FolkPunkGaze's Blog

Top Records - May/June 2011

2011-07-12T00:00:00.000-07:00

Well, my resolution to post at least 2 blog posts a week on here has unfortunately fallen to pieces in the last couple of months, which has saddened me greatly. There are various reasons behind that, a main one being my A-Level Exams, which are now over and done with. However, since they've been finished, the traditional summer holiday conundrum of having just TOO MUCH free time has hit me hard in the productivity balls.

Also, putting this list together was a bit of a sad experience seeing as I've been especially skint over the past few months and so my ability to buy new albums has been significantly impeded. Still, there are a few who have made it through, bringing me a lot of delight over the past couple of months. Here's what's been delighting my ear drums!

Cults by Cults

Cults popped tweely onto everybody's radar last year, yet another indie pop band citing "60s girl group vocals" as one of their main influences. It felt as if it was only a matter of time until The Shangrilas and Martha and The Vandellas lost their patience and merged together into some kind of giant Power Rangers zoid to exact some copyright vengeance on the indie pop scene, but, despite the overload of such music, Cults' self titled debut album really is delightful. Signature tracks "Oh My God" and "Go Outside" are still present (a good thing, as they're still two of the band's best songs), but there's plenty more to go round. Opener "Abducted" is arguably the best thing on there (my dad likes it!) - a rhythm that's just begging you to clap your hands, lashings of hot xylophone and one of the most kick-ass band entries I've ever heard. The constant interplay of male and female lead vocals from Brian Oblivion and Madeline Folin never ceases to be exciting. If you like your pop music catchy, sweet and edgy, this is a must this year.

The Forsaken Elm by Ghosthorse

Ghosthorse began their inevitable career as cult heroes in 2010 with the very limited release of their long gestating debut album The Shoal. The Chessington based duo proved to be the most exciting arrival to the noise music scene in quite some time, utilising an entire multimedia campaign orchestrated by member Michael Bateman, spanning across YouTube and Twitter, as well as allegations of an eventually unsuccessful endorsement of UK cereal "Nougat Pillows". However, their second album is undoubtedly a vastly more mature work, and will perhaps be the band's masterpiece. It's an album which, unlike most noise music (let's be honest) is actually highly enjoyable in many places, adding a whole array of new textures to the band's sound ("The Raft", "Butterfly House", the latter sounding a bit like the music that plays when you're in the tower in Lavender Town in Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow) The duo are comfortably astride both the philosophical side of things in "Five Point Calvinism", as well as the comical side in "Fake Dad/Fraudulent Father", the latter probably the album's highlight. It sees Ashley Watkinson (traditionally the man who stays behind the synths) taking on spoken word duties, almost eclipsing the primal howls of Michael Bateman. A cult essential.

Demolished Thoughts by Thurston Moore

I have major love for Sonic Youth, and so I was exceptionally excited when I heard that frontman Thurston Moore was releasing another solo album, produced by no less than Beck! It really was call for a bit of an indiegasm. When the first track "Benediction" was made available, I fell in love instantly. Thurston ditched the discordance and harsh screeching and garbled lyrics about anything from consumerism to serial killers, and picked up an acoustic guitar to write lush, beautiful love songs. Thurston is one of the most influential guitarists of all time, and his sheer skill is displayed in the outstanding, melodic finger picking on this album (even though Thurston himself has been critical of his skill with an acoustic) The lush "Illuminine" is a highlight, and showcases Beck's production skills in the divine string section, which fades away into ambience. There are moments like "Circulation" when Thurston returns to thumping, rock and roll mode, with slightly atonal riffing, but it works perfectly somehow, backed up by sparse but strong strings. This album is a light, airy beauty, and will be perfect for long summer evenings.

Bon Iver by Bon Iver

This really is an album where I wonder what I can possibly say. I fell in love with Bon Iver the moment I saw Justin Vernon perform "Skinny Love" on Jools Holland a few years ago. Heck, the whole musical world fell in love with him upon the release of For Emma, Forever Ago. His debut was indescribably poignant, and could still go down as a modern classic. People liked to play up the whole "he recorded it alone in the woods with nothing but a Swiss Army Knife and a mandolin made from bear skulls and the strung flesh of an Elk" aspect of the album's recording, but it was, I think, perfect. So the pressure was on for his follow-up. Bon Iver is different in a huge number of ways from Justin Vernon's debut - but good grief is it still brilliant! There has been a huge departure from the lonely, solo aspect of the first album and Bon Iver has no expanded to a full band who have a near unparalleled mastery of musical texture. Opener "Perth" swells majestically, every new instrument becoming another essential layer of the track - crashing drums, ebullient brass, impassioned vocals. Texture, rather than song structure, is the focus of the album, but it never feels aimless or noodly. It's just jaw droppingly beautiful, one of those albums that takes you to a whole other place. The lyrics are a sparse, cryptic affair ("And all at once I knew I was no magnificent, strayed above the highway aisle. Jagged vacancy, think with ice, but I could see for miles, miles, miles, miles"), but gradually you decipher them and crack the melancholy and heartbreak which is the centre of the album. Stunning.

Suck It And See by Arctic Monkeys

I'll call it now, this will likely end up my top album of the year. I can't conceive of a situation which would place it outside of the Top 3. You might remember my distress and heartbreak when the crass "Brick By Brick" was the Arctic's first preview of this album, but my worries have been shown to have a foundation more insubstantial than Casper the Friendly Ghost's left nut. Suck It And See is a total dream, the most mature Arctic Monkeys record to the date. It still has "Brick By Brick" on it, but in the context of the rest of the album's articulate, evocative brilliance, I can understand its place as just a bit of fun. Alex Turner's songwriting has reached a new level of love-steeped insight and maturity, showcased perfectly in "Love Is A Laserquest" and "That's Where You're Wrong". His voice has beocme the seductive, airy croon which we've always sensed he had in him since Favourite Worst Nightmare. Lyrically, he's reached something of a perfect medium between the cryptic imagery on Humbug and his more accessible writing on the first two albums - and he's probably written some of his best lines here - "that's not a skirt girl, that's a sawn-off shotgun, and I can only hope you've got it aimed at me". That line comes from the album's title track, which is possibly the best song on here, and proves (as do many other tracks) that the Arctics are the master of THE BIG CHORUS. Also, the instrumental performances really are stunning here. Matt Helders' drumming brilliance has been evident for a very long time, but Jamie Cook's guitar playing reaches a new level here, and Andy Nicholson's nimble bass lines are incredibly important in holding the 60s influenced tracks together. I will admit, I love the Arctics with a passion. They're the band of my generation. I loved Humbug, even though many fell away upon its release. I watched with a fully acknowledged self-satisfaction as they did. The same is happening with Suck It And See, though to a lesser degree. It's sad that the world is still full of people who want an impossible repeat of the first album. But with every album, the Arctics have only ever sounded more like themselves. Suck It And See just takes them to the next, brilliant stage.

Honourable Mentions:
- Goblin by Tyler, The Creator
- Black Up by Shabazz Palaces. Still getting to grips with this.
- All Eternals Deck by The Mountain Goats. (Released in March, but took me a while to get round to. Love it all over, will be in my top albums of 2011 no doubt)
- Burst Apart by The Antlers. I don't see what all the critical adulation is for, but it's not bad.

In terms of older stuff I've been revisiting:
- The entire catalogue of The Smiths, again and again and again and again...
- Regular doses of Los Campesinos! Driving fast in a friend's car with Romance Is Boring blaring out was a beautiful moment.
- Frank Sinatra. Although Frank and his big band/jazz cohorts don't get too many mentions on my blog, they were my first love, and Ol' Blue Eyes would still give The Smiths a run for their money as my favourite artists of all time

For the future, the most anticipated release of 2011 for me now is Laura Marling's third album due out September 13th. Let's hope perfection strikes three times!

I WANT IT NOW!

2011-06-13T12:33:00.000-07:00

Today I had one of those peculiar experiences where something you've known and accepted for a very long time suddenly strikes you or dawns on you in a new way. I think we all have those moments where, it's not like you realise something new, but something that's already a firm part of your life or your mind suddenly becomes highlighted; something which comes into your life frequently, even something important or integral to how you spend your time.

I was suddenly struck by the sheer speed at which music travels on the internet. Now, I'm a music blogger, so flash in the pan, half-baked, over-hyped pretentious twaddle is something I come into daily contact with. I've regularly written posts sharing or ruminating on new songs or videos or artist announcements which have come out that self same day. It's part of my daily ritual to scour the internet to see if Damon Albarn has rush-released a multi-media opera about ninjas, or to see what ignorant, self-involved drivel of Liam Gallagher's the universe is going to be indifferent to on that particular day. It's just standard fare to focus on the latest daily developments in the music industry, and to try and prise some gems from the swirling storm of human detritus that most if it is. When you spend your time writing about new music in the 21st century, and want to make a career out of it, that's your sweet smelling bread and butter.

And yet today it just suddenly struck me that it takes mere minutes for some new release to set the online community of journalists, bloggers and Twitterers abuzz with excitement. A new track or EP or mixtape can be released in the morning and, by dinner time, have everyone straining their keyboards with excitement.

Today, for example, James Blake (English electro/post-dubstep songwriter) and Drake (mellow Canadian rap artist) were the subjects of a new mixtape entitled, surprise surprise, James Drake, crafted by DJs Bombe and Mr Caribbean. Due to some highly unfortunate quirks of online fate, I have yet to hear it. However, I am a bit desperate to, and the pursuit to find a site which will currently stream it to my computer is monopolising my evening. This mixtape has been the subject of blog posts, tweets and news updates all across the music press throughout today, and it's, for this evening, the hottest record around. Just like that, in a matter of hours, its become the thing that everyone in the independent music business is interested in. And that is just mind bogglingly absurd!

The fact that that is possible is reflective of so many things. It's reflective of the spreading power of social networks, which we're all painfully aware of. It's reflective of the hyping nature of the blogosphere, with every electro blogger and his mum flagging the thing up before you can say "chillwave". Also, it's reflective of the opportunities afforded to young musicians these days. True, James Blake and Drake have had plenty of big names and institutions backing them up, but they're only 21 and 24 respectively. Their music's their own, and Drake is signed to Young Money, one of the best and most forward thinking hip-hop labels around. I'll be the first to spit at the trashy, vacuous, Major Label orchestrated, self-prostrating "pop music" that claws its way into our eardrums like some crazy reverse image of the stomach splatter scene from Alien, but that climate has created a fantastic reactionary spirit in independent pop music.

It may also reflect the fact that the internet affords us the ability to create our own channels to access the information relevant to us ASAP. Through the people I choose to dominate my Twitter feed, through the websites I favourite, through the mailing lists I sing up for, I create my own little world. For someone else (most of my friends - hi if you're reading this!), this kind of stuff doesn't travel to them quickly, if at all. Stuff travels super fast on the internet, but there's so much of it that it often only goes to the people who are looking for it. Sure, the internet's this massive universal thing which does - often through Facebook - create an environment where EVERYONE becomes aware of something, but often things actually happen in niches, or separate cultures which have their own place in the online world. And that's, I suppose, why I notice stuff travelling so fast. I'm part of a community which is now built on the rapid spread and acquisition of art and information.

So it's been odd just considering the speed with which music, and pretty much everything really, travels online. You just take it for granted in the world we live in, a world geared towards instant gratification, populated by a generation of perennial Veruca Salts. If people want something, they expect to get it in seconds. Sports results, release dates, new stories, videos, anything. Anyway, I'm sure this observation will become mundane again soon.

Now, let's find that James Drake mixtape.

P.S. I managed to get hold of the tape whilst I was doing the spellcheck on this. Can't be bothered to rewrite the post. Hope I don't undermine my entire stance on the rapid, self gratifying, internet based accelerated culture we live in or anything.

Britain's Got Talent - Hate To Say I Told You So...

2011-06-02T06:32:00.000-07:00

Well I've had a highly eventful couple of weeks and so keeping to my resolution to write 2 blog posts a week has been something of a struggle, but here I am once again. It's sad though that I'm writing on such a sour topic today, but it's something I really feel the need to write about.

Towards the end of last year, I wrote a pretty vitriolic post about how Simon Cowell thinks every member of the great British public is a blithering idiot. He sits in his huge, supervillain palace, shaped like a giant X, strokes his fluffy white cat named Louis and cackles maniacally as he sucks money out of our pockets year after year. Anyone with half a brain cell has been able to tell from day one that his "talent shows" - beginning with Pop Idol and now stretching to Britain's Got Talent and its American counterpart - have been nothing but manipulative business moves. But recently I read something which added a whole new, sickening dimension onto the devious git's empire.

Simon Cowell may not be a judge on BGT any more, but the show is still part of his media empire, SYCO. So he's still top dog. I recently read an e-mail, published here anonymously, from an executive of Sony Music UK, who's worked closely with SYCO in relation to BGT.

In it, he reveals how current contestant and hot favourite Ronan Parke, a 12 year old singer, was fist discovered and SIGNED by SYCO two years ago at the age of 10. Over the past two years, he's been groomed to a terrifying degree, trained and controlled in every area in order to get him ready to win BGT 2011. And, as far as the writer of the e-mail is concerned, he WILL win. Simon Cowell has made sure he's been groomed and given a sexualised image to impact on the public and, at the end of the day, to rival Justin Bieber in the pre-teen market. The vote is already rigged apparently, which isn't something that doesn't surprise me and shouldn't surprise you either.

The thing that really gets me here is that, in the 21st century, a company run by a man who has for years been the face of Saturday night FAMILY entertainment, has groomed and sexualised a 12 year old boy. Apparently, young Ronan's always been a bit fey and effeminate, but some kids are at that age. The marketing appears to have been "we can't man him up, so let's start firing G-A-Y on all cylinders". I mean, watch his "audition". What 12 year old kis dresses themselves like that? Children - and yes he is a CHILD - should never be settled on their appearance at that age, and they certainly shouldn't be shoe horned in to a sexuality they're not comfortable with. They've twisted this poor kid's entire life and personality into an image that they want to sell. Regardless of what your views on sexuality are, it is never right, in any circumstance, to take a 12 year old boy who is nowhere near coming to terms with his sexuality, and to purposefully groom his personality, mannerisms and image. It's wrong do that in ANY fashion, not just a sexual one. And it's all made fine and dandy by the fact the Michael Macintyre is a few feet away, bumbling around with his fat, yellow grin like Mr Blobby on a good day at the races.

It was conditioning like this that turned Michael Jackson into a frekish, lonely, highly disturbed man-child. Pressure like this that hooked Judy Garland on pills when she was barely out of her nappies. The 21st century music business is a devious, unscrupulous place, but I really thought that THIS would be below even the scuzziest lizard in a suit these days. But it appears not.

Glamorous child abuse will be pumped into your living room each night this week, surrounded by flashing lights, crocodile tears and two bumbling Geordie idiots who have Simon Cowell's feelers so far up their anuses that he could pull out bush tucker they ate four years ago.

So happy viewing folks.

My Love Affair With The Smiths

2011-05-20T00:00:00.000-07:00

This is a post I've been meaning to write for some time. I've thought often about writing it, but always felt as if I should leave things longer so that there would be more for me to say.

Over the past 6 months, The Smiths have come to totally monopolise my entire listening schedule. They're one of those bands who are cherished and despised in equal measure and, ever since they first arrived on my radar a few years ago, I didn't feel very inclined either way. I certainly didn't hate them, but kamikaze like devotion given by their fans and the Godlike status that music journalist and publications afforded them totally baffled me. I just didn't get it.

They broke in up in 1987 and, whilst I love older music, they just didn't seem to be relevant to me. I'd see people commenting on the internet that they were "the only band who ever mattered" and my response would just be "...really?" The only way they ever seemed to push themselves into reality nowadays seemed to be, for me, Morrissey's sarcastic jibes directed at whatever he took a dislike to in that particular interview. Whenever I discussed the bloke with anyone else who had a passing knowledge the consensus seemed to be "what a bell end". Indeed, one of my friend likes to joke that his autobiography will be called The Horrible Things I Say. When Morrissey announced his autobiography was complete, I joked to my friend that he'd have to rethink his title. "No" he replied, "mine's not gonna be titled Moaning Vegan C**t".

So, if you'd asked me just under a year ago, I'd have said that it was highly unlikely that I'd ever become even a passing fan of The Smiths or their maverick frontman, the Pope of Mope, the sullen, carrot eating, Mancunian twazzock.

But then one day, roundabout December I guess, I just got it. Something just clicked. I scrolled across The Very Best of The Smiths in my iTunes, which I'd swiped a couple of years ago from my dad. I just thought "hmm, let's have another listen shall we. You never know". I started listening to "Ask", mainly because its title stood out amongst the otherwise verbose song titles.

Still possessing the view that The Smiths were, essentially, a bunch of miserable knobheads, the shimmering, joyous, bouncy riff of "Ask" took me totally by surprise. For 3 minutes, 10 seconds, I sat there utterly entranced. The song was one of the most euphoric, cleverly written, unabashedly free pieces I'd ever heard. My tiny little 18 year old mind was totally unravelled by this romantic, detailed, lush explosion of song writing.

After falling in love with "Ask", I dove head first into the rest of it. I don't know where to begin because all of it just began to open itself up to me. "Panic", "The Boy With The Thorn In His Side", "William, It Was Really Nothing" were the ones that stood out fastest, but it all began to make sense. I got a hold of their studio albums and immersed myself in each of them, especially The Queen is Dead and The Smiths.

I'm in love with them now. Like I've never been with a band before. So what is it? What does it for me, when for so many others they're a repellent band of miserabilists?

The main thing for me is that Morrissey, lyrically, hits it on the head every time. He's not a self pitying, arrogant twat lyrically - certainly not in The Smiths. For me, almost every word that drips off his tongue in The Smiths lyrical catalogue, perfectly captures whatever emotion he's talking about, because he sings about things that I can identify with. There are plenty of songs which I love because I can apply the lyrics to my life, and indeed some artists who, mostly, I embrace lyrically. But so often I've found myself listening to people describing how there's one artist above all others who is just THE ARTIST for them. The life changer. And I'd never really felt like that about anyone. No one quite got it. Until The Smiths. A band from 25 years ago, still as relevant now as when they changed the world back then.

Take, for a example, "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out", regarded by many as the best Smiths song, and not without reason. I could go into detail about the whole song, but the chorus is just one of the best moments in the history of music. For me, it's the perfect description of friendship:

"And if a double decker bus,
Crashes into us,
To die by your side,
Is such a heavenly way to die.
And if a ten tonne truck,
Killed the both of us,
To die by your side,
Well the pleasure, the privilege is mine".

I mean, what more could you ever want to say to someone that you love dearly? People might say that this is a fairly morbid declaration to make, but he pulls it off so elegantly. It's in his vocal delivery, but also in the choices of phrase - "the pleasure, the privilege is mine". He makes it sound like dying alongside the person you hold dearest is like taking one last, grinning bow before the curtain whips you out of sight.

I see nothing but truth here, and elsewhere in Morrissey's lyrics. He said once in an interview with Miracle Maker that The Smiths were formed because it was "...time that the ordinary folk of the world showed their faces". In an age where pop music is full of brainless morons who produce the most banal, emotionally bankrupt dross imaginable, dumbing their audience down and treating them like idiots, and even "indie music" has been bastardized and simplified by years of scroungers like Razorlight, Kaiser Chiefs and The Wombats, The Smiths speak to me and articulate things in a way that I can't imagine any other group could. I'm not a massive social outcast, but as someone whose tastes vary a lot from most people I know, hearing The Smiths is such a comforting thing. Plenty of music is MADE for musical outsiders, but not a lot of it really talks about what it's like to BE a musical outsider. Their song "Panic" sums it up best, and I feature some lyrics from that later.

Something you begin to realise with The Smiths as soon as you give them the attention they deserve is that they are not the miserable gits that some people take them for. When you understand The Smiths, even singing their most tragic sounding songs is a euphoric kind of experience, because they're so true. Morrissey sums it up perfectly in this interview, the date and source of which I can't locate:

Why is it that you never write a song that could be described as happy?
"Do you really think that I don't? Not even with a massive stretch of the imagination? Isn't there a happiness, a certain release in actually saying things? It's like when you turn around to your best friend, and say - 'Well, actually I despise you, and I've despised you since we were in third year' - I mean, that's really a massive relief, don't you find? Turning around to your parents and saying, 'I'm not living in this dump anymore'... come on, connect the two ... get your knitting needle out!"

I wouldn't call that happiness. Smug, maybe.
"But it is! It is! It's like shedding skin! It is a form of happiness. We shouldn't think of happiness as one thing! Happiness is eating an ice cream, happiness can be Bernard Manning... it can be... an old woman falling off a donkey! I don't know, for heaven's sake, I don't know."

The very act of just SAYING something, even if it's expressing sadness or dislike, lifts a weight of your shoulders that equates to happiness - if you're willing to expand your definition of happiness.

More than that however, The Smiths are bloody hilarious. John Peel once said they're the only band who can make him laugh out loud. Too bloody right! Try this from "William, It Was Really Nothing":

"How can you stay with a fat girl who says
'Ohhhh, would you like to marry me?
And if you like you can buy the ring!"

Or "Frankly, Mr Shankly":

"Frankly, Mr. Shankly, this position I've held
It pays my way and it corrodes my soul
Oh, I didn't realise that you wrote poetry
I didn't realise you wrote such bloody awful poetry, Mr. Shankly"

Or "Panic":

"Burn down the disco,
Hang the blessed DJ,
Because the music that they constantly play...
IT SAYS NOTHING TO ME ABOUT MY LIFE!
Hang the blessed DJ"

Or this rather unsettling image of Prince Charles from "The Queen is Dead":

"I said Charles, don't you ever crave
To appear on the front of the Daily Mail
Dressed in your Mother's bridal veil ?"

Morrissey's wit is one of the most captivating things about him, and it's got him into a lot of trouble, but it's one of the best things about his lyrics. Also, his vocal delivery can give lyrics which aren't immediately hilarious a strangely comical air, like "Bigmouth Strikes Again".

The way that The Smiths music combines with the lyrics is stunning as well. There are plenty of Smiths songs which are downbeat and tragic sounding, but there are an equal number which musically are stunningly exuberant and euphoric or thumping and danceable - "The Headmaster Ritual", "The Boy With The Thorn In His Side", "Panic", "Vicar in a Tutu", "Girlfriend in a Coma", "Jeane", the list is endless.

I've gone on far too long here, but whilst we're on the subject of music, Johnny Marr's guitar work, combined with the hugely underrated bass and drum work of Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce, basically formed the template for all indie music ever. The more I listen, the more I appreciate that all of the indie music I love owes nearly everything to The Smiths.

Like I said near the start, I never, ever thought I'd become an ardent lover of The Smiths. But I'm captivated. My love for other bands hasn't diminished, but my perception of what makes a band MATTER is being strongly altered. I mentioned at the start that I once saw on a Smiths fan page, before I started liking them, that one user has simply written "the only band that ever mattered". Part of me hesitates to say it but, for me, that's starting to be more than a little bit true.

My 10 Favourite Indie/Alternative Guitarists

2011-05-16T00:00:00.000-07:00

I'm a huge fan of lists. Reading them, writing them, passing comment on them, theorising about them. It surprises me then that it's been some time since I last posted a list on my favourite of anything. So I thought it was high time I picked one of the many lists that floats aimlessly around my head on a regular basis and put it to paper. Or the internet.

Based on my current listening habits, and discussions I often have with myself, I thought I'd share my 10 favourite indie/alternative guitarists. I don't want to get too theoretical about that title by the way. Let's waste no time defining indie and alternative - any of us with any musical sense know in our heart of hearts what we're on about. One key stipulation though is this: there is a difference between what I hold as my FAVOURITE of something and what I regard as the BEST of something. I hold strongly to the truth that, in music at least, there are objective bests. Music that is factualyl, for various reasons, better than other music. But that's a very long discussion for another day. For now, these are my favourites. The ones that tickle my current fancy. Care to share yours after?

10. Alex Turner

As frontman of Arctic Monkeys, Alex Turner is most often hailed for his songwriting abilities, lyrical genius and eternally stunning vocal delivery - all of which deserve the prasie they receive of course. But behind that, people forget that that, despite the fact that band mate Jamie Cook is officially on lead guitar, Alex is the man behind all of the most beloved moments of Arcitc fretwork. The intros of "A Certain Romance" and "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor", the riffs of "Teddy Picker", "Fake Tales of San Francisco" and so many more, the epic shreddery of "Brianstorm". The Arctics were rightly hailed as the best of a new generation of British guitar groups, and the Alex Turner was the one with his fingers changing history on the fretboard.

9. Nick Drake

Now, this is a bit of a cheat. Nick's one of the most famous folk musicians of all time, hardly an indie kid, but I feel he falls firmly enough in an "alternative" kind of taste, and plus, he never gets recognition for his brilliant guitar playing. Like Alex Turner, the focus with Nick is always on his song writing and lyricism, but people overlook the fact he was a stunningly gifted, nimble fingered guitarist. The sound he created with just an acoustic guitar in his hands was mindblowingly beautiful. It was so full, so rounded and always flowed with a seamless grace that, in my mind, is unrivalled amongst folk musicians. "From The Morning", "Cello Song", "Introduction" and "Time Has Told Me" are all gorgeous examples of what this man could do with a guitar. His death at 26 is one of the most tragic musical deaths in my mind, but his legacy has grown steadily over the years, and you can hear his indelible influence in the music of the new generation of folk artists like Laura Marling.

8. Albert Hammond Jr.

If you were creating a list of the 10 BEST indie guitarists, Albert would be a heavyweight contender for a top spot. Back in 2001, The Strokes' exuberant, fuzzy, fresh faced indie rock hammered life into a music scene which was rolling in its own commercialised filth, still hungover from Britpop and grunge. The garage rock simplicity of "Last Nite" set the indie world on fire and the saviours had arrived. With their debut Is This It?, an album based on the insistent riffs and solos of dear old Albert, they changed the face of any guitar rock which has emerged since. The success of any bunch of white kids with guitar in their hands since 2001 is attributable entirely to The Strokes and how, with Albert at the guitar helm, they changed the sound of indie rock. "Take It Or Leave It", "New York City Cops" and "Someday" all sound as fresh as they did 10 years ago, even if their new material doesn't quite measure up. Rarely has someone called Albert ever been this badass.

7. Stevie Jackson

This is probably a name that will illicit a few "huh?"s from a lot of people, even fans of indie music. Jackson is the lead guitarist of Belle & Sebastian, probably the only band who could ever be called "twee-pop giants". Belle & Sebastian have a love-it-or-hate-it kind of sound, but Jackson's squeaky clean, lushly reverberating guitar lines are an instrumental part. People who are familiar with Belle & Sebastian can find it easy to perceive the group as simply "the Stuart Murdoch project", just an outlet for the creative juices of their frontman. Indeed, the first few albums were just that. He is still the drivign creative force, but the band have been growing ever stronger as a unit since 1998's The Boy With The Arab Strap. Whether through his own compositions or the embellishments laid on top of Murdoch's songs, Jackson's guitar work is one of the most defining features of the band's sound. Melancholy, romantic and gorgeously retro, it just hits a sweet spot in me every time - the sublime riff of "I'm A Cuckoo" and the huge sound of the guitar on "Another Sunny Day" are my personal favourites, but his embellishments are so nuanced and integral to the sound of a classic band that picking his best moments is a difficult, difficult task. The sound he's carved for himself has been an inspiration to countless bookish, hopelessly romantic teenagers craving something sweet and clean in the world.

6. Bill Ryder Jones

Now, our Bill inhabits a similar realm to Stevie Jackson in that his guitar work in The Coral sits side by side the stunning songwriting of frontman James Skelly, being just as integral in crafting the sound of one of Britain's must under appreciated bands of the past 10 years. The band first exploded onto the scene in 2002 with the timeless "Dreaming of You", with Ryder-Jones' scratchy jangles and nifty little solo helping to truly cement the song's magic, to such an extent that his guitar work on the rest of their self titled debut gets overlooked. The sweeping clang of opener "Spanish Main" was a pretty decisive statment about how prevalent he was going to be on the album, and indeed he was. As the band came into their own psychadelic way of doing things on subsequent albums, Ryder-Jones only flourished in crafting a distinctively decorative, warm, jangly sound. Some of the places that his sound shines brightest might be "Put The Sun Back" and "Bill McCai" but, again, his guitarwork doesn't showcase itself in specific moments but in its stunning role in The Coral's overall sound. Shame he left before the band's last album, Butterfly House. I hope he's got more up his sleeve.

5. Jonny Greenwood

Jonny Greenwood is one of those guitarist who you come to describe and you just think "what words are there?" Radiohead are a band who have become so revered that it's hip on the nth level to dislike them, and to class them as one of your favourite bands is often to be regarded as someone with a fairly unadventurous taste in indie music. They're one of the few genuinely huge indie bands of the last few decades, and, whether you think that's a cause for celebration as it demonstrates some mild remnants of taste clinging on for dear life in the vacuous, post-Armageddon corridors of the general public, or a cause for woe indicating how people think all you need is some weirdo dancing like an electrocuted halibut and making strange wailing noises to be artistic, there's no denying that Jonny Greenwood and his revolutionary guitar work have been part of the beating heart of the band. The bleak screeches of "Paranoid Android" still send electric shocks up spines the world over. The scorching wails of "Just" just kick arse every time. Even though there's been an auspicious decline in the amount of obvious guitar work on Radiohead records in recent years, 2007's In Rainbows showed that Jonny hadn't lost any of his guitar finesse whilst he'd been arsing about with that ondes martinot. Even the few splashings of guitar present of most recent release The Kings of Limbs were inspired, and proved, to me at least, that one of the best things about Radiohead has always been the guitars.

4.Tom Campesinos!

Not his real name of course, Tom Campesinos! joins with the rest of his bandmates from Los Campesinos! in keeping his full name a secret, opting instead to mark himself out with a Ramones style mark of loyalty to the band. Los Campesinos! are one of my favourite bands of all time and, for a band who only released their first LP in 2008, the intense love that their fanbase feels for them is terrifying. I think they have the destiny of becoming a true cult classic band and, like many bands in that bracket, their sound is a love-it-or-hate-it affair. It's overwhelming, cacophonous and lyrically as blunt and (sometimes) uncomfortable as being beaten to death by a large, metal-alloy statue of one of your ex-lovers. Tom's guitar lines are at the heart of the band's punchy, abrasively euphoric sound, and they consistently have the kind of earworming quality which causes them to be chanted back to the band at gigs - see "Death to Los Campesinos!", "You! Me! Dancing!", "Straight In At 101" and plenty more for evidence. The band have released 3 albums in 3 years, an astonishing feat in itself, but made all the more impressive by the maturation of their sound on all fronts, including Tom's guitar work. Last year's Romance Is Boring had a stunningly unified sound, with the guitar work underpinning the albums most emotionally intense moments, notably fan favourite "The Sea is A Good Place To Think Of The Future".

3. Lee Ranaldo/Thurston Moore

It doesn't get much more alternative than this does it? I've cheated a bit here and put the two Sonic Youth heavyweights as one entry, but that's because the interplay between their guitars is so awesome and integral to Sonic Youth's sound that the pair's work is inseparable in my mind. Sonic Youth formed out of the largely pretentious no-wave/noise scene in 1980s New York, and, after trying a few other guitarists, Thurston and his girlfriend Kim Gordon met Ranaldo and were buzzing about the work he'd done with avant-rock afficionado Glenn Branca. Sonic Youth, with Ranaldo in particular, were obsessed with exploring the possibilities of SOUND, rather than just the standard notes a guitar was expected to produce. This meant that they employed heavy use of alternate tunings, which, when the band began to gain prominence as a popular rock group, was fairly off the wall. The band have always been and will continue to be explorers of the sonic world, but their music has always been grounded firmly in song writing, stemming from a love artists ranging from Bob Dylan to Thurston's fetish faves, The Carpenters. This marriage of noise and experimentation with structured and pop influenced song writing essentially birthed altnerative rock as we know it. The ripples caused by albums like Daydream Nation is untold. Whilst their have been more than a few moments where they've disappeared up their own arse, it's all been done in the name of taking guitar music to a new level. There are plenty of great guitarists in the world, but it's very rare that someone comes along and turns the guitar into something new entirely, reinventing it for a new generation. But that's exactly what Thurston and Lee did. The ultimate guitar anti-heroes.

2. Graham Coxon

Choosing between Graham and my number one was a heck of a challenge. There's just nothing I do not love about this man and what he does with the guitar. Again, as the axe man of Blur, he's one of those guitarists who can sometimes get lost in the shadow of the band's front man, Damon Albarn. Graham is, from my knowledge of guitarists, the most underrated of them all. Nearly everything that fell of his fretboard in Blur, and in most of his solo output as well, is just gold. "Beetlebum", "No Distance Left To Run", "Coffee & TV", "Tender". "SONG 2!" Genius. Sheer, unabashed, irresistible genius. Even album cuts like "Bank Holiday" or "Badhead" have this subtly magical charm about them. He never blasted out with neanderthal like solos like Noel Gallagher. He preferred the wryest, most cleverly placed bits of fretwork, which Damon Albarn described as "more like anti-solos". His solo material however has proved that he can wail with the best of them - "Spectacular", "You & I" and "Freakin' Out" all being beloved, punk influenced gems. He's even demonstrated his terrifying dexterity with an acoustic guitar on 2009 album The Spinning Top. Graham's sound has had such an influence on British indie bands in the past 10 years and, even if it hadn't, it's never anything less than a joy to listen to.

1. Johnny Marr

Well, here we are. I said at the start that I resolutely distinguish between the BEST of something and my personal FAVOURITE of something but, in this case, my favourite is also the best. There is not another man who can ever be said to have more of influence on indie guitar music. Ever. Being part of The Smiths, our Johnny is probably top of the class when it comes to putting up with the reputation of your frontman, but that never seemed to stop the two of them creating indie music as we know it. Inspired by the likes of The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield, Jonny engineered a trademark "jangly" sound which could soundtrack every area of The Smiths' emotionally panoramic catalogue. I very rarely agree with Noel Gallagher, but one of the few times I have was about Johnny Marr: "There's nothing he can't do with a guitar". The Smiths (well, Morrissey) possess that strange aura of being both at once romantically understated - the backbone of the indie aesthetic - and subtly flamboyant. That's as evident in Marr's guitar work as it is in Morrissey's lyrics and personality. The dexterity of the guitar parts on songs like "The Boy With The Thorn In His Side", "Ask" or "This Charming Man" is just sensational, yet never exhibitionist. "How Soon Is Now?" has one of the most cataclysmically bleak and massive riffs ever, and yet somehow, through Johnny's magic, heavenly touch, it never becomes overbearing. His sound is just so engrossing and enveloping, whilst still being technically unrivalled in modern music. Morrissey's introspective and terrifyingly clever lyrics were the beating heart of The Smiths, but Johnny Marr's guitar work was the flesh and bone that wrapped it up and gave the band form. Without The Smiths and without Johnny Marr, no-oe on this list (apart from predecessor Nick Drake and contemporaries Sonic Youth) would have ever started making the music they do. The Smiths are, like many acts on this list, a love-or-hate kind of band. I'm firmly in love but, even if you're not, there is no arguing, in any sphere of existence, theoretical or otherwise, that Johnny Marr is the greatest indie guitarist of all time. As well as my favourite.

"They Don't Make 'Em Like That Any More!"

2011-05-04T11:10:00.000-07:00

I'm someone who invests a a vast amount of my time and effort into discovering and sharing new music. If you're a regular reader or just know me very well, that's probably something you're very familiar with. I write here and for Tympanogram about new music every week, and my ambition is still to become a music journalist. I care a lot about new music and like to think I'm pretty informed about what's going on - what's up, what's down, what the NME is being inconsistent and childish about, that sort of thing.

This isn't me trying to big myself or flaunt my pretentious indie credentials. It's to give a little context for the fact that, despite that love for and obsession with new music, I sometimes find myself in periods where I'm just not interested in anything new.

It happens seemingly without warning or prior cause. One day I'll be dashing gleefully through a playlist of new, obscure debut singles that I've scrounged from a dozen different blogs, and then suddenyl at the drop of a hat, nothing new excites me, and all I want to listen to is old stuff. These phases can last for a short time - a few days - or sometimes weeks.

I've found myself (largely) in a similar position over the fortnight or so. Sure, there's new stuff I've discovered that I have liked in that time, but it's a lot less than usual. The new stuff that I've been listening to recently even reflects the older stuff I'm listening to.

I'm listening to the new Fleet Foxes album, but probably because it reminds me of Crosby, Still & Nash, who I've been listening to gratuitously (not that the new Fleet Foxes album isn't brilliant in its own right) Or I'm listening to a new Carl Barât song a lot, partly I imagine because I've been listening to lots of The Libertines. There are a few other similar examples. Again, I'm sure I'll love that stuff for some time to come, totally on its own terms. It's just that this is a weird place to be in.

So my listening habits recently have been pretty dominated by Simon & Garfunkel, Paul Simon, Johnny Cash, The Libertines, The Carpenters, The Smiths, John Lee Hooker, Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Frank Sinatra and a few others. They're all artists I'd love on any day of any week, but I just find it really strange that, all of a sudden, they're the only thing that really satisfies me.

I'm far from one of those moany gits who sits around vegetating all day in an outgrown Led Zep t-shirt, getting high and mumbling "they don't make 'em like this any more" - though that statement is true in certain ways.

I think sometimes, keeping up with new music just gets really tiring. It's a surprisingly strenuous task just to KNOW what's going on, let alone keep up with buying albums, pre-ordering albums, writing blog posts, getting mp3s. Sometimes I think my mind just gets frazzled, and I just need to sit back and rest on stuff that's tried and tested, proven and trustworthy. It really does prove that a record can be like an old friend. Whilst old music is a goldmine in and of itself that I'll be delving into for the rest of my life, the classics who have cemented themselves in my life thus far allow me to just sit back and listen, without having to offer up the analysis and evaluation that I do with new stuff - not even just when I write blog posts, I do it in my head all the time!

I wrote this post just to get that thought out of my head, and partly to convince to myself that I'm not "losing my edge". It will pass sure enough. It's just quite interesting to note the unpredictably whims of taste. I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets like this. I hope...

Top Records - March/April 2011

2011-04-28T00:00:00.000-07:00

I said the same at the start of my last review of my listening habits for 2011, but I'm utterly terrified by how fast the year is moving. It's a matter of weeks until my school life is finished, mere months until I fly the nest and head off to university. Yikes. But let's not think about that just yet!

2011, however fast it's gone for you, has continued to rack up some brilliant releases. There are some releases I've been excited about for months, others I knew nothing about when I first came to them. Here's what's been tickling my musical fancy so far this spring!

Build a Rocket Boys! by Elbow

Ever since discovering them through their last album, The Seldom Seen Kid, my heart has been fluttering in rib breaking anticipation at the thought of this album. I wrote a review of it back in March and my glowing opinion hasn't changed. It's bettered if anything. The whole album just keeps on giving. Words like "beautiful", "startling" and "gorgeous" just really don't seem to do it justice. The whole thing just aches with emotion. It feels so REAL. I think it ultimately comes down to Guy Garvey's heartbreakingly colloquial turns of phrase that make songs like "Dear Friends", "With Love", "Lippy Kids" and "Jesus is a Rochdale Girl" feel so sublimely real that it's as if he's sat across the table from you, sharing a reminiscent, teary eyed pint.

What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? by The Vaccines

The Vaccines were always going to find a mixed reception with the album. Discovered and hyped up to the nth degree by the NME, that's always enough to turn a vast amount of the music loving community against a band. However, at the end of the day, all the pretentious twits who want to occupy themselves with over analysing the relevance of guitar bands in 2011, or get hung up on their middle class backgrounds can carry on doing so. I'll be over in the corner singing along to an album where every single song is, quite simply, a cracker. I can't remember the last time I heard an album where every song was as gloriously captivating and singalongable as this. The already popular "Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra)" and anthemic "Post Break-Up Sex" speak for themselves, but even the album cuts soar, especially my personal favourites "A Lack of Understanding" and "Norgaard". Best of all, they manage to perfectly nail catchy guitar pop without ever sounding stoopid or convoluted. Just fun and free. Death to the haters.

Belong by The Pains of Being Pure At Heart

I never really got round to The Pains of Being Pure At Heart when they first emerged in 2009. However, the level of excite surrounding the announcement of this, their second album, made me determined to give it a go. My oh my! It's a strong departure from the sound of their debut, anyone could tell you that (and for some, that's enough to put them off of it) but, as far as I can see, this record is, for lack of a better word, majestic. Gleaming walls of keyboards, pounding and and drums, cataclysmic buzzing guitars - this record is huge. It really reminds me of The Cure, circa Disintegration, except with a heck of a lot less self loathing. The breakneck, euphoric energy of tracks like "Heart in Your Hearbtreak" or "Terrible Friend" make this an album to play with the windows down and the speedometer up. It's a relief really that a band can make music in 2011 that's showered in sentiment, distortion and breathy vocals but still sound as if they have some substance.

Wounded Rhymes by Lykke Li

Lykke Li was another act I never really got the first time round. She always seemed like a bit of an also-ran to me, though I don't know why. Therefore, when the excitement around the release of her second album reached mouth-foaming levels, I was pretty intrigued and thought I'd give her a second chance. Well folks, it's albums like this that make me think giving acts a second chance is still worthwhile. This album is full of stunningly penned songs, primarily exploring the darker side of love. The first track I heard was the pounding "Get Some", which storms along over fat, swung drum beats which instantly reminded me of big band classic "Sing Sing Sing". In fact, a lot of this album sounds pretty retro, and I can just imagine it flowing out of a crackly wireless somewhere in the 50s - especially my personal favourite track, the ballad "Unrequited Love". Despite the sadness and melancholy that hangs over the album, Lykke Li always manages to sound effortlessly alluring and sultry - "I Follow Rivers", "Jerome" and the aforementioned "Get Some" being cases in point. This album could become a classic my friends.

Submarine by Alex Turner

Now this isn't exactly an album, but it's still featured extensively in my listening over recent weeks. Arctic Monkeys front man Alex Turner penned the soundtrack for the recent film Submarine (which I saw - brilliant!), directed by Richard Ayoade, who's directed several Arctic music videos in the past. I posted about my reaction the first track made available from the soundtrack a while ago, and it suffices to say that the rest of the songs didn't disappoint. The breathy and sensual "Stuck on the Puzzle" is a perfect showcase for Turner's ability to highlight the tiny little details in life which are loaded with potency, possibility and personality. The whole song is wrapped up in carefully placed layers of details and metaphor which you can pick away at and think about for hours on end. The other tracks leave Turner alone with just an acoustic guitar, and that's always been a treat over the years. His storytelling knack is as strong as ever on the enchanting "It's Hard to Get Around The Wind" and the gorgeously romantic "Hiding Tonight" perfectly captures the mood of impetuous, impossible promises made in a teenage romance. Not bad for background music eh?

Honourable Mentions
Daydreams & Nightmares by Those Dancing Days
Blue Suicide by Coma Cinema
Smoke Ring for My Halo by Kurt Vile
Tomboy by Panda Bear

There's been plenty of older stuff that's I've had on repeat as well:
- Talk Talk Talk by The Psychedelic Furs
- Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon & Garfunkel
- Paul Simon by Paul Simon
- The first 3 Kings of Leon albums. Those were the days.
- Prolific returns to the Arctic Monkeys back catalogue!
- Blonde on Blonde era Bob Dylan. Perfect for these new sunny days.
- The Carpenters. So much Carpenters. One of the best bands ever, so I was reminded!

There's plenty more stuff to come this year - the new Arctic Monkeys album springs to mind first of all. But there's plenty of unheard of stuff to be discovered. And hey, time may be moving fast in 2011, but we're not even half way yet!

Arctic Monkeys: The Plot Thickens

2011-04-23T03:19:00.000-07:00

Well this is my first post in a couple of weeks, after my gallivanting around the USA. If you're bothered, I had a wonderful time. We spent a lot of time singing "Forget You" by Cee Lo Green and, for some reason, "Loving You" by Minnie Ripperton. Well, I did at least. Got a funny look from a rollercoaster engineer for the latter. Go figure.

Anyway, when I returned, I was immediately greeted with something I had been hotly anticipating for some weeks: a new Arctic Monkeys track and video. One tipped to be the first single from the band's forthcoming album, now revealed to be named Suck It And See.

I was worried as soon as I heard about it. I hope you read two of my most recent posts, one about how bloody awful the first track revealed from their new album was, and the other about how sublime Alex Turner's solo soundtrack for the film Submarine (saw it - brilliant) was. The highly disparate quality of the two left me feeling a tad uncertain about one of Britain's most important bands.

So, heart fluttering in desperately hopeful fanboy anticipation, beads of sweat forming under my collar in the harsh, unforgiving glare of the Surrey sun, I sat down to watch and listen to "Don't Sit Down' Cause I've Moved You Chair".

Now, I can't speak for you, but my reaction upon hearing that went something like this:

YES! YES! SODDING YES! THANKYOU BOYS! AAGGHHHHHH!!!

I was overjoyed hearing this. Over the moon. Just like with their last album, Humbug, there's gonna be a whole army of jaded, close minded indie fans who are still stuck in 2005 and never wanted the Arctics to progress beyond the sound on their debut who hate this track and the forthcoming album with no real reason behind their dislike. The band have adapted again, they've moved, it would seem, into even heavier rock territory than on Humbug , but that's not inherently a bad thing. It failed horrendously on "Brick by Brick", but on this track it comes off sublimely well, thanks largely, I think, to Alex's hilariously surreal and nonsensical lyrics. There's something very British about it all. I had a bit of trouble being able to enjoy the "YEAH YEAH YEAH!" of the chorus first of. But it won me over. In a big way.

As I said when I was negatively reviewing "Brick by Brick", one track can't give an indicator of the quality of an entire album, but I'm hoping to high heaven that this one does. Then we'll be in for a treat.

There's also been a wee bit of controversy about the newly unveiled album cover for Suck It and See.

It's been variously called lazy and genius. Some people love the simplicity and think it's a bold statement, bidding you not to judge it by it's cover but just "suck it and see". Other's think it's a cop out. I think everyone just needs to chill out. So they've opted for a minimalistic album cover. And? There's plenty worse out there folks.

Hey Hey, USA.

2011-04-05T00:00:00.000-07:00

Well tomorrow is the big day folks. The day we've all been waiting for. Well, the day I've been waiting for.

Yep, tomorrow I will set flight for America. Land of the free. I've never been before, so I'm rather excited. It's a school trip, touring round California, Nevada, LA, San Francisco, Las Vegas, all that jazz. There are prolific amounts of fun and banter ahead I imagine.

This post then is to say two things.

The first is that I'm suspending my still kept new year's resolution and now general principle too of publishing at least 2 blog posts a week. I get back on Saturday the 16th so it's highly doubtful I'll fit 2 in at the end of next week amidst vast swathes of trans-Atlantic jetlag.

The second thing is to give you a little insight into what I'm probably gonna be listening to as I blaze across the desert in a coach. From the looks of the things, there's gonna be as many iPod playlists as there are people, so it could end up as a very unsociable coach journey. But hey. We'll see.

This is what I've got lined up for my eardrums. I've been striving to slam some psychadelic desert sounding stuff together.

- Crosby, Stills & Nash. Hendrix described them as "groovy western sky music". Hell yeah.
- The Jimi Hendrix Experience
- The Doors. Lots of The Doors.
- Queens of the Stone Age. It's the desert, how could I not?
- John Lee Hooker
- The Great Society Mind Destroyers
- Cream
- Paul Robeson
- The Decemberists
- Credence Clearwater Revival
- Bob Dylan (Blonde on Blonde era)
- The Rolling Stones
- Arctic Monkeys (Humbug)
- Nick Drake
- The Stooges
- Iggy Pop
- Inverness
- America ("A Horse With No Name" of course)

So there you have it. I imagine that, if there are any "big tunes" to be had on the trip, they'll make themselves known. Fill you in when I get back!

ByeBye LCD Soundsystem.

2011-04-03T00:00:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking quite a bit recently about the relationship between age and music. It stems a lot from looking at my parents and older people in general and wondering why there is, almost universally, an age you reach where you stop being primarily concerned with new music. Witnessing this, I wonder to myself if that will happen to me when I'm settled down and middle aged.

Then I start to realise how my relationship with music has changed even in the few short years I've been alive and the even shorter number of years I've been properly listening to music. Now I'm getting older and edging towards the terrifying edge of adulthood, I've been around long enough to see things change for me musically. Not just in terms of what I listen to, but in the goings on of the musical world. I've been able to watch bands emerge from the underground and release a debut (Warpaint). Or change their sound (Arctic Monkeys). Or sell out (Kings of Leon). And, sadly, I'm now seeing bands calling it a day.

Last night, Saturday, 2nd of April 2001, LCD Soundsystem played their last ever show at Madison Square Gardens in New York. The band was the project of James Murphy, the coolest middle aged man ever (I don't think he's got to a stage where he stops listening to new music) Since they first came about in 2001, the band were one of the most exciting, innovative and insightful bands on the planet. I was blessed enough to see them play live back in November and it was one of the greatest gigs I've ever been to.

So saying good bye to them is hard. For me and, I imagine, for a lot of people. James Murphy has called it a day because he feels the band has run its natural course.

So why is it hard for me to say goodbye? I wasn't around when they exploded onto the scene in 2001 so they're not a bad who've soundtracked my life. I only got into them about 18 months ago. But in that time, LCD Soundsystem have influenced my ideas about what music in massive ways.

1. Sarcasm, irony, knowingness and bluntness
Before I started listening to LCD Soundsystem, I didn't really have any sense of how much a band could use the above notions in their music. James Murphy is one of the few special lyricists who make me laugh out loud. He burst onto the scene in 2001 with "Losing My Edge", a hilariously blunt, self-mocking confession of how, as he became a 30-something DJ, he began I'm "losing [his] edge to the art-school Brooklynites in little jackets and borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered eighties". He's so full of hilarious self-analysis, and it comes across in his delivery as well as the lyrics. Everything's just laced with irony and insightful sarcasm, and I was blown away to hear it for the first time, which I think was on the title track from Sound of Silver: "Sound of silver talk to me, makes me want to feel like a teenager/Until you remember the feelings of a real live emotional teenager". Very few people can pull it off without sounding either desperate or arrogant. The only other person who's up on the same levels for me is Morrissey with The Smiths - and I think my appreciation for his sarcasm/witticisms (which I now adore) is a direct result of gaining an appreciation for it via LCD Soundsystem.

2. Singing about other music
There's a dude on Twitter who goes by the name of Discographies, because he wittily sums up an artist's entire discography in 140 characters. This was his for LCD:

'LCD Soundsystem: 1 "Music about other music..."; 2 "...acquires unexpected resonance..."; 3 "...if you explain the trick and then vanish."'

LCD Soundsystem were, in a lot of ways, a band concerned with other music. It comes across in the lyrics immensely. The lament of competitive DJ life in "Losing My Edge", the hilarious proposition of a Daft Punk hosted house party in "Daft Punk is Playing at My House" or the more subtle moments. One of my favourite lines for some reason has always been one from "All My Friends": "That's how it starts/We go back to your house/We check the charts/And start to figure it out". That image of checking the charts with someone and trying to figure out what it's all about, why it's all so messed up, really resonated with me. It was amazing to hear an artist singing about other music and his relationship with it, at a time where I was really starting to realise how seriously I take music and the part it plays in my life.

The way Murphy makes his influences clear in the music itself was fascinating for me as well. He does it whilst always sounding so gloriously original, at every turn. He wears a love for Can, Kraftwerk, David Bowie and countless others proudly on his sleeve, but he never gets drowned in his influences, only pays homage to them - a fact which has massively shaped my expectations of how a band should relate to its influences.

3. Helping and caring about the music industry
A dude as concerned with music as James Murphy could never resist having his say in the industry at large. In 2001, he and some colleagues set up DFA Recordings, a fantastically consistent record label that's home so some of the most innovative and individual bands around. I love it when artists start their own labels and really nurture them and have a clear purpose for them (there's a lot of shared sound and influence in DFA bands).

Also, when scalpers started selling tickets for the last LCD shows at extortionate prices, Murphy had this to say: "i will try to figure a way out to fuck these fuckers. NO MATTER WHAT WE DO, IT IS NOT WORTH THAT KIND OF MONEY TO SEE US!...1500 for a single ticket? Fuck you, scalpers. You are parasites. I HATE you."

4. Making music that's intelligent, danceable AND rock n roll
LCD Soundsystem have been a band who've carried the torch of "dance-punk" throughout the past 10 years, and they really do the term justice. They combine lyrics which are constantly spot on with music that you could pour onto the dancefloor until sunrise, and it's all done with an attitude of screwing everyone else, and often delivered with some hilariously earnest screams to make the point even clearer - "North American Scum", "Drunk Girls", "Dance Yrself Clean", plenty more all clear examples. LCD Soundsystem taught me that a band shouldn't just be limited to making music that fills one particular criterion - being rock and roll or being intelligent or being danceable. All three can co-exist seamlessly, if you do it right.

5. They're a kick ass live band

Just watch and wait for 4:20:

6. They're just so real
At the end of the day, James Murphy and everyone who's ever contributed to his group, has exuded in interviews, on stage, on record, in videos, that they love what they doing and that they care so much about getting it right and giving it to the fans. Most artists love their fans but I have yet to see anyone who's really as clued in about how music works in and affects someone's life as James Murphy. He is a once in a generation kind of guy. And I'm glad he was around in mine.

Bye James.

iPanicked

2011-03-29T00:00:00.000-07:00

It's happened to me before. But those times I've expected it. I've prepared myself, in the quietness of my own heart and in the scope of the rest of life and the universe, for the heart wrenching, life changing inevitability. I had watched on helplessly, but confident and ready in the fact that, when it came to the bottom line, I could ultimately do nothing. But this time. This time it was so unexpected. So sudden. You just don't expect it to happen to you, do you?

My iPod died.

Mid-morning yesterday, the ol' girl just up and died. I've been through a few iPods in my time, but I've watched those gradually deteriorate over time, and reach their last legs with enough notice for me to go and purchase a replacement. But yesterday, my perfectly functional companion just conked out. Blank screen. No response. All communication with the mothership was lost. We were adrift in deep space.

I tried it all. Charging, plugging, tapping, hitting. At one point I got out one of my old discarded ones and had a dummy run on cracking it open, having Googled various DIY methods (I was left with a small pile of screwdrivers, kitchen knives, guitar picks and pieces of 1"x3" card. Don't ask about the last bit)

Finally, miraculously, the poor thing connected to my iTunes and I was able to restore all the settings and reload my music (HINT: 12,600 odd songs take a while) She's now back on her feet, pottering around in my pocket safely.

But yesterday, for about 12 hours, I will confess I was in total panic and disarray. I felt angry, sad, frustrated, cheated, disappointed, all in equal measure. The outlook was so bleak. I have no money to buy a replacement; the insurance and warranty have both run out. I've got a trip to America next week and my head has long been filled with visions of plugging in whilst coaching it across the Nevada desert with The Doors pounding my ear drums. But when that looked as if it were not to be, I was panic stricken.

I was thinking "what will I do when I'm working at school? What will I do when I'm walking places? I won't be able to listen to whatever I want in the car!"

But when the dust had settled, I began to think something else. I reflected on the situation and the large amount of wasted hours and energy and thought - "why? Why did the potential loss of my iPod for a prolonged but probably temporary period send me into such a flap?"

I'm generally becoming more and more short tempered and cynical towards the way we're enslaved to modern technology and the internet. More and more often I find myself begrudging how much of my time Facebook wastes and how I want the whole bloody thing to implode and I'm increasingly considering saying goodbye to the whole charade. I've become enamoured with vinyl and the physical value of music, turning scorn upon how the pick'n'mix culture of mp3 downloads devalues your relationship with music.

I like to think I'm quite astute and informed when it comes to being aware of the influence the modern world has on my life. But when my iPod died, I flew into an absurdly disproportionate panic. It truly unsettled me. I had no idea what kind of hold that little, nifty block of technology had on me. As a music lover, listening to music is a key part of my day to day life. I never go more than a few hours without listening to music and, if I'm out, it's obviously on my iPod.

But is loving my music an excuse for the flap I went into? My conclusion is no, not really.

I mean, what's wrong with a bit of silence? A bit of thinking time? I have noticed that when I constantly flood my ears with music, the whole practice can just get a little stale sometimes. I need a bit of to recuperate. Think about the rest of the world, the rest of life. If I'm always plugged in between doing other things, where does the time for thought go? Obviously listening to music inspires me to a lot of thoughts in a lot of ways, but sometimes it just becomes a bit crowded in my head. I've got to rest my mind. Think about life, read my Bible. As they say, silence is golden.

Even though I try to be considered in my approach to how I let modern things encroach upon my life, that doesn't mean that when I do end up under technology's thumb it's any less crass or unthinking than someone who nonchalantly surrenders their whole existence to time wasting on the internet.

For such a trivial and painfully middle class occurrence, my little iPod freak-out yesterday had a pretty big impact on me. I guess, now, none of us are ever really going to be totally free of technology. No, I'm not a Luddite or a technophobe, and I have grown up in the world parallel to the growth of the internet, but I hate the feeling of being at the mercy of a screen. I spent a vast amount of my early teens in the place and hate that fact now. So maybe I'll have a thorough rethink of how quickly I untangle my headphones every day. Come ask me in a little while.

The Flaming Lips and Neon Indian - "Is David Bowie Dying?"

2011-03-27T06:32:00.001-07:00

You might remember a couple of months ago I wrote a post about The Flaming Lips and their plans for recording and releasing lone tracks throughout the course of this year. One of the biggest causes for excitement when the announced this was their intention to work with electro/chillwave producer Neon Indian.

After a couple of months of waiting in tacit excitement, the collaboration has finally arrived. It's as psychadelic and peculiarly titled as you'd expect.

The track is entitled "Is David Bowie Dying?" and, whilst it doesn't quite explore the subject matter suggested in its title, it's as bizzarre and sprawling as such a question might suggest. The track's one big freaked-out sprawl of occasional, massive guitar chimes, shifting drums and Wayne Coyne's beardy croonings over the top. More and more layers join in as time goes on; a backing choir arrives, static scrawls flare up like screaming animals. It all gets rather freakily noisy, and I quite like it.

I said in the post I wrote back in January that collaborations like this can keep artists on their toes and stimulate creativity. Sounds like that's what's been going on to me, both bands clubbing together to create some more cracking psychadelia. It's not world changing, but hey, it's weird and the sun's out where I am. Boom.

Click here to head to the page where the track is available to listen to.

Elbow - "Build a Rocket Boys!" - Album Review

2011-03-21T00:00:00.000-07:00

The weight of expectation weighed heavy on Elbow’s shoulders for this album. They stole the nation's hearts in 2008 with The Seldom Seen Kid marrying critical and commercial success in a way which even the most cynical couldn’t sneer at. I discovered them through that album and investigated their previous three. Each one is phenomenally gorgeous. The Seldom Seen Kid was subtly different in a lot of ways from previous efforts. It opened up a more organic sound from the band, forgoing the delicate electronic blips and guitar whirls of previous albums.

So where could the band go? They'd fulfilled the underdog dream, what now? What could they sing about? Frontman and lyricist Guy Garvey himself stated "...when heartbreaking melancholia is your currency, success and contentment can be a problem". There were plenty fearing that the band would stray into Coldplay/U2 territory. What they've actually done is made their most intimate and nuanced record to date.

The album opens with "The Birds" - a shifting, whirling 8 minuter which belies any fears about commercialisation. The instrumentation of the track signals a trend which runs throughout the album, which is that the Elbow boys are further nurturing their prog-rock/post-rock tendencies. This has been a key part of their sound for years, originating from a love of Genesis, Talk Talk, Pink Floyd and Radiohead. When you post reviews as a normal listener rather than a professional critic, you have time to read plenty of other reviews before your own goes up. Lots I've read have commented on how most of the band seem to take more of a step back in favour of Garvey’s vocals. I think that's a criminal misreading - the rest of the band are at their most spry and involved, nursing their creative post-rock tendencies throughout. Being subtle doesn’t mean they’re not involved.

The opener is followed by "Lippy Kids" - the first track unveiled on Boxing Day. It's stunning and draws us right into the lyrical theme of the album - reflecting on your youth. Garvey looks on affectionately at a bunch of hoodies hanging round on a corner, nostalgic for his own days there. Some of his best lyrics to date drift effortlessly out of his mouth as he croons "the cigarette senate was everything then" and grins over how he "never perfected that simian stroll".

This is followed by the euphoric orchestral pop of "With Love". Built on handclaps, rows of backing vocals and an almost cheeky bounces and stabs from the bass and piano, this is an album track that stands up as strong as anything else here. Placing Garvey against the backing vocals highlights the aura that he's always given off that makes you feel as if you'd follow him into the darkest depths of Salford and back - and you would when he can sing about dentures and make it sound so glorious.

"Neat Little Rows" is the anthemic, stomping lead single - this album's "Grounds For Divorce". It's followed swiftly by the album's glorious centrepiece "Jesus is a Rochdale Girl". This is one of Elbow's rare truly acoustic moments, and Garvey definitely takes centre stage on this one. Listing fragmented images and memories from his early twenties, it bowls you over how he can put equal gravitas on the words "forty five CDs" as he does "nothing to be proud of and nothing to regret". The glistening cherry on the cake is the expertly placed, slightly off kilter keyboard stabs of Craig Potter.

Just when you thought the band might be slipping into lullabies, "The Night Will Always Win" gives way to the jazzy swagger of "High Ideals". They've got a surprising penchant for jazzy swagger do Elbow. Comes with the Mancunian territory I guess. They one-up many of their un-evolved, knuckle dragging Mancunian contemporaries (naming no names) however with the beautiful horn section and atonally inspired guitar chimes that lace this track. Elbow have displayed time and time again their ability to perfectly articulate male emotion without sounding crass or forced. The Seldom Seen Kid was a tribute to the band's friend Bryan Glancy, who died suddenly in 2008. Moments on that album capture male friendship in a way that I honestly wouldn't have thought was possible. The band continue to paint a nuanced, trembling picture of male emotion on this record as they look back on their pasts.

Not to suggest that they haven't got more heart bursting anthems up their sleeve. "Open Arms" is glorious and colossal without ever sounding overblown and hollow. The twinkles of piano, mandolin and strings all swell up around Garvey as he belts "WE'VE GOT OPEN ARMS FOR BROKEN HEARTS, LIKE YOURS MY BOY, COME HOME AGAIN!" It's the kind of thing that makes you want to run back home to all those faces from your past and tell them how much you love them. The bass thuds in the bridge will hit you in the pit of your stomach like a mallet, inducing that trembling, overwhelming joy and love of home that shakes makes you feel worryingly small in the big, grown-up world.

After an eerie reprise of "The Birds", the album bids au revoir with the ballad "Dear Friends". Garvey's lyrics are at colloquially elegant best - "Dear friends, you are angels and trumps, you are magi". It plays the album out like the final, drunken, heartfelt goodbyes at a wedding. When you're overwhelmed with sadness and joy in equal, teary eyed measure. All the faces you've known and loved and built your life on surround you and you can't even articulate the swelling in your chest. Knowing you've just experienced something indescribably beautiful. A landmark. Maybe not for the universe or the rest of the world. But for you. Your world. Your heart.

Rebecca Black - "Friday". Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

2011-03-17T10:05:00.000-07:00

If by now you haven't listened to and watched the video for the song "Friday" by 13 year old American singer Rebecca Black then you, my friend, are what we call "out of the loop". Part of me wishes to apologise for what you are about to experience, but it's necessary:

This video went viral last (haha) Friday, March 11th. It's been a while since something that wasn't either purposefully hilarious or Lady GaGa related went full blown viral; and in less than a week it's gained close to 13 million views on YouTube. Why?

Everyone can tell you - it's bloody awful. It has received a universal bludgeoning. Within a week, the song has become the internet's favourite whipping boy (or girl...). I have literally yet to meet a single person who hasn't described it as the worst song they have ever heard. It has been verbally raped. Everywhere.

Now, I don't just want to spend a whole post ranting about the obviously crap things - that devilishly inane chorus, the single stupidest lyric ever in the bridge, the autotune poured on as thick as concrete on Chernobyl. Despite it being a vacuous modern pop husk and the fact that the world's greatest hope is to simply ignore it and hope it goes away, the song and video reveal some tragic truths about how pop music works today.

One of the biggest problems with pop music over the last couple of years is the way that it presents kids at a really immature age (about 12 to 15) with all these ideas about "partying" and being "in the club". I've lost count of the amount of times I've seen 14 year olds dolled up like Bratz dolls on smack, singing and gyrating along to Flo Rida like a bunch of orange, ugg boot wearing marionettes. Now I'm nowhere near saying that Rebecca Black's godless refrain of "partyin', partyin', YEAH!" has propelled a generation of youngsters into a sordid pit of moral abandon, but when someone somewhere thought it was a legitimate idea to have a 13 year old sing that, it proves that, in some way, things have reached rock bottom.

Kids that age have never been in a club! They haven't even been to parties that aren't supervised by mothers voraciously handing out overwhelming amounts of Wotsits and those little biscuits shaped like fish. And yet in this video, you've got a 13 year old and her friends DRIVING A FRIGGING CONVERTIBLE. Then she turns up at some party where all her pre-teen friends are dressed up like slags (with braces) and there are massive, shiny 4x4s parked outside, seemingly being supervised by a bunch of pre-pubescent little waifs whose balls have very low prospects for dropping in the near future. I mean, watch the video and look at the guy she talks to at 1:43-44. Really?

A whole movement of pop songs over the last several years have accelerated the unhealthy preoccupation that kids have with behaving like adults nowadays. They're presented with an adult world and told "this is what you guys should want". They don't know how to deal with it. They're nowhere near ready! They have no idea who they are, and yet they're suddenly surrounded by this inescapable philosophy of waht you should act like, dress like and talk like. Those songs have always been sung by older artists, they just end up marketed at kids and young teenagers. This however is something different. This is actually a kid releasing the track. I hope that the sensory perceptions of even the most repugnant 13 year old can work out that this song is bloody awful, and so this won't inspire kids to think that their fantasies of spending the whole weekend (including Friday) partying are any more attainable. But someone, somewhere thought that it would. Record label bosses somewhere think that the market for pushing adult material (and it doesn't have to be porn to be classed as adult material) onto kids is at a point where it can be exploited at the next level. This may very well not be the last we hear of Rebecca Black. And if the internet achieves the (clearly laudible) feat of destroying the career of a doe-eyed 13 year old girl, there will soon be another on to take her place.

I'm sure plenty of you are going to say "dude, you're reading way too much into this". Maybe. I'm also sure plenty of people are going to say "well, why should I care? Just get on with life!" Maybe. This song's already gone viral and has also already broken the iTunes Top 100. Any popularity it gains however, I think will be purely for ironic amusement. Something of a reverse "Rage Against the X Factor". It's not going to have a sincere cultural impact. But the fact that someone, somewhere thought this was a good idea, that creating a younger, female Justin Bieber (she's been called that as an insult and a compliment) was an appropriate business move, has me worried. And not just because it's sodding awful.

And what's the deal with the middle aged guy rapping, checking his watch and driving along? He's not even with the kids at the party. What the hell is he doing? Going to pick them up I imagine. What a douche.

Alex Turner - "Piledriver Waltz". Hope Restored!

2011-03-16T09:51:00.001-07:00

In my last post I was pondering whether there's cause for concern about the musical future of Arctic Monkeys after the release of their worst track to date. I've been nursing knots in my stomach ever since, and - being part of the generation whose introduction to indie music rests almost solely on the band - the fear of them disappearing up their arse hasn't been far from my mind since.

However, over the weekend I was gifted with a tasty - if small - morsel of hope which I have since been nibbling affectionately.

It was announced some months ago that Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner would be making his first foray into a solo career by providing five songs for the soundtrack for British comedy film Submarine, directed by Richard Ayoade (best known to us as Moss from The IT Crowd)

Ayoade and Turner have come together several times before, Ayoade having directed the music videos for "Flourescent Adolescent", "Crying Lightning" and "Cornerstone" (the former is just one of the best music videos in the last few years)as well as the videos for "My Mistakes Were Made For You" and "Standing Next To Me" from Turner's side project The Last Shadow Puppets. For someone who plays such a supremely inept geek like Moss in The IT Crowed, Ayoade has a formidable indie rep - he's directed for Vampire Weekend, Kasabian, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs too. Never underestimate the geeks folks.

But back on track, over the weekend I came across one of the trailers for Submarine , soundtracked by the song "Piledriver Waltz". Have a cheeky listen why don't you:

I can't tell you how much I loved hearing that track. It's drawn me right back from the brink of my doubts for the new Arctic Monkeys album. Obviously it's not an Arctics track, and as The Last Shadow Puppets showed, Turner can deviate pretty strongly from "traditional" Arctics fair when he wants to. However, it proves that Turner's still got it. He's got it in spades. The song just oozes that indefinably sensual nature in his songwriting which has been growing cheekily since Favourite Worst Nightmare and really flowered on Humbug. The drawl, the croon, the delivery. Gorgeous. It send shivers up my spine. And I'm a bloke.

The song itself, disregading for a moment any Arctic Monkeys related speculation, is gorgeous. Once again, very Scott Walker/Burt Bacharach like in the vein of The Last Shadow Puppets, but quite similar to "Cornerstone" from Humbug. The lyrics are, as we'd expect from Turner, sublime. A lot of people have found his ability to write ballads like this something of an anomaly, but he's been cracking them out since day one. Their early EP Who The Fuck Are Arctic Monkeys? contained the two beautiful ballads "Despair in the Departure Lounge" and "No Buses", tracks which were knocking around back when Andy Nicholson was still playing bass. And since then we've had the gorgeous "Only Ones Who Know" - one of Turner's best ever songs as far as I'm concerned - as well as brilliant B-side "The Bakery" and a few others.

I can safely say that the new Arctic Monkeys album won't sound like this track, but that's not the point. This track has reassured me beyond any doubt that Turner still has a firm hold on his songwriting and lyrical abilities - something which "Brick by Brick" knocked my confidence in. This isn't necessarily a universal indicator that the new album will be brilliant. But there's hope.

I'll definitely be getting a hold of the rest of Submarine's soundtrack. Might even give the film itself a whirl.

Arctic Monkeys: Cause for Concern?

2011-03-13T09:30:00.000-07:00

It's been pretty much non-stop excitement for Arctic Monkeys since 2005. They become one of the first bands to truly make their name on the internet. They sell out the London Astoria before they even release their debut album. Their first single, "I Bet You Look Good on The Dancefloor" goes straight in at #1 and showed that indie music in the UK was alive and kicking. Their debut Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not become the fastest selling UK debut in history and gets a 10/10 review in the NME. Instantly, they were the biggest and best band in Britain.

Second time round, their album Favourite Worst Nightmare received almost unanimous critical acclaim, even though most people were saying it wasn't as strong as the debut (something I flagrantly disagree with, and struggle to understand in a lot of ways) Then they headline Glastonbury. On their second album.

The mood changed on their third album Humbug however. It was an even stronger departure, a lot of folks said, than Favourite Worst Nightmare. Alex Turner revealed that during the recording process they'd been listening to Hendrix and Cream, and were decmaping to the Mojave Desert to record with Josh Homme. There was a palpable change in the wind in the British music press - the NME especially. It was full of spiteful accusations of the band disappearing up their own arse. "Fans" all over the place were infuriated that the band had "betrayed" their original sound and aesthetic. I was livid at that. Anyone who had listened with any thing approaching an attention span to Favourite Worst Nightmare would have seem Humbug coming a long way of - a stunningly natural progression of the band's sound, which also saw some of Alex Turner's deftest and most eloquent lyrical turns. Matt Helders' highly publicised bromance with P Diddy may have put a few off but hey, let's keep our eyes on the prize here.

So I have utterly adored everything Arctic Monkeys have ever turned their spry little northern hands to. If you'd asked me a few weeks ago, I would have said the band had never written a bad song. They're one of those bands, as far as I'm concerned, where even the B-Sides are of unspeakably good quality.

Then... this happened:

Now, on numerous levels - by the band's own standards and as a song on it's own - that is crap. Genuinely crap. It's not the worst song ever - it's not Justin Bieber or Cliff Richard. But by the standards of one of the most adept, eloquent and able bands of my generation, chanting "I WANNA ROCK AND ROLL" over mediocre thumping just does NOT cut it.

I have no issue whatsoever with the band further maturing and adapting their sound; I've never been someone who refuses to move on from the first album. As far as I'm concerned, the band have gotten better with each album. Also, I have no problem with them being influenced by classic rock acts like Hendrix, Cream and The Doors. Sure, there's plenty of bands around who influenced by those bands and suck like a malnourished calf at it's mother's glorious teet, but there's also been an unhealthy aversion to being openly influenced by those kind of bands in modern indie music.

However - "Brick by Brick" sounds brainless and crass. It sounds like something off the new Beady Eye album. It sounds lazy. It's Matt Helders singing the verses, not Alex Turner, but when a band containing one of the generation's greatest lyricists releases a song containing a refrain of "I WANNA ROCK AND ROLL!", I'm not having it. It's not a carefree, youthful expression of energy and abandonment. It's crass, pure and simple. The chorus is catchy and a tad lush, I'll give them that, but beyond that it's formulaic and makes you think that there may be such a thing as too much Queens of the Stone Age. At the end of the day, they're still a bunch of skinny white northern lads from Sheffield, not drug addled lone rangers traipsing through the American West, re-enacting Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with LSD naturally running in their blood (a lesson someone should probably taught Kasabian a couple of years back) If they delve into the kind of territory I'm worried they might, I quite simply don't think I'll be able to take them seriously.

But let's remember of course, this is just one song. A song that isn't even going to be a single. And a song that's not even led by the band's lead singer (and may bot have even been predominantly written by him). I desperately, desperately hope that it's not indicative of the overall nature of the album. I have a strong suspicion that the band are on unfathomable cart loads of drugs, which could result in a terrifying lack of quality control or a psychadelic masterpiece. I have a deep rooted faith in Arctic Monkeys, and I hope that this track is just a forgettable album track (even though, in my mind, they've never written one of those before) I've loved watching the band's progression, and even if this album is crap, I hope it won't herald the end of them, but that it will become a mediocre building block in the legacy they should end up leaving behind that makes me appreciate the other blocks all the more. Or maybe it will be awesome. Again.

Scattered Black and Whites #2 - "Panic" by The Smiths

2011-03-11T08:13:00.000-08:00

I've been through a fairly long and protracted process in my relationship with The Smiths. I knew my dad listened to them, and he's generally pretty solid for someone who has purposefully made a note of buying each Snow Patrol album. Then when I started reading the NME, I would see their name mentioned in reverence, which had a pretty strong impression on my malleable 15 year old mind which was striving pathetically to work out what was worth listening to and what wasn't.

Then I became aware of passing references to Morrissey. As a massive twat.

Then I started seeing references to The Smiths as a bunch of pretentious, miserable, flower waving fops.

So I was in two minds before I even got round to listening to them. And when I did listen to them (finally) I fell straight into the "well what a bunch of gloomy gits" camp. Any time I saw Morrissey pop up in the musical press, I felt like slapping him.

I remained this way for some time. A couple of years in fact. Then I started listening again. I thought "there HAS to be more to them. They can't be hailed as the most influential indie group of all time and be as crap as I think they are".

So I did. I listened. My ears and my brain were doing some intense wrestling. And finally, there was a breakthrough. I don't know exactly why, or why it happened when it did, but it did.

Listening to "Panic", the chorus lyrics just smashed right into my brain.

"Burn down the disco
Hang the blessed DJ
Because the music that they constantly play
IT SAYS NOTHING TO ME ABOUT MY LIFE
Hang the blessed DJ
Because the music they constantly play"

I can fully understand why those lyrics, to the uninitiated, look a bit self pitying and drastic. But for me, they are hilariously true! Listening to this I just suddenly started picturing all the times I've walked past clubs or cars or listened to radios blaring out utter, UTTER crap. "Panic" articulated that in a way that I've never fully been able to without feeling like a self righteous douche. And it's the first time that I'd ever really heard anyone SING about how vacuous the popular music around them is. Plenty of artists SAY it, but SINGING about it struck a chord in me. I get a bit sick of people who listen to good music but are quite happy to sit back and let other people be lulled into listening to vacuous, shallow and extortionate musical spam and not say anything about it; about the people listening or the talentless and self interested cons making and producing the stuff. That final chorus is just, in my mind, irresistible. "HAND THE DJ, HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ! HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ, HAND THE DJ - HANG THE DJ!"

Most importantly though, aside from being a great song for me on its own terms, it opened a big ol' floodgate of appreciation. It started me off on a turnaround which turned into a love affair. I fell in love with The Smiths and it's been increasing exponentially over the months since.

I can appreciate that not everyone's going to get The Smiths. There are lots of things people say about them that I can argue against but I can understand that for some people they still don't click. And however erudite, insightful and wry Morrissey was in the 80s, he's one of the biggest twats on the face of the earth now. But let's not talk about that.

Elbow - "Jesus is a Rochdale Girl" and "Neat Little Rows"

2011-03-04T07:57:00.000-08:00

I won't try to up my indie cred by pretending that I had heard of Elbow before they released The Seldom Keen Kid in 2008. I was a little too young to have done so but, like so many people, I feel in love with them. I went off ASAP and bought all of their albums and they are now, inarguably, one of my favourite bands.

Their forthcoming album Build a Rocket Boys! is one of the albums I'm most excited about for this year, and I've written a couple of posts over the past few months about the few things that they've revealed.

Well here, first of all is a live performance of their new song "Jesus is a Rochdale Girl" - apparently a highlight from the album, from the reviews I've read. It's as beautifully Elbow like as ever. The lyrics and vocals sound wise and sentimental, the rhythms soft and restrained, the broken piano parts punctuating gently every now and then with breath taking precision. Here it is:

Also, here's their lead single, "Neat Little Rows". It's Elbow at their anthemic best - thumping bass, a piano riff with the size and power of a whale riding a double decker bus through your bedroom wall and Guy Garvey belting it out as if his life depends on it. He has a stunning knack for combining his own words and common, every day turns of phrase - "neat little rows". The album's all about nostalgia for their youth and life at home, inspired by moving back into the parts of Manchester they grew up in. It bowls me over and make me grin to hear Guy asking for his bones to get laid down their "in cobblestones" or "in neat little rows", just like the houses back where he lives. One of the greatest living lyricists, without a doubt.

Also, click here to watch their appearance on this week's edition of The Culture Show. It runs from around the 18 minute mark to 24 minutes. Enjoy!

Top Records - January/February 2011

2011-03-01T15:00:00.001-08:00

Goodness gracious I can't believe it's March already. It's been an eventful couple of months. Exams, blogging, gigs, the whole of North Africa deciding it's time for a new world order. It's all been going on. But I thought I'd take this opportunity, now that a sixth (A SIXTH! That's like 16.5%!) of the year has passed, to share with you the 5 main records from this year that have been dominating my listening habits. There's plenty of tracks I've been listening to as well, and albums that I have yet to buy, but here's what I've had my hands on especially:

The King is Dead by The Decemberists

I'd never really listened to The Decemberists a great deal before this year, but I got my hands on this album through my involvement with the awesome music blog Tympanogram. This is such a lovely record. It bagged a surprise #1 spot over in America and, whilst that might partly be because it was available pretty cheap on Amazon, it is a record that you can fall in love with. It's lush, sweet, heartfelt and with a disarming charm, and sounds like a cross between REM and early Neil Young. I think that disarming charm is key and it's what keeps me listening even when I know parts of the album sound embarassingly countryfied or like a Randy Newman offcut for Pixar. Colin Meloy's voice is just so lovely and uncomplicated, and he's a pretty deft lyricist on this album - humble, honest, insightful. And he comes across as a genuinely nice guy (and not in a pathetic, "would you like some of my cous-cous", Chris Martin style way). Favourite tracks on the album have to be the fantastic stomping opener "Don't Carry It All", the beautiful acoustic ballad "January Hymn" and the anthemic penultimate track "This Is Why We Fight", which uses that good ol' reliable chord sequence.

Yuck by Yuck

I've been quite excited about Yuck and their debut for a while. With music press hype as well as brilliant material thus far, this album was set to be a big listen. And after living with it for a good few days, it hasn't disappointed. They've been the subject of endless comparisons to 90s grunge acts like Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr and even Sonic Youth - which hasn't been entirely misplaced. However, the album is a lot mellower than you might have expected. It's not a return to the stripped down nature of their gorgeous Daughter EP, but tracks like "Shook Down", "Suicide Policeman" and "Stutter" are warm, engrossing, wonky indie rock ballads in the vein of some of Pixies softer moments. Even the discordant fuzz of closer (and fan favourite) "Rubber" is something you can just blissfully lack down into. They still deliver a hell of a punch on the heavier tracks though - "Get Away" and album highlight "Georgia", I'm looking at you. Lyrically, it's honest, youthful teenage stuff which, despite the endless grunge comparisons, often comes off as hazily romantic. This album is full of texture, heart and - most importantly - fantastic songs. My favourites are "Georgia", "Get Away" and "Shook Down".

Hunger by Frankie & The Heartstrings

Well what can I say about Frankie & The Heartstrings. They are one of the most criminally happy bands in the world. Frankie Francis is one of the most outrageously camp frontmen around. I saw them live last week and they had more playful energy than any band I've seen in a good, good while. "Gingerbread men on crack" was the comparison I used that evening, I believe. And all of that has translated into an album that full of shamelessly joyful, hyperactive indie pop gems. "Hunger", "Photograph, "Possibilites", "Tender" (heck most of the album) are all irresistibly bouncy and jangly. I keep feeling as if I should find Frankie Francis' colourful and flamboyant vocals vulgar, but I just fall more in love with them every time. It's just so fun! And when things slow down and we get serious, such as the massive six minute ballad "Fragile" in the middle of the album, it's just as easy to listen to. Every song is full of killer hooks and melodies, making an album that you just can't help but shamelessly enjoy. Favourite tracks have got to be "Tender", "Photograph" and "Don't Look Surprised".

The Kings of Limbs by Radiohead

I wrote a review of Radiohead's latest album, as well as some thoughts on the way they released it, so you can see a lot of my thoughts there. I just want to say that, when I stop thinking about the experimental nature of the album, to context of it within the rest of Radiohead's work, what it means for their future and all that malarkey, I realise that I find this album so immensely enjoyable to listen to now. It's not exactly one of those "difficult" or "challenging" albums, but, as I've said, it's not as easy to fall in love with as an album like In Rainbows. But after numerous listens, I am totally in love with it. It's beautiful, nearly every twist and turn is enchanting, and I get a real sense of how the band were clearly inspired by nature in the creation of the album. Also, the strength of each song has struck me more and more with every listen. The album doesn't use conventional song structures, but that doesn't mean the tracks aren't killer examples of song writing, especially in the latter half of the album. This is now an album which I can just drift away into and feel safe and peaceful. Favourite tracks are undoubtedly "Codex", "Give Up The Ghost" and "Separator".

Kiss Each Other Clean by Iron & Wine

Iron & Wine is, again, one of those artists whom I hadn't listened to a great deal before, but whose most recent release I got into through my association with Tympanogram. Everything I had heard from him I'd loved, and I've since gone and investigated it a bit more, so know that this album is quite different from his earlier, more "classic" material - something a lot of fans have taken issue with. But I love this album. It's got so much going for it. The instrumentation and arrangements are fantastic, even if there are moments where things seem a tad cluttered and end up sounding like free jazz. The songs underneath are killer, and Sam Beam's lyrics and vocal delivery are beautiful and nuanced throughout the whole thing. There's a whole range of textures and emotions, from the frantic "Rabbit Will Run" to the much mellower "Half Moon". My favourite tracks have got to be "Godless Brother in Love", "Tree By The River" and "Walking Far From Home".

Honourable Mentions:
Zonoscope by Cut Copy
James Blake by James Blake

Also, some of the older stuff I've been revisiting have been:
- all of Radiohead's back catalogue
- Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers by The National
- The Queen Is Dead and Meat Is Murder by The Smiths
- hefty amounts of Los Campesinos!
- equally hefty amounts of Crystal Castles
- Frank Sinatra, as always
- All We Grow by S Carey

So there's a little update on my listening habits over the past two months, if you care at all. Should make for interesting reading one day, when I'm older, wiser and deafer. God bless folks - keep listening!

Radiohead, 'The King of Limbs' - Album Review

2011-02-24T00:00:00.000-08:00

Now that the world has had a week or so to live with it, a wealth of opinions have risen up surrounding Radiohead's latest, surprise release The King of Limbs. There's been as much speculation about the way it's been released - very little notice, no preview copies, no promotional singles, brought forward a day at the last minute - as about the album itself and the music within. The band haven't repeated the release strategy for their previous release, 2007's In Rainbows, which was released via download on a "pay-what-you-like" system. The average price ended up being about £4. However, the same innovative attitude was behind the album's release and served to make its arrival something that was genuinely exciting; people scrambling around on Friday to download the album, hear single "Lotus Flower" or watch its hilarious video.

The release strategy has been brilliant, and proven that Radiohead are a band who care as much about the way music is released as they do about the music itself. But how has the music itself panned out this time round? Divisively for sure. Differently to previous releases in many ways. But, I think, wonderfully - as we would expect.

The thing that becomes immediately clear when you listen to The King of Limbs is that it's a dramatic departure from In Rainbows. In Rainbows was so easy to listen to and love, returning to conventional song structures and instrumentation for the first time in a few albums. The King of Limbs is an experimental album through and through. We're back in a lot of the same experimental territory as Kid A, through there aren't lush, electronic based compositions like "Treefingers" all over the place. We end up with a synthesis of the band's electronic experimentation and their instrumental prowess, resulting in an album that sounds strangely organic, despite the fact that acoustic guitar only surfaces once and Thom Yorke's vocals are often heavily distorted.

Phil Selway has returned to drum duties with fervour after picking up the guitar for his solo project last year. His percussion is the dominant force throughout the album's first half. It shifts and skitters, scratches and ticks, creating a wonderfully textured and natural feel, like a forest floor. Standouts for this are "Little By Little" - which boasts the album's most infectious melodies also - and "Morning Mr Magpie", which also shows some stunning bass work from Colin Greenwood, reminding us that Radiohead boast one of the most genuinely innovative rhythm sections for decades. "Feral" however, despite showing a set of musicians clearly at the top of their game, probably sees the band disappear up their own arse a bit too much; the frantic and choppy rhythms mixing with random snatches of distorted vocals to create a fairly redundant piece of experimentation. Much as we love Radiohead, free jazz is not their thing. Ever.

The album's second half opens up wonderfully, coincidentally (though probably not coincidentally) starting with single "Lotus Flower", boasting the barely-a-chorus chorus of 'Slowly we unfurl, like lotus flowers'. There's a definite groove on this track, drums and bass gelling together underneath a classic Thom Yorke vocal. This is perhaps, as many people have been saying across the internet this week, the closest thing to a "Radiohead classic" going on on this album. It's followed by "Codex" which is arguably the album's strongest track. It proves that Thom Yorke is the master of wonky, muted piano ballads with creepy, unresolved chord progressions (think "Videotape" and "Pyramid Song") It's wonderfully downbeat and far removed from the clattering cacophony of the album's opening tracks, and highly likely to become a fan favourite.

It fades out with birdsong, before the gorgeous melody of "Give Up The Ghost" drifts in like a dreary, hazy traveller from the rain. An acoustic guitar appears, hugely unexpected, and we drift into a beautiful song which could very, very easily have been a Harvest era Neil Young track. This track proves that, as amazing as Radiohead's sonic experimentation and envelope pushing is, they are still at their best when they whip out the guitars, a fact which becomes further exemplified in the latter half of album closer "Separator". Both of these songs are beautifully arranged, but yoou can't help fight a little niggling feeling that you want more guitar, more classic Thom vocals, however bad that desire might be.

Lyrically, this album fully cements Radiohead as a band with overarching themes in their music. Since OK Computer, their music has always focussed on, in one way or another, living in tension and discomfort with modernity. They've sung about technology, consumerism, alienation and The King of Limbs seems to be focussing on nature. Or rather, it uses nature as a contrast to modernity (backed up as well by the "organic" feel to the album). Thom uses water a lot to represent life, safety and natural things. The album's first lyric on "Bloom" goes 'Open your mouth wide, universal sighs, and while the ocean blooms, it's what keeps me alive'. In "Codex" he sings about jumping 'into a clear lake', where 'the water's clear an innocent'. On "Lotus Flower" he sings 'Slowly we unfurl, as lotus flowers, and all I want is the moon upon a stick' and we get a picture of the beautiful potential we all have as human beings, which ends up being overshadowed by all of our cheap, shallow desires, robbing the natural world of its wonder. This definitely isn't some Greenpeace inspired, eco warrior sermon however, and you get the impression that the nature references are more of a metaphor than something explicit.

The King of Limbs has already proven itself divisive amongst Radiohead fans. Some may feel short changed and distanced from the band they fell in love with in the 90s. I think it's more fitting however to recognise this as a perfectly logical progression in Radiohead's sound - like I said, something of a synthesis of various elements running through their music. It's not the new OK Computer, and it's not got another "Paranoid Android" or "No Surprises", but it was never going to be. For a band as powerful, influential and downright awesome as Radiohead, I'm happy for them to have released an album that's not a masterpiece for once, one that's more of a progression. It's experimentation, but it rarely feels like experimentation for experimentation's sake, though it does occassionaly stray into that. We are all craving another OK Computer if we're honest, but Radiohead are definitely not one of those bands who write the songs people want to hear. Theories are rife now that new material is imminent, and that this album may be the first part of a larger album, or some sort of stop gap. Despite it being an eerily wonderful listen, you definitely leave with a feeling that there's more to come, as if the album is a moon orbiting a greater planet. Who knows.

There are a million and one questions and discussions to be had about Radiohead, their future and their impact and role in the music industry. Mostly good ones too. But for now, let's just enjoy The King of Limbs for its music; music that adds even more shades and tones to Radiohead's glorious career, and proves that they are still the most creative and innovative rock band on the planet.

7.5/10

NME Awards Tour - Crystal Castles, Magnetic Man, Everything Everything, The Vaccines - O2 Academy Brixton - 19/02/11

2011-02-22T00:00:00.000-08:00

There are few things you could have crowbarred onto the poster for this gig to make me more excited. The most exciting new guitar band in Britain? A dubstep supergroup with a massive live reputation? An era defining band who, from all reports I'd heard, were one of the greatest live bands on the planet? And Everything Everything whose set I could have a little rest in midway through? Awesome.

This gig had nothing but "brilliant" written all over it. It was my first time going to Brixton Academy and I loved it as soon as I arrived, from the outside to the foyer to the inner sanctum. Despite a few hitches in the journey up there (which nearly involved a lift to Wimbledon from a pikey who's blown a speaker in his car from excessive dubstep abuse) my friends and I managed to perch ourselves just a little behind the barrier, slap bang in the middle of the pit.

I wasn't quite sure what reception The Vaccines would get, but I was hoping it was going to be a big one. They were the first act so of course the reception wasn't immediately amazing, it never is. But the crowd got better and better as set went on, and by the time we reached the brilliant "If You Wanna", the ground was alive with jumping, thrashing, flailing and singing. I was amazed that the opening act ended up with such a reaction, and it was clear that tunes like "Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra)" and "Post-Breakup Sex" had the audience enthralled. I've got a huge hankering to see these guys at one of their own gigs now.

I've never been majorly fussed about Everything Everything; their music's far too jam packed for me, they end up striking me as a cross between Herbie Hancock and a Klaxons tribute act. Having said that, they were a fantastic live act. Brilliant energy, a surprising number of big fans in the audience, it was great, even if the frantic, pernickety nature of the music didn't quite translate. The big sinalong choruses of The Vaccines were traded for mock scat singing where I was. I would probably have enjoyed their set a lot more if the crowd didn't decide to become a bunch of douche bags during it. I'm a huge fan of moshing and leaping around, but Everything Everything's whole set was just full of pointless, slow pushing, two idiots dressed in tiger suits shoving around like utter morons. The crowed spaced out for a dance off where I was and one dude casually whipped out a backflip which was pretty cool, but it sadly didn't make up for the immense douchebaggery of the rest of the crowed where I was. Still, never mind!

I was incredibly excited for Magnetic Man. I've never really listened to them a great deal, but what I had heard I liked, and I'd heard they were a great live act. Needless to say, they exceed all possible expectations. They were one of the greatest live acts I've ever seen! The songs filled the place to the brim, the whole audience bouncing, swaying and jumping to their massive, sublime dubstep sounds. "I Need Air" and "Fire" were HUGE, the crowed were wild, and things reached anthemic fever pitch when they busted out "Getting Nowhere" and Jonathan from Everything Everything took to the stage to sing what would normally be John Legend's vocal line. Their whole set was sensational. The bass was overwhelming, made me trousers shake and my chest quiver. There were a few especially brilliant moments where me and those around me just went "OH!" when the perfect frequency rumbled through us. However, the thing that made their set was undoubtedly their guest MC, Sgt Pokes. Lollopping around the stage like some ghoulish, dreadlocked yeti, his banter with the crowd was sublime ("I SAY MAGNETIC, YOU SAY MAN!"), he had the crowed rapped around his finger. And he had the single most terrifying laugh I have ever heard. That man should be a Bond villain.

And then. Oh and then. Then came Crystal Castles. Crystal Castles' live reputation preceded them like an Aladdin style parade. With glowsticks. And trumpets, big ones. It was clear that everyone in there was ridiculously hyped. There were euphoric cheers as the backdrop was lowered, depicting their album cover. Frantic shoving flooded the pit, everyone vying for position. And eventually, inevitably, they arrived. Ethan Kath and the band's live drummer loomed out onto the stage, taking their place behind sound decks and drum kit respectively. Alice Glass, the oh so desriable and frickin' crazy frontwoman, was nowhere to be seen. The lights lowered, and a wiry, shadowy figure was discernible in the gloom. The distinctive sound of opener "Fainting Spells" began to pump through the venue. The lights started flashing. And there she was, stage left. Staggering on, on crutches because of her sprained ankle, like a Satanic marionette. One crutch soon disappeared, the grabbed the microphone and the greatest live band I have ever seen began to tear the place apart. The whole set was one intense, throbbing, terrifying assault on the senses. And it was amazing. Alice Glass hopped and thrashed around the stage, the only woman to ever make a foot brace look badass and terrifyingly sexy. By the time she was (admittedly inaudibly) screeching out the chorus to the fan favourite "Baptism", the second song of the set, we were already under her spell. She went from hopping to crawling around the stage, thrashing and bouncing on the floor, to finally leaning into the crowd in the closing number, where every hand within fifty metres started stretching out for her like zombies punching out of the grave. Exaggerated hyperbole you say? Perhaps. But I've never seen a frontwoman whip up a crowd like that. Ethan Kath remained as brooding and taciturn as one would expect, but I think I detected a wee smile playing around his lips at one point. Maybe. The harsh, glitchy noise didn't exactly result in cheery singalongs, and I think there were very few people who could tell exactly what song was playing at any one time. But that's irrelevant.

Every other act tonight was fantastic. But Crystal Castles. They were something else. During their set I was nearly pickpocketed by a fat guy with a scratchy beard. I had to put up with dome twattish Canadian guy who was trying to shove to the front at the expense of some poor girls at the front, before one of the security guys thwacked him in the head. I had every crowed surfer who got pulled out of the crowed smashing into the back of my big curly head. I got more battered than at any other gig I've been to. But I didn't care. They were the greatest live act I've ever seen. They were on another level. Before their encore, they finished with fan favourite "Not In Love", every person in Brixton Academy belting out "I'M NOT IN LOVE!" Well. I'd beg to differ. Oh I would SEVERELY beg to differ.

Radiohead, 'The King of Limbs' - A Token Blog Response

2011-02-14T10:14:00.000-08:00

You've got to love it when a bit of genuine, totally exhilarating and unexpected excitement sweeps across the internet. In an age where even the spread of a viral video is something that's no longer remarkable, and where new music releases lose any and all mystique through months of leaks and grainy YouTube videos pulling a fast one on the internet is a challenge to say the least. But, in true envelope-pusher style, Radiohead pulled it off this morning.

At 9am, it was announced via Radiohead's official website that their eighth studio album, entitled The Kings of Limbs, is soon going to be available. Wikipedia's going to have one hell of a time trying to pin down when the actual release date is however. Here's why:

- A downloadable mp3 or .wav version of the album is available through pre-order from this Saturday, the 19th of February. £6 for the mp3 version, £9 for the .wav version.
- The album is also available as a "Newspaper Album". If you're wondering what the hell that means, so is everyone else. It means that for £30 or £33 (due to your preference of either mp3 or .wav format) you can get the download, a CD, two clear 10" vinyl records, many large pieces of art work, 625 smaller pieces of artwork and a full colour piece of oxo-degradable plastic to hold it all together!
- It's available on standard commerical CD release from March 28th.

So they've spread themselves nicely across the next few months. After releasing their last album, the brilliant In Rainbows, under a "pay what you like" system, Radiohead had made it clear when they announced they had a new batch of songs ready that they had "begun to wonder about how to release them in a digital landscape that has changed again".

I'm guessing that if you're reading my blog you're probably already familiar with Radiohead to some extent, and most likely familiar with the details of release already. So I've just got a few thoughts to share about the nature of this release:

1. It's putting real value into the music
I've mentioned time and time again recently that music is so horrendously devalued in our culture. You can see it in the fact that pathetic and vacuous little scroungers like Bruno Mars somehow manage to dominate the charts and sell millions of records and win awards, simply by spreading their self-respect's metaphorical bum cheeks in front of a financially lecherous and predatory record label that's looking to pour malleable, liquidised flesh into a Chris Brown shaped mould and press it into a walking, warbling mess of musical spam within the shadowy bowels of their iron clad headquarters. You can also see it in the WE WANT IT NOW attitude to downloading music, where piracy is on the rise and physical music sales plummet whilst digital sales stall. It's so hard to be really excited by music and to really want to cherish it.

This model of release, however, shows Radiohead trying to get people to do that. They've given mere days warning prior to the album's release which has made genuine, underwear soiling excitement erupt shamelessly across the board. And the idea of the "Newspaper Album" is brilliant. The exact origin of the name is perhaps horrendously unclear, but that's besides the point. They're making a point that their music is something that they want to be special and collectible. They want it to be something that rewards their loyalest fans and gives them more than your average, more infrequent listener. And they've done it in a fresh, creative and brilliant way. And it's not like they're making it into a high end product, and definitely not as if they're turning it into an extortionate gimmick. They're straddling both the "digital landscape" they themselves had identified, as well as the physical plain of musical releases, valued highly by serious music lovers. It's a stand against the throwaway nature of a lot of music in the 21st century.

2. However, it's easy for them
Brilliant as this model is, and as strong a stand as it may be, it's easy for Radiohead to do. Not necessarily easy in a creative sense(though I get the impression that Jonny Greenwood has a small army of gnome slaves in his brain, whipped into building and rebuilding large, shiny musical pyramids inside his unsettlingly prolific brain) but easy in a financial sense. They're 8 albums into their career, clearly well off enough to be acting without a label and could probably live comfortably off of royalties if they wanted. I'm not saying "they prostituted themselves to the music industry and now they're turning round and criticising it". I'm pointing out that they made their money in the industry when it functioned a heck of a lot differently, and didn't suffer so much from the problems I've mentioned. When it became clear that the industry was going ethically south they decided to take a very valid stance against it, but they were only able to do so financially because they'd already made their money. New bands, or less successful bands, couldn't really echo this model of release. Please be aware though, I am far from calling them hypocrites or questioning their integrity.

3. The music press are going to snipe at them whatever happens
Even just from the few opinion based blogs and articles I've read about this today, it's clear that the musical press which keeps on purporting the value of innovation in the release of new music and spitting venom about the shallow and extortionate music industry, is the same musical press that's willing to take a pointless and defamatory stab at bands like Radiohead who are striving to preserve the value of music. They do it partly because of the overly sceptical and distrustful age in which we live but probably mostly because they want to get cheap laughs and lots of comments from their readers. It's pathetic really; and Radiohead, like any band with something special about them I guess, are going to attract a good number of embittered, small minded critics.

4. But could it change the industry?
Like I've said above, small bands and bands trying to break into the music industry can't possibly use the same model of release as Radiohead. At current they often have to simply dance to the record labels' tunes or, even if they're on a fantastic independent label with a lot of integrity, deal with the harsh realities of the world. So will this model of release directly change anything? I'm not so sure. But indirectly it could. It could set a precedent for other big indie acts to follow, and I think that it's with them that the future lies. If Radiohead started a label and began recruiting new, emerging artists then you'd have a label run by bosses with a clear passion and vision for putting out releases which give value to the music. They'd also be bosses with the money and, perhaps more importantly, the industry influence to make it happen. And if half a dozen other big, creative and honourable indie acts followed, we would be rolling in it folks.

So there you have it folks. A few thoughts from me on what is surely one of the biggest musical events of 2011, and (maybe, just maybe) of the early 21st century. Who knows. What I do know is that I'm bloody excited.

Here's a video of them performing for the awesome sessions website From The Basement. More of the same please boys:

Those Dancing Days - "I'll Be Yours"

2011-02-13T06:12:00.000-08:00

I'm a big fan of the cold and rain if I'm honest; mainly because I enjoy wrapping myself up warm against it, sticking my headphones in and trotting of carefree through the puddles like a gangly, oversized 6 year old. In this cold and rainy February weather, you can derive a beautifully satisfying feeling of warmth and contentment when you find just the right song to set against the grey sheets of heavenly piss blowing in from the north. And for the last few days, that aforementioned song has been, for me, "I'll Be Yours" by Those Dancing Days, a worryingly cute bunch of indie pop girls from Sweden.

I first found these girls a few weeks ago when the NME made their track "Fuckarias" their track of week. I investigated and enjoy, and made a mental note to follow it up. They remind me of Summer Camp, Belle & Sebastian, Shout Out Louds, that sort of stuff. Somewhat surprisingly they're named after a Led Zeppelin track, but all hail s wealth of influences. When I discovered this track and its video, I just melted like butter. It's so beautifully, hopelessly romantic. All the band members are pushing the Zooey-Deschanel factor to the max, stunningly and indie-ly gorgeous. It's not contrived or sickly sweet or overly twee though. It's just wonderfully adorable, excitable, romantic indie pop. And mesmerisingly catchy! It makes me feel moronically happy and I want find everyone I love and give them a big, shameless hug.

They're signed to the wonderful Witicha Recordings so I would have expected nothing less than brilliance. Their sophomore album Daydreams & Nightmares is out March 7th, and I think that it's going to enjoy some heavy rotation in my house this year!

The Strokes - "Under Cover of Darkness"

2011-02-10T10:00:00.001-08:00

Last night folks. Last night was it. One of the most important musical nights of the year. Perhaps of the last 5 years. No, it wasn't Marcus Mumford revealing he's now so rustic that his waistcoat has fused to his back and built a small stone cottage populated by Leprechauns smoking cork pipes. No. It was the premier of the first new material from The Strokes since 2006. I, like a lot of music fans across the UK, was hunched expectantly by my radio at 7:30, listening reverently to the mighty Zane Lowe and diverting my attention from the England match. Even though I'm not really old enough to have experienced The Strokes the first time, having become a fan since then and an advocate of them as the most important band of the 21st century, I was more than a tad excited.

The weight of expectation was massive. The relative disappointments of their second and third albums still hadn't shaken off the sublime quality of Is This It?, and deep down I, and I imagine everyone else, was desperately WANTING this new song to be brilliant. So much.

And as far as I'm concerned, it is.

"Under Cover of Darkness" is a flipping fantastic song. The opening riff is so bouncy, sunny and carefree; I fell in love with it instantly. Albert Hammond Jr's guitars have for too long been absent. It's immediately obvious that The Strokes aren't trying to abandon their classic sound, and it would be criminal for them to do so. The opening guitar parts are so recognisably Strokes-y, they're the perfect homecoming announcement. Julian's vocals sound a bit different than before, even from his 2009 solo album Phrazes for the Young; but it's still got the shambolic, slapdash, almost drunken drawl that we all fell in love with. He sings a chorus which is just sensational. Really. I've listened to it time and time again since yesterday thinking "is this chorus really as good as I think it is?" Yes. Yes it is. It might seem at a cursory listen that there's not really that much to it. But it's brilliantly understated. It's so melodic, so singalongable (yes, that is a word)I can just imagine Julian and Albert singing into the same mike with this, John-and-Paul style. I immediately started thinking about singing it in a massive sunny field with thousands of other people. So I better get a chance to see them this year...

I love this track. It's exactly what I wanted from The Strokes. How it will be received commercially and critically remains to be seen. Immediate fan reaction is pretty mixed. The face of guitar may have changed a lot since 2006, as I mention in a previous post about The Strokes. And I've been wondering if they've left it too long, as if they're part of a by gone age. But when the tunes are as brilliant as this, all my worries melt away.

So more of the same please boys. I want a mammoth indie rock band a bit more playful than Arcade Fire to be ruling the roost this year.

Click here to go to their website and download the track for free. Download ends tomorrow evening.

Dum Dum Girls - "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" (The Smiths Cover)

2011-02-09T10:11:00.000-08:00

I have been listening to untold amounts of The Smiths recently (and expect a post on that shortly) so I was pretty chuffed when I saw that Dum Dum Girls have covered "There is a Light That Never Goes Out" for their upcoming EP, He Gets Me High. The original is of course always coming up in "Greatest Songs Ever" lists and the like, and regarded by many fans as the band's finest hour. It's been covered umpteen times by a million different artists, but this cover really grabs me!

The girls give it a heavier, almost grungy twist, with Dee Dee's vocals drizzled like honey over the mix. Often with covers of big, famous songs like this one, the vocal delivery lacks any real emotional resonance, and the vocalist doesn't seem to be able to put any personality into lyrics that are embraced by so many (which is sort of peculiar) But Dee Dee's delivery on some lines is wonderful, and somehow manages to stay as seductive as she's sounded on everything else she's ever sung on! Genuine sex appeal on a Smiths track is something to be proud of. The line that springs immediately to mind is "to die by your side is such a heavenly way to die" (which is just a phenomenal lyric) The whole thing is urgent and frenzied, a buzzing and anthemic bundle of distorted guitars and thumping drums. Obviously it's not better than the original, I would never make such a heinous claim. But it's pretty darn good!

I'm looking forward to the forthcoming EP, and hoping that Dum Dum Girls end up as more than a flash in the pan badn from 2010. Click here to go and listen to the track over at Quarterwhipped.

6 Reasons Why I Love My Record Player

2011-02-08T00:00:00.000-08:00

My 18th birthday present from my brother was a record player. I didn't actually get to use it until late November, my birthday being mid-October, due to some delivery issues and a broken needle. When the day finally came, I was overjoyed as I'd wanted one for quite a while, for a few reasons. My dad has heaps of old vinyl which were lying untapped in his office cupboard. Also, I was constantly hearing that the sound quality of vinyl is superior and wanted to really check it out for myself. I'd long been of the opinion that buying something physical when it comes to buying music is so much more important and wonderful than downloading, so getting a record player was a logical conclusion of that. Also, lots of singles and special releases by bands only come out on vinyl so I wanted in on where the action is.

So after a few months perusing old records and acquiring new ones, I sitting back and listening to my dad's old copy of Neil Young's Harvest - the case of which is just one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen - I started thinking about what had grown on me about the wonderful machine in the months I'd owned and used it. Here are the six reasons I came up with as to why I now love my record player:

1. I Stop Flicking Through iTunes
Now I'm someone who does purposefully listen to whole albums in one sitting and who's very against the consumerist attitude towards music in today's mainstream, where people's listening habits are conditioned to listen to lone hit tracks, not whole albums or bodies of work. But even I end up flicking aimlessly through iTunes or the internet sometimes, bouncing from track to track without really taking anything in, finding something new I want to listen to before I even finishing what I'm currently listening to, especially when I'm searching for loads of new music. Having a record player kind of frees me of that. I put something on and that's it, it's spinning and playing on the other side of the room and I leave it going, spinning onwards. It's a really liberating feeling when I've been used to trotting through iTunes for most of my musical life. And as a result...

2. I Get More Done!
A less artistic and conceptual note but it's true, I'm more productive when listening to a record on a record player. It's on the other side of the room, playing away. Not at my finger tips, beckoning me to fiddle and shuffle every three and a half minutes. This kind of belies the argument that people don't want to listen to vinyl any more because it's too inconvenient to put on and turn over half way through. What do you reckon is more time consuming - scrolling through iTunes for the duration of each song in order to find what you next want to listen to, or getting up once for about 20 second every 20 minutes to flip a record over?

3. The Sound Quality IS Better!
It really is, and I'm so glad this argument proved true once I started listening to vinyl. Everything is noticeably clearer and sharper, especially if I have the tracks on iTunes or CD as well and compare them. The constituent parts, individual instruments etc. become a lot clearer and more obvious (even if my record player's built in speaker does lack a lot of bass) yet the tracks seems stronger and more vivid as a whole for it. It's wonderful. I bought a 7" reissue of The Smiths' "The Boy With The Thorn In His Side" from the sublime Banquet Records in Kingston, slapped it on when I got home and the the sound that came out just blew me off my feet! It's a song I've listened to umpteen times, and also a song which I've always loved for the sound and production; but on vinyl it was just made even more brilliant. So much richer and more vibrant, more alive and brimming with SOMETHING which I just can't put my finger on. And the romantic crackle of old vinyl is something that just melts my heart so often. It's interesting to think that loving that crackling sound is something which people for whom vinyl was/is the primary/sole means of listening to music don't really experience because it's totally normal to them. But for me it's something nostalgic and romantic which logically I guess shouldn't colour how I treat the music. But it does, and I'm glad.

4. I Think About The Structure of The Records More
I'm a huge lover of slapping on an album and listening to it the whole way through as one piece of work, but it's sometimes a lot more difficult to do that when I've got iTunes in front of me or the CD case, and I'm glancing at how long each track is, what the name of each one is, when the singles you like are coming up etc. And it's easy to just pause it, toddle off to do something and then come back and pick up where you left off. But when I listen to an album on vinyl, there's none of that. It all flows seamlessly, and it feels so much more adventurous. It's another thing that makes it quite liberating to own and use. You get more lost in the whole thing, you don't always know exactly what track it is or what it's called, which makes you even more keen to listen. I experienced this when I got a vinyl copy of The National's 2002 album Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers and I just loved fading into a whole new set of songs that I had no idea about, unaware of what was what and where was where. This album also highlighted the significance that the final track on the first side of an LP can have. The first side ends with the song "Murder Me Raechel", one of the most thunderous and heavy moments on a record that veers from the most tentative, fragile moments imaginable to heartwrenching screams and guitar thumps. When it finishes and there's silence halfway through the album before you turn it over, I was just left blown away by that song and how it marked a sort of peak in the album; and it contrasts wonderfully with the much gentler track which follows.

5. I Get to Go Into Record Shops!
Proper independent record stores are so much better than entertainment franchises like HMV. I'm not going to hate on HMV because there's plenty good to be said for it, but when it comes to buying independent music, independent stores are (surprisingly) the best place to go; specifically for vinyl in this case, seeing as pretty much nowhere else sells vinyl any more. It cwas quite daunting when I first started frequenting record stores as you get the feeling that these beardy music fan boys behind the desk are looking down on you and judging you for every record you linger on, but once I got over that I discovered that most record store staff are actually reall, really nice guys who are genuinely glad to see you in their store; not because you're spending money, but because you're buying new music! I've had some great chats with record store workers and most of them really know their stuff - who's who, what's where. And then you find out about gigs, in store performances and other cool stuff like that. I've already mentioned the wonderful Banquet Records in Kingston, and they have the wonderful habit of putting rather cheery and personal notes into anything you order from them. You don't get that from the fat girl in HMV.

6. It's A Conversation Starter.
As you can imagine, very few people my age (18) have record players nowadays, and I'm certainly the only one of the vast majority of friendship groups who uses one. So raising the topic and talking about the benefits of it, and subsequently talking generally about music, is something I really enjoy. I especially enjoy the fact that it's given me a lot to talk about with my parents, my dad especially, as well as my brother. As soon as I got my record player I raided my dad's huge stacks of vinyl and picked out stuff in their that I liked the look of, already knew about or that he recommended. It was so interesting listening to him talk about when and where he bought stuff, why he bought it, what he remembers about it, things like that. I hope I'm like that with my kids one day!

I understand that buying a record player sadly won't be for everyone. But if you're really into music and love it lots then I thoroughly recommend it. It's been great just over the last few months and I hope I have many years of record spinning to come!

Los Campesinos! - O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire 02/01/11

2011-02-05T00:00:00.000-08:00

NME Awards Tour
Los Campesinos!
(supported by Summer Camp and Grouplove)
02/02/11

Los Campesinos! are one of those bands who have burrowed deeper and deeper into my heart every time I've listened to one of their tracks, read one of their tweets, bought one of their albums, seen one of their interviews, the list goes on. They're such an awesome band to be a fan of and I've known for a good while that their fanbase are terrifyingly devoted. So I was INCREDIBLY excited for this gig. It's crowning off a pretty glorious 12 months for them, after releasing the genuinely stunning Romance is Boring in early 2010 and cementing themselves as one of the best British indie bands, certainly around now, and maybe ever.

I'd never been inside Shepherd's Bush Empire but had heard very good things about it. I loved the look of it as soon as I got in there, reminded me of the Kentish Town Forum. Got in nice and early, determined to be at the front, after a hasty pre-gig KFC. I got interviewed by the website Winkball in the queue as well, so here's that...

Grouplove opened up and came on stage fairly early to a small but growing audience. They put on a stonking set, brilliant energy, especially from their bassist who had just the greatest beard ever. The sound was a bit muffled though and the female vocals were inaudible at times, and the crowed were pretty static despite the energy from the band - to be expected I suppose. But the leader singer's voice is phenomenal. The boy's got a scream and a half on him, and his mouth is TERRIFYINGLY HUGE.

They were followed by the wonderful Summer Camp who I just find pant wettingly adorable. I'm a fan of playful heckling, I'll be honest, and Jeremy Warmsley enterred to my large cry of "STROKE YOUR BEARD!" to which he sheepishly obliged, to a good few cheers from the front line of the crowd. Their fantastic indie pop had me a wee bit giddy, but as a live act they fell a tad flat, and I think it was down to the venue. There's just the two of them onstage and Elizabeth Sankey had a wonderful understated spite in the way she delivered the lyrics which was difficult to translate across a safety barrier. But I still loved them and swooned unashamedly at their very presence.

But then, the real business began. The bottom floor of the venue was pretty packed out, though the balconies were quite sparse - but who cared. Everyone who was in there was visibly brimming, and you could have cut the hyperactive fanboy tension with a knife. The front of the crowed was full of teenagers which I was overjoyed to see. When the band began to file out, the cheer from the crowd was huge. Me and my two companions were far from the only ones with massive grins on our faces. It was clear before even a note had been played that tonight the crowd wanted one thing and one thing only: to show just how much they bloody love this band.

Opener "In Media Res" was drowned in cheers as soon as the first chord began. We were all chanting the the keyboard line. The massive drop in the middle of the song was like a flood breaking, everyone went crazy, belting "THE SKY NEVER ONCE TURNED BLACK!" up at Gareth Campesinos!, their brilliantly ginger front man. From the very first moment, every single lyric seemed precious, faithfully barked back up at the band, flawless, word for word. This was followed instantly by fan favourite "Death to Los Campesinos!" which is where the truly sweaty, hyperactive, euphoric jumping and thrashing began, guitar lines belted back as well as the lyrics. The brief breaks in the track were handled amazingly, and you just felt totally in the band's palm before they kicked back in again. The energy from every member of the band was incredible, Gareth thrashing around just how I expected him to, throughout the whole gig. All of the vitriol and bitterness that shoot through his lyrics seemed as even more fresh and real live than it does on record, which is certainly saying something.

There was a brief break between "Death to Los Campesinos!" and "Miserabilia" in which someone near the front (not me of course... ahem...) took the chance to yell "GARETH! I WANT YOUR SPERM!" I was rewarded with a look of what I hope was pride!

"This Is How You Spell 'HAHAHA, We Destroyed The Hopes and Dreams Of A Generation of Faux Romantics" was a truly intense experience and is where the real moments of exhilirating crushing happened at the front. Gareth was on superb form in this one, bending his back down to the floor and scrambling all over the place. I could try to be articulate, but I'll just say that it was during this track that I realised how flipping amazing the band looked and acted live.

Mid-set, they took the chance to debut some new material which they'd mentioned on Twitter. Two tracks, "Four Seasons" and "The Black Bird, The Dark Slope" were performed and met with nods of rhythmical approval from all of the t-shirt wearing fan boys down the front. From what I could make out, the lyrics sounded brilliant as always. We also got a wee bit of a respite from the sweaty mayhem (sweaty was definitely the word of the evening)

Then came "Straight In At 101" which I was desperate to see live. It definitely seemed like a crowd favourite, and demonstrated the crowd's breathtaking stamina in that we were thrashing and leaping around like a ball pit in a cyclone whilst hurling back every single word into Gareth's face. I was so, so happy to see that my favourite lyrics, the ones where I just yelled as loud as I could, were the ones that other fans seemed to love as well. Best example of that has to be in the stunning "The Sea is a Good Place To Think of The Future" where every person in the building seemed to be devoted to nothing more than putting everything their body could offer into yelling "YOU COULD NEVER KISS A TORY BOY WITHOUT WANTING TO CUT OFF YOUR TONGUE AGAIN!!!"

The sublime finale "Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks" was insanely good and as the band slunk of the stage, the crowed carried on chanting the (second) chorus "ONE BLINK FOR YES! TWO BLINKS FOR NO! SWEET DREAMS, SWEET CHEEKS, WE LEAVE ALONE!" until the band returned. Gah it was just such a glorious couple of minutes with everyone stood their belting out that chorus. And the band returned and performed a brilliant encore of "Knee Deep at ATP" and "...And We Exhale And Roll Our Eyes In Unison". Gareth joked before they began the final song "erm... this is an album track from the first album". And they finished a show with that, something most bands wouldn't even dream of doing. But that shows one of the things that is best about Los Campesinos! The crowd adored every second of the encore, as if both tracks were anthems. This gig really confirmed for me that Los Campesinos! are a band who I, and evidently many nothers, truly truly love and treasure, shown in the fact that every song was stunning, every lyric chanted back by the crowd in a terrifyingly devoted chorus. Very few other bands could end a gig with two album track from their debut. But when you're a band as loved as Los Campesinos! it seems like the natural choice.

An amazing gig all in all. I wish a few other tracks had been included, like "My Year in Lists", "Don't Tell Me To Do The Math(s), "Coda: A Burn Scar in the Shape of the Sooner State" and "Ways To Make It Through The Wall" but I really have no complaints.

There was a brilliant moment where Gareth pointed up to the balcony and said "there are some Los Campesinos! parents here this evening...". Masses of cheers and bows were directed upwards at these two beaming middle aged folk, and I think the Northern lad behind me articulated the feelings of the crowd who loved the band so much and were looking for someone to thanks: "THANK YOU, YOU AMAZING SEX GODS!"

Setlist
1. In Medias Res
2. Death To Los Campesinos!
3. Miserabilia
4. A Heat Rash In The Shape Of The Show Me State; Or Letters From Me To Charlotte
5. This Is How You Spell, "HAHAHA, We Destroyed The Hopes And Dreams Of A Generation Of Faux-Romantics"
6. Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #1
7. Four Seasons
8. The Black Bird, The Dark Slope
9. Straight In At 101
10. We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed
11. Romance Is Boring
12. You! Me! Dancing!
13. The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future
14. Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks

Encore:
15. Knee Deep At ATP
16. ... And We Exhale And Roll Our Eyes In Unison

John Barry: I Never Knew Thee By Name...

2011-02-03T00:00:00.000-08:00

Amidst the flurry of big news stories this past week, you may not have heard the new that the film score composer John Barry died of a heart attack on Sunday, aged 77. He's best known for composing the scores to 12 James Bond films, amongst which Goldfinger, Diamonds Are Forever and From Russia With Love are probably the most well known in terms of them tune. I must confess though that, until he died on Sunday, John Barry's name wasn't really known to me. Sad perhaps, and I felt a wee bit left behind when a large amount of the musical community started singing his praises and heralding his legacy. Even Mark Ronson said his two cents.

So I decided to check things out and see exactly how stunning this man's legacy was. And when I did, I realised that John Barry's music has been woven throughout my life for years, and I didn't even realise.

One of my earliest and most formative musical memories is being in the car with my mum on the drive up to Colchester to visit my nanny and grandad. And for the many years we made that journey, we would invariable have on CD on - Matt Monro's Greatest Hits. Matt Monro, if you don't know, was the British Sinatra, but tragically died of cancer aged 54 in 1985. On that CD, two of the songs that I just totally adored and that I could listen to non-stop were "Born Free" and "From Russia With Love". They're two songs that hold a really firm and formative place in my memory. And both of them were written by John Barry for films of the same name.

Those melodies just captivated me at a young age. I sometimes find it contrived when I read about people saying the were "profoundly moved" by a piece of music at a very young age, but I think something like that really happened for me with that music. The melodies are just so sublime. Even detached from the words, they tell an amazing story, if you get what I mean. They really captured my frantic childhood imagination, catapulting me across these vast, unknown, exciting worlds that I'd never seen before. "From Russia With Love" really does put me in the streets of Moscow, a cold wind wafting snowflakes into my tightly drawn overcoat. There's this sense of mystery in the melody that I just can't put my finger on. The singer never GETS there, he's still on the journey, still wrapped up and in love with Russia as well as his lover, wherever she might be.

"Born Free" is really evocative for me as well. After I reached my nan's house after the aforementioned car journey to Colchester, I would repeatedly watch an old Rolf Harris video, back in his animal days, and on it he did a whole section about the story of the film Born Free, and the music featured quite heavily in the program which, for whatever reason, captivated my little mind.

It also pops up in one of my favourite ever gags from Porridge, the stunning Ronnie Barker sitcom:

Of course, his work on the Bond films is just sensational, it almost goes without saying. A lot of the Bond films aren't amazing, but I think they hold a special place in many of our hearts, and theme tunes certainly do. "Goldfinger", "Diamonds Are Forever", "You Only Live Twice" and "From Russia With Love" are the most famous and are all just stunning pieces, alongside "We Have All The Time in The World" from On Her Majesty's Secret Service. The melodies are just unstoppable. There's a sublime sense of melodrama in them all, they're so lush and glorious, yet in a way that doesn't seem to echo the hollow bombast of many of the bond films. Could very well explain the frequent involvement of Shirley Bassey... "Moonraker" and "Thunderball" are pretty awesome too.

I'd always thought to myself that, even if some of the Bond films are pretty dreadful, the music is undeniably brilliant. And when I looked at the films Barry composed for, all my favourite Bond songs were from the man himself. Aside from that, some of the Barry composed Bond themes hold a wonderful place in my memory as one of my friends, whilst extremely strung out on some narcotic substance, wondered why all the Bond themes couldn't be to the tune of "Goldfinger". The next several minutes were filled with him repeating "Moooooonrakeeeeeeeerr!"

So there you have it. John Barry wove himself into some of my most formative musical memories without me even realising. It's been wonderful discovering that this man whose name meant nothing to me a week ago has had a really influential effect on me. It's just a shame it took his death for me to realise. There may very well be other people who've done the same and remain as yet unknown to me, behind the scenes. I guess we'll see!

The Kills - "Satellite"

2011-02-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

Hey readers. Amidst a whole host of things over the past week and a bit - exams, girlfriend being out of the country, family goings on, English football transfer deadline day - I've been either too busy or just feeling a little uninspired by the thought of penning another blog post. It's not been great because I've been on a really productive streak so far this year and throughout the end of last year. I'm still definitely trying to hold to my New Year's Resolution of writing at least 2 blog posts a week (and that means on THIS blog, not including my posts for Tympanogram, the awesome music blog you should totally like check out now dudes like yeah) so I'd been getting a little frustrated. I didn't want to just post for the sake of it and try to fabricate something new and clever to say about a topic or mention a track that didn't really do anything special for me.

I was waiting for a kind of musical breeze to waft in and tingle my bones afresh, all cold and life affirming. Instead, I was BLASTED when I listened to the new track from The Kills, "Satellite". Now I've not listened to a great deal of The Kills, but whenever I have I've always said to myself "hmm, I should listen to more of this stuff". The gorgeous Alison Mosshart (who along with Marina Diamandis, Alexis Krauss and Alice Glass joins a host of dark haired maidens in my make believe indie harem) has of course been prancing about with Jack White in The Dead Weather for the past couple of years, but she's now back with bandmate Jamie Hince, the other half of The Kills (so therefore we should have a White Strips reunion this year. It's only logical. Isn't that right Jack and Meg?...)

I listened to this track and gosh it was just what I needed. The only word to describe if my friends is PHAT. It churns and shudders and growls with a mahoooooosive rock grind. It's heavier than other Kills stuff I've heard, but gloriously so. It's just a huge, pulsating slab of blues rock steak, raw and bleeding, ripped by The Kills bare hands from the flank of some gargantuan behemoth which once roamed the mountains, devouring weary travellers in its merciless iron jaws. Like a badass Gruffalo.

The chorus is a terrify choral harmony that washes perfectly over the heavy instrumentation, and the vocals prove that male-female duets in indie rock will always be incredibly fun. Listen and hopefully enjoy below. This track sounds like it would be awesome live, so I shall endeavour to see The Kills live this year if the opportunity arises. Meanwhile, keep checking those White Stripe fan forums...

The Kills - Satellite by DominoRecordCo

Scattered Black and Whites #1 - "Mr Bojangles" by Sammy Davis Jr

2011-01-29T07:56:00.000-08:00

Hey readers. I've been toying for a while the idea of doing a series of posts with a common theme, all titled similarly and linked together. I've finally settled on "Scattered Black and Whites". This is going to be a series where I post about pieces of music and songs that are special to me. Ones that hold distinguished places in my memory. Ones that I associate really memorable experiences with. Some funny, other sad, others romantic, some totally strange and perhaps inexplicable. I'm not going to regularly schedule them, I'll just let them come as feels natural. I hope as well that I might prompt you to think of music that's special to you and why :)

I thought I'd start with my single favourite song of all time, a song I've loved since I was a little kid and that has stayed close to my heart even as I've discovered more and more music as I've gotten older. The song is Mr Bojangles by Sammy Davis Jr.

My favourite type of music has always, and I imagine will always be, Big Band music. The Rat Pack - Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr, Dean Martin and all the others who floated in and out of the group - are just, for me, one of the most amazing bunch of artists to cross the earth. I got introduced to them by my mum and my grandparents just as I was getting to an age where my mind was opening up to music and the part it could play in my life. It started when my mum bought Robbie Williams' Rat Pack covers album Swing When You're Winning. The mention of such a thing may immediately destroy any musical credibility you think I may have, but I don't apologise. It's a very, very good album of Big Band music. And hearing it made me want to hear the originals, so I did and at some point my parents bought me Sammy Davis Jr's greatest hits.

I spent a good portion of my early and pre-teens listening to nothing but Big Band and Jazz and somehow, through it all, "Mr Bojangles" stood out to me above everything else. I don't associate it with any particular experience, but I just fell in love with it. It might be the story. It's so beautifully heartbreaking. It's about washed up, alcoholic old dancer, Mr Bojangles, who looks back and his life and just sees all his wasted time and talent. It might seems strange that a 12 year old white kid fell in love with a song sung by a black guy from his grandparents' generation about a drunk old music hall dancer. Arguably, you have a point. But still.

This song just strikes a chord with me somewhere and I don't know where. I just love it so much. It has such a gentle, lilting pace to it. It strolls along sounding so wonderfully melancholy, all the tragic lyrics played against the smile you can hear in Sammy Davis' voice as he plays the part of the old reminiscent Bojangles. And he's said himself that he relates so strongly to the song, and that really comes through. The way he tells the story, he's just so into it. It might seem cheesy or corny to someone without any idea about the song or big band music, but to me it's just so honest. Maybe that's why it resonated with me at a young age. I think I saw that this guy was honest and real. And maybe that's what made me so particular about artists being honest and having integrity in my subsequent musical discoveries.

I don't know how you'll feel about the song. If Big Band and what not isn't your thing then it might just seem a bit alien and ridiculous. But I hope not. And even if it does, I don't care. This song is incredibly special to me. Heck, it's even my karaoke song. But more on that at another time perhaps.

The Flaming Lips: Free Radicals

2011-01-24T00:00:00.000-08:00

I hope you've heard of The Flaming Lips. If you haven't, watch this and sort yourself out:

Good! The Flaming Lips are one of my favourite bands, for a whole list of reasons I won't entirely go into. They're just the coolest middle aged men ever. Wayne Coyne is basically the musical version of Robert Downey Jr (though I think that he's probably still taking drugs)

Anyway, this post in inspired by the fact that Wayne and co have just announced that they're going to be releasing a new song for free every month in 2011. It's similar to Kanye West's "G.O.O.D Fridays" scheme last year, where he released a new track every Friday between summer and Christmas. It was, I have to say, pretty awesome.

They've also announced that their first release may very well be a collaboration with chillwave heavyweight Neon Indian; so we should be in for a whole load of crazy. But this announcement from a band as high profile (in indie terms) as The Flaming Lips just got me thinking about the way bands release music.

We all know that we live in a world where paying and waiting for music is becoming an increasingly alien concept to people, teenagers especially. And in such a climate, bands are under increasing pressure to find new ways to release their music, keep it interesting, show their fans that they're passionate about their music in a real way. That's just what The Flaming Lips are doing here. So I've got 4 thoughts about The Flaming Lips' model of release for the coming year; thoughts that I hope are relevant to both them and other musicians who do similar things:

1. It creates anticipation
Like I said, the idea of queueing up outside a record store in the pissing rain for hours to get hold of your favourite band's record is alien to pretty much everyone my age (18) When music can be downloaded (legally or illegally) in seconds now, no one has any sense of anticipation for music any more. In such a world, a band has to hype up anticipation even more. It's (rarely) enough to rely on one release date to create some genuine anticipation. But when you know there's new music to look forward to every week (like with Kanye) or every month (now with The Flaming Lips) though, that gives the excitement back. Maybe it's reduced version of the old kind of anticipation people used to have over a much longer period of time, but it certainly does the trick. It's a counter to being satisfied with whatever plops itself in the charts.

2. It's on their own terms
Again, illegal downloading is what comes into play here. The horrendous over-accessibility afforded by downloading means that acquiring music has been put onto the terms of the downloader. They get music when they want, where they want and who they want. Couple this with internet record leaks and grainy YouTube videos, and artists have so little control over how their music is distributed and controlled. With a scheme like this, it puts that control back in their hands. Sure the tracks will be available on P2P sites soon enough, but it's been released entirely on the terms of the artist.

3. It keeps the artist on their toes
Wayne Coyne himself has said that the prospect of putting out another album in the conventional way this year didn't really appeal to the band. It's great to see a band (especially one as middle aged as The Flaming Lips, though Wayne Coyne is a silver fox if ever there was one) challenging themselves in new ways, changing the way they do things. It keeps them fresh and means they're not going to keep churning out albums just because that's what bands do. And a logical conclusion of that is...

4. It stimulates creativity
Doing things in a new way, against a different time frame and with a different focus will always stimulate your creativity because you've got to go about things differently. If you keep doing the same processes and routines then, even in a band, and one as trippy as The Flaming Lips, creativity starts to fizzle out. This whole thing has already got them onto talk of a collaboration with Neon Indian, so this new avenue of releasing and creating music has, in turn, meant they get to collaborate with another artist, which will send both the Lips and Neon Indian off into awesome new realms of psychadelic creativity. Over the last couple of years, Beck has been running his "Record Club" project, where he gets a load of the indie communities greatest together (participants have included Thurston Moore, MGMT, Devendra Banhart, Wilco and err... Wolfmother) and they cover a classic album in a day. It's yielded (largely) very good results. It stretches the artists involved, throws up fantastic creative interpretations of great music and spills over into the rest of the world. Beck is set to produce Thurston Moore's forthcoming solo album (and I pee a little in excitement whenever I think about that...)

I don't think it's gimmicky or a commerical ploy (the tracks are free remember) As they're such a big band, they can afford to release everything for free in a given year, I'm not saying that's a precedent for other, smaller bands of course. But The Flaming Lips really love their fans, and really take themselves seriously as a group.
So I'm massively excited for the forthcoming releases. This way of releasing stuff is great for them and, whilst I do love listening to whole Flaming Lips albums, its going to be a great experience for me as a fan.

Now watch this hilarious video from the brilliant site The Black Cab Sessions:

Flaming Lips from Black Cab Sessions on Vimeo.

She & Him - "Don't Look Back"

2011-01-23T05:56:00.000-08:00

I posted on She & Him a little bit before Christmas, and then this afternoon I came across the video for their single "Don't Look Back" and just really felt like sharing it because it massively brightened up my Sunday :D

The video's pretty crazy really, Zooey Deschanel going all Stepford Wives on us. It's all bouncy, hip shaking, shoulder shimmying 60s flare, and makes me feel a bit like I'm watching the 60s bit from Joseph and The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. I keep expecting Hard Day's Night-era Beatles to wander in. Zooey's singing about the fact that you've got to move on and strike out in new directions in life, but you still like the reassuring presence of the past behind you. Pretty apt for her and musical partner M Ward in their line of nostalgic modern folk.

This video might just be Zooey Deschanel hopping about, incredibly aware of the fact that she is possibly the most beautiful thing to ever be anywhere at any time ever, inflaming the fantasties of every post-Juno indie kid around, but hey - I'm not complaining.

This is a disarmingly lovable song, and I hope it brightens up your day!

Ghosthorse: The End of Music

2011-01-19T00:00:00.000-08:00

In the eclectic, mutating world of 21st century independent music, where the internet's most popular buzz genres are ones which sample music, film and adverts from the decades the artists grew up in, and where access to bedroom recording software and MySpace and file sharing, it's becoming increasingly rare that you hear something genuinely new. A band who sound as fresh and revelatory as the cry of your first born child, or as bright and striking as discovering a new colour on the underside of one of Jupiter's moons. There is, as they say, nothing new under the sun.

Until now.

Two prophets have arisen. Dissonant, crackling voices calling in the desert like the Harbringers of the inevitable, divine apocalypse. Two stark figures rising up against a blood red moon, in an image as distinctive and iconic as a shabbily clothed, pale skinned Daft Punk. Two men who have seen the future of Western music, looked into the swirling eye of the storm and from within drawn out the dazzling and terrifying sound of what music is destined for.

Ghosthorse.

Ghosthorse is a duo who hail from the southernmost tip of London. Despite their menacing, prophetic nature, the pair are fully identified as Michael Bateman and Ashley Watkinson, both young men in their early 20s. Both have been involved prolifically in various other projects in recent years, ranging from Watkinson's exploits as techo wizard Pummelhorse to Bateman's majestic electro duo Dude & Catastrophe. However, when the two put their heads together, they conceived debut album The Shoal.

The Shoal is the definition of the word "odyssey". It draws on elements as wide and diverse as you care to name and swirls them together in a discordant yet beautiful display of noise. Opener "The Rain" swirls and wheels like a lost thought in the rain, before harsh swathes of noise distort the ominous keyboard riff and Bateman launches in with a feral, life affirming scream, growling "We have brought this rain upon ourselves, we are men not Gods". "ambiants" thunders, lurches and beeps like the end of time, as if some giant monster were wading through history, annihilating the whole sordid history of Western music as he goes. This album, ladies and gentlemen, is the logical conclusion of the entire history of Western music. It is the full stop. It is the shuddering, glorious yet terrifying signature under musical history, and no other sound need be made from this point forwards.

"Why Why Simon Shippam?", the first Ghosthorse track ever penned (conceived, perhaps fittingly, at a graduation party) bemoans the state of modern man and his incapacity for change, personified in the mysterious "Simon Shippam" of the title. Watkinson finds his keyboards sounding even more apocalyptic than usual on this track, sweeping in with lone, death bringing whipcracks of synth noise. This is followed by the track "Quick, Togepi is Hatching!", the sole track penned and perfomed by Watkinson alone, and it is undoubtedly a highlight, finding him shredding a spasmodic, teetering keyboard solo that will leave you ready to die.

"Hate Machine" is the obvious hit single from the album, but is quickly followed by the album's glittering centrepiece - the 23 minute epic "The Withering Giant"; described humbly by the band as "the only track with any actual music ability displayed on it". Every shift in tempo is reflective of a part of the track's overarching lyrical theme - man kind's fall from grace and need for redemption. Bouncing keyboard riffs, gently gliding synth waves and distorted ukelele lull the track open and are soon joined by a bombardment of beats which make the whole history of dubstep seem miniscule, before the piece's arppegiated keyboard riff soars in like a majestic, glorious eagle, bringing the piece to life. Lyrically inspired shouting from Bateman and spoken word performances from Watkinson lend the track its triumphant philosophical air, and the whole opus climaxes with an inspired and soaring saxophone and keyboard duet. The penultimate movement of the piece chimes with all the glory and redemptive freedom of V Day, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the fall of Thatcherism, the release of POWs. Finally, Watkinson lulls the listener to sleep in his gentle baritone over a keyboard riff which could be a single in and of itself.

The latter half of the album only extends the triumph that the album already evidently was at the end of "The Withering Giant". "Janet Skibbs" swells with post-industrial rage, while Merzdoh uses inspired sampling to create a damning portrait of human ignorance. Closer "Sea of Glass (Clear as Crystal)" ends on an almost circular note, reflecting the opening track. But at this end of the album, things are darker, more distorted and less clear than at the start.

Though in ways, things are more clear. It is clear that, after hundreds of years, Western music has reached its closure. Its final statement. All other sounds created, notes sung, albums crafted, songs writte, solos improvised, orchestras conducted have lead up to The Shoal. All sounds known to man find their resting place in this album. To enjoy it is not the point. To realise it as the towering, inarguable statement that it was inevitably going to become is the point. Discard all your record collections and musical instruments and become part of The Shoal. No other music is necessary. Bateman and Watkinson may bow before their stunned, now silent audience and draw up the curtain behind them, callin fini! upon the entire extravaganza that Western musical history has been. No other music should, or indeed could, ever be played again after The Shoal.

The band are allegedly working on a follow up, with rumours of release for late 2011.

Click here to download The Shoal. Click the red "Slow Download" button on the right.

Porcelain Raft - Have a Heart (Lonely Galaxy Cover)

2011-01-17T00:00:00.000-08:00

Back at the end of October I wrote a post introducing Lonely Galaxy - an artist whom I'd come across on the delightful music website The Line of Best Fit.

He crafts massive, icy yet intimate soundscapes of swirling guitar sounds and raw vocals that pack overwhelming, emotional cacophony like the secret love child of Sigur Ros. Since that first post he's released a second, beautiful EP entitled EP2 (I know right). I hope he gets an album off the ground this year and I'd love to see him live.

The other day I was checking up the blog from the brilliant Transparent Records, and saw that label favourite Porcelain Raft had recorded a cover of Lonely Galaxy's "Have a Heart", the heartbreaking yet uplifting tale of a spurned lover from Lonely Galaxy's EP1 (Porcelain Raft recently teamed up with other label mates Yuck for a joint 7" release where the each band covered one of the other's songs. Sounds like the kind of guy you want at a karaoke party my friends...)

Porcelain Raft's cover really is a lovely variation on the original. Not as immediately guitar based as Lonely Galaxy's version, it fills with swirling and beeping electronic twiddles, huge upward waves of noise like gales, swirling around the slightly nasal, Sigur Ros-esque vocals of Mauro Remiddi (the real name of Porcelain Raft). The dynamics shift several times, drawing back then flooding in again, stronger and more powerful than before, like deep breaths; and the whole thing is underlined by a drum beat that literally sounds just like a heartbeat.

Be on the look out for both Porcelain Raft and Lonely Galaxy this year if you're a fan of swirling, beautiful, slightly dissonant noise.

Click here to go to the Transparent Blog page and download Porcelain Raft's cover of "Have a Heart" (right click the track name and click "Save Link/Target as")

Tribes

2011-01-14T00:00:00.000-08:00

Out of the plethora of new bands being hailed by the NME and others as we amble hopefully, fresh faced and still dizzy from Kanye West's album into 2011, there's one who stand out in a slightly peculiar fashion. A lot of new British acts this year, especially the guitar based ones, are being complimented and hyped up for their Britishness - carrying on the torch/band/silly haircuts of previous generations. It varies from The Vaccines (awesome) to Brother (they make me physically sick, I kid you not) who both represent the revival of two strands of British guitar rock. I suppose every Oasis will generate a Blur in retaliation. And then there's producer turned subversive pop sensation James Blake, touted as the next step in UK dubstep's evolution. But there's one act that stands out amongst that patriotic backdrop though, and it's Camden's beloved, aloof and scruffy Tribes.

Tribes have been an incredibly elusive and intangible band for the past year or so. Identities shrouded in mystery, no physical releases, and very few live shows played. We know their names and faces now however (Johnny, Jim, Dan and Miguel - yes, Miguel), their very few early live shows resulted in them SOMEHOW being chosen to support PIXIES just a few gigs and no releases into their career! There are still no physical, or (legal) digital releases to speak of. They've stated that they didn't want to do "the whole MySpace" thing where their fanbase builds online. They're literally the one hyped act around right now who have gained their following through genuine, physical word of mouth and grassroots fans. They have what can genuinely be called a cult following, and have had lots of British indie fans frothing at the mouth.

The thing that makes them stick out amongst all of the new British acts being championed all over the shop this year however is that they are undyingly devoted and in love with American guitar music. Pavement, Sonic Youth, REM, Nirvana the aforementioned Pixies, have all been mentioned by the bands in interviews as beloved influences. The aforementioned NME has touted them "the best American band in Britain". Their Yankophilia is more than evident in the few songs available on their MySpace page - the grunge tinged "Fate on Tape" and "Whenever" echo Pixies and Nirvana both in terms of the fuzzy sound, but both boasting killer hooks. And "killer hooks" seems somehow inadequate to describe their demo of "We Were Children". It's streaming below, and in it's current bare bone format it is clear it's an amazing piece of songwriting. And their BBC Maida Vale session finally gave us a taster of what a studio version might sound like. Their music doesn't revel sounding lo-fi either, these songs would sound good anywhere. They've made it clear that their intended destination is not radio/commercial success. They're sincere about making people feel something with their music. That may seem like a cliched or even contrived statement, but it's so simple and youthful, I love it. Sometimes you can get a bit tired of overly cerebral, referential and intricate indie music. Tribes - not to call them stupid or simple - sound, right now, just so right and so timely.

If I had to make a snap judgement, I wouldn't say that they're the saviours of British guitar music, which everybody seems to be looking for this year. I think The Vaccines have that in store for them, but Tribes (I hope) should grow into a fantastic new British band, riding along on their own loose, ramshackle tangent.
Tribes don't even have a fully defined sound yet. They have no physical releases and just a mysterious comment saying "tour dates coming soon..." on their MySpace. And yet they've generated this much excitement. I can't wait for whatever happens next.

Tribes - We Were children by ITCManchester

Their session at the BBC's famous Maida Vale studios (organised by the NME and Radio 1's Huw Stephens) was videoed, is is available below, courtesy of the BBC!

Uncharted Waters

2011-01-13T00:00:00.000-08:00

There's been a mini-furore going on in the UK music press over the last couple of days after the publication of an article in The Guardian which 'officially' declared that "ROCK MUSIC IS DEAD".

Time of death? 2010.

Cause of death? The article cited that the finishing blow administered to rock's allegedly pale, flacid corpse with only 3 guitar based tracks appearing in the UK Top 100 Best Selling Tracks of the Year - one being "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey, Hey Soul Sister by Train (haha) and Dog Days Are Over by Florence + The Machine. And the latter two are hardly the personifications of what rock music is all about.

Now there's a lot to be said on both sides of the fence. I agree with a lot of what BBC Radio 1's Fraser McAlpine says here on his tumblr post and there's also been a nifty response posted on The Quietus. But I'm (largely) not here to argue either way as to whether guitar music dead (because it patently isn't).

The thing that The Guardian article seems to say is that the reason rock/indie/general guitar based music is dead is because it isn't making millions of pounds clogging up the singles charts. Now, if you know me well or read this blog in any detail then you'll doubtless have heard me spitting various kinds of venom about the X Factor, deriding almost every "pop star" who somehow worms into the Top 10 - Justin Bieber, Bruno Mars, The Black Eyed Peas, continue ad infinitum - and generally getting infuriated when they manage to become so successful with so little talent, selling themselves to a heartless record label that only cares about making money from a population whose creative taste buds have been numbed by over exposure to recycled, repetitive and repulsive pop/R&B/whatever. I felt incredibly pissed off when Matt Cardle reached #1 with his ATROCIOUS Biffy Clyro cover. I've steamed at the ears when I look at the charts and every name is unfamiliar to me, because pretty much any sponger willing to do whatever they're told by a record label can get into the charts.

But thinking about that fact, something occurred to me. Something that was quite a revelation.

The charts used to mean something. No they weren't a pure and blameless land of musical excellence or a continuous jam session between Beck, Damon Albarn and Paul McCartney riding musical unicorns, but still. There were times where brilliant artists, like The Beatles (overly classic example, but roll with me here), were recognised with chart success as well as musical success. But now, in an age where any scrounging bozo who can carry a tune can get a Number 1 single- Olly Murs, I'm looking,at you - the charts are just meaningless. They are devalued. Devalued by a flood of musically, lyrically bankrupt acts who are put there by labels to make money.

Rock's not dead.

The charts are.

The general public have become totally brainwashed to accept music that fits the mould that record companies have laid out. It amounts to a robbing of free will. When the general music buying public are cajoled and led into believing something is what it isn't, then the charts become meaningless. They don't represent what's beloved or inspiring. They represent what's backed up by the men in suits. Which makes them utterly redundant, and any figures in relation to them meaningless. The last time anything really inspiring and organic took the charts by storm was when Arctic Monkeys debuted at #1 with "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" in 2005. Since then, it appears that the grip has been tightened and the asphyxiating plastic bag held over our nation's cultural head has been tightened.

Rock, indie, guitar music, whatever - GOOD, honest music, whatever the genre("guitars aren't a genre" liek Fraser McAlpine said in the post I link to above) - may not be doing well in the charts at the moment. But that really doesn't matter. Because the charts are meaningless. They're as controlled and orchestrated as a cattle herd. So I think I'll just stop caring about it. I will probably still get frustrated at times at the injustice of it all, but I think I'll adjust. It's sad that a lot of the British people seem so subject to whatever is advertised or publicised to them when they gather round their TV screens. I just wish that more people could strike out on their own musical course, finding music for themselves that they love, that's special to them. Not stuff designed for the masses. I know all this all sound a bit Sixth Form, sub-V for Vendetta, pseudo-political, but it's true folks.

I'll leave you with one of my favourite quotes. Made by Tommy Lee Jones. In Men in Black:

Tommy Lee Jones: "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals - and you know it."

Kurt Vile - "Jesus Fever"

2011-01-12T00:00:00.000-08:00

I came across Kurt Vile's name a couple of years ago and I think I just glossed over him without really investigating. Then at some point last year during a phase of indiscriminate free mp3 downloading, I acquired his track "In My Time" but, once again, didn't listen to it. Then at the end of last week, a few blogs started buzzing over his release of a free mp3 called "Jesus Fever", from his forthcoming LP Smoke Ring For My Halo.

"Jesus Fever" really is a beautiful little gem. It's warm, watery, fuzzy freak folk. There are layers of beautiful, swimming guitars that flow like rivers through the woods. The whole thing is one of those wistful folky songs about disappearing and losing yourself out on the road, and opens with what is currently my favourite lyric of the the new year: "I pack my suitcase with myself but I'm already gone..." I'm guessing (and sort of hoping) that the whole album is as full of wandering, lilting, psychadelic folk as this, and judging form the title and the lyrics of "Jesus Fever" I reckon it will be all about losing yourself and the fleeting nature of being human. Wonderful :)

If you're into loose, lush and blissful folky tunes then this is definitely for you.

It's available in lots of places, I got it from Gorilla vs Bear. Click here the go there and grab the mp3.

Going for Stroke...

2011-01-10T11:34:00.000-08:00

If you like listening primarily to indie guitar music made by white guys after the year 2001, then you basically owe your entire musical life to The Strokes. Their 2001 debut Is This It? rewrote the rulebook for guitar music and it's undoubtedly the most influential album released this millenium.

The indie super giants have been wayward for a fair while now though, indulging in various side projects and constantly teasing us with talk of a new album, which keeps being pushed back.

Then, early this morning, we got what seemed to be our first real taste of their next album. Frontman Julian Casablancas shared with the world what he says is the album's artwork. And here it is:

?

Now, as everyone who has written about this today will tell you, Julian Casablancas is not renowned for being a prankster. I'm not gonna hugely lay into it if this is the album cover (NME writer James McMahon does that rather amusingly here), but there are some album covers which are brilliant in their knowing terribleness. This is not one of them. To me, it doesn't come off as irony. Or does it? To be honest I'm not entirely sure. I don't know what it suggests about the sound of the record, but then I don't really know what to expect from this record. After Is This It?, The Strokes released two incredibly average albums - a fact which is conveniently glossed over most of the time. But even when acknowledged, it does nothing to dispel the fact that they are the most influential indie band of the decade.

In last week's edition of the NME, the band were hailing "The Return of the Great British Guitar Band". Now, obviously The Strokes are very much an American band, but there is, I sense, a craving for a new, exciting, classic guitar band. There are a lot of names being thrown about. The greatest chances we have are The Vaccines and Yuck, and perhaps Tribes if they ever properly record anything. I hope, pray and beg that Brother (a bunch of twats who somehow end up more sub-Oasis than The Enemy) experience no degree of success whatsoever. The US have also spawned some classic sounding fuzzy indie guitar rock over the past year like Wavves, Dum Dum Girls and Male Bonding, who all released incredibly well received albums. There are also a few others who are destined (if the music loving community is sensible) to prosper- Cloud Nothings and Cults being my two favourites!

So I guess I'm kind of saying "do we really need The Strokes right now?" Part of me feels like they've left it too long. I just don't see where they'd fit into the current indie landscape. Six years is an incredibly long time in music nowadays, and just look at how much indie guitar music has changed since 2005, when they released First Impressions of Earth. Mumford and Sons are the biggest selling "indie" act in the world right now! Kings of Leon, The Strokes' Southern pseudo-proteges are now a platinum selling stadium rock act who have climbed so far up their own arse that Bono has decided the only way to stay Top Overblown-and-Twattish Dog is to write a musical about superheroes. Does that sound like a world that five scruffy , rock and roll loving New Yorkers wearing leather jackets and scuffed Converses belong in?

But on the other hand of course, they're The friggin' Strokes! They wrote Last Nite! They're meant to be one of the greatest live bands of our time (I'm very much up for seeing these guys live...) Maybe we DO need them and we just don't know it! I'm in love with The Vaccines right now, but they COULD let me down. As could a million and one other new bands we all put our faith in. Despite the mediocrity of Room on Fire and First Impressions of Earth, I don;t think any of us can shake that first sublime encounter with Is This It? Right now is one of those times where you just so desperately WANT to believe...

It's ten years since The Strokes defined a decade. Could they define another one? I'm afraid I have no conrete answer for you folks. Only hope. And that pretty decent Julian Casablancas solo album. The world has changed, but there's never anything new under the sun. Only time will tell. But I do hope. Oh yes I do hope...

✝ DE△D VIRGIN ✝ - "Anxieties"

2011-01-10T00:00:00.000-08:00

I imagine that most of you who read my blog regularly won't have much of an idea about what Witch House is. It's up for debate whether your're lucky, woefully misinformed or spend a non-excessive amount of time on the internet. It's odd that I haven't posted on it because I listen to large amounts of it, I've just never gotten round to posting about it or really mentioning it, though I do tweet about it.

Basically, Witch House was the buzz genre of 2011. A massive amount of the blogosphere started going crazy over it, and I'm now sure that a sizeable chunk of said sphere is devoted to it. The genre isn't like many genres which emerge from similar areas or social groups. It surfaced organically online, starting with a few MySpace/blog artists posting tracks of creepy, slowed down electro noise. The scene has developed a joking fascination with the occult, death, morbidity and peppering track and album names with symbols and creepy lettering - Ðł$$Ø₡łλŦłVE ŦƦλ₦₡E Ðł$ØƦÐEƦ$, ▲|||, †‡† being just a few haunting my iTunes. The "fascination" with darkness, death and witchcraft is (most of the time...) actually part of a massive in-joke, which is by and large what the genre has been. Last year was a good year for hoax genres as a matter of fact, what with Die Antwood jokingly pioneering "zef", the hardcore gangsta rap of South Africa...

Die Antwoord were pretty funny and the tunes actually quite enjoyable for a while. Then the joke began to wear thin. A bit like Jack Black.

And as 2010 ended and 2011 began, I wondered what would happen to Witch House. Would it turn sour as quickly as chillwave, its preceding over-hyped electro sub-genre, which is already a cringe worthy memory among most respectable inernet music sources? Would it evolve, mutate, warp? Would it dilute and hit the charts, superceding dubstep?

Truth is folks, I'm not entirely sure. A massive amount of Witch House is unsurprisingly pretty crap to listen to. Yeah sure, I don't doubt (always) that the producer gets the joke. But I've still got to sit and listen to their track. I'm not doing that for a track that offers me nothing whatsoever.

Well in the midst of a lot of interminable Witch House dross, I stumbled across the blog Fokkawolfe several months ago. Fokkawolfe has been my main source and gateway for all things Witch House because it almost invariably manages to find the really good stuff! It's in my list of favourite music sites/blogs on the right of the screen so check it out, it's run by a 28 year old British dude called Laurence.

A while ago they posted on a Witch House act called ✝ DE△D VIRGIN ✝. I liked their groove but didn't really investigate. Then, I checked on Fokkawolfe last week and discovered they'd made a new EP available for free, called Anxieties.

It's pretty immense folks. It's got so much going for it. It veers between crisp break beats, looming warped dubstep bass throbs and glaring dance synth. A lot of it is pretty dancey, and the atmosphere is fantasically dark. Waves of sound flood in one from side and crash against sharp, jagged shores of beats, throwing distorted screams, orchestras and synths around like the wreckage of an oil tanker. If you like electro, dubstep or anything dark and ominous, get in on this folks.

It's available on their Bandcamp page (click here) under a "name your price" policy, so you can grab it for free if you want. Two tracks streaming down below:

Like I've said, I don't know exactly what will become of Witch House this year. I do know however that quite a few Witch House artists have emerged out of the influx that are actually pretty talented at making electronic music. So watch out in future guys. Hope you find these ✝ DE△D VIRGIN ✝ tracks as cool as I do. Best Witches.

Hourglass Sea - Epic Electronica!

2011-01-09T00:00:00.000-08:00

Whilst aimlessly roaming the blogosphere, close to one in the morning (as I often do), I was fairly pleased with my evening's music exploration, and was considering turning the lights off and heading off to beddy-byes, when I remembered it had been a while since I checked out Tympanogram, one of my favourite blogs listed on the right of this page. The festive period is pretty dry when it comes to new releases (although a few beauties got thrown up, but maybe more on that some other time) and I had been spending a lot of time checking out other blogs/sites and somehow overlooked Tympanogram.

Sifting through the plethora of New Year's "Introducing..." posts these guys have done, I came across a post on Hourglass Sea. My intentions to shut down and go to sleep where quickly curtailed.

Hourglass Sea (stage name of Bradford based Dean Bentley) is some of the best electronica I've unearthed online in AGES. He has two tracks available for free download over at Tympanogram and they are both awesome.

"Teenagers" is a massive, intense, blistering blitzkrieg of glitzy beats, expertly stolen video game sounds and drum sounds that (if they're not computerized) would make a drummer's hand bleed buckets. This is how I like my electronica. It veers in several directions, with half a dozen things going on at once, creating an insane, overloaded, epileptic fit of a track. It's quite reminiscent of Crystal Castles first album, but breaks into it's own totally unique 8-bit strain. A spasmodic, glitchy synth and drum opening slaps you around your little face before the track dives into murky depths of dubstep bass drones, which are then layered with soaring Ananamaguchi style twiddles, glitches and distorted vocals, which remind me of those arcade games where you'd be controlling a fighter jet, shooting along at like a billion miles an hour, blowing the crap out someone. I think it was normally the Japanese. Like this:

"LA Lights" isn't as blisteringly furious as teenagers, but it's still a huge intense affair. It starts off with soulful synth chords and a bouncy, echoey riff, and then more and more sounds come in, starting with cascading drum rattles. It favours towering walls of bassy synths that wobble with elephantine dubstep swagger, which is layered with video game glitches and pings (I'm fairly sure that Super Mario Bros is in there somewhere). There are breaks where everything pans out and a huge sense of space is created by a glistening air of synths, before the drum beat paces it like a heart monitor heading towards death, and then the tremendous bass sounds thunder in, bigger than before, like Gandalf returning from the dead. Only this time, he'd riding that friggin' Balrog.

Click here to download these two track from Tympanogram, and click here for Hourglass Sea's MySpace.

He's got more on the way soon apparently, so I shall be keeping an eye! I don't care if this music changes the world. It's epic, awesomely fun electro. LET'S BOUNCE!!!

Can We Get Much Higher?

2011-01-07T00:00:00.000-08:00

Andy Warhol (officially the most unnecessarily quoted man in history) is renowned for saying that "In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes". It's been repeated ad infinitum that we very much live in Warhol's world now. Big Brother, X Factor, a barren wasteland in the Top 40, the internet and plenty of other 21st century phenomenons have seen to it that anyone can get themselves into the public eye for a brief period of time; whether it be some crazy woman who throws a cat in a bin or some little Canadian ponce who somehow becomes a popstar by flicking his hair around on Youtube.

So in this fame hungry culture in which we live, it's hard to really, truly find a genuine superstar. The kind of person who can casually bathe in gold with winged leopards from Sweden, whilst eating pureed panda cub through a diamond straw. A true pop diva or don. Those who immediately spring to mind in the category - Whitney Houston et al - are aging dinosaurs, washed up and aging, struggling to survive in a new world. You've only got to watch footage of Whitney's recent performances to know that. You can perhaps quote a few others - Kylie Minogue, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera - but come on. They've never REALLY gone that final mile have they? They're arguably good, very good, at what they do. Album sales are irrelevant - they've never gone truly stratospheric with the whole thing, have they? They typify CELEBRITY as we know it in the 21st century, but they're not really superstars.

If you know me relatively well or read my posts often (hi if I don't know you personally and you read this regularly. Thanks for coming!) then, if asked about my musical tastes, you'd probably be very quick to say "indie stuff", or something similar. Not massively shy of the mark I'll grant you, which is why a lot of people are slightly thrown when I say that I'm a massive fan of Lady GaGa.

GaGa is one of those people who everyone has an opinion on; from music industry insiders to brainless Capital FM listeners. The woman (or girl - she's only 24. TWENTY-FOUR. Bloody hell) is one of the only true superstars active in the world and the music industry right now. In the middle of last year she was in what Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys called "the imperial phase", in reference to his own band (I got this from a brilliant article by Tom Ewing on Pitchfork, which you can read here) It's basically a period where she can do whatever the hell she likes and it will be gold. In the above article, Tom Ewing mentions that imperial phases inevitably end, but does cite that he thinks Pet Shop Boys went on for about their first 20 singles. GaGa has only had 8, and is only one album proper into her career.

I wrote a post (available here) nearly a year ago on why I fell in love with her eventually, how I was struck with a genuine revelation about what she does.

The Fame Monster was revealed as 2010's biggest selling album worldwide, shifting 5.8 million copies. And she's still touring on The Monster Ball your which started in NOVEMBER 2009 and doesn't end until MAY 2011!

Guys my point is that I am convinced Lady GaGa is going to own this year. Like she did last year and the year before. She is a true superstar, and the world is craving that right now. Via the Lady GaGa persona she creates an artistic distance between herself and the world that is incredibly scarce in our over-Tweeted, over-reported and over-indulged 21st century. I love indie and DIY music and I'm sure this year will be awesome for it, though it will have trouble beating 2010. But a true pop monster/behemoth/leviathan is going to get even bigger this year. Her next album, entitled Born This Way, will be released on May 23rd and the world is already abuzz. She's said it's going to be "the anthem for [her] generation for the next decade". Now, that's a big statement to make - even from a woman who can apparently shoot sparks from her nipples at will and turn herself inside out
. But I can't help but believe her.

Like I've said, I love indie music and stuff that's outside the mainstream, intentionally or not. But I adore putting my trust in the hands of a giant like Lady GaGa. 2010 was a stunning year for independent music, even if the charts went to hell. But I think 2011 will be the year for superstars. It will be almost hilarious seeing GaGa in the charts, clobbering all these crappy little pretenders like Katy Perry, Black Eyed Peas, Bruno Mars etc etc over the skull whilst mocking their whole pathetic, vacuous quest to be famous, no matter what the cost.

And I think there are some stunning lieutenants cantering towards us, ready to flank GaGa. Kanye West and Jay-Z are set to release a joint album entitled Watch the Throne in early March, with a single available on the 11th of January. It's hard to get bigger than that folks. Kanye is for one thing writing tunes that are more epic than Zeus playing the Star Wars theme in an epic electric guitar solo whilst being backed up by an orchestra featuring Darth Vader on the gong, Batman on the bassoon and Aslan on the triangle. As well as that, his album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is - aside from being one of the greatest albums of all time - also possibly the greatest meditation on what it's like to be a superstar in the history of music. Kanye is definitely a superstar, albeit in quite a different style to GaGa. This will be his year too. He hasn't even announced any live shows to promote the album yet. It's already massive, and it, almost unbelievably, can only get bigger. He says it himself, as do all of his friends, in his latest single: "I'm a motherf*cking monster".

People like GaGa and Kanye - born to be superstars (born this way, get it? Hur hur) only come about once or twice in their generation. I hope both of them continue to flood the music industry with their incredible presences for decades to come. But I think 2011 will be a gargantuan year for both of them. Onwards and upwards. If possible!

The Mystery of Crystal Castles

2011-01-05T16:57:00.000-08:00

In an age where some pasty looking kid whining out
an overwrought version of "Mad World" on the X Factor is considered the epitome of alternative, and where W H Smith is only one step away from stocking its front windows with titles such as Kerry Katona: My Golden Vagina, it can seem like a figure of genuine weirdness and mystery is nothing but a daydream. A far off fantasy, wandering a lonely desert, shiftless and unapproachable, Clint Eastwood style.

However, in the midst of the banality flooding our streets, there's one band who are truly the antithesis of that. Crystal Castles. Masters of glitchy, apocalyptic, self destructive 8-bit electro.

Now there are a million and one other noise/electro artists around nowadays. Why did Crystal Castles make such an impact a couple of years ago, an impact which has only grown over the past 12 months since their second album, Crystal Castles (II)?

Crystal Castles are one of the few prominent bands around at the moment who are genuinely mysterious, weird and just a wee bit scary. And it's the thing that makes them most alluring. We know so little about them. Their backgrounds are shrouded in mystery. We only know enough to know that we don't really know enough. The details garnered from interviews create a genuinely dark, almost traumatic back story.

Ethan Kath (28 and the musical brains behind the operation) has played drums in an anarchist-punk band, bass in a garage-metal band, and guitar in a GG Allin cover-band. He was once in a folk duo which ended tragically with the premature death of his partner. Outside of that, we know virtually nothing about this guy's life. He seems to go out of his way to remain unseen in the shadows onstage, and has rarely been photographed without some of his face obscured. He was apparently born on Christmas day though... We don't even know his real name. "Kath" comes from catheter, after Alice Glass decided to name him after "the most painful thing ever".

The aforementioned Alice (22, the self destructive front-woman/vocalist/lyricist) has revealed a few more details about her past - just a few mind - and they are in no way any more pleasant. She ran away from home at 14, changed her name to Vicki Vale after a Batman character, and lived in a squat full of punks and junkies who would "do really shitty things like heat up metal coat hangers and brand their skulls … ". She got involved in playing with noise punk bands and Ethan Kath saw her live (apparently she was higher than anybody he'd ever seen in his life) and snapped her up as the missing ingredient to his music.

That's a pretty big contrast to checking out Johnny Borrell's Wikipedia page which gives you a list of every single academic institution that had to regrettably suffer his sordid presence.

Now that darkness in Crystal Castles' past, that elusive backstory, brimming with shifting shadows, hearsay and Transatlantic whispers, is part of what has made this band so attractive and so inspiring to many. The darkness is real and authentic. It's clearly the bleeding product of the wounds of experience. They're no sodding White Lies. It's like what made Joy Division so enthralling (and still does). Ian Curtis' bleak and suicidal lyrics were raw and authentic, stemming from a man suffering epilepsy, a broken marriage and tidal waves of self loathing. Not to tastelessly mythologise it, but his tragic suicide in 1980 affirmed his lyrics, and makes the whole Joy Division legacy morbidly captivating. In the same way, the dark yet enigmatic past of Crystal Castles makes them possibly the most fascinating band of our time. That's not to somehow idolise or deify their tragic pasts though. I'm not claiming that a 14 year old girl living in a drug filled squat and a man losing his best friend and musical partner is in any way cool or rock and roll. And I'm not sure they'd want me to. But it is real. It is dark. It's part of who they are as a band. And it's a miracle we've garnered these details too. Ethan is renowned for being aloof and moody in interview, yet with a bizzarre tendency to swing suddenly into a mood of cheery politness (the Ian Curtis comparisons go on...) and Alice Glass, in all the interview I've come across, seems somewhat away with the fairies. Neither of them have mobile phones either.

These few tentative, tragic details are made curiously irrelevant however. Another thing that fuels the fire of Crystal Castles hype is the dehumanisation of Alice Glass. Now, that's a phrase that could reek of pseudo-critical pretension (and a phrase that has come up in conversation with at least one of my regular readers...) but let me explain.

Below are some pictures of Alice Glass:

Now in all of these pictures, and in nearly all other pictures you'll see of her, she looks dehumanised and unfeminine, I'm sure you'll agree. The choppy hair that she cuts herself, the mismatched clothing, the strung out facial expression, the pasty skin, posture like Bambi on heroin. She seems like a battered, patched and soiled rag doll. She looks like she doesn't care about anything, least of all herself. It's something you can trace straight back to Nirvana. Self loathing, or at least self disregard, means that Alice - the spastic, energetic face of the duo - is dehumanised, defeminised, for the sake of the band. It's backed up by the constant distortion of her vocals as well as the vast body of her lyrics.

And yet at the same time (NOTE: This could just be me coming out with something unnerving and strange, in which case, I apologise... sort of...) there's something quite sexual about the way Alice Glass presents herself. The choppy, unkempt, doll like facade is terrifyingly carnal, like some deranged school girl which, all jokes aside, is a pretty popular male sexual fantasy for one reason or another (if any of you start quoting Freud at me I will send you home crying to your mother... though that may not be the best option considering...) It's a strange duality how by dehumanising herself, tossing herself about violently in her live shows, surrendering her body to whatever violence might come upon it, she becomes a whirling, frenetic embodiment of unleashed energy, pent up in frustration for too long. That's another reason Crystal Castles have such an impact, especially with teenagers. They personify the way all teenagers wish they could release their energies, in the same way that Elvis, Sex Pistols, Nirvana and others have done before. And I think that's why her dehumanisation is so important. She becomes universal - despite still being a fascinating individual - and gets hoisted up by a bunch of sweaty, aggravated teenagers, like a bunch of indie Ewoks lifting up a drug addled, bizzarely sexy C3PO. I find her very attractive if I'm honest. Even if she mite bite me or whatever. I saw her performing last night at Brixton Academy and, judging from the conversation and heckling from the crowed, I certainly wasn't the only one there with a burgeoning crush. At one point when she was thrashing around on the floor, I distinctly saw the boy next to me look at her and just moan "Ohhhh!" In fact, I waited until afters seeing them to post this, as I wanted to see how the live experience affected my perception of the band. I can tell you that it's only confirmed and heightened everything I think about them, and also revealed that they are undoubtedly the best live act I've ever seen.

There's the obvious fact as well that the band create awesome music, but that's not what I've wanted to delve into. Crystal Castles are, like I said, probably the most fascinating band around at the moment (though Odd Future Wolfgang Kill Them All are giving them a run for their money). They are genuinely mysterious; a giant, pitch black thorn pulsating in culture's ribcage. They possess an authentic darkness that makes them unsettling yet compelling all at once, and the fact that the darkness is genuine means they don't come off like a pair of pretenders, annoying little screamo kids or as hilariously contrived as most metal bands nowadays. To question their authenticity is outright foolishness. It wouldn't take you too long looking at the band's website forum before you found a few extensive threads on Nazis and Satanism started by some of their wacko fans (not to typify all Crystal Castles fans like this however. But you know, it's still Satanic Nazis) The dehumanisation of Alice Glass, coupled with her violent and unconventional sexual appeal, create something genuinely strange and original. It is, as I've pointed, the latest evolution in the legacy of era defining acts such as Elvis, The Beatles, Sex Pistols, Nirvana etc. though I accept that our mysterious Canadian warlocks are not quite in the same stratosphere. Yet.

Crystal Castles - Not In Love from Video Marsh on Vimeo.

Elbow Reveal Album Art and Tracklisting

2011-01-04T04:56:00.000-08:00

That there is the album cover for Elbow's forthcoming album Build a Rocket Boys! Don't know about you, but I'm rather upsettingly excited by the prospect. I did a post last week about the appearance of a videoed performance of new track "Lippy Kids" - which was the working title of the album, but is now the song from which the album draws it's title.

They've also released a tracklisting:

01 “Lippy Kids”
02 “The Birds”
03 “With Love”
04 “Neat Little Rows”
05 “Jesus Is A Rochdale Girl”
06 “The Night Will Always Win”
07 “High Ideals”
08 “The River”
09 “Open Arms”
10 “The Birds (Reprise)”
11 “Dear Friends”

They've said that the album is due to be about childhood and nostalgia. I think that's a wonderful thing considering the success these guys experienced in the wake of their last album, 2008's The Seldom Seen Kid. In my speculations and worries about where one of my favourite bands could go from there, I imagined them tragically stagnating, writing an album that's not really about anything and comes off as a bloated and dreary attempt to sound anthemic (which wouldn't help dispel all of the Coldplay comparisons that small minded destractors throw their way...) But it looks like success has made them cast their mind back fondly on where they've come from. "Lippy Kids" is incredibly sentimental, overflowing with fondness and nostalgia, and if the rest of the album adopts a similar stance it could provide an interesting counterpoint to Arcade Fire's The Suburbs from last year.

Also, the final track is titled "Dear Friends", and reminded me that when I saw Elbow at Wembley Arena in March 2009, they got the audience to sing a chorus they'd written and then recorded it. I could still sing it to you now, and it went like this:

"Dear friends, who are loved,
So much more than you'll ever know"

It was a lovely melody, and I hope they've kept the recording. I would LOVE to know I was part of a (hopefully brilliant) album by one of my favourite bands! Though I'm not too sure how I'd feel if that song went on to be used for the closing montage of some vile, parasitic reality TV show... but enough about that...

I just get really excited when little snippets and tasters of an album get revealed prior to its release - whether it's album art, tracklistings or songs. I'm well up for the new Elbow album, as I hope you are. They've got a host of live shows on the way and I'm hoping to catch them - see you there?

Resolutions and Reasons

2011-01-02T16:09:00.000-08:00

Well a slightly belated Happy New Year to you! I hope you all indulged in sufficient merriment over the festive period. Now it's January. It's cold, wet, the middle of winter, none of us have any money because we bought presents and then spent all our Christmas money before New Year's Eve, radio DJs never seem to shut up about it being New Year and you've probably already failed to go jogging. Fun!

You're probably the same, but I've had an extremely mixed relationship with New Year's Resolutions. One year I'm for, the next I'm against. There's that constant battle between a scepticism of the concept in general, your own laziness and human inclination to fail, and your optimism, your hope, your determination. You know that, physically, you CAN do whatever it is you'd like to, so why don't you? It's odd.

This year, I've been continually toying with the idea. I wasn't sure where my sword was going to fall on the proverbial battle ground this year. Then I read a blog by a guy called Michael Hyatt. I follow him on Twitter, and he's the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, a Christian publishing company in the US. He is probably the best blogger I read. He is the master of crafting blog posts. They're frequent, succinct and to the point. Definitely follow him if you're into that sort of thing.

He wrote a post called "How To Make New Year's Resolutions Stick". If you want help keeping yours, read it. It's what persuaded me to make some resolutions this year and to treat them in the way I am.

Basically, he says you need to:
1. Make them specific, not generalised sentiments
2. Keep them few in number
3. Keep them SMART (see the blog post for the meaning of the acronym)
4. Write them down
4. Go public

Well, that's what I'm doing. I've made 5. Some are quite personal and just a bit irrelevant to this post right now but one is ALL about these posts.

MY NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION FOR 2011:
Write at least 2 blog posts a week between Monday 3rd of January 2011 and 31st December 2011.

There it is. It's out there. It's written down. And if you are a faithful reader of my blog I'd like you to pull me up on it (if you remember...) Since I started focussing specifically on music in this blog back in early October, I've pretty much averaged that, so I'm now making a strong point of it, determining myself.

At the start of a New Year, I'd also like to reassert the purpose of this blog, remind you (and myself) of why I write it.

1. It's cathartic. Writing this blog is, I guess, something I do because I want to vent my thoughts. Get them into a place where they're in front of me, manageable and subject to review.

2. To share with you. Yes you. As well as wanting to get my thoughts out for my own sake, I want to share them with other like minded or perhaps not so like minded people. I find it difficult sometimes to either find people who think and talk about music like I do, or to make enough time to talk to people who DO think and talk about it like I do. I really do hope that my thoughts on music and the music that I share/post enriches you in a very real, sincere way.

3. To practice. Practice may be the wrong word, but I want to be a music journalist. And I want to be as good at writing about music as possible, and to make myself as employable as possible one day - hopefully to a music publication that I love and respect. Writing this blog - and perhaps more importantly, writing it in a disciplined manner - will hopefully help me along my way.

So I hope that you do have a very happy 2011. A 2011 full of blessings and growth. Not necessarily happiness. I saw philosopher called Peter Vardy speak last year (woah, 2010 is now LAST YEAR!) who made a very vocal point of stating that the purpose of life is not for you to be comfy, content and happy. But I hope that in 365 days time, you will be more enriched and hopefully closer to God than you are now. God bless you this year, and may your resolutions be resolute.

"You Think Too Much..."

2010-12-29T18:29:00.000-08:00

A preoccupation that weighs on me when I think, write and talk about music is whether or not I'm thinking about it too much. I think about my whole blog and desired career path being about the sharing, publication and analysis of music and wonder if I'm just sort of talking to myself and a few sparse others in the wind. First of all, how many people really care? I'm thoroughly different from a lot of my friends, even some of the closest, and I love them all hugely. But so many just don't really seem that bothered about the music I listen to, or the way I think about the music we all listen to. For a lot of people I know it doesn't really go beyond what they just enjoy hearing on the radio. And I often find myself wondering, shouldn't that just be how it is? Music made, goes in your ear, you enjoy, will listen to again, end of story. Shouldn't it all be that simple?

"And everything I had to know
I heard it on my radio"
- Queen, Radio GaGa

All my blog posts, my desire to pick apart everything about an artist, my distinction between music that's objectively good and music that I enjoy, my obsession with genre names, my increasing tendency to hunt for the influences on a track/album/artists - is it all just a bit too much? Sometimes I do feel like it is.

I know that a lot of the faithful readers of my blog are familiar with the music review website Pitchfork. If you're not, I'll provide a brief explanation. It's a highly reputable online source of musical criticism, publishing extensive album and track reviews, interview, articles and more. It's one of my personal favourite sources of new music, but I'm fully aware of some of its flaws; flaws that other people take in a much less positive way than I do. Pitchfork is, by and large, taken in two ways. It's either the irrefutable Holy Grail of musical criticism, the overlord of good taste and musical divinity, or the height of pretentious, intentionally "indie" balls that strives to sound intelligent and perceptive but is actually vacuous and self important. And I can fully understand why people take the second reading, though it's one that I disagree with.

Pitchfork assign decimal ratings to every album reviewed. A few popular recent albums and their scores:

The Fame Monster by Lady GaGa: 7.8
The Suburbs by Arcade Fire: 8.6
Come Around Sundown by Kings of Leon: 3.6
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West: 10.0

Now, as you might expect, such specific scores are accompanied by (mostly) extensive, in depth, detailed, highly analytic reviews. I read the vast amount that are published now and they highly inform my own writing and analysis. But sometimes I sit there, reading, and part of me thinks "is this too much? I mean this is just a new album, right? Is there really this much to say? Surely this guy is reading too much into this?"

People of a more hostile and deriding nature than myself published a parody of Pithfork a while back called Rich Dork Media. Sadly the parody site doesn't seem to be available any longer, but there are a few quotes from actual Pitchfork reviews which were used as "justification" for the parody, examples of the kind of supposedly pretentious, overwrought criticism that people dislike about the site. The choicest one for me is one from the review of Radiohead's Kid A - regarded by Pitchfork as the greatest album of the last decade. It reads:

"The experience and emotions tied to listening to Kid A are like witnessing the stillborn birth of a child while simultaneously having the opportunity to see her play in the afterlife on Imax. It's an album of sparking paradox. It's cacophonous yet tranquil, experimental yet familiar, foreign yet womb-like, spacious yet visceral, textured yet vaporous, awakening yet dreamlike, infinite yet 48 minutes. It will cleanse your brain of those little crustaceans of worries and inferior albums clinging inside the fold of your gray matter. The harrowing sounds hit from unseen angles and emanate with inhuman genesis. When the headphones peel off, and it occurs that six men (Nigel Godrich included) created this, it's clear that Radiohead must be the greatest band alive, if not the best since you know who."

Now I read that and just have so many conflicting voices flaring up inside me. I think how that might seem to different people I know. To many it may just seem like senseless babble. To others it might be extremely eloquent prose. Another, the perfect expression of their own feelings about the record. As someone who has listened to Kid A plenty of times now, I agree with what the reviewer is saying. And I love how he expresses it. I think that review is brilliant. I agree wholeheartedly. Yet I fully understand why someone would deride that writing. And I just can't help but wonder - am I thinking too much?

It's interesting that the indie community nowadays, convinced of its own impeachable nature and the deplorable nature of mainstream shallowness and spite, is in fact full of more factions and feuds than the mainstream pop universe. And as someone who - thanks to lots of normal, down to earth friends - finds himself firmly surrounded by indie music and the depths of obscure internet blogs as well as the comings and going of the Top 40, I end up feeling torn between all of these different groups and ideas. I want to be analytical, thoughtful and respectful to an artists work; and I also want to be able to unreservedly and simply enjoy a great pop song, yelling out a massive choon with my friends. Maybe it comes down to a fear of being myself. And I don't know why. My friends who have no interest in the supposedly pretentious realms of Pitchfork and its ilk are hardly going to think less of me. My other friends who read Pitchfork (FYI: I don't want this to seem like I'm ripping on Pitchfork. A lot of the blogs on the right of this screen put me in a similar position) are pretty much all as aware of things like this as I am, and either take it ironically or don't seem bothered. It's hardly as if I'm a professionally published critic, open to the derision of a paying readership, other critics or my boss. And even if I were - so what?

So at times when I feel like the weight of the musical world, with all its avenues and alleyways, is weighing down on my overloaded teenage mind, I cast my eye around, considering the value of everything I write in this blog.

And my faith is restored.

I see some artists, some bands, some albums, that comfort me. They reassure me. Not to say that my identity consists in all of this - far from it, I'm a Christian and my whole identity begins and end in Jesus. It just happens to take music in along the way, under his jurisdiction. A few immediately obvious things just reassure me. Let me know that I'm not thinking about this too much. Why? Because the artists who made the music put months, maybe years into their music. They thought out every detail. Lyrically, musically, visually. They put it all there, they spent their time thinking about it, probably a hell of a lot more than I'll ever do.

Like I probably will will all pop music now and forever more, I looked at the whole thing through the screen of Lady GaGa. There has never been a popstar who has had things more thought out than Lady GaGa. Perhaps slightly ironically, here's a quote from the Pitchfork review of her album The Fame Monster:

"...between the VMAs and "Paparazzi", she came into her own. And on "Bad Romance", the lead single from The Fame Monster, she became kind of awesome."

This set up for the next quote, from later in the article:

"I'd say once she became hideously popular Gaga was able to take more control of her career, the early result being 'Bad Romance'"

Taking her as a specific example. Lady GaGa HAD to have a master plan. Her ascent into pop's highest heights had to have been drawn out in every details and every phenomenally gargantuan action. As soon as she gained popularity from a fairly standard pop debut, she launched the first true offensive. Every outfit, every interview, every performance, every variation, every song, every video is strategically designed, thought out, staged and released by GaGa and her squad, The House of GaGa. It's brilliant. The amount of time (and money) put into it by a woman who is inarguably one of pop music's greatest geniuses is astonishing. And when she puts that much thought and effort into it, it is only reasonable and only fair that you and I should think about it. Should talk about it. We should be asking "why has she done that? Why is she wearing that? Why is this video like this?"

Now part of GaGa's assault on pop culture has been the rejection of the over familiarisation of the popstar and our increasing fascination with a Heat magazine culture that insists of rifling through the bins and underwear drawers of celebrities. And that attitude ironically (yet knowingly so, of course) draws waves of analysis and speculation.

Lady GaGa is just one example. Kanye is of course another, though is massively on the other side of the coin at the same time. Other recent examples would the Arcade Fire's album The Suburbs, which is probably one of the greatest cohesive wholes ever recorded. Crystal Castles with their effortless and terrifying mystique. These New Puritans who released Hidden earlier this year, an album that can't be listened to just once. The list goes on.

I will doubtless encounter the inner conflict I've described again and again throughout my life. Probably again before the week is out. But when I sit back (really far back) and look at the music that I love and the artists I appreciate, I slip into a wonderful place. A place where I can freely voice all of my thoughts about some music, listing the assocations, stimulations, images, links and reminscences it triggers in my mind. I can rant about it, wax lyrical about it or lay into it because I know that the artist has likely put time and energy into it that is deserving of such analysis. Sure, there is definitely going to be SOME point where you're just talking fluff, but that's probably quite far down the line. And when an "artist" or group hasn't put thought into what they do, then there's plenty of cutting criticism and bitter blogging to be done there too!

BBC Sound of 2011: Rest in Peace

2010-12-28T00:00:00.000-08:00

I'm mad about "Best of..." lists, so December is really when my ship comes in. I'm not entirely sure why. I'm not generally a meticulous, obsessive compulsive kind of person, I just love ranking things in lists. You might have guessed this from my own Top 20 Tracks and Top 12 Albums of 2010 lists.

But soon after we've forgotten the beloved entries into the "Best of the Year" lists and polls we launch into the divisive realms of polls entitled things like "Ones2Watch", "Sound of the Year", "The Future of Music" etc. Some of these lists are derided the moment they're published - and nearly all of them end up being derided 12 months later.

The worst and most criminal of the bunch is the BBC "Sound of..." poll, which is about as cursed as the Defence Against the Dark Arts staffing position at Hogwarts. The poll endeavours to dictate to us the illustrious role call of artists and musicians who will come to define the coming year musically. The winners have almost invariably paled into startling mediocrity, failing to stretch beyond their respective years, and often even failing to see that year out. Key victims/culprits here would be The Bravery, Little Boots, Keane, Corinne Bailey, Rae, Mika, Adele and, most recently, Ellie sodding Goulding. The only one to really escape the curse was the first winner in 2003, 50 Cent. And look what he's become.

Aside from the "winners", the number of bands lower down the poll who fall into the category of mind numbing filler, utterly vanished from memory now, is laughable. The Twang? Sadie Ama? Ghosts? Marcos Hernandez? Audio Bullys? The Dears? The Dead 60s? The Datsuns? Tali? Gemma Fox? Joss Stone? Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong? The Rumble Strips? Just Jack? Kubb? VV Brown? Delphic? The Thrills? Care to name me a song anyone? Any of the band members? No? Heck, most of them didn't even make any kind of impression in their respective years, yet alone do enough to remain in our minds for 2010. I would like to personally point out that I said this time last year that Delphic and Ellie Goulding were gut wrenchingly mundane and would flop, and thus, I have been vindicated!

Then there's the acts who may hang around in our memories slightly more but either because of one unusually popular hit (The Ting Tings, Black Kids) OR because they've been hyped elsewhere, but end up being as anti-climactic as The Phantom Menace(The Drums, KT Tunstall, Kaiser Cheifs, Razorlight)

The acts championed by the poll are almost invariably overly radio-friendly pop acts or supermarket landfill "indie" bands who look like the kind of Topshop boys your mother would be relatively indifferent to if you brought them home. They produce one vaguely hummable hit single in their given year and then bugger off with disappointing album sales and a terminated record contract.

As well as championing bands who have all the staying power of an old woman's fart in a gale, when the poll DOES pick a quality act, they place them criminally low in the list!

2003- Yeah Yeah Yeahs only reach 3rd, Dizzee Rascal only reaches 5th.
2005- Bloc Party inexlpicably lose out to The Bravery for 1st place.
2007- Klaxons only reach 3rd- beaten my Mika and The Twang.
2008- Vampire Weekend only reach 6th and MGMT only reach 9th.
2009- Lady GaGa wasn't first. That is all you need to know.
2010- Marina and the Diamond are robbed of 1st place by Ellie Goulding (whose picture appears in the dictionary next to "underwhelming"), whose biggest contribution to 2010 has been a dreary cover of 'Your Song' in a John Lewis advert, which didn't appear until December.

This year doesn't look that great either sadly - though there are worryingly a couple of acts in there who I'm currently quite fond of, so here's hoping they'll do a Marina & The Diamonds and buck the trend. Either way. The BBC "Sound of..." poll is almost invariably a pathetic, horrendously white middle class, radio friendly advertisement for the Radio 1 January playlist.

I'm not going to compile a list of upcoming new bands that you should watch out for. Who knows what will happen, when they'll release material, whether they'll alter their sounds. I love "Best of..." lists, as I've said, but these lists predicting the rise of new stars often seen to create a touchwood situation. So here's just a few things I'm excited about from already established artists. It's been an awesome year musically, at least as far as my tastes go. What does 2011 have to offer?

- New Radiohead album at some point
- The Strokes FINALLY set to release a new album. This is make or break for possibly the most important band of the last 10 years.
- Kanye and Jay-Z releasing an EP entitled Watch The Throne. Doesn't get much bigger does it?
- System of a Down set to reunite, at least for live shows.
- Elbow set to release new album and your. After their breakthrough with the last album, this should be interesting.
- Lady GaGa has a new album ready to unleash uponm the world. Where is there left to go for her?!
- Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds set to record new album. Judging by Nick Cave's side project Grinderman releasing another album this year, he's still on top form.
- Pulp reforming for live shows... MUST seeeeee thiiiiiiiisssssssss...
- Blur recording new album in January...

Those are jsut a few of the should-be-amazing musical events coming up in 2011... we'll just have to wait and see...

Any tips for 2011?

Elbow - "Lippy Kids"

2010-12-27T10:17:00.000-08:00

I received some rather nice gifts over Christmas and I hope you did to. However, possibly the best thing I've received from anyone over the past 72 hours has been the unveiling of a new track from one of the world's greatest bands - Elbow.

I was sat on the sofa, late Boxing Day morning, in my pants and dressing gown, twiddling my thumbs whilst cleaning up went on around me when I decided to check on t'internet to see if anything had been going on in the musical world, and I literally squeaked a little bit when I saw that Elbow had unveiled the first song from their recently named upcoming album Build A Rocket Boys! - the follow up to 2008's massive crossover success The Seldom Seen Kid. The song is titled "Lippy Kids" and well, here it is:

Now if you don't find that stunningly beautiful then either:
a) listen to it again, or
b) ask Santa for a soul next Christmas

Having become a massive fan of the whole of Elbow's back catalogue (I'll admit I hadn't heard of them until they released "Grounds for Divorce" as a single, but I investigated and fell in love with them before they rose to success, so my indie cred it kept in tact folks) I was incredibly worried that after the massive success they experienced with The Seldom Seen Kid, they would compromise their sound somehow. When they stated recently that they'd written this album with big venues in mind, my insides became a little more wary. But I kept faith. And I was right to do so.

Gosh this song is beautiful. Lyrically, it's classic Guy Garvey. Eloquent yet colloquial, wise yet human, restrained yet emotional. "Lippy Kids" finds Garvey watching a bunch of youths messing around on street corners and, rather than criticise or have a go like many others would, or delve into his remembered teenage fears and try to warn the kids a la Arcade Fire on The Suburbs, he just stands and admires them from afar, as someone who clearly lived the exact same way years ago. He wonders mildly "do they know those days are golden?", putting him at a mature and wistful adult distance, and then lovingly and with a sly grin in his voice imparts a golden pearl of wisdom - "build a rocket boys".

That's such a beautiful lyric. It's Guy Garvey, of course it bloody is, but still. "Build a rocket boys". He's telling these kids to live beautiful, aspirational lives. And that last word "boys" just brings him so close to them, let's you know that Garvey is singing as a greying, aging man of experience.

Musically, one could argue that it's not exactly the "arena sound" that they'd mentioned. It's only one song, and the rest of the album could sound different, but I think this could fit in an arena. Or a pub. A phonebox. A street corner, seeing as that's where it's set. The music never runs away and crescendos, escalating into a massive chorus - but you don't have to be singing "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" to fill an arena. This song's an exercise in restraint. Garvey never runs up to these kids and tells them what he thinks. He maintains a respectful distance, but the feeling swells in his chest, huge and beautiful like a pair of wings, one of those beautiful things that remains forever unsaid. It's similar in a way to Arcade Fire on The Suburbs - lyrically but also musically. There's a tendency among indie fans to love bands who make music that sounds majestic and massive, but to then recoil when that music is put into a massive venue like Wembley or the O2. But that's pure indie snobbery. I saw Elbow at Wembley in March 2008, at the height of their new popularity. They were stunning and when I reflect on that gig, it made me realise something. That's a massive venue and it was pretty much full. And yet it was such a personal experience for me as I got to see a band I had fallen in love with. Their music possesses a quality that is the key to great pop music - it has universal appeal but at the same time strikes a personal chord which makes that music immediately becomes yours.

Elbow are a band for Wembley Arena as well as dirty suburban street corners in Bury. And hopefully they'll prove that again in 2011.

Build a Rocket Boys!

"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" - She & Him duet with Conan O'Brien

2010-12-21T08:13:00.000-08:00

You may or not be aware of She & Him, the band comprised of folk musician M Ward and Zooey Deschanel - the gorgeous one from Elf, Yes Man, 500 Days of Summer etc. They make gentle, warm acoustic folk music where simplicity is the buzz word.

There's a lot of crap spouted about She & Him. Overly twee, sickeningly sweet, forced, are just a few of the judgements passed on them and their music. Poor Zooey draws a lot of the abuse as well from snobbish indie types who say she embodies a fake idea of what an "indie" girl in "indie" films and "indie" music is, due to the roles she picks and because she's so doe-eyed, stop dead in your tracks beautiful.

But I think those kind of insults and such totally miss the point and show an inability for snobbish indie types to let their guards down and just enjoy music that is simple, sweet, heartfelt and organic. And in this festive season, She & Him have allowed their wonderfully disarming sweetness to shine through in a private duet of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" which they performed with US talk show host Conan O'Brien in his dressing room when they visited his show.

The performance is sweet, open, cosy, friendly, warm and Christmassy. I just wanted to share it in the hope of injecting some warm Christmas cheer into your day :) It makes me feel like I'm watching Elf all over again...

Summer Camp - "Christmas Wrapping"

2010-12-21T05:24:00.000-08:00

First of all, sorry it's been a good while since my last post! A mixture of end of year business and laziness has been responsible I'm afraid. I'd been planning a run of Christmas related posts and it's a bit more short notice and slap-dash than I'd have liked sadly, but oh well. Onwards!

Summer Camp have quietly grown into one of my favourite new acts of 2010, and they haven't even released an album yet. Their song "Veronica Sawyer" kicked off my Top 20 Tracks of 2010, and it's the perfect showcase for their echoey, melancholy yet heartwarmingly twee indie-pop. Now they've recorded a cover of The Waitresses' mildly popular festive hit "Christmas Wrapping" as part of a Moshi Moshi Christmas compilation entitled A Christmas Gift For You - available for purchase here.

It's fairly faithful to the original but has definitely been reworked with their trademark bouncy synth mannerisms, with chiming Christmas synths that sound just like the ones in "Last Christmas". Elizabeth Sankey's vocal delivery is as warm and natural as ever. The whole thing feels like warm cuddles with the one you love by the fire, under the mistletoe, wearing ghastly Christmas jumpers but not really caring because, hey, it's Christmas.

Click here to download it on Pitchfork. Hopefully should have a few more Christmas posts over the next couple of days!

Simon Cowell Thinks You're An Idiot

2010-12-12T15:03:00.000-08:00

Simon Cowell does not like you. Simon Cowell does not care about you. He does not care about you as a person. Simon Cowell does not want to make your life better. He does not want to make you think, grow, rejoice or change in anyway.

Simon Cowell thinks you are stupid.
Simon Cowell thinks you are weak.
Simon Cowell thinks you are easily pleased.
Simon Cowell thinks you have no taste.
Simon Cowell thinks you have low expectations.
Simon Cowell thinks you don't have a brain in your head or a soul in your chest.
Simon Cowell thinks you have the memory span of a goldfish.

To Simon Cowell you are not a person.

Simon Cowell only cares about your money. Via the whole X Factor brand, every year, Simon Cowell and his massive gang of producers spend all of their time and energy working out how to get as much money as they can out of your pockets as possible.

Every year, a dozen or so vaguely "talented" people are trotted out onto our TV screens on Saturday nights for live performances for eight weeks or so. On their way there, they are hyped up everywhere - radio, TV, posters, magazines, newspapers - so that you are fully aware, fully prepped and informed for their arrival. All of it is an attempt to draw you in, to make you feel as if you have to be involved in this, you have to be informed, you have to have a say in how it all pans out.

PLEASE think about it. How many X Factor contestants from the live shows can you remember? Half a dozen at most. Nearly EVERY X Factor contestant is painfully, heartbreakingly AVERAGE. There are a million and one backing singers, musical theatre performers, cruise ship entertainers and more, all around the world, who can sing just as well and probably better than the dull, mediocre zombies who are slapped in Topshop gear week after week and shoved into your face. And because they're so average, and Simon Cowell KNOWS that they are average, what does he do?

He puts on the biggest, most absurdly over the top stage shows he can afford. He advertises them everywhere he can. He underscores every moment of the contestants backstories with Take That hits to tug at your heart strings. Why?

Because all he wants is your money. And Simon Cowell think that you are so stupid, so weak minded, so uninspired, that you will be willing to watch, pay to watch a dozen painfully average, unoriginal, uninspiring, uniteresting individuals "perform" a narrow group of pop songs every week just because he's battered you round the head with flashing lights and media coverage.

Simon Cowell thinks that you don't deserve good music. That's why he insists on putting on a TV program that has produced a tiny amount of sub-average pop "stars". That's why he gets his contestants to perform covers of songs that are ALREADY in the charts so that you then go and buy those songs which are put out by record labels which he has shares in.

Simon Cowell doesn't want you to start thinking independently about the music you listen to. He doesn't want you to develop your own tastes which could stray away from the charts and his own label. He wants to numb all of your musical tastes so that you only end up recognising and listening to the songs and "artists" that he puts out. He doesn't care about making music that can stir your soul, make your overjoyed, make you really dance like your feet are on fire, make you leap and jump around like you don't care because you're so happy, make you roll down your car windows and belt your voice out with your friends because that song on the radio is so awesome. Simon Cowell doesn't care about any of that. He wants to control you, and what you like and what you buy. Most of them time, when a person votes for someone on the X Factor, it's not really their choice. It's not them controlling the program. It's Simon Cowell and his whole empire controlling them.

Simon Cowell thinks you're so stupid that he's changed the name Matt Cardle's dire cover of Bify Clyro's "Many of Horror" to "When We Collide", so that the title matches the chorus. Because that's what the kind of uninspired, reproduced, cheap pop songs that he puts out do. He didn't think you were clever enough to handle a song that had a title that wasn't related to the first few words of the chorus. He thinks you are that stupid. To him you are a big, throbbing wallet which he just wants to take money from. His view of you is no better than a mugger's, a con artists, or any other devious little criminal you can name. To him you are a big, fat cow that he's doped up to the eyes with tranquillisers, and he's viciously and deviously squeezing your tired, weary and bruised udders.

People who slag off the X Factor nowadays are normally fobbed off as indie/rock/metal/whatever snobs, and called old misery guts who just can't switch off and enjoy some pop music. But this shouldn't be what pop music is like. Pop music shouldn't be something that treats you stupidly. "Pop" comes from "popular" - music of the people. But it's not popular if it's not really chosen by the people. It isn't. It's chosen for you by a bunch of greedy, selfish businessmen who want to batter you down and make you submit to their own selfish plans. Plans which involve creating "music" that is easy to replicate, control, reproduce, digest and cover in cheap gloss. "Music" that disappears within weeks and leaves no real imprint on your life - just an empty space in your wallet.

Please, don't give Simon Cowell the satisfaction this year. Don't buy Matt Cardle's appalling, soulless cover. He'll vanish overnight, and next year some other talentless bloke or blokette will find themself in the same position. Don't let Simon Cowell and his money grabbing empire get the better of you. That really is what it will be and I'm not exaggerating. Simon Cowell wants to make you a dumb little zombie who is entertained by whatever he decides you will be entertained by. Because he wants your money.

I don't vastly care if you join one of the various "Get such and such to Christmas #1" campaigns. Just don't let Simon Cowell con you out of your money. Because that's what the whole thing is.

A filthy con.

My Personal Favourite 20 Songs of 2010 1

2010-12-10T08:27:00.000-08:00

Honourable Mentions
'All of the Lights' by Kanye West
'Hollywood' by Marina & The Diamonds
'Heartbreaker' by Girls
'Romance is Boring' by Los Campesinos!
'Sea Talk' by Zola Jesus
'Giving Up The Gun' by Vampire Weekend
'A More Perfect Union' by Titus Andronicus
'If You Wanna' by The Vaccines
‘Walk in the Park’ by Beach House
‘O.N.E.’ by Yeasayer
'Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains' by Arcade Fire
'Hologram' by These New Puritans
'Butterfly House' by The Coral
'Blackberry Stone' by Laura Marling
'Goodbye England, Covered In Snow' by Laura Marling
'The Calm Before the Sword' by Captain Ahab
'Summerblow' by Chief Black Cloud
'Have a Heart' by Lonely Galaxy
'The Withering Giant' by Ghosthorse

20. 'Veronica Sawyer' by Summer Camp
Summer Camp are a band to watch in 2011, and their Young EP from this year shows why. This standout track is a melancholy, slightly twee indie pop number that has one of the most addictive choruses I’ve heard all year. It’s a detailed, engrossing account of teen loneliness, bittersweet in lyric and melody. There’s a very individual sound to this song and the band as a whole, and a convenient opening in the indie pop market.

19. 'This Orient' by Foals
For me this was immediately the standout track of Foals brilliant album, and still is. I love “Spanish Sahara”, but this blows it out of the water as far as I’m concerned. A spliced, breathless info gives way to an inspired mix of guitar, bass, drums and vocals that sweeps you away into a cinematic journey of a song, with a massive chorus, boasting one of the most romantically grandiose lyrics I’ve heard “It’s your heart that gives me this Western feeling”.

18. 'Undertow' by Warpaint
When this one his the internet blogs, there was a little bit of an online orgasm. And rightly so. This song from my favourite new band of the year is captivating and alluring on absurd levels. It boasts a chorus that worms its way into your head, ingeniously hijacking a Nirvana melody, laced with sultry, slinking bass and echoing guitar lines. The gorgeous female vocals croon about ensnaring a lover, and ensnaring is certainly what this song does.

17. ‘We Want War’ by These New Puritans
Often toted as the prime example of the brilliance of my album of the year, We Want War is a sublime piece of music. It bursts open with a massive drum beat, freaky synths and terrifying bass drone. It splices epic percussion with dark, entrancing vocals. It sounds like its tital- looming, violent, aggressive, huge and brilliant.

16. 'The Wild Hunt' by The Tallest Man on Earth
The opener of my #3 album of the year, this is just a fantastically written folk song. It whisks you away in a world of evocative images, earnest vocals and warm, embracing acoustic guitar. Kristian Matsson’s voice leaps and strains upwards then drops down in pitch and delivery for brief moments to beautiful, emotional effect. It's a lyric about wonderfully carefree resignation to the inevitabilities of life, surrendering the pointless things and seizing life by it's gorgeous throat. Oh this song just overflows with life in every possible way!

15. 'Not In Love' by Crystal Castles ft. Robert Smith
This song had “BRILLIANT” written all over it from the moment the very idea was conceived. This icy synth pop song was so good that it made us all forget that a) it was a cover and b) there was a Smith-less version on Crystal Castles album. This song is massive, uplifting, emotional. It feels like your heart beating inside your chest at a moment of emotional fear and anticipation, perched delicately between euphoria and despair. Masterful.

14. 'The Oh So Protective One' by Girls
Girls made the song “Heartbreaker” available for free from their “Broken Dreams Club” EP and, again, the blogs went crazy (as did I!) But for me, this is the strongest song on the EP. Lead singer Christopher Owens somehow manages to sing and write from the point of view of a loverlorn teenage girl and make it sound tear jerkingly genuine and emotional. Musically its pure 50s guitar band, like The Shadows or something. But its superb indie guitar music, and lyrically brilliant. It makes me feel warm inside.

13. ‘I Want the World to Stop’ by Belle & Sebastian
I wrote a post on why I love Belle & Sebastian and their new album a while ago, and so it only makes sense for a track from it to make this list- but fairly so. This song is absurdly addictive, the melody genuinely intoxicating. The chord progression is just sensational, a genius piece of songwriting, and the contrast between chorus and verse inspired. Lyrically, it’s a fantastically human account of modern alienation and loneliness, yet still manages to be captivating indie pop. It’s just lovely everyone.

12. 'Alley Cats' by Hot Chip
Hot Chip’s album One Life Stand hasn’t quite made the cut across lots of end of year lists, and I can see why in part, but its full of some brilliant songs, a lot of them tender and emotional and- for me- none more so than this. Simple keyboard and drum open up the track, and Alexis Taylor’s distinctively light voice is so soft and tender that I can’t help but give myself over to it. The whole thing is comfy, warm and affectionate and just makes me think of home.

11. 'Power' by Kanye West
The first big indication that Kanye was soon going to the rule the whole damn world. This distils a lot of what his new album is about. It’s Kanye rapping about being Kanye. Its huge, ostentatious, cinematic. It’s boastful and grandiose. But lyrically it’s a masterpiece. A full West dissection. It’s a confession of his failures, his idiocy, but a slap in the face of haters and sceptics. This is the sound of triumph.

10. 'Girls' by Marina & The Diamonds
I adore Marina Diamandis. I confess, I love everything about her. Including this song. The vocal delivery is so absurdly individual and distinct, I can’t help but adore it. She just fires on all cylinders on a superbly vicious and sarcastic attack on superficial, vacuous modern girls. The lyrics are detailed and specific, yet never come across as cluttered or dated. Maybe I’m just so absurdly attracted to Marina that my judgement has been clouded. If so, I don’t care. Not when pop music this good is involved.

9. 'Tell 'Em by Sleigh Bells
One of the best riffs ever. Fact. Too soon? Maybe. Wrong? No. There is no denying the riff on this song is INSANELY awesome. And that’s just the start. MASSIVE drum beats. HUGE whirring sounds. GORGEOUS and sweet vocals that shouldn’t work against the intense heavy metal guitars and mammoth drums, but they do. And the melody is as insanely addictive as the riff. This song is twisted pop brilliance that just whacks everything up to 11 and is about nothing other than making as much brilliant noise as possible.

8. 'Rambling Man' by Laura Marling
Laura Marling cemented herself fully as one of the best (if not THE best) songwriter in the UK with her second album, and my favourite track from that album has got to this one. The melody is just so superb and the song builds and grows so much that, with its sentiments of identity and independence, it’s something ‘epic’ (though using that word doesn’t seem quite right). Brilliantly arranged, lyrically masterful and beautifully delivered. This is just a brilliant song.

7. 'The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future' by Los Campesinos!
Los Campesinos! are one of those bands who are able to tell entire stories and build entire, believable characters in the space of one song, and the most effecting example of that is here. An engrossing guitar line and tragic, brooding cellos draw you into a tragic tale of anorexia , bereavement and reflection. Probably my favourite song as a lyrical whole from the whole year, which is only helped by the chillingly detached vocal delivery. And it all crescendos into a sublimely noisy chorus. This song hits an emotional chord and draws me in in a way that I don’t experience very often.

6. 'I Can Change' by LCD Soundsystem
Despite the fact that it’s now used in adverts on Dave, this song has been one of the best pop songs of the year since it first appeared. It’s probably one of the best James Murphy has ever written. It uses his classic trick of repetition with subtle variation to create an addictive and engrossing piece of pop music. The melody is quite beautiful and I really can’t say enough about the chorus. That itself is an example of the repetition with a little bit of variation, and its AWESOME to belt out. Lyrically, it is spectacularly vulnerable and human, qualities people very often don’t seem to associate with James Murphy, and it contains some of my favourite lyrics of the year.

5. 'The Suburbs' by Arcade Fire
I find it difficult to believe that anyone who truly likes rock music could not love this song. The inspired mix of honky tonk piano, guitar, plodding bass and steady drums creates a disarmingly simple underpinning for a truly brilliant track. This song was a statement of intent as the opener of Arcade Fire’s sublime album. The lyrics veer from cinematic and grand in feel to beautifully specific details about learning to drive and your mother’s keys. Beautiful.

4. 'Runaway' by Kanye West
This song was how Kanye decided to announce his public return, at the MTV Awards. This song is similar in a lot of ways to “Power”, but in my opinion is the greater of the two. It sounds MASSIVE and pompous, like some imperial vessel moving onwards… imperiously. But its coupled with a melancholy chorus that is probably my favourite individual lyric of the year. Kanye wraps up his own self loathing and the loathing he feels for his critics and exorcises the two with a stupendous and actually quite amusing chorus. The whole of the new album is about what it’s like to be Kanye, and I think that this track nails that on the head as well as everything else you could possibly want in a pop song.

3. 'I Don't Have a Dick' by Captain Ahab
This track is so high on my list purely because it is genuinely unlike anything I have ever heard. Lyrically, it is hilariously, unbelievable absurd. It is the arrogant, ostentatious first person account of the mythologised Captain Ahab who spends most of the track rapping over a constantly shifting background about how he doesn’t have a dick, and what that means for him exactly. This song is overflowing with grandiosity, absurdity, EVERYTHING, in a way that Kanye or even GaGa can’t possibly hope to rival.

2. 'Trainwrecks' by Weezer
Unless you’ve bought Weezer’s most recent album, you probably won’t have heard this track. It’s not a single, at least as of yet. Lots of people have said that Weezer returned to form this year and for me the best example of that is Trainwrecks. Guys this song is just amazing. It’s a massive rock ballad. Heartwarmingly unpretentious, euphoric and rebellious, I have lost count of how many times I have belted this out in my car. It has “Season Finale” written all over it in a way DOESN’T seem crap. Lyrically its disarmingly simple, it’s honest, self aware. Rivers Cuomo’s vocal delivery is emotional, raw, varied and just bloody awesome. If you fob this off as uninspired, uninventive rock then you’ve missed the point you pretentious twat.

1. 'Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk' by The New Pornographers
I raved on Twitter a while ago about how much I love this song. Unless you read that then you probably have no sodding clue about it. This song isn’t a huge statement. It’s not a game changing pop revolution. It’s not a social diatribe. This is just a genuinely PHENOMENAL indie rock song. It has one of the best riffs I have ever heard. It’s vaguely off key, an inspired use of semitones, and thus has something I find so attractive – the twisting and warping of pop music. The melody is mind blowingly catchy. Genuinely. From the moment I heard it I haven’t been able to shake it. The chorus still just blows me away every time. It’s just amazing! I can’t tell you why, it just is. The way this song chops and changes into different repeated sections, the beautiful interplay of lead male and female vocals, the vulnerable lyrics. Good grief, this is just such a perfect song. I love it. I really love it. It has decimated every other song in my iTunes play count. It got me into this band. In years to come few will probably rave over the album, let alone this one track. Well screw them. This is my favourite song of the year, because it is just hits the mark in untold ways on every level that a song should.

So there you have it! My top songs of the year. Whaddya think folks? Hope to hear from you soon :) have a merry Christmas!

My Top 12 Albums of 2010: #6-1

2010-12-07T12:40:00.001-08:00

Click here for #12-7.

6. 'The Fool' by Warpaint

If you have talked to me AT ALL about music in the last few months then you'll have known that I have fallen head over heels in love with Warpaint. The all girl American four piece entranced the world with their SXSW performances earlier this year, and their Exquisite Corpse EP became the record to own. Anticipation about their debut album was high. And they delivered in a gorgeously superb fashion. This album is a dark, sinister yet alluring journey. Menacing drums, throbbing huge bass lines, creepy guitar echoes and ghostly, sultry female vocals weave together to create a genuine experience. The songs veer in multiple directions at times ("Set Your Arms Down"); lending it a proggish air, but it never loses focus or drifts into aimless twiddly wankery. The engrossing music is coupled with simple yet evocative lyrics. This album is all about getting lost in emotion, weighed down by the dark underbelly of love and desire ("Undertow", "Lissie's Heart Murmur", "Baby", "Bees") I have fully given myself over to this album's enchantment, and I don't think I'll ever regret it.

5. 'This Is Happening' by LCD Soundsystem

LCD Soundsystem may very well appear in the musical dictionary next to the term "critic's choice". I have yet to read an "Album of the Year" list that doesn't feature this album, and a lot of people may think it's been included across the board purely due to expectation and a degree of entitlement. Well you're wrong. This is a genuinely brilliant album, and, if it IS James Murphy's last effort under the old moniker, a perfect swansong. Musically, the album retains a classic LCD template - epic dance tracks that use repetition to stunning effect. True. But there's a distinct sound to this album. It's probably more electronic than its predecessors and definitely a lot cleaner production wise. But the music is still sublime. Like lots of entries in this list, James Murphy takes pop music and shapes it into his own subversive image. Intoxicating pop hooks abound, especially on killer singles "Drunk Girls" and "I Can Change". You can't NOT sing along to those songs, the former being one of the most absurdly fun things ever. The whole album is just so danceable, and James Murphy nails the thing that I find so amazing about him. He takes dance and pop music and combines it with lyrics that are perceptive, honest and clever, covering paranoia ("Dance Yrself Clean"), vulnerability ("All I Want", "I Can Change") and, as always, his unique relationship with the music industry ("You Wanted A Hit"). A stunning record. Musically, sonically, lyrically and emotionally it's triumphant on all fronts and, at the end of the day, friggin' brilliant to hear.

4. 'The Suburbs' by Arcade Fire

I'll be honest. It took me MONTHS to get round to buying this album. I watched on as the hype and praise was heaped upon Arcade Fire, constantly dogged by the knowledge that I really SHOULD buy this album. It was an event. It would probably be looked back on as a classic in years to come. By the time I got to it, I was expecting either to be let down or to end up feigning appreciation to save my indie cred. But this album. This album. It broke through anything else I had heard or soaked up about it and, as I sat in my room listening to it, it was as if I was being introduced to a total stranger who instantly captivated me. Charmed me. Made me fall in love. The themes of this album are obvious - varied reminiscences of the bands suburban upbringings in the light of their adult lives. But that subject matter involves so much - a whole spectrum of recalled childhood emotions and experiences that spirals through the bittersweet, the triumphant, the defeated, the ignorant, the romantic, the disappointed, the broken. This is a true ALBUM. It covers all the angles of its subject matter, but not in a business like efficiency. In a way that genuinely reflects human experience. Whether it's fear ("The Suburbs"), insecurity ("Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)"), loss of innocence ("City With No Children"), loneliness ("Ready to Start") or a million and one other subtle feelings and emotions, this record overflows with humanity and lyrical beauty. Musically, it flows and varies and enters numerous new territories for the band, whilst always maintaining that enchanting, cinematic quality Arcade Fire pull off earnestly in a way Coldplay and U2 never will. A lot of people will be put off now by the fact that they're playing stadium shows. Screw 'em. This music was made to be huge. The word masterpiece is bandied about a lot nowadays, often with no justification. Not so here.

3. 'The Wild Hunt' by The Tallest Man on Earth

I'm confident that most of you won't be familiar with this record, which kind of makes me glad. Not because I want to inflate my pretentious, musically informed ego (well, probably) but because I hope I'm telling your something you haven't already been told. The Tallest Man on Earth, a.k.a Kristian Matsson, possesses the enviable ability to do untold amounts with simply his voice and an acoustic guitar. This album is a stunning, genuinely stunning, collection of songs. The sparse arrangements create an album that is warm, organic and inviting; and to put it simply Matsson is a superbly talented acoustic guitarist. Regardless of the fact that English is Matsson's second language (he's Swedish) this album is one of the most lyrically beautiful I've probably ever heard; full of emotional confession as well as vivid imagery. He covers mortality ("The Wild Hunt"), unrequited love ("A Lion's Heart"), playful fantasy ("King of Spain"), guilt ("Kids on the Run") and more. Those may sound like weighty, depressing lyrical themes but this album is beautiful and welcoming, like lullabies with well worn but effecting morals. A timeless gem of an album.

2. 'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy' by Kanye West

The world of Kanye, and the world WITH Kanye, is an insane place to be. Rather then repeat myself, read my previous post on why this album is so amazing. And really. It is amazing. It is a stone cold, terrifying classic. I can hyperbolise and dish out superlatives as long as I want. There really aren't words. Massive. Sublime. Bizzarre. Historic. I don't know. Just listen. Listen and marvel.

1. 'Hidden' by These New Puritans

Well here we are. For me, there has never really been a threat to the top spot for this year since Hidden was released. We've had nearly the whole of 2010 to digest this album. NME crowned it their album of 2010 and I anticipate an immediate wave of scepticism as a result of that. But if that is you: get stuffed. There really is no other option for album of the year. This album gave me the amazing experience of hearing something genuinely NEW. Sonically, nothing has been done like this album before. Chief song writer Jack Barnett has been open about his influences, and they're there if you listen, but they've been stripped, dissected, atomised and shaped into a terrifying, triumphant and sensational piece of work. The musicianship on this album is genuinely phenomenal. As a musician, it just blew me away. The percussion throughout is textured, varied and adventurous, both underpinning and at times dominating proceedings. They accompany throbbing, monolithic bass sounds to create the mind blowing "We Want War"- a mysterious, shadowy beast. It's a prime example of the inspired and mind boggling use of hip-hop beats and rhythms throughout- evident on equally dark "Attack Music"- and the aforementioned beats are combined with intricate and thoughtful arrangements for a woodwind ensemble. Bassoons and big beats? The thought is, and always was ridiculous. But it has been pulled off. And not JUST pulled off. It's unbelievable. The album experiences soft, vulnerable beauty as well- "White Chords" and "Hologram" are supremely beautiful and vulnerable, as well as stunningly textured. Nearly every track is a revolutionary piece of pop experimentation, bastardised and reshaped into something that I still cannot describe. This album is a true leap. Jack Barnett has said himself that this album is not experimentation for experimentation's sake. This music is sincere people. It's real and revolutionary, a towering example of just how original and exciting music can still be in 2010. But this isn't just a flash in the pan. Even if These New Puritans all die tomorrow, this album will stand as one of the most accomplished of the decade and, years from now when I can say this without being torn down, one of the most accomplished in the history of popular music. And the best part? The whole thing is overwhelmingly enjoyable to listen to.

Well there we have it! My top albums of 2010. You probably disagree with some if not not all my decisions. In years to come, I may look back and heartily wish to rearrange. Who knows. I just know that this year, I have loved each of these albums. Bring on 2011.

Los Campesinos! - "Too Many Flesh Suppers"

2010-11-30T11:10:00.000-08:00

Los Campesinos! are quite simply one of the best indie bands around at the moment. I thought of ways to dress up the start of this post and slide smoothly from some semi-relevant opening sentence into the above declaration, but I couldn't think of a way to do it and- quite simply- you need to be told.

They released one of this year's best albums, Romance is Boring, back in January, and it's undoubtedly the best of their albums. It's a classic example of a band just honing everything that's good and lovable about them in the first place to a place where it just strikes every chord right when you're listening to it, and it truly engrosses you and is just a hell of a lot of fun as well. (It may feature of my much anticipated Top 11 Albums of 2011. Tune in later to find out...) Also, my Fantasy Football Team are named "Los Premierleagueos!" in dedication to them.

But earlier today the band announced via Twitter (oh yeah- they have one of the best musician Twitter accounts around- follow @loscampesinos, surprisingly enough- they announced the free download of their song "Too Many Flesh Suppers". It was the B-side to the single of "Romance is Boring", which, as the band themselves have said, "nobody bought". It's not a new track by any means, and is from the recording sessions of their album.

Nevertheless, it is brilliant. They said it didn't fit on the album and I can see why, for various reasons. But still, as I said- brilliant! It opens with atonal violin streaks which glide over a slightly menacing lollop of a guitar line which is something they got VERY good at on Romance is Boring. The vocals are as wrenched, emotional and compellingly uncomfortable as ever from frontman Gareth, and that's one of the things I really love about this band. The vocals veer from high, forced shouts to low, nasal sneers that brutally yet beautifully bastardize any and all melody, so that it hides beneath the surface, but it is very much there. It's melody on their terms. I can easily imagine someone somewhere fobbing the vocal style off as pretentious, but I find the vocals truly affecting and reckon that Los Campesinos! are fully aware of the problems people could raise with their sound, showcased so perfectly in this track.

Lyrically, it shares one of the major themes from the album- sex. Specifically, sexual guilt. The lyrics are dense and physical, like all Los Camp lyrics, and ache with a self loathing and disatisfaction that is painfully human. Gareth Campesinos! is undoubtedly one of the best lyricists across any genre, anywhere right now- and probably one of the best of the last 10 years.

So the download is available here from their blog. Click the little hyperlink that says 'RiB 7"'. I hope you enjoy it and can't recommend these guys enough. They're laying the 02 Empire Shepherds Bush in February and I'm gonna pull out all the stops to be there!

My Top 12 Albums of 2010: #12-7

2010-11-27T08:02:00.000-08:00

So it's that time of year! I love end of year lists and have been quite excited about writing and publishing my own for a while. Now. I thoroughly belief that there is music that is objectively good and objectively bad. It does not come down to opinion. Fact. There are lots of things that go into that, but it's fact. I considered compiling a list of the objectively best albums of the year and those I personally prefer, but couldn't be bothered... so these are my favourite albums of the year, painstakingly put in rough order or preference. Though all of them are objectively very good music it would seem! And bear in mind this is only the albums that I've heard this year. There's always plenty we miss. Oh to have time to listen to them all! So I hope you enjoy, agree and disagree. Do feedback to me :)

Honourable Mentions:
'One Life Stand' by Hot Chip
'Teen Dream' by Beach House
'Plastic Beach' by Gorillaz
'The End of Irony' by Captain Ahab
'Belle & Sebastian Write About Love' by Belle & Sebastian
'Go' by Jónsi

12. 'The Family Jewels' by Marina & The Diamonds

Marina Diamandis is the best thing to happen to pop music this side of GaGa. She's clever, witty, perceptive, original and incredibly sexy - all hallmarks of a great popstar. And those qualities spill over into a phenomenally accomplished debut that is both a posing pastiche but also incredibly human. The album is basically about fame, the obsession with ("Hollywood", "Shampain", "Are You Satisfied?") and the vacuous underbelly of the commercial 21st century ("Girls", "Numb", "I Am Not A Robot"). "It's been done!" right? Maybe. But lyrically, this album is something else. Marina is so fantastically self aware - critical of fame and commercialism but fully aware of how enamoured she can be by it all. Spectacular, sparkling, seductive pop - a hard thing to come by in 2010.

11. 'I Speak Because I Can' by Laura Marling

Laura Marling is arguably a very strong contrast with Marina Diamandis, but is still endlessly deserving of a spot in my top albums. I fell in love with her and her debut, and her sophomore album is so much more than just a good second album. This album is beautifully and quiveringly personal, a beautiful memoir into the mind of a young girl becoming a woman (she's only 20!) She sings about independence ("Made by Maid", "Rambling Man"), urban alienation ("Alpha Shallows") and recounts memories of men in her life across the whole spectrum of emotional experience ("Goodbye England (Covered in Snow)", "What He Wrote", "I Speak Because I Can"). Her delivery is downbeat and subtle, beautifully vulnerable, allowing the emotion to push through with ease. The arrangements are more traditionally folky than the last album, and her guitar ability has become more accomplished and a more central part of the sound. Lyrically, she's only gotten better and is one of the most mind blowingly talented song writers. And she's hardly unattractive...

10. 'Romance is Boring' by Los Campesinos!

Los Campesinos! are a fantastic example of a band who have refined their sound through successive albums, working out what they're best at, where they excel, where they hit the mark, and then putting all of that into a fantastic record. This album is undoubtedly the best thing they've recorded, for so many reasons. A lot of it is mile a minute indie rock, and quite simply makes you want to thrash and jump around ("These Are Listed Buildings, Romance is Boring") but the band have a new grasp of texture and scale back for unbelievably earnest and tearful slower numbers ("The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future", "Who Fell Asleep In") though it all remains euphorically noisy. Frontman and songwriter Gareth has long been gestating as one of the UK's best lyricist, and that shines through in his musings about love, sex, football and religion. Gareth writes about his differences with religion in a way that is very candid and sceptical, though never outwardly biting or critical. As a Christian, I find it refreshing that a non-Christian is able to write about the church in such a way, without descending into offensive and childish Dawkins style insults. A truly accomplished record from an increasingly individual and inspiring band.

9. 'Treats' by Sleigh Bells

There's not a VAST deal to say about this album. But that's not a disadvantage. Quite the opposite. Sleigh Bells are probably the most enjoyable band of the entire year. This album has one setting- REALLY FRIGGIN' LOUD AND REALLY FRIGGIN' AWESOME!!! Lead songwriter Derek Miller takes pop music structures and melodies and bastardises them with terrifying heavy metal guitars and insurmountably huge beats ("Tell 'Em", "Infinity Guitars", "Crown on the Ground" - heck, every bloody song) and then the absurdly attractive front woman, Alexis Krauss, laces the mixture with a voice like poison bubblegum made from fire. This album is balls out, amps up, heads thrashing, bodies brawling. Hell yes.

8. 'Contra' by Vampire Weekend

It's safe to say that the indie community fell a little bit in love with Vampire Weekend when they released their debut a couple of years ago. That coupled with "A-Punk" soundtracking everything from Come Dine With Me to The Inbetweeners made me wonder how they could successfully follow it up. But they delivered. Oh yes they did. Thematically, it's not as unified as their debut, songs here based on rice drinks ("Horchata"), Joe Strummer ("Diplomat's Son") and Japanese history ("Giving Up The Gun") But that doesn't matter. Every song on this album is irresistibly melodic; the whole thing is bursting with hooks. At the same time, it's all exquisitely arranged and proves that Vampire Weekend are sublimely talented musicians. This is truly progressive pop music. Call them pretentious, preppy, whatever you will. Something tells me these guys don't care. And when the music is as upbeat, original and funky as this, I'm inclined to side with them.

7. 'Total Life Forever' by Foals

No one could quite believe it when new Foals material appeared. The shouty, prickly sounding landfill indie band of yesteryear had vanished. They'd been submerged beneath a warm tide of oceanic guitar, enveloping bass, funky drums and full, tender crooning. The transformation was sublime and the British indie world fell to its knees. This album is just brilliant to listen to. Standout, massive tracks like "Miami", "Total Life Forever" and "After Glow" are just incredibly well written indie pop songs, stamped with the intoxicating dance vibe that Foals have cracked into on this album. Then there's the magnificent beauty of "Blue Blood" and "This Orient", marked by some superbly emotional and vulnerable lyrics. The album ends in the stop-dead-in-your-tracks threesome of "Alabaster", "2 Trees" and "What Remains". This album is such an accomplishment for the band, but is also an enveloping, comforting piece of music. Sublime.

Kanye West: Remember His Black Balls

2010-11-25T10:02:00.000-08:00

I, like the rest of the world, have had a chequered relationship with old Kanye West. First time I heard "Touch the Sky" back in 2005I loved it. I borrowed Graduation from a friend when it came out and listened to it pretty much non-stop. Then I started to branch off into other realms of hip-hop- mostly early 90s stuff like Arrested Development, A Tribe Called Quest etc. but more recent and more intense stuff like Immortal Technique. And I began to doubt Kanye. I thought that, in comparison to the happy, chirpy early 90s rappers and the serious, political stuff I was listening to, Kanye seemed a bit juvenile, shallow and commercial. He was one step close too Jay-Z (who, contrary to popular belief, is not the best thing to happen to hip-hop ever). This probably also came at the same time as when I started getting into alternative music and made the childish mistake of rejecting ANYTHING in the charts as inherently crap. Also, I was in a phase of listening to almost EVERYTHING my brother said about music, and he is DEFINITELY no Kanye fan.

Then of course came Kanye's classic moments- saying live on TV that "George Bush doesn't care about black people", and then of course THIS. That started an internet meme. No one has ever recovered from an internet meme. And there was just a general load of what one may fairly describe as "douchebaggery". Plus, the release of 808's and Heartbreak, a huge departure for West but, to be honest, it didn't set the world on fire. It was met with a universal shrug, despite or maybe because of the personal nature of the songs.

So Kanye, about a year ago, was incredibly low in my estimations. And probably in all of our estimations.

But things changed.
OH how things changed!

First of all, Kanye rose rapidly up through the ranks of Twitter. His feed became one of the most popular on the network, and it made (and still makes) fascinating reading. Most artists and musicians on Twitter generally just tweet about gigs, releases, thankyous to fans and casual banter. Kanye was different though. Kanye was wearing his heart on his sleeve. Following Kanye on Twitter, you got a play by play rundown of what was going on in his head and his heart, 140 characters at a time. It was truly astonishing. He poured his heart out over the Taylor Swift thing- see here for the top tweets from that. I was genuinely shocked and moved by that. Since when does a musician- especially in a genre so egotistical and self aggrandising as hip-hop- come out and hands down admit they were wrong, without needing to it through music, and just publicly dress themselves down?! Kanye went up in my books.

And yet there were still seemingly contrived tweets saying things like "Let me be great!" We just couldn't get it! Was he humble? Arrogant? I don't know. I don't think the guy was striving to create a consistent public image. He was, in his own words, "human" and "real". Kanye gave us a living, breathing picture of the real person behind the media images, behind the furore, behind the meme. I think doing that really is the only thing that has saved him from forever being a raging internet joke.

So. Was it just the tweets that meant Kanye started going up in my books again? No. Kanye launched his "G.O.O.D Fridays" project- a vow to release a new piece of music every Friday until Christmas 2010, just because he loved his fans and wanted to give them something. I know that all great bands and artists love their fans, and their albums are for them, and lots release EPs, downloads etc, to give something back. But Kanye's was just on a such a grand, frequent and sincere scale. The first track I heard form it was the fantastic "See Me Now" featuring Beyonce and Charlie Wilson. I loved it. A couple of my favourite lyrics of the year actually:

"I'm like Socrates, 'cept my skin more chocolatey!"
"I'mma let you finish but I got Beyonce on the track y'all!"

That last lyric is just hilarious! It just showed me that Kanye was incredibly self aware- he knew exactly what people thought of him. But he'd apologised. Now it was time to move on. It was time for business.

And business has been good.

This week, Kanye's much hyped new album My Beautiful Dark Twisted fantasy was unleashed upon the world.

My first reaction?

W

O

W.

Guys, let's break the fourth wall for a minute. This album is amazing. Really. It is OUT OF THIS WORLD good. It's a hip-hop MASTERPIECE. It's a pop MASTERPIECE. Buy it. You can't not listen to this album.

It's not that Kanye has re-written the hip-hop rule book- but he doesn't bloody need to! There is just everything good to say about this album. It's got blanket sensational reviews and Pitchfork- either the Holy Grail or the height of pretension to many- gave it the site's first 10.0/10.0 rating for a new album in a good few years.

Now, I don't need to sit here and write about how huge and epic each of the tracks on this album are, without sounding gross and hollow like a Kings of Leon or U2 track. You can go (and really DO!) and listen to "Power", "All of the Lights", "Monster", "So Appalled", "Runaway", "Lost in the Woods"... hell the whole sodding album, and realise that every track is- for want of a better word- BANGING! Every track is pop perfection.

But I just want to say, having had a few days and a good few listens, why this album just works.

I've read a few articles that have been sceptical of the universal praise for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Not that many, but they are out there. A common criticism I've found is that, apparently, reviews have spent more time talking about Kanye's past controversies and his Twitter account than they have actually talking about the album. A slight exaggeration probably, but every review I've read (and this article!) has spent a decent chunk recounting the gaffes and the Twitter rants? Why?

You've got to think about context! How many great albums lose something (or all) of their greatness if you remove them from their context? Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles, Nevermind by Nirvana, Is This It? by The Strokes. Those albums mean so much more, and gain their status in history, because of their context. And this record is contextually perfect! Though not on a societal level- it's not London Calling or anything. But in the context of everything Kanye has done and said- and had done and said to him- this album is perfect. It is a totally spot on response to everything Kanye related over the last couple of years. He's become such a sensation, such a figure, that he's just created this whole context around himself and risen gloriously out of it.

This album is jointly a humble confession, an audacious statement of self belief, a huge middle finger to a media that totally turned against him, a massive a acknowledgement of his own precarious stardom, an insight into grandiose life of a pop superstar that is at times stunningly rewarding yet at others lonely, vacuous and heartbreaking. The two sides of the coin are best seen in the absolutely stunning chorus of "Runaway", featuring Pusha-T:

"Let's have a toast for the douche bags!
Let's have a toast for the ass holes!
Let's have a toast for the scum bags!
Every one of them that I know!"

When Kanye sings that, he's singing about all the haters who've been on him for the last two years- but he's also singing about himself! He's saying "you guys, you're douches, screw you!" and at the same time recognising "I'm a douche bag too. I screw up. I have screwed up. So screw me I guess". The way he's captured that duality is just mind blowing! He's captured two disparate emotions and blended them together in a way that even great literature probably can't. Plus- what a chorus to singalong too!

Also, I think this album really turns Kanye into a mainstream superstar who's a true artist. Aside from creating brilliant music that will find its way into the charts, he's made some stunning lyrical insights into the life of someone as insanely famous as himself. Rhianna sings on her guest spot on the PHENOMENAL "All the Lights":

"Turn up the lights in here, baby
Extra bright, I want y'all to see this
Turn up the lights in here, baby
You know what I need, want you to see everything
Want you to see all of the lights"

Kanye's got this desire to be exposed! To just bleed and wear his heart on his sleeve. Yeah yeah, he's rolling in it- but he's a human being. He's got a mother who loves him. "All The Lights" goes on to give insights into the troubled life of being a rap superstar- "Restraining order/ Can't see my daughter/ Her mother, brother, grandmother hate me in that order" being a choice line Perhaps a nod to Eminem, but still a stunningly human, truly emotional insight into the life of the superstar. And what I love is also is that the album is in one way very Lady GaGa- it is ostentatious, it is pop music on a totally new level- but the music is pure, raw Kanye. I love GaGa- but we never see Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta. We only see the facade, the front, the creation- brilliant as that is. Kanye has all that- but it's him. Pure, raw, flawed, conflicted, unadulterated human being. I think Kanye himself had a bit of a revelation in regards to this a while ago when he Tweeted (and I paraphrase from memory): "It just hit me- I make commercial art!!!" Oh you do Kanye. And it's stunning.

This album is an event as far as I'm concerned. It's not just empty grandiosity and bluster. It demands that you listen to it- as a musical event, a pop culture event, a collection of unbelievable songs, a frank and honest confession of one man's beautifully flawed humanity. If you harbour bad thoughts or feelings to Kanye, listen to this. It's his side of the story. And you'll be surprised at just how engrossing the world of Kanye is.

I'll leave you with the lyric that this post draws its title from, from the track "Gorgeous" featuring Kid Cudi and Raekwon:

"You blowin' up, that's good, fantastic
That, y'all, it's like that, y'all
I don't really give a fuck about it at all
'Cause the same people that tryna blackball me
Forgot about two things- my black balls!"

Sleigh Bells Rang. I Was Listening.

2010-11-22T12:20:00.000-08:00

Sleigh Bells
XOYO, London
Sunday 21st November 2010

I really hope you've heard Sleigh Bells before. If you haven't then turn your speakers up as loud as possible. Literally louder. No louder. Now right click on the little speaker icon on the bottom right of your computer screen and make sure EVERYTHING is as loud as possible. Done? Now click here. Wait for 2:03. And now here.

Understand?
Good.

So last night my friend Will and I set out- both clearly a little tired still from a party the night before- to go and see Sleigh Bells at XOYO. We had no sodding idea where the venue was so left in plenty of time... and found it straight away. We were less than encouraged though as it was down some dingy back street in North London and the only other people hanging around outside reminded me of the opening credits of Shaun of the Dead. After a wee bit of fretting for our middle class lives (ok, maybe just our phones) we got into the club, bought an overpriced drink each and waited for the support acts. First up were Teeth, who were fantastically noisy. I just spent a good while trying to discover their MySpace, and FINALLY got there! Click here, and you can also read this interview. Their frontwoman looked like Knives Chau from Scott Pilgrim when she goes all kick-ass towards the end. Swaggered onstage looking every inch the unassuming but clearly bat crap insane front girl- complete with plaid shirt tied around her waist. The club was only just filling up so the bands frenetically noisy sounds and Veronica So's crazed thrashings and screaming seemed a little bit wasted, and I felt for them. Kudos to them though- they played on and rocked out through that as well as Veronica being clearly sick as a dog and what looked to me (a musician) like a few cunningly concealed technical hitches. I'm definitely checking these guys out more, and they got me and Will warmed up even if the rest of the venue seemed a touch apathetic. Twats.

As the club gradually filled up, the second warm up act took to the stage- The Knocks. I'd heard of these guys in passing somewhere, but only knew that they were in some way electronic. Well bugger me, were these guys good! Their set began with two dancers- who looked like Cell Jr equivalents of Lady GaGa (if you don't get the Dragonball Z reference, watch this)- spreading huge plastic Icharus wings across the stage, then shedding them and freestyling either side of the stage whilst The Knocks- a US dance duo- launched into their stunning set! Seriously. They got the whole venue moving and dancing in a couple of minutes! Hands in the air, hips shaking all around- it was magical! Click here for their MySpace. I grabbed a copy of their single from the merchandise stand straight after they finished. I had to shove it down the front of my trousers for safety though.

Because I knew.
I knew the onslaught was only a brief way over the horizon.

By this time I was PUMPED for Sleigh Bells. Will was PUMPED for Sleigh Bells. The whole crowed was visibly getting PUMPED for Sleigh Bells. Which reminds me- the crows was absurdly diverse. There was a massive dude at the front who looked like Hurley from Lost. Three incredibly lanky lesbians stood right in front of me and Will. A large amount of muggish looking indie types who were making painful attempts to look like Yannis from Foals. A buxom black girl with a MASSIVE afro who for some reason was with a blonde, mid-50s white woman who clearly had no idea what she was in for. But I didn't care. I was there for Sleigh Bells.

Everything I had heard about Sleigh Bells live just had my mouth simply FLOODING in salivation.
It was meant to be glorious, sweaty, chaotic, intense, thrashing euphoria, all crammed into a 35 minute set. It was meant to be a true experience.

And it was.

From the minute Derek Miller sprinted onto the stage, wielding his guitar in a way that would make Thor sheepishly conceal his thunderous hammer, there was just this feeling that the stakes were high, that we were all there to just go nuts. Alexis Krauss strutted our gloriously onto the stage like some tattooed, leather clad raven. It was go time. They launched into "Tell 'Em" and we the crowd were off. Thrashing, jumping, sweating, literally screaming the words back at Alexis. Hell, most of the time we were just screaming. There was no barrier between stage and crowd, and with a band like Sleigh Bells there couldn't be. The whole tiny venue was pressing onto the stage, and Alexis was giving it right back. I managed to work my way RIGHT to the front. All of our hands went up, and she returned in kind, constantly grabbing and stroking hands, pressing them up against her (I can say though that I didn't get a grab on any sensitive areas, which is more than I can say for the girl next to me) She would lean right into the crowd, ruffling her own jet black hair, and the crowd were more than content to give her several dozen hands. There was a massive surge to get even a finger on that gorgeous woman, who prowled, leapt, slunk and thrashed around the stage and over the audience. I got more than a few ruffles of her hair and strokes of her arm. It was just so intense! I've not been to a gig like that before- where the crowd are just baying for the front woman who's more than content to lean in, share the microphone and just scream inaudibly with you and at you, with none of us caring because it's so friggin' awesome. It would be hard to pick a particular song as a highlight because Sleigh Bells only have one album of material and all the songs on that have one setting- LOUD AND AWESOME. In the final song though, I had the privelege of being right underneath Alexis Krauss as she leapt from an amp, stagediving into the crowd. Good grief it was unbelievable.

This gig was just such a brilliant experience. It really brought music alive for me in a way that lots of gigs don't. Musicians who make brilliant music that I love and respect were RIGHT THERE, literally inches away from me, most of the time even less than that- so close that I could touch them, carry them over my head and feel their sweat. Awesome. That's how it should be.

I don't know what the future holds for Sleigh Bells. Their album Treats is one of my highlights from 2010 and it's a masterpiece, a lesson in taking pop music and shaping it into something unrecognisable, new, exciting and just bloody awesome. Maybe there's bigger things. Unlikely mainstream success. I don't know. I don't REALLY care. All I know is that I got to see them in a tiny London venue, playing songs from a brilliant album, in a crampt, sweaty gig and I managed to get my hands on Alexis Krauss. Epic.