fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year

Subject: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: GUEST,Johnny Spiv-Pants
Date: 04 Dec 10 - 11:20 AM

And the winner is Hedonism by Bellowhead.
Congratulations to the band - I wholeheartedly concur.

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: GUEST,schlimmerkerl
Date: 04 Dec 10 - 11:47 AM

Sorry (throws lit match on petrol-soaked rags), it's not folk music. Steeleye Span on meth?

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: GUEST,Dick Spotter
Date: 04 Dec 10 - 12:20 PM

' Sorry, it's not folk music. '

DICK!

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: GUEST,Markus
Date: 04 Dec 10 - 01:59 PM

it doesn't say best 'folk' album.
The award is for Best Album of the Year as voted for by more than 300 critics and industry people.
Makes no difference whether you think it's folk or not.

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 04 Dec 10 - 02:39 PM

"Sorry, it's not folk music. '"
Doesn't seem to matter nowadays
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 04 Dec 10 - 03:14 PM

I'm with Markus...who said it had to be folk? (please define....On second thoughts!)
No mention of Folk in the title of the magazine is there?
So, what's the problem?
Lots of people voted, and it gets an award. Jolly good I say.
I don't normally like the winners of the Brits Mercury X Factor...etc, etc...but, I don't bitch about them.
If it's not to my taste, I just ignore them.

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 04 Dec 10 - 03:27 PM

I heard the BBC programme last night where Ian Anderson talked of the awards and played the winners in three categories. One appeared to be an old fashioned punk group and two were amazingly monotonous.
It bears out what I have often thought of Anderson in the past that he doesn't inhabit the same planet as myself and many others that have been listening for many years to the very broad range of music that comes under the folk umbrella. I suggest a new category for his (and three hundred "judges")choice. How about Other World Music.

The programme started out promisingly with a group from the Appalachians in south west Virginia and later in complete contrast played something by a maniac banjo non-player from California who wouldn't even qualify to be a busker.

I had to give up the programme and miss Aly Bain and Bruce Molsky.

Whatever happened to folk music on the BBC.

Hoot

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 04 Dec 10 - 04:41 PM

"No mention of Folk in the title of the magazine is there?"
The mind boggles as to what the F stands for - used to be Folk Roots, didn't it?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: Continuity Jones
Date: 04 Dec 10 - 06:21 PM

Magazine I don't like ran by man I don't like gives award to band I don't like. How bloody dare that happen? I hate the BBC. It's encouraging immigrants, you know, playing all that foreign mumbo-jumbo.

The f in fRoots stands for facecious.

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: GUEST,Gertrude
Date: 04 Dec 10 - 08:57 PM

Not a bad choice, though I'd hoped the Chris Wood album would win and thought that Eliza & Norma would. Good to see 5 British folk albums in the top 10.

Here's the full story.

Here's the Radio 3 programme on the iPlayer

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: Stewie
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 12:11 AM

Good to see that Natalie Merchant's magnificent project is given some recognition. It deserves much better than #11 in the musical stakes, albeit deservedly winning the packaging category.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: autoharpbob
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 11:08 AM

I was pleased to see Emily Portman in the top 10. I think "Devils Interval" was one of the most original sounding groups I have ever heard, and spent a great weekend with Emily, Laura McCormack and Sandra Kerr on a Singing course last year. Yet another product of the Folk degree at Newcastle, which is surely proving its worth by now.

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: GUEST,999
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 11:16 AM

"Sorry, it's not folk music. '"
Doesn't seem to matter nowadays
Jim Carroll



Why should it!

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 11:40 AM

presumably because the f in froots stands for folk music, and because Ian Anderson was /is a performer on the uk folk scene, and because roots music is closely associated with folk music,and in some cases is folk music.

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: GUEST,999
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 11:46 AM

Oh.

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: raymond greenoaken
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 12:31 PM

Dick Miles – the voice of reason! How touching to see it in my lifetime...

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 12:43 PM

Raymond, I do not recall ever meeting you, or even corresponding with you, so I am at a loss to understand your comment, I hope I have not........ your wife.

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 01:06 PM

I have to say that is a delight to see Mssrs Carroll and Miles venting various spleens from the Emerald isle. Isa this a first?
And for once, they seem united against the abomination that is England.
Jolly Good....Well done...
Pleased for you.
If you don't mind, we'll just carry on in our own Imperialistict way.
Lovingly belittling the remnants of our Empire. (Not that the Irish submitted to such ways)

The question I pose is this..
What has a poll in a British/English magazine got to do with you?
You live in a diffrent country, you don't subscribe to the magazine, you have your own agendas. Fine...Off you go...Have a nice life.
And Dick, if it's any consolation, my CD didn't figure either...Hey Ho. Am I bothered? Not particularly.

Now, Why don't you go go back to heated discussions as to whether a D Sharp is the same as a D Flat.
Off now..Getting bored.

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 01:14 PM

Ralphie, your comments are incomprehensible.
I am not venting any spleen against England, or against folk roots, I commented that the f in froots presumably stood for folk music, after all the magazine was known in a previous incarnation as folk roots

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: GUEST,Snotty Jan
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 01:14 PM

No mention of James Fagan & Nancy Kerrs new album 'Twice reflected sun'? By far the best thing I've bought this year. Also like Chris Woods new album,

As we all know these kind of things are as fair as FIFA's world cup nominations. It's not how good you are, it's how much you've paid someone to brown nose the right people in the right places.

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: Folknacious
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 01:57 PM

Interesting lists. The top half dozen are as you might expect, successful releases from higher profile labels/ artists that I would imagine have been widely heard by those who widely listen. However, when you get below that, I find the list quite useful. There are quite a few getting nominated that I've really enjoyed (like Ruth Theodore) but I didn't imagine so many others would have heard given the dreadful state of UK radio. There are also lots that I've read about or picked up a buzz about from others but haven't got around to hearing yet, or simply hadn't heard of at all. This I like, and will follow up in some cases.

Surely that's the point of it being a "Critics Poll" rather than a general public vote which can only reflect CDs which have already sold well or had the radio play or are by artists who do a lot of gigs and have a mailing list they can work? The opening para on the web site says an effort to provide a useful service . . . we asked people who were likely to hear a wider cross section of music than our readers, for their favourite albums of the past year in folk, roots and world music. Well I for one do find this a useful service, especially the real detail when they publish the lists of who voted for what later on. Far better than more promo for the same old same old.

If something isn't included, it may be because not many liked it, or it may be because not many people heard it. We'll never know. From past years lists of who voted and how - considerably more transparent than FIFA (or the Folk Awards) I'dsay - I doubt if much brown nosing is involved.

Knee-jerk bashing of albums you haven't heard because they're written about in a magazine you don't read edited by somebody you don't like is very Mudcat, isn't it?

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 01:59 PM

Hey, two MudCat pet hates - fRoots and Bellowhead - in the one thread!

Truly we are being spoiled, let the outpouring of bile commence!

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: S.T.M.
Date: 06 Dec 10 - 06:17 AM

I think it's a good choice.

Bellowhead take traditional folk songs and interpret them for the modern audience. Intelligent and cool, I think, and certainly folk.

Let there be worms.

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 06 Dec 10 - 07:20 AM

"As we all know these kind of things are as fair as FIFA's world cup nominations. It's not how good you are, it's how much you've paid someone to brown nose the right people in the right places"

this one's "fairer" than most, in that it's voted for by a lot of people. It's not "fair" in the sense that it's not a vote open to anyone. But then again, you already have that - the sales charts - because this is of course an album-based competition. As such, it's an interesting counterpoint to record sales (though they may of course overlap).

I don't like Bellowhead (at all) but I doff my cap to them. To argue whether or not they are folk music seems particularly stupid. You may think they are bad. But they are unquestionably folk music, by any definition.

As it happens, in this instance, that's irrelevant though: although the "f" in fRoots does indeed stand for "folk", the Editor's explanation of the magazine's content criteria on the fRoots website is perfectly lucid in pointing out that it also covers music it considers inspired by, or related to, traditional material.

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 Dec 10 - 10:08 AM

I think Bellowhead are a good band,they are not really my cup of tea, but they are unquestionably good and best of luck to them for winning this award.
I certainly dont think Bellowhead are bad, no performer is bad that can get up and play folk related music and entertain an audience for a couple of hours,and fill concert rooms
neither do I think Froots is a bad magazine, it is in fact well produced, and its editor is very knowledgeable on the subject of blues and also roots music.

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: Vic Smith
Date: 06 Dec 10 - 12:22 PM

For the first time ever, I didn't vote this year, as I was out of the country for virtually all of November and missed the copy date (and a lot of cold weather!)
However, had I voted I would have chosen the albums that came 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 7th= (Alasdair Roberts) with my sixth choice - Tim Eriksen The Soul Of January Hills - being one that came absolutely nowhere - so the absence of my votes would not have slewed the results!

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 06 Dec 10 - 05:29 PM

Hedonism isn't my "favourite" CD of the moment but so what. This is largely because I prefer to see the band live, having done so since their debut in 2004. Besides, it would be a very strange and boring world if everyone liked exactly the same things. The point is that Bellowhead is a mighty phenomenen, reaching into a variety of genres and not seeking to be "pure f*lk" (whatever that is). Each band member is ub demand in a bewildering range of other ensembles, so much so that each has to have a dep when gigs clash (with the obvious exception of frontman Jon Boden). Bellowhead is a brave venture which has proved a resounding success. No wonder Mudcat doesn't like it!

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: Will Fly
Date: 06 Dec 10 - 07:02 PM

Bellowhead is a brave venture which has proved a resounding success. No wonder Mudcat doesn't like it!

A bit of an over-generalisation, with respect. I have all their CDs and play them regularly. The one concert of theirs which I've been able to attend - in Lewes - was superb. The people who reply to threads such as these may not be representative of the Mudcat constituency - whatever that is.

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Dec 10 - 07:14 PM

"Bellowhead take traditional folk songs and interpret them for the modern audience."

Well, yeah, the idea that you have to take folk songs and "interpret" them. Not just sing 'em, mind. Discuss...

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 07 Dec 10 - 02:58 AM

Better than taking folk songs and putting them back again!

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: Vic Smith
Date: 07 Dec 10 - 05:56 AM

Diane wrote:-
"Hedonism isn't my "favourite" CD of the moment but so what. This is largely because I prefer to see the band live

100% correct! Bellowhead do make good albums but these do not capture the raw excitement of their live gigs.

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: Chris B (Born Again Scouser)
Date: 07 Dec 10 - 07:58 AM

Bellowhead my arse. They're doing nothing that GIG CB weren't doing 15 years ago.

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Dec 10 - 09:29 AM

I thought they struggled on the telly last year. Can't remember what that was now. A prom I think.

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: Will Fly
Date: 07 Dec 10 - 10:27 AM

Bellowhead my arse. They're doing nothing that GIG CB weren't doing 15 years ago.

I'd be interested to hear what my musical mate and duo partner Alan Day would think of that statement. GIG CB were a wonderful band - Alan was in it - but I think they're very different from Bellowhead. Granted the instrumentation is as varied in many respects, but the choice of material is quite dissimilar and the style and feel of the arrangements is utterly different. Not many dischords in GIG CBs CDs, for example.

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: GUEST,Henryp
Date: 08 Dec 10 - 08:02 AM

Bellowhead featured in BBC4 Christmas Session - Fire and Ice - which will be repeated on Friday 10 December 2010 at 10.00. It also features The Unthanks, Lisa Knapp and Thea Gilmore.

It's immediately after Still Folk Dancing after All These Years, following the Unthank sisters across England.

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Jan 11 - 03:58 PM

"Hedonism isn't my "favourite" CD of the moment but so what. This is largely because I prefer to see the band live, having done so since their debut in 2004. Besides, it would be a very strange and boring world if everyone liked exactly the same things. The point is that Bellowhead is a mighty phenomenen, reaching into a variety of genres and not seeking to be "pure f*lk" (whatever that is). Each band member is ub demand in a bewildering range of other ensembles, so much so that each has to have a dep when gigs clash (with the obvious exception of frontman Jon Boden). Bellowhead is a brave venture which has proved a resounding success. No wonder Mudcat doesn't like it!"
    I am sure there are members of mudcat who do like it

Subject: RE: fRoots Critics Poll Album of the Year
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 14 Jan 11 - 04:48 PM

"GIG CB were a wonderful band - Alan was in it " - What?
Have they folded?