Liam Gallagher in New York during the final Oasis world tour (Photo: Paul Bachmann for Live4ever Media)
Our recap of the biggest and best headlines we featured during the past seven days includes another healthy year for UK vinyl fuelled by Oasis and Fleetwood Mac, and more chart success for Taylor Swift.
The BPI is reporting a growth in UK vinyl sales by nearly a tenth when compared to 2019 despite a year largely lost to lockdown.
Also giving a projected Top 10 of the best selling albums on vinyl in the UK during 2020 ahead of its final results on January 4th, the BPI has perennial big sellers Rumours by Fleetwood Mac and Oasis’ (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? leading the way, though brand new releases from Idles and Arctic Monkeys have also proved popular.
A second single from the forthcoming Foo Fighters LP Medicine At Midnight has been shared.
“This is the kind of song that just resides in all of us and if it makes sense at the time, we let it out,” Dave Grohl has said of No Son Of Mine. “Lyrically it’s meant to poke at the hypocrisy of self righteous leaders, people that are guilty of committing the crimes they’re supposedly against.”
It’s a familiar Besnard Lakes which has returned after five years with …Are The Last Of The Great Thunderstorm Warnings, due on January 29th 2021, and there’s more of the widescreen sound on the new double album’s next preview, Feuds With Guns.
“I rotoscoped a couple of the big dives from a video of an extreme high-diving contest that took place in the 80s,” director of the track’s video, Dr. Cool, explains. “About a week after I had animated the first guy’s big jump, I returned to the video to check out some other usable clips.”
Taylor Swift performs live at the O2 Arena in London (Photo: Alex Elms for Live4ever Media)
The first of two 2020 studio albums from Taylor Swift is in turn the first top the UK Record Store Chart in the new year.
Folklore leads an obviously quiet week for new releases, with acclaimed 2020 albums from the likes of Laura Marling, Phoebe Bridgers and Working Men’s Club still proving popular, while the more recent McCartney III from Paul McCartney is at #11.
El-P and Killer Mike had fights to pick and were ready to take on all comers once their fourth Run The Jewels album started to be introduced earlier this year, and now they’re ending 2020 in literal action figure mode on the video for Walking In The Snow.
“It was great to work with the RTJ guys again,” director Chris Hopewell comments. “Everyone was very aware of the gravity of the subject matter and RTJ didn’t want to be too obvious or on the nail with the visuals, so we went with an Eighties style fantasy look with evil snow warriors and their icy king oppressing the bedroom toys.
Gorillaz have wrapped up Season One of their Song Machine series with visuals for the Leee John cut The Lost Chord.
Already a project orbiting around big name guests, Damon Albarn has used Song Machine to pack collaborators into Gorillaz from front to back, the first unveiled right at the start of the year when Slaves and slowthai lent a helping hand on Momentary Bliss.