Once upon a time, there was a bear who missed Christmas every year because he hibernated for the winter. A hare decided this was sad, so left his sleeping friend a present of an alarm clock, which woke him on Christmas Day. To do this, he enlisted the help of a Mr Lewis, who sold bits of Christmas to the local folk. Mr Lewis thought it would be nice to tell the locals all about the hare’s plan, and they became so interested that they twittered about it to their friends far and wide.
This generated so much interest that Mr Lewis’ business grew and grew until he felt he just had to make a film about it and, as films have to have a title song, he enlisted the help of a famous songstress to sing it for him. Mr Lewis played the song in his store, and it so enchanted the people who heard it that they wanted to buy their own copy. So Mr Lewis manufactured a single that became so popular it topped the Hit Parade. So where, you may ask, does the Passport come into this. Well to tell you that part of the story, I need to take you far, far away, to another land – Somewhere Only Jobsworths Know. Continue Reading
I have probably purchased more albumsduring 2011 than for some years and, what’s more, it’s been more difficult than I can remember for many years to select a short list of just the ten. So quite a bounce-back for this, my 49th annual round-up which includes my album of the year 2011 . Hopefully my fiftieth will be just as interesting next year; if not, I guess I can always do a retrospective!
2010 seemed to be a somewhat slow year on the music scene, reflected in the fact that my album purchases were probably the lowest they have been this century; in fact quite a lot of the output seemed to have somewhat of a retrospective air about it, including the influences that inspired possibly half of this year’s selections and the final choice for Album of the Year 2010 .