Album Review: Born to Die - Lana Del Rey
This is a bit of a disappointment if I’m honest. I was sold on this girl as soon as I read the ‘Gangsta Nancy Sinatra’ tag last year, her image and what she’s trying to create makes Amy Whinehouse look like a parody. All the Old Hollywood stuff and a bottle of Jim Beam made her very, very cool. The self made videos were part of the charm.
Like so many, the more exposure this lassie gets the further her creditability slides. It’s the curse of the studio album. If she put the publicists, modeling assignments and chats shows to one side, this girl would be so damn mysterious she’d be the most famous singer on the planet.
Older songs have been ‘revamped’, new stuff has appeared, and better stuff has been excluded. ‘Million Dollar Man’ my highlight but a couple of missing songs I picked up from YouTube last year ‘Kinda Outta Luck’ and ‘Queen of the Gas Station’ are better than a lot of the new stuff. As I said this album is not bad its just a bit dull and over polished. Still a better shout than anything by Adele.
Favourite Albums of 2011
2011 hasn’t really been anything special in terms of music. The mainstream continues its decline with more boy bands, ghastly rap/r’nb numbers and ongoing story of a transvestite Madonna impersonator. Whinehouse’s death was without a doubt the biggest music story but dint really trouble me either way. Good music never truly goes away, it just getting harder to find, here’s my picks from the past 12 months.
No 1. Tom Waits - Bad As Me
Easily the most anticipated album of the year for me, it came like a bolt from the blue with a fantastic lunch back in August. It croons and snarls, it terrifying at points and reserved at others. There was nae chance of this album being anything other than epic.
No 2. The Black Lips - Arabia Mountain
Back on form after a poor follow up to 2008’s “Good Bad Not Evil”, Arabia Mountain is a real gem for fans of bluesy, countrified garage rock.
No 3. Throwing Muses - Anthology
Ok I know this strictly isn’t a proper album but we do get a bonus B-Sides/Rarities disc with it too which still beats most album releases this year by a mile. It also came in a pretty smart presentation book as well.
No 4. Screaming Trees - Last Words: The Final Recordings
This was probably the surprise of the year. Screaming Trees recorded an album in 1998 that was never released, the major wonder is why considering the quality of it. I don’t know if it ever got an official release outside of the US but the non the less its good.
No 5. 50 Foot Wave - With Love From the Men’s Room
This technically isn’t an album (its an EP) but it still deserves a mention not only because of the class songs but the because it was released free over a number of months via the bands websites.
No 6. Wild Flag - Wild Flag
Not quite the glory days of Sleater-Kinney but its not a bad effort.
No 7. Twilight Singers - Dynamite Steps
Greg Dulli returned this year with another solid effort. Whisky, cigarettes, and damnation cannot be beat in my book.
No 8. Lykke Li - Wounded Rythmes
Very original sounding album that mixes electronic, rock and tribal style music with ballads, good stuff.
No 9. J Mascis - Several Shades of Why
The Dinosaur Jr. front man released a solo acoustic effort that was also a pleasant surprise, couldn’t keep it acoustic also the way through, trade mark solos do make an appearance on a couple of numbers.
No 10. Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks - Mirror Traffic
After the money spinning Pavement reunion its back to work for Malkmus with this effort which could have been released by said band. A solid Pavement rip-off by the main man is not bad thing from where I’m sitting though.
Overrated Album of Year
PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
This album has won a lot of awards and toped a lot of critics polls this year but I just don’t get it. I like PJ Harvey, she’s definitely a class act but this just leaves me cold and bemused.
Shocker of the Year
Sons and Daughters - Mirror Mirror
A once great Scottish band came out with this horrible totally pointless album. Sounds to me anyway that they’ve been listening to allot of Ultravox and someone told them that was a good sound, complete rubbish.
Album Review: Bad as Me - Tom Waits
When a new Tom Waits album comes around it rarely fails to disappoint. For nearly 25 years now these releases tend to fall into two categories the stand alone and the sound track. The ‘stand alones’ tend to be the real gems and just as the case with 2004’s Real Gone, 1999’s Mule Varaitions and 1994’s Bone Machine, Bad As Me is no exception.
Bad as Me croons, it terrifies at points, its reserved at moments, it’s a full bag of tricks. The knack with Waits is he manages to sound completely unique to anyone else on the planet, the only comparison is with himself which is forever changing anyway.
‘Hell Broke Luce’ is a terrifying cross between a limerick and a rap. For the closer ‘New Years Eve’ we get another interpretation of Auld Lang Syne in ballad mode. You get a take on the Rolling Stones (including name checks for Jagger and Richards) in the bluesy ‘Satisfied’.
The originality in every thing Waits does is unique to him, nobody else sounds like this, nobody else writes songs like this. The physical release comes in a book format, even the quirky album launch video is a classic.
Ok I admit I’m a massive Waits fans, but there was nae chance of this album being anything other than epic.
Scotland’s ‘Greatest Album’
Here’s some more proof that most folke are idiots. STV’s “Scotland Greatest Album” set out to pick the three best songs from the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and 00’s and compile them into what they say would be Scotland’s greatest album. The 12 nominations for each decade would be chosen by a panel of ‘experts’ and the public would have the final say on the three songs to be selected for the final compilation.
Needless to say Scotland has produced a lot of rank rotten music over the years with most of it being represented here. Whether it’s the stale radio friendly guitar ‘rock’ of the 90’s (Travis and Texas), the smug and pompous art pop of the 80’s (Simple Minds and the Eurthymics) or just the plain naff that even your gran likes (The Proclaimers, Rod Stewart).
Here’s my picks………
70’s
The Average White Band - Pick Up the Pieces
The Skids – The Saints are Coming
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band – Gamblin’ Bar Room Blues
80’s
The Vaselines – Son of a Gun
Jesus and Mary Chain – Head On
The Pastels – Nothing to Be Done
90’s
Edwyn Collins – Girl Like You
The Delgados – Pull the Wires From the Wall
Belle and Sebastian – Lazy Line Painter Jane
00’s
Sons and Daughters – Johnny Cash
Franz Ferdinand – This Fire
Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell – Rambling Man
P.S.
I have restated the temptation to include Talking Heads even though dubious Scottish connections didn’t seem to bother the panel of ‘experts’.
Cult without a Leader
I don’t like to speak ill of the dead but some of the coverage of the Steve Jobs passing this week portraying him as some sort of godlike genius has been unbearable. Ok he built and created a successful company, but the majority of his products were more exclusive (and expensive) versions of other people’s idea.
Bill Gates is cut from the same cloth as Henry Ford, Ford dreamed of a day where everybody could be able to afford a car of their own. Bill Gates did the exact same thing with computers. Unlike Gates who has actually has changed the world, Job’s computers are overpriced, unpractical and like all Apple products tie the consumer into their products at all costs. Unlike Gates idea where the people could on mass have a computer, Apple vastly expensive alternatives are for the privileged few.
The latest i-Pad fad meshes into this theme quite well. It doesn’t have a cd drive, it doesn’t have a USB port, you have to go through Apple for your content, if something doesn’t meet their approval, it won’t appear on their platforms which people have bought in good faith.
The smugness that Apple customers project is the reason in part for Apple’s critics. The Apple “fanny-pad” as many of us non-believers have dubbed it is probably the world most sought after device. Apple likes to portray them as an underdog that all their customers can be underdogs together, that somehow everybody else doesn’t understand them. More like a pseudo religion or cult than a corporate business. Jobs has somehow managed to trick people into thinking this desire is actually creative and cool, that buying and owning his products their somehow more worthy as a human being. I’m not naïve, Steve Jobs didn’t invented advertising but he was very good at it.
The greatest misconception about Jobs, (and it’s been put forward a lot over the past week) is how he has somehow saved recorded music. Apple did not invent MP3 players, Apple did not invent music downloads.
The i-pod combines (in typical Job’s fashion) other people’s great ideas. Even then portable jukeboxes weren’t his idea either. Sony created the Walkman to allow for portable and private music listening. Then by using laser disc technology they created the CD, leading to the establishment of digital music becoming the norm and killing off vinyl.
One of the real sad thing as a music fan is how potentially Job’s will have killed of the CD. Not through their music playing gadget but through there online music shop. When the CD killed off vinyl it was for practicality reasons, we were still getting music as physical and tangible object. As someone who still buys CD’s and enjoy browsing through record shops this is very sad. I have serious issues with buying something that doesn’t physically exist, further more it makes music nothing more than a disposable commodity.
The whole Napster who-ha around the turn of the millennium changed the music industry forever. There was a feeling like the people were taking music back from corporate labels that were so strongly against what they were doing. It felt like a true underground movement with the fan the undisputed winner. Their (music labels and most notably Metallica) accusation of stealing was at odds with our ‘don’t give a fuck’ feelings of liberation.
After Napster was shut down and a whole host of ‘official’ and ‘legitimate’ services were set up is where Jobs rears his head again. i-Tunes is a front for the modern music industry, its cold and corporate and closed to other peoples ideas. For an industry that would strive to call its self artistic and creative this is a travesty.
I have been left staggered by the coverage of this mans death this week, Thick outpourings of grief from world leaders, the same leaders who should be worrying about the immediate threat of another global recession. Who seriously thinks Steve Jobs is on the same level as Einstein or Edison? Steve Jobs was not a radical he was a shill.
Postscript
This is not a personal attack; I have tried to be fair on the man’s personal character having just so recently died prematurely. Working as a web developer I like to think I understand this story and industry better than the sheep who believe everything they’re told. Feel free to disagree with me; just don’t tell me my opinion isn’t valid. This unique blend of fascism and capitalism that Apple seems to instil in people really isn’t very becoming.
Not Happy with We7
I’m completely disgusted with the relaunch of We7. They will tell you it’s to make the site more relevant to the user but don’t believe their lies. The official responses for these changes are as follows:
• First, we believe that a radio with request service is easier for more people to get access to more music without effort - sit back and just enjoy the music.
• Secondly, rights holders are imposing more restrictions upon free music services in an attempt to protect the value of music.
• Finally, this model creates a economic balance so we can provided you with access to unlimited music, pay a fair rate to artists and rights owners and create a base to build a sustainable business.
Moving to a radio format takes away the real key point of we7 which was choice the ability to play and replay any artist, album and song in their database. While this service was interrupted by the odd the avert it was a very good service. They have now taken this away and installed a radio style system instead where users can now request songs and albums (number of request are determined by user level).
The “monthly 50 request” idea is clearly an attempt to pacify people like my self who they knew would straight away kick up a fuss. Unlimited requests are available to subscribers but that defeats the point.
If they are now targeting subscribers as there main business how come we still have to put up with adverts? They say that “rights holders” are now being stricter on them, well how come we haven’t seen the same measures brought against YouTube.
What I really resent is how they have put up the users as the main reason for change, like these restrictions are meant to be for our benefit. They believe the new system will be “easier for more people to get access to more music without effort”. How thick do you link your users are? There was a search bar and standard audio player controls, it’s hardly rocket science. What really pisses me off is the old site appears to be available in all its form to subscribers. So does this mean your subscribers are stupid? If they had come out and given a valid real reason e.g. music labels are being dicks to us. I would have had a hell of a lot more respect for them. Instead they look like nothing but whores, if they want money why not sell blow jobs on the street like the whores you are.
My suspicions are that their attempt to get into the US market would be compromised by letting users have the freedom to choose what they listen on demand. The radio system amounts to nothing more than a striped down version of the excellent Last.fm, only there is no stats or community interaction capabilities. We7, you’ve lost a user because I fail to see what your service offers that others (Last.fm and YouTube) don’t. It doesn’t even scrobble anymore and just wonder how much longer we7 will continue to exist.
Album Review: Raven in the Grave - The Raveonettes
One of the great things about the Raveonettes is how their style, visual character and identity have stayed the same and if anything will outlive them even when their music dries up. It’s comforting to know that after 10 years the band is still doing what they do. Unlike similar Mary Chain styled band Black Rebel Motorcycle Club the Raveonettes at least still sound like there trying. Raven in the Grave isn’t anything special, it’s not a touch on their previously albums, it’s just good to know a good band can still be bothered after their time and the music have moved on.
