Following last years UNIVERSALLY LOVED piece, Oasis Are Shite, an imaginative followup - were they ever any good to start with? So I have done what no sane adult should do, and what I haven't done in 25 years, actually listened to Oasis. Obviously Be Here Now and on are complete garbage, but were those first three great albums, Definitely Maybe, What's the Story.. and The Masterplan ever great? and how do they hold up now?

My irregular series on artists, albums or movies that were either denied classic status at the time or who have been forgotten from the conversation since. Here a look a 60s UK folk music genius who branched out into astonishing music in the 1970s (see also Nick Drake, John Fay, Vashti Bunyan...). A walk through his life and career through the lens of four totemic albums from that period, including the absolutely essential for anyone releases, Solid Air (10/10) and One Word (10/10).

Perhaps the embodiment of Hollywood's incessant, remake-reboot era, given it's one of the wildest takes on needing a sequel ever. But given director Ridley Scott is himself one of the wildest properties in film this century - you have zero idea what you are going to get with this man lately, maybe it could work? No, no, it does not. Following the original screenplay so slavishly it continually invites always belittling comparisons, not to mention extra appreciation for the (missing) original star, Russell Crowe, given the appalling casting of rom-com level Paul Mescal as his replacement.

Nothing is more redundant most best films lists, as any critics top ten will include five films the public wont even see until next year. So my most and least favorite films actually widely released in 2024.

Note - I really did mean to say Abigail at number 15, but looking at the thumbnail, decided to describe the film Megan instead. The perils of live radio.

Exactly what it says on the tin. Tis the season of lists, and in a banner year for albums, particularly alt-rock and rap, my top twenty favorite albums of 2024.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/26A8L15kpvZtRl3gRhddG5?si=jZKf4draTgqcWC8cjiXiKw

Perhaps rounding off a banner year for Horror movies, writer-director, J.T. Mollner's twisted take on Horror movie tropes and serial killer films. Spit ingeniously into six non-chronological chapters, each upending the previous, this challenging and provocative film is beautifully made, and anchored by awards-worthy leads, Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner.

The original Smile was a top tier "ordinary" horror, as opposed the more art-house/A24 world. It's sequel bridges that gap, whilst outpacing its predecessor in nearly every way. Once again the female lead (Naomi Scott) is outstanding, but now the focus on interior mental breakdown - this time for a pop star put under too much stress - is so good, it almost outweighs the need for a horror film at all.

Francis Ford Coppola's decades long passion project is deeply, unforgivably flawed, in so many ways. It's also amazing and brilliant in so many others. In a world where billionaires send themselves into space and all they come back with if tales of flaccid penises, that someone could spend so much on such a piece of art, designed, unconsciously, to defend the very notion of its own existence, is a marvel.

It takes an awful lot to get me back into new material from a classic band I've loved to remember at their peak and pretty much since the career capping classic, Disintegration, in 1989, that had been the case with The Cure. However, the first new material in 16 years had garnered such raves, I couldn't resist and I'm glad I didn't. Despite some of the worst production and mixing I've ever heard from a band of their stature, and a questionable opening salvo, Songs.. is undoubtedly their finest, most tortured and monolithic work in decades. I'm outside in the dark

The second album in 2024 from the Radiohead offshoot, The Smile, is nowhere near as great or coherent as Wall of Eyes. It's perfectly fine, just very undeveloped songwriting wise - as befitting its title - and even Thom Yorke seems to be half involved in many tracks.