I Hate George Michael!/Isle Of Wight

I am utterly pissed at George Michael, the 43 year old's just announced that he'll be the first artist to play the brand new Wembley on June 7th - stealing the honour from Muse(bit of bias there I know), who booked the venue for 16th and 17th June back in December. As a consolation Muse will still technically be the first band to play the new Wembley but its just not the same I guess.

Even if it wasnt Muse robbed I'd still prefer a current, acclaimed band that keeps winning 'best live act' awards at every ceremony under the sun to open Wembley than a has-been thats only recently been on the th news for drug possession. Oh well.

While I'm on the subject it seems Klaxons(quality) will be supporting, and according to Dom in this weeks NME(28th Feb) Wolfmother and Bloc Party(!) might join in too!

Lastly on Muse, I got tickets for the Isle Of Wight Festival in you guessed it - the Isle Of Wight. The festivals going to be headlined by Snow Patrol, and rumour has it The Rolling Stones...but more importantly...Muse - On Matt Bellamy's Birthday!

Anant

My Favourite Music of 2006

With the likes of NME and Gigwise compiling their top album/singles lists, I thought it would be a nice way to pass the time to create my own list of my essential albums that best soundtracked 2006 for me and more...

MY TOP 15 ALBUMS:
1. MUSE - Black Holes And Revelations*
2. YEAH YEAH YEAHS – Show Your Bones
3. THE KOOKS – Inside In/ Inside Out
4. CSS – Cansei De Ser Sexy
5. LARRIKIN LOVE - The Freedom Spark
6. THOM YORKE – The Eraser
7. THE GRATES - Gravity Won’t Get You High
8. ARCTIC MONKEYS – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
9. METRIC – Live It Out
10. MYSTERY JETS – Making Dens
11. KASABIAN - Empire
12. RAZORLIGHT - Razorlight
13. WOLFMOTHER - Wolfmother
14. FLAMING LIPS – At War with The Mystics
15. HOWLING BELLS – Howling Bells

(Featured Album Art)
* = No surprise there

MY FAVOURITE "NEW BAND" OF 2006:
CSS/ THE MACCABEES
After lot of thought I couldn't really decide between these two. Thus I cheated and made it a tie between CSS and The Maccabees. With CSS hailing from Sao Paulo and The Maccabees from some corner of southern England their worlds and music couldn't be further apart, however their rationale for being my favourite new bands to emerge in 2006 are because of both bands' live shows, which are more like parties than gigs to be fair.

(Left: CSS, Right:The Maccabees)

Signing out, Anant!