Not Music

Stereolab - Not Music

released 15 November 2010 on Duophonic UHF Disks

It’s admirable and all-too-rare when bands just decide to call it a day. No acrimonious split, no protracted legal battles and, most importantly, no desecrating your legacy by dragging yourself around on tour to promote an album clearly inferior to those of your salad days (yes, The Rolling Stones, that’s you). It’s easy to see why bands would carry on; musicians often know no other life and, yes, the wheelbarrows full of cash probably help. Synth experimentalists Stereolab shunned the band lifestyle in 2009 - on “indefinite hiatus” according to their website - following nearly two decades of French vocals, post-rock and general Moog-based larks.

No real reason was given for the end of Stereolab; just they needed “a bit of a rest” and they planned to “work on other projects”, according to a statement on their website. Their last album before this announcement was 2008’s disappointing Chemical Chords. Admittedly their tenth full-length album, it remains the sound of a band devoid of inspiration and content to recycle old ideas. The fact that this album, Not Music, is comprised from songs recorded during the Chemical Chords sessions doesn’t bode too well.

That said, any feelings of apprehension are likely to melt away within just a few seconds of pressing ‘Play’. Opener, Everybody’s Weird Except Me, bursts out of the speakers with its twitchy rhythms and upbeat melody line. Sure, it retains the trademark Stereolab keyboard motorik beat and analogue, reverb-drenched squelches, but it’s ostensibly a commercial pop song. This is by no means a bad thing, just surprising, especially from an album which is meant to be little more than cut-offs from an inferior record.

Next track, Super Jaianto, is even better. Again, more pop-oriented that you might expect, the horns in the chorus give it a warm, human feel, and the jazz breakdown halfway through is life-affirming. At this point, from its uninspiring, self-effacing title downwards, Not Music has no right to be as good as it is.

As Not Music progresses, it struggles to keep the quality quite so high, and the tracks do have a tendency to completely change tack part-way through. This may be endearing or a neat change of pace the first time, but when it’s happening on a large proportion of the songs, it does give them an air of being not quite finished.

The track that really merits mention and praise, though, is album centrepiece, Silver Sands. Interestingly, it’s an extended version of a song of the same name from Chemical Chords, but given room to breathe here, it’s transformed into a ten-minute, Kraftwerk-style epic. In fact, it’s not entirely unlike Autobahn with its analogue burbling, but just as you think you have the measure of the song, it turns into a swaggering funk monster with crackly synths and outer-space sound effects. Whereas many of the songs don’t benefit from such an abrupt alteration of mood, it does nothing but enhance Silver Sands.

Sadly, as well as being the album’s high point, Silver Sands marks the beginning of the decline for Not Music. What would be Side B has little of note; the attempt at building and layering on Two Finger Symphony can’t lift it from slumber and Sun Demon sounds like a Stereolab tribute act. Closing tracks, Pop Molecules (Molecular Pop) and Neon Beanbag, are again related to cuts from Chemical Chords, but they can’t repeat the trick of Silver Sands, with Neon Beanbag in particular being little more than a noisy wig-out.

All of which makes Not Music a very difficult record to assess. At its best, it blows Chemical Chords out of the water but at its worst, it’s uninspiring and dull. Seeing as all the tracks were recorded at the same time, it’s almost impossible to not think of what a great single album Stereolab could have created. A best-of Chemical Chords and Not Music would have fitted neatly into their canon and provided a fitting send-off for an influential and much-loved group. Instead, we have these two separate records plus feelings of confusion and dissatisfaction, like having two starters when you really want a main course. What it does mean, however, is that we have new evidence that fire still burns inside them, and that they may have unfinished business. Not Music is proof enough that a Stereolab return would be something to treasure.

In the Court of the Wrestling Let's

Let's Wrestle - In the Court of the Wrestling Let's

released 1 November 2010 on Full Time Hobby

From The Butthole Surfers’ Hairway to Steven to Nick Lowe’s Bowi, album title puns have been with us a fair old while. The joke can, however, be horribly misjudged if the record itself is not up to scratch. This is a trap instantly fallen into by Let’s Wrestle on their expanded re-release of 2009’s In The Court of the Wrestling Let’s (for those of you not paying attention, it’s a King Crimson reference. Ask your Dad). Let’s Wrestle are brash, smug, not as funny as they think they are, and alienating to listen to. A lot of the time, In The Court... - from its crudely drawn cover downwards - feels like an in-joke specifically designed to exclude.

The problem is that everything Let’s Wrestle attempt to do has been done before (better) by Art Brut. In The Court... has its moments - those where it’s fit to be held up against Eddie Argos and the boys - but it more often resembles forgotten London urchins The Others. Occasionally it even borders on the distasteful: Songs for Old People may sound like a punk update of Grandaddy’s A.M. 180 on first listen, but contains condescending jibes towards the elderly, while Diana’s Hair is a bizarre - but crucially, in no way amusing - paean to the late Princess which mentions stalking Prince Charles. It’s difficult to see the point Diana’s Hair is trying to make. It’s like a comedy song outline where nobody’s actually bothered to fill in the content.

Despite this, the album does have some above-average tracks. Previous single Song for ABBA Tribute Record is enjoyable and I Won’t Lie to You has great chorus, as well as being one of the few songs that isn’t irritatingly arch. The everyday mundanity of My Schedule is turned into something triumphant, and We Are The Men You’ll Grow to Love Soon is a giddy,

sugar-fueled romp. Replete with singalong “bah-bah-bahs” and wry lyrics (“We’re going down the job centre and soon, we’ll come out with a job”), it’s a 21st Century reworking of Supergrass’ Alright that magnifies the failings of the rest of the album.

The extra disc adds little to this unappealing let-down of an album. In The Court... is basic, repetitive, and has very little to recommend it. NME have described Let’s Wrestle as “charming, funny and utterly real”. I’d like to contest that: they’re charmless, tedious and utterly crap.

My Night Out at Later... with Jools Holland

How much do you think it would cost to get into a Kings of Leon gig with a capacity of less than 300? And to be just a few metres from Caleb and the boys, how early do you think you’d have to get there? Oh, and you might want to factor into the equation that Eric Clapton’s going to do a few numbers, how does that change things?

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the world of Later… with Jools Holland. For the uninitiated, it’s a British television institution now in its 37th series. The premise is simple; a range of bands gather in a room and play a few of their tracks while the ex-Squeeze man compères. There’s the odd interview and maybe a smattering of archive footage, but the show really is all about the music. This may not sound special on paper, but seeing quality live bands on television isn’t that common. While new and exciting music is well-catered for on the radio (and, in particular, by the BBC’s stations), the screen is the airwaves’ forgotten cousin if you’re a music lover.

When Later… is in the middle of a run, it’s broadcast twice a week: a recorded show on a Friday night preceded by a live broadcast on Tuesday evenings. In the studio, the pre-record is done first before the tiny studio goes live to the homes of Britain at 10pm. And it really is tiny - despite being stood in a corner at the back (and invisible to the viewers; I’ve already checked), I was only 20ft away from both Kings of Leon and Eric Clapton.

So, to the line-up. Later… is known for having a diverse range of up-and-coming and established acts, and this week was no exception. As previously mentioned, Kings of Leon and Eric Clapton were in attendance, and they were joined by hotly-tipped rock outfit, The Vaccines, a début UK television appearance from M.I.A. (backed by The Specials), eleven-piece folk act, Bellowhead, and relatively unknown singer-songwriter, Jonathan Jeremiah.

There were few musical surprises when the cameras started rolling - these bands are tight. The Specials have an incredible sense of rhythm that it’s almost impossible not to move to, Jonathan Jeremiah has a marvellous voice and Bellowhead are an incredible live proposition. In fact, Bellowhead were a revelation - think of a 21st Century Pogues but with a brass section and you’re on the right lines. Eric Clapton was the act of the night though, he may be 65 but he showed the stadium-baiting, anaemic Kings of Leon how it’s done and blew away the stodgy, meat-and-potatoes rock of The Vaccines.

Not being particularly au fait with the world of television, the most interesting part was seeing how it was all put together. There’s a large number of people constantly running around and even when acts are playing, there’s more activity at the other end of the studio to prepare the next song. I also had the opportunity to observe how musicians react to other musicians. It’s not often any of these acts stand around in plain view while their contemporaries ply their trade, but that’s the kind of show Later… is. I even devised my own game, “What does Clapton think?” where I looked over to see his reaction as events unfolded throughout the recording. My conclusion is that, like me, he’s now a fan of Bellowhead, but that’s little more than conjecture on my part.

At this point, I’d love to include some startling celebrity revelation that would have publicists tearing their hair out, but unfortunately, no dice. I passed Bellowhead’s Jon Boden in a corridor and saw soul singer Adele having a cigarette outside, but that’s hardly going to keep Perez Hilton busy.

What I can say, however, is how much fun I had and how much I hope to be able to spend another evening with Later… in the future. The show is only as good as its acts but in an age where there’s little music programming on television to speak of, Later… is a show we should appreciate, cherish and enjoy.

Come On Over (Turn Me On)

The shuffle function built into most mp3 players is certainly a plus point for most. It may well irk the purists, and I can see why people would be resistant to the idea of splitting up albums into their constituent parts, but not enough is made of the serendipitous aspect of having your record collection available on random. From time to time, a track will pop up that you’d never have consciously chosen, but it seems to arrive at the right time and remind you of what a fantastic song it is.

This has happened to me twice today. Firstly it was Confetti by The Lemonheads: a wonderful slice of bittersweet power pop that led me to listening to its parent album, It’s a Shame About Ray, in its entirety only fifteen minutes later. The other was from Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan’s Sunday at Devil Dirt record: Come On Over (Turn Me On).

Often I’m a complete sucker for any song where the lyrics are completely at odds with the tone conveyed by the music. I’m a huge fan of both Belle & Sebastian and Tindersticks, two bands who specialise in beautiful tracks that have something sinister lurking beneath the core. However, Come On Over (Turn Me On) is a perfect example of when the tone of the music and the theme of the lyrics complement each other expertly.

The concept is simple; over the bassline from Nina Simone’s Feeling Good, a tale of sexual frustration is told where the protagonist is impatiently waiting for the object of their affections. Both Lanegan and Campbell sing the entire track together, so Lanegan’s yearning is conveyed through a menacing, throaty, rumbling growl, while Campbell is seemingly so overcome with desire, her voice is a barely-there, gossamer-thin whisper.

Crucially, the whole thing is incredibly sexy. Starting off brooding and slow, it slinks from line to line, with each chorus more powerful than the last. It teases too; some of the verses appear to be building up to some kind of payoff, before returning to the start of a new verse at the last possible moment. “How should I know what is right from wrong? Come on over, turn me on” they purr, as strings build, drums crash and just as you feel they’re about to let loose, we’re back where we started.

The strings are reminiscent of a James Bond theme that doesn’t actually exist, and as the song progresses, the drum fills become more robust, cymbal crashes more frequent and the guitar solos are less measured and more freeform. Just as it seems the song is about to reach its apex, it’s finished with just a sustained, bending guitar chord to keep you company.

Watch the video below and see for yourself. I’ll warn you though; you may well need a cold shower afterwards.

Oil City Confidential

Julien Temple - Oil City Confidential

released 26 July 2010 on Cadiz

Whilst watching Julien Temple’s biopic of pub-rock torchbearers Dr. Feelgood, one question keeps returning to the front of my mind: why aren’t Dr. Feelgood universally adored? At their zenith, the Feelgoods were a huge live draw on both sides of the Atlantic, scored a number one album, and were a major influence on the burgeoning punk scene. Yet they appear to have been airbrushed from history. How was this allowed to happen?

Oil City Confidential is a riveting documentary, at its most absorbing when analysing the fractious relationship between guitarist and principal songwriter (Wilko Johnson) and lead singer (Lee Brilleaux) in the glory years. Two remarkably different characters with a tempestuous inter-dependency, it’s extremely sad that the opportunity for both to tell their side of things has gone forever, with Brilleaux's passing away in 1994. It appears that the Feelgoods succumbed to the all-too-frequent tale of substance abuse - alcohol for Brilleaux and the rhythm section, harder stuff for Johnson - leading to Johnson leaving the band, the exact reason for which appears to have been lost in the mists of time.

If he weren’t already real, you couldn’t make Wilko Johnson up. He’s endlessly fascinating, speaks in a nasal, Estuary drawl, and has enough energy stored inside him to power a small village. His eyes dart as if constantly on the lookout for new points of interest, and the limited live footage of Dr. Feelgood is simply captivating: Brilleaux in his dirty white suit roaring with such ferocity you think he’s seconds away from an aneurysm, while Johnson bobs and weaves his way around the stage like a strutting rooster, his penetrating eyes focused on the middle-distance.

The story of the rise and fall of Dr. Feelgood is a spellbinding one, but unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be sufficient for director Julien Temple. Infuriatingly, he looks to “enhance” the interviews by splicing in scenes from old black and white films, sometimes with only the most tenuous connection to what’s being said. It occasionally threatens to spoil the film, and it’s lucky for Temple that the material he’s working with is so strong.

As well as the tales told, the music is also a revelation. Dr. Feelgood played an intoxicating brand of no-nonsense rhythm and blues; raw, gruff, sweaty and incredibly appealing. There’s no explanation for the original question posed, but, as a deserved postscript, Oil City Confidential has led to a renewed interest in Dr. Feelgood. Perhaps the world just needed a little reminder, and Oil City Confidential has provided.

The Wants

The Phantom Band - The Wants

released 18 October 2010 on Chemikal Underground

Employing a cornucopia of instruments on your record can be a dangerous game. There’s a danger of coming across like hyperactive children (see Architecture In Helsinki) or giving the impression of masking inferior quality songs (see Tunng). Luckily neither of those fates have befallen Glasgow’s The Phantom Band.

Following last year’s critically-acclaimed Checkmate Savage comes The Wants, recorded over a period of six months in Chemikal Underground’s South Lanarkshire studio. This record showcases how The Phantom Band combine the best of both worlds: simple yet strong writing, with an intrinsically curious invention that belies that this is only their second record. On the surface, this isn’t much to get excited about, but each of these songs are pushed to their limits, given appropriate time to build, mature, and conclude. With only nine tracks, its 48 minutes rush by with barely an ounce of spare fat on them, seldom threatening to spill over into prog-rock excess.

First track, A Glamour, opens with a sawing sound (the tuning of a baliphone, apparently) and skittering tuned percussion before breaking into a glam-rock stomp reminiscent of Super Furry Animals’ Golden Retriever. In fact, SFA are probably the group most analogous to this band, with their delightfully skewed pop and fondness for electronic flourishes.

The Phantom Band pull off a neat trick that few bands manage to execute convincingly: pulling in a barrel-load of influences whilst remaining more than the sum of their parts. Pastoral folk, stark industrial and disco funk all get an airing, and at various points throughout the record The Phantom Band sound like Roxy Music, Joy Division, Arab Strap and The Futureheads.

The Wants has a tendency to play the same card a little too often, but there is enough light and shade to stave off boredom. Vocalist Rick Anthony croons like a Caledonian Nick Cave on the tender Come Away In The Dark, while The None Of One has a genuinely thrilling change of pace halfway through. The highlight comes at the end of the record, as brutally distorted marching drums combine with Gregorian chant to provide an exhilarating climax to final track, Goodnight Arrow. It’s heartening to see a keen study of popular music alongside the confidence to try new things.

Write About Love

Belle and Sebastian - Write About Love

released 11 October 2010 on Rough Trade

A decade ago, if you’d described Belle and Sebastian as “swaggering”, you’d have been laughed out of town, and rightly so. But since the turn of the century, things have changed for the Glaswegians. Firstly, in 2002, Isobel Campbell left the group and has since made a name for herself as both a solo artist and playing “Beauty” to Mark Lanegan’s “Beast“. Secondly, they roped in Trevor Horn to produce their 2003 album, Dear Catastrophe Waitress. Horn is a former member of musical pioneers, Buggles, as well as being known for his work with some leading lights of the 1980s pop scene, including Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

Dear Catastrophe Waitress heralded a marked change in sound for Belle and Sebastian. However, though it may have seemed like an anomaly at the time, in retrospect it was simply the beginning of a new chapter of their career. Follow-up, The Life Pursuit, built on this new-found approach and the trend has continued with Write About Love. Belle and Sebastian have certainly developed since they first appeared onto the scene almost fifteen years ago: the percussion is more dynamic, the basslines are funkier and more solid, the guitars are choppier and more prominent, and the lyrics… well, they’re the same as they've always been; what were you expecting?

Belle and Sebastian trade in the music of confounding expectations and the interplay of opposites. While the casual listener may dismiss their songs as throwaway, repeated listens reveal much more at work beneath the surface. Lead singer Stuart Murdoch is one of the best character creators in music today, with his tales of boys and girls in love, being thwarted and finding it hard to fit in. The music of Belle and Sebastian is witty, dark, engrossing and - whisper it quietly - sexy.

Write About Love opens confidently with a strong drum pattern, simple piano chords and Sarah Martin gently cooing, “Make me dance, I want to surrender”. That track is I Didn’t See It Coming, and it sets the tone for the first half of the record with its synths, wandering bassline, airy feel and careful layering. The tracks begin fairly sparsely, but build into something fully immersive and represent some of the most professional and well-crafted work the group have produced. Even songs that don’t immediately jump out on first listen have plenty to recommend them, like the gorgeous chord change to introduce the chorus of the languid ballad, Calculating Bimbo.

Side One (Belle and Sebastian consciously divide their records into two halves, so it seems to make sense to do the same) concludes with Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John; a track most notable for its guest vocalist: Norah Jones. It may be the result of the meeting of two strong-willed parties, but the track doesn’t particularly sound like the work of either artist, instead falling halfway between Belle and Sebastian’s indie stylings and Jones’s easy jazz. It’s difficult to tell if the experiment works, but it does enough to justify its presence on the album and be seen as more than simply a curio.

Almost as a response to the cautious, uncertain ending of Side One, Side Two really gets off to a flying start. Current single, Write About Love, is an irresistible slice of sunshine pop featuring vocals from BAFTA-winning actress, Carey Mulligan. In typical Belle and Sebastian style, everything is not quite as it first seems, and the track centres around a girl trapped in a dull office job who writes as a means to escape her dreary existence. This theme is further explored on next track and album highlight, I’m Not Living In The Real World. Over an abundance of drum fills and keyboards that sound like steel drums, Stevie Jackson sings of a boy who grows up on the periphery, never accepted by his peers and never really participating fully in everyday life. It may not seem the chirpiest subject matter for a song, but Belle and Sebastian pack so much joie de vivre into its three minutes, social alienation’s never sounded so fun. The track also features a brilliantly wrong-footing key change, and a repeated “ooh” melody so catchy you’ll need to be vaccinated to resist it.

Write About Love may not be a great leap forward for Belle and Sebastian, but it’s such an enjoyable record it’s difficult to hold it against them. Plus, there are signs they’re honing their craft and growing into the band they’ve always been capable of being. Trevor Horn may have produced perhaps the definitive pop record of the 1980s with ABC’s The Lexicon of Love, but on Write About Love, Belle and Sebastian display more than enough to suggest that one day they’ll be able to eclipse their former colleague, and they’ll do so with a swagger.

The Trip

Laetitia Sadier - The Trip

released 4 October 2010 on Drag City

If your career shows no sign of progression over time, is that necessarily a bad thing? If you’re in full-time employment, your boss will answer with a definite, “yes”, and haul you in for a review before you can say, “rhetorical question”. But in music, it’s not quite that black and white. For example, Status Quo have been writing the same song since 1967 and are regularly scoffed at by critics, but it’s apparently completely fine for AC/DC to have had the exact same shtick since they appeared on the scene.

Which brings us to Stereolab, the cult act who are praised by journalists and adored by hardcore fans. They’ve only got one trick too, but perhaps they’re immune to biting criticism because it’s a damn good trick, and one that no-one else seems capable of replicating. Between 1990 and 2009, Stereolab combined lounge pop, Krautrock, analogue electronica and avant-garde to create a sound quite unlike that of any other band. Like the best artists, they existed on the periphery in their own private world, penetrable only to those prepared to invest the necessary time. Their songs lasted anything from one minute to ten, were often built up carefully layer by layer, and their albums had brilliantly bonkers titles like Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements and, career-highlight, Emperor Tomato Ketchup.

Throughout much of Stereolab’s life, singer Laetitia Sadier has been part of side-project group, Monade, whose most recent album, Monstre Cosmic, was a superb exercise in lilting, restrained pop. Sadier has broken free from the shadow of both groups in releasing The Trip, her first solo album.

For someone so associated with formulaic music and repetition, The Trip was never going to be surprising, but it’s still hard not to see it as a let down. Say what you like about Stereolab, but there was always a playfulness and European glamour to their music which is sadly lacking here. What Sadier has left us with, is effectively an inferior version of a Monade record.

The Trip opens with the emotionally distant and hollow One Million Year Trip: a song built around a simple, grating bassline, and an odd selection to begin any record. The opening track is so important for any album, and The Trip immediately gets off on the wrong foot. It’s true the album vastly improves after the dull and metallic One Million Year Trip, but it’s difficult not to feel like the bulk of the damage has already been done.

Perhaps it’s ok to re-hash the same ideas when there’s some wit, panache or passion behind it, but Sadier seems genuinely disinterested throughout most of the record. Her vocals have always sailed dangerously close to the line that separates Gallic insouciance and boredom, but here she plants herself firmly the wrong side of that line. Dream-pop is often difficult to get excited about, but The Trip is ultimately unmemorable, bereft of any fills or flourishes as a respite.

There are glimmers of hope, however. Sadier’s cover of By The Sea is probably the only thing on show here to hold a candle to the glory days of The ‘Lab with its urgency, purpose and motorik beat. Statues Can Bend and Another Monster are all well and good, but sound passive, unfinished and in desperate need of another couple of elements to get going.

If you want to hear this sort of thing done properly, you’ll find happiness in the more sedate moments of the peerless Saint Etienne, but there’s little to recommend The Trip. It’s not much more than a Christmas bauble: shiny and polished on the surface, but with little of substance on the inside. The Trip finishes with a woeful cover of Gershwin’s Summertime, the unpalatable icing on the inedible cake that is this particularly disappointing record.

Penny Sparkle

Blonde Redhead - Penny Sparkle

released 13 September 2010 on 4AD

After some reading, a bit of research and lots of listening, it’s still near impossible to work out where exactly Blonde Redhead fit in. They seem to be on the margins of scenes or one of those bands that, because their music isn’t easily definable, crop up in new and obscure genres to which only about four other artists belong. “No-wave” and “dream-pop” are the two pigeonholes that get thrown around the most but it’s no easy task; Blonde Redhead are a little bit of lots of things all at once. The dream pop label is the easiest to comprehend: Blonde Redhead take many influences from the shoegaze movement of the early ‘90s and the marriage of these pockets of inspiration with the indecipherable lyrics/female voice as instrument ethos of the Cocteau Twins make Blonde Redhead a more intriguing proposition than they may seem in theory.

This characteristic of being hard to define probably suits Blonde Redhead down to the ground. Graduates of the New York underground, the band members’ history draws in places as diverse as Milan, Montréal, Boston and Japan. Listening to Penny Sparkle, the band’s eighth full-length album and third for 4AD, you do get the impression of a band without fixed roots. There’s a feeling of unease and restlessness, a brooding hard-to-define sensation, like a deeper, more intense version of the displacement and jetlag alluded to in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation. Penny Sparkle straddles the line between comfort and tension, the woozy synths bleed into one another, the music is warm and enveloping but frequent, unexpected minor chords and bass rumbles mean you can never be as comfortable as you’d wish to be.

Penny Sparkle isn’t a particularly easy listen at first, but this needn’t be seen as disparaging. Blonde Redhead’s use of textures and layers is very subtle, and means that what could easily be dismissed as background music becomes more rewarding the more time and attention you give it. Think of yourself as a squirrel and Penny Sparkle as your store of acorns for the winter months. While most album’s charms are immediate and obvious, Penny Sparkle reveals its gifts gradually, meaning that there should be more the enough to keep you fulfilled during the hibernation period.

What’s most striking - and refreshing - about Penny Sparkle is that it’s more than the sum of its parts. It’s an album that works better as a whole, and moreover, a whole that’s listened to in sequence; each track is the natural choice to follow its predecessor.

The guitars, electronics and vocals Blonde Redhead employ melt into an embracing mélange of sound. Opener, Here Sometimes, is understated and gentle, and the keyboards have a human-like, analogue feel to them. The transition after the chorus isn’t smooth, and the wonkiness of it adds to the human aspect of the track. It feels like the more sedate moments of Portishead’s Third (most notably, The Rip) and is just as immersive.

Subsequent tracks mostly build on the theme established from the first moment. Not Getting There utilises a low-level buzzing to build a sense of growing urgency, an undercurrent of burbling synths transforms Love or Prison, and Everything is Wrong relates its feeling of yearning and desperation through heartbeat drums and 12/8 time.

While the high points of Penny Sparkle are numerous, the sparseness and the re-treading of familiar ground can become slightly wearing occasionally. On more than one occasion, songs are prone to extended periods of lulling, and only the curios of odd sound effects or a daring chord change sustain your interest.

To some extent, Penny Sparkle feels more like a novel than an album. The cinematic sound and creating of instability means that you genuinely want to find out what happens next. Throughout its ten tracks, the off-kilter anxiety is ratcheted up and truly deserves a fitting climax that resolves all that has gone before. However, it doesn’t get it, as final track Spain is just more of the same. Perhaps mindful of the role this track could play, Blonde Redhead try their damnedest: there’s more atmosphere, more drama, more dynamics, but unfortunately it’s just more of the same. Penny Sparkle is certainly an interesting album, but more an album to appreciate rather than enjoy. It’s just such a shame it promises so much before lamely petering out.

Why The Beatles aren't over-rated

The following was written for a No Ripcord debate piece on whether The Beatles are over-rated...

The combination of hyperbole and hindsight could very well be the music critic’s worst enemy. The desperation of wanting to be the person who spots the hip new thing coupled with the fear of missing the boat on the latest act to hit big means that, occasionally, reviews and features heap more praise on an artist than they really merit. Add to this cocktail the element of a fast-approaching deadline and before you know it, Oasis’ Be Here Now has been proclaimed a universal masterpiece. Then, it’s too late, and it’s only when the impossible to ignore poke of hindsight arrives that everyone acknowledges that it’s not a masterpiece, but an ego-laden, coked-up mess of a record that no-one wants to hear again. Of course, the words that were originally written can’t be taken back, and the history music journalism is full of effusive reviews for truly terrible albums.

Yet one of the acts that seems immune to these revisions of opinion are those lovable, Liverpudlian mop-tops, The Beatles. They’re hardly unique in this position; you won’t get many articles entitled, “Now I’ve had a while to think about it, Bob Dylan / Ray Charles / Miles Davis / Kraftwerk / Leonard Cohen was a bit rubbish”. However, The Beatles were the only band to combine lasting critical acclaim with such enormous popularity and influence, and that can’t be an accident.

If you’re a fan of popular music in any of its multiple forms, being a fan of The Beatles is practically a corollary. Between Please Please Me in 1963 and Abbey Road in 1969 (or Let It Be in 1970, if you’re so inclined), The Beatles redefined the popular landscape, introduced new concepts to a mass audience and developed their sound in a way no band ever has in such a short space of time.

It may help to look at The Beatles as two separate bands: the knock-out-songs-every-couple-of-minutes group and the sonic-adventurer group, with 1965’s Rubber Soul charting the time the former metamorphosed into the latter. So, now, a little music might help, so go and put one of those early Beatles albums on, whichever one you like. Have a listen - brilliant, isn’t it? They may sound slightly anachronistic and naïve compared to the music of today but with, for example, I Saw Her Standing There, I Wanna Be Your Man, Can’t Buy Me Love, Eight Days a Week and Ticket to Ride, the quality of the writing and melodies can’t help but shine through. What’s also striking about those early records is the sheer urgency of the delivery. It’s as if they’re trying to burst through your speakers and when you consider how many gigs they were playing, how many songs they were writing and how much they were travelling, it’s just exhausting. Think of your favourite band and work out how long they took between their last two albums. The Beatles were churning out gold-plated, enduring pop records almost at a rate of two a year in their early career.

During this prolific formative period, The Beatles went against the received wisdom that you couldn’t write all the songs on your own album whilst retaining popularity. It’s only when you put something like that into context you’re able to see what a feat that is. An appreciation of music and a curious sensibility meant that The Beatles were alchemist magpies; assimilating what they loved and what fascinated them into an irresistible package.

The vast majority of bands would have been content to rest on their laurels after such success but The Beatles were always wanting to push the boundaries of popular song and explore further possibilities. Neither of the key songwriting team of Lennon and McCartney were classically trained, meaning that they just made chords that sounded good to them and fitted in with what they were trying to express. From Rubber Soul onwards, you can hear a dissatisfaction with their previous achievements manifesting itself in a yearning for something outside of the constraints of the pop music of the day.

The argument against the above is that The Beatles weren’t the innovators; they weren’t the first to discover Eastern mysticism and sitars, incongruous sound effects or the approach of changing tack altogether mid-song (see A Day in the Life). Whilst it’s difficult to refute those claims - how do you prove who was the first person to do anything? - the real genius of The Beatles came in merging these ideas into their records, taking previously specialist concepts into the mainstream and creating their own private universe of which the listener could inhabit with just a 12” record.

Appealing to the mass-market and being commercial may be seen as going against the ethics of art and expression, and may even raise accusations of “selling out” (something which seems almost quaint these days) but it’s yet another reason why The Beatles are still so revered these days and why an enterprising writer like myself is spending a sunny Sunday afternoon indoors singing their praises. Their early incarnation may seem like something you’d now liken to a boy band: identical uniforms, hoards of screaming females and songs about unnamed girls in order to make the hysterical 1960's teenager feel that they could well be the subject. It was a tactical masterstroke and The Beatles didn’t lose their ability to market themselves. In fact, they got cleverer.

How do you be taken as a serious act and still try and appeal to millions? Keep the matching uniforms but make them grown-up (Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band), say you’re making a concept album (Sgt. Pepper… again), play on the roof of your record company headquarters, say something outrageous that will be quoted for years to come (“Ringo isn’t the best drummer”, “we’re bigger than Jesus”, and so on). All things that may not have been exactly new, but things that the biggest band around hadn’t done before.

All of the above reasons - and many more - tell the story of why The Beatles weren’t over-rated and fully deserve their place at the top of the popular music pantheon. It’s a subject that could stretch out over pages and pages (you may not be entirely unsurprised to hear that this isn’t exactly the first piece of music journalism to conclude The Beatles were a bit better than your average beat combo) and it’s wonderful to think that over 40 years since their last album, The Beatles are still one of the most popular groups around.

One last parting shot before you’re free to resume your busy life. As important as all these aforementioned reasons are, not enough has been made of the single most important factor: the quality of the songs. It was touched upon when discussing the raw energy of the early years, but The Beatles never lost sight of why they were so popular in the first place, and endeavoured to still write to the best of their abilities throughout their career. They were incredibly blessed in the writing department: the best groups rely on a songwriting partnership where the two members bring out the best in one another and are free to bounce ideas around. Well, The Beatles had the best partnership in the history of popular music, as well as George Harrison; himself an incredibly competent songsmith. Hey, even the unfairly derided Ringo wrote a handful of better-than-average numbers (admit it; Octopus’s Garden is great). So, if you only take one thing away with you, it’s that you can ignore any hyperbole and with hindsight, recognise that The Beatles had the best songs - it really is as simple as that.

33 1/3: OK Computer

Dai Griffiths - 33 1/3: OK Computer

published 9 September 2004 by Continuum

Type “writing about music is like dancing about architecture” into Google and you get well over 800000 results; not bad for a quote that’s patently untrue. It’s a sound bite that’s taken on a life of its own, principally due to its inflammatory nature and “quotability”, rather than anything remotely fact-based. At its finest, writing about music is a wonderful thing; a great review, article or opinion piece can be persuasive, invigorating, challenging and entertaining, much in the same way music itself can be. One of the great things about music is that it’s near-indefinable and certain tracks mean different things to different people. This means that music doesn’t lend itself too well to academic appraisal, yet that is what Oxford Brookes lecturer, Dr. Dai Griffiths, seeks to do in his book on Radiohead’s OK Computer.

This isn’t at all to suggest that academia and pop music can’t be bedfellows - for instance, analysing a particular album and its place in the canon of the history of recorded music would be a more than valid study. However, OK Computer was only released in 1997, and while Dr. Griffith’s thesis is as engagingly written as you’d expect, it’s debatable whether breaking down each song into its constituent parts with details on bars per section, tempo and key signature is going to advance anyone’s appreciation of the album.

The books in the 33 1/3 series examine “classic” albums in detail and tend to be written by journalists or musicians rather than academics. I find it difficult not to take issue with the style of the OK Computer book, as the music I love is all about the way it makes me feel, and while I’m keen to know more about the making of a record and the circumstances around it, dissecting it as if it were a scientific experiment seems impersonally anodyne and leaves me cold. The fact that the average song length on OK Computer is greater than that of The Bends is immaterial; the reasons I like OK Computer are likely to be different to the reasons you like (or dislike) OK Computer and grouping the lyrical themes into nine distinct headings isn’t going to alter that one jot.

That said, Dr. Griffiths’ prose is very readable, and the section on the difference between CD and vinyl albums is incredibly interesting. Unfortunately, the conclusion he draws is incredibly sweeping and rushed, and his over-confident tone can be grating and smug. It’s a decent enough book and worthy reading for OK Computer obsessives, but it ultimately comes across as the wrong approach to take. With a style like that, you may as well be dancing about architecture.

Amanda Palmer Performs the Popular Hits of Radiohead on her Magical Ukulele

Amanda Palmer - Amanda Palmer Performs the Popular Hits of Radiohead on her Magical Ukulele

released 20 July 2010 on 8ft Records

After a protracted and well-documented battle, Amanda Palmer is free from her recording contract. Is there any better way of giving the middle finger to your previous employers than a leftfield project no self-respecting record company would go near - an album of Radiohead covers, played on the ukulele, at a cut-down price? Not even ten days after its release, the limited edition vinyl release sold out and the vinyl/t-shirt/button bundle has sold out. Hell, even all six “I Painted This Fucking Ukulele Myself” bundles have sold out.

Unsurprisingly, however, upon listening to 'APPTPHOROHMU', it soon becomes clear that it’s little more than a stop-gap: something to stay in contact with her fanbase and make a statement with. It really is exactly what the title says; Radiohead songs played on the ukulele, and little else. The novelty of hearing these well-known songs on a relatively unusual instrument soon wears off and other than the contrast of having female vocals instead of Thom Yorke’s distinctive wail, there really is nothing added to the mix here.

Fake Plastic Trees and High and Dry are fairly dull when stripped down, and without percussion they struggle to reach the emotional peaks of the originals. Creep is performed in a lilting, Hawaiian style and, for no apparent reason, there are two near-identical live performances - one with audience, one without. Give Palmer her dues though, her attempt to recreate Jonny Greenwood’s primal guitar sturm und drang is admirable, even if it does lack the nihilistic effect on a ukulele.

Oddly enough, the least guitar-based song, Idioteque, is one of the highlights. Although it may lack the intensity and skittering beats of the Kid A version, it showcases what a melodious piece of work it actually is. The only track fit to hold a candle to the Oxford band, though, is OK Computer's Exit Music (for a Film). It features no ukulele and is probably the only non-obvious choice on the EP, but it retains the drama and tension which makes the original so compelling.

Other than to satisfy your curiosity, this EP really isn’t worth your time. A quick listen will just make you want to go and put your Radiohead albums on to hear it done properly. It’s hard not to admire her chutzpah though - to paraphrase words constantly misattributed to Voltaire: I may not agree with Amanda Palmer releasing an album of Radiohead covers played on the ukulele, but I’ll defend to the death her right to do so.