Here is the Mayhem chart for December 2024. Regular readers know the chart is based on my Spotify listening habits. These are gathered over the last month by obscurify.com. Apparently, my tastes have fallen by four points to 92% more obscure than the rest of the UK! It must be all the Christmas standards I have listened to last month. Incidentally no Christmas songs are included in the chart. But the most popular Chrimbo tune was Mr. Strange with “Santa Clause Hates The Poor”. The chart remains contemporary-ish (but if a classic artist releases something new they might feature in the chart). However, last month’s top three “Legacy” artists were David Bowie, Cat Stevens and Wham! Obscurify also suggests the most obscure artists I have listened to for November: Liz Davinci, Sleuth Gang and Carol Hodge. Carol also appears in the artist chart and the song chart. There is a top ten artists chart and a top 5 songs chart. There is the usual eclectic mix of artists, including three that were in the top ten last month. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds went up from number 2 to number 1. Herorangecoat is staying at number 7. Delilah Bon is staying at number 9. Delilah has been in the artist charts now for 13 months! Two artists appear in both lists for December: Delilah Bon and Carol Hodge. The number one song comes from HANDSHAKE IN SPACE. So without further ado here are those charts in full! Click on the Spotify link below to listen to the famous (or infamous) five!
Mayhem Artist Chart December 2024
1 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds 2 Carol Hodge 3 Cassyette 4 Taylor Swift 5 Lana Del Ray 6 Du Blonde 7 HerOrangeCoat 8 Mannequin Pussy 9 Delilah Bon 10 Bobbie Dazzle
Mayhem Song Chart December 2024
1 Let’s Control It – HANDSHAKE IN SPACE 2 Not The President – Delilah Bon 3 Shake The Slack – Avalanche Party 4 Hunt You Down – ALT BLK ERA 5 Manoeuvres – Carol Hodge
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
If you have enjoyed this article, feel free to follow the blog, or follow us on;Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, Linkedin, and EMail. Are you interested in writing and reviewing for With Just A Hint Of Mayhem? If so then please get in touch.
Here is the Mayhem chart for November 2024. Regular and constant readers know that the chart is based on my Spotify listening habits over the last month gathered by obscurify.com. Apparently, my tastes have fallen one point to 96% more obscure than the rest of the UK! The chart remains contemporary-ish (but if a classic artist releases something new they might feature in the chart). However, last month’s top three “Legacy” artists were David Bowie, U2 and the Four Tops. Obscurify also suggests the most obscure artists I have listened to for November: Liz Davinci, Vaquelin, and Sleuth Gang. 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; Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (Up from number 10 to number 2), and Delilah Bon (falling from number 8 to number 9). Delilah has been in the artist charts now for a whole year! Three artists appear in both lists for November: ALT BLK ERA, Joshua Idehan and the artist chart toppers Sleuth Gang. The number one song is “Age Of Stupid” by the Jellybricks. So without further ado here are those charts in full! Click on the Spotify link below to listen to the famous (or infamous) five!
Mayhem Artist Chart November 2024
1 Sleuth Gang 2 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds 3 Joshua Idehen 4 Stress Dolls 5 Blue Violet 6 ALT BLK ERA 7 HerOrangeCoat 8 tiLLie 9 Delilah Bon 10 Not Now Norman
Mayhem Song Chart November 2024
1 Age Of Stupid – Jellybricks 2 Falling – Apollo Junction 3 Pity Party – Sleuth Gang 4 My Drummer’s Girlfriend – ALT BLK ERA (featuring Wheatus) 5 Mum Does The Washing – Joshua Idehan
If you have enjoyed this article, feel free to follow the blog, or follow us on;Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, Linkedin, and EMail. Are you interested in writing and reviewing for With Just A Hint Of Mayhem? If so then please get in touch.
Here is the Mayhem chart for October 2024. Regular and constant readers know that the chart is based on my Spotify listening habits over the last month gathered by obscurify.com. Apparently, my tastes have fallen one point to 97% more obscure than the rest of the UK! The chart remains contemporary-ish (but if a classic artist releases something new they might feature in the chart). However, last month’s top three “Legacy” artists were Suede, Pink Floyd and David Bowie. Obscurify also suggests the most obscure artists I have listened to for October: Liz Davinci, Kindelan, and Birdlands, weirdly exactly the same three artists as September. There is a top ten artists chart and a top 5 songs chart. There is the usual eclectic mix of artists, including three that were in the top ten last month; Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (staying at number 10), Birdlands (moving up one place from 4 to 3) and Delilah Bon (falling from number 1 to number 8). Delilah has been in the artist charts now for eleven consecutive months. Two artists appear in both lists for October Molly Rymer and the act that is number one in the artist chart, cumgirl8! The number one song is “Nobody Else Knows” by Flyght Club. So without further ado here are those charts in full! Click on the Spotify link below to listen to the famous (or infamous) five!
Mayhem Artist Chart October 2024
1 cumgirl8 2 Cats In Space 3 Birdlands 4 Molly Rymer 5 KOYO 6 Brooke Candy 7 Ice Nine Kills 8 Delilah Bon 9 The Courettes 10 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Mayhem Song Chart October 2024
1 Nobody Else Knows – Flyght Club 2 Karma Police – cumgirl8 3 Something That Survives – Molly Rymer 4 How Bad – Gilda House 5 Antelope – Lost Trends
If you have enjoyed this article, feel free to follow the blog, or follow us on;Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, EMail. Are you interested in writing and reviewing for With Just A Hint Of Mayhem? If so then please get in touch.
I must confess that National Album Day, which has been running for 7 years, has kind of passed me by. I am much more keen on Record Store Day. It feels like just a chance for the major labels to reissue loads of back catalogue under the guise of a special day. Yes, I know there is an element of that on Record Store Day. But RSD is targetted at independent record stores, not the likes of HMV. On top of that releases are generally quite limited which makes the whole day more interesting in my opinion. It seems that not too many independent labels are involved in National Album Day compared to RSD. The theme of the day today, 19th October is British Groups.
Back in 2019, I celebrated the tenth anniversary of With Just A Hint Of Mayhem, and part of that celebration was a list of my top ten favourite albums. I have extended that to a top 25 and ignored the British Groups theme (although my list does include 8 British Groups). These are simply my favourite albums of all time! What are yours?
1 Live At The Lyceum 1975 – Bob Marley and the Wailers – If I had a time machine I would go back to 1975 and be there for this gig. Probably the finest live album ever. 2 Diamond Dogs – David Bowie – My favourite Bowie album changes depending on my mood, but more often than not it is the dystopian tale of Halloween Jack and Hunger City 3 Dog Man Star – Suede – I loved Suede’s first album but this took them to a whole new level. Were they Britpop? If so then they were one of the best Britpop acts by far. 4 The Kick Inside – Kate Bush – Choosing the best Catherine Bush album is very difficult, but I go back to this one regularly. 5 OK Computer – Radiohead – There are still some people out there who don’t like, or maybe don’t get, Radiohead. Why the fuck not? This LP is a work of genius. 6 What’s Going On? – Marvin Gaye – Probably the best protest and message album in history and one which is sadly still very pertinent today 7 Delilah Bon – Delilah Bon – possibly the finest debut album of the century so far 8 The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill – Lauryn Hill – is a great modern R&B record which makes Beyonce look like an amateur 9 The White Room – KLF – dance, trance, chill, weirdness. This has everything. But they should have paid PP Arnold! 10 24 Carat Diamond Trephine – Avalanche Party – Without a doubt, the greatest living UK band right now 11 Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy – Elton John – In my opinion this autobiographical masterpiece is easily the greatest album Reg Dwight ever made 12 Skeleton Tree – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – How can anyone put so much emotion, empathy and sadness in a small collection of songs? I have no idea but Nick Cave certainly achieved it with this album. 13 Abbey Road – Beatles – I love many albums from the Fab Four, but this is the one I always come back to. 14 Never Mind The Bollocks – Sex Pistols – An incendiary début from one of the best punk bands ever. What might have happened if they had stayed together? Who knows but an album like this as your legacy is a great thing! 15 Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too – New Radicals – There is not a track I would skip on this album. The band is effectively the genius that is Gregg Alexander who wrote and produced all the songs. 16 Back To Black – Amy Winehouse – stunning voice, sensational performance, what a sad loss to the world 17 Jagged Little Pill – Alanis Morrisette – A wonderful album with not a duff track in sight. She never surpassed this, but how can you beat perfect? 18 Ramones – Ramones – The high point and possibly the birth of punk, certainly in the USA 19 Songs In The Key Of Life – Stevie Wonder – So good I can forgive him for that bloody awful “I Just Called To Say I Love You” 20 Quadrohphenia – The Who – An absolute opus which I believe knocks the pants off Tommy 21 London Calling – The Clash – The album that showed they were not just a punk band 22 Sign O’ The Times – Prince – Forget Purple Rain. This was Prince’s Mona Lisa 23 The Lexicon Of Love – ABC – I often feel that music was really overproduced in the 80s. But this is sublime 24 Grace – Jeff Buckley – another great talent we lost too young. This is a monumental magnum opus 25 My Merry Go Round – Johnny Nash – This man, for me, has the most beautiful voice that I have ever heard in my life. This album from 1973 has remained among my favourite albums since its release.
If you have enjoyed this article, feel free to follow the blog, or follow us on;Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, EMail. Are you interested in writing and reviewing for With Just A Hint Of Mayhem? If so then please get in touch.
Here is the Mayhem chart for September 2024. Regular and constant readers know that the chart is based on my Spotify listening habits over the last month gathered by obscurify.com. Apparently, my tastes have risen slightly to 98% more obscure than the rest of the UK! The chart remains contemporary-ish (but if a classic artist releases something new they might feature in the chart). However, last month’s top three “Legacy” artists were Stevie Wonder, Kate Bush and David Bowie. Obscurify also suggests the most obscure artists I have listened to for September: Liz Davinci, Kindelan, and Birdlands. 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; Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (falling from 3 to 10) and Delilah Bon (a huge rise from 9 to number 1)! Delilah has been in the artist charts now for ten consecutive months. Two artists appear in both lists for September Delilah Bon and Cassyette! The number one song is “Ballad 2 (Skin Off My Back)” by, the delightful, HerOrangeCoat. So without further ado here are those charts in full! Click on the Spotify link below to listen to the famous (or infamous) five!
Mayhem Artist Chart September 2024
1 Delilah Bon 2 Cassyette 3 Birdlands 4 The The 5 Nick Lowe 6 Sabrina Carpenter 7 The White Roses 8 Mik Artistik’s Ego Trip 9 The Courettes 10 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Mayhem Song Chart September 2024
1 Ballad 2 (Skin Off My Back) – HerOrangeCoat 2 Mad Woman – Lloren 3 Villain – Delilah Bon 4 This World Fucking Sucks – Cassyette 5 Aggravate Me – Read The Room
If you have enjoyed this article, feel free to follow the blog, or follow us on;Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, EMail. Are you interested in writing and reviewing for With Just A Hint Of Mayhem? If so then please get in touch.
Here is the Mayhem chart for August 2024. Regular and constant readers know that the chart is based on my Spotify listening habits over the last month gathered by obscurify.com. Apparently, my tastes have risen slightly to 96% more obscure than the rest of the UK! The chart remains contemporary-ish (but if a classic artist releases something new they might feature in the chart). However, last month’s top three “Legacy” artists were David Bowie, Bikini Kill, and Stevie Wonder. Obscurify also suggests the most obscure artists I have listened to for August and those were Liz Davinci, Kindelan, and Modern Marriage. There is a top ten artists chart and a top 5 songs chart. There is the usual eclectic mix of artists, including just one that was in the top ten last month, Delilah Bon! Delilah has been in the artist charts now for nine consecutive months. The only artist to appear in both lists for July is, you guessed it, Delilah Bon! The number one song is “Nureyev Said It Best” by the mighty Avalanche Party. So without further ado here are those charts in full! Click here for the Spotify song playlist.
Mayhem Artist Chart August 2024
1 PJ Harvey 2 Frank Turner 3 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds 4 Modern Marriage 5 Mothica 6 El Pony Pisador 7 Ravyn Lenae 8 Bambi Thug 9 Delilah Bon 10 Yes Ma’am
1 Nureyev Said It Best – Avalanche Party 2 Ballad 1 (Sorry) – HerOrangeCoat 3 Two Sips – Revivalry 4 Everything I Hate About You – NOANNE 5 Volatile – Delilah Bon
If you have enjoyed this article, feel free to follow the blog, or follow us on;Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, EMail. Are you interested in writing and reviewing for With Just A Hint Of Mayhem? If so then please get in touch.
Well, that’s nearly it for 2019. The world has gone even crazier, but underneath all the chaos there is and hopefully will always be great music. So along with almost every other publication, website and blog I have compiled my top ten albums of 2019. It was a tough choice and putting them into a sequence has been even tougher, especially the top 2 which have switched places a lot. I would love to hear about your favourite albums of the year.
’24 Carat Diamond Trephine’ – Avalanche Party – Possibly the best debut album in rock history.
‘Ghosteen’ – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – is it possible to get more gut-wrenching and thought-provoking emotion in one album.
‘End Of Suffering’ – Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes – As a fan of Frank since his Gallows days I believe that this is his finest moment…. so far!
‘I Want The World’ – Hands Off Gretel – Easily one of the most exciting and exhilarating live bands to emerge in the last couple of years.
‘Renaissance Men’ – The Wildhearts – This band is well and truly back, not just with a bang but with a mega explosion.
‘Encore’ – The Specials – Who believed that the Specials had a new album in them, let alone one this good?
‘Nothing Great About Britain’ – Slowthai – no one has summed up what the UK is like now much better than Slowthai did on this stunning release.
‘When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?’ – Billie Eilish
‘Tough Crowd’ – Nervus – Better than their last album and probably not as good as their next, this band gets better and better!
‘Kind Heaven’ – Perry Farrell – an eclectic mix of styles that perhaps only someone of Perry’s talents could pull off. This was one of my most listened to albums on Spotify this year apparently.
I would also like to take the opportunity to say thank you for reading and following this site, you inspire me to continue. Finally always remember those that are less fortunate than you, homeless people and those suffering in silence. Remember the people it would be easier to forget. It is ok to be not ok. “In a world that has decided that it’s going to lose its mind Be more kind, my friends, try to be more kind” (Frank Turner). I hope that 2020 is a great year for you and however it pans out look out for each other.
If you have enjoyed this article feel free to follow the blog, or follow us on;
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem’s birthday celebrations are nearly over. Today is day 10 and it is February 9th which is the official 10th birthday…. WOO HOO, here’s to ten more years! Today you get two top tens in two separate posts this one is my top ten favourite singles and part 10a features my top 10 albums.
Regular readers will know that so far I have shared with you top ten most viewed posts on the blog since it began back in February 2009, the top ten countries that have given With Just A Hint Of Mayhem the most views, rock/ music related books, biographies and autobiographies, my top 10 Bowie songs, my 10 favourite bands of all time, my top ten favourite male artists, the ten greatest gigs that I have been to, my ten favourite music related films and yesterday my top ten favourite female artists. (Click here,here, here,here,here,here,here, here and here to view those again). So this is it for the 10th birthday celebrations but there is, I hope, much more to come from With Just A Hint Of Mayhem in the coming months and years, watch this space!
So here are my top ten favourite singles of all time, ask me next week and the list may change, although almost certainly not the number 1. I did deliberately ignore David Bowie for this list otherwise he might have occupied three or four places. If you are interested my favourite Bowie single at the moment is “Where Are We Now?”
1. No Woman No Cry (Live) – Bob Marley and the Wailers – In my opinion the greatest song and the greatest version. This will be my funeral song, unless of course I turn out to be immortal!
2. Strawberry Letter 23 – Brothers Johnson – The great Shuggie Otis wrote this but the Brothers Johnson made it their own.
3. I Want You Back – Jackson 5 – This is possibly one of the finest pop songs ever committed to vinyl. That opening piano flourish is magical.
4. White Man In The Hammersmith Palais – The Clash – For me this was the Clash’s finest hour both musically and lyrically.
5. Don’t Let Me Down – Beatles Amazing to think that this was just a B Side. It is my go to song to sing at volume when I am very drunk.
6. Do Anything You Wanna Do – Eddie And The Hot Rods – A truly inspirational song which still inspires me even in my advanced years!
7. God Save The Queen- Sex Pistols – Fear and conspiracy kept this from the number one spot in the Queens Silver Jubilee week in 1977. For me this should be the true UK national anthem.
8. Theme From A Summer Place – Percy Faith Orchestra – You might say that this is one of my guilty pleasures, well maybe, but it is a beautiful piece of music. It was also used to great effect in the TV adaptation of Stephen King’s ‘Rose Red’.
9. Mack The Knife – Bobby Darin – I love story songs and this is easily one of the best. The law says that you have to tap your feet and click your fingers to this, right?
10. Into My Arms – Nick Cave – As love songs go this might be quite strange but it is undoubtedly beautiful too. This was also the first dance at my wedding to my wonderful wife Catwoman a.k.a Catherine.
The sixteenth album from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds was released on 9th September 2016. One thing that you can say about Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds is that they are never dull or boring, the new album ‘Skeleton Tree’ proves that point. There is much despair, anguish and torment in most of the records eight tracks. All the lyrics on the album are written by Nick Cave and as usual the music was composed in tandem between Cave and Warren Ellis. While none of these lyrics are written in the first person I wonder how much of the lyrical content is drawn from the tragic accident that saw his 15-year-old son die last year. According to most reports though some of these songs may have been recorded before the death of his son.
The production from Nick Cave and Warren Ellis is clean and fresh and the music is sparse and at times desolate giving a marvellous platform for Nick’s complex lyrics which sometimes step from the depths of complexity to become clear and simple. Opening track “Jesus Alone” hits you like a sonic assault on all of your senses. Cave transcends the rock star mould, he is a true artist. As with many of his songs God gets a few mentions; there is a line in “Jesus Alone” which hits hard and calls out on people to question religion, well in my opinion it does; ‘You believe in God, but you get no special dispensation for this belief now’.
“Girl In Amber” is one of the most haunting songs of loss that I have heard in many years, I was moved immensely by it. The opening line, ‘Some go and some stay behind’, drags you in to a desperately sad combination of music and lyrics. If this track fails to move you then I suspect that you weren’t listening or you have an ice-cold heart. For me “Anthrocene” contains some of the finest lyrics Nick Cave has ever written. In someone else’s hands this song would come across as a depressing dirge, but backed by the immaculate Bad Seeds Nick Cave turns it into a beautifully crafted song that tears at every one of your emotions. “Anthrocene” will work as a standalone poem too. The word itself is, I think, derived from the Greek for what might be translated as new man.
The most soulful vocal on the whole album, and the vocals are excellent throughout, is provided on “I Need You”. This is another emotionally wrenching ballad where the lyrics seem almost conjoined with the music. How can you fail to be moved by the simple starkness and darkness of the line “Nothing really matters, nothing really matters when the one you love is gone”? Danish soprano Else Torp provides a haunting vocal on “Distant Sky”. The album’s title track and closing song “Skeleton Tree” feels more hopeful than anything else here. With its closing repeated line “and it’s alright now” left me in a relatively uplifted mood.
This album is among the most beautiful that I have ever heard. It is one that you should take the time to sit and listen to with no distractions. In my opinion it is a big contender for album of the year and I can see it topping many end of year polls. If you love Nick Cave then you will clearly take this album into your soul. If you are new to Nick Cave or haven’t listened to him and the Bad Seeds much then this isn’t a bad place to start becoming more acquainted with him.
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 