Be Excellent To Each Other

I agree with CUS, you'd have to be batty.

And who wants Simon and Garlicfunkle anyway.

These people shouldn't even have a stake in the music industry.

Right, that's the puns sorted.

Yeah, I got my copy from Generic Corporate Music-o-rama Shop in San Diego. It took a little finding amidst the umpteen massive displays of Miley Cyrus et al.

I am checking out that Glen Campbell covers album, and it's not that bad. Some covers you'd expect (Tom Petty), some you wouldn't expect that work well (The Replacements, Green Day), some don't work at all (Travis?!).

Definitely need to nab that Amanda Palmer album, I love a bit of the Dresden Dolls.

Yep, it's much along the lines of the Dolls. Definitely worth a look.

I also like Glen Campbell, so will be checking out his covers album at some point.

And as I think it's awesome, I'm linking the 'One Man AC/DC' video over here too (it's Matt Mahaffey of Self (who is also the guitarist for Beck) playing 'Back in Black' by himself, on drums, keys and vocals).

You'd choose 'Dr. Jones' over, say, 'My Baby Just Cares For Me?'

I need Gaz's old "You're insane!" avatar here Still, at least 'Barbie Girl' is more entertaining since I was informed it's really all about dominative sex and watersports.

I cannot wait to be in a car with you two. It's going to be like planets colliding.

And if I buy you 2 or 3?

I'm not that fat!

I prefer Girlfriend by Avril Lavigne, which, on an overnight flight from the US last year, I heard OVER AND OVER AGAIN along with some of Mark Ronson's album, and bits of the New Young Pony Club album. My headset and screen stopped working properly whilst I was trying to create a playlist to try and sleep to, meaning that I only had sound in one ear, and heard the same 12 songs repeating for about six hours of the journey.

Weirdly, I do quite like Girlfriend though.

This is my token 'See! I can like popular modern music too!' gesture

I can't stand her otherwise, and wish she'd get back to her day job of having her life force sucked from her, in the terrifying classic kid's movie The Dark Crystal.

Fine, I'll stop trying to bond musically then GazChap, can we listen to Stockhausen or Kraftwerk in the car please?

Are we back to the gangbangs again?

You're in, there!

I've not laughed so hard at this forum ever, I think. I like that we all immediately 'went' to the gang-bang there! I like Daft Punk, yes, heh. I like... most things that aren't Happy Hardcore or Trance or Westlife...

Please do this, it was hilarious.

Edit - It started here, for anyone that wants to relive the hilarity.

I've ('imported') a David Bowie discography. An ex of mine was tediously obsessed with his shit 80s stuff, so Ive never really listened to him 'properly'.

Anyway, so far - fucking hell is 'Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)' amazing! The album's mostly all good anyway ('Scream Like A Baby' is one of the darkest things I've heard in a long, long time), but that title track is all kinds of superb.

Oh, and 'Hallo Spaceboy'. That's an excellent 'tune'! I can see why a pop-friendly Pet Shop Boys remake was released as a single, but still, wow!

Oh, and 'Man Who Sold The World' has quite blown my mind after only knowing the Nirvana cover.

So in conclusion, my findings are that David Bowie has written some quite good songs in his life-time.

TODAY'S SCARYSHEEP3000 TOP POP PURCHASES

Those Dancing Days - In Our Space Hero Suits
Tilly & The Wall - O

I'd like to recommend hunky dory since its my favourite from what I've heard of his albums.

Do you mean O?

If so, yay! Dust Me Off is a song of ultrabrilliance.

Ah! I thought it was called O but it looked to be self-titled on the sleeve. Anyway, aye, that. (Amended now, too, for future readers.)

Hunky Dory really is an incredibly good record, by any standards. Folksome in places, this is the missing link between Syd Barratt and Jarvis Cocker/Brett Anderson/That lot Which I mean as a good thing, and not in a necessarily entirely musical sense.

It is good.

Oh, and I am also puzzled as to why Amanda Palmer would record a song called 'Leeds United'.

I'm just waiting for the follow-up on her next record, 'Doncaster Rovers'.

Im glad someone thinks similar, for me I heard alot of hype about so as you do went in dubiously but it was a great album which I didnt feel when I heard Berlin which was equally lauded. Also I've often heard people say Lou Reed's Transformer is an overhyped album but I find it in a similar type of class as hunky dory and love it to bits, I bought it in HMV when it was £3 expecting to hate it but its one of them albums when a great singer songwriter is producing a bunch of personal unique songs.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=19X7rttooH0

How much do I love this band?
Answer-A bloody lot! All of their songs are great but this one makes me tingly inside. I only get that feeling with a few songs, lovely

Just had a quick glance at Top 40 and WHAT THE FUCKING FUCKING HELL IS GURU JOSH DOING BACK IN THE CHARTS FOR FUCK'S FUCKING SAKE

THE 1990S WEREN'T THE TIME FOR THE GURU AND NEITHER ARE THE 2000S SO FUCK THE FUCK OFF AND TAKE YOUR PISSING SAXOPHONE WITH YOU

For the more cultured amongst us, I stumbled across this slice of hip-hop history. NWA: Live at Celebrity Arena from '89. Truly the internet is a fabulous place.

http://gfbserkan.blogspot.com/2008/10/nwa-live-at-celebrity-arena-1989-bonus.html

Bloody hell, I liked that a lot. And not just because of Super Leeds.

The new Morrissey album is awesome

really?! he hasnt made a decent song since I started walking. Well, no walking.

While I wasn't a fan of the band in the past, I have to admit the new Animal Collective album is fantastic. Well, I don't have to admit it, but I'd be concealing a truth. When it comes out in March, 'My Girls' will be single of the year.

have you heard the strawberry jam album? thats great, yet to hear the new one. Theyve also got a really good ep with vashti bunyan.

Not heard it. I heard Sung Tongs back when it came out and loathed it (not just because the title makes my skin crawl). Maybe I'd react differently today, but it seemed like a mess. I checked out the 'Grass' single in 2005 but, while I listened to it quite a few times, it wasn't memorable.

It was only when a trusted peer said something along the lines of 'fucking hell, this Animal Collective album is great, and I don't even like Animal Collective' that I thought 'hmmm'. I found their interview in The Wire the other month intriguing too.

But now. Now! I think I might have to work backwards through their catalogue, like I did last year with Akimbo. There was someone else I was gonna do that with, but can't remember now. Fuck.

Either that, or I get the last Gang Gang Dance album, which seemed to have a similar vibe.

God, I wrote a rambling post on my blog about MPP today. Below is a selection from it. Probably the most sane stuff, which isn't saying much:

'Then ‘My Girls’ came on. I had actually forgotten that FACT had singled this one out as a highlight, and that the Guardian described it as ‘impossibly blissful’. All I knew was the moment, and it was good. I was nearing my bus stop on the morning slog through the traffic, but I couldn’t help grinning, broadly, at how great this song was.

The funny thing was I only really noticed it from the halfway point, when the ‘chorus’ comes in. I love when vocals are well arranged; it’s my musical soft spot. This is one of the reasons I love Lift To Experience so much: Josh Pearson knows how to lay out a tune for more than one line of vocals it’s one of the reasons I love the alternative rock of Kerbdog and Alice In Chains so much. It’s the reason that my heart races every time I hear ‘Otherside’, by an otherwise mediocre Red Hot Chili Peppers.

And this had it all. Vocals complementing other vocals in a round. Tight, layered harmonies that rose at the right points. ‘My Girls’ adheres to that basic rule of script-writing: ‘cut out everything but the good bits’. It is just ‘good bits’, and that is the best way I can find of describing the song.

I had to get off the bus, but I was like a kid again, telling people about the great song I had just heard. I walked home that evening, and listened to the majority of the album. It was a revelation. Whether the sleep-in of ‘Daily Routine’, the ‘techno Beach Boys’* of ‘Also Frightened’, or the tribal cute-Underworld drug-rush of ‘Lion in a Coma’, I was bowled over.

Yesterday I ‘only’ listened to Merriweather Post Pavilion once. Have played ‘My Girls’ to lapsed eighties rockers now into chilled out soul, to mature punk rockers, and to Orb fans who have taken loads of drugs: they all think it’s great. I decided it had to be released as a single, just so I could have my most certain single of the year since ‘Crazy’ in 2006 (I had decided on that one in December 2005). It’s coming out, but probably unrelated to my insistence.

I also decided that they have to play near me, and perform ‘My Girls’, so I can go absolutely loopy; I got the tickets for a within-walking-distance gig the other day.

I’m now past that initial shock of finding the album to be so good, I was telling Lea the other day. what’s really shocking is the fact that I am still bowled over by how good it is. Will it still be my love in December? In 2012? Who knows. I normally tend to go a bit off albums released early in the year, only to return to their embrace at a later date (the last Jaga and Shining albums, for example).

But who cares. Tonight, I don’t imagine anything bettering MPP this year. I told that to a friend, who described my statement as ‘optimistic’. I disagree; I’d be optimistic to think there could be another album this good in 2009. maybe Converge, maybe Ahab, maybe Coalesce, Propagandhi or Mastodon. Maybe not.

In the words of Jaga, all I know is tonight.'

* Not a serious description but, when a friend at work insisted I describe it to him before sticking the headphones on his lugs, I ended up saying ‘like Beach Boys… but techno’. Of course it’s not, but I now have a fondness for that phrase.

***

I have since illicitly downloaded a bunch of their stuff, prior to tracking it all down on vinyl. I hope I actually end up liking their back catalogue...

You sound optimistic about Converge... I'm personally of the opinion that they've been declining in quality since Jane Doe. Losing the fire.