Except it’s actually kinda sunny. In Leeds. In November. Eh?
Anyway, at work, with iPod in ears. What do we get?
MY BLOODY VALENTINE – Sometimes
Three cheers for second coming of MBV ‘phase’! Course, I’m at work, so the volume’s too low for me to make anything out. I can only hear the chug. Lushly produced chug, of course. This basically sounds a lot more post-apocalyptic than I had previously remembered. I do hope they reissue Loveless with complete lyrics in the sleevenotes, just cos that would annoy lots of people I know, and for some reason I feel that might amuse me a bit.
RACHEL STEVENS – I Said Never Again (But Here We Are)
This, however, is crystal-clear as ever. Tempting to say “essentially ‘Stray Cat Strut 2K5′, but that might imply I know what I’m talking about on that front. Umpteen years of hardcore poptimism have still not removed the mild sense of self-consciousness that comes with typing about this in public. What is to be embarrassed about, though? Kim Wilde got away with worse. And she advertises Holland & Barrett!
*considers constructing hierarchy of minor embarrassments in product endorsement*
*no*
This whole ‘writing usefully about pop music’ thing isn’t gonna happen, is it?
CALEXICO – Gilbert (Peel Session)
Not if these have their way. Built of endlessly decaying guitar loop, which, in radio-rip quality, sounds right terrifying. This therefore becomes their most affecting song by miles (were they Dave Fridmann produced? Can’t remember…) Am trying very hard not to sing along. First heard on Peel when heading to bed many years ago now, home alone, gave me the bejeebies quite badly. Still does now. Am thinking may have been way too harsh on these in the past.
TEENAGE FANCLUB – The World’ll Be OK
Well, ain’t I just a creature of massive contrasts? Another loop here, but because it’s the Fannies, it’s really, really nice. REALLY NICE. Just sort of lopes along, bass bounces, tambourine jangles tautly, singing Fanny has voice treated so it sounds like his tongue is provided by Rubbermaid, “I know the world’ll be OK, I know the world’ll be OK…” This may be the most Bob Harris guitar solo in existence. I sit, sway along, mouth the words. No-one else does. I think this may mean there’s summat wrong with me.
This is why I’m soft.
Drum stomp! More! Sloan! Please?
CRYDAJAM – Playground
Oh. Not quite, no. This is some French house from… back when I used to write for CTCL, i.e. a long, long time ago. Nice, trumpets, bit forgettable. More loops, obv.
THE CLIENTELE – Losing Haringey
Spoken word bit. Sounds like Saint Etienne. Sort of magic. Thoughts: why not just jack it in and be an MP3 blog? Think of the residual hits from HypeMachine!
Do I really want residual hits if I write like this? I should be thinking harder. Lots goes on in this song. It’s entirely a spoken-word bit. I’ve not been listening really, I’m at work. But I’ve GOT TO DO SOMETHING, and it doesn’t involve reading Greil Marcus. Not this afternoon. Other people write about their lives. Thoughts of that Mutya Buena video where everyone photographs each other ALL THE FUCKING TIME. The continual feeling that something must change. Oh, 24-hood.
LUSH – Starlust
Off of Split, so this is sort of shoegaze-era kind of. It’s big, noisy, Berenyi does that thing where she’s a bit London and then GRRR then back to the trilling again. Like a female Ride but much better. “Touch meee… in the star-ar-lighht…” I’m trying to remember if I know people who have written books. Lush drive on, awesome. Em Anderson shreds. “Touch meee… in the star-ar-lighhht…” I suspect that me trying to write a book would just result in me spending even more time playing Football Manager than I already do. I don’t wanna do that.
PHOENIX – On Fire
Oh god. I am NOT going to skip this. It’s my fault for being seduced here. And so there’s all this rich-boy French indie-funk on my iPod. It’s only an album, yes, but by heck it gets everywhere. Yuck. Oh, this quiet bit’s nice. Oh, here’s the backing singers again. This is not Junior Senior. Better or worse for it? Zat vood be zee ques-ti-on. Oh, this is decent once you’re in. They can drop those quiet bits in just perfect. Horrid opening. Played lovingly mind. Are they all called Sebastien or did I just make that up?
THE ARCADE FIRE – Neighbourhood #4 (7 Kettles)
Brother asked me yesterday: “Does most of the music you listen to sound like Arcade Fire?” I’m still not sure what to make of that, really. It doesn’t, by the way. Not anymore. This is one of the ones that doesn’t involve them thumping stuff… not yet, at least, though it sounds like it may be building to that. There’s a whistling kettle or two in here. Heard Deserter’s Songs for the first time in years the other day. Bit good.
*imagines pscott viewing this and repeatedly asking “so, what d’you think of Mercury Rev, hmm? Bit good? Bit Good?”*
*is kinda thankful doesn’t live with pscott anymore*
*though does kinda miss him*
Ends nice and quiet. Strings exhale slowly. I’ve not written about the words for anything, really.
*So Brian, how’s that mp3 blog going, hmm?*
LAURA CANTRELL – Sam Stone
Laura sings about a heroin addict. Bit preachy, bit pretty. Really nice mandolin. I think it’s already been established that I’ll forgive her quite a lot. Certainly I can forgive much worse than this.
THE FINISHING SCHOOL – Destination Girl
It is kind of inappropriate to start a description of a Ladybug Transistor side-project with “back in the day, this was my jam”, isn’t it? Oh, but it was, it was, and I have moved such a tiny, tiny distance since then, so all the sweetly-sung Byrds-isms are still tapping my foot Pavlov-style. All that indie-girl non-projection stuff that kind of disguises how few notes she can really hit. The album this comes off isn’t very good either. Man, I remember when I used to like Of Montreal. To be fair, I think my nervous breakdown had already started by the time that happened. Fuckin’ learn you, Hornby.
*wonders if it counts as a nervous breakdown if you don’t actually go to the doctors about it, albeit that you didn’t know where the doctors was at the time*
This blogging is a messy, messy business, eh?
KASHMIR ft. DAVID BOWIE – The Cynic
Technically, this is the most recent song thus far. Danish electro-goth, sounds like Spacehog. A LOT like Spacehog. I have never accurately established whether this actually features Bowie or no, but his recent records have done that little that it wouldn’t be a massive shock.
Oh yes, that’s Bowie on the second verse. He sounds old now. For the first time this afternoon, not even close to singing along. That’s what I’m telling myself. Listening to this at low volume reveals complete lack of dynamics. Drums just sort of go cymbal, cymbal, cymbal, cymbal, cymbal, cymbal, cymbal, cymbal. Remind me to play you Nephew at some point. They advance the Dansk-rock template by including bits where they go a bit slower then go a bit faster.
Oh, Denmark’s not that terrible. That one good Oh No Ono song really is very good. Even if they all look like Johnny Borrell.
MARY MARGARET O’HARA – To Cry About
Missed this the first listen, so we go back.
And I fear I’m gonna skip back a second time. Chords occasionally strummed. “Strike up the baaand” and the threat of cellos abates for a second. Hopelessly lost in MMO’H’s meandering.
ODD NORDSTOGA – Heim Te Mor
Relic of the Jukebox. One of the relics I dared never play anyone else. Relentlessly, lobotomisingly cheerful Norwegian folk.
OH CHRIST I JUST STARTED SINGING ALONG
I remember buying a player on Championship Manager 2 because it tickled me that he was called Odd Skonhoft. Everything seems so very different when you’re 12. He buggered my run at the SPL title that year, anyway. Him and Joe Tortolano. Grr.
Would it be so completely wrong if I went back to MMO’H?
1) I r make the rules
2) No-one is reading this
3) I would probably have to listen to Odd Nordstoga again afterwards, too.
That’s a yes.
ABBA - Rock Me
Bjorn Ulvaeus has his man-voice on. By this, I mean he sounds like Noddy Holder’s massive perv brother. It’s all kinda jolly (well, Bjorn is trying for jolly, but he’s just that bit too, y’know, evil) in what I imagine all the big TV musical numbers of the 70’s to have sounded like, but dear me do I ever wish this was ‘S.O.S.’ instead.
STANLEY WINSTON – No More Ghettos In America
One of Peel’s favourites, just before he died. Took years to find it then someone gave it me. Big, sad number: Stan breaks the fourth wall, then tears into the chorus. So slow, painful little twinge on the guitar every time, impossible fucking run of nostalgia
*realises his words will never be enough for this one*
“But you must try.”
OHHHHH there won’t beeeee, nooo more ghettoooos, in Americaaaa, not for meeeee…
Is that all there is to it? It feels like it. Huge mass of chorus, and there’s bits in between that are solely intended as bits in between, cos that’s all they feel like. Just bits in between the massive explosions of hellish emotion that Stan can’t flipping well hold. Think Dexys, cos Kevin Rowland quite probably did.
RE-FLEX – The Politics of Dancing
Phew, an easy one. Duran Duran with that sort of Heaven 17-ish robot voice thing. Therefore much better than Duran Duran. Very memorable chorus, probably need to play this at people. I don’t get enough cheap pops these days. Granted, people probably wouldn’t recognise it as such, but feckenanny it’s quite good.
WILL YOUNG – Your Game
I don’t feel embarrassed about this one so much, cos I’m pretty much certain no-one’s paying attention. It’s not the liking I’m embarrassed by, I’ve just had enough of the constant fucking justification. I’m terrible at it. Much of my life has been those moments in sitcoms where the character realises what they should have said just at the moment that they get off the bus.
What this to do with hat-era Will Young? Not much. I like production numbers. Is this cretinous? NO!
See, it’s so much easier when you decide not to justify anything. Just big clods of Le Shout. “What you gon’ do?” “I don’t know!” “What you gon’ say?” “I ain’t sure!” Hang on – THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT THE SONG’S ABOUT! Massive flush of realisation and I’m flipping well shining like a lighthouse. Or I would be, except I’m at work. Not that work is awful or anything, quite far from it. Just… it’s work, innit? Been here a year-and-a-quarter and no-one really knows me. To have their chief image of me be suddenly changed from scowling while drinking pineapple juice from the carton to, well, beaming at the music of Will Young – that might be difficult to handle.
ANGELICA – Bring Back Her Head
“Pull out the carving knife and coot, coot, coot, coot, coot off her head.” Back in the day, this was my jam. Wrote an article about it. It… was a bit sub-prime.
