My Favourite Albums Of 2011

My favourite movies of 2011

There are lots of acclaimed movies I've yet to see that came out in 2011 so this is just a provisional list of my favourites so far this year.

1. Hugo

2. Super 8

3. The Tree Of Life
4. Midnight In Paris

5. True Grit

6. Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes

7. Biutiful

8. Black Swan

9. The King's Speech

10. Attack The Block

Best gigs of 2011

Looking back at my list of gigs for this year I feel more uncool than ever because so few would ever grace the pages of NME and a good many are actually in their 50s and 60s. Not that I care anymore because I can say without doubt it's an honour to see some of the legends I've had the pleasure of seeing for the first time this year. Plus I got to see a few exciting up-and-comers too, so I'm not completely without hope in the cool stakes! Anyway, here's my annual list of my 10 favourite gigs of the year.

10. Janis Ian at Cadogan Hall and Judy Collins at Leicester Square Theatre

(Sorry, I can't decide between these two!)

9. Emmylou Harris at the Royal Festival Hall

8. Laura Cantrell at Mondo Water Rats

7. Gillian Welch & David Rawlings at Hammersmith Apollo

6. The Twilight Singers at Concrete

5. My Brightest Diamond at St Giles In The Field

4. Jonathan Wilson, Dawes & Jackson Browne at The Borderline

3. Marianne Faithfull at the Barbican

2. Patti Smith at St Giles In The Field

1. Sufjan Stevens at the Royal Festival Hall

Merry Christmas!

Stevie sings Buddy

Stevie singing the Buddy Holly classic It's So Easy introduced by Chris Isaak. She's also on a new Buddy Holly tribute album, called Listen To Me, singing Not Fade Away, but I think this is even better. Interestingly enough, Waddy Wachtel, who is playing guitar with Stevie, also plays on Linda Ronstadt's 1977 version, which I think is still the best cover.

The Afghan Whigs are back...

The good news is one of my favourite ever bands is reuniting and playing a gig in London. The bad news is that I can't make it to the show. I just hope they'll announce a few non-festival dates later in the year because I would love to see them again. In other crappy news, another of my heroes, Lindsey Buckingham, whose solo show I have been waiting years to see, has cancelled his first ever UK solo tour because his guitarist has hurt his back. All in all this has been a pretty depressing December so far.