Friday, August 27, 2004
Thoughts of the Pops
The overindulgence in Fringe related activities that we mentioned in the previous posts appears to have finally caught up with us as we are currently rotten with the cold. We've decided, therefore, to have a night in and suffer miserably instead. But never mind! It's not for nothing that we're called Mr Brightside, indeed we're not called Mr Brightside at all, Grumpychops appears to be a more popular nickname, but we've decided to use our time wisely anyway and allow ourselves to once again be educated by Top of the Pops. Here's what we learnt:-
- Alex Franz Ferdinand is a lot older than his bio would have you believe and, despite what he appears to think, no amount of eye make-up is going to change that.
- Record companies must be falling over themselves to sign bands that sound a little bit like a rubbish Maroon 5 as this is the only possible explanation for Rooster having a record contract.
- Speaking of which, Maroon 5 have the least rock and roll tourbus in the world. We doubt even Chas and Dave would happily have their Aunts along for the ride.
- Any vague remaining hope that we might have still had of Nelly ever releasing a single as good as Country Grammar has completely evaporated upon hearing the anemic, sexless, soulless and just generally dull piece of pointlessness that is My Place.
- We don't know why Stonebridge recruited a girl called Therese to front their Put 'Em High single. Therese is the name of a dinner lady. It is not the name of an Ibiza Diva.
- R Kelly "loves being experimental". Feel free to come up with your own legally dubious punchline.
- Kristian Leontiou was presumably unavailable to do Top of the Pops as instead they got what appeared to be a window cleaners assistant to perform his single instead. Pop Rule #341 was followed, however.
- Natasha Bedingfield is at number one. Hooray! We love Natasha, which is an emotion we never thought we'd express about a Bedingfield, but Natasha does have the advantage of being a hell of a lot prettier than her attacked-by-the-ugly-bush brother. Like Nat, we find it hard to find the words to express our love for her - we find it hard saying what we mean with dead puns and our dumb machine - but we do think that this single is stupidly ace, even if we do long for someone to explain to her exactly how hyperbole is pronounced.
- This was Tim Kash's final show! Hallelujah! Unfortunately he didn't take advantage of his last few seconds of BBC airtime to apologise for all that he's done and, indeed, who he is, but we need never see his slightly smug face again and that can only be a good thing.
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
14 Days Since We Went Away
Sorry about the fact that we haven't done any updates for a fortnight, but we've been a bit busy these past weeks as the Edinburgh Fringe is on and we've been off seeing lots of shows which doesn't really leave a lot of time for commentating on the always interesting and bizarre world of Pop. We have seen lots of ace shows though, and even stayed in the audience for a 24 hour long comedy show. Fortunately, thanks to our Nicola obsession, we're very good at watching one person for long periods of time, even if we felt a bit uncomfortable not having bushes to hide behind at first. Don't worry though, normal service should be resumed by Monday at the latest. And by normal we mean our usual infrequent updates, but without the luxury of an excuse to explain it.
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Love Machine Love
We had very high hopes for this track after seeing the 10 second video preview on CD:UK on Saturday. Admittedly this wasn't anything to do with what little we could hear of the tune, but was down to the fact that Nicola was wearing the shortest dress out of the girls, which marks the first time since No Good Advice that she has been given the best outfit to wear. Anything which has any sort of Nicola-centric vibe to it must clearly be something earth-shatteringly fantastic and, we're quite satisfied to state, without over-exaggeration or hyperbole (NOTE: Writer prone to both over-exaggeration and hyperbole) that Girls Aloud's new single, Love Machine is nothing short of fucking amazing.
They really have done it again. Just when you think that that maybe they've exhausted the well of aceness where they consistently seem to draw their tunes, they pull out another bucket of fun and melody and quality pop goodness with an ease that makes you wonder why other bands seem to have such problems grabbing hold of the rope and tugging hard on it. Alas, the only thing that seems to come out when most groups tug hard is a load of toss that just needs to be mopped up with a Kleenex and thrown away.
Love Machine has a slight banjo twang to it which is reminiscent of Terrorvision's Fists of Fury, which is no bad thing in the slightest. Lyrically seems to be about the girls' overpowering hornyness and with GA you can actually believe it. When Blue, for example, sing about making love in the back of a car, you can't quite imagine them actually doing it as, for all their pretence at being hard boys and a bit laddish, you kinda get the impression that the nearest they've come to doing anything a bit naughty with a lady in a car is waiting too long at a parking meter. Except for Lee, of course, who still seems to be at the stage where he thinks girls smell and would probably fire his catapult at them if he wasn't so scared of his dad's slipper. Nicola and her Backing Band of Girls, however, actually look like they mean it. Not in a desperate, sluttish, slapperish way which is so beloved of Holly Valance, Jennifer Ellison and Jenny Frost, but in a normal healthy appetite kinda way. When they sing "I need a squeeze a day/Instead of this negligee/What will the neighbours say?", you know they're singing from experience, while the implication loaded "This time" line which follows that is excellence in itself.
While it is, admittedly, not as excitingly innovative as previous singles have been, it's still a record that stands head and shoulders above most of the records we've heard this year and makes us even more excited about the second album than is really healthy for an adult male. One day, perhaps all pop records will be this good. Although this will probably never happen while the Blazin' Squad are able to spawn.
They really have done it again. Just when you think that that maybe they've exhausted the well of aceness where they consistently seem to draw their tunes, they pull out another bucket of fun and melody and quality pop goodness with an ease that makes you wonder why other bands seem to have such problems grabbing hold of the rope and tugging hard on it. Alas, the only thing that seems to come out when most groups tug hard is a load of toss that just needs to be mopped up with a Kleenex and thrown away.
Love Machine has a slight banjo twang to it which is reminiscent of Terrorvision's Fists of Fury, which is no bad thing in the slightest. Lyrically seems to be about the girls' overpowering hornyness and with GA you can actually believe it. When Blue, for example, sing about making love in the back of a car, you can't quite imagine them actually doing it as, for all their pretence at being hard boys and a bit laddish, you kinda get the impression that the nearest they've come to doing anything a bit naughty with a lady in a car is waiting too long at a parking meter. Except for Lee, of course, who still seems to be at the stage where he thinks girls smell and would probably fire his catapult at them if he wasn't so scared of his dad's slipper. Nicola and her Backing Band of Girls, however, actually look like they mean it. Not in a desperate, sluttish, slapperish way which is so beloved of Holly Valance, Jennifer Ellison and Jenny Frost, but in a normal healthy appetite kinda way. When they sing "I need a squeeze a day/Instead of this negligee/What will the neighbours say?", you know they're singing from experience, while the implication loaded "This time" line which follows that is excellence in itself.
While it is, admittedly, not as excitingly innovative as previous singles have been, it's still a record that stands head and shoulders above most of the records we've heard this year and makes us even more excited about the second album than is really healthy for an adult male. One day, perhaps all pop records will be this good. Although this will probably never happen while the Blazin' Squad are able to spawn.
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Love Love Machine
Fuck me, isn't the new Girls Aloud single fantastic? Yes. Yes it is. We'll offer a slightly more verbose view on it's genius tomorrow, but for now, your required listening is availiable via Girls Aloud United. Seriously, we're not normally ones to advocate this sort of illegality, but download it now, it really is that good.
Monday, August 09, 2004
Chart Attack
Not even an angry e-mail from a Soul Asylum fan after last weeks Chart Attack. Never mind, lets see who's moving and shaking this week.
- 1 to 10 - The Pop Success Zone
Busted hold on to the top spot for a second week, unsurprising really as the main theme that runs through this week's new entries is unbearable shiteness. 3 tracks have limped into the top ten, first up at number 4 is Anastasia with Sick and Tired, a track that sounds like a good Anastasia song, but is still unable to overcome the drag factor of it actually being an Anastasia song. Next up is Avril Lavigne, who's Happy Ending is probably not as joyful as she was hoping for as it only just scrapes into the top 5. Once again her cute factor makes us like this song far more than it actually deserves. Finally, at number 8, we have Ana Johnsson with her Spiderman theme song, We Are. In this she attempts to pass on responsibility for this horrible nonsense of a song onto the general public. We say that we're not responsible, you are.
- 11 to 20 - The Pop Failure Zone
At number 14 we find Stellar Project Featuring Brandi Emma with Get Up Stand Up. Alas, this is nothing to do with the Bob Marley and the Wailers track, not that it'd be any better if it was - it would still be quite, quite poor - but it would have given us the opportunity to mention that our Grandad claims that he thought the lyrics to Jammin' were "Pajamas". While his music is certainly quite laid back, we didn't think it was quite horizontal. Next up is DT8 project with The Sun is Shining (Down on Me) which is yet another dance track that could have been released at any time in the past 5 years for all the new ground it's breaking.
- 21 to 30 - The Pointless Zone
Clogging up the rear end of the top 30 are Switchfoot at 29 and Departure at 30. Switchfoot's Meant to Live is a moany slice of bass heavy angst rock which doesn't appeal to us, mainly because we're not thirteen. The Departure's All Mapped Out, on the other hand, is quite enjoyable in a "not as good as Radio 4" kind of way, but this may only be in comparison to the rest of the rubbish released this week.
- 31 to 40 - The Indie Success Zone
And finally, at number 31, we have Angie Stone featuring Snoop Dog doing I Wanna Thank Ya, presumably dedicated to the handful of people who actually went out and bought it. Let's hope next week's chart is a bit more exciting.
Thursday, August 05, 2004
Pop: The Question
And welcome to another brand new feature in which we answer questions posed in the lyrics of pop songs. Regular readers may well consider the 'new' epithet to be somewhat dubious, given that at first glance it would appear to be exactly the same as the old TiaPL Spleen feature, only without the annoying internal organ based conceit. Second and third glances will confirm this, but we've decided to go for a more straightforward approach this time, given that the Spleen was originally set up to parody the NME Brain feature, a feature which was dropped only a couple of weeks after we unleashed the might of our satirical wit upon it. Coincidence? Well, yes, but never mind.
The first question we're going to answer has been posed by Miss Betty Boo who asks "Where are you baby?". First stop was Ask Jeeves, who wasn't hugely helpful and pointed us in the direction of sites on baby development which was about as useful to us as Jenny Frost. We don't really feel there should be much need for sites of that nature anyway as baby development essentially runs "unable to control bowels" to "able to control bowels", with a lot of crying and puking inbetween, which is very similar to the career of most rock stars.
If her video is to be believed, and we assume that all pop videos are documentaries, she hasn't just been sitting around waiting for this site to exist to get an answer to her question. She's put in some effort herself to find her baby. Unfortunately Miss Boo felt that the best place to go searching for her baby was on the surface of a strange alien planet while dressed in silver. While space travel to unknown lands in foxy outfits is a normal, everyday occurrence for pop princesses, it's not something which happens on a regular basis for ordinary mortals, so she was essentially wasting her time and money looking there, even if it did make for an ace promo.
So, Betty's own search was essentially worthless, the song even ending with the desperate plea for her baby to use the telephone service to get in touch with her. Clearly a man who would run off and leave the lovely pop rapper behind is not a bright man. Indeed, some might even suggest that he's nothing short of a loser, which is why, to find her baby, we decided to go and question the tramps hanging around underneath the railway bridge to see if any of them knew where he was. Alas, all they knew was the cheapest place to buy Special Brew and more swearwords than the entire editorial staff of Viz, so we're still none the wiser as to where her baby is. Sorry. But at least we tried, we even contacted the National Missing Persons Helpline, but they got very cross with us. At least they can rest happily knowing that they know even more swearwords than the tramps did.
If you know of a lyrical question that needs to be resolved, then why not let us know by e-mailing us and we'll answer it to the very best of our abilities, i.e. not very well.
The first question we're going to answer has been posed by Miss Betty Boo who asks "Where are you baby?". First stop was Ask Jeeves, who wasn't hugely helpful and pointed us in the direction of sites on baby development which was about as useful to us as Jenny Frost. We don't really feel there should be much need for sites of that nature anyway as baby development essentially runs "unable to control bowels" to "able to control bowels", with a lot of crying and puking inbetween, which is very similar to the career of most rock stars.
If her video is to be believed, and we assume that all pop videos are documentaries, she hasn't just been sitting around waiting for this site to exist to get an answer to her question. She's put in some effort herself to find her baby. Unfortunately Miss Boo felt that the best place to go searching for her baby was on the surface of a strange alien planet while dressed in silver. While space travel to unknown lands in foxy outfits is a normal, everyday occurrence for pop princesses, it's not something which happens on a regular basis for ordinary mortals, so she was essentially wasting her time and money looking there, even if it did make for an ace promo.
So, Betty's own search was essentially worthless, the song even ending with the desperate plea for her baby to use the telephone service to get in touch with her. Clearly a man who would run off and leave the lovely pop rapper behind is not a bright man. Indeed, some might even suggest that he's nothing short of a loser, which is why, to find her baby, we decided to go and question the tramps hanging around underneath the railway bridge to see if any of them knew where he was. Alas, all they knew was the cheapest place to buy Special Brew and more swearwords than the entire editorial staff of Viz, so we're still none the wiser as to where her baby is. Sorry. But at least we tried, we even contacted the National Missing Persons Helpline, but they got very cross with us. At least they can rest happily knowing that they know even more swearwords than the tramps did.
If you know of a lyrical question that needs to be resolved, then why not let us know by e-mailing us and we'll answer it to the very best of our abilities, i.e. not very well.
Monday, August 02, 2004
Chart Attack
And so, we continue on with our surprisingly controversial Chart Attack feature. Let's see who we can offend this week...
- 1 to 10 - The Pop Success Zone
Another new number 1, this time it's Busted who've knocked The Streets into the number 2 slot with their double A-sided single. Thunderbirds are Go! is an excellent track, 3AM, on the other hand, is pretty dull, making this single officially, thanks to the power of averages, not bad. Had we included their cover of Soul Asylum's Runaway Train in our deliberation, however, then it would be the second worst single ever released; the worst being Soul Asylum and Runaway Train.
Also saying hello to the world of the Top 5 is D12 with How Come, another song which isn't good enough for Eminem's solo career so he passes it down to his crew who make an even bigger dog's dinner of it. Unlikely to be listened to again next week, let alone next year. - 11 to 20 - The Pop Failure Zone
Only one new entry here and it's Ex-Brookie Slapper and "Scouse Minx"(C) All Tabloid Articles About Her Ever, Jennifer Ellison. She hits the dizzying heights of number 13 with her second single Bye Bye Boy, and 13 will probably prove to be her unlucky number as if she can't manage a second top ten hit after appearing on a high profile cookery based TV show, we can't see her being allowed to release any more records, no matter how willing she may be to writhe around half-naked in the video. We actually quite like this, not to the extent where we'd pay money for it, even if it is strangely reminiscent of Jemini's rubbish Eurovision entry, Cry Baby. - 21 to 30 - The Pointless Zone
The Charlatans are the first of three new entries here with Try Again Today at number 24. We've not heard this but, unless the Charlatans have suddenly transformed into an entirely different band, we feel we can safely say that it's a load of pish. Next up is Sunderland's favourite shouty, angular sons, The Futureheads, who's Decent Days and Nights single enters at 26. In it the singer rants on about following clues, very much like a drunk Richard O'Brien wandering round the Crystal Maze with a guitar instead of a harmonica and, as such, is very good indeed.
Finally, we come to the shining hopes of 'mature' pop, Mania, who have stormed straight into the hearts of the Record Buying Public by hitting the dizzying heights of, ummm, number 29. This seems hugely unfair given that the song features some top whistling action, which should surely have pushed it well into the upper reaches of the top 20. Lets hope they get a chance for a follow up as there's a definite spark here. - 31 to 40 - The Indie Success Zone
Ex-Blur bloke and all round indie curmudgeon, Graham Coxon has settled in quite happily at number 32 with Spectacular, and it's pretty much exactly what you'd expect a Graham Coxon single which has entered the chart at number 32 to sound like.
