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NOW

Seriously?

The last seven days have played host to a slow drip of music news but at least Weezer have given the world an appropriate image to cap off the week. By 'appropriate', I mean an album cover that operates in a constant state of flux between God awful or Hail Mary genius. Raditude is due October 26 from Geffen, maybe by that date I'll have settled on one of the above options.

Twitter Controversy Of The Day

Deputy News Editor at Heat Layar Atkinson posts the following:

• Preston - in at, er, number 128. MASSIVE SADFACE.about 10 hours ago from web

Preston replies with the following:

• Why am I such a massive failure?

Your record label may have deleted the above Samuel but don't worry I'll take this one.

1. In terms of trendy viruses to catch you are SARS, La Roux is Swine Flu
2. You've conducted all your PR in an embarassingly apologetic manner
3. Dressed To Kill was sounexpectedly good I think the world is still coming to terms with it.

On the brightside you should be number one by May 2011...

What the Speech Debelle!

You've got to hand it to the Mercurys, for what they lack in consistency they make up in shock factor. Though by the time the night came round Speech Debelle was the bookies third favourite, only a handful of (one suspects now smug) pundits had given the south London rapper half a shot in hell.

Was it the correct choice? In light of a flat shortlist lacking a true standout nomination, it wasn't a disappointing one. The Kasabian, Horrors, La Roux and Florence records were all different enough to justify their inclusion but too weak to righteously claim the award. Friendly Fires, Bat For Lashes and Glasvegas each made a compelling case but none were in desperate need of a leg up into the public's consciousness.

Speech Therapy was a unique album made by an artist who ticked all the right boxes. It certainly wasn't the best LP produced by a British artist in the last twelve months but then again when has the Mercury Prize ever just been about fulfilling such a basic mandate. Next year's chosen few should already prove a more competitive bunch with The Big Pink, Arctic Monkeys, XX and Noah and the Whale having already thrown their hats into the ring at this early stage.

Pick Your Favourite: Gigorama / Concertathon / Tourettes Syndrome

Typically with tour announcements your first instinct is your best. If you originally reacted to the news of a new Gossip gig with the thought, "Twenty quid to hear Standing In the Way Of Control? No thanks!" Chances are that opinion isn't going to change anytime soon. If your faith wavers however, you can always refer to the trusty guide below.

The Horrors ( 3-20 December): Possible Mercury winners come this evening. Should sound better indoors than through the meat shredder of a Festival Republic PA system.

Doves (December 18th - Manchester Central): I saw Doves live at the Poole Lighthouse once. The best bit was when then went off for the encore and rolled a VT which showed them pop in taxi off down the pub. A mosh pit to Black And White Town consisting entirely of balding middle aged men was also fun.

The Gossip (28-30 November): Refer to the intro...

Marilyn Manson (9-17 December): Was once known as the 'God of Fuck', a phrase that can now inevitably be twisted into the casual dismissal "Gawd I wish he'd fuck off".

Florence And The Machine (6-13 December): An enigmatic performer with a sketchy debut to work with but could choose worse.

Seasick Steve (2-17 September): Not a draw that's likely to add anything new to his Sothern Hobo schtick if you've heard it before. Still if you haven't, there are few more cheery ways to while away an evening.

Arctic Monkeys (13-26 November): A pickle. On the one hand Alex Turner has all the personality of a cardboard cut-out of Lezo from Newsround. On the other, his band have more than their fair share of tunes to compensate.

5 Reasons To Be Cheerful

Another day, another legacy ritually dephiled, this time in the centre of attention stand John 'Country Life Butter' Lydon's post-punk pioneers Public Image Ltd minus classic members Keith Levene and Jah Wobble on guitar and bass. Nothing much to add to this one bar the further shame it places on Lydon over this perhaps forgotten incident. Instead I've composed a list of reasons to remain blissfully cheerful this Monday evening in spite of any evidence to the contrary.

1. Ignore The Ignorant is out today

3 Jarmen + 1 Marr-man = 1 great record regardless of basic numeracy

2. Mercury Music Prize announced on Tuesday

Never predictable, always a sure-fire source of pub banter.

3. Songs That Remind Me Of You - Annie

An artist endorsed by both Pitchfork and Popjustice?!? Somewhere in a parallel universe, The Twang are still terrible.


4. The Spotify app got approved for the iPhone

Pay £10 a month for an unlimited library of portable music plus none of those pesky adverts. Bargain no?

5. The UK can once again watch music videos on Youtube

An undisclosed lump sum payment backdated to January 2009 and lasting until 2012 means that 60000 hard working artists get a well deserved payday.

The Beatles For Sale

As is only customary in the run up to the release of literally any 'new' Beatles material the media world has once again kicked itself into a frenzy. That the releases in question are simply remasters of previously available LPs does somewhat beggar belief at the level of hysteria surrounding them. "Sure I Wanna Hold Your Hand is great song but I wish those claps were available in Dolby Surround Sound" is a thought that has rarely crossed my mind.

Never a corporation to miss out on a line-up of lifeless Saturday night programming however, the Beeb coordinated a somewhat less than holy trilogy of Timewatch: Beatlemania, The Beatles on Record and The Beatles: The First US Visit in anticipation. Timewatch was the rough diamond in the crown, a decent documentary on their early rise up to their departure from touring that suffered from a lack of heavyweight collaborators.

On Record and The First US Visit let the side down drastically though due the typical Apple Corps reverence of any artefact to emerge from The Beatles cannon. Cue as equal significance handed to Yellow Submarine as Revolver and endless shots of Ringo smoking in favour of a simple narrative. It's unlikely that the same liberal handedness would be given by BBC execs to any other band which is a shame considering they've previously upheld a high standard of musical programming from the Seven Ages of Rock to Blondie: One Way or Another.

Fanboy Dilemma no.2

The Scenario:
Proto-punk band The Stooges reform in 2003 with The Stooges / Fun House era line up bar long deceased bassist Dave Alexander. Band finally gets a pay day almost forty years after their acrimonious and short lived original career. In 2009 guitarist Ron Asheton dies of a heart attack - the group describe his loss as "irreplaceable". Several months later the band is reformed with Raw Power era guitarist James Anderson on shredding duties and the rest of the line up intact.

The Problem:
Front man Iggy Pop states "although 'the Stooges' died with Ron Asheton, there is still 'Iggy and the Stooges'. However, this comment implies both bands were separate entities entirely when in fact what happened was for the 'new' incarnation Ron Asheton was relegated to bass at the whim of Iggy.

Most importantly, although all songs on the Raw Power album were credited to the Pop/Anderson partnership according to Williamson the band have been rehearsing "songs from Raw Power, The Stooges, Fun House and Kill City". All in all it seems The Stooges have moved on at rapid pace whilst the older of the Asheton is still warm in his grave

The Verdict:
Admittedly Iggy Pop has the right to what he wants with The Stooges, afterall he was the spearhead of the group and has the song writing credits to the entirety of their catalogue. Despite the formalities though, this fresh reunion snags on its motives. The ATP Don't Look Back shows in August will undoubtedly be a riot but are most likely designed as a springboard from which Iggy and The Stooges can rake in a whole lot more cash for their efforts. Cash which they were almost denied by the untimely death of one of their former bandmates.

Make Of This What You Will...

Either it's the sight of an icon being dephiled by exactly the corporate sloganeering he stood so strongly against or it's the tinderstick to a bonfire of self righteous fanboy anger. Personally I'll probably camp out in the former's company but hey, Courtney Love needs to pay her bills somehow right? *ducks for cover*

Popstars Rise / Popstars Fall

You've got to feel a tad sorry for the Sugababes. Overtaken by Girls Aloud as Britians best loved girl band. An assortment of The Saturdays, Mini Viva and Dolly Rockers eagerly snapping at their heels. Their ship was truly on course for numerous T4 guest presenter slots and exclusive 2CR fm sessions. That was until Get Sexy, a song that literally has 'club anthem first single to be followed up with sickly sweet ballad' written all over it. Still it was better than good, it was certainly better than Holiday. All was fantastic again...



... until Jay Z decided crash the party by releasing Run This Town feat. Rihanna & Kanye West the same week. Despite the fact Run This Town is less than the sum of it's parts, i.e. multi-platinum megastars who happen to make good music as well, in terms of the competition for their seventh UK no.1 single the Sugababes were to put it bluntly FUCKED. A fact reflected in the mid week charts which also see Dizzee slip down to fourth behind David Guetta.



So to conclude, what Island Records really should have done is delay the entire Sweet 7 campaign until the due date of Robbie William's Bodies. A song which makes almost anything else look half decent by comparison....bar Holiday...that remains the sound of bottled shit.

The Bastard Son

Re-issues are on the whole an exercise in milking the cash cow dry and on the basis of their Radiohead Collector's Editions EMI have at least proved themselves to the music industry's best metaphorical dairy farmers. They've all been compiled with a remarkable amount of TLC collating b-sides, live tracks and television performances from the time into a package that comes close to justifying its asking price.

As such, the recent release of the Kid A edition stands out as the stray soya milk of the bunch. The DVD is pared down to a few Jools Holland clips and with no b-sides on offer the extra CD is restricted to tracks taken from a session at the Canal+ Studios in Paris. This isn't a case of EMI skimping either, there was never an official single taken from Kid A and the promotional campaign was orchestrated mainly online with a series of 'Blips' set to music taken from the record.

What the listener is essentially left with are the same ten songs that comprised the original LP and one question: "Nine years on has Kid A stood the test of time?" The answer, despite the various qualms that been thrown at the album (no guitars, should have been doubled up with Amnesiac, commercially obstinate), comes up affirmative for all these flaws and more.

It is often said the mark of a great record is that it emerges ahead of its time carving its own little niche in the world. Kid A did so to such an iconoclastic degree that people still don't really know how to deal with it. From Everything In It's Right Place to Motion Picture Soundtrack it simply stands apart. Thankfully the deluxe treatment hasn't made an ounce of difference to this status.

WhoopseyJayZ

If a headline slot at last year's Glasto was knocking about the upper echelons of a 'How To Acheive World Domination' list from Brooklyn's finest Hip Hop artist then writing the Blueprint III was probably phase two. Blueprint I has proved the seminal album of Jay Z's career so far and with Kanye West on production duties plus a long list of distinguished guest vocals including Rihanna, Pharell, Kid Cudi and er.... Mr Hudson hopes have been high for what has billed as the final installment in the trilogy.

As is the standard for such a high profile release though, the record has leaked in its entirety a week before its September 11th US release. You can listen to it here at MTV online without the Web Sheriff getting on your back but on first listen Blueprint III seems a solid if not stellar effort. If you've missed out on the considerable fuss so far check out the first single to be taken from the album D.O.A.(Death of Auto-Tune) below.

Oasis: The Post Mortem

Late on Saturday evening a notice was placed on the official oasis.net website:

Applications are now open for the position of 'UK's Most Irrelevant Band'. Those applying must:

1. Not have produced a decent album for a minimum of ten years
   
2. Be heavily indebted, bordering on parody, to at least one of The Beatles / The Stone Roses / T-Rex (delete as applicable)
3. Hold the ability to produce statements as clichéd as the below: "Radiohead and Coldplay think too much. They get to a certain level and start worrying about the environment. That's for the governments of the world to worry about. We need to concentrate on fucking women, taking drugs, wearing sunglasses and being cool. Never mind the polar bears."
4. Av it!
5. Do worse or equivalent to the below:

As the rumours fly round on the reasons for the dissolution of Manchester's most prevalent four piece - Latest: Liam turns up to Paris gig drunk, insults Noel's kids and throws his acoustic guitar him, Noel stamps on it and quits - the most surprising dimension to this story has been the lack of outrage that has met it. When a similar occurrence took place in Barcelona in 2000, the idea of a day of public morning was still feasible. Three more underwhelming records down the line and no-one seems to give half a toss.

On the contrary, there seems to be a much prevalent sense of relief that Noel can finally get on with that long promised solo record. Given the warmth of reaction to his last solo tour, that slim hope of a long undelivered return to form may come to burn a little more brightly over the coming months.

Reading Festival 2009 Awards

With a pair of lungs freshly lined from half of the dust circulating Reading festival and the smooth baritone that accompanies such a dire medical condition I'm back. Rather than writing an endless review, of which there are many elsewhere, here are a couple of jovially invented awards for the best and worst acts to play the festival:

Band I Never Thought I'd See Headline: Billy Talent

Band I Wish I'd Never Seen Headline: Arctic Monkeys

Best Use Of 'Mad Scientist' Pensioner In A Brass Band: Friendly Fires

Phrase I Never Wish To Hear Again: "Where are my Reading warriors at?" (Maxim Reality - The Prodigy)

Inspired Cover: Don't Stop Believing - Fall Out Boy

Twenty Minutes On Stage And The Kit Is Still Broken: The Big Pink

Thought They'd Be Awful, Turned Out Awesome: Crystal Castles

75% Of His Crowd Waiting For Them Crooked Vultures: Patrick Wolf

Wishes He Was Dave Grohl: Josh Homme

Wishes He Was John Paul Jones: Dave Grohl

Wishes He Was Still In Led Zeppelin: John Paul Jones

Best Band: Radiohead

Worst Band: The Horrors

Honourable Mentions: Jamie T / Frank Turner

Moment of The Weekend:

In Case You've Missed Me

I'm on holiday till the 31st.

Will return with a grand slamming Reading fest review

Peace

Pitchfork's: The Top 500 Tracks of the 2000s

Reading a Pitchfork list is often the equivalent of eating a tub of Ben & Jerry's ice cream in one sitting - mine's a Chocolate Fudge Brownie if you're asking.

The more you go through the tub, the more gluttonous satisfaction you derive from its contents, yet at the same time the burden of Catholic guilt begins to grow. You begin to ask questions of yourself: Should I know all of these bands? Are these placements really justified? How do they mix the brownie in the ice cream without losing its chewiness? etc... By the time you finish the pot, a strange mix of shame and fulfilment inhabits your body.

Following this flawed logic you can superficially accept the top 10 songs of the 2000s list Pitchfork has offered up, that is until you get to the typically disillusioned number one spot given to Outkast's B.O.B. It's a suitably bizarre choice pandering to a self-absorbed critical elite but then I'd have been disappointed if any sort of concession to sanity had been made. Overall I'd give the entire exercise a 6.89:



Ironically the song I myself had lined up as a probable oversight came in at number four so my disappointment has been placated somewhat.

In terms of a song that sums up the first decade of the twenty first century, Crazy In Love fits the bill to a tee. Combining the dominance of black music in popular culture, a sample resting on music's unhindering gaze back to the golden days of Motown and a near universal appeal regardless of age or background, I'm at a loss to pick anything else.



The top ten in reverse order is:

10. Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels) - Arcade Fire
9. My Girls - Animal Collective
8. Idioteque - Radiohead
7. Get Ur Freak On - Missy Elliot
6. Maps - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
5. One More Time - Daft Punk
4. Crazy In Love - Beyoncé [ft. Jay Z]
3. Paper Planes (Diplo Remix) - M.I.A. [ft. Bun B and Rich Boy]
2. All My Friends - LCD Soundsystem
1. B.O.B. - Outkast

The Once Mighty Fall Hard

Oh Little Boots how I used to love your brand of space age pop before you ditched all sense of restaint in the tawdry Hands. Now you won't return my calls and keep producing lacklustre JLS covers just to spite me. Maybe we could flee to Mexico, record a folk/acid-house album and start over again? It probably wouldn't be met with reviews as bad as Jet's Shine On.

Speaking of clumsy links, increased time flicking between MTV2 and NMEtv has caused me to accept the latest single from Australia's best musical graverobbers as a decent slice of old school rawk & roll. Not that Iggy Pop or AC/DC are dead yet, it's just the sight of Angus Young's withered torso does indicate some pact with the devil has been made.



Finally, it would be wrong to end this post of mild surpise and beloise disappointment without a passing mention to Weezer's recently leaked single (If You Are Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To to be taken from their seventh studio album Raditude..yes you read that right....Raditude! Fittingly it comes as a mild surprise that after the tentative shift towards former glories in last years The Red Album, the post-Pinkerton Rivers Cuomo has returned to the beloise disappointment of normal.

The Libertines Reunite : Reading Between The Lines

With his two albums thusfar on Parlophone proving undignified flops, then it comes as no surprise that Peter Doherty recently spewed fresh details on the inevitable 2010 The Libertines reunion to the nearest NME journalist. Here's an analysis of the quotes pulled from the article:

Doherty: "The Libertines will play festivals in 2010" - Reading better offer us £2 million to play again

Barat: "We've left it as next year [for a reunion]" - If my solo record has any success at all, I'll do my best to dodge this torrid cash grabbing excersise

Doherty: "I spoke to John Hassall, he's well up for it." - Why won't anyone listen to Yeti?

Doherty: "Maybe I could reform The Libertines without him [Barat], like he did without me [Barat played Libertines shows without him in 2004 when Doherty was kicked out of the band for drug use]" - I really really need the money

Doherty: ""I'll put an advert in NME: 'Carlos lookalike required'." - £££££££££££££££

Ticket Scam Situation 'far better'

Get out your party hats and dance gaily around the Maypole everyone because BBC News tells me the fight against the ticketing rip-off merchants is won!

At a conference earlier this year, police and major UK festival organisers came together to boil up a solution to such scams earlier this year. With one prong of attack the Metropolitan Police's Central E-crime Unit closes down the offenders, 11 sites since last September, and with the other
Viagogo and Seatwave allows the trade to continue at vastly inflated prices allowing the festival owners and ticket merchants getting a second cut of the profit.

Compare this arrangement to the Fort Knox style one that will occur should I win an Arctic Monkeys @ Brixton Academy ticket in their fan ballot and it's pretty clear this mess has just been swept under the carpet for the meanwhile:

• Tickets are limited to 2 per person.
• The show is strictly 16+ and will require all entrants to bring a form of photographic I.D.(Passport, Driving License, National Identity Card).
• If you do not have a valid form of photo I.D. you will be refused entry to the venue.
• Each successful applicant must when entering the venue on the night have a valid form of photo I.D. which correlates to the name on the ticket.
• Each successful applicant must enter the venue with the person holding their second ticket. If the person with the second ticket is not with the successful applicant then the 2nd ticket will be invalidated.
• The reselling of these tickets is strictly prohibited and tickets will be invalidated.

Arctic Monkeys - Humbug

In 2006 from within the eye of an unstoppable whirlwind of plaudits and hyperbole Alex Turner predicted his own downfall. "Well in five years will it be 'Who the fuck's Arctic Monkeys?'" he sang on the title track of the similarly named EP. In 2009 Humbug will doubtless prove the record that spawns the greatest downtrend in the popularity of his Sheffield four piece.

Your first thought after giving their third album its initial spin is 'where are the singles?' If you thought Crying Lightning was a cumbersome first cut lacking the immediacy of I Bet You Look Good... or the funfair romanticism of Fluorescent Adolescent, then you'll struggle to find anything of a similar nature on this LP. Pretty Visitors is a close call but a malevolent organ intro leading into a meaty Black Sabbath riff has never been a textbook route into the hearts of a nation.

Gone as well are the soap opera epithets where Turner would elevate the niceties of "cuddles in the kitchen" to iconic status whilst leaving the bump and the grind to those without the deftness of lyrical touch to allude to anything else. Acerbic wit still remains the foundation of his trade "what came first: the chicken or the dickhead?" However, tales of intoxicated teenagers on the run from the rozzers seem a world apart from a detailed documentary of a man who has fully succumbed to his adult impulses "let's make a mess lioness".

What Humbug represents is a bold stride away from the breakneck speed that sustained the Monkeys for their first two albums. Time spent in the Mojave Desert with Josh Homme has added a considerable bulk to the once wiry frames who used to carry a meatier-than-most brand of indie rock. Dangerous Animals thrives on the forcefulness of Jamie Cook's guitar playing, of which each slash carries the intent of Satan's own sledgehammer.

This emphasis upon rhythmical weight proves a vital source of disparity in contrast to the tender croon of Turner, who's Scott Walker inspired The Last Shadow Puppets side-project has helped to smooth over the sometimes jarring cracks that one inherits from a Yorkshire accent. With this ability to spit and swoon with equal verve, the central tenant of misplaced affections in Cornerstone gives an honest appraisal above and beyond his previous fairytales of the working class.

At times the relentless drive of Humbug towards a jagged edge can mire its contents within their own sordid schematic. Potion Approaching chugs by without a necessary shot of petroleum to its bloodstream and album closer The Jeweller's Hands fails to draw the curtains with either the widescreen summations of A Certain Romance or the personal bereavement of 505. Still when the gears fall into place, as with Dance Little Liar, these Mis-Shapes are worth tolerating as stumbling blocks littering the side of a yellow brick road.

In 2006 from within the eye of an unstoppable whirlwind of plaudits and hyperbole Alex Turner predicted his own downfall.... the world will have to wait on for that day to arrive.

8/10

Career Prospects Looking Slim

The future of music journalism is to put it lightly, bleak. In recent ABC magazine circulation figures released this week sales of IPC Media’s NME, whose recently appointed new editor Krissi Murison is due to take control on September 1 following the departure of Conor McNicholas, plummeted more than 27% year on year and hovered just above 40,000 weekly copies in June. Meanwhile sales of Bauer Media’s metal title Kerrang! dropped by an alarming 28% year on year to 43,253. As a whole the magazine industry’s music sector recorded an overall slump in sales of 9.4%.

In fact the only music publication to buck the trend is the depressingly titled Classic Rock which recorded a 5.5% jump in sales to 70,301 per month. Going on lose sterio types then it seems the only group buying music magazines at the moment are 40-50 year old balding 'rawkers' who still haven't quite come to terms yet with the fact Led Zeppelin will never put on a full reunion tour.

This figure does go some way to explaining the rapid decline of the New Musical Express though. It's a publication that has always been linked to the younger end of the market, a tradition that was deepened further by Conor McNicholas with a series of covers on popular youth culture such as Skins and The Mighty Boosh.

Furthermore, after the relative collapse of the Britpack (Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party and the Kaiser Chiefs) the NME has seemingly spent the last two years without an iconic indie posterboy/girl whilst having to settle for heavy coverage on populist but unexciting options including The Enemy, Kings Of Leon and Biffy Clyro. Add to this a writing team that seem to think the entire point of a review is to either name drop incessantly, make any number of outlandish statements without hope of backing them up or to produce an ode to your own sense of self importance and the future can only spell 'T-R-O-U-B-L-E'.

What if... the musical world operated like a crap US sitcom?

Life on Comedy Central is usually a breeze. Double doses of Frasier, South Park and Scrubs are all good by my book but sometimes in the midst of a lughter coma you can drift into King of Queens, Two And A Half Men and, the anti-christ of comedy, Everybody Loves Raymond. Despite being the worlds worst tautology my hatred for this show at least inspired me to recast each of character with a real life counterpart:

Raymond - Too busy being relentlessy smug to realise most of the world hates the same repetitive schtick he's been pulling for years... step forward Noel Gallagher.

Deborah - Spends her entire life nagging anyone who will listen about the dullest quandries imaginable... Joe Whiley/Fearne Cotton beacuse they're basically the same person aren't they?

Robert - The more likeable brother who try as he might, still can't hide the fact that his talents are much the lesser of his opposing sibling... has to be Liam Gallagher.

Frank - Growing old ungracefully, little sense for political correctness, possibly hiding a far right leaning... Morrisey take a bow you old mucker.

Marie - Constantly mouthing off on the problems of everyone else to hide her own personality defects... Lily 'Some people are just bad at taking drugs' Allen

Amy - Humble to the point of embarassment, contibution to the world negligible... sorry bout the divorce and everything however... Peter Andre

Got any other sitcom archetypes to match up with reality? Post them below...

Nobody Loves Them And Neither Do I

The Oxford dictionary definition of a supergroup goes something like this: 'A group of musicians who found fame and relative success within seperate bands unite to write material of a dismal quality in new act. Media attention sustains the group for debut album toruing cycle before various members come to their senses and flee back to what they were good at in the first place.'

It's a textbook formula that applies regardless of the talent of the individual parts. Enter Them Crooked Vultures, a new three piece featuring Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin) and Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters, Nirvana) who performed their first show together at Metro Chicago in Illinois on Sunday August 9, 2009. Not a bad line up on paper but in practice I'd brace yourself for a crushing disappointment.

I'll admit there are a few exceptions Cream, The Good The Bad and The Queen and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young but the rest hardly set a sterling example. Velvet Revolver (GNR re-hashed), The Highwaymen (like Live at Folsom never happened) and Angel & Airwaves (Blink 182 + U2 = identity crisis).

Perhaps the best we can hope for from this new collective that certainly seem to reassert the 'super' in supergroup, rather than the usual 'drummer from Milburn, bassist from Little Man Tate', is one decent single. Even Jack White's 3rd blues infused band the Dead Weather just about made that benchmark when their debut was released earlier this year.

Calvin Harris - Social Networking God

Beneath the glitz and the glamour of the pop world there is a fierce competition emerging. Out of a list of many contenders the battle for 'Most Entertaining Pop Star of 2009' has narrowed itself into two candidates.

In the red corner we have the Scottish chart sensation Calvin Harris. In musical terms he lags far behind many of his peers, even risking permanent exclusion from his brethen for the heinous Holiday but this DJ cum poet laureate for the twitter generation has fought back hard with a series of inexplicably genius manouvres including the previously mentioned JAM TV and 'Best Twitter Rant Of All Time'. Calvin's record label Columbia have clearly been keeping tabs on these tactics for a while and today in an extrodinary peice of 'throw money at stuff for da kidz' marketing we saw the emergence of the Humanthasizer. Words simply cannot describe this contraption so video will have to:



In the blue corner, holding an ever lessening lead is Lady Gaga. She has the tunes, she has the interview technique and she has the rumours of being a hermaphrodite but most importantly it's tactics like the below that keep her in a league of her own...

Twenty Years On, Is This Still The One?

Today the 'special edition' of seminal Manchester band The Stone Roses self titled debut was released. It is of course 'definitive' exactly until Silvertone scrape the Roses barrel for an eighth time but leaving such questions aside, you've got to ask "Is the record worth the luxurious treatment it has been afforded?" My answer, and presumably anyone who was at the Haçineda in 1989 or Spike Island in 1990 will take umbridge with it, is no.

The Stone Roses is a solid four star, eight out of ten, indie pop album featuring three era defining singles, one guitarist heavily in debt to the psychedelia of Love and a rhythm section so sensuous their grooves make love to your ears in ways that are illegal in at least twenty four US states.

On the downer, Ian Brown has and never will be able to sing in tune, a fact John Leckie was presient enough to drown out in Mani's silky basslines. Fools Gold and Elephant Stone weren't originally included, the nine minutes fifty four second version of Fools Gold on the new re-release is a good five mintes too long and therefore doesn't count. The world could also have done without the dreary Bye Bye Badman and Shoot You Down as well.

Still this ragtag four piece had more than enough character to take a decent record and sear its memory into the hearts and minds of those who were alive at the time. Maybe that is an acheivement worth celebrating after all.

The Big Pink - A Brief History Of Love

The whole point of history is that it shouldn't repeat itself. Time chewed up, spat out and chose to forget the eighties because the space in between apocalyptic visions of HIV epidemics and endless Thatcherite governments was filled by Smash Hits, MTV and Simon Le Bon. Popular culture offered no lasting satisfaction beyond three minute thirty second segments designed to cater to your carnal instincts.

Shoegaze in the later part of the decade acted as an essential counterpoint this manifesto. Turning the amp levels up to 11 and bathing an often inventive sense of melody within a heavy shroud of feedback meant no teenie bopper was ever likely to trade in her seven inch of Girls On Film for a copy of the Ride EP.

As Sid Vicious aptly demonstrated during his brief stint in the Sex Pistols however, volume is no substitute for talent. In fact the restrictions caused by using a wall of sound can often only serve to hem the artist in a tightly defined parameter. Furthermore, The Big Pink haven't made things any easier for themselves by creating a concept album based on a chemical imbalance.

When a pained Robbie Furze proclaims on Velvet "I'm not looking for love, but it's hard to resist / I don't recall, me and mistakes", it would be easy to misread lofty ambition as overreaching bluster. Yet where similar revivalists The Horrors and The Twilight Sad have faltered this London duo manage to extract an even greater palette from white noise.

Opening track Crystal Visions aptly clicks the wheels of aural cut and thrust into motion but A Brief History really kicks into life with the crunching Too Young To Love. Sounding exactly like the rigid two fingered salute Kevin Shields would have offered up had he to suffer the torment of La Roux, it shudders along on a pounding rhythm, never threatening to relinquish its grip on your consciousness until squealing out of sight again.

Dominos further draws you into the digital mesh with an infectious chorus and pitch perfect production job done by Robbie Furze and Milo Cordell in which you can hear each jagged beat drop into the razor wire haystack. The latter’s time at the helm of noise-rock label Merok has obviously had a lasting effect, Golden Pendulum recalls the same spaced out tranquillity as Klaxons' Two Receivers whilst Count Backwards From Ten contains the frequency bending tenacity which Crystal Castles hold so dear.

As such it's a stunning debut that pitches itself between the anthemic sing-alongs of Glasvegas and the sonic mastery of My Bloody Valentine. The title track in particular goes beyond the deliberate subversiveness of lesser Camden Kool Things, finding calm within the chaos to slow the onslaught and reflect on the LPs common thread. Musing on the aftermath of a break up "a beautiful smile bent out of shape, is this the road to heaven that you wanted to take?" proves a devastatingly simple couplet.

Whilst 2009 may bordering on parody of 1989, The Big Pink make you glad that history has repeated itself. A Brief History Of Love isn't the next Definitely Maybe designed to unite a factioned youth in one boozy chorus. It sets out its stall as an outsider from the beginning, threatening to fall on its sword before surrendering to the everyman's whim. It is a record that proves that battle to be worth fighting.

9/10