Previous Issues
About Article
Stockists
Article Shoppe
Press
Advertise
Connect
Every year since 2003 the BBC has climbed down the nations chimney and bestowed upon us the acts which show the most promise in the upcoming year. In the past it has belched out such talents as Mika, Lilly Allen and Franz Ferdinand. In short, by choosing artists with financial and industry backing, its always right. So how does 2010 shape up? Hayden Woolley casts a critical gaze over the musical landscape of the next 12 months.
Just for a change these guys are influenced by……… 80’s electropop. Another self-conciously arty band, the sort which the record-buying public almost never warm to. They seem like the sort of guys who have considerably more photo-shoots than songs, posing as they are in all their hautre-couteur glory . The song is of little importance I suppose, they are a band in the same way that Never Mind the Buzzcocks is ‘a quiz.’ I think its all a ploy, somewhere along the way a major label have their hand up these guys asses, and they’re tickling their prostates until they spunk money everywhere
Sometimes you get these really forward-thinking, talented young musicians who have absolutely zero money producing DIY budget-house that blows other shit out the water. This sounds like it was recorded in a bread bin and its all the better for it. The home-made percussion, the distant woozy vocals, the vintage-vinyl quality. This is great. More please.
Alan Sugar – “Right, I’m giving you lot ten grand to go start a band. I want it a bit of old fashioned razzmatazz, a glitzy affair. You’ll be required to do a PowerPoint presentation of why I should buy your product at 6pm tomorrow in front of a room of record company execs. Nick and Margaret are watching you all the way with this one, I want you to go out and make me some hard earned cash. I don’t care if its soulless shit, just get in the bloody taxi!”
(serves one small appetite)
Take one portion of Postal Service and castrate thoroughly, carefully removing all bones. Dilute with four parts tepid rose water and leave to soak overnight, preferably in front of a clouded window to aid quiet introspection.
In the morning, rouse, ensure subject has developed an affected American whine so rhotic the songs practically spherical, and wipe down with one of those Primary School Kids drawings Teatowels things. You know the ones. Add mandatory Casio noodlings and stir until twee-er than two ragdolls on a houseboat.
Oi, OC - 4 letters - M T F U
Rox is 30% more coffee-table than an entire coffee-table constructed only of Sade CD’s. In fact, if coffee tables were sentient and possessed a taste in music, this is probably what they’d listen to. This is music suitable for divorcees only. Those who can but look up to advertisers and say ‘Please Sir, target my demographic and tell me what to like.’ You may come to recognise her at the rear-end of next years Brit awards nominations. She’s the half-Jamaican half-Iranian one with a soulful voice whose this years Amy Winehouse. OK? Good.
If you’re lucky enough to have a Dad with a well-established beard then he might take you to a real-ale festival. At that real-ale festival you might witness a jovial bunch of musicians who tour around rural pastures playing old-fashioned songs for old-fashioned souls to nod their heads in appreciation to whilst sipping their pint of Bishop’s Todger. With banjo solo’s and bovine-songs, that band are Stornoway. What the fuck they’re doing on this list is anyone’s guess.
Anyone who didn’t happen to be John Aldridge in 1988 is going to have a pretty hollow feeling in
the pit of his stomach when he hears the following two words put together: Scouse Rap.
Yes, those jaws will be clattering onto the pavement when I go on to reveal, coyly, with one cheek
embedded in my shoulder, that this isn’t Liverpool F.C. bending their knees to-and-fro in front of a graffitied wall. Nor is it your many-throated Pavarottis warbling their support at the Kop stadium. Or the Beatles on a hallucinogenic mishap. Or Tin’Ed caught up in a drive-by shooting. Really, Scouse Rap isn’t quite what we’re used to at all - and yet if a sector of Myspace is to be believed then this improbable genre stands aloft as an art form in its own right. Read more ⇒