Has everyone else seen this guy by now? Bonkers.
People ask me all the time* where I got the Daddy or Chips? name for this blog. So, here’s the inspiration: a McCain’s Oven Chips ['fries' for our North American chums] TV ad from many moons ago.
* No one asks me this ever. This post is entirely gratuitous. (“Like all of ‘em” – The World)
David Cameron, originally uploaded by Enda P.
Fun is being had with the new ‘airbrushed’ pic of David Cameron as things ramp up for the general election in the UK this year.
Alas, while it’s probably good design practice to have plenty of ‘white’ space, it’s just a bit too tempting in this PhotoShop age. This is my submission – you can see more over at mydavidcameron.com
Search on Google.cn today
Four years after their controversial agreement to censor search results at the behest of the Chinese government, Google have, it seems, grown a pair.
In a restrained but firm press release yesterday, Google says that they are ‘no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn’. They make public that their infrastructure (and that of some 20 other large companies) has been attacked from China and content stolen. Also, the Gmail accounts of human rights campaigners not only in China have been targeted (with very limited success they say).
Google’s informal motto, the highly aspirational ‘Don’t Be Evil’, was challenged by human rights organisations when they agreed to comply with China’s heavy-handed approach to censorship. At the time they said that it was ‘better for Chinese citizens to have access to some of Google, which can be achieved via partial self-censorship, than to be completely censored anyway by the Chinese government and given no access at all”.
Now they finally understand that they are dealing with bloody China rather than Sweden, they’ve done the right thing and thrown down the gauntlet in a pretty unprecedented way. They’ll most likely pack their bags, but not without pushing over a few more bricks and loosening some of the foundations of the Great Firewall of China.
Image search in Google.cn today
Dublin peeps, half-price Sunday boozing in PantiBar starts this week. This is why all bars should be owned by drag queens.
More of the delightful Panti on her wonderful blog job.
Isn't he nice?
I am racing forward while looking backwards.
This mix is a return to the house style but it’s all very forward looking in that it’s full of very very fresh tracks indeed (Swimming Places aside, but that’s just very lovely).
Faced with a dearth of new dance music, I went nuts for a couple of hours scouring the blogs, forums and elsewhere to see what was happening. I ended up (mostly) purchasing about 35 tracks and whittlin’ ‘em down to this bouncy (but not cheesy) house set.
You may expect to hear some of these tracks later in the year when they get proper commercial releases (and no doubt ‘feat. Chipmunk’ or ‘with Mutya’ or somesuch).
The GramophonedZie track, in particular, sounds like a future hit. It liberally samples and chops up Peggy Lee’s ‘Why Don’t You Do Right?’. Delphic are the latest skinny-indie boys that will save pop (unless Hurts do it first). Best name for a dance act goes to Soft Toy Emergency and Rather Stonking Award goes to Moussa Clarke’s ‘Love Key’.
Indulge thyselves…..
Crowdsourced
- Dub My Disco * Hostage
- Pale Shelter (Misar 90s mix) * Barclay & Cream
- Critical (Paul Emanuel remix) * Soft Toy Emergency
- So Far Away * Kaskade & Seamus Haji feat. Haley
- Love Key (Jody Wisternoff mix) * Moussa Clarke feat. Fisher
- Swimming Places (Jerome Sydenham remix) * Julien Jabre
- aNYway (club mix) * Armand Van Helden & A-Trak present Duck Sauce
- Why Don’t You * GramophonedZie
- Ethnology (Vocal Ethno mix) * Drumheads
- Addicted (Club mix) * Serge Devant feat. Hadley
- This Momentary (La Matos remix) * Delphic
- The Feeling (Tocadisco remix) * Dabruck & Klein feat. Michael Feiner
- Watch The Sun Come Up (Fred Falke remix) * Example
I bought these tracks from DJ Download, iTunes and Amazon, so you should too if you really like something you hear.
Download Crowdsourced (71 mins continuous mix, 163 MB)
A rather excellent year for Ms Gaga, Black Eyed Peas and Kings of Leon. KOL in particular must be chuffed to see two of their 2008 hits in the 2009 top 20.
Top 20 of 2009
- POKER FACE (Lady Gaga)
- I GOTTA FEELING (Black Eyed Peas)
- JUST DANCE (Lady Gaga feat Colby O’Donis)
- FIGHT FOR THIS LOVE (Cheryl Cole)
- THE CLIMB (Joe McElderry)
- IN FOR THE KILL (La Roux)
- BOOM BOOM POW (Black Eyed Peas)
- KILLING IN THE NAME (Rage Against the Machine)
- BAD BOYS (Alexandre Burke feat Flo Rida)
- MEET ME HALFWAY (Black Eyed Peas)
- NUMBER 1 (Tinchy Stryder feat N-Dubz)
- SEXY BITCH (David Guetta feat Akon)
- USE SOMEBODY (Kings Of Leon)
- THE FEAR (Lily Allen)
- BONKERS (Dizzee Rascal & Armand Van Helden)
- BEAT AGAIN (JLS)
- BAD ROMANCE (Lady Gaga)
- SEX ON FIRE (Kings of Leon)
- BROKEN STRINGS (James Morrison & Nelly Furtado)
- WHEN LOVE TAKES OVER (David Guetta feat Kelly Rowland)
Ridiculous. Sublime. 2009.
.jpg)
"alalalalalalalalala"
I go ooh ooh, you go ah ah lalalalalalalala lalalalalalalala .
I wanna wanna wanna get get get what I want
Don’t stop
Give me give me give me what you got got
Cause I can’t wait wait wait any more more more more
Best opening lines award goes to ‘Untouched’ by The Veronicas
I’ve been devoting myself to you Monday to Monday and Friday to Friday
Not getting enough retribution or decent incentives to keep me at it
I’m starting to feel just a little abused like a coffee machine in an office
So I’m gonna go somewhere closer to get me a lover and tell you all about it
I had never thought of a coffee machine in an office being abused, but, dammit, the woman is right. ‘She Wolf’ by Shakira
There isn’t much that I feel I need:
a solid soul and the blood I bleed.
But with a little girl, and by my spouse
I only want a proper house.
‘My Girls’ by Animal Collective
I can remember days of sun, we knew our lives had just begun
We could do anything, we’re fearless when we’re young
Under the moon, address unknown, I can remember nights in Rome
I thought that love would last, a promise set in stone
‘The Way It Used To Be’ by Pet Shop Boys
"Have a baby by me!"
Have a baby by me, baby! Be a millionaire
Have a baby by me, baby! Be a millionaire
Have a baby by me, baby! Be a millionaire
Be a millionaire, be a, be a millionaire
At least he’s honest. ‘Baby By Me’ by 50 Cent feat. Ne Yo
Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah! Mum-mum-mum-mum-mah! GaGa-oo-la-la! Want your bad romance.
‘Bad Romance’ by Lady GaGa
I have done what you suggested
And the world has paid attention to my beliefBut I’m still alone
So millions think I’m ugly now
But it’s the same old story
Until I sing the song
‘The Glare’ David McAlmont & Michael Nyman (the track is about Susan Boyle)
Don’t you know sometimes when it feels like someone put a hex on you?
Well I felt like that, I was blaming myself
I was cushioning my fall.
Hold my arms back when they beat me
Leave me in the ditch when they kick me
Sever my limbs and deceive me
Sometimes life isn’t easy
‘Sometimes Life Isn’t Easy’ by Mew
Well I’ve been thinking about,
And I’ve been breaking it down without an answer
I know I’m thinking aloud but if your love’s
Still around why do we suffer? Why do we suffer?
‘Dear God (Sincerely M.O.F.)’ by Monsters of Folk
Bell x1: Just picking your knickers from your arse.
Still you’re the chocolate at the end of my Cornetto
I love the way your underwire bra
Always sets off that X-ray machine
‘The Great Defector’ by Bell X1
That’s what I read in that Sunday magazine
The anvil is falling, falling on your head
You’re just picking your knickers from your arse
Like you’re playing a one stringed harp
‘One Stringed Harp’ by Bell X1
We’re all bulimic
But keep forgetting to puke
‘One Stringed Harp’ by Bell X1 (again)
People hear me, who can know (who can know)
if our time on Earth’s the soundcheck or the show?
Ask a good man, and there’s no doubt
He’ll have too much on his mind to work it out.
‘Ride’ by Prefab Sprout
What’s that sound?
I like that sound.
I love that sound.
“It’s the sound of my shoes”
‘Shoes’ by Tiga
I understand if she know how to please you
Kid CuDi: Irresistable to women
I understand if she lovin’ and tease you
In my right mind I should probably leave you
Why can’t all three of us be peoples?
A paean to the menage-a-trois in ‘She Came Along’ by Sharam feat. Kid CuDi
So, what wordsmithery ticked your fancy or made you wish you were deaf this year?
Let fighting commence.
10. The Girl And The Robot: Röyksopp feat. Robyn
Baffling non-hit of 2009. It’s got Robyn, it’s got violins, it’s got urgent futuristic synthy squiggles and lyrics about robots (see also Girls Aloud’s ‘beautiful robots dancing’ in Untouchable). Sometimes one despairs of the public…
09. Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth: Neko Case
(fan video)
Post Copenhagen anthem? I had never heard the Sparks original (or the Martin L Gore version [cheers Orn]), so I didn’t realise that this wasn’t a Case classic, so seamlessly does it fit on the Middle Cyclone album. Another fine showcase for her voice (and miles better than Sparks as it turn out).
08. Would’ve Been The One (Groove Police Club Mix): Solange
Solange’s original from 2008 was rather good in itself, but occasionally, an apparently straightforward Big Room mix can bring out a previously hidden seam of feeling. In a so-so year for funky house, Groove Police manage to nail it.
07. Everglade: Antony & The Johnsons
(fan video)
It was difficult for Antony to top the Mercury-award winning I Am A Bird Now, but follow up The Crying Light was every bit as strong (and possibly a little more cohesive with it’s focus away from the gender/identity stuff and towards the plight of the environment). This album closer has Antony at the centre of a breathlessly cinematic soaring maelstrom of emotion and beauty. Wowza.
06. London Girl: The Invisible
Mercury-nominated literary jazzy muso types in extremely groovy track shocker. Granted, it is the hookiest thing on their eponymous debut, but that means it works all the better when isolated from the surrounding tracks. Oh, alright, the album is very good too.
05. Dear God (Sincerely M.O.F.): Monsters of Folk
(fan competition video)
As equally wary of ’supergroups’ as I am in awe of M. Ward, I was pleasantly relieved to find the MOF album a highlight in a strong year. This slightly electro (and unrepresentative) opening track is testimony to the four-way creativity elevating MOF to something strangely greater than the sum of its parts.
04. Jailbird: M. Ward
My artist of the decade makes his best album in 2009. I hate him of course, as he is the same age as me and I’ll never be able to release enough albums to catch up with him, but that’s not important. Jailbird is classic M. Ward; it sounds trendily folky, it’s got superb guitar ‘picking’, some existential mumblings and just the right amount of strings. It’s immaculate headphone music.
03. Let There Be Music: Prefab Sprout
So, the tapes are resurrected from beneath Paddy McAloon’s staircase, and this should have been released back in 1993. They couldn’t do very much with these masters other than gloss ‘em up a bit, so maybe this ‘restriction’ has finally allowed us a glimpse of the real McAloon? The one who, like Black Eyed Peas 17 years later, wants to channel Prince. Who knew he was capable of such experimental funkiness? Note to Paddy: Listen to your friend Thomas Dolby; forget Sony, pull the finger out and release your stuff yourself online.
02. Candy: Paolo Nutini
I like when I’m taken by surprise. Like many others I’d dismissed Paolo Nutini as a James Morrison/James Blunt/etc type; pleasant if unmemorable. Then this growly Scots thing comes along pleading for some candy (which I presume is not of the confectionary variety) and then suddenly the track turns into a repeated, insistent cry that “I’ll be there waiting for you’. (He followed it up with Pencil Full of Lead, which, while admirably weird, was a step too skiffle for me.) It’s probably a bit odd to become a standard, but it deserves to.
01. The Way It Used To Be: Pet Shop Boys
I can’t imagine working with PSB at this stage of their career. They’ve done and seen it all and have rarely put a foot wrong critically so their choice of producers tend to just enhance their sound rather than stretch them. Richard X’s work on Fugitive was wasted as a b-side; Trevor Horn’s work on Fundamental looked backwards to fuller-sounding pomp, but their work with Girls Aloud hitmakers, Xenomania seemed to push them creatively as well as sonically. Love Etc was a bold, unusual and appropriate update of the PSB sound – something they would never have come up with by themselves at this stage. But the best results arrived with this track, an urgent, adult, contemporary and sophisticated song that sounds like a blend of every PSB track ever made and nothing like anything they’ve done at the same time. Not only the best track of 2009, but the best track PSB have ever put their names to. Seriously.
Ok, thanks for bearing with me through another year of Flip and frippery. Your reward is in the form of two ‘lightly-mixed’ compilations (handily CD-sized too) which feature many of the tracks from my Top 50 (and a few more for good measure). Right click (or whatever) on each to download a zip (tracklists in the comments).We’ll leave it up until Jan 6th. In the meantime, Happy New Year 2010!
Big thanks to JW, Orn and Robin for passing on goodies during the year.
Toodles then awkwardly-monikered ‘noughties’. Everyone’s giving up blogging as Facebook and Twitter make it easier to tell the world what you found on the way home from work. Air France are mourning losing my twice weekly custom in October after an exhausting year. I now know how to make flatbreads. And, oh, I now properly live in London. Other things happened too.
I’ve not given up blogging and, as well as reposting pictures of LOLcats and ranting at the Church, I’ve always posted my fave musical choices of the year. It’s been a rather good year for music crowned with a 17-year-old angry rap-metal track kicking the X Factor snore-fest to the kerb. I notice that my impatience with mainstream pop continues to grow much as my gravitation towards the US-centred older hipster music gets stronger annually. None of my Top Ten have troubled the Top Ten; Bad Romance is good, but it’s not that good.
A top FIFTY! Yes, and I could have conceivably gone to 100 (but at that stage I’d have been seriously considering Pitbull). Also, writing about music is like dancing about architecture, as someone once said, so there only so many ways one say ‘I really like this’ before it gets super tedious (for you). Only two rules:
- an act gets one entry only (Sorry about that PSB’s Love Etc – a genuinely fantastic pop single) and
- the track should, to be best of my knowledge, be from 2009.
Fifty to eleven now, the big Top Ten tomorrow.
I’ve also put together a selection of tracks as a couple of ‘lightly mixed’ compilations which you can burn to CD or put straight into your media player. One is kinda fast and is called ‘Motion’; the other starts slow and gets completely glacial and is called ‘Rest’. You can download ‘em tomorrow too (but only for a limited time as the blog is now a target for the Kopyright peeps…)
11. Shoes: Tiga
Does he know that we know of Kelly’s ‘Shoes’? If he does, does that mean that a single point of uber-archness may be responsible for pop-culture folding inwards on itself to a far more devastating end than the Large Hadron Collider could ever achieve?
12. After The Rain: Shirley Bassey
Having learned nothing from the ridicule that Sirben Kingsly provoked, Dameshirley insisted on ‘Dame’ being used on her new album. She says she was unsure about the songs given to her by a host of contemporary types such as Rufus, Manic Street Preachers, Gary Barlow and the Pets; after all, these songs generally didn’t require her to BELT. This song by Richard Hawley is restrained, emotional and beautiful. Dameshirley has rarely sounded less of an ass.
13. We Are All Connected: Symphony of Science
It’s trendy to (neologism alert) hate on Autotune, but in the right hands, it’s another way of adding to already bewildering variety of ways technology has been harnessed in the pursuit of artistic expression. Here a music graduate samples various 70s/80sTV scientists and Autotunes them to ’sing’. The rather spacey subject matter is entirely appropriate too. We are a made of star stuff – we are a way for the cosmos to know itself. Blub!
14. A Horse Is Not A Home: Miike Snow
I’ve no idea what they’re on about (or indeed why there are two ‘i’s in ‘Miike’). I just play along with air drums and get caught up with the punchy angst of it all.
15. Tonight’s Today; Jack Peñate
One of the (annoying) wave of Estuary English types, Jack ditched the affectation and came back with a blissed out Afrobeat, Balearic spaced out thing. The critics, but not the public, loved it.
16. Wolfgang’s 5th Symphony: Wolfgang Gartner
This filled the dancefloor in my head while clearing a real one at the pool party in Barcelona. “Can you put on some Freemasons?” they pleaded. “No”, said I, as I mentally conducted the demonic techno orchestra of this Beethoven-sampling madness.
17. She Came Along: Sharam feat. Kid CuDi
So your girlfriend leaves you for another woman. You take it on the chin and propose a threesome. Not sure if Kid CuDi is coming off as cheeky or a bit sad, but the spectral presence of Patsy Cline suggests the latter.
18. Untouched: The Veronicas
And for 4 minutes, you too can be a petulant American semi-goth teen girl as you wig out in your room with a hairbrush* in front of a poster of Robert Pattinson. (What? Like you haven’t…) * I’m aware that I have no need to possess a hairbrush. Work with me.
19. I’m Not Alone: Calvin Harris
And it’s 1996 again. Roll out the strobes. I also have a soft spot for most recent single, Flashback, as it has a most odd structure. But this is the huger choon.
20. New York: Paloma Faith
I’m not buying the whole big hair/kooky dame thing, but dammit if the heart doesn’t flutter a little when the choir kicks in.
21. My Girls: Animal Collective
This year’s critical avant-pop darlings left me rather cold at first. It all sounded just too smugly clever and sexless. I didn’t delete it off the iPod though and gradually this track in particular made it through my barriers. Highpoint: the particularly euphoric-yet-girly “woo!” that begins in the final third.
22. Poker Face: Lady GaGa
Hurrah! We have found a Proper Pop Star at last. The GaGa has a way with a choon, wears broken teapots and is a bit unhinged. This is proper popstardom See also Bad Romance, Just Dance and Paparazzi (but not LoveGame). Still can’t listen to the album though, but that’s what shuffle was invented for.
23. The Glare: McAlmont & Nyman
It’s about Susan Boyle, you know. I’m not entirely sure how David McAlmont managed to swing this one, but he’s written songs about contemporary phenomenon over some existing Nyman tracks. Kicking myself that I missed their performance at Islington’s Union Chapel.
24. Awake: Donkeyboy
I thought this was a duet between a gent and an older woman, but it turns out it’s the same young Scandinavian man. Delightfully melodic power pop.
25. Remedy; Little Boots
Dancing is my remedy, remedy, oh. Indeed it is. Giddy-making dance pop.
26. The Spell: Alphabeat
More giddy-making dance pop. Another act that can’t seem to cross over to being universally loved.
27. Feelings Gone: Basement Jaxx feat. Sam Sparro
Dodgy punctuation aside, a welcome return for Sam Sparro with possibly the best singles band of the last 10 years.
28. Dorothy Gale: David Turpin
Dublin gay boy channels Matthew Herbert and Roisin Murphy with a smidgeon of Madonna’s Like A Prayer (no, come back…).
29. Sometimes Life Isn’t Easy: Mew
I would have cried if the album was shit, but it so, so wasn’t. There’s a lighter touch in evidence and this typically weirdly-structured track visits calypso and a choir and five different choruses and angular guitars and weedy boy vocals. Loves it.
30. Two Weeks (Fred Falke Extended Mix): Grizzly Bear
More indieblog darlings. The original is just dandy, but as is not exactly unusual, a bit of a ravey dance makeover makes skinny guitar boys sound rather better.
31. Lullaby: We Plants Are Happy Plants
Blog-friendly neo-hippie stuff that makes everyone happy.
32. M.A.G.I.C: The Sound Of Arrows
Blog-friendly neo-hippie stuff that makes everyone happy (part II).
33. House of Cards: The Foreign Exchange feat. Musinah
The type of mathematical jazz-infused soul that makes me feel more intelligent just by liking it. (Thanks JW)
34. Meet Me Halfway: Black Eyed Peas
We may as well be frank. BEP are a very calculating pop machine and it’s this cynicism that stops me truly loving anything they produce. That said, Meet Me Halfway manages the rare feat of squeezing some very contemporary sonic ideas through a filter of Little Red Corvette via Like A Virgin. That alone (and a memory of doing the splits with a tall American girl) gets it a slot in here.
35. Pon De Floor: Major Lazer feat. VYBZ Cartel & Afrojack
Utterly *utterly* deranged. Too deranged perhaps for this year, it will be re-released next year and will be Top 5. Check the video for some amazing acrobatic dancehall dry humping.
36. Underage: The Hidden Cameras
Yet another great album from the Canadian gay-church-pop collective, and this is a jolly swingorilliant ode to underage love. Let’s dedicate this to the Catholic Church.
37. If The Stars Were Mine (Orchestral Version): Melody Gardot
When I open a boutique hotel in Rio, this shall play in the lobby at 1 am. (Good call, naming your child ‘Melody’ btw Mr & Mrs Gardot.)
38. December Song (I Dreamed Of Christmas): George Michael
Doesn’t he sound like Prefab Sprout? A not-terrible original Christmas song *and* it mentions ‘sugar from Jesus’ for some reason.
39. The Strangers: St Vincent
More arty avant-pop stuff. Very knowing and brainy, but this track isn’t painfully so.
40. Don’t Bring Flowers: Erik Hassle vs MPHO
Don’t bring flowers after I’m dead. ‘The postmillennial love song is somewhat dark’. Discuss.
41. Lost: Susanna and the Magical Orchestra
Um, it might be a little bleak…., ScandiBleak…
42. Love In July: Sally Shapiro
…as opposed to ScandiDelightPop from SS.
43. Stay: Julie Feeney
Album no. 2 for Galway prodigy, and again she’s just fizzing with ideas and not afraid to show off her skills. At times this sort of talent can be a little like a grown up Billie Barry kid, but mostly, as with this track, the results are accomplished and potent.
44. Not Fair: Lily Allen
Just to show I’ve no hard feelings towards Lily for her ill-advised foray into the downloading debate. She has a good way with a single and the faux-country jamboree video was a joy.
45. Come Back To Me (Seamus Haji Mix): Utada
She’s keeps trying to make it in the English-speaking world, and despite the characteristically meaty Haji production, we’re just not biting. Shame.
46. Heartbreaker (WaWa Club Mix): MSTRKRFT feat. John Legend
WaWa continue to nudge into the melodic Big Room space previously occupied by Freemasons. Here they take the spikes off MSTRKRFT and allow John Legend plenty of room to impress.
47. Million Dollar Bill: Whitney Houston
It was good to see (some of) Whitney make it back this year. This delicious slice of 70s soul production suited Whitney’s, um, more mature (who said ‘ravaged’?) vocals.
48. Sweet Disposition: The Temper Trap
Dreamy alt-rock from Oz used in dreamy alt-movie from US. Emos make pretty sound.
49. Cosmic Love: Florence + The Machine
Pretty much as the title says.
50. Release Me: Agnes
The type of summer one-hit wonder we use up, spit out and forget by November. Yum.
Phew! Top Ten tomorrow…..
