Flashback: My 2025 Blogposts

My blogposts start life as things written for Frank's APA (the amateur press association for people who like music). I actually write quite a lot for that august journal, much of which fails to make it onto this blog for various reasons. Some of it is too conversational, making sense in the pages of the APA but not being something anyone would want to read online (although going by the stats on this blog's readership, what I post is also not in tune with the reading preferences of the online world). And some of it I never get round to revising and formatting for the blog because I am a procrastinating slackass. So as it turned out, I did not make too many blogposts last year, but here they all are again.

Music in Film 01: The Zone of Interest, Perfect Days, and others: I talk about some films I saw in 2024, focussing to some extent on their musical content. Some of the films are discussed very briefly.

Music in Film 02: All You Need Is Death, Eno, The Colour of Pomegranates, Portishead, Lone Star: More fairly short notes on films seen in 2024 that featured music.

Music in Film 03: Star Wars, The Long Goodbye, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat: More films with music (including the very music-focussed Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat). Post features the celebrated Long Goodbye cat scene.

2024: My Favourite New Songs: I present a list of my favourite new tunes of 2024, with a link to a Spotify playlist that features some of them.

2024: My Favourite Newly Discovered Old Songs: A list of great old tunes I heard for the first time in 2024, also with a link to an almost complete Spotify playlist.

2024: My Favourite New Films: The new films I liked the most in 2024.

2024: My Favourite Newly Discovered Old Films: The old films I liked the best in 2024.

2024: My Favourite Theatrical Productions: Still looking back on 2024, here are the best theatrical productions I saw in that year (which I think might also be all the theatrical productions I saw).

2024: My Favourite Audio Dramas: BBC radio dramas old and new that I enjoyed in 2024.

What have I nominated for the 2025 Hugo Awards?: Things I nominated for the 2025 Hugo Awards, many of which failed to make the ballot due to biased political voting and an impartial application of the so-called "rules".

The films of David Lynch: a definitive ranking: I appeared on a David Lynch panel at Eastercon, which means I am officially an expert on the popular filmmaker. Here I objectively rank the great man's films. My ordering may surprise you.

Gamelan Corner: Accumulation: I wrote about an American gamelan piece I was trying to play in our Gamelan class.

Troubled Songs: Music of the Northern Ireland Conflict: I put together a compilation of songs dealing with the Northern Ireland Troubles and used them as a way of presenting a history of that unpleasant conflict. This post got a lot of traction thanks to a well-connected friend sharing a link to it, replies to which revealed that there are a lot of people out there who like The Cranberries.

A Scottish Gamelan Retreat: I travelled to a remote Scottish location to spend a week playing gamelan music. This was a key 2025 event for me and I am pleased with how this write-up of it came out.

Live: Gibby Haynes plays the hits of the Butthole Surfers (with The Scott Thunes Institute of Musical Excellence and Evicshen): Gibby Haynes is or was in popular Texan band The Butthole Surfers and this was my account of seeing him play their songs live with a bunch of kids as his backing band and a whip-wielding lady as his support act.

And that's it. I'll try to do more blog posts in 2026.