I'm all for audience participation, especially when it comes with a recommendation and especially when said recommendation is really rather good. So thank you to 'anonymous' (probably not their real name) for drawing my attention to a song by a singer called Emmy The Great. For those that don't know, Emmy The Great (or Emma-Lee Moss as she's known to friends and family) is a London-based singer songwriter who has released a number of singles but has so far remained impervious to releasing an album. This year she appeared on Lightspeed Champion's debut album, Falling Off the Lavender Bridge and is touring with Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly...but don't hold that against her, a job's a job alright!
The song below is a touching little ditty about love and shit, but also about that eternal question; is it Mia or M.I.A? I think it's the latter.
Nice use of fuzzy felts.
There have been some pretty amazing music videos of late; from Gnarls Barkley coming on like an episode of Casualty (on acid) to Radiohead reinventing the very act of making a music video, and now we get the rather brilliant Vampire Weekend promo for new single, 'Cape Cod Kwasse Kwasse'.
The video was directed by Richard Ayoade, better known as the funny guy off the telly (he's been in The IT Crowd, The Mighty Boosh and Garth Marenghi's Darkplace), who also directed this.
I like the blurring of the '80s references, from Wham-style pastel shades and bouffant hair to The Cure references of the goth makeover. Plus, it kind of plays on the misnomer of their name, which on paper implies a goth tribute band when in actuality they're a bunch of Ivy League, book-reading squares. Once again, the power of the music video at work. It's like acting or something.
A couple of months ago, British rapper M.I.A cancelled her imminent UK tour and hinted at the fact that she may never play a gig again. Having toured second album, Kala, relentlessly for a good twelve months things came to ahead in America (where the album has sold a lot better then it has on home soil) and M.I.A picked up her toys and hurled them out the pram. Probably not the best time then for single 'Paper Planes' to be shooting up the American Billboard 100 on the back of it being used in a trailer for stoner comedy Pineapple Express.
Currently sitting at no. 16 the track looks set to cement M.I.A's standing as one of the more interesting artists currently at work. Ironic then, that it comes at a time when all the press and glowing reviews have stopped and the promotional wheel has stalled. Finally it seems the hype has receded to leave what is one of the best singles of the year so far.
It's all about the music, man.
Such is the song's sudden ubiquity that it was even used in a very surreal episode of Eastenders on Tuesday. Music can sometimes be heard in the background at the cafe while Ian demeans another down trodden wife of his or in the pub where Pat dishes out some pearls of wisdom between the two chandeliers on her ears, but this was used in a scene where the Masood family actually sing along to the chorus, gunshots and everything. "Peggggyyyy, you bitch, you cow, those bloody Masooooods have got M.I.A pumping out their boom box. Apples and pears, plates of meat, etc etc".
- Next time you pop down to your local multiplex, keep your eyes peeled for two adults and two kids with scarves on their heads. It's only bloomin' Michael Jackson, his kids and dodgy rapper, Akon (NME)
- REM haven't sold as many tickets as they would have hoped. Shame really. Perhaps that's what you get when you employ Editors as the support act (BBC)
- Morrissey's next studio album, Years of Refusal, has been pushed back to 2009. Fingers crossed he's re-awoken his muse, or at least given it a sharp nudge in the ribs (Pitchfork)
- Those kids are still bickering! If they don't stop that racket, I'll bang their bloody heads together (Yahoo Music)
You may remember Keane as the polite little public school boys who made insipid, piano-led ballads about things changing and other things shaped like beds. You may also remember that cherubic singer, Tom Chaplin, had a stint at the Priory for an addiction to Port and cocaine, a spell that somewhat hindered their last album, Under The Iron Sea. Well, Hastings' finest are back back back with a new sound and a fetching new look...
It's like OMD never existed. I was pleasantly surprised in a way, it's a funny song, things go 'ohhh' when you least expect them to. I like the stuttering outro. Unfortunately, this being Keane it's hindered by two connected factors: there are awful lyrics, and said lyrics are sung by Tom Chaplin. He could sing on an Aphex Twin track and it would still sound like Keane. Some people think this is a good thing, but these people are usually deaf.
What's with all the musical side-projects going on at the moment? First we get Karen O's extra curricular efforts, then there's Conor Oberst moving away from Bright Eyes to become, er, Conor Oberst and now there's the Ugly One (TM) from The Strokes stepping out as Nickel Eye. The name seems to be a pun on his own name, Nikolai (Fraiture). Make of that what you will. The project also features plinky plonky piano player Regina Spektor and guitar hand for hire, Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. You can listen to the results right here, and an album, The Time of the Assassins, is released 'soon' (the tease).
Perhaps, the more pertinent question is; what's happening with The Strokes fourth album? I mean, who's actually working on it? Julian's messing about with Santogold and Pharrell, Albert Hammond Jr has just released a second solo album and Fabrizio Moretti was on the Neon Neon album and has his own side-project called Little Joy (which may or may not be appropriate, let's wait and see). It's not known what Nick Valensi is up to, perhaps he's got an allotment or something.
First off, an apology. I'm really sorry that it's been so long since my last post but my pal Missy (that's Missy Elliott to you guys) and I jetted off to the Bahamas for a short holiday. She's been pretty stressed working on her new album and she popped round the other day while Eastenders was on and we both just looked at each other and said "Roxy's such a bitch" and then "shall we fly to the Bahamas". So that's what we did.
Anyway, that's no excuse for what's happened in my absence. Somehow, the guy famous for once being married to Pamela Anderson is number 1 in the UK! According to Radio 1, this guy should now be given the prefix 'Legend'. What the hell happened? You go away for one weekend with a world famous rapper and you come back to find Kid Rock sitting pretty (ugly) at the top of the charts. 
I haven't doctored the above picture in a fit of rage, this is actually what he looks like. The song's called 'All Summer Long' and it samples 'Sweet Home Alabama' and adds precisely zilch to the original, other then making that song even more inane.
I'm not including a link to this video. If we all pretend it doesn't exist then perhaps it will go away. Personally, I blame Switzerland.
