I Really Don’t Understand Kiss.

Oh, just fuck off.

last song i heard – “godawful “bass solo” “- kiss

 

Question Time.

There’s lots of adverts around with trendy alt bands providing the music, for example those Ipod ones which go for lesser known, in some cases actually independent bands. Then there’s that sweet advert with Major Maker, a local, relatively unknown band.

Then you get adverts who go for mainstream acts, bands everyone knows and loves.

But there ’s always people slagging off bands who sell their songs, and I’m noticing that it’s only really the bigger bands that are on the receiving end of the “i’m never listening to them again, they’ve sold out” fickleness that plagues the music blogs/websites/forums/magazines.

But you never seem to hear any abuse hurled at the more underground bands.

So what is this? A matter of simply selling out, or selling your song to get actual recognition that you would have very little chance of finding somewhere else? At what point in a band’s career does it become selling out for purposes of greed?

 

last song i heard – “bastards of young” – the replacements

 

Seems Like A Good Time To Write About Coldplay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m going to be honest, I’ve never had a moment when I’ve thought “Oooh I feel like going and listening to Coldplay”. They’ve struck me as boring and abnormally self-aware ever since Parachutes (which, I’m not going to lie, had a few good songs on it), and I’ve never understood how they’ve managed to sell out stadiums world-wide, when they come across as simply not that good.

The main thing that gets me with Coldplay is that they never seem to want to develop, which in my opinion every good band should always be doing. Release enough of the same material and people will eventually lose interest. Just look at the Village People.

However, I’d heard that their new album “Vida La Vida (Or Death And All His Friends)” was taking efforts to change that. According to the band they’d be incorporating Latin influences into the album, which they’d picked up along the way on their world travels. Though I was a bit skeptical when I read an interview with Chris Martin where he knocked back rumours that they were going for an “experimental” direction.

Due for a pyhsical release next tuesday, the album got leaked a week ago. So in an effort to understand the manic hype surrounding the album, which supposedly is single-handedly going to save EMI, I downloaded it (Ha!) and since then have listened to it eight times.

After first listens, there does seem to be an attempt made to widen their scope. Some church organ and handclaps on “Lost!”, some different song structures instead of verse/chorus/verse/chorus/chorus, and the use of a string section throughout stand out. Then, halfway through “Lovers In Japan/Reign In Love” everything stops and the second song starts, still on the same track, for no obvious reason. This happens twice again during the album and comes across to me as simply tasteless, self-indulgent and borderline offensive. It’s the sound of a band screaming “Look at us! We’re being different!”

And I can’t get through talking about this album without talking about “42″, which contains possibly some of the worst lyrics I’ve ever heard. “Those who are dead/are not dead/they’re just living in my head” Martin croons. Now come on, I wrote better lyrics than that when I was 16. And I was the drummer. A minute and a half in, “42″ switches over to a quick bass-led part which could be anything from “Pablo Honey”. Then there’s the single “Violet Hill” (which has an annoyingly cliched self-aware video) then at the end, “Death and All His Friends”, which I’m guessing is the one people get their lighters (or phones) out at during their upcoming world tour. Then it goes full-circle and we hear the same sound we heard right at the beginning of the album, on “Life In Technicolour”. 

In the end, though, it’s just not different enough. You can tell they’re trying, but it’s not enough.

For a man who’s walked out of interviews after journalists have questioned his bands creativity, Martin simply doesn’t seem that creative. I’m not trying to slag them off, but adding some strings and sticking two songs together and calling it one doesn’t exactly raise the bar in original creative output. Even the “Banksy On a Bad Day” cover art seems a bit forced.

While we’re on the subject of creativity, seeing as this is claimed to be their “creative” album, consider Radiohead, a band that Coldplay get compared to time and time again (which is beyond all my level of understanding). At this stage in their career, 7 years after their debut, Radiohead had already released “OK Computer” and were onto “Kid A”. Fair enough, Coldplay aren’t Radiohead, but if they’re not, stop comparing the two.

Martin recently said in an interview that they’d got to a point where they couldn’t get any bigger, so they had to get better. But I’m coming away with the feeling that if this is ”better”, they’re never going to be the band they want to be.

I know they’re played in supermarkets. I know everyone’s dad listens to them (-well, mine does). They’re a mainstream band, and they’re not going to come out and release a Sonic Youth-esque wall of feedback album. They know what makes money, and they know they’re going to make a killing off this album’s release regardless. They’ve got the fans. But if you’re claiming to be doing “something different” for this album, you’ve got to do more than hire Brian Eno and nick the drums and guitar from “Keep the Car Running” on “Lovers in Japan”. (Go on, listen to them both, it’s blatant.)

Fair play to them, they are trying hard. But it’s not exactly the career-expanding movement that the music media is bracing everyone to expect.

 

last song i heard – “Yes” – Coldplay

 

The Streets Say Five Is The Magic Number.

The Streets’ Mike Skinner has announced that he will only release one more album after “Everything Is Borrowed”, which is due to be released in July.

“The weird thing about being a music artist is that you live your life approximately 12 months ahead of your fans. I’m about to wrap my latest album.” Skinner said in a recent Myspace blog post. “You’re going to hear it in a few months (unless it leaks before then) but I’m already planning the next one. That’s what I have to do if you are ever to hear it years from now.”

According to the blog, “Everything Is Borrowed” will incorporate “peaceful positive vibes” instead of “a disturbing work such as the last you heard”, referring to his 2006 album “The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living”, which focused on his new found struggles with fame. Critics weren’t too impressed by the album, with Skinner already starting to call the period a “weird guilt-ridden indulgence”.

“But the final Streets album (the fifth one) will be dark and futuristic. This could not be further from the album you’re about to hear, but it’s what is on my mind at the moment. I feel inspired by the synthesizer exhibition we just visited in Graz after the gig we just done did.”

“Of course, I’m not supposed to tell you about this dark vision of the future because I’m about to promote my peaceful coming-to-terms album. I’m told the peaceful one is quite good, although I’ve heard it so many times that it’s just noise to me now. But the really exciting thing for me is the dark Berlin-influenced electronic album that’ll come next.”

 

last song i heard – “the year before the year 2000″ – les savy fav

CD Review – “Anywhere I Lay My Head” – Scarlett Johansson

 

Celebrities trying their hand at the music business is always something to be wary of. Usually an actor who has the ability to play an instrument or notices their singing voice kind of sounds like that song on the radio decides to tap into the “cool” of the “rock and roll” (bleeuurgh) world. Usually, they don’t meet the kind of success they might have expected.

 

Evidence? Consider Brian Austin Green (from Beverly Hills 90210), Bijou Phillips (the daughter of John Phillips), Vincent Gallo, Corey Feldman, William Shatner’s spoken word albums, Jada Pinkett Smith’s Wicked Wisdom, Russell Crowe’s abysmal 30 Odd Foot of Grunts, Keanu Reeve’s Dogstar.

 

If that’s not enough proof, you can check Bruce Willis, Dennis Quaid and the Sharks and Jared Leto’s emo-by-numbers 30 Seconds to Mars. Even Kojak’s Telly Savalas managed to release three albums.

 

So having listened ( – and enjoyed them for probable unintentional reasons – ) to these, when I heard last year that Scarlett Johansson was planning to cover her favourite Tom Waits songs for a full-length album, I simply shook my head, wondering what sort of world would allow such a thing.

 

But here we are. So I thought I’d write about it anyway.

 

Along with Johansson, the band is rounded out with guests Nick Zinner, Sean Antanaitis, with David Sitek of TV On the Radio taking the producer position.

 

Opening with the instrumental “Fawn” is a good start, with an organ, saxophone, bells, and guitar. It’s quite surprising that they didn’t just dive in at the deep end. Instead, it seems they’ve decided to actually pay tribute to Wait’s music. It’s a decent introduction for the style of the album ahead – Sitek bumping up the instrument count as opposed to Wait’s often bare-bones songwriting.

 

Once the album gets going you realize something – Johansson has a surprisingly deep singing voice. In a rare example of production, her vocals throughout the whole album are on the same level as the rest of the instruments, instead of being produced on a different level then being stuck together, resulting in a layering effect. Whether this is an attempt to hide any vocal problems is debatable.

 

Sharing vocal duties is David Bowie, who recorded his parts after the rest of the album was finished, and yet his guest tracks “Falling Down” and “Fannin Street” are two of the stand-outs, which may say something about the rest of the album.

 

Though if there are stand-out tracks then there have to be bad ones. Knock knock. Who’s there? Oh, its “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up”, a seemingly 80’s themed dirge complete with drum machines and synth. Hello, who’s that behind you? Ahh, it’s “I Wish I Was In New Orleans”, which starts off sounding like a child’s bedtime toy and never really goes anywhere else. 

 

Right smack in the middle of the album is “Song For Jo”, an original co-written by Johansson and Sitek. It shows some potential, and could be an indication of where she could go in the future.

 

But altogether it seems a little too stylish. It’s obvious they’ve tried to do something different with the songs, and good for them, but it all seems slightly empty, like something you’d out on when you’ve got friends over and no-one’s paying attention to the music anyway. There are interesting textures, with dog bowls, rainsticks, Nigerian logs, saxophones, flutes and a hell of a lot more being used, at times creating an absolute wave of noise, but sometimes less is more.

 

In the end, though, it doesn’t quite work, but it can’t be compared next to David Hasselhoff as celebrity ego gone mad. There doesn’t seem to be much vanity on show here, and she’s having a decent stab at it, you’ve got to give her that, but it’s hard for a 24-year-old to get across the same meanings that Tom Waits had in the originals.

 

It’s an ambitious try, though.

 

 

last song i heard – “it’s the law” – social distortion