There is definitely something about this time of year that makes you want to compile best-of’s or reminisce on the good things from the previous year…maybe it’s the whiff of abstinence about january….all that not eating/drinking/spending money and instead spending lots of time with yourself….that or the fact that I love lists.When it comes to “best of’s” there’s nothing to beat a top 5 (blame suzy for that) so here goes…some of my top 5′s from ’07. Here’s hoping ’08 is as fun…..

Top 5 albums
In no particular order save for number 1 which is the out and out winner…even the most cursory glance at my last.fm stats reveals some 500+ listens all from one album and all since october. Scary? Perhaps, yes.

  1. In Rainbows–Radiohead
  2. Shepards Dog – Iron & Wine
  3. Reminder – Feist
  4. Ma Fleur – Cinematic Orchestra (responsible for a Lamb revisitation for me too)
  5. Untrue – Burial

Honorable mention goes to Dosh for his ep Triple Rock.

Top 5 gigs
disclaimer- EP is, as always, top of the list… but the star dropped a little this year I must admit. Nevertheless I could just about do a top 5 from EP alone so it’s getting just one shot at the shortlist…in the interest of all the others

  1. Electric Picnic, with special mention to Donal Dineen’s Body & Soul set, Nouvelle Vague and !!!. Legendary.
  2. Feist @ Tripod
  3. Month of Sundays…I’m allowed to pick gigs I worked on right?? So all of it wins…but there were some special moments in cork and kerry that totally kicked it.
  4. Andrew Bird and Dosh @Tripod
  5. Pirate sounds at Spiegal Tent.  Honorable mentions have to go to the wizard that is Dan Deacon and the stunning Cat Power @ Tripod….though you gotta learn to turn up your mic girl…she let the band get a bit carried away on the sound front…more guitar anyone?

Top 5 culture things

  1. Mark O’Rowe’s Terminus at the Peacock. Totally modern, relentlessly thrilling, unwaiveringly brilliant and brilliantly funny. Best language, best writing, best acting. If you can see this play and say you don’t like theatre I cannot talk to you.
  2. Thomas Demand’s L’esprit D’escalier @ IMMA. Went to see another show entirely (Alex Katz I think) to which he was somewhat playing second fiddle…well Demand stole the show. A series of showstopping, super real, glossy light filled prints. Giant room sized ones. Which look like photos of things but are actually photos of paper sculptural replicas of things. The forest was easily the best. Outstanding.
  3. Eugene O’Neill’s A Long Days Journey into Night by Druid for Dublin Theatre Festival @ the Gaiety.Yes this was extrememly long (some 4hours plus) and yes it had the potential to be very cliched (american irish family torn apart by drink, pride and poor relationships between father and sons, not to mention a loony mum) but it was terrific. Maybe 10mins too long in the final act but that’s some doing for over 4hours.
  4. Monet’s lillies (Les Nymphéas) @ L’Orangerie in Paris. So there is a purpose built gallery in what was essentially the king’s greenhouse, in the Palais de Louvre in Paris. It was purpose built under Monet’s guidance to house his giant lillies paintings in an oval gallery. Simple, beautiful, peacful, evocative. I wished very much that there were no other people there and only me.
  5. Warhol & The Factory- The Eternal Now @ the Model. Yes, work strikes again, but I did make it number 5. This was a total eye opener for me, i didn’t give warhol nearly enough credit. I could literally watch his screentests for hours. mesmerising stuff and boringly he is the originator of so so much that we just credit elsewhere.