An occasional feature between now and mid-December, hopefully giving you time to put some records on your list to Santa. It’s not a rundown by any stretch of the imagination, but simply a chance for me to mention a few albums that have brought me immense pleasure thanks to them being released in 2024.
This Could Be Texas – English Teacher
This is the one on the list where ‘immense pleasure’ may be a breach of the Trades Description Act.
It’s an album I bought on a whim, based on a few things I’d read across blogs and within the on-line pages of a few mainstream publications. There was also the fact that I had a lot of time for one of their songs previously included in the best of No Badger Required back in 2022 plus one of their singles from 2023 was something of a favourite:-
But the first listen of the full album left me a bit bemused. It was much the same with the next two or three listens over the following days as I tried to work out if I’d bought a dud or not. The constant shift between genres, combined with there seeming to be a lot of noodling from the musicians, was messing around with my head. It wasn’t an easy or comfortable listen, with ‘Paving Slab’ being very much the most commercial of their songs. There was one other track that I took an instant liking to, one that was a re-recording of an early single from back in 2021:-
mp3; English Teacher – R&B
I then gave it a listen as I was travelling on a train to the football. Maybe it was the fact I had no other distractions, or maybe it just sounded better coming through the headphones, but I had a bit of a light-bulb moment and a lot of what English Teacher were about now made sense.
The album has been greeted with near universal acclaim, and indeed won the 2024 Mercury Music Prize here in the UK. I’ve become more appreciative of it over the past six months, and in particular its closing song:-
A ballad in which singer Lilly Fontaine, unflinchingly but movingly, recalls how difficult it had been to deal with growing up as a mixed-race child in a tight-knit, small working-class town. It’s one of THE songs of 2024, and that, dear readers, is very much why This Could Be Texas makes the end-of-year list.
Incidentally, myself and Aldo are off to see English Teacher tonight. The gig has already been moved from the quite wonderful St Luke’s (a converted church close to the Barrowlands) to the rather more mundane surroundings of the Queen Margaret Union building at Glasgow University. It’ll be interesting to see how the quieter and more intense songs are received.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
A superb album by an incredible band I featured a few month ago. Glad you like them as well. Enjoy your gig tonight.
It is definitely a grower but once you get there, you really get there. Probably my album of the year and I just have to choose which tune makes my end of year blog!
Gig tonight sold out before I twigged they were playing so would welcome a wee review on here!
I’ve tried – really tried – but the lightbulb has still not flickered. Yes, there are some really good songs on there, but it still comes across as unfocussed. They remind me of Wolf Alice in that they are clearly capable of so much, but want to put all their eggs into one basket. To me, English Teacher don’t have ‘a sound’. They sound like too many things all at once.
I actually played the album again last night. Half of it is a brilliant EP. The rest of it is a mish-mash of varying quality and styles, most of which is b-side material at best.
Not that anyone cares what I think – they’re doing pretty well in spite of it! Good luck to them.
I’ll be interested to see what you think of the live show. The album is superb but I found the live show to be a bit rushed and lost some of it’s subtleties.
Over the last few years I’ve enjoyed some of English Teacher’s songs, particularly “R&B” and “Song about Love” (although the song reminds me of Genesis’ “Land of Confusion”). Strange that English Teacher are now signed to Island. Isn’t it about big money there? [sk]