Chrisette Michele - "Epiphany"
Chrisette easily has the confidence and class needed to come out of this kiss-off sounding undeniably in control and on top. Not only that but she also makes the touch uncertainty and doubt present in arriving at that point believable and compelling. She's helped along by a pretty sweet piano hook but most of all I love the breathing as rhythym track, especially when everything else drops out. [8]
.
2.5.09
23.4.09
Jukebox extra #1
Stuff that I write about singles that doesn't get used.
Placebo - "Battle for the Sun"
Placebo made a decent stab at continued relevance last time round but this overreaching wannabe epic sounds like an outtake from the second JJ72 album, with the dubious addition of the dominating presence of Brian Molko. It doesn't help that the bits where he repeats the same word five times just sound like he's forgotten what comes next. [3]
.
Placebo - "Battle for the Sun"
Placebo made a decent stab at continued relevance last time round but this overreaching wannabe epic sounds like an outtake from the second JJ72 album, with the dubious addition of the dominating presence of Brian Molko. It doesn't help that the bits where he repeats the same word five times just sound like he's forgotten what comes next. [3]
.
14.4.09
Somewhere else II
To continue responding to my lack of substantial writing by trying to palm you off with other things, I'm also now on Twitter.
Something on the Fight Like Apes album coming soon.
.
Something on the Fight Like Apes album coming soon.
.
30.3.09
Somewhere else
I'm not sure how big an overlap there is between interest in the music covered on ifblog and interest in vegetarian food in Japan. If you do fit into both of those though, or in the more unlikely event that you have an obsessive desire to read everything that I write, you'll be interested in the new blog that I am co-author of.
.
.
29.3.09
Super Furry Animals - Dark Days/Light Years
I've long loved the way that Gruff Rhys and fellow Super Furries completely unselfconciously make the unlikeliest of subjects seem like perfectly natural lyrical concerns. Gruff has outdone himself with first single from their new album "Inaugural Trams" [free mp3 from website], an excited bounce of a song that puts its love in terms of town planning, or possibly vice versa ('We could promenade down the infra-nasal depression/The streets of your hands will never know a recession') and has a repeated call of 'trams!' as its most virulent hook of many. It's difficult to imagine many other bands singing of triumphs like 'we have reduced emissions by seventy-five per cent' with such winning sincerity.
I mention a Gruff song first as it's perhaps not surprisingly the most instant joy of their ninth (!) album, but the key to Dark Days/Light Years' triumph is actually the decision to divide up vocal and songwriting duties among the band. Said division was probably a large part of what made their last two albums a relatively weak patch (i.e. merely really good) but it's now paying dividends big time as everyone hits their stride. Cian Ciaran's sweet and affectionate "Helium Hearts" and Huw Bunford's intricate yacht rock update "White Socks/Flip Flops", its unlikely steals from Moody Blues solo records included, are album highlights. At least I think that's whose they are as with only the digital release so far songwriting credits are unclear.
Anyway, the band has long revelled in stylistic diversity and the different voices present (both figuratively and literally) add yet another dimension to this. There's a range of languages too of course, with the blissful Welsh harmonising of "Lliwiau Llachar" and the just-brief-enough German rap that Nick McCarthy of Franz Ferdinand tears into midway through "Inaugural Trams". The variation all flows together without pause thanks to some particularly neat sequencing. Almost every track wending its way totally logically to an end in a brief snatch of a completely different tune before the following begins from there - a sort of aural palate cleanser mechanism that is very effective.
Perhaps of necessity Dark Days/Light Years is quite a different beast from the major label opuses of Rings Around the World and Phantom Power, with a more pared down and direct sound than previously. Focussing on tighter grooves with a sprinkling of kraut-rock and recalling Guerrilla most of previous albums (the fuzzy, itchy guitars and unhinged vocals of "Crazy Naked Girls" are initially a dead ringer for "Night Vision") suits the current model of the band a lot more than the harmonic pop of Hey Venus! did, although more important is that such an overview no longer really gives a fair reflection of the scope and ambition at work.
.
25.3.09
Polly Scattergood - Polly Scattergood
Polly Scattergood's debut shows off a talent for pop with a twist. Or rather, the pop is the twist in deceptively fragile and downcast songs which frequently turn out to have been smuggling expansive choruses all along. "Unforgiving Arms" switches seamlessly from contemplative to embracing with typically deft electronic touches, and the not all that cheery acoustic "Please Don't Touch" suddenly turns to handclapping jaunt in surprisingly effective fashion.
Elsewhere the vacuum packed glide of "Bunny Club" pitches its eerie emotional distance just right, and makes for a strong later section of the album alongside debut "Nitrogen Pink". Just about claiming status as most epic emotional blowout of the album, that one shows off her piercing voice to great effect, frequently just on the verge of cracking but holding the song together. To go for my usual comparisons to artists no one remembers, it's all quite Martin Grech, which is a good thing.
It's not all so excellent - she gets bogged down by a couple of too slow, sparser ballads and these in particular expose a pervading lyrical immaturity, with the naked blub of "Poem Song" and its 'ribbons on my fingers and cuts on my wrist' feeling uncomfotably like emotional voyeurism. Similarly "I Hate the Way" builds excellently from fragile verses through Muse guitar pounding to another big chorus, but then ends with a coda of Polly intoning 'maybe if I skip my dinner make myself pretty and thin and maybe then he'll love me' and it's all rather unnecessary. With that being something that time may hopefully fix, there's definite potential for greater things ahead.
.
Ordinary northern blokes
I was going to make a very brief post commenting on a live review of Doves that had said their new album was like Elbow's last one and 'deserves similar success', since I find it amusing when six years ago there were numerous pieces saying much the same with bands reversed. Thing was, I forgot which paper I'd been reading and had to do a search for it.
Turns out it was the Independent but also that they were far from alone.
The Guardian's 'the Cheshire trio who have accumulated so much critical goodwill during their steady but so far unspectacular 11-year career that much of the music press is willing them to follow Elbow into the winners' circle.' just about works at a stretch if we're only caring about awards now.
The Evening Standard's 'Plenty of signs point to them becoming this year’s Elbow — a bunch of ageing, remarkably ordinary northern blokes who find that after such a long time, a huge mass of people realise how terrific they are all at once.' is just plainly lazy rubbish, though.
Comparisons are obvious enough that it would be silly not to expect them to be made but totally missing the point to shoehorn them into a slightly more compelling story is another matter. The real question is whether after four years away Doves can still win back all the fans who put The Last Broadcast and Some Cities to number one when they were the ones getting mainstream coverage and succeeding on their own merits.
.
Turns out it was the Independent but also that they were far from alone.
The Guardian's 'the Cheshire trio who have accumulated so much critical goodwill during their steady but so far unspectacular 11-year career that much of the music press is willing them to follow Elbow into the winners' circle.' just about works at a stretch if we're only caring about awards now.
The Evening Standard's 'Plenty of signs point to them becoming this year’s Elbow — a bunch of ageing, remarkably ordinary northern blokes who find that after such a long time, a huge mass of people realise how terrific they are all at once.' is just plainly lazy rubbish, though.
Comparisons are obvious enough that it would be silly not to expect them to be made but totally missing the point to shoehorn them into a slightly more compelling story is another matter. The real question is whether after four years away Doves can still win back all the fans who put The Last Broadcast and Some Cities to number one when they were the ones getting mainstream coverage and succeeding on their own merits.
.
22.3.09
You need more
An update on my predicitions from my previous charts analysis which saw comparatively poor single performances in the singles chart from long established acts as being part of a trend in changing purchase patterns rather than down to individual failures or even general increasing irrelevance.
Despite the Brit Awards appearance and Xenomania declaring it a hit, Pet Shop Boys' "Love Etc." has indeed missed the top 10. Its 14 matches "Home and Dry" rather than setting any new record low and I can't decide if that undermines or strengthens my case. Anyway, next up are Depeche Mode.
.
Despite the Brit Awards appearance and Xenomania declaring it a hit, Pet Shop Boys' "Love Etc." has indeed missed the top 10. Its 14 matches "Home and Dry" rather than setting any new record low and I can't decide if that undermines or strengthens my case. Anyway, next up are Depeche Mode.
.
Wolf at the door
Pictured above: the cover to the first of two forthcoming Patrick Wolf albums (the other is The Conqueror). Not entirely clear if this is the Tilda Swinton narrated one, or if that is actually both of them.
Clearly Patrick has long had a vision of his role as a pop star that extends well beyond the content of his music, and his successful careful matching of persona to music was a part of what made Wind in the Wires era shows magical. By the multiple costume changes of the next album it was something to be indulged as often as admired but still worked. Sometimes. Things have gone a little bit further now, perhaps as a result of a taste for the freedom provided by fan-financing as opposed to the major label deal of The Magic Position. First exhibit: that cover above (although it's probably the choice of font which is the biggest weakness). Second: the new (and not safe for work) video "Vulture" with its bondage gear and general dubious art-ness.
Possibly more telling, though, was his bizarre hour long show in the middle of Club NME at Koko last Friday. It was not so much the bare chest, leather trousers and return to bleach-blond hair that were the issue. No, it was the way that a desire to put on a show translated as donning headset microphone and dancing uncoordinatedly. For all the energy he put into it, it basically left him looking a bit lost on stage and detracted massively from the mystique of older songs. The problems were most obvious when he was tethered to the spot by the necessity to play ukelele for "The Libertine" and suddenly was a believable figure again.
Except that after appearing to have finished and left everyone baffled, he finally came out for an encore covered in silver glitter and weilding some kind of sparkly skull, and hit us with the aggressive, stuttering electronic of that new single and its obvious predecessor "Bloodbeat", and we last we really did actually have a cohesive, emphatic spectacle to behold, as intended. So I still hold out some hope, if not of receiving any kind of return on my 'investment' in The Bachelor.
.
16.3.09
Back!
Probably my favourite part of the still much-missed Stylus was the Singles Jukebox, in which a large team of writers took on songs from the charts (in some cases the charts of Poland, Serbia, Japan and so on) and mercilessly scored them out of ten.
Well, now there's a new, standalone Jukebox! 'Pop, to two decimal places'! I'm not on the first entry but there may well be some of my work up on it by the time you read this.
.
Well, now there's a new, standalone Jukebox! 'Pop, to two decimal places'! I'm not on the first entry but there may well be some of my work up on it by the time you read this.
.
15.3.09
Fever Ray - Fever Ray
It was actually listening to Robyn's The Knife-produced "Who's That Girl" that I realised the key difference between Karin Dreijer Andersson's solo album and those of The Knife. It's the booming, metallic percussion sounds that most mark that song as one of their productions, and they are all but absent from Fever Ray, putting in just a relatively restrained appearance in "Keep the Streets Empty for Me" as the album nears its end.
Some trademarks from the group's fantastic Silent Shout are still around with electronic base, a very similar production and pitchshifted vocals still around, but the overall shift is clear; this is a less immediate album, more subtle in its effect. While Karin's voice is still frequently obscured, distanced, it's never distorted into the terrifying shapes of "One Hit" or "We Share Our Mother's Health". There's still a shivery hopelessness seeping through the day-to-day of "Seven" (is it 'and your toes cold now'?) but it's less explicit, a more typical domesticity foregrounded, not least in the ear-catching line 'We talk about love/We talk about dishwasher tablets'.
The determinedly monochrome sound serves to make Fever Ray a slightly underwhelming listen at first, with even the single and lead-off "If I Had a Heart" never reaching the resolution to its droning tension that you might expect. Yet somehow its completely unified atmosphere and the way that unveils its secrets so slowly, fractured narratives and feelings buried deeply, makes it even more addictive than Silent Shout.
Difficult to pick highlights but "Concrete Walls" is particularly effective in its claustrophobia writ large, its distorted 'I leave the TV on/And the radio' repeating and echoing into a coping mechanism mantra. The brief cracks of light in the aforementioned "Keep the Streets Empty For Me", with Cecilia Nordlund's gorgeous guest vocals and some unlikely panpipes, are all the brighter for feeling so hard-earned by that point. By five or six listens, absorption into the album's world is complete and by the time closer "Coconut" slowly stretches out its clicks and minimalism for seven minutes it feels like it could very happily go on for much longer.
.
8.3.09
Chartsengrafs special - the death of the album act single
Back when Chartsengrafs was a regular feature (you never know, it may yet reappear), I celebrated Oasis failing to reach number one with the first single from their new album, and began by noting '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"'
I would love to similarly celebrate the second statement there being proved wrong, as U2's laughable "Get on Your Boots" has failed to even make the top ten, but at this point it's clear that there's something else going on. Just like Oasis, their album is still selling bucketloads in the usual fashion despite reviews that maintained grudging respect at best.
A couple more examples of the same pattern of failing single and successful album from long-established acts:
Morrissey went from two number 3 lead singles to "I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris" recently stalling at 21, but the album was still 3 and not far below the last two for sales.
R.E.M. went from "Leaving New York" at 5 to "Supernatural Superserious" totally missing the top 40 last year. Even later singles from previous albums managed better than that. Yet Accelerate was still a number 1 album, just like its predecessor.
AC/DC came back with a number one album, but no sign of a charting single to support it.
So what's happening? Much of the success of such acts' lead singles was clearly down to large and long-established fanbases, not least because airplay for some of these was poor and publicity tended to be centred around the album even then. There weren't that many fans loyally buying every single though, or they wouldn't have all seen later singles from albums fare less well.
Although the album was undoubtedly the big deal for all of the above, the first single was a special case, a chance to own a song a couple of weeks early with a nice package and a couple of extra songs, for just a few quid. A chance which now looks a great deal less attractive, clearly. All still release CD singles but as finding them in shops becomes more and more difficult and their competition sell increasing numbers of downloads they don't have the power of before.
The single-buying audience has now very much switched to downloads and the previous U2 lead single buying audience has failed to make the switch with them. Either they are just not buying downloads at all (out-of-touch grandad jibes here) or, more likely, no longer seeing as much value in the purchase of a single that they are planning to get on an album anyway when it doesn't come as the same package as before. The fact that by time the single has released the album is likely to have already leaked may also have some impact here. I definitely buy far fewer singles than before although at least as many albums.
Rock acts that would previously have followed the pattern of more successful albums than singles can still overcome this effect. Look at Kings of Leon at number 1 for 4 weeks and Coldplay getting their first ever number 1 (not with the lead single, but that one's difficult to judge as they gave it away for free before selling). In both cases, with the songs continuing to sell despite album releases, it's clear that they got there by being bought by new fans, or at least those who weren't yet sure about buying the album. It takes airplay and exposure and positive reaction to mange that, not just fan loyalty. Which nicely brings us back to U2, who with all that prime time on TV maybe could have made a success of "Get on Your Boots" after all, if only it had actually been good.
There are two good opportunities to test the above trends coming up very soon, with comebacks from Pet Shop Boys and Depeche Mode. Both have consisently scored top ten albums and top ten lead singles regardless of the positivity of reaction to either. An added boost to PSB from their Brits performance notwithstanding, I expect the album record to hold true but would be surprised if the single one does.
Any thoughts or further examples/counterexamples welcome!
.
7.3.09
Three free songs
First up, Blue Roses. I saw them last November supporting Emmy the Great and was very impressed. Singer Laura Groves has had a couple of songs on compilations under her own name but I think this is the first Blue Roses release, a typically lovely number called "Doubtful Comforts" that's available for free from their site.
Blue Roses - Doubtful Comforts [right-click]
Next, My Latest Novel, whose expansive and gorgeous B&S-meets-Arcade Fire debut Wolves was one of my favourite albums of 2006. They are finally back with an album called Deaths and Entrances and The Line of Best Fit has the opening track to download. On first listen it sounds a little more muscular (particular the vocals!) but still shares the features that made the first so appealing.
My Latest Novel - All in All is All [follow link]
Finally, it's likely that everyone has likely made up their mind on Art Brut by this point, and the first song from third album Art Brut vs Satan is unlikely to be changing any positions. Those who enjoy them, though, should continue to do so with "Just Desserts" and lines like 'I went to... the patisserie! They're always very happy to see me!'. Free on RCDLBL.
Art Brut - Just Desserts [follow link]
.
Blue Roses - Doubtful Comforts [right-click]
Next, My Latest Novel, whose expansive and gorgeous B&S-meets-Arcade Fire debut Wolves was one of my favourite albums of 2006. They are finally back with an album called Deaths and Entrances and The Line of Best Fit has the opening track to download. On first listen it sounds a little more muscular (particular the vocals!) but still shares the features that made the first so appealing.
My Latest Novel - All in All is All [follow link]
Finally, it's likely that everyone has likely made up their mind on Art Brut by this point, and the first song from third album Art Brut vs Satan is unlikely to be changing any positions. Those who enjoy them, though, should continue to do so with "Just Desserts" and lines like 'I went to... the patisserie! They're always very happy to see me!'. Free on RCDLBL.
Art Brut - Just Desserts [follow link]
.
2.3.09
Mama, I'm a bargain
Not quite as great a deal from a British point of view as it would have been a year ago, but Saddle Creek are (for the next few hours) offering the new Cursive album, Mama, I'm Swollen, for sale for $1 in mp3 form. That's about 70p. After that it will increase by a dollar per day until the physical release on March 10th.
On first listen it's a much tricksier an more subtle beast than the instant hit of blazing anger and blaring horns that characterised much of 2006's fantastic Happy Hollow and is definitely going to need further listens. Hey, there's already enough there to more than justify parting with $1 though.
.
On first listen it's a much tricksier an more subtle beast than the instant hit of blazing anger and blaring horns that characterised much of 2006's fantastic Happy Hollow and is definitely going to need further listens. Hey, there's already enough there to more than justify parting with $1 though.
.
1.3.09
Are we human or are we fighter?
The video blow came on TV earlier and the thing that struck me, apart from it's total ridiculousness, was the realisation that Brandon Flowers isn't the first in recent times to totally mangle English in a successful pop song with a chorus revolving around '[action]-er'!
27.2.09
the type of thing you hear on streets and don't dream of giving money for
Emmy the Great's "First Love" is the free single this week on the UK iTunes store! So if you're still in the habit of downloading single songs and aren't already on to her, here's your chance.
It's also interesting to see the (largely average at best) reviews from those who've downloaded it. When you spend a lot of time reading the writing of or talking to people who have much the same taste as you, or at least who are also deeply into music, there are certain assumed values and ways of thinking that you take for granted. So it's quite instructive to see the reactions to a song you love dearly of a bunch of people who've never heard of it on the basis that it's free. A lot of it is just the people who love to moan every week about how ripped off they are thanks to not instantly loving the free song, but you also get a lack of opposition to "Hallelujuh", some very specific production complaints, multiple comparisons to Dido and stuff like 'She sounds like she's just talking to herself'. Huh, she sort of does at the start, actually.
It's also interesting to see the (largely average at best) reviews from those who've downloaded it. When you spend a lot of time reading the writing of or talking to people who have much the same taste as you, or at least who are also deeply into music, there are certain assumed values and ways of thinking that you take for granted. So it's quite instructive to see the reactions to a song you love dearly of a bunch of people who've never heard of it on the basis that it's free. A lot of it is just the people who love to moan every week about how ripped off they are thanks to not instantly loving the free song, but you also get a lack of opposition to "Hallelujuh", some very specific production complaints, multiple comparisons to Dido and stuff like 'She sounds like she's just talking to herself'. Huh, she sort of does at the start, actually.
25.2.09
Discourse 2000
There's a guest post by me over at Sweeping the Nation. It's for their feature where they're assembling a collection of pieces about some of the best albums of the current decade that are not well established as such. Previous entries have included Super Furry Animals and Six By Seven.
I considered but rejected Hello Saferide's second (too recent and already written too much), Buffseeds' The Picture Show (too personal to be likely to convince anyone else) and Girls Aloud's Chemistry (too likely to end up with me sounding like an idiot) before eventually settling on Hate, by The Delgados.
I considered but rejected Hello Saferide's second (too recent and already written too much), Buffseeds' The Picture Show (too personal to be likely to convince anyone else) and Girls Aloud's Chemistry (too likely to end up with me sounding like an idiot) before eventually settling on Hate, by The Delgados.
21.2.09
Brits alright
XRRF began their Brit Awards coverage by noting how backdated it was to be still using a blog, rather than Twitter. Thanks to being away from the internet all week I have that beaten and will present my notes taken on actual paper as I was watching it, even longer afterwards than I expected!
As a result you have to take it on faith that my many successful predictions are due to the predictability of the whole thing rather than any cheating.
Johnny Vegas voiceover is not really a good start, and ona first glance at the stage (grass, tent) it might not even be immediately obvious what was supposed to be happening to anyone who didn't read about the Glastonbury theme.
U2 are up first playing their new single, and waste no time in putting up the Union Jack imagery. Don't they get put up for Best International rather than British? Ah, they do an Irish flag too. I think. Or Italian.
You'd think that to celebrate and show off the best of British music we could easily manage better than "Put On Your Boots" Especially once it gets to the 'you don't know...' bit that sounds like inferior Muse. U2 make this all look totally routine and dull for them, and they haven't even put the album out yet.
The spoken bit is even worse, and if I wrote words like that I sure would not want them printed metres high behind me. Speaking of terrible lyrics, they've now switched to sounding like 2008 vintage The Verve. It's got to be all uphill from here, right?
Our host Kylie comes out for a short bit of "Can't Get You Out of My Head". It's weird that someone already so big can still have come to be defined so much by one song. There's some cheap laughs gained by the fatness of one of the dancers dressed in the red, face-visored costumes of the video. That's one of our other hosts, of course. I would definitely not be able to pick Mathew Horne out of a lineup, although I might manage James Corden.
Now Kylie is speaking she sounds very regal, although it's not long before the first autocue slip-up. The first joke is at the expense of Ting Tings for not being too world-renowned, which is a bit awkward. There are much better targets among the shortlists, for a start.
Simon Pegg is on. 'Pop - I know I love it' he says and it will be surprising if anyone manages to sound less convincing tonight. Our first award is best British Female. As they read out the nominees there's a big cheer for M.I.A. but nothing compared to our obvious winner Duffy. Then there's Beth Rowley, who I have only just realised is not the same thing as Beth Orton.
Best British Female - Duffy
Duffy sounds very unsurprised and almost as unimpressed. She knows she'll be back later.
Stage banter has already been reduced to just shouting at Kylie. They try to make jokes based on Lionel Richie song titles before he comes on, but it seems lost on much of the audience. Best International Female next. Santigold is still read out as Santogold for now. Less obvious one, this, apart from that Gabrielle Cilmi will not be winning - Pink?
Best International Female - Katy Perry
Oh. It's been long enough that "Hot and Cold" has been her representation on radio now that its mindlessly enjoyable chorus has taken hold and it's almost possible to forget how completely terrible a thing she is, but it comes back. Her first words get blocked off. Ooh, contraversial. She's sounding almost as ill as she says she is, and not even trying to pretend that she isn't only there because she knew she'd win.
Girls Aloud are the next performance and their staging looks more impressive than U2's right away. The giant feather aided stripper version of 'The Promise" is not quite working though. The impression that they could technically be naked behind those lasts about 3 lines before someone moves it wrong, and the feathers just get in the way for the entire rest of the song. It doesn't matter anyway because they're national treasures now - weird how it's happened a good three years after their best album by far, but there we go. Nicola sings and inevitably gets panned away from just before 'are you watching me baby?', heh.
Oh, we can't go the whole show without Fearne Cotton and her interviewing technique carefully honed on eight year olds, yay. She spends a remarkably long time detailing how the public can vote for an award without ever mentioning which one it is. It's Best British Single.
Interesting and a bit pleasing to see an iPhone advert with last.fm during the break, although the fact that even that is also plugging Kings of Leon is a bit depressing.
Alex James is now not a man of music, but of cheese apparently. And awkward speech rythyms. He's introducing Best British Breakthrough. It's difficult to care about anything apart from Scouting for Girls not winning, here. It will be Duffy though, probably.
Best British Breakthrough - Duffy
'This time last year she was playing a tiny club in Piccadilly' says the voiceover. She also already had a number one single. Try a bit harder, please. Her speech still sounds unimpressed, but she's charming and (a bit) less bland than her music.
Coldplay playing "Viva La Vida" next, and even for the Brits they don't have live strings and just have them miming them on a TV screen, which was funny half a year ago the first time but is not exactly lending a sense of occasion. This is almost as routine as U2 were. Guy Garvey doesn't look impressed. That's Guy Garvey, on ITV!
Haha, they have Jamies Oliver and Cullum presenting the next award. Almost as if they're setting out to make the easiest combined target possible. The public have now narrowed Best British Single down to five songs, and somehow have still included Leona Lewis' fourth best single.
More adverts, with Mastercard's miming sponsor things already repeating themselves. Poor effort. I'm not paying much attention to the ads and briefly think ITV are launching a programme called 'Celebrity Jews'. It's Juice.
Best International Group. Do we even need to bother with a shortlist? It's going to be Kings of Leon.
Best International Group - Kings of Leon
They will beat the exact same set of bands (MGMT, Fleet Foxes etc.) to win the album award too, presumably. We're being told again by the voiceover that the Brits are renowned for outrageous behaviour and surprises. They weren't thinking of Kings of Leon's super boring acceptance speech there.
A dig at Craig David's '6 nominations no Brits for CD!' is somehow still slightly amusing even after all these years, especially with placement next to the Best British Male award. And then you see the shortlist and realise that Ian Brown is up for it. And The Streets. Dizzee and Wiley still not acceptable? James Morrison to win, maybe.
Best British Male - Paul Weller
Oh. This is better than Annie Lennox every year how?
Next performance and unlike Coldplay, Duffy has real strings! And real music! Still boring.
Is Kings of Leon and Take That really that 'unlikely' a 'juxtaposition' as we're told?
Best International Album - Kings of Leon
How pointless. Mind you, British Group usually goes the same way. At least the acceptance speech is unintentionally more interesting as they go on and on in blissful ignorance about how they have to give this to 'England'. Just after having the award presented by notably not English
Joe Calzaghe too. Weren't the name of the awards a clue?
Take That perform next, and their hovering UFO staging and mid-transformation Superman costumes are a lot more impressive than the song. Which is still basically "Nature's Law" by Embrace. At least they look like they might be enjoying themselves.
Next award is Best British Live Act, as voted for by Radio 2 listeners. Taking that into consideration you'd think Coldplay would be a shoe-in and with Elbow as outsiders, but the fact that the vote likely had an internet aspect suggests that Iron Maiden's more dedicated fans might win over.
Best British Live Act - Iron Maiden
There we go. A video acceptance speech but they manage to at least stick something in the memory as they get vapourised by their mascot at the end, which is more than Weller could do.
Speaking of the internet, it's David Hasselhoff to present Best British Group. He (or whoever wrote the speech) is trying way too hard to sound profound. The 'surreal diversity' of British music is mentioned for a shortlist containing Radiohead, Coldplay and Elbow. Take That and Girls Aloud complete by far the best lineup so far. Take That to win?
Best British Group - Elbow
Oh my. A rare moment of joy has to be fucked up though, so the voiceover tells us that 'quality music does finally get recognised, even if it takes ten years', which rankles like anything when there was no reason not to recognise them before, and the awards committee still wouldn't have the balls to recognise them now if no one else had first. Chris Martin looks either happy or very well practised on his reaction shot. 'I can't believe how long it's taken us to get this close to the Hoff' begins Guy Garvey, although the speech doesn't really go anywhere too much from there.
Next performance is Kings of Leon doing "Use Somebody". Ever since the opening of this was used on the adverts for some MTV reality show that's all I can think of when I hear the song, it seems so appropriately vapid somehow. If they'd at least performed "Sex on Fire" I might have something half positive to say.
Hasselhoff is now creeping all over Fearne Cotton. Ewww. She tries to ask Elbow some questions but they are clearly not really listening.
The hosts joking at Craig David's expense a second time is not funny at all and just needlessly mean spirited.
Next award is a predecided one:
Critics' Choice Award - Florence & the Machine
Now, despite really liking Little Boots, Thecocknbullkid and Polly Scattergood, and even Micachu for the space of at least one song, I find myself completely unable to get behind Florence here. Even so, if she's meant to be so exciting why not give her the chance to come on and do a whole song? Someone else who doesn't look like this is just another show on a long list would be great.
Best International Male does not have the most impressive lineup, and must surely go to Kanye?
Best International Male - Kanye West
He's not here, of course. His first line is 'We know Barack is best interracial male'.
We now have a unique and exciting collaboration between The Ting Tings and Estelle! Which amounts to them getting to do a very short bit of "Shut Up and Let Me Go" before she does half of "American Boy" while they desparately try and find things to do in the background and Tempest 2000 is projected on the screens. There's then an excruciatingly awkward transition into "That's Not My Name" where the presence of all three finally makes a litte sense as it takes three competing voices to do the song's finale justice.
I finally realise that one of the reasons that I am beginning to dislike Mathew Horne so is that, especially in his awful blazer, he looks just like Ray Quinn.
Best British Single to be announced next. A "Mercy" win and Duffy clean sweep looks inevitable.
Best British Single - Girls Aloud, "The Promise"
Maybe not! The voiceover actually calls them 'national treasures'. Haha. I knew that they hadn't won anything recently, but didn't realise that this was their first ever Brit! Sarah is justified in shouting 'It's about time!'.
Last of the not already known awards is Best British Album. This surely can't be Elbow too and will be heading to Duffy. The fact that they have Tom Jones presenting makes that all the more obvious.
Best British Album - Duffy, Rockferry
Yep. Really difficult to care too much about this either way. She finally does actually look emotional though - maybe they only told her about the other two? She also doesn't make much sense at all. Voiceover mentions that The Darkness won three awards too at this point, although not that they had the whole finale turned over to them as the most exciting thing to hit music ever.
Only thing left is lifetime achievement to Pet Shop Boys, for which Brandon Flowers gives a surprisingly good speech which suggests that he is actually a fan and did actually read and think about what he was saying even if he didn't write it all.
My notes run out at this point as there was finally something more enjoyable to watch than to snark about. So, take it away Neil and Chris...
As a result you have to take it on faith that my many successful predictions are due to the predictability of the whole thing rather than any cheating.
Johnny Vegas voiceover is not really a good start, and ona first glance at the stage (grass, tent) it might not even be immediately obvious what was supposed to be happening to anyone who didn't read about the Glastonbury theme.
U2 are up first playing their new single, and waste no time in putting up the Union Jack imagery. Don't they get put up for Best International rather than British? Ah, they do an Irish flag too. I think. Or Italian.
You'd think that to celebrate and show off the best of British music we could easily manage better than "Put On Your Boots" Especially once it gets to the 'you don't know...' bit that sounds like inferior Muse. U2 make this all look totally routine and dull for them, and they haven't even put the album out yet.
The spoken bit is even worse, and if I wrote words like that I sure would not want them printed metres high behind me. Speaking of terrible lyrics, they've now switched to sounding like 2008 vintage The Verve. It's got to be all uphill from here, right?
Our host Kylie comes out for a short bit of "Can't Get You Out of My Head". It's weird that someone already so big can still have come to be defined so much by one song. There's some cheap laughs gained by the fatness of one of the dancers dressed in the red, face-visored costumes of the video. That's one of our other hosts, of course. I would definitely not be able to pick Mathew Horne out of a lineup, although I might manage James Corden.
Now Kylie is speaking she sounds very regal, although it's not long before the first autocue slip-up. The first joke is at the expense of Ting Tings for not being too world-renowned, which is a bit awkward. There are much better targets among the shortlists, for a start.
Simon Pegg is on. 'Pop - I know I love it' he says and it will be surprising if anyone manages to sound less convincing tonight. Our first award is best British Female. As they read out the nominees there's a big cheer for M.I.A. but nothing compared to our obvious winner Duffy. Then there's Beth Rowley, who I have only just realised is not the same thing as Beth Orton.
Best British Female - Duffy
Duffy sounds very unsurprised and almost as unimpressed. She knows she'll be back later.
Stage banter has already been reduced to just shouting at Kylie. They try to make jokes based on Lionel Richie song titles before he comes on, but it seems lost on much of the audience. Best International Female next. Santigold is still read out as Santogold for now. Less obvious one, this, apart from that Gabrielle Cilmi will not be winning - Pink?
Best International Female - Katy Perry
Oh. It's been long enough that "Hot and Cold" has been her representation on radio now that its mindlessly enjoyable chorus has taken hold and it's almost possible to forget how completely terrible a thing she is, but it comes back. Her first words get blocked off. Ooh, contraversial. She's sounding almost as ill as she says she is, and not even trying to pretend that she isn't only there because she knew she'd win.
Girls Aloud are the next performance and their staging looks more impressive than U2's right away. The giant feather aided stripper version of 'The Promise" is not quite working though. The impression that they could technically be naked behind those lasts about 3 lines before someone moves it wrong, and the feathers just get in the way for the entire rest of the song. It doesn't matter anyway because they're national treasures now - weird how it's happened a good three years after their best album by far, but there we go. Nicola sings and inevitably gets panned away from just before 'are you watching me baby?', heh.
Oh, we can't go the whole show without Fearne Cotton and her interviewing technique carefully honed on eight year olds, yay. She spends a remarkably long time detailing how the public can vote for an award without ever mentioning which one it is. It's Best British Single.
Interesting and a bit pleasing to see an iPhone advert with last.fm during the break, although the fact that even that is also plugging Kings of Leon is a bit depressing.
Alex James is now not a man of music, but of cheese apparently. And awkward speech rythyms. He's introducing Best British Breakthrough. It's difficult to care about anything apart from Scouting for Girls not winning, here. It will be Duffy though, probably.
Best British Breakthrough - Duffy
'This time last year she was playing a tiny club in Piccadilly' says the voiceover. She also already had a number one single. Try a bit harder, please. Her speech still sounds unimpressed, but she's charming and (a bit) less bland than her music.
Coldplay playing "Viva La Vida" next, and even for the Brits they don't have live strings and just have them miming them on a TV screen, which was funny half a year ago the first time but is not exactly lending a sense of occasion. This is almost as routine as U2 were. Guy Garvey doesn't look impressed. That's Guy Garvey, on ITV!
Haha, they have Jamies Oliver and Cullum presenting the next award. Almost as if they're setting out to make the easiest combined target possible. The public have now narrowed Best British Single down to five songs, and somehow have still included Leona Lewis' fourth best single.
More adverts, with Mastercard's miming sponsor things already repeating themselves. Poor effort. I'm not paying much attention to the ads and briefly think ITV are launching a programme called 'Celebrity Jews'. It's Juice.
Best International Group. Do we even need to bother with a shortlist? It's going to be Kings of Leon.
Best International Group - Kings of Leon
They will beat the exact same set of bands (MGMT, Fleet Foxes etc.) to win the album award too, presumably. We're being told again by the voiceover that the Brits are renowned for outrageous behaviour and surprises. They weren't thinking of Kings of Leon's super boring acceptance speech there.
A dig at Craig David's '6 nominations no Brits for CD!' is somehow still slightly amusing even after all these years, especially with placement next to the Best British Male award. And then you see the shortlist and realise that Ian Brown is up for it. And The Streets. Dizzee and Wiley still not acceptable? James Morrison to win, maybe.
Best British Male - Paul Weller
Oh. This is better than Annie Lennox every year how?
Next performance and unlike Coldplay, Duffy has real strings! And real music! Still boring.
Is Kings of Leon and Take That really that 'unlikely' a 'juxtaposition' as we're told?
Best International Album - Kings of Leon
How pointless. Mind you, British Group usually goes the same way. At least the acceptance speech is unintentionally more interesting as they go on and on in blissful ignorance about how they have to give this to 'England'. Just after having the award presented by notably not English
Joe Calzaghe too. Weren't the name of the awards a clue?
Take That perform next, and their hovering UFO staging and mid-transformation Superman costumes are a lot more impressive than the song. Which is still basically "Nature's Law" by Embrace. At least they look like they might be enjoying themselves.
Next award is Best British Live Act, as voted for by Radio 2 listeners. Taking that into consideration you'd think Coldplay would be a shoe-in and with Elbow as outsiders, but the fact that the vote likely had an internet aspect suggests that Iron Maiden's more dedicated fans might win over.
Best British Live Act - Iron Maiden
There we go. A video acceptance speech but they manage to at least stick something in the memory as they get vapourised by their mascot at the end, which is more than Weller could do.
Speaking of the internet, it's David Hasselhoff to present Best British Group. He (or whoever wrote the speech) is trying way too hard to sound profound. The 'surreal diversity' of British music is mentioned for a shortlist containing Radiohead, Coldplay and Elbow. Take That and Girls Aloud complete by far the best lineup so far. Take That to win?
Best British Group - Elbow
Oh my. A rare moment of joy has to be fucked up though, so the voiceover tells us that 'quality music does finally get recognised, even if it takes ten years', which rankles like anything when there was no reason not to recognise them before, and the awards committee still wouldn't have the balls to recognise them now if no one else had first. Chris Martin looks either happy or very well practised on his reaction shot. 'I can't believe how long it's taken us to get this close to the Hoff' begins Guy Garvey, although the speech doesn't really go anywhere too much from there.
Next performance is Kings of Leon doing "Use Somebody". Ever since the opening of this was used on the adverts for some MTV reality show that's all I can think of when I hear the song, it seems so appropriately vapid somehow. If they'd at least performed "Sex on Fire" I might have something half positive to say.
Hasselhoff is now creeping all over Fearne Cotton. Ewww. She tries to ask Elbow some questions but they are clearly not really listening.
The hosts joking at Craig David's expense a second time is not funny at all and just needlessly mean spirited.
Next award is a predecided one:
Critics' Choice Award - Florence & the Machine
Now, despite really liking Little Boots, Thecocknbullkid and Polly Scattergood, and even Micachu for the space of at least one song, I find myself completely unable to get behind Florence here. Even so, if she's meant to be so exciting why not give her the chance to come on and do a whole song? Someone else who doesn't look like this is just another show on a long list would be great.
Best International Male does not have the most impressive lineup, and must surely go to Kanye?
Best International Male - Kanye West
He's not here, of course. His first line is 'We know Barack is best interracial male'.
We now have a unique and exciting collaboration between The Ting Tings and Estelle! Which amounts to them getting to do a very short bit of "Shut Up and Let Me Go" before she does half of "American Boy" while they desparately try and find things to do in the background and Tempest 2000 is projected on the screens. There's then an excruciatingly awkward transition into "That's Not My Name" where the presence of all three finally makes a litte sense as it takes three competing voices to do the song's finale justice.
I finally realise that one of the reasons that I am beginning to dislike Mathew Horne so is that, especially in his awful blazer, he looks just like Ray Quinn.
Best British Single to be announced next. A "Mercy" win and Duffy clean sweep looks inevitable.
Best British Single - Girls Aloud, "The Promise"
Maybe not! The voiceover actually calls them 'national treasures'. Haha. I knew that they hadn't won anything recently, but didn't realise that this was their first ever Brit! Sarah is justified in shouting 'It's about time!'.
Last of the not already known awards is Best British Album. This surely can't be Elbow too and will be heading to Duffy. The fact that they have Tom Jones presenting makes that all the more obvious.
Best British Album - Duffy, Rockferry
Yep. Really difficult to care too much about this either way. She finally does actually look emotional though - maybe they only told her about the other two? She also doesn't make much sense at all. Voiceover mentions that The Darkness won three awards too at this point, although not that they had the whole finale turned over to them as the most exciting thing to hit music ever.
Only thing left is lifetime achievement to Pet Shop Boys, for which Brandon Flowers gives a surprisingly good speech which suggests that he is actually a fan and did actually read and think about what he was saying even if he didn't write it all.
My notes run out at this point as there was finally something more enjoyable to watch than to snark about. So, take it away Neil and Chris...
15.2.09
Emmy the Great - First Love
I recently had a conversation by email with Ian Mathers about his review of Los Campesinos!’ second album. He comments on how it could never replicate the effect of their debut, thanks to not featuring songs which fans had already grown to love and waited expectedly for. I said again that I love wab, wad even more of the two and that it was interesting that I hadn’t had the same experience at all.
You may guess where this is going, but here’s the thing – I saw Los Campesinos! only once a relatively short time before their debut’s release, and didn’t listen to anything apart from the singles. I’ve only seen Emmy the Great twice, but the first was a year and a half ago and from then on I’ve been devouring the vast quantities of demos, singles and collaborations of hers that have been available.
I’ve had more than twelve months of slowly growing to adore her My Bad EP to the point where it’s odd to think that it’s a mere 5 songs and 13 minutes of acoustic alt-folk. More than twelve months of trying to get any news I can on an album, of groaning at repeated delays, of blind panic when even a month beforehand it still wasn’t on Amazon and I briefly, irrationally, feared that the “Hallelujah” issue had claimed it whole.
She has in fact stuck by “First Love”, even making it the single. That’s only right, because it remains a wonderful song (almost) entirely of her own, a well-spun yarn that totally captures the evocative and not always welcome power of memory and of music.
And so with it we have, at last, First Love the album (that’s not exactly a title to manage down expectations). And here I am at a loss to form an opinion on it in any normal way because it’s all too wrapped up in my expectations. The joy of finally getting to hear recorded versions of “First Love” and “Bad Things Coming, We are Safe”, of the violin led folksy swing of “Dylan” taking full shape, goes beyond just that of the fine songs themselves.
Weirdly the only two songs that I hadn’t already heard at least once are the first two, but they make for just as fine an introduction. “Absentee” builds up an affecting story from fractured phrases, with objects rather than memories that are the focal point – ‘brown laces’, ‘strange pictures’, ‘CDs, carkeys, diaries’. “24” is an even more terrific demonstration of Emmy’s skewed world view and way with words, turning with a hushed grace from watching the titular TV show to aging and death and missed chances.
Then there’s the three tracks from that EP make it on and despite having already seemed fully formed in simple acoustic form they are dressed in new clothes. “The Easter Parade” remains a haunting hymnal for the unfaithful and acquires a charming coda. “City Song” is relatively untouched and ‘They pulled a human from my waist… I would have kept it if I’d stayed’ is certainly an arresting line to close the album on. But “M.I.A.” doesn’t feel the same. The added backing vocals undercut the jarring, stark loneliness that suffused the whole song and instead it only emerges, concentrated, in the final line of the song.
The sheer number of fantastic songs that Emmy had already released also make for inevitable disappointment when favourites don’t make it. No otherworldly “Secret Circus”, no disarming honesty of “Two Steps Forward”. And no “Aiko”, even though it had it all – beauty, loss, romance, Cantonese… perhaps that one at least is for the best, as I can’t imagine the EP version being bettered. I can still listen to that EP compulsively, and now I also have First Love somewhere between ‘really great’ and ‘album of the year contender’ too. Will have to live with it a while longer to decide which, and I’m going to enjoy it a great deal either way.
10.2.09
Post-scripts
...to the last two posts.
First, I'm not sure how I didn't put two and two together sooner, but non-singing half of The Bird and the Bee Greg Kurstin is also a producer of others. Most notably of late, the new Lily Allen album. Which explains why the soft swoosh of "The Fear" is not a million miles away from the band. Possibly also why they're on EMI.
Second and also on a producery theme, Popjustice have a post on Xenomania's new group Mini Viva. Not only is their only release to date called "I Left My Heart in Tokyo", it has a rather fetching sleeve with fake Japanese overlay. And difficult though it is to tell with only remixes available, there does seem to be a hint of Perfume in there.
First, I'm not sure how I didn't put two and two together sooner, but non-singing half of The Bird and the Bee Greg Kurstin is also a producer of others. Most notably of late, the new Lily Allen album. Which explains why the soft swoosh of "The Fear" is not a million miles away from the band. Possibly also why they're on EMI.
Second and also on a producery theme, Popjustice have a post on Xenomania's new group Mini Viva. Not only is their only release to date called "I Left My Heart in Tokyo", it has a rather fetching sleeve with fake Japanese overlay. And difficult though it is to tell with only remixes available, there does seem to be a hint of Perfume in there.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)