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The 2008 Review of the Year is here, available now to download, for your iPod or other music player - or you can just play the MP3's direct off of this page, or also download them.
It's just over one hour long, and is a UK music & news review of the year, broken up into twelve tracks - one for each month - with all the popular tunes of the year alongside newsclips of the major events.
I confess that if you're an American reading this, then I admit you're probably not going to 'get' all the news clips as they pertain to some very British things! But there's enough international news in there as well as loads of fun music to make it worth listening to. If I don't it again next year, maybe it's time to go completely international with the news coverage.
There ARE also CD copies this year - in the last couple of years I had stop making CD's, but now realise they make excellent gifts to give to people, so I've gone and made a whole load to give out to people this year. If you ask me nicely, you can have one.
Merry Christmas
AAC (iPod)
 If
you have iTunes/iPod, it's recommended that you download and save these
AAC (.m4a extension) files which come complete with artwork, track numbers
and other meta data. Import & sync the downloaded files into iTunes,
sync them to your 'pod and away you go ...
January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December
MP3 (Other)
 If
you have any other digital music player, want to hear the files direct
from this site, or want to burn the tracks to CD, use these MP3 links instead
by either downloading or playing direct from this page.
January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December
In case you missed a song or news event and want to know what it is ... here's a month by month breakdown
January
Music: Mika - Relax, take it easy | Kayne West - Homecoming | ADELE - Chasing Pavements | Scouting for girls - Elvis ain't dead | Basshunter - Now you're gone
News: Fire at Royal Marsden Hospital | Heathrow Plane Crash
February
Music: Newton Faulker - Dream catch me | Duffy - Mercy| Feeling - I thought it was over | Sarah Cracknell - The Journey Continues | Hot Chip - Ready for the floor [iBlog entry]
News: Premiership Matches to be played ouside UK | Diana hearing - Fayed speaks out
March
Music: Madonna & Justin - Four minutes | Leona Lewis - Better in time | Estelle - American Boy | Kate Nash - Very Merry Happy | Panic at the Disco - Nine in the afternoon
News: Heathrow Terminal 5 Opens | Missing child Shannon Matthews found | Nasty Weather
April
Music: September - Cry for you | One Republic - Stop and Stare | MGMT - Time to pretend | Black Kids - Not gonna teach your girlfriend how to dance
News: Olympic Torch Protests | Snowing in April
May
Music: Wiley - Wearing my Rolex | Coldplay - Violet Hill | Ting Tings - That's not my name | Pendulum - Propane Nightmares | Fratellis - Mistriss Mabel
News: Boris Johnson - New Mayor of London | Wogan fed up with Eurovision Song Contest | Gordon Brown under pressure | Mars Lander on the red planet
June
Music: Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma | Basshunter - All I ever wanted | Ne Yo - Closer | Busta Rhymes - Together we made it | Alphabeat - 10,000 nights
News: Fuel Strike Protests | Housing Market issues | Bill Gates no longer Microsoft boss | Zimbabe Elections
July
Music: Ironik - Stay with me | Dizzee Rascal - Dance Wiv Me | Kooks - Shine on | MGMT - Electric feel | Jordin Sparks - No air
News: Stabbings rampant | Knife crime on the up | Radovan Karadzic captured | Dr. Who finale | Best Wimbledon Singles Final ever?
August
Music: Coldplay - Viva la Vida | The Script - The man who can't be moved | Little Jackie - The world should revolve around me | Rihanna - Disturbia
News: Olympic Games - GB's best ever haul of gold medals | Russia invades Georgia | Barry George released
September
Music: MIA - Paper Planes | Keane - Spiralling | Streets - Everything is borrowed | Iglu & Hartley - This city | Katie Perry - I kissed a girl
News: CERN big bang machine | Credit Crunch takes a grip on the UK | Banks collapse - Lehman Brothers | The worst financial crisis in history - GDP down
October
Music: Guru Josh Project - Infinity 2008 | Kings of Lyon - Sex on fire | Ting Tings - Be the one | Razorlight - Wire to wire | Geraldine - The winners song
News: Peter Mandelson back in Government | Madonna & Guy splitting up | Britains Got the pop factor and possibl a new celebrity jesus chris superstar sopstar stricktly on ice
November
Music: Bond music | Killers - Human | Snow Patrol - Take back the city | T1 & Rihanna | Sugababes - Girls
News: Obama new US president | Lewis Hamilton wins F1 | Interest Rates cut
December
Music: Oasis - Out of time | Leona Lewis - Run | Take That - Greatest Day
News: Mumbai Shootings | Woolworths to close down
Christmas track : Goldfrapp - Winter Wonderland
Geek note: The CD version this year just under a minute shorter than the downloadable version. The maximum capacity of an Audio CD is 79 minutes and 59 seconds, but the combined length of the downloaded segments came in at 32 seconds over (80 minutes and 31 seconds). So I went back to the original files and edited down some of the music, so that the CD total now comes to 79 minutes and 41 seconds. You'd probably never spot the difference.
Previous years (MP3 format only)
I've also always had people ask me "Can
I have a copy of the previous years ones you've done please?",
and it's always been a tiresome task burning them a CD and posting it
for them. But I now have lots of
space on my web hosting where I can upload (permamently) the previous years for
you to listen to as well.
So it goes back to the year 2000, meaning that
you can remenisce about what you were doing seven years ago as well! The
links are also down below ...
2007
Still in the USA. Still no CD. And still therefore just download only. This was also the first year that I officially 'dropped' the concept of people voting on their favourite tunes of the year, and it became just a pure news & music review of the last twelve months.
January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December
Christmas track : Coldplay - 2,000 Miles
2006
I moved to the USA halfway through 2006, so the production on this was slightly weird as I tried to do a UK based news & music review whilst totally based in the USA. Although I think I did produce the first two months whilst in England, and the last ten whilst in America. Because of this though, there was absolutely no CD's send out to anyone - it was just on pure download from this site.
I tried added in more music than ever on these whilst keeping the clips down to just six or seven minutes still. Typically I would have 4 or 5 'main' songs per month and then squeeze a few seconds of 'quick hits' at the end of each monthly track.
January
| February | March
| April | May
| June | July
| August | September
| October | November
| December
Christmas track : Murray Gold - Song for Ten
2005
I'd considered making 2005 the first year that I wasn't going to put this on CD, but then I had so much fun designing artwork for a potential CD sleeve that it seemed rude not to. There are standard music/newsclips again with each month being about 5 minutes long - except for July, which had a special extended newclips of the tube bombings. I really felt like I put a lot of effort into it this year, and it's one of my favourites to listen back to.
January
| February | March
| April | May
| June | July
| August | September
| October | November
| December | Ending
Christmas track : Small World Incident - Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas
2004
I confess that 2004 may have been the year that I made the least effort to produce one of these things! It's been the only time (so far) that I haven't had it done in time for Christmas - instead, this wasn't 'released' until right at the beginning of January 2004, and this there was was no Christmas-themed-ending tune at the end. I still asked people to vote for their favourite tunes - even though in the main I only put on four songs a month - it's fair to say that I knocked this one out in a hurry, and it's not one of the best.
January
| February | March
| April | May
| June | July
| August | September
| October | November
| December | Ending
Incidental music : Chiacane - Overlap
2003
I'd liked having the inclusion of news clips in the previous year, but it had gone on too long - so I made it a bit more super-slick this year, edited everything down nicely and went back to having 6 to 7 minute long audio segments for each month that included music, news and me talking.
January
| February | March
| April | May
| June | July
| August | September
| October | November
| December | Ending
Christmas track : Badly Drawn Boy- Donna and Blitzen
2002
July of 2002 starts with me saying "Hello, and welcome to CD number 2", because this was the year that I first introduced newsclips as well as me talking ... and the whole thing went on a bit to the point where I decided that it need to go onto two CD's. Each month is about 8 to 10 minutes in length.
January | February | March* | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December | Ending
Christmas track : Low - Just like Christmas
* I don't what I did with March 2002! I can't
find it ...
2001
Another year, and another CD - Again just simple music clips with Geoff talking inbetween. I do remember though that I gave out the CD's in DVD boxes for some reason, with lots of 'innard' notes to pad out the package a bit. The production sounds slightly more polished than the previous year.
January
| February | March
| April | May
| June | July
| August | September
| October | November
| December
Incidental music : Lemonjelly - His Majesty King Raam
2000
2000 was the first year that I ever made a 'Review' available on CD. In the couple of previous years to this, I'd been asking people to vote for their favourite five records of the year, and I'd compile a chart out of them ... only people could never remember what songs had been around during the year! Which is what prompted me to make a 'Review' CD for the very first time.
The format was very simple - 5 or 6 songs per month, with me talking inbetween every single one. I used a cheap microphone and I listen back this now and don't like the fact that it's not as slick as more recent ones.
Incidental music : Bently Rythm Ace - Bentley's Gonna Sort You Out
January
| February | March
| April | May
| June | July
| August | September
| October | November
| December
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