I AM 2

Wow, two years of Keep Hope Inside. It's been a bit of journey. In fact, to celebrate the winding path I've led over the last two years, I'm having a selection of guest bloggers over the next week or so talk about their favourite British album of the last two years or so. I'll be kicking it off tomorrow. As for the time being, let us reminisce:

June 2007 [Archived Posts]
June was one of many sparse months on this blog, with only Jade McNelis and Ra Ra Riot being featured. RIP John Pike, the late Ra Ra Riot drummer.

July 2007 [Archived Posts]
Quality over quantity once again. But I did manage to sort out podcast #4, which had some quite frankly ace artists on such as 4 Or 5 Magicians and Elle S'Appelle. And a couple of posts focusing around summer smash hit Umbrella and the return of the Spice Girls. Good times.

August 2007 [Archived Posts]
This month saw me undertake a crazy indepth analysis of a 2006 tiplist for no apparent reason. In other news, I tipped Bat For Lashes to win the Mercury Music Prize (but Klaxons did) and gave Meet Me In St Louis a feature.

September 2007 [Archived Posts]
The beginning of my return to regular blogging, the main things that happened this month were a new podcast (ft. Jonquil, Make Model, Lo-Fi Culture Scene and a 12 minute These New Puritans track) and my You! Me! Blogging! feature. Unfortunately, many of those blogs are looking sadly comatose.

October 2007 [Archived Posts]
A blip in my so-called regular blogging, I only got around to posting the new Bloc Party track ('Flux') and the Lou Reed collab with The Killers.

November 2007 [Archived Posts]
Okay, okay, a double blip. But with posts on Los Campesinos! and frYars, it was high on quality at least.

December 2007 [Archived Posts]
December saw me point you toward plentiful song giveaways and assess the Christmas #1 single situation. I also gave the Johnny Foreigner EP a review of sorts, but with slighly less enthusiasm than the Drownedinsound.com reviewer who awarded it an outrageous 10/10. Oh and I turned 21, yay?

January 2008 [Archived Posts]
January saw me wilt under a mass of university coursework so all that was on offer was a small review of some of the features I did in 2007, including my tiplist. Jack Penate remains the only real success of that, although Foals, Laura Marling and Hadouken! haven't done badly in the 18 months or so since the original post.

February 2008 [Archived Posts]
The real beginning of the blog renaissance which has seen me complete as many posts in 4 months as I did in the whole of 2007. A really quality month of posting, from my Futuresounds tips column, a Brit Awards post to one of my best podcasts.

March 2008 [Archived Posts]
Another podcast dropped, with Frightened Rabbit producing possibly my favourite track to ever open one of my podcasts (even upending the previous month's amazing opening from The Joy Formidable). I amusingly talked about urban music and the new Feeder track, which evoked some expectedly difficult responses! Oh and I began my George Lamb Versus Music feature, which is still ongoing.

April 2008 [Archived Posts]
April saw unprecedented activity on Keep Hope Inside, largely as I was putting off revising for my uni exams all month. I guess the big posts were my White Lies interview, previewing a couple of new Weezer tracks and my Indie Idle analysis. But there were plenty of other highlights including ultCult, Banjo Or Freakout etc.

May 2008 [Archived Posts]
And now for this month, which has seen a fair bit of activity seeing as I had exams until the 22nd. The biggie was my post on a couple of new Weezer tracks, particularly 'The Greatest Man That Ever Lived'. But there's been other interesting stuff like the return of Longwave and an apparent Timbaland produced demo of Ebony Bones.

So yeah, my most successful year in blogging. Long may it continue. The new blog design seems to liked by most and I still have quite a few subscribers. Cheers for sticking with me and here's some mp3s from artists that I've featured over the last year as a thank you gift:

KOTKI DWA - LE BEAU CHARCUTIER
BLOC PARTY - FLUX (BBC ELECTRIC PROMS 2007)
4 OR 5 MAGICIANS - YOUR FICTITIOUS CHARACTER