74 replies to this topic

[Mitchell]

Will be doing a catch up of the first two weeks of 2009 when I get the chance this weekend.

[amotin]

Really looking forward to this thread - I don't do resolutions, but I do want to keep up with singles more this year. I'm bookmarking this, the Billboard charts, etc. and planning on Dec. 09 being easier for list-making.

[monotony]

"The Fear"'s been out for ages...so long that I can even remember when it was called "I Don't Know"... it's probably the best thing Lily Allen has done, although "LDN" gives it a run for its money. Loving Ulysses at the moment.

[Mitchell]

05/01/09

Pendulum – 'Showdown' 3.0/10

I'd give higher scores to some of their other singles for at least trying and having an dance floor impact but I honestly can't say anything redeeming about it to be fair.

Ra Ra Riot – 'Can You Tell' 6.0

Fairly pleasant indie chamber pop with a bite to the rhythm section and some swelling strings. Short and sweet as well which adds to the feeling of forgetting it almost straight away.

Travis – 'Song For Self' 6.5

Sounds far too much like Fran is attempting that cooing Bono vocal and the rest of it sees too much in the way of U2isms yet it's not bad at all This band must feel pretty bitter that their popularity dropped off the planet without them really getting that much worse overall, inconsistent maybe.

The Saturdays - 'Issues' 3.5

Third single ballard alert. Avoid. Look-up the girls first two singles.

12/01/09

Girls Aloud - 'The Loving Kind' 8.5

Co-written by the Pet Shop Boys, produced by Xenomania and deserves a place in the top tier of Girls Aloud singles. It's Nicola that really steals the show on her bewitching ghostly vocal with wet-eyed lyrics cushioned by pulsating dance floor heartbeats. Tragically their lowest charting single at #10 this weekend but keeps up their run of top tens to 20 (21 including the Comic Relief single)

Via here

Cut Off Your Hands - 'Oh Girl' 0.5

Not going to be the first or last to use this joke but I would like to cut their hands off. Everything wrong with so called indie in the UK (Despite being from NZ, see below) summed up in three and a half minutes. Dickless, soulless insipid tosh. Gets more than zero as it has hand-claps, making it not totally worthless, just 95% worthless.

White Lies - 'To Lose My Life ' 5.5

Actually there's a lot more wrong with Indie over here and this is another example. Band release a pretty good debut single, not so good 2nd single then when they are about to blow up they release this single which only treats the chorus as a chorus in the last 45 seconds. Despite being terribly derivative of a line already ploughed by Interpol and Editors they do a great drummer, a vocalist who sometimes picks the write moment to go for it and they do have some good ideas buried by awful song structure. It took the Crystal Castles remix of "Death" for me to spot all this though. Next big thing, I hope not but fear so.

Johnny Foreigner - 'DJs Get Doubts'/ 'Lea Room' 6.5

"Lea Room" works pretty well as an opening track to the album certainly not one of the best songs on it. They lose a point for not offering anything new instead of using it as the flip of this. "DJ's Get Doubts" find JoFo in a more reflective mode and you get the idea that someone though this was a good idea to release to show the variety that the band are capable of. Let's have some new material instead please.

Ratatat - 'Shempi' 7.5

Album didn't get that much in the way of good reviews and the consensus seems to be this was the highlight. Electronic quadra-spazzed beats, gurgles and breaks as you'd expect from the Brooklyn band. Worth an extra 0.5 for the ABBA raping video.

Frank Turner - 'Reasons Not To Be An Idiot' 5.0

Pleasant, humorous jangle pop with a touch of Oasis esque guitar crunch underneath lacking something to elevate it above 'safe' -0.5 for being a re-release and another half off for releasing such a summery song in winter.

19/01/09

Pete And The Pirates - 'Jennifer'/ 'Blood Gets Thin' 8.5

Now this is more like it, a band who don’t get the press they deserve (unlike the above White Lies) not resting on their laurels and coming back with a storming double A side single. “Jennifer” is very much more of the same and could easily slot on to last year’s Little Death with not much trouble with it’s Young Knives harmonies and squirrelly guitar trails on it. “Blood Gets Thin” is the stronger of the two though, heavier and with more bluster than what we are used to and hopefully sets up the next album well. Officially the best riff of the year so far.

Can be found via here

More later.

[monotony]

Oh no...not an Oh Girl fan? I don't mind a bit of mindless Cut Off Your Hands...seriously you could do a lot worse! (They're actually from New Zealand, not the UK). Pity about Travis...I used to like them in the old days. Lost interest like everyone else, though.

[Mitchell]

Thanks for the spot, I didn't even want to look at their wikipedia page. It's still dreadful and sounds like dreadful indie from the UK.

[thresholdofrevelation]

Going to try to pay more attention to singles and individual tracks this year. I download and try to consume too many full albums and getting into artists in smaller chunks is going to be a goal.

[sknot]

If I like the Ratatat and Pete & The Pirates tracks, do i need to get albums of these?

[Mitchell]

Franz Ferdinand - 'Ulysses' 7.0

I do like this but for me it falls down on resorting(?) to "la-la la la la la" two thirds of the way through. Like much of the album it seems that the band spent so much time on the bits they wanted to sound like they were reinventing themselves on ,that on the rest of it they fell back on to FF mark 1. Neither as out there as was suggested nor as catchy and hook laden as their other singles.

Bon Iver - Blood Bank (EP) 6.5

A worthy continuation of the album theme's and sonics on "Babys" and "Beach Baby" were a sense of something coming through the bleak is present. The title track is a little ho-hum and "Woods" is not something I want to hear again in a hurry so I can't give it too high a mark.

Tilly & The Wall - 'Pot Kettle Black' 6.5

One of the few bands on Moshi Moshi over here that I'm not enamoured with but despite this, I find this to be the most instantly pleasing and catchy things they have done. Floor thumping, chanting, name calling riot grrrl spunkiness yet it all sounds a little hollow by the time it's finished.

Kid British - 'Leave London' 4.5

Have been getting a little bit of press on the back of their 7" last year. They do the Specials ska hooky stuff well but they tend to over egg the pudding throwing so much at the wall hoping that it will stick. Props for rhyming 'manage' and 'baggage' as well "London" and "conundrum" the lyrics overall, are pretty dreadful. It's fun, they might end up making one of the songs of the summer but it's pretty lightweight and forgettable.


Fight Like Apes - Tie Me Up With Jackets 6.0

As mentioned in a previous post in a different thread, this Irish band have some very odd lyrics that usually make you lol at least twice a song. Something different from your usual landfill indie at least I heard someone compare them to Bis. I'll leave you to decide if that's a compliment or not.


I Monster - A Sucker For Your Sound 4.0

I don't even know how to review this. I listened to it twice and remembered nothing about it. It's not "Daydream in Blue" or "The Blue Wrath" put it that way. I probably mentally blocked it our of my head as it sounded like Morcheeba.

[Mitchell]

If I like the Ratatat and Pete & The Pirates tracks, do i need to get albums of these?

'Pparently that's the best track on the Ratatat album so maybe is all I can offer, P&tP I would say yes. The album is more of the same and pretty damn good at it.

[Rajexico]

Girls Aloud - 'The Loving Kind' 8.5

Co-written by the Pet Shop Boys, produced by Xenomania and deserves a place in the top tier of Girls Aloud singles. It's Nicola that really steals the show on her bewitching ghostly vocal with wet-eyed lyrics cushioned by pulsating dance floor heartbeats. Tragically their lowest charting single at #10 this weekend but keeps up their run of top tens to 20 (21 including the Comic Relief single)

Popjustice had a great post on this.

It was touch and go throughout last week as midweek figures put the single at Number 10 and fans were so terrified that a break in the run of Top 10s would spell the end of Girls Aloud that they took to desperate multibuying. The picture above is from a Girls Aloud fan forum.

"Memory of You" is a b-side to this, right? I think it has a video too. I think I like that more.

[More Drama]

Hey, I didn't know the View had a new single last year. It even sounds pretty good.

[Mitchell]

Is that the one that sounds like Status Quo? Like that one, the other one not so much.

[surlacarte]

Franz Ferdinand - 'Ulysses' 7.0

I do like this but for me it falls down on resorting(?) to "la-la la la la la" two thirds of the way through. Like much of the album it seems that the band spent so much time on the bits they wanted to sound like they were reinventing themselves on ,that on the rest of it they fell back on to FF mark 1. Neither as out there as was suggested nor as catchy and hook laden as their other singles.

Will be at least top 10 in the SOMBie singles poll this year, mark my words.

[Saskadelphia]

Ladyfinger (ne) - "Little Things" 7.8

Do you like the rock 'n' roll? This Omaha band used to teeter awkwardly between QOTSA desert rock and the more Fugazi-centric side of today's hardcore, but the first single from their upcoming album is a major step forward. You've got a choppy punk intro backing up a crooning, Parachutes-era Coldplay vocal melody (really), which then gracefully shifts into something out of the Constantines' book of tricks, exploding into a wickedly catchy riff at 1:23. Brooding yet hard charging, this deserves the kind of crossover punk-to-mainstream success that the Gaslight Anthem had.

Legal d/l: http://www.saddle-cr...ittleThings.mp3

[More Drama]

Second single "Omen" from the Prodigy's new one suggests that the price of blow in the UK remains reasonable in this economy.

[Mitchell]

Lots of people are doing it Pablo.

[Mitchell]

Going to do this week's in the next couple of days then I will do a podcast of the top 12.

[Mitchell]

A week behind here but sue me, I've been busy.

26/01/09

Bloc Party - 'One Month Off' 7.0

I don't know what happened to this band in the past 12 months, thankfully this is actually much better than the complete shit they've been putting out of late. Sounds like Bloc Par with a slight twist and a not a self conscious left turn. Has a hook and is danceable.

Lily Allen - 'The Fear' (and The Count Saves Lily Allen From The Fear Remix ) 9.5

As discussed by Morgan earlier in the thread, sounds like the character Verruca Salt fronting St. Etienne. A brilliant pop song and the remix gentrly lifts the
"fucking fantastic" out of it. Early contender for SOTY in my ears.

Pulled Apart By Horses - 'I Punched A Lion In The Throat'/ 'The Crapsons' 6.5

I wouldn't punch a lion in the throat (it might go into a coma) but these guys sound they actually do. It's very hard not to mention the big riffs on the lead side and I slightly prefer "Crapsons" for doing what the other side does faster louder and harder. Not really my thing though but someone, somewhere is bound to dig.

Sky Larkin - 'Beeline' 7.5

I have a big soft spot for this, it's nothing revelatory but it pushes buttons marked Louise, Justine and Lauren. Confident, unabashed girly Britpop. A lead you want to follow up. For some reason is being released as a watch, which is worth an extra 0.5.

The Airborne Toxic Event - 'Sometime Around Midnight' 2.5

What a terrible pompous intro, this is what all music must sound like to record execs. Go to the word melancholic before I turned it off. Sounds like Counting Crows doing an Echo and The Bunnymen cover

Fever Ray - If I Had A Heart (7') 7.5

Very tasty. Reminded me of The Knife. Still processing the album but wasn't expecting it to hit instantly. The songs itself feels like it needs an extra couple of minutes to go somewhere when ripped from the album. Video is very good too.

The Fray - You Found Me 4.0

Unfortunately yes. Why is this music still being made when The OC has finished?

Ida Maria – Oh My God 6.5

Good but pointless re-issue, loses marks for that. Should have made our singles list at some stage.

James Yuill - No Surprise 6.0

Same goes re-issue for this, folktronica that is a pleasant listen but not really much more.

thecocknbullkid* - 'I'm Not Sorry' 7.0

Still waiting for tcnbk to take off a little more, I'm sure Moshi Moshi will help (fine record label). I can definitely hear Sugababes in this one, both in voice and production. I actually like this more than the version on Later... drums sound better in that crisper Grace Jones icy snap than the played by humans ones.

Cherbourg 'Last Chapter Of Dreaming' EP 6.5

Another gypsy, folky let's have a violin in it band from West London, powerful live and the songs on this album are well written and played well, there is something that sounds a little forced in the Fleet Foxes by Arcade Fire style direction. Put them at the bottom of my pile of stuff that sounds like this. Maybe being slightly Gogo Bordelloish in it all is a the thing that makes the earnestness seem at odds to the rest of it.

Heartsrevolution 'Ultraviolence' 5.0

Can't really muster much enthusiasm for this past the first minute. Spank Rock, bit like Crystal Castles blah balah

Tommy Reilly Gimme A Call 5.5

Orange unsignedAct winner from recently, has had a top 20 with this, a by the numbers strummer. He looks like a young Bob Dylan if you filled his head up with too much air. The View meets Jamie T.


Wavves, First Aid Kit and probably some others have been moved to later in the year, both are great though so check them out too. That's it from me I think for January.

[Northern Voice]

So, is this the only singles thread for 2009, so far?