Chartsengrafs 05/10/08 - Waiter just took my table

Getting a number one single is a major achievement, however it feels otherwise at times. More than one, even more so. And a whole string of them? Well! Still, though, there are some chart certainties over the last 10+ years. The first single from a new Madonna album will go to number one (unless it's "American Life"). The first single from a new U2 album will go to number one (unless it's "Stay"). And the first single from a new Oasis album will go to number one...

...unless it's "The Shock of the Lightning". In fact, their new one can only make it as far as 3, behind Kings of Leon at number 2 in their fourth week. Which may quite neatly answer where all those previously reliable Oasis fans have gone. The signs have been there for a while - look at last year's ignored one off single barely making the top ten - but this is still quite a big deal. If this is not a one off exception like the above then, regardless of the actual quality of the song (better than "The Hindu Times", worse than "Lyla", which is an extremely narrow gap in which to fit), signs that the drudgery of their dominance and influence over the rock scene may be finally be coming to an end have to be welcomed.

So, what of the actual top song of the week? It's "So What" by P!nk, who has managed a slow but impressive turnaround after seeming to blow it completely with third album Try This and it's rubbish singles "Trouble" and "God is a DJ". Sadly while it has the usual rock hooks and gloss, she's taken the success of "Stupid Girls" as a sign that it's great to be super mad zany!! and meta and to insert references to the press and , oh my god, Jessica Simpson! How 'contraversial'! That's before we even get onto the video, which is a whole lot worse.

Sugababes climb to 4, poised for a full on assault of the top next week, and Boyzone are somehow at 5. It's going to take years for everyone to realise that the Take That thing was a complete one off reliant on the fact that their new songs were miraculously quite good, isn't it?
Almost nothing else happening in the top twenty bar Platnum brining bassline in right at the bottom. "Love Lockdown" makes an almost apologetic fall from 16 to 18 and "Paper Planes" seems to have peaked as it slips to 21. At least Faith Hill follows it out.

What else? Erm, Kings of Leons' second entry stays firm at 29, Biffy Clyro's horrible "Mountains" has now been around for seven weeks, N-Dubz and MGMT sneak in at 37 and 39 and Gabriella Cilmi's "Sweet About Me", probably the third best song to have come out of the whole Winehouse-Duffy-etc. thing is for some reason back in again at 38.

In the albums Kings of Leon are unsurprisingly still at the top. Could they possibly hold Oasis off next week? Surely not?
Will Young gets a things-aren't-so-bad-after-all 2, James Morrison picks up anyone who bought his album and still had a tenner spare just behind at 3, and Andrew Johnson at 4 briefly had me thinking on my first scan through that Antony Hegarty had managed a top five album. Seasick Steve's I Started Out With Nothing, and I've Still Got Most of it Left reaches 9, possibly on the strength of that title alone.

Further down it continues to be a long way to fall for Travis, who nine years on from Coldplay-like album chart/festival dominance find their new album entering at 20. That's one place ahead of Ironik, but three behind Trivium and one behind the Jonas Brothers.

Short stories

Jessica Popper calls Hello Saferide's Annika Norlin her 'favourite lyricist in the world'. After a week and a bit of getting to know More Modern Short Stories From Hello Saferide, I think she may have a point.

Musically, the second album by the self-proclaimed country singer reminds me repeatedly of Travis' The Invisible Band. Simple, inobstrusive arrangements, guitar sounds produced to sound big and warm (in a really good way) and sporadic inspired touches, especially the big number with strings at the end. The real difference, and why the not completely flattering comparison point is unimportant, is that everything else in her songs just there to support the words within.

I can even prove it pseudo-scientifically, since unusually there's actually a control sample to test against. Säkert! features all of the above but, since I don't speak Swedish, effectively no lyrical goodness. And as a result I've barely listened to the thing since getting it in a desire to seek out everything she'd recorded.

"I Wonder Who is Like This One" sets the stall, spinning the observation that 'people are like songs' into an incredibly sweet and witty story of how love doesn't quite live up to The Beach Boys. The same intelligence and emotional honesty shines through every song alongside an amazing observational eye for how and why people act how they do. "Overall"'s skewering of the sensibilities of over-anxious middle class parents and "Travelling With HS"' admission of inability to relate to other people are both perfect, among many others. There's not many single lines of amazing poetry to quote, but the combined effect is brilliant.

"Parenting Never Ends" catches that nagging feeling on becoming an adult that you aren't quite ready yet and are stringing everyone along - 'People give me work and money/They depend on me now/If they only knew how thin the ice they walk on is'. As it takes its wish to return to simpler times to an illogical and culminates in requesting to rerurn to her mother's uterus, it also sets up one of the a
smartest bits of sequencing in ages. As its reverie gets cut off by the opening chords of "Anna", one of the more straightforward songs, whose child never born ending is obvious from the start, is lent a big dose of added poignancy by the contrast.

The fact that so much of her work is grounded in the ordinary means there's a contrast to be made with the increasingly popular Kate Nash 'I use mouthwash/Sometimes I floss/I’ve got a family/And I drink cups of tea' school of lyrical banality. The idea somehow gaining in popularity that songs referencing everyday things for the sake of everyday things is inherently a good thing. The idea that millions of people out there who also drink cups of tea will be deeply touched by the fact that someone is just the same as them, and has said so, in song!

When Annika gets to specifics of the mundane, on "X Telling Me About the Loss of Something Dear, at Age 16", when the song's character is at work at a shoe shop after her regretted first experience of sex and she sings 'Do you want those in red, I said/Two fifty with laces, I said' it's to hammer home that she vividly remembers every moment of the unfairness of normal life having to carry on. It doesn't matter that I've never been in remotely the same situation because the ability to relate to eloquently expressed emotions completely transcends where those emotions come from. Sort of an obvious lesson but it would still be great if it was more widely realised.

JoFo in Soho

Johnny Foreigner at Madame JoJo's, 30/09/08

First of all, despite their name and hearing positive things about them in all the right places, I don't really get Dananananaykroyd, and seeing them did nothing to change that. Their levels of energy were pretty amazing and a couple of songs that locked into a noise section and then pushed and pushed it (twin drummers and all), persisting way past expectations, impressed. That was brief though and left looong sections where none of the multitude of ideas presented connected at all, not helped by frankly baffling between song banter. Perhaps if I'd been down at the front among the hug-outs I would have understood better?

Johnny Foreigner I definitely do get, in that their debut Waited Up Til it Was Light is one of my favourite albums of the year. I love its thrilling combination of Los Campesinos!-esque spiky boy/girl indie pop with twisty guitar noises straight from early Idlewild, and the way they their songs each hurtle through a vast maze of interconnecting ideas and hooks. Thing is that despite listening to the album a great deal, if you ask me what much of it means, or what most of the lyrics actually are, I'll be a bit stuck. In fact, ask me to even name half its songs on hearing, and I'll be a bit stuck. So I might not be best placed to talk about their show in a particularly authoritative way.

This fact made me stand out almost as much as my friend who had never heard of them, becuase Madame JoJo's was packed with fans prepped for every moment. A lot of people who on being told that "Cranes and Cranes and Cranes and Cranes" was next could produce its opening 'baba bababababa!' with no further prompting rather than scrambling to catch up. Who could be relied on to fill in lyrical gaps in non-album tracks as well as to catch crowdsurfing singer Alexei at the close. This is a band already inspiring remarkable loyalty, clearly.

The resultant atmosphere definitely helped the band but it's not hard to see why they've reached such a position. Some of the finer detail and dynamism of album versions was lost as songs become uniformly faster, louder, scrappier, but it was worth it for the power added, for the sight of Alexei wrestling every out there sound from his guitar and Kelly and him joyfully trading alternating lines and even words across stage. When they did they sometimes even resembled a beefed up version of The Delgados circa Domestiques, which can only be a good thing. And though fantastic current single "Salt, Pepa and Spinderella" no longer started in as itchy a state of suspense as on record, they raced through it to 'turn on the real drums!' and lit up the room more forcefully than I'd dreamed possible.

They even managed to keep the momentum going through ever lengthening gaps between songs as they fought technical problems and Alexei's admission that he is too unfit to play without gaps 'like a proper band'. New songs were as intruiging and exciting as old and seemingly everyone went away with a smile on their face. Even the people who repeatedly shouted for "Sometimes, in the Bullring" and didn't get it. At least I think they didn't.

Chartsengrafs 29/09/08 - Head while I'm driving

I missed last week, but honestly not much happened anyway. Kings of Leon presumably continue to baffle onlookers from their own country, having extended "Sex on Fire"'s run at the top to three weeks and added a fairly massive selling number one album. Oh and (next single?) "Use Somebody" is in at 29 too. I must have heard it as I heard the whole album at the weekend, but don't really remember much past general professional likableness.

"Disturbia"'s long life on music TV channels allows Rihanna to reach a peak at 3 after twelve weeks, at the expense of Pussycat Dolls. Biggest climber near the top is Iglu & Hartley, up to 5 and a total mess in far too knowing a way, like they thought for a long time about being this lazy.

James Morrison is 6 (bad luck, Scottish international footballer James Morrison), although "You Make It Real" is still behind "You Give Me Something" for top YouTube result on him. About right since it is basically the same song, except with added slickness. Which is about twentieth on the list of attributes that it needed more of. I never got "About You Now" as anything other than good but too safe, and "Girls" at 8 definitely isn't that, whacking great well known sample nonwithstanding. But they seem to run out of song just as they get into their stride, with that sample just taking up way too much space for how much at adds to the song. The top ten closes out with evidence of the horrors of a downloads based chart as someone singing Faith Hill's sub-Dion "There You'll Be" on The X Factor is enough to return it.

Will Young stalls at 13, down from a mere 10 last week. A shame because "Changes" is the first thing that I unreservedly like so far, doing a good job of easygoing soul with its strings and falsetto deployed for an actual reason beyong usually being in this kind of thing. You can't record an album as fanbase-losing as his last one, go away for years and only come back with this amd expect them to come back though. At 16, Kanye West's continuing bid to be the biggest pop star ever gives us "Love Lockdown"! I have read much but not listened to it til writing this so don't know any comparisons with live versions or uninished versions or whatever, and the first thing is to be a bit surprised by just how bare it is. Second thing, those drums! The autotuned vocals do leave a bit of a feeling of just hanging in there, waiting for the drums and bass to kick back in, but it's worth it. "Paper Planes" glides into the top twenty at 19 and is still on it's way up, maybe? Is Pineapple Express actually out yet? Don't know my films I don't care about very well.

At 26... OK, I know there's Bond traditions to uphold, but "Another Way to Die"? Could you get any more generic a title? Surely Jack White could have managed a "Quantum of Solace", and if he couldn't then Muse probably already wrote one. The intro to the song almost singlehandedly redeems it though, throwing all the best recognisable bits of White Stripes and Bond together and implausibly making it stick. The piano's good too, shame that Jack and Alicia shouting at each other seems such an afterthought.

At the bottom of the top forty there's two (??) entries by Jonas Brothers, still taking the McFly model, diluting it down and then selling it back to us. Plus all that purity stuff of course. Hopefully it won't get any further than this but I'm not optimistic. Ditto for DJ Ironik's follow up single at 35. Pink is at 38, we'll talk about that a lot more next week. And Elbow's "One Day Like This", having taken a week's break, pops back up at 39 just in time to get in the way of the release of its follow up.

In the albums, beyond the aforementioned Kings of Leon, there's entries in the top ten for Pussycat Dolls (with a large number of songs that were meant to be on Nicole's ill-fated solo album, apparently), Bette Midler (ah, Strictly Come Dancing, so much to anwer for), McFly (inconclusive as to whether a mere 8 is due to giving it away for free with the Daily Mail, their fanbase deserting them, or both) and Dave Gilmour. Live in Gdansk!
Katy Perry appearing on albums-oriented Later (watch and note Pete and Guy of Elbow nodding along politely) isn't enough to get her beyond 11.

Mobiles skwrking, mobiles chirping

Wasn't my idea and definitely not something I'd inflict on anyone other than close, similarly musically aligned friends, but Radiohead's "Idioteque" turns out to be a surprisingly great karaoke choice.

(I'm neglicting because I've been away every night, not because of actual neglect like usual. Hopefully to continue tomorrow with a gig by Johnny Foreigner, will report back on it if so!)

Play thoughts

Belatedly catching up on posts on Rocktimists (featuring a couple of much missed Stylus writers, among others), I was particularly interested by this one.

I instinctively wanted to disprove its comparison of the current positions in the video games market to thoughts on music compression, largely because I'm on different sides in each case (Nintendo and Elbow, in short). But the more I thought about it the more it seemed to fit. Is wanting more dynamic range and being able to hear little details in records really all that different from people getting fussed about framerate and polygons per second?

I tried to think that the first is a far more intrinsic part of music, but can that really be the case? Video games are different from the passive experience of watching TV/movies (even if you're playing Metal Gear Solid 4) but isn't the image with which you're interacting about as intrinsic as you can get?
On the other hand, is there a music equivalent to outdated games with comparatively basic graphics that remain fun to play? Production techniques can definitely lead songs to sound of a time (even if that time isn't their own). And early uses of synths, for example, don't do all that could be possible with improved technology, but listening to a song the primitive nature of the technology would hardly leap out in the same way as someone playing twenty-year-old games. I suppose if you go back to the earliest days of recorded music you would get to something similar, but there is no retro scene that I am aware of celebrating such recordings in the same way as Commodore 64 games. Which maybe proves something.


These kind of issues have been interesting me ever since getting back into video games a couple of years ago, and discovering an internet community on the likes of NeoGAF that is not dissimilar to the music one (except even more male, American and filled with in-jokes) and useful for finding the really good stuff out there.
One of the most striking differences is how bloody positive people tend to be. Hit your average music discussion and chances are high of finding biting dislike of whoever is being discussed, especially if they're popular. It's not like that doesn't happen with games but on the whole people seem to be much more likely to be actually happy with what's successful! To the point of developing strong loyalties to the multinational companies that provide it, no less.
I think the key thing here is the fact that an objective review is a lot less of an oxymoron when it comes to games. If a game just isn't fun then chances are it isn't fun to anyone else either. There are exceptions but given the level of effort required in making a game, a big budget really does make it likely to be better. You won't get everyone to agree on the merits of Shadow of the Colossus, much like you won't get everyone to agree on OK Computer, but you'll get much closer. The effects of this particular type of groupthink can be peculiar at times. Stylus never had to deal with anything compared to gaming sites getting crazed reactions to a review giving only 8.8/10. But every time I see a comments page full of genuine, deservedly positive replies it does make me a little happy.


Incidentally, while we've mentioned the subject of compression and video games, this is pretty amazing. Not in a good way.

Ten favourite moments on Los Campesinos!' We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed

Since even more than their debut, songs as a whole seem less important than the number of amazing, distinct hooks that they can cram into half an hour or so.

• "Miserabilia" - The heavily distorted, disgusted '...for a better understanding of my dietary requirements' leaping suddenly but appropriately into an off-kilter, violin led riff that feels like the onrushing waves of nausea hitting.
• 'Shout at the world because the world doesn't love you!' - So musically triumphant and uniting as to completely turn the sentiment around; yelling loud and clear that we don't need the love of the world.
• The amazing sounds behind the second verse of the title track, where the guitar sounds like it's methodically chopping the song into pieces with the reaciton of an adorably sad and confused little sigh (of violin? synth? It's beyond recognisable).
• When the violin comes in after 'I hope my heart goes first!' and everything is briefly beautiful, a wash of calm contemplation after the frenzy.
• "It's Never That Easy Though..." - the squelchy keyboard that takes the opening line 'This one time, I kissed a girl for class war' and turns it into a mischievous comic adventure. If there's one thing that raises this album more than anything else, it's their amazing knack for fitting musical punctuation marks to their lyrics in a way that magnifies the power of both.
• That perfectly executed stop and start at about a minute in that doesn't need to be there for any reason at all but knocks me sideways every time and makes the start of the following joyful whirling build up even better.
• "The End of the Asterisk" - 'Your parents, your disgusting parents'. Gareth's punk scowl is great, and all the more so for being relatively rarely used.
• "Heart Swells/Pacific Daylight Time" finally reaches an unambiguous, genuine positive sentiment and it immediately gets drowned in feedback and chopped off. Really affecting and still totally Los Campesinos!.
• "All Your Kayfabe Friends" - 'You asked if I'd be anyone from history/fact or fiction, dead or alive/I said I'd be Tony Cascarino, circa 1995' - destined to be their most quoted line ever, I guess, but it really is that amazing. Like the Breakfast Club line from the debut, but five times as bloodymindedly logic-free and with even better timing.
• The ending. I'm a sucker for songs suddenly cutting off (better than a fadeout every time), especially at the end of albums. As pleasurably disorientating as most other things here.

Chartsengrafs 15/09/08 - Soft lips are open

Welcome back, all. Things to note about the UK charts in my absence - now that downloads have all but completely taken over, they move very, very slowly. Not quite US-like Mariah Carey at number one for 200 weeks slowly, but certainly there's not going to be quite so much happening in any given week as used to be the case.

It's a rare week then this week as we see new entries on both the singles and album charts!

Straight in at number one on the singles are Kings of Leon, somehow. Their previous highest was a 13 for "Fans" which I have no memory of whatsoever. Follow up to "On Call", apparently. Having said quite a few times over the summer 'forget Jay-Z, what the hell are Kings of Leon doing headlining Glastonbury??' their new position is dismaying. As a result it's secretly disappointing that "Sex on Fire" completely fails to live up to its hilarious title and turns out to not bad, if not exactly setting anything alight (sorry). Certainly there seems to be a lot more to them than the likes of Jet, and a few comparisons seen elsewhere to "Dakota" (ie previously terrible band comes good for once) are equally as unfair on Kings of Leon as on "Dakota".

Removed from number one after 5 weeks is Katy Perry, who I am way too late to have much new to say about. I'll try anyway - if you try really hard to ignore the lyrics and keep the bile down, doesn't "I Kissed a Girl" sort of sound like The Bravery? From the ridiculous to the equally ridiculous, at number three is Cliff Richard, who missed his chance to carry on that number one every decade record that's obviously a great source of pride and publicity. He needed to go for it a couple of years back when he would only have needed to sell half as many copies, really. Pussycat Dolls and Rihanna follow at 4 and 5, and then lower down the top ten is horrorville. Take your pick from The Script, Kid Rock or Biffy Clyro-ironically-gone-Busted-ballad for biggest crime against music there (hint: it's still The Script).

What else? Flobots make it up into the top 20, probably more to come on them once I've heard more than the chorus on endless adverts (that is not helping their cause). Iglu & Hartly and McFly are new at 21 and 23 and at 25 Keane's silly big 80s pop moment "Spiralling" continues to follow Coldplay in demonstrating that giving away your single for free won't stop people paying 79p for it for months to come. Basshunter (he's sold 130,000 albums, you know) gets a third but rather lesser top 40 hit at 24, ditto for Flo Rida at 29.

At 33, watch your back cos Paul Rodgers has got Queen on this track; a Mercury win is enough to put Embrace Elbow's "One Day Like This" up to 36, three places higher than first time round; there's an end to 'Lowgold have had more top 40 hits than M.I.A.!' zings as "Paper Planes" gets to 37 on its way to bigger things; and Sonny J closes things out at 40.


In the albums, Metallica rush out late in the week to snatch the top spot from Glasvegas. It's a bit surprising - St. Anger was only number three. That was in part due to releasing alongside Hail to the Thief, but I still didn't think that they had quite such clout anymore. Especially when releasing an album with cover/title that surely shouldn't have made it past the inside cover of first year science exercise books. No other big new entries, but the aforementioned Mercury effect pushes The Seldom Seen Kid from 61 to 7, and past Asleep in the Back (and Basshunter) in lifetime sales.

Lowlands Day 3 (17/08/08)

Sunday's music starts off with a disappointing moment. Rushing back from a very necessary packing trip, we arrive at the (tiny) Lima tent just in time to hear the last two bars of Lykke Li's cover of Vampire Weekend's "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa". Had been looking forward to that being the finale and highlight of her set, but alas no. There is still an enjoyably taunting "Complaint Department" although a couple of others fall into being a bit too loose and diffident, much like the album.

Next are a couple of bands that I know nothing of in advance. Pivot offer some interesting though slightly unengaging experimental electronica. Yeasayer go for psychadelic leaning rock that has some nice harmonies in places but occasionally veers into horrible falsetto/wah-wah boogie. They spend a surprising amount of their time on stage talking up the next band, MGMT.
They needn't have bothered, as MGMT are already clearly the hype band of the weekend, going as far the previous day as to fly over a plane with an advert for their set, and attracting a crowd thats packed even twenty-deep outside the sizeable India tent. They completely fail to do anything to justify this position, starting by arriving about fifteen minutes late. Announcing that they will play the whole of their album isn't a bad start (although they don't play it in order anyway), but within thirty seconds of a foolishly thrown out "Time to Pretend" it's clear that they intend to not only play the whole album but also replicate the gratingly horrible and compressed sound of it, only even more so. Every keyboard sound is a deafening scrape and the rest is barely better. I still think that they probably have some good songs, but it's not too easy to tell. I leave after two, not least because there are more important places to be...

...namely the Grolsch tent for Elbow! Good thing to get in there too, as after a weekend of (sometimes uncomfortably) sunny weather, a torrential downpour almost perfectly coincides with their set. Guy Garvey is quick to make light of the fact ("Consider yourself lucky, in Manchester it rains for 200 days a year") and it actually lends a bit of a communal huddle air to proceedings, especially once we reach the somewhat ironic climax of "One Day Like Today".

Before that is a set that's, well, as reliably fantastic as any Elbow set of the past few years - that I can't be more enthusiastic about it is more down to it being my tenth time seeing them than anything else. That and the slightly short set (no "The Fix" or "Grace Under Pressure") and slightly too high and far away stage, although Guy does everything in his power to overcome that short of actually climbing down, and that's only because he'd probably never make it back. He sings almost every heartfelt word leaning forward and physically reaching out in an attempt to connect that works remarkably well for its simplicity. Even on the rare occasion when he falters, voice straining and flirting with out of tune for a couple of verses of "Great Expectations", the warmth of feeling and beautifully soft pattering of piano easily carries him through.

Special mention as ever to "Newborn", the only track from their debut played, which remains just as gobsmacking in scale and power a tenth time as it did the first, and surely will a fiftieth.

How to follow that? Well, if there's one band who can match or better them musically for sheer beauty it's Sigur Rós. They begin with a massive "Svefn-G-Englar", building up to a bow on guitar frenzy that seems to almost swallow the whole tent in its depth of primordial, unnameable feeling, and everything that made them such an important band to me many years ago makes total sense again. A barely less epic "Glósóli" later and they play a (possibly new) song that I don't know, and things get really magical as it softly flutters and a brass band, dressed all in white, emerge to march in slow motion across the stage, a delightful visual that matches all the pomp of the music but also injects a touch of humour and a human element that doesn't always translate amid their towering music.

Next: Time to blow all that away with a thunderously crashing "Ný Batterí"! Holy crap. About half an hour gone and an hour left (they presumably insisted on the longest slot of the festival) and their set his been faultless and made me want to fall in love with them again, and yet... there's a reason why all that was needed. So getting out while they're ahead seems a good bet, and as I walk out to the sound of the opening chords of "Hoppipolla", the usual sinking feeling sets in and I feel like I've made the right choice. That one is more the assorted documentary soundtrackers of the UK's fault than theirs, but still the prospect of the goo of the last two albums is too much to face.

So instead I finish up Lowlands 2008 with The Dresden Dolls. Their edgy, witty and almost uncomfortably insightful Yes, Virginia... has crept up to become one of my favourite albums of recent years, so I'm rather excited to see them for the first time. And that excitement reaches fever pitch as they open in style with its frenzied "Sex Changes", keyboard and drums pounding in unison.

Their show in some ways gets no less impressive from there, from the sheer noise somewhow generated by only two people on in. Amanda Palmer wrings a huge range of sounds from her keyboard with furious, rapid fire succession, and Brian Viglione is equal parts drummer and mime, with comic and dramatic timing down perfectly. Of course, for that to work rather than being a distraction they need to have the songs to match... and that's where they fall down with a bizarrely misjudged setlist.

I know that there are always people who are there for the early stuff (see Sigur Rós review above) but failing to play any more songs from their second album at all is inexplicable. Their debut was full of potential, but it lacked a lot of the songwriting poise of the second and there's only so many of its overwrought issues songs (yay, self harm) that can be taken in one go. Only a blistering "Girl Anachronism" and "Coin Operated Boy", with its clockwork stop-start sections drawn out til they go through bizarre into funny and back again, are up to the job. The latter also gets a just about funny enough to work lyric change from 'I can even take him in the bath' to 'I can even fuck him in the ass', which says, er, something. Anyway, their wasted potential is a disappointing way to end, summed up no better than by a drawn out closing cover of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" that we are instructed to sing along to but no one knows the words to.

Yay!

Lowlands day 2 (16/08/08)

I really mean to start off Saturday with Laura Marling in one of the event's smaller tents. But in even more oppressive early afternoon heat than the previous day, sitting down in the shade seems a good idea. And then suddenly getting up again doesn't. Before you know it, it's an hour and a half later. Apparently she was good though.

NERD are playing the festival's enormous arena sized Alpha tent but it's still way too crowded to get in. Instead we take up stations at the somewhat smaller stage opposite, the closest to an outside stage there is. Can't tell you much about NERD despite the proximity as they get drowned out by soundchecking for Los Campesinos!, eagerly awaited by a small cadre of dedicated fans.

Gareth begins by thanking NERD for supporting them, later going on to attack a lengthy list of targets including the Sex Pistols (playing later; we should see No Age instead), British festivals (full of drunken idiots) and Belgium's rival Pukklepop (a popular one, this). Fortunately there's still enough manic energy and creativity left over for their songs. The power of the unique worldview invested in them comes through even more while watching various members of the band throwing themselves around and at each other, helped by the fact that with no second album songs yet essentially every song is a crowd favourite. It doesn't make for a perfect set quite. Gareth's female cointerpart Aleksandra is near inaudible for much of the set, giving "The International Tweecore Underground" in particular a weird one sided conversation feel. And when my friend complains after about not being able to tell the difference between many of their songs they have somehwat of a point at times. But when LC! team up a blistering "My Year in Lists" to a cathartic "Knee Deep at ATP" for a sub five minute double feature, or when a chaotic "We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives" coda coalesces behind Gareth as he theatrically checks his watch for the correct mid-August date, or they line up on upturned monitors for the final trimphant bellow of "Sweet Dreams Sweet Cheeks" there is nothing remotely like them. That's even before we get to the euphoric madness inspired by "You! Me! Dancing!"

British Sea Power were never likely to live up to that but disappoint a little nonetheless. Matters definitely aren't helped by the smallest crowd of the weekend, who aren't even roused by "Waving Flags", aside from a couple of people with (Spanish/pirate) flags of their own. But even beyond that, good but slightly airy songs come off as even airier and only "It Ended on an Oily Stage" comes close to moving. Maybe I missed the best bits by arriving halfway through.

A quick stop for food later (uitsmijter, a bread and fried egg/cheese combo that definitely beats British festival food) it's back to the huge tent for Franz Ferdinand.

They make for a slick and relaxed contrast to the overstretched band that I saw at Glastonbury and Ally Pally a few years ago. A carefully picked set shows off the best side of the mixed second album, and there are few moments of half-surprised memory along the lines of 'oh yeah, "Walk Away" is quite the fantastic drama, huh?'. They also trial quite a few of those long overdue new songs which are promising if not completely convincing.

What makes the set so much better than that quick overview makes it sound is just how on their side the crowd are. There's a celebratory atmosphere even before they become the only act I see to make a stab at (I presume) Dutch that goes beyond 'dank u well'. "Take Me Out" is of course welcomed with open arms, even the guitar part sung along to, but it goes well beyond that and makes an event of almost every song. Somehow even "This Fire" gets turned into a barnstorming finale whose chorus is still being sung well after the band has departed.

Rather different in feel but nearly as enjoyable are headliners Underworld (the other two days had Editors and Anouk if you're interested). It possibly helps to go into the show with virtually no knowledge of their material, as the slowly unfolding intricate rhythyms are all the more hypnotic with no idea where they are heading next. They're helped too by some excellent projections and some fantastic props, in the shape of blow up pillar things that are blown up and pushed over and around and look from a distance intriguingly like spotlights turned solid. And then after about an hour slips by gracefully, there's the inevitable conclusion of "Born Slippy" and the moment that it kicks in and the lights turn on and we all stand arms aloft, grinning broadly. It's the sort of moment that it would be difficult to get wrong at this point, but they make thoroughly sure they don't.

Lowlands Day 1 (15/08/08)

I had no idea til I came here to post and looked that it's been almost exactly a year since I last posted here. Weird stuff. <--- Was true when I started writing this. Anyway, starting things off with something that actually gives me quite a bit to say. Last weekend I was at Lowlands festival in the Netherlands.

Left home about 2pm on Thursday and, 3 train journeys and a coach ride with a bunch of drunken Irishmen later, arrived a bit before midnight. Not much worse than Glastonbury really, especially considering the lack of queuing and that my fantastic friend had set up a tent for us in prime position. Hooray!

Ways they do things differently than UK festivals I've been to - Rather than outside, near enough all the music is in tents of varying sizes, from cosy to enormous. Rather than starting at 12, things gradually get off to a start rather later, which coupled with a standard-to-early finish means seeing 7 bands a day is out of the question. On the other hand, rather than the usual UK policy of giving the interesting acts early slots that barely stretch to half an hour, just about everyone gets at least an hour. This is pulled off by having a really large number of stages in a small space, and there's some clever scheduling going on to make unwanted noise from other stages a rarity.

So, Friday, first day proper, starts off for us as late as 4pm, not a bad thing considering the stifling midday heat. To see - The National. Opener "Start a War" eases gradually into their world, where every word seems to come cloaked in unspoken regret or horror, and also introduces their excellent brass section, who really add something over the previous time I saw them. The interesting thing about The National live is that much of the time the emphasis of their sound is completely reversed from on record. Normally Matt Berninger's vocals are the focus, but live, it's much easier to appreciate the way that the rest of the band build up those tense, subtle backdrops. Even when he gets into full on mad pacing mode for "Mr. November", it's the fantastically agile drumming that stands out. Older songs than that don't get a look in and there's a disappointing lack of "Ada", but as a showcase for Boxer they couldn't do much better.

I've seen Hot Chip before. But that was a show supporting Athlete (!) in 2004 and it's fair to say that they're a slightly different band now. They no longer shake bananas and don't play anything at all from their debut, understandably. Their two uneven albums since have enough top material to make for a uniformly fantastic set and they blast through it in a determined effort to keep everyone on an unending high. It's two songs in when they switch seamlessly from a manic "Shake A Fist" into a burbling "And I Was a Boy From School" that it becomes clear just how fantastic they have got at what they do. Somehow the latter is played at twice the speed but remains every bit as haunting as ever while totally dancable. "Bendable Posable" is the unlikely biggest highlight, showcasing Joe Goddard's unique rapping skills and the most joyous random noises in a strong random noise field.
After the rush through every great song from the last too albums, they then go and show that they can make even (slightly) less glittering material shine with an energetic reworking of "No Fit State" that melds it with New Order's "Temptation". And it turns out that they haven't already played every great song because I have somehow completely forgotten that they still have "Ready for the Floor" up their sleeve! Best surprise of the weekend.
And even that isn't enough as they finally let up the pace and take full advantage of their accumulated power over the crowd to play a spot on cover of "Nothing Compares 2 U" and a similarly swaying "In the Privacy of Our Love". Still not sure this is the best direction for them to go in, but they sure earned it.

Santogold was meant to be next, but turning up almost half an hour late means that it's time to leave before she gets there. Oops.

We have to make sure that we get our place in plenty of time for The Flaming Lips. After all, if you're not within confetti cannon distance you'e going to miss out.
It's no surprise that when everything switches on and they launch into "Race for the Prize" with massive balloons bouncing everywhere, massed ranks of dancing teletubbies dancing, the aformentioned confetti, and the lights and the energy, it remains one of the most life-affirming gig experiences possible. I would almost go as far as recommending seeing them for that alone.
Thing is though, I last saw them five years ago and this is almost exactly the same show. Wayne now rolls around the crowd in his giant bubble for a bit before they begin, and they've acquired a massive green laser. But the only other real change is to the set list, and that has somehow got worse - "Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" is a great addition but there are now uncomfortably long patches where the music comes nowhere near to matching the spectacle. No more "Lightning Strikes the Postman" or even "She Don't Use Jelly" either, although perhaps advocating them making even fewer changes is not the way to go. Still, a bit of a conflicted experience overall, though as I said has its share of brilliance.
See "Do You Realize??" here, where as an added bonus (??) you can see me blowing bubbles at 2:42.

Emmy The Great at Pure Groove

Earlier on I went to Pure Groove, a North London record store which has somehow previously escaped my attention, to see indie folkster Emmy The Great play a very cosy and rather beautiful instore gig. I managed to end up without much of a view (and stood next to Jeremy Warmsley) and she only played five songs, including an Adam Green cover. That was ok though because all were as wryly amusing as theu were pretty and her own songs were so despite all being new to me. And calling M.I.A. a bitch for refusing to guest on the song named after her was pretty funny too.

Head over to The Daily Growl for mp3s of a recent Xfm session including the aforementioned "MIA".

The Crimea - Requiem Aeternum

mp3

There's not that much similarity musically between The Crimea and My Chemical Romance, I'll grant you, but they've long struck me as being a little bit emo nonetheless. Mainly it's thanks to singer Davey MacManus, with his breathless raw emoting of words that spill out of his head uncontrollably with a total absence of self-censorship: hilarious, awkward and despite his actual age often painfully teenage. Partly as a result, on debut Tragedy Rocks they were equal turns brilliant (joyful sort-of-hit single "Lottery Winners On Acid", the hallucinatory rant of "Opposite Ends") and really frustrating.

On their follow-up, Secrets Of The Witching Hour, he produces just as many bizarre and endearingly misguided lines ('Hell is a crowded room/Heaven's just got you/Naked on all fours' takes something to pull off so well) but this time nothing misses. The band have expanded their sound effectively, still resembling a more earthbound Soft Bulletin produced on next to no budget, but fitting in all kinds of effective arrangement tricks to give force and grandeur for MacManus to both revel in and poke holes in with his wry wit. And when they reach, however tentatively, for the emotions there's just enough depth that it really works this time, as "Requiem Aeternum" demonstrates.

Best of all, they gave away the album for free on their website in adavance of its release, and it's still there. This will be the way for more and more bands soon, I'm guessing, although it's just served as a pretty decent advocate of buying the real CD for me. Without its liner, I would have no idea that the ghostly female voice that drifts into "Requiem Aeternum" is one Amy May of Paris Motel, my favourite new band who I discovered coincedentally around the same time as being wowed by the song.

Okkervil River - John Allyn Smith Sails

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[spoiler warning: plot and/or ending details follow]

There aren't many songs that need one of those but it feels sort of appropriate here. If you haven't heard it yet, you're better off clicking the link before reading this. Go on! The element of surprise is a large part of what made this song such an amazing first time listen, though it stands up very well indeed to repeated album listenings.
But before we get to the spoilers, some background first. The Stage Names feels a bit of a reaction to Okkervil River's previous record, where they wrote an entire album around one song by someone else, the Black Sheep Boy of its title. This time, they limit themselves only to 50+ years of rock and roll history and archetype. Throughout, Will Sheff's really funny and perfectly fitting lyrics are steeped in allusions and references, from the add-one-on songs of "Plus Ones" (TVC16, 51 ways to leave your lover...) to meeting bitter declarations that 'you look your age/which is 37 by the way/and not 28'.
Then, at the end, we reach "John Allyn Smith Sails" as the frazzled rock anti-star of the album's very loose narrative crashes and burns completely. It starts off as a sad acoustic ditty, which is pretty excellent in its own right, and has to be to not just seem like a precursor, so that the big move can make its proper impact. It's timed to perfection, because you get just long enough to get a thrill of recognition from just the musical allusions to "Sloop John B" that creep in, before they launch head on into a ragged, cathartic cover of it. It's as if, after being soaked too long in rock legend, even the wish to escape can only make it past with the protective shield of a familiar song, and it's a terifically odd and affecting way to end an album.

Though, of course, it does rely to a certain extent on your knowledge of the song. Which got me thinking about other songs based around the album that contains the most famous version of "Sloop John B". I can't think of enough for the whole tracklisting of Pet Sounds yet but there are a few. Hello Saferide's excellent recent single takes an inversion of "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" as its starting point, and she has a new song based around her ideal person being the one who is just like "God Only Knows". Kaiser Chiefs' "Caroline, Yes!" doesn't really go much past the title. My favourite other one is Gorky's Zygotic Mynci's "Spanish Dance Troupe" which distills "Wouldn't It Be Nice" to its one line essence for a haunting closing mantra.
Am I missing anything obvious?

Chartsengrafs - We can work without the perks

It's a second week on the top for Timbaland, once again thanks to lack of other worthy challengers as much as any particular momentum of its own (see: Fergie back up to 3 again). That seems to be a bit a theme this year. But it's okay, because our unlikely new entry at number 5 is "With Every Heartbeat" by Kleerup featuring Robyn! That's twenty places higher than Annie ever got, just in case you're counting, and... well, actually we'll leave it there, because it seems like there's going to be even more to be excited about on that front next week. Although I will say that I listened to Robyn's previous top ten hit from 1998 "Show Me Love" the other day for the first time, and it's not an experience I'm too keen to repeat.
Newton Faulkner sneaks up to 7 in the brief moment he has before being made irrelevant by the 'James Blunt's new single isn't the worst thing ever' shocker, and the top ten is rounded off by the continuing advance of Plain White T's and their brand of sappy pleasantness.
Yves Larock at 13 is one of a dying breed of summer dance hits, with rises for Beyonce (17) and Amerie (21) somewhat less rare. A somewhat censored version of "Pussyole" at 22 leaves Dizzee Rascal still a way away from his only proper big hit but does see his album make a re-entry to the top forty at least. The Coral's moment has sadly well and truly passed at 25, and relief that the Simpsons theme is falling down is tempered by that fact that it's joined by "Spider Pig". What else do we have in the top forty? Er, Amy Winehouse, The Cribs and Graham Coxon teaming up with Paul Weller, in descending order of both positions and excellence.

In the albums, Paul Potts is still number one, holding off new entries from Newton Faulkner and Amy MacDonald. Prince's Ultimate at 6 won't be in nearly as many homes as Planet Earth, but also in fewer bins. Next week: The nation needs Kate Nash and doesn't want to wait.

Of Montreal at Scala (02/08/07)

First of all, the organisation/security at Scala has completely gone to shit and has put me off going there again (although there will always be exceptions). Having to queue outside for half an hour when turning up an hour after doors open, so that they can search every single person and then have them queue again for the understaffed box office to collect their tickets is stupid, and I was clearly far from the only one to completely miss Pull Tiger Tail's set as a result.

But that aside, it was a really enjoyable gig. I didn't know that much about what to expect but was taken right away, both by the fact that they kicked the set off with the awesome one-two of "Suffer For Fashion" and "Bunny Ain't No Kind Of Rider" and that they put on such a bizarrely extravagant show. There was a big glam rock thing going on with their (hilarious) outfits and Kevin Barnes' somewhat Bolanesque performance which was not something that I'd really thought of from the album before but makes sense now. And then on top of that were pretty cool projections and, oh yeah, the two guys in black lycra bodysuits with mirrorball faces running around, bursting balloons and crowdsurfing.
Music mainly came from Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? which was fine by me as I don't know much of the older stuff very well and its dense pile-up of melody and meaning has sneaked its way to a position as one of my very favourite albums of 2007. "She's A Rejector" was pleasingly manic and the sleazy funk of "Faberge Falls For Shuggie" was cool and funny in equal measure. The bravest move was playing the whole ten minute trip that is "The Past Is A Grotesque Animal" but they pulled it off, going way beyond repetition to totally brainwashing groove and pairing it with the total contrast of "Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse".
There were a couple of enthuiastically met trips into their back catalogue too, including an inevitable encore of "Wraith Pinned To The Mist (And Other Games)" which was introduced as a song that they can no longer play in their own country, presumably referring to the whole Outback Steakhouse thing. It definitely served to increase my interest in finding out more about a band capable of great things.

Sooo much better than the single artwork

Amazing followup to the Hard-Fi record thing from over on Popjustice:



Yes, that's taken in Music And Video Exchange, and yes, we all know that's what most promos are for.

Oof

Started work at new job, excited but tired. Real updates to follow.

Chartsengrafs - I ain't got a motorboat

Kate Nash turns out to to be cruelly denied at the last. By 16 copies. Instead it's Timbaland who rises to number 1, becoming the first act to score two this year and matching last year's Nelly/Justin assisted duo of Timbaland produced chart toppers. "The Way I Are" still sounds the more reasonable of the two to be there too. Not much happening after that in the top ten bar Groove Armada's fine "Song 4 Mutya" making it up to 8. It feels like forever since everyone (ok, Popjustice) was first raving about this, but it's actually only just been released and doesn't seem to have suffered too much as a result. Oh and Mika is just below. Yay!

And Manic Street Preachers' placing of 10 with "Autumnsong" is a fairly useful gauge of the state of the market since the same 10,000 people buy all of their releases - it says things are doing a little better than when their last three (no.2) singles came out.

Newton Faulkner is new at 16 and the best words on him go to John Cunningham - 'I wouldn’t have thought robots could be such big Jack Johnson fans'. Although that doesn't mttnion that his voice kind of sounds like Johnny Borell at his worst. Rihanna's "Shut Up And Drive" goes to 18 on downloads despite the hordes still buying "Umbrella". That puts it one place ahead of Green Day doing the Simpsons theme. Green Day doing the Simpsons theme. That's where charting downloads gets us, people. Actually, I take that back, at least it isn't "Working Class Hero".

Plain White Ts were all over the radio in California, and now I get back just in time for the first rumblings of the same thing happening here with them at 26 well ahead of a physical release. Sort of pretty song, but does just make you wonder how Deat Cab For Cutie never managed to have a hit here. Meanwhile if anyone can explain what Take That's "Shine" is doing back in the charts at 29 I will be grateful. I'm half surprised not to see "Chasing Cars" there anywhere actually. And that's about it for singles, bar Yves Larock and Funeral For A Friend sneaking in at the very bottom of the forty.

Albums see Paul Potts still at the top and likely to be there for another week yet at least. Timbaland's steady rise takes him to 2, which is sort of a surprise - it's the type of album that usually tends to see strong steady sales, but nothing that high charting. Kings Of Leon at 4 is also a headscratcher, The Enemy see a fall from 2 to 9 and Garbage's Absolute Garbage at 11 turns out to be a greatest hits and not one of these crappy things.


Next week: Robyn! I don't even know what song, since I thought "With Every Heartbeat" and Music Week claims "Konichiwa Bitches", but still, Robyn!!