If you want to get a not-so-sneaky listen to the new Oasis album, Dig Out Your Soul, the whole thing is streaming live on MySpace right now! In fact, this is so fresh, most of the tracks have a play count of zero as I write this!

I’ve been listening to the much hyped Bag It Up, and it sounds brilliant. Can’t wait to get a chance to listen to the rest.

If you listen to the album on MySpace today, be sure to pop back here and tell us what you think, okay?

OK, for those of you not familiar with Those Dancing Days, you should probably check this out. It’s their new single, Home Sweet Home.

What do we like about it? Well, those cute Swedish accents for a start - that kind of drawling but musical delivery. Or maybe it’s the fact that it’s a simple pop song about being back home and among one’s creature comforts?

The video’s cool as well - a series of postcards from far flung places, just to hammer the song’s point across :) There’s no point in trying to rationalise everything that’s fun about this song. Listen for yourself, and we dare you not to like it…

We can’t claim to be experts on the Brazilian six-piece, so Move comes as a welcome introduction to the group. It’s a quirky slice of electro-pop, and a breath of fresh air.

Is this what we’ve been missing all this time?

They’re touting this single as a modern disco anthem. Normally, we don’t listen to a word the marketing department send down, but this time they might be on to something!

The video for the single feature the band looking decidedly retro and travelling around in a camper van literally covered in Polaroids. It’s just over the top fun, with a catchy groove and that eternal disco mantra - “keep on movin’”…

Move is the third single from their recently-released Donkey album, and comes out on 13th October 2008.

How fitting that The Independent newspaper should be laying the smackdown on Indie music:

John Niven was an indie fan in the 1980s, an A&R man in the Britpopping 1990s, and is now the author of Kill Your Friends, a sadistic satire of the record industry of which he was once an enthusiastic member. “I was in Gap a few weeks ago and there was some sort of generic indie music playing,” he says. “I was with a friend who’s a promoter and a bit younger than me. After about three or four tracks I asked him: ‘Whose LP is this?’ And he said, ‘No, it’s a compilation.’ Every track sounded identical. The guitars, the production; all these bands sound like they’re made in the same studio with the same producer. It’s such a ball-less, soulless, generic whitewashed indie sound. You could probably take a member from each band and throw them together in a new group and no one would be able to tell the difference. They’re completely interchangeable. Scouting for Girls are like the sound of Satan’s scrotum emptying. They’re abysmal.”

Another excellent quote about the new wave of Indie bands choking the charts…

When I glance around the bands that are supposedly ‘indie’ today, I don’t see any attitude. I don’t see any content in their records, any political interest in the band members. They’re a terrible generation, unfortunately, but they’re becoming famous overnight and selling a lot of records.

Plenty of scathing remarks about Scouting For Girls, and an impressive history of the Indie scene and its slow death (culminating in another scathing remark about Scouting For Girls), this article makes a lot of sense.

But there’s one question remaining - who will reclaim Indie for the people? Or should we just give up now and pre-order the new Britney album?

When we first came out it was a cool time, with the Kaisers, Arctics and Bloc Party on the same circuit. I don’t think many people would place us with those acts, but at the time I really felt part of that whole movement.”

It’s funny what’s followed. Bands like The Pigeon Detectives took what was there and slightly diluted it.

You’re right, Luke, the Kooks aren’t fit to be mentioned in the same sentence as the Kaiser Chiefs or the Arctic Monkeys! If anything, we’d class the Kooks in the same category of bland Indie bleh as The Pigeon Detectives.

In any musical movement, you get the trailblazers, the bands that write the anthems and set the scene. With the recent British Indie scene, the Kaisers and Arctics came along and innovated, then A&R departments went nuts signing inferior copycat acts. Let’s not even start talking about the irony that most popular Indie acts these days are signed to major labels!

We’re not disagreeing with Pritchard on anything he’s said, but from our point of view, the Kooks are a part of the problem. Forgettable Indie tunes sung through thick, almost-pretend regional accents. Forgettable bands that have no real identity and all blur into one.

Opinions, anyone?

We don’t know what it is about this pairing of Alex Turner and Miles Kane, but Standing Next To Me and previous single The Age Of The Understatement are in a different league to the Arctic Monkeys altogether.

There’s a retro 60’s feel to this music, but with a dark intensity that underlies the song. The video reinforces this with the guys decked out in early Beatles-era suits and surrounded by dancing girls in equally 60’s style costumes. Everything is shot in a low light, and the only splashes of colour are the girls’ tights.

While the Arctic Monkeys on their last outing were starting to get a little irritating, the Shadow Puppets are displaying a knack for writing short, simple songs that have the appeal of instant classics.

We’re liking what these guys are doing together, and while it probably won’t eclipse Turner and Kane’s original bands (well, Turner’s anyway), it’s been an interesting musical union and we can’t wait to hear what’s next.

I got a shout earlier today from a musician called Bradley Boyer, the guy behind a brilliant band called Auto Defiance. I’d all but stopped writing about unsigned bands because of the pitiful quality of acts that emailed me, but Auto Defiance are worth writing about!

The band hails from Nashville, Tennessee, and there’s actually very little information about them apart from their enigmatic frontman. Apparently Boyer has committed heavily to this project, even turning down the prospect of working with The Goo Goo Dolls in favour of Auto Defiance. The band are currently in the studio working on their debut album.

Describing the sound as Indie Rock meets Post Punk (which they do) vastly undersells this band. What I like about them is the rich sonic textures that grace their songs. Captain Kelly is a beautifully performed acoustic song, complimented perfectly with subtle orchestration lifting the choruses. Breathe Air, meanwhile, takes ambient electric rock to exciting places: the kind of song you can get totally lost in.

Look What You’re Buying sees the band veering into heavier territory, again with those think guitar textures and insistent snares. I’m tempted to say a little like Oasis’ famed ‘wall of sound’ but with slightly more bite. Ghost Inside Your House is by far the most experimental song in their MySpace player, with claustrophobic vocal effects and more good use of strings to move the song along, while sustained washes of distortion underline the melody. Just brilliant.

You can find Bradley and Auto Defiance online on Virb.com and MySpace. There are more songs to listen to on the MySpace page, so I recommend that you check that one out first!

Since today’s been a posting frenzy [yes, that's sarcasm right there], why not check out the Auto Defiance MySpace page, listen to a few tunes and tell me what you think of the music. I’d love to get a few more musicians on here critiquing and helping each other out.

Vampire Weekend are hot property at the moment. Any serious music publication is talking about them - but who are they and are they any good? This guide will tell you (mostly) everything you need to know about the band, who are not real vampires by the way. Shame, because that would be a great gimmick…

OK, who are they?

Vampire Weekend are an interesting proposition. All the intelligence we can gather promptly points out that the foursome formed at Columbia, an Ivy League university. So these kids aren’t dumbasses, right?

And while their MySpace page describes their musical style as Punk/New Wave/Classical, they are unique among their peers by citing African pop music as a major influence in their sound. Another word freely thrown around in celebration of Vampire Weekend is ‘preppy’. Not hard to see why - the up-tempo tunes and clean, crisp guitar comps are an interesting combination.

Another unique factor in their sound is the inclusion of classical and ethnic instruments - the songs are embellished with cello and flute and African percussion in places.

The band have only been together since 2006, and to date have released only one album, the eponymous Vampire Weekend.

Vampire Weekend Line-up

The members of the band are:

• Ezra Koenig (lead vocals, guitar)
• Rostam Batmanglij (keyboard, guitar, vocals)
• Chris Tomson (drums)
• Chris Baio (bass guitar )

The band got their name from a movie they made with the members of another band, Ra Ra Riot. Apparently their song Walcott tells the story of the movie.

Want To Hear Some Songs?

OK, you want to hear some VW tunes? Let’s start with A-Punk, a short 2:20 tune that’ll give you an idea of Vampire Weekend’s sound.

Here’s a live performance of Oxford Comma - watch out for them there expletives…

You can find more live performances by searching YouTube and other great Internet video stockists.

More Vampire Weekend Links Than You Can Shake A Stick At

…well, just the important ones…

• Official Vampire Weekend website
• Vampire Weekend MySpace page
• Fake DIY’s interview with Rostam Batmanglij.
• Another Vampire Weekend interview at Deli Magazine.

OK, let’s get up to speed on these Shadow Puppets people. The Last Shadow Puppets are Arctic Monkey Alex Turner and Miles Kane from The Rascals.

I trusted Alex Turner not to simply rehash Arctic Monkey’s type material and pass it off under a different name. Boy, does he deliver. This is good stuff.

The Age Of The Understatement has all the ingredients of an epic tune. Big drums, a galloping rhythm, Kane and Turner sharing vocal duties with a sense of suspense during the verses.

I love the lyric “kiss me properly and pull me apart”, just so fatalistic and brooding.

The video features the duo stomping across an icy Russian plain. Cue many puns about them taking over the world, blah blah blah. And let’s not comment on their mop-top hairdo’s…

I’ve got two videos this evening. The first is the original video for Age Of The Understatement. The second is an unplugged-style acoustic version with just Alex and Miles playing guitar. I actually think it’s the superior version - let me know what you think…

And the acoustic version of the song…

Cops And Robbers is to be the fourth single from The Hoosiers’ debut album, The Trick To Life. They’ve got their tongues planted firmly in their cheeks yet again, as the video for the tune whisks them off to Dickensian times for crimefighting capers.

I’ll admit, I was skeptical that they could continue the fantastic run of singles that they’ve had with this album, but the Hoosiers have come out again with an exuberant, fast-paced record.

I’ve been bemoaning the same-ness of a lot of British Indie bands at the moment, so it’s refreshing that Sparkes and Co have been able to release a string of singles that are light-hearted, fun and brilliantly infectious.

Here’s the video…