Sunday, June 05, 2005
I keep thinking at some point of starting a bar down the right hand side of my blog called 'Piracy Sells Music' in which I list all the albums I've downloaded, and then tick them off as I buy valid real copies in the shops. Only the fear that as well as the four of you that read me I'll suddenly get that arsehole who works for the BMI (or is the BMJ? BDA? hang on, "Lemming, Lemming, Lemming of the BDA..." okay, scratch the last one) turn up and take me to court stops me. But anyway, if I had such a feature, MIA's Arular and now The Tears' Here Come The Tears would be on it, in the 'I've downloaded this and I'll be buying it sometime in the next month' category.
It took me a few listens to 'get' MIA, to realise I was wrong in what I was categorising as amateurish. And it's like one of those trick-eye pictures, on the first listen all I got was the static, after that I realised it was a carnival disguised as the Radiophonic Workshop.
The Tears are much more my usual territory so much quicker to like. One listen this afternoon in fact. It's like travelling back in time, more specifically the album opens with songs that sound like they are from Suede's Coming Up, minus the keyboards of Neil Codling, with the odd dash of Dog Man Star. And for the first time in several albums Brett Anderson is writing decent lyrics again, if this album comes with a lyric sheet hold them up to Head Music and note the difference. His preoccupation with verses where the same words are repeated as though that is some signifier of deepness has been drastically turned down and we're back to the old preoccupations of sex and escape. It's ironic that when Bernard Butler left Suede Dicky Oakes was brought in to try and mimic his sound, on this album Bernard sounds remarkably like him. The south is rising.
It took me a few listens to 'get' MIA, to realise I was wrong in what I was categorising as amateurish. And it's like one of those trick-eye pictures, on the first listen all I got was the static, after that I realised it was a carnival disguised as the Radiophonic Workshop.
The Tears are much more my usual territory so much quicker to like. One listen this afternoon in fact. It's like travelling back in time, more specifically the album opens with songs that sound like they are from Suede's Coming Up, minus the keyboards of Neil Codling, with the odd dash of Dog Man Star. And for the first time in several albums Brett Anderson is writing decent lyrics again, if this album comes with a lyric sheet hold them up to Head Music and note the difference. His preoccupation with verses where the same words are repeated as though that is some signifier of deepness has been drastically turned down and we're back to the old preoccupations of sex and escape. It's ironic that when Bernard Butler left Suede Dicky Oakes was brought in to try and mimic his sound, on this album Bernard sounds remarkably like him. The south is rising.
