancaster and Morecambe FE College instead, and instantly felt so much more at ease. Some of the things I got into later I quickly backed away from, but there is a reasonably straight line from the person I was in 1983 to where I am today, which I am very comfortable with.

It was also a pretty violent and racist time. There was always tension in the air, a sense it could kick-off, especially as you were hunted down at away matches, or when the bigger clubs arrived at Ewood. I also could have relayed scrapes at nearly every match I mention here, but I survived. 

These are my Sounds of the Season, 1983/84. Do give the show a listen if you want to hear the rest of the story. I’ll dedicate it to Chris Heath (RIP), Nick, Phil, Tony, Mick, Daz, Dave, Neil Fell, Phil Shaw, Lancaster and Morecambe FE College, Baz Dootson, and an apology to Louise Stokes for not returning her David Bowie LP.

The Songs

My Ever Changing Moods - Style Council

Modern Love - David Bowie

This Charming Man - The Smiths

Thieves Like Us - New Order

Boys Don't Cry - The Cure

Ain't Nobody - Rufus and Chaka Khan

Nelson Mandela - The Specials

White Lines (Don't Do It) - Grandmaster Flash

The Killing Moon - Echo and the Bunnymen

The Day Before You Came - Blancmange

The Jam - About The Young Idea exhibition

I went to The Jam exhibition in London over the summer, a real indulgence of nostalgia on a sticky hot day. It reinforced to me the power of Paul Weller's cultural influence on my teenage upbringing, the vast range of musical and political nuggets he helped me absorb during those incredible formative years.

I'll get my moan out the way first. The sound from each individual room blasted out so loud you were never far away from competing tinny blasts of Town Called Malice or Funeral Pyre. But then comfort zones were never part of the Jam experience. Weller always challenged your ideas and safe preconceptions. He was always keen to unsettle your assumptions - including his dismissal of punk posturing by the throwaway line that they would be voting Conservative in 1979. In so many ways the exhibition  took you back to Jam gigs where feeling safe and comfortable was never part of the deal. They were a boiling, heaving mass of adolescent fury and emotions. Some solid bonds, but the flames grew higher too.

I took two quite staggering points away with me that I never knew before. Paul Weller's school report where his lowest mark was in music. The second was the sheer force of personality of John Weller, his father. Sure, I remember him introducing the band, but a short film and the clippings really highlighted his powerful role in pushing the band and his son.

Just like I mentioned when I reported from a From The Jam gig in Preston a few years ago, I was as fascinated by the audience of fellow Jammers. I was there in a dark suit and clicky brogues, as described by Quentin Letts of the Daily Mail earlier in the day, but there were well turned out geezers in Sta Press and Ben Shermans, Fred Perry and Levis and a few in suede desert boots. Then there was Peter York milling about, looking as dapper as he always does.

But The Jam was so much more than just a great band and a look, I loved how Weller opened my eyes to ideas too. So I was pleased that due prominence was given to Orwell books and Shelley's poetry as there was to the musical influences and the clothes.

It's at Somerset House in London and has been extended until the end of September. I'm sorry it's taken me a month to write this up, but I've been dreaming of a quiet life, the one you'll never know.