LOVVERS
OCD Go Go Girls
Wichita
I desperately wanted to hate this – everything about this band has always screamed “AVOID” at me in huge elephant letters. However, they bypass the wanky sub-No Age teen thrills of their peers and go straight for a Real Kids/Television/Flamin’ Groovies dirty power-pop jugular. Seems almost entirely engineered for sad, middle-aged record collector scum like me, so clearly they’re never actually going to get any bigger.
9
LEICESTER BANGS
THE BLACKOUT
Save Our Selves
Epitaph
We need a government scheme to be sent to South Wales to sort out whatever problems are inspiring the high propensity of terrible emo bands that I have to review every week. The campaign slogan is “Get over it, or get on with it.”
2
BEN MORGAN
ANTONY & THE JOHNSONS
Aeon/Crazy In Love
Secretly Canadian
If you can give me a better example of the death of popular culture than the “zany cover version”, I’ll eat my wig. A shortcut to radio play and instant notoriety, it’s a cack-handed device. Dame Hegarty just shat everything cool about himself down his suspenders.
5
TED WON
BEASTIE BOYS
Too Many Rappers
Capitol
It may not lead to quite Micky Jackson levels of nostalgia, but get ready to be forcibly refamiliarised with the Beasties’ back catalogue should MCA cop it to the big C. Perhaps fate is determined to prove their boasts of “Too Many Rappers” right by taking them out one-by-one. This is mediocre rap that’s not as good as anything on their first three albums.
6
GRAN ROYAL
CROCODILES
I Wanna Kill/Here Comes The Sky
Sexbeat
Jesus and the Mary Chain hair and shades? Check. Complicated ex-members-of back story? Check. Neo-Velvets guitar lines? Check. My Blood Valentine gauze of distortion? Check. Song titles that sound like they took longer to come up with than the actual songs? Check. Man, if they weren’t so damn good it would easy to hate these guys.
9
ALEX PETRI-DISH
THE BREEDERS
Fate To Fatal
Self-released
The Deal sisters return. Deal with it.
7
DEAL OR NO DEAL
CASIO KIDS
Finn Bikkjen
Moshi Moshi
Some people think that real dedication should earn respect, but when you are 100 per cent dedicated to making the most irritating, twee, computer game soundtrack indie then you get 1 out of 10.
1
HAIRY JADAMS
EMINEM
Beautiful
Polydor
Why does he still bleach his hair? Who does he think he is? Gazza in 1996? At least Gazza is funny. This guy is a boring prick. This song is so boring, you can already guess what he’s rapping about. “I’m so fucking depressed… just remember you’re beautiful”, etc, etc. He sounds like Christina Aguilera. Man, I’m so on Mariah’s side.
0
BO RING
GIRLS CAN’T CATCH
Keep Your Head Up
Polydor
I can’t believe how much shit gets released every week. I am trying to write reviews and all I can think is “Who runs these companies? What are their names? Can I exhume their grandparents to teach them a lesson?”
0
GUY HANDS
ITALO BROTHERS
Stamp On The Ground
Universal
AAAAAAAAAAARGH.
-5
PETE WRONG
MALCOLM MIDDLETON
Zero
Full Time Hobby
Much of Middleton’s post-Arab Strap solo ditties have been a little like stealth bombers. They fool you into thinking they’ll be depressing dirges of unfettered melancholy by sheer strength of title, then hoodwink you into a great mood with their innocent sentiment.
8
PERRY NUTKINS
Yet another Pink song that mixes anger and the painful break-up with long-term beau Carey Hart with tantalising glimpses of childhood trauma and abandonment issues. Don’t worry though, like all the others, it crams these heavyweight topics into some jaunty funky wah-wah Pro Tools pop with a nice chorus. She’s like the illegitimate child of Pat Benatar and Jeremy Kyle. Get her some therapy for God’s sake! She’s only one Hot Topic-based metaphor away from a full on Britney-style breakdown!
6
JULIA EBOLA
RAYGUN
Just Because
RCA Records
“Just Because” is definitely not a good enough excuse for this turd of a record.
0
GAYLE MARCUS
SAVING AIMEE
We’re The Good Guys
Hey You!
So it seems like all that’s left for me to review this week are singles designed to make me want to shoot myself. Saving Aimee are not the Good Guys, they’re purveyors of wholly awful, slightly emo, generic synth-rock, and are clearly bastards made of shit.
1
JOEL EDMONDS
SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO
Audacity of Huge
Wichita
I suppose if you have a massive hit that inhabits the minds of half the population for a month and comes to represent the whole of Bestival, 2007 for all the people who were there, it’s tempting to try and recreate it ad nauseum.
5
EOIN HAND
I was set to barf all over this one’s stupid stencil meets urban signage sleeve as I was sure it was some strain of mutant tech-hyphy-cumbia-clownstep (or whatever it is that Prancehall made up for his Guardian column this week). Turns out Buraka are still rocking their cheeky Portuguese take on Angolan kuduro that they’ve fizzed up with a bunch of electronic bleeps and buzzes, and it’s still pretty palatable. Who’d have thunk it?
8
GRUCE BROBBELAAR
THE THIRD DEGREE
Mercy
Tri-Sound
Gotta say, I have no idea who this is aimed at exactly. It sounds like KFC music for demented old men with incontinence. Luckily old men with incontinence don’t eat at KFC. Anyways, might be good for a Gala Bingo advert one day, guys. Fingers crossed.
3
EYE SUCK
TINCHY STRYDER FEAT. AMELLE.
Never Leave You
Universal
I am the guy who resizes the pics for the Vice Singles Club. I noticed while I was doing this that nobody had reviewed Tinchy Stryder. So here I go, ignoring all advice, and judging it on its cover: Do you really want to listen to some child from London dressed as an American wearing a piece of branded multi-platform advertising and rapping about love? Obviously not.
-27
BANNY DAKER
VAGABOND
Don’t Wanna Run No More
Polydor
This sounds like The Kooks singing The Lighthouse Family and the video is the most egotistical thing I’ve seen since “Somewhere Else” by Razorlight. Doubtless they’d have been huge in 2005, but today we can all laugh at them, because Radio 1 won’t play anything with a guitar anymore. So all that selling out was worth absolutely nothing. Bad luck, Vagabond.
0
JOHNNY BOVRIL
THE XX
Basic Space
Young Turks
When I tell people I like soul music, I know from the start that they are thinking I like Taio Cruz and Simon Webb. It must be similar for people who like The XX and tell me they like indie, I just assume it’s all Kaiser Chiefs and Razorlight. Must annoy them – or it would if they knew (or if they cared, which they might not, of course).
9
JESU CRISTO
YOUNG REBEL SET
If I Was
Ignition Records
These guys are really good. So good in fact that I am selling all my possessions to follow them on tour and maybe hang backstage one night with the hope of making out with the drummer. Or bassist. Actually, I don’t know who’s cuter. Anyway, that would make my whole week. Actually, that would make my hole weak.
11
PAMELA DE BARRED
August 4th, 2009 @ 08:05
