I was reading over on NME that Macartney’s latest album may not chart well in the top 40 because of his decision to sell Memory Almost Full through Starbucks.
The reason? Although Starbucks have some 533 stores throughout the UK, they’re not registered with the Official Chart Company. Naturally, there’s a good chance that sales through Starbucks might not count towards his chart position.
In November 2006, the Pet Shop Boys played a concert in Mexico City featuring hits from their 25 year career.
That performance was recorded by acclaimed director David Barnard who has previously worked on concert videos by Björk and Gorillaz, and released as a DVD called Cubism Live.
I’ve heard that the DVD comes in a special slip case – half feature Neil Tennant and half feature Chris Lowe. Cubism is released on 21st May 2007.
Despite their lengthy career, the Pet Shop Boys are showing no signs of slowing down – they released their 9th studio album -Fundamental – last year and are about to embark on new UK live dates later this month.
Check out the trailer….
The massively successful second album from the Arctic Monkeys has entered the US charts at number 7.
The group have been working hard to crack the States and have most recently performed at California’s Coachella Festival.
Favourite Worst Nightmare sold sold 44,000 copies – outselling the 34,000 first-week sales of their first record, which peaked at number 24 last year.
This review of Mika’s début album, Life In Cartoon Motion has been submitted by our forum veteran and vocal expert, Maureen Lesley Teasdale.
WHAT POP HAS BEEN WAITING FOR IN THE LAST TWENTY YEARS HAS FINALLY ARRIVED.
MIKA. LIFE IN CARTOON MOTION.
Hello and pardon me for daring to bring you the good news.
Talent in Britain is not dead, creativity has not ended.
Talent is out in the wider world from our television screens and reality TV. Life is indeed colourful.
Several months ago I heard this young man Mika through the wonders of the internet and thought at the time he was very raw, sounded a bit weird and off the wall. I also thought that what I heard was lacking in quality. Don’t get me wrong I often feel this way towards up and coming artists especially when they have not long been out of college and had no time to work a circuit to learn the craft and skills essential to performing in front of a live audience. I have also thought this about reality TV contestants, not that Mika would have ever gone this route with his music as it would not have passed the judges, I think it would be fair to say Mika would have freaked them out. Who is this guy who gives us snippets of tunes all mixed up and in five different voicings?.Hey is he for real? So sadly he would have been shelved, as all of the music on this new release is entirely composed and technologically drafted by Mika and friends.
So why indeed should I write about this young man and not some successful reality TV singer, or some failing fading reality TV singer having engaged in a successful run for stardom, or some reality TV programme reject who feels they were not given a fair chance, and therefore the world must now end?
The answer to this is simple. There are other routes to making it. I do seem to remember saying somewhere that it was one of the Gallagher brothers who’d confessed that when they had little they hired a recording studio at night because it was cheaper and that they couldn’t afford to during the day. When I speak here of making it, I mean making it beyond your region, and making it beyond the confines or restrictions of reality TV. I suppose you could say the only justifiable criticism of reality TV is that it does not encourage creativity. It is also the only criticism I would accept, as I will always feel positive that for the lucky few who have no idea of how to plan for a musical future it is a good thing. An aggravation to struggling artists who have studied for years, become consumers,subscribed and do have plans but even here it is now beginning to appear as common sense and a big money saver, that hey if a production television company wants to spend money on exposing some talent than it could just be us. You go for it. But be open minded the road is not easy and is not paved with gold. You should also try not to get caught up in a time warp, move with the times. Stand still and life and whatever it has to offer you, will pass you by.
Viewers instead are all assumed to be interested in nothing else other than covers or easy listening or musical numbers and the producers have forgotten that some of us might be interested in new music all together. So if new music is your thing than MIKA is a fine example of someone who with effort, talent and shrewdness is your man.
We all know Rome wasn’t built in a day and I suppose it may be a year before this guy has a name internationally, but rest assured it is coming. MIKA in my view will be bigger than Leona Lewis because he has a genius towards writing his own music and not just performing and recording.
This first CD ‘LIFE IN CARTOON MOTION’ looks from the cover style to be a Pastiche on all those things that we recognise as being good about pop music of the past a good twenty years or so ago. It is also what I’d call psychodelic, very Sgt Pepper, colourful, and reflective of great artists. He reminds me in some ways of the genius of Freddie Mercury but hyperventilated by Harry Neilson who was much under rated in his day, a touch of the Leo Sayer, and the inventiveness of Cat Stevens and another Neil (*******) evades me for the time being but not a Neil Diamond, but more a knight in shining armour and the archer who splits the tree. Yet this disc of music is full of unusal sounds, it is entirely modern, a driving beat applicable to the sound of the street today, voices with soul and life, that is ultra modern and invokes at times say Robbie Williams in reflective mode, sometimes songs for one to nod to, dance to, clap your hands to, join in with, maybe laugh with, sing with and annoy the neighbours especially if they are squares. Or those who have nothing good to say about modern music at all ever.
You know I remember performing two jazz pieces in front of my peers and the comment I recieved from the squares and stalwarts is that, ‘how dare you subject us to this dirty music’, I can laugh at this now which is just as well, I suppose Nigel Kennedy the violinist who had some stalwarts in his audience walk out once because of the Jazz he played may have felt the same. So again Rome wasn’t built in a day, and if it weren’t for talented people taking chances there music might never have been heard. So remember don’t ever give up keep on trying. Don’t let life get you down.
So last night and this morning the raving banshee danced round the kitchen floor went bopping along outside to deal with the essential tasks of my day and I have a bounce in my step, when was the last time that happened for you.
If it is not to crazy to suggest that maybe you need this disc in your life that you should go out and buy it. Listen to the tracks and enjoy. Smell the flowers and in the words of MIKA ‘ Relax and take it easy.’
Overall rating on this disc, brilliant, fascinating, don’t buy it and its your loss. 110 out of a 100.
Do I like it? Silly question. YES.
Disc reveiwed: LIFE IN CARTOON MOTION.
Disc artist: MIKA.
Label: UNIVERSAL RECORDS.
Release: April/May 2007.
Track titles..
The Arctic Monkeys have managed to sell 60,000 copies of their new album Favourite Worst Nightmare, in one day alone.
HMV’s Gennaro Castaldo told The Mirror: “They look set to sell around 250,000 in a week – making it a surefire No.1 album come Sunday.”
Ah, the beauty of the Internet – looking up your teenage favourite bands and discovering they’re still making music!
I’ve written quite a bit about Extreme in the past – they were one of my favourite bands of the 90’s, and Nuno Bettencourt was my idol as a guitarist. I knew he was still performing, so I discovered his new band Dramagods and managed to get my hands on a copy of their album, Love.
It seems that the focal point of Dramagods is Nuno. But although he’s recognised as a guitar god, Nuno also fronts the group and he’s a surprisingly good vocalist. He carries off a range of material on this album, from hard-edged rock to more sensitive material.
Another surprising aspect of this album is that it isn’t filled with extended guitar solos. Instead, the guitar solos only appear where they’re suitable – they’re not the focus of the songs as I sometimes felt they were in Nuno’s earlier work.
Razorlight are one of those hateful bands that are usually more hype than substance. The frontman, Johnny Borrell struts around like the living reincarnation of Liam Gallagher, except Gallagher (to my mind) was always the more convincing asshole. So you could be forgiven for thinking that Razorlight was a whole lot of hot air and not much else.
That’s probably why Razorlight’s debut album Up All Night caught me completely off guard. On a few recommendations, I borrowed a copy to listen to in the car. This album didn’t spark with me on the first listen: Trendy indie-rock normally turns me off. Oh, and as a rule I avoid over-hyped bands like they’re diseased anyway.
It took a couple of listens to get into Up All Night, but this is good stuff. The album starts off inconspicuously with a single piano line then bursts into the radio-friendly Leave Me Alone. Frenetic drumming, crisp clear guitar lines and that English-Indie accent set the pace for the rest of the album. Anthemic indie pop.
Up All Night is a strong debut, and it’s hard to pick out a track I don’t like. There’s something urban and sleazy in the sound, the lyrics, the delivery. The music is pounding and passionate.
As well as Leave Me Alone, the most outstanding tracks on the album are Rock N Roll Lies, Which Way Is Out, Don’t Go Back To Dalston and the title track, Up All Night.
Critics of Razorlight (or more specifically, Johnny Borell) have pointed out that they’re not the most original of bands on the scene today, but they’re missing the point. The obvious comparison here is Oasis. Their sound wasn’t particularly original, but there was something in the chemistry that people liked.
All hype aside, Razorlight’s debut is a cracker album packed with memorable Indie-Rock tunes.
I must seem slightly fixated on Extreme: I’ve already reviewed their second and third albums on this blog. For the sake of completeness, this is my review of Extreme’s self-titled debut, released in 1989.
1989 at was the tail end of some major rock music releases, Def Leppard had released Hysteria, Bon Jovi’s New Jersey, Alice Cooper’s Trash and many other stadium-fillers had filled the rock charts. There was certainly a market for Extreme’s music, but in retrospect it may have got lost among the noise of the larger acts.
There’s a lot I want to say about this album. Pornograffiti was a really influential album on me growing up and listening to rock music. Extreme were a fairly clean cut band in the genre, but they had raw energy in everything they did. I still remember the first time I saw the video for Decadence Dance and synergy between Nuno Bettencourt and Gary Cherone.
Pornograffiti was first released back in 1990, before grunge killed hair metal in it’s tracks. Listening to the album sixteen years later (has it been that long?) I have a few problems with it that I overlooked back in the day.
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I’ve wanted to shout about this Belle & Sebastian album for months – it’s nothing short of fantastic! The Life Pursuit got serious airplay a few months back, especially around the release of Funny Little Frog.
The Life Pursuit seemingly ignores the past twenty-odd years of music, setting it’s course on a 70’s glam vibe. Some reviewers are likening the album’s sonic approach to T-Rex and Glitter Band. When I first heard The Life Pursuit, my first comparisons were to Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowie. It’s almost as if the 80’s didn’t happen! Read more & comment »
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