// December 2007
Rob’s Top 5 Albums of the Year
Okay… I know we haven’t reached the end of it yet, but I doubt that anything else amazing is going to be released so now seems as good a time as any.
In reverse order:
5) Readers Wifes - Gaslight
Sleazy but melody-heavy synthpop/rock from the Duckie DJs. Okay, “Bitch at the Brits” is missing, which two or three of the final tracks could easily have been replaced with that and the sublime B-side “Endless Night”, but otherwise it’s amazingly textured piece of work. Download only, it seems, but hey. That’s the future. Key tracks: “Nostalgia”, “Cheap Dress”, “25 Floors”, and the stompingly brilliant “Boy Ain’t Right”.
4) Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Trip the Light Fantastic
An overlooked gem. It lacks the punch and stripped-down electronica of her debut, Read My Lips, but improves on the lacklustre Shoot From the Hip by actually including some genuinely beautiful songs. Some definite sixties soul influences on some of the arrangements too. Key tracks: “Me and My Imagination”, “Today the Sun’s On Us”, “Supersonic”, “If I Can’t Dance”, “What Have We Started” and “The Distance Between Us”. (Yes, several of those are slow numbers and yet I like them. She’s that good.)
3) Girls Aloud - Tangled Up
An assured astonishingly cohesive album, almost one that seems to be definitive Aloud. Punchy, powerful, noisy arrangements, with the usual “let’s throw a few choruses at it and not bother with the verses” in parts and a smattering of “what the fuck does that mean?” lyrics. Key Tracks: “Call the Shots”, “Close to Love”, “Sexy? No, no, no”, “Girl Overboard” and “Can’t Speak French”.
2) Dragonette - Galore.
I honestly don’t think I’ve ever heard a debut album like this. It’s a slutty collection of songs: “Jesus Doesn’t Love Me” is arguably the benchmark with it’s riffing on the subject “Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll” so it’s definitely an album about abandoned excess and yearning for something more. Key Tracks: “I Get Around”, “Jesus Doesn’t Love Me”, “True Believer” (the real standout track for me), “Black Limousine”, “Get Lucky”, “Another Day”, “You Please Me” and “Get Lucky”. (And since this is 8/11 of the tracks you may as well get the whole thing.)
1) Matinee Club - Modern Industry.
If this hadn’t finally got out then Dragonette would have been number one, but here’s another band whose career has been somewhat stymied by the fact that Mercury Records are just unutterably shit at promoting pop. Due to their various label woes I’ve had many of the tracks for about four years but finally they’ve been released on download (with a physical CD arriving January). It’s an album of slick, glamorous electronica which managed to sum up the ethos of “Future Retro” beautifully. Key tracks: “Discotheque Francais”, “Sometimes”, “Jane Falls Down”, “Seven Oceans”, “Goodbye Means Forever” (there’s a sound glitch on the download though) and “Fool in the Name of Love”. But even the other tracks hold their own so there’s not really a bad bad track. (”Nothing Special”, however, is one which is summed up by its title. Ho hum.)
Posted on December 23, 2007 | Filed Under Pop Music | 0 Comments
No Offense, But…
It seems that BBC Radio 1 has edited the only truly realistic Christmas song “the Fairy Tale of New York” to remove the term “faggot” just in case people are offended by it.
Now much as I don’t want to become one of those Daily Mail “it’s political correctness gone mad” types, I can’t help but feel it’s a bit ridiculous in this case.
(And in any case, surely terms of abuse are supposed to be offensive? If they weren’t there wouldn’t be much point in them would there?)
Posted on December 18, 2007 | Filed Under The World we Live In | 0 Comments
Secret Satan
Does anybody else loathe the idea of an office “Secret Santa” as much as I (and, as it turns out, the other members of my team) do?
I find the whole concept faintly nauseating. There’s just something slightly “you will do this, you will enjoy it or you will be shot” about it all which makes me want to fold my arms, stamp my feet and go “fire away”.
I mean, I’ve bought mine (and by God it’s hard to find something imaginative under £5 isn’t it?) and entered it, but there’s just a part of me that wishes any attempts at forced corporate jollity were banned by law.
Or perhaps I’m just being churlish. To be honest I’m all 2007-d out now. The last few weeks have been a whirl of struggling to extract present ideas, tracking them down, buying them, wrapping the fuckers (I really really hate wrapping presents), deciding who gets cards and who doesn’t, attending - and giving a reading at - a funeral (an interestingly non-Christmassy aside), developing exczema for the first time in 30 years (which was a shock I’ll tell you), training clients, writing more pub quiz questions than I would have cared for, finally getting round to writing the Christmas cards out, and traveling to Canterbury and back (twice).
Bugger presents and festivities, for crying out loud. The only thing I’m really looking forward to next week is a couple of days off and the Doctor Who special.
Everything else can go hang.
Posted on December 18, 2007 | Filed Under My So-Called Life | 0 Comments
Count ‘em.
Twelve pills I’ve just had. It’s ridiculous.
Between the Nurofen (oww!-ey back), Beechams (a cold is determined to bring me down, I can feel it forming), 5-Hydroxytryptophan (my SAD syndrome kicked in majorly two weeks ago and really left me feeling utterly depressed until I started taking it again), Conjugated Linoleic Acid (fat burner), Milk-thistle and Artichoke (system cleansing) and Fibre-sure (well, guess) it’s a wonder, frankly, I don’t rattle when I walk.
It’s a slippery slope, this supplements lark, I tell you.
Posted on December 10, 2007 | Filed Under Health and Fitness, My So-Called Life | 3 Comments