Swagger Jagger isn't actually that terrible

It shocks me to say this but Swagger Jagger, the current UK number 1 selling single and spawn of the X-Factor music defecating machine, isn't actually as terrible as many people are making out. This is not to say that it is great piece of music by any description, I hardly expect it to be remembered in a years time, but after having listened to it a number of times I just can't find anything to class it as outstandingly terrible or the apex of pre-fab commercial Pop tastelessness. It is, at best/worst, just a wee bit naff.

Yes, it does have a large section of fake "urban"* hip-hop and excessive posturing egotistical rhetoric but this is delivered in such an over-the-top & cartoonish manner that to consider it pretentious would be like complaining that Billy Piper's "Because we want to" is a disrespectful pastiche of Public Enemy. It is a bit naff, but it's naff in the way that teenage female pop fans eat up, and it is also accompanied by a perfectly acceptable Euro style dance track where Cher Lloyd clearly demonstrates that she can actually sing. Were the dance section to have been released by itself (possibly without the X-Factor connections) it would be a perfectly respectable disco floor-filler. I actually think that the producers deciding to glue the two sections together means that they are willing to try something different and potentially interesting which I have to applaud them for, even if the end result is somewhat disappointing.

So why the backlash against this? Whilst some of it has to be the ongoing "death to the X-Factor" sentiment from the comments and abuse I have seen online (mostly on her youtube video) a lot of it falls down to snobbery and band-wagon jumping. The snobbery is in the form of people constantly referring to her as a "chav", which I can neither confirm nor deny due to not being bothered to know anything about her beyond the very basics. Hurm... not the best reason to dislike someone's music, however it's the X-Factor so where the projected-personality ends and the actual musical performance starts is a very difficult thing to say. But I still don't think it a great reason to dislike someone's music as it is rejection on the grounds of prejudice of background, rather than them just having been involved in something a bit weak and dribbly.

The band-wagon jumping comes from the repeated comparisons to "Friday" by the truly talentless (and possibly delusional) Rebecca Black. Now let me make this very clear: this song is in no way as bad as Friday. It is not as formulaic, it is not as inane, it is not as badly produced, it is not as badly performed, and it is not as mind slammingly offensively pointless. This is like watching slapping a five-year old so hard that they look kind of put out and then claiming to have watched the greatest fighter since Muhammed Ali, imo because the UK desperately wants to have something trendy and exciting to hate. However whislt Friday is terrible this is just a bit crap.

So, please, do not think is an endorsement of this tune as listening to it is a waste of three and a half minutes of your life and the criticism of listless bland corporate formulated music is something that I heartily encourage. But try and keep a sense of perspective in these things or you will use all your bile and venom against something that is mealy limp & disappointing that has managed to get into the singles chart (a chart that is getting more and more meaningless as the serious music purchaser focuses on albums, and is notoriously dominated by novelty pop chintz aimed at the teen  & pre-teen Pop market) and have nothing left for when something truly, apolitically awful comes along.

Voidstate - something interesting this way comes

What happens if you take some euro-style power metal, add in a touch of electro & techno experimentation, and then garnish with a singer who shows that a good vocal range doesn't have to mean constant warbling*? Well the answer is Voidstate, and they are rather very good.

Currently three tracks of theirs are available to listen to online and they are all very worth a listen to. Opener "Whole" presents a diverse soundscape, starting with a blend of choral-strings & trance and then throwing in some driving rock guitars and drumbbeats, that is easy on the ears but never dull or drab. "I am" is a more traditional thumper which lets them show off more of the power side of their sound, and "Again" keeps up the tempo but adds in more experimentation with the backing electronics. All through is the blend of beauty and power that avoids this excess of screamy metal without missing out a chance to embolden the listener as you sing along. Think of it as the operatic styling of Nightwish blended in with Enter Shikar's willingness to play with modern influences and you wouldn't be far off, though as it's very much it's own beast you will still get some nice surprises from it.

So invest the 10 minutes needed to listen to all of their tracks and let an exciting (and curiously unsigned) band  enter into your day. I am confident you'll find it worth it.

*Yes Tarja Turunen, I am looking at you.

Arabella - Girders

I was introduced to Arabella  this Saturday by hearing them play outside the Boots in Cambridge.

They were playing a good line in light soul rock and had their album going on a "Please take a copy, leave a donation if you wish" offer, so I put a couple of quid in and took a disc, expecting to get home and hear some reasonably aspiring tunes that would show potential. What I got was a wonderfully crafted album of modern soul and blues inspired tunes from a band who, imo, should be heading their way to next season of Later with Jules Holland if there is any justice in this world.

The album starts as soul, modelled on the 60's & 70's style, but quickly diverges to show off salsa, light-jazz, rock, and even some folk influences. Rather than sounding like a mess of eclecticism for the hell of it this is a band willing to experiment and play with their influences and interests. This is not to say that they don't have a distinctive sound, one thing that ties all of the tracks together is their impressive close-harmony singing and well crafted lyrics, but a compliment that the album never hangs around one motif too long or gets boring through repetition.

Stand out tracks are the opener "Lift Your Head Up" and their single "No Easy Way", both offering master-classes in modern soul, and the more easy listening "It's Ok", which effortlessly gives of so much ambiance if you ever hear in a coffee bar when you are talking to that special someone that you just never got around to asking out is the fates way of saying "do it!"

The only thing that I fail to get with what I've heard is why they bill themselves as a "Pop soul band" on their Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. Whilst I can see them getting popular I am hearing non of the lightness or blandness that is associated with Pop. This is good, solid, here to stay soulful music that will nourish your ears and give you that extra little spring in your step for the rest of the day.

2011 Mercury Music Award Nominations

It's time for annual Nu-Glastonbury gong show that is the Mercury Music Award, the pseudo-edgy UK recording industry award for "Album most likely to shift lots of units at Tescos until the Brits come along".  This years list has the usual assortment of safe picks and highly polished crowd-pleasing performances that will get the Radio 2 audience rocking out during their traffic jam to and from work whilst ensuring that the PR reps of the associated record labels get to keep their bonus for another year. Whilst non of it is especially terrible it is the usual mix of 'quirky' and serious that ensures that the winner will be stuck in a rut for the rest of their creative life. And it also has Adele in the running, so if she doesn't get it then we know that the judge's are just trying to be controversial and if she does get it everyone will yell 'fix' whilst forgetting that the producer god Rick Ruben was behind it.


And the nominations are...

Punk's Not Dead

The history and current state of Punk is a highly contested thing, not least because as a genre it means so many things to so many different people. Questions such as "when did it start" and "what is 'real' punk" are highly emotive topics that are fueled by the passion and urgency of the music itself, often resulting in disagreement and tension between the various camps claiming their experience as the authentic voice. Further complications arise from the fact that a music aimed at youth is now, by most peoples markers, into it's 30's and the scene (or rather 'scenes', as it is one of the most fragmented tribes out there) is made up of multiple generations and iterations that have simultaneously built on, embraced and rejected the past.

Thankfully the 2007 documentary Punk's Not Dead doesn't try to answer the question of what is the real punk, instead embracing the diversity and presenting the controversy from as many different angles as possible. Using interviews from over 150 members of the punk community, with representatives from every major era and approach (mostly from the UK and USA), it presents the 'punk-eye-view' of where the genre came from, what it's core tenants are, and, most interestingly and contentiously, where it is now going.

The only 'downside' I can see about this film is that because it is produced by an American team it does not see the UK 76-79 scene as the be-all and end-all of punk, though it clearly holds it and the continued UK scene in high regard. This is no back-slapping and retro focused Punk: Attitude, focusing on a brief 3 year period of creativity from one city so 'trad punks', people who picked up their haircuts from London postcards, or folks that think The Offspring and Green Day broke up their special little party may be upset.

So if you are either a dedicated punk, who just wants to enjoy the constantly entertaining views and stories of the giants of the scene being interviewed, or just an interested observer, who wants to know more about Punk as it enters middle-age I heartily recommend this for your viewing pleasure.

Is This Hyperreal? - Atari Teenage Riot

In 1992 Atari Teenage Riot exploded onto the Berlin rave scene, bringing a punk attitude and anarchist/anti-fascist message into a techno landscape that had focused on partying and having a good time in the recently reunified Germany. Over the next six years they released 3 classic albums, invented and established Digital Hardcore as its own movement, and then split to go their separate ways due rather than conquer the planet like they were on the cusp of doing.

12 years after their last album release Alec Empire, Nic Endo, and new guy CD Kidronik are back with Is Hyperreal?, missing Hanin Elias, now working on other projects, and the departed Carl Crack, posthumously appearing on one track that was recorded before his 2003 death, and aiming to re-bottle the lightening that made them one of the most exciting acts of the 90's. Can they do it? Well, not especially.

Amy Winehouse - Live and wasted

Encase you haven't heard the news the allegedly now sober Amy Winehouse recently played a rather unsuccessful gig in Belgrade. And by "unsuccessful" I mean car-crash, as demonstrated by the opening number.

But I'm not going to hawk over this one, as Amy is clearly in need of some serious help, and I'm not going to discredit her talent based on this performance as her recorded career shows that she can sing. However I am going to ask "Is anyone really surprised?" as it's hardly the first time she's been wrecked at her performances and wasted the audiences money. She's been caught sniffing drugs, falling over and not singing many times before; this is hardly a one off incident and, as long as people keep on buying tickets to her shows/enabling her, it's unlikely to be her last.

The simple truth of the matter is that Amy Winehouse isn't that good at live performances and everyone knows it, including her fans. She has a well deserved reputation for being awful at her own shows so you're options are either to not bother seeing her live (though carry on getting the albums and catching her one-song TV appearances if that's your thing) or to pay your money and take your chances whilst remembering to not moan when it all goes horribly wrong. Also remember that there are normally no refund clauses for "show went ahead but singer was too trashed to be any good", though there is for cancelled shows so get ready to claim if the rest of the tour goes up in smoke. I'm not going to say that there is anything wrong in liking Amy Winehouse but don't be blind to her flaws.