The Lady GaGa noise

Just what is that Lady GaGa noise? You know the one I mean. Halfway between a gasp of excitement and a bird squawking. Whatever it is, I like it.

The Fame is a very enjoyable album. I don't like all of it, but Poker Face is clearly a wondrous pop song. The Lady GaGa squawk (let's just call it a squawk for argument's sake) punctuates the album. I like that. It's a sort of stamp of GaGa authenticity.

Unfortunately, Lady GaGa herself is already starting to grate on my nerves. Congratulations on her to escaping the Lower East Side party scene, unlike Santogold (or is that Santigold?). But girl needs to put some more clothes on. Especially as she inspires The Sun to write breathless, mastubatory pieces with headlines like 'GAGA-ING FOR IT'. Ew. She looks like a creature that never sweats, gets cakey make-up or grows unwanted body hair. This could make me feel slightly inadequate. However, I'm convinced that Lady GaGa was constructed in a laboratory. She doesn't walk anywhere. She strides.

10 songs that make me leave the room

After I mentioned Theory of a Deadman the other day (shudder), I started pondering what songs really offend me. Some songs routinely come out on top (or should that be bottom?) in worst song polls, like We Built This City or My Heart Will Go On. I can get through songs like that. Not comfortably, but I can clench.
I choked down the bile, and compiled 10 songs that I loathe. This isn't a top 10 of horrible-ness, because the amount they make me vomit in my own mouth is equal.

My Humps by the Black Eyed Peas
You know what I'm going to say. It's a juvenile playground chant that reduces women to 'lovely lady lumps'. Just in case you didn't get the hint that sex is a transaction (e.g women give men sex, in turn men give women designer handbags), Fergie reels off luxury brand names ('Dolce & Gabbana, Fendi and then Donna'). In the video, she drapes herself over Louis Vuitton products and big shiny cars.
Buttock-clenching moment...
will.i.am's threat to 'mix my milk with your Coco Puffs'.

Do Ya Think I'm Sexy? by Rod Stewart
I can't bring myself to listen to this one. It's so embarrassing. Also, it keeps getting re-released, remixed and covered. Just go away, please.
Buttock-clenching moment...
The thought of Hot Rod gurning away in skin-tight leopard print trousers.

Come On Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners
This is a school disco staple. I despise everything about it, from the fiddle intro to 'my thoughts I confess verge on dirty'.
Buttock-clenching moment...
Walking past an Eighties-themed bar and hearing someone belting this out on karaoke.

Ebony and Ivory by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder
Building racial harmony and integration through song. What a nice idea. But this is saccharine, laboured and hideous. The intentions are so anguished that it falls flat onto its face. I blame Paul. Stevie's just getting through it.
Buttock-clenching moment...
The harmonised 'side by side on my piano keyboard / Oh, Lord, why don’t we?'

The Girl Is Mine by Michael Jackson featuring Paul McCartney
Schmaltzy duet in which Macca and Jacka contest their ownership of a submissive slave-woman. Thriller is supposedly one of the greatest albums of all time, but only if you ignore this track. Apparently, there's a will.i.am remix. I haven't listened to it.
Buttock-clenching moment...
The hideously contrived spoken word ending.
Paul: 'Michael, we're not going to fight about this, ok?'
Michael: (Chortling) 'Paul, I think I told ya. I'm a lover, not a fighter.'
Paul: 'I've heard it all before Michael. She told me that I'm her forever lover, don't you remember?'
Michael: 'Well, after loving me she said she couldn't love another.'

Achy Breaky Heart by Billy Ray Cyrus
The song that spawned a million line-dances. It is tedious, trite country music by numbers.
Buttock-clenching moment...
The thought that we could have left this song in the past, but then Miley Cyrus popped up and reminded us all of its existence.

2 Become 1 by the Spice Girls
This is supposedly a sweet, romantic song that people probably chose as their first dance at weddings. This baffles me as the central image is so starkly sexual that it makes me blush. It's so... penetrative.
Buttock-clenching moment...
The cooing 'wanna make love to ya, baby'. And Geri's clown make-up in the video.

Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel
Sorry, Peter Gabriel. You really haven't done anything to offend me, but I can't stand Sledgehammer. The stop-motion video is amazing, but the song goes straight through me. Is it the slap bass, the aggressive brass hits or the evangelical 'show for me'? I'm not sure. I just know that if I was trapped in a confined space, this is the song I would start hallucinating. Until I went mad.
Buttock-clenching moment...
The panpipe whirl that punctuates the song.

Rollin' (Air Raid Vehicle) by Limp Bizkit
Embarrassing and meaningless, this was a number one single for three weeks in October 2000. It was also the moment that nu-metal died.
Buttock-clenching moment...
Fred Durst.

Don't Let Me Be The Last To Know by Britney Spears
The fourth and final single from Oops!... I Did It Again, this song didn't make it on to Britney's greatest hits. Because it is truly terrible. Shania Twain is partly responsible for this dreary ballad in which Britney pleads a sexy man chunk to fall in love with her.
Buttock-clenching moment...
The intro sound of an unidentified (synth) instrument. It's presumably meant to sound sexy, but reminds me of a damp sweat patch on a faux leather sofa. The 'shoo-be-doo' backing vocals. The climactic key shift. The video in which Britney - wearing a white bikini - cavorts in the surf with a spunk. Everything, basically.

The Killers identity crisis

Is it just me, or are the Killers starting to look like they want to be in different bands?
From left to right, we have Mark 'Pouting Synthpop' Stoermer, Ronnie 'Open Mic Folk Night' Vannucci Jr, Dave 'Hair Metal' Keuning and Brandon 'Flamboyant Morrissey' Flowers.
It's a shame that Day & Age is a bit disappointing. Human grew on me, but the rest of the album is a bit of a snooze.

Worst song EVER

There's a lot of bad songs out there. Thanks to 4Music, today I think I've heard the worst song ever (while waiting for the kettle to boil). It's a song that makes Ebony and Ivory bearable. It's a song that makes Nickelback sound half decent.
The aural abomination of which I write is Hate My Life by Theory of a Deadman. Like Nickelback, the band are Canadians and on the same label as their post-grunge chums. 'Post-grunge' - a musical "genre" that's given up on life. Just as this song has given up on life. It truly is crap.
The video is below. Don't try and tell me you can get through it without feeling dead inside. I won't believe you.

In happier news, I've had a spring makeover of Take It To The Chorus as I wanted to keep this place looking nice. You can also comment on posts, if you wish. Don't be shy. We're all friends round here.

Bon week-end (with new bands)

Weekend, weekend, weekend! New bands, new bands, new bands! That chant needs some work. But you get the idea.

1) Titus Andronicus Fact: the gloriously gruesome revenge tragedy Titus Andronicus is my favourite Shakespeare play. Therefore, I'd probably have a soft spot for these New Jersey chaps (pictured ^^) whatever music they were making. Luckily, the music is rather good yarn-spinning, American white collar indie rock.

2) Blk Jks Like a South African TV On The Radio, minus vowels. (It's pronounced 'Black Jacks'. Or at least that's what I heard Zane Lowe say.) They mix up fuzzed-up art rock guitars, highlife and afrobeats. Exciting stuff.

3) The Pains of Being Pure At Heart Wan New Yorkers who would easily fit onto a C86 compilation. Teetering on the edge of twee.

4) James Yuill One young man mixing laptop electronica and acoustic tunes. That makes him sound like an open mic experimenter getting it wrong, but he's getting it right. He's also done some very good remixes.

5) Swanton Bombs Two floppy-fringed indie kids from London. They might grow out of their skinny jeans one day, but until then they're making melancholic yet angry songs with guitar, piano and lots of words.

Current obsession: Serge Gainsbourg

I've only just got into Serge Gainsbourg. Gasp! This man must be one of the world's most influential musicians, and was responsible for Je t'aime... moi non plus, Bonnie and Clyde and Comic Strip. What's taken me so long? Especially as I visited his grave in Montparnasse Cemetery a few years ago. I always assumed he was an eccentric singer beloved by a few, but when I was the amount of flowers on his grave I realised he was actually an eccentric singer/director/writer beloved by many. My bad.
Language has probably been a big barrier, as much of Serge's oeuvre (check me out) is in French. Some people claim they don't listen to the lyrics, but words/language get me all excited. And I've been learning French. I've perpetually been learning French for years now, and I'm getting quite good. Recently I've been able to listen to songs in French and just about understand them. Do I feel smug? Of course I do.
I've been getting well acquainted with Serge and have discovered that Love On The Beat is a fantastic album. Apart from Lemon Incest. That's not a cultural difference - a sexually provocative duet with your 12 year old daughter is just wrong. Don't start telling me it's ambiguous. I know the video makes you feel uncomfortable too.
All this Serge-ing has made me wonder what else I've been missing out on because I've been stuck in my English-speaking world. There's a lot of other worlds out there - French-speaking, German-speaking, Spanish-speaking etc - full of music I haven't yet heard. I might not understand all the lyrics, but does that really matter?

The chipmunk effect

Is Auto-Tune taking over R&B? Some pitch correction here and there on the vocals can smooth out a melody, but the T-Pain effect is dominating some records.
Whatcha Think About That, the new single from the Pussycat Dolls, is approximately 83% Auto-Tune. At first, I thought it was a weak playground chant sung by a robot channelled through a Stylophone. Now I realise it's a weak playground chant, but Auto-Tuned for effect to draw attention to its own artifice. This is appropriate as the Pussycat Dolls themselves are creatures of artifice. You wouldn't want to be in a confined space with them, as you'd have trouble breathing due to the smell of fake tan, hair mousse and desperation.
I was going to plonk the video in here so you could judge for yourself instead of clicking through to YouTube. However, embedding has been disabled by request. I guess Polydor realised that the single is not very good and didn't want the embarrassment of it splashed across the internets. Let's console ourselves with the single cover:

I think it's important you know that women can only contort their bodies into such positions with the help of Photoshop. Please don't be disappointed. I realise the blonde with her apparently detachable leg in the air looks so seductive, but it's not real.
Also, Missy Elliott, don't you have better things to be doing? There's a Yellow Magic Orchestra track I need you to sample right now. Just drop it in my inbox when you're ready. THANKS.

Endgaming Sugababes

During the 9 years the Sugababes have been around, they've mostly made me feel ambivalent. Apart from Overload, Freak Like Me, Push The Button and Round Round. I thought their music was otherwise fine, just not for me. And I always felt they looked like they might aggressively elbow me out of the way in a nightclub toilet.
Since the release of their sixth album (yes, six), Catfights + Spotlights, the Sugababes have started getting on my nerves. I dislike the lack of joie de vivre (please compare with Girls Aloud) - it's all so... workmanlike. I dislike the farcical 'female empowerment'. I dislike the Most of all, I dislike the creepy video for No Can Do. The way Heidi lines up the shirtless and near faceless men reminds me of the slave trade.
It starting to look like they're delaying the inevitable. I say, ladies, just do it. Break up. The dresses may have got posher but the music's become more mediocre. It doesn't look like it's fun anymore.
I am a bit nervous that they might read this post, then track me down and bogwash me.

What's the new Bat for Lashes song like?

The new Bat for Lashes song is very good indeed. Very, very good. It's called Glass and appeared on all the usual MP3 streaming suspects at the end of last week, although I think it was Pitchfork who got to punch the air and exclaim 'FIRST!!!11'
I've listened to Glass a few times, and have to stop now in case I implode from anticipation of her second album, Two Suns. Glass is an evocative and exotic song full of gemstone imagery and dizzying vocals similar to Kate Bush. The opening lines - 'I will rise now and go about the city, in the streets' - are taken from the Song of Solomon (chapter 3, verse 2 if you must know). I'm no Biblical scholar, but I do know that the Song of Solomon is the book of the Bible that celebrates the earthly pleasures of sexual love. Blimey. I don't remember that one being mentioned during school assemblies (my primary and secondary education was Church of England).
Bat for Lashes' (aka Natasha Khan) debut album, Fur And Gold, was a mainly DIY affair of vocals, handclaps and walking sticks. I loved it dearly, but I'm excited about the leap forward that Two Suns will probably be. Production-wise, Glass has a much bigger budget and is full of amazing organ, fuzzy bass and crystalline guitars. And those tribal drums! Wowzers. If Fur And Gold was a cool, low-budget indie flick then Two Suns will be the Hollywood blockbuster. That's not a very good analogy because Hollywood blockbusters are usually market researched into a pile of lowest-common denominator slush, but Natasha Khan is a massive creative talent. One of the best albums of 2009? Probably. And I won't even get to hear it until April. Boo.

Freedom of Amanda Palmer's speech

Are UK media outlets right to ban Amanda Palmer's new single, Oasis? Yes, probably. The song is a tale of rape and abortion, set against a perky piano backing. Such subject matter is enough to raise the ghost of Mary Whitehouse and have her rattling against the gates of MTV. It's disappointing, but music channels like The Box or Kerrang! aren't doing it to keep the spirit of rock'n'roll alive. They're part of big corporations and need to keep their viewers and advertisers happy. For a lot of people, Oasis is a contentious song and for networks it's just not worth the risk of offending people. Because once they've been offended, they might start a Facebook petition or email The Sun. Next thing you know, MPs are discussing it in the House of Commons and the fabric of the universe is unravelling.
It is disappointing that songs about women as submissive sexual objects fill up the airwaves, but one song that tries to articulate a different perspective won't get a few rotations on MTV2. Disappointing, but not surprising.
Amanda has never been a mainstream artist, and unless she has a major shift in ideology I doubt she ever will be. That doesn't matter. She wants creative freedom, and has plenty of Dresden Dolls fans in love with her music. I like her more than her music because she's the intelligent, strong singer/songwriter, and an idol for a lot of marginalised teenage girls out there. Also, unlike the majority of women in pop, she doesn't look like her face has been laminated.

Mind-boggling seven inch single coincidences

This is the seven inch version of Panic by The Smiths. And that really looks like David Walliams, doesn't it?

New shocking Oasis video not very shocking

Oasis have got a new single coming out, called Falling Down. This comes as a surprise to me, as surely it is the 17th single from their 52nd album. Or something. I can't keep up with Oasis, who last said something relevant around 1997 but have managed to plod along using the Beatles as source material.
You might think that Falling Down is full of mixed metaphors and confusing imagery, like 'catch the wheel that breaks the butterfly'. But that's actually a reference to Alexander Pope's poem An Epistle to Arbuthnot. See? The lyrics aren't taken from fridge poetry. It's clever. It's metaphysical.
The video is apparently very controversial. Our protagonist is a beautiful young lady, who awakes amidst the wreckage of a heavy night out. She really looks a lot like Candie Payne, or Penelope Cruz's paler sister. But she's not.
As she leaves the den of iniquity where she's spent the night with several young men and women, she's looking rather dressed up. Trench coats, headscarves and Audrey Hepburn shades are not the look usually favoured by people who live in maisonettes. Especially ones with decorative butterflies on the brickwork.
Hold on, our protagonist is actually a posh young royal who's been taking the whole 'common touch' thing a bit too literally. Blimey. Dressed like Princess Diana, tiara and all, she goes out to shake hands with a few normaloids at a charity event.
All goes well until our young royal encounters the Brothers Gallagher, who disdainfully refuse to shake her hand. Below I've managed to capture to exact moment that Noel really sticks it to the establishment by saying 'nah'. It could be 'blah'. Maybe he's coughing. It's hard to tell.

Liam looks especially unimpressed, and pulls his best 'are you looking at my bird?' face.
Finally, the pay off. She steps out onto the balcony of Buckingham Palace and - bam - there's Prince Charles. So she's not supposed to remind us of Princess Diana, she is Princess Diana.

So there you have it. Ageing rock stars known for their working class roots are actually a little bit anti-royalist. Shocking and controversial stuff, I'm sure you'll agree. That is, shocking if you read the Daily Express. Or it's 1998.

Rare and Racy

It's time we talked about record shops. Sometimes I get worried that all the good independents will disappear, and I'll have to jab away at the internet to buy vinyl. One of my favourites is Rare and Racy, which has been open on Devonshire Street, Sheffield since 1969. Beloved by Sheffield bands, arty types and literary types, it's mainly a second hand book shop similar to Shakespeare & Co. The walls are pasted with posters for local gigs and pages torn from old books. It's a slightly musty anachronism, and I love it.
The record section is very Howard Moon, as it's full of old bluesmen and bebop. But there's non-jazz too, and if you want some obscure glitch or ambient techno, you'll leave happy. Because it's in Sheffield, they usually stock plenty of Human League and Cabaret Voltaire.




The John Peel graffiti isn't on Rare and Racy itself, but the shop next door. It's so wonderful I plonked it on here too. A few days after John Peel died, somebody sprayed it all over town in tribute. The wall has been repainted a few times, but John Peel remains.

The road to Eurovision

An unashamed Eurovision fan I may be, but my enthusiasm for ESC 2009 has so far been limited. From the bits and bobs I watched of the BBC's voting show, Your Country Needs You, the choice was Jade Ewen or gubbins. Jade can certainly sing, in that Sylvia Young Theatre School way. She once had a bit-part in Casualty once, which is like taking a GCSE in acting.
However, Andrew Lloyd Webber's song sounds like a leftover from a West End show that closed early. It's all vaguely uplifting, and has more syrup than Tate and Lyle. Sample lyric: 'it's my time, my moment, I'm not gonna let go of it'. Excuse me, but I thought this was about the United Kingdom and not one stage school graduate in a sparkly dress. Here are some people who could have written a better song:
1) Morrissey. It's been a few years since Mozzer said he would but then didn't. My fingers remain crossed that he'll change his mind.
2) Jarvis Cocker. Jarv said he'd write a song if asked. I say he should have written a speculative song then we could have voted for it against Sir Andrew's offering.
3) Morrissey AND Jarvis Cocker. How potentially amazing? Very potentially amazing, indeed.
4) Kid Carpet. The Bristol pop-twiddler declared that winning Eurovision was his ultimate ambition, and if that's not throwing your hat into the metaphorical ring then I don't know what is. Some of the songs on his recent album Casio Royale are rather good, you know. Especially Hitting The Wall.
5) Little Boots. I know you agree.
6) Me. I'm sure I could throw something together. It would probably involve a Casio VL-Tone, kazoo and lots of cowbell.

Tweecore and garage rock

After a few tipsy evenings out I'm tired, but I have some photos to amuse you.
On Friday night I went to Offbeat, Sheffield's finest indie club. It's a night full of twee, indie and alternative tunes, as you can see from the playlist:
My boyfriend requested the DJ play some Half Man Half Biscuit.
Because it was Offbeat's 12th birthday, there was cake and a mixtape swap:
Offbeat = very good.
Last night, I saw Frank Sidebottom playing at the Magnet. It was the third birthday of the Go-Go Cage, which is a surf/garage/psych rock night. There was no cake, but there were mixtapes and a burlesque dancer. Ooh blimey. My photos look crapola, so I made a zoo scrapbook to show you instead:
The Go-Go Cage = very good too. But now I need an afternoon nap.