Shiny and New

'YASS'

2012-01-25T16:56:00.001Z

Bad gyal M.I.A. is not only guesting all over Madonna's up-and-coming output, but she's about to unleash a new single herself. It's a reworked version of her hot-to-trot mixtape track "Bad Girls" reswizzed by Danja, and expected sometime *looks at notes* next week. The original was peachy enough we can only imagine how 'rad' (what? WHAT?) the single version'll be. Appaz there's also a new video by her longtime collaborator That Guy That Shot The Controversial One With Gingers Being Blown up, or Romain Gavras as he's known in the industry.

Below is the original version for you to get familiar with so you can pretend that you knew it all along, hipster-style, when it's released.

Let's all talk about the Super Bowl

2012-01-25T13:06:00.002Z

We haven't been paying much lip service to Our Glorious Leader lately on S&N which is ridiculous because there is so much to talk about. The details about exactly what we can expect from M.D.N.A. are still in the air - however at the Golden Globes we were informed Martin Solveig took care of the euphoric, happy side of the album while William Orbit's domain was the introspective, darker side. Colour us ecstatic - but in a week and a half the world will be witness to fifteen minutes of a fifty four year old woman exemplifying why thirty years into her career she is still renowned as the planet's premiere performing artist at the top of her game. The rumours of which seem too good to be true.

Whether it is a reaction to the eruption of exposure to gay liberation in pop world over the past couple of years, Madonna seems intent on reclaiming her Patron Saint of Fags and we couldn't be more excited to see how this translates to her performance; we honestly cannot guarantee we will still be breathing after seeing her perform "Vogue" with the House of Ninja (!!!!!!) in an "brand new intense choreography". First of all, Madonna hasn't actually 'vogued' - as in the choreography which inspired the song - since the track's release twenty two years ago, as each tour on which it has been performed has featured a unique spin on various underground dance movements. Secondly, the House of Ninja are renowned for being the dominant vogueing house in New York and were the most featured in both Paris is Burning and the "Vogue" video, so to see the youngest members two decades on performing with Madonna is quite literally the stuff dreams are made of. Finally, and most controversially, Madonna is going all out G-A-Y at the SUPER BOWL - the most mainstream expression of masculinity in international television. Is this actually happening? She's going to kick up a storm, middle America will be bewildered and disgusted and we cannot wait.

Not only that but the Indianopolis Gay Men's Chorus are expected to be performing a rendition of "Like a Prayer". Are you taking this in? She's employing the local gay men's choir for "Like a Prayer" at the SUPER BOWL. If it takes Lady Gaga nipping at her heels to produce these results, long live Germanotta. IS THIS REAL LIFE!?!??!?

Madonna love is in heat here at Shiny & New and fingers crossed after the Super Bowl and hopefully incredible album, the world falls in love all over again just like they did in 1998, 2000 and 2005.

OUR EYES OUR EYES

2012-01-24T07:18:00.000Z

Gosh is everyone in the pop music industry on a mission to render us blind and offend our aesthetic sensibilities so violently that we stab our own face with a cheap, shiny court shoe? What is actually happening? Did all the graphic designers in America take the day off, and it was left to an intern with a fondness for distressed fonts to take the job? Ugh.

Come on...

2012-01-21T00:46:00.000Z

We have a lot of time and a lot of love for Nicki Minaj but this is NOT what we wanted from a come back single/video. Basic, tuneless, abrasive, barely a witty or memorable line to be heard. With an epilepsy-inducing video that brings nothing new or interesting to the table. Is this a buzz track? Even so, it's not giving us fire and we expect better. Surely the classy thing to do when you have a debut album with a million successful singles under your belt, is to leave the 'beef' to your lessers and release something timeless and innovative, not rehash old quarrels that were better dealt with the first time round. We mean really. "Roman's Revenge" (which is beyond flawless) put the nail in the whole Nicki vs. Kim thang. Why did Nicki have to dig up that old horse and flog it some more? Stop. We expected better.

We love the overt Grace Jones references though...

THE ZINE IS ONLINE

2012-01-19T20:57:00.003Z

AND AVAILABLE TO VIEW... RIGHT... HERE! It took us fucking ages to write and has our articles on;

Artist of the Year
New Artist of the Year
Albums of the Year
Singles of the Year
Performances of the Year
and a fucking amazing Pop Opus 2011 poem which is better than anything you did at GCSE Literature

Happy 20th Birthday, Little Earthquakes

2012-01-13T19:06:00.002Z

20 years ago today, Tori Amos made a name for herself by releasing one of the greatest debut albums ever released (no, we’re not exaggerating). An alternately wistful and angry feminist record about religion, womanhood, rape, motherhood, sex, sin, guilt and… er… mittens. With cover art that knowingly referenced the US cover of Kate Bush’s first album (lady in a box) and emblazoned on the back with strange phallic fungal drawings, this is an album that has stood the test of time but not abandoned its wonderfully un-ironic 90s roots.

Tori is famously unafraid of sounding pretentious or affected in interviews or in her music and a relisten to this album proves she was like this from the start. Lyrics like “I wanna smash the faces of those beautiful boys / Those christian boys / So you can made me cum? That doesn't make you Jesus” and “So you found a girl who thinks really deep thoughts / What's so amazing about really deep thoughts? / Boy you best pray that I bleed real soon / How's that thought for you?” set her apart from female singers who’d steered shy of subjects like ejaculation and menstruation out of fear of alienating mainstream or squeamish audiences. A lot of artists start out safe and get more fearless with time but Amos has been fearless from the start.

That’s not to say that Little Earthquakes is a difficult or challenging listen. It’s possibly her most accessible record, full of pop hooks, soaring choruses and memorable melodies. The genius of the album is melding this 90s pop sensibility, with unusual soundscapes (most namely the unique chord shapes and sets of tonal centres that Tori ekes out on the piano), confrontational, witty and poetic lyrics and an admirable and raw pro-woman story that ties it together and makes it still relevant today. A seminal work of art, and most definitely worth checking out if it’s not already in your collection.

BATTLE OF THE CHEAP LAZY VIDEOS

2012-01-12T13:45:00.001Z

Pixie Lott is a gurning stage school brat with little-to-no personality and (we predict) the career longevity of a male X Factor winner. Natalia Kills is a pretentious, idea-devoid automaton who has based her entire career on that of another mostly idea-devoid (but infinitely more talented) pretentious idiot.

These are almost entirely negative opinions on two pop non-entities. If you don't like them, you don't have to read our blog. You can go to a different corner of the internet where your feelings aren't hurt. This may seem a bit like bashing a puppy (Lott and Kills aren't exactly the most popular and universally loved pop people, so we're not exactly being controversial here). But we thought we'd just get our feelings out of the way straight off the bat.

Nevertheless the two (no doubt lovely) ladies have both just released music videos for serviceable pop songs. Let us elaborate: "Kiss The Stars" by Pixie Lott is her least hateful song since "Boys & Girls". It's a derivative, lazily produced, "Teenage Dream"-knockoff-meets-Ke$ha-bonus-track. But it's catchy. It's *shudder* fun. It has a rather nifty glimmery chorus that makes us want to dance. Well done the song. Natalia Kills' "Kill My Boyfriend" is similarly brain-wormy. It starts off all sunny and Lily Allen-ish but goes all Jekyll & Hyde by bursting into a Blackout-era Britney pre-chorus. It's genuinely chilling (she actually wants to kill her boyfriend... it's not a metaphor), made all the spookier by how upbeat the music is. We think both of these songs are solid 3 out of 5s on the mainstream manufactured pop scale. They will do. They are fun to listen to. They do not offend us or hurt our ears.

HOWEVER.

The videos that have just been released are both cheap, boring, unoriginal tat. Probably not the fault of either artist: after all, Pixie Lott - who is supposed to be the UK Pop Princess - just released her Difficult Second Album to the sound of people not giving a shit (it charted at 18 and then disappeared); and Natalia Kills who was supposed to blow up, GaGa-style, is yet to have a hit in any major music market outside of Germany. We're sure both of their respective record labels are hesitant to throw moneys or ideas (which cost money) at something high-concept and expensive[-looking]. So, no, we're not surprised. But REALLY.

Firstly: in Pixie's case. The stylist really should be fired. That floppy semi-bob is horrendously lank looking and the clothing is the kind that even the most low-rent Germanotta-impersonator would shun. The concept for the MV itself is basically September's UK "Cry For You" video (an infinitely better song) crossed with Katy Perry's "E.T." video (the floating in 'space' bits). It is so sub-Little Boots it doesn't even make sense in the context of 2012. Like... who is this going to appeal to? It's not strange enough to appeal to the self-consciously edgy tumblr kids who liked Rihanna's "We Found Love" with its washed out hipster imagery and abundance of coloured smoke and ribbons. It's not sexy enough (at all, actually) to appeal to TEH LADS. Someone's thrown in some half-arsed Madonna Blond Ambition nods (the ponytail, the flat jazz shoes). But why? It doesn't make sense, the dancing dodecahedron people look like they've been cut and pasted out of a 90s Billie Piper video (actually that reads like a compliment: it's not). It's a mess. Yes, we get that the song uses SPACE metaphors so the video is set on a strange alternate plane of reality (in space), but come on.

How this could have been saved: if someone slapped Pixie Lott until she stopped doing that awful, cheesy, Musical Theatre, amateur Saturday stage school grin DURING EVERY SUNG LINE (we do not endorse violence against women or people of any kind, jsyk); the green eye shadow was aborted; the concept was completely overhauled and changed to people having a food fight in a school canteen dressed as 90s high school kids from cult films, intercut with footage from fun at a roller derby, climaxing with a romantic kiss. That would be fun, simple, cheap, relevant, trendy, humorous, self-aware, visually enticing. Not necessarily the most original idea, ever. But it wouldn't hurt our eyes and it might help the single succeed.

Secondly: Natalia, Natalia, Natalia. The greatest criticism levelled at you is that all you do is follow in Germanotta's shady footsteps. Your songs are actually of a high quality. Someone in the studio has managed to hide the fact that you can't actually sing in tune VERY WELL. Your styling is often on point. In previous videos vaguely-original imagery has been deployed. WHERE HAS IT GONE WRONG? Lady GaGa already did a video about killing your boyfriend. It was called "Paparazzi" and it also featured sunny, brightly-coloured morbidity, lots of sunglasses and strange, sterile, 50s-inspired domesticity, all Stepford-like. Except that video had a budget a bit larger than your average Morrisons advert.

How this could have been saved: if someone had had more than 50p to work with. The video shouldn't have been so literal or staid or featured that cheap and very dated effect where a popstar is multiplied in the same shot as if there are 3 of them walking around. It should have featured Kills as a savvy, talented bounty hunter rolling around town apprehending FTAs (read Janet Evanovich novels and then you'll know). Cheap, fun, watchable. All they would have had to do would be film Natalia with a variety of guns breaking into people's houses and places of business and kicking/punching/handcuffing them until she finds herself in a crack den where her partner/lover (seen earlier) is seen making out with a prostitute. Then she shoots him in the face.

If anyone wants to hire us for video concepts, enquire at the usual email address.

Hipster Holiday

2012-01-04T20:31:00.003Z

Amazing (via Drowned Madonna)

Breaking!

2012-01-04T15:03:00.002Z

If you read our blog you probably like lady artists with relatively unconventional bents/sources of inspiration. In that case you'll love Alicia Jane Turner whose song and video for "Feed Me To The Wolves" is eerie and haunting in exactly the way one often hopes pop will be but rarely is. She also plays the piano and violin to extraordinarily high standards so there's that to be thankful for. You can browse her extensive collection of youtube videos at will and find much to like, love and be excited about. It's refreshing and lovely to see a young artist taking her future into her own hands and making her own stuff without backing from a big label. Kudos etc.

You can download her single at iTunes here.

A REALLY GOOD Scissor Sisters song

2012-01-02T14:03:00.000Z

We're not particularly massive Scissor Sisters fans - their 'unique' brand of crudely camp pop never brushed us up the right way and we're convinced Jake Shears' falsetto is employed as a high-level torture device at Guantanomo. HOWEVER we're big on second/third/fourth/eighth chances so we always give their new stuff a fair listen. This song 1) features buzz rapper of the moment Azealia Banks under the name 'Krystal Pepsy', 2) contains the lyric "she likes to dance with Madonna" and 3) is not by any means shit. Fingers crossed they can give us an album as good.

(PS this video is here)

It's a good time to be a fan of female rappers

2011-12-28T17:17:00.002Z

Hot Right Now End of Year Chart 2011

2011-12-25T18:10:00.000Z

Hello...

1. "Virus" - Björk
2. "I'm Into You" - Jennifer Lopez (feat. Lil Wayne)
3. "We Found Love" - Rihanna (feat. Calvin Harris)
4. "End of Time" - Beyoncé
5. "Judas" - Lady Gaga
6. "I Follow Rivers" - Lykke Li
7. "Lucky Day" - Nicola Roberts
8. "Carry" - Tori Amos
9. "Open Heart Surgery" - Beth Ditto
10. "Disaster" - JoJo

11. "Crystalline" - Björk
12. "Shattering Sea" - Tori Amos
13. "Till The World Ends (Remix feat. Nicki Minaj & Ke$ha)" - Britney Spears
14. "Get Some" - Lykke Li
15. "You Da One" - Rihanna
16. "Trip To Your Heart" - Britney Spears
17. "Moon" - Björk
18. "Dancing Crazy" - Miranda Cosgrove
19. "Someone Like You" - Adele
20. "Don't Hold Your Breath" - Nicole Scherzinger

21. "Moments of Pleasure (Director's Cut)" - Kate Bush
22. "The Other Chick" - JoJo
23. "Talk That Talk" - Rihanna (feat. Jay-Z)
24. "Bad Kids" - Lady GaGa
25. "Beat of My Drum" - Nicola Roberts
26. "All & Everyone" - PJ Harvey
27. "Lovesong" - Adele
28. "Written on the Forehead" - PJ Harvey
29. "L'étourderie" - Camille
30. "Resuscitate Me" - September

31. "Hold It Against Me" - Britney Spears
32. "Cockiness (Love It)" - Rihanna
33. "Desire" - Anna Calvi
34. "A Real Hero" - College (feat. Electric Youth)"
35. "Turning Tables" - Adele
36. "Rolling in the Deep" - Adele
37. "Cosmogony" - Björk
38. "Best Thing I Never Had" - Beyoncé
39. "Wonderland" - Natalia Kills
40. "Under Your Spell" - Desire

41. "Drunk on Love" - Rihanna
42. "Fearlessness" - Tori Amos
43. "Deeper Understanding (Director's Cut)" - Kate Bush
44. "Where Have You Been" - Rihanna
45. "Run The World (Girls)" - Beyoncé
46. "Make a Scene" - Sophie Ellis-Bextor
47. "Heavy Metal Lover" - Lady GaGa
48. "I Wrote The Book" - Beth Ditto
49. "Job's Coffin" - Tori Amos
50. "Flower of the Mountain" - Kate Bush

51. "Edge of the Moon" - Tori Amos
52. "Never Be Mine (Director's Cut)" - Kate Bush
53. "Suzanne & I" - Anna Calvi
54. "Perfect Stranger" - Katy B (with Magnetic Man)
55. "What Doesn't Kill You (Stronger)" - Kelly Clarkson
56. "Motivation" - Kelly Rowland (feat. Lil Wayne)
57. "Roc Me Out" - Rihanna
58. "Zombie" - Natalia Kills
59. "Codex" - Radiohead
60. "Graveyard" - Feist

61. "Highway Unicorn (Road to Love)" - Lady GaGa
62. "Sadness is a Blessing" - Lykke Li
63. "Riotriot" - tUnE-yArDs
64. "One and Only" - Adele
65. "How Come You Never Go There"
66. "I Care" - Beyoncé
67. "Time of my Life" - Patrick Wolf
68. "Love out of Lust" - Lykke Li
69. "Blackout" - Anna Calvi
70. "Asthma attack" - Cocknbullkid

71. "Best Thing I Never Had" - Beyoncé
72. "Hiding My Heart" - Adele
73. "The Shield and the Sword" - Clare Maguire
74. "Lay It On Me" - Kelly Rowland (feat. Big Sean)
75. "Radioactive" - Marina & The Diamonds
76. "Rainbow" - Oh Land
77. "Into The Clouds" - Sound of Arrows
78. "The Last Dance" - Clare Maguire
79. "Nightcall" - Kavinsky & Lovefoxxx
80. "The Magic" - Joan As Police Woman

81. "Farewell" - Rihanna
82. "Speed Limit" - Kerli
83. "Mutual Core" - Björk
84. "England" - PJ Harvey
85. "Love You Like a Love Song" - Selena Gomez & The Scene
86. "Give Up The Ghost" - Radiohead
87. "Jerome" - Lykke Li
88. "Wild Man" - Kate Bush
89. "Silent My Song" - Lykke Li
90. "Thunderbolt" - Björk

91. "Niggas in Paris" - Jay-Z & Kanye West
92. "If It Hadn't Been For Love" - Adele
93. "Paper Forest (In the Afterglow of Rapture)" - Emmy The Great
94. "Inside Out" - Britney Spears
95. "In a Box" - Margaret Berger
96. "Break The Chain" - Oh Land
97. "Can't Find Entrance" - Those Dancing Days
98. "I Can't Make You Love Me / Nick of Time" - Bon Iver
99. "Broken Record" - Katy B
100. "To Begin" - Alela Diane

WHY???

2011-12-23T13:02:00.000Z

We get that RiRi had to shoot a cheap, simple yet effective video, considering ALL of her time is currently being taken up by touring so relentlessly, that time travel has had to be invented just to accommodate her schedule. BUT. We are 99.9% sure that this video would have been 99.9% better if they had not SULLIED it with all that pointless, tacky font-play. If Rihanna has proven anything in her glittering and illustrious pop career, it's that she's sexy and charismatic enough to carry off a video where not much happens except she writhes, touches herself and wears a parade of hot outfits. She, of all people, doesn't need the karaoke words to pop up every 3 seconds just to make the video more visually stimulating. She can be visually stimulating just by sitting on a chair in a hot weave. Irritating.

This song is about our lives...

2011-12-22T16:05:00.004Z

And not only was it one of the best offerings on CSS' third album but it features SSION, the fabulous band we saw supporting Gossip back in November 2009 who sang "Keep It Together" with us. Yeah.

Also, get your orders in for the zine pronto! It's going to press within the week to be sent out for the first week of January. Hurry!

Stuck in Our Head: "Hit 'Em Wit Da Hee" - Missy Elliott

2011-12-22T00:03:00.000Z

We've had the immaculate video version of this song for years and have spent many hours marvelling at it's flawless use of the practically sacred "Jòga" strings (we reckon that was Timbaland's idea, he's such a Björk stan), however only recently did we discover the original. The harsh and hypnotic guitar string sound in the chorus is hypnotic and our hips suddenly think they're a pair of serpents at a serpent party - maybe a prom or perhaps a Quinceañera. More importantly, MAKE A NEW ALBUM FOOL.

A charming new ditty from Mademoiselle Minaj

2011-12-20T20:54:00.002Z

Beat reminiscent of "Roman's Revenge" + pleasingly violent lyrics = buzz single #2. Well done. See you at the Super Bowl.

Stuck in Our Head: "Rush Hour" - Jane Wiedlin

2011-12-19T18:03:00.000Z

Just fucking watch it.

Pearly dew drops

2011-12-16T17:21:00.000Z

As the enormous music fans we are, it is a genuine pleasure when we happen across an established artist who we instantly fall in love with. It doesn't happen all that often, so we appreciate it that much more when it does. It's the excitement of knowing you have years, possibly decades of material to delve into and explore at your leisure, blended with the mild annoyance at yourself or the universe for not having came across said artist sooner. Last night we were doing our usual early-hours-should-be-writing-essay-let's-troll-last.fm-instead activity and ended up on the page for one of the finest movie soundtrack proferrings we've heard in a long while, "Under Your Spell" by Desire. A pulsating dream of purple melancholy - sometimes we can't believe what we write - it is one of those songs you can dive, head-first in to. Someone, in the comments, suggested the song was reminiscent of the Cocteau Twins. We had heard of the band before but had limited knowledge; they were Scottish, they were eighties and they featured Elizabeth Fraser who ashamedly we only knew from her work with Massive Attack. In fact, we saw her live as a guest vocalist for the band back in February 2008.

It was 2am, we were getting tired of flitting between our playlist for Bollox tonight and 50 Words for Snow, and you know when you just want some new music? Something brand new you have no preconceptions of and holding the promise of bringing wonderful audiogasms to our ears. Wikipedia it was. Greatest hits? A compilation from 2000, tracked down on iTunes. Oh wow, we have £4.83 left from a gift card, meaning we'd be paying around £3 for the chance of amazing new music?

An hour later.

WOWWWWWWWWW.

Who the fuck are the Cocteau Twins and why did no one tell us to listen to them sooner? Audio landscapes of cosmos and shooting stars, wailing and begging and pleading from the voice of an angel, multitudes of those crazy little melody clusters which seem engineered in order to press those specific buttons which in turn make your legs go weak, your heart beat faster, your head fill up with saline solution and your eyes roll backwards. A privileged and entirely pleasurable experience, right now we are at that prized position of hearing a sample of an artist's work with the promise of albums upon albums to explore much further. We're still playing the greatest hits on loop and we feel in the context of their work picking single tracks out of the setting we heard them in wouldn't entirely do them justice. But we've put one track we keep returning to at the top. See what you think. Chastise us for not getting in to them sooner or do yourself an enormous favour and check them out right now. Believe us, we only wish someone had told us this a long time ago.

Haute Glamour

2011-12-15T09:55:00.003Z

This is sumptuous and sexy and slow-burning and very, very easy on both the eyes and the ears. It's good, and we don't want to play that down just because Lana is the victim of hype so vast and overwhelming it's almost obliterated any goodwill we felt towards her.

This is also about 10 times better than "Video Games". The strings are lush and swoonsome. Approval rates are soaring.

HOWEVER (and you knew there was one of those coming) we just can't see her managing to sustain it for any lengthy period of time. Perhaps we're wrong. Perhaps we're being unimaginative or unnecessarily negative. But we're not sure we could even take an entire album of the heavily sedated drowsy vocals, let alone a career's worth. Where does she go from here? How does she progress? Can she do uptempo or is it going to be slow, dirgesome femme fatale snoozeballads for the next 5 albums? Will she go into acting (she has an actressy look)? We're interested to know what happens next.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

2011-12-14T16:02:00.002Z

Kelly Clarkson has taken one of the best pop songs of the year and has committed a dirty protest ALL OVER IT via the evil dark magic of Flash Mobs. That's right, what started as a surreal, exhilarating, modern phenomenon has morphed into advertising shorthand for connectivity and modern-day all-encompassing globalisation-based feelings of overwhelming love. IT IS HORRID AND IT HAS RUINED THE VIDEO. What is this, a cynical attempt at creating a viral hit? An attempt to be contemporary and relevant? The song is a sort of delicate empowerment ballad and it has been ruined and cheapened.

Superb

2011-12-13T23:29:00.001Z

A cast member of Saturday Night Live recreates Robyn's "Call Your Girlfriend" video dance move, by dance move, completely accurately, in its entirety. Flawless.

That was quick!

2011-12-09T01:22:00.002Z

It was only earlier that we posted for the first time about Goldfrapp's up-and-coming Greatest Hits package thingy called The Singles. Well here is the first single/video. It's called "Yellow Halo" and it has a video shot entirely on an iPhone. Modern!

The song itself is lovely and probably a grower. So we'll wait to pass Judgement Totale. We don't want to do what we did earlier this year with the Feist single and pronounce it boring before having to do a volt-face and explain that actually it's swoonsome and brilliant.

So yeah.

FINALLY

2011-12-09T00:07:00.001Z

Cassie, the Indie Quirk Queen of R&B etc. is back. Back with something. We don't know what it is. A trailer? A promo. A buzz. Thing. Something.

WE'RE EXCITED ANYWAY. All hail Cassie.

Bit of an unimaginative title but HEY HO

2011-12-08T13:53:00.002Z

Goldfrapp are releasing an album. Tis called The Singles, and, as you may have gathered, is a greatest hits compilation. Let's hand over to the 'Frapp themselves for further details:

Hi we are releasing an album on the 6th Feb 2012 called ‘The Singles’ and it has 2 new songs ‘Meloncholy sky’ and ‘Yellow Halo’ on it x There is a little film we made while in South America all shot on iPhone ‘Yellow Halo’ is the song x

From their twitter, don't you know. You do know, don't you. You do. Just nod your head and smile, thanks dolls. Here is what "Melancholy Sky" will probably sound like, as heard in a live session-based setting:

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

2011-12-07T01:15:00.004Z

...when we have shit loads of essays and assignments for university to complete, menial wage-providing jobs to perform, presents to purchase (mostly for ourselves) and fabulous European cities to visit for long weekends... and on top of all this, when we decide to produce for no enormous reason a paper zine for our wonderful blog readers. We printed off and posted a few off at the end of December 2010 to realms as far away as Australia, Indonesia, the States and Milton Keynes, and would be interested to see if there's the same amount of... erm... interest in this years. Whether there is or not, we're making one and it's going to be fucking fantastic. You'll giggle your tits off as you sit on your bed, covered in and coughing up glitter, wondering why your New Year all of a sudden looked ten times brighter.

If you'd like a copy - think of it is as our Crimbo present to you - email us at chazandlindy@gmail.com as soon as you can. Last year we spent hours upon hours upon hours of writing, editing, photoshopping (tbqh we use Fireworks but that hasn't transitioned from noun to verb yet) and a fortune on printing and posting but again we're not going to charge for them because above all the zine is a pleasure to produce and we love to know you guys enjoyed it. We're gonna set up a PayPal just in case anyone would like to donate a mere pound or so to cover postage, but that's totally optional. We're definitely not going to start a career as one of those pesky grabbers who stand with clipboards on British high streets soliciting for our credit card details. But you can send them as well if you're feeling particularly flush.

So to summarise: we're making a second zine, send us yr emails with addresses if you want one ASAP, they're definitely 100% free but if you'd like to cover postage we're happy for you to do so. Who knows, one day they might be worth more than a bob or two on eBay. Hurrah!

Abrasive but Fun (!?)

2011-12-05T21:35:00.003Z

It may sound like a load of old noise, cheaply and aggressively thrown together, but we quite like Nicki Minaj's new buzz/promo/hype/possibly-non-album thing. Those swirls of darkly whorling strings, the stop-start rhythmic horns. We dunno...

Germanotta Goes for Oscar Gold in Early Madonna Biopic

2011-12-02T22:08:00.003Z

But truthfully the lie of it all is much more honest. Or something. We're not stupid. We know Madonna didn't invent the wheel. She didn't invent being blonde. She didn't invent denim. She didn't invent the 80s. She didn't invent pop music. She didn't invent being a female popstar. She didn't invent stripping off. She didn't invent being naked. She didn't invent red lipstick or bangles or rhinestones. She didn't invent dance routines or sex or gay people or fighting for gay rights.

But seriously. If you're a popstar, and one of the biggest banes of your career is that people keep (no matter what you're doing) comparing what you do to Madonna... Why would you dress like that? If a question about the criticism you received for a song sounding so similar to a Madonna one reduced you to tears, why would you dress like that? We don't get it?

Fake Houseparty!

2011-12-01T12:36:00.004Z

We love Nicola Roberts. We shouldn't feel the need to add that disclaimer, but the internet being what it is, we're just protecting ourselves from HATEFUL COMMENTS.

Anyway, her new video, "Yo-Yo".

Fake houseparties in music videos can be notoriously hard to pull off. For every "Just Dance" (which despite being one of Germanotta's weakest MVs to date, still managed to successfully create the impression of a genuinely good houseparty) there are a handful of music videos that either don't have the budget or haven't hired extras with enough wild abandon so end up looking like awkward and staid affairs.

Unfortunately Nicola's isn't quite a success. BUT NEVER MATTER. Who really gives a shit if the 'party' in question looks like several 30-something hipster ladies who work in media and pr bouncing like hyperactive hares and rabbits in a large creepy wet room when you have SEXY NICOLA LOOKING IMPECCABLE.

Srsly. The music video is supposed to be emotional and narrative. It's supposed to draw you in and make you relate, then cry. But it's not, really. Or not to us, anyway. To us it's about bathing in the magnificent glow of Nicola Roberts Esq.'s beauty.

We'll wait and see

2011-12-01T00:56:00.006Z

And so it seems Madonna will be putting out her first real ballad in over a decade very soon, an accompaniment to W.E. with production from William Orbit. As excited as we are, it's bringing on the pines for Patrick Leonard more than ever - as much as we assert that Ray of Light wouldn't be anything like it was without Orbit's production talent, some of the finest lyrics she's ever sang on that album came from Leonard's pen and a ballad produced by Orbit just seems a bit half-baked without Leonard's words. "The Power of Goodbye Part 2" this will be we presume not. With this said and done however, we haven't heard a single sample of Orbit's production for Madonna in 2011 and as such we are trying to reserve as much judgement as possible. It's just... when a song is titled "Masterpiece"*, we can't help but have our expectations raised a tad higher than usual. Bring it on.

*What a flawless song title. Let's just think about it for a moment.

At last!!!

2011-11-28T23:47:00.002Z

Feist has FINALLY released the video for her single, "How Come You Never Go There", about a million years after it was aired/debuted/sent out into the world for purchasing purposes.

The video itself comprises Feist in a sexy Yoko Ono floor-length weave, getting jiggy in a smokey forest. We mean, what more could you possibly want?

Sexy and beautiful and wonderful.

AWWWWWWWW

2011-11-28T23:36:00.002Z

We kind of shamefully forgot about Nicola Roberts after her album came out. She went quiet and whilst we gave the full thing many spins for about 2 weeks, we got caught up with other stuff. Enter stage left: the "Yo-Yo" video behind the scenes! Just in time. Deus Ex Youtube or something.

Watching this has just reinforced how brilliant the Roberts' first collection of self-penned songs is. Those intense, exhilarating middle 8s, the playful, delightful, clever without being clever-clever lyrics and the soaring pop melodies all tied up in the pearlescent bow of slightly off-kilter production.

We're excited again.

Some Advice from Bee

2011-11-27T11:51:00.003Z

We couldn't really concentrate on this - not for long anyway - because as soon as Beyoncé encouraged us to follow her lead by "swirling on you, babe, swirling-swirling on you, babe" in order to get our man aroused, we realised several things:

This song is a lot better than we remembered.
But did it really need a video?
The concept of not just SWIRLING on your babe, but SWIRLING-SWIRLING on your babe, is totally hilarious. Does this involve circular diving? Rotating like a spinning top? Slow, sensuous grinding? Cylindrical body sculpture? Pouring oneself languidly in a round motion?
Obviously Beyoncé is still good to very not terrible at dancing.
How does this all fit into Bee's feminist mantra? Is she attempting to point out that women can be world-running forces of nature but also take time our of their busy independent lady schedule to also cater to their men with a slow, sexy dance that they've clearly rehearsed at length and hired backing dancers for?
Have we thought about this too much?
Is this sort of "do a lapdance for your man even if it makes you uncomfortable because otherwise he WILL go to a stripclub and leave you at home crying in the kitchen" attitude and advice at ALL helpful?
Or are we misinterpreting?
Does it even matter?
Question: tell me what you think about me.
(That's not a question).
Oh well.

My romantic gene is dominant

2011-11-27T03:08:00.003Z

Björk showing everyone how the fuck it's done with Biophilia highlight "Thunderbolt" on Later... with Jools Holland. That tesla coil - we just cannot.

A White Russian please

2011-11-25T17:18:00.003Z

Thola Heyzoos, or Zola Jesus to non-Spanish speakers, graced us with her presence at the Manchester Academy on Thursday night and proved to be more than the proverbial rocket up the arse. Her hour long set consisted mostly of her bouncing around the stage giving it Tilda-doing-interpretive-dance-based-on-the-life-of-an-asparagus beans in the sort of outfit one would pick up from Debenham's for a post-wedding reception party, complete with mink stole probably fashioned by herself from the animals her father hunts in Minnesotan forests, while her band - consisting of Black Sabbath tribute act rejects, and we mean that in the most celebratory of senses - gave us a musical set piece worthy of rousing howling only Zola, Shamu and the inebriated obese homeless man in the audience could provide accompaniment to. In other words, the gig was fucking excellent and Zola is a totally, one hundred per cent unique individual creating innovative music unlike anyone else in 2011, which is something one can only applaud. Her music will never make the mainstream, but her audience is growing thanks to ever increase blog wanking (see this very post) and guest spots such as her appearance on the latest M83 album, so brand new ears are listening to her dark and disturbing electronic woodland symphonies every day.

A review of an 'unusual', 'quirky', 'left of the road' female singer songwriter and not one comparison with Kate Bush. The Guardian, Daily Mail, any and all lazy music journalists - take note. It can be done.

Doesn't Get Cooler, Appaz

2011-11-25T12:04:00.002Z

Recently this 20-year-old firecracker topped the NME cool list. Well done to her. We don't quite know if that's the kiss of death or the start of a wonderful fruitful career. The jury's out. It could go either way.

Anyway this is the song/video that's been gettin' her all the attention. Much like Kreayshawn, Lana Del Rey and Iggy Azalea, Ms. Banks seems to be creating buzz for herself by not waiting around for a label to fund her big budget debut, but instead putting an eyecatching but cheaply made video out herself. We like this new approach. Of course, the cynic in us (there's a cynic in us??) thinks this was probably funded by a big-budget label anyway to create buzz and make her seem like a plucky up and comer. But either way. If it inspires other young unknown artists to take matters into their own hands, that's good, right?

Whether or not you enjoy this song all hinges on your appetite for lyrics like "I guess this cunt's gettin' eaten". For the record, we like it a lot.

Erotique

2011-11-23T23:49:00.003Z

Prudes look away NOW. Rihanna has done an album and she expresses her desire for sex continually THROUGHOUT. That’s right. If you thought “S&M” was gratuitous, tacky and degrading (and we didn’t, for the record, although our feelings were mixed), you’re going to hate an album that features lines such as “Suck my cockiness, like my persuasion”, “I love it when you eat it”, “I wanna fuck you right now”, “Let me grab my dick while you sit on top”, “yeah boy I want it, yeah boy I need it”, “on the bed, on the floor, on the couch”, “ooh baby, baby, just like that”, “middle of the day, give me what I want, it feels so special, it feels so good”, “I know you wanna bite this”.

On one song RiRi offers up a ‘dirty secret’, “I just wanna be loved”, which will come as absolutely no surprise to anyone who has just sat through the cavalcade of single, double and triple entendres, innuendos, euphemisms and extended sexual metaphors that have previously been proffered.

Following on from the bruised but unfashionable pop masterpiece, Rated R, and the cold, commercial genre jigsaw that was Loud, Riri has gone back to basics, or, at least, back to the bedroom. The biggest surprise is that it’s a hell of a lot of fun, and the very definition of effortless.

Perhaps it’s Ms. Fenty’s (still) startlingly unique vocal, detached but familiar, sensuous but strange, sinuous and brash. Perhaps it’s the distinct lack of overused current chart music clichés (aside from one heavy house big bass drop that, whilst deeply enjoyable, carries the faintest whiff of dreaded pop cunts LMFAO and some dirgey dubstep on a bonus track, “Red Lipstick”). Perhaps it’s that elusive pop star x factor? Perhaps the emperor’s naked (but probably not).

There’s still a fair amount of variety on here though, from the Caribbean flavoured “Watch n’ Learn” to the hip hop of “Cockiness (Love It)” via emotional pop/rock ballad closer “Farewell”.

Never dull, never samey (unless you think brazen sex lyrics are samey…) Talk That Talk probably won’t be remembered as Riri’s defining album era, but it’s competent and enjoyable enough, with the arrogance and flair to make it easily the breeziest, stompiest and most euphoric pop album of 2011.

Frustrating

2011-11-22T01:03:00.002Z

Dazed & Confused have done 20 different covers to celebrate being 20 years old (we presume? Something like that) and one of them is PJ Harvey. Supposedly another is Björk but we can't find that one. We could barely find the PJ one. Dazed, if you're reading this (unlikely but we never stop dreaming... *drifts off into daze* - no pun intended) please sort out your very confusing and uninformative website. It confuses us. We know that's probably the point, as it's not very cutting edge or trendy to be simple and easy to use, but c'mon now.

Thanks babesses.

ARTY

2011-11-17T21:57:00.005Z

Jostling, angry schoolchildren, fighting for no discernible reason, other than they might have been riled up by Ms. Welch's unrelentingly E P I C music. No sign of the ginger lady herself. It's the teaser video for Flozzer's new single, "No Light, No Light" (echolalia, echolalia). BUT IS IT ART?

Katy Perry wants your precious salty tears...

2011-11-12T23:53:00.002Z

We didn't cry when we watched this, perhaps because there's a large sooty coal where our pumping heart should be, perhaps because we're not mawkish idiots who will literally (LITERALLY) allow themselves to be emotionally manipulated at will.

Katy does look stunning, however, in her Romy & Michele flashforward prosthetics. She puts us in mind of Winona Ryder at the start of Edward Ciseaux-mains when she does the croaky old lady under a rubbery senior citizen mask bit.

And yes, that is Diego Luna off-of Gets His Cock Out in Mexican Arthouse, Played a Gay in Milk, was in that film about that Cuban guy who invented cigars or communism or Pig Bays or something.

Speaking of Madge...

2011-11-09T19:29:00.005Z

New era, new onslaught of photoshoots officially certified as being free of flaws. We have fond memories of picking up the Hard Candy era issues of Dazed and Confused and Interview from the Virgin Megastore in Times Square (RIP) a few years ago, and we can't wait to spend ridiculous amounts of money we don't have collecting the forthcoming magazines her mug will be spread across. For now, here's Harper's Bazaar's coverage of W.E. featuring the Queen herself and Andrea Riseborough.

And just WHAT do we think of "Give Me All Your Love"?

2011-11-09T13:57:00.004Z

It's been a long time coming. The length of time between Hard Candy and the leaking of "Give Me All Your Love", the rumoured lead single for the new Madonna era, is the single longest period between any two Madonna albums so far. The period saw the release of a definitive greatest hits collection, two new 'lifestyle' lines and an entire new film, so it's not like she was sitting at home watching Loose Women and wishing she was bezzies with Denise Welch. But true Madonna fans couldn't give a fuck (LaToya) about any of that shit - it's the music which matters foremost, every time.

We've written about our excitement/uncertainties of the producers M is working with (Martin Solveig is the main producer/songwriter while the wizard behind Ray of Light, William Orbit, is executive producing) before and this was the first chance we've had to appraise the results. On first listen, the only thought our brains could process apart from "THIS IS A NEW MADONNA SONG THIS IS A NEW MADONNA SONG THIS IS A NEW MADONNA SONG" was "Okay... Beautiful Stranger". The dreamy 60s surf-pop sound is floating in the background, behind surprisingly infectious cheerleading chants - we were uncertain how they would work but we're pleased with the final product. The lyrical quality on the whole is a tad poor, but the song progression and chorus especially are rapturous and attention-snatching. Vocally, she sounds so passionate - angry and happy and bursting with life and energy. Maybe this break from music was totally what she needed to be excited about creating music again.

As a lead single, we do feel like it falls short of the standard set before. Madonna is renowned for opening each game-changing era with an equally game-changing lead single - think of them. Okay maybe not the first album (hey there "Everybody") but since then - "Like a Virgin", "Live to Tell", "Like a Prayer" (undefeated song of the century), "Erotica", "Secret", "Frozen", "Music", "American Life", "Hung Up" (possibly her finest lead single ever) and even poor old "4 Minutes" all had that immediate "Wow, what the fuck is this?" feeling upon first listen. As much as we enjoy "Give Me All Your Love" and feel that great rush each time with further listens, we feel like it would make a much more exciting second single... the lead single needs to have that magical spark which is somehow just missing.

To summarise: if we weren't that excited before for the new Madonna era, we bloody well are now. Hurray!

(PS we'll discuss Nicola Roberts another time)

Hot Right Now - 06/11/11

2011-11-09T01:35:00.006Z

All change as Kelly and Flo flood the chart. Sorry we missed last week. Cannot apologise enough.

1. "What Doesn't Kill You (Stronger)" - Kelly Clarkson

2. "Only If For a Night" - Florence + the Machine

3. "Dark Side" - Kelly Clarkson

4. "Shake It Out" - Florence + the Machine

5. "Allez allez allez" - Camille

6. "Wild Man" - Kate Bush

7. "Wet Boy" - Camille

8. "Einstein" - Kelly Clarkson

9. "What The Water Gave Me" - Florence + the Machine

10. "Honestly" - Kelly Clarkson

11. “Heartlines” – Florence + the Machine
12. “Spectrum” – Florence + the Machine
13. “Take Care of You” – Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie xx
14. “Hopechest” – Jack Colwell & the Owls
15. “Night Time” – Tracey Thorn
16. “She Was” – Camille
17. “Mars is No Fun” – Camille
18. “Lover to Lover” – Florence + the Machine
19. “No Light, No Light” – Florence + the Machine
20. “All This and Heaven Too” – Florence + the Machine

Can I confess these things to you?

2011-11-07T22:20:00.005Z

While we're on the topic of the xx, we're happy to bring you a wonderful cover, albeit not too far from the original, of "Night Time" by Tracey Thorn. Yes, that Tracey Thorn, off of voice like set honey swirled in hot porridge and the spiritual/genuinely biological mother of Romy xx. Apparently produced by her one-time band member/full-time husband Ben something or other, which kind of makes this a return for Everything But The Girl, it's a heady mix of hypnotising vocals and a fuller, if you will, backing track than the xx original. Not that there is anything at all wrong with their own brand of sparseness, it's what makes them, but it's interesting to hear a cover with more life. This was intended to be on a compilation curated by the xx of covers of their own stuff (they've only done one album, arrogant shits) while never came to fruition, sadly. But we're glad this saw the light of day. More Tracey & xx collabs, she needs to work with her daughter more!

"jesus is crying at rihanna's vocals in take care"

2011-11-07T22:10:00.002Z

An odd one from Drake and Rihanna - sweet lyrics sung over a pounding beat, conveniently stolen from Jamie xx & Gil Scott-Heron. Not that it's exactly on the scale of a Beethoven symphony, but still shamelessly stolen. It's probably going to be extremely annoying when it's being played at all hours everywhere we bloody turn once the unwashed masses have gotten hold of it, but until then it's the sole property of in the know bloggers, hipsters and Drake worshippers. And for now, we really like it.

Tori, Twice

2011-11-05T00:16:00.004Z

Quite often people love to bang on about 'good songwriting'. Usually this is in conjunction with a pared down, stripped back cover version: "It really shows that underneath all that kitchen sink production, the bare bones of the song are amazing. It's just a brilliantly crafted song." Blah blah blah. Often this is right. Most of the time this is exaggeration.

Recently Tori Amos, that most divisive of angry feminist 90s singer/songwriters has been touring material from her most recent album, the classical-inspired, concept song cycle, Night of Hunters, with a Polish string quartet called Apollon Musagete. That may sound exhausting. Certainly, Guardian music critic, Alexis Petridis, was recently moved to describe the entire project, which also features a 1300 word essay and a shapeshifting fox called Annabelle, played by Tori Amos' precocious daughter, as awful-sounding and tiring. But he hadn't actually heard the album yet. And the songs, as ever, despite their opulent and rococo classical music high gloss, are in Amos' inimitable style, melding melody and high drama with the songwriting genius of a piano prodigy.

Over the past few nights, once at the Royal Albert Hall and once at Mancheter's Apollo Theatre, Tori entertained us, mixing in the old with the new, fan favourites, b-sides and greatest hits, often accompanied only by herself on piano, and, brain-meltingly, on keyboard at the same time, at other times with alternately lush and violently inventive string quartet arrangements. Here, the songwriting really was the star. The 'bare bones' of the songs didn't turn out just to be simple verses and choruses made novel by being heard in the new context of sparse acoustic chords, but at once complex and deceptively straightforward spiderwebs of rhythms and ideas all held together by Tori's remarkable and remarkably oblique, perfect lyrics.

In the dreadful 'chick-flick' (and that really is the only way to describe it), Crush, a character knows how to deploy chord and song changes on the organ in exactly the right way to make old biddies and funeral attendees cry. Tori seems to be in possession of the very same talent. Just as an eerie but one note verse had started to seem stretched as far as it can go, her songs launch seamlessly into a chorus or bridge where the tonal centres shift in a heart-aching way. Live, these details pack an even heavier punch.

Of course, Ms. Amos is not without her eccentricities and some of her bizarre Valerie Cherish-style prayer hands and motions were almost comical (ok they were definitely comical). All was forgiven, though, when she proved she had the ultimate sense of humour at the Manchester show by turning a microphone mess-up between songs into a totally improvised song along the lines of "Sometimes I fuck up (repeat x10 over jaunty piano tune)".

It's become a bit of a cliché to remark that in the past, many of our most beloved artists didn't receive a proportional amount of praise to their talent during their lifetime. It also seems to have become a general agreed that now that we're all omniscient internet-users with an infinite capacity to document and judge everything, this is no longer the case. But we beg to disagree (if that makes sense). Tori may be a relatively niche popular music act (as niche as someone who can fill the Royal Albert Hall can be) but we feel, deep down in our waters (oo-er) that once a lot of chart guff and politics has fallen away and all that is left is artistry, Tori will be remembered as the unwaveringly brilliant human being that a handful of hysterical gays and ginger women in velvet corsets see her as now. And these intimate, deluxe, concerts, documented on the cameras of a hundred smartphones, will offer proof. (Picture via here).

02/11/11 - Royal Albert Hall

"Shattering Sea"
"Scarborough Fair"
"Suede"
"Velvet Revolution"
"Nautical Twilight"
"Leather"
"Beauty Queen/Horses"
"Marianne"
"Mr. Zebra"
"Fearlessness"
"Cloud On My Tongue"
"Star Whisperer"
"Silent All These Years"
"Bells for Her"
"Way Down"
"Hey Jupiter"
"Your Ghost"
"Precious Things"
"Cruel"
[Encore 1]
"A Multitude of Shades"
"Winter"
[Encore 2]
"Smells Like Teen Spirit"
"Siren"
"Big Wheel"

04/11/11 - Manchester Apollo

"Shattering Sea"
"Scarborough Fair"
"Suede"
"Velvet Revolution"
"Leather"
"Fearlessness"
"Doughnut Song"
"Take Me with You"
"Mr. Zebra"
"Your Ghost"
"Winter"
"Star Whisperer"
"Lovesong"
"Carnival"
"Apollo's Frock"
[Improv]
"Cloud on My Tongue"
"Hey Jupiter"
"Siren"
"Cruel"
[Encore 1]
"A Multitude of Shades"
"Precious Things"
[Encore 2]
"Carry"
"Spark"
"Big Wheel"

Oh dear...

2011-11-01T15:32:00.002Z

We love you JoJo, we love this song, but this video is boring and there is almost nothing to say on the subject. We have sat thinking for a good long five minutes and we can't think of anything (positive or negative) to offer.

A little respect

2011-11-01T00:53:00.003Z

This article was originally written for publication in the Mancunion.

While there were many things uncertain about experiencing an Erasure gig, I was confident that there would be a lack of similarly aged audience members. I was correct. Yet instead of feeling smugly superior of my weary-eyed, sensibly dressed co-attendees I found myself overcome with envy. They were wild – not an inhibition was to be found in the packed out (and incredibly beautiful) Manchester Apollo. An unmistakeable attitude of “We’re going to pretend the last two decades didn’t happen and we don’t give a fuck” permeated the air, and as the concert went on I found it impossible to remain immune.

Prior to the gig I was under the impression that Erasure were a diet version of the Pet Shop Boys; purveyors of flamboyant pop with little to no real substance. After the gig, I found myself racing home to hit loop on their music videos on YouTube, in shock at both my reaction and the sheer quality of their output. You can’t really argue with 25 million record sales either. The gig was an outrageous two hour show of non-stop glitter, colour and joy – if you’re rolling your eyes right now on a rainy Magic Bus ride home, get "A Little Respect" on Spotify and you’ll soon cheer up. Front man Andy Bell seemed to capture the hearts of every man and woman he performed in front of, and it was extremely pleasant to see the crowd around me entirely lost in nostalgic euphoria.

Not to say there wasn’t any new material. The band were plugging their latest album, Tomorrow’s World (produced by Frankmusik nevertheless), which blended well with their back catalogue and managed to keep the hit-hungry crowd’s attention. If I came away from the gig learning one thing, it was to never be guilty about a pleasure; thank you Erasure.

YOUTH KNOWS NO PAIN

2011-11-01T00:19:00.002Z

Tonight we saw Lykke Li at Manchester Academy 2 and she was absolutely fantastic. We apologise if you're currently sprawled on the floor, blown away with the intricacy, depth and profoundness of our prose but there's no other way we can really put it. Well, apart from what we're about to write. We've seen Miss Li before, a few years ago at Latitude, and even then we were totally shaken with how overflowing with energy, fun and magic her performance was. Tonight proved no less different, and we were enormously impressed with the creativity and spark of the set. A drab, miserable stage in the students' union was transformed into a blustery, apocalyptic landscape (alright well not quite a landscape but just go with it) and song after song after song segued into one another proving just how high the standard of quality of her two albums are. If you were to listen to her albums alone you'd be forgiven for thinking she would be quite laid back on stage, but she very rarely stood still - wailing, shaking and grinding from one side of the stage to another. For £12 fucking pounds and 50 pence. Absolutely ridiculous. Lykke Li is an incredible artist, but an even more incredible example of why live music is important.

Rihanna, Live

2011-10-26T14:58:00.004+01:00

Recently we went on a Shiny & New Field Trip to see Rihanna at Manchester’s MEN arena (oo-er, men!). It was an eye-opener in several respects. First of all, we learnt that Rihanna is incapable of performing any number without grinding on a surface of any kind. During the hour and a half of her Loud Tour show, she ground on a car, a baseball bat, a man, a woman, a member of the audience, a pole, a metal barrier, herself… Not to demean the Barbadian Goddess, but we’re slightly concerned for her nether regions which have surely been ground down to a nub after a spate of recent performances across the globe.

Yes, the mood in what was formerly the UK’s busiest music venue, was distinctly erotic. During numbers like the album track “Skin”, or a cover of Prince’s “Darling Nikki”, Rihanna proved that she could smoulder and arouse like the best of them (by best of them we mostly mean Madonna). In fact there was something distinctly Early Madonna about the entire concert. The arena was packed to the rafters with people of all ages, backgrounds and walks of life (not just women and gays, although they were well represented). Much like Madonna The Early Years, Rihanna seems to have an appeal so broad, it encompasses everyone. Ever.

Also, much like Ms. Ciccone in her Formative Incarnation, there were many people in attendance who clearly had modelled their style, hair, outfit entirely on things they had seen Rihanna wearing. Or rather, there was lots of fire engine red tresses on display.

Rihanna has greatly improved and matured as a performer. She strutted with such confidence, it was impossible to tear your eyes away from her (and why would you want to?) and managed to sing every single note live and flawless (seriously, not a note out of tune, unlike pitchy, flat Florence Welch, who nevertheless still gets better notices for her live performances).
Weirdly there was also no remnants of the robo-Rihanna certain reviewers had alluded to. If anything Rihanna proved she had more personality, sass and good nature than almost any other major arena-playing female popstar around (except maybe Madonna, again).

Musically and visually there wasn’t much to whet the appetite, but considering the tour’s parent album was rather uninspiring and a mixed bag, it’s not surprising. Also, considering almost every single track performed was a worldwide smash hit, dear to the audience’s hearts, it wasn’t a complaint you would openly hear from anyone in attendance.

It wasn’t a patch on her dark, incendiary Rated R tour, but we didn’t have skyscraper high expectations so we were pleased and, yes, again, aroused, by the eyecatching and polished performance. Well done, Princess RiRi. (Pictures via here)

Setlist:

"Only Girl (In the World)"
"Disturbia"
"Shut Up and Drive"
"Man Down"
"Darling Nikki" (contains excerpts from "S&M")
"S&M"
"Let Me"
"Skin"
"Raining Men"
"Hard"
"Breakin' Dishes"
"The Glamorous Life"
Medley: "Run This Town" / "Live Your Life"
"Unfaithful"
"Hate That I Love You"
"California King Bed"
"What's My Name?" (contains elements from "Pon de Replay" and "Touch Me, Tease Me")
"Rude Boy"
"Cheers (Drink to That)"
"Don't Stop the Music"
"Take a Bow"

Encore

"Love the Way You Lie (Part II)"
"Umbrella"

Stunning

2011-10-26T14:38:00.002+01:00

2011 has NOT been a banner year for mainstream pop. It's been a great year for Grand Dames of Popular Music Innovation to stage a comeback (Kate Bush, Björk, Tori Amos, PJ Harvey) but it hasn't been a great year for mainstream pop. It's been the year that Lady GaGa decided that maybe she was established enough to start shifting (extremely slowly, we might add) left of centre. The year that Beyoncé decided creating a sonically cohesive and mildly odd (by her standards anyway) album was more important than number 1 hits. The year Rihanna has (so far, at any rate) neglected to release a new album (thus far). The year Robyn and P!nk took much needed hiatuses. A year free of any new Madonna music.

So, it falls, bizarrely, to pop/rock American sweetheart Kelly Clarkson to release one of the best pop-in-the-classic-sense singles of the year. It doesn't sound quite like anything else in the chart. It doesn't have the horrid, scrapey syncopated synths that have characterised ravey, post-dubstep, horrid chart lolpop. But neither is it a po-faced, overly-sincere club member of The New Boring (two movements outlined in Peter Robinson's excellent Guardian article).

It has a traditional Mournful Verse, Big Chorus. It is catchy. Its production doesn't particularly rip anything off (except maybe the xx a little bit). It is a little phial of pure euphoria. Thank you Kelly.

Btw there are lots more of these where this came from on her new album, Stronger, out now (in all good branches of ASDA). Do not be fooled by the dull, simpering, country-ish lead single.

Hot Right Now - 23/10/11

2011-10-23T15:55:00.005+01:00

Zola and M83 debut top ten.

1. "A Real Hero" - College (feat. Electric Youth)

2. "Nightcall" - Kavinsky & Lovefoxxx

3. "What Doesn't Kill You (Stronger)" - Kelly Clarkson

4. "Under Your Spell" - Desire

5. "Graveyard" - Feist

6. "How Come You Never Go There" - Feist

7. "Mr. Know It All" - Kelly Clarkson

8. "Ixode" - Zola Jesus

9. "Tick of the Clock" - The Chromatics

10. "Where The Boats Go" - M83

11. “Only if for a Night” – Florence and the Machine
12. “The Bad In Each Other” – Feist
13. “Wild Man” – Kate Bush
14. “Multi-Millionaire” – Penguin Prison
15. “Shake It Out” – Florence and the machine
16. “Wait” – M83
17. “Oh My Love” – Riz Ortolani (feat. Katyna Ranieri)
18. “Caught a Long Wind” – Feist
19. “A Commotion” – Feist
20. “What The Water Gave Me” – Florence and the Machine

Stuck In Our Head: "A Little Respect" - Erasure

2011-10-23T15:51:00.003+01:00

It's been an unusual week to say the least, but if we had to give you one song which should be representative of the events and emotions involved, it has to be Erasure's "A Little Respect". At the beginning of the week, we had little to no idea who exactly Erasure were - the closest we came to forming an opinion was that of a Pet Shop Boys Lite. On Wednesday we snagged tickets to their gig at the Manchester Apollo to review it for a student newspaper, mainly to see what all the fuss was about. We left as Erasure fans. Seriously. If you don't think you'll have heard the song above, all it will take is to get the chorus and you'll realise how big it is in your musical subconscious - everyone knows this song and everyone went wild for it at the gig.

The more we've listened to it, the more we've realised how perfect a pop song is. Everything about it is so precisely measured and proportioned - the song length, the verse to bride to chorus ratio, the emotion-punching chords, the stadium-sing-a-long lyrics, the euphoric yet slightly tragic mood... it's an incredible example of fist-pumping, groin-throbbing pop music and we're so grateful it came into our lives. On Friday night we DJed at a proper club for the very first time and we're happy to say it went fabulously, but one of the tallest peaks came as a result of this song. The music was ear-drum-puncturingly loud but the roar of the crowd in the chorus was unignorable. Thank you Erasure for this week, it wouldn't have been the same without you.

PS We're not allowed to post the gig review for said newspaper until they publish it first... coming soon!

Tumblr: The Movie

2011-10-20T01:00:00.003+01:00

How to expertly appeal to Youths by seeming to embody Youth Culture whilst actually having had it cynically manufactured by a board room of people on coke:

1. Do Your Research: someone has clearly spent actual time scrolling through Tumblr (the new Myspace which was the new Bebo) and making actual detailed and accurate notes about how and what gets disenfranchised young people with an internet connection going. Here's a comprehensive list:

'meaningful' script rendered with sparklers/tattoo gun
washed out cinema-/photo-graphy
creepers, denim, double denim, triple denim
coloured smoke bombs/flares
fields, nature, lightning, projections thereof
'extreme sports' (skateboarding)
bleak cityscapes
wearing clothes in the bath

2. Don't Forget the Classics: there's nothing like a golden oldie and there are certain things that are going to appeal to the young and 'hip', no matter what decade it is. All of these are featured in a seeming BLITZKRIEG of teen hedonism:

the sex times
the drug times
the smoking times
the stealing times
the gambling times
the puking times
the fighting times
the violent times
the hopelessly naive, opportunistic but also optimistic young/first love times

Flawless snow queen goddess

2011-10-19T12:05:00.003+01:00

LEAK THE ALBUM NOW.

Hot Right Now - 16/10/11

2011-10-16T19:14:00.005+01:00

Yeah we forgot last week. Soz. Our first ever soundtrack excerpt at Number 1.

1. "A Real Hero" - College (feat. Electric Youth)

2. "Nightcall" - Kavinsky & Lovefoxxx

3. "Thunderbolt" - Björk

4. "Mutual Core" - Björk

5. "We Found Love" - Rihanna (feat. Calvin Harris)

6. "Sacrifice" - Björk

7. "Under Your Spell" - Desire

8. "Graveyard" - Feist

9. "What Doesn't Kill You (Stronger)" - Kelly Clarkson

10. "Say It Out Loud" - Nicola Roberts

11. “How Come You Never Go There” – Feist
12. “Every Teardrop is a Waterfall” - Coldplay
13. “Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometimes” – Nicola Roberts
14. “Take a Bite” – Nicola Roberts
15. “Naughty Naughty” – Porcelain Black
16. “Pussy” – Iggy Azalea
17. “Yo-Yo” – Nicola Roberts
18. “Cinderella’s Eyes” – Nicola Roberts
19. “Solstice” – Björk
20. “Tick of the Clock” – The Chromatics

Pop Singers by Vogue Covers

2011-10-13T13:06:00.003+01:00

Why? Why not? This is just out of curiosity, we realise that being on the cover of Vogue isn't necessarily an achievement, especially if you're a musician, where too much emphasis is placed on fashion for female artists, where male artists aren't expected to dabble or show interest. We also realise that the people in charge of Who Goes on Vogue have a preferred look, and you could accuse them of being prejudiced against certain types... but there you go. No surprise for who's had the most covers.

Adele

Jennifer Hudson

Britney Spears

Mariah Carey

Cheryl Cole

Lady GaGa

Beyoncé

Rihanna

Kylie Minogue

Madonna

QUEEN OF POP UPDATE

2011-10-12T14:17:00.004+01:00

We're sure you don't need us to tell you it's all been a bit dry of late in Madge-land. There were those flawless photos leaked from the D&G 2010 shoot last week showing she still has what it takes to give Arnie and Brigitte Nielsen a run for their money in elderly body-building and W.E. is sure to sweep the boards at the Oscars, Golden Globes and Shiny & New Awards next year but quite frankly we couldn't give much of a toss about anything but the music. Now all we have is still rumour, but we've eaten all the shit out there and digested it into a nice neat set of bullet points for you rabid lot.

From a 'reliable' source over at Drowned Madonna, we have some very interesting tidbits from the recording sessions...

William Orbit, big dog behind the flawless, unrivalled masterpiece that is Ray of Light is apparently the 'wizard' behing the album, with Jean Baptiste Kouame the head songwriter.
No specific genre yet, with pop, dance, hip hop, electronic and rock guitar all being tastes that have been experimented with.
St. Vincent and Kid Cudi - bet they've been gagging to work together - are noted as possible featured artists.
Important above all, the album is said to be 'fresh and edgy', and to contain several big bangers along the lines of "Acapella". Bring it the fuck on.
The supporting tour is already being organised. Don't things move fast these days? The chances of it being genuine (actually, all of this information should be taken with a bucket of MSG) are a bit... dire... but if they are true it will be an Antipodean fan's wet dream. See 'leaked' photo below for M's 2012 tour schedule.

Thoughts? We're still not sure about Orbit. Yes he masterminded her finest album ever, but everything he's put his name to since has been pretty awful. Should she ever step back, even if it is to return to her best producer? It's so un-Madonna. We hope we're proved wrong with a massive smack in the face and an eargasm to dive in to.

...and this is what it looks like

2011-10-11T17:45:00.005+01:00

The cover for RiRi's new one, Talk That Talk. Not sure about it, but we weren't sure about the other two and they definitely grew. Thumbs up for consistent logo usage - we like the idea of it forming a trilogy with Rated R and Loud. Review of her Manchester gig we attended on Sunday coming vair soon. Below is the totes diff deluxe artwork.

Praying for Growage...

2011-10-11T01:21:00.002+01:00

Expectations are funny things aren't they? If they're always high you run the risk of perpetual disappointment, if they're always monolithic you run the risk of incurable heartbreak, and if they're always low you run the risk of depressing yourself so much that by the time you're overwhelmed or pleasantly surprised, you've lost the will to live.

Ideally one never has any expectations at all and one evaluates everything totally on its merit. But merit can't exist in an expectation vacuum, so that's unfortunately impossible.

We're not sure what we expected from Kate Bush's first single since 2005's "King of the Mountain", but we knew to expect the unexpected, which in a way means to expect the expected by way of the predictably unexpected (*head explodes*).

"Wild Man" has a synthy, panoramic, slightly 90s chillrock chorus that is at once swoony and weird. At first we were irked that it didn't obviously feature Bushy's wondrous voice, but, you know, it still sounds great and odd and texturally different from almost everything else being released currently or in the past 5 years. The verses have the potential to irritate, from their cooing whisper to their twiddly and undeveloping riff, but, ultimately, create a rather satisfying contrast with the choruses.

The lyrics are bleak for a Christmas album, but we'd be worried if Kate suddenly came over all warm and cuddly and fuzzy and dull.

All in all it's a rather swoonsome, if not immediately accessible song that we're sure will open up a treasure trove of aural (that's AURAL not ORAL) wonders when subjected to repeat listens. Kate has never ever released substandard music (oh, well, if we ignore the "Rubberband Girl" update on Director's Cut) and this looks set to continue her trend of flawlessness and innovation.

If you were expecting cosy tinsel and mistletoe, you're in for a bit of a shock, but thankfully we're all cold, edgy bastards at Shiny & New so we're loving it. Bring on le album.

Texting it in...

2011-10-05T14:15:00.002+01:00

For a minute, we thought we might actually be on board with the whole 'Dev' thing. I mean, she seems sweet enough, she's not irritating, which is always a plus and her tunes are guilt-free croaky pop/dance goodness, marketed as slightly edgy in a way that would probably make Daria grimace (but never matter).

Until this. We mean, what is it? This isn't just phoning it in, this is Whatsapping it in from another planet, whilst detachedly doing the dishes and having a conversation about how your day was 'fine' at the same time. We don't want all our popstars to be so forcefully pretentious that they will spout any old shit in an attempt to seem arty, but a little energy, please! Look like you actually want to be there, and it's not a hardship to have to sing along to your hit song in a room full of expensive candles!

Hot Right Now - 02/10/11

2011-10-03T23:41:00.006+01:00

Riri reign, once again.

1. "We Found Love" - Rihanna (feat. Calvin Harris)

2. "Mutual Core" - Björk

3. "Thunderbolt" - Björk

4. "Sacrifice" - Björk

5. "A Real Hero" - College (feat. Electric Youth)

6. "How Come You Never Go There" - Feist

7. "Say It Out Loud" - Nicola Roberts

8. "Nightcall" - Kavinsky & Lovefoxxx

9. "Every Teardrop is a Waterfall" - Coldplay

10. "Take a Bite" - Nicola Roberts

11. “Dark Matter” – Björk
12. “Video Games” – Lana Del Rey
13. “Major Minus” – Coldplay
14. “Under Your Spell” - Desire
15. “Hollow” – Björk
16. “Solstice” – Björk
17. “Tick of the Clock” – The Chromatics
18. “Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometimes” – Nicola Roberts
19. “Yo-Yo” – Nicola Roberts
20. “Cinderella’s Eyes” – Nicola Roberts

Ravishing.

2011-10-03T23:30:00.002+01:00

We're going to see Rihanna in concert next week and we are VERY excited. Say what you like (and many of you do, much to our chagrin, daily), but last time she was flawless vocally, magnetic, riotous and beautiful beyond words. Here's hoping for a performance of her new nu cheesy house single and assortment of biscuits. No, sorry, an assortment of wigs.

Pining, Griming, Sliming, Signing

2011-10-03T23:04:00.006+01:00

This is the corporate moving mood board for the plagiarised "Check Up On It", watered down "Halo", and tepid ''What's My Name" that is Cher (not even the best Cher) Lloyd's "With Ur Love". As befits the super sanitized career masterminded for ex-talent show contestants, this is a carefully inoffensive and sentimental visual accompaniment meant to be as generic and universally appealing as the song itself. The way this has been achieved is by revivifying Kylie's "All the Lovers" key concept, popping some hearts on it and moulding it together with some stock footage from some old Halifax adverts and the latest Homebase campaign where people decide to inconvenience the general public by painting train stations puce and filling them with overpriced, under-inspired lamps, perspex chandeliers and forests of lumpen settees.

It all goes swimmingly for a while, as Cher (keep wishing it was the other Cher, in full Bob Mackie regalia, throwing permed shade at this overlit sap siesta) gambols about with an aspiring Ellie Goulding lookalike and Marina from nearly two years back (before greige-hair-gate), leaving her Furniture Village set bedroom to prance about the city wiggling her eyebrows and looking hungry. She looks a bit like a Polly Pocket that has been enlarged in some sort of badly written, PG, summer release-fodder sci-fi film about a doll Godzilla terrorising a city with her doe-slender legs and lustrous eyelashes, accompanied with a gaggle of painstakingly selected, high-fiving younglings in double denim she's never met before. There are also some close-ups where she looks pretty, and at times seems to be concentrating so hard on sustaining her prettiness that her jaw veers into angler-fish territory and her eyebrows sink to the bottom of the ocean (just like the quality of this 'article'). She also seems to be wearing three tubes of Cover The Blemish as lipgloss. I mean that as an observation, not as some sort of snide jibe of snideness. She looks very nice in this LV insurance infomercial.

And then, swimming into focus, like some sort of garish, dodgily-sketched caricature that you didn't really want but begrudgingly paid for at an overpriced and disappointing funfair, come to life, is Mike Posner (apologies for that unnecessarily long sentence). Wearing a jacket made by The Officer's Club (when it still existed) that was inspired by a high school student from the early nineties whose hobbies included sexism, cow tipping and premature ejaculation, he mutters, sibilantly, about apparently managing to get to bases with people. Naïvely hoping he is talking about day trips to airbases to learn about the rich and compelling history of aerial warfare, because it looks like the only bases he's ever gotten to were secretly filmed on To Catch A (Douche-Frat) Predator. Apparently he's meant to be cute and endearing, but he looks like the twisted individual in horror films that likes to crochet ponchos out of the muscles and pubic hairs of his victims, and is so lacking in social prowess that he can only gurn like a poor Terry Gilliam impressionist and mutter to himself. If only he had been so preoccupied with his gurning he could have taken a few steps further back to save everyone the fits of intense squirming they suffer when he smugly mentions 'yummy' middles.

Then the whole of American Apparel joins the parade and everyone releases doves, lanterns, farts and weather balloons into the ether to symbolize the sickness of love. Mark Posner is not the only aspect of this that terrifies me; what really chills me is the total failure of language in this song. Have I been in a (Diet Coke) coma for too long? Have I been desensitised by years of sustained Sugababes abuse to not notice the woeful lack of verbal innovation, cliché avoidance or even appreciation of language in the modern pop song? Do people really fly, shine and ride with love, or is Cher Lloyd secretly Mildred Hubble from The Worst Witch trying to indoctrinate us with her witcherly agenda?

Question for Aqua: why does this sound like The Wanted?

2011-10-03T00:09:00.000+01:00

Feelings mixtes...

2011-10-02T00:37:00.002+01:00

She may be the most irritating vocalist since records began, and this may be one of the most mawkish and patronising self help ballads of the past few years, but Jessie J's gammy broken foot has allowed her to make a video both simple and visually pleasing.

Well... we don't want to ruin it, not that there's much to ruin, but if you can make it through the nothingness you get a lovely treat at the end.

Hot Right Now - 25/09/11

2011-09-26T21:41:00.005+01:00

All change. And what?

1. "Disaster" - JoJo

2. "Mutual Core" - Björk

3. "Lucky Day (Thriller Jill's 'Rhythm Is a Dancer' Mashup)" - Nicola Roberts

4. "Sacrifice" - Björk

5. "Thunderbolt" - Björk

6. "We Found Love" - Rihanna (feat. Calvin Harris)

7. "Say It Out Loud" - Nicola Roberts

8. "L'étourderie" - Camille

9. "Every Teardrop is a Waterfall" - Coldplay

10. "Video Games" - Lana Del Rey

11. “Dark Matter” – Björk
12. “Solstice” – Björk
13. “Naughty Naughty” – Porcelain Black
14. “Take a Bite” – Nicola Roberts
15. “Cinderella’s Eyes” – Nicola Roberts
16. “Chloe in the Afternoon” – St. Vincent
17. “Hollow” – Björk
18. “Major Minus” – Coldplay
19. “Pussy” – Iggy Azalea
20. “Moving to Mars” - Coldplay

Mesmerising.

2011-09-25T17:35:00.001+01:00

Not much happens in Björk's music video for "Moon", which is basically her gently frotting her harp with the app footage overlain, but it's mesmerising nevertheless.

God we love you, JoJo

2011-09-25T14:12:00.003+01:00

"You're on the set of my new video, "Disaster"
"We're going to be seeing the inner workings of a relationship that starts out good and then turns out to be... disastrous." - LITERAL
"My boyfriend in this video is a motorcyclist so he runs the stop light and there's an accident and... it's not good." - LITOTES
"I kind of like... snapped during the recording process. I kind of lost my mind." - WORRYING

Intrigue no more

2011-09-22T18:42:00.004+01:00

It leaked, it's out, it's in our iTunes. And it's good! It's exactly what we expected from a Calvin Harris production in this Guetta chart era but because it's Rihanna we won't hate on it like we would if it was... Usher? and we'll appreciate it for what it is - an absolute banger on the dancefloor. Our arms will be well on their way to Madge level from all that waving in the air they'll be doing. HOWEVER. We can't help but hope for the next album it will be a slight step back from the careless pop/dance of Loud and a step toward the creative peak and diversity of Rated R. We're not asking for Rihanna the misery again, we're just asking for Rihanna the artist. Well. You know, as close as she gets to being one. Luvyababes.

Listen here.

Intrigue...

2011-09-21T23:23:00.002+01:00

So Rihanna's got a new single planned, recorded and announced and it doesn't even feel like she's finished promoting the last one yet (she hasn't even started). WILL SHE NEVER STOP ETC.? Of course some people will doubtless put this down to shortened attention spans, due to the internet, meaning artists are incapable of taking breaks without having to completely rebuild fanbases. But this is just not true, people do not have shorter attention spans these days. Oooh a cat pawing the air in a comical fashion! Look a ginger seal! Oh Ulrika Jonsson's looking haggard these days! Regardez over there, a fat person falling over! Oh a bigot said a naughty thing!

Where were we?*

Anyway. Rihanna's new single. As you can see it features Calvin of the Harrises, so will, in all probability, be ravey and guitary and synthy and euphoric but a bit one-note and shapeless with a very simple and unexciting structure and a fairly heard-it-before sonic pallette... but who knows, maybe it won't be. Maybe it'll be a baroque aria full of lutes and lyres. Give the people what they want!!!!!

Any which way, we are also intrigued by Riri's new style which is hot fierce, androgynous, retro. We quite like it.

Beyond that, your guess is as good as ours.

The end.

*DO YOU SEE WHAT WE DID RIGHT THERE? COMICAL N'EST-CE PAS?

Revelations...

2011-09-18T16:43:00.000+01:00

In the above video with German Rolling Stone you get to find out that Tori Amos' daughter is going to Sylvia Young school for performing arts (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and you also get to hear her doing an impression of her daughter that sounds like a Judi Dench impersonation.

Life is beautiful.

Get out the tissues...

2011-09-15T23:57:00.001+01:00

NO NOT FOR THAT REASON YOU WRONG-HEADED PERVS. Because you are about to weep. Nicola done done a soppy ballad song about being bullied and it is a heartbreaker. Lock up the knives and nooses before you listen.

Hot Right Now - 11/09/11

2011-09-15T22:37:00.006+01:00

It took a break, now it's back. Björk's third or fourth song at the top this year. We've lost count.

1. "Moon" - Björk

2. "Lucky Day" - Nicola Roberts

3. "Perfection" - Oh Land

4. "Radioactive" - Marina & The Diamonds

5. "Rainbow" - Oh Land

6. "Disaster" - JoJo

7. "Break The Chain" - Oh Land

8. "Niggas In Paris" - Jay-Z & Kanye West

9. "Sun of a Gun" - Oh Land

10. "What The Water Gave Me" - Florence and the Machine

11. “Lift Off” – Jay-Z & Kanye West (feat. Beyoncé)
12. “How Come You Never Go There” - Feist
13. “No Church In The Wild” – Jay-Z & Kanye West (feat. Frank Ocean)
14. “Helicopter” – Oh Land
15. “Voodoo” – Oh Land
16. “Wolf & I” – Oh Land
17. “L’étourderie” - Camille
18. “Otis” – Jay-Z & Kanye West (feat. Otis Redding)
19. “Lean” – Oh Land
20. “Human” – Oh Land

Something pleasant to come home to...

2011-09-14T15:28:00.009+01:00

We've been awful, we know - and we've also lost track of the amount of times we've not posted for ages and then apologised to you all as if you actually care (please care) - but we've been on holiday (in New York, darling) so natch it's been a tad difficult to keep track of the comings and goings of Popworld and then to transmit our wonderful and remarkable opinions to the big wide world right here. In other words, Kate Bush has released details of her next album and we did a big panty pudding when we found out.

Here's the sitch. Director's Cut, released earlier this year to enormous critical acclaim (from us, anyway), was a complete Kate Bush first*; a retrospective re-visit to tracks from two previous albums. Some of the 2011 incarnations were wondrous and illuminating, some were good but no improvement on the original, and some were horrendous ("Rubberband Girl" can start drinking sweet ice tea in our shade right now k?). Some complained that as great as this was, it was no new material. While we usually may have agreed, luckily Kate had mentioned in more than a few interviews that alongside recording new versions of the tracks from The Sensual World and The Red Shoes, she had been writing brand new material ever since Aerial's release in 2005. There were also rumours that we might even hear the music this year, yet we (quite wisely) decided not to place too much hope in such a dream after the stop and start ordeal fans went through leading up to Aerial, with every other interview given between 1993 and 2003 announcing the album would be out that year. Well, it seems she's making up for lost time because 2011 will see the first time Kate has put out two albums since her debut and sophomore efforts in 1978. Lucky us.

What has been leaked so far leads us to form an impression of not quite a holiday album, but neither a straight up album release either - 50 Words for Snow will be released in November and will feature seven new songs "set against snow" which sounds wondrous and magical and unimaginably exciting but still... is this a holiday album or not? We need a clarification. Regardless of such a fact, this news is more than we could ever have wished for; we would've happily seen the rest of 2011 (and maybe even 2012) through without a new release after the incredible piece of work that Director's Cut was, but it genuinely does seem that Kate perhaps burnt herself with such a long period between The Red Shoes and Aerial. As many have already said before us (oh-KAY we promise not to post so sporadically again, we are moving cities you know!) this is Kate's most productive period since the early 80s and one we were absolutely revelling in.

PS the artwork's a bit pants though, right? Maybe it's a grower...

* Technically, the first KB production of this kind was the 1985 re-visit to "Wuthering Heights", complete with much less aggravating vocals.

Florence: Gives Good Cover

2011-09-14T15:05:00.002+01:00

Say what you will about Florence and her Machine (and we do, and will) but she gives hella good cover as demonstrated by her album and single artwork above. The album is out October 31st in the UK and consists of the following songs in this specific order:

"Only If For a Night"
"Shake It Out"
"What The Water Gave Me"
"Never Let Me Go"
"Breaking Down"
"Lover To Lover"
"No Light, No Light"
"Seven Devils"
"Heartlines"
"Spectrum v 11. All This And Heaven Too"
"Leave My Body"
"What The Water Gave Me (Video)"

Deluxe whatchamacallit boner tracks etc.:

"Remain Nameless"
"Strangeness & Charm"
"Bedroom Hymns"
"What The Water Gave Me (demo)"
"Landscape (demo)"
"Heartlines (acoustic)"
"Shake It Out (acoustic)"

Those are good track names, too. Nice variation, not at all obvious, pretentious or mired in cliché. "Shake It Out", which apparently is the first proper single, is available to buy on Australian iTunes. As we're not of an Antipodean disposition we can't buy it and we do NOT endorse illegal listenings by any means, but we have heard it nevertheless (perhaps by magic) and we think it is ok and a bit more interesting, progression-wise, than the teaser/promo/hype/buzz single, "What The Water Gave Me".

Lusty.

2011-09-14T14:48:00.002+01:00

Whilst we pick up the pieces and attempt to find the time to update our illustrious website as regularly as we used to, here is Anna Calvi's sensuous, sumptuous, Almodóvarian new video for the year's 29th best song, "Suzanne and I".

Potentially exciting for you...

2011-09-03T00:54:00.003+01:00

Just in case you hadn't had enough of us banging on about Tori Amos and her up-and-coming studio album, Night of Hunters, here is a shortened preview of a behind-the-scenes/making of documentary that'll be available on some sort of super deluxe package, when it's released. It's being touted as an Electronic Press Kit, but we think that's what it is. Anyway, it's fascinating nonetheless, if you find that sort of thing fascinating.

Oh.

2011-09-03T00:10:00.002+01:00

As part of Leona Lewis' new edgy makeover, she has decided to get creative with sequins, in two ways and experiment with pink and green.

Atrocious.

Hot Right Now - 28/08/11

2011-08-30T00:58:00.006+01:00

Marina creeps into the top ten.

1. "Shattering Sea" - Tori Amos

2. "Virus" - Björk

3. "Lucky Day" - Nicola Roberts

4. "Carry" - Tori Amos

5. "Moon" - Oh Land

6. "Lift Off" - Jay-Z & Kanye West (feat. Beyoncé)

7. "Radioactive" - Marina & The Diamonds

8. "Job's Coffin" - Tori Amos

9. "Edge of the Moon" - Tori Amos

10. "Sun of a Gun" - Oh Land

11. “Fearlessness” – Tori Amos
12. “What The Water Gave Me” – Florence and the Machine
13. “Break The Chain” – Oh Land
14. “I Just Want a Lover” – Will Young
15. “Perfection” – Oh Land
16. “Nautical Twilight” – Tori Amos
17. “Night of Hunters” – Tori Amos
18. “Cactus Practice” – Tori Amos
19. “Star Whisperer” – Tori Amos
20. “Seven Sisters” – Tori Amos

H A U N T I N G

2011-08-29T21:43:00.003+01:00

This is Queen of Being French and Super Alt, Camille's, new single. It's called "L'etourderie" which means a careless or absent-minded mistake (yes we did French A Level and we got a sparkling, pearlescent A, smelling of Chanel and onions). It's a lovely, wispy little slip of a thing (only 2 mins long) featuring a pizzicato violin loop and a lithe little tune. Not life-changing, but brills nonetheless.

What's more intriguing is the acoustic video she's made for it, above. The rather frightening Lynchian clip shows her in what looks like an abandoned hipster squat, singing with a bamboo pole balanced on her head. PERFORMANCE ART!

Her new album is out October 17th (that's le dix-sept octobre, to you) and it's called ILO VEYOU. Do you see what she's done there?

Double Rihanna with Coke; Easy on the Coke.

2011-08-29T12:21:00.006+01:00

The 'tour video' is one of pop's necessary evils. As amazing as it would be to have flawless videos for flawless songs for the entirety of flawless albums, this being the modern age, where everyone smuggles pop songs into hard drives off of the coast of Cornwall, or strips pirates of Miley Cyrus singles, and album campaigns spring leaks in a matter of minutes like musical Titanics, tours are the main source of proper income, and bacon, for big shiny stars. So while they're out seeing the world and the inside of Wembley arena, their videos tend to suffer - either from a conspicuous absence of the artist themselves, or from being cobbled together from an unimaginative edit of 'behind the scenes' footage. Rihanna's video for "Cheers" falls into the latter category, but it does prove rather edifying. For example we learn that:

She likes to do her make up herself.
She can drive a car.
She can ride a bike in stiletto heels.
She may or may not eat chips.
She sometimes laughs.
She sometimes grinds on people.
She's competent at looking after other people's children in swimming pools.
She is not averse to karaoke.
She is a kind person; not everyone would've given Avril the privilege of an extensive, if unnecessary, cameo.
She has no issue with irresponsible behaviour, letting others skateboard into a swimming pool (!) and doing shots on stage.
She is a dab hand at eating coconut innards.
She is an amateur film maker.
She can swim.

Ultimately we learn that Rihanna would probably be an amazing friend to have in real life, if she wasn't so busy travelling, having a career etc. etc. As videos go, it is fairly informative. She hardly divulges her personal musings of the meaning of life, but she does some stuff and makes funny faces, and really, that's all you need.

In Nicki Minaj's "Fly" she does even less. There are no coconuts, shots, cars or babies, just some sultry walking and a wig last seen off of Hilary Duff's career circa 2003 (not that that's an insult, I am a great fan of Hilary duff's solo work and hair and I pine for her return). Dystopian-carnage videos always sit uncomfortably; why are scenes of collective deaths, misfortune and pain commandeered as blunt metaphors? As someone on YouTube pondered, "does this have something to do with 9/11?". Comes across as a tad self absorbed. At least here it seems that this environment came about through some form of negligence, as evidenced by the charred dinner left on a table. Maybe a barbecue got a little rowdy at Heathrow... or something. At least they managed to avoid dodgy, and excruciatingly literal harness work, although they only substituted it with equally dodgy CGI flora.

It's at its best when things are happening: when Nicki is kicking some people in the face or emoting in close up on a set from the Berlin "Take my Breath Away| video and a Twiggy-Rave wig. Maybe they could've spent the video cleaning up the mess as part of a Rock Corps advert placement? Had a Cillit Bang product positioning? Maybe they could've poked fun at sexist product placement by mucking about with Cillit Banging some dirty planes or created insect alter egos for themselves? I'll stop typing now.

Sigh

2011-08-26T20:20:00.003+01:00

We don't want to seem like we're on a needlessly negative hype, but this is literally just more of the same. It would not sound at ALL out of place on the last album and shows no signs of artistic or musical progression whatsoever. It's nice, lovely, wonderful, in fact, but that's not always enough.

Oily, smokey, wet

2011-08-26T20:14:00.003+01:00

Not that this is aesthetically offensive (although maybe, depending on your good/bad/trashy/pop culture taste threshold) but it resembles both a screensaver and a background tour screen visual.

A couple of stunning shots but we are firmly in 'a couple of already paper thin concepts spread so thinly they barely hold air, let alone water, or blood... or tears' territory.

And speaking of tears, Bey, babe, Honey B, just cuz it worked for Sinead O'Connor...

Update your bookmarks bbys!

2011-08-26T01:25:00.003+01:00

We've hit puberty and bought our own domain - we're a real website now! So make sure you change your bookmarks from http://shiny-and-new.blogspot.com to http://www.shinyandnew.co.uk. We feel silly creating a whole post to tell you this, so to fill the space out a bit here's a photo of Madonna looking amazing in celebration of Manchester Pride this weekend, because Manchester Pride is often attended by large numbers of gays and Madonna is also often attended by large numbers of gays.

Yes sir, I never tried to be normal

2011-08-23T19:32:00.004+01:00

While we can't guarantee that we would immediately take to a new band of a similar genre to Cansei de Ser Sexy, their music and the memories associated with it will always hold a unique place in one's heart - the place reserved for Music You Were a Teenager To. It was in the heat of the MySpace summer when we first encountered their sounds, with tracks like "Music is My Hot Hot Sex", "Meeting Paris Hilton" and of course "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above" being nothing at all like anything we'd heard at that point. It was one of the first times we had felt like we'd genuinely discovered an amazing band all by ourselves (of course not true, but it felt like it at the time), and when we caught them live in December 2008 it was also in the peak of the frequency with which we would attend gigs - the gig itself was, as you can imagine, a fiesta of colour, feathers, balloons and hot hot sex. To us, CSS are one of an exclusive set of acts who eased our musical tastes down the path we are still traversing in 2011. Of course, three years doesn't seem that long ago but we're only two decades old ourselves.

While we eagerly awaited their second album, Donkey, it ended up being a bit of a let down. Maybe it was because it came when our music taste had already been well on their drifting way, or maybe it was simply because the first album was such a hard act to follow. There was the odd good track - "Beautiful Song", "Rat is Dead" - but mostly, and sadly, filler. Thankfully we welcomed La Liberación with a clean slate and an open mind, as the third album loses the sometimes-harsh slamming and screeching apparent in its predecessors and replaces it with a more mellow sound. The dance and melodies are still there but the band seem to have taken a step back, adding Afrobeats and samba from their part of the world but being careful not to over do it. "I Love You", thankfully, could've been lifted from their first album and "City Grrl" showcases the idiosyncratic Portuguese English lyrical composition we've always found so endearing. "Hits Me Like a Rock", the lead single, is charming enough but there's gems yet to be plundered into this far more worthy CSS record.

Leaky Björk

2011-08-23T00:25:00.002+01:00

This came out but wasn't supposed to, or something. Anyway, it's "Moon", the Biophilia opener and next single. It's so beautiful. Totally hypnotic. We've just been sitting, listening to it on loop, over and over again.

WHY has this only just come to our attention!?

2011-08-22T20:50:00.003+01:00

Once upon a time, we had a conversation with Ms. Beth Ditto, via MySpace - would you believe it? Hey, it was 2008. We were in a bit of a stan-frenzy having found ourselves actually conversing with (at the time, and still today) a huge hero of ours, and as you do, we asked her what her favourite Madonna song was. "Vogue" was the response, however it came with a caps lock lecture concerning Madge's re-appropriation of a dance developed by poor gay blacks and Latinos in New York and an imploring to watch the documentation of this phenomonen, Paris is Burning. Three years later, we've fallen in love with said documentary and the very same Beth Ditto is performing said Madonna song in live sets supporting her outstanding EP produced by Simian Mobile Disco.

Do you understand what this means?

Beth Ditto + "Vogue" = the stuff dreams are made of.

Aside from her sudden casting off of her annoyances with Queen M, it seems all too clear that Beth Ditto was born to cover "Vogue". We know the above video is taken from the obviously gay day at Lovebox but to hear the entire crowd yelling the rap to a twenty one year song conducted by a truly modern icon sent more than a few shivers down the spine. It all seems too good to be true. Beth's video for "I Wrote the Book", the lead single from the EP, was unashamedly lifted from Madge's videos for "Justify My Love" and "Erotica", while amongst the first rumours to leak from Madge's own recording sessions for the new album were snippets concerning the heavy influence of Beth's EP on the tracks. Our brain feels like it's been put in the microwave on high.

What did we do to deserve this?

Correction

2011-08-22T12:18:00.004+01:00

A while back we posted the album cover and tracklisting for Nicola Roberts' debut solo album, Cinderella's Eyes. We got the information from a reliable source, but we were misled. They weren't the real thing. Well here's the final article. Obviously the artwork is cropped, unless Nicola's going to be the first person to release her album via an oval shaped CD in a rectangular box...

She looks a bit miffed, like she's gotten half way through sorting the stuff in her basement for a lovely front yard sale, and become bored.

"Beat of my Drum"
"Lucky Day"
"Yo-Yo"
"Cinderella's Eyes"
"Porcelain Heart"
"i"
"Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime"
"Say It Out Loud"
"Gladiator"
"Fish Out of Water"
"Take a Bite"
"sticks + stones"

Interesting...

2011-08-22T12:00:00.003+01:00

This sounds like Calvin Harris (feat. Marina & The Diamonds), but it's not, apparently. We're not sure what it is, but that's par for the course, these days. We feel like we're moving towards a time where traditional release structure (single, single, album, single, single) is scrapped entirely in favour of whatever creative strategy the individual artist (or their record label) feels is right. Endless promo singles, promo movies, Robyn-style gradual EP releases, new albums every half a year etc. It feels scary but exciting.

Hot Right Now - 21/08/11

2011-08-21T21:23:00.006+01:00

Tori Takeover.

1. "Virus" - Björk

2. "Carry" - Tori Amos

3. "Lucky Day" - Nicola Roberts

4. "Shattering Sea" - Tori Amos

5. "Perfection" - Oh Land

6. "Job's Coffin" - Tori Amos

7. "Fearlessness" - Tori Amos

8. "Lay It On Me" - Kelly Rowland (feat. Big Sean)

9. "Edge of the Moon" - Tori Amos

10. "Nautical Twilight" - Tori Amos

11. “Star Whisperer” – Tori Amos
12. “Cactus Practice” – Tori Amos
13. “Your Ghost” – Tori Amos
14. “Rainbow” – Oh Land
15. “Life Off” – Jay-Z & Kanye West (feat. Beyoncé)
16. “Seven Sisters” – Tori Amos
17. “I Love You” - CSS
18. “Break The Chain” – Oh Land
19. “I Just Want a Lover” – Will Young
20. “Shots on the Hood of my Car” – Ke$ha

Perfection

2011-08-21T17:59:00.002+01:00

Here's a song from delightful Scandinavian beauty (do the Nordic countries have a NEVER ENDING supply of talented, intelligent, stunning pop ladies, waiting to entertain us?) that LITERALLY does what it LITERALLY says on the tin. The song is called "Perfection". Do you see what we've done there? It was quite clever wasn't it.

(It wasn't.)

Stuck In Our Head: "Spiralling" - Keane

2011-08-19T13:04:00.002+01:00

Yes, it's Keane. No, we've never discussed Keane on here before and we don't intend to ever again. Yes, this is a fucking incredible song. SORRY.

Hot Right Now - 14/08/11

2011-08-18T22:44:00.006+01:00

Björk, you're number 1 on the charts, babes! No, not the real charts, the made up ones on the internet. Oh, don't cry babes, no you're still relevant, don't listen to the haters. Cher Lloyd's just jealous.

1. "Virus" - Björk

2. "Shattering Sea" - Tori Amos

3. "Cosmogony" - Björk

4. "Job's Coffin" - Tori Amos

5. "Lay It On Me" - Kelly Rowland (feat. Big Sean)

6. "Edge of the Moon" - Tori Amos

7. "Carry" - Tori Amos

8. "Lucky Day" - Nicola Roberts

9. "Cactus Practice" - Tori Amos

10. "Star Whisperer" - Tori Amos

11. “Your Ghost” – Tori Amos
12. “Shots on the Hood of my Car” – Ke$ha
13. “Fearlessness” – Tori Amos
14. “Seven Sisters” – Tori Amos
15. “I Just Want a Lover” – Will Young
16. “Snowblind” – Tori Amos
17. “I Can’t Make You Love Me / Nick of Time” – Bon Iver
18. “Runaway” – Will Young
19. “Nautical Twilight” – Tori Amos
20. “Battle of Trees” – Tori Amos

Greetings from...

2011-08-18T18:21:00.008+01:00

American radio is a most disconcerting beast, along with the entire American music industry in fact, yet the exact way in which radio seems to work in that most intriguing country remains elusive. We can’t help but find the fact that the main national music charts are so heavily influenced by radio airplay – the prospect that a radio DJ, being a huge fan of a particular artist, could directly influence chart positions continues to baffle – and on our recent vacation to Southern California we struggled to differentiate between different types of stations. For example, most of them were privately owned – we think – but had almost zero advertising. Odd. However, a good few gems were discovered on long drives to the beach/Disneyland/Hollywood (envy ain’t pretty, dolls) and they’ve been persistent in latching themselves to our musical conscious since.

Carole King’s “It’s Too Late” seems to be a standard fixture on adult contemporary radio, having cropped up several times over the two weeks. It’s simple fare, but the confident, teasingly dark piano casts a perfect opposition to the open and honest chorus. The lyrics are sad and desperate, yet manage to speak to most people who find themselves with no reason to stay in a relationship any further. We love Carole from belting out “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?”, albeit the Shirelles version, with mother in the car many a time when we were younger, and of course from Gilmore Girls. Would any recommend we get hold of any of her albums?

For some bizarre reason, we had never heard Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me” before. Apparently one of the greatest songs of all time, we can’t quite remember a time when a song so unlike what we prefer to listen to has moved us quite so powerfully. The song is so simple, with a lilting melody backing soft yet heartbreaking vocals, and was also a permanent fixture on US adult contemporary radio. By pure coincidence, both Bon Iver and Adele (probably the most popular and current peddlers of heart-breaking singer-songwriter material) have covered the track and imbibed it with their own spins on accepting it’s just not going to happen. It’s a shame, perhaps, that the two songs we now associate with such a wonderful vacation in sunny Southern California are both about such despair and sadness but we’ve never said no to letting a little more melancholy into our iTunes.

Babe

2011-08-18T01:27:00.003+01:00

Well, let's just be honest here, and express thanks that Tori actually bothered to make a video for this. It's been so long since we actually got a proper video with her in that didn't involve a slide show and wasn't just a straight studio performance/one of her weird visualettes, that we thought we'd never see an Amos video again.

Well here one is, but it's not quiet the triumph we would have hoped for. With the right kind of budget this could have been stunning, but budget is quiet clearly an issue here. The camera is so still and the lighting is so plain. The editing is clunky and why oh WHY is Tori constantly looking up into the corner of the room as if there's a really spangly spider web up there that she can't wait to get down with her feather duster as soon as the song's done?

We mean... it's not that bad. At least she's in it, and not conspicuous via absence, as Kate Bush was in the heavy-handed and literal "Deeper Understanding" MV. And, again, let's just be thankful that it exists.

But let's not pretend that this isn't a little disappointing.

HOLD THE PHONE

2011-08-17T16:28:00.002+01:00

We wrote an incendiary post about how awful the Biophilia artwork was, but clearly Björk was trolling because, despite it being up and around on the web in official places, it was clearly just some visual hold music. This is the album artwork. Int it incredible. We're shedding a tear. Guðmundsdóttir done good.

Starry Night

2011-08-17T14:56:00.008+01:00

Before we get on with the review we want you to come to terms with something. Madonna will never release an album as good as Ray of Light. Kate Bush will never release an album as good as Hounds of Love. David Bowie will never release an album as good as Aladdin Sane. Joni Mitchell will never release an album ever again. And Tori Amos will never be as fiery, bruised, sparky and playful as she was in the first half of her career. It’s impossible. She is happily married now and she has a daughter and (one hopes) a lovely and fairly ordinary family life devoid of the angst and trauma that characterised some of her earlier work. This doesn’t mean she has to release dull music, of course. But you have to readjust your expectations.

Even a stan like this writer would admit that Amos’ last album (or two if you count her Christmas one, Midwinter Graces) was a misstep. It’s not that it was a bad album (in fact, compared to most other artists it was still weird and great) but it wasn’t up to her standard. Well her new album, Night of Hunters, is. But it’s different. Lush, sinuous, slow. It demands your patience. There are no drum beats. In fact there are no beats of any kind. There are plenty of tunes and wonderful, thick, gorgeous instrumentation, and her usual oblique lyrical touches and a wealth of musical ingenuity. But this is not Mad, Angry Tori. Nor is it Ayahuasca-dropping Tori.

The first time you listen, you may feel disappointed, or at the very least your brow may furrow. This is not an easy listen. It’s not Enya, it’s not Adele, it’s not Lady GaGa in ballad mode. Its closest relative in the world of popular music is Joanna Newsom’s 2006 harp-and-orchestra opus, Ys, but even comparing it to that is insulting and patronising to both works, as the only thing they have in common is their Ye Olde Classicale Orchestratione and their writer and performer’s possession of great skill at playing the harp or piano, respectively. Oh and the possession of a vulva, also.

Of course, if a male artist had put this much effort into a work so complex and rewarding, he would be hailed a visionary hero, but Tori is a woman and also, in the world of showbizzzz, ‘old’, so we’ll be surprised if it is greeted with much fanfare at all. Nevertheless this is a review comprised of our opinions and reactions, not a thinkpiece on sexism and ageism in the music industry, so we shall move swiftly on.

At first, despite the myriad of delicious intelligent musical and lyrical touches, that merit repeated listening (we literally notice something new every time we hear any of the expertly wrought songs) we were concerned that in actual fact, there is no true innovation here. Pop artists have done orchestral, ornate song cycles before (although now we’ve said that, we struggle to think of any other than the aforementioned Joanna Newsom work) and even if they hadn’t, this is investigating a style of music that came into fashion/being over 100 years ago: the rich, undulating music of the late Romantic period of Western Art Music. Is simply using the orchestration and arrangement techniques and applying them to complexly structured and multilayered alternative pop/singer/songwriter songs innovative? Well: yes. These aren’t just songs orchestrated lazily for kudos or effect, this is a stunningly rendered narrative cycle, hot and heavy with potent imagery and opaque enough to be intriguing and feel slightly exotic, but familiar enough not to totally disconcert.

And the stunning arrangements by long-time collaborator John Philip Shenale are not the sickly sweet, unimaginative orchestral arrangements that are usually featured in the work of pop artists, they are strange and compelling. All the instruments of the chamber ensemble: violin, viola, cello, oboe, clarinet, flute, bassoon, etc. are given equal billing, and instead of taking turns or creating quiet, background texture, they run together, in a pack, like the title's hunters, ferocious, tangled, blending together, in close harmonies, running alongside melodies and pushing them onwards.

Another of the most brilliant aspects is the inclusion of Tori’s daughter. Tashya doesn’t just do backing vocals, but plays the part of Anabelle, sings solos and duets with Tori. In fact, the song “Job’s Coffin”, which is practically devoid of Tori singing and a showcase for Tashya’s young but strong, willowy voice, is one of the album’s highlights, featuring the most prominent and memorable melody and a sweet lilting style centred around the lyrics: "Job's Coffin looks down, to see what mankind is gonna do."

Even if moments such as the dirge-like and bleak “Battle of Trees” don’t necessarily immediately inspire, there are shimmering classic Tori moments, like the up-tempo second half of “The Edge of the Moon”, middle section of “Star Whisperer” and “Nautical Twilight”. Opener, “Shattering Sea”, based on an improv from her live tours, starts dark and ominous and explodes, the ebb and flow, tension and release of Amos’ superior songwriting, always surprising and delighting, never fitting or conforming.

On “Fearlessness”, after a violent cacophony of strings and woodwind builds and builds it crests and soars, Tori singing “teams of horses of the pride, followed his cry through the fire, demons of the wild, pierced with the wind, did you listen?”. And on the eponymous “Night of Hunters”, Tori and Kelsey Dobyns, her niece, who sounds exactly like Tori, if she’d studied opera at a conservatory, pass the melody between each other, over music stately and dark. Midway through the song, though, a piano riff inconspicuously descends into a Medieval-style web and network of call and response phrases. “Carry”, the mournful, hopeful album closer, has the sound of great sheets of mist rising off cold, grassy, planes as our heroine laments: "in the procession of the mighty stars, your name is sung and tattooed now on my heart, here I will carry, carry, carry you... forever".

This is evocative music of total euphoria, with frenzied, mournful, lulling and baying networks of harmony and melody. There are sections, subsections, movements, drones, themes and variations, recurring motifs, pauses, peaks and troughs. As Tori puts it herself in the aforementioned "Carry": "Cathedrals of sound are singing". To attempt to describe it is to do it a disservice.

We have waited years for Tori to return to music this tearfully punch-packing, difficult, soaring and brave and she has delivered. Her best work for a decade.

Will he or won't he? (lol)

2011-08-17T11:37:00.004+01:00

Disclaimer: this article was originally written for publication in the September 2011 issue of Attitude. As its author also writes for this fabulous blog, it's also on here, however regular readers may note a change in style and voice. Just go with it, pretend you're reading the mag.

The second most fabulous Pop Idol winner (Michelle McManus, never forget) has strolled back into our hearts and replaced his increasingly dated - and frankly, fucking boring - piano ballad formula with a much more topical electro-sob story sound, taking pointers from the likes of Hurts and Robyn along the way. Considering prior to hearing the album we were convinced it could be confined to the wet blanket basket along with everything else he's ever done, yet we emerged bona fide fans, well, make of that what you Will (lol). A vast improvement and an exciting new direction for our Will, whose merciless vocal delivery never fails to weaken knees.

Adventures in Vinyl: Inside Story - Grace Jones

2011-08-16T22:34:00.003+01:00

For over a year now we’ve been bona fide vinyl listeners, a hobby spurred on by the dual forces of a more refined, nostalgic form of music appreciation and the ever-present desire to uphold fundamental hipster values. We’ve accomplished quite an impressive joint collection, helped by eBay, charity shops and the few record shops still operating in the world. Most recently, we found ourselves in Amoeba Records on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, a store which proudly professes to be the largest independent record store in the world. We’d probably believe that, as the photos below don’t even begin to show a quarter of the space – it can be best described as a warehouse of vinyl. Among the gems we found was Inside Story, a 1986 album from Ms. Grace Jones. The only material of hers we’d previously been familiar with were the greatest hits, Island Life, and her 2008 masterpiece Hurricane, so it was interesting to hear stuff from an era we were completely unfamiliar with. Finding brand new albums through vinyl is something remarkably easy to do once you have a player, mostly because of how cheap they are due to the lack of mainstream appeal the format now holds. For example, Inside Story was perhaps $5?

So ladies and gents, we’d like to welcome you to a new Shiny & New feature. Tentatively titled Adventures in Vinyl (we’ll change it as soon as we think of a less cheesy/clichéd name), we’ll use it as a way of writing about exciting albums we’ve discovered exclusively through vinyl. It’s becoming increasingly exciting to happen upon an album, whether it’s one from an artist we were already fans of, or simply because the artwork was fabulous, and then to take home and play in the background. When our ears prick up and our feet start to move, well then we know we’ve struck gold.

Inside Story at first glance seems to be one of those vanity albums produced by fading stars eager to try out a different genre or stick rigidly to a particular style in the hope that they’ll have a Diana Ross diana moment. The LP was produced solely by Nile Rogers off-of Chic, Rose Royce and Like a Virgin and sticks Grace firmly in 80s pop synth glory. We’d not previously heard of any of the tracks, Grace having not performed them live recently or featured them on compilations, but the listening experience was a pleasurable one. The lyrics are varyingly substandard, with repetition being the most trusted technique, but the music is electrifying (thanks Nile) and the final product ends up as one of those albums you could play in a club start to finish. While the pace slows down considerably for mid-tempo tracks like "Victor Should Have Been a Jazz Musician" the fire and fury in opener "I'm Not Perfect (But I'm Perfect For You)" is pure Jones - the definition of assertive sexual intimidation. Even the cover is Grace in the electronic 80s but not budging with that icy glare.

We’ve got a few more vinyl discoveries coming up – Cyndi’s True Colors and Prince’s 1999 for starters – but in the mean time, we couldn’t stress enough how enjoyable the listening experience is of putting a plastic disc in a box and hearing the warm, soothing soundwaves come from something far more inviting than your garden variety tinny laptop speakers. People rave for a reason!

Zesty!

2011-08-12T14:26:00.003+01:00

Yeah the effects are a bit cheap-looking and it doesn't really go anywhere, even when Nicola is... er... going somewhere. But she's so sweet-looking and playful and charismatic and charming and the song is such a summer stunner that we don't really care.