Fit to burst

In case there are any future anthology editors reading, we thought in a quiet moment of self-regarding nonsense we'd put together the links for everything we wrote for The Line Of Best Fit in 2009, apart from the album reviews edited down and re-presented for the STN end of year folderol.

Hazel Winter - Situation Normal Then
Luke Haines – Bad Vibes: Britpop And My Part In Its Downfall
Partly on the back of this, we got sent Truth And Lies In Murder Park, a fact-based novel by Tim Mitchell (made, we think, with Haines' cooperation) about a journalist sent to interview a rather more successful parallel version of Haines who finds himself captured by characters and mes en scenes from his lyrics. Never got round to reviewing it, but it's a fascinatingly obtuse companion piece. Even if we say so ourselves the line in this review about Alex James is one of our favourite ever concoctions, albeit originally contrived for something else. The book's just come out in paperback, with a cabbage on the cover.
The Kinks - Picture Book
Six CD box set that for some reason gives each era of the band nearly equal weight, and that 80s and early 90s output was a struggle. We're told the vast majority of the better later tracks were left off.
Rough Trade Counter Culture 08
"Last year’s Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes" is one of those lines that only amuses ourselves. Counter Culture 09 is out on February 1st and features an odd selection that takes in Mos Def, Yacht, Mariachi El Bronx, Loudon Wainright III, The Leisure Society, The XX, The Horrors, The Drums, Super Furry Animals, Broadcast And The Focus Group, Pastels/Tenniscoats, Emmy The Great, Micachu And The Shapes, The Soft Pack, Fever Ray and Tiga.
Dark Was The Night
So much anguish when we nabbed this one first. And Matt Berninger's prayer came true, which is nice.
Napoleon IIIrd – Hideki Yukawa
Why don't we just change our name to Sweeping The Brainlove and have done with it?
Shirley Lee - Shirley Lee
Especially if we're going to be lukewarm about an album by the bloke who wrote the song we're named after.
1000 Robota – Du Nicht Er Nicht Sie Nicht
German language post-punk. Wonder if anyone investigated further, no matter how positive the reaction.
Sunny Day Sets Fire – Summer Palace
Favours For Sailors – Furious Sons
And that's why they split. Maybe.
Simon Reynolds – Totally Wired: Post-Punk Interviews And Overviews
We like the debate in the comments.
The Bluetones – Expecting To Fly (Expanded Edition)
Yep. Not to cast aspersions, but another online music magazine (not to be named here, but think Trompe Le Monde) published a review of this slightly later and used the same reference to Armando Iannucci's pointlessness list without reference to where it originated.
Bill Callahan – Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle
Turned up in the UK blogger poll top 50, which perhaps means it deserves a re-visit.
Caroline Weeks – Songs For Edna
Brakes - Touchdown
Honesty time: the first paragraph (and the bit before it) were written before we'd put the album on. They should really have put Consumer Or Producer Chicken Or Egg on.
The Wave Pictures – If You Leave It Alone
Further to the opening paragraph, Stanley Brinks And The Wave Pictures has just come out with a Dave Tattersall solo album in April. We were inordinately pleased when we found out we were the second people to register the album on last.fm after Moshi Moshi themselves.
Cryptacize – Mythomania
Cats On Fire – Our Temperance Movement
To be fair, they were spectacular at Indietracks.
Golden Silvers – True Romance
The Loves – Three
It's not been made public yet but someone told us Fortuna Pop!'s newest signing recently, and we were actively astonished. Presumably it'll be announced very soon.
Awaydays Original Soundtrack
The bit about Merseyside v Leyton was original research (ie we asked someone north-western and older whether casuals would really have been listening to this stuff)
Interview with Stuart Mackay of Indietracks
Reviewed it as well, although only by cribbing STN's own longer review.
Common People - Britpop: The Story
We do keep doing this to ourselves. Another review reckoned the worst, most Britpop-timelocked thing on it was Earl Brutus! These people don't deserve the gift of music. The promo didn't have the Bob Stanley liner notes, and we'd quite like to know his defence of some of it.
The Answering Machine – Another City, Another Sorry
Let’s Wrestle – In The Court Of The Wrestling Let’s
Giving it only one less percentage point than The Low Anthem seems slightly generous, and perhaps explains why TLOBF doesn't do percentages any more, but it's not a bad album by any means, and the site editors having a difference of opinion in the comments is fun.
The Minus 5 - Killingsworth
The Duckworth Lewis Method – The Duckworth Lewis Method
Latitude Festival
Never got round to writing the extended version for STN, although this is pretty extensive as it is. It also solely focuses on the music, which means we've never previously got to relay the sight of Frank Skinner observing the bag check queue before being stopped by some bloke telling him a joke, or Robin Ince reading a Horrid Henry book to a gathering of five year olds while people like us crowded round the outside of the tent taking this curious image to heart, or seeing Simon Armitage outside the poetry tent checking the bit in his book he was about to deliver a reading of. We intend to use that Marina and the Diamonds line a lot more this year.
Interview with Rebecca from Slow Club
The observant will know it was Charles who did similar for STN, so we got all bases covered.
Hefner - We Love The City
Broadcast And The Focus Group – Broadcast And The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age
Brakes – Rock Is Dodelijk
The live album. Comma Comma Comma Full Stop isn't even the last track.
The Swell Season – Strict Joy