Justice ‘D.A.N.C.E.’

GCSE Pop Music, Comprehension, Paper 1, French and the funk.
Time allowed 3mins 59secs
Question 1) Justice’s ‘D.A.N.C.E.’ is hands down the finest slice of thumping funk to come out of French France since Daft Punk’s ‘Da Funk’ in 1996. Which is 12 years ago. 12. How can that be possible? I know people with children who are 12 years old.

More hear…
- One debut album, ladies and gents, got a big cross on the cover and is called ‘Cross’. What I will now be calling the Amazon Marketplace price index shows it holding its price nicely at exactly £10. AM is a decent gauge of supply and demand. That said, the thumping Simian Mobile Disco album is a piddly £4.98 which is almost giving it away. Buy now!

Gruff Rhys ‘Candylion’

As big a Super Furries fan as I am, their ‘Hey Venus!’ album passed me by last year, for some reason. It’s sat in my iTunes, I’ve just not listened. Don’t know why really, especially when you consider they are, hands down, the most creative band the UK has produced in the last decade. Yes, better even than Arctic Monkeys. Imagine.

No, for me last year was about the gentle lovliness of Gruff’s second solo album (again, his first is sat in iTunes, unlistened to, but then it is in Welsh), ‘Candylion’. It’s as hit and miss as you’d expect, but when it’s a hit, it’s like a cod in the face. The title track, especially, is just gorgeousness on top of gorgeousness. Live sadly, it was all ghastly. Self-indulgent nonsense despite the marvellous huge TV stage set. Still, that’s part of the joy of SFA.

BTW… It’s funny how the old mind works… The last Furries album shares a name with a very fine My Petrol Emotion track which, I recall, Ross Allen used to ‘play out’ at the wrong speed. Sounded great, I will dig it out and give it a whirl. MP3 with you soon… ish.

More hear…
- Yr Atal Genhedlaeth (Jan 2005)
- Candylion (Jan 2007)
I’ve included links to Amazon Marketplace until I unearth a better buying option. I’m a big fan of AM, especially when you think of it like a library. And so long as you keep buying and selling, it works out lovely. Surprised that Gruff’s solo efforts have held their price so well!
- I’ve also recently discovered Gruff has an electro-pop outfit, Neon Neon, whose concept album based on the life of John De Lorean is out next month. More research required I think…

“Listen sonny, buy the sodding music paper, or bugger off…”
In the old days it was simple. It was called Napster. We went bonkers for it at NME.COM. Admittedly, it’s all a bit odd thinking back. Our downloads lived on our desktops. MP3 players were woefully short on memory and weepingly expensive. And iPods were still a twinkle in Apple’s eye.

Still, didn’t stop us scouring daily for leaked albums of which we turned up a fair few. If I remember correctly, we compiled ‘Kid A’ from live tracks, and then snagged the studio album, both very much upfront of release. Happy days.

Anyway, Stuart Dredge – off of Shiny Media’s very fine Tech Digest – peers into the murk and sums up digital music 2008 all very neatly in his piece on 30 Trends in Digital Music.

Thought you might like a read. Especially, 15: MP3 blogs cause a stir, in which he flags up little Louis Patterson’s piece from The Guardian last year in which… well, see for yourselves.

Back to the old days (and I’m only talking late 80s/early 90s), you’d read about great music in four weekly music publications (NME, MM, Sounds and Record Mirror) – I could only afford one, so each week I’d make half an hour to pour over them in the newsy before deciding which one to spend my cash on.

Then you’d have to listen to Peel from start to finish each night in the hope he’d play some of the stuff you’d read about. And some of the stuff he’d play, that you’d read about, you’d buy. And tape for your mate. So what’s changed?

MP3 blogs are the new Peel. And while you’re listening, you can read too. No longer am I stood, Wednesday morning, in the newsy on Sharrowvale Road, Sheffield, agonising. Now I’m at my laptop, MP3s churning, streaming, downloading, emailing, and they’re all surrounded by people writing about music again.

See, everything the press writes about is already out there waiting. All they do is tell you what they think is best. And that’s all Peel used to do. Play what he liked best.

The only people moaning about MP3 blogs are people who can’t figure out how to use them to their advantage. The same lot who got stung by MTV, swore never again and then promptly got stung again by the internet while they were too busy watching their backs.

Best not get me started. Read Louis’ piece though. Goes without saying, he’s wrong.

The Crimea ‘The 48A Waiting Steps’

As any sensible music writer knows, it is obligatory to have a soft spot for the not inconsiderable talents of Davey MacManus, nee Crockett, off of The Crocketts if you’re over 30, and off The Crimea if you just like great music.

Quite why The Crimea aren’t as popular as free bags of chewy sweets is beyond me. Their second album, ‘The Secrets of the Witching Hour’ was not only one of last year’s finest, but they jolly well gave it away as a download, months before ver ‘Head did the very same and were heralded as revolutionaries. Honestly.

I have to declare vested interest. Drummer Owen is fine, upstanding human who I like enormously. During my time at War Child he came up with an idea to to trade up a landmine for £1m to help the countless children suffering in Iraq. Great idea, we set up a site, and got as far as Trade 7 when the ‘very talented’ Radio One DJ, Annie Mac, came along and messed things up.

More hear…
- Two albums then, ‘The Secrets of the Witching Hour’ (available as a free download here), and the mighty fine debut ‘Tragedy Rocks’ which you can pick up from the marvellous Amazon Marketplace for a stupid £2.45 + p&p, which is a bargain in anyone’s book.

The National ‘Fake Empire’

People used to ask what qualifications we had to be music journalists. ‘None,’ we would say. No NCTJ, no nothing. ‘So anyone can do it then?’ they’d say. Well, watching some 400 or so live bands a year and listening to the pile of CDs that arrive in the post each and every day is a leg up. ‘It all kind of helps,’ we’d say.

So when anyone i’ve worked with says I should listen to something, I do tend to listen. Absolutely loved New Yorkers, The National, last year. They’re like the indie version of nu rave, all the best bits of The Bunnymen, Talk Talk, Cave, all rolled into one big, swollen musical heap of late night lovliness.

Hear also…
‘Boxer’, their fifth album, is the only one we’ve heard. We’ll be checking the others in 2008 and will report back.