Bawley (Hearts) 2009: Top 5 Concerts of the Year: Hummer

5. ATP – The Breeders, Minehead, 15-17/5/2009

The combination of The Bronx’s head smashing punk, CSS’s Brazilian carnival, Bon Iver’s emotional retelling of For Emma, Holy Fuck’s free beers, Mariarchi el Bronx’s guitarrón, Deerhunter’s daydream pop, The Breeders’ classic headline set and luxury indoor camping made for a perfect weekend on the Somerset coast. (photos, knitting)

4. Phoenix, O2 Academy, Birmingham, 24/10/2009

Still largely under the radar in the UK, Phoenix brought their delicious pop songs to an ever appreciative crowd. (review)

3. Datarock, Thekla, Bristol, 23/11/2009

The Boat That Rocked: When I think of bands on boats I get images of tired old crooners wobbling away to greys in Hawaiian shirts. Datarock on the Thekla was anything but tired, though they did play a cover of (I’ve Had The) Time Of My Life that would do Jack Jones proud (review).

2. Massive Attack, O2 Academy, Birmingham, 22/09/2009

Debuting new tracks alongside classics, Massive Attack proved they are still as angry and essential as ever. (review)

1. Nine Inch Nails and Janes Addiction, O2 Arena, London, 15/07/2009

These two behemoths of 90s alternative rock came together for a mind blowing stadium rock show.

The freshly reformed Jane’s Addiction pulled off a performance so good you could be forgiven for thinking they had never been away, before Nine Inch Nails played their rawest, rockest set in years with the urgency of a band trying to get noticed, not say goodbye. (review)

Bawley (Hearts) 2009: Top 5 albums of the year: Nick

In a rare display of Bawley team synchronicity, my top 5 of the year contains 60% of the albums in Hummer's 5. I have a hunch that this has more to do with the paucity of quality albums in 2009, than anything else, but who knows?

Here are my 5:

5 Doves, Kingdom Of Rust

With their fourth album, Doves didn't quite achieve the Elbow-style breakthrough that I speculated about in January, nor did they quite hit the highs they achieved on 2002's 'The Last Broadcast', but they did break a lot of ground musically to produce a really solid album that was sonically interesting from beginning to end.

4 The XX, XX

A band, absolutely unheard of at the beginning of the year, pool their record collections to forge a style that's halfway between indie and r&b and sounds quite unlike anything around at the moment: intimate, unselfconcious and strangely compelling.

3 Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

The party album of the year: full of great tunes, and no messing about.

2 Mumford & Sons, Sigh No More

The hotly tipped Mumford & Sons launched their debut album at a hoedown in a barn in Hertfordshire, and with it started an unlikely bluegrass revival. Really impressive album all the way through.

1 Sparklehorse & Dangermouse, Dark Night Of the Soul

It's a real shame that my album of the year is not available anywhere, but when it contains some of the best work by some of the most interesting artists of the last decade, and still ends up being better than the sum of its parts, how could it not be?

Bawley (Hearts) 2009: Top 5 Albums of the Year: Hummer

5. The Horrors – Primary Colours On Primary Colours The Horrors recruited Portishead’s Geoff Burrow and ditched their goth punk in favour of rich moody textured rock. The result is one of the year’s best albums, which helped the band prove themselves to be more than the tidal wave of skinny jeans, haircuts and hype that overshadowed their 2007 debut.

4. Danger Mouse and Sparkle Horse – Dark Night Of The Soul With its high art concept, Hollywood-style promotion, massive list of contributors, legal battles, 50 pages of glossy art work and David Lynch weirdness, Dark Night Of The Soul was going to be brilliant or a kick in the balls. Brilliant it is - the kick in the balls came when it was revealed that the album will never be released.

3. Fever Ray – Fever Ray Droning, monotonous and claustrophobic: not words you would normally associate with great pop albums, but then again Fever Ray’s debut is not a normal pop album, just a great one.

2. The Xx – Xx The self-produced debut album from London upstarts The Xx is gloriously downbeat: delicate guitars weave between trip hop-esque beats while the spoken boy/girl vocals give the feeling that you are eavesdropping on a private conversation.

1. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix finds the band doing what they do better than anyone else – danceable indie-pop with touches of shoegaze, dabs of ambient electro, a splatter of euphoric highs and lashings of Gallic cool.

F- you I won’t do what you tell me

What starting as a facebook campaign pointing the stiff middle finger to Simon Cowell and his X Factor karaoke clones, has grown into a legitimate battle for the Christmas number 1.

Real music fans are being encouraged to download Rage Against The Machine's Killing In The Name on December 13th with the hope that collaborative action can knock X-Factor from its Christmas number one perch.

Join the facebook group, buy the single on iTunes (UK) and donate here.

And tell us would a RATM win be a perfect pop moment?

Live Review: Datarock, Thekla, Bristol, 23/11/2009

Datarock and Karin Park bring Scandinavian electro to Bristol’s longest running boat based live venue.

Karin Park opened the show playing songs from her wonderful Ashes To Gold album. The combination of dark lyrics, electro beats and straight out begging got the dozen or so early comers to get up and dance at the front of the stage.

Sadly only a few more people board the Thekla before Datarock arrive on stage to the canned fanfare of The Blog: the rapturous (recorded) stadium sized cheers seem a little overstated in the hull of a sparsely populated boat.

But the tracksuit clad Norwegians soon prove that no matter the venue no matter the size of the audience a Datarock gig is always something to cheer about.

The first part of the set is loaded with tracks from the band’s new album Red: The Blog is followed by Give It Up, True Stories and Dance which are all a lot of fun but it takes the older tracks Night Flight to Uranus and Sex You Up to really get everyone in the mood and moving.

During Princess the band introduce a dance they call the running man, soon enough everyone on the boat is jumping around in a fashion more suited to Aerobics OzStyle than a cool indie dance gig.

The good times just keep coming, one girl obviously unable to control herself storms the stage starts dancing with the band, screams in to the microphone, and pashes the drummer before being encouraged back down to the floor.

The always brilliant Fa Fa Fa is followed by the whole room screaming the call/response lyrics to Computer Camp Love before the band pogo their way through I Use To Dance With My Daddy.

Having played their three biggest songs in a row the band leave the stage with the promise “We are going backstage now, if you call out DATAROCK, DATAROCK we will be back in just a minute” While most people are happy for the breather no one wants the show to stop

“DATAROCK, DATAROCK....”

And they are back on stage and before declaring "BMX is better than Sex" on Bulldozer they send out a tribute to their drummers. First best wishes are sent to their regular drummer who broke his leg while break dancing at the Birmingham show just two nights earlier. Secondly thanks is given to tonight’s drummer Daniel Park (Karin Park) who has filled the empty red tracksuit with ease, even taking on vocals duties for Ugly Primadona.

The night finishes with the whole band off the stage down in the crowd; dancing, playing saxophone, and posing for photos while leading a full room karaoke version of (I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life.

If I didn’t get sea sick I would ride this boat with the band all the way back to Norway.

Now I’ve Had The Time Of My Life, No I never felt this way before .....

Bawley (Hearts) 2009: Top 6 Covers of the Year

6. The Big Pink – Sweet Dreams (Beyonce)

The Big Pink’s delicate acoustic take on Sweet Dreams is the polar opposite of Beyonce’s over produced/polished pop, luckily the song is good enough to work for both artists. (link)

5. Gomez - From St Kilda to Kings Cross (Paul Kelly)

Gomez are regular visitors to Australia but it seems they keep coming back for more than the sunshine and beaches, they have also grown to love Paul Kelly. Here they give this distinctly Australian song some international favour. (link – skip to 13:40)

4. Dappled Cities – My Girls (Animal Collective)

Dappled Cities reveal that beneath all the Animal Collective (OMG! Animal Collective) hype My Girls is a really great song. (link – 13:30)

3. Mariachi El Bronx - I Would Die 4 U (Prince)

My third choice from triple j’s Like A Version series and by far the most unexpected. LA punks The Bronx swap their thrashing guitars and screamed vocals to and give this Prince booty shaker some Mariachi sunshine. (link – 12:00)

2. The Dead Weather – Are Friend Electric? (Gary Numan)

Jack White’s other other band apply their dark swampy blues to Gary Numan’s paranoid classic. The result dark, swampy paranoia – superb (link)

1. The Muppets – Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen)

Only The Muppets could pull this off, watch below - and I challenge you not to hit the replay button.

Bawley (Hearts) 2009: Bottom 5 album covers of the year

Yesterday I posted my list of the best album art of 2009, now for some of the worst.

5. Morrissey – Years of Refusal

The cover of Morrissey’s latest album does nothing to dispel rumours that he eats small children for breakfast.

4. MSTRKRFT – Fist of God

A mish-mash of butts and thighs in the shape of a fist: the fist of God. God is angry, fear his wrath.

3. U2 – No Line On the Horizon

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

2. Weezer - Raditude

As lame as it is, the jumping dog on the cover is the rad-est thing about this appalling album.

1. Wolfmother – Cosmic Egg

Apparently the universe is a cosmic egg that cycles between expansion and total collapse. It expanded from a concentrated form —a point called a Bindu. The universe, as a living entity, is bound to the perpetual cycle of birth, death, and rebirth

Wolfmother are an Australian rock band with a bent for 70s rock riffs, fantasy world lyrics and horrible cover art. This is one rotten egg.

Also: What is that skinny naked boy doing in the bushes?

Bawley (Hearts) 2009: Top 5 album covers of the year