The GIITTV reviews database 2003-2011
All the historic reviews from the God Is in The TV webzine.
Features
Muse, Guillemots, Thom Yorke, The Long Blondes, Los Campesinos! - GIITTV best of 2006: The Reader's Vote.
Bill Cummings 26/12/2006
So the results of the big GIITTV readers vote 2006 are in, we've had the monkey's burning the midnight oil, totting up the votes on abacuses, in each section.
This year, Muse have come out as the big winners in the Album, Band and Hero categories, perhaps an indication of the impact (for better or worse) their album "Black Holes and Revelations" had in 2006, and their undoubted power as a live entity. In singles Guillemots, The Long Blondes, Hot Chip all figure highly, while the solo acts that floated your boat were impressively varied; mentions for Jeremy Warmsley, Joanna Newsom and Jamie T, to old hands like Chris TT, Jarvis Cocker and Thom Yorke proved it was a good year for the solo performer. Cardiff based Indie kids Los Campesinos were the overwhelming winners of the new band award.
In films "Borat" stole the laughs, while you were thrilled by "Pan's Labyrinth” and intrigued by Scorsese's "The Departed" and "Casino Royale." Perhaps beginning to justify his large BBC pay rise Jonathan Ross proved the most popular TV personality, while Russell Brand was the object of your disgust.
Your results in full:
Best Album
1. Muse- Black Holes & Revelations- What we said:"Tell you what, Black Holes and Revelations might not be the album of their career, but it still has its fair share of classic Muse tracks."Read The Full Review
2. Thom Yorke- The Eraser- What They said: "The Eraser is full of moments when you wait for the band to kick in, and it doesn't happen. It reminds you how much Radiohead thrive on their sense of collective creation -- even at their most downbeat, their camaraderie gives off a life-affirming energy. Yet these aren't Radiohead songs, or demos for Radiohead songs. They're something different, something we haven't heard before. Lieutenant Yorke is asking new questions, looking for clues to the same old mystery: how to appear, incompletely."Rolling Stone Review
3. Arctic Monkeys-Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not- What we said: "Whatever... is a good, intelligent album. It's verging on great, but not a classic. The public will receive it marvelously; they'll cherish it and play it very loud out of their bedroom windows. Good luck to 'em. I must also admit I forgot the age and the tender innocence that should be surrounding such a young band, at just 18 or 19. You forget that this is kids. That could be you, singing bitter tales of society and its twists and turns."Read the Full Review
4. Guillemots- Through The Windowpane- What We said:"Some might see Guillemots' tendency to cram all of their ideas into every note, every vocal line, every inventive instrumental as overblown and pretentious, but sometimes great pop music is both of these things. If you're willing to open up your ears and heart and let this largely stunning record grab you by the hand and pull you out of the windowpane into endless dream worlds of inventive emotive pop, you might just have heard one of the best albums of 2006 so far."Read the Full Review
5. Joanna Newsom- Ys- What they said: "This isn't a great album because she owns a dog-eared encyclopedia, or because it stands above the cheap rewards or superficial freakiness we expected from her. It's great because Newsom confronts a mountain of conflicting feelings, and sifts through them for every nuance. It's intricate and crammed with information, but it's never bookish, and she never sits back in a spell and lets her heart flutter: She swoops into the sky and races across the ground, names every plant and every desire, and never feels less than real. The people who hear this record will split into two crowds: The ones who think it's silly and precious, and the ones who, once they hear it, won't be able to live without it."Pitchfork-Chris Dahl
6.Belle and Sebastian- The Life Persuit- What we said: "Some fans of the bands older work may be disappointed by a seeming lack of lyrical substance on some of the albums tracks but that would be a red herring. Belle and Sebastian have bravely evolved, musically they sound more at ease than ever and the lyrics are deceptively clever. Whether that's brilliant character portraits, carefully painted narratives or the personal motifs, there is the odd track here that has less of an impact, but the majority of “The Life Pursuit” is a master class in pure pop song writing that retains the original spirit of one of Scotland's best ever bands."Read The Full Review
7.James Dean Bradfield- the Great Western- What we said:"For a solo album this is a promising start from one of the best voices in music today, no longer a conduit but now a chronicler, a fully fledged songwriter in his own right, if James can push himself into new musical terrains, he could have a future beyond the Manic Street Preachers."Read the Full Review
8. Luxembourg- Front- What we said: "Luxembourg have done it; an album that fulfils their ambitions, a literate, living breathing musical document of their last five years as a band. For me personally “Front” is already one of the best things about 2006: knowing, tuneful, intelligent, glamorous, but above all human and honest: a record that can be just as easily played at parties or at home in curled up in your bed with a bottle of wine: a record that draws a line in the sand; who's side are you on? A step above what's currently out there in the “indie” world, put simply Front is superb. Now the world needs to listen."Read The Full Review
9. Beirut-Gulag Orkestar- What They Said: "It's the simplicity that's the key; this could have been yet another pseudo-orchestral globe-straddling “epic” with every instrument on Earth thrown in just because, a bloated, meandering beast. But instead it's tightly focused, beautifully written, and totally without filler. It also could have been an air-tight bubble, too edited, too perfect, but everything is allowed to hang loose, to be a little ramshackle, to just breathe. It manages an open, unapologetic prettiness while never seeming delicate, like it'll break in your hands or blow away; Condon's warbly tenor has a full-throated authority even at its wispiest, and Barnes often sounds like he's hitting the snare with a closed fist. Young Master Condon seems to have an almost savant's ear for this stuff, like he just sits down and breezes through 11 of these things in just the time it takes to play them, like he's been at it forever, but he's just a kid—all of 19—and may well have even better in front of him. But for now, I guess, we'll just have to live with this lovely, unusual, and beguiling little pop record. It'll do nicely."Stylus Magazine review
10. Jeremy Warmsley-The Art Of Fiction- What they said:"Years of evolutionary song writing has encouraged Warmsley, who has been writing himself since the age of 17, and his debut album is alive with his own flavours and spirit spun from his love of traditional songwriters. His voice and lyrics are among the greatest of our generation and like Spektor he's got a whimsical charm that entrances you from the offset and carries you through the 11 tracks of The Art Of Fiction. His influences are running through the album like streams of living history with Jeremy's labour holding them all in place allowing a variety of sounds to accent themselves and through the pleasures of this album you find a new voice that you truly want to know for the rest of your life."Contact Music Review
Favourite band of the year
1. Muse
2. Beirut
3. The Indelicates
4. Guillemots
5. Luxembourg
Singles
1. Guillemots-Trains to Brazil- What we said: "It showcases that expert blend of melancholy and jubilation that all the best British bands capture, and which Guillemots perfected so well in years to come, matching wide-eyed vocals with perfect harmonies, bright trumpets and strange synths which combine to form a near-perfect whole. The lyrics, meanwhile, display a real knack for a turn of phrase ("darling, they'll still remind me of when we were at school/when they could never have persuaded me that lives like yours were in the hands of these erroneous fools"). The song is a precursor of the things that were to come: music that would change the mainstream of UK music forever.Well, we can dream." Read The Full Review
2. Muse-knights of Cydonia- What we said: "I hear this on the radio, then I put on my Joy Division live in Preston CD, and realise what true emotional raw music is. What a contrast."Read the Full Review
3. Long Blondes- Once and Never Again- What we said: "This quivering slab of pitch-perfect rock may be slower than earlier versions, but it still provides a handy guide to the multitude of reasons why we utterly adore this Sheffield quintet: gleefully girlish vocals, classic kitchen-sink melodrama, stories about seducing young women - like the Ronettes gone lesbian, the Long Blondes promise to take you away from the boorish boy next door with an absolutely phenomenal soundtrack to accompany your getaway."Read The Full Review
4. Hot chip- Over and Over- What we said: "this should become a well-deserved indie-dance hit. Cherish it because, at this rate, they'll soon change their name to an unpronounceable squiggle and become Jehovah's Witnesses."Read The Full Review
5. Jarvis - Cunts Are Still Running The World- What we said-"Hidden away at the end of Jarvis is the gem-like secret track and iTunes download only single 'Running The World', an eloquent riposte to all the fakers, phonies, liars and cheats out there in the big wide world. It's a slow-build epic so pour yourself some tea and enjoy this beauty."Read the Review
7. Indelicates- We hate the kids
9. Morrissey- You Have Killed me
10. Lucky Soul- Lips are Unhappy
Solo
1. Jamie T
2. Chris TT
3. Jarvis Cocker
4. Sufjan Stevens
5. Thom Yorke
New or unsigned band
Los Campesinos- What we said: "Expect to find: Catchy tunes; sounds that remind of Broken Social Scene, B.C. Camplight, Pavement, Sonic Youth and Talking Heads - therefore more American indie than British indie. Clever and colourful lyrics (yes finally!); post-rock intros; a healthy and balanced dose of saccharine, and especially: lots of fun!"Read the Full Review
Live act
1. Muse
2. Art Brut
3. Bats for Lashes
Worst act:
1. Orson
2. James Blunt
3. Killers
Favourite film
1. Borat- What we said:"Borat is a start to finish, non-stop roller-coaster of unforgettable comedy and pin-point sharp humour which will have you laughing (and sometimes crying) for weeks afterwards. The beauty of Borat is his ability to say and do what he likes, which achieves such unpredictable and unique results that the film is simply unmissable. Quality assured “You like.”Read The Full Review
2. Pan's labyrinth
3. Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest
4. The Death Of Lord Fuxley
5. The Devil Wears Prada
6. The Departed
7. Volver
8. Casino Royale
9. Thank You For Smoking
10. Dondurmam Gaymak
Best TV presenter
1. Jonathan Ross
1. Stephen Fry
3. Simon Amstell
Worst
1. Russell Brand
2. Vernon kaye
3. charlotte church
Hero of the year
Matt Bellamy
Radio show/presenter:
1. Lamacq
2. BBC 6Music
3. Resonance FM
Still to come the Writers present their picks of 2006, in singles and albums.