Pages

Intimate but bright, experimental but accessible, pages, the follow-up to Julie Feeney’s much acclaimed Choice Music Prize-winning debut 13 Songs, was an instant classic. Complex, intricate arrangements dovetailed perfectly with simple sentiments and warm, confidential vocals. Feeney wrote the material in the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, the artists’ retreat in Annaghmakerrig, Newbliss, Co. Monaghan, recorded all the vocals in her house, and conducted the orchestral parts in a six-hour session at the Irish Chamber Orchestra studio in Limerick. The result was a record that was by turns wry and barbed (‘Mr Roving Eye Guy’), poptastic (‘Love Is A Tricky Thing’), compassionate (‘Grace’) and, well, just plain gorgeous (‘Impossibly Beautiful’). pages celebrated imperfect beauty over the idealised version, praised ordinary love over impossible romance, and was testament to a true maverick talent.

No 55 in 2009, as voted for by over 200 Irish musicians.