Hi Fidelity

Yer know that Nick Hornby did that thing about making top tens - what's yours?  Like, top ten best albums of all time, or yer top ten Motown recerds, or top ten bass guitarists or... well. u get the idea.  Ten is actually quite a lot.  You get to three or four, whatever the category and then have to start thinking really hard and that hurts.  The thing is, that top-ten whatevers changes, too.  Depends on your mood and, the main thing, discovering something new and unexpected.  So here's my proposal.  Never mind the top ten, that's too hard.  Let's make it top five. Apart from anything five focuses the mind.  Makes you think about the BEST.  No buts, not ifs, no nearly-rans. Sharing a top five means too that we give those top tips that really mean something.  You'll know they're worth looking into, especially if there's something you haven't heard of.

Here's a choice for the top five albums that I want to listen to right here, right now, Saturday night.  The peculiar thing I realise on thinking this through is how wildly unrelated is my right-now musical taste: Strypes, Little Victories; John Adams (the one who lives in Alaska), Become Ocean; Royal Blood, Royal Blood; Howard Skempton, Lento; Oh, and I won't bore you with the fifth.  Safe it to say it's some 17th-century Baroque stuff.  How pretentious is that.  There you go; I've bared my soul.  There's nothing else.  Just emptiness.