Ok, so for anyone still waiting patiently for the follow-up Kaleida/Pastel Collision album (these last 11 years), I have excitingly (well, excitingly for me anyway) started working up some new songs that so far are down the lines of (alternately) heartbreakingly epic lo-fi Europop; heads-down pub rock; and poignant acoustic ballads recorded outdoors in the dark in the snow (just this afternoon; v atmospheric but too cold; worried about equipment getting wet. Obviously.) I have a very vague memory of hearing a Money Mark album somewhere once that sounded like it was a compilation album as each track was so different. Somehow, that quite impressed me. Anyway, more on this as and when.
I’d like to find someone who can sing in French btw, so if you have any bright ideas, send them through.
Presumably you’ve heard Camera Obscura’s new record, called ‘The Blizzard. It’s really good! Is it the best record ever that could fit in the Venn intersection between ‘indie’ and ‘Christmas’? It’s record of the week on Mark Radcliffe’s Radio 2 show here in England. Radcliffe used to play our records and surely would do again if we could only be bothered to make some more. So.
I love Camera Obscura and if you’re on this page, I think you might love them too. I’ve only just discovered them and feel slightly ashamed of this fact as they have been going since, roughly speaking, quite a long time (12 years?).
Anyway, here are the top pop debates on the web as of December 16 2009. Which side are you on?!
A clip of a possibly worse-for-wear Almond slagging off a new Numan record on a po-faced review show sometime in the early 80s. The comments beneath are fantastic, with irate Numan fans going, ‘Aha – but where’s Marc Almond now!’ apparently oblivious to the fact that most people might ask the very same question about their own boy. People get so worked up. This takes the ‘two bald men fighting over a comb’ analogy to new levels, surely.
To my mind, Almond is a great unsung artist, the Morrissey-it’s-not-okay-for-straight-boys-to-like. If you ever have the chance to see him live, go. And if you have the chance to download his album Stardom Road (and you do, it’s on itunes, obviously), then do it right now.
I have no thoughts whatsoever on Gary Numan. Should I?
2. Daphne & Celeste v Reading Festival
Footage of hopeless Shampoo-esque US pop duo getting bottled off while doing an ill-advised ‘set’ (of two songs) at Reading in 2000. Brilliant debate in the comments section – usually home to professors, long on learning and short on time – along the lines of:
a) “D&C represented rubbish manufactured pop and they deserved everything they got! I was there and I’m really alternative and proud to have done my bit to show The Man what I thought. And it was a larf!”
v
b) “Well done! You threw a load of bottles of piss at two teenage girls. Very indie.”
Repeated for, like, 5000 comments.
My view? Well, you might think that ‘manufactured’ pop is terrible. (Though you may, conversely, approve of, say, the manufactured pop of Joe Meek or Phil Spector as it ties in with your indie notion of the mentally maverick male auteur). And anyway po-faced self-appointed guardians of the indie/alternative flame are much much much worse. (three muchs). Surely.
Yours?
3. Simon Cowell v Rage against the Machine
You know about this one, I guess. The Facebook campaign to get Rage Against the Machine to be Christmas No 1 in the UK, to stop X-Factor talent show winner Joe McElderry claiming the honour.
RATM were on my breakfast show of choice this morning (BBC Five Live) and did a load o’ swearing that resulted in them being taken off air.
Capitalism still seems to be intact. At least, it was when I passed Argos on my way back this afternoon, about an hour ago.
Obviously, I think it’s a Good Thing that artists are ‘engagé’ and offer a political view and aren’t just idiots who quite like singing and want to be famous and make money and take coke and have their pictures in the paper and live in a big house.
But then… maybe we should face it: a lot of people like to listen to bland, faux-emotive airbrushed ballads about love sung by pretty young boys who’ve never been in love. They always have and they always will.
Maybe people should just get over this plain fact and stop trying to get their (mum/little sister/gay Nigel from Planning/other people to whom they’re convinced they’re intellectually superior), to listen to Angry Music.
No?
Yes, this really is a Guardian/Observer column about why the writer prefers Bono to Morrissey. How thin do you want? Obviously I side with Morrissey (as do about 95 per cent of the many people commenting). But answer me this: what if, circa 1990, Bono had retired from pop to be, I dunno, President of the World and had bequeathed old The Edge and co to be Mozzer’s backing band and co-writers. Would Morrissey’s subsequent records have been more consistently brilliant than they actually turned out to be?
Come on – this is a great debate.
No?
While you’re deciding, here is a brilliant Morrissey B-side about child abuse by religious types in Ireland. When X-Factor has its Mozzer week next year, I don’t give much for this being included.
Though I can hear it being a surprise inclusion on Subo’s follow-up album.
You?
I’ve always thought the Camera Obscura song “Lloyd, I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken” could have been a “Wherever You Go”/”Stop Look Listen” era-PC song.
At a slight tangent, have a look at http://www.youtube.com/howlgriff featuring ex-Sporting/PA Listings’ Gary Parkinson!
Oh, and the Money Mark album is very probably “Push the Button” and it is indeed great and a worthy goal. It does have 18 tracks on it though, so you better get weaving.
It’s perfectly OK not to have any thoughts on Gary Numan. Most people have no thoughts on Tricky, Aphex Twin, Faith No More, Gang Of Four, Can or The Velvet Underground. That’s fine. However, if you want to profess a little knowledge of popular music over the last 40-odd years, you should probably know a tiny bit about all of the above. But its fine not to.
Indeed, Marc Almond is an interesting artist. Stories Of Johnny is one of my favourite albums. It may be worth noting that more recently he said words to the effect that he likes Numan’s music and that if he had previously slated him, it was “just one of those things that you did” in those days. So not a shining example of a human being then.
Are you Gary Numan?