Album Reviews: Wrap Up of 2020, June – December

I’ve been trying to think of something profound to say about 2020 as an introduction to this post, a wrap up of the rest of my month-by-month album reviews of the year, something I started during the first lockdown, and in synergy to how this pandemic has gone; those posts started with much fluster, meandered, and has now come back with renewed enthusiasm, and a new string (strain) to its bow. The new strings in this post are simply a more rushed approach to getting these album reviews done, or simply sharing what albums I enjoyed listening to each month, much like the UK governments approach to getting the Pfizer vaccine approved, or quickly hashing out a last minute trade deal with the EU.

Album Reviews: My Top 5 Albums Released in May

By the time May came around, each month had started to blur into one, and a feeling of doom and gloom lay rife in the air, as everything that we had looked forward to slowly withered away and was being cancelled, or rescheduled for what would be either the first or second time of many more. Completing a Netflix series had become the norm and no longer an accomplishment, and having walked the 5 mile radius surrounding my London flat a good ten times over, it all started to feel like a Deja Vu. New lockdown hobbies and interests started to fade, and the constant battle to stay motivated was a fortnightly crisis. Even new music wasn’t quite hitting the mark, and some of the albums in this post were listened to retrospectively.

Feature: Top 10 Music-Related Things to Watch During Lockdown, pt. 2

Back in May when I wrote the first part to this I wouldn’t have believed that I would be writing a second part several months later. Time is a weird thing, and amiss of any live music, festivals and any significant trips away, apart from visiting the Motherland for a few weeks, the months have rolled into one and gone by in a blur. I’ve learnt to accept the situation and know that I cannot control what will happen, counting my blessings each day that the people close to me are safe, and that I’ve not lost anyone during this time. Having worked in music and live events since University, their absence has been hard to come to terms with, and with the Goverment response to this, asking people like myself to retrain, has been somewhat anger-inducing, to say the least. Finally we are now seeing some socially distanced shows happening, and being able to mark them into the diary. It’s great to see a venue that I’ve worked at for the past few years, The O2 Arena, having their first show back on the 5th of December.

Album Reviews: My Top 5 Albums Released in April

Here we go again! As I continue to look back through my albums of the year, month by month. This time I’ll take a look at April, which saw the return of The Strokes after seven years, the wonderful collaboration between Tom Misch & Yussef Dayes, amongst fantastic new albums from Enter Shikari, Fiona Apple and The Used. April once again saw an abundance of new music, and as always it was hard to pin down what my top five albums were. This list could have easily included Thundercats ‘It Is What It is’, and new releases from R.A The Rugged Man and Dance Gavin Dance, but alas I can only pick five, and these are the beautiful albums that I have chosen.

Origins of European Hip-Hop: Rap Italiano

As I continue to take a look back at the dissertation I wrote a few years ago on the developement and impact of hip-hop in Europe, I now move onto my second country, Italy. In the last post I looked into Francophone Rap, a budding hip-hop scene in France, which produced artists such as MC Solaar and IAM, and the film ‘La Haine’. Not too far away though in the Southern regions of Europe, an entirely different hip-hop scene was beginning to emerge, one that would have a big political impact.