2022

 
This was a year in which the broadsheet film reviewers doled out 5-star reviews like candy to kids on an almost weekly basis, creating high expectations for the year in cinema.
 

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If there’s a more powerful, pertinent and poignant protest song than Midlife In A Small Town by Dead Sheeran, I’d like to hear it.

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Like most of us, I imagine, I spent a lot of time watching the telly over the course of this year. These were my favourites and I think they demonstrate pretty clearly why anyone who wants to “defund the BBC” is an idiot.

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RIP Terry Hall (1957-2022).

The Specials were part of my youth, and I saw them several times, including that magical first time with Madness and Dexys and The Selecter all on one bill in 1979.

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Emeka Ogboh – Ayilara

11th December 2022 · 2020s, 2022, Music

I have never been to Nigeria but I feel as if I’ve spent time amid the hustle and bustle of Lagos while listening to sound artist Emeka Ogboh’s album 6°30’33.372″N 3°22’0.66″E.

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Song of the Day

With its spooky folk-horror video and creepy choral vocals by the Mediaeval Baebes, Orbital have created a post-pandemic anthem that fuses their characteristic dance rhythms with the playground song Ring A Ring O’Roses.

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I can’t pretend i was ever a big Fleetwood Mac fan.
So the death of Christine McVie didn’t resonate with me as strongly as with those millions who bought Rumours. But the outpouring of love and sadness for her death is a poignant reminder of the unifying power of music.

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RIP Wilko Johnson (Dr Feelgood, Ian Dury & The Blockheads, The Solid Senders) 1947-2022. Gone but never forgotten.

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The hot summer night Pulp and Leftfield played in an outdoor amphitheatre in Barcelona. And I was there.

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Lolahol – Cuntradiction

12th November 2022 · 2020s, 2022, Music

Like mother like daughter… this is Madonna’s daughter Lolahol slavishly coping the methods that brought her mother to public attention more than 40 years earlier.

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