Nothing betrays advancing age like the sudden onset of end-of-the-decade surveys peppering the music-savvy corners of the media over the last few months, especially when Uncut cheekily published their round-up of ten years of tunes in early October. At the behest of a friend, I compiled my top 50 of the decade, making it somewhat easier on myself by restricting artists to a single album apiece. (I don’t know what I would’ve done had The Blue Nile released two albums during the decade.) The order is alphabetical by artist, although there are surely no prizes for guessing which album I…

And so can you, too. Admittedly, the process outlined below is fairly labour-intensive, but hey, you play vinyl, doncha? None of us are here for the convenience! (And apologies in advance if this is all old news around here.)

last.fm can't tell the difference between me scrobbling all 60 minutes of The Necks' "Drive By" and me scrobbling 40 seconds of silence that I've tagged as The Necks' "Drive By".

Now, with this knowledge comes great responsibility. Yes, this is exactly how some people apply a little rocket power to their profile to make…

Another new song! That fifth album can't be more than a few years away at this rate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rLnn_fNCJQ

The Blue Nile will be playing a one-off concert at Manchester's Bridgewater Hall as part of the city's International Festival. More info here.

Yes, a Blue Nile tour, not a Paul Buchanan tour. Details here.

Way more informative than the irregularly updated Blue Nile website, revel in a cornucopia of Paul Buchanan-related stuff and things here.

Saying not very much, albeit very eloquently, observe The Blue Nile frontman Paul Buchanan skillfully dodging the question of whether the band still exist and expressing his admiration for The Arcade Fire here.

And yet here he's practically cutting chunks off his soul in an astonishingly revealing interview.

Blatantly cut and pasted from the Time Out website:

Paul Buchanan was born on April 16 1956 in Edinburgh. He is the singer and songwriter in The Blue Nile, formed with Robert Bell and PJ Moore in Glasgow in 1981. In 25 years they have released four albums of minimalist melancholia, attracting numerous critical superlatives. The band is currently on hold, but Buchanan returned to live performance for the first time in a decade earlier this year.

I like his real name: Maurice Micklewhite. That’s a good start. And I like his attitude to working: ‘First of all I…

It's only taken the best part of two years, but over at the Blue Nile website it's now possible to subscribe to a forthcoming Blue Nile newsletter! Would it be rash to presume that would mean there's going to be some forthcoming Blue Nile news?

So, the new(ish) Black Heart Procession album "The Spell" arrived round my way on vinyl, and from out of the sleeve fluttered one of those delightful go to this website/enter this code/revel in free MP3 download coupons. And, even better than that, T&G have trumped Matador and Merge by offering their downloads at closer-to-vinyl-quality 256 kbps! Happy happy joy joy.