I realise that I have not altered this page in months, and it is not that I don't have a lot to say, and anyone who knows me will testify, so I will try and cover the months in between October 2011 and February 2012 without detail but some explanation, and also I want to resurrect an old item from 2006 and bring it up to date - best and most important albums of each year, at least for me!

In between then and now things have been very busy on a domestic front, as Christmas gets longer and longer, nativety plays come thick and fast and earlier than expected, indeed Jesus was born a Sagittarius many times last year, and we as a family settled into what I hoped would be a battoned down Christmas for ourselves and family. Christmas was fabulous, all together, and the first time in a long time that I have wished the days longer and felt them disappear faster at a noticeable and disappointing speed. When everyone is in the same place doing the same thing it feels very normal for me, but I understand that the children are growing older and more likely to want to wander from us increasingly in the future, so the times of enforced togetherness are becoming very precious.

One thing struck me very plainly as I ploughed through the social networking pages on our very quiet New Years Eve - almost everyone wished a savage farewell to 2011, with good riddence for good measure. I had a fabulous 2011, and am unashamed about it. I understand a general feeling of horror over rioting, Tsumanis, Nuclear spills, the Arab Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, but it was the personal reflection which seemed so bleak. I feel that the world is bound to become a more difficult place to live in, but I have always felt that way, and "the days of no change" which I am happy to count as blessings. are very precious indeed - so maybe it is my perception that is different from the herd.

Into the New Year and I abandonned the written word for a while, to actually write and record some demos, which may become the start of a Choppers album, which I hinted at in my previous piece. I was overwhelmed by a sense that this would be the right time for The Choppers to finally put something down on plastic, and it is a watch this space moment - who knows....

So that's it, in brief, and now on to a pleasure which is best/most important albums of the past few years. I guess that what was different about 2011 musically for me was the fact that I bought so many "new" albums - and I use the word "new" in inverted commas for a reason. Whilst my CD collection swelled with 2012 releases, the music on those releases had a profoundly older sounding nature - new acts, playing older music - indeed when you consider Jonathan Wilson is the new Jackson Browne, and The Jayhawks have reformed with their original line up, and Dawes, The War On Drugs, White Denim are all early 70's retrospective bands, you can see that the albums were new and my tastes are still old.

So full of admiration for 2011 as a year for music, here is my own take on most important albums of the last few years. Just to recap, I gave the honour to the following albums for the following years:

2001 - Gold RYAN ADAMS (Lost Highway)
2002 - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot WILCO (Nonsuch)
2003 - Volume 4 JOE JACKSON BAND (Ryko)
2004 - Nashville JOSH ROUSE (Ryko)
2005 - Hotwalker TOM RUSSELL (Hightone)
2006 - The Trials Of Van Occupanther MIDLAKE ( Bella Union)

OK, and here's the follow up years:

2007 - Traffic And Weather FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE (Virgin America)
By far my most played album of 2007, and a real car journey joy. "'92 Subaru" has been rocking me down the M1 from home to work ever since. Whilst friends of mine prefer the "independent" sound of the early Fountains albums, this is commercial excellence - a clean, cutting, clever, brilliant sound. College Rock at its very finest and funniest in places.

2008 - The Seldom Seen Kid ELBOW (Fiction)
Taking momentum from the line in the last paragraph about being more commercial than the critically aclaimed predecesors with this album Elbow threw all their commercial eggs in one basket, and came up with amongst the best few albums of the decade. I always enjoyed their progressive moments on previous albums, but this album felt like "hit after hit" with strong songs wall to wall. "Mirrorball" is as beautiful a love song as you'll hear, where "The Bones Of You" is a singalong favourite. The songs are funny and poignant and even the overused "One Day Like This" still holds up as excellent and beyond critisism. I remember driving the bleak landscape of Lincoln on the A1 and seeing birds scatter as "The Starlings" played - brilliant.

2009 - Gossip In The Grain RAY LAMONTAGNE
I'm cheating as this album came out in 2008, but I didn't know it until 2009, during which it was the most played album in the registery. Without doubt a gem of a record with light "White album" acoustic beauty mixed in with full funk and soul singer songwriter titles. Americana again, but with a real sense of fun in places like the fabulous "Meg White" a love song to his favourite drummer, and sheer elegance with the pick of the album the haunting "Sarah".

2010 - Queen Of Denmark JOHN GRANT (Bella Union)
Again this is a bit of a cheat, as I have grown to become much more of a fan of this album subsequent to 2010, although for the life of me I can't see another album from that year that I showed any gusto for at all. This is a well observed, funny, well played album (Midlake providing the backing session musicians) and with a stomping anthem "Chicken Bones" which is worth the credit alone.

2011 - Chateau Revenge THE SILVER SEAS (The Lights Label)
This is beyond doubt the best album I have owned in a long time, and one that has been lasered through with repeat plays. I was delighted to find in retrospect that the main Silver Seas man Daniel Taschen was the co-conspiritor on Josh Rouse's "Nashville" album, as the similarity (even in singing style0 is noticable. This is a fabulous collection of songs. True singer songwriter angst, with some brilliant pop pieces, which are very moreish, and leave me hitting the automatic repeat button, constantly.

They also served:

2007 - Oxengate CANDIDATE
2007 - Time On Earth CROWDED HOUSE
2009 - The Spinning Top GRAHAM COXON
2009 - The Hazards Of Love DECEMBERISTS

Sometimes the most influential albums for me were historical gems, and certainly just as 2010 was dominated by Harry Nilsson (Nilsson Schmilsson, Aerial Ballet), 2011 was dominated by Cream (Disraeli Gears, Live At The Royal Albert Hall) who I truly discovered years after The Choppers had been playing most of their hit output. Also extremely important catalogue albums in the last few years have been John Barcleycorn Must Die (Traffic); I Often Dream Of Trains (Robyn Hitchcock); Black Sea (XTC); Flyin' Shoes (Townes Van Zandt); Scott 2 (Scott Walker); Later That Same Year (Matthews Southern Comfort); My Aim Is True (Elvis Costello); Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn And Jones (Monkees)

MAS 2012