E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

Eyewear has made it through another year.  Phew.  So far surviving epidemics, coalitions, sequels, anthologies, social networks, and all manner of stuff, there is much more to be done.  But not yet, not now - today and tomorrow call for sober and less-than-sober reflection, celebration and consolidation - for the time that has been, and the times still to come.  May you all find some good and joy in 2011, and have a great New Year's Eve.

I have been reading Seamus Heaney for at least 30 years - since I was 14, and my aunt Bev gave me a book of his.  He started publishing the year I was born, 1966.  For 44 years, he has been a major figure, and since his Nobel win, in 1995, a pre-eminent one.  Indeed, since North in 1975, he has been a dominant poet.  Traditional poet, of course.  I am not here to discuss his entire output, or unquestionable import.  As Helen Vendler , and then a thousand others, have said, he is the lyric poet of our moment.  He is not the poet of the disturbed lyric, he is not experimental.  But he is in the line from Frost on down to us. Of course, these ours and uses are themselves debatable.  There is no one or two poetic audiences anymore, no poetry receiving line.  The king stands alone, and what courtiers come, come on their own, in their own time.  Heaney's 12th collection has arrived at my door this Saturday from Amazon.  Nothing...

June is seeing Eyewear celebrate good things that come in 5s.  So - the best indie/ pop / dance albums of 2010? It's been a very impressive year.  Notable new albums from many have appeared, including many of the critics darlings, like: Yeasayer, Vampire Weekend, The National, The Black Keys, The Drums, The Dead Weather, The Avett Brothers, Teenage Fanclub, Stornoway, Plan B, Paul Weller, MGMT, Massive Attack, Laura Marling, Kos, Kelis, Keane, Kate Nash, Hot Chip, Hole, Gorillaz, Goldfrapp, Gil Scott-Heron, Foals, Four Tet, Delphic, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Broken Social Scene, Broken Bells, Black Francis, Beach House  and Band of Horses - to name 33.  My pick will of course be personal - and can only be guided by the albums I have returned to, again and again. I think the best, so far, are, in no order: Paul Weller, Wake Up The Nation ; Broken Bells, eponymous; Beach House, Teen Dream ; The Soft Pack; eponymous; Massive Attack, Heligoland My top ten woul...