Classic Irish albums turning 5 to 45 in 2022

From Fangclub to Engine Alley, Ships to The Radiators From Space, 2fm's Dan Hegarty has rounded up an epic list of some of the Irish albums that will be turn five to 45 years old in 2022.

The Cast Of Cheers - Family (School Boy Error, 2012)

The brilliant and in some ways forgotten second album from The Cast Of Cheers is 10 this year. Featuring tracks like Human Elevator, Animals, and Marso Sava, this is an album has ages tremendously well.

It’s indie pop with a rhythmic undertone that’s worth a visit as regularly as possible. Family has much of the quirky attributes that made their debut such an enjoyable listen, and they added another layer of song writing skill here to makes things that little more irresistible.

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Engine Alley - A Sonic Holiday (Mother Records, 1992)

There are those movies, books, and albums that make you envious of the people who are soon to have the opportunity to experience them for the first time. 1992’s A Sonic Holiday by Engine Alley is one of those. The Steve Lillywhite-produced debut from the Kilkenny band has everything that a music connoisseur could wish for.

A Sonic Holiday really should have been the lift-off point for the band’s international breakthrough, but even though it didn’t get that level of recognition, it’s still a pleasure to immerse yourself in.

The Cranberries - Something Else (Island Records, 2017)

Re-recording some of your finest moments is a brave step for any artist. The Cranberries did it in style on 2017’s Something Else with acoustic and orchestrated versions of many of their biggest hits from years past.

Being in the present and looking to the future is a good thing, but embracing your past in ways like this brings really interesting results such as this. One of the things that an album such as this captures is how the songs have grown and developed in the years since their initial recording and release.

JJ72 - I To Sky (Lakota Records, 2002)

The expectation back in 2002 was that JJ72 were going to have a big future ahead of them. Their debut self-titled album had done extremely well for them, and as follow-ups go, I To Sky was just the right thing.

Things didn’t turn out in the way that they might have, and listening back you’d wonder why; I Saw A Prayer is a beauty of a track, as is Serpent Sky, and the single Formulae sounds as good in the year 2022 as did when it first debuted two decades ago.

The Walls - Stop The Lights (Dirtbird Records, 2012)

The Walls’ third studio album Stop The Lights will celebrate its 10th anniversary in March. It’s an album that was recorded over a five-year period during which time Joe and Steve Walls’ previous band The Stunning reformed and started touring again.

Stop The Lights highlights the band’s song writing ability in spectacular fashion; Bird In A Cage, Carry The Fire and the often overlooked Doodlesque are pop tunes that should be listened to as often as possible.

Nina Hynes - Staros (Reverb Records, 2002)

Straos can be viewed in two ways, either as Nina Hynes’ debut full length album, or the follow-up to her exceptional mini album Creation. Whatever you categorise it as, it’s a joy to listen to.

Staros captures an artist and their band kicking it up a few gears, and delivering songs that could match anything that was released internationally. The single Mono Prix lead the charge, followed by Last Song Of The 20th Century and Tenderness.

Rejjie Snow - The Moon & You (Honeymoon, 2017)

Technically a mixtape more than an album, but in many cases you could say what’s the major difference? Rejjie Snow’s debut studio album Dear Annie would follow a year later, and The Moon & You certainly helped build the excitement and anticipation.

The majority of The Honeymoon & You has that laid-back feel about it. Purple Tuesday featuring Joey Bada$$ and Jesse Boykins III, and Get It feat: Joyce Wrice may be the tracks that you’ll return to, but there are plenty of other high points.

Fangclub - Fangclub (Vertigo, 2017)

Here are some big guitar riffs that are very much of the present day, but may bring you back to a time when bands like Soundgarden, Nirvana, and Green River roamed the planet.

The album’s lead single Bullet Head became an instant favourite. When the album arrived, it became evident that this band really knows how to craft not just good songs, but a coherent body of work that forms what we call an album. Here's a great band that will hopefully bring us album number three in 2022.

Gemma Hayes - Night On My Side (Source, 2002)

Here’s an album that gets name-checked as an influence by a lot more artists than you’d imagine. Night On My Side is such a solid body of work. From the singles to the album tracks, there isn’t a weak link.

Tear On My Side is one of the tracks that still stands out, and it’s near impossible to overlook a song such as Hanging Around. Fans of this album that haven’t listened to 2014’s Bones + Longing, should acquaint themselves with that too.

U2 - Pop (Island Records, 1997)

Ten years after the global success of The Joshua Tree, U2’s artistic focus was in a very different place. The 1990s was a decade which saw the band constantly pushing their boundaries. Achtung Baby, Zooropa and Passengers were giant strides in a new direction, and ‘Pop’ was another leap into new territory.

It’s a massively underrated U2 album that has some truly memorable tracks; the singles Discotheque and Staring At The Sun are two, but don’t discount Do You Feel Loved, Wake Up Dead Man and Mofo.

Maria Doyle Kennedy - Sing (Mermaid Productions, 2012)

If you were to step back through the last number of decades of Irish music, you’ll encounter the name Maria Doyle Kennedy on numerous occasions. Before we became acquainted with her on the big and small screens, she had embarked on a really interesting musical voyage as part of The Black Velvet Band, and later with her solo career.

2012’s Sing album is one of the real gems in her career. The Silence is a wonderful track that could sit perfectly alongside classics like The Battle of Evermore by Led Zeppelin, and Sing From The Sea is the kind of song that could enchant anyone that cares about music.

Cyclefly - Crave (Radioactive, 2002)

Formed out of the equally impressive Dogabone, the Cork/Antibes band Cyclefly released two albums, Crave being the second. With tracks of the calibre of No Stress, King For A Day, Drive and Karma Killer (which features backing vocals from the late Chester Bennington of Linkin Park), their quest for big-time success was something of a near miss.

The band toured in the US with acts like Bush and Live, and are certainly worth investigating; start with their excellent debut album Generation Sap, and then to Crave.

OCHO - Young Hunting (Vico Records, 2012)

OCHO released their debut (and only) studio album Young Hunting in May of 2012, and it became a big favourite with bloggers all over the globe. The band would go on to play at the Beatyard festival, Castlepalooza, and Electric Picnic later that year, bringing the album's track to a live audience.

As reference points go, many likened Young Hunting to Portishead, Massive Attack, and the electronic side of Bat For Lashes. The vocals of Stace Gill (now of The Sei) glide over stunning instrumentation that reveals new layers each time you listen to each song.

Junkster - Junkster (RCA - 1997)

The late 1990s was a transitional time for music. Britpop as it was known had peaked, and Grunge seemed like it had happened a century ago. There were some interesting pop/rock cross-overs with electronic music from acts like Garbage, Australian band Regurgitator, and Smashing Pumpkins took a new approach with their Adore album.

Junkster were a worthy addition to that list, thanks to their self-titled 1997 album. Slide and Mr Blue are upbeat pop tunes, and The Only One is a ballad that still to this day has major motion picture soundtrack inclusion potential. If you’re putting together a playlist, it’s a song that would sit perfectly alongside Delete Forever from Grimes.

Ships - Precession (Self-released, 2017)

Everything about ‘Precession’ is DIY, independent, and made on a modest budget, but you’d never know that from listening to it. The album was recorded and produced by Sorca McGrath & Simon Cullen who were and are Ships.

Just under a year after its release, Precession was crowned Irish Album of year at the RTÉ Choice Music Prize. Even with this distinction, it has remained under the majority of people’s radars. It’s one of those joyous discoveries that you listen to in absolute astonishment, and the kind of disbelief that you want to experience at more frequent occasions.

Cathy Davey - Tales of Silversleeve (Regal/EMI, 2007)

Three years after the release of her debut album Something Ilk, Cathy Davey brought us an even more impressive opus under the name of Tales Of Silversleve.

One single from this, Sing For Your Supper, still ranks as one of the best Irish singles of that period. It was one of many tracks that caught people’s attention; The Collector and the other singles Moving and Reuben were hard not to like instantaneously, while Mr Kill and Overblown Love Song have a beautifully peculiar charm that draws you in.

Damien Rice - 'O' (Damien Rice Music/14th Floor Records, 2002)

You may have heard people describe listening to music, and have the feeling that the artist is in the room playing it for them. If anything could sum up the sound of Damien Rice’s debut album, this is it.

Neil Young has released albums that you’d struggle to point to the year of their release if you weren’t familiar with them. ‘O’ is very much like this, the songs don’t give much away in the way of time-specific reference points, and the production doesn’t sound of any particular time either. It’s a beautiful album that I didn’t appreciate enough at the time, but have grown to admire it greatly over the years.

Pugwash - Silverlake (Lojinx, 2017)

Thomas Walsh is one of the best songwriters that the island of Ireland has ever produced. 2017’s Silverlake is his seventh album, and it captures everything that is great about the gifts that he possesses.

The simplicity in a song like Sunshine True is nothing short of glorious. Walsh worked with Jason Faulkner (another outrageously talented artist) on this record, and they gave us the most complete album of Walsh’s career, and when you consider others like 2008's Eleven Modern Antiquities and 2002’s Almanac, that’s quite an achievement.

Kerbdog - On The Turn (Fontana Records, 1997)

The influence and inspiration of some albums far outstretches the level of success that they have achieved. Kerbdog’s second album On The Turn is a great example of this.

Armed with songs that you want to scream along with like Sally, Mexican Wave and Severed, it’s an album that’s listed as an influence regularly by artists that are far too young to remember it back its day. Recorded in Sound City Studios (where Nirvana recorded Nevermind), it has had many rebirths over the years, and it turns the grand age of a quarter of a century old in 2022.

Power Of Dreams - 2 Hell With Common Sense (Polydor Records, 1992)

Power Of Dreams’ debut album Immigrants, Emigrants & Me was very much a live sounding record. Two years later they changed tack and brought us the much more produced 2 Hell With Common Sense. It was a bigger sound, and it illustrated how much the band had grown over the two years.

The first time that you may have heard tracks from this album may have been through Dave Fanning or perhaps on Peter Collins’ late night 2fm show - There I Go Again was a regular on both. The album has a confident swagger, but nothing that the songs can’t back up.

The Radiators From Space - TV Tube Heart (Chiswick Records - 1977)

TV Tube Heart is widely regarded as Ireland’s first punk album. Whether you agree with that or even deem it important, what certainly is imperative is it still absolutely rocks!

The songs don’t hang about; they get straight into it. If you were to make a (very) general comparison, you might say that they’re more Clash than Pistols, or in modern terms more Fontaines DC than Idles. 45 years on TV Tube Heart still has much to offer in the form of inspiration, not to mention straight up listening enjoyment.

Maverick Sabre - Lonely Are The Brave (Mercury Records, 2012)

It takes a little time to process the fact that January of 2022 marked the 10th anniversary of Maverick Sabre’s debut, Lonely Are The Brave. It did exactly what a debut album should do; it put him in front of a big audience, while generating an interest in what was to follow.

The single Let Me Go is a classic, and is certainly part of so many people’s soundtrack for the early stages of the previous decade. What really stands out a decade on is the range and maturity that Maverick offered on Lonely Are The Brave; it was and still is a case of feet on the ground, voice of an angel.

Ash - Twilight Of The Innocents (Infectious Records - 2007)

In the lead-up to the release of Twilight Of The Innocents, Ash announced that they weren’t going to release any more albums after this. They weren’t breaking up, they’d just grown tired of releasing music in this way.

Thankfully they changed their minds a number of years later, but if Twilight Of The Innocents had been their final album, it would have been quite a closing account. The closing track (which is also the title track) is one of the most beautiful pieces of music that they’ve ever made. Ritual is probably one of their most underrated songs, and You Can’t Have It All is another great Ash single.

Sinead O'Connor - How About I Be Me (and You Be You)? (Shamrock Solutions, 2012)

If you’re not familiar with this album from Sinead O’Connor, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to familiarise yourself with it as soon as you can. Opening with what is undoubtedly one of her best tracks, 4th & Vine, it was the first of two albums she gave us in as many years.

One of the most striking aspects of How About I Be Me (and You Be You)? is Sinead’s vocals; they’ve never sounded better. The track Take Off Your Shoes is a perfect example of this, as is Very Far From Home. Here’s an album that came 24 years after her debut, and shows us yet another side to an artist that is in every way a national treasure.

Wallis Bird - Wallis Bird (RubyWorks, 2012)

Released in March of 2012, Wallis Bird’s self-tilted third album features arguably her best-known track, Encore. The album is the sound of an artist that is fully aware of who they are artistically, and has the talent that makes the delivery of these songs sound effortless.

From the joyous handclap beginning to Heartbeating City to the intimate sounding In Dictum, it’s an album that could sit just as well in the musical climate of 2022 as it did in 2012. If you haven’t been to a gig in a while, listening to Ghosts Of Memories will have you reaching for your jacket, and heading out the door in the direction of the nearest venue.

Listen to Dan Hegarty's The Alternative on 2fm from 10 pm to midnight on Sunday to Thursday, and on RTÉ 2XM from 11 am to 1 pm on Monday to Friday - or catch up here.

Classic Irish albums turning 5 to 45 in 2022

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