Yo soy loco por ti: #10-1

So the US charts change on Thursdays, meaning we’re out of date now. Oh well. Convenient links, anyway:

20-11
30-21
40-31
50-41

Last week’s US Top 10 ahoy!

10. FINGER ELEVEN – Paralyzer

Anyone been waiting to hear what happens when nu-metal catches up with “Take Me Out”? Here’s yr answer! It sounds like “Take Me Out” but played (and written) by sausage-fingered mid-level monster-men:  “If your body matches what your eyes can do/You’ll probably move right through me on my way to you!” The lyrics are all just as good as that! Still, though, the indie-disco-but-with-CHUNK texturing is oddly appealing – I’m reckoning this one may just find a few friends down poptimists way…

9. RIHANNA ft. NE-YO – Hate That I Love You

Blimey, Rihanna’s hair in this video is quite fantastic, is it not? Ne-Yo, of course, does not have hair, not when a hat will do the same job just as well. Would Ne-Yo’s claim that Rihanna is “the only one that makes me laugh” be any less plausible if it was reversed? Oh, her raincoat is pretty fantastic too, come to think of it.

The song? Smug as all hell – even if I couldn’t see Ne-Yo’s face on “I despise how I adore you”, I think I might be able to guess how it looks – and yet… likeable. Very likeable: they do show off with quite marvellous proficiency, but there’s a real warmth between the pair. More than maybe anything in this chart thus far, this is a song that sounds very much attuned to winter – cosy, intimate, and very, very snuggly. A certain smugness can be forgiven, I feel.

8. SOULJA BOY TELL’EM – Crank That (Soulja Boy)

“Crank that Roosevelt”. What? This is now number three in the UK Top 40, which makes it the best-performing of this year’s one-off US dance crazes by some distance (of the rest, Mims went top 20, but I don’t remember any of the others doing much – Shop Boyz got on the Radio 1 playlist but went no further, and I don’t think anything else really made it across the Atlantic), arguably because it’s a dance craze and, er, not much else. Soulja cunningly doesn’t talk about much beyond the instructions/orders for his dance, which don’t make one hell of a lot of sense, really, and repeating that chorus like it’s some kind of skipping rhyme – the kids at the start of the video in this case are a nifty touch, emphasising that the lyrics are basically a bunch of nonsense, designed to be repeated as loudly and emphatically as possible. And, well, it works. Mass popular appeal gets assured. And now he wants someone to hug. Aww.

(Have been re-watching the video for “Cyclone”, too, and it’s starting make more sense – often overlaps with Soulja Boy in my head, actually. Still, only pertinent thing I can think to say is that you never see Baby Bash & Richard X in the same room…)

7. KANYE WEST ft. T-PAIN – Good Life

This is the one that’s held us up, in case you’re wondering. Kanye moves from unintentionally cutesy hardass (“Take this – haters!“) to slightly-more-intentionally-cutesy (“Fuh-rawr-ry”) everyman, making sure to let his guest nab the best line: “Now my gramma and my mama ain’t the only girls calling me baby” – and just like that, I become a fan of T-Pain. Magic. Big, springy, squidgy, and the liquid letters in the video look just delicious.

6. FERGIE – Clumsy

Spoken-word bit in the middle seems to confuse The Shangri-Las with Down With Love; the rest seems like a more competently executed version of Poland’s Eurovision entry from this past year, “Time To Party” by The Jet Set. It’d be difficult to do a less-competently executed version of that, mind, and “Clumsy” puts its pieces together pretty slickly, but it just doesn’t compel me to any reaction. America’s quite good at making this kind of daydreaming mainstream pop, with widdles and clicks and bleeps, but this just sounds anonymous at present. Perhaps if the sun were out. Perhaps not.

5. COLBIE CAILLAT – Bubbly

“She’s a number-one superstar from the MySpace generation!” as her informercial on TheHits proclaimed so repeatedly earlier this year. This went on to do naff all over here, because we already have Newton Faulkner. No need for that imported rubbish. Sweetly dozy strum’n'mumble about nothing much (a boy). Her voice is sort of like Cat Power in an alternate universe where nothing bad ever happens (not a recommendation). It’s all a bit mulchy, isn’t it?

Thinking about it, shall we watch the video for “Cross Bones Style” instead? Oooh, let’s!

4. FLO RIDA ft. T-PAIN – Low

OK, gone off T-Pain again. Still the best thing on this, yes, and his chanting of “Shawtygot low, loww, lowww, lowwww, lowwwww” gives this whatever momentum it has, but now he’s putting me in mind of what it would have been like if, for no reason in particular, every other Chic single had had KC & The Sunshine Band coming in to do the chorus. Flo Rida makes it rain. He has rubberbands. Him and every other fucker this year. It’s got a nice bit of get up and go about it, and it is currently saving me from listening to whoever is doing “The Holly & The Ivy” on this Classic FM Christmas compilation they’re caning in the office, but again – life resolutely not changed.

3. TIMBALAND ft. ONEREPUBLIC – ‘pologize

Man named after variety of hiking boots “remixes” (goes “eh… eh… eh…” over, thus necessitating a new video featuring a man thwacking a drum in slow-motion, with the resultant noise sounding like someone sitting on a packet of crisps) a band named after an imaginary brand of supermarket jeans (“OneRepublic, only at Morrison’s” – it sounds surprisingly plausible, doesn’t it?). Is this some kind of tipping point as to how wistful Timbaland can make his synths before one just stops caring anymore? Him what wrote “Bleeding Love” trills over the top, something about crawling out of a window, too late to ‘pologise… too laaaaaate… (eh, eh, eh). There’s probably something beautiful trying to break through here, but what Timbaland adds to it is anyone’s guess.

2. CHRIS BROWN ft. T-PAIN – Kiss Kiss

Why does T-Pain do air quotes around “rap” “music”? And Chris Brown mentions his age! Again! He’s just turned 18! Hasn’t he grown!

But nah, this is actually pretty good – rides the relentless bounce marvellously, Brown and Pain weave in and out of each other silkily on the chorus (though mayhap that’s just the vocoders; T-Pain here is sounding worryingly close/identical to Will-I-Am), and it’s about not very much at all in a pretty damn hooky manner. T-Pain’s guest verse happens cos something is needed for change-up purposes, and doesn’t do an awful lot besides that. It’s weird, there’s been a lot of stuff that sounds similarly generic in the chart (I’m starting to think I’ve sold Flo Rida short – perhaps if he was a boss…) , but this one’s really sticking. Brown’s got this peculiar gawky charm to him. When they pop vocoder on, he sounds like a JPEG getting extended way beyond its proportions, and for some reason I’m enjoying that a fair bit. Possibly because, sounding like this, it’s pretty much impossible to imagine any of the stuff he talks about actually being true.

1. ALICIA KEYS – No One

Yay! Peace at long bloody last.

S’weird – this song sounded really very disorienting on first listen, simply cos I couldn’t stop thinking: “What has she done to her voice? Has she had some kind of an accident?” Her digging for depths that, quite possibly, aren’t actually there results in notes that sound profoundly weird, like her voice is breaking as she’s singing the song itself. Does this add anything? Well, let me answer that question by sort of ignoring it and talking about how those synths sound instead! Video features Alicia playing what looks like a tiny orange box on stilts, fitting rather well with those noises that I’m tentatively going to suggest are… mellotrons… maybe…

That doesn’t really count as ‘talking about’, does it? What I mean: “No One”, kinda like “Umbrella”, is a big ol’ celebration of just how weird pop can be allowed to sound without ever veering into wilful obscurity or pretension (the video for “Umbrella”, on the other hand, is more or less entirely that. SHE’S IN A TRIANGLE. AND SHE IS SILVER. HARD YET?) Also cool is how she got Chaka Demus & Pliers to perform this with her at the AMAs. The most reliable punchline of the past few years for daytime radio DJs in this country, getting props on a bigger stage than all them sods put together. Majyk.

DING. DONG. DING. DONG. DING. DONG. DING.

Does Christmas music get any easier as you get older? Cos at the moment, it all just seems like bloody murder to me. They’ve started putting it on at work, and choosing the second-worst moment is proving very difficult. The worst is a sitter, mind: Michael Ball’s version of “When A Child Is Born”. Actually, no, second-worst is easy too – two tracks beforehand, we get Hayley Westenra and The Choirboys doing “Do You Hear What I Hear?” Here is how Amazon describes The Choirboys:

Like all boys their age, these three youngsters enjoy football, computer games and rock music. More unusually, Ben, Patrick and CJ different also enjoy centuries-old choral music by long-dead classical composers. But never mind the cassocks and surplices–The Choirboys might sing like angels, but they look more like a stylish boy band in their designer suits.

Rolling down the Amazon page reminds me of the existence of Anthony Way. Regularly, on the way into school, there would be adverts for Anthony Way’s albums on the platform at Blackfriars. Nowadays he is apparently influenced by Dashboard Confessional.

Still, this is all getting away from the main thrust of stuff – Christmas music: urrgh. It reminds me of the same four Christmas songs piped on loop in Allders in Croydon. On the basement floor they had the assorted plastic shite for decorating trees, lawns, indoor car parks etc. , and next to that they sold washing machines. It was a weird, worrying kind of place – all very harshly lit, with row upon row of washers, dryers, small fridges, large fridges, ovens, freezers and other large electrical things (does anyone really call them ‘electricals’? Edith Bowman, you are teh fib), and in the background…

Gurner have a rock and roll-ah chris-muss, uh-hey-duh Chrizzmuzz rockin’ roll, phazzywhezzymuzzynuzzyfumber tree, ya nevvah guess whuchu got from me!

Is that Gary Glitter? I don’t remember, and I really don’t want to find out. I think I used to think it was Elton John. Images of Elton John shunting people around his Christmas tree, like they shunt model ships on maps in war films, while ordering them to be pleased with their copy of Jim Davidson’s 1001 Best Chinaman Jokes For Kids – noise everywhere, the constant threat of violence, and endless games of Pass The Parcel soundtracked by “The King Of Rock & Roll”, every price within said parcel being a slice of one of those pork pies with an egg in the middle, with the final grand prize being a Terry’s Chocolate Orange. I don’t think Christmas with Elton would have been much fun.

And then there’s “Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time”. British Christmas music – why is it all beating spirit into you with sticks and shit drum machines? Every line in that bloody song is basically Paul McCartney ordering you to SHUT THE FUCK UP AND ENJOY NOEL EDMONDS. HE HAS GONE TO NORWAY. WITH SOME BLIND CHILDREN. FOR YOU.

YOU.

(Have there been any decent football chants made out of Soulja Boy yet? No? Yet another damning indictment of Brown’s Britain, there. It would kind of help if there were any decent footballers left with the surname Hughes, but I think Richard Hughes of Portsmouth is probably the only one in the top flight nowadays. And he’s rubbish.

No, just been reminded of Aaron Hughes. He’s rubbish too.)

But yeah, Christmas songs. Synonymous with crap shops, crap sound systems and crap times in general. With the possible exception of Slade.

The US chart rundown will hopefully get rounded off today or tomorrow. Don’t like leaving it undone, makes the place look messy.

And the moon rose over an open field: #20-11

20. NATASHA BEDINGFIELD ft. SEAN KINGSTON – Love Like This

Oh good, him again. They’ve put the weird ol’ T-Pain filter on his voice for some reason, and hers too. Very slow, plodding piano-ish reggae-ish summer-ish thing. Third or fourth single off the album (her MySpace is trying to be all like “Babies” never happened now, for some reason), and it certainly sounds like it.

19. TREY SONGZ – Can’t Help But Wait

Actually responsible for one of the very best singles of this year, a shimmering, shuddering monster called “Wonder Woman”, that has, as yet, failed to devour any charts anywhere. This, however, sounds like Joe. It’s got some lovely sheeny glide noises, and he makes his voice wobble like Toni Braxton at one point, but. This. Sounds. Like. Joe. Which is to say that it is rather dull.

18. PLAYAZ CIRCLE ft. LIL WAYNE – Duffle Bag Boy

Fantastic things about internet advertising – watching foreign adverts try to guess where in the UK you are, throwing out the names of various towns in your area in an attempt to seem like they in some way relate to you. Hence Playaz Circle’s Myspace asks me: “Do you want Playaz Circle AKA Duffle Bag Boyz to come to Kingston upon Hull?”

Another thing – is it that Playaz Circle are both about eight foot tall, or is Lil Wayne roughly the size of a jockey? The video offers only these two possibilities, and I’m not sure which I’d rather entertain. In any case, we’ve got another crushingly mid-table number here – really painfully obvious production (lots of church bell clangs and vague gospel noises – you could swear blind it was DJ Khaled, honestly), lumbered with two MCs who get money and, er, that’d be it, leaves Wayne with a fair salvage job on his hands – he injects just enough techiness and desperation into his hook to make it work, but there’s little of interest here besides him.

17. JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE & BEYONCE – Until The End Of Time

This is, like, single number six off this album? The UK chart gets deluged with Christmas songs, the US chart gets a bundle of diminishing returns which the UK chart will wind up getting sometime next March. Justin and Beyonce get to do platitudes at each other quite slowly over interesting snare noises, making this one rather difficult to recommend except for people who enjoy studying snare noises.

We’re not on much of a run here, are we? Let’s see what’s up next…

Oh.

16. MATCHBOX TWENTY – How Far We’ve Come

Their name is meant to be all lower case. Because they’re annoying? I’unno. Anyway, it’s one of those “intense” moments US mainstream soft-rock comes up with every now and then – drums get thumped intensely, guitars get strummed intensely, and is that a piano? Yep, that’s a piano. “I! Believe! It all! Is coming to an end!” Rob Thomas would probably make the point that this would be getting massive hype in the hands of, say, The New Pornographers or whoever, and he would have a point. Not that that makes it actually any good – all the thumpy-thump and intense, angry vocals don’t hide that this song goes nowhere fast. Fantastic by the standards of modern American AOR, but who’d want to judge anything by those standards?

15. J. HOLIDAY – Bed

OK, so five fairly dull numbers thus far, all now compensated for by what I can only describe as this – a tender, loving explanation of how J and his lady are going to be rutting this evening, resplendent with running commentary from J himself. It is big, floaty and wobbly. J is given to stopping things entirely when it gets to his favourite bits, so he can get all squeaky in order that you may share his excitement. The timing of the big thump-drum switches up and down throughout, the better to match J’s pelvic motions. Come and tell J about how your day at work was. Let him kiss you better with his penis. Put on “that Victoria’s Secret thing” (specific names do not matter in the world of love). Put your love in the air. It’s a shining beacon of tenderness in a chart riddled with male vocalists who can make your toes curl at the mere mention of the word “doing”. Feel free to fall asleep. J has a lovely bed. Satin sheets? Oh yes. For you, anything.

14. TIMBALAND ft. KERI HILSON, DOE & SEBASTIAN – The Way I Are

Kinda like Fergie earlier, I’ve completely run out of opinions here. Unlike Fergie, I’ve never really had any massive reaction to this, other than a kneejerk “Oh, fuck off” when Timbaland grumbles “I ain’t got no money!” That whole “token song where singer is a poor person who can offer nothing but their love, so it’s a good thing their love is well wicked, eh?” thing always rubs me up the wrong way. It also worries me that, despite the tens of times I’ve seen the video and heard the song, I still cannot find a single thing to say about Keri Hilson other than that she looks a bit like Beverley Knight. Eh, the bass rumble is pretty nice.

13. KANYE WEST – Stronger

Sort of the same problem again here – I’ve spent so long hearing and seeing this song and video that I’ve managed to forget what I actually think about it. Should say that when I was talking earlier about toe-curling male vocal moments, that bit where Kanye goes “Me likey” was quite prominent in my mind. Also annoying that Cassie’s biggest impact on pop music this year was her wearing rhubarb & custard eyeliner in the video for this.

12. BABY BASH ft. T-PAIN – Cyclone

One of those club numbers that sounds like it was designed to be played with maximum sirens. The appeal is more or less entirely lost on me, really. It’s slow, low and grinding, features Baby Bash’s voice getting a bit whiney, and for some reason gives T-Pain a verse rather than a hook. T-Pain’s delivery suggests that this decision was something of a surprise to him, too. The hook slowly gets rubbed into your subconscious, which perhaps accounts for some of its success, but seeing it this far up the charts is a smidge confusing, unless T-Pain’s touch really is that golden nowadays…

11. JORDIN SPARKS – Tattoo

How to launch America’s Idol properly? Sunday League version of “Umbrella”? Why not. Some synths hiss a bit, and there’s some drums that could explode into spontaneity any day now… oh hang on, she’s come in and brought an acoustic guitar with her. And a piano. She has a nicely full voice, mind – very sturdy, not given to cracking except when absolutely necessary, deep without getting ridiculously husky. This is a cheerily mid-to-down-tempo number that plays far too safe all the time. She needs pushing more than this.

Top 10 will be with you later tonight, once I feel up to having things to say about Kanye and Timbaland again. Also once I’m feeling ready to process as many T-Pain guest spots as it’s about to throw at me…

Coca-Cola, Wonderbra!: #30-21

At home, on the Mac – where bold-tagging gets that bit more annoying.

30. PINK – Who Knew

Someone Pink knows died of the drugs, and her tribute is to seamlessly fuse Kelly Clarkson and Bette Midler to create a power-ballad-esque thing except it’s not quite so much a ballad because it goes too quickly. It spunks its load way too early, and the transition between the less-loud and very-loud bits is ham-fisted to say the least – it should resonate, but it never gets close.

29. ALICIA KEYS – Like You’ll Never See Me Again

Oh good, more death. Or near-death, anyway. Essentially, Alicia redoes “If Tomorrow Never Comes”, neglecting to include a bit where she gets run over every time she sings the chorus, but she does more than enough to compensate. Her new voice – breathier up high, weirdly congested-sounding down low, runs several fairly mental extremes. “Howww manyreallyknow what – love – is?” she twitters at the start of the second verse, and somehow it’s actually impressive rather than annoying. Neuroses are expressed with maximum lushness. “Can you do that fumme bayyyb?” she growls. “Uhrr wunnyudda prumuss mee!” It’s “Promise” having a nervous breakdown. One begins to see why the US took to Natasha Bedingfield so easily.

28. FERGIE – Big Girls Don’t Cry

Oh, do we have to? It’s… y’know, it’s been around forever now…

*sigh*

Hello Fergie. Hello Fergie’s hat. Hello Fergie’s braces.

*imagines fancy dress shops selling KT Tunstall outfits*

This is more restrained than our previous contestant, yes, and perhaps constructed along more reasonable lines, but listening to Fergie attempting to sing at anything above speaking volume (and she does this a lot) is still a particularly painful purgatory.

*imagines hen parties going round the centre of Leeds, all dressed as KT Tunstall*

And the thing is that after a certain number of repeat listens, all those nuances and subtle touches feel like muggings, the “ladadada” with those oh-so-slightly-too pronounced picked notes is almost taunting, goading – “you have to take me seriously now, oh yes you do. I’m wearing a hat with a brim – all the way around!” I can’t take it seriously anymore, or I wind up taking it too seriously. It won’t just fade away, though, it’s still there, rubbing its subtlety in my face, refusing to let me not notice the things it’s trying to make out like I shouldn’t notice. It’s… arrrrgh.

*imagines hen parties going round the centre of Brooklyn, all dressed like Joanna Newsom*

27. SEAN KINGSTON – Take You There

Holy shit, a Sean Kingston song with a pulse! Kind of. Sort of like “Common People”: Sean takes the girl to “the slummms” to go sightseeing but tells her not to worry because people there know him and he is generally a well safe dude and she won’t even get shot or anything. Oh look, there’s DJ Khaled! Hello DJ Khaled! A beat electro-pulses along but it’s damned hard to care, because Sean’s voice is still EXACTLY THE SAME AS IT IS AT ALL OTHER BLOODY TIMES, i.e. reading VERY SLOWLY off some cue cards in the same bloody intonation ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Best line: “Don’t be scared, I know the West Indies – it’s Jamaica, that’s where I’m from!”

26. MARY J BLIGE – Just Fine

Why did I never make the Mary J-Donna Summer connection before? More than anything, that’s who this reminds me of – lyrics born of positivity so relentless that they will occasionally not exactly scan, little Vince Clarke-style electric wiggle popping up at the end of each line, the entire enterprise seemingly propelled by handclaps and cowbells and Mary, sounding old but in a peculiarly defiant way – the structure doesn’t give her much room to move around and release histrionics, so she just has to take what she can get when she can get it and try to sound as proud of it as she possibly can. And so she does, and the end result sounds a lot like Donna Summer, and that’s quite a good thing.

25. DJ KHALED ft. T-PAIN, TRICK DADDY, RICK ROSS & PLIES – I’m So Hood

How to be hood? “I wear my pants below my waist!” Thanks, T-Pain! This may well be the most disastrous radio edit ever attempted – there’s about three words left standing in Trick Daddy’s verse, and as for Rick Ross… I’m not sure, but I think he just gets let off with a “YEAAHHH!” You can’t exactly make out the vocals anyway, the beat’s too busy trying to act hard for any of that: production is very much of the pile ‘em high style demonstrated in the previous two singles off this album, but the returns are diminishing a fair bit by now. Best thing here would be the caption to the uncensored version on Youtube: “This is a video response to Melanie C. “I Turn To You” – Acoustic at The Mint in L.A.“

24. TAYLOR SWIFT – Our Song

Ah, so it’s all turned out OK for Taylor in the end. Here’s some banjos. And… here’s some more banjos. It’s light and fluffy and giggly and kinda catchy in a way. More detail-oriented country stuff, teens go sneaking round to see each other at night and such – it starts off being underwhelming, but eventually wins y’round with, er, winsomeness. There’s no big exposition or revelation or what have you, just Taylor skipping about merrily in fields of infinite daisies. Which is nice.

23. THE-DREAM – Shawty Is A Ten

Originally “Shawty Is Da Shit”, which explains why the rhyming of “I don’t need no hook for this hit, cos shawty right there is a tee-iiin” seems a bit strained. One-finger piano R&B, Dream charmingly invites himself back into the life of a girl he used to know on the basis that she is now hot. His shirt smells of Burberry perfume from when she fucked him. The ascent into the chorus is delightful, even if the chorus is just him going “shawty you a tee-iiin” over and over again. It keeps it all minimal and low-key, which results in it drifting all over the place, which further results in it making me just a tiny bit drowsy.

22. DAUGHTRY – Over You

There is a song this sounds EXACTLY like. And I can’t remember what it is, and it’s bugging the hell out of me. Gut instinct says Spacehog, but it’s probably Aerosmith or something. It’s the way his vocals get treated on “cos the day I thought I’d never get through…”, there’s this one song (and I could swear it was a British band) that has the exact same thing… fucking hell, it might be Del Amitri, thinking about it. Anyway, Daughtry’s back (given that this has been on the chart for 17 weeks, the backness may be a bit debatable), and he sounds… much the same as ever. American rock, fair bit of loud guitar noise, like Nickelback but less lunkheaded and fronted by a man with a nicer voice but an even more serious face. Passes time nicely.

21. PLIES ft. AKON – Hypnotized

Wow, how bored does Akon sound here? “Now, just like that. Yes, just like that. Now shake that ass, make me spend that cash”  gets muttered out like he’s attempting to sort out her Direct Debit issues. Plies himself is stunningly dull – he’s not drawling, he’s just talking slowly, monotonously – but it’s as nothing compared to how doze-inducing Akon’s hook is. Here it comes again… and again… and again… Plies winds up with two verses on his own record cos his boss has dropped in the chorus so many bloody times. You know how, after about two and a half minutes, “Smack That” kind of makes you feel nauseous because it’s run its hook so far into the ground and shows no signs of stopping? “Hypnotised” manages that after about a minute.

20-11 will be with us in a few hours…

Uh-uh-oh, oh!: #40-31

If you’ve not read 50-41 yet, you can find it here – otherwise…

40. PARAMORE – Misery Business

Weird – I tried doing this a few weeks ago, and Youtube just bombarded me with videos of people drumming to this. To be fair, drumming to it does seem quite a tricky affair, but it was weird just how many of the buggers there were… and now it’s all either the proper video for this or fan-made ones instead. Perculiar.

I, of course, went for this one:

Anyway, this is the song’s second go-round in the US top 50, peaked at #34 earlier and now it’s getting second wind. She keeps reminding me of Kim Wilde, for some reason – possibly the dance moves, possibly the hair, possibly because this sounds one hell of a lot like a thrashed-up version of “Water On Glass”. And it’s not at all bad for that, you know – fast, sleek, and, well, the drumming is pretty damned decent, it has to be said. A lot hangs, of course, on how you’re liking the sort-of revenge narrative – the revenge bit itself takes about fifteen seconds, the rubbing-it-in takes more or less the whole of the rest of the song – and some of the bits of lyrical flair that accompany the Popular Young Person’s “Emo” Music are fairly horrendous (“She’s got a body like an hourglass, it’s ticking like a clock” – for some reason, I find it very, very easy to imagine Brian Ferry coming up with that), but something keeps it fresh for me. And I’m not sure what it is. Maybe it is just the hair, and the fact that I can’t decide which of the Thundercats it looks most like (instinct says Wile-E-Kit).

39. KENNY CHESNEY – Don’t Blink

I sense the waters are about to be getting choppy.

God, will you hear the fretwank in the middle of this? Yeurrgh. The video sees Our Ken redefining metrosexual for the new millennium (stetson and Ricky Martin-esque shirt unbuttoned to the bottom of the sternum – there nods a confident man), as he assures us that our lives will be over before we know it. It’s sort of sweet in a way, but I still find Kenny just a wee bit too annoying for it to actually take with me. It’s not exactly rubbish (goodness only knows he can be), but if you find yourself getting put off country music by the preachiness, you’d be well served avoiding it.

38. SUGARLAND – Stay

I’m nervous. The opening minute of this is amazing, just Jen Nettles’ weirdly soulful croak and some delicate as all hell plucked guitar to back her up. It’s one of them there ‘other woman’ songs, she waits by the clock for her man to come back from the other woman (his wife? I can’t tell, not yet), and now there’s this beautiful organ ghosting in, quiet, soft in the background, and I keep waiting for the big electric guitar grandstanding to come in and fuck this up – but it never does. Fuck. I’d not expected my year-end thoughts to be getting altered by any of these records, least of all Sugarland – that rasp of hers has always fucked me right off in the past – but really, this is special. Very special. Country music, when on form, has an emotional intensity like no other music in this world, and this is just  piercing in that regard. She cries at the end, like “Nothing Compares 2 U”, and it’s an entirely worthy reference point. The fact that I can’t really figure out who’s who in the song seems to almost be an afterthought, as does the fact that I can smell the American Idol/X Factor butchery coming a mile off. This is dead, dead good. Get on it.

37. SANTANA ft. CHAD KROEGER – Into The Night

So, having realised that he’s not managed to come up with his version of “Radar Love” earlier, Sir Chadward contemplates a bit further, and another realisation hits him – he’s not even managed to come up with his “Boys of Summer” yet either! Crivens! So here’s Cheerful Charlie Santana to widdle about and endearingly make out like he’s letting Chad do the rhythm guitar in the video, but there’ll be none of that heaviness knocking about here, Mr Canadian Feller – everything is breezy as hell, much laying on of the Latin flavour, vaguely tuneful, vaguely catchy, moderately restrained on the fretwankery – pretty much alright, all told.

This run is proving infinitely better than it looked on paper, even if that means that 37 and 39 were just OK rather than the anticipated water torture (actually, Kenny was more dull than he was OK. And a bit more rubbish than he was dull. If you get the meaning, which I’m not sure I do). Will it continue?

36. CARRIE UNDERWOOD – So Small

This is, again, acceptably dull in the KenChezz mould. There is maximal twang, but it’s also filled with those horrible high-spots I was worried were going to piss all over Sugarland. Carrie UNLEASHES at the two and a half minute, and the crushing inevitability just reminds me of watching my Eastleigh side forget who they’re marking and thus wind up losing 3-1 at home to Dorchester Town on Football Manager – that horrendous, head-in-hands feeling’s just the same, regardless of whether it’s Danny Smith giving away possession in the centre circle yet again or the craooowww-iddy-WAOOWWW-OWW-OWW-OWWWW that clodhops into view to herald Carrie getting even more mind-crunchingly unsubtle.

35. 50 CENT ft. MR & MRS JUSTIN TIMBALAND – Ayo Technology

Ah, the opening to this video. Why do rappers equate classiness with talking solely in nouns? It makes you sound like a perfume advert. Maybe that’s the point. Course, the hilarity doesn’t end there. Witness Fiddus’ insistence on being blindfolded while a woman lapdances near him but not actually touching him, so that she doesn’t disturb his appreciation of the brandy he’s drinking. Also, Timbaland’s Magical Video Wall – he’s dressed exactly like Camille Jones, and he’s copped her hand movements too… it’s all dreadfully confusing. Anyway, 50 and Jus and Tim are fed up of wanking to porn on the internet, presumably, and now they want some women to sit on their faces. But this one, it is fair to say, is not really about the words, unless Fiddy really did sit bolt upright one night at the thought that he has not yet written his “Maneater” (Hall & Oates version, obv.) It’s the pace that pulls it through, the electro-burble from Timba’s la-la land surging through so brilliantly that 50 just has to let himself be carried along, while you try not to squirm when Justin informs you that “She want it – UH-UH – she want it!” You’d struggle to find a less sexy trio of vocalists, but the fizziness is quite contagious.

34. SOULJA BOY ft. I-15 – Soulja Girl

I refer the panel to Jonathan Bradley’s summary of Yung Joc’s second single: “You didn’t think you’d have to do a second single, did you, Joc?” It feels like that’s what’s happening here, but that’s what makes it quite wonderful. Soulja Boy has suddenly found himself in the middle of a slow jam, and all of a sudden realises that this might involve him singing. It is not unfair to suggest that he hadn’t really planned for that, and so much of this song is delivered in a rather flat, embarrassed mumble, kind of like Sean Kingston’s embarrassed nephew. I-15 come along to bail him out on the hook, sweetly cooing the “yooouuu” bit so SB gets to go “YOOOOOU!” again too, and everything’s right with the world once more. The entire enterprise is liberally daubed with tooth-rotting plastic pink floating synth lines that let it coast along with no hook to speak of, just SB mumbling about how he’d quite like a girl to hug him at night. At 17 seconds in the video, there seems to be a freeze frame of Soulja Boy with the most massive, idiotic smile on his face, and I can’t help but agree.

33. MAROON 5 – Wake Up Call

I am watching the “director’s cut” of the video. Oh good, it’s got that thing where random words from the lyrics come up on screen in exciting and edgy ways. There’s Adam Levine’s arse. And now he’s just shot a man. A woman has just smashed a bottle over his guitarist’s head. Oh, and lots of women seem to be getting gagged and bound in various forms of transportation. Oh, and a car’s just blown up. Now he’s being accosted by the sex police. And now he’s being electrocuted to death. It’s a nice touch doing mugshots of the various band members, get to pretend they have their own names and everything, marvellous. This might be brilliant deadpan satire, or it could just be deeply, deeply thick. Oh, there’s a song, too. It sounds a bit like Zombie Hall & Oates, with Professor Frink on vocal duties. Better than you’d think.

32. WYCLEF JEAN ft. AKON, LIL WAYNE & NIIA – Sweetest Girl (Dollar Bill)

Oh crap, Wyclef’s got his narrative hat on. Essentially – girl he used to fancy in high school emigrates to US in search of a better life and winds up dancing in a club for money, and this makes Wyclef sad. You may remember this plotline from approximately 75% of all Wyclef singles ever, and guess what? He still makes it sound very, very dull. Bits of the song are lovingly produced, bits of the song just piss about for ages. Akon drops a verse about how pimping is harder now because women make better money dancing in clubs. Wayne-o comes along at the end and is quite thoughtful and stuff, but that’s of secondary importance to Wyclef busting the girl out of the refugee camp with his MAD CAPOEIRA SKILLZ.  It’s a bit of a mess.

31. GOOD CHARLOTTE – I Don’t Wanna Be In Love (Dance Floor Anthem)

Shit, them’s some ominous brackets. Actually, would it be unfair to say I was expecting more of this? It’s long been known that Good Charlotte are a pretty useful synthpop outfit on the sly, and this continues their lineage of tidy-to-pretty-nifty stuff in that vein, in a manner that’s reminding me of “4ever 2gether” for some reason, albeit far less recriminatory – can you really imagine Martin Fry saying “Everybody breaks up, it’s just something that we do”? It’s nice and pounding and sincere, but by comparison to, say, “Keep Your Hands Off My Girl”, it feels a bit lacking. Still, it’d probably be several times worse if sung by Brandon Flowers.

(Also – nurses dancing in the video? That boat sailed long ago…)

I’mma have to burn through the rest of these today, due to fantastic timing by me, so stay tuned for 30-21 – featuring Plies! Twice! Yay!

Cos when you’re feeling low-uh, and you can’t get no lower

SWING OUT SISTER – You On My Mind

First listen for this. Strings and horns intro brings to mind Pebble Mill and My Life Story. People are still making records exactly like this in Sweden; they were doing it til recently in the UK too – most of Emma Bunton’s Free Me album, for instance. Big, showy, faux-showtune stuff, very recognisably of its time regardless (it all sounds so clean). This may lead you to think that I don’t like it, which isn’t the case – I just don’t like it as much as I ought to. Perhaps it’s because (again) I’m at work, so (again) the volume’s a bit quiet – maybe that’s taking the life out of proceedings a bit, the loss of volume means it loses some pep in the process. It’s not quite making my blood course as I feel it should be, though there’s still plenty to like – the backing singers are suitably forceful, lead singer perhaps veering a bit too close to Mari Wilson for my liking (I have this strange dislike of Mari Wilson for reasons I can’t currently remember – the theme tune to Coupling may have something to do with it, I would imagine), but four or five listens down the line and I’ll probably be doing that mad gesticulating thing I usually do when confronted with things of this type.

BOB ANDY – The Games People Play

From the Trojan Sixties box-set – not, as I had thought before purchasing it, a compilation of the best of Trojan’s output from the 1960s, but rather a compilation of Trojan artists covering the popular hits of the 1960s in the reggae style. Google tells me the original was by Joe South, but I’ll not pretend to be familiar with it. Anyway, this skanks along in an acceptably locked-groove manner, and is pretty much alright. Can imagine it getting played around 8pm on Friday in one of the more fashionable bars in Leeds.

ROY ACUFF – Jole Blon

This is now officially the least indie one of these that I’ve done so far, so congratulations to me. Right old sawed-fiddles country lament, Acuff calls out for his true love who has not returned but for whom he still waits with the voice of a man who has been shot in the leg a week ago and is still bleeding. The steel-guitar on this is wondrous strange, dipping in and out like the twinkling of the stars in the sky, plucked like a big old harp, the kind the gods used to find appropriate. Not quite heart-breaking, though – he might be clinging grimly to his hope, but his hope’s very much still there.

EN VOGUE – Love Don’t Love You

I wasn’t being dismissive of En Vogue when I compared that Keyshia Cole track to them earlier this week, by the way. It’s just I do have a tendency to forget a lot of their songs exist, and I sometimes struggle to care when confronted by them. Doesn’t mean I don’t love ‘em. This, for instance, could be described as “archetypal En Vogue” – spoken word bit in the middle, lovely close-harmony singing of the title to function as the chorus and production that is very, very much of its time – very C&C Music Factory in the rhythm, a funk guitar twang on loop, and the sound of someone hitting a can. Plus also: “sass”. Shedloads of sass. Man shows insufficient love. En Vogue declare selves unsatisfied by this. Business as usual, but I do like it that way.

I do still think the Keyshia Cole track is rubbish, though.

ANDRE 3000 – Prototype

Offa The Love Below, so should perhaps list this as Outkast, but never mind. Produced uber-uber-lushly – god, will you have a taste of that wondrous bass? Big, licorice-chocolate-taffy num num num deeeee-licious. Is at its best when Andre isn’t free-associating all over the top. Not excatly giving to changing its tune at any point, which is absolutely fine and dandy, cos mmmm the bass on this mmmm. Then it gets a bit synth-fadey in the M83/10cc kind of sense, which is also nice. Can kind of see why the single release of this got pulled, though: it’s lovely, but it’s lovely in exactly the same way for five-and-a-half-minutes.

Oh dear, dear Christ, words become…

Brief run to close out the day, then.

NELLIE McKAY – Pounce

A one-minute doodle from Pretty Little Head. She does miaow quite delightfully, and it’s an awful lot of fun. Could stand to be longer, but works just fine anyway.

THE MAGNETIC FIELDS – My Only Friend

They’ve been elbowing their way in a lot lately. A lot. I may be depressed. But he writes so beautifully, doesn’t he? “Some of us can only live in songs of love and trouble/Some of us can only live in bubbles.” 69 Love Songs is brilliant for muttering to yourself alone in bits. Lately I’ve had the “I’m just me, I’m only me, and you used to love me that way” bit from “Grand Canyon” in my head. It’s all going a bit far.

DEXYS MIDNIGHT RUNNERS – I Love You (Listen To This)

Swinging right the other way – Kev’s desperate too, but he’s desperate because he can’t bloody hold it in any longer (no, he wasn’t really holding it in in the first place, admittedly). The song runs clean away from him into that huge pianoanddrumandviolinoutro bit… actually, hell, is the video on Youtube?

 Yes it is!

America, America, Shine Thy Light On Me: #50-41

I’ve always thought having a go at reviewing the US top 50 might be fun. Let’s be proved wrong, then.

50. LINKIN PARK – Shadow of the Day

Course, they probably put capitals on ‘of the’. Chezzy Benny has noticed there is anarchy in the world, we’re underway with a quiet bit. Wow, this could almost be the Sneaker Pimps! When sung by man singer, obv. He walks through some riot looking like a man who designs mobile content solutions. It’s all a bit “If this were really happening, what would you think?” Music sounds like it’s sponsored by the ‘07 Honda Accord, with lyrics to match.

49. GEORGE STRAIT – How ‘Bout Them Cowgirls

Does that thing country songs do where the last line of the chorus is also the title. Rhymes “How ’bout them cowgirls” with “sure are some proud girls”. Has absolutely no surprises whatsoever – it’s sedate, it has the quiet bit when you’d expect it to, it rolls along slowly, sleepily, serenading Texan women in pretty much the exact way you would imagine George Strait would – bit sentimental, lots of strings, twangs that go for miles, and miles, and miles. Could have been made at any point in the last 40 years or so. Somehow, that familiarity is weirdly comforting here. I feel like hugging something.

48. DJ FELLI FEL ft. AKON, DIDDY, LUDACRIS, & LIL JON – Get Buck In Here

Oh, the little tossed-off asides in modern hip-hop songs. “Incredible sex!” That’s practically Achewood, that. “If you wanna learn something – BRING YOUR MOTHER!” Oh, that possibly means something, if you’re Ludacris, possibly. Lil Jon “TAKES THINGS TO ANOTHER LEVEL” by slowing stuff right down. Twice. It works fantastically the first time; the second time, it just sounds like someone sat on something. And then the track ends because… I dunno, perhaps Lil Jon’s gonna miss his train or something. It’s a decent effort, but it cuts itself off long before it can get up any momentum. Akon has one of his better moments, letting himself go rather more than he ever does on his solo stuff (witness him being the best thing on “We Takin’ Over” for a suitable comparison point). Anyway, this is some of that electro-sludge stuff the hip-pop boyz love so much at the moment, and I suspect it’s gonna grow on me. For now, though, I’m underwhelmed, a bit.

47. BRITNEY SPEARS – Piece Of Me

Q: I haven’t shaved in at least a week, I’m wearing an orange hoodie that’s not been washed in about two months, and I’m at work listening to Britney on YouTube. What am I eating right now?

Yep, it’s a sausage roll. Cold, too. I imagine this is how Stuart Maconie started.

Anyway, this is good, isn’t it? So much for my theory yesterday about how no-one nowadays could carry off “Is That All There Is?” Britney is fantastic here, bored of the fuss rather than defiant – and this apathy somehow makes her sound more mature than ever. There’s very little posturing or pantomiming going on here, nothing feels too affected, which is exactly how it should be. Here’s to the actual video being a redux of ‘Do It Well’, then.

46. OMARION & BOW-WOW – Girlfriend

So, that one good song Bow-Wow was involved with – is there one? It feels like there ought to be, but I’ll be buggered if I have any idea what it is. Jesus, this is uninteresting. Remember how “Entourage” and “Ice Box” suggested Omarion might be on the verge of some kind of giant leap forward? He doesn’t. Instead, here’s a sort of concept album thing featuring the lead actors from You Got Served. They have girlfriends, and, you know, they’re alright, these girlfriends. They even get to have a line in the chorus where they proclaim “Thass my boyfriend!” in voices that sound like Dave Chappelle impersonating Lil Mama. Bow-Wow lists off some things that he owns. I don’t think I’ve ever needed to listen to Three-6 Mafia quite so desperately.

45. CASSIDY ft. SWIZZ BEATZ – My Drink N’ My 2-Step

Speaking of Lil Mama impersonations - if you took “Lip Gloss”, added some of those Timbaland Synths Of Ultimate Portent that everyone likes so much these days, changed it from being about lip gloss to being about sitting around drinking, and replaced the lead vocal with Cassidy seemingly making a conscious effort to sound like the rapper off “Roc Ya Body (Mic Check 1, 2)”, then you’d pretty much have this. Oh, and none of that “It’s poppin!” malarkey, of course. Nothing that’s, like, catchy or owt. Still, pleasant enough.

44. TAYLOR SWIFT – Teardrops on My Guitar

Re-enters due to sudden resurgence in popularity on US Top 40 radio for reasons I don’t actually know. No matter, cos it’s still good after however many months it’s been now. Kind of an American “Dry Your Eyes” – a slow, terrible knife-twisting that brings more ache with every little bit of detail the singer discloses; a pain made worse by how the singer is only in love with the one causing the hurt. The opening is fantastic, too, like a moment from a high school musical (n.b. not “High School Musical” – only plot tension there being “Hey! Can basketball guys do sissy stuff?”- romances all just happen, everything is manifest destiny, and the songwriter girl gets to take her hat off and look just like everyone else at the end, which is just marvellous), the way the opening line eases the listener right inside Taylor’s head and sets up the goldfish bowl keeping her stuck outside the rest of the world. God, but this song makes me emo. In a good way.

43. NICKELBACK – Rockstar

Their first UK top 20 hit in four years, which would suggest there’s something about this – they’re Nickelback, for pity’s sakes. Are there really that many existing Nickelback fans in the UK for this to do to that well? Never mind, though – this is the US chart. For our purposes, the UK only exists because it gives Coldplay somewhere to be from.

Anyway, much better than you’d ever think Nickelback would be. It’s actually funny intentionally – and it, amazingly, doesn’t feature Chadders whinging! Not overtly, anyway (this song may be the closest they ever get to subtext. Note it down, kids). They’ve got comfortable, they’ve reached the top and now they can look around a bit. This is the sound of a man sat half-cut in an armchair, realising he hasn’t really written his “Radar Love” yet. It’s more fun than you’d think, honestly.

42. FABOLOUS ft. JERMAINE DUPRI – Baby Don’t Go

“DAMN, THAT WAS A CRAZY DREAM – OR WAS IT?” I think old Plug is going for a narrative here, but he’s kind of messed up his sense of timing, so verse one he’s all “Ah, naff off then”, then in verse two he’s suddenly “Actually, no, don’t naff off after all”. It just sort of clunks into that bit, no real progression or anything. Song’s basically Fabolous making with the metaphors, some work, some don’t. It feels like the kind of thing people block-quote on messageboards to prove some kind of point. Comfortably the best Fabolous song I’ve ever heard, to be fair, but whether it’s much more than that I don’t really know. His monotone is still deeply unappealing.

41. KEYSHIA COLE ft. AMINA – Shoulda Let You Go

You know those songs off the En Vogue Best Of that you can’t remember? This is basically them, featuring a guest verse from someone who sounds like Eve’s less interesting sister.

40-31 will follow as and when I feel like it – given that it features Kenny Chesney, Santana and Maroon 5, I wouldn’t want to be getting too sure as to when that’s gonna be…

You’ll call me a bitch and everyone we’re with will be embarrassed and I won’t give a shit

MAGAZINE – Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Again)

I think I had a week a couple of years ago where I was convinced Magazine were the best thing ever, conveniently ignoring that I’d only properly heard one album of theirs and was a bit nonplussed by large chunks of it. This kind of falls into that bunch. Stomps and stalks, fairly obvious funk influence, goes on a bit, Devoto sounds like he’s pre-empting Hot Chip somewhat. It may just be the wrong time of the morning or I’m listening to it too quietly or everyone else is talking too loudly. It ain’t working right now.

EVANESCENCE – Bring Me To Life

This is still brilliant. Oh Amy, you portentous bint. Again, at this volume it’s not exactly working like it should, but in terms of massively overproduced American goth-rock-pop bollocks, besser gehts nicht. This was a number one single! 2003 really was four whole years ago, eh?

Gosh, I’d forgotten how good this big slow bit with the strings before blokey-voice comes in is. It’s really good. Honestly, this morning really is not living up to expectations right now.

Ah, the ’subtle’ piano outro. With the gas valve noises. Marvellous, really.

BEAT HAPPENING – Our Secret

Ooh, the intro sounds like Clinic. The “nurrnurr-nurrnurr-nurrrr, nurrnurr-nurrnurr-nurrrr” groove that Calvin Johnson’s voice settles into is really right easy to slip into, isn’t it? Neatly hypnotic, never changing. Nice and simple and easy to fall for. First song that’s really sounded suited for this morning.

MEDICINE 8 – Even The Beetles, The Monkeys

An album that seems destined never to actually leave the iPod. I could swear I’ve deleted it at least three times now, but no, it’s still there. Just like cockroaches. Big electro cockroaches. Second Hot Chip comparison of the day. Two minutes in and still nothing has happened. Sounds like a demo tune designed to show off the full capabilities of the SoundBlaster32. Three minutes in and still nothing has happened. Taking the filter off yr man’s voice for a bit does not count as something happening. Is probably good to dance to, which doesn’t explain why I don’t feel even the slightest bit like dancing to it.

DAVID AXELROD – Big B Plus

Close my eyes and allow myself to please be taken away by this. Why feel like shit this morning as opposed to, say, any other morning? My mouth feels like it’s been eating day-old pizza, which it definitely hasn’t. I need a shave, and a haircut, and to smell a bit better generally. Oh, and cutting the fingernails might help too. I have nowt of use to say about David Axelrod. I wanna dig a space in his trumpets and curl up and be warm, but that’s probably not the point.

More when I feel less crappy.

Sometimes you’re gonna feel pain like this

I’ve been trying to do other posts on this blog but the words have steadfastly refused to come. Plus Football Manager, man. Bloody thing.

Anyway, back at work, with the iPod on shuffle… as M83 once said: let’s go!

PEGGY LEE – Is That All There Is

The annoying thing here is that this is almost certainly grabbed off some MP3 blog or some ILX splurge or other (back in the day, like). This is the kind of thing I really, really would like to claim I’d come across myself, like this is some hand-picked nugget from the Peggy Lee back catalogue here for your delectation… is it bollocks as like, though. I have two Peggy Lee songs on here – one that Peel used to play cos it reminded him of his life with The Pig (“The Folks Who Live On The Hill”), and this one.

In case you’ve not guessed, this is right good. Peg talks to the audience/herself, about moments from her life and how they seem like Not A Hill Of Beans. As a child, her house burns down: “Is that all there is to a fire?” She goes the circus: “Is that all there is to the circus?” Her boy breaks up with her: “When you left I thought I would die. Then I didn’t. When I didn’t, I thought to myself: ‘Is that all there is to love?’”She stops to contemplate why she doesn’t end it all, and realises that’s because she’d doubtless find death a bit boring too. So the chorus oompahs along ever so lazily, the instruments trying to jolly Peg along, but she’s not really having any of it – “If that’s all there is, then let’s keep… dan… cing; let’s break out the booze… and have… a ball…”

This record couldn’t be made today. No-one’s confident enough to pull it off, to keep all the balls in the air. You’d get the Ronson Horns O’ Sincere Wonderment neatly arranged; Kate Nash making all the Rs into Ws (we really ought to talk about this girl at some point, you know, but not right now); a Parkinson-approved artist sounding, as always, like they’re wearing someone else’s clothes and are slightly amused by how long the sleeves are. It’s weird, y’know, how bloody hard it is to sound like you’re enjoying yourself these days. Peggy Lee takes it all in a single bound, and it sounds wonderful.

THE KARL HENDRICKS TRIO – The Worst Coffee I’ve Ever Had

This is a complete mystery. Google reveals these to be on Merge, which perhaps suggests that I might have got it off the Merge site sometime in the long, distant past. It’s some very average indie-rock from America. Contains a fuzz guitar solo that errs on the side of bloody interminable. Is probably getting removed from my iPod when I get home.

THE MAGNETIC FIELDS – Smoke Signals

What would piano house sound like if you took out the house? Kinda like this. Piano notes clanking above constant, nervous, one-fingered electro-tremor. From their breathy-voiced female-fronted era (“100,000 Fireflies” and all that, and I’ve suddenly got a massive urge to hear that – wait till hometime, I think); wafts along  through canyons and mesas into nowhere especially, but sounds gorgeous while so doing, albeit in an ITV Nightscreen kind of way.

THE NECTARINE NO. 9 – Susan Indentifier

I’ve never figured out if that title was a mis-spelling on my part, though I don’t think it was… Scots indie funk-rock anyhow. Slow and coasting, breaks into Fannies-esque jam sections every now and then, and I can’t give it anything like the attention it merits right now because I’m at work and people are talking about their hairdressers. Can’t they see that I’m art here?

LAMBCHOP – Is A Woman

My, but aren’t we an indie bastard this morning. Lambchop, as you may have guessed, are rubbish for drowning stuff out. Close my eyes in the hope that my hearing becomes more intense… mice glockenspiel there. “Can – you – be – sure?” Sweet, slight, quiet, deft. Slightly unexpected reggae bassline introduced in a pleasingly unostentatious way. Ease me up like Radox, still for hours, come out a bit wrinkly but in a good way. Man, fuck Saturdays.

HALF MAN HALF BISCUIT – Surging Out Of Convalescence

“Is your child hyperactive, or is he perhaps a twat?” “Last Ash Wednesday I had tantric sex and it was shit/Next Ash Wednesday I might strive to lick my elbow.” This is without mentioning the bit about how darts matches in soaps never make sense. Exactly what it says on the tin – Blackwell bored and frustrated in the daytime, contemplates the things that are a waste of time, ending with this fantastic line that, if you don’t already know the context in which it would usually occur, will probably not make sense. But if you do:

“THE INSIDE OF A HALEX THREE-STAR PING-PONG BALL/SMELLS – MUCH – LIKE YOU’D EXPECT IT TO”

Someone needs to graffiti that somewhere.