Tim Blanchard (Author) – A Year in Music – 2025

How has your year been?

A year of change with our oldest son going off to uni. Dropping him off at his halls of residence brought back lots of memories. Like the echo of the slamming fire doors and the flyers for Toga Tuesdays and all the local bands. At my down-at-heel uni we only used to get one band that played in the bar every other Saturday night, they’d wear shades and do Blues Brothers covers. For the summer ball nights was Doctor & the Medics and the Ozric Tentacles. For his Fresher’s Week, there was a ‘meet and greet’ with Tommy from Love Island, some big name DJs and an EMO night (so maybe it wasn’t so bad for me after all).

What albums have you enjoyed most this year?

John Douglas’s solo acoustic LP

The Apartments – That’s What the Music is For

The Lilac Time – Dance Till All the Stars Come Down

Simple Minds – Celebration

Colin Steele Quartet – The Blue Nile

What’s the most promising new act you’ve heard this year?

Annahstasia Enuke

Can you recommend an album that doesn’t get the recognition it deserves?

Not a cool choice, but one of those that got lost in the late 80s with all the noise around dance and the baggy indie bands: Tears for Fears’ The Seeds of Love. Had it on vinyl back then, but didn’t think that much of it, I was more into Happy Mondays, etc. by then. Got a CD copy for two quid this year and while it’s got noodly songs and kitchen sink production, it’s great stuff. The kind of grand, atmospheric pop album that’s too old-fashioned to get made anymore.

Have you anything interesting in the works yourself?

A very bookish book, Hopeless: the problem with men and love in the 20th century, a bit of cultural history which looks at how men started to struggle with the rise of the idea of ‘romantic love’, using 10 novels as the evidence (things like The Great Gatsby, The Long Goodbye, Le Grand Meaulnes, Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky, Lolita, Lanark etc).