My Favourite Releases of 2012!

Well as we come to the very end of this eventful year I would like to reflect on some of the amazing musical releases of 2012. I do hope you enjoy the selection, and feel free to add your own favourites in the comment section!

10. Haim

Be transported into a John Cusack film with this altogether 80's girl band. No album release just yet, but watch this space for the West Coast sisters in 2013. Think Wilson Phillips for the noughties, happy clappy fun songs that take you back to a simpler age...

9.  Of Monsters and Men

Iceland may not quite be Scandinavia in the music stakes but it isn't far behind. Cutesy cool folksters Of Monsters and Men rocked the festivals and the charts this year, most notably with the catchy Little Talks. Nanna's husky voice and quirky ensemble of talented young musicians make them quite a mesmerising act.

8. Jack White

Eschewing norms has never been out of the realms of possibilities for eccentric rocker Jack White and 2012 was no different. Employing two concurrent single sex session bands for his tours may have made his entourage rather large, but it seems Mr. White does not do things by halves. The Blunderbuss album was a corker, except for a long time I thought that the bird on the front cover was a giant hat... He doesn't fail to put on a good show: the absence of Meg White on stage did not hinder his presence one iota. 

7. Little Comets

I can't get enough of Little Comets Life is Elsewhere at the moment. African guitar riffs and the hint of a geordie accent come together and guarantee to make you smile. My favourite for trekking up the M5 alone and pretending I'm an indie rocker.

6.  Dry the River

The album cover for Shallow Bed may look like a local teenage rock band's latest release, but stick with it! I first saw these hairy nu-folksters singing their unique blend of ancient mythological lyrics at Roskilde in Denmark and their album was the first I bought on return to the UK. All their flashy lights and the mixture of acoustic and smashy guitars made me like a child at Christmas. Mumford and Sons with balls.

5. Bat for Lashes

She may have been Mercury shortlisted for her two previous efforts, but in my personal opinion The Haunted Man is a work of art, from the front cover onwards! Never one to shy away from controversy, no doubt her album cover sent many blushes on teenage boys faces across the country. Laura might make you cry. Just a warning.

4. Poliça (pronounced POL-EE-THA)

Ever since Michael Buble released that Christmas album where his voice sounded all tinny and tampered with, I have hated autotune. That weird electronic sound is so far from what I personally appreciate in vocals which is truth really (without sounding all wanky and pretentious).  So how surprised I was then to enjoy Poliça's most recent releaseGive you the Ghost. Lead singer Channy Leaneagh uses auto tune not only self conciously but as a live tool. It's not everyones cup of tea, but I like it.

3. Everything Everything

Not an instant hit with me, but wow how they have grown in my estimations. I can't get over Cough Cough. I often re-write the lyrics along the lines of "havin' a laugh, out with the lads, having a fag, being all mad." That type of thing. If you listen to it you'll know where I mean. It's a hoot. That weird chord change on "cop car" is just genius.

2. Django Django

Team barber shop vocals with electronica and live guitars. Meet Django Django. Exciting, happy, clever music and an awesome album. Seriously not one to miss.

1. Alt-J

Winners of the Mercury Music Prize this year, it just had to be Alt-J at my number one spot. I first saw them supporting Wild Beasts earlier this year and was blown away. Often support acts are a disappointment  not least of all because they have the disadvantage of not being known musically and lyrically. Alt-J though were absolutely captivating from Joe Newman's squeaky vocals to the lyrics "triangles are my favourite shape." A triangle symbol as a title may be a premature Prince-like move, but somehow, they rock it.

There were so many others I loved this year. Special mentions to Jessie Ware, her toned down vocals sound great out of SBTRKT's edgy electronics, but I still think Wildest Moments could have been bigger.

The Gossip's A Joyful Noise shows Beth Ditto to be equally proficient in singing impeccably and writing heart-felt lyrics. The move to Xenomania surprised me somewhat, but I think the album shows that it was the right move.

Alex Clare: from being dropped to being put on an Internet Explorer advert hasn't done all too badly. Hummingbird is one of my faves from the album.

Metric's Synthetica is well worth a listen. Emily Haines has done it again in capturing a somewhat distant lyrical emotion in Girl Power beats that hark back to old-school Metric style. If you liked The List era, you will like this!

So many albums, so little time. But here are just a handful of gems from 2012. If you'd like to add your own contributions please do!
The Shins' Port of Morrow. Simple Song is another one that I cry at. I do cry at most things though, bear this in mind.

Happy New Year! Here's to a musically rich 2013.

Keira Knightley in Love, Actually. What Actually Happened to Clothes at the Turn of the Millennium?

This time every year, me and a whole load of other Christmas embracing losers across the world sit down to watch Love, Actually. Every year I laugh at Bill Nighy, cry at Emma Thompson and hold on to a (perhaps outdated) notion of Britishness.

This year though, something not terribly important occurred to me. Keira Knightley, lovely as she may be, sports (amongst a variety of crop tops and flared jeans) a baker boy hat. For those who aren't familiar with this type of hideous headwear: think Victorian chimney sweep boy.

Don't look so happy Keira, you have something very peculiar on your head

This year I didn't feel content and cosy, I felt distinctly unsettled. Visions of myself aged 11 came flooding back to me in a whirlwind of horror. I look almost identical (bar the whole puberty thing, and braces THANK GIDDY GOODNESS), except I'm wearing a baker boy hat. Not any baker boy hat, it was constructed out of small squares of varying vile shades of denim bought from etam or Tammy Girl or whatever that shop was - I'm sure most girls of my age remember. It was the one with  faux purple leather jackets, silver gilets and slogan t shirts that said things like "I <3 ME!" (all of which I owned).

If anything, I should've been relieved that even Ms. Knightley herself couldn't pull off the look, this was after all a widespread pandemic of fashion faux pas. But when I was at work today, this magazine from 2001 reminded me of the whole sorry saga. Nestled in between an Amstrad advert for a home phone that could send e-mails and an article about how to choose the right hi-fi system was a fashion spread replete with tiny little handbags and bellybutton rings.

"edgily sexy" and "stylishly funky" 

So what exactly went wrong between the late 90's and early noughties? Something odd happened that's what. I wouldn't consider myself particularly into fashion and yet there's something about this era which makes me feel a little bit pukey. As a young-un in that awkward in between stage (the stage before the awkward teenage stage - poor kids) I feel I should be allowed to absent myself as I was, after all, merely a child. And yet... I can remember begging my mum for a top like this:

I'm from a pretty liberal family, but this was not going to happen. You can't tell from the picture, but behind the darling butterfly on the front, a series of strings pass along the back, I can only be thankful that it never had the opportunity to criss-cross against my pre-pubescent flab, there would be more than a few things wrong with that...

... also I know I would've teamed it with hot pink baggy combat trousers, the horrific ones fitted with useless dangly tassels - why was that ever a thing?

Alas, apparently fashion will always come around eventually.

I can see myself now, middle aged, bleached bootcuts and a sparkly crop top. Please, no.

Hashtagging Hopelessness: Twitter's Turkeys

I have a Twitter account, as does my Dad, Stephen Fry and the rest of the world and his dog. I understood the concept, and I wanted to love it - I still do, desperately, but do I really have anything to say that the world and his dog gives a half a hoot about?

I write something on Facebook and it's brilliant. My Mum's there, ready to endorse me, my aunties and cousins and my best friends. My dull statuses will stick around on their News Feeds like bad smells until they really have no option other than to like it.

Twitter is different. 140 words is small and I'm quite the talker. 140 words would reduce me to one of two things:

1. Tlking lik dis, bt I rely fink Im 2 old 4 dat lol.
2. Unimportant factoids from the vat of unimportant things that happen in my day.. "Just put a pizza in the oven - blimey I'm famished! #hungry" or "I do like bubble baths #warm #bubbly #bath" or "Just burnt my elbows on the pitta bread #onlyme #lol #hungry"

Perhaps the latter would only apply to me (how else do you squish the hot air out?) Anyway, the point is, I have this momentous occasion with Twitter and I click send. I watch the screen, too eager. Check my e-mails... Come back to the screen.. 3 tweets, oh wow!

Got the wrong end of the stick. 3 tweets from 3 other people.. awkward. I'm still learning. My 82 year old Grandad is quicker with his iPad.

Where Facebook would have my Dad putting LOL (always in capitals, why?) Twittersphere would not be an arid desert, salivating at the juicy minutiae of my existence. No, it's New York; a metropolis of importance, a hustly bustly exciting array of activity where nobody really cares what 140 characters you have up your sleeve. Unless of course you're Ellen Degeneres or Barack Obama.

I'm no quitter though, noooo.. just waiting for my Mum to get an account.

Writers Block!

It may seem like there was a period of writers block but I have been working a contract with Glipho!! Feel free to check it out :)

Best Friend Marketing

Originally published as part of 'What Grinds Georgia's Gears' January 2012 Exepose

I vividly remember a few years ago buying an innocent smoothie and smiling at the twee messages on the side, sweet endearments that try to convince you that this Coca-Cola owned brand is as friendly as it is healthy. Fair enough, I thought, they did start as a small business founded by three kooky Cambridge grads, quite clever marketing really. Wrong.

Now, when it isn’t soups, smoothies or organic mousse, its department stores with sickeningly cute children, or banks that insist they aren’t robots through the medium of song attempting to get on your good side. Note: Good side in this instance refers to that squishy corner of your brain, the one usually reserved for Raindrops on Roses and Whiskers on Kittens etc.  I used to consider those double glazing adverts, or my local politician sending me a letter on my 18^th birthday the most infuriating of them all. Surely nothing could be more annoying than a balding man shouting ‘BOGOF’ as you drink a cuppa waiting for the next half of Downton Abbey, and that was just the politician.

Yet these, along with those horrifically exploitative 20790% APR loan shark adverts or affectionate ‘no win no fee’ announcements don’t come close to the puny pre-pubescent whining of the child on the Thomson commercial who insists that there just isn’t enough time in the day to see his parents. They simply must book a holiday to have the lasting nuclear family he’s always dreamed of.

I can imagine those marketing execs sitting around a large table with those boring blue chairs, brainstorming the best way to catch us unawares and snap our feeble heartstrings. But, giant corporate marketing person, maybe, just maybe I would like a smoothie that just has the ingredients on the label, adverts where no-one sings, Yummy Mummies who don’t play Bingo online together and a world where Google Chrome isn’t the only tool for family interaction. What was wrong with Dad making little Sophie a real scrap book? What if she accidentally deletes those online memories or her external hard-drive falls ill with a techno virus, what happens then? Children don’t really jazz up their parents spreadsheets out of love regardless of what Windows 7 insists, and as much as The Saturdays are extremely talented artists, watching them stroke an animated puppy isn’t going to make me go out and buy a Nintendo DS.

I would argue that those adverts are even worse than pop-up’s that exclaim ‘Are you SURE you want to leave this page? You have been chosen as a $1,000,000 prize winner!’ Or spam e-mails that encourage you to click on them only to bombard everyone you’ve ever met with discounted soft porn. At least they don’t pretend to be your best mate. They knowingly lie and laugh at you, much less scheming, more admirable really.

Maybe this is all technology driven. Perhaps if I switched the television and radio off, popped my laptop under the bed and played dominoes with chums we would all be safer. Those suited conmen and women... con-people would be out of a job as we regain our bank balances and claw back our detached and fragile dignity. That is until the doorbell rings and the Royal Mail delivers an affectionate letter from that nice clothing shop offering you a cheeky discount if you rack up lots of juicy debt on their credit card.

We must count our blessings though. In America they have twenty minute infomercials where Katy Perry talks through the ultimate cure for acne, and pharmaceutical companies sell wonder drugs that warn of side-effects such as Liver Failure and Death in a laid-back ‘just gone surfing’ Southern California drawl. Back in the UK with the nauseating voice of the Marks and Spencer’s pudding ad, beautifully slim models scoffing chocolate and ‘celebrities’ flashing their wobbly bits in fitness video’s, it’s enough to make you feel slightly nauseous, and that’s before noting the irony. Maybe I’m just getting old, but if Boots play ‘Here come the girls’ one more time as a group of (you guessed it) girls go shopping, I may scream.

John Lennon & Yoko Ono - Double Fantasy Review

Published in October 2010 Exepose

If it hadn’t have been for a certain disillusioned fan armed with a gun in New York 30 years ago, John Lennon would have been celebrating his 70^th birthday on the 9^th October.  Released three weeks before his death after a five year househusband hiatus, the album Double Fantasy received some less that complimentary reviews, however many of these were retracted after his death. Part of the problem with the record was that with his new found happiness, his writing strayed away from his usual socio-political, edgy stances and towards songs written about his children and marital problems. Giving half of his album to his caterwauling and widely unpopular other half Yoko Ono didn’t help.

Often it sounds as if they were working on two different albums, Lennon’s songs drenched in rockabilly sentiment contrast heavily with her new wave and disco inspired contributions. Reportedly unhappy with the original mix of the tracks, Ono consented to a 2010 remix of Double Fantasy, and with this the album takes on new importance. Lennon’s vocals are crisper, unnecessary additional layers to the production have been removed and have instead been replaced with clips of his good natured jostling in the studio. ‘Yes, I’m Your Angel’ is a surprisingly soft contribution of Ono’s,  sounding more suited to a Disney film with its twee whistling and “tra-la-la’s” than a rock and roll album, and ‘Kiss Kiss Kiss’ sounds creepily contemporary with its catchy chorus and spoken Japanese.

   

In the remixed version, for some unexplained reason, the production team have gone backwards, replacing the quirky reggae beat of ‘Every Man Has A Woman That Loves Him’ with whirring synth, giving the impression that in any moment a beat will drop and it will become a club classic. Instead the harmonies blur into echoes and swim in no direction, the song is stolen of any climactic moment and it sounds like it belongs on a new age album with squawking dolphins and the rush of waterfalls. ‘Dear Yoko’ has a refreshingly earthy quality with the English concertina, despite once again professing his undying love for his wife, there is a horribly sad irony in the lyrics “I’ll never ever ever ever ever gonna let you go.”

Reviewing this album with the nostalgia that 30 years have given us, it has to be remembered that despite their warbling insistence of normality, Lennon and Ono with their pop art installations, joint screaming albums about primal therapy and the addition of worldwide fame were never going to be the blueprint of your average married couple, and if they wanted to spend five years away from the industry and return with an album about each other that spanned several genres, they would. Whether the album made triple platinum because of his murder or not, Double Fantasy will forever hold historical musical importance and huge significance to Lennon fans.  

Changing Rooms eurghhh.

          Do you know what really grinds my gears? Changing rooms. If they aren’t filled with screeching children peeking under the doors as their haggard parents scream expletives, there’s always the middle aged attendant asking if you would possibly like the size up after wrestling for half an hour with the zip. Worst of all the curtains rarely reach the edges giving unsuspecting passers-by an unannounced glance of half an arse cheek. The locks don’t work, the doors are too small, the curtain hooks are broken and a complete stranger walked in on you starkers attempting to escape the irate and expansive queue.

Now perhaps this is a slightly biased female perspective, men seem to enter a shop and be one of three sizes S, M L, no trying on necessary, pick a size and Bob’s your uncle, whoever he may be. Women do not only have their size to worry about, it’s the shape of your size. Are you a 34DD top heavy with spindly size 6 legs? Do you have the classic patronisingly ‘British pear shape,’ tiny wee breasts with nicely rounded hips and bum that friends reassure you is just like J-Lo? This is before we’ve even got on to ‘styling for your shape,’ a term so endeared to by all those television ‘stylists’ who grab their victims wobbly bits in front of a mirror, smile smugly as they weep hysterically about their lack of self esteem, and fix their lifetimes insecurities with an A line skirt. While Gok Wan proudly parades stretch marks and cellulite around shopping centres across the UK, I’m not so sure we should be subject to this when minding our own business on the high street.

Fancy stores are no better, heavy curtains and human sized doors they may have, but when you ask the dopey weekend girl to hold on to the tights you can’t take in, they mysteriously disappear by the time you exit the fitting rooms, hot and bothered, red in the face, giving up on the whole idea. Who needs new clothes anyway?

New Years Eve - Bugger off Jools Holland!

I’ve never fully understood the celebrations of New Years Eve. Don’t get me wrong, crossing arms and singing Auld Lang Syne is an absolute highlight, but what is it exactly that we’re celebrating? Christmas is over, the cold darkness of January looms, everyone is slightly damaged by Boxing Day sales and humoured resolutions are always forgotten by February. Taxi’s are twice the price, clubs are twice as lame, Jools Holland mocks us with his banging party on the BBC. House parties are like any other, except fireworks are on the telly in the background. 

Alright Jools, no need to look so smug. Yes we are all jealous.

Opening my eyes on January 1^st in a tangled sea of bodies, I’ll heave slightly amongst the empty bottles and the dried vomit in the corner trying to ignore the complete stranger weeing in a cupboard and pretending that I haven’t got de ja vu from this time last year. 

I remember New Years Eve of 1999, now that was exciting, no-one knew just what would happen as we entered a new millennium, was the world going to end? Computers explode? What about the banks? Cancelled debts and a new world - a utopia of equality loomed! My Mum bought me a millennium time capsule with some questions inside, one being:

 ‘What will the world be like in 10 years?’

My answer as a 9 year old was that I would be at university and phones would have screens so that you could speak to people and see them at the same time.

That New Year was as predictable as my answer.

Maybe I shan’t have a drink this year. I will think long and hard about which resolution to make and stick to for the coming year - the year in which I shall (hopefully) graduate. I will get an early night and perhaps start that essay I’ve been putting off, treat myself to a nice bath...

Or, I will go to a house party, have a little tipple, mumble incoherent babblings to the tune of Auld Lang Syne, bitch with loved ones at the smug couples snogging at twelve, declare my undying love for everyone I know in a drunken stupor before nodding off in a haze as the birds start singing outside.

2011 saw us waving goodbye to Amy Winehouse and Steve Jobs as well as sticking two fingers up at Gaddafi and Bin Laden. The August riots set a worrying precedent for our small island and Japan suffered a devastating earthquake. Financial districts were occupied and monarchist or not, Kate and Wills are a shoo-in for Cutest Couple of the Year Award. Some mad religious nut lead a bunch of people to think the world would end on May 21^st,, but it seems we will make it to 2012 after all. Happy New Year.

The Joy of Christmas

Now of course the true meaning of Christmas (Jesus aside) is about the giving. That sparkly special festive feeling when a loved one opens a present and actually likes it is simply lovely... However and this is a big HOWEVER, it’s never quite that simple is it? If you are anything like I am (which I hope for your sake you aren’t) every present is left to the last minute. 

Me and Grandad get VERY excited at Christmas

There is that eternal present dilemma, how much should I spend? Does ‘Secret Santa’ mean comic presents? Do I opt for the fart machine or that same awful bubble bath set 3 for 2 at Boots? It doesn’t help that I have absolutely awful taste; I can remember vividly giving my step-sister a pink sequinned clutch bag one year. I was so smug with myself - it couldn’t be better, she loves pink, she loves going out, what could possibly go wrong? As she peeled away the wrapping from the puke-inducing hot pink she looked as if she might throw up herself, ‘Well, I can tell who this is from’ she said turning it over as if there might be something better lurking inside, I knew then that I should’ve stuck with the bubble bath. 

I’ve learnt my lesson now though picking presents that are horrifically safe, a gift receipt safely enclosed. Christmas shopping induces hoards of people to wander aimlessly in all directions, often stopping abruptly as if losing the track of thought as well as the Christmas spirit. Each shopper sports the same distant look, arms heavy with handfuls of junk that will be both half price in the sale and listed as an ‘unwanted Christmas present’ on eBay. Nice normal middle class couples resemble bratty toddlers as they fight about whether double cream or brandy butter will compliment Heston Blumenthal’s candied orange Christmas pudding better. 

It is as if a World War is approaching when panic stricken families stuff their shopping trolleys, anxiously clearing all the shelves, attempting to please everyone with a crazed look in their eye, their lips quivering as they tick off the shopping list: nut roast for vegetarian niece, J20’s for alcoholic uncle, ten year malt for Father-in-law, how much will that cost? Should I get carpet cleaner... is that just tempting fate?  We need more of those tiny sausages wrapped in bacon, do I use streaky? What if the turkey is taking too long? We need nibbles... peanuts? Too like the pub. Olives? Too Italian... Kettle chips? Yes! Everyone loves a Kettle Chip...