Eurovision Liveblog

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 Click the link above to go to the Modern Life Is Rubbish Eurovision Liveblog. I can’t work out how to embed it in this post, but if you click on the link that’ll bring it up.

Bands of the Week, Round-Up #1

.     There are several excellent things about becoming a fan of unknown bands. One is that they often give away songs for free, and their EPs are usually available for only a few pounds from their website (or, in many of the cases here, Band Camp websites); another is that they’re usually incredibly friendly and grateful online. Most importantly, it proves once and for all that there is good music being produced at the moment, behind the dirgey dubstep and bland ballads in the charts.
.     Inspired by these factors, I’ve recently started doing a ‘Band of the Week’ feature on my Facebook page. This mainly constitutes finding brand new bands – be it through Spotify, the Guardian’s ‘New Band of the Day’ feature (though I try not to pilfer from it too much), or through gigs – and promoting them through writing a short paragraph and linking people to their music via YouTube. Here are the four bands of the week so far with the original paragraphs largely unchanged. Hopefully you’ll enjoy them as much as I do…
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Band of the Week, #1: Friends. 

Brought together over a bedbug infestation, this quintet started a band whose music is, in their own words, “One moment… indie-pop, the next… mutant funk, then disco”. The hype around them is such that they’ve even got their own section on acid-tongued, ttly ironik website/online bitchfest Hipster Runoff, most famous for obsessively slating Lana Del Rey before it was popular.  Their first album, Manifest!, is released on June 4^th by Rough Trade.

Website, Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia

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Band of the Week, #2: The Hall Of Mirrors.

Named The Guardian’s 1254th Band of the Day last month, they boast a haunting Gothic/Victorian sound by way of 60s pop production, chiming piano parts and the delicate vocals of Jessica Winter. The absolutely stunning ‘Love Child’ from their EP of the same name is available as a free download from their website.

Website, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Band Camp

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Band of the Week, #3: Summer Heart.

 

Swedish pop music is never a bad thing, and Summer Heart – the alias of David Alexander – only strengthens that view. He’s currently one of the ‘emerging artists’ on the We Are Hunted app on Spotify (which, if you have Spotify and like obscure music, you should definitely get). ‘Please Stay’ is my favourite example of his delightful, summery chillwave, best listened to with bass-heavy headphones and a gorgeous sunset on view.

Website, Twitter, Facebook, Band Camp, Spotify

 
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Band of the Week, #4: Shade of Red. 

(Pint-sized drummer not in shot.)

Graham Coxon’s support act when he played Falmouth on April 30th, this Cornish quintet are young but already utterly assured in their craft, and wrong-footed anyone in the crowd who thought they looked like One Direction with instruments. (Guilty as charged.) Boasting an organist/melodica-ist, a drummer whose age may not have yet reached double figures, and originality beyond their years, they could be the best artists to come out of Cornwall since Aphex Twin.

Website, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Band Camp

 

Update

Readers, those of you that exist -

Much as I really, really want to write up the ideas I’ve got for articles right now, I’m currently in exam hell and output will be slow for the next two weeks as a result. If it makes you feel better, my own birthday presents have been postponed for the same reasons. (My birthday, May 16th, is sandwiched between [what I hope are] my last two academic examinations EVER. How lame is that?)

However, to satiate your appetite for glorious, witty and deeply incisive Jen-blogs, I’ll let you in on the articles I’m planning to write after I’ve been freed from the chains of poorly-structured, clutching-at-straws essays…

All being well, I’ll have time for a quick article on Thursday evening (to celebrate the halfway point of exams), expanding on my brief ‘Band of the Week’ posts on Facebook, three of whom have free downloads of their material available. Hurrah! This could well go on to be a regular feature – discovering and promoting new bands is incredibly satisfying, and the bands tend to be really friendly on Twitter.

After exams and post-exam socialisation, I’LL BE BACK – rather like a journalistic version of The Terminator. ‘Being back’ will constitute the writing and publications of a brief guide to the Eurovision finals songs, a list of some of the most memorable football matches I’ve been to (to mark Euro 2012, or the Champions League Final should Chelsea win it – fingers crossed!), some reviews of the best and most anticipated albums of the year thus far, and – most excitingly of all – embarking on my first foray into liveblogging for the Eurovision final.  Expect scathing comments on outfits, songs, set themes and the presenters as they appear. There should be a spotlight feature on other bloggers coming soon too – unfortunately, they also have work, deadlines and exams meaning it’s been delayed a bit.

Look forward to all of that!

Jen x
Lord and Master of Modern Life Is Rubbish, Current Walking Stressball and Sometime Blogging Equivalent of John Peel

10 Ways To Maintain A Music Obsession On A Budget

.            If, like me, you’re a poor student but love music, it’s sometimes difficult to balance the books when on one hand you need something to make your undercooked pasta palatable, but on the other really need Graham Coxon’s new album. You could go and illegally download it all, but that could hypothetically get you in a lot of trouble, plus by stealing from your favourite artists you’re compromising your position as a true music fan. (Puts away soapbox.) Fortunately, there are ways around a music obsession that are either free or fairly cheap and, best of all, 100% legal. Some, like using free websites to listen to music or buying albums second-hand, are pretty obvious; others, like downloading free record company samplers or signing up to mailing lists, may not have occurred to you.

I couldn't have made this if I'd spent your average HMV-priced £12.99 on all of them. (photo from April 2011)

Free Listening
1. Making use of Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud etc. This mostly depends on your ethics as a listener. If you believe that the artist should get the best deal, Spotify is probably not for you; its dodgy financial scheme for the artists is well documented, with some estimates saying that it takes 90,000 plays for an artist to earn £8 from it. However, through listening to the thousands of albums on there, you may discover an obscure artist, love them and decide to buy their entire back catalogue, every piece of merchandise they’ve ever made and tickets to every leg of their autumn university tour, which’ll earn them a lot more than £8… well, before the taxman and record companies get to it, anyway. Should you decide to subscribe, then Spotify is way better value  and cheaper per month than Netflix – you pay for the privilege of bonus tracks, (some) brand new albums, listening to songs more than five times and, most importantly, not having to hear those unbearable ‘sign up to vote!’ adverts every three songs. Money well spent.

2.    Early streaming of albums on the Guardian, NME, Soundcloud etc. Patience is a virtue that has all but disappeared in the Internet age, especially when it comes to entertainment. Victims of leaked albums recently include the Queen of Pop, Madonna, and indie heavyweight Jack White. To satiate fans’ eagerness to hear new material, some artists grant websites permission to stream their new albums – the Guardian (Graham Coxon) and NME (Orbital) springing to mind in particular. Others, like Santigold, ally themselves with no particular media outlet and prefer to upload it to Soundcloud for fans to listen to [here]. It’s a great way not only to evade the moral guilt of ripping artists off, but also to check whether their new material is worth buying. After all, you may not be supporting them financially, but a) you’re on a budget, and b) they should’ve made a better album. Think of all those people who’d have saved money, time and effort if Soundcloud had existed in 1975 and Lou Reed had put Metal Machine Music on it.

Owning
3.    Free (legal) owning: Signing up to artists’ mailing lists for free tracks. Artists always want you to be on their mailing list so they can spam you silly with details of new releases, tours and other money-spinners. One of their favourite ways of doing this is to promise free tracks to those that sign up. With the likes of Marina and the Diamonds and Beady Eye sending their mailing list new tracks ahead of their physical/iTunes release, and the Pixies rewarding their mailing list with a free live EP, it’s a great way not only to get up to date on their newest tracks, but find out things before anyone else courtesy of the spam. Although it’s more SUPER USEFUL INFORMATION than spam if you’re a fan.

4.     Free (legal) owning: Downloading free record company samplers. Amazon’s spam emails turned out to be the useful ones as far as instructing me in this goes. Turns out that loads of independent labels release free sampler albums through Amazon – a sampler album basically being a compilation album of songs by bands on their roster. Although the majority of these are by obscure artists (Chadwick Stokes, anyone?), some of the names are either established stars, such as the Arctic Monkeys on the Domino sampler, or names you’ll hear bandied about on Pitchfork (Anna Calvi, The Kills, Ladytron). My favourite samplers to date have been the Nettwerk and Domino samplers. Admittedly there aren’t many decent-looking ones around at the moment, unless you love worship music or award-winning classical stuff, but the Mr Bongo one sounds promising and could open you up to the work of a record label you’d never have heard of otherwise.

5. Free (legal) owning: iTunes’ free Song of the Week. In between helping to beat up physical music formats and monopolise the download market, iTunes has time to feature a Song of the Week for free – only free for a week, mind you. Bands who’ve had this vital exposure include Cage the Elephant (‘Around My Head’), Jen’s favourite duo Best Coast (‘Boyfriend’), and them wot done the original version of ‘Heartbeats’, The Knife (‘We Share Our Mothers’ Health’). Occasionally featured songs have been known to snowball in popularity, with ex-Song of the Week ‘Fireflies’ by Owl City going on to top the chart in seven different countries, including both the UK and USA. So it’s not only great for slowly boosting your music library, but you could own a sleeper hit for free, months before it gets boosted to the lofty heights of £0.99.

6.    Free (legal) owning: self-leaking – bands releasing their albums for free through newspapers or on their website. Radiohead started the trend for bizarre marketing strategies with the ‘pay what you want’ scheme for seventh studio album In Rainbows. Although it’s estimated a third of fans paid nothing, the average price paid for the download version in the three-month ‘pay what you want’ window was £3.88, and the pre-order sales of the physical copy apparently outstripped the total sales figures for predecessor Hail to the Thief – so it’s not even ripping off the band. Prince altered the strategy, instead releasing 2007 album Planet Earth through The Mail on Sunday, sparking artists including Jen’s serial not-even-guilty pleasure McFly and Prince again (this time with the Daily Mirror) to follow in his footsteps with a pared-down edition of Radio:active and 20TEN respectively. Even if it means buying a really crap newspaper, free music! And you can draw comedy facial hair/eyebrows/tattoos on David Cameron, which is always a bonus in my opinion.

7. Free (legal) owning: For deluxe albums or boxsets, entering Superdeluxeedition’s competitions to win the latest remastered or deluxe editions of classic albums. If you, like me, prefer having a tangible copy of an album as opposed to owning it in MP3 format, you can still get those for free without leaving your chair… maybe. Just enter one of Superdeluxeedition’s frequent competitions and you could be a winner. Recent competitions have had prizes of David Bowie, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Suede and Pink Floyd’s remastered/deluxe albums for lucky winners. All that’s usually required for entry is to follow them on Facebook or Twitter and answer a question or retweet. Unlike those famous ‘YOU ARE THE 10,000^TH VISITOR!! CLICK HERE TO RECLAIM YOUR PRIZE OF LANA DEL REY BALANCING NAKED UPON A PINK UNICORN!!’ adverts on dubious websites, you will actually get your prize if you’re a winner.

8. Cheap owning: Utilise any of the following: Amazon, eBay, charity shops, HMV’s famous 2 for £10 sales… I don’t think this needs any explanation… If you’re looking for second-hand CD singles or cassettes, check the charity shops in your area rigorously before committing to the £2.50 rip-offs on Amazon or eBay – charity shops will frequently be hiding these gems behind the copies of Sugababes’ Three album, which seems to be the most popular album on charity shop shelves from several years’ experience. Incidentally, if you want a copy of Suede’s eponymous debut album on cassette, let me know and I can get one for you for 50p from Acorn Records in Truro. I just want it to go to a good home, ok? Ok??

Live Music
9. Free gigs in pubs, bars and cafes. Bands tour on what is known as the ‘pub circuit’ for good reason – it involves lots of pubs. If you’re just going for a quiet drink on a Saturday evening, bands are a major nuisance, but if you’re missing your live fix while also missing a positive bank balance, this’ll have to do. You probably won’t find the next Bowie in your local offy, but you might find a decent enough singer. It’s slightly friendlier than camping outside your local music festival, straining to hear what Morrissey’s singing over the crowd screaming (a similarly free way to listen to gigs), and you may even make friends with the drunk, slightly sweaty bloke next to you in the Van Halen t-shirt!

10. Befriend musicians, or encourage your friends to start a band. Free entry to all gigs with none of the cost of instruments, and an inimitable chat-up line – “I’m with the band”. Groupies, get in line…

Mixed Doubles: A Guide to Indiedom’s Best Current Boy/Girl Duos

[Edited version published on Flex Online, here]

            Band trends come and go. Sometimes all the uber-hyped bands in NME will look like they haven’t showered since 1998 and borrowed their clothes/hairstyles from tramps, sometimes they’ll all have endorsed a particular brand of theatrical, futuristic weirdness (hey MGMT, Klaxons and Empire of the Sun), and sometimes you won’t be able to move for all the instrument-toting Scottish band members in a room (Belle & Sebastian, Camera Obscura). The 2010s have thus far chiefly nurtured a batch of upsettingly photogenic boy/girl duos, more slick than The White Stripes but less sickly than Sonny and Cher. Admittedly, the latter’s not saying much – the cake Bruce Bogtrotter ate in Matilda was less sickly than them.

.     While the 10 acts featured all have similarities among themselves, they’ve all got differences enough to make them worthy of inclusion here. Many have released or are releasing albums in 2012, and those who haven’t/aren’t released albums last year. Despite this, none have really ‘crossed over’ yet, with She & Him the nearest to doing so in terms of chart success. However, many critics consider Best Coast, Beach House and Sleigh Bells among the crème de la crème of alternative music. Perhaps it’s time to get them to cross over; with your help, maybe it could happen! Maybe we could kickstart a musical revolution, dethroning Olly Murs and Rihanna in the process! Like how Rage Against The Machine cockblocked Joe McElderry from getting together with the #1 Christmas slot in 2009!! …Err, sorry, got carried away there. Onto the guide. In no particular order:

Best Coast

Who?: Bethany Cosentino (vocalist, guitarist), Bobb Bruno (bassist)

Sounds like: The Beach Boys-meets-The Shangri La’s, if they’d both been lo-fi and fronted by a girl who loves cannabis and cats. First single from their second album, ‘The Only Place’, has country influences as well and drops the lo-fi.

Back catalogue: Make You Mine EP (2010), Crazy For You (2010), The Only Place (due 14^th May 2012)

Couple?: Nope, she’s dating Wavves’s Nathan Williams. Plus BB was formerly her babysitter, which might make a relationship awkward. Though not as awkward as Woody Allen’s marriage.

USP: I’ve never been to California, but they make it sound sunnier and more appealing than The Beach Boys. Bethany Cosentino’s voice is stronger than many of her rivals’, plus they absolutely make the California sound their own.

ULP [Unique Lame Point]: I’d be hard-pressed to find any aspect of them lame, personally, but their ‘angsty, obsessive teen girl’ lyrics have seen them dubbed ‘clingy-core’ by LastFM users. Not necessarily in an endearing way.

The critics say: “Musically, the idea is to recreate the Beach Boys’ aura 50 years later. Thematically, it’s to prove that she’s a postmodern girl who knows better. The catch is that through all her generalizations it soon becomes clear that she needs that guy much more than a postmodern girl is supposed to.” – Robert Christgau

Jen says: After Suede and Blur, they’re probably my favourite band. Crazy For You was virtually perfect; languid, summery and incessantly catchy. I also love the new single, which progresses their old sound without losing any of the warmth or charm. They’re contemporary canon for any self-respecting surf-pop/alt-pop fan.

Tennis

Who?: Alaina Moore (vocalist, sometime keyboardist), Patrick Riley (guitarist)

Sounds like: A less languid, cleaner-sounding, East-Coast-based Best Coast who’ve replaced marijuana and errant males with nautical adventures.

Back catalogue: Cape Dory (2011), Young & Old (2012)

Couple?: Yep, married and all.

USP: The storyline behind their first album, of selling up and living on a sailing boat for the best part of a year, informs their first album, while the novelty of that story caught the internet’s attention and brought them to semi-prominence online.

ULP [Unique Lame Point]: The overt saccharine-ness can grow tiring, certain tracks are indistinctive and immemorable, and while they’re very nice, they’re a bit uninspiring.

The critics say: “Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley [have] a real knack for breezy, deceptively simple beach-pop that could get lodged in your head and inspire your own seafaring daydreams. Or at least make you jealous.” – Pitchfork

Jen says: Love the first album, especially tracks ‘Take Me Somewhere’, ‘Marathon’ and ‘Seafaring’, but the Patrick-Carney-from-The-Black-Keys-produced new album is – eek – eminently forgettable. Utterly inoffensive, but forgettable. If Best Coast personify summer, Tennis are more of a breezy spring day.

Cults

Who?: Madeline Follin (vocalist), Brian Oblivion* (guitarist, backing vocalist) [*Strangely enough, not his real name – which is Ryan Mattos.]

Sounds like: Jangly pop with the odd UFO-esque synth thrown in. Don’t let the fact that they’re signed to Lily Allen’s label put you off.

Back catalogue: Cults (2011)

Couple?: Yes.

USP: There’s a sense of eeriness underneath the cheeriness. It’s the lyrics; though dealing with the girl-group standard theme of love and break-ups, they include ghoulish angles on the subject such as break-ups resulting from divine retribution (‘The Curse’), comparing falling in love to kidnapping (‘Abducted’) and neuroticism induced by love (‘You Know What I Mean’). Scary.

ULP [Unique Lame Point]: Follin’s voice is so girly that, like a 7-year-old playing recorder in a school concert, it may drive you mad after the first five endearing minutes.

The critics say: “Unsettling and charming is a hard combination to pull off, but Cults have managed just fine.” – The Guardian

Jen says: Not the best of the bunch, but enjoyable songs nonetheless and good enough to get me looking out for news of future records of theirs. And, while this is really lame as a point of appreciation, I love the action shot they’ve used as a front cover for their album. Couldn’t be more Tumblr-worthy if it tried, though.

 

Big Deal

Who?: Alice Costelloe (vocalist, guitarist), Kacey Underwood (guitarist, backing vocalist)

Sounds like: Fey acoustic stuff, just like- oh wait! Like a margarita, it has a bit of a kick to it after the pleasant first taste. Unlike a margarita, the kick livens things up for the better, and doesn’t taste of urine. (I’ve only ever tried one margarita, but that’s what the aftertaste was like. Tonbridge Wetherspoons – sort it out.)

Back catalogue: Lights Out (2011)

Couple?: No-one’s really sure… Except them, presumably.

USP: The angst is far more mature and thoughtful than your average teen-years-riffing band. (Yeah, you, Summer Camp.) They also surprise, at times; the acoustic-backed opening of ‘Chair’ is sweet, but nothing to write home about, and then the electric guitar kicks in. Changing tack or adding instruments is in itself nothing new, but they seem so unassuming, almost amateur, at first listen that it genuinely is unexpected.

ULP [Unique Lame Point]: If your teenage kicks were hard to beat, you’ll have difficulty empathising with the pains of adolescence. Even if they’re quite rational pains in comparison with their peers. (Still looking at you, Summer Camp.) Additionally, the non-uriney kick may not be enough to save them from floundering in relative blandness. I mean, they’re not exactly M.I.A., are they?

The critics say: “Big Deal… could be mistaken for just another wimpy acoustic band at first glance: their debut has plenty of fragile guitars and schoolgirl subject matter. But their songs are more grungy than gooey: super lo-fi recordings that sound equal parts Sonic Youth and The Moldy Peaches.” – NME

Jen says: From seeing them at Reading, having never heard of them before: “[E]asy on the ear, wispy on the eye and totally inoffensive, but probably not going to set the world alight.” [link to requisite article]

Summer Camp

 

Who?: Elizabeth Sankey (vocalist and hilarious blogger – her Dawson’s Creek episode guides are worth a peek even if you’ve never come within 10 feet of a boxset of it in HMV), Jeremy Warmsley (vocals, guitarist)

Sounds like: 60s girl bands meets 80s synths meets John Hughes films. I think that’s a paraphrase of something from their website, but that’s pretty appropriate as far as descriptions go.

Back catalogue: Young EP (2010), Welcome To Condale (2011) [review here]. They’ve said to crowds on their tour that an EP is forthcoming later this year; the songs they’ve showcased in their live set put more of an emphasis on bass-heavy, dance-lite background music.

Couple?: Yes.

USP: They’re pretty much the only band on this list you could play (certain tracks by) in a club and get away with it. The divergence of styles they’ve emulated both between their first EP and full album, along with those presented on the album itself, range from bouncy no-holds-barred pop to anthems that touch on punk-pop to stonkingly atmospheric chillwave floorfillers. And that’s within three tracks. Pitchfork decried this as messy, but there’s enough of a unifying sound to hold it together while also allowing them to explore different sounds; none of the aforementioned artists can be said to have done the same.

ULP [Unique Lame Point]: If you got bored of 80s-riffing artists a few years ago when it was all the rage, you’ll probably hate this. Some tunes take longer than others to get stuck in your head, and the lyrics are very teen-angst.

The critics say: “A sincere, wryly appealing turning point in the art of romanticised retrospection.” – BBC Music

Jen says: I love them, as evidenced by me travelling 400 miles from Falmouth to Norwich to see one of their gigs. They’re catchy as hell, fun and simultaneously sweet and sour. Also, ‘Veronica Sawyer’ from their EP is the ultimate ‘feeling existential at a party’ anthem. Fact.

 

Beach House

Who?: Victoria Legrand (vocalist, organist), Alex Scully (multi-instrumentalist)

Sounds like: Dream-pop, which here is the homo sapiens sapiens to shoegaze’s apes – if the apes mated with organs, Fleetwood Mac, Mazzy Star and French singers. Legrand’s voice varies from softly mellifluous on their first two albums to powerfully husky on Teen Dream; it’s frequently been compared to Nico (of Velvet Underground and Nico fame)’s vocals.

Back catalogue: Beach House (2006), Devotion (2008), Teen Dream (2010), Bloom (due 15^th May 2012)

Couple?: No.

USP: They’re easily more sonically sophisticated than their competitors. Teen Dream is lushly orchestrated and mixed, making them more a ‘credible’ prospect to the SRS MUSIC LOVER WHO LIKES GRIMES* AND OTHER SRS ARTISTS WHO YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF. (*Up-and-coming, makes-the-music-press-salivate female artist who uses international sounds, including throat singing, to make rather good, interesting music. Possible inheritor to Bjork’s throne.)

ULP [Unique Lame Point]: Because it favours craft over catchiness, those who prefer short, snappy songs will be disappointed. Basically, if you love punk/rock, you’ll probably find this really boring.

The critics say: “Brilliantly dreamy without being pretentious” – HearYa.com

Jen says: The construction is strangely wintry, to continue the ‘bands = seasons’ theme, but Legrand’s voice is warm and, sod it, a lot more pleasant than Nico’s.

Sleigh Bells

 

Who?: Alexis Krauss (vocals), Derek E. Miller (guitar)

Sounds like: The music that Veronica Sawyer from Heathers* or A from Easy A** would make if she were a cheerleader and listened to a combination of cock rock, hair metal, experimental noise pop and shoegaze. (*Late 80s black teen comedy that’s basically a murder-heavy prototype of Mean Girls. **2010 teen film about an outcast girl who pretends she’s promiscuous, partly to evade spending time with her friend’s weird family and partly to make uncool men seem cooler, which inadvertently blows up and ruins her reputation. ***You should watch both of these films.)

Back catalogue: Sleigh Bells EP (2009), Treats (2010), Reign Of Terror (2012)

Couple?: No.

USP: They’ve got, like, hair metal influences! Dude! *does Gene Simmons impersonation* As a result, THEIR NEW STUFF IS LOUDER THAN ANYTHING ELSE HERE AND THEREFORE THEY ARE TOTES RAWK GAWDS. PUMP UP THE VOLUME. (I DON’T KNOW WHY I’M SHOUTING.)

ULP [Unique Lame Point]: If you’re not into LOUD MUSIC you may find this abrasive, possibly even obnoxious. They’re so much like an in-your-face alt-loving cheerleader on their current album that you may find yourself wondering if you’re in an American high school. (Not necessarily a criticism – I like it – but the more sensitive among you may not.)

The critics say: “Guitarist Derek Miller and vocalist Alexis Krauss are the kind of music geeks who had their formative-crush experiences soundtracked to My Bloody Valentine and Slayer records.” – Rolling Stone

Jen says: I thought Treats was ok, but hugely overhyped and a wee bit dull, if I’m honest. Reign of Terror is far more solid, memorable and peppy for me. As I said, I like the confrontationalness (which is now a word) of it, but will it wear thin after several more listens? Rhetorical question time.

 

Slow Club

 

Who?: Rebecca Taylor (vocals, guitar, percussion), Charles Watson (vocals, guitar)

Sounds like: If Juno had been made several years later, they would’ve featured emphatically on its soundtrack – softly-sung acoustic songs with cutesy-but-perceptive/quirky lyrics. Sort of like a 2-person, less saccharine version of Noah and the Whale.

Back catalogue: Let’s Fall Back In Love EP (2008), Yeah So (2009), Christmas, Thanks For Nothing EP (2009), Paradise (2011)

Couple?: Nope, it’s been emphatically denied by Rebecca.

USP: Latest album Paradise is a powerful fusion of Beach House-esque atmosphere and their debut’s She & Him-esque understated folkiness, but they’re darker than the latter and lighter than the former. NME dubbed Taylor the ‘funniest woman in indie’ in a review of their live show, which adds further personality to a live show which has been critically praised for its ramshackle, jokey quality (in their early days, they used to start gigs in the middle of the audience and end up on the street – which sounds reminiscent of the Pixies’ gig in-jokes like playing their set lists in alphabetical order).

ULP [Unique Lame Point]: Although they bring their own mark to the genre, they’re still in many ways just another folky, cutesy act to add to an already saturated market.

The critics say: “Slow Club display remarkable skill in tugging at heartstrings, but they do it without being particularly manipulative or overly saccharine.” – Pitchfork

Jen says: I advise starting with Yeah So before moving on to Paradise. It’s quite easy to let the latter wash over you without giving it the respect it deserves; Yeah So won’t blow you away, but it’s a more instantly likable album, which then paves the way for you to appreciate Paradise’s more subtle charms. It’s kind of like putting primer on before eyeshadow. You can put eyeshadow on without primer and be fine, but it looks better with the primer. (And here endeth the somewhat abstract simile.)

 
 

She & Him

 

Who?: Zooey Deschanel (vocalist and Hollywood indie pin-up), M Ward (guitar)

Sounds like: If the girl in 500 Days of Summer had had a band then this is what it’d sound li- oh, wait. Basically, a less lyrically interesting, more syrupy country version of Slow Club.

Back catalogue: Volume One (2008), Volume Two (2010), A Very She & Him Christmas (2011)

Couple?: Nope, though she’s in the process of divorcing Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard, so who knows if an interband relationship may spring up? (Sorry, that’s my two years’ worth of reading Heat magazine experience in the throes of adolescence coming through.)

USP: Their lead singer’s notoriety on the celebrity scene has brought them the closest act on the list to crossing over into the mainstream. Their second album got to #6 in the Billboard 200, so you could argue they have crossed over already. They’re clearly striking a chord with listeners, and while the US charts are usually a ‘lowest common denominator’ yardstick, She & Him scaling the heights in charts usually filled with Rihanna’s tiresome, attention-starved, idiotic nymphomaniac act is a joyous moment indeed for purveyors of ‘proper music’. #hipsterrant

ULP [Unique Lame Point]: They’re pretty bland, and sometimes verge into the ‘sugary to the point of cloying’ territory. There’s a reason you feel ill if you eat too much sugar, and that’s because it’s sickly. If you don’t like Deschanel’s big-eyed actress schtick, you’re probably not going to find much to enjoy here.

The critics say: “If Deschanel’s occasionally off-putting intonation isn’t too much for you, this sweet romp through a warm, largely carefree universe should nestle naturally into your listening rotation.” – Now Toronto

Jen says: Like Ed Sheeran, they walk the line between ‘pleasant, fluffy background music’ and ‘plain boring’ that has crossed into ‘liked by the vaguely musically aware, and thus derided by THE SRS MUSIC LOVER WHO LOVES GRIMES AND OTHER SRS ARTISTS WHO YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF’ territory. Affable, but being brutally honest, I’d rather watch 500 Days of Summer again and cry at the Expectations/Reality scene instead. Again. For about the sixth time.

Blood Red Shoes

 

Who?: Laura-Mary Carter (vocals, guitar), Steven Ansell (vocals, drums)

Sounds like: “What shall we bring back into vogue? Hmm, I know, Nirvana loud-quiet rock dynamics and lots of them!”

Back catalogue: Box Of Secrets (2008), Fire Like This (2010), In Time To Voices (2012)

Couple?: Nothing seems to suggest they are, so I’ll go with ‘no’.

USP: The most straight-up rock band of the lot. Sure, Sleigh Bells muck around with heavy metal influences to be kind of ironic, but these guys just seem a lot more authentic about it all. In the age of Lana-Del-Rey-Authenticitygate, this is terribly important. This isn’t to say they’re hiding behind ‘authentic rock’ as an excuse to be boring and refuse to try anything out that isn’t a 3-chord pub anthem, like Oasis, they’re far more creative than that. Just, in comparison with the far wispier other acts on the list…

ULP [Unique Lame Point]: Their guitar riffs, more of a centrepiece than most of the duos’, aren’t particularly inventive. Plus, being totally rawk and all, they don’t use harmonies but shout along together instead – fits their sound, sure, but it’s difficult to argue that this sounds nicer than the other couples’ harmonies.

The critics say: “Blood Red Shoes are the band The Kills think they are.” – The Independent on Sunday

Jen says: I first heard of them from the ‘Scott Pilgrim’ soundtrack… their inclusion on which (with ‘It’s Getting Boring By The Sea’) speaks very highly of them. The video for IGBBTS, incidentally, features Laura-Mary looking more like a dark-haired Debbie Harry circa 1978 than anyone else in the history of the universe has ever done. Just thought this needed mentioning.

What IS Britpop?

.     My mother asked me this question last week, squeezing a word in edgeways as I babbled on about my Britpop-related dissertation ideas. I was gobsmacked – how could she not know what Britpop was when she lived through it? (Answer: Concentrating on having and looking after children, apparently.) Seeing as it’s not the first time I’ve been asked this question, and having quite a few articles on here about it, I’ll try to explain it. Possibly in too much detail, for which I apologise; it’s difficult to condense one’s favourite topic…
.     Having said that, if you’ve got a spare few days, more than a few pounds and are actually interested enough to spend both of those on enlightening yourself about Britpop, buy John Harris’s ‘The Last Party: Britpop, Blair and the Demise of English Rock’. This is the book that turned me from being interested-enough-to-write-a-novel-about-the-era-but-who-are-Suede? to I-WILL-BUY-A-PARTICULAR-ISSUE-OF-NME-FOR-FIVE-TIMES-ITS-ORIGINAL-PRICE-ON-EBAY-AND-TOUR-LONDON-LOOKING-FOR-THE-PLACE-WHERE-SUEDE-HAD-THEIR-FIRST-GIG*. It’s well-written, ceaselessly entertaining and, in many places, proof that real life is truly stranger than fiction. Honestly, who needs Dickens and his obese prose when you can have a Mercury Music Prize-winning band recruiting a 17-year-old schoolboy from Poole to replace their erstwhile guitarist? (Or you could read this very good blog article by someone who was actually around when Britpop was. I don’t count being in playschool as being around when Britpop was.)
.     Onwards…

Music weekly Select championing Suede, the first important Britpop band.

When?: [Tl;dr rough answer: Spring 1992 – summer 1997.]
.     As with any movement, there’s no concrete beginning or end. Most estimates consider the release of Blur’s ‘Popscene’ as the advent of Britpop, so technically the 30^th March 1992 – but of course Britpop didn’t just spring out of the woodwork fully formed. It had been percolating in response to a lacklustre British music scene at the time, which celebrated ‘shoegaze’ bands, and as a result of the explosion of Nirvana’s Nevermind with the music press’s resultant focus on American grunge. Personally, I regard Suede’s ‘The Drowners’ [11^th May 1992] as a more important release than ‘Popscene’ in terms of garnering media attention, as it began a hype-snowball around Suede which brought the focus away from Seattle and back to new homegrown talent.
.     For your average Joe, who listened to the charts but didn’t read NME or Melody Maker – well, Britpop could’ve begun for him at various points. Public consciousness was originally invaded by Britpop at the 1993 Brit Awards [16^th February 1993], when Suede caused a furore by performing ‘Animal Nitrate’, an ode to violent, gay sex and drugs (the name is a play on the drug ‘amyl nitrate’), then more prominently at the 1995 Brits [20^th February 1995] when Blur won four awards as a result of chart-topping album Parklife. If average Joe really hadn’t been paying attention to the music scene, its most defining moment, the ‘Battle of Britpop’ [14^th – 20^th August 1995], took the British press (both tabloid and broadsheet) and even the po-faced TV news by storm. [The Battle of Britpop is explained here.]
.     The end point, again, varies. Commonly held views are that the release of Blur’s angular, Pavement-inspired self-titled album [10^th February 1997], Oasis’s plodding misfire Be Here Now [21^st August 1997], Radiohead’s OK Computer [21^st May 1997] and, weirdly, Labour winning the 1997 General Election [1^st May 1997] can all be seen as Britpop’s denouement. If you couldn’t bear to leave the party until the last fag-end had burnt out and shrivelled up, perhaps you’d consider Pulp’s album of angst and paranoia This Is Hardcore [30^th March 1998] the very end of the movement. I’d say it ended with Be Here Now, largely because it was über-hyped, misguidedly, which warranted a mass-buying session from the British public before they realised it was kind of rubbish. Oasis were no longer the template for new bands to model themselves on, the other major bands had moved onto new styles, and the minor bands were cleared from labels’ rostra to make way for either more commercial bands, or more creative ones.

The infamous picture of Noel Gallagher hobnobbing with Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street in 1997.

.     Who?: The tag of Britpop has been applied to the likes of Coldplay, Travis and Keane (though they’re more like ‘borepop’, if you ask me). In those instances, ‘Britpop’ refers to the far more vague notion of British pop music. Acts synonymous with the Britpop movement, however, are Blur and Oasis, usually seen as its main players. Other key bands of the time included Pulp, Suede, Sleeper, Echobelly, Elastica and butt-of-Britpop-jokes Menswear. Or ‘Menswe@r’, if you want to get technical about it. (You can tell it was the 90s, can’t you?) Although many of these have receded from public consciousness – including one-time ‘fastest-selling UK debut album of all time’ record holders Elastica – all enjoyed some amount of chart success and media attention, not to mention (in the cases of Blur and Menswear, anyway) a near-religious fervour from Smash Hits-reading teenage girls. As a joke from the time suggests (“What’s 40 foot long, has no pubes and goes “Aaaaaaah!”? The front row of a Blur concert”).
.     On the other hand, not all British bands of the mid-90s tapped into the Britpop market. Some, like Take That, were just your generic dancing-puppet boyband troupe, the sort that makes you forget there was a time before The X Factor; others, like Radiohead, shunned the pervasive sense of ‘Britishness’ (or, it’s been asserted, Englishness masquerading as Britishness) and the prevalent nostalgia for the ‘golden age’ of the 1960s. The espousing of ‘Englishness’ resulted in British-but-not-English bands feeling alienated from the scene and developing their own sound, aspects of which opposed Britpop values – among them, Mogwai in Scotland (who sold ‘Blur are shite’ t-shirts in 1999, post-Britpop), the Manic Street Preachers in Wales and Ash in Northern Ireland.
.     Other important, non-musical figures of the time included Alan McGee, founder of the Creation record label which signed Oasis, and future Prime Minister Tony Blair. Blair’s past as the lead singer in a rock band (Ugly Rumours) and fondness for rock and roll made him a VIP at various music awards, while his aides attempted to secure the support of Blur and Oasis to appeal to the younger electorate – leading to the famous ‘Noel Gallagher at 10 Downing Street’ pictures.

Noel Gallagher's iconic Union Flag guitar. Britpop is about more than just Noel Gallagher, but he's in a lot of useful Britpop-related images...

.     What/why?: I’ve already mentioned that it was a reaction to and against grunge and, to a lesser extent, shoegazing. The Britpop rhetoric centres on the promotion of a quintessentially English ideal that defines itself in opposition to the self-loathing of grunge, combined with a sense of nostalgia for Britain’s musical progeny. It doesn’t have to be the lyrics that reflect this; some bands used regional accents to steep themselves in Anglocentrism, while others used the prevalent imagery of the Union Flag in pictures or on their guitars (Noel Gallagher, cough cough). The nostalgia’s discussed in the ‘Influences’ section below.
.     There was also an espousal of the commercialisation of indie. Chart placings began to matter in the wake of the Battle of Britpop, with record companies becoming increasingly ruthless towards artists who hadn’t had a top 20 hit. In order to hit the mass market that was required for that yardstick of success, many artists compromised the experimental tendencies that would mark them out of the chart game. They instead sought ‘tunes the milkman could whistle’ (The Boo Radleys’ ‘Wake Up Boo!’ being a prime example) to ensure that Top of the Pops performance that would get them further recognition by the public.
.     Britpop has often been associated with the rise of lad culture and creation of ‘the lager-eater’, a bullish young male who enjoys stereotypically masculine pursuits like drinking beer and going to the football. As such, it’s become associated with rampant misogyny, although this is not necessarily true. Elastica were three-quarters female, while Lush and Echobelly were not only half female, but Echobelly’s singer and guitarist were rare examples of black women in rock, with their guitarist Debbie Smith upping the rarity factor by also being a lesbian. Justine Frischmann, lead singer of Elastica, also championed women’s choice to appear in lad’s magazines if they wanted to, seeing potential for women to empower themselves through it rather than adopting the raging-feminists-with-pitchforks discourse that it’s misogynist pressures that drive women to become involved in the adult magazine industry. It’s also been noted that Britpop’s female lyricists (Frischmann, Sonya Madan in Echobelly, Louise Wener in Sleeper) imbued their lyrics with more wit than many of their male counterparts, a forebearer of the ‘girl power’ that the Spice Girls would promote as Britpop derailed.

The Good Mixer, a Camden pub that was frequented by various Britpop band members during the 90s, as it is today.

Where?: London was the epicentre of Cool Britannia. Many of the places that became synonymous with Britpop were in or around Camden (The Good Mixer, The Dublin Castle), while various clubs housed Britpop’s key players at different stages of its life, from Syndrome in its gestation period to The Groucho Club as the bands and their entourages became more famous (Alex James, Damien Hirst and Keith Allen in particular became part of their furniture in 1995-6). Plenty of bands embraced Mockney accents or referenced areas of London in their lyrics.
.     Obviously, not everyone was London-based. Manchester, still clinging onto its Acid House-era [see below] ‘cool’ status, of course spawned Oasis, who made no attempt to hide their origins in either interviews or vocal style. Similarly, Jarvis Cocker’s strong Sheffield accent distinguished Pulp from the legions of Laaaahndaaahn-based bands, and the band never relocated from their native city. Liverpool, whose influence held strong in the shape of quasi-music gods The Beatles, produced fringe players Cast and proto-Britpop band The La’s, best known for classic ‘There She Goes’.

Brett Anderson with his icon, David Bowie. (There weren't any good quality pics of Damon Albarn with Ray Davies, so I went with this instead.)

Influences: The most obvious point of reference for Britpop artists was the British Invasion of the 1960s. The Beatles, Kinks, Small Faces and Rolling Stones were all mentioned time and time again by the artists and the press (The Beatles/Stones myth particularly being applied to Blur/Oasis during the Battle of Britpop). Oasis in particular pilfered from The Beatles and their respective members’ solo careers – ever noticed how much the opening of ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ sounds like John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’?
Closer in years to the 90s, David Bowie influenced Britpop’s forefathers, Suede, immeasurably – both in sound and style. (At 3:10 in their debut video, Brett Anderson looks exactly like Bowie.) Later, Suede’s more populist third album, Coming Up, sounded markedly more like 70s glam rock pin-ups T Rex. The Smiths were also a common port of call for influence, with most of the most important bands being inspired by Morrissey’n’Marr in their youth. This worked both ways, with Morrissey attending several early Suede gigs and including a cover of Suede B-side ‘My Insatiable One’ in his 1992 live shows.
.     Britpop can in some ways be seen as a reappropriation of the ‘acid house’, or baggy, scene, spearheaded by the Happy Mondays and Stone Roses. Centred in Manchester (the movement sometimes being called ‘Madchester’) and rising at the end of the 80s before being blown away by grunge, ‘baggy’ saw, ideals-wise, a move away from the threadbare indie ideal of the early 80s and a move towards capitalist mores. Musically, it was mostly a celebration of hedonistic excess and braggadocio, though The Stone Roses were far less dance-y and more soft-spoken than the Mondays. Oasis were especially influenced by the scene, though Brett Anderson was an unlikely Mondays disciple, while Jarvis Cocker recounts a rave-gone-wrong scenario in Pulp single ‘Sorted For E’s And Whizz’. Blur, on the other hand, were latecomers to the baggy party, with their debut album Leisure being released towards the tail-end of the period and hugely indebted to its indie-dance sound.
.     More obscure influences included Scott Walker, an idol for Pulp (he later went onto produce their swansong album We Love Life in 2001), while Blur’s Anglocentric ‘Life’ trilogy – Modern Life Is Rubbish, Parklife and, analogously, The Great Escape – drew on ‘quintessentially English’ music hall traditions of the late 19^th and early 20^th century with B-sides like ‘Daisy Bell’ and ‘Let’s All Go Down The Strand’. Elastica referenced Adam and the Ants, Wire and The Stranglers as references, settling in court with the latter two due to blatant musical plagiarism from each. Indie legends The Fall were Albarn-, Anderson- and Frischmann-beloved, with Damon Albarn revisiting his love for Mark E Smith by collaborating with him on Gorillaz track ‘Glitter Freeze’ in 2010 and one of Suede’s earliest tracks, ‘Implement Yeah’, written while Justine Frischmann was still a member, being written about him (incorporating an anecdote about Smith calling Suede’s label’s manager, Saul Galpern, a ‘Scotch homo’). Finally, Graham Coxon’s well-documented love of independent ideals meant that some of his early influences included barely-heard-of indie acts like Talulah Gosh, The Cardiacs and The Pastels.

Spot the Acid House/Britpop artists on the V Festival line-up! BRITPOP LIVES YET!

Consequences: The aftermath of Britpop saw a move away from the ‘Oasis-by-numbers’ everyman music that 1996 had nurtured, and towards more intellectual bands like Radiohead and the Manic Street Preachers. (Not to be elitist, but can you imagine Oasis singing a lyric like “Libraries give us power”?) The commercialisation of alternative music continues to affect perceptions of success; although independent artists are flourishing in the age of the internet, you can’t read NME these days without at least one band bemoaning the ‘death of rock’ based on the lack of singles chart influence that rock bands have. Several long-running music publications, such as Select and Melody Maker, closed after Britpop’s heyday due to falling sales, and even now, indie harbinger NME is reportedly facing crisis for the same reason.
.     As for its legacy, a second wave of Britpop emerged in the mid-00’s, with the Kaiser Chiefs, Franz Ferdinand and the Arctic Monkeys becoming incredibly successful. Attempted Britpop revivalists, Viva Brother, weren’t as lucky last year and ended up being reviled by, well, pretty much everyone, leading to their split earlier this month. The current trend for reunions means that many of the original Britpop bands – Suede, Blur, Pulp, Shed Seven, Dodgy – are riding high on festival line-ups again this year. Yet, even as a Britpop-lover, I’ve found myself wondering if this nostalgia is strangling opportunities for new artists to get themselves heard. How many people are going to festivals this year so they can watch The Inspiral Carpets?
That said, the finest albums from the period continue to do well in ‘Greatest Albums Ever’ lists in magazines, especially Definitely Maybe, Dog Man Star, Parklife and Different Class. Oasis’s seminal sophomore album (What’s The Story) Morning Glory, meanwhile, remains the third biggest-selling album in the UK of all time (though, given Adele’s 21’s glory, for how much longer…).
.     You may not agree with the overt patriotism or the accusations of sexism within the movement. But as someone writing in the 2010s, when soulless dance tracks wind round the singles chart like poison ivy, the thought of a bygone era where people got seriously het up over which rock song would top the chart is a pleasant daydream indeed. It’s only been relived in recent memory by Rage Against The Machine’s Christmas #1 victory over Joe McElderry in 2009, and wasn’t that bloody exciting?

*Tragically, I did just that earlier this month. It involved going up to Hampstead Heath and wandering around for ages, either because Google Maps’ instructions are over-complicated or because I’m a terrible navigator. (You decide.) Incidentally, here is the place in question. It was called The Sausage Machine at the time:

SUEDE PLAYED THEIR FIRST GIG HERE. *fangirlgasm*

The Brits 2012 (Or, Death By Boredom)

If you genuinely like music, chances are you probably hate the Brits. Despite occasional moments of brilliance (KLF in 1992, Suede in 1993, Jarvis Cocker invading Michael Jackson’s set in 1996), minor altercations (any time Liam Gallagher has been there) and deserved awards (Blur’s unsurpassed four gongs in 1995), it’s usually a lacklustre affair that prompts as much joy from the non-deaf as castration without an anaesthetic. Last year’s ceremony saw an upset as Laura Marling beat walking wardrobe Cheryl Cole to Best British Female, which in itself was enough to save it from disgrace, but could this year better it? With Blur winning the Outstanding Contribution to Music award and warranting a 3-song set at the end, things were looking promising… that is, until the show started.

A lot of hype from alternative music sectors had surrounded this year’s competition, with the likes of Bon Iver, PJ Harvey, Anna Calvi, Laura Marling (again) and Florence + The Machine up for prizes, but needless to say, the sea of Heart FM-playlist-filling dirge washed them away awardless. Adele and Ed Sheeran dominated proceedings, winning two each (Best British Female and Album of the Year/Best British Male and British Breakthrough Act respectively), while those old favourites of mine* Bruno Mars and Coldplay also had a delightfully* tacky statuette to take home (*sarcasm). It’s difficult to argue with these on a sales volume level, if not an originality or musical quality level – although, having said that, Adele’s performance of ‘Rolling In The Deep’ was musically spot on and arguably better than her critically-fapped-over Grammys set – but the lack of surprises meant that even the meatball korma meal that accompanied my Brits viewing had more flavour than the show did. The closest there was to a shock victory was for One Direction’s ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ winning Song of the Year over Adele’s ‘Someone Like You’ – that I think the right song won this category gives you an indication of quite how appalling its contenders were**. The only other shocks were the fact that someone didn’t tell Jessie J her dress was disgusting before she went out in it and that the event organisers managed to resist the temptation to turn Rihanna’s microphone off mid-performance. Her vocals were the sort that make you long for miming. (**…This song definitely isn’t a guilty pleasure for me. Definitely.)

Naturally the Righteously Indignant Police, otherwise known as the bulk of social networking sites’ users, found cause for scandal when Adele’s Best Album acceptance speech was cut short in favour of Blur’s Outstanding Contribution set. Quelle dommage! It’s not like she’d already thanked half the universe in her first acceptance speech. It’s also not like she’s been overexposed in the last year to the point where her screechy Cockney accent doesn’t induce homicide in anyone with a pair of ears. Who the hell are Blur, screeched the Righteously Indignant Police, (average age 13, average IQ negligible). Why are we letting a bunch of granddads run around shouting when we could have Adele squawking like the lovechild of Phil Daniels and a female parrot? Having said that, Blur weren’t exactly brilliant; Damon sounded incredibly hoarse and I’d have liked their performance of ‘This Is A Low’ to have made the ITV1 show instead of being relegated to ITV2. But their energy and enthusiasm defibrillated the show, even if it was too little, too late. Ah well lads, there’s always the Olympics Closing Ceremony.

So there we are. 1992’s Brits was notable for machine gun blanks being fired into the crowd and a dead sheep being left at the aftershow party, 1993’s was memorable for Brett Anderson misappropriating the microphone as a spanking device, 2000’s for an impending fracas between Liam Gallagher and Robbie Williams. 2012’s Brits will be remembered for very little, except Adele’s-Winning-Speech-Being-Cut-Shortgate™, Jessie J’s quite hideous bloodstained lace tablecloth dress and Blur having a fluorescent kebab spit in their set design. But I’m sure I’ll be back in front of this insipid snoozefest again in a year’s time, moaning to my heart’s content and wondering why I wasn’t born 20 years earlier.

One-Line Album Reviews and Site Rejig

Dear lovely readers, those of you who exist;

It has come to my attention that I’m bored of sections of this website. As such, I’m planning to rejig it once I’ve finished a pesky essay. Certain pages, such as the Hall of Fame and Disclaimer, have been hidden so I can edit them. The Hall of Fame may not return for the sole reason that it seems to be a massive aphrodisiac for spam bots, who are then seduced into commenting on it. I’ve had to delete nearly 2,500 spam bot comments and I’ve grown slightly tired of it.

I will be publishing some articles, probably about music and the Brit awards, in the next week. But until then, here are some mini-album reviews to tide you over.

Jen x

Born To Die – Lana Del Rey, 2012: ‘Video Games’ and ‘Born To Die’ are as out of place on this semi-tacky, overlong guilty pleasure as heat is on Pluto. (Recommended: Video Games, Born To Die, National Anthem, Summertime Sadness, from the Deluxe edition Lolita)

Let’s Go Eat The Factory – Guided By Voices, 2012: ADHD-length tracks; some of which are memorable, others not. (Recommended: Laundry and Lasers, Doughnut for a Snowman, Old Bones)

W H O K I L L – tUnE yArDs, 2011: Crazy, original, absolutely infectious/brilliant in places. (Recommended: My Country, Gangsta, Wooly Wolly Gong)

Go Tell Fire To The Mountain – WU LYF, 2011: Early promise descends into dirge. (Recommended: L Y F)

Cults – Cults, 2011: A jangly, enjoyable debut, if fairly standard indie fare. (Recommended: Abducted, Go Outside, Bumper) [Also, I really like the cover art]

Young and Old – Tennis, 2012: Solid but forgettable, lacking the sugary charm of their debut. (Recommended: It All Feels The Same, Origins)

Wounded Rhymes – Lykke Li, 2011: Immaculate, dark indie-pop effort from the Scandanavian vocalist. (Recommended: Youth Knows No Pain, Get Some, Sadness Is My Blessing)

Within and Without – Washed Out, 2011: Decent if unspectacular M83-riffing album. (Recommended: Eyes Be Closed, Amor Fati)

The Cars – The Cars, 1978: Guitar riffs a-go-go on what’s rightly considered a New Wave classic. (Recommended: Let The Good Times Roll, Just What I Needed, My Best Friend’s Girl)

Bad Girls [single] – M.I.A., 2012: Catchier than <insert STD or highly contagious disease here>, but far, far more pleasant – and better than that other song M.I.A. features in this month…

Facebook Timeline: What Nobody Wanted, Nobody Needed, and What Everyone’s Going to Get

There’s an unwritten rule that the only acceptable way to celebrate a new Facebook layout is to complain about it. They change ‘become a fan’ to ‘like’? Time for a moan. They bring in that stupid sidebar to tell you that your friends are commenting on posts by people you don’t know? Post a furious status threatening to delete your account. They fiddle around with the privacy settings, claiming to make them easier to use but actually just making them more complicated? Back in a moment, just getting a pitchfork and joining the lynch mob that’s headed for Mark Zuckerberg’s house. [There’s an Oatmeal cartoon that accurately describes these events here.]

But Timeline is different. Whereas most Facebook layout changes are relatively small, so that users can adapt to them with minimal effort – and forget what the ‘old’ Facebook looked like within 15 minutes of their profile making the change – Zuckerberg et al. have taken a huge gamble by changing what it is people use Facebook for. Although the original aim of the original site, Facemash, was to serve as a Harvard ‘Hot or Not’ application (as shown in 2010’s Best Picture Oscar-nominated film The Social Network), it evolved into a broader social network with the mission statement “Connect with friends faster, wherever you are”. Timeline’s name says it all – it’s looking to make the Facebook user profile into a timeline of their life. It’s a huge departure from merely being a social networking tool; Facebook is now asking you to record your life story on there. It wants to know everything, be your autobiography of sorts and, courtesy of the ‘cover’ picture at the top of the page, individualise your Facebook experience a little bit. It’s a cool idea. In theory.

…Unfortunately, cool ideas in theory aren’t necessarily good ideas. The electric tricycle, The Sinclair Research C5, was a cool idea. Concorde was a cool idea. Smell-O-Vision, a 1960s cinema ‘add-on’ of sorts which released odours in conjunction with what was on the screen at the time, was a cool idea. All of these ideas failed commercially. Although Timeline’s situation is not really comparable to those of any of these examples, its advent is a strange and dangerous move by Facebook’s management, particularly considering that 7 million North American users – nearly 1% of the site’s entire users – became inactive in May 2011 alone. Will a hefty site rejig really stop the rot?

This isn’t the first time I’ve thought that Facebook was on thin ice courtesy of changes. The last ‘big change’ previous to Timeline was the installation of the sidebar that I mentioned in the first paragraph; despite promising improved privacy settings, a sidebar that tells everyone in your friend list what you’re saying to anyone if you don’t have tight privacy settings was hardly upholding the mores of personal privacy. Although it’s easy to tighten your settings, it doesn’t tell you beforehand that your information is being publicly displayed if your privacy settings extend further than ‘Friends’. Even as a bit of a Facebook stalker myself, I find that amount of information being readily available to my stalking senses deeply uncomfortable. And don’t get me started on Subscribers…

…But, still, the gamble might be paying off. Certainly, the majority of tech websites and blogs have been having geekgasms over it since it was released on December 15^th. The Guardian released a startlingly sycophantic article in support of it, including gushing over the fact that you can jump back to the day you were born on your ‘timeline’. In all honesty, I can’t think of anything I’d require less on the website. With most of Facebook’s 800 million users yet to adopt the new layout, the wider public’s opinion is yet to be known.

However, speaking as someone with little knowledge of computer complexities, over 4 years’ worth of Facebook experience and the Timeline installed for a fortnight now, I’m going to make the bold prediction that 2012 is going to be Google+’s year, and (eek) the beginning of Facebook’s downfall. Industry analysts predict that Google+’s user base will reach 400 million – half of Facebook’s – by the end of this year, and a radical change of Facebook profiles is almost certainly going to lead to that number increasing. A quarter of Google+’s users signed up in December 2011 alone – the same month that Timeline was released. Especially considering that users aren’t being given the option to revert their profiles to the ‘old’ layout, I doubt that’s just a coincidence. Let’s just say that, given the choice, I wouldn’t have kept my profile in that state, and – had I not already been on Google+ – I would have signed up for it there and then.

Essentially, with Timeline, Facebook is asking too much of its users. Sure, it was fun having a play around with the map feature when I realised I was stuck with the damn thing. I tagged where I’d been in my life – which came to disaster when I somehow, embarrassingly, managed to tag friends as being in Abu Dhabi airport with me right at that moment (despite entering the date of this visit as July 2009) – and had a cheeky stalk of myself from years past (result: oh Christ, the embarrassment of being an angsty 15-year-old…). But – maybe I’m too old to spend ages arranging my profile into a specific order, maybe I’ve grown out of the website, or maybe it’s just jumped the shark now – it all seems forced, unnecessary and, to keep their information on the site to a minimum, alienating. Many users keep their profiles merely to keep in touch with distant friends, share articles (cough) or remain on the social radar, to be invited to events. What exactly does Timeline do for them?

Other parts seem to be overkill even from the most avid stalker’s perspective. What does knowing when someone liked a page do for anyone? The only use for it that I can think of may be a misguided assumption in any case; assuming that someone started liking a band at a certain point because they became a fan of them in October 2009 could be wrong for any number of reasons. Over the years I’ve cut back my musical Likes on my page either out of embarrassment, lapses in support or by mistake (alternatively, just to cut back the sheer number), so if you’re assuming, for example, that I only became a fan of McFly in 2008, you’re so wrong. (February 2004, actually.) While some of the information you can dredge up from your history on Timeline is interesting, enlightening or amusing, there’s no point having it if it’s plain wrong or utterly useless/tedious.

On a more serious level, the option to add sensitive life stories to the profile such as ‘Death of a Loved One’ seems like a serious misjudgement on Facebook’s part. Sharing Likes was one thing; sharing deaths is quite another. Perhaps I’m being old-fashioned or over-analysing things here, but I was under the impression that family or friend deaths aren’t the sort of trivial things that one would want to share with the world, or even your whole friends list. Sure, you can decide not to put it on there, or you can hide it from certain people you wouldn’t want to share it with, but the fact that it’s even an option lends the disturbing conclusion that Facebook wants to know all your secrets, including the most painful and traumatic ones. In my opinion, that’s the sort of information that people should have to earn through trust and proper friendship, not just from being a casual acquaintance that boosts one’s numbers. In the days of yore, when it was just Likes that one could flaunt, Facebook’s sharing facilities meant that people who didn’t know each other that well could base a friendship on a mutual interest, or at the very least discuss it. Sharing deaths turns Facebook from being a refreshing, light-hearted opportunity to socialise into a potentially solemn and awkward experience. After a frenetic stalking session, I once discovered a friend’s father had died several years before we’d met; it leaves you feeling guilty, overly-intrusive and puts you off stalking a little bit. And without stalkers to read your life story, Timeline is utterly redundant.

Sometimes Facebook’s changes are for the best. Who can really say that they miss Superpoke! or Gifts? But I honestly don’t think the new layout is more attractive than the old one; two columns of links or comments overwhelms the user with an overload of information where the previous layout’s single column neatly presented information at a digestible pace. The ‘cover’ idea is alright, livening up the top of the page, but I can’t help but be reminded of MySpace’s garish backgrounds and HTML stars falling down the page when I see it. The jumbled and random placing of activity boxes, recently listened to music and recently read news articles is incredibly confusing, as are the privacy settings; ok, you can decide how private each speck of information is, but more options leads to more confusion. Admittedly, I do like the fact that it has incorporated news applications into the site – although a lot of the articles I find myself reading on there are utter trash, some of them are quite interesting or informative and it’s never a bad thing to know that a supposedly ignorant age group are educating themselves on world affairs in between stalking.

I think the main problem here is that Facebook’s monopoly on social networking has made its directors want to incorporate the USPs of every other social networking website into it so that it fulfils every purpose and continues to be a necessity in modern life. It copied the ‘what’s on your mind?’ question in the status box after Twitter got big (though both have now changed this), introduced a Spotify-merger music profiling system that rips off LastFM (to a less successful extent – there’s no way of combining it with one’s iTunes listens, making its catalogue of music plays unrepresentative for many users), and has the option to ‘tag’ one’s location that Foursquare provides. The one thing that it doesn’t provide is a comprehensive search engine; this gives Google+ a major advantage.

Google is the only website higher up in the Alexa rankings (detailing the most visited websites in the world) than Facebook, and is ubiquitous to the point where it has its own verb in the Oxford English Dictionary (“To google (2): 1. intr. To use the Google search engine to find information on the Internet.”), something that Facebook has yet to achieve; as such, it reaches an even wider target audience than Facebook. But what really gives it the edge is Google+’s USP: it strips back most of the excess that Facebook has accumulated in trying to be everything to everyone, and instead gives you a clean, uncluttered interface. It provides a similar service to that which many people originally signed up to Facebook for; connecting and interacting with friends. There’s none of this Timeline nonsense, except your birthday, schools and jobs – if you want to share them – and there’s no ‘share the death of a loved one’ obligation. It’s simpler, nicer to look at and is comfortingly ‘old-school’, but simultaneously fresh. At the moment, it gains over half a million users per day; that number looks set to increase as other social networks drive out their users with unnecessary changes.

Of the people I know who have explored Timeline, the overwhelming majority dislike it. When it becomes a compulsory layout for all, they won’t be alone; surely this will tie in with a surge of people deactivating their accounts and leaving the website, maybe in their millions. After all, how long until the next set of changes? How many times can people watch their profiles being messed around with? Somewhere in Los Angeles, Tom Anderson from MySpace is sitting on the sofa of ex-social network overlords, cackling at the schadenfreude of it all, and getting the popcorn out as he watches the drama unfold. He’s waiting for Zuckerberg to join him.

Introducing The Brand: Lana Del Rey

How to create a pop sensation in 2011: take one millionaire’s daughter. Change her name, give her some ludicrous soundbites about being a “gangster Nancy Sinatra”, perhaps make her over with plastic surgery. Get her debut major-label single to be accompanied by a video made with webcam clips of herself, mingled with clips of Hollywood actress Paz de la Huerta falling over, skateboarders falling over and couples kissing (but not falling over), all directed and edited by the artist. Wait for Pitchfork to laud the song, for it to go viral as a result and for people to discover her original name and album released under that name. Sit back and watch the rumour mill buzz about whether or not she’s had plastic surgery while YouTube users ferociously debate whether she’s a fake and whether or not she’s ‘indie’. Most importantly, ensure she’s vocally and aesthetically captivating – and, hey presto!, you have a star in the making.

…At least, that’s how the marketing of Lana Del Rey, ‘the artist formerly known as Lizzy Grant’, has gone. While painfully bitchy website Hipster Runoff has made insulting her its manifesto, and people still can’t work out if her face has been surgically enhanced (the nose is pointier, the mouth is poutier…), there’s no denying that her star is firmly in the ascendancy. Her debut single ‘Video Games’ was a top 10 hit in six countries, topping the chart in Germany, and has had 16 million hits on YouTube (adding the original video’s views with the Vevo ones); it was also The Guardian’s critics’ song of the year for 2011. Her first London show sold out in minutes after her live performance of the song on Later… with Jools Holland – the show that is, let’s be honest, the closest thing that mainstream 21^st century Britain has to John Peel’s Peel Sessions as far as breaking new artists is concerned. She’s in the top 10 of NME’s 2011 ‘Cool List’ and is currently the cover star of Q magazine. Born To Die, her major-label debut album, is released at the end of January (on the 30^th in the UK), released a week after the album’s second single, ‘Born To Die’. And, if you were doubting how successful she’s becoming, compare the budgets of her singles’ videos to date. Where her ‘Video Games’ video was all but budgetless, the video for ‘Born To Die’ is partly shot in the Palace of Fontainebleau, with Del Rey accompanied in the palace by tigers… yeah, it’s pretty safe to assume that Interscope are convinced that 2012 is her year.

Her New York upbringing and stage name, not to mention her gender, have raised comparisons between her and Lady Gaga in articles. (Adele hit the nail on the head about journalistic laziness on the latter front when she said that “We’re a gender, not a genre”.) But there’s little to compare apart from the points already mentioned – Del Rey’s brand of relatively minimalist ‘Hollywood sadcore’ sounds nothing like Gaga’s brash, gimmicky pop/R&B, and Gaga’s voice is nothing remarkable whereas Del Rey’s sultry vocals, alternating between girlish breathiness and an assuredly deep tone, are used to stunning effect in her atmospheric songs. Whether Lana Del Rey will ever generate the tabloid column inches that Gaga does is questionable, despite the former’s superior talent – but she’s already generating them by the tonne on the likes of Pitchfork. Admittedly facets of her image are throwbacks; the teaser clip for ‘Born To Die’s video featured her, topless, in the arms of a similarly bare-chested male. Insert debate about whether she’s taking the feminist movement back 50 years here. When you add the is-it-or-isn’t-it surgery into the equation, that debate becomes even more heated; she’s signed a modelling deal with Next Model Management this week – is this part of her management’s masterplan? After all, the name change definitely was. Her sensuality and sexualisation certainly make up a large proportion of her bankability, like Gaga’s LGBT following and themes were part of hers.

Is she just a submissive sex symbol, slaving and selling her soul for ‘the man’ at Interscope/Polydor? Who knows. If she is, she’s doing a bloody good job of it. According to Polydor’s president, the excellently-named Ferdy Unger-Hamilton, “she likes to control every aspect of her career”. But he would say that, wouldn’t he? Essentially, though, what it boils down to is the music; on the radio, everything else is superfluous. And that’s why, whatever the BBC’s polls say, Lana Del Rey is going to be the real sound of 2012.