A year a new generation madeits mark on the music scene
Danny McElhinney provides his round-up of the best and gigs in 2019, as well as his picks of the decade
In musical terms, 2019 may well be remembered as the year that a new generation of Irish rock bands impacted on the world scene. Fontaines DC and The Murder Capital hit the UK top ten and top 20 respectively this year with Dogrel and When I Have Fears while Hozier hit the US and UK number one spot with his second album, Wasteland, Baby. Leaving aside the commercial win for the Bray native, the breakthrough, particularly by Fontaines DC, will influence the evolution of Irish popular music in a way that the success of a myriad of singer-songwriters and pop acts never will.
Theirs is an original sound that is Irish to its core but they don’t trade on their nationality as a means of gaining traction. The fact that they have had a commercial breakthrough at all is incidental to the members of the quintet. If you were designing a business plan to make a commercial breakthrough on the world stage, it wouldn’t involve singing songs in Dublin accents that namecheck areas and landmarks of a city known only to the people that live there.
It is also very encouraging to see the single-minded approach the group Lankum have taken to folk music. Yes, there is a serious, almost austere approach at work but they’re not po-faced traditionalists either. Signed to a label, Rough Trade, that cares more about originality than commercial possibilities, Lankum are helping to foster a different view of Irish folk music internationally.
Interest in Irish rap and hip hop continues to grow locally, if not internationally. It’s instructive that the two acts who are garnering most attention are white.
Versatile are controversial and provocative and are currently treading a fine line between satire and affirmation of sexist and racist attitudes in their music. They may know which side of the line they’re on but some of their ever-growing following might not. Kneecap from Belfast rap and sing in Irish to a predominantly young white crowd, and based on a show I witnessed in Dublin’s Academy, that young crowd enjoy being goaded into shouting ‘tiocfaidh ár lá’ and singing along to songs that encourage them to buy more merchandise so the band can buy more drugs. Like Versatile, they’re clever but do they really know all of the effects of the touch papers they’re lighting?
I hope in 2020 that new Irish men and women of African origin begin to gain much more traction for articulating their experiences through rap and hip hop rather than skits by white Irish males.
Anyway, that’s for 2020, here’s the best of the best that I’ve heard and seen musically in 2019. It’s my subjective opinion, my favourites. I have picked the albums I have enjoyed most in the last decade too. Again, people will say ‘what about?’ and I say I am glad you enjoyed them, I enjoyed or found these more worthy of attention
‘Lankum are helping to foster a different view of Irish folk music internationally’
than the others. I have not been to every gig in the past 10 years or heard every album that has been released – neither has anyone else – and I hope my life can be as enriched in the next decade by the music I have heard since 2010. Open your ears, eyes and heart.
ALBUMS OF 2019 1. Fontaines DC Dogrel
The 11 songs have an ear tuned to the Dublin vernacular and are sung proudly in its accent. Bellow along to the choruses of Boys In The Better Land and Liberty Belle, while throwing yourself around to the forceful postpunk or you can contemplate during the sublime slower songs such as Roy’s Tune, and Dublin City Sky. The best Irish debut album in years.
2. Lankum Livelong Day
Their third album breathes new life into old folk standards, blowtorching off the lacquer of years of prosaic interpretations of songs such as The Wild Rover, while perhaps creating a standard of their own in The Young People.
3. Girl Band The Talkies
An attitudinal and sonic influence on the band at number one and Girl Band’s return after a fouryear break was a step forward without compromise.
4. Billie Eilish When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
An artist of insight and import and she has only just turned 18. With her brother, Finneas, Billie (main picture above) makes music that speaks to its predominantly young listeners in terms of their quest for fulfilment as young people.
5. Elbow Giants Of All Sizes
A product of personal loss and strife, a comment on the fears for Britain and the world. A product of its time that will age well even in the unlikely event that their anxieties prove misplaced.
6. The Murder Capital When I Have Fears
An album that examines personal loss from different angles and
does so voicing the anger, sadness, bargaining and acceptance that bereavement brings and does so with poise and power.
7. Wallis Bird Woman
The Wexford woman chooses to express hope while expressing her fears about a future with which many artists are naturally concerned. She also sings joyfully of the love she has found that is her emotional sustenance.
8. Soak Grim Town
The Derry woman has grown so much as an artist and it shows in the scope of Grim Town. It is danceable and lyrically mature.
9. Josh Ritter Fever Breaks
The Idaho native has been one of the finest lyricists around for many years but Jason Isbell of Drive By Truckers has added much more heft to Ritter’s songs with his playing and production this time around.
10. The Pale Merciful Hour
Lyrically, the north Dublin band veer from playful to portentousness on their first album in six years.
You can hear the trademark bouzouki throughout but also David Bowie’s influence on these fans who began composing it in the aftermath of his 2016 death.