2024 was a great year. Real Gone celebrated its fifteenth anniversary. It was the website’s most successful year to date. We picked up a lot of new supporters and covered a wealth of new music. Our detailed reviews continued to be popular with the readers, and our Singles Bar really caught the attention of those looking for a quicker fix of new music.
Tag Archives: my life story
The Real Gone End of Year Round-Up 2024
It’s been another great year at Real Gone. We’ve reviewed countless albums and EPs. We’ve covered a record number of gigs (with Simple Minds and Deacon Blue being particular standouts), and gained support from a wealth of new labels and PR teams. It’s also been the first full year online for our popular Singles Bar – allowing us to take a look at various individual tracks and submissions – which has provided a massive extra stream of traffic.
It’s been a superb twelve months for music, and it’s time to shine a light on the many talents we feel have helped to make our site interesting. We’ve featured a wealth of new stuff. As usual, rock has provided the backbone of Real Gone’s musical interests, but we’ve really gone all out to try and promote some of the most interesting things from other genres, which has made picking favourites a little harder this year.
MY LIFE STORY – Loving You Is Killing Me
My Life Story’s first new studio album in nineteen years, 2019’s ‘World Citizen’, was a great comeback. Although the orchestral elements may not have seemed as prominent as those that drove the band’s earlier work, the album’s best material still demonstrated how Jake Shillingford’s distinctive indie pop still possessed a pleasingly grand heart. With orchestral arrangements recorded remotely in Hungary whilst the “rock band” contingent of MLS worked in the UK, the results could’ve sounded disjointed, but its to the band and producer’s credit that everything came together flawlessly. On reflection, a few of the more obvious vocal filters made some of the material feel a little shiny, but, as a complete work, it held up well over repeated listens following its release, proving that the fans and critics’ early enthusiasm for the album was certainly not without merit. The live shows surrounding the record continued the My Life Story tradition of giving audiences an indelible experience – even without a full orchestra in tow – and then, having gained even more traction, any future plans were cut short by the 2020 global pandemic.
Real Gone’s picks for Record Store Day 2020
Love it or hate it, Record Store Day has become an important fixture on the music-related calendar. From humble beginnings with a few bits and bobs to entice people into independent record shops, it’s now become a huge business tool, giving major labels an excuse to reissue all kinds of stuff. While it now seems more about a money making venture than to highlight small business, there’s still some cool stuff to be found. Never more so than for the 2020 event, where there are a truckload of artificially created rarities that look like lovely items for the keener fan.
Watch: My Life Story – Broken
Recording a new album after almost twenty years could’ve been a daunting prospect, but for Jake Shillingford, it seemed to be a very natural thing. My Life Story’s big comeback ‘World Citizen’ has gained rave reviews from most of the people who’ve heard it.