1. Can we stop with the ironic Smells Like Teen Spirit covers now? Everyone with half an idea thinks slowing it down, or turning it into a big band number, or playing the riff with an unusual instrument will instantly turn them into satirical mavericks, the latest being Paul Anka on his post-ironic swing covers album. Only six people are now interested - the three that rush to damn it as sullying Kurt's legacy and the three that find that rush to damn it as sullying Kurt's legacy hilarious.
2. Those with Sky Digital (in the UK, obviously) who can't stand the amount I'm going on at them about the Decemberists should watch Conan O'Brien on CNBC on Friday night, where they're on live. More immediately, 16 Military Wives has earned itself an extraordinarily good video.
3. XL have stuck up a set of MIA instrumentals and acapellas, inevitably titled Online Piracy Funds Terrorism. Fair enough, given blog maintainers are the only people willing to take interest in her.
4. I've heard the new Super Furry Animals album, and it's going to take some getting used to. Sure, it's all very sumptuous and high aiming - can we say mature? - so it's even more grandiose ELO-like than before, but where's the dynamism that made the last six albums stand above and apart from their influences? In other forthcoming album news, Editors' The Back Room largely does not much Interpol haven't already well mined.
5. Pete Doherty fashion? Fuck off.
1 comment:
Saw SFA doing a slightly awkward pre-album show last week, and it did strike me that the new songs were missing something - not that they were bad but there was nothing outstanding either, all of a similar pace and with no bits that that I found myself humming on the bus home. I put it down to not having heard them before and I'd love them in a few months time on the grounds that it was the Super Furry Animals and they've never let us down before.
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