Apologies for it having been a manic few weeks and me forgetting to update this blog in the Christmas madness. I have, however, been plugging away at my 50 Songs, 10 Years blog to which I've been getting a fantastic response – thank you for all your emails, messages and tweets of encouragement, as they really mean the world to me. Read more here.
But back to work, and several things I'm actually very proud of. First of all, my huge interview with Aaron Johnson – the teenage Mr Sam Taylor-Wood and John Lennon in her brilliant debut feature-length film, Nowhere Boy – was published in the Times Saturday Review on December 12, after being a bugger to set up (huge thanks to Will from Noble PR for all his hard work!) and being written for the paper in precisely four hours. Lots of revelations from this gorgeous and talented young gentleman here.
The following week, my festive interview with the taciturn Alex Turner and the slightly warmer Matt Helders was published in the NME (read more here), followed by my last end-of-decade piece for, well, another decade, I assume, this time for The Mighty Quietus. It examined the strange phenomenon of the cover version growing as a cultural form in the last ten years, and how nostalgia has worked in our virtual world. Read it here.
And last but not least, I wrote my last music column for The Guardian, in which I picked apart the myth of the Simon Cowell chart monopoly, showed how the X-Factor haters are actually the people most bowled over be the myth of the show, and looked at all the fantastic things actually going on in pop, before saying goodbye. I've written the column for two years, and would like to thank Dan for being there and being lovely, Michael Hann and Alexis Petridis for his kind words and encouragement. As 2010 comes around, I'll be moving away from mainly writing about music to work on a book that's starting to occupy all my time and my thoughts, and begin a fantastic writing project that should be unleashed (fingers crossed) into the world in the next year. Wish me luck, and enjoy my last column – it is a finale that sums up pretty well all the things I believe in. Read it here. And Merry Christmas!
