My Top 50 Albums of the Decade

So.

Records.

I’ve spent an immense amount of time over the past few weeks mulling over this list, so much so the fuse blew on my Hi-Fi, what really spurned me on to complete this list was someone’s passing comment about a band I love – “They’re shite, everyone hates them”

Which in my humble opinion is all the wrong reasons to judge any form of music, rather than being faceless and following all the trends about who’s cool and who’s not, you should follow your own lead and express yourself by finding music on your own terms. Some say real music has died, it hasn’t it’s just there are too many clueless n00bs who don’t bother looking for it.

My opinions my come across as overly strong (or even completely stupid) to others but it’s something inside me that will never change. After all my years of making time and effort into this amazing art form, looking at this list makes me feel rewarded.

It’s not been easy but here is (in no order) my incredibly personal and undiluted top 50 albums from the past decade.

Comments plox, and please get writing your own!

Turf Wars – Daggermouth (2007)
Borders and Bounderies – Less Than Jake (2000)
Over the Counter Culture – The Ordinary Boys (2004)
The Fall of Math – 65daysofstatic (2004)
Relationship of Command – At the Drive-In (2000)
Rockin’ The Suburbs – Ben Folds (2001)
Angles – Dan Le Sac Vs. Scroobius Pip (2008)
Keasbey Nights – Streetlight Manifesto (2006)
Civil Disobedients – Capdown (2000)
Silent Alarm – Bloc Party (2005)
Give Up – The Postal Service (2003)
Famicon Connection – Sabrepulse (2005)
Melody A.M. – Röyksopp (2001)
New Found Glory – Sticks and Stones (2002)
Matisyahu – Youth (2006)
Gypsey Punks Underdog World Strike – Gogol Bordello (2005)
Discovery – Daft Punk (2001)
Billion Dollar Gravy – London Elektricity (2003)
How I Spent My Summer Vacation – Bouncing Souls (2001)
Your Favorite Weapon – Brand New (2001)
010 – The Mad Capsule Markets (2001)
All Killer No Filler – Sum 41 (2001)
Love, Ire & Song – Frank Turner (2008)
Since I Left You – The Avalanches (2000)
Your New Favourite Band – The Hives (2001)
Mutiny! – Set Your Goals (2006)
Pump Up the Valuum – NOFX (2000)
Geogaddi – Boards of Canada (2002)
The Vertigo of Bliss – Biffy Clyro (2003)
Transatlanticism – Death Cab For Cutie (2003)
I Get Wet – Andrew W.K. (2001)
Veneer – Jose Gonzalez (2003)
Our Live Album Is Better than Your Live Album – Reel Big Fish (2006)
Warning – Green Day (2000)
Cool to Be You – Descendents (2004)
A Jackknife to a Swan – The Mighty Mighty Bosstones (2002)
You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine – Death From Above 1979 (2004)
Swagger – Flogging Molly (2000)
Rise or Die Trying – Four Year Strong (2007)
Off Key Melodies – Rehasher (2004)
Sometimes – City & Colour (2005)
sixpeopleaway EP – sixpeopleaway (2007)
Sink or Swim – Gaslight Anthem (2007)
The Expendables – The Expendables (2007)
Bleed American – Jimmy Eat World (2001)
The Mark, Tom & Travis Show – Blink-182 (2000)
Streetcore – Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros (2003)
† – Justice (2007)
Sounding a Mosaic – Bedouin Soundclash (2004)
The Private Press – DJ Shadow (2002)

Spotify selection of these records: http://bit.ly/7mnCuz

Thou shalt not read NME, thou shalt think for yourselves.

Blinding Lights and Car Park Signs

Caffeine fuelled, stumbled daydreams
The current state of my mind.

Jaunt up the Highlands

Fed up with life in Falkirk I decided to pack my bags and disappear for a while. I got my shit together and headed up with the family to small cottage outside of a town called Kingussie.

Very quaint, non?

Ayep, forest on the back doorstep

Big double bed all to myself, win.

The plasma telly and surround system

I’m a geek, ok?

All this highland fresh air was a bit too much for Spike.

Big beasting fire and a coffee, oh yes.

This sign amused me.

The field where I got chased by a bull.

Ventured up to Culloden, very eerie place. That stone bothered me a bit, was cheered up by my little brother who quppied “did Scotland win?”

Found this wee cheeky monkey outside my window.

Spike promptly woofed him away.

A generic brother photo.

A very clean (and unhappy) Spike.

The long way home.

First stop.

Perth train station is weird.

I’m still alive folks, that hand dryer wis shite.

Stirling this time, creepy bug eyed woman is very keen on getting her train.

Managed to bump the train all the way down to Perth, the whole journey was meant to cost £45.

Up yours ScotRail!

And here we are, Hamewilldaemi!

My favourite Mac apps

F.lux
Simple little app that makes your screen easier on the eyes. Might seem a bit shite but use it for an hour or so and turn it off again and I bet you the brightness of the screen will kick you in the face.

Caffeine
A little tiny program that puts an icon in the right side of your menu bar. Click it to prevent your Mac from automatically going to sleep, dimming the screen or starting screen savers. Click it again to go back.

Simples *does meerkat noise*

Very handy for watching ‘movies’ online.

smcFanControl
Lets you set the minimum speed of the built-in fans. You can increase your minimum fan speed to make your Macbook run cooler.

Very handy for me since mines get hotter than the sun sometimes.

Tweetie
This presents a beautiful compact window for reading tweets, replies and, direct messages. Tweets are displayed in an iChat-like interface, regardless of whether you are viewing your friends’ timeline or a reply chain. The program has support for most operations, like creating a new tweet or switching between timelines.

Adium
Think of this as a more powerful version of iChat where everything is customizable and you can sign into pretty much any IM service. The only downside is it doesn’t have audio or video chat, but other than that it has pretty much every feature you could think of.

CandyBar
Trick out your Trashcan. Decorate your Drives. Mix up Mail. CandyBar lets you change the Mac OS X icons you usually can’t.

Like so: Clicky

Spotify
Excellent music app, available collection growing by thousands of tracks a week.
Listen to streaming music in good quality from your Mac. Also “scrobbles” your music to Last.fm if you link it with your last.fm profile. I use the free version which its only downside is that theres an advertisment every 6 songs or so, a small niggle but nothing too major

MacSaber
For the Jedi that lives within us all! Download MacSaber and turn your MacBook into a hybrid Apple / Jedi Light Saber. Just mind that you don’t fling your Mac into a wall like a did.

LiquidMac
This little application is the definition of a time waster; it performs no real useful function, and yet I can’t stop playing with it. It’s not a game, there is no goal and no score, but it sure is fun to play with.