Albums of the year

Before we start, my favourite two albums released in the UK this year are Stars' 'Set Yourself On Fire' and The Arcade Fire's 'Funeral', but neither are included as they were originally released last year and I had heard most of both of them by the very end of the year.

40. Hooker's Green No. 1 - On How The Illustrious Captain Moon Won The War For Us
39. Röyksopp - The Understanding
38. The Most Serene Republic - Underwater Cinematographer
37. David Ford - I Sincerely Apologise For All The Trouble I've Caused
36. Sigur Rós - Takk...
35. The Coral - The Invisible Invasion
34. Gemma Hayes - The Roads Don't Love You
33. Cranebuilders - Sometimes You Hear Through Someone Else
32. dEUS - Pocket Revolution
31. Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene
30. Death Cab For Cutie - Plans
29. Kaiser Chiefs - Employment
28. Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have It So Much Better
27. The Shortwave Set - The Debt Collection
26. Editors - The Back Room
25. Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock & Roll
24. Doves - Some Cities
23. Tom McRae - All Maps Welcome
22. Clor - Clor
21. Maxïmo Park - A Certain Trigger

20. Final Fantasy - Has A Good Home

Owen Pallett gained attention through aranging strings for The Arcade Fire and Win Butler is on guest shouting duties here for Please Please Please, but this steers firmly clear of injoke irrelevance despite some titles suggesting the opposite. Largely played with a violin, a few effects and little else, the variety of layered backdrops conjured up to the surreal, humorous songs is incredibly impressive as a result, and a few of them, like the This Is The Dream Of Win And Regine would undoubtedly be great however they were played.

19. Brakes - Give Blood

It's difficult to talk about this without mentioning the length of songs because its breakneck speed is its biggest asset - on the rare occasions when they slightly misfire the song doesn't hang around long enough for it to matter, and more often than not it makes for perfect songs like Heard About Your Band and Hi How Are You, hilarious and thrilling rants. It also beats Art Brut by a few places becasue there is even some depth beyond the initial rush, especially in morose closer Fell In Love With A Girl.

18. Coldplay - X&Y

Lyrically abysmal in places ('you cut me down a tree and brought it back to me and that's what made me see...'), but otherwise a logical progression of their advance to be the best stadium rock band around, with Guy, Johnny and Will all taking more of a chance to shine than ever.

17. Gorillaz - Demon Days

Inventive and dramatic but also, in the biggest advance from the debut, cohesive, it makes diverse sounds seem made for each other and still contains glorious pop moments among all the atmosperics and darkness.

16. Hard-Fi - Stars Of CCTV

Hard-Fi make their anthemic, combative songs sound almost too easy, but you only need compare to The Dead 60s' attempts at similar to see that there's real ability at work here.
Stealing mercilessly, not least from The Clash, but turning it all into something definitively now, their rise to success was inevatible as every song here hits its mark and who can't relate to the overall theme of wanting to escape their life?

15. Wolf Parade - Apologies To The Queen Mary

Never quite lives up to the incredible taut and propulsive opening song, but its all great fun regardless - pitched about halfway between The Arcade Fire and Modest Mouse (whose singer Isaac Brock produces here) with fine impassioned songs and some of the most awesome bloopy keyboard noises around as well.

14. Architecture In Helsinki - In Case We Die

An ever-changing kaleidascope of musical styles, occasionally resembling a sweeter version of The Coral's debut album, it would be easy for this to become annoying (which is the view that a few reviews seemed to take) but it is just too well done and the band too in love with life, the world and the music they can make for it to be anything but exciting and fun.

13. The National - Alligator

Blessed with a deep, rich voice perfect for the dark songs on offer here, Matt Berninger is the star of an album which is personal and dramatic but never loses hold of its wit and a certain lightness of touch.

12. The Decemberists - Picaresque

It's easy to get lost in talking about the lyrics - rich and wonderful stories throughout - but the music here makes just as many of the key moments work, from the dramatic build in The Bagman's Gambit to the swing of 16 Military Wives and the devilish finale of The Mariner's Revenge Song.

11. Turin Brakes - JackInABox

In a year when the previously reliable Doves, Tom McRae and to a lesser extent Coldplay released disappointing third albums, this was the first one to reassure that it wasn't just me going off the music which I pretty much started off with a few years ago. Although ignored or panned in most places, this is a complete turnaround from the constrictive MOR of most of 'Ether Song' to simple, joyful pop. There are acoustic beauties like Forever and Road To Nowhere, but the biggest joy is the new territory they throw themselves at - on the funky likes of Over And Over and the title track, it sounds like they could try anything and succeed.

10. Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning

This was the year when Conor Oberst came good, ditching the sprawling self-indulgences which made previous albums so individual but so frustrating and turning out not one but two albums that were focused and near faultless. This one was full of moments of stripped-back beauty with Emmylou Harris helping out with some amazing backing vocals and First Day Of My Life his sweetest, simplest song ever.

9. Bloc Party - Silent Alarm

Perhaps just a little longer than it needs to be, but with songs as tight and inventive as these it was difficult to care - there were few rushes this year as good as Like Eating Glass or the end of So Here We Are and Blue Light and This Modern Love showed that they could even do slow and moving as well as frenetic dance-rock that put all peers to shame.

8. Bright Eyes - Digital Ash In A Digital Urn

The general verdict on his two albums this year seemed to be that 'I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning' had all the songs and this all the experimentation, but for me the songs here are every bit as strong, if more melodramatic. It's my favourite of the two because the uneasy electronica seems to be a tighter fit with the subject matter and offers a wider scope for variety, from the minimalism of Time Code to the Postal Service moment Take It Easy and the flamenco-ish dance of Arc Of Time, probably the most joyful song about death all year.

7. Iko - I Am Zero

Kieran Scragg may sound like a girl, but his voice is one of astonishing purity and, crucially, believable enough in its emotion to sell the songs here which other bands could easily come across as whiny or sappy. Almost bereft of the brittle rock that his former band Buffseeds specialised in and stripped down to little but his voice in places, it also has an air of hopelessness which makes lines like 'stay just as you are, you're the nearest thing that I have to art' all the more affecting.

6. The Tenderfoot - Save The Year

Funnily enough, I first saw The Tenderfoot supporting Buffseeds in 2003, and wasn't especially impressed, completely forgetting about them before coming across their mini-album 'Vale Industrial' at the start of the year. Perhaps it's not surprising as this is gentle, unobtrusive music (helped by Darren Moon's soft voice which bears quite a resemblance to Gruff Rhys') which only gradually seeps into the conciousness until one day grabbing you completely and refusing to let go. Probably the day you first really notice the lyrics - near-perfect witty and affecting tales of being stuck in dead-end monotony, featuring some of the best one-liners around. Afterwards the music seems to make much more sense, subtle and economical but never repetitive or boring. They do seem doomed to be less succesful than their bassist's side-project band though.

5. Patrick Wolf - Wind In The Wires

Thanks to its reamining but sparser use of electronics than his debut it's almost possible to summarise as the perfect combination of the two Bright Eyes albums this year, but there is an added wonder and sense of place - it's beautifully evocative of howling storms and windswept cliffs and ruins. And among its ghostly beauty there is also still bite, especially in the madly hollering Tristan and the hugely entertaining and grandoise rant of The Libertine ('they sing through the bars of cliché and addiction' indeed...)

4. Super Furry Animals - Love Kraft

Immensely disappointing on first listen, it's best to forget that this is a SFA album altogether as, perhaps apart from 'Mwng', it bears little resemblence to any of their others. Bar the slightly awkward red herrings Lazer Beam and Psyclone! there is no musical wildness or immediacy, and the previously everpresent pop is all but gone from their sound.
Instead, though, there is dense, crafted, gorgeous detail which reveals itself over time, and the decision to allow all members of the band to sing for the first time pays off multiple times, with Cian in particular sounding innocent and vulnerable on the breathtakingly sweet Walk You Home.

3. Mew - And The Glass Handed Kites

It is perhaps lazy to describe this is where Muse meet Sigur Ros (Nearly the same name! And nearly the same country!) but it's also kind of true. Exhilaratingly daft and yet often incredibly pretty at the same time, the way in which the songs are linked together make it seem like it is permanently building towards an ever bigger climax, with the Apocalypso-Special-Zookeeper's Boy section most astonishing of all.

2. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois

I saw someone recently say that they liked this album more in theory than in practise and it's easy to see where that comes from - the idea and artwork, nevermind the song titles, have so much character by themselves that there could be barely room for the music itself to get noticed.
Indeed, the only way that it does is by generally being on the same thrillingly massive scale, with big orchestration stuck on almost everything, but despite this the personal moments like the heartbreaking Casimir Pulaski Day fit perfectly, the quality of songwriting holding everything together.

1. Elbow - Leaders Of The Free World

I'm almost guilty about the extreme inevitability with which this tops the list, but there is simply no other band that can compare in my eyes, and this is in many ways their finest moment to date, more accessible and complete than ever before, if without quite the depth and desperation that made some parts of 'Asleep In The Back' so unbeatable.
A lot of the stranger experiments of the past have been dropped, which could be seen as a move towards too comfortable MOR but they are just too good and when it gets close, like on the warm affection of An Imagined Affair, it is undercut brilliantly, in this case by the revalation that Guy Garvey's happy love is a drunken fantasy. Indeed, every song is filled with lyrics showing Guy on incredible form ('A callgirl with yesterday's eyes was our witness and priest/Stockport supporters club kindly supplied us a choir' from Great Expectations is breathtaking and a perfect example of the way he can make the everyday into the romantic) and the band succeed as ever in making the complex seem so simple that you barely notice how varied and inventive this music is, just how great it sounds.

Sorry

For the lack of updates of late, it has been caused by work but mainly by going to just too many gigs. I should probablydo some kind of overview of them soon.
I have also been working on writing about my favourite songs.

Just briefly, I find the current pop reviews at DiS fascinating. They were only grudgingly positive (6/10) and still stirred up abuse! Including the apparently serious
''your site is confirmed as being a total joke when you can give Girls Aloud 6/10 and Babyshambles' album 4/10. disgusting.'' !!

A couple more blog links

Dirrrty Pop!
Poptimists LJ community
Indie Girl and Pop Boy

If You Unhappy With You Need Blame Something

I'm not especially surprised to read that Alfie have split as they do seem to have been struggling frustratingly against indifference despite reasonable promotion and a Parlophone deal for quite some time. Even as someone whose distaste for James Blunt is well documented this seems a really unnecessary sour note to end on though:

"As you know, we have always endeavoured to stay 'true to ourselves' musically, and we perhaps somewhat naively thought that this would be sufficient to catapult us into the upper stratosphere of the popular music world. It wasn't, and unfortunately, although it's true that a single note of one of our songs holds more worth than ten thousand James Blunt albums (a chilling thought) this has never been apparent to the record buying public as a whole.''

They do make up for it a bit by actually thanking the fans too, I guess.

One more reason to go see Elbow

They're being supported by Mew!!
Unless you go in Leeds or Sheffield that is, but Cranebuilders are pretty good too.

That thing under the blog title

...is there because that title would seem even more crap and irrelevant otherwise really, at least until I get round to explaining it.
Anyway, when I changed it to Biology / Chemistry a few days ago I actually had, erm, Semisonic in mind for the Chemistry part, but I appear to have predicted the new Girls Aloud album title without actually trying.

I bet you look good in the midweeks (sorry)

So, Arctic Monkeys sold three thousand more copies of their single I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor yesterday than any other single managed, and are number 1 in the midweek charts. The song is of certainly great fun and sounds considerably beefed-up and more world-conquering than the demo version that I've listened to for a while but still isn't exactly revolutionary or one of my favourites, its B-side Bigger Boys And Stolen Sweethearts being way more lovable for a start. Plus Sugababes seem fairly likely to overtake them with the still great sounding Push The Button by the weekend anyway. Yet I still was happily smiling for a good while after reading the news.

Is this because it's genuinely exciting to see a band rise to a position where they have a shot at number one with their first proper single off the back of many brilliant songs being made available for free online and the resultant word of mouth, with major label cash and press hype absent until really quite recently?
Or is it because I have one of these?

You decide...

The serene Bluetones

The Bluetones release 4 track EP 'Serenity Now' at the end of this month, available only at their gigs and online here, probably sensibly enough since their chances of converting many new fans aren't too great. It's their first new stuff since 2003, which is especially slow considering that 'Luxembourg' was not much longer than 30 minutes. No word yet on whether it will continue the cool-in-an-alternate-universe spiky guitar pop sound of said album.

Some more gigs

Which I am a bit behind on talking about, apart from the Hard-Fi one.

• Elbow at the Koko, which I hadn't been to before and was very pretty for a venue, and not as stupidly hot as the similarly pretty Bush Hall. They didn't have a support band for some reason, which made the wait a little long after getting to the venue an hour before doors opened, but it was worth it. The 6 times that I've seen them previously have been more incredible each time and while that wasn't continued it was probably as much down to not knowing the new songs as anything. Great Expectations complete with xylophone solos and Puncture Repair was already breathtaking, Station Approach is a fantastic opener and I don't think that I will ever tire of Newborn live (though Red may be another matter), plus they played Any Day Now and oh so lovely Scattered Blacks And Whites to finish. Guy's posing and gesturing to cheer at the end of each verse of Switching Off continued to grate (save it for a less fragile song!) but was probably the only negative.

• Stars in front of a not huge crowd at the Highbury Garage, supported by average seeming Futureheads-alikes Roland Shanks. Stars released my favourite album of last year, Set Yourself On Fire, which sounds like The Delgados at their most grand with a few extra electro-pop bits. They played almost the entire album and only one other song, and for at least half the gig it was absolutely magnificent, extra force being given to the songs by the number of musicians on stage (eight or so I think) plus some trumpet playing by singer Torquil, who was also charming and funny between songs, not least in his interactions with other singer Amy. She didn't really manage to pull off sexy for Sleep Tonight very well at all but made up for it elsewhere, especially with the vulnerability for One More Night. That contains one chilling stop-you-dead moment stronger than almost any other song I can think of (if you've heard it you probably know the one), and live it made my insides leap all the more. Everything went slightly wrong towards the end of the gig however, starting from when they played single My Bloody Valentine-esque Ageless Beauty, my least favourite song on the album, and a minority of the crowd started pushing to the front and going absolutely crazy, before remaining there to be idiots and shout "we love you!" at Amy throughout the rest of the gig. It wasn't just them that were the problem however, as a couple of songs seemed to get lost to aimless noisy jamming, especially He Lied About Death. I was still impressed enough to definitely want to see them if they come back to London as promised though.

• Finally JJ72, at Islington Academy, supported by the hilariously terrible, or possibly terribly hilarious, Red Organ Serpent Sound. JJ72 have had more than their fair share of problems recently (as documented here) and it was almost a relief to get to see them at all having never had the chance 5 years ago when I loved them a lot more. It was a slight shame that they concentrated so much on their first album when playing older stuff rather than the underrated second album I To Sky, but when they have so many utterly perfect depictions of teenage angst like Snow and Undercover Angel to choose from it's hardly surprising, and we did at least get a beautiful version of Brother Sleep. So the old stuff was an fantastic as could be hoped for, but what about the album we've been waiting so long for? New songs were wryly introduced as being 'from our next album, due out 2007' and 'from the album after next, due out 2015', but to be honest it was slightly more difficult to feel sorry for their plight when the new songs were almost all terribly disappointing, stodgy rock with lyrics which were often embarrassingly obvious rather than the joyfully absurd poetry of old, recent single Coming Home the only decent one of the lot. That is, until they unleashed Radio in the encore, as immediate as anything from their debut but with an added depth and gorgeous chorus. Maybe there is still hope after all.
  

Will update more properly soon, but in the meantime...

This album has so far exceeded all my (high) expectations easily!




Oh and David Ford (formerly of Easyworld) has a really good single out this week and it's available as a free download on iTunes/

Oh so Xtreme

So, on Monday I went to the Mean Fiddler for Virgin Xtreme's launch night, since I won tickets and all. I hadn't been to the venue before and was surprised at how close to being as big as the next door Astoria it was.

Firstly, it didn't do anything at all to sell the radio station to me, as they played a loop of music about 3 times over which just sounded like xfm if it was even more based around the NME. Plus the compere was an incredibly irritating sterotypical laddish twat, coming out several times between bands, Stella in hand, to say 'fuck' a lot and to tell us all as often as possible to get to the bar and get ready, because obviously it was very important to show that he was a big fan of drinking and not some kind of poof or something.

The highlight of The Ordinary Boys' set was when they stormed offstage about 30 seconds into their first song. Possibly the highlight of the evening in fact, a hilariously farcical beginning.

The Dead 60s have a couple of good songs, but insisted on playing them several times over in quick succession. And some of their lets-see-how-many-guitar-effects-we-can-show-off instrumentals seem to go on for millenia.

Hard-Fi were therefore left to be the highlight of the night, and all was going fantastically well until a few songs in when Rich Archer's voice suddenly vanished. Watching them struggle through their singles, helped out no end by the crowd, after this was entertaining but still a bit of a let down, together with their set being rather short anyway. Still, it was free!

Finally, something from the Xtreme website:

I've won tickets to Hard-Fi next Monday!

And The Dead 60s and The Ordinary Boys, but oh well. It's to launch Virgin's answer to Xfm Virgin Xtreme, where the answer in question is presumably ''me too''. My girlfriend has also won tickets, which may be a coincedence or a sign that not very many people entered the competition. Given the number of tickets Hard-Fi are giving away on their mailing list, probably the latter.

Arcade Fire: Top Of The Pops, video

Click here to see them perform Rebellion (Lies) on Sunday's show.

It was exciting and surprising as it was to see them there, especially in these days when exclusives of future flops by the 'world famous' or endless repeats of the same songs are far more likely to get TOTP appearances than records which people have, you know, actually just bought. I think that the linked blog rather overstates the weirdness though: 'the Top of the Pops crowd clapping along. To the Arcade Fire. Very bizarre as I'm sure you'll see'. It is a great pop song after all.

To borrow from a different band...

Arcade Fire! Top Of The Pops!

Help: A Day In The Life (Part 2)

12. Hard-Fi - Help Me Please
I maybe wouldn't have been as likely to give Hard-Fi's album much of a chance if my girlfriend wasn't such a huge fan of them but I'm glad that I did as it's full of excellent pop songs and lyrics which work better than expected. Slower songs don't tend to be their thing though, and this is the slowest and most melancholy of all ('so many tears','being alone scares the life out of me'). Despite occasionally sounding like Oasis it is honest and simple enough to work pretty well though.

13. Belle & Sebastian - The Eighth Station Of The Cross Kebab House
Somehow I can't believe that eighth is spelt like that, but apparently so. Carrying on where the mostly brilliant Dear Catastrophe Waitress left off, this is gloriously instant and catchy, but it also adds a political edge here more blatantly than Elbow do, with lyrics about Israel, although they don't seem to take any side particularly strongly. The last line is absolutely brilliant, particularly in referencing Coldplay, a band who are now on this compilation.

14. Tinariwen - Cler Achel
Again, a little outside of what I would normally listen to, and doesn't seem to do much for me; pleasant background music but I prefer Emmanuel Jal.

15. George And Anthony - Happy Christmas, War Is Over
Everything about this is almost compellingly awful! I have heard a few Anthony And The Johnsons songs and while I thought that the arrangements sounded great and the lyrics ok, I still couldn't bring myself to like them because of that voice. To me it just sounds like someone doing a really bad Buckley impression. Even if I were to enjoy it I can't imagine finding this anything other than hilariously bad though, a nasty saccharine arrangement of a far from brilliant song with totally misplaced voices.

16. Gorillaz - Hong Kong
Firstly, calling this a Gorillaz song is slightly questionable because it seems to bear no relation to any of their other stuff and to be virtually be a Damon Albarn solo song, or in fact is closer to Blur's Out Of Time relocated from Morocco to Hong Kong than anything. With that out of the way, this can be praised totally as the most gorgeous thing on here by some way, 7 minutes of bliss.

17. Babyshambles - From Bollywood To Battersea
Trying to ignore Pete's other activities is pretty hard nowadays, but at least this doesn't actually sound like it must have been recorded by a total waster like Fuck Forever. Instead it ambles along pleasantly for a few minutes like a lesser acoustic Libertines song, which is something at least I guess.

18. Manic Street Preachers - Leviathan
A unintelligable talking bit at the start and a big riff, must be a new Manics song! Not exactly the most punk thing they've recorded in ages as they've claimed, it sounds like the kind of agressive but unremarkable song that they can probably knock out in their sleep, before puzzlingly fading out just as it gets going.

19. Razorlight - Kirby's House
Razorlight tend to veer very easily from likable to completely terrible as far as I'm concerned. This stays just about on the likable side, laregly steering clear on pomposity even in the 'epic' ending.

20. Damien Rice - Cross-Eyed Bear
What, not Damien Rice And Lisa Hannigan? I thought that their move to more correct crediting on the last single would be a permanent one, and on the basis of this it definitely should be, with Damien becoming increasingly hopelessly mired in MOR and the moment when Lisa starts singing being the best by far. Damien also seems to be sounding unusually gruff, perhaps in an attempt to further distinguish himself from James Blunt. Any hopes that I might have had for his/their second album have now pretty much totally disappeared in the three-year farce that has been the O promotional campaign (and most annoyingly of all, it's worked).

21. Mylo - Mars Needs Women
The tracklisting to this largely appears to have been decided at random, but putting this straight after Damien Rice is a brilliant move, making it sound twice as exciting, shiny and modern as it actually is.

22. Coldplay - How You See The World Part 2
Ah, Coldplay. I think, with my getting invited to secret gigs and having thousands of posts on their forum and all, on top of their status as The Biggest Band In The World™ and resultant omnipresence, that it's increasingly difficult to think about their music without getting completely lost in too much baggage. I can try though.
This is another political song: 'You put the world in a tin can, black market contraband, and it hurt just a little bit, when they sliced and packaged it' this starts, and it sounds like a more direct and angry cousin of X&Y's closer Twisted Logic. Chris Martin has never been technically the best lyricist but these days his love songs have started sounding more and more trite (check out A Message or Swallowed In The Sea) and the angrier he is the more brilliant they sound. Somewhat surprsingly it never sounds too simplistic, perhaps as confused despair is a pretty reasonable feeling to have.
It's a shame that this song is thrown away in such a manner though, and it further enforces the idea of X&Y as a compromise between what Coldplay wanted and what they imagined that people wanted. Apparently Twisted Logic almost didn't make it on as well.

Help: A Day In The Life (Part 1)

(see here)

So, first off, this whole venture, despite being yet another repetition of something done in the past, seems a whole lot more likable than either Band Aid 20 or Live 8.
Band Aid 20 raised a lot of money, but it also foisted an uninspired version of a not very good song on us, and felt like it was being bought out of a sense of duty rather than because anyone was really planning to play the song a lot. This could be seen to be pretty irrelevant in the face of doing something so important, but why not have a good song as well as a good cause?
Live 8 did offer something that (some) people would actually want, the chance to see lots of popular bands in one day from a very long way away, but seemed hopelessly muddled in what it intended to achieve by this. 'It's not about the money, it's about the awareness' we were told, before eBay was forced to stop people from selling tickets to it because they were apparently taking advantage of a charity, and a 'golden circle' was put in place, in front of the crowd, of people who had bought the privilege of getting to be slightly less far away.

Help, though, manages to both have a clear and good reason for its existence and to offer something which people really will actually want (a lot of people judging by the meltdown of the Warchild website last night), a lot of new songs by popular bands.

Plus it has outdone the original from ten years ago in at least one way, as that featured a fair few remixes and live versions which can't have been the most exciting, and this features only new songs and a couple of covers. But are they any good? Well, I've listened a few times now, and here are my current thoughts:

1. Radiohead - I Want None Of This
This is, truth be told, not the greatest start to the album. Sounding vaguely like a slightly less evil version of Hail To The Thief's We Suck Young Blood, it has Thom backed just by piano and ghostly wordless backing vocals, singing things like 'if it matters to you, you can sell it all out'. It seems stuck halfway between sinister and moving though, and generally unremarkable. It probably doesn't say anything about how their next album will sound though, and I can't imagine this being reused as Lucky was last time.

2. The Coral - It Was Nothing
The first thing to notice is that the first second or so is In The Morning! Second is that it sounds like it could easily fit onto most recent album The Invisible Invasion. Perhaps this is because The Coral work so fast normally that recording in a day was normal (they have released about 80 songs in 4 years, which is pretty impressive going), but also it is because so many of their mid-paced songs now do have a distinct (to anything else) but very similar feel to them, a problem which really didn't help the album.
This has a really nice mid-section with twangy guitar and 'ooh-ooh's but overall I can't help but wish for a return to the days of Skeleton Key and similar madness.

3. The Zutons - Hello Conscience
'Hello conscience, how do you do? I've come such a long way to talk to you'
The Zutons' lyrics show no sign of getting any less stupid, clearly, but that doesn't matter too much in an enjoyably mindless stomping pop song like this. It takes a little too long to get to the big, garish climax though.

4. Elbow - Snowball
Elbow are my favourite band (review of them live coming soon!), so I am pretty predisposed to love this, it actually took a few listens to sink in though. It is quietly, elegantly lovely (Guy Garvey has my favourite voice ever!) but it is only gradually that the accusatory tone of it becomes apparent too, with 'I told you so' repeated and devestating lines like 'the largest of mistakes can be forgiven, but a snowball of little white lies will crush your house' before building to a dense and furious close. Seemingly political without being crass, despairing and angry yet beautiful, it's definitely one of my favourite things here, although that is no surprise.

5. The Magic Numbers - Gone Are The Days
They still haven't totally won me over, in spite of Forever Lost being so very adorable, and this fits expectations really - almost too sweet for words, though a little forgettable with it.

6. Max Emo Park - Wasteland
Much the same as for The Magic Numbers really. I haven't been persuaded to get their album yet, although Acrobat is fantastic and I quite like the singles, and this is very pleasant and likable but isn't changing my mind on them yet either. The accent is really a fantastic asset especially for some of these lyrics, and it has a great sudden ending though.

7. The Go! Team - Phantom Broadcast
I have to admit to being almost totally unfamiliar with The Go! Team. I really like the sound of this though. True, it doesn't exactly do much, but it does have a fantastic sound! And it onyl lasts 2:30 anyway. So it's fine.

8. Emmanuel Jal - Gua
This is a little bit outside of being the kind of thing that I can comment on with much confidence (not white blokes with guitars, is it?) but for what it's worth I enjoy it. It never goes anywhere near preachiness in making its point, and has really great backing vocals too.

9. Keane & Faultline - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
I don't know the orginal beyond this sounding vaguely familiar (and that's as much because the start sounds like Stars' Set Yourself On Fire as anything) so I can't really say how this compares. It's much better than Keane's cover of With Or Without You though. I don't know what Faultline actually did but the slightly distorted bits may be down to him, as usual it's mainly about that voice though, and even if it's easy to be tired of by now this is very pretty.

10. Kaiser Chiefs - I Heard It Through The Grapevine
Starts off sounding like Seven Nation Army, somehwat unexpectedly, and goes on to be not quite as much of a bad idea as I would have imagined beforehand. Still quite a bad idea though, and that's even as someone who normally really likes them.

11. Bloc Party - The Present
From a band who have released no new B-sides on any formats of any of their three singles this year, it's actually quite surprising to see a song on this as well as a properly new single soon. This is actually miles better than the rather limp Two More Years, building up extremely well and with some really brilliant echoey guitar, plus Kele in emotive but not quite full-on intense mode. Admittedly still not nearly as good as This Modern Love or Blue Light though.

(Part 2 to come tomorrow)

Yay for nice people

and accidently stumbling across their nice blogs while looking for the Clearlake story again.
Added to the links now is NOISE! which is written by someone who generally stands out a mile as the most reasonable person on the DiS messageboards, and also runs Clearlake's site for them which is nice!

'Same with (cough) 'Britpop'. In retrospect, we're told that it was all crap. Nope. Sleeper were. The Bluetones weren't (and aren't).'

I need say no more!!

Something To Look Forward To

Clearlake to release new album 'Amber' in January (finally!) Admittedly the clips of demos that I've heard seemed to be lacking a certain spark of brilliance that made 'Lido' and particularly 'Cedars' so special, but then they were clips. Of demos.

Next year's early release schedule is starting to take shape in general in fact:

• Embrace have written a new album in 9 days, which will be called 'Exploding Machines'. I am imagining at this stage an album full of Near Lifes but that may prove a little optimistic.
• Belle And Sebastian releasing 'The Goalkeeper's Revenge' too. Apparently named after an old book which I may in fact have read, I read too many football books at one stage and they were generally fairly indistinguishable from each other. If their new track on the Help:A Day In The Life album for Warchild (full review here later!) is anything to go by it should be at least as fantastic as 'Dear Catastrophe Waitress'.
• Grandaddy should have a new album ready to go soon, in the mean time they are releasing a mini-album in a few weeks while we wait.
• You never know, The Flaming Lips might actually finish 'At War With The Mystics'. Or, for that matter, their Christmas On Mars film.
• The Strokes are also looking for a January release, and are now slowly dripping news to the overexcited NME.

The Mercury Judges

Probably really really wish that The Arcade Fire were born in Chichester.

Home Fires still burning

It's a decidedly odd thing to watch a guy sit a few feet away from you in a small room and play the song which, more than any other probably, got you really, properly, interested in this whole new music thing in the first place. I had this experience on Wednesday at a gig in Farringdon by Fi-Lo Beddow ('folk-poet and pioneer', says his card), otherwise known as the frontman of The Bluetones Mark Morriss.
In particular it's odd when there are people standing off to the side who have a chance to listen to this amazing, moving piece of music and yet talk constantly, and when even the faithful present (and there still are some!) are much more into the older stuff played. But that's ok, because even half hearing an acoustic Keep The Home Fires Burning felt like a privilege to me. I can still remember the first time that I heard it, watching Top Of The Pops on a tiny old TV, with a couple of dents in the screen, in the corner of the room. And it still sounded almost as amazing as it did to me then, which is as much of a compliment as I could pay it, really.

Everyone Says That Everything Sounds Like Coldplay Now Now

Perhaps it's the same irrational need to defend commercial 'indie' music (after all, it doesn't need defending, it's totally dominant) as described in the post below which prevents me from finding Mitch Benn's 'hilarious' parody Everything Sounds Like Coldplay Now particularly amusing. Or maybe it's just that it isn't good enough to make up for such a completely lazy premise; everyone has already written about the load of new bands like Embrace, Snow Patrol and, according to a particularly chronologically confused New York Times, Travis who have apparently sprung up to replicate Coldplay's sound. Singing a song about this which sounds more accurately like Coldplay than any of them have come close to managing just doesn't seem to work.

On being a hypocritical James

I really can't stand this kind of thing. Something about the way in which it assumes that everyone needs to be saved from their current likes, and switch to the author's, is completely infuriating. Plus it is rather muddled to say the least: 'everybody likes something that is easy to understand – I’m a Hollyoaks fan myself' she says, before going on to criticise the existence of anything easy to understand (which of course the admittedly rather fab Mystery Jets couldn't possibly be!).
To be fair, my stuff on the same site is twenty times worse at least, but still.
The thing is... it's hard to tell how much of this dislike is down to the piece itself or how much of it is down to the fact that I really do like the bands in question. Yes, I like Travis, Embrace, even Keane!None of them are among my favourites, but then Elbow and to a lesser extent Coldplay are and plenty of people look upon both of those in the same way.
The idea of many seems to be that people who like this music either aren't really into music at all (the infamous '5-album a year' types) or are on their way to realising the error of their ways and liking either super-obscure Pitchfork-approved indie or mainstream pop music instead. this is a constant annoyance because it still hasn't happened to me. I wouldn't necessarily mind if it did, but here I am buying more like 50 albums a year, including some pretty obscure stuff, and a fan of Gwen Stefani, Natasha Bedingfield and all to boot, and yet 'pop by numbers' still holds a great appeal.
And what seals the idea that it's only because I disagree that I dislike it so much, and makes me feel vaguely uncomfotable, is that despite being possibly even more shoddy, I can't bring myself to hate this. Because I really really hate James Blunt. And I don't like hating something so seemingly harmless so strongly and irrationally at all, but I can forgive any nonsense in the article just because its main point is against him. Oh well.

Are they the same 563,095 people?

Something statistical from Music Week... amusing coincedence or a band completely unable to sell beyond their long-established fanbase?

'Don't Believe The Truth has sold 563,229 copies in 13 weeks - just 134 copies more than last album Heathen Chemistry sold in its first quarter.'

In other not quite exciting news, the ten-year John Harris anniversary is belatedly marked as Gorillaz' DARE (featuring Damon Albarn on vocals... maybe, it's just about impossible to tell) looks set to knock them off number one. And there looks to be a middling-to-good chance of The Bravery missing the top 40 again.

The Seahorse Boo

Black Nielson have called it a day, sadly before managing to release their third album anywhere nearer than Australia. Also on Drowned in Sound and relating to them, An album review by a much younger me!

Gigs in brief

Hard-Fi: At an incredibly hot and sweaty venue in the middle of nowhere, West London (that's actually the case, unlike for Staines) with the strictest security I've ever seen and huge numbers of their well designed and eye-catching posters around. The cowd was so up for it that they didn't even have to do much, but they played great versions of almost all of their album together with a version of Seven Nation Army only marginally less demented than The Flaming Lips'. Populist banter about working rubbish jobs and going out drinking all weekend ('don't lie! you all do!') was only slightly grating.

Ed Harcourt: In the exceptionally pretty but also too hot Bush Hall, the route to which was largely blocked off due to the previous day's attempted bombing in the area. His determination to play almost entirely new songs, together with some sound problems and bringing on his girlfriend to look at lovingly a lot, made for a set of which enjoyment was limited, although Born In The 70s was a great closer and a couple of the new songs did sound very good.
Fortunately this was largely made up for by brilliant support by Tom McRae in excellent form. An a capella Mermaid Blues was just breathtaking, there was plenty of his usual wit, and an encore of I Ain't Scared Of Lightning was especially moving. Only a lack of variety brought on by playing solo (apart from Ed's attempts at playing piano to Silent Boulevard) and an uninterested crowd spoilt things a little.

Hope Of The States: First gig for ages in the tiny Buffalo Bar, with Battle as able but not brilliant support. Even more chaotic than usual, new songs failed to impress but then intensity and power come out a lot more than the actual songs live anyway, making it a bit hard to judge anything you don't already know beyond the sheer force of it. Enemies/Friends is a truly great singalong closer and Black Dollar Bills is always worth the price of admission alone, in this case not even numerous technical problems adding masses of feedback could do anything but increase its effect. Sam Herlihy's beard isn't such a good idea though; as if he didn't look strange enough already.

Lowgold: In front of the 30 or so people who know that they are still going, supported by highly competent but hard to love Killers-alikes The Basics. In truth a little lacklustre at times; playing a song from Welcome To Winners apart from Famous Last Words was not a good idea and their persistant problems sadly seem to have sapped away at them til they are closer to being as humourless between songs as during them. Still, the aformentioned epic was stunning as ever and Mercury, complete with added guitar-shredding, is a much better song live.

Pitchfork on the ball

Patrick Wolf arrested? You don't say!

Seeing Clor's album reviewed favourably there the other day was a pleasant surprise though, as I had presumed it would be one of the seemingly endless numbers of UK albums to get a 6.1/10 review there 9 months after it's British release. Less pleasing is that it is one of their more irritatingly studied reviews featuring lines like 'first the prechorus, i.e., the four bars that make all the difference. Instead of launching into the refrain, with its one-line hook and beeline chord changes, Clor prime the canvas with a palate-cleansing arpeggiated riff', and a completely bizarre Arcade Fire comparison thrown in for good measure.

'...where we hide all of our feelings'

Two days later I quickly popped into HMV Oxford Street on the way home in time to catch half of Editors' instore set. Truth be told, without that much to look at and a rather small crowd, it was hard not too feel that the melodrama and intensity of their music seemed a little out of place, especially when they started with least brilliant single yet Blood first. Incredibly brilliant album track Camera, which restrains their usual explosive pay-offs for over five minutes of slowly creeping atmospherics, and previous single Munich just about made the trip worthwhile. That and buying the version of the single with Elbow produced B-side Let Your Good Heart Lead You Home which adds extra warmth and texture to their usually stark sound with very impressive results.

Since then, their album The Back Room has been released, which although slightly underwhelming after the perfect first two singles is really very good. It sticks far more rigidly to a single sound (Interpol with a couple of the edges removed, added beauty and better lyrics, basically) than anything as good as it is ought to, but they actually use it well to their advantage as the minute changes they do make on each song have more of an impact. Fingers In The Factory, the aforementioned Camera and gentle, dreamy album closer Distance are the most impressive.

Bright Eyes - 11/07/05 - Somerset House

Time to catch up on some gigs I've been to in the past month:

Somerset House, or more accurately the courtyard in the centre of it, as a gig venue is really pretty, and was even more so with a lot of pink clouds in the sunset. The Faint were less so and seemed almost entirely uninspiring but couldn't really be begrudged their place as some of them were in the band for our hero Conor:



…well, something like that. After an onscreen countdown in fast-forward (we got several more of those rather well executed during instrumental build-ups in a few songs) he came on a short while before it got dark, and to a place which was still half empty, possibly due to the attacks a few days previously but more likely because he isn't that well known here yet.

Indeed, the crowd actually seemed to dwindle throughout, probably due to the fact that he only played one song from accessible indie-country I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning (the rapturously received acoustic and very pretty First Day Of My Life) and 11 from glitchy, claustrophobic, Digital Ash In A Digital Urn.

It didn't feel like he was wilfully ignoring what the people wanted at the expense of a show though, because the live versions of those already great songs were a revelation, the 10-piece band seeming unnecessary at first but soon bringing out an extra energy and grace to some which is often not their in their comparatively awkward album forms. Every song worked, but Down In A Rabbit Hole, Arc Of Time and a furious version of Easy/Lucky/Free to close were particularly extraordinary, and we were treated to a great version of older song Lover I Don't Have To Love too, fitting in well enough to show that the idea that this album is a sidetrack from his real direction is an oversimplification.

Finally something which I thought about as a result of Tom's article on FreakyTrigger, criticising the playing of Sigur Ros and Bright Eyes on 6Music after the two minutes silence. It might easily have been thought that an album full of fear, dread and confrontation of death would have fitted the mood at the time, but it was apparent pretty soon that this wasn't the case, and I think that this is because pretty much all Bright Eyes songs are essentially, whatever else is involved, about Conor and the myth/reality/whatever of how fucked up he is. To enjoy his music is to accept this, and if anything it worked better as escapism, going to a place where all your problems are caused and magnified by yourself.

Hm, different from what I expected

Not sure yet.

Ah, statistics

Study shows that people who download music illegally 'spend more on music', apparently.

As much as I believe that that might actually be true, and think that suing people (and especially stupid copy protection) isn't the way to go, this says nothing of the sort in reality. What this actually shows is that people who illegally aquire mp3s and therefore are almost certainly inclined towards listening to music on their computer/digital music player are more likely to also pay for music online, which is hardly that shocking a revelation. No mention is made of how much anyone is spending on music in total, despite online spending still being relatively minor compared to that on CDs.

Whalesong Ja Bitte

Sigur Ros have just announced another a European tour for November (a couple of months after new album Takk..., or Thanks... in English, is released) including the surprisingly large likes of Brixton Academy. Having missed their Somerset House show, I'll be there. Unless the new album is all (6)s or something.

...strange

Patrick Wolf arrested for burglary from his neighbour. NME story involving many comparisons and mentions of The Libertine surely forthcoming.

(thanks to xrrf for alerting me to this)

Nominations day!

Apologies for the slowness around here at the moment, but I am doing a proper job (ish) now! And I still haven't worked out how to post here from any other computer.

Anyway, so this year's Mercury nominations seem to be a big step forward from last year's overly obvious ones (Snow Patrol and Keane surely weren't both necessary for a start, plus they went and nominated fucking Joss Stone) although I'm struggling to find an album on the list that I can really hope for to win at the moment: Silent Alarm is definitely my favourite but has been so widely hyped already to moderate success that it's difficult to see winning doing too much good for them. A quick look at all the nominees:

Antony And The Johnsons – I Am A Bird Now: I had no idea that he was in any way British! Hope There's Someone I liked despite it seeming, well, a bit over-laboured, it hasn't got me to actually bother checking out the album yet though. It took me a while to get over the idea that I couldn't possibly like The Arcade Fire because so many annoying people did though to be fair that was before having been able to hear them at all.

Bloc Party – Silent Alarm: Not quite consistently fantastic but very nearly, my favourite by some way from this list. Like Eating Glass is one of the most intense and amazing songs of the year for sure. That all doesn't excuse releasing so many singles with such lazy non-B-sides though.

Hard-Fi – Stars Of CCTV: Occasionally a little clumsy in lyrics particularly, but when the alternative is Kasabian's say-nothing attempts at attitude, and when they have a lot of great songs to back it up with it doesn't seem too bad. The longer they leave it before the inevitable rerelease of Cash Machine the more wrong it's going to sound.

Kaiser Chiefs – Employment: Fantastic pop album, almost every track a joy from start to finish; only Dogs Die In Hot Cars and The Coral have managed this kind of thing better on recent debuts.

MIA – Arular: Hyped like anything but selling almost nothing, I have to admit to not hearing anything outside of the Glastonbury coverage on TV, that seemed promising though. I wonder if anyone is thinking 'I didn't realise that she'd done anything since Lady Marmalade'?

The Magic Numbers – The Magic Numbers: Forever Lost has crept up on me and is now sounding utterly gorgeous, they seemed a little boring when I saw them live though so haven't got the album yet.

Coldplay – X&Y: All of their albums have been nominated now which is surely unnecesary. This one could be their grand achievement if it wasn't for the lyrics.

The Go! Team – Thunder, Lightning Strike: I really liked the single which, erm, I can't remember the name of anymore. Oops.

KT Tunstall – Eye To The Telescope: Would rather have seen Jem here, her album is at least brilliant and more interesting in places.

Maximo Park – A Certain Trigger: A few great singles and the outrageously brilliant Acrobat aside, isn't especially thrilling.

Seth Lakeman – Kitty Jay
Polar Bear – Held On The Tips Of Fingers: I haven't heard of either of these previously, as Polar Bear apparently aren't the same band who forced Snow Patrol to change their name from Polar Bear years ago.

Just as importantly (well ok then, more), the Popjustice Twenty Quid Music Prize!! Which has an equally quite good line-up, despite the shocking absence of Natasha Bedingfield's amazing These Words (and they nominated Daniel a couple of years ago!).

Basement Jaxx - Oh My Gosh: Instant, funny, cute... a great single indeed.

Charlotte Church - Crazy Chick: Growing on me, but still not seeming all that fantastic. One of her best by far though apparently.

The 411 - Dumb: Stylish, but a little dull, and their first single was much better although having said that I now can't even seem to remember the name of it.

Girls Aloud - Wake Me Up: Ah, those metallic swooshes in the chorus are glorious... I'm yet to be fully converted to believing in their all-out brilliance but they're clearly a step ahead of most and this is a pretty good example of it. Even their new single which sounded depressingly non-descript at first actually sounded good on CD:UK this morning.

Goldfrapp - Ooh La La: Talent In A Previous Life notes the similarity of this to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Presuming that they are also thinking of the bassline to Spread Your Love, that was stolen from Spirit In The Sky in the first place anyway though. To be honest I haven't heard it enough to really judge it but it sounds promising. Oh and if you're thinking that it hasn't been released yet, Mr. PJ himself shows up on the comments thread over at Sweeping The Nation to explain that this is included on the basis that it has been released online already.

Kaiser Chiefs - Every Day I Love You Less And Less: Their finest moment to date, and it fits the list much better than Keane did last year. Always good to see an acknowledgement that, while white boys with guitars who play their own instruments etc etc aren't the be all and end all of music, it doesn't actually make them all crap by default, too.

Mylo - In My Arms: Appreciation of this was slightly scuppered by being fed up with the sample already, nicely done stuff anyway though (as opposed to the other efforts).

Rachel Stevens - Negotiate With Love: She doesn't quite have the necessary attitude to make it as perfect as it could be but the chorus is brilliant enough for it not to matter too much.

Shapeshifters - Lola's Theme: I thought that this was too long ago but I guess not quite... so uplifting and enjoyable that they tried to release it again with a different title not so long ago.

Uniting Nations - Out Of Touch: A little far outside the range of styles I can find appreciation for generally (yeah, I can't help it), incredibly catchy though I suppose.

Verbalicious - Don't Play Nice: The only one to which my response was 'huh?'. Seemed to be on the boundary between unremarkable and annoying the few times I have heard it.

Robbie Williams - Radio: His best single ever by quite some distance! Unexpected, twisted, unique and yet very catchy, it didn't matter that he chose to sing total nonsense over it. In fact, that might have been a good thing.

Well, I'm not disappointed

I was expecting the new Sunday Top Of The Pops to continue down the path of being not that great and there it went.
Fearne Cotton's overenthusiasm for everything continues to be a little grating, and Reggie Yates, who was finally doing a decent job, has been got rid of, to be replaced this week by an awkward Phill Jupitas, and next week by Jeremy Clarkson. I know that they're trying to bring the dads in but for all his skills it's hard to imagine him not being even more awkward. If it means archive an performance of Barclay James Harvest I'll be satisfied though.
The scheduled extra 5 minutes (although it appeared to be 10 in reality) have made room to have two archive performances as well as the usual 6 current ones which is fair enough I guess; this week it was Madness and Take That, introduced in a standard mocking manner. The captions from TOTP2 were kind of used, although much more briefly in each song.
No idea who the man reading the album and singles charts was, but he sounded incredibly bored, despite them being so brand! new! hot!.
Hayseed Dixie were the most puzzling band there. There is a medley of bluegrass Radiohead covers by a band calling themselves Rodeohead going around the internet which is pretty amusing, but this is based largely on a realisation that any song being played in an unusual style is only funny for a minute or so at most if that's it's only appeal. They throw almost everchanging songs and bits of songs at you, making for a lot of sudden happy recognitions, whereas Hayseed Dixie just covered Roses in its entirety. And somehow managed to even suck the life out of the 'crash, crash, crash into a ditch bit.' It's difficult to see how they're meant to appeal to a wide audience.
We had Charlotte Church and, erm, Bananarama and Inaya Day's Prince cover to represent great modern music at least. Oh and Ben Moody with Anastacia playing Amy Lee. Yeesh.
Being able to present the new number one while people are still interested on a Sunday is probably the only particular positive change in the move, which made it a bit of a shame for them that it was a song that everyone must have heard by now. Yes, James Blunt has reached number one after seven weeks. Let us rejoice as proper music in all it's inferior Damien Rice radio-edit glory has finally triumphed against the will of the man!

Clever? Lazy?

I presumed that Pitchfork were joking when they said that Franz Ferdinand's new album was going to be self titled and feature the same cover as their debut in a different colour, but more widespread reports of the same suggest that either it's true or they're taking everyone for a ride. Presumably it would end up being referred to as 2 or something? Or just being ignored perhaps.

Ah, someone's spotted a market

A 8/10 review on Planet Sound this morning has alerted me to the fact that Rough Trade are going to follow their UK release of The Arcade Fire's album and EP with a release of The Decemberists' rather excellent Picaresque, only 4 months after its North American release. Although as is common with these thanks to exchange rates, it was actually cheaper to import it back then.

Vibe Watch 3

"I don't think music purchased by the under 16's should influence the charts. Let's have some decent music!" Helen

Ah, this old classic. Obviously it's the fault of the under 16's that Elton John and James Blunt are fighting it out for number one this week.


"Stop going on about rock! It's just noise compared to R'n'B. If rock stars are so talented then why can't they afford designer gear?" Chan, Middlesex

Sadly this is probably a deliberate troll, but still, BEST ARGUMENT EVER.

iPod! iPod! iPod!!

Yesterday's Metro featured a comically stupid article about iPod sales reaching 10 million. In it they claimed that it had revolutionised the way in which people listen to music, and that it has a virtual monopoly (which indeed it does, though not in the sense of almost having a monopoly but that of appearing to have a monopoly in the media). Finally, and most brilliantly, they suggested that this monopoly was going to be challenged by Sony when they release their Playstation Portable, that new extension of their well known digital music player. Maybe it's going to be white?

The bar is raised higher (or should that be lower?)

Forget Interpol's top-40-missing rerelease of Slow Hands or Kaiser Chiefs' forthcoming pointless I Predict A Riot return, the most rubbish indie single rerelease crown has been taken by far as news comes through that Long-view are going to release Further again.

This was the band's debut single in mid-2002 when they were called Longview and seemed at least vaguely exciting to someone who thought that a band sounding like an inferior version of Elbow was exciting. It was rereleased (complete with Elbow remix, heh) around a year later ahead of their (terrible, overproduced, nothing compared to their live show) debut album Mercury and made the top 40. Fair enough.
But here we are 2 years and 2 new singles more later and they are shoving out a barely distinguishable remix of it again. Can anyone possibly still care? What the fuck is the point?

At least Heather Small has some small excuse...

Leaders Of The Free World

It doesn't seem just two days ago now that I was watching a DVD version of Elbow's new album for the first time on a big screen at the NFT, but even so I suppose I should still comment on it.
They were funny and likable as ever in the discussion afterwards, and Phill Jupitas was an OK if overly controlling host. The Soup Collective, the people who do their visuals, were clearly nervous and unused to talking in public but managed to not drag things down too much anyway.

Onto the actual album (although we didn't get all of it, quite); it seemed to involve extremes of sound more than previously, with almost all of it either loud, dark and sinister or bare and beautiful. It's difficult to say a whole lot more than that it was neither exceptional nor disappointing on first listen, especially with the (generally excellent) videos and other studio clips to distract, but a couple of songs did already sound amazing. Now there's a two-month wait to find out if it will live up to expactions on fuller listening.

we can wipe you out anytime

Coming home to London this evening (I got on a train out for work at 8 yesterday morning and hadn't been able to get home since) I put on some music to listen to as ever. Just because I'd happened to pick it up two days earlier and it would fit the time the train journey was going to take, this was my choice:



I didn't really think about it but by the second songs I realised that it fitted my increasing unhelpful feelings of fear and paranoia all too well, and only seemed to do more so as the journey progressed towards King's Cross. I considered switching it off a few times but I don't ever like to listen to incomplete albums (rockist alert) so I didn't, never mind my feelings of strangeness and discomoft. And when it finished and all I had in its place was silence and extended safety announcements warning against looking after other people's possessions I just felt even worse, more so than at any point in the last couple of days so far.
I feel much better and reassured now I'm actually home but think I'll go for some happier music tonight.

Apparently some kind of political gig thing happened at the weekend

but as I'm tired after starting work and people more knowledgable/funny have given their opinions at great length elsewhere (try the links from here) I'll spare you my long opinions on it. I'll just say that watching most of it on a big screen in Hyde Park was rather fun even if we were watching the same BBC coverage as everyone else (some of those interviews were a bit icky.)

Highlights were surprisingly U2, a little less surprisingly Robbie Williams (as he thankfully didn't play Rock DJ) and even less surprisingly R.E.M. and Pink Floyd, with the moment when we had to miss half of Man On The Moon to hear Razorlight being interviewed the most infuriating of the day by far.

Buddha with mace

The new Elbow single was played on radio 1 just now and was really catchy and happy and sounds like I may love it soon enough (although I am biased towards it what with them having been my favourite band for ages and all. Yes I know.). Presumably it was formally known as Buddha With Mace before becoming Forget Myself, and was enthusiastically reviewed on PS a while back

Mind you though, they could be a bit buggered if Doves make the obvious choice of Almost Forgot Myself as their next single, it's not like everyone can tell the difference as it is.

Review of Coldplay's gig

See comments on Glastonbury show.

(Well ok, they didn't play Can't Get You Out Of My Head.)
(And didn't fuck up Fix You quite as badly.)
(And the addition of 'we're really going to miss Countdown' to Everything's Not Lost was sweet.)
(Great to actually be there too of course.)

I'm still glad that I didn't go to both though.

Morning Runner did incredibly well as support considering the awful sound that they had, still hard to see them possibly being a success though, even if they were hot.

GlastonBBC (day 3)

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They wish!

The NME appear to have an interesting definition of headlining.

Their emphasis of the fact that many (ie 2) of the bands that Michael Eavis has named 'starred on this year's NME Awards tour' is bad enough, but it's followed by this piece of fantasy:

'Glastonbury 2005 has seen headlining performances from The White Stripes, Razorlight, Babyshambles'

Yes, Babyshambles were the real headliners, nevermind those three nobodies who played after them.

Vibe Watch 2

"The Skye music festival was awesome! Mylo was amazing live. He played guitar, bass and keyboards! I thought he was just a rip-off remixer." GL

GlastonBBC (day 2)

• 3:01 BBC2 have I Predict A Riot as their theme music. Lets hope that it's not accurate, huh? Lauren Laverne and Vernon Kaye hand over to Phill Jupitas hyping up Kaiser Chiefs at the Other Stage, although only after telling us that we'll get highlights from yesterday, so must be Somebody Told Me soon.
• 3:03 Na Na Na Na Naa sounds strangely clipped and ragged but enjoyable. They are playing in front of a banner saying 'Everything is Brilliant at Glastonbury' Their drummer appears to do much of the singing so that Ricky can concentrate on jumping around.
• 3:07 It's followed by Saturday Night with faltering voices already. Not sure about the red sunglasses either, but they are obviously having great fun and it's going down well. Actually, the glasses are very Gruff Rhys.
• 3:10 The crowd is surveyed from up close. Everyday I Love You Less And Less makes for instant clapping the beat. The intro stops after a couple of bars and a gap is made for the crowd to get even more worked up.
• 3:15 Away from them to the Kids' field. 'Children are the future!' The sound sculpture (ie lots of drums to make noise with) looks like great fun.
• 3:17 KT Tunstall less so.
• 3:20 'This is The Killers kicking some serious butt!' Yes, it's Somebody Told Me.
• 3:25 Discussion of Coldplay and the same hype from yesterday.
• 3:29 Apparently cover versions have been a theme of the festival so far. I don't remember hearing any.
• 3:30 Oh, apart from the one they're repeating now, The White Stripes doing I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself with the requisite intensity and Jack looking somewhat evil. Fail to see if The Guardian's claims that even Meg's knickers were red are true.
• 3:34 Kaiser Chiefs (who seem to avoid being The Kaiser Chiefs) were it, according to Vernon. I Predict A Riot features ricky running around hitting things. He then goes crowdsurfing, leaving the actually rather capable drummer on vocals for the end of the song.
• 3:39 A helicopter view of the other stage, with a huge puddle of water which a few people are walking across. The place is drying out though apparently. Mark Radcliffe is charmingly giving an overview of what everything is. We go to Athlete with Half Light, which sounds more than ever like it's being sung backwards.
• 3:43 Everyone is clapping with arms over heads. The song seems infinitely more charming somehow.
• 3:45 'We're going to play a few old songs, is that ok?' Unfortunately it's El Salvador and sounds painfully feeble. The fact that they've become so much more successful with their second album almost seems to be fair for a short while.
• 3:48 Lauren introduces what sounds like 'the brilliant Nouvelle Varg!' in the studio garden, a couple of guys in hats and two women. One starts singing in a rather wispy and pretty way over acoustic backing.
• 3:49 It's Love Will Tear Us Apart! Surely there should be a ban on covers of this soon, but this has to be one of the best and is really rather affecting.
• 3:51 The other woman starts singing in a high-pitched and even more wispy way and it all becomes too much. Oh well.
• 3:53 After a brief Mark Radcliffe in helicopter interlude (1/3 of the Other Stage field underwater!), it's back to Kaiser Chiefs for Oh My God. Coverage seems to be going better than anything yesterday by some distance.
• 3:54 There's a man in a red and yellow shirt who was in loads of crowd shots yesterday too! Unless it's someone else in the same shirt maybe.
• 3:55 Ricky drags a huge inflatable dinosaur offstage and into the crowd and shakes many hands (including the aforementioned red and yellow shirt guy.
• 3:58 Finish with a montage of the festival so far soundtracked by Doves, as everything seems to be these days. Surprisingly it's not Snowden.

• 7:00 The start of the evening's coverage is missed as in all of my dedication to Glastonbury I am watching the end of the tennis instead. Occasional flicking suggests that this means missing Echo And The Bunnymen doing a couple of songs, an interview with Razorlight, or at least as much as anything not including Johnny Borrell could be called that, The Coral doing Dreaming Of You and repeats of Kaiser Chiefs' hits from earlier. Their wellies/jeans combo seems more noticable this time for some reason. Keane play a couple of songs in front of a rather intricate backdrop drawing as well, with Tom sweaty and slurring words.
• 7:38 Inevitable defeat for Murray comes just in time to get Briggie Smales' Glastonbury gossip of the day, which includes the same story about The Killers leaving their bassist in a service station as was mentioned yesterday and something about the inflatable dinosaur which Kaiser Chiefs gave to the crowd, which has already been shown happening. Twice.
• 7:45 We go over for Everybody's Changing which is pleasant.
• 7:49 Kasabian are interviews and are as modest as ever. They plan to offer '2 hours of carnage' and 'no gimmicks man, no U2' encouraging Colin to take the piss out of Live 8. They are one of the most important bands in the world, because Arnie works out to them.
• 7:52 'Fuck Roy Keane, we're taking that chant today!' Tom from Keane trying to jolly along the audience is a bit painful at the best of times, although after Snowed Under when making a speech about how happy they are to be there he seems to have very slightly improved on the ultra cheesiness of V last year. Tim has cut his hair much shorter but still waggles his legs around stupidly while playing keyboards. They play Somewhere Only We Know and everyone sings along, although it doesn't sound especially glorious. Perhaps they are a little too good at replicating their records on stage.
• 8:00 'Just an hour into BBC3's coverage and already we have moments like that!' Colin enthuses. Great. Edith has gone off to watch Keane apparently but manages to make it back before the end of the link.
• 8:03 After the news, Colin has the 3D glasses on again, which are wearing a little thin. We go back to Keane for This Is The Last Time. Tom is still thanking the crowd too much and saying that the experience is 'ridiculous'. Bedshaped to finish which does just about nothing for me, perhaps it's just because of overplaying. Before leaving he slightly ruefully tells the crowd to 'enjoy New Order and that other band playing after them'.
• 8:13 Gorgeous George Galloway is interviewed and tells us that he's speaking twice at the festival. He is most looking forward to seeing The Proclaimers, because they sing in their own accents, unlike anyone else here of course.
• 8:17 Over to Interpol, and some buzzing and knob-twiddling which eventually turns into Not Even Jail. They are all very dressed up although not matching. Carlos' black shirt and red armband combo is ever-so-slightly questionable. There seem to be almost no flags in the audience, everyone with them perhaps already over at the Pyramid Stage.
• 8:23 It's Gwyneth! The camera watches her at the side of the stage for about ten seconds before she realises and tries ineffectually to hide. Interpol are sounding great and treat us to Obstacle 1 and Evil, complete with slightly unnecessary closing drum solo, finishing with PDA.
• 8:35 A slightly bedraggled David Tennant talks enthusiastically about The Undertones and Elvis Costello (with Colin still making fun of how long he played for as he did yesterday), before telling us that he's off to The Proclaimers too (cue much singing of 500 Miles again).
• 8:39 They have coverage from the Jazzworld stage! Amazing. Although nothing from the John Peel tent today, and it is someone from a well known band (Roisin Murphy). Well, at least it isn't Joss Stone, and she looks and sounds pretty fine. We get several songs uninterrupted, pleasingly.
• 8:56 We go to New Order right at the start of their set. They're having technical difficulties. They eventually begin with Crystal which sounds ok but a bit clumsy.
• 9:06 After a break for the news: 'live as you could possibly be!' is fast becoming even more annoying than the slug ident (whose presumed purpose of reminding us that we're on BBC3 is already fulfilled by sticking the channel name in the corner of the screen at all time)
• 9:18 We've had a few more New Order songs, through to Krafty. Someone in the crowd is holding a sign saying 'TOTALLY RANDOM BANNER'. Oh, how random and zany and wacky they must be!! The line 'this is where I wanna be and this is what I wanna do' delivered with great passion is the first great moment of their set. They tell us that they are going to 'go back 25 years to a song we wrote with our old group', which is a slightly awkward phrasing seemingly to claim it more as theirs. It's Transmission. Hooky has his legs planted wide apart like Status Quo or someone, Bernard shouts 'YEAH!' a lot.
• 9:25 Back to the studio for a big build-up to an incredibly dramatic, awe-inspiring moment. 'For only the second time ever as himself... it's Leigh Francis!!' Amazing.
• 9:27 The constant building up of Kasabian's set is getting a bit annoying. It's going to be one of the best of the weekend for sure!!! It will be the standard that other bands have to live up to! They come on to along an atmospheric buildup to ID.'
• 9:28 "GLASTONBRIAAAARGH!""
• 9:29 A large number of people in the crowd appear to still be wearing 3D glasses.
• 9:33 "OK you motherfuckers!" Kasabian's absolute determination to have an attitude is rather hilarious. Cutt Off is actually really good though, and live their stuff seems to feel a lot more natural and less gimmicky. Perhaps not the best of the weekend but enjoyable.
• 9:38 A grumpy-looking and drunk Ian McCullogh refuses to watch himself and goes to talk about football instead. We get The Cutter and then go back to Kasabian.
• 10:00 We're going to get some 'wholesome headliners' later. Well, Razorlight have never been that shocking...
• 10:04 New Order have Keith Allen come onstage. On a pantomine horse. And play World In Motion.
• 10:07 'INGERLUND!''Ah football, just the thing to get the Glastonbury crowd going as proved last year. It suits them much better than the Joy Division songs though to be honest and looks such ridiculous fun (especially once we get to the rap) that it's the most so far that I've wished I was there.
• 10:10 Colin assures us that he's got the setlist and even though they've gone offstage the set isn't really over, so we watch the empty stage for a while.
• 10:13 It is really over. They didn't play Blue Monday!
• 10:14 Back over at Kasabian... 'this is your bit! Fuck Paul McCartney!' they seem a little confused as to who is headlining this year.
• 10:31 Kasabian have finished, after an enthusiastic encore. That was 'the performance of the weekend!' and 'as live as it could possibly be!' of course. Roisin Murphy, somewhat dressed down compared to earlier, is interviewed and more of her songs shown.
• 10:36 On BBC2 New Order are playing Love Will Tear Us Apart complete with 'YEAH!'s, 'RRRRRRRRRAH!'s and 'COME ON!'s. It's rather embarrasing, and Nouvelle Vague did a better job earlier frankly.
• 10:40 New Order on both channels, but both are songs not shown yet.
• 10:43 Phill Jupitas apparently didn't realise that New Order played Joy Division songs live now. Where has he been? He gets interrupted by some real live members of the British Public, then passes over to Lauren Laverne who is live in front of the Other Stage where Kasabian are just starting to play Club Foot. Hang on a minute...
• 10:46 New Order are joined by Ana Matronic in a pick robe for the not-quite-irretrievably rubbish Jetstream.
• 10:54 Turn over to BBC2 midway through Coldplay's first song. Oops. Stay with the rest of the coverage without keeping track of things for here because, well, it's Coldplay. And the BBC's coverage has at times made the rest of Glastonbury seem like just a sideshow to The Biggest Band In The World™ anyway.

They are wearing their new uniform of all wearing black apart from white trainers and look reasonable, Chris' hair is a bit of a mess though. The camera angle makes him look particularly bad when he screws his eyes up towards the end as well. They play almost all the best songs from X&Y and a good choice of older ones too, although I could have done without Warning Sign and Trouble or Shiver would have been perfect.

Politik sees the first (and best) lyrics change, to ''Give me weather which doesn't harm, Michael Eavis on Worthy Farm, give me mud up to my knees'' and its climax is totally breathtaking. A hint of their supposed adoration of Kraftwerk is maybe shown in White Shadows' ''zwei, drei, fier!'' intro, which if I remember my German rightly is better than U2's Spanish counting. The only slight weakness in the main part of their set is the reliance on an ambient synth wash over everything which gets rather annoying. A switch over to BBC3 between songs is handled deftly, and the only part of their set not shown is the first half of Swallowed In The Sea, lost to the news. This is probably a good thing for Coldplay as it stops the TV audience being put off their new album by such amazing lines as 'you cut me down a tree and brought it back to me and that's what made me see where I was going wrong'. Speed Of Sound doesn't feature Chris' Crazy Frog impression now but does have a glorious shout of 'Crazy Frog where are you now??' in the middle. He does a lot of gazing skywards throughout which doesn't quite seem right.

Acoustic versions of Til Kingdom Come and Don't Panic are lovely, and Chris makes an effort to give some attention to Guy, Will and Jonny. Well, mainly Jonny, but he does love him. They play a version of Kylie's Can't Get You Out Of My Head which surprisingly manages to simultaneously sound like rather a faithful cover and a new Coldplay song. Unfortunately Chris' intro manages to emphasise the having a laugh element of this rather than the paying tribute to someone who can't be there aspect. 'We heard that Kylie was going to be headlining but now she's got... her thing'.

Fix You is a closer that almost anyone would wish to have, and the light show for it is amazing, even right up to having some half-arsed fireworks near the end. Sadly Chris chooses to go for silly lyrics instead of the actual emotive climax and turns a perfect moment into a damp squib of an ending. Oh well. It's still charmingly nice when they come out and bow afterwards.