Jag ska på fest i kväll och som ni ser har jag höga förväntningar…

Och då syftar jag förstås på rubriken, inte bilden.

Att det kommer att spelas hårdrock eller punk kan jag nog glömma, och då är det bara att hoppas på Britpop. En musikstil som är smittsamt trallvänlig och alltid får mig på bra humör!
….The Fratellis har jag aldrig hört förut, men via Spotifys vindlande vägar hittade jag precis låten Chelsea Dagger som fick mig på riktigt partyhumör.
Den här glada amatörvideon höjde humöret ytterligare!

Länkar till andra bloggar om: Britpop, The Fratellis, Pop, Rock, musik, underhållning,

Ho appena finito di leggere Rock Trip di Kevin Sampson (titolo originale Powder), storia di una fantomatica band di Liverpool, i Grams, dal successo dirompente quanto effimero. Non è un capolavoro, anzi, ma la storia è coinvolgente, soprattutto nella parte iniziale, quella dell’ascesa, il declino è trattato in modo un po’ frettoloso.
Comunque, è un libro intriso di britpop, pubblicato nel 1999, quando il britpop, almeno per quanto riguarda la sua ondata originale, era già morto. Ho amato gran parte di quel movimento, da buon beatlesiano mi piaceva cogliere le citazioni, gli omaggi. Mi sono appassionato alla sfida Blur/Oasis e, allora con un po’ di dubbi dovuti forse all’età e alle chitarre rumorose degli Oasis, ora più convintamente tenevo per i Blur, più creativi, più Ray Davies, più tutto.
Questa cassettina da weekend è dedicata al britpop, non sono i miei dieci pezzi preferiti, non sono i dieci pezzi migliori, non sono dieci pezzi dei dieci artisti più rappresentativi del movimento. Sono dieci pezzi che mi piacciono e per questo vanno presi. Ma anche no. Buon weekend. Play.

Beautiful ones – Suede

Country house – Blur

Live forever – Oasis

Common people – Pulp

This is the one – Stone Roses

What do I do now? – Sleeper

Bittersweet Symphony – Verve

Come back to what you know – Embrace

Connection – Elastica

The day we caught the train  – Ocean Colour Scene

Der erste große Erfolg für den exzentrischen Jarvis Cocker und seine Jungs. Danach ging es steil bergauf mit der Karriere und zahlreiche Hits folgten. Für viele (auch für mich) sind sie die Wegbereiter des BritPop, lange vor Blur und ganz lange vor den völlig überschätzten Oasis.

B-sides de uma das bandas mais famosas do britpop.

Faixas do álbum:

1. Standing On My Own

2. 20

3. 1922

4. All The Young Dudes (live Jools Holland show)

5. Baby One More Time

6. Beautiful Bird

7. Be My Baby

8. City In The Rain

9. Days of Our Lives

10. Everyday Faces

11. Good Feeling

12. Good Time Girls

13. Hazy Shades Of Gold

14. Here Comes The Sun (Live Beatles Cover)

15. High As A Kite

16. Just The Faces Change

17. Killer Queen

18. Reason

19. Ring Out The Bell

20. River

21. Rock ‘N’ (Salad) Roll

22. Slide Show (Live at the Link Cafe)

23. The Connection

24. The Urge For Going

25. The Weight

26. Unbelievers

27. Village Man

28. We Are Monkeys

29. Whenever She Comes Around

30. When I’m Feeling Blue

31. Where Is The Love

32. Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah

LINK – B-Sides

Parece com? Keane, Starsailor.

Vídeo com a música Where Is The Love.

Enjoy o/

A Weezer soha nem volt az a csapat, akik nagy megfejtésekkel bombázták volna a zenei életet, de mégis mindig sikerült olyan lemezeket kihozniuk, amit az ember akár évekkel később is szívesen hallgat. A ‘92-ben alakult kaliforniai pop-punk négyes idén is előrukkolt egy új albummal, mely immár a hetedik a ‘94-ben megjelent “Weezer” óta.
Az új, “Raditude” című korong…

rögtön egy ugrálós, táncolós slágerdallal, az “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You to) I Want You To“-val indul, melyhez a srácok már le is forgatták első klipjüket. Hát érdekes lett, ajánlom mindenki figyelmébe (a cikk végén meg is találjátok!), van benne szerelem, dráma, made in hungaria és horror. A “Raditude” tulajdonképpen elejétől végéig viszi tovább ezt a vonalat, persze mindenféle betétekkel, így az “I’m your Daddy” melankolikusabb hangvételétől a Lil Wayne-nel közösen rögzített “Can’t Stop Partying” electro beütésű hangzásától a britpop-os “Love is the Answer“-ig. Kiemelném még a “Let it all Hang out” kezdő gitár riffjét, ami engem nagyon emlékeztetett vmire… Talán a Beverly Hills 90210 főcímzenéjére, de ki tudja… A lemezt záró “I Don’t want to let you go” külön figyelmet érdemel, hiszen egy-két a korongon szereplő dallal ellentétben ez is azok közé tartozik, amelyek akár külön is megállnák a helyüket, sőt a téli időszakban akár a rádiókból is szívesen viszont hallanánk. Ezt a dalt azonban követi még egy, nevezetesen a “Turn Me Round“, ami enyhén grunge beütésével egy újabb színfoltja lett a lemeznek.
A lényeg tehát, hogy rendkívül szórakoztató, és élvezhető anyagot hoztak össze ismét a srácok, az egy lemezes “Raditude” önmagában is egy újabb Weezer-élményt hordoz magában, de a deluxe verzió is érdekesre sikeredett, ugyanis négy további dal is helyet kapott rajta. Érdemes emellett arra is odafigyelni, hogy a borítót díszítő kép egy National Geographic díjával kitüntetett alkotás, amin egy Sidney nevű kutya látható ugrás közben. Wow.

10/10

Töltsd le itt: http://www.songo.hu/46041/207206/8/Weezer/Zeneletoltes.aspx

Vedd meg itt: http://bookline.hu/product/home!execute.action?id=8089&type=62&_v=Weezer_Raditude

I went to see Mr Luke Haines at the Kilburn Luminaire last night. I was running late, as I didn’t finish work until 9 and, it transpired, the former Auteurs frontman was due onstage at a frustratingly early 9.15. What’s more, he was most prompt.

I arrived to a packed venue full of extremely tall people, but fortunately we were able to find a spot at the back, on some steps, so that we were even able to see the misanthrope in chief. We’d missed 20 minutes or so of his set, including the wonderful Suburban Morning, and we arrived half-way through new album closer “21st century man”, which is Haines’ self-obsessed equivalent to “We Didn’t Start The Fire”. Except good. I mean, here’s him on the 1980s:

” David Bowie lost it for years /died a death in his slap-bass phase / everybody else died of aids”

and here’s the nineties:

“What do you do after you’ve made your masterpiece / that’s what I did in the nineties / I was all over the nineties / I was all over the nineties”

That verse is particularly good because you know he thoroughly means it and thoroughly doesn’t mean it at the same time.

Anyway, the rest of the gig was excellent, despite my unfortunate right-at-the-back position. The Kilburn Luminaire is known for its enlightened/fascist approach to those that talk during gigs: there are big signs up everywhere that basically go “IF YOU WANT TO TALK WHILE THE MUSICIANS ARE PLAYING THEN FUCK OFF DOWNSTAIRS, SCUM. I MEAN, FOR FUCK’S SAKE – WHAT’S THE POINT IN GOING TO A GIG IF YOU’RE NOT EVEN GOING TO LISTEN?”, except more succinct. It’s a bit like how trains have only one train carriage nowadays where you’re NOT expected to shout into a phone for the whole journey. The Luminaire is the quiet carriage of the London gigging scene.

Inevitably there were some people behind us talking. I did my duty and asked them to keep it down; they looked outraged, but kind of complied. So I was able to enjoy Haines’ songs about Yorkshire, mass-murderers, paedophiles, the seventies, unsolved child murderers, and how Guildford is the Promised Land in relative peace.

There was also one very drunk guy in front of us who staggered around singing all the songs about murder at the top of his voice, staring around wide-eyed to make sure we all knew the words too. And presumably planning to murder us if we didn’t.

The set finished with two songs from his funk album about German domestic terrorism, Baader Meinhof. Excellent stuff, but it wasn’t Lenny Valentino or the other early Auteurs ‘hits’ that the crowd were shouting for. “That’s probably as likely as Graham Coxon playing Country House”, I said to Morgan.

Then he came back on and played Lenny Valentino, and the two ladies who had been sat at the back chatting away for the whole gig suddenly CAME TO LIFE. They launched themselves off their sofa of gossip, and danced and FRUGGED along to the whole tune and its three false endings. I still have no idea what Lenny Valentino is about.

Afterwards I had a pint with Jason and his lovely blogger chums, one of whom had a better gig librarian tale than I: he told a woman to “Shut the fuck up”.

Turns out it was Luke Haines’ wife.

Without wanting to come across as some sad old thirty-something obsessed with the music of his teenage years, I thought I’d write one last post (this week at least) about another forgotten hero of the Britpop years, Brian Cannon.

I’m a design junkie. Always have been – I regularly lecture my students about appropriate font choice when they hand essays and creative writing to me. I’ve bought a lot of albums and a fair few books based almost entirely on their covers. (Velvet Crush’s Teenage Symphonies To God being a good example – hadn’t even heard of them, but loved the design of the cover.)

Brian Cannon operated a design firm called Microdot, who were responsible for a great many album and single sleeves in the early-to-mid 1990s. There was always something really enigmatic about the photos he either took or chose, and even now, whatever your thoughts about the music within, I think it’s pretty obvious that his record sleeves have stood the test of time. Here are a few of my favourites:

Oasis - Definitely Maybe

Verve - Gravity Grave

Suede - Dog Man Star

The Verve - This Is Music

Cannon pretty much disappeared towards the end of the 1990s. I can’t remember what the last release with a Microdot sleeve that I bought was, but it was probably one of those horrible singles from Oasis’ cocaine psychosis album Be Here Now. Since then he appears to have gone to ground, although there have been some odd stories about his post-Microdot career appearing from time to time.  (I regularly Google his name, just to see if he’s working again.) There’s a bit of a thread about Cannon here, containing lots of hearsay I’d rather not report as fact. However, sordid tales of hotel room fires, bankruptcy, and returning to Wigan to drive minicabs all suggest, at the very least, that Brian’s no longer a high profile name in the design business. Which is a tragedy. In my opinion he was one of the finest graphic designers of the 1990s, and his designes captured the zeitgeist of the Britpop scene just as much as the music found within them.

No 90s band pulled off the phoenix-rising-from-the-ashes act quite as well as Suede. Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler were widely regarded at the time as possibly the best British songwriting partnership since Morrissey and Marr. The band released a critically lauded and extremely successful debut album in 1993. However, on the eve of the release of their second, even more ambitions sophmore album, Dog Man Star, mercurial guitarist Butler walked out of the band in a huff.* To the utter disbelief of punters everywhere, the band didn’t split. Rather, they recruited a 17 year old schoolboy, Richard Oakes, to replace him. Cue a collective ‘what the f**k’ from the UK music press and fans alike.

Fast forward two years, and Suede release Coming Up, an album that spawns five hit singles. Richard Oakes, barely 20, has co-written a massively successful album. Two more albums follow – 1999’s Head Music and 2002’s A New Morning. By the time Suede call it quits at the end of 2003, Richard Oakes has written more songs and had more chart singles than Bernard Butler. (Butler, in the meantime, has embarked on a solo career, made two albums with David McAlmont, and will go on to reunite with Brett Anderson as The Tears and then co-write/produce an album for Welsh songstress Duffy.)

My question for today, then, is. whatever happened to Richard Oakes? Since the demise of Suede six years ago, he has all but disappeared. He’s still only 33 years old, so I doubt he’s semi-retired and living somewhere in rural England. To the best of my knowledge he’s not played in public since the last Suede gigs, and there is virtually nothing about him on the internet, other than a pithy Wikipedia entry that states that he’s “working … on new material”. (Which, really, is what everyone’s Wikipedia entry says, isn’t it?) He’s probably the only living musician without an official MySpace page. How can someone who was that successful just disappear so completely?

* It’s worth mentioning what it was like to be a fan of British music in the early/mid 90s. In those internet-free days, getting information about the very existence of bands was difficult. NME – usually the most ‘up to date’ source of information – arrived in New Zealand via sea freight at least two months after it came out in the UK. Despite being a huge Suede fan, I didn’t know the band had split for a few months after it was announced in the UK press. A few years later, when British magazines started getting airfreighted in, I used to drive halfway across the city to spend an hour or so in Magazino in Newmarket, just so I could read the latest copies of the NME, Melody Maker, Vox, Select, Q (which actually used to be quite good) and Mojo to find out about new releases. Then I’d wait ’til Monday and phone Marbecks Records to see whether they had the albums I wanted. Invariably they didn’t. So they’d order them for me, and I’d wait another two months for them to arrive. Which is why no one loves the internet more than me.

Tracklist

CD1
1. Superman
2. Doorman
3. A Thousand Trees
4. Devil
5. Mr Writer
6. Pedalpusher
7. Deadhead
8. Maybe Tomorrow
9. The Bartender And The Thief
10. Local Boy In The Photograph

CD2
1. Hurry Up And Wait
2. Madame Helga
3. Vegas Two Times
4. Carrot Cake And Wine
5. I’m Alright (You Gotta Go There To Come Back)
6. Jayne
7. Too Many Sandwiches
8. Traffic
9. Just Looking
10. Dakota

Download Stereophonics – Live from Dakota 2006 part 1:

Tracklist

1. Vegas Two Times
2. Lying in the Sun
3. Mr. Writer
4. Step on My Old Size Nines
5. Have a Nice Day
6. Nice to Be Out
7. Watch Them Fly Sundays
8. Everyday I Think of Money
9. Maybe
10. Caravan Holiday
11. Rooftop

Download Stereophonics – Just Enough Education To Perform 2001 part 1:

Fünf Alben in 15 Jahren und der Erfolg der schottisch-irischen Band „Snow Patrol“ ist nicht mehr aufzuhalten. Der kommerzielle Durchbruch ließ zwar lange auf sich warten, aber mit dem Hit „Chasing Cars“ konnte sich die fünfköpfige Band dauerhaft in die Charts katapultieren. Pünktlich zur romantischen Weihnachtzeit brachten sie diesen Monat nun ihr erstes „Best Of“-Album mit dem Titel „Up to now“ raus!

© Universal

Die Alternative Rock-Band hat 30 Songs auf 2 CDs gepackt, wobei auch Neues und Unveröffentlichtes geboten wird. Gary Lightbody, der Leadsänger der Band äußert sich zum neuen Album wie folgt: “It’s a portrait of us as a band, warts and all. We’ve climbed a hill and now we’re looking back and taking in the view for a bit. It’s nice to show people that we didn’t just arrive overnight.” Eins der drei brandneuen Songs die auf der “Up to now”-CD zu finden sind ist „Just say yes“ – die neue Single.

Hier ist die genaue Trackliste des neuen Longplayers von „Snow Patrol“:

CD1

1. Chocolate
2. Chasing Cars
3. Crack The Shutters
4. Set The Fire To The Third Bar
5. Crazy In Love
6. Just Say Yes
7. Batten Down The Hatch
8. You’re All I Have
9. Hands Open
10. Cartwheels
11. The Planets Bend Between Us (2009 Version)
12. Ask Me How I Am
13. On-Off
14. Making Enemies
15. Run (Live at the Union Chapel)

CD2

1. Take Back the City
2. Shut Your Eyes
3. An Olive Grove Facing The Sea (2009 Version)
4. Run
5. Give Me Strength
6. Signal Fire
7. Spitting Games
8. Open Your Eyes
9. Dark Roman Wine
10. Fifteen Minutes Old
11. You Are My Joy
12. Golden Floor
13. Starfighter Pilot
14. PPP
15. Chasing Cars (Live at the Union Chapel)

Leider sind die Poprocker in diesem Jahr nur noch in Großbritannien und Irland live unterwegs, aber sie werden im nächsten Jahr bestimmt auf große Europatour gehen und auch in Österreich wieder einmal vorbeischauen. Beim diesjährigen Donauinselfest haben sie die Menge zum Toben gebracht und so werden sie uns sicher bald wieder die Ehre erweisen!

do blip.

The Boo Radleys – Wake Up Boo
The La’s – There She Goes
The Stone Roses – I Wanna Be Adored
Suede – New Generation
Inspiral Carpets – This Is How It Feels
The Charlatans – The Only One I Know
Lush – Ladykillers
Blur – There’s No Other Way
Manic Street Preachers – you stole the sun from my heart
Elastica – Connection
Suede – Trash
Pulp – Disco 2000
Gene – Fighting Fit
Ocean Colour Scene – The Day We Caught The Train
Ash – Girl From Mars
Manic Street Preachers – A Design For Life
The Verve – Love Is Noise
Idlewild – Little Discourage
Feeder – Buck Rogers
Super Furry Animals – Something 4 The Weekend
The Auteurs – Lenny Valentino
Saint Etienne – You’re In A Bad Way
Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci – Spanish Dance Troupe
Happy Mondays – Kinky Afro
Black Grape – Kelly’s Heroes
The Electric Soft Parade – Empty At The End
Embrace – Ashes
Athlete – Half Light
JJ72 – October Swimmer
Lightning Seeds – Change
Primal Scream – Rocks
The Dandy Warhols – Bohemian Like You

When seemingly everyone in the world was wearing Kurt Cobain* t-shirts, fixating over Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam’s Vitalogy album, I was flying the flag for Englishness. Ironic, really, given that I’ve no British ancestry to speak of (Irish on my mum’s side, Danish on my dad’s) and, given the choice of living in London or any large American city, I’d choose the US in a flash. Still, sludgy Sabbath-esque chords, flannel shirts and earnest warbly voices were not my thing in 1992. Nor are they now. Rejecting the cut-off army pants, long hair and goatees of my peers, in 1994 I was opting instead to try to pull off some kind of Antipodean take on Britpop. Of course, I was too chubby and too uncool to ever be able to look like Brett Anderson or Richard Ashcroft.

Why am I writing this? I’ve just put on The Boo Radley’s Wake Up! album for the first time in a few years, and am wallowing in the memories. God it’s good. Like many of their contemporaries, The Boo Radleys were briefly massive – with proper top 10 hits, magazine covers etc. – and then, just as suddenly, completely forgotten to all but a few, destined to appear on some sort of 1990s one hit wonders album. The same thing happened to so many of the bands I loved in the mid-90s – Gene, Marion, The Auteurs, Geneva, Mansun and even Suede to an extent. Caught up in the zeitgiest of Britpop, the music papers excitedly championed each new group of twentysomethings with a guitar/bass/drums lineup as “the next thing”. Appearances on Later … with Jools Holland and Top Of The Pops would follow. And then, for most of these bands … nothing. Other albums may have followed, but by late 1997 it was all but over for everyone other than juggernauts like Oasis and Blur. Marion had disappeared into heroin addiction and second-album hell. Gene were playing to smaller crowds and chancers like Menswe@r had been laughed off the stage. A wave of earnestness swept through the British music scene – even the once dapper Blur started sporting stubble and wearing American skatewear and baseball caps, and bands like The Verve and Radiohead took centrestage.

The Boo Radleys - you know a band has image problems when you have to tuck the songwriter and singer off to the back and sides and put the bass player front and centre

Wake Up! isn’t The Boo Radleys’ best album (that accolade goes to 1993’s Giant Steps – a sprawling, psychedelic masterpiece) but it’s a mighty fine one. Frontloaded with killer singles Wake Up Boo!, It’s Lulu and Find The Answer Within, the album starts with a bang. although it’s the second half of the record where things get really interesting, with weird, psychedelic songs that merge MBV-feedback with Smile-psychedelia. The whole thing is melodic gold – killer chorus after killer chorus. Possibly depressed about having to play Wake Up Boo! over and over again to a bunch of lagered up yoofs, the band decamped and reemerged a few years later with a very different album, C’mon Kids, which kept the killer melodies but wrapped them in searing, ear-bleedingly loud guitars and (even weirder) psychedelia. To this day, I still think I’m the only person in the Southern Hemisphere who still likes it. A final album, Kingsize (good in bits, but overly long) followed in 1998, after which principal songwriter Martin Carr made albums under the name Brave Captain.

I think I’ll write a bit more about some of the other forgotten musical heroes of my teens over the next few weeks. These bands operated in the final heyday of the print-based music press – at the time there were so many UK music magazine devoted to so-called ‘indie’ music – the NME, Melody Maker, Select and Vox spring immediately to mind – but there’s so little on the internet about many of my old favourites. Which seems a little sad. Even though, with the benefit of hindsight, much of the music I was so passionate about in the mid-90s hasn’t exactly achieved classic status, most of it stands up pretty well and still gets a semi-regular airing on my stereo. It was hardly Beatlemania or T.Rextasy, but, living in New Zealand and buying the NME every week, it really feel like me and a few friends were part some something pretty important, pretty special.

* I still really like Nirvana, and am convinced that I was the first person at my high school to have a copy of Nevermind, copied from the CD collection of a friend’s incredibly hip older sister. I played it at school camp at the beginning of 1992, and was confronted by cries of ‘what is this shit’ from my peers. (I wasn’t very popular, as you may have gathered.) Of course, six months later all those douchebags were big fans, rendering the music almost listenable by association.

Okay so second installment and I already fail to get it done on time! I blame booze, football and a mediocre metal band, and I apologise if that excuse gets tired throughout this year (hopefully not the metal band one though). My second choice was easy; song two of the blog has to be ‘Song 2′ by Blur.

This song is one of the first thought of when asked to name a Blur song despite it sounding nothing like their other output. It is claimed that this was their attempt at a parody of the American grunge movement but, much like Beastie Boys did with ‘Fight For Your Right’, it ended up being embraced by the exact same music scene that they were poking fun at. Upon it’s release it was everywhere; adverts, video games and drunk blokes singing ‘Woohoo’ repeatedly at the back of night buses, and even now it’s their most played on Spotify. I think that it’s this over-exposure that has seen my appreciation for this song wane.

I mostly blame clubs. It is played almost anywhere and everywhere that would or could normally play this kind of music. If you go to a ‘any music goes’ kind of club you can bet that one of the ladz that has spilled out of Yates will request it and proceed to throw himself around like the prize-prick that he is, while pretentious indie clubs will choose between this or ‘Girls & Boys’ to play as one of their ‘hits that everyone will know’. The fact that it is also often seen by both of those audiences as a ‘heavy’ song means that it seems to get played even more.

Listening to it now, whilst trying my best to hear it anew, it really is a very good pop song, definitely grunge but then definitely Blur too. Damon’s half-arsed vocals, that tended to slip into not-arsed when performing live, are just right and it is a song made to make you want to throw yourself around. The thing is that it just won’t stop being played which just makes me dislike the song more. Will it ever get to the point where it could be missed enough for me to actually enjoy? It probably has as much chance as Chumbawamba.

Silentmary has something sweet for all the for the crawlers, the twisters, the screamers, the tasters, the spinners, the liars, the scratchers, the fighters, the dancers around!

In fiecare joi, incepand cu ora 22.00, Rocka Rolla va invita la

Sweet Thursday – Alternative party!

O combinatie de alternative rock,  indie, indietronica, electroclash, britpop, punk mixata de Silentmary,  pentru  un party tematic  care va ocupa serile de joi in Rocka Rolla si in agendele voastre!

Fara alte cuvinte, va asteptam in fiecare joi, de la ora 22.00 in Lipscani nr 19 pentru o seara de alternative rock!

PS: Joia aceasta tema este Spin Spin Sugar, iar intrarea este libera!

Now we know it’s 23 years ago. You wouldn’t find a crazed-eyed maverick like Pete Wylie in the charts today, ranting his own agenda and making music so vast it thumbs its nose at categorisation (although I imagine iTunes will say ‘rock’). And that’s a bad thing, believe me (“I wish you’d believe me”). We don’t need Cowell-spawned dinky-Robbies and mini-Mariahs, we need lunatics, and not just slightly odd people like the Black Eyed Peas.

For all that, ‘Sinful!’ is fairly straight, just bold beyond its arrangement. It wasn’t a fluke either, as Wylie and Wah! flirted with modest chart placings for over a decade. Then Britpop came and everything interesting died.

That’s hyperbole. Pete would like hyperbole.

And there’s still room for him, if Junior’s a yardstick. She sang along with the closing “it’s sinful”s and when I asked her, “Is it sinful?” she said, “Yeah”.

So true, boo-hoo:

Close To Me – The Cure Video And Lyrics Spanish

He esperado horas para esto
He enfermado tanto
Desearía haberme quedado dormido hoy
Nunca pensé que este día terminaría
Nunca pensé que esta noche podría estar
Tan cerca de mí

Sólo intenta ver en la oscuridad
Sólo intenta verlo funcionar
Sentir el miedo antes de estar aquí
Hago que las formas se acerquen demasiado
Arranco mis ojos
Retengo la respiración
Y espero hasta temblar

Pero si tuviera fe
Entonces podría hacerlo seguro y limpio
Si estuviera seguro
De que mi cabeza en la puerta era un sueño

He esperado horas para esto
He enfermado tanto
Desearía haberme quedado dormido hoy
Nunca pensé que este día terminaría
Nunca pensé que esta noche podría estar
Tan cerca de mí

Pero si tuviera tu cara
Entoces podría hacerlo seguro y limpio
Si estuviera seguro
De que mi cabeza en la puerta
Era un sueño

Rock And Music

Pacifista – La Pestilencia

El mundo avanza
bajo sus hijos
el mundo cae
en el dominio
con sus reglas
doble morales
sus palabras
maldad
pais de guerra
que vuelve a votar
por ese cerdo
por ese cerdo
que somete al mundo
que somete al mundo
y con intereses debemos pagar

coro
cuanto mas vamos a soportar a ese maricon
que a su guerra envia a los hombres (x3)

una sonrisa
de triunfalismo
y la prospera
para sus hijos
afuera aun mardiar
y con su guerra a reconquistar
al nuevo mundo
al nuevo mundo
que resignado esta
a seguir odiando
oyendo mandasos
partiendose en las tumbas
e inocentes que moriran

coro

coro

Rock And Music

Released in 1997.

For me, 1997 was supposed to be the year of Oasis’s ‘Be Here Now’: I was such a fan of the band I was sure the album was going to blow my mind. Instead, it sucked, and 1997 became the year of two albums: Radiohead’s ‘OK Computer’, and this.

Mansun were a band from Chester (not far from Wales) who wrote songs about stripper vicars, sado-masochism and girls called Mavis, with music that blended rock and synths, but always with a dark, slightly menacing tone. It was all new to me, but I adored it. They made another fantastic record, ‘Six’, the following year, and then gradually faded into oblivion.

This is the opening track from the album, ‘The Chad Who Loved Me’:

Natalie Imbruglia's Come To Life came out in the UK last month

Style: part folk-rocky Lilith fare, part hyped-up synth pop, with moments of extreme quirk

First reactions: When I blogged about Want, the lead single for Natalia Imbruglia’s newest album, I remarked that I was eager to listen to the full album. Want, a synthesized clubby piece, exhibits such departure for Natalie, whose style across the years has been characterized by soulful mid-tempo ballads full of strummy guitar lines, much like her mega-hit Torn. Most of the tracks on Come To Life are nothing like Want, however, and in some ways it’s like you’re listening to three different albums, smushed together. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it took some getting used to, Want being such an atypical (anti-thetical) teaser track.

Sounds like: early 2000s Natalie, with moments of Kylie Minogue and Coldplay (the tracks Chris Martin contributed to are pretty obvious)

Track Listing
1. My God
2. Lukas
3. Fun
4. Twenty
5. Scars
6. Want
7. WYUT
8. Cameo
9. All The Roses
10. Wild About It

Best/Middling/Worst tracks: It is tricky to qualify the tracks on Come To Life like I would on any other album, because it depends on which style on the album you are most inclined towards. I’m a fan of the Kylie-esque synth stuff, so my favorites are Want, Cameo and Wild About It. But honestly there is no one song on the album that I think is bad, though there are some tracks that aren’t to my personal taste. The various tracks accomplish different things, and I can see a large cross section of music fans enjoying it. That said, those who were hoping that Want signified a new direction for Natalie will be either happy or disappointed to hear that about half the album is still pretty typical of her style, especially All The Roses (a melancholy ballad, reminiscent of Shiver), My God and Scars.

The album version of Want is a real treat, as it is longer than the radio/video edit, and has some more complex orchestrations at the beginning and end, making it a more satisfying track overall. Thinking on how I feel about Want now that it’s been on my playlist for a month, I’d say my only criticism of it is that it feels somewhat truncated. The album version is a perfect answer to this. Cameo is Want 2.0, and like Want, it features a slinky synth base, and has a delightful playful, naughty tone. It’s Natalie’s most Kylie-esque track — there are definitely moments where you have to listen hard to distinguish the two.

Wild About It is a unique track on Come To Life; it is unlike any of the other songs, and generally unlike anything I’ve heard from Natalie. From the playful, clinky percussion line that runs through, to the punchy lyrics, underscored by a strumming bass, it’s a joyful track, that’s simply fun to listen to. Natalie recorded a video for the song this summer, though it wasn’t an official single. It’s cute, and make me like the song even more.

Then there’s the Chris Martin tracks, the most obvious of which is Fun, which could have been a Coldplay song if worked a little differently. Lukas and Want are the other two Martin-penned tracks, and you can definitely hear them going together. I would also throw Twenty in with this bunch, in that it has a similar whimsical pop quality, but Twenty is less “skipable” than I’m finding Fun and Lukas are on subsequent listens.

WYUT and All The Roses are in the “middling” category for me — I enjoy them, don’t skip past them to get to other tracks (they are surrounded by Want, Cameo and Wild About It, so that says a lot), but when I pull up Come To Life on my playlist I don’t go to them first.

Verdict: A good album with a few more promising potential singles, but I personally wish more of the album leaned in the direction of Kylie-esque pop. I’m kind of over the strummy guitar songs and the Coldplay stuff, but I know there are plenty of people for whom those aspects of Come To Life will appeal. You can actually almost split the album down the middle — tracks 1-5 are “old school” Natalie + Coldplay and tracks 6-10 have an edgier pop feel. Right now it looks like Want, Cameo and Wild About It are the tracks that, in a year’s time, I’ll still be listening to.

So last night, I had a really REALLY hot dream. I’m talking full on erotic awesomeness. T’was most enjoyable. Who was my paramour: Ed? Ian? Jared?… No, It was Damon Albarn. Hmm

Don’t get me wrong – I still would. I had a massive crush on him when I was in my teens.

This was back in the mid nineties when it was all about Britpop and Oasis v Blur. I was strictly a Blur girl. They had some cracking songs: Song 2, Tender, Beetlebum, Parklife, Girls and Boys, The universal. And this:

Also, lest we forget he brought us Gorillaz and this awesome song:

I was never a huge Oasis fan. They had a few songs I really liked: Supersonic, Don’t look back in anger, and this still gives me goosebumps:

I was put off though by the Gallaghers. I just found them extremely unlikeable. It’s hard to be a fan of a band when they’re such twats. Kings Of Leon

So Blur split, and have reformed. Oasis have split for good. D’you know what? I was saying to people a year ago that Oasis should split and THIS band can take their rightful place:

One of the best songs ever made. Irrefutable.

So in honour of my little BritPop memorial, here are my top 5 from that era.

(Some of the vids won’t embed grrrrrr)

Obviously I didn’t know what the title meant at the time, just loved the song. Still do. (Brett Anderson is a local Haywards Heath boy too!)

So who didn’t love Pulp! Very hard to choose between this and Common People. In the mid nineties, there was still something magical about the whole Y2K  Idea and I remember singing along to this loads!

Aww I absolutely adored Ash. If I had to pick just one it would be this infectious slice of pop. You know you wanna sing along too…

This one very nearly made number one. As soon as I found it I realised I still know every word and it all came flooding back. Such a great tune. I have a specific memory of this. I think it must have been about Year 9. A group of about 25 of us went to Chessington World Of Adventures when we had an inset day at school. We sang along to this on the coach. When we got there, obviously people wanted to go off in groups and as this was in the days before mobile phones, we needed a way to find each other so we said we’ll just start singing the chorus

OOHH OHHHH LA LAAAAHHH

It was great because we got everyone else at the theme park singing along!

For my number one, I’ve chosen a song that has somewhat bittersweet memories. The Verve’s album Urban Hymns was on my CD player constantly one summer. Well not just mine. This was one of THE defining albums of the 90’s. I could have chosen any track but it’s this one that really stands out. I don’t wanna say “The lyrics mean a lot to me” Because obviously it’s Lucky Man but I remember we used to spend some of our evenings in the summer holidays at the skate park or the beach and someone would bring a cd player. This song reminds me of a time when everything was simpler, friendships were forged in stone, boys were uncomplicated and life was going to be ok.

Happiness
Something in my own place
I’m standing naked
Smiling, I feel no disgrace
With who I am

Ok that’s enough melancholy from me!

*mwah*

I got “Reality killed the video star”  today (btw: AMAZING title…).After listening to the whole thing in one sitting, I was thinking about when I first heard about Robbie Williams. OK, so…I was a “takethatter”, the truth be told. So yeah, that led to my discovery of Robbie’s existence. Besides liking him physically it was obvious to me from day 1 that he was the one who stood out. There was also something about him that appealed to me: maybe the sadness behind his eyes. I always felt like I wanted to hug him and tell him it would be alright. A few years later, when his life unraveled in front of the world through the tabloids, I understood why I had always felt like he needed friends or anybody who really cared for him.

I’m not going to say that we’re soulmates or something psycho like that, but I do feel that the artists and bands we hold dear do have a lot in common with us. Maybe we idolize them, in some cases even mimic them in the way they dress, speak, etc. (specially if one is in the teenage years…ehem…) but there’s always one thing, or sometimes several things, that link us to them: childhood traumas, teenage fears, addictions, passions, experiences. The most valuable music is the one that allows you to bond with the artist in this way.

If you’re fortunate enough to have been a long term follower or fan of any band or artist, you’ve probably realized that you can trace parallel lines between your growth and the artist’s. Your coming of age and their coming of age. Maybe you’ve married, had kids, maybe your parents died, and maybe the band or the artist you admire and respect so much has also gone through some of these life events, or some even more extreme.

At one point you meet in the middle and looking back, you can’t help but feel excited and overwhelmed by the passing of time, and by comparing who you were back then with who you are now. And you have all those songs to pair those years with. This is what happened with me when I finished listening to “Reality killed the video star”. I’ve had losses (friends who moved to a different country), I’ve matured (hello independence: I no longer live with me mum), I’ve had my heart broken, I’ve discovered new music. Robbie has definitely had some important losses, he’s also now in full posession of his age – 35 no less! and more centered than ever, may I add -, on a positive mindset, reflecting upon his experiences, his broken heart has healed and he’s ready for what’s next. And yeah, he’s also found new music and influences for his work.

It makes me happy that he’s happy and it makes me SO much happier to discover that now, after 14 years or so, I’m different and better than my teenage self. I’m probably right when I say that he’s also a lot happier now than he was 15 years ago.

Yep. Music’s great.

1. “The Everlasting” – 6:09
2. “If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next” – 4:50
3. “You Stole the Sun from My Heart” – 4:20
4. “Ready for Drowning” – 4:31
5. “Tsunami” – 3:50
6. “My Little Empire” – 4:09
7. “I’m Not Working” – 5:51
8. “You’re Tender and You’re Tired” – 4:37
9. “Born a Girl” – 4:12
10. “Be Natural” – 5:12
11. “Black Dog on My Shoulder” – 4:48
12. “Nobody Loved You” – 4:44
13. “S.Y.M.M.” (South Yorkshire Mass Murderer) – 5:57

[RS] [MU]

Ok, so, I haven’t updated, why?
Lack of interest, and of will, mostly.

Anyway, today I’m not going to criticize punk posers…. nor write another “Cut yourself” poem.
Today I bring an amazing record.

The Wombats Proudly Present: A Guide to Love, Loss and Desperation
This record is certainly amazing. Cheerful, powerful, energetic.
This three guys met on Liverpool, at Paul McCartney’s College of Arts, and after performing some cool stuff, they were invited to the MIDI festival in Beijing, where their popularity grew among the whole nation of Indie Music.
Humoristic lyrics, that somehow, remind me The Beatles original humoristic style.

This Record has a little bit of everything: Anger, Love, Humour, powerful riffs and wore off vocals.
It makes you want to be in a gig, shouting this songs aloud, jumping and jamming all around.

I must repeat, amazing Album, a MUST HAVE to any Indie-britpop-rock&roll-post punk revivial- fan.

And I get it in here for you, all nice and neat.

Enjoy! (=

(Click on cover to Download)