Greatest Albums of the Noughties

Here is a list of my opinion of the top 8 albums of the 00's
You may notice the large difference  in genres but hopefully you will agree with some of the albums I voted as my favourite.

8. Kano - London Town 

As a personal favourite of mine I have to include this album in my list :P This is a grime album which I feel captures the darker, underground world of the UK. Even if you feel you are not normally one to listen to this kind of music, this album really could suit all music enthusiasts. Kano is a very good lyricist and has a flow that you can enjoy listening too, aswell as doing his own twist on the famous 'Fightin' the nation' with interesting consequences. Even my 45 year old Dad now listens :D

 7. My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade

 Not normally a band that I would listen too, but due to my little brother buying the album I though I may aswell give it a try. I absolutely fell in love with the whole feel of the album, it is a dark album that really captures your soul with every song. Sometimes depressing but can definately contact different emotions that you would not normally expect from a rock/emo album. If you're feeling like you want to let everything out, this is the album you need!




6. Only By The Night - Kings Of Leon

The Kings Of Leon were always a fringe rock band that weren't always well known within the popular music scene, however with the release of this album they caught the eyes (and ears) of everyone. With songs such as 'Sex on Fire' it was hard for anyone to say that the KOL had hit the nail on the head with this album, reaching global heights that I'm sure even they couldn't imagine. The album really helped KOL move forward and become one of the most well known bands in the world.



 5. Invaders Must Die - The Prodigy

A band I have actually had the privilage of being at the front of a 60,000 strong crowd gig! This amazing album completely blows your mind and has the perfect tracklist to pump yourself up! They are a drum and bass band that I'm sure you will have heard of, or at least will recognise some of their songs instantly (no matter how old you may be ;P). The most recognised songs on the album are 'Invaders must die' - 'Omen' - and 'Warriors Dance'.

4. Hybrid Theory - Linkin Park

Linkin Park burst onto the scene with this amazing album of Rap-Metal. The combination of Mike Shinoda with his epic rapping skills and the raw metal talent within the band was relatively new to everybody and it worked a treat. A personal favourite of mine to blast through the headphones whilst walking down the street, with a number of different songs that can also calm down and let you listen to lyrics, and others that can make you want to jump up and down like a madman!

3. Kanye West - Graduation

American Hip-Hop music artist Kanye West's third album graduation reached #1 in the UK charts and sprung life into the music world. Unsurprisingly this album contained many tracks that would be used as mobile ring tones, be played in all of the clubs and therefore setting the standard for hip-hop artists around the world! It consisted of big hits like 'Good Life ft T-Pain' and the universally known 'Stronger'.

2. Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not - Arctic Monkeys

The 'Artic Monkeys' burst onto the scene with an instant classic, the single 'I bet that you look good on the dancefloor'. It had both parents and children alike dancing and singing without a care in the world, storming the UK album charts to #1. The album as a whole had a number of brilliant songs such as 'Mardy Bum' - 'When the sun goes down' - and a personal less well known favourite 'A certain romance'.

1. Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants - Oasis

The reputation of this band was not built just down to a few good tracks; as proven by this album Oasis show just how gifted they are with a brilliant number of rock anthems. Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants really did show the world how good Oasis were and how big they were going to be, the album consists of many beautiful tracks but my personal favourite would be 'Gas Panic' as my greatest rock song ever. Other great songs on the album consist of 'Go Let It Out' and 'F**king in the bushes'.

Book Review : 'She Stood There Laughing' - Stephen Foster

 This is a review taken from the website Ciao in which I wrote quite a while ago and just thought I would post it here. The book is written by a man called Stephen Foster who also was an avid stoke fan, however he passed away recently this year and I just thought I would post it on here again.
R.I.P

A book about the love of football between a man, his son and THEIR football club, written by Stephen Forster. I first read this book as a young boy, given to me by my Dad as we are both Stoke fans, It was a very entertaining read back than but after re-reading it recently I realised just how good this book is! The main plot of the book is about Stephen himself and the repercussions of following such a lowly second division team like Stoke City FC, paying sometimes hundreds of pounds to visit dingy parts of the country on foul rainy days to watch your team lose 5-0 to second off bottom in the league (you're team is bottom of course).
Hilarious throughout, as a football fan of any team you can really appreciate the thoughts and feelings that Stephens shares with us. I'm sure anyone who enjoys sports of any kind would enjoy the different views, ups and downs that are portrayed in the book. It tells of past trips he has had to endure, some that would make you want to cry with laughter - at the authors expense for following such as rubbish club! And others that will remind you of just how good it is to go and support you're team, no matter how good or bad the day goes.
Stephen Foster talks alot about his son, who he takes to as many games as he can. Both of them (at the time of writing) lived in Norwich, which is a good while away from Stoke making home games very hard for them to follow; but worse than that, his son has to go to school with the local Norwich fans (and man ure fans of course). The book also opened my eyes to not only how much I miss going to the Stoke matches (or any football matches for that matter) but gives me a close insight to how my father would feel when taking me to games. Throughout the book Stephen expresses his dismay in making his son follow the dark, lonely and sad path that is supporting Stoke City, however he states how it would not be the same without having someone to moan, grumble and discuss the matches with. I was the son that my father would turn to, to talk about Stoke with - someone to go through the pain with him!
Although it sounds as though both me and Stephen are making it seem like nobody would ever want to support this club, it is merely an overexageration that I'm sure football fans worldwide would be able to relate to. Overall the book is very interesting to read, including views from another fans point of view; gives information about the club Stoke City and is generally funny with dry humour throughout. I would definately suggest purchasing the book no matter what football club you support.
  

Album Review: Kano - Method to the Maadness

Kane Brett Robinson, better known as Kano realeased his fourth studio album 'Method to the Maadness' on the 30th of August 2010. Despite playing a massive part in bringing the UK grime scene forward, Kano has never really made it commercially and is not as well known as other grime artists such as Chipmunk, Dizzee Rascal and Tinchy Stryder; in order to change this it seems with the release of this album, Kano has evolved his music style with more of a dubstep/D&B style, whilst still maintaining his lyrical genius and amazing flow. The album includes songs produced by Chase & Status and features including Wiley, Damon Albarn, Ghetts and Vybz Kartel.

As of yet there has been three single releases from the album, one of which 'Spaceship' is produced by Chase & Status. You can really tell what Chase & Status have done in terms of the track, moving with the times and generating a dubstep feel; implementing this with Kano's talent makes 'Spaceship' my personal favourite of the album. Some people say that Kano is getting weaker lyrically recently, but this track alone proves that he is infact getting better with age. I would also say that this is the track that will appeal to most listeners as the best on the album, simply because of the well known producers and of the catchy chorus. The video features Kano sporting some extravagent yet stylish clothes in typical Kano fashion and reflects the song brilliantly - however could be seen as repetitive and boring by some and would appear to be have been created with a low budget. 'Get Wild' is the first single to have been released from the album and quite frankly is different from the rest of the album, it reminds me more of Kano's older tunes such as 'Buss it up - ft Vybz Kartel' which still shows that KA hasn't sold out his old ways for the commercial lifestyle. A feature on the track is Wiley, despite me being a big fan of Wiley I feel he is is simply blown away by the immense lyrical flow of Kano; the track on the whole is not one that would appeal to your typical listener as it does not just consist of a catchy chorus, but one that you can really appreciate the skill of the writer and the time/effort that has been put into it.

Other than these two tracks I don't really go back and listen to the other songs on the album, this may just be because I'm used to a bit more variation in Kano's albums such as 'London Town' whereas most of the songs on MTTM are similar to each other. Kano Performed his other single 'Upside' on the TV show Big Brothers Big Mouth and despite me trying (and I really did!) to like it, playing it over and over in my car - I just thought that it was not up to standard at all and not really worth the effort. I also have to include the fact that when I was encouraging my friends to listen to and enjoy the album, that one of them referred to it as like 'Ross's Noise' off the sitcom 'Friends' if you are familiar with it (the keyboard noises). On a whole I think the album is a success in Kano's career with helping him progress to greater heights and becoming more well known on the music scene. If I had the choice to get my money back for the album, I beleive I would still keep the album and that if you are wondering whether to purchase this; give it a try, its something different to what you would normally expect as it is, I believe is a result of Kano attempting to increase his target audience. I do however think that their will be another - better album not far away for Kano.

Carp Fishing for Beginners

I'll be making a series on youtube which will be for people wanting to begin carp fishing. I've done this because there doesnt seem to be many tutorials out there (useful ones) and I think that I can help people with different methods of carp fishing, all different tackle and equipment you will need and also small tips and tricks that I have picked up over the years (:

First video is here:

Not sure whether it will appeal to too many people but it is a start.


Oh and any subscribes/likes/comments would be greatly appreciated and returned

Liverpool 0 - 1 Stoke City

Although this blog was not supposed to JUST be all about Stoke, I just felt after todays result against one of the most historic and biggest teams in the world that I needed to highlight just how well stoke have progressed within the last 10 years or so.
It was November 29th 2000 on a cold winter night where little old Stoke would play hosts to the giants that were then Liverpool FC; it was only a league cup match which was not high in our priority list at the time but nevertheless it was a good opportunity for us fans to get a glimpse at the stars of the premiership. I remember seeing my stars line up and stand side by side to their stars coming through the tunnel and thinking to myself that tonight could well be one of the greatest matches I could see, hoping that my team could cause an upset and make the papers for all the right reasons.
It started off well, within the first few minutes Peter Thorne, our striker of the season (for some the decade) was through on goal 1v1 with the keeper. He managed to worm his way past the keeper and was now on the edge of the box with nothing but the away end and an open goal glaring at him, he struck the ball and in what seemed to take a lifetime, the ball bounced harmlessly off the post and back into liverpool possession as Thorney was on his arse in his typical fashion (watch his best goals for stoke video, he always ends up on the floor!). Now this is where it all started to go wrong.. from this point onwards I would sit through 90 minutes of watching my team get absolutely dominated in the hands of the scousers, the final score was 8-0 to liverpool, although the scoreboard managed to mess up and lost count displaying a 9-1 scoreline, if only we were as lucky to score a goal though hah.


Will finish, foods ready!

Stoke City F.C

Ever since I can remember, I have always been to Stoke games with my dad and more recently with my friends, however I'm going to assume that most people don't even know what or who Stoke City are. Well they are a football (soccer) team from the city of Stoke-On-Trent, Staffordshire - England and up until recently (and roughly 30 years ago or so I'm told), we haven't had much luck in the football leagues and have always ended up as a mid table lower league team. I had got used to this and with that I got used to watching my team lose at shitty football grounds around the country and even at home games we would lose to teams such as "who the fuck are reading?" (quote from one of my favourite books of all time 'She stood there laughing' - Stephen Foster). However we are now in the dizzy heights of the English Premier League playing against teams such as Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea; it's a lot harder for me to attend as many matches as I used to when I was younger as of course my dad used to fork out for my tickets, also I didn't have to worry about keeping a part time job at the weekend (Not to mention the increased attendances to stoke home games due to promotion).
Recently Stoke have secured the signings of England centre backs Jonathon Woodgate and Matthew Upson and England centre forward Peter Crouch (for £10m!!!) which to me is completely flabbergasting, as it still seems to me asthough we should be making mediocre signings such as Kyle Lightbourne, Chris Greenacre and the rest of those useless bunch that we all used to love*. But nevertheless I'm still amazed at how well our club has done over the past 5 years or so although I do admit to missing the good old days of doom and gloom, because to me that was all part of what being a Stoke fan was about, it wasn't about us making brilliant signings and beating one of the giants of the premiership once a season. It was which fuckup would we sign next or how long until our current manager does a runner, it was about being sat in the boothen end on a cold night at the brit blowing a gale whilst watching our team attempt to play football - 'Yeah but could you do it on a cold wednesday night at stoke?'

Now I will have to leave this post as it is for the time being, but I will be sure to update it in the near future. Thanks for reading (:

Oh and we have the best and loudest fans in the country ;) proud to be a potter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoke_City_F.C.
* - Apart from Lightbourne, that was just me.

First Blog

Just a test on how this thing works, hopefully will be blogging with many things such as music I like and have recently found, Info and thoughts on my local football team (Stoke City F.C) and many other things I find interesting (: