Here it is, we are finally ready to reveal part 2 Mayhem’s Top 20 Albums Of 2024. Yes this is the top ten! Who is number one? Read on to find out. Have any of your favourite albums made the Mayhem cut? It was very close at the top with Mr. Cave just scraping it Check out the list below and feel free to let me know what you think via comments, socials or email. You will find a Spotify playlist below which contains one track from each album that made the top 20. If you would like to check out positions 11 to 20 click here!
1 Wild God – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – How does this man produce so many masterpieces? 2 Evil Hate Filled Female – Delilah Bon – No sophomore slump from Delilah, this is magnificent 3 9 Sad Symphonies – Kate Nash – One of the most beautifully sounding albums of 2024 4 Wake Up, Shut Up, Work – Millie Manders and the Shutup – Millie is not afraid to open her heart 5 Hot Singles In Your Area – Scene Queen – This album made me smile from start to finish 6 Yummy – James – This is one of their best and they have been around for ages 7 Songs Of A lost World – The Cure – I have never been a huge fan of the Cure, but this is sublime 8 BRAT – Charli XCX – BRAT ruled the world for a bit this year, and rightly so, this is damned good 9 The Mess We seem To Make – Crawlers – A stunning record 10 Traumatic Livelihood – Jazmin Bean – Weird, wonderful and everything in between
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It is now just a few weeks until the 2024 Leeds/ Reading Festivals and it must be time for a preview from me, so here goes. Are we back to one main stage again? The poster of the line-up suggests we are, which is wonderful news. Although there is still the silly joint headliner thing going on. But how do the acts on the main stage shape up? Personally, I will be sticking to the bands and artists appearing earlier in that part of the arena. On Friday 23rd August my tips for the best acts on the Main Stage are Pendulum and Crawlers. Who will I not be rushing to see? Well Liam Gallagher obviously, who needs an Oasis tribute act headlining a major festival? On Saturday I think headliners Blink 182 could be fun, even though watching middle-aged blokes with low-slung cargo shorts is a bit creepy sometimes, but I believe the band will rise to the occasion. I am optimistic for Two Door Cinema Club. Sunday’s Main Stage line-up is good with Bleachers, Fontaines D.C., Raye, and Lana del Ray likely to be highlights. The Last Dinner Party might pull it off if they can continue to live with the hype, but Fred Again.. as a headliner? Seriously? I know this festival has often been good at moving with the times, but I am not sure about this one.
The new and futuristic Chevron stage looks great for EDM and generic dance fans. Skrillex headlines on Friday and I find them quite a Marmite act, the Prodigy headline on Saturday, and even without the sadly departed Keith Flint I reckon they will smash it. The BBC Radio 1 Stage looks good, especially on Friday with Beabadoobee headlining and immediately preceded by Ashnikko. Confidence Man will be good on Saturday and the Sunday headliners are the Wombats, a real blast from the past. I imagine that I will be spending a lot of time at the Festival Republic Stage, particularly for the Japanese House, Rachel Chinouriri and Matt Maltese on Friday, Neck Deep, Bad Nerves and the Lambrini Girls on Saturday, and Kid Kapichi and Dream Wife on the final night. The BBC Introducing Stage is a favourite of mine and is a place where I have discovered some great artists. I am familiar with some playing the introducing stage this year, notably Sun King and Welly on Sunday. But shaping up to be the best act of the weekend is the magnificent Delilah Bon who headlines the BBC Introducing Stage on Friday. I predict that she will move to the main stage in 2025 or 2026. Who are you most looking forward to?
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Here is the Mayhem chart for March 2024. Regular readers know that the chart is based on my Spotify listening habits over the last month. The chart remains contemporary-ish, rather than just an oldies chart However, the top three “Legacy” artists are Kate Bush, David Bowie, and Steve Harley/ Cockney Rebel. David Bowie returns to the chart after missing out for three months. Obscurify also suggests the most obscure artists I have listened to and for March those are Liz Davinci, The Apocalypse Disco and The Chinaskis. There is a top ten artists chart and a top 5 songs chart. There is the usual eclectic mix of artists, including four that were in the top ten last month (Crawlers, Bambi Thug, Delilah Bon, and Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes). Four of the artists in the artist’s chart also appear in the song’s chart. Delilah Bon has been in the artist charts for four consecutive months and now she tops the song chart with the mighty “Maverick”. Drunk Mums crash straight to the top of the artist chart! So without further ado here are those charts in full! Click on the header of the song chart for the playlist on Spotify.
MAYHEM ARTIST CHART MARCH 2024
1 Drunk Mums 2 Caity Baser 3 James 4 Crawlers 5 Delilah Bon 6 SAHRA 7 Bambi Thug 8 Scene Queen 9 Mortimer Nyx 10 Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes
MAYHEM SONG CHART MARCH 2024
1 Maverick – Delilah Bon 2 Wailing Night – Mortimer Nyx 3 Life’s A Fucking Miracle – James 4 Finger – Scene Queen 5 Celestial – Dying Habit
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With apologies to the creators of the iconic NOW series of compilations that began in 1983, I felt it was time to do something similar with Mayhem! This includes the first 20 singles we reviewed in 2024 in a delightfully eclectic playlist for your listening pleasure! More than 70 minutes of music, click here and lose yourself in the music!
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Here is the Mayhem chart for February 2024. Regular readers know that the chart is based on my Spotify listening habits over the last month. The chart remains contemporary-ish, rather than just an oldies chart However, the top three “Legacy” artists are Was (Not Was), Bob Marley and the Wailers, and Stackridge. Surprisingly, David Bowie is not in the top 3 for the third month in a row. There is a top ten artists chart and a top 5 songs chart. There is the usual eclectic mix of artists, including two that were in the top ten last month (Delilah Bon and Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes). For the first time, none of the top five songs is by an artist which features in the top ten artist chart. However, after reaching number three with “Back In Time” last month Georgia Reed hits the top spot for February with her current single “Honey”. Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes are number 1 in the artist chart and as previously mentioned Georgia Reed is top of the song chart. So without further ado here are those charts in full! Click on the header of the song chart for the playlist on Spotify.
MAYHEM ARTIST CHART FEBRUARY 2024
1 Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes 2 Jazmin Bean 3 The Chinaskis 4 Crawlers 5 Ellis Bullard 6 Bambi Thug 7 Shaé Universe 8 Girli 9 Delilah Bon 10 Ashnikko
1 Honey – Georgia Reed 2 Waiting For The Britpop Revival – Fran Ashcroft 3 A Thousand Shots – F.O.D. 4 Primetime Television – The Corsairs 5 What Kinda Love – Sohodolls
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Holly Minto, Amy Woodall, Liv May, and Harry Breen are Crawlers one of the best bands to arise from Liverpool, and let’s face it there have been some great ones over the years, right? They are one of the most social media-aware current bands and, they use that skill so well in support of what is important to them. They have previously said, “It’s really hard to find a safe space – especially for young people, queer people, and other misrepresented or underrepresented groups – and being able to do that with our platform is something we’re looking forward to exploring and breaking boundaries with” and I have huge respect for what they do. But on top of that conscience is their wonderful music, in advance of their album, ‘The Mess We Seem To Make’ due out later this month they released a new single a couple of weeks ago called “Kills Me To Be Kind.” It has a classic lo-fi punk kind of feel and it crawls (no pun intended) into your head and sets up home like it was meant to be there, and it probably was. The riffs drive it nicely and the vocals and harmonies shine so well. The lyrics are sharp and cutting. Just this part alone is lyrical perfection for me, “I heard you fucked somebody else. Despite how bad you felt. Need somebody in your bed. To drown that noise in your head. But I keep you in my mind. Though I faked it every time.” The “faked it every time” line is a magnificent payoff. I have seen them live just once so far, at the Leeds Festival in 2022, I need to change that, and I will!
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Well, this road to catching up on posts is a long one! Here is something that I reviewed on behalf of Soundsphere Magazine back in October. It was a rather splendid day out in Leeds a.k.a. Live At Leeds – In The City! Click here to check it out. The frankly excellent photos are by Mr. Snapagig himself, John Hayhurst!
This is Pale Waves from a show earlier in 2022, posted on YouTube by Darren Quinn!
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Let me kick off with the whole split Main Stage thing at Reading and Leeds. What is the point of having two main stages? Surely whoever plays last is effectively the headliner. Does it sell more tickets? Or is it an ego stroke for bands and singers? Or maybe it is something else entirely, I would love to hear your views. Anyway, enough of a bit of ranting let me tell you who I saw on day 1. First up was Mall Rat on the Main Stage East. Mall Rat came all the way from Australia and maybe this is what Kylie might have sounded like had she emerged now rather than back in the 80s. Mall Rat mentioned that she was hot and to be fair it was pretty warm, but she was wearing some kind of woolly mittens, what was that all about? I thought “Are You High?” is a striking pop dance track. The clouds on her rolling logo screen had clouds shaped like Care Bears, so I should insert an “aaaahhh” here right? It is still a bit weird watching just one person on stage singing to backing tracks, but to be fair Mall Rat has some great tunes. Next, it was a trip to the Main Stage West for the K’s, these lads have some top songs and they are getting better and better musically. I reckon that they are potential future Reading/ Leeds headliners, hopefully, by then we will have reverted to a single Main Stage. The K’s have the power, passion, and skill that will lead to them becoming the band that Oasis probably wanted to be but never were.
Mall Rat and some Care Bear shaped clouds!
I saw Dylan at the Latitude Festival a few weeks ago and she was bloody good, so I had to catch her at Leeds, where she opened the BBC Radio 1 Dance Stage, not quite sure why she was on the Dance Stage. I think Dylan will be huge, she has a great core following and I am sure she picked up a lot of new fans with this set. Once again she did a snippet of a great cover of “Paradise City”. And just like at Latitude “You’re Not Harry Styles” went down an absolute storm! I paid my first visit to the BBC Introducing Stage next for Boy Bleach, a great festival discovery for me. Hard glam punk with a wonderful overlay of camp. This was a belting full-on performance. This included kind of band uniforms of tartan ties and white shirts adorned with slogans, such as “Tax The Rich” and “Destroy”. “So Good” is a fabulous song, but “Bullet” is anthemic punk for Generation Z. On top of that, the cover of Britney Spears’s “Toxic” was an explosive banger. A truly awesome band. A short hop to the Festival Republic Stage next for Daisy Brain, the alias of Will Tse. This is grungey slacker rock of the finest order. There’s some Graham Coxon, some Dinosaur Jr and maybe even some Pavement and Nirvana too. But above all, there were megatons of Daisy Brain originality. This was a spectacularly good set and I am now proper looking forward to the release of the Daisy Brain EP later this year.
Boy Bleach
I stayed at the Festival Republic Stage for The Native from Plymouth. They are purveyors of melodic and emotional power pop with a punchy rock edge. This band knows how to write a great song. In particular “Looking Back” is something very special, from the harmonies to the screaming guitar solo. The Native were clearly well up for this appearance! Bradford’s Bad Boy Chiller Crew were on Main Stage West. This bunch put on a British rap and hip hop party, but I didn’t really feel it. A bit like Goldie Lookin’ Chain with nowhere near as much humour. I trudged over to Main Stage East for the phenomenal Pale Waves. When they first arrived on the scene they were considered as another indie band, but they are so much more than that. The songs from the new album, ‘Unwanted’ testify to that. Front woman Heather Baron- Gracie is a real performer and she works the crowd wonderfully well. The band are incredibly tight, especially drummer Ciara. This was another stonking set from Pale Waves. I managed to catch the tail end of Belfast based rapper Emby’s set on the BBC Introducing Stage. Wow, can anyone else spit rhymes and ciphers as clear and as fast as this bloke? Somehow I don’t think so, he was bloody good and I need to hear more of his stuff.
Panic Shack
I stayed at the BBC Introducing Stage for DIY Welsh punksters Panic Shack. Incredible songs from a fantastic band. If the Tuts, the Spice Girls and the Runaways had been cloned and spliced then I am sure that they would become Panic Shack. The co ordinated moves were entertaining and skillfully exercised. I love the humour and fun that Panic Shack convey, and obviously the fab tunes too. I want more Panic Shack in my life please. My final act of the day was Crawlers from Liverpool on the Festival Republic Stage. Their songs are impassioned, heartfelt, funky and punky. Another great band and what a stunner of a show! OK why is this my last act of day 1, well I had a prior commitment to whizz back to the Fulford Arms in York to see Ginger Wildheart and I sure as hell wasn’t going to miss that for the 1975. Obviously if Rage Against The Machine hadn’t pulled out I would definitely have stayed at the Leeds Festival!
All pictures, except the gig poster, were taken by me using my very cheap Chinese Android phone. The videos were found on YouTube. If the video is yours and you would like a credit or for it to be removed please let me know.
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With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 