RACHEL JOHNSON
AUTUMN CLASSICS
Stuck in a hideous traffic jam (the trains may be empty but the roads are full – the two are not unrelated), I heard comedian/author James Acaster plugging a book, and up pricked my ears.
The thesis of Perfect Sound Whatever is simple, he explained. It is that ‘2016 was the greatest year for music of all time.’
I snorted audibly. So did my husband, who, as keen readers of this column will recall, was actually present at Jimi Hendrix’s last gig on the Isle of Wight 50 years ago; ie he’s that old. We secretly think that most pop music since about 1980 is trite and disposable.
We therefore both waited for the 34-year-old stripling from Kettering to back up his idiotic claim. We heard that Acaster bought 366 albums in the course of his 2016 project … and then I’m afraid I tuned out, as I had started making my own list.
It’s the season of mists. Forget 2016 – what about right here, right now? What are the albums to snuggle up to by the fireside, as the nights draw in? Back home, I scanned the CDS on my shelves, and my eye fell on ten mellow and fruitful autumn bangers.
1 The Eurythmics’ Here Comes the Rain Again for when the heavens open from now until Christmas.
2 Joni Mitchell’s Blue because 2020 has been that kind of year. Alexa, fast forward to 2021!
3 The Best of the Rat Pack box set to remind you it’s not what you do; it’s how you do it.
4 Carole King’s Tapestry, to remind you that it’s the small pleasures in life, like coffee, jokes, old friends (and needlework?) that sustain us, not status and money.
5 Neil Young’s Harvest, as it’s the time of year when small children place tins and Weetabix on altars.
6 Florence + the Machine’s Ceremonials as the lead singer Welch is young, gifted and Brit.
7 The Beatles’ remastered Love album to wipe the film Yesterday from your consciousness.
8 Sandy Denny’s Who Knows Where the Time Goes?, which is what we all ask all the time, as we see our children change and our parents age, and avoid our own ravaged visages in the mirror.
9 Nick Drake’s Five Leaves Left: pure, bare, ruined-choirs music.
10 Lastly, Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black, to remind my husband that since he was a spotty, druggy teenager at the Isle of Wight, one of the greatest singers to walk the streets of Camden and this land both was born and died, and her name will shine for ever in lights in the musical hall of fame.
PS I will not be taking questions on this list.
PPS James Acaster has, would you believe it, bought another 500 albums since 2016, but I’m STILL not convinced by his superior knowledge on these matters.