It's been exactly one year and one day since I registered for Last.fm. Accordingly, I've decided to take a look back at the last year.

My top albums
1. The Beatles – The Beatles
I could have chosen almost anything from The Beatles for the top spot, but I find I listen to this one more than the others. It was a major influence on my guitar playing when I first began, and practically every song has a fond memory attached to it.

2. M.I.A. – Kala
If you’ve read my journal with any regularity over the past few months,…

A lovely little mix than I just burned.

Wuthering Heights
Hounds of Love
Breathing
Suspended in Gaffa
The Man With The Child In His Eyes
Pull Out The Pin
Blow Away (For Bill)
Mother Stands For Comfort
Mrs. Bartolozzi
Jig of Life
Houdini
This Woman's Work

I love The Velvet Underground’s first album with Nico. There’s some really neat stuff on there. Venus in Furs is an ethereal S&M drone, Sunday Morning is a perfect pop song and All Tomorrow’s Parties is just flat-out greatness. But their second album, White Light/White Heat, in my humble opinion, is for the most part even better. However, one track is so terrible that it very nearly overshadows the rest of the album. Sister Ray, which inexplicably forms half the album, is a stupid blues-jam thing that’s a rip on something Pink Floyd did so much better…

Lately, I've been on a major pop kick. Someone brought the new Britney Spears album in to newspaper, I listened to it and I actually found myself enjoying it. Say what you will about her, but Gimme More and Piece of Me are really good pop singles. Of course, a lot of that credit goes to her phalanx of producers and songwriters but I genuinely enjoy them, and not in an ironic, post-modernist way.
Then, there's Ashlee Simpson. Her new single has been rattling round my head for the last two weeks. It's a total Gwen Stefani rip-off, but…

The Kate Bush project
I received a Tascam 4-track recorder for Christmas. Earlier today, I put in a cassette to record over it, when I realized that there was music on the other side of the tape. On 4-tracks, you can only record on one side of a tape. I turned down the faders on tracks 1 and 2, and in tracks 3 and 4, The Saturday Boy by Billy Bragg was playing backwards. It sounded seriously cool, like an Indian raga. Bulldog Front by Fugazi sounded like Nirvana gone reggae.
I also received a copy of Hounds of Love…

Blur
Right after they released their debut album Leisure, Blur went into the studio and began working on their second record. Taking influence from their shoegazer contemporaries and American indie-rock, they soon finished the record (or so they believed). But the head of their record company, David Balfe, hated almost all the songs, and so the band was forced to go back to work and come up with another album. Ultimately, the poppy Modern Life is Rubbish was released to moderate success in 1993, while the band's planned 1992 album can only be pieced together from B-sides. I've burnt…

Looking back
Unless another major band pull a Radiohead-style upset and release an album via their website in the next two weeks, I can say I've decided on my 10 favourite records of the year.

1. M.I.A. - Kala
When I originally drafted this list, Kanye West’s record was at #1 and this took #2. But after a few more weeks, I decided to switch them. While Graduation sounds really awesome, it begins to strain under repeat listens, unlike The College Dropout and Late Registration. It’s lyrically weak and doesn’t reach as much as a Kanye record ought to,…

I've been wondering that for a few years now. As a rock guitarist, there's really nothing more distressing to me (creatively, at least), than the fact that the art form I’ve chosen to express myself in might be in its last breath. It makes me sad because rock has produced some awesome stuff, some of which I would even call art. Nirvana, Radiohead, Blur, My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth come to mind. But in 2007, is any of that relevant? Is there any new way you can twist a power chord or a distorted guitar or a 4/4 snare…

I think that as far as rock bands go, Blur have the best videos. (My favourite videos tend to be those of female singers like Madonna, Kate Bush and Bjork). During the 90's, when rock music was full of slackers and lugubrious Kurt Cobain clones, Blur dared to have their own image. Here are a few of Blur's more memorable visual forays.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et9_QQbIpXA
She's So High

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlY6rmQfNt4

Popscene

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yvw1R1Ykk5Y
For Tomorrow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjZ0plrFIE4
Girls & Boys

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKCoBt43HWE
Parklife

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGc2f2282NE
The Universal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0Xl0ZEKJzo
Song 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWUil383us4
Coffee & TV

LIVE VIDEOS

A transcendent live performance of "The Universal."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BomNwpILtk

Graham…

My latest obsession is Kate Bush. We're studying "Wuthering Heights" in English class and we did something about its effect on pop culture so I decided to look up the Kate Bush video of the same name on Youtube. The video (click here to view) features Kate dancing in a field in a red dress, delivering the song's narrative lyric with the most delightfully melodramatic facial expressions I've ever seen in a rock video. That one song is unlike anything I've ever heard before. It's not strange in a Björk sort of way, but its weirdness comes from the…