• Waits, Tom – Blood Money 16,5
• Rocket from the Tombs – The Day the Earth Met the Rocket from the Tombs 14,5
• Woven Hand – Woven Hand 14,5
• Laurie Anderson – Live at Town Hall 2 CDs 20
• Neu! - 75 13,75
• Grandaddy – The Broken Down Comforter Collection
14,25
• Ryan Adams – Demolition 15,5 (LP 11,25)
• John Convertino – Sack of Cement 5
• Calexico – Spoke 12,25
• Ani DiFranco – So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter, 2CDs 20
• I Am Spartacus – Forward! 14,75
• Giant Sand – A Cover Magazine 14,5 (LP 10,75)
• Black Heart Procession – Amore Del Tropico 15,5
• No-Man – Heaven Taste 16,5
• Sonic Youth & ICP & The EX - In the Fishtank 9,75
• Mountain Goats - All Hail West Texas 16,5
• Laura Nyro – Eli and the Thirteenth Confession 12,25
• Piano Magic – Writers without Home 16,5
• Radar Bros. – And the Surrounding Mountains 16,5
• Uncle Tupelo – 89/93 Anthology 16,5
• Low & Dirty Three – In the Fishtank 9,75
• Nada Surf – Let Go 16,5
• Grandaddy – The Sophtware Slump 16,5
• New Order – Back to Mine 17,5
• Hayden – Skyscraper National Park 15
• My Morning Jacket – At Dawn 14,25
• San Francisco: A Music City Compilation 1998, 2CDs 6,5

The Morning News - Ten Great Beatles Moments (details there)

1. ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ (1963)
2. The ‘middle-eight’ on ‘And I Love Her’ (1964)
3. George Harrison’s sitar accompaniment on ‘Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)’ (1965)
4. ‘A Day in the Life’ (1967)
5. ‘I Am the Walrus’ (1967)
6. Side two of the White Album (1968)
7. The guitar lick at the end of ‘Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey’ and the piano melody on ‘Sexy Sadie’ (1968)
8. George Harrison’s guitar solo on ‘Something’ (1969)
9. The Abbey Road medley (1969)
10. ‘You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)’ (1970)

Plans I know that it is a mistake to announce something in my weblog but I cannot resist. To limit my purchases of CDs, books and other media items I set myself the task to write on any new stuff at least a hundred words before buying some more. This won't apply to my whole collection as that would be a Herculean task with probably close to 1,500 CDs in the back catalogue. And I want to try not to buy/order more than two CDs at once in the future. I will start with the CDs I bought in the last two weeks. Those were:

• Sarah McLachlan: Fumbling Towards Ecstasy
• UB40: Present Arms in Dub
• Dakota Suite: Songs for a Barbed Wire Fence
• Califone: Sometimes Good Weather Follows Bad People
• David Bowie: Low
• Curtis Mayfield: Superfly (not the album but a best of)
• Thin White Rope: The One That Got Away
• Patti Smith: Land Any wishes with which album I should start?

The weaker sex I love female voices and I'd like to write something on my favourite ones. For a start just an alphabetic list of those which left a lasting impression on me. I hope I will be going to write something on some of them soon.

The voices which left a mark:

• Laurie Anderson
• Sally Barker
• Jennifer Charles (Elysium Fields)
• Anne Clark
• Caroline Crawley (Shelleyan Orphan)
• Julee Cruise
• Kim Deal (Pixies)
• Liz Fraser (Cocteau Twins)
• Lisa Germano
• Beth Gibbons (Portishead)
• Allison Goldfrapp (Goldfrapp)
• Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth)
• Francoise Hardy
• Angie Hart (Frente!)
• PJ Harvey
• Billie Holiday
• Chrissie Hynde (Pretenders)
• Rickie Lee Jones
• Valérie Leulliot (Autour de Lucie)
• Joanne Loughman (Glee Club)
• Aimee Mann
• Shirley Manson (Garbage)
• Chan Marshall (Cat Power)
• Joni Mitchell
• Stina Nordenstam
• Sinead O'Connor
• Mary Margaret O'Hara
• Dolores O'Riordan (Cranberries)
• Poe
• Hope Sandoval (Mazzy Star)
• Michelle Shocked
• Nina Simone
• Patti Smith
• Margo Timmins (Cowboy Junkies)
• Suzanne Vega

Slightly so:

• Emma Anderson (Lush)
• Fiona Apple
• Joan Baez
• Jane Birkin
• Björk
• Kate Bush
• Sandy Denny
• Ani DiFranco
• Tanja Donelly (Throwing Muses)
• Juliana Hatfield
• Janis Joplin
• Brenda Kahn
• Courtney Love
• Natalie Merchant (10,000 Maniacs)
• Meredith Monk
• Nico
• Sade
• Nancy Sinatra
• Tanita Tikaram
• Tori Amos
• Harriet Wheeler (Sundays)
• Kathryn Williams
• Lucinda Williams

To check out:

• KD Lang
• McGarrigle sisters
• Sarah McLachlan
• Buffy Sainte Marie
• Laura Nyro
• Jane Siberry

I started a thread on ILM What were the favourite bands/artists of your life up to now? I know it is difficult. I just did my list from when I was twelve years old to today. I am 38 now. The most difficult thing is to choose just one band/artist per year. I have succeeded. So should you. The list:

12: The Sweet 13: Manfred Mann's Earth Band 14-16: Genesis 17: Nick Drake 18-20: Keith Jarrett (jazz piano improvisations) 21: Dire Straits 22-23: Joni Mitchell 24: Neil Young 25: The Smiths 26: The Velvet Underground 27: Suzanne Vega 28: My Bloody Valentine 29: Sonic Youth 30: Red House Painters 31-32: Swell 33: Cowboy Junkies 34-36: Yo La Tengo 37-38: Giant Sand

Another current thread on ILM worthwhile checking out is ILM members in love on the music people were listening to when luv hit them.

Top ten 1999 My inspiration hits ground zero today. Like Andy and Chris (guess which was my submission) have done recently I post a list today. Almost all my favourites of 1999 are calm, slow and melancholic. Serious stuff. Low profile. Why?

• Blur: 13. "When you see me, please, turn your back and walk away"

• Mogwai: Come on Die Young. no words which hit me

• Negresses Vertes: Trabendo. (FR) "Je cherche l'arbre sur lequel poussent les filles. C'est le plus beau des fruitiers il donne toute l'année."

• Pinback: This Is a Pinback CD. "Sad I'm gonna die. Hope it's gonna happen later than I think."

• Iggy Pop: Avenue B. "Above all I didn't want to take any more shit. Not from anybody."

• Radar Bros.: The Singing Hatchet. "Tar the roofs of the houses that are leaking"

• Smog: Knock Knock. "The type of memories that turn your bones to glass"

• Spain: She Haunts My Dreams. "It's all over now. He knew from the start. It was in the way she walked and the way she moved."

• Tocotronic: K.O.O.K. (DE) "Man wisse zwar nicht wann und wie es passiert und ob man gewinnt oder ob man verliert"

• Tue-Loup: La Belle Inutile. (FR) "Trop nombreux sont ces soirs où le néant s'impose"

• ILM threads on three new releases I am going to purchase soon: Laurie Anderson: Life on a String, Leonard Cohen: Ten New Songs and Bob Dylan: Love and Theft.

• Listening to: Pinback:This Is a Pinback CD. An album to cherish.

Top Ten Albums 2000 (stand-out tracks in brackets)
- Giant Sand: Chore of Enchantment (4, 12, 16; 3; 2, 8; 1, 9; 11)
- Yo La Tengo: And then Nothing Turned Itself inside-out (4, 13; 6, 12; 8, 10))
- Mann, Aimee: Bachelor No. 2 (1, 3, 7, 9; 5)
- Montgolfier Brothers: Seventeen Stars (2, 8; 9; 3)
- Adams, Ryan: Heartbreaker (2; 7, 9)
- Trembling Blue Stars: Broken by Whispers (1, 2, 3, 5)
- Godspeed You Black Emperor!: Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven (9; 10; 6, 12; 1)
- Cash, Johnny: American III: Solitary Man (4; 2, 7; 1)
- Lambchop: Nixon (2; 1)
- Young, Neil: Silver and Gold (9; 5, 6; 1)

Honorable mentions:
- Louise Attaque: Comme On A Dit (2)
- Goldfrapp: Felt Mountain (8; 3)
- Harvey, Polly Jean: Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (9)

And thank you so much to Absintheur's Journal who has not only got an amazingly good musical taste but is also generous enough to link back to me. He is a big fan of Wedding Present's Seamonsters (tom e. - ned r.) of 1991, one of my favourite rock albums of the 90's. And his writing is quite prolific.