New Order - Tutti Frutti

A bit late, but the video for New Order's best single in ages is a masterpiece!
Featuring Ricky Tognazzi.

David Bowie - Stardust 1964-2016

When I was like 10 years old I knew nothing about his importance, I knew nothing about punk and new wave, but I did know Ashes To Ashes was one of my favourite songs and that has been essential in shaping my taste opening my ears to the music he was influencing. He has made masterpieces and he has made crap albums but when at his best he was absolutely essential. We've just lost Lemmy (from Motorhead) and now this even bigger hero. But when you die at 69 and you've been Bowie you know you have spent your life well.

In this playlist there's at least a track off each of his many releases.

David Jones, born in 1947, started his career at 17 with short lived beat bands though the songs already showed huge talent for great tunes and sound.

He changed his surname to avoid confusion with a member from The Monkees and released at 20 a debut solo album of psychedelic pop, somewhere between a pop version of Pink Floyd and The Beach Boys, but honestly to me it doesn't sound that inspired.

It was two years later, in 1969, that his huge inventive talent finally exploded with the futuristic semiacoustic and orchestrated ballad of Space Oddity. It was the first of a string of unforgettable glam classics which had an amazing peak with Ziggy Stardust, thanks also to Mick Ronson's fantastic guitar skills. Bowie was 25 and a superb stage animal, the world was conquered.

It was in 1973, with the avant jazz piano of Aladdin Sane, that we had the first serious hint of Bowie's will and power to truly experiment. Not content with success, he wanted to push the barriers and move music much forward, and managing to do that keeping a melodic pop attitude, avoiding to fall into the pretentious self indulgence of progressive rock. 

Actually he never lost his love for the basic alternative rock of Velvet Underground and the Stooges, and you can hear it in his best singles of the mid Seventies, Rebel Rebel and John I'm Only Dancing, an appropriate bridge to punk. 

By 1976 Station To Station he already had decided he wanted to look even further, the album's title track is basically what The Clash will do years later in Sandinista and yes, post punk in his supernatural mind was already born when it was punk's dawn for us humans.

Then Bowie reached his true artistic peak in his Berlin collaboration with fellow genius Brian Eno. Low in 1977 was the first new wave album, opened by the futuristic pop of Speed Of Life it still sounds totally ahead of anything today. Weeping Wall and Subterranean are not the ambient of the mid 70s, they're the ambient of the future, and extremely touching melodies as well. Not content with that, Heroes had in its title track a true anthem for the post punk generation, sounding like a magnificent mix of Velvet Underground and Roxy Music, and then more emotional experimental music like Moss Garden and Neukolln. 

Of course he couldn't keep up those divine standards, but Lodger gave us great songs like DJ and Repetition and his most beautiful song comes from Scary Monsters in 1980: Ashes To Ashes is an absolute masterpiece, with that final part where he sings "My mama said to get things done, you better not mess with Major Tom" and that moving keyboard. Excellent video as well.

Maybe he thought he had given everything he could to the cause of experimental pop. In a decade, he had totally changed the shape of music, after all. That could be why since then, for the next dozen of years, he has been content with doing quality pop hits: Under Pressure with Queen, China Girl, the underrated masterpiece of Loving The Alien (pity the album Tonight wasn't up to that standard), This Is Not America with Pat Metheney which is melancholic pop delight, Absolute Beginners.. 

Of course people was just expecting a lot more, and by the just decent enough pop rock of Never Let Me Down they turned their attention to the stars of the time. After inventing the wheel, in the late 80s Bowie simply couldn't compete with Madonna or Michael Jackson though these two never did anything groundbreaking like he had. Bowie decided to spend the time of this creative decline with a band, Tin Machine, which wasn't half as bad as reviewers pretended it to be. It was still decent enough, actually, and better than most of todays bands, but at the heigth of acid house, shoegazing and grunge, Tin Machine looked like trad dad rock, and that's what they probably were (they were all 40somethings after all), just not that bad.

Just when nobody was expecting it, Bowie's creative flow returned. The soundtrack of The Buddha Of Suburbia sparked the delicious Strangers When We Meet. Bowie was in his mid-40s, and ready to dare again. He had nothing more to prove, nothing to invent, he had just time to spend well, and he did. Black Tie White Noise had the strong title track influenced by acid jazz, Pallas Athena sounded like a great Massive Attack track orchestrated by Craig Armstrong. Gone were the unimaginative efforts of the end of the 80s, Bowie was on top form again, ready to experiment that little more, and so reunited with Brian Eno for his last true masterpiece, Outside, in 1995. 

It was followed by a string of albums with mixed inspirations and results, but we couldn't have asked more from him at 50. He even explored drum'n'bass in Little Wonder, while I find Hours a bit weak he came back in 2002 with the more inventive Heaten, opened by the emotional Sunday. The tepid Reality followed the year later, after which he retired from the scene after having heart surgery.

He has been able to surprise us once again at 66 with the excellent return of The Next Day featuring great alternative rock songs like The Stars Are Out Tonight. This year was opened by the wonderful album Blackstar, recorded while battling cancer, focused on superb sounds and inspired tunes like Lazarus, his farewell video.

ChillOut Map Selections - December 2015

Only the best tracks from ChillOut Map http://chilloutmap.tk/

The Best Of Mick's Transmission

The Best Of 15 years of Records Of The Year on http://mtransmission.info

Video Version (including nine extra tracks)


With New Order, Bad Lieutenant, Bjork, Radiohead, Gabrielles Wish, Prefab Sprout, Paddy McAloon, Steely Dan, Donald Fagen, The Blue Nile, Morrissey, Mew, Happy Mondays, Section 25, A Certain Ratio, My Bloody Valentine, Exit Calm, Pixies, Aandra, Swervedriver
Italian bands Verdena, Subsonica, Marlene Kuntz, Elio E Le Storie Tese, Offlaga Disco Pax, Massimo Volume, Diaframma, Santo Niente
Bands from Parma: Gli Antonio Benassi, Karne Murta, Soupaczar, Kalevala, Jungle Radio

Audio Version

The Best Of 2015 (and Merry Christmas)

01 NEW ORDER - Music Complete

02 MASSIMO VOLUME - Luce Mia

03 GABRIELLES WISH - Hypnagogic

04 Emidio Clementi - Notturno Americano

05 Swervedriver - I Wasn't Born To Lose You

06 Gabrielles Wish - Propaganda

07 ElDera - In Memory Of You

08 Johnny Marr - Adrenalin Baby (Johnny Marr Live)

09 Paul Hardcastle - The Chill Lounge, Vol. 3

10 Jake Evans - Day One



11 Robert Paul Corless - Robert Paul Corless + Volume Two and singles
12 Stefano Pilia - Blind Sun New Century Christology
13 Halftribe - Memory Module
14 Alex H - There's No Turning Back
15 Karima - Close To You (Karima Sings Bacharach)
16 Verdena - Endkadenz Vol. 1 + 2
17 Four80East - Positraction
18 Bjork - Vulnicura
19 Il Teatro Degli Orrori - Il Teatro Degli Orrori
20 Hot Vestry - A Scene In Between

21 Fabi Silvestri Gazzè - Il Padrone della Festa Live 22 Various Artists - Hackney's Finest (original soundtrack) 23 Anthony Mea - True 24 Lemongrass - Meditation 25 Jacob Gurevitsch - Lovers in Paris 26 Brian Wilson - No Pier Pressure 27 Cesare Malafatti - Una Città Esposta 28 Dan Solo - Classe A 29 City Lies - Camera 30 Henrik Lindstrand - Steppeulven 31 Killing Joke - Pylon 32 Simply Red - Big Love 33 Pitbull - Dale 34 Post CSI - Breviario Partigiano 35 Toto - XIV 36 Disclosure - Caracal 37 The Hamsters - Branches EP 38 The Names - Stranger Than You 39 Fabryka - Sparkles 40 Wire - Wire 41 Scisma - Mr. Newman 42 Ernest's Liver - Ernest's Liver 43 Nonostante Clizia - La Stagione Animale 44 Nek - Prima Di Parlare 45 Jazmine Sullivan - Reality Show 46 Novalima - Planetario 47 LTN - People I'll Never Forget 48 Giovanni Caccamo - Qui Per Te 49 Aly & Fila - The Chill Out 50 Andrew Odd - Life

This has been a pretty eclectic year! New Order released their first album in 10 years and the first with Tom Chapman replacing Peter Hook, with Gillian Gilbert welcome back, and it is an amazing masterpiece beyond any expectation met with unanymous critical acclaim.
Massimo Volume have made freely available a wonderful soundtrack only as download and on SoundCloud and that's why the most beautiful track is embedded separately above. Massimo Volume leader Emidio Clementi released his first excellent solo record, a collaboration with two members from Giardini di Mirò tributing poet Emanuel Carnevali. Stefano Pilia from Massimo Volume released a solo album with his wonderful guitar skills.
The new Gabrielles Wish album Hypnagogic has been another long awaited comeback and found them on top form with inspired songs and their trademark post punk sound. The band also released Propaganda, a compilation of their electronica sessions from the start of the century. Some of their classic songs were included in the Hackney's Finest soundtrack. Gabrielles Wish leader Robert Paul Corless had a really prolific year releasing two albums and a string of singles of charmingly dark ambient.
Swervedriver have been missing for a long time, and how: this superb album reminds us why. Johnny Marr released an excellent live album and former Bad Lieutenant singer Jake Evans made a truly amazing debut, basically indie music as it really should be made today.
The comeback of great indie and post punk, then, but also more excellent chill out releases, and label of the year has certainly been Silk Music, bringing us emotional masterpieces from the likes of ElDera (debut of the year and just the best of the many promising Russian artists in this field), Halftribe, City Lies and Andrew Odd. More great music came from the master of chill out, Paul Hardcastle.
Alex H definitely released the best progressive house EP (more good music in this genre from LTN) while the best smooth jazz/fusion album came from Four80East though Karima finally did her Bacharach covers album. Jazmine Sullivan did the best forward looking RnB.
Anthony Mea made possibly the best deep house release while chill out veterans Lemongrass did a surprise ambient album. The concept of Egyptian artists releasing great chill out on Armada made sense with Aly & Fila.
Verdena and Il Teatro Degli Orrori released excellent albums of Italian alternative rock, and we also had the surprise comeback of Scisma. (Post) CSI reunited with Angela Baraldi replacing Giovanni Lindo Ferretti as singer. Another good album from the massively underrated Fabryka. Former Marlene Kuntz bassist Dan Solo released his long awaited solo debut. Two interesing debuts in the Italian underground came from Ernest's Liver and Nonostante Clizia (produced by Riccardo Tesio from Marlene Kuntz). More great music from former La Crus Cesare Malfatti.
The Sanremo festival brought two surprises: a monster single and a pretty decent album by the usually more predictable Nek, and the emerging talent of Giovanni Caccamo.
Bjork's comeback has been a real surprise, because after years and years of pretentious avant garde she finally managed to balance it with some rediscovered emotional impact, most possibly because this is a breakup album.
An interesting debut came from Hot Vestry, a band featuring Steve and Gillian Morris' daughter Mathilda at the keyboard, the EP might have been definitely produced by Martin Hannett.
The Quiet Please label gave us some excellent chill out releases in the past, this year two main artists from that label came back with different stuff: an acoustic effort from Jacob Gurevitsch and a soundtrack from Henrik Lindstrand.
Latin anthem of the year is certainly El Taxi by Pitbull and his album is also decent enough. Novalima are a band from Peru doing great afrobeat.
The legendary Brian Wilson came back with his trademark pop genius, while I was expecting a little more from other classic pop giants like Toto and Simply Red. Disclosure's debut was very promising but this second effort is a bit underachieving.
Killing Joke did an amazingly good comeback, I still prefer their classic post punk sound to the more recent harder version, but this album is inspired. More punk and post punk returns from the likes of The Hamsters, Wire and The Names.
Merry Christmas and a Happy 2016, a year which will certainly bring us more great music!