Floating in Mid-Air

Since my first Eurovision party in 2004, with its memorable Ukrainian winner, I’ve only watched the final every few years. There have been some good songs and performances along the way, but not many from the UK. So when I caught the tail-end of the first semifinal on Tuesday and the rest of it the next day, I was left wondering if this year’s entry was any good. When I heard it, I was stunned to realise that the UK actually had a shot at winning for the first time in twenty years.

Twenty-One

At the end of August I managed a post on my favourite music of the year to date, intending to round it out in December. Before Christmas I was scouring the usual lists of the best albums of 2021 to see what I’d missed, which led me to at least three that would make my own: Arlo Parks’s summery Collapsed in Sunbeams, Halsey’s Reznor-produced If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power, and the Glaswegian techno of Chvrches, who had never quite clicked for me before, with Screen Violence.