Well, farewell 2015. You took plenty but gave back little.

In the year that Back to the Future arrived, we did have the sight of be-caped Madonna tumbling offstage, and Morrissey winning the Bad Sex (in literature) prize, plus the news that Peter Gabriel is teaching monkeys to use Skype. However, in return we got Paloma Faith reinventing herself as a political activist (meaning we got three times as much of the chirpy Cockney foghorn given that she has also moved into panto). Add to that enough Adele to tranquilise Ozzy Ozbourne and you can see why many are will be glad to reach Hogmanay unscathed.

You see, 2015, you took so much – so many. Steve Strange, Ben E King, Val Doonican, Percy Sledge, Errol Brown, Jim Diamond, Ornette Coleman, BB King… all gone.

Ok, 2015, you did give us plenty to fill out a column at this fallow time of year. But like Jessie J being chased by a pack of ravenous hounds, we shouldn’t look back and instead meet the New Year head on. It’s a time for making resolutions – like Little Mix, who have committed to getting boyfriends. Unlike One Direction (who are
definitely not getting boyfriends). Instead, Liam is going to give up the fags and Niall similarly is going to improve his health. Maybe inspired by the unexpected demise of Lemmy out of Motorhead, who, it had been widely assumed, could survive a nuclear blast along with Keef and Ozzy. Sadly, he went to join bandmate Philthy Animal Taylor in that tourbus in the sky.

Scott Weiland was another hard-living act whose demise would have been no great shock, but saddest of all may have been Camera Obscura’s keyboardist Carey Lander who passed away at the age of 33.

Those of us maithering aimlessly about music in the papers could resolve to be nicer about musicians. So let’s start with Justin Bieber. A poll showed that 30% of his fans are embarrassed about liking him. However, his reputation can’t have been harmed by his support for his Xmas number 2 campaign, if you see what I mean. You don’t? Ok, he tweeted that fans should buy the single by the NHS Choir. They did, pushing everyone’s (now) favourite cuddly pop rodent into second place. (And not what you were thinking).

So now the charm offensive’s kicked off it’d be good if celebs were to respond in kind. They might consider taking a leaf from Woody Guthrie’s book. In 1943, the folk pioneer and political activist started a list of New Year resolutions with ‘Work more and better’. Admittedly there’s a bit of a lull around #10 – ‘Shine shoes’ – before his moving on to ‘Help win war – beat fascism’. It’s a fairly sound list though #31’s ‘Love everybody’ is possibly contradicted by his closing resolution ‘Wake up and fight’. (And if Sam Smith’s considering following Guthrie’s doctrine maybe he could pick anything but #8: ‘Write a song a day’).

Follow these rules and perhaps we can look forward to a good year’s music.
All that said, I note that 2016 marks Take That’s 25th anniversary. Better stick the De Lorean in reverse, Doc…