After a few months absence, I’ve now thrashed out two boring self indulgent monthly music blog posts whilst sitting on the train in a row. Hallelujah!
Top Artists
Well I’ve done it again – my top artist is band I was going to see that month, so I listened to them a lot before and after. I was a grungy teenager when the Deftones’ first two albums came out in the 1990s, so I listened to them a lot, bit I never really listened to anything after that. There’s no particular reason for this, they just kind of passed me by. After catching up on their other music and seeing them live in Crystal Palace Park, I have to say that the Deftones are very good! What start as a nu metal band eventually evoked quite a bit into an almost shoe gazing Tool like band, so I pretty much liked everything I was listening to.
Jumping to number 4 on the list, HEALTH were one of the supporting acts for Deftones. As a big fan of industrial music, I heard some of their stuff but not given them a proper listen. Their music can be a bit stop start, which can be frustrating, but once they get going it’s excellent. Before the gig in Crystal Palace, I’d had a rather rough summer cold and cancelled all my plans that week to make sure I was well enough for the Sunday. Once I got there, I had a couple of beers and we stood fairly close to the stage on the hottest day of the year to watch HEALTH. The combination of illness, ill advised beer, blazing hot sunshine and being violently shaken by the sound system set my heart rate monitor on my watch off and I had to go for a sit down. I’ve become such an old man.
At number 2 we have The Prodigy. The start of June, I had some friends round and whilst talking about music we agreed that, despite all liking different music, everyone like The Prodigy. I know you do too! So we ended up all picking and playing our favourite songs on my account.
At number 3 it’s MFC Chicken – a complete change of pace. A garage rock band that sings a lot of songs about fried chicken, I’ve liked them for years and regularly watch them live with my other half who generally isn’t into the same sort of music as me at all. We have embarrassed ourselves multiple times by drinking too much and talking too much to the band. They’ve made the list because they have a new album out – more on that below.
Finally, at number 5 is Gary Numan. He’s currently on tour and might have a new album out although I’m not really sure about that bit, I wasn’t paying full attention when he kept popping up on TV but seeing him on TV made me want to listen to some old Gary Numan. I personally have two Gary Numan eras that I like – the traditional 70s/80s era and his sleepy industrial music from the early 2000s which me and some friends listened to a lot at uni.
Top Songs
This month, I’ve had to re-listen to all of these songs as I have no idea what they are by just looking at this top 5 list, which puts them all in with a chance of reappearing again next month. We might end up stuck in an infinite loop.
At number 1, we have Bicycle by Memory Tapes. This is the only one on the list where I don’t even recognise the artist. As I mentioned above, I spent a night in my bar with some friends and I figured we might need some chilled out music at some point, so I found a chillwave playlist and tried it out before that night. It seemed good and we did end up listening to it around our Prodigy marathon. Somehow, only this and Com Truise at number 2 at the only songs from that list to make the top songs despite the fact that I listened to a lot of the songs on that playlist twice. The mysteries of the great music algorithm gods elude me yet again.
Anyway, Bicycle is pretty generic chill out music and not really my cup of tea until right at the end of the song when it suddenly goes into some Joy Division style guitar and it sounds great. In my mind, a very odd combo.
Brokendate by Com Truise is a bit more of what I’d expect from a chill wave list – more synths and more of an 80s vibe. I really liked this one and stuck it on my own giant synthwave playlist.
At number 3, we have Sigils by Vulta. This is definitely not music for chilling out. We’re still in the Synthwave space, but it’s a bit faster and a bit heavier. In fact, all of spots 3-5 are of a pretty similar style. Now I’ve listened to this song again, I recognise it as something I hear quite regularly in my giant Synthwave playlist. A good heavy, slightly sinister sound on this one.
In the 4th spot, it’s Prometheanica by King Stephen who I would also describe as another heavy and slightly sinister artist and I really like most of his stuff. I just didn’t recognise this song by name! More heavy darkwave for the fat ex-goth.
Finally, at number 5 it’s Drone Sight by Power Glove. There is a Power Glove and a Powerglove that I have both listened to quite a bit so this can all get a bit confusing, especially as this song sounds like neither of them! It’s a lot more “dance music” to my untrained dance music ears and not something I’d usually listen to. It’s not even on any of my playlists, so when the hell did I listen to it twice? We’ll never know.
Top Albums
On to the albums, and at number 1 it’s Milk Chicken (2025) by MFC Chicken. This album is more of the same silly and fun garage rock songs about fried chicken that I’d expect from MFC Chicken, but that’s a good thing, I ask for nothing more. I gave it a couple of listens and enjoyed it a lot!
At number 2, it’s Premier Hits (1997) by Gary Numan. Yeah yeah, I know it’s a compilation. I listened to this compilation a lot when I worked in a library from 1997 -2003 because Intook the CD home and copied it onto MiniDisc. Remember those?! Anyway, if you’re in the mood for some Gary Numan, like I was, this is great and I make no apologises for it.
At number 3, it’s my favourite album by The Prodigy – Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned (2004). I appreciate that might be a controversial opinion, but I really like this album and I think a lot of people missed it at the time. My friends certainly did, so I made them listen to it that night they were round my house. It’s my house, I can do that sort of thing.
At number 4, it’s Death & Glory (2018) by Lazerpunk. I would describe Lazerpunk as on the heavy, dark side of Synthwave – darkwave if you will. This is a good album, with lots of variation in style between songs which can sometimes be a challenge (in a similar vein to HEALTH who I mentioned above) but I like it.
Finally, we have a new album by Garbage! Their first album was the second album I ever owned on CD (the first was Astro Creep 2000 by White Zombie). Some of Garbage’s other recent music has all felt a bit generic and not very catchy, not that good but Let All That We Imagine Be The Light (2025) is a much better return to form and I enjoyed quite a bit.
I’ve enjoyed this month’s recap – there’s been a good combination of nostalgia (for me) and new music. I wonder if anyone else read it.
Matt Hart 