Culture Sluts

Lemuria (not be confused with the Belgium black metal band of the same name) have one of the best debut albums I’ve heard in a long time. Get Better is a fantastic slice of awkward pop-punk that’s too shy to ask you out but not to tell the rest of the world about it. Um, or something.

Anyway, Lemuria and bands like them will be successfully in the next period because before too long we’re going to rediscover how much we loved geeky, noisy, uncommercialised indie rock back in the early nineties. This, folks, is the next big thing. As fantastic as Friendly Fires are, it’s been four years since Silent Alarm, and that wave has now broken.

It just gets better and better. From the BBC:

Hip-hop producer Danger Mouse is to release a blank CD, after record label EMI reportedly cancelled his new album.

Dark Night Of The Soul, a collaboration with rock group Sparklehorse, also features Iggy Pop and The Flaming Lips, along with artwork by David Lynch.

It has already been streamed online, but Billboard magazine said a “legal dispute” with EMI derailed the project.

Danger Mouse, who is half of pop group Gnarls Barkley, said he hoped people would still get to hear the record.

A spokesperson for the producer said: “Danger Mouse remains hugely proud of Dark Night of the Soul and hopes that people lucky enough to hear the music, by whatever means, are as excited by it as he is.”

He added that the album, which comes with a limited edition, “100+ page book” of David Lynch photographs inspired by the music “will now come with a blank, recordable CD-R”.

“All copies will be clearly labelled: ‘For Legal Reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will.’”

It is unclear at this stage whether the record has been postponed or scrapped altogether. EMI could not be reached for comment.

Record labels are supposed to be a means for artists to get their music to the public. If the labels actually prevent this from happening, and the artists are forced to encorage their fans to get hold the music illegally, what exactly are the labels for? How can the record industry attack fans for downloading music when they wont let the fans buy it on CD?

From the BBC:

The new Manic Street Preachers album is being shipped to supermarkets in a plain slipcase because its artwork has been deemed “inappropriate”.

Concerns have been raised that the cover for Journal For Plague Lovers, a portrait by artist Jenny Saville, looks like it is splattered with blood.

Singer James Dean Bradfield called the situation “utterly bizarre”.

“We just thought it was a beautiful painting. We were all in total agreement,” he told BBC 6 Music.

The frontman disagreed that Saatchi favourite Saville, who also painted the cover for the band’s 1994 album The Holy Bible, had intended to depict a bloody face.

“It is her brushwork,” he said.

“If you’re familiar with her work, there’s a lot of ochres and browns and reds and browns and perhaps people are looking for us to be more provocative than we are being.

“We just saw a much more modern version of Lucian Freud-esque brushstrokes. That’s all we saw.

Bradfield added that the band were frustrated by supermarkets’ attitudes.

“You can have lovely shiny buttocks and guns everywhere in the supermarket on covers of magazines and CDs, but you show a piece of art and people just freak out,” he said.

Four of the main supermarket chains – Sainsburys, Tesco, Asda and Morrisons – are among the shops using the slip cover.

Asda told 6 Music they wanted to be extra cautious in case the artwork upset some of its customers.

Meanwhile Nicola Williamson, Sainsbury’s music buyer, said: “We felt that some customers might consider this particular album cover to be inappropriate if it were prominently displayed on the shelf.

“As such, the album will be sold in a sleeve provided by the publisher.”

So now you have to purchase a Manics album in a brown paper bag. FFS. Big business pandering to the lowest common denominator yet again. Who needs Mary Whitehouse when you have the force of the market?

Album review coming soon…

Apologies to those of you who don’t give a fuck, but earlier this week Radio 1 played a track from the Manic Street Preacher’s new album Journal For Plague Lovers. You can hear it again here:

Manic Street Preachers – Peeled Apples

It sounds, as promised, like The Holy Bible via In Utero. Which means it’s pretty damn awesome.

Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien has some interesting news:

Two days ago a historic meeting took place in Heaven (!) under Charing Cross railway station in London. A group of us Featured Artists, that’s anyone who has put a record out, gathered for the inaugural meeting of the Featured Artist Coalition (FAC). Traditionally in the music industry two groups have been shut out of any negotiations and rights/revenue carve ups … and that’s the artists and the fans. The formation of the FAC is all about changing this state of affairs … hopefully we can not only do artists justice but also the people who listen to our music. After all, in order to be a musician you have to be a music fan …… And first and foremost this is about trying to ensure that young bands and artists get a fair deal and are able to make a living in the digital era ….
I’m going to post up stuff about this because it’s an exciting time and also because there is going to be some seriously heavy PR aimed at us by the interested parties who might deem the FAC a threat …there’s a lot of fear out there in the biz….

Blur’s David Roundtree adds a bit more detail:

“The digital revolution has swept away the old music business of the 1960s, and changed forever the relationship between artists and fans. For companies who made their living sitting between the two, these are increasingly hard times, but for music makers and music fans this should be a fantastic opportunity.

“YouTube’s row with the PRS is the most recent example of just how fast the music industry is changing. There has never been a greater need for the collective voice of featured artists, whose music generates 95% of revenue in the industry, to be properly heard.

“As this revolution gathers pace Featured Artists must seize the initiative. We are looking to forge a new deal, built on fairness, with our fans, the music industry and governments.

“To achieve this, we must own our future, take real control of our rights and genuinely work together. Acting alone, artists’ voices will not be heard. Acting together, we can be a powerful force. Our rights are our power. By making ourselves heard and arguing for what’s fair, we can help reshape the industry for the future so that it serves the interests of those who want to make new music as well as those who want to hear new music.”

Essentially, this is a union, but it’s a union with a specific purpose. As David Roundtree says the industry’s old method of working is being destroyed by mass piracy. We have now reached the point where anyone can download for free almost any album they want, in high-quality and lossless audio formats. Oink.cd was the most extensive music library ever created, and although the music industry can shut down a few bittorrent sites they’ll never be able to stop new ones from springing back up. The financial model which the music industry has been using for the last 60+ years is no longer viable.

Piracy harms artists, but it harms the record labels (and the endless middlemen, who have been largely rendered superfluous by digital technology) a hell of a lot more. A typical artist’s share of the profits from a record is between 10/90 and 20/80, so every album pirated hurts the industry five to ten times more than it does the artist. This is why people generally don’t feel bad about piracy- those who are hurt the most are the record companies, who generally deserve it.

But the fact remains that piracy does hurt artists, and for a new artist can be the difference between making a living from their music or not. So it’s vital that a new business model is developed. The current situation is unsustainable, and actually benefits mainstream commercial artists, whose fans are less likely to download their music for free.

However artists end up getting paid in the future- and I have no brilliant ideas over how this should be accomplished- artists deserve a bigger slice of the pie, and fans should be paying less for their music. This pressure group seems to have been formed for the purpose of achieving this aim, and so must be a Good Thing.

Anyone else hear the QOTSA influence?

As you may have noticed, this site has gone a bit pink. Do you like it? Clearly there are bits and pieces which will need fixing as time goes by, but I think it’s pretty.

One important thing you need to do is resubscribe to our new feed if that’s how you like to read the site. You can do this using the relevent button on your browser (should look something like this: ) or by selecting the required feed below:

Rss 2.0 | Rss 0.92 | Atom 1.0

Thanks for your patience while we get our shit together!

xxx

The California supreme court is getting ready to make a decision concerning the ban on gay marriage in the state and the martial fate of 18,000 recently espoused couples.  The hearing will take place on March 5th, and a decision will be made within 90 days of the hearing.  You all know what to do, let’s e-mail the hell out of some bitches:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/divorce

Yep, it’s that time of year again, Firstly a disclaimer- although this list is in the same style of those published by magazines such as the NME, I am one person and do not have the time to check out absolutely everything is release. I’ve done this two years previously and missed such fantastic albums as Justice’s †,  Hot Chip’s The Warning and the Dresden Doll’s Yes, Virginia so I’m pretty sure there are ones which slipped through the net this year. In any case this list is highly subjective. Think of it as a friendly pointer towards gems which might otherwise have escaped your attention.

	1. Amanda Palmer – Who Killed Amanda Palmer? The Dresden Doll’s front woman Amanda ‘fucking’ Palmer has succeeded in producing an album so fine that it stands tall next to the two studio albums recorded with drumming partner Brian Viglione. For this solo effort Palmer has recruited help from multi-instrumentalist Ben Folds, as well as securing guest spots from musicians such as the Dead Kennedys’ East Bay Ray, avant garde cellist Zoe Keating and singer songwriter Annie Clark. What this album misses is the rock that heavy metal influenced Brian Viglione brings to the rock cabaret, but ballads such as romantic epic Ampersand and painfully bittersweet The Point of it All more than make up for the reduction in energy. Hopefully the sonic textures and instrumental arrangements explored here will feed back into the Dresden Dolls and inspire them to reach even greater heights.
	2. Neon Neon – Stainless Style This album really shouldn’t work. Gruff Rhys, front man of psychedelic Welsh stoner pop group the Super Furry Animals, is the last person you’d expect to pull off an eighties ‘yacht rock’ concept album about John DeLorean, the playboy car designer and manufacturer most notably responsible for the stainless steel DMC-12. And yet it works fantastically, largely due to the sheer conviction with which Rhys describes the rags-to-riches tale- a story with parallels to that of Howard Marks, another SFA idol. Layer this over a retro yet contemporary electropop production courtesy of LA hip hop producer Boom Bip and you have an instant pop classic. Sadly a follow-up is said to be unlikely, although given the hours that Rhys puts in to his various musical projects there’s a good chance he’ll come up with another gem in one of his many guises.
	3. Guns n’ Roses – Chinese Democracy First off, this isn’t a Guns n’ Roses album- it’s an Axl Rose album. Not unlike uber-producer Dr Dre, Rose has created this album by using a multitude of session musicians to give him the performances he needs, paying little attention to the traditional concept of a ‘band’ of musicians. Sadly, this destroys much of the mystique of GNR. For example, Slash may not have been the best guitarist in the world, but when you hear a riff on Appetite For Destruction you can instantly picture a half English, half African American monster of a guy in a top hat with black frizzy hair, a bottle of Jack Daniels and a cigarette between his lips, tearing into his black Gibson Les Paul. When you hear an awesome riff on Chinese Democracy, you have to check the liner notes to find out which guitarist it is. But leaving all that aside, it is a fantastic album, if a little patchy in places. There are so many different musical influences on here- industrial, piano ballads, doom metal, even sample-based music- you cant help but respect Rose’s desire to push creative boundaries. Great stuff, just don’t by mislead by the name on the cover.
	4. Immortal Technique – The 3rd World Making political music is fraught with danger; it usually involves putting yourself on a self-righteous moral pedestal and asking the general public to knock you down. Immortal Technique sidesteps this issue by not hiding the fact that he’s a barely reformed gangster from the streets of Harlem rather than a ‘beautiful soul’ narcissist. His music is all the better for having a dose of reality and he unashamedly stands in the ‘Revolutionary but Gangsta’ tradition of Ice T, Ice Cube and Dead Prez. This is supposed to be a stop-gap album between Revolutionary Vol.2 and Vol.3 but it’s still easily the best thing he’s done and in the absence of Dr Dre’s Detox the best hip-hop album of the year. DJ Green Lantern mixes the tracks together with old-school turntable skills and provides the flow and continuity which previous albums were lacking. Tech’s lyrics remain on top form and by the end the album ends it’s impossible not to have been sucked into his universe.
	5. The Subways – All Or Nothing The Subway’s debut album was one of the hardest rocking things to come out of the UK since Britpop, an album rejecting the arty pretentiousness of contemporary British indie and embracing the excitement of youth and the power of three chords. Since then they’ve toured America, where they were adored, and returned with and album of slicker riffs, better lyrics and a more professional production. It’s still old-school rock though, and still infused with the spirit of a broke teenager who’s moved to the big city for the first time, and is trying to make ends meet amidst the chaos and excitement of humanity.
	6. Dan Le Sac Vs. Scroobius Pip – Angles This is one album that lived up to the preceding singles, filled as it is with a determination to best it can possibly be. Scroobius Pip embodies all the best aspects of the legendary New York MCs of the mid-eighties, and Dan Le Sac lays down mind-bending beats which put the unimaginative production of mainstream hip hop to shame. Social commentary and storytelling feature heavily on one of the most inventive UK hip hop records ever released.
	7. Vampire Weekend If there’s a class war in indie, Vampire Weekend are definitely on the side of the ruling class. They went to Columbia University, shamelessly appropriate afro-pop for a white audience, and write songs about Oxford commas. Single M79 even sounds like the theme to University Challenge, fer fuck’s sake. But… forget all that, and listen to the album without prejudice, and what you’ll hear is one of the most perfect pop records released in years. Rich kids make good album- strange, but true.
	8. Glasvegas Glasvegas pretty much define the word ‘epic’. Sonically they recall late eighties shoegaze bands such as My Bloody Valentine and the Jesus and Mary Chain, while lyrically James Allen sings about the trials of ordinary people’s lives in a strong Glaswegian accent, like a Bruce Springsteen raised on Tennants and deep fried Mars bars. Or, imagine the Killers jamming with Mogwai, with Morrissey writing the lyrics and Phil Spector on production. Fantastic stuff.
	9. Portishead – Third Portishead began their career reinventing hip-hop for the Britpop generation. Now they’ve returned after a ten year hiatus with a record that reinvents trip-hop for the Radiohead generation. As dark and remorseless as anything Nine Inch Nails have produced, Portishead’s Third is the Dummy’s evil twin, twisting the soul and blues grooves into industrial, mechanical rhythms, all wrapped up in Beth Gibbons’ haunting voice. Wonderfully dark modern soul.
	10. Bloc Party – Intimacy Actually a bit disappointing this one, but an average Bloc Party album still beats most other things released this year. I was expecting an album full of full-on rave ups a la Flux, but what we have is a schizophrenic album which jumps from the hard riffing arena rock of Halo, to the bizarre cut-and-paste sound collage of Mercury, to the epic lullaby of Signs, and everywhere in between. Overall the electronic effects and heavy compression remind of the Klaxons more than anything else. Unexpected, but rewarding.

Need more stuff to listen to? Here’s some more decent albums released last year, in no particular order:

• The Offspring – Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace
• Scars on Broadway – Scars on Broadway
• The Streets – Everything is Borrowed
• The Dresden Dolls – No, Virginia
• The Ting Tings – We Started Nothing
• Hot Chip – Made in the Dark
• British Sea Power – Do You Like Rock Music?
• The Whip – X Marks Destination
• Spiritualised – Songs in A & E
• Primal Scream – Beautiful Future
• Kings of Leon – Only By The Night

2008 in music was a bit of a disappointment as much of the promise of new rave/indiedisco failed to materialise. The Whip and Foals both released fantastic singles in 2007 but their debut albums failed to deliver quite as well. Hot Chip’s second album didn’t match up to their first, and CSS’ follow up was just awful. The Ting Tings released some great singles but the album was lacking, and even Bloc Party’s effort did not live up to the standard set by Flux. To top it off, it looks like the post-punk revival has finally bit the dust with poor efforts from Razorlight, Dirty Pretty Things and Kaiser Chiefs. On the plus side last year was the year New York began to re-established itself as the capital of cool, with MGMT and TV On The Radio topping the NME’s 2008 album list. As we haven’t seen a great NYC band since the Strokes, maybe it’s time for the city to make a comeback.

My two favourite albums of the year were side projects by musicians who had already established themselves in other bands, while number three was released by a rock band who have been around for a zillion years and gone through more members than Spinal Tap. There are two debut guitar pop albums in my top ten, which along with the Ting Tings were heavily hyped to make up for the fact that there were few other decent debut albums. There’s also a few decent hip-hop albums made with the old-skool philosophy, and a slight resurgence in American hard rock.

Biggest disappointment of the year was the Killer’s third album, Day and Age. This is meant to be better than Sam’s Town? Meh.

So what next? My hopes are on the basic, youthful and exuberant rock of the Subways and the neo-grunge of Biffy Clyro to point us forward. I think we need something angry that really rocks out and blasts away the dross- an Appetite For Destruction for the new decade. Who’s gonna come up with the goods?