Covers band: Melody Maker 1980-2000

The start of a very occasional series takes as its key point the obvious and undeniable fact that the list of NME covers on Wikipedia is the very best page on the internet. But why stop there? Why can't we chart the whole of pop culture by rise and fall to standfirst prominence?

As such, here's a list, as much as we could find, of every Melody Maker cover from the start of the Eighties, when it started moving away from news pieces on the front, to its demise. Filling in the gaps is welcomed. And yes, we will do more of these in time.


05/01/1980    Paul McCartney
12/01/1980    Brian Eno
19/01/1980    The Beat
26/01/1980    The Pretenders
02/02/1980    Thomas Leer & Robert Rental, Def Leppard
09/02/1980    Squeeze
16/02/1980    Andy Warhol
23/02/1980    The Selecter
01/03/1980    Michael Jackson
08/03/1980    XTC
15/03/1980    Madness
22/03/1980    The Cramps
29/03/1980    Genesis
05/04/1980    The Undertones
12/04/1980    Billy Joel
19/04/1980   
26/04/1980    Jah Wobble
(six weeks lost to strike action)
14/06/1980    Ted Nugent
21/06/1980    The Specials
28/06/1980    Joan Armatrading
05/07/1980    Peter Gabriel
12/07/1980    Any Trouble
19/07/1980    Elvis Costello
26/07/1980    The Police
02/08/1980    Mick Jagger
09/08/1980    Ray Davies
16/08/1980    Rainbow
23/08/1980    Grace Jones
30/08/1980    David Coverdale
06/09/1980    Kiss
13/09/1980    Yes
20/09/1980    Dire Straits
27/09/1980    Jon Anderson
04/10/1980    Kate Bush
11/10/1980    Paul Weller and Pete Townshend
18/10/1980    Gary Numan
25/10/1980    Madness
01/11/1980    Ian Dury
08/11/1980    Orchestral Manoevures In The Dark
15/11/1980    The Selecter
22/11/1980    Christmas Albums War (literally a story about there being some albums out at Christmas)
29/11/1980    Talking Heads
06/12/1980    Ian Dury
13/12/1980    John Lennon
20/12/1980    Steely Dan
27/12/1980    The Boomtown Rats
03/01/1981    Elvis Costello, The Selecter
10/01/1981    Spandau Ballet
17/01/1981    The Who
24/01/1981    Echo and the Bunnymen
31/01/1981    The Bureau
07/02/1981    Phil Collins
14/02/1981    Peter Gabriel
21/02/1981    The Stranglers
28/02/1981    Tiswas
07/03/1981    Gang Of Four
14/03/1981    Squeeze
21/03/1981    The Selecter
28/03/1981    Motorhead and Girlschool
04/04/1981    Adam and the Ants
11/04/1981    Linx
18/04/1981    Teardrop Explodes
25/04/1981    The Fabulous Thunderbirds
02/05/1981    Gary Numan
09/05/1981    Bruce Springsteen
16/05/1981   
23/05/1981    The Jam
30/05/1981    Psychedelic Furs
06/06/1981    The Clash
13/06/1981    Tom Petty
20/06/1981    Squeeze
27/06/1981    Bob Dylan
04/07/1981    UB40
11/07/1981    Wah!
18/07/1981    Chic
25/07/1981    Bryan Ferry
01/08/1981    Talking Heads
08/08/1981    Motorhead
15/08/1981    Toyah
22/08/1981    Dexys Midnight Runners
29/08/1981    Was (Not Was)
05/09/1981    Rip Rig & Panic
12/09/1981    The Pretenders
19/09/1981    Ian Dury
26/09/1981    The Go-Gos
03/10/1981   
10/10/1981    Madness
17/10/1981    The Police
24/10/1981    Linx
31/10/1981    Elvis Costello
07/11/1981    Orchestral Manoevures In The Dark
14/11/1981    Depeche Mode
21/11/1981    Blue Rondo A La Turk
28/11/1981    TV21
05/12/1981    The Teadrop Explodes
12/12/1981    Beggar & Co
19/12/1981    Christmas issue
02/01/1982    Graffiti art
09/01/1982    Altered Images
16/01/1982    Soft Cell
23/01/1982    Rick James
30/01/1982    UB40
06/02/1982    U2
13/02/1982    King Trigger
20/02/1982    Bananarama & Fun Boy Three
27/02/1982    Pigbag
06/03/1982    The Exploited, Chron-Gen, Anti-Nowhere League ('Kings Of The Wild Frontier: Punk Bites Back')
13/03/1982    The Jam
20/03/1982    Haircut 100
27/03/1982    Simple Minds
03/04/1982    Marine Girls
10/04/1982    BEF
17/04/1982    Spandau Ballet
24/04/1982    Blancmange and The Passage
01/05/1982    The Blasters
08/05/1982    Junior Giscombe
15/05/1982    Vice Squad
22/05/1982    Nick Rhodes
29/05/1982   
05/06/1982    Blondie
12/06/1982    The Bluebells
19/06/1982    Attila The Stockbroker
26/06/1982    Saxon
03/07/1982    The Jam
10/07/1982    Captain Sensible
17/07/1982    Shalamar
24/07/1982    The Beat
31/07/1982    Dee Sharp
07/08/1982    Dexys Midnight Runners
14/08/1982    Siouxsie & The Banshees
21/08/1982    Killing Joke
28/08/1982    The Associates
04/09/1982    Sting
11/09/1982    Stiff Little Fingers
18/09/1982    ABC
25/09/1982    Yazoo
02/10/1982    Peter Gabriel
09/10/1982    The Psychedelic Furs
16/10/1982    Culture Club
23/10/1982    Dire Straits
30/10/1982    Bauhaus
06/11/1982    The Jam
13/11/1982    Duran Duran
20/11/1982    The Adicts
27/11/1982    Simple Minds
04/12/1982    Marc Almond and The The’s Matt Johnson
11/12/1982    Kirk Brandon
18/12/1982    Shalamar
01/01/1983    Fun Boy Three
08/01/1983    George Clinton
15/01/1983    Soft Cell
22/01/1983    Pete Wylie
29/01/1983    The Belle Stars
05/02/1983    Kajagoogoo
12/02/1983    Indeep
19/02/1983    Haysi Fantayzee
26/02/1983    Mari Wilson
05/03/1983    Southern Death Cult
12/03/1983    Nick Heyward
19/03/1983    Tears For Fears
26/03/1983    John Taylor of Duran Duran
02/04/1983    Bananarama
09/04/1983    Marillion
16/04/1983    Wall Of Voodoo
23/04/1983    JoBoxers
30/04/1983    Level 42
07/05/1983    Wham!
14/05/1983    Siouxsie & The Banshees
21/05/1983    Thompson Twins
28/05/1983    David Bowie
04/06/1983    Spandau Ballet
11/06/1983    Orange Juice
18/06/1983    Anti-Nowhere League
25/06/1983    Vince Clarke
02/07/1983    Nick Heyward
09/07/1983    Eurythmics
16/07/1983    Shalamar
23/07/1983    Duran Duran
30/07/1983    Echo and the Bunnymen
06/08/1983   
13/08/1983    Paul Weller
20/08/1983    Carmel
27/08/1983    Marc Almond
03/09/1983    The Glove
10/09/1983    Kid Creole
17/09/1983    Special AKA
24/09/1983    Spandau Ballet
01/10/1983    Siouxsie Sioux
08/10/1983    Bauhaus
15/10/1983    King Kurt
22/10/1983    The Lotus Eaters
29/10/1983    Wham!
05/11/1983    Public Image Ltd
12/11/1983    Limahl
19/11/1983    Eurythmics
26/11/1983    The Smiths
03/12/1983    Culture Club
10/12/1983    Big Country
17/12/1983    Duran Duran
24/12/1983    Tracey Ullman
07/01/1984    Depeche Mode
14/01/1984    Thompson Twins
21/01/1984    Terry Hall
28/01/1984    The Alarm
04/02/1984    Howard Jones
11/02/1984    Simple Minds
18/02/1984    Sade
25/02/1984    Marilyn
03/03/1984    The Smiths
10/03/1984    Icicle Works
17/03/1984    Carmel
24/03/1984    Paul Weller
31/03/1984    Madness
07/04/1984    Duran Duran
14/04/1984    Dead Or Alive
21/04/1984    Big Country
28/04/1984    Echo & The Bunnymen
05/05/1984    Psychedelic Furs
12/05/1984    David Sylvian
19/05/1984    Lloyd Cole
26/05/1984    Cocteau Twins
02/06/1984    Swans Way
09/06/1984    Human League
(six weeks lost to strike action)
28/07/1984    Wham!
04/08/1984    The Kane Gang
11/08/1984    The Mighty Wah!
18/08/1984    The Armoury Show
25/08/1984    Malcolm McLaren
01/09/1984    Senate
08/09/1984    The Associates
15/09/1984    Bronski Beat
22/09/1984    Depeche Mode
29/09/1984    Echo & The Bunnymen
06/10/1984    Heaven 17
13/10/1984    Aztec Camera
20/10/1984    Big Country
27/10/1984    The Pogues
03/11/1984    The Smiths
10/11/1984    U2
17/11/1984    Wham!
24/11/1984    Duran Duran
01/12/1984    Frankie Goes To Hollywood
08/12/1984    Bob Geldof and Midge Ure
15/12/1984    Sade
22/12/1984    Frankies Say Christmas! (lots of photos of people called Frankie or similar)
05/01/1985    U2
12/01/1985    The Cult
19/01/1985    Jerry Dammers
26/01/1985    Strawberry Switchblade
02/02/1985    Del Amitri
09/02/1985    Chaka Khan
16/02/1985    Mick Jagger
23/02/1985    Big Sound Authority
02/03/1985    The Bangles
09/03/1985    Tears For Fears
16/03/1985    Morrissey
23/03/1985    Billy Bragg
30/03/1985    Go West
06/04/1985    Paul Young
13/04/1985    State Of The Union US rock special, Peter Buck sole on cover
20/04/1985    King
27/04/1985    Vince Clarke
04/05/1985    Eurythmics
11/05/1985    Tom Petty
18/05/1985    Propaganda
25/05/1985    Frankie Goes To Hollywood
01/06/1985    Bryan Ferry
08/06/1985    Bruce Springsteen
15/06/1985    REM
22/06/1985    Scritti Politti
29/06/1985    The Redskins
06/07/1985    The Men They Couldn’t Hang
13/07/1985    The Style Council
20/07/1985    Live Aid
27/07/1985    The Coward Brothers
03/08/1985    Johnny Marr
10/08/1985    Colourbox
17/08/1985    The Cure
24/08/1985    Sigue Sigue Sputnik
31/08/1985    Simply Red
07/09/1985    Neil Young
14/09/1985    Marc Almond
21/09/1985    Bronski Beat
28/09/1985    Madonna
05/10/1985    The Waterboys
12/10/1985    The Communards
19/10/1985    Tears For Fears
26/10/1985    The Cult
02/11/1985    Siouxsie & The Banshees
09/11/1985    Propaganda
16/11/1985    Cocteau Twins
23/11/1985    Jesus & Mary Chain
30/11/1985    Eighth Wonder
07/12/1985    King
14/12/1985    Echo & The Bunnymen
21/12/1985    ’85: The Year Of Giving Generously
04/01/1986    Sigue Sigue Sputnik
11/01/1986    New Order
18/01/1986    Raymonde
25/01/1986   
01/02/1986    Win
08/02/1986    U2
15/02/1986    Marc Almond
22/02/1986    Pet Shop Boys
01/03/1986    Elvis Costello
08/03/1986    Chakk
15/03/1986    Ruefrex
22/03/1986    David Bowie
29/03/1986    Balaam & The Angel
05/04/1986    Fine Young Cannibals
12/04/1986    Big Country
19/04/1986    Siouxsie & The Banshees
26/04/1986    Big Audio Dynamite
03/05/1986    The Cocteau Twins
10/05/1986    Fuzzbox
17/05/1986    Pete Wylie
24/05/1986    Public Image Ltd
31/05/1986    Robert Smith and Stuart Adamson
07/06/1986    Sigue Sigue Sputnik
14/06/1986    Simple Minds
21/06/1986    The Waterboys
28/06/1986    Hollywood Beyond
05/07/1986    The Housemartins
12/07/1986    The Woodentops
19/07/1986    Real Roxanne, Lovebug Starski and Grandmaster Flash
26/07/1986    Sherone
02/08/1986    Edwyn Collins
09/08/1986    Frankie Goes To Hollywood
16/08/1986    Killing Joke
23/08/1986    Prince
30/08/1986    The Cure
06/09/1986    REM
13/09/1986    The Beastie Boys
20/09/1986    Cameo
27/09/1986    The Smiths
04/10/1986    New Order
11/10/1986    Human League
18/10/1986    Big Audio Dynamite
25/10/1986    The Mission
01/11/1986    Julian Cope
08/11/1986    Billy Idol
15/11/1986    Schooly-D
22/11/1986    Eurythmics
29/11/1986    Band Of Holy Joy
06/12/1986    Mantronix
13/12/1986    Jesus & Mary Chain
20/12/1986    Mick Jones and Pete Wylie
03/01/1987    The Housemartins
10/01/1987    Siouxsie Sioux
17/01/1987    The Christians
24/01/1987    The Cult
31/01/1987    Iggy Pop
07/02/1987    Big Audio Dynamite
14/02/1987    Luther Vandross
21/02/1987    Dead Or Alive, The Communards
28/02/1987    Stump
07/03/1987    Simply Red
14/03/1987    U2
21/03/1987    Beastie Boys
28/03/1987    Throwing Muses
04/04/1987    The Mission
11/04/1987    The Cure
18/04/1987    Pop Tarts
25/04/1987    Jesus & Mary Chain
02/05/1987    The Proclaimers
09/05/1987   
16/05/1987    The Replacements
23/05/1987    Run DMC
30/05/1987    The Cure
06/06/1987    Echo & The Bunnymen
13/06/1987   
20/06/1987    The Young Gods
27/06/1987    Prince
04/07/1987    The Cocteau Twins, Throwing Muses, Colourbox, Dead Can Dance, This Mortal Coil
11/07/1987    Swans
18/07/1987    Loop
25/07/1987    AR Kane
01/08/1987    Terence Trent d'Arby
08/08/1987    Public Image Ltd
15/08/1987    The Primitives
22/08/1987    Tom Waits
29/08/1987    The Mission
05/09/1987    Sisters Of Mercy
12/09/1987    REM
19/09/1987    Jesus & Mary Chain
26/09/1987    Morrissey
03/10/1987   
10/10/1987    Ian McCulloch and Bernard Sumner
17/10/1987    Gaye Bykers On Acid
24/10/1987    The Sugarcubes
31/10/1987    Ben Elton
07/11/1987    10,000 Maniacs
14/11/1987   
21/11/1987    All About Eve
28/11/1987    Public Enemy
05/12/1987    The Cure
12/12/1987    Sinead O’Connor
19/12/1987    U2
02/01/1988    The Sugarcubes
09/01/1988    World Domination Enterprises
16/01/1988    Fields Of The Nephilim
23/01/1988    Nick Cave
30/01/1988    The Primitives
06/02/1988    Faith No More
13/02/1988    Sonic Youth
20/02/1988    All About Eve
27/02/1988    The Mission
05/03/1988    The Fall
12/03/1988    Morrissey
19/03/1988    Pixies
26/03/1988    Jesus & Mary Chain
02/04/1988    Butthole Surfers
09/04/1988    Kevin Rowland
16/04/1988    The Sugarcubes
23/04/1988    10,000 Maniacs
30/04/1988    AR Kane
07/05/1988    Megadeth
14/05/1988    Swans
21/05/1988    Skinny Puppy
28/05/1988    Public Enemy
04/06/1988    Sinead O’Connor
11/06/1988    The Hothouse Flowers
18/06/1988    Nick Cave
25/06/1988    Darling Buds
02/07/1988    Green On Red
09/07/1988    Siouxsie Sioux
16/07/1988    Tracy Chapman
23/07/1988    Prince
30/07/1988    House Of Love
06/08/1988    Patti Smith
13/08/1988    Pixies
20/08/1988    The Young Gods
27/08/1988    Fields Of The Nephilim
03/09/1988    Front 242
10/09/1988    The Wonder Stuff
17/09/1988    Cocteau Twins
24/09/1988    Darling Buds
01/10/1988    Butthole Surfers
08/10/1988    Thin White Rope
15/10/1988    My Bloody Valentine
22/10/1988    U2
29/10/1988    REM
05/11/1988    All About Eve
12/11/1988    Loop
19/11/1988    Spacemen 3
26/11/1988    Yello
03/12/1988    New Order
10/12/1988    The Pogues
17/12/1988    The Primitives
24/12/1988    The Sugarcubes
07/01/1989    The Mission
14/01/1989    The Sundays
21/01/1989    Jane’s Addiction
28/01/1989    Throwing Muses
04/02/1989    Holly Johnson
11/02/1989    Lou Reed
18/02/1989    Darling Buds
25/02/1989    The Wonder Stuff
04/03/1989    Michelle Shocked
11/03/1989    Tanita Tikaram
18/03/1989    The Cult
25/03/1989    Cowboy Junkies
01/04/1989    Pixies
08/04/1989    Simple Minds
15/04/1989    House Of Love
22/04/1989    Swans
29/04/1989    The Cure
06/05/1989    Robert Smith and J Mascis
13/05/1989    Elvis Costello
20/05/1989    Fields Of The Nephilim
27/05/1989    REM
03/06/1989    The Stone Roses
10/06/1989    Bobby Brown
17/06/1989    Pixies
24/06/1989    Transvision Vamp
01/07/1989    David Bowie
08/07/1989    The Primitives
15/07/1989    The Cure
22/07/1989    Simple Minds
29/07/1989    Big Audio Dynamite
05/08/1989    The Beastie Boys
12/08/1989    Wolfsbane
19/08/1989    Tears For Fears
26/08/1989    The Mission
02/09/1989    The Sugarcubes
09/09/1989    Jesus & Mary Chain
16/09/1989    All About Eve
23/09/1989    INXS
30/09/1989    Ian McCulloch
07/10/1989    The Creatures
14/10/1989    The Wedding Present
21/10/1989    Kate Bush
28/10/1989    House Of Love
04/11/1989    NWA
11/11/1989    Thurston Moore, J Mascis, Gibby Haynes
18/11/1989    Aerosmith
25/11/1989    The Cult
02/12/1989    Happy Mondays
09/12/1989    The Stone Roses
16/12/1989    Soul II Soul
23/12/1989    The Mission
06/01/1990    Sisters Of Mercy
13/01/1990    Birdland
20/01/1990    The Sundays
27/01/1990    The Beloved
03/02/1990    Bob Dylan
10/02/1990    Marc Almond
17/02/1990    Lush
24/02/1990    Cowboy Junkies
03/03/1990    House Of Love
10/03/1990    Depeche Mode
17/03/1990    Nick Cave
24/03/1990    David Bowie
31/03/1990    Happy Mondays
07/04/1990    B-52s
14/04/1990    Inspiral Carpets
21/04/1990    Adamski
28/04/1990    Lou Reed
05/05/1990    Hothouse Flowers
12/05/1990    Revenge
19/05/1990    Flowered Up
26/05/1990    The Breeders
02/06/1990    The Mission
09/06/1990    Aztec Camera
16/06/1990    Soul II Soul
23/06/1990    The Cure
30/06/1990    808 State
07/07/1990    The Heart Throbs
14/07/1990    The Wedding Present
21/07/1990    Soup Dragons
28/07/1990    Cranes
04/08/1990    Billy Idol
11/08/1990    Pixies
18/08/1990    Jesus & Mary Chain
25/08/1990    Cocteau Twins
01/09/1990    INXS
08/09/1990    Sinead O’Connor
15/09/1990    Neneh Cherry
22/09/1990    Ride
29/09/1990    The Beautiful South
06/10/1990    Sisters Of Mercy
13/10/1990    The Charlatans
20/10/1990    The Mission
27/10/1990    Paul Gascoigne
03/11/1990    Deee-Lite
10/11/1990    Happy Mondays
17/11/1990    The La’s
24/11/1990    The Farm
01/12/1990    Pet Shop Boys
08/12/1990    James
15/12/1990    Lush
22/12/1990    Shaun Ryder and Bernard Sumner
05/01/1991    Ride
12/01/1991    The Cocteau Twins
19/01/1991    Seal
26/01/1991    The Cure
02/02/1991    Dream Warriors
09/02/1991    808 State
16/02/1991    The KLF
23/02/1991    Jane’s Addiction
02/03/1991    REM
09/03/1991    The Charlatans
16/03/1991    Ride
23/03/1991    Ocean Colour Scene, Chapterhouse
30/03/1991    Transvision Vamp
06/04/1991    Blur
13/04/1991    Electronic
20/04/1991    The Shamen
27/04/1991    Inspiral Carpets
04/05/1991    Curve
11/05/1991    Siouxsie & The Banshees
18/05/1991    The Waterboys
25/05/1991    The Wedding Present
01/06/1991    Primal Scream
08/06/1991    Pixies
15/06/1991    Carter USM
22/06/1991    The Cure
29/06/1991    Sinead O’Connor
06/07/1991    The Wonder Stuff
13/07/1991    Jesus Jones
20/07/1991    Manic Street Preachers
27/07/1991    EMF
03/08/1991    Guns’n’Roses
10/08/1991    The Shamen
17/08/1991    Perry Farrell and Ice-T
24/08/1991    Blur
31/08/1991    Metallica
07/09/1991    The Senseless Things
14/09/1991    Electronic
21/09/1991    The Black Crowes
28/09/1991    Happy Mondays
05/10/1991    Lush
12/10/1991    Carter USM
19/10/1991    Teenage Fanclub
26/10/1991    Curve
02/11/1991    Nirvana
09/11/1991    James
16/11/1991    The Wonder Stuff
23/11/1991    The Cult
30/11/1991    Neil Young
07/12/1991    Jesus Jones
14/12/1991    Ned’s Atomic Dustbin
21/12/1991    REM
04/01/1992    Nirvana
11/01/1992    The Wedding Present
18/01/1992    Primal Scream
25/01/1992    Daisy Chainsaw
01/02/1992    The Wonder Stuff
08/02/1992    Thousand Yard Stare
15/02/1992    Teenage Fanclub
22/02/1992    Pearl Jam
29/02/1992    Ride
07/03/1992    The Cure
14/03/1992    Curve
21/03/1992    Jesus & Mary Chain
28/03/1992    Mercury Rev
04/04/1992    James
11/04/1992    The Mission
18/04/1992    The Black Crowes
25/04/1992    Suede
02/05/1992    Metallica
09/05/1992    Carter USM
16/05/1992    L7
23/05/1992    Faith No More
30/05/1992    Guns’n’Roses
06/06/1992    Soundgarden
13/06/1992    Verve
20/06/1992    Pearl Jam
27/06/1992    Whose Land Is It Anyway? travellers special
04/07/1992    The Levellers
11/07/1992    The Shamen
18/07/1992    Nirvana
25/07/1992    Ministry
01/08/1992    The Orb
08/08/1992    Faith No More
15/08/1992    Therapy?
22/08/1992    Mudhoney
29/08/1992    Suede
05/09/1992    The Cure
12/09/1992    Reading Festival special
19/09/1992    Babes In Toyland
26/09/1992    REM
03/10/1992    The Shamen
10/10/1992    Riot Grrrls!
17/10/1992    Throwing Muses
24/10/1992    Gallon Drunk
31/10/1992    Mega City Four
07/11/1992    Sonic Youth
14/11/1992    Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy
21/11/1992    The Black Crowes
28/11/1992    Faith No More
05/12/1992    Nine Inch Nails
12/12/1992    Suede
19/12/1992    Nirvana
02/01/1993    Suede
09/01/1993    Sugar
16/01/1993    Dinosaur Jr
23/01/1993    Henry Rollins
30/01/1993    Suede, Stereo MCs, Belly, Therapy?, Ride
06/02/1993    Stereo MCs
13/02/1993    The Lemonheads
20/02/1993    The Auteurs
27/02/1993    Huggy Bear
06/03/1993    Belly
13/03/1993    Back To The Planet, Orbital, Ozric Tentacles
20/03/1993    Pavement
27/03/1993    The Orb and Dave Gilmour
03/04/1993    Depeche Mode
10/04/1993    The Frank And Walters
17/04/1993    Suede
24/04/1993    Perry Farrell
01/05/1993    Ozric Tentacles
08/05/1993    New Order
15/05/1993    Bjork
22/05/1993    Therapy?
29/05/1993    Manic Street Preachers
05/06/1993    The Waterboys
12/06/1993    Kingmaker
19/06/1993    Suede
26/06/1993    Stereo MCs
03/07/1993    Smashing Pumpkins
10/07/1993    PJ Harvey
17/07/1993    Faith No More
24/07/1993    'The 13 Year Itch - Lush, Throwing Muses and Red House Painters Celebrate 4AD’s 13th Birthday'
31/07/1993    U2
07/08/1993    'Bonfire Of The Vanities - The Levellers Torch The Music Press'
14/08/1993    James
21/08/1993    Nirvana
28/08/1993    New Order, Porno For Pyros, The The
04/09/1993    Shaun Ryder
11/09/1993    Cocteau Twins
18/09/1993    Afghan Whigs
25/09/1993    Blur
02/10/1993    REM
09/10/1993    Pearl Jam
16/10/1993    Spin Doctors
23/10/1993    Radiohead
30/10/1993    The Breeders
06/11/1993    Grant Lee Buffalo
13/11/1993    Evan Dando and Juliana Hatfield
20/11/1993    Bono and Frank Sinatra
27/11/1993    Pet Shop Boys
04/12/1993    The Jesus Lizard
11/12/1993    Saint Etienne and Tim Burgess
18/12/1993    Megadog
25/12/1993    Kurt Cobain and Kim Deal
08/01/1994    Poll results
15/01/1994    Kristin Hersh
22/01/1994    Underworld
29/01/1994    Manic Street Preachers
05/02/1994    Snoop Doggy Dogg
12/02/1994    Pavement
19/02/1994    Courtney Love
26/02/1994    Credit To The Nation
05/03/1994    Senser
12/03/1994    Kurt Cobain
19/03/1994    Soundgarden
26/03/1994    Soul Asylum
02/04/1994    Henry Rollins
09/04/1994    Erasure
16/04/1994    Kurt Cobain
23/04/1994    Kurt and Courtney
30/04/1994    Pearl Jam
07/05/1994    Blur
14/05/1994    2 Unlimited
21/05/1994    Pearl Jam
28/05/1994    S*M*A*S*H
04/06/1994    Pulp
11/06/1994    Therapy? and Henry Rollins
18/06/1994    Echobelly
25/06/1994    Smashing Pumpkins
02/07/1994    Glastonbury
09/07/1994    Transglobal Underground
16/07/1994    Phoenix 1994 - Pop Will Eat Itself, Carter USM, Fun-Da-Mental
23/07/1994    Jesus & Mary Chain
30/07/1994    Suede
06/08/1994    Oasis
13/08/1994    Soundgarden
20/08/1994    Dinosaur Jr
27/08/1994    Cypress Hill, Evan Dando
03/09/1994    Courtney Love
10/09/1994    Shed Seven
17/09/1994    S*M*A*S*H
24/09/1994    Suede
01/10/1994    Shampoo
08/10/1994    Elastica
15/10/1994    Echobelly
22/10/1994    'Beat Fighting Men': Primal Scream, The Drum Club, Fun-Da-Mental
29/10/1994    Nirvana
05/11/1994    Gene
12/11/1994    REM
19/11/1994    The New Mod Generation
26/11/1994    Warren G and Snoop Doggy Dogg
03/12/1994    Richey Edwards
10/12/1994    The Cranberries
17/12/1994    The Stone Roses
24/12/1994    '1994 - Britpop’s Brilliant Face Lift': Liam Gallagher, Damon Albarn, Brett Anderson, Jarvis Cocker, Justine Frischmann
07/01/1995    Veruca Salt
14/01/1995    Sleeper
21/01/1995    Portishead
28/01/1995    REM
04/02/1995    Menswear
11/02/1995    Supergrass
18/02/1995    Boo Radleys
25/02/1995    Gene
04/03/1995    The Beastie Boys
11/03/1995    Radiohead
18/03/1995    Tindersticks
25/03/1995    Elastica
01/04/1995    The Prodigy
08/04/1995    Kurt Cobain and Richey Edwards
15/04/1995    Offspring
22/04/1995    Oasis
29/04/1995    Marion
06/05/1995    Boo Radleys
13/05/1995    Black Grape
20/05/1995    Supergrass
27/05/1995    Pulp
03/06/1995    McAlmont & Butler
10/06/1995    Supergrass, Elastica, Gene, S*M*A*S*H
17/06/1995    Menswear
24/06/1995    Bjork
01/07/1995    Glastonbury - Oasis
08/07/1995    Gene
15/07/1995    Phoenix - The Verve, Public Enemy, The Wildhearts
22/07/1995    Britpop
29/07/1995    Pulp
05/08/1995    Goldie
12/08/1995    Blur
19/08/1995    Skunk Anansie
26/08/1995    Soundgarden
02/09/1995    Foo Fighters
09/09/1995    Warchild
16/09/1995    The Charlatans
23/09/1995    The Bluetones
30/09/1995    Echobelly
07/10/1995    The Amps
14/10/1995    Menswear
21/10/1995    Cast
28/10/1995    Radiohead
04/11/1995    Pulp
11/11/1995    Oasis
18/11/1995    Foo Fighters
25/11/1995    Romo - Orlando, Plastic Fantastic, Sexus, Dexdexter
02/12/1995    Garbage
09/12/1995    Blur vs Oasis
16/12/1995    Green Day
23/12/1995    Pulp
06/01/1996    Mike Flowers Pops
13/01/1996    Manic Street Preachers
20/01/1996    The Chemical Brothers
27/01/1996    Northern Uproar
03/02/1996    Sex Pistols
10/02/1996    The Bluetones
17/02/1996    Edwyn Collins
24/02/1996    Supergrass
02/03/1996    Jarvis Cocker
09/03/1996    Blur
16/03/1996    Cast
23/03/1996    Oasis
30/03/1996    Pulp
06/04/1996    Foo Fighters
13/04/1996    Sleeper
20/04/1996    Ash
27/04/1996    70th Anniversary Special - Oasis
04/05/1996    Tricky
11/05/1996    Super Furry Animals
18/05/1996    The Bluetones
25/05/1996    Soundgarden
01/06/1996    Manic Street Preachers
08/06/1996    Garbage
15/06/1996    Primal Scream
22/06/1996    Divine Comedy
29/06/1996    60ft Dolls
06/07/1996    Terrorvision
13/07/1996    Super Furry Animals
20/07/1996    The Prodigy
27/07/1996    Cast
03/08/1996    Boo Radleys
10/08/1996    Oasis
17/08/1996    Oasis
24/08/1996    Ash
31/08/1996    The Stone Roses
07/09/1996    The Charlatans
14/09/1996    Placebo
21/09/1996    Oasis
28/09/1996    Super Furry Animals, Heavy Stereo, 3 Colours Red
05/10/1996    Babybird
12/10/1996    Metallica
19/10/1996    Cast
26/10/1996    DJ Shadow
02/11/1996    Dodgy
09/11/1996    Skunk Anansie
16/11/1996    Beck
23/11/1996    Mansun
30/11/1996    Babybird and Eddie Izzard
07/12/1996    Space
14/12/1996    Bjork
21/12/1996    Starspotting
04/01/1997    Manic Street Preachers
11/01/1997    Kenickie
18/01/1997    Suede
25/01/1997    Kula Shaker
01/02/1997    Blur
08/02/1997    Placebo
15/02/1997    Pavement
22/02/1997    U2
01/03/1997    Mansun
08/03/1997    Mark Radcliffe
15/03/1997    Eels
22/03/1997    Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci
29/03/1997    Symposium
05/04/1997    The Chemical Brothers
12/04/1997    Manic Street Preachers
19/04/1997    Supergrass
26/04/1997    Foo Fighters
03/05/1997    Kenickie
10/05/1997    Super Furry Animals
17/05/1997    Gillian Anderson
24/05/1997    Radiohead
31/05/1997    Mad For It! festival special
07/06/1997    Symposium
14/06/1997    Cast
21/06/1997    Blur
28/06/1997    Oasis
05/07/1997    Glastonbury
12/07/1997    Embrace
19/07/1997    The Charlatans
26/07/1997    Echo and the Bunnymen
02/08/1997    Reef
09/08/1997    Morrissey
16/08/1997    Melanie C
23/08/1997    Suede
30/08/1997    Manic Street Preachers
06/09/1997    Republica
13/09/1997    No Doubt
20/09/1997    Oasis
27/09/1997    Sleeper
04/10/1997    Oasis
11/10/1997    The Verve
18/10/1997    Zoe Ball
25/10/1997    Bush
01/11/1997    Black Grape
08/11/1997    Kylie Minogue
15/11/1997    Spice Girls
22/11/1997    Radiohead
29/11/1997    Lara Croft
06/12/1997    The Seahorses
13/12/1997    Travis
20/12/1997    The Fast Show
03/01/1998    Readers Poll - Radiohead, The Verve
10/01/1998    Lo-Fidelity Allstars
17/01/1998    The Verve
24/01/1998    Catatonia
31/01/1998    Richey Edwards
07/02/1998    All Saints
14/02/1998    Stereophonics
21/02/1998    Shaun Ryder
28/02/1998    Shed Seven
07/03/1998    Oasis
14/03/1998    Natalie Imbruglia
21/03/1998    The Bluetones
28/03/1998    Kylie Minogue
04/04/1998    Divine Comedy
11/04/1998    Spice Girls
18/04/1998    '50 Rock’n’Roll Things You Must Do By The Year 2000'
25/04/1998    Kula Shaker
02/05/1998    All Saints
09/05/1998    Creamfields
16/05/1998    Garbage
23/05/1998    The Verve
30/05/1998    Kenickie
06/06/1998    Ian Brown
13/06/1998    World Cup - Tommy Scott
20/06/1998    Embrace
27/06/1998    Festival Guide - Jarvis Cocker
04/07/1998    Glastonbury 98
11/07/1998    Robbie Williams
18/07/1998    Wanted - Have You Seen These Bands?
25/07/1998    Theaudience
01/08/1998    Dandy Warhols
08/08/1998    The Verve
15/08/1998    Bratpop
22/08/1998    V98 preview - Texas
29/08/1998    Reading - The Beastie Boys
05/09/1998    Reading 98
12/09/1998    Ash
19/09/1998    Manic Street Preachers
26/09/1998    Republica
03/10/1998    Fun Lovin’ Criminals
10/10/1998    The Cardigans
17/10/1998    Idlewild
24/10/1998    Catatonia
31/10/1998    Placebo
07/11/1998    The Stereophonics
14/11/1998    Metallica
21/11/1998    Pulp
28/11/1998    Ash
05/12/1998    Chris Moyles
12/12/1998    Belle & Sebastian
19/12/1998    Cerys Matthews
02/01/1999    Readers Poll - Manic Street Preachers
09/01/1999    The Young Person’s Guide To ‘99
16/01/1999    Garbage
23/01/1999    Mansun
30/01/1999    The Offspring
06/02/1999    Fatboy Slim
13/02/1999    The Stereophonics
20/02/1999    Gay Dad
27/02/1999    The Cardigans
06/03/1999    Robbie Williams
13/03/1999    Skunk Anansie
20/03/1999    Catatonia
27/03/1999    'The 50 Maddest People In Rock' - Dolores O’Riordan
03/04/1999    Suede
10/04/1999    All Saints
17/04/1999    The Offspring
24/04/1999    Fun Lovin’ Criminals
01/05/1999    Ali G
08/05/1999    3 Colours Red
15/05/1999    Korn
22/05/1999    Nina Persson and Debbie Harry
29/05/1999    Catatonia
05/06/1999    Homelands festival
12/06/1999    The Coolest People In Rock
19/06/1999    Suede
26/06/1999    Uri Geller
03/07/1999    Glastonbury
10/07/1999    'Everyone! Outside! Now!' - Metallica, Stereophonics, Blur, Marilyn Manson, Placebo
17/07/1999    Manic Street Preachers
24/07/1999    A
31/07/1999    Stereophonics
07/08/1999    Divine Comedy
14/08/1999    Feeder
21/08/1999    V99 - Supergrass
28/08/1999    Mansun
04/09/1999    Reading & Leeds - Blur
11/09/1999    TLC
18/09/1999    Idlewild
25/09/1999    Manic Street Preachers
02/10/1999    Travis
09/10/1999    Limp Bizkit
16/10/1999    Net Aid - Robbie Williams
23/10/1999    Foo Fighters
27/10/1999    Kelly Jones and Cerys Matthews
03/11/1999    Manic Street Preachers
10/11/1999    Huey Morgan and Shirley Manson
17/11/1999    The Cardigans
24/11/1999    'Drugs Nation'
01/12/1999    Supergrass
08/12/1999    Oasis
15/12/1999    Travis
22/12/1999    Stereophonics
05/01/2000    Feeder
12/01/2000    Readers Poll - Nicky Wire, Fran Healy
19/01/2000    Oasis
26/01/2000    Embrace
02/02/2000    Korn
09/02/2000    Red Hot Chili Peppers
16/02/2000    Travis
23/02/2000    Muse
01/03/2000    Kelly Jones and Tom Jones
08/03/2000    Blink 182
15/03/2000    Ocean Colour Scene
22/03/2000    Kurt Cobain - 'The Excess Files'
29/03/2000    Radiohead
05/04/2000    Travis
12/04/2000    The Bloodhound Gang
19/04/2000    Elastica
26/04/2000    Vic & Bob, Nina Persson
03/05/2000    Sex Pistols
10/05/2000    Embrace
17/05/2000    'Are The Charts Going Down The Toilet?'
24/05/2000    Festivals
31/05/2000    Oasis
07/06/2000    Toploader
14/06/2000    The Coolest People In Rock 2000 - Nicky Wire, Cerys Matthews, Fran Healy, Kurt Cobain
21/06/2000    Radiohead
28/06/2000    Glastonbury - Travis
05/07/2000    Kittie
12/07/2000    Oasis
19/07/2000    ’High Fidelity Allstars’
26/07/2000    Mansun
02/08/2000    Green Day
09/08/2000    Slipknot
16/08/2000    V2000
23/08/2000    Reading & Leeds
30/08/2000    Reading & Leeds - Fred Durst
06/09/2000    Radiohead
13/09/2000    The Dum Dums
20/09/2000    No Doubt
27/09/2000    JJ72
04/10/2000    Fred Durst, Marilyn Manson, Eminem and Corey Taylor of Slipknot - 'Why America Rules Rock Right Now'
11/10/2000    'The Alternative Nation Fights Back'
18/10/2000    King Adora
25/10/2000    Eminem and Fred Durst
01/11/2000    The Offspring
08/11/2000    Smashing Pumpkins
15/11/2000    Eminem
22/11/2000    'Guns’n’Poses - The Shocking Inside Story Of Rock’s Fatal Fascination With Firearms'
29/11/2000    Queens Of The Stone Age
06/12/2000    Billy Corgan
13/12/2000    Feeder
20/12/2000    Limp Bizkit

UK Blogger Albums Of 2013 Poll Results

Truth be told, we didn't think there'd be a blog poll this year. Partly because this place was out of commission by choice for a while, but also the number of blogs closing down without notice, just disappearing and leaving a regular last post hanging, is notable. Those that are left are meanwhile becoming ever more widespread and eclectic in trying to find a new way out of the blog cliche morass, which for the curious is of course a good thing more often than not, or at least so in theory, but for something like this list which by its nature thrives on concensus, less so.

Regardless, for the ninth time here's the poll of polls, this year chiefly featuring 17 Seconds, The Album Wall, Alphabet Bands, Both Bars On, Bowlegs, Breaking More Waves, Crack In The Road, Dots & Dashes, Drunken Werewolf, Just Music That I Like, Just Played, Keep Pop Loud, Last Year's Girl, The Mad Mackerel, Manic Pop Thrills, The Metaphorical Boat, the already deceased Mudkiss, Music Liberation, The Pop Cop, Ragged Glories, Song By Toad, There Goes The Fear and The Von Pip Musical Express. This is what the cognescenti claimed credits 2013:

50 ANNA CALVI - One Breath
49 SUEDE - Bloodsports
48 OKKERVIL RIVER - The Silver Gymnasium
47 BLUE HAWAII - Untogether
46 JAMES BLAKE - Overgrown
45 FOREST SWORDS - Engravings
44 GEORGIA RUTH - Week Of Pines
43 DUTCH UNCLES - Out of Touch In The Wild
42 VALERIE JUNE - Pushin' Against A Stone
41 VOLCANO CHOIR - Repave
40 ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER - Personal Record
39 DAVID BOWIE - The Next Day
38 KURT VILE - Wakin' On A Pretty Daze
37 TORRES - Torres
36 THE SUPERMAN REVENGE SQUAD BAND - There Is Nothing More Frightening Than The Passing Of Time
35 LOW - The Invisible Way
34 MAJICAL CLOUDZ - Impersonator
33 ADAM STAFFORD - Imaginary Walls Collapse
32 HOOKWORMS - Pearl Mystic
31 THESE NEW PURITANS - Field Of Reeds

30 TEGAN & SARA - Heartthrob
29 DARKSIDE - Psychic
28 KANYE WEST - Yeezus
27 SIGUR ROS - Kveikur
26 CAITLIN ROSE - The Stand-In
25 PARQUET COURTS - Light Up Gold
24 FOALS - Holy Fire
23 FACTORY FLOOR - Factory Floor
22 JANELLE MONAE - The Electric Lady
21 WAXAHATCHEE - Cerulean Salt

20 JULIA HOLTER - Loud City Song
19 FUCK BUTTONS - Slow Focus
18 DAUGHTER - If You Leave
17 SPEEDY ORTIZ - Major Arcana
16 BILL CALLAHAN - Dream River
15 JOHN GRANT - Pale Green Ghosts
14 PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING - Inform-Educate-Entertain
13 PHOSPHORESCENT - Muchacho
12 DAFT PUNK - Random Access Memories
11 LOS CAMPESINOS! - No Blues

10 CHVRCHES - The Bones Of What You Believe
9 MY BLOODY VALENTINE - m b v
8 SAVAGES - Silence Yourself
7 VAMPIRE WEEKEND - Modern Vampires of the City
6 JON HOPKINS - Immunity
5 LAURA MARLING - Once I Was An Eagle
4 ARCADE FIRE - Reflektor
3 THE NATIONAL - Trouble Will Find Me
2 ARCTIC MONKEYS - AM
1 NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS - Push The Sky Away

2014: the album checklist

Albums there are dates for

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks - Wigout At Jagbags (6th January)
Broken Bells – After The Disco (13th January)
East India Youth - Total Strife Forever (13th January)
I Break Horses - Chiaroscuro (20th January)
Mogwai - Rave Tapes (20th January)
Warpaint - Warpaint (20th January)
The Hidden Cameras - Age (27th January)
Peggy Sue - Choir Of Echoes (27th January)
Maximo Park - Too Much Information (3rd February)
Cheatahs - Cheatahs (10th February)
Fanfarlo - Let's Go Extinct (10th February)
Let's Wrestle - Let's Wrestle (10th February)
Mowbird - Islander (10th February)
We Three And The Death Rattle - W.T.A.T.D.R (10th February)
Guided By Voices - Motivational Jumpsuit (17th February)
St Vincent - St Vincent (24th February)
The Voluntary Butler Scheme - A Million Ways To Make Gold (24th February)
Withered Hand - New Gods (24th February)
Blood Red Shoes - Blood Red Shoes (3rd March)
Stanley Brinks and The Wave Pictures - Gin (3rd March)
Elbow - All At Once (title TBC) (10th March)
Joan As Police Woman - The Classic (10th March)
Jimi Goodwin - Odludek (24th March)

Those that only STN cares about
Ace Bushy Striptease
The Acorn
Adebisi Shank
Allo Darlin' - We Come From The Same Place
Archie Bronson Outfit
Beth Jeans Houghton
Emmy The Great
Evans The Death
Fashoda Crisis
Fear Of Men
Her Name Is Calla - Navigator
Holy Fuck
Johnny Foreigner
Let's Buy Happiness
Maybeshewill
Napoleon IIIrd
Rose Elinor Dougall
Still Corners
Three Trapped Tigers
Tigercats

Others
Amber Coffman/Nat Baldwin (Dirty Projectors solo projects)
The Avalanches (yeah, right)
Bat For Lashes
Beck - Morning Phase (and possibly a second album)
Belle And Sebastian
Blonde Redhead
Caribou
Cat Power
Damon Albarn
Fleet Foxes
Gnarls Barkley
Grimes
Hamilton Leithauser (Walkmen frontman goes solo)
The Hold Steady
The Horrors
Interpol
Liars
Lykke Li
Manic Street Preachers - Futurology
Mew
Modest Mouse
The New Pornographers
Other Lives
Owen Pallett - In Conflict
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
Parquet Courts
Perfume Genius
Pulled Apart By Horses
The Rentals
School Of Language
Shearwater
Sisyphus (Sufjan Stevens, Son Lux and Serengeti)
Slow Club
Spoon
tUnE-YarDs
TV On The Radio
Wild Beasts
The Wrens (OK...)

And as for the rest of the year...

To round off reminiscences of things just past, a sprint through another 75 tracks that we loved this year that didn't appear on one of our top 50 albums. All that are there of these, plus a track from each of that top 50 that are streaming on there, are in this Spotify playlist.

65daysofstatic - Unmake The Wild Light
A Little Orchestra feat. Model Village - Josefina
And So I Watch You From Afar - Big Thinks Do Remarkable
The Android Angel - Her Shoulders
Archie Bronson Outfit - I Was A Dead Duck
Beaty Heart - Lekka Freakout
Benin City - My Love
Blessa - Between Times
Boxed In - All Your Love Is Gone
British Sea Power - Machineries Of Joy
Calories - The Curse/Daylight
Camera Obscura - Troublemaker
Cate Le Bon feat. Perfume Genius - I Think I Knew
Cheatahs - Kenworth
Charlie Boyer & The Voyeurs - Things We Be
Daft Punk feat. Panda Bear - Doin' It Right
David Bowie - Where Are We Now?
Dent May - Let Them Talk
Drenge - Bloodsports
Elizabeth Morris - Optimism
Empty Pools - Televised
EXPENSIVE - Always Want Us To
Fanfarlo - A Distance
Farewell J.R - A Thought, A Mind
Fire Island Pines - 1915
The Flaming Lips - Look...The Sun Is Rising
Frankie & The Heartstrings - That Girl, That Scene
Fuck Buttons - Brainfreeze
Ghost Outfit - Killuhs
Girl One And The Grease Guns - (Here Come The) Catastrophe Machines
Girls Names - Hypnotic Regression
The Graphite Set - These Streets
Heavy Petting Zoo - Broken Bone
Her Parents - Lithuanian Mercedes
Hooded Fang - Ode To Subterrania
Hookworms - Radio Tokyo
I Am Kloot - Bullets
Ides - Crybaby
John Grant - Glacier
Jungle - The Heat
The Julie Ruin - Cookie Road
Lanterns On The Lake - Another Tale From Another English Town
Marika Hackman - Bath Is Black
Mary Epworth - September
Maximo Park - Brain Cells
Mowbird - Happy Active Horse Organ
The National - Don't Swallow The Cap
PINS - Lost Lost Lost
Pixies - Bagboy
Plastic Animals - Pizarnik
Post War Glamour Girls - Jazz Funerals
R.Seiliog - Ostisho
Rachel Zeffira - Here On In
Radstewart - Beer Swindlers
Rose Elinor Dougall - Strange Warnings
Seazoo - Dog Hotel
Shhh...Apes! - Painkiller
Slow Skies - Close
Spotlight Kid - Budge Up
Stagecoach - Threequel
Still Corners - All I Know
Swearin' - Dust In The Gold Sack
Telegram - Follow
Tessera Skies - Milieu
The Thermals - Born To Kill
These Monsters - When The Going Gets Weird
Thirty Pounds Of Bone - The Snow In Kiel
Trust Fund - The Coolest Guy
Vienna Ditto - Liar Liar
Wire - Doubles & Trebles
The Witch Hunt - Crawl
Without Feathers - Red Little Heart
The Wytches - Beehive Queen
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Sacrilege
Youth Lagoon - Dropla

STN Top 50 Albums Of 2013: 1

1 Future Of The Left - How To Stop Your Brain In An Accident
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
They were always bound to make an STN album of the year one day, but in the rest of the land FOTL seem to have become so much more famous for Andy Falkous' extra-curricularisms - that piracy blog, that Pitchfork retort, his interviews and between-song comments generally - that it increasingly seemed their music is going unrewarded. Their fourth album appears to have noticed and summarily turned up the dials, ramped up the abrasion and transformed into a jackhammer. The usual motifs are all there - the scalpel-sharp gritted teeth humour, the collective musical drill to the senses - but with Jimmy Watkins now thoroughly inducted into the newly rejigged line-up - Julia Ruzicka's rolling basslines have found a way of ramping up the approaching menace even further - the acidic guitars are meatier and spikier than they have been for a while, rolling with the punches, coiling before unloading the tension with a post-hardcore zeal. If Falco's lyrics are still the real USP his vocals are becoming more adaptable to fit, channelling his demons into something that wouldn't qualify for restraint in most. And while most songs head direct for the cerebral cortex, the always present temptation/risk to extend beyond the self-imposed boundaries into whatever comes to hand is more prevalent without sacrificing the overall image. There's an eccentrically satirical four and a half minutes of barely hinged laser precision vituperation voiced in an approximation of RP. There's a sub-two minute Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues-like assault with a kazoo chorus. There's a couple of songs that are virtually slow-paced. There are, of course, lines that don't appear anywhere else in rock's lexicon, simultaneously funny (Falco cites Half Man Half Biscuit as a key influence) and brutal, sarcastic and relatable, as suits the target. As social satire bludgeons with post-Albini guitars set to maim they've always been out there on their own; now they've reset their goals, reset their targets and fired themselves into the sun.

STN Top 50 Albums Of 2013: 2

2 Los Campesinos! - No Blues
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
The only way was up. Having put Hello Sadness' protracted breakup pains behind him - and how pointedly against that period the notably capitalised NO BLUES title seems - Gareth and the rest haven't yet put death and exes behind him/them, and with his hyperliterate self-examination existentialism it's increasingly a band in his image whatever's going on behind him, but this seems a trimmer album in more ways than a renumbering of personnel. The dynamic shifts have moved slightly sideways, prominent keyboards returning, wild riffs toned down in favour of charges and textures. The melodies are simultaneously more confident and less easy to grasp hold of, the choruses stand out more but are less willing to grab and throw the listener into the centre of the chanting circle (despite an actual cheerleading troupe's employment on Avocado, Baby) Similarly Gareth still yelps and pleads his words but having come through what might be the worst his surface confidence is restored for the first time since he was a post-grad ATP kid. The revenge fantasy imagery and football references aren't there for the sake of it but to link and express greater truths and feelings, still with tongue comfortably in cheek. If every LC! album is a new diary year this is the mid-20s post-breakdown point at which it's realised there's still plenty of time to grab hold of your destiny despite yourself. Moreover, this is the first time they've properly sustained a grower, new references, emotional shifts and ornate musical patterns and hooks emerging all the time, being about developing momentum rather than exuberance. Many still want them to be the band they were in 2008 but this is if not cutting off their earlier selves then putting in a dotted line that differentiates what now seem two clear eras. They're now wry dramatists who consider the many deaths while sounding like being alive.

STN Top 50 Albums Of 2013: 4-3

4 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Push The Sky Away
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
After the extended midlife freakout of Grinderman and Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!, Cave and his slowly reformatting Bad Seeds took time to look at where they personally are in relation to what they'd just done. What that means is their most subtle record in some time, with Mick Harvey long gone Warren Ellis' relationship with atmospherics and spaciousness takes more of the centre stage. Against the vaunting bleakness Cave for his own part has largely dialled back from fire eyed bellowing to a a considerate timbre as befits the elliptical, liturgially minded spectator, undercutting emotions and voyeuristic descriptions and ideas with the knowledge that this increasingly belongs to other people. And then he went and did this.



3 Bill Callahan - Dream River
[iTunes] [Amazon]
The best thing Callahan has released since he retired the Smog soubriquet, it's also the thing he's done under his own name that sounds most like Smog. That is to say, music that loops and circles around his ever more Scotch-warmed honeyed voice and its metaphor heavy, narrative suggestive story-songs rather than, as late, finds its groove and sticks there. Resonant allusions - flight, spring, wind and water - recur, guitar, flute and hand percussion are used to colour in the lyrical landscapes, a Lambchop-type country-soul feel is evoked and everything and everyone seems more content and meditative with and around their situation, observing nature take its course. For one he's enjoying living, even romance. If this is Callahan at his most content, he's somehow found a way not to let it dull down his style.

STN Top 50 Albums Of 2013: 6-5

6 Sky Larkin - Motto
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
If Sky Larkin, now three albums and three lineups down, have sometimes seemed a little like the band that got left behind, this is the album where they reared up and kicked out. Raised on nervous tension and nervous energy alike, the addition of a second guitar beefed up the punch and spiked tautness of their sound while bringing out the best of the pair that were there all along, Nestor Matthews kicking seven shades out of his kit while Katie Harkin's lyrics play with phonetic sounds and meanings while retaining a personal truth and standpoint at their core, unafraid to bring out the dark, sung like she still feels the emotional strain. They feel that much bigger for the experiences, charging for their lives.



5 Joanna Gruesome - Weird Sister
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
Every year this list includes an album like this perhaps surprisingly high up - a record that's not groundbreakingly original or interestingly developed but roars with the passion of youth, the "sort of band you'd want to be in" gambit. Weird Sister, a record that straps rocket boosters to fuzzbomb janglepop, is just such an album. It's because they've got the knack of building a dreamy lo-fi melody - and there are strong melodies, hooks, choruses, all that - and then letting a distorted, spiky riff slash it apart from the centre outwards while Alanna McArdle (un)comfortably handles both dispassionate sweetness and feral screaming. It's not big, though it can be clever, but right here and now it seems impossibly exciting.

STN Top 50 Albums Of 2013: 8-7

8 Haiku Salut - Tricolore
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
"Baroque-Pop-Folktronic-Neo-Classical-Something-Or-Other", the Derbyshire multi-instrumentalist trio call this sound, which does this bit out of a job. You might also add a twisted about version of post-rock's use of slow build, repetition and instrumental flourishes, deployed here so seemingly clashing parts - a fingerpicked acoustic, an accordion, an 8-bit electronic sample - gradually coalesce into form fitted shape, complex layers developing layers ande depth that can be as much floating and euphoric as pinpricks in existing melodic structure. Often incapable of sitting still, the loops and flourishes serve to both develop its baroque nature and then pull it apart. It's an album that knows its touchstones, whether Yann Tiersen, Haruki Murakami or Wes Anderson, but really sounds like nobody else.



7 Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires Of The City
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
The hi-life records may have been put away but Vampire Weekend's third album is just as studded with borrowed moves: R&B and gospel, pastoral synths and torch song languidness. This is their real world album, still any number of too-clever-by-half allusions but deployed not as self-aware signifiers but as collateral in the process of maturing. Death and its eventual inevitability without prior achievement is a semi-regular visitor. The studio becomes another instrument, as befits a band who now know how to use space and when to actually flood the aural spectrum, and if Rostam Batmanglij still too readily goes for the harpsichord setting it's less novelty, more scene-setting. This is VW's New York post-grad album, what happens when the socialites have to set up home for themselves.

STN Top 50 Albums Of 2013: 10-9

10 Public Service Broadcasting - Inform - Educate - Entertain
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
From Steinski to the Books vocal sampling has been reworked and repurposed to greater ends, but it's surprising nobody really thought of taking it in PSB's chosen direction before. Even without the public information films, newsreel stock and documentary film voiceovers it'd be a fascinating expedition, based on post-rock's eddying drones and slow build surges while taking in charging kosmiche and Neu!-flavoured Krautrock, bubbling layers of synth and beats, Eno-esque repetition, hauntology's fear of the dark and the odd run of bluegrass banjo. If the underlying sentiments are unashamedly nostalgic, evoking the spirit of invention and the adventurers of the age, the outcome skews danceable rhythms into fluid shapes and is ultimately, mightily euphoric.



9 Jetplane Landing - Don't Try
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
In a year short on great post-hardcore records, some old stagers returned with a blitzkrieg. Picking up from the records before the last album Backlash Cop, itself now six years old, might seem a retrogressive move and Andrew Ferris' return to his native Derry may inform at least a couple of tracks but time isn't mellowing either the knife-fight power of the riffage that twists in on itself before racing towards the cliff or the speed, determination and linguistic athleticism of Ferris' delivery. There's a few pop melodies that don't seem commercial, huge crashing buzzsaw guitar hooks, chantalong bits and the angriest track is about lost Beat poet Gregory Corso. Standard JPL, then, but so much more than standardisation really.

STN Top 50 Albums Of 2013: 12-11

12 Nadine Shah - Love Your Dum And Mad
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
Not to take away from Shah's own vision, but after Beth Jeans Houghton last year Ben Hillier seems to have sorted the art of producing singular female singer-songwriters who inhabit their own slow-burning headspace (both Geordies, too) Shah's soaringly emotive, velvety jazz-trained vocals bring a power to songs of darkness and betrayal that inhabit a place where escape is possible but lessons still have to be learned on what it is to fall out of love/favour/care. While never feelingl sorry for itself or coasting on wallowing, that atmosphere and the brooding backing with odd little touches heightens Shah's confessional, fearless feel.


11 Laura Marling - Once I Was An Eagle
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
The four-song suite that opens the album finds Marling in flux, attempting to resolve how emotional instability can ever triumph, finding strength in adversity. Her most unashamed Joni/Bob-like sounding record yet, it's an occasionally uncomfortably lengthy recce through the rubble of a past of personal relationships, trading what wasn't even before now a fulsome sound for a more directly close-miked confessional aura, an intensity bordering on deliberately trained catharsis that acknowledges naivety but in denial, trusting in love even when she knows she shouldn't, developing into vengeance before insecurity rears its head. In further understanding herself, Marling's command of her lyrically driven id is making her more and more accomplished.

STN Top 50 Albums Of 2013: 14-13

14 Daughter - If You Leave
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
Cathartically heavy, gloomy atmospherically inclined female fronted bands seem two-a-penny these days; what Elena Tonra (and her two bandmates) have is a desperation and desolation really as two sides of the same coin. Tonra's adaptable vocals, leaning between angelically underplayed and stratospheric appealling to the fates and occasionally cracking under the strain, practically show off the emotional bruising. Beneath her guitars ripple across the icy atmosphere, the rushes of post-rock meeting shards of treated, broken riff before next time dropping into rhythmic folky fingerpicking. The listener might just feel emptied out themselves by the end, such is the detail implicit in the self-loathing that follows long dark nights of the romantic soul.


13 The Superman Revenge Squad Band - There Is Nothing More Frightening Than The Passage Of Time
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
Most don't realise it yet, but Ben Parker might be Britain's most acute sadsack of a lyricist. Delivery hanging on for dear life to the tune, Parker cuts a self-reflexive figure feeling lost amid the rush of modern life, hanging on to past pop culture, worked through metaphor and self-deprecation like life aids. Reworking some of his previous solo recordings and a few new songs with a full band, including his brother and Nosferatu D2 drumming octoped Adam, an oddly shaped broader palette that manages to be awkward and lush simultaneously brings out the longing and determination behind these extraordinarily rendered tales of bittersweet break-ups and personal disenfranchisement.

STN Top 50 Albums Of 2013: 17-15

17 Summer Camp - Summer Camp
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
Having put Condale-ish things aside, Elizabeth and Jeremy decided it was time to check where they were ultimately up to. Much as it's still centred on the Instagram synths and slightly askew melodic sense we're already used to, the sound branches out into well trodden paths - pulsing electro, retro disco, R&B and hip-hop production tricks, James Murphy half-inching - and seem more personal in their dealings with what love means and hope for something better while still sounding like this area the duo have already set up for themselves, one of easy warmth and Sankey's soaring vocals. It's an unashamed modern pop record, but not as straightforward as that.


16 Julia Holter - Loud City Song
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
The scale and opacity of a song-cycle for the novella/film Gigi - not that not knowing about it precludes liking the record - might overcome lesser talents, but by placing her ambitions high Holter lands in a place that's coated with visualisations of high society opulence being led astray, subsumed in so much slow motion orchestration and soluble electroncs it feels like it has its own gravitational field. Some songs are more pastoral mini-symphonies than songs in the pop music idiom, others cleave to nothing but their own jumpiness, an individualist (if post-Kate Bush via Talk Talk) take on widescreen dramatics within its own internal narrative.


15 Savages - Silence Yourself
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
See, everyone, this is *also* what post-punk was. The Siouxsie & The Banshees comparison could be easily thrown about, what with Jehnny Beth's stentorian presence over the kind of stereoscopic guitar sound that was John McGeogh's domain, but to transcend such influences requires a level of self-belief and tightness disguised as looseness to complement the dead-eye focus. They sound like a band rushing to keep up with each other, which is what all the best all-out post-punk bands did - if we're talking easy influences there's easily as much Wire and Peter Hook in there - mastering palpably taut tension and spectacular release. And then it ends with an uneasy jazz piece.

STN Top 50 Albums Of 2013: 20-18

20 Low - The Invisible Way
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
Low haven't been slowcore as such for a while now, but their raw delicacy still requires taking the time and effort to lose yourself in. This tenth album, for its occasional nods at gospel and the Velvets, is still full of empty space and carefully arranged instrumentation around the room's edges but it's the most intricately layered and beauteous work they've produced for a good while. It invokes a stillness in time and the winds within its textures, while Alan and Mimi harmonise beautifully, making both their phrasing and the shades underneath mean that much more as they spin stories of personal heartbreak, redemption and a kind of eventual joyousness.


19 Islet - Released By The Movement
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
The perpetual motion machine that is live Islet hasn't always suited being placed in perpetuity onto tape, so this time they decided to record as-live in various bedrooms. As always there's something straining to escape between the arrythmic marches, synth drones and the vocal exchange of cryptic oaths, introducing discordant quasi-tropicalia overheatedness to blindingly technicolour psychedelia and letting them fight it out to the death. It's a complete single work, floating ambient mood passages between the popping motorik frenzies and invention of space-indie. Tripping over itself with ideas, woozy with both possibilities and a metaphorical version of the bends, it needs to lie down in a darkened room.


18 Kiran Leonard - Bowler Hat Soup
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
Clearly some kind of savant, the sixteen tracks on the then 17 year old uber-multi-instrumentalist's first properly released album hop joyfully between genres like a Todd Rundgren for the bedroom pop set. His type of troubled singer-songwriters are Harry Nilsson and Tom Waits rather than Barrett or Walker, but Van Dyke Parks is a more common through road of an influence for someone equally comfortable with music hall Kinksisms, baroquely orchestrated cracked balladry, fuzzy power-pop that falls into its own black hole and piano-led prog-pop ambitions, often employing the richest of developing croons, you feel post-folkish tags don't so much fail to constrain him as tell so little of the tale.

STN Top 50 Albums Of 2013: 25-21

25 Widowspeak - Almanac
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
Having emerged as spaghetti western dreamers their second album headed further into the misty woods, forgoeing the twang in favour of wood crafted floating American gothic, finding a decaying heart in the pastoral, aided by Molly Hamilton's vocal similarities to the Hope Sandoval/Margo Timmins archetype. But that's not all, as inscrutable uncoling guitars of a Warpaint bent merge with charging rhythms and the odd heroic solo. It can handle a cinematic grandeur, but it can also sound like FM classic rock getting lost in the haunted forest well after dark. More relatable and romantic than before, the fog of emotions suits them well.


24 The River Cry - The River Cry
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
If she'll forgive me for opening like this, who knew the bassist out of JJ72 had this in her? Having retreated to the Irish coast, Hilary Woods took to the piano and in her own time crafted a record of haunting lushness, looking out to sea and seeing lands lost and hope where once there was actuality. The reverb laden minimal instrumentation gives an extra spacious feel to the desolation, a trembling filmic reach that evokes coastal place and autumnal time just as well as the similarly piano-led PJ Harvey's White Chalk, marinaded in long dried tears and the sweat cost chasing lost causes.


23 Trips And Falls - The Inevitable Consequences Of Your Stupid Behavior
[iTunes] [Spotify] [direct]
The third UK-released album by the Montreal collective is just as jagged around the edges and tricky to pin down to simplistic terms as the first two, but there's been a paradigm shift from ornateness into the ramshackle. Songs turn from tentative to charging in a heartbeat, overlays folkified vocal stylings as likely with circling, itchy electrics as hushed acoustics, occasionally straining for the anthemic only to plunge an icy dagger through its own Psychedelic Furs in a blender ambitions. Amid all of this it still retains a heartfelt core, tying its jumping bean ambitions and its attendant noise and collapsing structures together with frayed heartstrings.


22 His Clancyness - Vicious
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
Having progressed through the ornate bite of A Classic Education and the drifting quasi-chillwave of his early solo material, Jonathan Clancy morphed into something akin to the psychedelia revival-of-sorts, still with hints of drifting, dreaming dreampop but rooted in something fuzzier and earthier, starting in lo-fi bedroom pop range but firing off in all directions, semi-acoustic fragility one minute, retro synth patterns the next, glossy technicolour or rough edged, making sure it always maintains a similar grounding wherever the quixotic arrangement impulses pull and push. Never taking the simple route, always questioning what and where its narrative point is, there's potential to grow within its questing confidence.


21 Spectral Park - Spectral Park
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
If this was the year neo-psychedelia started swallowing itself whole, at least it's given people like Luke Donovan full reign to try and reshape their peculiar overflow of ideas and crates of offbeat samples into pop songs. In his case the influence is in the mono joy of confusion stemming from the Zombies and early Pink Floyd, recorded in just short of full fidelity as hooks, scraps of melodies and bits of something intangible fall on top of each other to create actively teetering monuments of exotica-flavoured fantasias, bubblegum melodies for choruses attempting to sit atop a mania on the edge of motion sickness.

STN Top 50 Albums Of 2013: the bottom half

50 Buke & Gase - General Dome
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
RIYL: General Dome

49 Alessi's Ark - The Still Life
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
RIYL: The Rain

48 The Electric Soft Parade - Idiots
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
RIYL: Brother, You Must Walk Your Path Alone

47 The Wave Pictures - City Forgiveness
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
RIYL: Lisbon

46 Just Handshakes - Say It
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Bandcamp]
RIYL: London Bound

45 Woodpigeon - Thumbtacks And Glue
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
RIYL: Red Rover, Red Rover

44 Georgia Ruth - Week Of Pines
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
RIYL: Week Of Pines

43 Local Natives - Hummingbird
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
RIYL: Heavy Feet

42 Totem Terrors - Repeat Play Torrent Rar
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Bandcamp]
RIYL: Weather Controller

41 Ice, Sea, Dead People - If It’s Broken, Break It More
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
RIYL: You Could Be A Model

40 Andrew Paul Regan - Dinas Powys
[Bandcamp]
RIYL: Time Crisis, 1982

39 Laura J Martin - Dazzle Days
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
RIYL: Red Flag

38 Mat Riviere - Not Even Doom Music
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Bandcamp]
RIYL: Wool

37 Euros Childs - Situation Comedy
[direct download] [Amazon]
RIYL: Tête à Tête

36 The Crimea - Square Moon
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
RIYL: Last Plane Out Of Saigon

35 Cloud - Comfort Songs
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
RIYL: Cars & It's Autumn

34 Ghostpoet - Some Say I So I Say Light
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
RIYL: Them Waters

33 Shopping - Consumer Complaints
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
RIYL: In Other Words

32 Mazzy Star - Seasons Of Your Day
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
RIYL: In The Kingdom

31 Cloud Boat - Book Of Hours
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
RIYL: Wanderlust

30 Everything Everything - Arc
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
RIYL: Cough Cough

29 My Bloody Valentine - m b v
[direct purchase] [Amazon]
RIYL: In Another Way

28 Arcade Fire - Reflektor
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
RIYL: Reflektor

27 Sweet Baboo - Ships
[iTunes] [Spotify] [Amazon]
RIYL: If I Died

26 Rick Redbeard - No Selfish Heart
[iTunes] [Amazon]
RIYL: Now We're Dancing

Mowbird - Brompton/Happy Active Horse Organ

One track you'll have seen on our Tumblr (but therefore not on Hype Machine, which is why it's cravenly being reposted), one new out today, both from one of our favourite new British guitar bands of the very recent past's debut album Islander, out 10th February on Shape Records. Both constitute fuzzily frayed slacker garage, as much 13th Floor Elevators and Guided By Voices as Thee Oh Sees, an appeallingly spooked ramshackle charge.

Fourteen For '14: part two

Marika Hackman



There's been talk, with her Marlingish folk bent and fashion world credentials, that the 21 year old singer-songwriter could become something big, but we reckon she (and us) would be happier with the kind of music career trajectory her sometime producer Johnny Flynn has had, much admired by critics but too sharp and slippery for the post-Mumfords chart palette. In fact if she recalls anyone it's those troubled late 90s Cat Power albums, her self-taught guitar plucking adding a rickety terrain to lyrics that seem fogged and mildly cryptic even as the darkly desired emotion cuts to the bone.




Jungle



The duo behind Jungle have revealed little about themselves, going merely by the handles T and J. The temptation to call upon our usual rule of thumb - if you're being deliberately mysterious about a new musical project, we'll assume you're Chris de Burgh and move on - is great, but that's without hearing the music. They have the capacity to become London's own TV On The Radio in more than just a very Tunde Adebimpe-like falsetto, transmitting deep soul grooves and croons through a gauze of synth layers that are part chillgaze, part Ghostpoet/Invisible-like floorshaking heavy atmospherics.




We Three And The Death Rattle



Perhaps the most cumbersomely acronymed band of recent times, Leicester's WTATDR have been attracting attention for a while now but an album is ready to go come 10th February. In that time their Boss Hog/Gun Club dark blues vindictiveness has percolated and gone metallic (but not metal). Singer and occasional theremin...ist? Amy Cooper suggests an attitude you wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of, not least as most of the time it seems seconds away from ordering someone be taken out, dealing in a dysfunctional love life mirrored in the guitar-and-drums sludge hyperventilating behind her.




Telegram



If it carries on much longer there'll have to be a special section for hirsute psych-motorik bands produced by Dan Carey on iTunes. Telegram, though, might end up the pick of them, their noisily committed, hair-flinging live show complemented by the tripped out rush of urgent crafted noise that is debut single Follow, like they've just stepped out of a late 70s New York club, through a glam wardrobe and into the Rollercoaster tour, anthemic without all that now implies, energetically punchy and aiming stratospheric like a midpoint between early Roxy Music and Toy's record box.




Ralegh Long



As with some others in this selection we've had a decent length association with Ralegh - we premiered one of his videos last year - but he's never featured before in one of these lists and the spring should see the release of his debut album, featuring members of Toy, Hefner and A Little Orchestra. A proper reminder, then, of his sophisticated songsmithery, detailed as much in melody as lyric, the same sort of reconfigurating the DNA of jazz bar MOR-tainted classic pop moves into something less tangible that Robyn Hitchcock or Paddy McAloon once thrived upon.




Martha



Given you'd imagine every conceivable arrangement of three snappy chord power-pop had been long raked over, Martha have in their EP and single's worth of back catalogue somehow found a new punk-scented way of delivering an enthralling ride. It's not just the Durham outfit's way with earworm hooks that refreshingly lack in radio-ready obviousness or the rush of Buzzcocks harmonics that marks them out but their lightly worn lyrical intelligence, social, political and historical - this track below is a fictionalized account of the last days of poet Audre Lorde, and you can invade a stage to it.




Trust Fund



Trust Fund is Ellis Jones of Bristol, sometime confidante of Joanna Gruesome and so forth, whose Don't Let Them Begin EP wears its starkest lo-fi roots as a badge of honour and its heart squarely on its sleeve. Like Lou Barlow or Elliott Smith and through to Jeff Magnum, Ellis only seemingly wants to express the darkest parts of his psyche, developing an honesty about the path most taken that's as awkward as his playing, which could be close-miked confessional or grunge-inflected full band exorcism. You get the feeling he's an ace away from producing something fully realised as greatness.

Fourteen For '14: part one

The first of two runs through this year's tips list. The usual caveats - anyone who's had a full length album out or been featured on an STN year in preview list before is disqualified, and these are not our tips for big things but those who we think are likely to do really good things over the forthcoming twelve months. This is how last year's thirteen fared, including three bands that have subsequently split up; may god have mercy on this selection's souls.

Heavy Petting Zoo



The Swansea outfit have a clear live focal point of their in-house dancer Jon, whose freeform flailings may make him the 10s equivalent of Wojtek from the Blue Aeroplanes. Behind him, and very much up front on record, is an equally compelling presence, singer Amy Zachariah, whose lustily fulsome commanding complements a raggedly direct surf-inflected garage attack. Having stormed their set at Swn festival - Huw Stephens, Jen Long and NME's Laura Snapes among those spreading its word - they self-released a single in October and should hopefully play their first proper gigs outside Wales soon.




EXPENSIVE



Primarily known as half of back bedroom folk-popsters the Middle Ones, Grace Denton's latest incarnation (with Pete Shadbolt and Matthew Cheney) takes the electro-pop and R&B production tropes and squirrels them away in a dark corner. Their take on electronic melody seems hand crafted, densely layered with arrythmically subtle beats and not being averse to taking the rutted path less travelled, attempting to keep hold of its melodic agility while flowering from tense development into something air-filled and colourful, Denton's vocals equally capable of dreaminess and rawness alike.

Secrets in the Moss from EXPENSIVE on Vimeo.

Blessa



If you can tell a band by the company they keep, that Blessa's recent single Between Times was produced by MJ of Hookworms should give you a fair idea. Not that they share the shoegaze blur of many of the bands he associates with, the Sheffield quintet crafting a cleaner sound where reverberating guitars are present but only a subtle part of a sophisticated jigsaw pattern built around finding the space between such strident elements as searching basslines, insistent beats and Olivia Neller's skylarking vocals, pitched somewhere between Veronica Falls' scuzzy melodies and Howling Bells' lost highway intransigence.




Shhh...Apes!



They don't sound like that name suggests, nor like the previous Cardiff scene associations of frontman and creative fulcrum Mark Foley (of Manchasm fame). Their EP The Shape Of Apes To Come instead paints delicate landscapes of ambient folk and Americana-influenced subtleties that stretch out and evolve into shivering emotiveness, achieved through delicate multi-instrumental layering, outreaching vocal harmonies and ebbing electronics. Low fans will find much to admire in its cinematic qualities that lift, coast and find new depths to explore on every listen. And if that's just for the introductory six track EP they could be heading somewhere special.




Plastic Animals



Another Edinburgh band brought to our attention by the indefatigable Song, By Toad label, Plastic Animals describe themselves as "atmospheric punk sludge rock" which makes them sound like the Melvins, ie not like what they do sound like. What they've developed into over three EPs over the last two and a bit years is electronically embellished, carefully layered hypnagogic pop shape formers that's been bundled into a helicopter travelling across a misty landscape, Deerhunter-style dreampop with the tremelo arm taped down, melodically lucid in creating far seeing atmospherics out of chiming lo-fi hypnosis.




Beaty Heart



The Peckham trio have been around for a while - we first wrote about them in May 2011 - but their development into the level of confidence in pulling off their sort of deluxe arrangements has been notable, culminating around March when their Dave Eringa-overseen debut album Mixed Blessings is released. They may touch on the hi-life fad of a few years ago but their stock in trade is percussive, harmonic overlapping post-freak-folk of a Panda Bear stripe, yearning sounding vocals rubbing like sandpaper against hallucinatory warped psychedelia loaded high with arrythmic drumming of various indigenous types.




Fire Island Pines



You don't really get a lot of luxuriousness in modern indie-pop, whether that refers to the delicately literate jangle of a Felt or Animals That Swim or the crumbling Victorian halls melodramatic splendour in decay of Jack or Gallon Drunk. Cornwall sextet Fire Island Pines are the best candidates we've heard for a while, their swooningly languid melodies and detailed trumpet laced lushness almost betraying Anton Rothschild's less than confident, clouds in front of the warm sunshine sensitivity lurking behind such budget sophistication, if his half-murmured half-crooned delivery hasn't suggested such already. An impending album is promised.



Seven more tomorrow!

Miss us?

What? Oh. Anyway, that's quite long enough to have been away from this place, and so STN is back to full working order just in time for the end of year festivities to commence on Saturday with the start of the slow reveal, long after everyone else's quick reveals, of our 14 For '14, followed by the usual top 50 albums of the year.

Should mention that songs and 'stuff' are continuing to appear on the STN Tumblr. Posted today, the public unveiling of our project to list every Melody Maker cover star from 1980 to its demise. Also from the Haus Of STN, One Short is an attempt to list every record that stalled at 41 in the Top 40 era.

STN, at least this bit of it, is going on hiatus for a bit while we work out where all the readers went. Much, much new music and musings will of course be kept up on our Twitter feed.

Future Of The Left - Bread, Cheese, Bow And Arrow

The other day we declared Jetplane Landing's Don't Try, out this week, might be the best rock album emerging from the British Isles this year so far. Those last two words were it turns out (if kind of expectedly so) advisably used. FOTL's fourth album How To Stop Your Brain In An Accident is out on 21st October and judging by the first offering it's setting out with its industrial sledgehammer to crack every single definition of the word 'nut'. As taut, staccato guitars get set to stun Andy Falkous is possessed, howling and hissing lturns of phrase twisted back around themselves and coming out the other end all obtuse, leading towards a thunderous, righteous ending. The usual, then, but somehow far more so.

The Ten: Totem Terrors' favourite songs

The Cardiff-via-Brighton duo Totem Terrors have long been STN favourites for their skewed art-rock wiriness, best exemplified so far on this year's Repeat Play Torrent Rar album.



As the first of a few people we're going to put this to, we asked Max and Rosie for their favourite/most influential songs, the pair of them taking five each:

Max

OMD - Electricity
I love this partially for Andy McCluskey's bass dance in the video. Perfect melancholy synth pop, impossible to resist groove.

Public Image Ltd - Poptones
Moebius meditation, the high point of the best album of it's day. Tonally extreme, sexually repetitive, numb ending.

Wire - The 15th
Masters of economy and the monotone melody. Music as art, art as a pop song.

Talking Heads - Warning Sign
Lyrical expansive, musically intelligent. Everything exact, nothing wasted.

Elvis Presley - Love Me Tender
My childhood hero, and first favourite song.

Rosie

The Wedding Present - Carolyn
The reason I wanted to play drums and therefore joined this band.

The Raincoats - No Side To Fall In
Girls being brilliant.

Tom Waits - Innocent When You Dream
No explanation needed.

Beat Happening - What's Important
My 16-year-old-self reason for wanting to make songs.

Belle & Sebastian - My Wandering Days Are Over
Perennial inspiration.

Elizabeth Morris - Optimism

Morris, pied piper figure of the current indiepop scene, is imminently moving to Italy. This doesn't mean Allo Darlin' are splitting, at least not imminently - in fact they've recently been recording their third album for release early next year, which from live outings sounds like the next step onwards, and have a handful of dates over the next couple of months. In the meantime Morris had written some more personal, piano-based songs while at home in Australia and wanting to get them down before leaving London recorded them (and a Wave Pictures cover) just two days ago chiefly on Darren Hayman's famous ship's piano for a four-track EP Optimism only available through Bandcamp. Spare, bruised and teetering on the precipice of emotional surety it's pretty clear these would never be full band songs but they bolster Morris' way with lyrical imagery and understanding what love is all about.

The Superman Revenge Squad Band - A Funny Thing You Said

Longtime readers, if there are any left, will recall our coming over all unnecessary a few years ago about the lyrical greatness of Ben Parker through his two self-distributed albums and one EP as Superman Revenge Squad, a stream of consciousness set of abstractive self-lacerating observations and broadcasts from the slough of despond. After a few years away from that name ploughing a couple of other furrows he's formed a band, which while wrecking the minimal directness of those records does bring quite the colour palette with sax, cello and accordion worked in. Notably the band also includes Adam, Ben's brother and oppo in the still magnificent Nosferatu D2, and that almost relentless dynamism is as much the key as Ben's thoughts on the passage of time. The soon-come album There Is Nothing More Frightening Than The Passing Of Time is out 16th September in limited numbers and preorderable from the mighty Audio Antihero.

Let's Buy Happiness - Run

It's been a noticeably long time - fourteen months, in fact - since we last heard from the shimmering Geordie lovelies. Turns out, thankfully, that the most recent part of that time has been spent recording an album, titled Chants For Friends and out... soon. They've got a tour in October, of which more shortly, so maybe around then. Don't be fooled by the gentle acoustic lilt of the first half of its first taste, as once Sarah Hall's emotive voice starts echoing in and expressing self-doubt it looks set to lift off sooner rather than later, which it does with some trusty tremelo via a meander downstream. Less beauteous than it's letting on.








October dates:



4th & 5th Newcastle Cluny 2

6th Leeds Brudenell

7th London Hoxton Bar & Kitchen

8th Bath Moles

11th Banbury Also Known As (that's what it's called, apparently)

12th Sheffield Bowery

15th Manchester Night & Day

16th Sunderland Pop Recs

18th Aberdeen Tunnels

20th Glasgow Broadcast

21st Inverness Hootananny

23rd Edinburgh Sneaky Pete's

Joanna Gruesome - Sugarcrush

It's looking like a very decent end of year for albums, and one real dark horse is emerging in the form of Joanna Gruesome's Weird Sister, out 9th September on home of the hits Fortuna Pop! We've already heard Secret Surprise; a steroid-enabled reworking of a song originally found on their 2011 self-released EP begins deep in dissonace country, cuts away to sweet vocal melodies while never quite letting go of the frantic rhythmic pace and post-Sonic Youth scrap metal yard blasts of proto-noise guitar, then slides into a coda two and a half minutes or so in that's frankly a right no-wave commotion. An aural cleanser and a statement of serrated intent alright.

The Ten: great performances from The Tube

 All new features that aren't just tracks die an almost immediate death on STN but let's press on with them regardless. Simple enough, The Ten, we'd like to think reflecting the post-Buzzfeed clamour for lists (though not the post-Buzzfeed clamour for facile gifs, those can fuck right off) - irregular collections of ten things, whether it be a guest list or a load of links, like this first one, putting together ten YouTube clips from the most beloved part of Channel 4's 1980s cultural hand.


The Jam - A Town Called Malice, appearing on the first show on one of their last live appearances


Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Relax, the performance with which they get discovered, followed by a somewhat overdressed and outnumbered Jools gaining exact knowledge on their style


The Smiths - Hand In Glove

The Proclaimers - Throw The R Away. It's not in this clip but Paula Yates famously introduced it as "something really weird", though by the looks of her she can talk

The Art Of Noise - Close To The Edit in literal clown outfits with a mass of Fairlights, synths, samplers and a mixing console, Paul Morley adding comments as is his wont. It should however be noted the setup hadn't extended as far as replacing the audience with dummies.

Trouble Funk - Still Smokin' Tyne-side

Dexys Midnight Runners - There There My Dear, the infamous nine minute reworking with a talky bit in the middle and Kevin doing press-ups

The Redskins - Hold On/Keep On Keepin' On with a not totally successful interjection from a striking miner

The Fall - Smile/2x4 chosen and introduced by John Peel

Grandmaster Flash - The Message, performing some of the worst breakdancing ever committed to tape. That's not a real policeman at the end.

And the rest: His Clancyness/Islet/Mammoth Penguins

His Clancyness - Zenith Diamond
Just four and a half years or thereabouts since we first wrote about Jonathan Clancy's solo project he announces an album, Vicious out 7th October. Actually, maybe because it's now officially a trio, it sounds more in the A Classic Education wheelhouse than the drifting lilt of old, a chugging riff and driving motorik-ish rhythm pulling along an occasionally unwilling vocal, darker, psych-ier and punchier than what we'd heard before; that its producer Chris Koltay has worked with Bradford Cox and Liars makes perfect sense.




Islet - Tripping Through The Blue Room (Part II)
You imagine that when it came to recording Released By The Movement, out 14th October, producer Stephen 'Sweet Baboo' Black didn't so much do the intricate instrumentation setting up as scatter a few live mikes, press record and hope for the best. Sounding like it's been partially recorded through a wall, dark ambient washes, distantly obscured psychedelic sounds, tribal rhythms and no legible words at all, suggesting alongside first taster Triangulation Station that this may be an even more elusive record than Illuminated People.




Mammoth Penguins - Propped Up By Affection
Not a name you'll be familiar with but a voice you might, that being of Emma Kupa, most recently one third of Without Feathers but more notably late of Standard Fare and now of, well, a scrappy indie-rock trio, more raw and cocksure but with the questioning heart intact. Just a set of demos for the time being but they sound confident and ready for battle.

Rose Elinor Dougall - Strange Warnings

After a stint as part of the Mark Ronson charabanc and having watched her brother become the famous one with Toy it does seem a while since Dougall has been around but this first taste of a second album we know nothing else about yet is a fine step onwards from Without Why, warmly floaty psych-pop that runs on intricate understatement, laced with aereated synths on nodding terms with Stereolab before nearly disappearing down a technicolour plughole. Rose plays the Shacklewell Arms, London on August 14th.

Sky Larkin - Loom

We've been anticipating a third album for a while now and now we have confirmation - Motto (we've already heard the title track), 16th September, produced as usual by John Goodmanson and preceded by a week by this single, perhaps more immediate than usual but very definitely that quiet explosion of lyrical intrigue - it's about "presence after loss", says Katie - and dynamic wired hooks we've come to expect.





September tour dates? September tour dates, all except Sunderland and Glasgow with the promising much Radstewart supporting:

17th London Lexington
18th Leicester Firebug
19th Sheffield Harley
20th Sunderland Pop Recs Ltd (Frankie & The Heartstrings' gaff, that)
21st Glasgow Nice'n'Sleazy
23rd Leeds Brudenell
24th Southampton Joiners
25th Nottingham Bodega
26th Cardiff 10 Feet Tall
28th Aldershot West End Centre
30th Manchester Deaf Institute

Jetplane Landing - Walls Of Derry

Just when you thought it was safe to go to Derry and openly question general levels of rock commitment, JPL are back and sounding huge with fourth album Don't Try on September 2nd. We've heard the full thing and can report that rather than expand on the funk-laden left turn of the last time we saw them six years ago on Backlash Cop (STN's number nine album of the year, mind) it sounds like 2002 returning, more specifically the Million Dead/Reuben/Hundred Reasons landscape the Els Quatre Gats EP's full frontal post-hardcore assault was launched into - rarely a proper let-up, slamming boxcutter knife-edge melodies into big fuzzy riffs and Andrew Ferris' overwordy howling against the massed ranks. The pits will be unstoppable.



September dates:
2nd Sheffield Corporation
3rd Glasgow Stereo
4th Manchester Soup Kitchen
5th Nottingham Bodega
6th London Lexington
7th Cardiff Clwb Ifor Bach
11th Dublin Workman’s Club
13th Derry Glassworks
14th Belfast Limelight 2

The Magic Theatre - I Got The Answer

Quirky indie found a good few discerning homes around the tail end of the 90s, few more live contenders than Ooberman's take on whimsically personalised melodicism. That band's joint voices Dan Popplewell and Sophia Churney now trade in baroque folk with a curiosity-fuelled twist, and from a debut album due in the autumn is this sweetly lovely positivist countrified lilt that suits this weather pretty well, if occasionally interrupted by the South American percussive jam next door.

The many faces of Alanna McArdle: Joanna Gruesome/Ides

Joanna Gruesome are a band we've written about on here before, Cardiff-based youthful noiseniks who turn from languishing shoegaze to raging post-hardcore on the spin of a dime. That excitable explosiveness has been synthesised into a hopefully cohesive whole by Hookworms' MJ as producer, given the title Weird Sister and set for September 16th UK release via the Fortuna Pop!/Slumberland axis of ace noise-pop. Going on the stumbling, spinning like a top wild-eyed post-riot grrrl/Sonic Youth determination of Secret Surprise they're on their way.




And when she's not doing that singer Alanna McArdle has her own outlet Ides, a home for her minimalist guitar and haunted/bruised vocal telling of despair and feeling lost inside herself. Prisms is coming out as part of Art Is Hard's Postcard Club, which as the name suggests is a limited edition run of specially designed postcodes with unique download code.




Ides plays Brighton Hope on 9th August, Bournemouth 60 Million Postcards on 10th and a house show in Bristol on the 12th, all with King Of Cats. Both entities play together in London twice in the month, on the 6th at Buffalo Bar with that man King Of Cats and the mighty Gindrinker, and on 31st at the Victoria, Dalston for Art Is Hard's third birthday, also shared with Best Friends, The Black Tambourines, Gorgeous Bully, Playlounge, Nai Harvest, Birdskulls and RadStewart (yes, Joanna Gruesome and Radstewart are playing the same bill, leave it now). After that, they will progress to overcome their foes and conquer the world. Possibly.