Blah Blah Flowers

Lily Allen has been saying some very silly things about piracy recently. Dan Bull has a response. [via Bloggerheads]

Labels: music, piracy

I'm not sure if I've invented a meme or rediscovered an old one, but pop music in the style of those old text-driven adventure games. Ok Go!

Common People by Pulp.

>LEAVE GREECE

She came from Greece, she had a thirst for knowledge

>GET PLANE TO HEATHROW
>GET TRAIN TO LONDON
>GET TUBE TO HOLBORN
>EXIT TUBE STATION
>N
>ENTER Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
>ENROL ON SCULPTURE COURSE

She studied sculpture at Saint Martin's College

>LOOK
>EXAMINE TALL AND POOR LOOKING MAN

That's where I caught her eye

>SAY TO MAN "MY DAD HAS LOTS OF MONEY"

She told me that her Dad was loaded
I said "In that case I'll have rum and coca-cola

>SAY TO MAN "FINE"

She said "fine"

>WAIT
>WAIT
>WAIT

And then in 30 seconds time she said

>BEGIN CLASS TOURISM

"I want to live like common people
I want to do whatever common people do
I want to sleep with common people
I want to sleep with common people like you"

>WAIT

Well what else could I do?
I said "I'll see what I can do"

>LEAVE Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
>S
>ENTER Sainsburys

I took her to a supermarket

>SAY TO MAN "WHY ARE WE HERE?"

I don't know why
but I had to start it somewhere
so it started there
I said "pretend you've got no money"

>LAUGH

but she just laughed

>SAY TO MAN "Oh YOU'RE SO FUNNY"

and said "oh you're so funny"
I said "Yeah
Well I can't see anyone else smiling in here
Are you sure
you want to live like common people
you want to see whatever common people see
you want to sleep with common people
you want to sleep with common people like me?"

>SAY TO MAN "PARDON?"

But she didn't understand

>SMILE
>GET HIS HAND

she just smiled and held my hand

>BUY A COPY OF LOOT
>EXAMINE LOOT
>ARRANGE VIEWING OF PROPERTIES ABOVE SHOPS WITH LOW WEEKLY RENT
>ARRANGE TENANCY CONTRACT FOR PROPERTY

Rent a flat above a shop

>VISIT HAIRDRESSERS
>HAVE HAIR CUT
>VISIT JOB CENTRE
>SIGN ON JOB SEEKERS ALLOWANCE

Cut your hair and get a job

>VISIT NEWSAGENTS
>BUY CIGARETTES
>SMOKE CIGARETTES
>VISIT POOL HALL
>PLAY POOL

Smoke some fags and play some pool

>DROP THE LETTER 'H' FROM SPEECH
>MIS-SPELL WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS

Pretend you never went to school
But still you'll never get it right

>GO TO BED

'cos when you're laid in bed at night

>EXAMINE WALLS

watching roaches climb the wall

>CONSIDER PHONING FATHER

if you called your dad he could stop it all
yeah
You'll never live like common people
You'll never do whatever common people do
You'll never fail like common people
You'll never watch your life slide out of view
and then dance and drink and screw
because there's nothing else to do

>VISIT PUB IN A WORKING CLASS AREA
>SING

Sing along with the common people
Sing along and it might just get you through

>LAUGH

Laugh along with the common people
Laugh along although they're laughing at you

>DO SOMETHING STUPID

and the stupid things that you do

>THINK 'POOR IS COOL'

because you think that poor is cool
Like a dog lying in a corner
they will bite you and never warn you
Look out
they'll tear your insides out

>VISIT A&E DEPARTMENT
>ASK NURSE FOR TREATMENT FOR BITES
>ASK NURSE FOR RABIES SHOT

'cos everybody hates a tourist
especially one who thinks

>LAUGH AT A&E
>GO TO WORK
>LAUGH
>GO TO FLAT
>LAUGH
>GO TO POOL HALL
>LAUGH
>LEAVE HURRIEDLY

it's all such a laugh

>GO TO FLAT
>PREPARE BATH

yeah and the chip stains and grease

>WASH OFF CHIP STAINS
>WASH OFF GREASE

will come out in the bath

>UNDERSTAND HOW IT FEELS TO LIVE YOUR LIFE WITH NO MEANING OR CONTROL AND WITH NOWHERE LEFT TO GO
(fail)
>UNDERSTAND HOW IT FEELS TO LIVE YOUR LIFE WITH NO MEANING OR CONTROL AND WITH NOWHERE LEFT TO GO
(fail)
>UNDERSTAND HOW IT FEELS TO LIVE YOUR LIFE WITH NO MEANING OR CONTROL AND WITH NOWHERE LEFT TO GO
(fail)
>UNDERSTAND HOW IT FEELS TO LIVE YOUR LIFE WITH NO MEANING OR CONTROL AND WITH NOWHERE LEFT TO GO
(fail)

You will never understand
how it feels to live your life
with no meaning or control
and with nowhere left to go

>GIVE UP
>BE AMAZED AT HOW WONDERFUL THE WORKING CLASS PEOPLE ARE

You are amazed that they exist
and they burn so bright
whilst you can only wonder why

>BUY A COPY OF LOOT
>EXAMINE LOOT
>ARRANGE VIEWING OF DIFFERENT PROPERTIES ABOVE SHOPS WITH LOW WEEKLY RENT
>ARRANGE TENANCY CONTRACT FOR A NEW PROPERTY

Rent a flat above a shop

>VISIT HAIRDRESSERS
>HAVE ANOTHER HAIR CUT
>VISIT JOB CENTRE
>SIGN ON JOB SEEKERS
>LISTEN AS IT'S EXPLAINED THAT SIGNING ON TO JOB SEEKERS ALLOWANCE TWICE IS 'FRAUD'
>APOLOGISE

Cut your hair and get a job

>VISIT NEWSAGENTS
>BUY CIGARETTES
>SMOKE CIGARETTES
>VISIT POOL HALL
>PLAY POOL

Smoke some fags and play some pool

>DROP THE LETTER 'H' FROM SPEECH
>MIS-SPELL WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS

Pretend you never went to school
But still you'll never get it right

>GO TO BED

'cos when you're laid in bed at night

>EXAMINE WALLS

watching roaches climb the wall

>CONSIDER PHONING FATHER

if you called your dad he could stop it all
yeah
You'll never live like common people
You'll never do whatever common people do
You'll never fail like common people
You'll never watch your life slide out of view
and then dance and drink and screw
'because there's nothing else to do
I want to live with common people like you.....

>STOP CLASS TOURISM

Labels: Britpop, humour, music, TextAdventurePopSongs

Labels: Britpop, music, YouTube

In Douglas Adam's Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency one of the characters was a computer programmer that had developed a program to turn company financial reports into music. Now philosopher Dan Lloyd has developed a computer program to turn brain scans into sound, healthy brains produce quite standard melodies, the brains of people with diagnosed mental conditions goes a bit Cage or Stockhausen-y.

Labels: brain/mind, music, science, the brain

And in the future they will always ask, "where were you when you heard Michael Jackson died?" and I'll admit that I was in the university paper-shop, looking for a paper. I saw all the pictures on the covers of the newspapers, about what happened. I was shocked. Appalled. That the newspapers would, to a rag, take such a negative view of a singer that just tried to shine a little light, who just wanted to give people a glimpse of a different world.

That's Jarvis Cocker of course. Michael Jackson, even in 1996, was yesterdecade's news. If the Brits wanted to give Michael Jackson a made-up award because they wanted him to perform there, fine. He'd done an album that was nothing special but he wanted to perform and, who cares, why not? But even in a business not known for good taste, to have loads of children and people in religious costume look to him like he was some sort of messiah, without any sense of irony, that was when he was finished, and the following thirteen years have been little more than a long death rattle. What was especially amusing was that the next day all the newspapers had a go at Jarvis as a child-trampling thug. The next day they got with the program as they realised that they had misjudged public opinion which was firmly behind the Jarv. Jackson's last act in life was to propel Pulp to the stardom they achieved in the nineties, one of Britpop's biggest acts.

Labels: Britpop, music, paedophiles, YouTube

Hilarious.



They've also knocked up a website too, where they continue to play the game to the hilt.

Labels: Conservatives, humour, music, politics, United States, YouTube

Go here and download The Harvey Girls's free EP An Uncloudy Day. LISTEN. You won't regret it as it's between 4 and 4.07 times better than whatever crap you were listening to. [via Fluxblog]

READ. Sleeping with the NME: how the British music press picked up a dose of the crap. The public get the music press that no public could deserve. Though in their defence the gig was up in the late-nineties when the Britpop boom ended, tipping the control away from a music press that could chose who to write about to the PR companies who could now say whether the press could have access to their rosters or not depending on what they wrote. [via Warren Ellis]

Labels: Britpop, journalists, music

The Phonogram blog is back up. Mmmm, fermented pixie ichor.

Labels: comics, music, Phonogram

Although, as usual, The Times is coming late to a party that's been going for a while now, Why Spotify may spell the end of ownership does highlight my fear that record labels will encourage the development and dominance of services like Spotify and Last.fm as a means of them holding complete control over the public's access to the point where I'd have to pay money if I want to hear any music at all ever. I would hope such a scenario would not come to pass but then they do all they can to try and stop file transfer despite the fact it encourages people to buy music legitimately after they've had an easy hassle-free way to hear it. Or maybe that's just me.

Labels: Digital Rights Management, music, piracy

Labels: Gogol Bordello, music, YouTube

I have a few issues with The Prodigy, as they are one of the most unconvincing 'fuck you I won't do what you tell me' anti-authoritarian outfits ever, if George Formby ever lost it for a moment on stage and dropped a 'bollocks' into 'When I'm Cleaning Windows' he'd still be harder and more street than The Prodge. And I was also unimpressed by Liam Howlett's determination to only turn out shit music after (or, some might justifiably argue, during) The Fat of the Land because it was terrible about how so many people liked their music and they'd never wanted to be popular and wah wah wah wah BOLLOCKS! Still, after years in the wilderness releasing stuff that would have even Prince tutting about quality control it seems that things might have changed. Firestarter residuals not being what they were and that All Saints reunion not really working Liam probably needs to start courting the public with decent tunes to get the money in again.

Invaders Must Die is actually a fun track, no great musical departure but then not Baby's Got a Temper (And We're Making No Effort Whatsoever). The video with Noel Clarke tromping round the Essex coastline and re-enacting The Wasp Factory is a laugh too, enhanced by the fact that The Prodigy barely appear in it at all. Happy days!

Labels: music, YouTube

The perfect Sunday morning music. Or, you know, any time music.

The Boxing Lesson on MySpace.

Labels: music, YouTube

It was just the other day I was wondering if Asian Dub Foundation were still going. I never bought any of their albums in the 90s, they were a bit too fierce and brown for a Britpop kid like myself, not that I was racist you understand, I did like Echobelly after all.

Anyway, the new album, 'Punkara' is out and sounds great. Some tracks have been put on other blogs, but my favourite track has got to be the incredibly funny and dancetastic Asian Dub Foundation Versus Dame Iggy of Pop- "No Fun".

Labels: music, racism

dan le sac versus Scroobius Pip.

Labels: music, Radiohead, YouTube

Elbow won the Mercury Music Prize last night. My general opinion of awards is that they don't matter until someone I like does or doesn't win one. Most bands win the Mercury and then disappear into the wilderness for an indefinite amount of time (Portishead, Pulp, Roni Size) so here's hoping it doesn't happen to Elbow. Mind you, I think The Seldom Seen Kid was the contract-fulfilling album.

Labels: Elbow, music

Turn Me Up. A campaign to allow bands to put out albums that are quieter so that listeners turn up the volume if they want it louder. It's all about how if it's engineered too loudly then that distorts the quality of the audio. Check the links to newspaper articles at the bottom.

Labels: music

Yoda's House, who have the distinction of being one of the few bands that Warren Ellis has mentioned that aren't rubbish, have a free album to download, here. [via Warren Ellis]

Labels: music

David Byrne and Brian Eno have a new collaboration, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, out next month. It is not, David has been at pains to point out, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts II. Eno wrote tunes, Byrne wrote words. I'll be interested to see this.

Labels: Brian Eno, David Byrne, music

The B3ta Challenge: Extending album cover art (NSFW)
[via As Above]

Labels: humour, music

A brilliant essay from clapclap about the song 'Hallelujah', first by Leonard Cohen, then covered 'definitively' by Jeff Buckley, then used everywhere to denote seriousness.
[via Andrew Sullivan]

Labels: music