Aug 2: 2005 - the only way is up

Into 2005. 

Perhaps the best album of the year was a long form instrumental piece from the Pat Metheny Group.

Pat Metheny / acoustic, electric, slide, toy & synthesizer guitars, producer

- Lyle Mays / piano, keyboards, toy xylophone, co-producer
- Cuong Vu / trumpet, toy whistle, vocals
- Gregoire Maret / harmonica
- Steve Rodby / acoustic & electric basses, toy violin, cello, co-producer
- Antonio Sanchez / drums, toy xylophone

With:
- Richard Bona / percussion, toy guitar, vocals
- Dave Samuels / percussion

I went to see the concert as part of the tour for this album at the Hammersmith Odeon with my friend Simon. It was awesome. The Way Up was just the first half and then we had loads more classic tracks as well.

Here's a section, filmed in South Korea....

The album has competition from another album released that year.

A classic from Sigur Rós called 'Takk', featured Hoppipolla, which brought them to the attention of many as it was used as part of the music for the BBC's 'Planet Earth' series.

There are some great tracks on the album. I've heard parts of this album played numerous times over the years since.

The song title is a univerbation of hoppa í polla (the -a in hoppa is not pronounced), which is Icelandic for "hopping into puddles", and the lyrics are mainly in Icelandic, with some nonsensical phrases, a "language" the band calls Vonlenska ("Hopelandic"). As with many of the band's songs, it was given a nickname in the early stages of writing. "Hoppípolla" was "The Money Song", as the band was certain they had written a song which would have commercial success.