'Oh, the waves of cheap keytar'

...and somehow it's already a week later and here's another Jukebox. Oops. I can't even offer you anything in the way of bonus thoughts, beyond how enjoyable Shana Tesh's utterly disposable "Boum Boum Boum" is. [7]

'Synthesized farting'

This week the Stylus Singles Jukebox is named after one of my words. What an honour! A shame that no one else loved the Katerine single in question.

Not included:
Orange Range are ridiculous fun [7] and The Blood Arm sound a lot like Franz Ferdinand, but not as good [4].

First impressions: Fopp crop

My ultra hipster recent purchases at Fopp (a few pounds each = yay):



Clap Your Hands Say Yeah was something that I expected to strongly like or dislike, with that voice (preferably the latter, obviously, and I rather loved "Is This Love?") but it seems to be stuck in the middle for the moment. Apart from the horrible first track.

The Knife and Hot Chip albums are both kind of weird to listen to because they took such massive steps away from them for this year's breakthroughs - there is a bit of a sense of "is this really the same band?". Though the Hot Chip one, despite the "how the hell does Stevie Wonder see things?" and "blazin' out Yo La Tengo-ay-ay" bits is actually a lot less amateurish and jokey than I imagined. I'm warming to it rather fast, "Crap Kraft Dinner" and "Baby Said" especially.
The total lack of sinister on Deep Cuts is proving more difficult to adjust to. Even when Karin Dreijer's voice gets shifted and she's talking about shooting you in the face it still sounds way friendlier than Silent Shout. Still, even if I don't end up liking the rest it was worth it to have a proper version of "Heartbeats". Yum.

And the Britney one is interesting... the large handful of mainly recent songs that I bought it for are great ("I'm A Slave 4 U" is way better than I remembered and "Everytime" is easily my favourite pop ballad ever, not that that takes much as I still don't get many of them), but I actually find it impossible to listen to "...Baby One More Time" and "Oops" I Did It Again" and still haven't got through without skipping them. Far worse songs ("I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman", anyone?) have no such effect and are just kind of fascinating in their hopelessness. I guess through total overexposure (and past ideology?) I've built up some kind of instinctive repulsion as far as the megahits go. Perhaps I'll return to this with a better thought out reasoning soon.

Bonus link: All the versions of "Heartbeats" you could ever want!

New Patrick Wolf video!!

It's rather fuzzy for now, but still deserving of at least two exclamation marks.

"Accident And Emergency yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy":


Proper popstardom only a matter of time now or what?

Chartsengrafs - Doesn't look a thing like Jesus

Sunday just gone: Scissor Sisters still receiving blanket coverage, still outselling everyone else very comfortably indeed. Fergie's highest 'new' entry ends up at 3, matching "Pump It", "Don't Phunk With My Heart" and, yes, "My Humps". The Killers are all the way up to 5 on downloads and probably expecting number one next week, and the other top tewn entry is a rather disappointing 10 for Jamelia. Meanwhile Snow Patrol drop to 8 but are about to be unceremoniously removed anyway, thanks to Polydor not being bothered to send out a few physical copies of the single anymore as it's mainly selling on downloads anyway. Rightfully long term top 10 singles disappearing thanks to this rule has happened a lot this summer ("Crazy" and "Maneater" for two) but it's not going to next year. More on rule changes in a forthcoming post...
It's a slightly bare week high up as the next new entry is for Daniel O'Donnell at 21. His last hit single ("You Raise Me Up" - presumably that one) was three years ago and reached 22, so he's nothing if not consistent. He's two places ahead of Lostprophets (whose staying power, if nothing else, is impressive - remember Hundred Reasons, anyone?) and they're two more ahead of Lupe Fiasco. Embrace see an end of week collapse take them to a rather lowly 29 - this album hasn't sold that well even after being repackaged with their world cup song, has it? Maybe something to do with being rubbish. Cherish ft. Sean Paul at 30 appears not to be on downloads; Larrikin Love (32), Guillemots (36) and Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly (38) all definitely aren't. But they've beaten Katie Melua (41)! With a new song! Oh and thanks to some kind of advert (look at my research skills there) Bedouin Soundclash are up to 40 on downloads even though the single isn't released for several weeks more - it's allowed because there are still physical copies hanging around from the last time it was released, I think.

In the albums it's an all new top three with Justin Timberlake, The Fratellis and Lemar. The
Feeling continue to take hold in the top 10 with Muse and, worryingly, The Kooks and Razorlight lurking just outside again.




Sunday coming: The UK really loves Scissor Sisters, enough for them to be set to hold off The Killers' full release of "When We Were Young" for a rather surprising third week at number 1. They are, of course, outselling almost everyone else combined in the album chart.
No other top 10 new entries means likely returns for Pink (sure) and Cascada (why?) with Janet Jackson, The Zutons and (ugh) Jet set for the lower reaches of the top 20.
Unsurprisingly Lily Allen, Evanescence and Pussycat Dolls are selling well on downloads ahead of their releases next week. But who would have thought that Lil' Chris would too? Someone more pessimistic, perhaps. The Automatic and (deadly dull) CORD are the final likely new entries.

Better Than Worse

The Mercury Prize must be doing something right with similar events springing up elsewhere - the latest is Canada's Polaris Music Prize, which has just been won by Final Fantasy's wonderful He Poos Clouds. I would like to say that it's the best on the list, but that would mean needing to know who Sarah Harmer and K'naan are. Either way, yay Canada.

edit: 'If "He Poos Clouds" wins, I'm founding a new award with the prize money. It's called the "Rogers Wireless Biggest Tits in Canada" award.'

Radio Free Europe #1

An idea mercilessly stolen from The Wonders I've Seen to fill in time waiting around when not doing research project work. I set my mp3 player to shuffle and talk about the songs that come up, providing occasional download links if you're in luck. It's named after the almost appropriate first song to come up.

R.E.M. - "Radio Free Europe" (link)
I love late period R.E.M. (well, ok, middle period R.E.M. up to and kind of including Reveal) but although I have every album a lot of the early, mumblier stuff has never really clicked for me. Even something as relatively accessible as this sounds good but nothing more. "Fall On Me" is the only huge exception, and that wasn't for a couple more albums.

New Rhodes - "You've Given Me Something That I Can't Get Back"
Incredibly frustrating song, not because of anything in itself - its chorus is catchy as anything and the sound midway between jangle and post-punk works well - but because they've not done anything else to live up to it.

Guillemots - "Redwings"
Some of the ballads on their album are the only slight weak points but this sure isn't one. The policy of throwing everything they can think of at a song works when it's all tied together as well as here, and on top of one of their most beautiful and crushingly sad songs. Excellent backing vocals from Joan As Police Woman, too.

Joan As Police Woman - "Flushed Chest"
Huh, that's weird. Anyway... only slightly more restrained than the previous song in arrangement, with lots of lovely brass and some more fine backing vocals. Somewhat less devastated in tone, though, and almost too gentle to work outside the album. Which is really good, in case you were wondering.

Feeder - "Godzilla"
So, yes, this feature will reveal what a load of rubbish I have on my mp3 player. I had forgotten that Feeder were still doing full on fuzzy rock at this stage of their career (Comfort In Sound) but would certainly take it over most of their recent blandness. At least it sounds like they're having fun making such a racket.

And that's your lot, for now at least.

'Really, really into creosote'

I'm back in the Stylus Singles Jukebox this week. And so, among others, are Doug Robertson and Jessica Popper, which is very welcome!

Bonus bits:

• Larrikin Love lack anything very positive or worthwhile; thanks to the likes of them and The Fratellis hyped British indie is finally starting to lose me [3]
• Flyleaf's angst-rock is if anything even less interesting but marginally less annoying [4]

The Picture Show - Bad Killer Bat Girls

The Killers' generally unlovable "When We Were Young" actually seems a lot better when taken with its fantastically overblown video. Does their album really have songs called "Enterlude" and "Exitlude"??


Badly Drawn Boy's new single "Nothing's Gonna Change Your Mind" unfortunately continues a slide to dull irrelevance, but the video is still awfully cute:


And because it's rather excellent and, while a little dark, still way above usual live video quality, Bat For Lashes covering Bruce Springsteen's "I'm On Fire" at the Spitz show on Tuesday:



Finally, it doesn't actually have a video, but YouTube also has a stream of the new Girls Aloud single here. Sounds good! Apparently from a greatest hits rather than a new album, of course.

Wot, no Brakes?

Way back in March I posted about an intriguing charity compilation in the offing, involving fifty bands recording a minute long song each, and then kind of forgot about it. But the great (and not totally unsurprising) news is that it is going ahead and will be released at the end of next month.

It now has a final tracklisting (available on official site, although it's flash so you'll need to navigate a bit), too. I won't list it all but it includes the fine likes of Dead! Dead! Dead!, The Hot Puppies, Youthmovie Soundtrack Strategies, Jeremy Warmsley and Emmy The Great. Will be interesting to see what they and others do within the limitations.

So...

If you're still wondering, it's Kasabian that Guillemots and the BBC Concert Orchestra will be playing with in October. Unfortunately has failed on both counts of the main act being something that I really want to see and being something that won't sell out before I get a chance to get tickets, thanks to them sticking them on sale immediately.

More bad (or badly reported) research

People with iPods don't have them full of music from iTunes. Apparently these findings have 'profound implications for the future of the online music market' - well only if they were completely totally stupid before!
Surely someone is either going to get an iPod because they already like music (and so already have lots of CDs/other downloads waiting to go onto it and dwarf the number of iTunes songs they buy) or for the cool thing itself (in which case they aren't going to buy lots of music from iTunes or anywhere else). Unless it really was expected to create an army of Apple zombies that wouldn't accept music-related product from any other source?

Chartsengrafs - My two feet can't find a way

Sunday just gone: The UK still LOVES Scissor Sisters and they remove Justin at the top with ease. Nelly Furtado and Timbaland reach 3, which is pretty impressive, becoming her second biggest hit ever. And all this after five years of not troubling the top 10. Whether "Promiscuous" would have been as huge a first single here as "Maneater" is an interesting question - I reckon it would have been number one but not for three weeks. Robbie Williams' "Rudebox" turns out not to be the entertaining disaster hoped/expected, although a place of 4 is still the worst for a first single from an album apart from his first and "Feel", that one being due to it being released well after the (very well selling) album.
Snow Patrol climb up yet another place and are only one away from the top 5, despite their album selling well enough to get back to number one for a third time. "Chasing Cars" is largely there thanks to continuing downloads, second on that particular chart behind the unassailable Scissor Sisters. More impressive is its (rather similar) current run in the US top ten. Last week's Stylus Singles Jukebox favourite Lemar achieves 7, which is about right, and all those young people with their downloads push The Feeling's "Never Be Lonely" into the top ten after entering outside last week.
Muse's "Starlight", which is sadly neither the Queen one or the Depeche Mode one, climbs from the depths of the forty to 13 on full release, with Kelis similarly going to 22. Ouch. Whoever Supafly Inc are, they're at 23. Fergie's "Ha, That's Tower Bridge" and Jamelia's "Not The Depeche Mode One Either" are both in on downloads at 25 and 28 respectively. Jealousy is an awful name, but not enough so to prevent 30. Since I didn't do this last week let's pause to gloat at Sandi Thom's new single's failure (22, now 31); the resulting amusement is possibly the one thing which can make "I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker"'s reappearance just below in any way welcome. The Feeling similarly find people again buying their last single enough to put it into the top forty. Oh brave new world. Final new entries are Lorenz' "Set Me Free" and The Rapture's first hit here with "Connected". Oh wait, someone's probably already done that one.

In the albums it's the Mercury effect which is most interested - no, not Freddie with a new greatest hits propelled to number 6 by endless nostalgia, but the (officially no longer Music) Prize which sees its mardy winners up just one place but Guillemots up fifteen to 31, Richard Hawley in the top forty for the first time ever at 37, Hot Chip up to 44 and Thom Yorke up twenty to 52.



Sunday coming: Scissor Sisters for another easy win, with Justin Timberlake at 2 and a distinct lack of challengers being enough to give the unlikely prospect of "Rudebox" now reaching the top 3. Fergie is heading for a very Black Eyed Peas number 5, with Jamelia and possibly Embrace heading top 10 on full release and Meatloaf The Killers doing so just on downloads.
Other new entries will be from Lupe Fiasco, Lostprophets (whose unparodyable song title is "A Town Called Hypocrisy"), Daniel O'Donnell, Larrikin Love, Guillemots and Bedouin Soundclash.

In the albums it's out with the old and in with Justin Timberlake. And, er, The Fratellis. I missed out on my chance to attack them last week but having just seen a poster for their album (which, as usual, is based entirely on the selling power of drawings of ladies) which featured the quote "The most important album you could possibly buy! - NME", now is as good a time as any. Gosh, they're hateful.

Bat For Lashes

(Chartsengrafs hasn't died and will be here soon. Maybe even tomorrow. Don't fret.)

So apparently I missed a not very announced Guillemots (or 'The Guillemots') gig at Islington Academy yesterday. Crap. I only found this out via London Lite (the far more godawful of the two new free papers we have now) and their atrocious review of it. Although perhaps part of my dislike of it may come from worrying that my gushing on them sounds similar even if I try to cover the music and don't actually write "Gosh, she is gorgeous!". Twice.

I did see Bat For Lashes on Tuesday though, which was rather good. It's amazing how much confidence she has gained since six months ago and a lot of the newer album songs sounded fantastic. "Moon & Moon" made a welcome reappearance in the encore too, the most straightforwardly beautiful of all probably and reminding me somewhat of the Elbow likes of "About Time".
The Spitz joins Bush Hall on a list of venues never to go to when it's hot though. Argh.

Surrounded

Look what I got home to find, largely courtesy of a leaving gift from work:







There's my listening (and viewing) sorted out for a while!!

Free Music Friday - Strap, Adventures, Guillemots

Commiserate/celebrate/start to find out what the fuss was about; Arab Strap songs are on offer on Culture Bully, Done Waiting and mp3hugger.

Fans Of Kate released a couple of really great power-pop singles and impressed me a lot live, before seeming to vanish totally at the start of this year. Their website still hasn't updated, but a look at their forums has shown that they, or at least some of them, are now New Adventures. And totally ungoogleable.
Judging by "Speak Up" their songs are now aimed a little bit more at the epic, but there's certainly still promise there.

Your novelty cover for the week is, I'm afraid, going to be another Live Lounge one, but it's hard to want to be more imaginative when Under The Stars has Guillemots doing what's pretty much a standard by now, yes "Take Me Out". I'm a little unsure on this one, but the end is beginning to win me over.

The night before the funeral

Arab Strap have split. And before I got round to really getting into them too, although I do loveMalcolm Middleton's solo album Into The Woods. Aidan Moffat's cameos on The Reindeer Section's albums also superb.
For fans in the UK, there's a farewell tour, at least.

And the Mercury winner is...

Arctic Monkeys. Not my favourite album of the year by any means but a really good one. And despite the hype and overattention already given to them I'm kind of peversely pleased at its win, partly at how annoyed people are going to be. Hmm.

Girls Aloud's "Biology" has won the Popjustice £20 Prize. See above, pretty much! Apart from the people being annoyed bit.

'Casually pulling away from a bus stop while people are still running to catch it'

Sorry for lack of weekend presence... blah.

Anyway, Stylus Singles Jukebox is up. Your bonus reviewlets: Robbie Williams finally goes properly weird and even some twattishness doesn't count against it too much [7]; I don't really get The Rapture [5]; Anais' cute asides rescue a slightly dull song [6].

I also have a bit in the Mercury Music Prize article about (you guessed it) Guillemots.

Chartsengrafs - I'll let you whip me if I misbehave

Sunday just gone: Beyoncé's single may not have been met with great excitement by anyone much but it still removes Shakira from number 1 at long last. Cascada move up one to 5 and Snow Patrol somehow move up five to 7 (this year's "You're Beautiful"?) in an otherwise featureless top 10. Don't worry, things are finally changing around a bit next week!
Matt Willis achieves a just about respectable 11, and things start to get interesting with Justin Timberlake's 13 on downloads for a song which is initially barely identifiable as him. Morrissey at 17 almost might as well not be there and Keane's newfound tabloid notoriety isn't enough to get Mew-lite "Crystal Ball" any higher than 20.
Stacey Orrico and Thom Yorke's about equally catchy songs are at 22 and 23, just ahead of The Feeling. Difference is that they're there on downloads - how are they turning out to be such a big singles band as well as albums? Pink and The Fratellis follow similarly at 28 and 35, with Lazy-B and Pharell/Kanye less successful at 30 and 31 on full release. Missy Elliott at 38 isn't that great a sign for her forthcoming album, but it's a Greatest Hits so she should be ok. Hope Of The States go out with a whimper not a bang at 63.
And in the albums Snow Patrol are back up to number one ahead of Christina Aguilera's Back To Basics. 'Including the number one single Ain't No Other Man!' trumpet its posters around town, rather misleadingly.



Sunday coming: Justin Timberlake is of course set for number one with ease. The real interest, then, is in Scissor Sisters' more of the fine same "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" set for a top 5 place on downloads alone and therefore in with a decent chance of deposing him after another week. The Fratellis are depressingly heading for 3 and Shakira still at 2. Likely to be up there or thereabouts for some time yet unless someone gets the bright idea of deleting it. Nelly Furtado's "Promiscuous" is also doing pretty well on downloads, joined by full top 20 entries for Pink and The Feeling. Little Man Tate are doing not quite so well, but still better than Sandi Thom and, rather surprisingly, Basement Jaxx, set to barely make the top 40 this time around.
In the albums Kasabian look set to overpower up and coming rivals Bob Dylan and Iron Maiden with ease. Oh well.