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Rob’s Top 5 Albums of the Year
Okay… I know we haven’t reached the end of it yet, but I doubt that anything else amazing is going to be released so now seems as good a time as any.
In reverse order:
5) Readers Wifes – Gaslight
Sleazy but melody-heavy synthpop/rock from the Duckie DJs. Okay, “Bitch at the Brits” is missing, which two or three of the final tracks could easily have been replaced with that and the sublime B-side “Endless Night”, but otherwise it’s amazingly textured piece of work. Download only, it seems, but hey. That’s the future. Key tracks: “Nostalgia”, “Cheap Dress”, “25 Floors”, and the stompingly brilliant “Boy Ain’t Right”.
4) Sophie Ellis-Bextor – Trip the Light Fantastic
An overlooked gem. It lacks the punch and stripped-down electronica of her debut, Read My Lips, but improves on the lacklustre Shoot From the Hip by actually including some genuinely beautiful songs. Some definite sixties soul influences on some of the arrangements too. Key tracks: “Me and My Imagination”, “Today the Sun’s On Us”, “Supersonic”, “If I Can’t Dance”, “What Have We Started” and “The Distance Between Us”. (Yes, several of those are slow numbers and yet I like them. She’s that good.)
3) Girls Aloud – Tangled Up
An assured astonishingly cohesive album, almost one that seems to be definitive Aloud. Punchy, powerful, noisy arrangements, with the usual “let’s throw a few choruses at it and not bother with the verses” in parts and a smattering of “what the fuck does that mean?” lyrics. Key Tracks: “Call the Shots”, “Close to Love”, “Sexy? No, no, no”, “Girl Overboard” and “Can’t Speak French”.
2) Dragonette – Galore.
I honestly don’t think I’ve ever heard a debut album like this. It’s a slutty collection of songs: “Jesus Doesn’t Love Me” is arguably the benchmark with it’s riffing on the subject “Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll” so it’s definitely an album about abandoned excess and yearning for something more. Key Tracks: “I Get Around”, “Jesus Doesn’t Love Me”, “True Believer” (the real standout track for me), “Black Limousine”, “Get Lucky”, “Another Day”, “You Please Me” and “Get Lucky”. (And since this is 8/11 of the tracks you may as well get the whole thing.)
1) Matinee Club – Modern Industry.
If this hadn’t finally got out then Dragonette would have been number one, but here’s another band whose career has been somewhat stymied by the fact that Mercury Records are just unutterably shit at promoting pop. Due to their various label woes I’ve had many of the tracks for about four years but finally they’ve been released on download (with a physical CD arriving January). It’s an album of slick, glamorous electronica which managed to sum up the ethos of “Future Retro” beautifully. Key tracks: “Discotheque Francais”, “Sometimes”, “Jane Falls Down”, “Seven Oceans”, “Goodbye Means Forever” (there’s a sound glitch on the download though) and “Fool in the Name of Love”. But even the other tracks hold their own so there’s not really a bad bad track. (“Nothing Special”, however, is one which is summed up by its title. Ho hum.)
Posted on December 23, 2007 | Filed Under Pop Music | 0 Comments
No Offense, But…
It seems that BBC Radio 1 has edited the only truly realistic Christmas song “the Fairy Tale of New York” to remove the term “faggot” just in case people are offended by it.
Now much as I don’t want to become one of those Daily Mail “it’s political correctness gone mad” types, I can’t help but feel it’s a bit ridiculous in this case.
(And in any case, surely terms of abuse are supposed to be offensive? If they weren’t there wouldn’t be much point in them would there?)
Posted on December 18, 2007 | Filed Under The World we Live In | 0 Comments
Secret Satan
Does anybody else loathe the idea of an office “Secret Santa” as much as I (and, as it turns out, the other members of my team) do?
I find the whole concept faintly nauseating. There’s just something slightly “you will do this, you will enjoy it or you will be shot” about it all which makes me want to fold my arms, stamp my feet and go “fire away”.
I mean, I’ve bought mine (and by God it’s hard to find something imaginative under ?Ǭ£5 isn’t it?) and entered it, but there’s just a part of me that wishes any attempts at forced corporate jollity were banned by law.
Or perhaps I’m just being churlish. To be honest I’m all 2007-d out now. The last few weeks have been a whirl of struggling to extract present ideas, tracking them down, buying them, wrapping the fuckers (I really really hate wrapping presents), deciding who gets cards and who doesn’t, attending – and giving a reading at – a funeral (an interestingly non-Christmassy aside), developing exczema for the first time in 30 years (which was a shock I’ll tell you), training clients, writing more pub quiz questions than I would have cared for, finally getting round to writing the Christmas cards out, and traveling to Canterbury and back (twice).
Bugger presents and festivities, for crying out loud. The only thing I’m really looking forward to next week is a couple of days off and the Doctor Who special.
Everything else can go hang.
Posted on December 18, 2007 | Filed Under My So-Called Life | 0 Comments
Count ‘em.
Twelve pills I’ve just had. It’s ridiculous.
Between the Nurofen (oww!-ey back), Beechams (a cold is determined to bring me down, I can feel it forming), 5-Hydroxytryptophan (my SAD syndrome kicked in majorly two weeks ago and really left me feeling utterly depressed until I started taking it again), Conjugated Linoleic Acid (fat burner), Milk-thistle and Artichoke (system cleansing) and Fibre-sure (well, guess) it’s a wonder, frankly, I don’t rattle when I walk.
It’s a slippery slope, this supplements lark, I tell you.
Posted on December 10, 2007 | Filed Under Health and Fitness, My So-Called Life | 3 Comments
Kylie Minogue – X
I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m going to get my Gay Licence endorsed for this, I can tell, but?¢‚Ǩ¬¶
I must confess I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve found it hard to get excited by Kylie albums for a few years now. I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve long considered that the singles off Light Years were by far the weakest parts of the album, but I was generally dismayed to find that they provided the template for the successors Fever and Body Language which both largely failed to deliver much beyond cool beats and polished production.
The most I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve sat up and taken notice of late was with the simple but soaring melody of “I Believe In You” or the hypnotic and buzzing “Giving You Up” which made me think that Kylie might deliver the goods from now on, but sadly X really is a dispiritingly hit-and-miss collection of tracks which either promise much but fall at the last hurdle, or else spend their time in a seemingly hopeless search for a melody.
It?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s an amazingly soulless album all told, and Kylie has never seemed more of an anonymous guest vocalist on other people?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s tracks. Even on “2 Hearts” where the original Kish Mauve version just has the vocal wiped and redone with no other changes whatsoever to give it a bit of Kylie sparkle. (I mean… yes it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s a solid enough track, but let?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s face it: it was three years ago.)
Most of the other songs are upsettingly melody-light, attempts to compensate for their anaemia made with jitteringly beat-heavy productions or slices of by-numbers-electro. “Like a Drug” is one of the few occasions when these styles and the song actually work properly and make a satisfyingly uplifting little groover. By contrast, on “In My Arms” these production styles cripplingly overwhelm what could have been quite a nice song. A lot of the time it just seems to be achingly hip, with a few Fever-lite tracks thrown on as a token bit of fun.
It?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s not all bad though, and despite showcasing some of the most appallingly spiky or lacklustre offenders X still also has some of Kylie’s best work in years such as the stunningly beautiful track as “No More Rain” which is a definite highlight. “Sensitized” too has more than a little character and feels oddly like an Impossible Princess throwback (which is no bad thing).
Of the others “The One”‘s chorus feels vaguely phoned in to start with, but it soon builds up to be a wildly superior and satisfying moment on the album. Only slightly less successful is “Wow” which is a deliberate nod towards “Love at First Sight” from Fever but holds its head above water accordingly.
So, for me it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s basically all about: “Like a Drug”, “2 Hearts”, “No More Rain”, “Sensitized”, “The One” and ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú if you got it on iTunes – “Magnetic Electric” which is a baffling omission from the final tracklist considering what did make it.
If I were you I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢d take these six tracks, hit the internet and bolster them up with some of the leaked tracks from early in the year which are far superior to the remainder of the official release.
Then if you?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢re still feeling a bit empty go and get Rachel Stevens’ Come and Get It to see how a stunning pop album with an anonymous vocalist should be done.
Posted on November 26, 2007 | Filed Under Pop Music | 2 Comments
Validation at last!
The Evening Standard have reviewed my mate Rob’s pub The Vauxhall Griffin rather positively (and rightly so, it’s rather fine).
But I’m particularly gratified by the fact that the quiz he and I run there got a mention.
Admittedly it was a one-word description, but as far as adjectives go I think “lively” isn’t a bad one at all.
Posted on November 25, 2007 | Filed Under My So-Called Life, The World we Live In | 0 Comments
Verity Lambert
So, the first ever female BBC producer – and the woman responsible for the first ever series of Doctor Who – Verity Lambert passed away yesterday.
Okay, so she was in many respects responsible for So Haunt Me and Eldorado, but even those are only minor blips on an otherwise stellar career which included such acclaimed dramas as GBH and the Naked Civil Servant to name but two.
Her death is unfortunate not only because it came the day before the 44th Anniversary of Doctor Who (tonight – about 45 minutes ago in fact), but also because it came a couple of weeks before she was due to be presented with a lifetime achievement award at the Women in Film and Television awards.
On the basis of her work alone Verity Lambert was clearly a truly remarkable woman, and I hope she rests in a peace well-earned.
I for one shall be raising a glass to her memory tonight.
Posted on November 23, 2007 | Filed Under In Memoriam | 0 Comments
Lost and Found
There’s a turn-up for the books.
Just realised that the Fiction page wasn’t working properly so went to go and get it sorted (’tis done!), only to click on one of the links there to a Doctor Who short story I wrote for the Eighth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith called “Lost and Found“.
The prose needs a bit of tidying up here and there, but I’m actually struck by what a nice little piece it is. It’s not, even if I do say so myself, too bad at all.
Posted on November 16, 2007 | Filed Under Reading and Writing, Site News | 0 Comments
Who’d be a Writer, eh?
Sorry if I’ve been a bit quiet of late. I’ve been somewhat pre-occupied with taking part in National Novel Writing Month which is now just halfway through – and I’m pleased to report I’m also just over halfway through myself.
The idea is relatively simple, to write 50,000 words of a novel between 1st and 30th November. Today I stand at X words which isn’t admittedly a major amount over, but I’m just impressed I even managed to get as far as 50% of the way this early – I was convinced I’d make it to 30,000 only.
It’s an interesting process though. The idea is to write, obviously, but that’s just write. No editing is allowed – that’s what you do in December, apparently, or more likely (in my case) January. During November you just literally have to fill the pages with words. It means that, if the mood takes you, you can just do the fun bits and sort it all out later, but I’m trying to work in a slightly more linear fashion at the moment – not that it has entirely worked out that way given the jumps back and forwards in time.
So far in those words I’ve had one murder (and one attempted), one extra-marital affair, one mugging that isn’t really, a missing boyfriend and a suicide. And that’s without tying the events at two different ends of a decade together or getting to the militant Christians or blowing anything up.
All of that, of course, looks vaguely promising, but I’m also aware of its major failings already. Thankfully the plot is sort of straightening out in my head as I type and kind of works as a whole which is good, but it’s been hard to write some of the more functional “getting A to B” type stuff done, and some of the prose seems horribly clunky (although some of it I really like), and there have been moments when at the end of a long day my brain just didn’t want to do it and the words had to be almost literally wrenched from me.
But it is proving quite a positive experience all told. I thought 50,000 was a lot of words for a novel, but I strongly suspect that the final first draft when I complete it in the future may be nearer 100,000 before I begin to wield a scalpel over it (and boy will I be trimming away).
But yeah, even though I may still miss the target by the end of the month, I’m still feeling quite a sense of achievement. It’s an idea I’ve been mulling over for about two years now so it’s nice to finally start seeing it work its way down onto the page. And it also means that my claim on the front page of this very site to have started a novel doesn’t now have to have the whispered qualifier “in my head” on it.
So ultimately it’s made less of a liar of me. And hurrah for that.
Posted on November 15, 2007 | Filed Under Reading and Writing | 0 Comments
A Conversation Overheard On the Train…
So, I popped down to Canterbury last weekend to help my Dad celebrate his 61st birthday – or, as he put it, the fortieth anniversary of his 21st birthday – and thus the early hours of Saturday morning saw me on a train bound from Victoria with a bunch of other Kent-bound individuals.
It was a dull journey, it always is. Well… actually, I say dull. Travel is generally not a favourite pastime, but of a bright autumn morning the scenery rushing past was quite pretty I suppose. And there wasn’t much in the way of pretty males to ogle en route so I was content with that.
But at Gillingham (a town not known for its classiness) a young couple boarded the train and sat in one of the seats diagonally opposite me. She was in leggings, needless to say, and he was extremely casually dressed, but quite cute in a sort of “could do with a decent skincare regime” sort of a way. Together though it must be said there was certainly a certain kind of crack-addict chic about them.
They were chatting. I was plugged into The Device so wasn’t aware of their conversation until we passed Selling and began to approach Canterbury. I duly unplugged myself and began gathering my things together. Idly, as one does, listening in to what’s going on around me in case there was anything interesting to be had.
Oh boy.
At first, you see, I thought they were talking about their jobs. There definitely was that sort of “and Janice in accounts said this, can you believe it?” sort of vibe to the conversation. And they were talking about money, particularly how she’d been given a hard time over it and how, or so I thought, she’d finally been made an offer which she’d thought was unacceptable and she’d had to think about it for a bit.
It was only as the train pulled into the station that one final fact suddenly changed the whole nature of their conversation as it finally became clear to me that what they’d been planning to offer her hadn’t actually been a payrise at all.
It was a custodial sentence.
The home counties really aren’t what they used to be, you know…
Posted on November 8, 2007 | Filed Under The World we Live In | 0 Comments