Recent Listens

It's been a while since I've written about music so here are some quick reviews on some tracks from new-to-me artists I've been sampling.


Kings of Convenience - "I'd Rather Dance With You"
Kings of Convenience are the Norwegian duo whose last album proclaimed that "Quiet is the New Loud". Unfortunately, their manifesto was ultimately counterproductive, as their acoustic low-key approach was a bit too quiet, making all their tracks sound the same. Since then, KoC have put out a remix album featuring mixes by Ladytron, Four Tet, and Royksopp among others. Singer Erlend Oye also found time to moonlight as a DJ and released a solo record featuring collaborations with electronic artists. Judging from "I'd Rather Dance With You", the Kings have decided to incorporate the electronic elements into their sound permanently. "I'd Rather Dance With You" is more Pet Shop Boys than Simon & Garfunkel and it's one of my favourite songs of the year so far. The lyrics, which ruminate on the pointlessness of the club chat-up, are some of the best I've heard in while. ("Even if I could hear what you said, I doubt my reply would be interesting for you to hear. Because I haven't read a single book all year and the only film I saw I didn't like it at all")

The Bees - "Horsemen"
Here's another album I'm looking forward to. The band's last record, Sunshine Hit Me was vastly underrated piece of sunny brilliance which managed to blend lots of obvious influences (psychedelica, tropicalia, dub, etc.) without ever sounding derivative. The songs I've heard from the new album Free The Bees sound like they come from an entirely different band. The music is more instantly identifiable as "rock" but it's still got a unique twist and vibe. This is a really talented band I only hope they can get some more recognition this time around.

Bloc Party - "Banquet"
I really liked Franz Ferdinand but after a while I found that songs like "Take Me Out" got too repetitive on repeat listens. Bloc Party have a similar angular vibe, but with more of an American indierock feel. It'll probably annoy me eventually but in the mean time I can't stop listening to it. I'm making a new CD of recent tunes and this song is the leadoff track. I can't wait to blast it out of the car stereo.

Keane - "Everybodys' Changing"
I first heard about these guys when I read their album prevented Morrissey's You Are the Quarry from reaching number one in Britain. I figured they were probably another tedious indie band made up of students who listened to too much Coldplay and Travis. I was right, but I didn't think I'd actually find myself enjoying their song! It's so just so damn catchy.

Razorlight - "Vice" and "Rip it Up"
Now that I'm an old fart I'm starting to understand what music fans were griping about when I was listening to Britpop in the '90s. Razorlight sound like a lot of other bands thrown together in a blender. But these two songs are good enough that I'm willing to overlook the lack of originality. "Vice" has a very strong Pulp influence in the singer's phrasing and the "L-O-V-E" spell-a-long chorus but the rest of the band are more straight-up rock. "Rip it Up" is also good, in a G-rated Libertines kinda way. For what it's worth, I'm impressed enough that I'll probably pick up the album when I see it.

Xiu Xiu - "I Luv the Valley OH!"
I have no clue what this guy is singing about and certainly no idea why he's so worked up about it. It's undeniably intense and yet I feel no emotional connection to it. But I'm sure someone out there is carving the band's name into their arm to this tune. Me, I just think the guitar riff is nifty.


More to come. Maybe.

Rock Paper Saddam -- Because the guy hasn't had a lot to do in the past few months...

Nostalgia hurts

Live Forever
Some day, someone will make a great documentary about Britpop and Cool Britannia. This isn't it. The film suffers from what Jon Savage (in one of the extra feature interviews) calls a "False Reading of History". In this case, the false reading is the filmmakers' decision to frame the Blur-Oasis war as the crucial story of the movement, neglecting other more interesting stories and artists. Pulp in particular get a short shrift. Different Class encapsulated all of the best things about Britpop and fittingly Jarvis Cocker proves himself to be the most insightful and interesting interview subject. Apparently the filmmakers didn't agree and felt that the film would be better served by more interviews with an Oasis tribute band.

With this slant towards the more "mad fer it" side of Britpop it's no surprise there's a reluctance to address the movement's darker side (apart from the drugs). In an interview left on the cutting room floor (but on the extra feature DVD) Jon Savage discusses how the new multicultural face of Britain was shoved aside in Britpop in favour of the Paul Weller-Dadrock conservatism. Too bad the filmmakers were too chicken to include that argument in the main documentary.

The film is also unsatisfying because it doesn't push the artists for answers as to how they feel about the entire process nearly a decade down the line. How do they feel about never being able to match that success again? Perhaps there's still not enough distance for a proper (or honest) answer from them yet. I also would've liked to see the documentary investigate the role of the music press, particularly the NME, in building up the phony "Blur-Oasis" war and other silly press stunts.

But most disturbingly for me is that no one ever discusses whether the songs were any good!

Other random thoughts: Noel Gallagher is destined to become the new Malcolm McLaren, pontificating about his massive influence in future documentaries. It's amusing how he's still suffering from a tremendous inferiority complex, particularly in relation to Damon Albarn. It apparently never occurs to him that maybe he shouldn’t be extolling the virtues of a working class background while he sits in a huge throne-like chair surrounded by posh portraits. Meanwhile, Damon's interview takes place in the pub.
Liam clearly decided to make life as difficult as possible for the interviewer. There's a positively Begbie-like moment where he bristles at being called "androgynous". "You're sayin' I look like a bird?" he menaces, leaving the interviewer squirming. It's amusing, especially since he knows full well what it means and instead just wants to play the old "ooh, me, I'm so hard" routine.
Also, memo to Jarvis: I know I've said some unflattering things about you in the past few years but if you cut your hair and put the contacts back in all will be forgiven. Luv, K.

Another good thing goes bad

I just checked the "recently updated blogs" page on Blogger and noticed that almost every other blog listed are sex and porn sites with suspiciously similiar names. Ugh. So congratulations to the pornospammers who have found another way to bombard our online lives with their crappy product.