The Boy Least Likely To

it was like christmas morning all over again this morning. i got a big parcel through the post from maria at fuzzy logic and matt from the bicycles. it's a very exciting thing. it had five copies of the new bicycles album in, a copy of the bicycles dvd board game, a copy of the prairie cat album and an album by peter project, a merry christmas to me mix cd from matt and maria and a fuzzy logic recordings compilation. i'm just listening to the bicycles album now and it sounds amazing. i'll have to stay in all day now.

seeing as i'm staying in all day i might as well do something productive, and pete sent me an email yesterday with his top nine albums of last year so i thought it would be nice to share it with someone. i don't think he could think of a tenth album.

this is pete's top nine. two albums share the number one spot and he's used capital letters for the second year running.

1. Bon Iver – For Emma, forever Ago

    Beck – Modern Guilt

3. She and Him – Volume 1

3. Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Lie Down In The Light

4. Kanye West – 808s and Heartbreak

5. Monkey – Journey To The West

6. Peter Broderick - Home

7. David Holmes – The Holy Pictures

8. The John Baker Tapes Vol 1: BBC Radiophonics 1963-1974

and this is my top nine. the bicycles album is at number nine because i love it already, but i think it would be wrong to put it any higher after only two listens. by next week it could be higher up. it was difficult to decide the order between the top three. i loved the css album. it reminded me of waking up hungover, covered in bruises with sick in my hair. it's number three on my list of 'all time favourite albums about what happens when the party's over and it's all breaking up', after 'this is hardcore' by pulp and 'get in' by kenickie. i kind of expected to like the css album because i liked the first one so much, but the hold steady album was a complete surprise. i guess from now on it'll always be just one of those records that i fell in love with one summer. in the end though, i played the top three albums one after another and the vivian girls album won. there isn't a prize or anything though.

1. vivian girls – vivian girls

2. cansei de ser sexy - donkey

3. hold steady – stay positive

4. los campesinos! – hold on now, youngster

5. neon neon – stainless style

6. minisnap – bounce around

7. headless heroes – silence of love

8. deerhoof - offend maggie

9. the bicycles – oh no, it's love

at number ten i did have the manhattan love suicides album, 'burnt out landscapes', but as pete only sent me a list of nine albums i thought i'd only do a list of nine, and then because it was a compilation of singles and rarities i thought perhaps it didn't really count anyway. i do love it though. 

and my favourite song of the year was 'let's wrestle' by let's wrestle.

i haven't made any new years resolutions. all i want to try and do is release some records. i think we'll begin with a single in february... and then an album in march... and then perhaps a tour in march too. i think that'd be nice.

happy new year. 

we didn't get the christmas number one in the end. oh well. i really didn't expect us to, so i'm not at all surprised or upset. i'm really happy because there were some lovely things written about the single all over the world and in lots of unusual places too, and that's the sort of thing that matters to me.

i'm not sure if anyone else has noticed, but the charts are a bit weird now. particularly this week. beyonce has got three songs in the top twenty, wham are at number twenty seven and the top three are all cover versions and two of them are the same song. the winner of the x factor is number one with a cover version of 'hallelujah', and jeff buckley is at number two with his version of it. apparently there was a campaign all over the radio and the internet trying to get people to buy the jeff buckley version.

i don't really understand the campaign. i don't particularly like the alexandra burke version either, but the campaign had a few weird subtexts. it seemed to be all about jeff buckley being somehow more authentic because he was a white male rock star, and so had a natural predisposition towards understanding misery and suffering, and that a female pop star couldn't possibly carry the emotional weight of the song. i don't really understand why everyone was being so precious and protective about it. i don't even like the jeff buckley version. i always thought it was a bit histrionic. there was no subtlety or humour in the song when jeff buckley did it, and i always thought the original version by leonard cohen was quite a funny song, full of self deprecation and sexual innuendo, in the same way that most of his songs are. i like the way that leonard cohen pronounces the word "you" as "ya" whenever he's rhyming it with the word "hallelujah", and how it seems to get more and more ridiculous as the song goes on, and i always thought the lines "there was a time when you let me know what's really going on below, but now you never show that to me do you" were a really funny description of the sexual desperation of a bitter middle aged man in a failing relationship. but jeff buckley always seemed to be lacking the wry smile when he sang it. and as for alexandra burke, once the x factor has finished, i don't want to know about it anymore. it's the same every year, as soon as the winner is announced i stop caring. i just liked watching the little dorks for twelve weeks while they got slowly picked off by the british public, but then at the end of it all, even though i'm momentarily happy for whoever wins and everything, i don't actually ever want to see any of them again. i don't want them to actually release records and i don't want to see them on tv unless it's on another celebrity reality tv show trying to revive their failing careers.

anyway, because the christmas top forty was so rubbish. i decided to make up my own one, like i used to when i was eight. the only difference being that when i was eight i used to write it in a little notebook that had all my lists in and that no one ever saw, and now i'm going to write it down and post it up on the internet so that the whole world can read it. this isn't a list of my all time favourite christmas songs in the order that i like them, although some of my all time favourites are in there. it’s just a list of the christmas songs i've been listening to this christmas. it's not that different to the official uk top 40. wham are still at number twenty seven. 

the boy least likely to offical christmas top 40

40. lauren laverne – in the bleak midwinter

39. comet gain – asleep on the snow

38. saint etienne – i was born on christmas day

37. david essex – a winter’s tale

36. the waitresses – christmas wrapping

35. daniel johnston – rock around the christmas tree

34. mariah carey – all i want for christmas is you

33. emmy the great – christmas in prison

32. john denver & the muppets – when the river meets the sea

31. my morning jacket – xmas time is here again

30. malcolm middleton - we’re all going to die

29. mogwai – christmas steps

28. arab strap – christmas (baby please come home)

27. wham – last christmas

26. bright eyes – silver bells

25. sufjan stevens – once in royal david’d city

24. feist – lo, how a rose e’re blooming

23. the wedding present – holly jolly hollywood

22. low – just like christmas

21. frightened rabbit – it’s christmas so we’ll stop

20. prairie cat – winter wonderland

19. the pipettes – white christmas

18. belle and sebastian – are you coming over for christmas?

17. badly drawn boy – donna and blitzen

16. the voluntary butler scheme – wombling merry christmas

15. camera obscura – little donkey

14. kermit the frog – have yourself a merry little christmas

13. the pogues and kirsty maccoll – fairytale of new york

12. amiina – hilli (at the top of the world)

11. low – santa’s coming over

10. rod thomas – on a silent night

rod premiered this christmas song last week when he played at our christmas show, and now you can enjoy it too if you just go to his website.

9. the school – kiss you in the snow

this is my favourite christmas song from last year, but i still haven't got tired of it so it's made the top ten this year too. i had to leave it off my christmas compilation that i made for our gig last week because the school were playing before us and i guessed that they might play it live because it was christmas and they did and it was wonderful.

8. au revoir simone – christmas time is here

i found this song on this compilation and it's lovely. it replaced 'fallen snow', which would usually have been in this list.

7. lucky lucky pigeons – red santa

apparently this was originally included on a compilation of christmas songs called 'a very cherry christmas 2". 

6. little my – xmas song

5. versus the lion – santa santa claus

4. deerhoof – little drummer boy

3. slow club – christmas tv

2. the bicycles – snow

1. the boy least likely to – the first snowflake

hooray!! we’re number one!!! thank you to everyone that bought our single and thank you to everyone that wrote nice things about us.

happy holidays

x