20 for 2020 #4

I'm not going mention any of the records that disappointed me this year - there were a few. God knows we've had anough negatives over the past 12 months. I'd rather focus on the positive side of things, so here's the final selection of my favourite albums of 2020.

PUBLIC ENEMY 'What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down?'
What makes me happy is that Public Enemy are still making music in 2020. What makes me sad is that the messages they were preaching in 1987 remain just as relevant in 2020. For their 17th album, Chuck, Flav and Lord roped in friends from the hip-hop community including the Beastie Boys, Run DMC, Ice-T, Nas and Cypress Hill to name a few. A couple of old tracks were given a makeover too including 1990's anthem Fight The Power, one of the most powerful protest songs of all time. In the current landscape, it's never sounded so necessary.

CULTS 'Host'
There were two distinctive firsts on Cults' fourth 'proper' album: they used mainly live instruments instead of synths and electronics; and it contained songs written by vocalist Madeline Follin, who had been hording them for some time. The result is possibly their best album to date.

SORRY '952'
Another duo - Sorry hail from London and released an intriguing debut album which kind of defies categorisation (though if you like Beetlebum-era Blur, you might well enjoy it). There's a lot going on here, and they certainly wear their influences proudly on their sleeves. I play this album when I'm not sure what I'm in the mood for, and it always does the trick.

LAURA MARLING 'Song For Our Daughter'
I mentioned earlier in the year how Laura Marling's latest effort is an absolute joy. An album of intimate and sparsely-arranged songs for an imaginary daughter, it was inspired by an eclectic bunch of writers and musicians including Maya Angelou, Graeme Green, Paul McCartney, Leonard Cohen and Robert Icke. Laura Marling is fast becoming a national treasure, and she's still only 30!

THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS 'Made Of Rain'
And to finish off, how about the comeback record of the year? Despite reforming in 2000, the Psychedelic Furs toured for the best part of the next two decades without releasing any new material. And then this little beauty hit the shelves, a full 29 years after their last record 'World Outside'. Got to say, it was worth the wait. Some brilliant, brilliant songs on this one.

Shout outs must also go to:
Sparks - 'A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip' (one of Mrs Robster's faves)
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs - 'Viscerals' (definitely not one of Mrs Robster's faves...)
Ian Skelly - 'Drifters Skyline'
Mourn - 'Self Worth'
The Strokes - 'The New Abnormal'

OK, I'm done. I could make this list twice as long but that would be boring. Hopefully this time next year I'll have just as much to write about, maybe I could even get a few gig reviews in as well!

Back to the burrow I go. Wake me up when something good happens...

The Lockdown posts: Alternative Kitchen Disco #2

What the effin' heck does that mean? Drop what like it's hot? Well, apparently it's the act of a lady with an ample behind crouching and shaking it provocatively as seen in pretty much every hip-hop video in the last 10 years. It became popular through a Snoop Dogg song of the same name. Quite how MrsRobster came across this term is a mystery, but she thought it provided a link between the kitchen and music so daubed it across the splashboard in place of her previous work.

For the record, I have not been playing any hip-hop or r&b of late, and certainly nothing that one can "drop it like it's hot" to. But I have soundtracked my kitchen exploits with the following in the last few days:

I initially tried the new Anna Burch album but turned it off after a few tracks. Its unchanging mid-tempo plod was not exactly a cure for boredom. So I put the debut album by London duo Sorry on instead. That was much better. I know very little about his pair, only recently becoming acquainted with them, but they seem to throw various influences in the same pot and manage to make it work. I can detect all sorts of things in their sound, but I'll let you try and spot some of them. Liking this a lot.



The new album by Milk Teeth is also giving me pleasure. Yes, it does sound rather 90s, but you know - good 90s. Like, Veruca Salt 90s. What the hell, anything's better than the neverending 80s obsession that's lasting longer than the 80s ever did! Milk Teeth's parents clearly had some good records!



And on Thursday night, I also played the new Le Butcherettes EP again. Short, yeah, but better than nothing. As you'd expect, there's all sorts going on in such a short amount of time. This video sees Teri and Marfred do Misery. If I'm being honest, I think I'd be far more afraid of Teri than Kathy Bates, however awesome I think she is!



Not sure you can 'drop it' to any of these tunes, but they're pretty 'hot'. Whatever that means.