In five nasty minutes listening to the radio this morning, I learnt that today was the centre-point of London’s record-breaking “level three” heat wave, which will eventually explode into violent and unpredictable weather patterns. I also learnt that we were now in “phase six” of the swine flu pandemic, and that right now the terrorist alert is “severe”, which is another way of saying that it’s more likely that your bus to work will soon be converted into a chemical warhead. Read more »
The cutting-edge world of the music industry
Male Bonding played at our issue launch last week and it was pretty sweet. You know what would have been even sweeter? If they had paid us £200 for the privilege. Unfortunately we’re not as savvy as the guys at Playground Magazine, as we found out from this altercation which was posted on the Male Bonding blog yesterday. God, music industry guys are just the coolest!
Frankmusik trails bullshit around the nation
So ten days ago, majorly-hyped pop contender Frankmusik was dropped in a field in Scotland, with only twenty quid and his Blackberry. He was then asked to make it back to London while playing a succession of gigs that constitute his tour. More accurately, of course, Frankmusik’s been dropped in a field with twenty quid, his Blackberry © ® (TM) and a major cross-platform marketing campaign, driven by virals and street teams, including mailouts to all major news sources, a pair of Channel 4 cameramen updating his Myspace with clips of his continuing adventures on a daily basis, and GPS tracking his every move and uploading it to a map on his personal website while potted-summaries of his days are blogged by some or other backroom boyo on his official website. Read more »
Relaunching Morrissey
Morrissey is in clear need of a relaunch. Holding a baby on the cover of Years Of Refusal was a start. The image, of course, is richly ironic, as it is well known in the pop world that he doesn’t have genitals. Too bad the visual hi-jinx has been nixed by the very middling single offered from his forthcoming shitbinge of an album. Frankly, the quiffy honey-monster panders to formula so strongly nowadays that it’s become something of a chore to track-skip through his records. After all, baby or no, everyone knows Years Of Refusal is likely to contain songs in the following keys:
Rockwell reviews Rockwell
Why’s this album called Rockwell? I’m called Rockwell. It better well rock.
I guess to successfully ‘review’ an album you should probably listen to it right the way through. However, this reminded me of Alanis Morissette so much in the first 28 seconds that I skipped straight through to the second track. It was a bit ‘dancey’ so instead of skipping I decided to pause it completely and check the song titles for anything that sounded half decent. ‘Deer Hunting Camp 17′, ‘Living in Danger’ and ‘Wheelpusher’ weren’t really doing it for me, but the final track ‘Air is Nothing’ sounded like it might be ok. Unfortunately it sounded like fucking Cat Power. I like Cat Power as much as the next man but if I wanted to listen to Cat Power I would. I still have no idea why this album is called Rockwell. Oh and it was produced by Steve Albini.
Rockwell
Hypothetical Pop Murderers 2009?
According to every magazine/website/zeitgeist newsletter, there are a whole lot of exciting new bands you will be hearing more of this year. Hooray. According to general laws of statistics, each of them has a hypothetical propensity to kill. Wouldn’t it be great if one of them committed a murder at some point during 2009? Just think: Indie gossip would all be about CSI-style corpse decomposition periods and semen samples, or maybe more retro talk of candlesticks and lead pipes. With that in mind, we’re offering the music press the chance to get a jump on the game, by ranking 2009’s potential indie breakouts in terms of their murderous proclivities, using nothing more than Poirot-like little grey cells. Elementary findings follow. Read more »
‘Wonky’ Pop is Dead, ‘Edgy’ Pop Lives
Alphabeat have been dropped. Thank fuck for that. Hopefully we’ll never have to hear the phrase ‘wonky pop’ ever again. I’m sorry Peter Robinson, I love you, but I hate Wanky Pap. Alphabeat - a band only liked by apologetic freelance music journalists who use phrases like: “Perfect pop song”, can’t give any hip-hop record under 8/10 and think Gwen Steffani isn’t a total fucking douche.
More Rap Beef
If 2008 will be remembered for anything, it will go down as the year that faceless enigmas like Burial, Neckface and Banksy have been outed. You can now add my name to that list because my identity has just been revealed by Tinchy Stryder.
How to be the Biggest Band of Next Year
Once, making it to the top in the music industry required hard work, talent and timing. Thankfully, those days are long since over. No, nowadays all you need is a copy of our guide to making it in the biz, Zane’s mobby number and a burgeoning friendship with Dev Hynes. Just stick these simple rules to your fridge, and within no time at all, you too can be the band that everyone dismisses as pure hype.
