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Top 10 Live Albums
Vinyl Collection, CD Collection, Top 10s, Ephemera, Archive Interviews Paul McDermott Vinyl Collection, CD Collection, Top 10s, Ephemera, Archive Interviews Paul McDermott

Top 10 Live Albums

A Top 10 of live albums prompted by the realisation that I bought Rank by The Smiths 37 years ago this week. Taking in: the reasons why live albums are released, The Fall supporting Talk Talk in 1986, Galaxie 500 and Luna, the 5-piece Smiths, Van Morrison, bootleg live albums, John Cale in Vicar Street, Manu Chao in the Ambassador, 16 Horsepower in Whelan’s and a whole lot more.

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Top 10 Irish Songs*
Top 10s, Vinyl Collection, Archive Interviews Paul McDermott Top 10s, Vinyl Collection, Archive Interviews Paul McDermott

Top 10 Irish Songs*

Top 10 Irish songs taking in: “best of” lists, subjectivity, lost 80s classics, cover versions, The Royal Showband, an orange and cream 1970s Fidelity turntable and keeping music evil. Last week the Irish Independent published a “best of” list titled “The best Irish songs of all time”. Their list was subtitled “ranked: the definitive top 50”. Let’s agree on one thing straight away, “best of” lists are ridiculous, they’re also simultaneously highly entertaining and incredibly frustrating.

*Today

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Top 10 Vinyl Finds of 2023
Vinyl Collection, Top 10s Paul McDermott Vinyl Collection, Top 10s Paul McDermott

Top 10 Vinyl Finds of 2023

A Top 10 of secondhand #VinylFinds I purchased in 2023. These were picked up in a couple of record shops in Dublin and Cork and a record fair. There’s nothing particularly rare or collectible here just a bunch of records I couldn’t leave behind. These were all fairly cheap, most were around €10 with one or two just less than €20.

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Top 10 Irish Albums of 2023
Top 10s, CD Collection, Vinyl Collection Paul McDermott Top 10s, CD Collection, Vinyl Collection Paul McDermott

Top 10 Irish Albums of 2023

It’s been another incredible year for Irish music. Lankum have rightly topped a load of year-end lists with False Lankum. They get my top spot for Irish album of the year. Lisa O’Neill and John Francis Flynn, two other artists currently receiving a lot of justified attention, also make my Top 10. The other seven albums on this list are all worthy of your attention. Songs from all ten of these albums were featured on Songs To Learn And Sing on 103.2 Dublin City FM throughout 2023 and Episode 940 (06 December 2023) features 12 of my favourite songs from these 10 albums.

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My #CassetteTape Top 10
Top 10s, Tapes Paul McDermott Top 10s, Tapes Paul McDermott

My #CassetteTape Top 10

In Issue 15 (Aug-Sept 2023) of The Goo I reviewed High Bias - The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape by Marc Masters (University of North Carolina Press). As I read High Bias I started listening to some old tapes that I’d stored in my attic years ago.

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