Experts think this poster hypnotised Mercury judges in to picking them as winner
So there you have it, the Mercury Prize shoots another obscure
band from its vagina straight into the fame stratosphere.
The indie band was nominated for their album “An Awesome Wave”
I like their vibe. What I have gathered is that they’re all blokes
from Leeds who like triangles.
Simon Firth, chairman
of the Mercury judges hailed the album's "hypnotic quality".
"It's one of those
albums that knocks you back when you hear it," he said after the winner
was announced.
"It's got a
certain hypnotic quality and it's melodically interesting. The way it's
constructed is layered – it has digital production but it doesn't sound like a
digital record. Mercury has always been about something that sounds
fresh."
An Awesome Wave is the
thirteenth debut album to win the Mercury prize. The last debut winner the xx,
in 2010, have gone on to play packed out tours and headline major festivals.
They’ve been hailed as
the next Radiohead. But Radiohead are still Radiohead, aren’t they?
Brandon Flowers and Adam Levine are the same person, scientists recently announced
Some of you may remember The Killers, they had a good debut album
out a few years ago then they disappeared. Well, they didn’t disappear as much
as they did suck, which meant I stopped paying attention to them so they might
as well have.
Well the frontman Brandon Flowers, who used to be hot but is now a
Mormon or something, said this recently:
"I want to be myself. I live my life how I want to.
Isn't that the idea of what rock and roll is? I am more rock and roll than just
about anybody else that you're going to meet."
Apaz he gave up alcohol and cigarettes five years ago for
Mormon reasons.
Hang on a sec, wasn’t this the guy who pretended to not be
Mormon because his label wanted him to, then after establishing his fanbase "came out" of his Mormon closet?
That's so what I call being yourself, Flowers.
Isn’t this also the guy that in 2009 said in that his band
should as big as Nirvana, saying he wanted to knock Nirvana and Led Zeppelin
“off their pedestals”?
Isn’t this also the guy who wore this:
In response to the douche-baggery that is Brandon Flowers
I’ve written a poem for him. I’ve called it Brandon Flowers can suck Nirvana’s
dick.
Brandon Flowers is a Mormon
No one even cares
If Nirvana were still around
Kurt would pull out your hair
Your songs are blander than beige
Your image is lamer than lame
You think you rock the world, my friend
Looking like Adam Levine
So tell the world as much as you need
That you’re a big rock star
But when all things are said and done
Nirvana out-rock you by far
Those who are rock and roll never need to point out how
rock and roll they are. Fact.
Marketing Success: In just two years Pussy Riot will be the biggest band in the world
Dear Pussy Riot,
You are marketing geniuses. In just two
years’ time you will have a fan-base to rival Lady Gaga’s. You’ll have book
deals, movie deals and interview deals flying towards you faster than Vladimir
Putin's henchmen at that cathedral that one time.
It was a good decision to be arrested and I
can see big things for you in the future. Already you have the backing of Paul
McCartney, Bjork and Madonna, and that’s before you’ve even become super skinny
from all your “me” time in those spa camps you’ve now been sent to separately.
Use this time to become better performers.
Don’t worry I think you’ll totes work as a
duo instead of a trio. I see bad things in the future of Yekaterina
Samutsevich, who was released
on appeal after her lawyers successfully argued that she hadn't even
managed to take her guitar out of its case before being kicked out of the
cathedral.
Lazy bitch.
I see her becoming fat and not what Pussy
Riot needs when it goes to Hollywood.
To help you through some dark times ahead,
I’ve composed this poem for you. Enjoy. I’ve called it Cunt Uprising
Black face: Die Antwoord can't be racist, they're South African
Okay, so Die Antwoord. Thoughts? Wait, I don’t
care. Let me tell you what I think.
I think this video just raised the game of
what musicians should be doing these days. It’s unapologetic, it’s brash, it
uses satire to play to stereotypes, it has a fucking Lady Gaga drag queen for
fuck sake, and you know how I feel
about men dressed as women.
The South-African duo even go as far to blatantly say they
should open for lady Gaga. WHICH THEY SO FUCKING SHOULD.
Before I saw this video I was slumping
around trying to find a way to get to the kitchen with minimal effort – I
decided on rolling – but now it has rejuvenated my day and more importantly has
made me want a panther to stop people stealing my fruit.
Hey Fatty Boom Boom got some serious beat,
mega hooks and makes me want to black up my face/whole body and rub it in the
face of everyone who says it isn’t chic, which it is.
Watch. Enjoy. Be inspired. Get Hard.
Orgasm. Blow you load to this…
I have to go. I have a guy on the phone that
knows where I can purchase a panther.
Pacifica makes me want to crydance on my own in a crowd of heaving bodies
Those who know The Presets are those who love them. The Australian
electro-dance disco duo captured the attention of British fans primarily with
the release of their second album, “Apocolyspo”, a dark and offbeat opera of
dizzying beats and siren-screeching hooks that draw the listener deeper into
the album.
Their first album, “Beams”, was the first to lure in fans, with
its popping electrics and sultry vocals, bringing to mind Depeche Mode. As the
duo themselves aptly put it, they were “tearing dance music a new asshole”.
So with the release of their third album, Pacifica, it’s safe to
assume a lot is expected from them. After all, fans have been waiting eagerly
for four long years and are no doubt expecting to be blown from the water as
with “Apocalypso”. So has it lived up to expectation? Yes, and no.
The great thing about bands that push the boundaries of music is
that they’re at their best when you don’t know what is coming and get what you
weren’t expecting. If fans were expecting, or even longing for, a re-hash of
previous albums, they will surely be disappointed. This album lacks the
aggressiveness of Apocolypso and replaces it with subtlety, refined noise, structure
and yet more progressiveness, a la marching band drums and counting backwards
from 30 (you’ll get it when you listen to “Fast Seconds”). If however, you were
hoping to be caught off guard by the album then your expectations will be surely
sated. It’s a proverbial trip on a concrete path.
It does not leave you frothing from the mouth, as did Apocolypso,
instead it hits a more melancholy and downbeat note, most evident in the trance
track “Fall” and soulfully sparse closing track “Fail Epic”.
The whole album leaves a sad residue, that brings to mind a lonely
disco, combated only by the surprisingly poppy and optimistic “Promises”.
“Surrender” acts as the climax of the album and is as dance-orientated
as the album ever gets, save from the album’s opener and first single “Youth in
Trouble”, which is sufficiently throbby.
I didn’t know what to expect from Pacifica, but I am a fan
fulfilled. This is the album I didn’t even know I needed until it swallowed me.
If they had re-hashed a Frankenstein creation of Beams and Apocolypso I would
no doubt have loved it, but it would not have progressed them musically and
wouldn’t have led me to the melancholy dance floor upon which I sway this
autumn.
The Presents have not only composed an exceptional third album to
rival its predecessors, but it seems they know what I want more than I do. For
that, I am grateful.
Gwen was created by a group of harajuku girls chanting around a blow up sex doll
Gwen is an immortal goddess that never ages, that is for certain.
And what’s more, she continues to rock out more effortlessly than any other
aging songtress I can think of (Madonna). I just had to say that because I
think she needs to hear it as much possible so the pressure to keep that way is
always so tight that she’ll never disappoint us by ageing/dying.
Embarking on her solo career was probably utterly instrumental to
the release of Settle Down, even though it’s been six years since Gwen’s last
album The Sweet Escape and almost a
thousand years (eleven) since No Doubt released Rock Steady, which was the soundtrack to a super weird time in my
life.
Push And
Shove is really the love child of No Doubt and Gwen Steffani’s solo
career persona (a sex doll brought to life my chanting harajuku girls). In the
album’s cooking pot you have some awesome ska tracks (Push And Shove) with a
few dreamy ballads (Dreaming The Same Dream), mix in some catchy 80s nostalgia
(One More Summer), add a pinch of a potential club hit (Looking Hot) and what
you have is damn good comeback cookies that can hold its own against the band’s
earlier baked goods. (I went for a baking theme and I will damned well see it
through.)
To clarify: when I say that Gwen’s solo career was instrumental to
the album’s creation, I mean that had Gwen not gone down the solo career road,
No Doubt would not have released Push And
Shove, and the world would have suffered.
How do I know this? Do I have some sort of alternate dimension
machine that allows me to travel to other universes where I discovered a world
where What You Waiting For? never existed
and as a result Gwen didn’t rebirth her own appetite for creating music, so No
Doubt didn’t get back together, this album didn’t exist and I never used Push And Shove as music-inspiration to
totally blast my biceps while working out, giving me the extra confidence to
ask out the guy I’ve been secretly following home from work and therefore fall
into a pit of depression and end up killing myself with eighty bottles of
aspirin while having a foamy seizure to the lulling sighs of Don’t Speak?
No. It’s just a hunch.
What is certain, however, is that I didn’t know how much I needed
them to make this album until I realised that it’s now autumn and we’re all
verging on the brink of plunging into SAD. Gwen and the boys have saved us all
from an autumn of taking shit too seriously. Thank you Gwen, I love you. Sorry
I’ve been taking too much Xanax and have had to construct a “safe zone” under
my desk.
I’m going to break the album down for ya’ll pro and con style to
make digestion easy.
Pro – Settle Down: This song is the epitome of No Doubt’s style
and their deep roots in ska. As well as their first single off the new album it
also reminded me that I’m painfully single and need to settle down.
Pro – Looking Hot: Solo Stefani plus playfully feminine vocals
that hark back to their super early stuff like Trapped In A Box make this track a fav. Play as you’re doing coke ready for a night out.
Pro – Stefani singing “stare at my ragamuffin”.
Con – Sparkle: With a bass that resembles the Strangler’s Peaches to set up an ultimately
anti-climax of a chorus, this track doesn’t deliver what I want from it. I play
it up until the chorus, then I turn it off.
Pro – One More Summer: Even catchier than an Essex lad with STIs.
Con – Undone: To me this track is filler. Not just filler, but
boring filler. If the album were a sandwich, then this track would be spam.
Pro – Push And Shove: Totally deserving of the album title. Major
Lazer adds some serious weight to the entire album by featuring on this track.
No Doubt at their very best, mixing ska, pop and rock in a perfect
chocolate-chipped blend that raises my serotonin levels enough to rock out even
though summer is dead.
Pro – That we live in this version of reality where the album
exists and I haven’t aspirined myself to death.
