2013 in music

If you're a regular visitor to Sunshine Days, you'll be fully aware that music plays a mahoosive part in my life. Looking back, I've been to some bloomin' brilliant gigs this year (above is a little snapshot with some rubbish quality photos... I'm far too busy actually enjoying the music at gigs to watch it through my phone screen!) from little gigs like The Family Rain who played the Brudenell Social Club to a mammoth expedition down to Suffolk for a weekend of fun and vodka at Latitude. Other highlights included HAIM, an Old Skool Cribs gig a few weeks back and stumbling upon a tiny Pigeon Detectives set in Leeds Trinity and ending up on the front row (even though we don't really like them all that much...). 

While I'm thinking about music of 2013, I thought I'd put together a list of my top tracks of the year. I did this back at the end of 2012 too and its a great way to look back and remember songs from a particular time in your life! Last year I narrowed the list down to five songs, this year I just couldn't whittle it down to any less than ten. Miss Indecisive 2013 right here.

Why'd you only call me when you're high? Arctic Monkeys

My Number Foals

 The Wire HAIM

Lovesick Peace

 Hearts Like Ours The Naked and Famous

Biblical Biffy Clyro

 Trust Me... I'm a Genius The Family Rain

Wasting My Young Years London Grammar

Best of Friends Palma Violets

Youth Daughter

What have been your favourite songs of the year? Hope you've enjoyed some of my top ten too!

Roll on 2014- its already shaping up to be a good one for me music-wise... so far I've got tickets for Foals, Bombay Bicycle Club and *ahem* McBusted (not ruining my indie street cred at all there...).

Also, for once I've not used song lyrics in my post title- yet more proof of how indecisive I am... I couldn't pick one of the 10 songs above as the most worthy of the title! I was discussing with my friends the other day that I really should get an app or something that will make all life decisions for me!

You gave me magical, I gave you wonderful

There are a few places I always seem to waffle on about on my little piece of the internet. York is definitely one of those places. Its been a firm favourite as one of my top UK cities since I was a nipper, it was always somewhere we came to year after year for Christmas shopping and usually a trip to the National Railway Museum to keep Papa T happy. Last weekend, my Mum and Dad came up to Leeds for a visit and my Dad fancied yet another trip to see the trains (apparently they've got a bit of a special collection on show at the moment!). My Mum and I don't quite share my Dad's enthusiasm for locomotives, but I can spend ages looking at the old passenger carriages and posters for holiday destinations from the past- I love thinking about how people spent their holidays and went on long journeys before cars and aeroplanes started taking over!

Anyway, it was a beautiful, sunny day on Sunday so it was perfect for meandering around the town after my Dad had taken thousands of pictures of the engines so I thought it'd be rude of me not to share a few snaps! 

shirt: Forever 21, dress: Primark, shoes: Topshop

This is one of my favourite pictures of the day. Most of you will probably be drooling at the Mulberry outlet in the shot, but not me- for starters I don't really understand the fascination with uber-expensive handbags (although maybe if I had endless amounts of money I'd feel a little differently...). For me, it has always been a bit of a family tradition on our trips to York to have a good chuckle at Back Swinegate as it reminds us so much of my Nan. She was such a sweet little lady who never really moaned about anything but would always, always make a point of telling everybody who came to visit her "ooh my back's a swine today".  We took a picture of the street once when I was younger and showed her and the rest of the family- she couldn't help but find it funny with the rest of us in fits of giggles around her.

Biblical- Biffy Clyro

(this weekend I'll mostly be trying to pretend that I'm not actually riddled with jealousy about everybody watching Biffy and Co at Reading and Leeds)

Play another song here and then you can leave

This week has been a good one for me exercise-wise. However, I do feel the need to warn you all that exercise can be bad for you. Not in a "woe is me, my legs hurt" sort of way (although for the record, walking has become quite a challenge for me over the last few days), but because my head has been infiltrated with a playlist of Zumba tracks which I keep finding myself singing as I potter about the flat. 

Now, don't get me wrong, Zumba music is pretty damn awesome and absolutely perfect for shaking your hips to in the company of 30 other lycra-clad women, but in the comfort of my own home (and my own mind) I like to consider myself to have better taste in music than that. 

So, as a desperate measure to force the weird medley of banghra, latin and hip-hop out of my head, I thought I'd compile a little playlist of a few songs that I've been loving this week that I'd much prefer to have stuck in my head as I hoover the living room. 

Laura Palmer- Bastille

You know that feeling when you buy a new album and find a track on it that you love waaaaaay more than the singles that made you want to buy the album in the first place? For me, this is one of those songs. I'm very guilty of getting a bit put off songs that I have adored for ages when they become 'big' and played about 1000 times an hour on Radio 1, so was really pleased to find a song on the Bastille album that I loved more than Pompeii. I'm really pleased that Laura Palmer seems to have been picked as their next single release as its a bloody brilliant song that deserves a good bit of success, but at the same time I'm reluctant for it to reach a point that I have it forced upon me through the radio so often that I can't bring myself to listen to it in my own time any more. 

Sacrilege- Yeah Yeah Yeahs

When I first heard this new offering from Karen O's vocal chords, it took me right back to my hey day at Uni. Definitely a good thing as hearing new stuff from the band that's as fun as Zero fills me with excitement at the prospect of going mental to this soon when I've got a good bit of vodka in my belly. Although it'll have trouble having the same emotional significance as the stuff from their last album for me as I'd give my right arm to go back to 2009 and listen to it all again as something new. Sorry, going a bit off track and onto a moan about the pitfalls of post- University life again! 

Biblical- Biffy Clyro

I have so much love for Biffy Clyro. Mostly because anybody who sings in a Scottish accent is a winner for me. One of the few bands that made the Reading and Leeds line up have any sense of appeal to me this year (sadly there wasn't enough else to entice me so I'm going to miss out on seeing these bearded lovelies when they come up to Leeds in the summer). But still, the new album is brilliant so I'll just have to play that with the volume up on full instead. Plus it'll be a nice chance to get back on my neighbours who think that even just watching tv at tea time requires surround sound with a room-shaking amount of bass. 

My waffling about musical goodness seems to have done the trick in erasing the Zumba tunes from my head for tonight at least. 

Although I'm sure I'll be right back to square one tomorrow when I go to my next class. Somebody get me some new music pronto!

Biblical- Biffy Clyro