Yeah, I much prefer her first album too. I find 'Solitude Standing' too patchy. 'Queen and Soldier' is real sad ain't it? 'Small Blue Thing', 'Freezetag', 'Marlina', 'Some Journey' all classics.

And that part at the end of 'Cracking' when she sings "walk through the park in the afternoon, wondering were the hell I have been", gets me every time.

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Betty Davis - They Say I'm Different (1974)
Femme funk, which can be as wild and sexy as its scrotum swinging twin. They Say I'm Different is dragged from the same murk as There's A Riot Goin' On, and like that LP its a messy masterpiece with the odd trace of coke.

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Kathryn Williams - Little Black Numbers (2000)
Bittersweet British folk-pop with fruity upright bass and brass.

"There's not enough time
For one man in one life
Just a flicker and then a breeze
Breeeeeeeeze, breeeeeeeeeeze".

Put on 'Flicker' to see me weep. And yes, I do prefer this to Mr. Drake.



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Micachu - Jewellery (2009)
Effortless mash up of indie, grime, skiffle, riot girrrl, dance and lo-fi noise. All performed with a naive sense of fun and mischief.



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M.I.A. - Arular (2005)
The original hipster.

But fuck me, what a bunch of electro fun.


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Kate Bush - Hounds of Love (1985)
She's never hit the spot for me personally , but I can dig any commercial artist that dips their toes into experimentalism whilst being generous enough to their widestream audience to provide pop with depth.

Your wife's favourite.

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Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth (1980)
Slightly haunting skeletal indie pop. Twee started round about here.

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Madonna - The Immaculate Collection (1990 Comp)
The best of 80's Madge = the best of pop. Did some review here

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Missy Elliott - Respect M.E.: The Best of Missy Elliott (2006 Comp)
Could have chosen one of her LPs but where else can you get 'Work It', 'Get Ur Freak On' and 'The Rain' in one bouncy, jiggly, sexy package?

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Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out of This Country (2006)
Regretfully I can't include Underachievers Please Try Harder, which is the peek of twee IMO, as there's a couple of bloke vocals from the groups resident penises. LGOOTC is no bad substitute though. A gushing tribute to 60's baroque.



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Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career (2009)
Scattered throughout My Maudlin Career are worrying signs that this is a band running out of ideas, in the odd rhythm, melody or structural detail that borrows heavily off tracks from albums previous. I also miss Kenny McKeeve's longing, yet beatific spidery guitar that coloured they're first two LPs. But it don't matter diddly cos of Tracyanne innit. She seems to have acquired some country twang and another way to melt my heart.

One day I'm gonna wax epic about this group and how they make me feel but i'll leave it for a day I can express it better.

As she sung herself. . .

The singer in the band made me want to cry.

I love Camera Obscura so much. It's so hard to pick a favourite album from them, at the moment Let's Get Out Of This Country is probably my favourite but My Maudlin Career is excellent and I have plenty of memories attached to it. Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi is a great album as well and has what is probably my favourite Camera Obscura song, 'Eighties Fan'. I wouldn't really say they're running out of ideas just yet, they slowly evolve from album to album and My Maudlin Career was a step in the right direction for the band. My only worry is, and perhaps there were some signs of it on My Maudlin Career, is that they might slide too close to easy-listening on their next album. But hopefully it will be another cracking album from them.

I pretty much know how you feel about them, there's just something about Tracyanne that's just irresistible and makes you hang on to her every word, but I try not to get too obsessed with them in case I burn out on them.

I hope your right about them Zer0.

Yeah, I almost burnt myself out with Underachievers. I only listen on special occasions now.

My Female 100 Pt.3

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Antena - Camino del Sol (1982)

Delicous electro-lounge with chanteuse vocals and odd echos of Young Marble Giants. If you're interested in this, then make sure to get this extended version of the original LP.

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Astrud Gilberto - The Astrud Gilberto Album (1965)

Side one of this thing is the sweetest sugar bossa-nova 60s pop I can imagine existing.
The gorgeous album sleeve makes up for the occasionally plodding second side.



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Joni Mitchell - Blue (1971)

Of all the records on this list, this is the one I'm most bemused by not making the top RYM 100. Not only is it stupendously great, it's also kinda middlebrow with potential huge appeal.

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Morena y Clara - Morena y Clara (1976)

Spanish flamenco pop babes with acid-fuzz vibes. Oddly trippy, slightly sinister and endlessly funky. The songs are sung in unison and neither singer dares stray into a harmony and all the tracks sound the same and have bits that go "naa na na na na noii na na", and it's definitely better than Bob Dylan.



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Cat Power - Moon Pix (1998)

The sound of someone at the very edge of their nerves. It's a beautiful, brittle sound, painted by barely tuned open guitar strings, percussion that comes and goes like a quite storm and a voice too distraught to worry about trivialities like tuning and melody, instead relying on pure gut instinct. That Chan Marshall's voice is so sweet is a bonus.

Bottle in hand, picking at the label, howling at the moon.

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Iris DeMent - Infamous Angel (1992)

At first appearance, a pleasant, conventional country pop album. But then, without warning, DeMent's voice stops you dead in your tracks, innocent, hurt, so pure and removed from the modern country chick diva. Yes, having a duet with Mum is dead cheesy but make no mistake, this is the real deal.

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Vashti Bunyan - Just Another Diamond Day (1970)

Magical, heartfelt collection of serene British folk and lost lullabies. Bunyan's voice is a beautiful, ghostly thing that cuts through any pretence of 'twee' or cuteness.

One of a kind.



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TLC - CrazySexyCool (1994)

The peak of the modern girl group.

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Siouxsie and the Banshees - A Kiss in the Dreamhouse (1982)

How something this colourful, psychedelic, funny and sexually demented gets described as 'goth' I don't know. Must've been the lipstick.

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Le Tigre - Le Tigre -(1999)

I've always taken 'Transformer''s "who took the bomp from the bompalompalomp?" to mean who took the 'roll' from 'rock n' roll'. The answer being blokey of course.

Furious, feminist, garage punk - pop wailing from the ex - Bikini Kill.

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Abida Parveen - Chants Soufis du Pakistan (Live) (1995)

I know next to nothing about Parveen but intend to find out much more as this album is glorious. Qawwali is a type of Pakistani folk music. This Lp consists of a fluttering harmonium that seems to weave in and out of the bubbly tabla beats, all majestic like. Then there's the voice, a big, proud, powerful thing. Parveen's vocals might seem impenetrable at first but like Coltrane's sax it's a rewarding thing to follow, through its peaks and troughs, commanding warbles to childlike gargles, heartbreak to heartmake. Brooding then ecstatic in a change of a note.

With a lot of tracks going beyond ten minutes it's a lengthy album. But for me it's a constant joy.

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Aretha Franklin - Aretha's Gold (1969) (Comp)
The voice. The songs.

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Beach House -Devotion (2008)

A plodding, generic, indie bore, thought I. But given the right place (night, with headphones) and mood (depressed, natch) Beach House got me crumbling like a polystyrene man. Victoria Legrand's crystalline voice, so majestic, so commanding, reverberates around swirling church organs and sliding guitar whimsy. Devotion speaks to me, baby.

Middle of the road, but I'll still get there.

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Judy Henske - Judy Henske (1963)

Live album. Judy has an extraordinary voice, full of grit and power and she does calm and mellow just as good. The audience laps it up, whether she's performing swing or folk ballads. That her stories and audience banter are so funny and occasionally surreal is a sweet bonus.



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Bessie Smith -The Empress of the Blues 1923-1933 (1971) [Compilation]

Just essential really. The harshness of Smith's voice and lyrics juxtaposed with the gleeful swing of the brass and piano captivates me. This stuff may have been recorded when our great grandparents were still about but it's likely to be better than anything that was released last week.



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Victoria Williams - Loose (1994)

There's so much going against this record - William's over quirky voice, her lame Tom Waitisms, ultra polished production, dreadful lyrics - yet I really enjoy Loose. I guess this is all down to the fact that Williams knows how to write a tune. Everything here is instantly catchy and memorable and sounds like the comfort of a trusty old friend. The sound is very commercial folk pop fair, but the musics tasteful and tactful and there's enough strings, blowing of horns, washes of harp and harmony and fiddles of fiddle to keep me intrigued. Actually, the only song I don't like here is the cover of 'It's a Wonderful World'.

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Rita Lee - Build Up (1970)

Eccentric Brazilian pop from the bird in psych legends Os Mutantes. That groups wackiness is contained in a pop context for Build Up and I like it about 10x more than anything by Os Mutantes, a group I find irritating, frankly.

I'm trying to think of a song that sonically conveys joy as satisfyingly as "Hulla-Hulla", and I'm struggling.



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Robin Roberts - Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies (1959)

Striking, pastoral Celtic folk. Robert's bruised voice is one of the saddest I've heard.

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The Raincoats - The Raincoats (1979)

Scruffy, scatty, bratty punk oddity. I don't no how they manage to make violins sound so fucking beautiful in this context, but they do, outdoing the Velvet Undies in the process.

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Yma Sumac - Voice of the Xtabay (1950)

It always seemed unlikely to have a human voice that could mimic Louis Armstrong, Marge Simpson and a theremin in the space of a single bar, but here it is, the Voice of the Xtabay, warbling with joy over lush lounge muzak with eastern percussive backbone, production technique being way ahead of its time.