Truth be told, right now, I'm feeling a bit empty inside. This might be due to the fact I haven't eaten breakfast yet and it's 11.57am; it might be because I just went to get a state of the art fancy phone but was told I'd need to pay a £450 deposit which meant I couldn't get it; OR it might be because I have been listening to The Black Eyed Peas new single on repeat for the past hour.
I'm not a huge fan of The Black Eyed Peas, but 'Boom Boom Pow' was an absolute TUNE and don't even get me started on 'I Got a Feeling' (seriously, I find it incredible that a song can have an immediately nostalgic effect on you, like, even when you're in the moment.)
Anyway, to be honest, in a nutshell, this is no 'I Got A Feeling'. Although, likewise, it does have an interesting effect that I've never really experienced. Namely that it does less and less for me on each and every play.
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WARNING: This review may contain shameless plugs for a music event called Switch Live, which is happening next weekend. See if you can spot them.
In the career graveyard of failed boybands, forgotten girlbands and why-don't-people-love-me-any-more solo singers, the name JLS reverberates like a smashed plate in a cathedral. They're an old-fashioned boyband who are carving a name for themselves in a pop landscape which claims to no longer need old-fashioned boybands, unless they are actually old. And even then, you basically have to be Take That or you're nobody.
"Surely", the whisper goes, "if JLS can do it, then WE can do it! All we have to do is BELIEVE, and OUR TIME WILL COME. Today, the graveyard, tomorrow, Switch Live. And then the world will feel the mighty power of BOYZENDORFER!"
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Hello, if you are reading this on Monday and Tuesday and you're not sure why you can't comment on the blog as usual...well you should really have read this by now.
For everyone else, here's a warning in good time and everything:
Early next week there'll be a change as to how you leave comments on 91Èȱ¬ blogs - the current registration system is being upgraded to a brand spanking new one.
All you really need to know is that you'll need to upgrade your current account to leave a comment, and you can do this by logging in as you normally would, and then following the prompts as they pop up.
It's all pretty straightforward but for more details please visit the 91Èȱ¬ Internet Blog.
Lots of love
Fraser (Team ChartBlog)
Is it possible, do you suppose, to plot out the arc of an entire relationship using just Beyoncé and Destiny's Child songs as narrative? To the extent where you could make a film of it, without any dialogue, just songs, and it would all make sense?
Naturally, it would be a romance, but it would have to go horribly wrong in the middle, and there could be no doubt that it's all the boy's fault for being a low down dirty cheating piece of rubbishy old rubbish.
And the bit where the heroine - and let's not mince words, she is DEFINITELY a heroine for putting up with that slimy wretch - gets her life back on track and finally calls him up on his nonsense...well that bit is going to have to last a while. Possibly over an hour.
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Of all the metaphorical animals in the rhetoric zoo, the snake that eats its own tail is the most useful. Especially to people who want to make a point about the circular nature of life, and how things which feel like progress can actually be just the opposite.
If you're not sure what I mean, imagine you're a snake, and you're enjoying a lovely meal. Now imagine how you'd feel if your dinner also turned out to be your bum. "This is no good," you would think "I cannot sustain myself by eating myself, why that defeats the point of eating in the first place!"
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When in the presence of something magical, there are two ways to react. You can look for the wires, magnets and sleight-of-hand tricks which create the illusion that something truly supernatural is in the room, or you can go with the flow, clap when instructed, and willingly suspend your disbelief.
Clearly, a little bit of both is necessary in life, or you'll either find yourself believing in pixies - because the Tooth Fairy has sent you their Facebook deets - or storming out of movies because the actors are clearly not the people they pretend to be on screen.
The question is, when the sparks fly and the smoke starts to clear, will you find yourself transported or intractible?
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Can I just say something, before we get into talking about my favourite song from one of my surprise favourite albums of what has turned out to be my favourite year (apart from 2003)? It's simply this: Old-fashioned things are neither automatically better or automatically worse than modern day things, they're just older.
This is a sentence everyone should carry round with them at all times. It would solve a lot of tedious chat using words like "vintage" and "seminal" and "authentic", or "cutting-edge" and "innovative" and (absolutely the very very worst worst of all) "zeitgeist".
There are things which are good, and there are things which are not good, and that (as Girls Aloud, who are good) once said, is that.
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Tinchy, can we have a word? We just wanted to check that everything's okay, that you're not struggling to adjust to life as a pop star. The other kids aren't picking on you or anything, are they? We wouldn't normally ask, but it just seems that you seem a bit reluctant to strike out on your own, and usually prefer to have someone to hold your hand. We mean, you had Taio Cruz for 'Take Me Back', then you had all of N-Dubz for 'Take Me Back', and you had that nice Amelle Berrabah from the Sugababes helping out on 'Never Leave You'.
Fair enough, you haven't really got a big name guesting on this single, which is definitely a positive step forwards in terms of self-sufficience, but...well, you are seeking cover underneath a top dance hit from the 1990s, aren't you? And okay, so you've got someone else doing the vocals on it rather than directly sampling the ones on the original, but - well, that refrain is rather unmistakeable, isn't it?
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The recent waves of global Robbie-love, Whitney-appreciation and Burke-enjoyment have proven one thing above all others, everyone loves a good comeback.
So, everyone? Remember Alphabeat? Alphabeat...this is everyone.
, which is three things:
THING 1: A really great pop song
THING 2: A giant leap on from their slightly-homemade pop sound of yester-month.
THING 3: Available in the shops.
And if you read on, you will find out what happened when I spoke to Anders SG about the issues raised by THING 1 and THING 2.
THING 3 doesn't really need going into in any great depth, I'd have thought...
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"I think it's good that Miley's a popstar"
These are the words I said to Fraser after listening to Miss Cyrus' new single, 'Party in the USA', for the first time. Okay, so it wasn't the most insightful thing to say and I'm pretty sure it made Fraser seriously reconsider whether or not I should be writing for ChartBlog, but I REALLY DO THINK THAT.
You see, there are a lot of popstars these days who, well, quite simply don't really add that much to 'pop'. They go through the motions and just end up churning out the same old, same old - sure it's good, but it's also a bit boring. Then there's Miley. She's fun, she's full of youth-osity and 'Party in the USA' is real breath of fresh air.
Oh, and it's a seriously stomping tune, too.
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Halfway through listening, a thought occurs: Imagine how amazing a co-production between Whitney and Basement Jaxx would be? Pretty astonishing, right? Well, it's going to take a few more hit records and a degree of positive press coverage before anything that experimental could take place. She's got fans to win back, after all.
Does anyone else now find themself paying really, really close attention to Whitney's voice and the way she pronounces words, just to hear if she's making any mistakes? It's a pretty ghoulish thing to do - I'm not proud - but you can't deny there are a few slips and slurs in the verses here which could, if you were so inclined, cause a few tuts and maybe even a sympathetic tilt of the head.
Thankfully, all it takes is a joyful swoop up to the chorus to put that thought to bed. No need for pity, the girl's still got class!
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It's a couple of thousand years from now, the futuristic version of Tony Robinson off Time Team, dressed in a scruffy, baggy version of the classic science fiction tinfoil jumpsuit, jumps down into cyber-trench D, cut diagonally across a bank of servers in the great internet megavault which eventually filled up Silicon Valley, Arnifornia, in the former U.S.A. of A.
"Greetings, Archeolobot Phil, my internal messaging centre has received your communication concerning a find. Please explain for the psi-receivers at home..."
"'Ello Presentobot 2nE. What we 'ave 'ere is a cache of em-pee-threes from the early 2000s. 2009, to be precise"
"My internal database can not process 'em-pee-threes'. Elaborate."
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Disco-house is a quirky kind of a musical hybrid, don't you think? On one level, it's a fairly simple idea, to take the very best ideas from disco - a genre which is full of very good ideas, and therefore ripe for plunder - and subject them to the kind of production techniques which are more commonly used in house music. The name writes itself, really.
On the other hand, sometimes it's an excuse to take an average house track - loops, stutters, repeats and all - and tart it up with disco dressing, so's to fill in the inspiration gaps and pass it off as a proper song.
So, when Armand Van Helden and DJ A-Trak, the people who 'present' this song to a grateful nation, make the claim that Duck Sauce are "re-inventing disco house for a new generation", it's only natural to welcome the news with crossed fingers and a whispered prayer to the heavens.
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MAN that was a close call! Anyone heard the original version of this? The pre-Nicole version? It has a slightly different slant to the song we now know and...well we know it, don't we?
If you remember that Nightcrawlers song 'Push The Feeling On', you'll be familiar with the synth refrain that underpins the whole endeavour. And if you don't, well, it was what Dave Pearce would've called a Dance Anthem, and it had a man doing some weird mumbling on it - sounding a bit like a sleeping dad, if memory serves.
Both versions are blessed with this refrain, although there's been some mucking about with the rhythm it sits on. Nothing to cause any real concern though.
The real worry comes in the differences between the old lyric sheet and the new one.
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There's something lovely about dance music which sounds like it has been designed by clockwork robots, for people to listen to and think about, rather than shake bits of themselves to and, y'know...NOT think about. It's like meccano machines attempting to map the contours of human emotions, or Pinocchio having a go at rapping, or something.
The Big Pink have that 'Dominos' song - - which has a similarly thoughtful edge to it. Oh sure there are big dumb riffs, there's foot-tappin' urgency, there's even a terrace-chant chorus - which we should all really spell "dominoes" when singing along - but there's also something just a little bit scientific and reserved at work there too.
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Look, let's be honest, there's no point you getting settled down to read all about the new single from Biffy Clyro when there's something far better on the internet, ready and waiting for you. I'd hate to waste your time wittering on about verses and choruses when there's something as amazing as the amazing thing I'm about to reveal just sitting there and demanding that you go and experience it as soon as you can.
In fact, just stop reading this and go and watch the band playing a special set at Maida Vale for Zane Lowe. You'd best hurry though, cos it won't be up for much longer. It's OK, I'll wait. See you in a bit.
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The moment I walked into The 5:19 Show's studio last week for Cobra Starship's interview, they completely won me over. You see, this band are one of the biggest on the planet right now (well, if you're an American, which incidentally I am not) and I was there to do nothing other than cheer and whoop.
So when they walked over to me and introduced themselves with all their sexy American pizzazz, and then went on to deliver one of the funniest interviews and best performances I've seen, there was no way I wasn't going to be utterly charmed. Charmed like a snake; a cobra, if you will.
(Tenuous much?)
And, yep, their new single 'Good Girls Go Bad' has exactly the same effect.
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Just quickly, before we get to the Foofs, it's important to say that the renowned rock monster Michael Bublé also , and as you'd expect, it's pretty brutal. He's shredding like a demon, there's a lot of swearing and shouting, and the only bits where he's not banging on about Satan are the bits where he's cussing out everyone who ever did him wrong, using the worst language the human mind can conjure up.
Oh sure, to the untrained ear it sounds like a fully grown man singing the 'What I've Been Looking For' song from High School Musical, but trust me, us music experts know pure filth when we hear it. It's all in the subtext.
Hell, his surname alone is two sexual references stuck together, the man's a wrong 'un.*
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It's hard to know how to feel when a member of a group you really like strikes out on their own. On the one hand, you want them to be successful enough that they don't embarrass themselves. On the other, you don't want them to be SO successful that they decide to stick with the solo thing permanently and not go back to the day job.
Basically, you want them to have an average amount of success - which is handy in this case, because Cheryl's first post-Girls Aloud single is deeply average.
Champagne, anyone?
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Even before I put fingertip to keypad, the feeling of walking a tightrope starts to tingle and fizz in the back of my mind, and here's a quick checklist of reasons why:
'All These Things That I've Done' by the Killers is a great song.
This is a charity cover version, for charity.
It takes phenomenal liberties with the original song.
Most of the people who are singing (or rapping) do not make indie-type rock music.
And indeed, this is not indie-type rock music in any way.
This is a journey outside of The Safety Zone for hardcore indie-type rock fans, that's for sure.
It probably does not count as real music.
Or surreal music, despite Ironik reading his lines from his mobile while rapping.
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Posthumous releases are a strange phenomenon. They don't always work, sometimes you can see the join, and there's something a little icky about hearing the voice of someone you know is no longer with us, singing a song you've never heard before. And if it's a song they weren't keen to release in the first place, there's the voyeurism factor to overcome too.
This being Michael Jackson, all of the emotions mentioned above are amplified by the media tornado that surrounds any mention of his name ever, and serve to build a wall between his music and the listening ear.
Grisly tabloid reports? Part of the problem. People shouting the odds on Twitter? Part of the problem. This review? Part of the problem. A man, on his own, saying Michael's name out loud on a windy day? Part of the problem.
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Chip Diddy Chip was our live guest on the show - what a medallion and what a journey the boy's made!
Paxman eat your heart out...Chipmunk talked about the journey he's made from starting in music at 14 and what his favourite ice cream flavour was..strawberry cheesecake...
He signed a copy of his new album "I Am Chipmunk" for me and I'll be listening to it on the drive home!
Chipmunk could be trying to steal my job as he's hosting this week's podcast which features Uma from the Saturdays chatting about her birthday activities and Marcus Mumford of Mumford and Sons chatting about our mutual Eddie Murphy love.
Download it here!
/podcasts/series/r1chart/
I'll be back next week talking to Mr Hudson, Alexandra Burke and giving away tickets to Robbie Williams at the Electric Proms.
P.S. Check out our spanking new website!
It's tempting to imagine that Alexandra was especially well-prepared for her time on the X-Factor, simply because of her name. You see, back in the middle ages, to call someone 'a berk' was an insult (well, okay, it was used when my parents were growing up, though that's close enough), which must have made school interesting. Bullying is hard enough to deal with when it's done by children, but their PARENTS?
Anyway, now this one lady is single handedly redefining what it means to be a burke, and ironically - given the bullying thing - it's all thanks to 'Bad Boys'.
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Nothing creative exists outside of its own time and place in the world. Or at least, if it does, it's only because it is old and the world has changed since it was first made.
Wait! Come back! I haven't finished! Here's an example: Much as we'd all like to pretend that the next single from, say, Madonna should be judged on its own merits and without a thought about how famous she is, the music she has made in the past, or whether she has legions of fans who will hunt down and attack anyone who does not love her or what she does, it's practically impossible to do.
This also applies to films, TV shows, paintings...any creative endeavour. And if you don't believe me, imagine that a celebrity you particularly hate has announced they're releasing a new single, a cover of your favourite song. Now tell me you're reserving judgement until you get to hear it.
No. You. Aren't.
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I know what you're thinking - "cuh, not ANOTHER half-Chilean, half-Danish pop star. Are they making them in some kind of factory or what?".
Actually, you're probably not thinking that at all, unless you happen to know of a secret stash of Chilean Danes currently being stockpiled in a warehouse, and plotting to infiltrate the British pop music scene, and James Bond is already creeping around the back corridors of the factory's admin department. Which is quite unlikely. Isn't it? Is it?
*Mindreaderfail*
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Hello, sorry it's been a while since Team Chart Show last blogged, but I have news!
Chippedy Chipmunk will be live on the show on Sunday. The Saturdays will also be live on the phone and we'll chat to Temper Trap too.
That's two of the front-runners for next week's No.1, and there can be only one winner!
Tune in from 4pm to see what happens
Ah, the very long song title with the funny twist ending, how very emo.
Also, is there some kind of contest going on here with REM? Is this the answer to 'It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)'? Cos if so, this could be the dog bark which triggers the avalanche: Answer songs could become the new special guest appearance from Jay-Z.
Think about it - we've already got Alexandra Burke and Cobra Starship doing battle over which is worse, bad boys or good girls gone bad, and Chipmunk updating Britney Spears from the perspective of the oopsee (rather than the oopser). The Veronicas must be fuming, now that the Saturdays have claimed that their last song is "over".
Prepare for the December chart to be riddled with songs called 'You Are Alone, Actually', or 'Ghostbusters N Stuff'. And is there an anti-Robbie song on the way, a reworking of the old Chaka Khan song, called 'Ain't No Bodies'?
Well no, clearly not, unless Gary Barlow's in a snippy mood.
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Bad news, my lovelies: This is a dud. I know we were all hoping for something amazing, something which would have slammed the door shut on that tiresome tabloid goodies vs. baddies battle switcheroo that perpetuates a fight between Rob and his former bandmates forever (and only ever supports the side that seems to be winning), but this isn't it.
'Bodies' should really have been the song which reminds everyone of the best that Robbie Williams the singer/songwriter has to offer. It should be a song which showcases some chippy lyrics and some stirring, we-are-all-one sentiment. It should get up a few noses, but ultimately win on charm, wit and charisma, much like the great man himself.
It should also show that while Robbie is a man who understands dark forces and black moods, he's determined to put on a happy face and do a funny dance, as this is the only way he knows of keeping the storm-clouds at bay.
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It's a risky business naming your new song after a word which has nothing but positive connotations for the world at large. Papillon is french for butterfly, and we all love a butterfly, right? It's also the name of a staggeringly good '70s film starring Dustin Hoffman and Steve McQueen, which was itself taken from a well-loved book of the same name.
There again, it's also a risky business for an indie guitar band to put down the guitars and wander over to the synthesizer section of the music shop. Even if they are officially retro synthesizers, and therefore have stood the fabled Test Of Time that rock fans are so fond of, the fact remains that fans of guitar bands tend to prefer their guitar bands to play guitars.
So, everything to play for, lots to lose...
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Something it's probably worth pointing out, for ChartBlog newbies, is that we don't really do interviews about the technical aspects of making music - y'know, where inspiration for songs comes from, what instrument gets used for which song, stuff like that.
There's a number of reasons for this, the most pressing of which is that it's a fairly common line of enquiry, and so all you're ever really doing is tapping into a well-worn stream of anecdotes which most fans have already read, and most artists are tired of trotting out.
The other main reason is, it's not as much fun as just having a nice chat with someone.
Of course, if you're having a nice chat with someone and the conversation turns naturally to, say, unusual instruments of the world, and the person you're talking to is someone as interesting as Graham Coxon, the Blur guitarist who is just as much at home making a skronky pop noise as a pretty folk doodle, well that's alright too.
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Watching the Saturdays new video turned into a bit of a communal experience today when half the office rushed over to check it out, an action that officially confirmed the girls' superstar status (the fact that we then went on to watch that clip of the girl falling over on last Sunday's X Factor is not important here).
And WHAT an experience it was.
You see, the video itself is massively embarrassing. Like on the JLS scale of embarrassing videos - but with at least double the budget. There's just no excuse, ladies. There are hair extensions, fake tattoos, and a cringeworthy popcorn-throwing moment; I was a little shamefaced to have it up on my computer screen, especially when my boss came over to see what was going on.
Then there's the fact that, without much music, the opening is muddled and confused, yet very obvious in where it's heading: and that is, of course, towards an epic chorus.... Luckily though, this epic chorus just so happens to be epically awesome.
But the real question is, is it epically memorable?
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You've got to hand it to Chipmunk, there aren't many rappers who can stand out for having particularly strong self-confidence, in a field which is dominated by mirror-kissing loudmouths. Rappers are the only people in the world who, if history was run again from the start, would've invented a soft drink with their name on it before fire. And yet, there's something about this dapper chap's particular form of audacity which never really comes across like proper arrogance.
It's almost as if he is too well-mannered to be out-and-out cocky, and would never stoop to claiming to be the best rapper in the world ever, because that would be vulgar, and in any case, you already know it, right?
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Sometimes things just sneak up on you, and mug you when you're not looking.
When 'Sweet Disposition' came out at the beginning of August, I did listen to it, but I was either on holiday, or about to go on holiday, or mentally on holiday. There were other things going on at the time, bigger things, probably, and anyway, these fly-by-night new indie bands disappear as soon as they arrive, don't they? If they're worth a look, I'll catch up with them next time they've got a song out. No sense in making an undignified rush to the word-processor once it's climbed up the charts, is there? Why expose yourself to the scorn of the music world, why let them claim that you have no clue what you're doing? People will snigger, and we can't have that. Chin up, and best foot forward...
And since then? Well, it has slowly climbed up the Top 40, off the back of a lot of use on TV, and a lot of radio play. Every week, a newer, higher position, and the growing, niggling doubt that actually, the time might have come to show the band some love, even if it's sometimes hard to separate them from Friendly Fires and Passion Pit. It's an alliteration thing.
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| 12:50 UK time, Saturday, 31 October 2009
