So, time for the Best Male Solo Artist in the East Angles Music Prize. First though, a male solo artist who I feel sure will be on the list this time next year: Fyfe Dangerfield.
I must admit to being a bit wary of a solo album from the Guillemots frontman, not least because as much as I often love his band, they can be a bit too exuberant and kitchen-sink ambitious. A bit (whisper it) jazz. But if you ever walked down a Parisian street and saw this happening, you'd forgive them.
Anyway, solo albums written in a week by frontmen with a predilection for such things are usually to be avoided, but Fly Yellow Moon is great - a lovely, and probably more conventional set of love songs than anyone would have expected. One listen was all it took to convince me to see him the next day at The Deaf Institute in Manchester, and the songs were even more stripped down than the Bernard Butler-produced album: just him, an acoustic guitar or piano, and sometimes a couple of violinists.
What's interesting is that he wrote these all these songs in the first flush of a new love, and now they've split up. It makes for a less exuberant Dangerfield than usual ('she needs me,' he sings. Er, no she doesn't) but it suits him. And he played Made Up Love Song on a ukelele at the end. Magic.
What the album and gig also underlined is that there is a real deficit of British male solo artists. American ones, sure, but choosing five for EAMP was really hard. But hey. I've started this thing so I will finish.
Best Male Solo Artist
(Brits: Calvin Harris, Dizzee Rascal, Mika, Paolo Nutini, Robbie Williams)
First, the ones I would have chosen. Probably Dizzee Rascal for making me laugh more than any other pop star this year. Bonkers. And Paolo Nutini saved himself from James Blunt territory with a pretty happy-go-lucky record, even though he sounded like a weird amalgam of Bob Marley and a hyperactive Louis Armstrong. Anyway, on with the nominations.
Jack Penate
It was a real surprise that not only did Jack Penate 'get' dance music this year - Tonight's Today was often dubbed the soundtrack to sunrise at Ibiza - but somehow he was overlooked when the end-of-year lists were compiled. Everything Is New was aptly named: gone was the rollicking indie of Penate's first record and in was reflective, happy pop. So why didn't it happen? I suspect he didn't work hard enough: not enough tours, festivals, visibility. Hope Penate doesn't jack the new direction in just when he was getting interesting. You can listen to it all here, actually...
After seeing Richard Hawley twice around the time of Coles Corner, I felt a little like he'd taken his gentle 1950s revivalism as far as he could. And it's fair to say Truelove's Gutter doesn't see Hawley 'go drum'n'bass'. But every so often, Hawley hits the mark: it's a mood thing, I think, and no-one does the battered romantic Northerner better than him. He even looks like Roy Orbison on the front cover.
Ok, so there's a possibility this was out in November 2008, such is the murky world of dance music releases. And I admit, it was the title that got me first: Where Were You In 92? Well, in The Waterfront in Norwich or a rave in Great Yarmouth listening to exactly this kind of music. Well, maybe it's moved on and slowed down a little (our American friends filed this under dubstep). It was a guilty pleasure and probably what the kids listen to now thinking they're cutting edge. Either way, I rather liked it.
Another record only really appreciated from a distance. At the time, when Bonkers was No.1, it struggled for attention. But listening to Further Complications in preparation to speak to him (which I didn't in the end, but never mind), it did stand up to repeated scrutiny - not on a Pulp level, but it was quite nice to have Jarvis angry and (generally) rocking thanks to producer Steve Albini rather than ironic and poppy. And it has the best opening line of 2009: "I met her in the museum of palaeontology/and I make no bones about it."
Ambivalence Avenue is Stephen Wilkinson's fourth album, but the first on a record label that told people he existed: Warp. And they were right to pick him up: it's a real jumble of Boards Of Canada-style chill-out, odd cut-up sounds you might expect to hear on a Warp release, and then pretty straightforward folky pop. One I returned to rather often.
Next time: Best British Breakthrough Act. Are there better new bands than Florence & The Machine, Friendly Fires, JLS, La Roux or Pixie Lott?
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