A kung fu fighter in a disco

I have actually heard 2 of them, which is one more than last year.

I wd imagine - given that Rehab won the Now poll last week! - that Amy W is the Poptimists' choice. Not mine tho.

The View WTF???

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Which two, Dizzee and...?

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THE KLAXONS

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Ew! Did you d/l that or BUY it??

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I downloaded it. I am glad I did too! Though I do not think it holds up as an album, "As Above So Below" is my favourite indie track this yr.

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Hrrm.

Actually I have just looked at my yr-end list of last year, and my halfway-list of this year, and I would actually say that in Dizzee and Amy the Mercury panel have indeed recognised the best two British albums of the past year!

Also, they're not just the best two British albums, they're the ONLY TWO British albums which are ANY GOOD AT ALL over the past year.

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vumgarda.livejournal.com

I thought I remember you on ilx liking Bat For Lashes? Although the album was a bit disappointing in the end I suppose

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Oh no - I approve of BFL in honour of my 16-yr-old self who would have considered a trip-hop Tori Amos kook the very pinnacle of pop music, but I don't like her at all. Haven't heard the album, only seen her live. She tried to get the audience to howl like wolves, which is completely unacceptable.

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ARGH I HATE THE VIEW :( :( :(

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umlauts.livejournal.com

Worst shortlist ever. Winehouse will walk it, though.

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chezghost.livejournal.com

would be very unusual for them to award it to a non-debut tho could be due as hasn't happened since SFTCSFTS

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ms-bracken.livejournal.com

Is winning the Mercury still considered some kind of curse? Looking at the list of winners (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_music_prize) it doesn't seem to be that bad. However, I'm still not sure that I'd want the ones I actually like (Young Knives, Klaxons, Winehouse) to win, just in case.

The View, as noted already, utterly incomprehensible. I own it. I have listened to it quite a few times. It is 'fun' at best and 'utter rubbish' at worst. They are really not very good.

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katstevens.livejournal.com

Not heard any of these, though they all seem very cool and trendy. What about lovely The Feeling? Or Take That? MUMS OF TEH WORLD UNITE & show yr disapproval for this nu-young-persons racket etc etc

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ms-bracken.livejournal.com

I was quite surprised the Fields album wasn't nominated - it's the kind of thing 'they' usually love and, you know, BETTER THAN THE VIEW.

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damnspynovels.livejournal.com

Or Field Music, for that matter.

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blue-russian.livejournal.com

Ok, I will no longer pay ANY attention to this.

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dzilinebisa.livejournal.com

Another WTF for The View. What a godawful band.

I like a few of these bands but can't pretend I've heard the albums in full. I'd imagine Winehouse will probably be the favourite, they won't want to give it to the Polar Chimps two years in a row.

Of the ones I am familiar with, I like Maps best although as

ms_bracken points out above, I would hate them to have the kiss of death planted on them. Srsly, if I was ever good/successful enough to get a Mercury nomination I would crawl into a hole and hope all the attention went away.

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One of The Young Knives calls himself The House Of Lords. o_0

And that is all I have to say on the subject, frankly.

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I am sure I remember the Young Knives doing the gigging rounds from when I lived in Oxford five years ago. Not that I ever went to saw them, or indeed anyone.

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They're from Oxford, so this is v. likely. They are quite good, although not as good as they think they are- they had a video with a dance routine featuring cows or something in it which was moderately-to-fairly watchable.

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carsmilesteve.livejournal.com

you saw:

ailsa set and also

the gossip (and other girl groups)

in oxford. Young Knives were called pony club at that point and sounded much more pixies and less Go4.

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As someone with a passing interest in strings in popular music I can honestly say my reaction to Basquiat Strings is 'snore, oh god who let the school orchestra loose'
http://www.myspace.com/basquiatstrings

Horrifying. The worst sort of bad playing combined with 'o ya we are so clever bringing this music to the masses y/y?'

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jazz? world? electronica? classical? hem hem "experimental"?
(are basquiat strings a kind of "portsmouth sinfonia w/o the politics"?)

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They appear to mostly just be really rubbish, playing boring classical music of the unlistenable sort that makes everyone think they hate classical music.

From their myspace: "Basquiat Strings are a five piece string group with their own repertoire of originals (composed by cellist Ben Davis) and arrangements. Ben finds inspiration from the raucous, driving Hungarian string groups of Transylvania, the luxuriously rich Brahms sextets and the unruly compositions and workshop arrangements of Charles Mingus. Well, all that and people asking him to fix strings for their sessions... The players have all trained classically yet are "naturally bilingual....wholly imbued with jazz's improvisational facility." (Chris Parker) The group has been involved with various other live projects including that of Juliet Roberts and Andrew McCormack; and has recorded for Ty, Darren Emerson, Monica Vasconcelos (Nois 4) Border Crossing and the Ed Moto produced Jazzinho record. Basquiat Strings are touring in March to promote and launch their own record "Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford" ..............PRESS:.............................................................................................. "Forceful Beast introduces Polar Bear drummer Seb Rochford's collaboration with Basquiat Strings, Faintly reminiscent of the Kronos Quartet but more beat driven and further off-planet." Chris May... All About Jazz 2005 F-ire : Works: Volume 2............................"Basquiat Strings shunt the mood again, as Ben Davis heads a classically trained quintet who are still profoundly influenced by the jazz experience" Martin Lonely... BBC Jazz Reviews 2004 F-ire: Works......................"Basquiat Strings track Double-Dares is a moody highlight " John Walters... The Guardian 2004 F-ire: Works......................"...Given extra emotional power by Ben Davis' Basquiat Strings" John Walters... The Guardian 2004 Nois 4: Gente......................."...A splendid string quintet" Robert Wyatt... The Times 2004 Nois 4: Gente............................."Basquiat Strings are that rare thing: a string group specialising in a unique combination with kit drums." Cheltenham Music Society... 2006"

I particularly like the last bit "that rare thing?!?!?!" I realise the classical world is a bit closed but ffs that is hardly new is it. Mentioning Yellowcard'd give them a heart attack, presumably.

Naturally bilingual, eh? What a load of arse. Given the number of strings musicians demonstrating you can make perfectly accessible AND technically brilliant music at the moment, there's really no need for that sort of pretentious arsefest which, bluntly, doesn't even demonstrate decent musicianship to me- it seems to be all over the place in a totally uncontrolled fashion (as opposed to for effect) and whether that's deliberate or not it sounds fucking rubbish. All their songs sound exactly the same to me, except that the first three on the myspace are slightly less listenable than the last, which almost achieves a degree of non-crapness for the first thirty seconds, at least.

It's so annoying when there are so many GOOD things to do with classical instruments but people like that are all "oh gosh look at those prostitutes writing brilliant pop songs with their classical training; we prefer to write utterly unlistenable tosh so that we and our friends can discuss how it pushes the boundaries of ~~boredom~~ the aesthetics in a way utter arseholes like us have been doing for centuries whilst sellouts like Tchaikovsky wrote slutty little concertos." DAMN THEM ALL, this is precisely why no one likes a violinist.

/hate

Bat For Lashes are supposed to be experimental I think. She is "alright," I would say, from the myspace. If she added me I would probably accept the add but I definitely wouldn't get excited about the whole thing.

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ms-bracken.livejournal.com

"That rare thing" is horrible. The one article I have ever saved from a newspaper is about recurring yet meaningless phrases in book reviews, which include things like "rare felicity", "wickedly funny" and "the name of that young German corporal was Adolf Hitler". In the same list for music reviews, "that rare thing" is surely up there. EVERYTHING IS THAT RARE THING, A THING THAT IS SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT FROM ANOTHER THING.

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giddyoldgoat.livejournal.com

'Rare Felicity' = good name for indie grp

Based on their myspace samples, Basquiat Strings sound pretty lightweight, mild-mannered even - i mean, it's not exactly george crumb, is it? i think they must have listened to a lot of John Zorn's string quartet/masada stuff.

no music is 'inaccessible'

based on a quick glimpse on C4, Bat for Lashes is aiming for a Teenage Jesus and the Bjorks kind of vibe

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skyecaptain.livejournal.com

My reentry into classical music after years of denying my realauthenticlegitimatesfistcated roots with this POP PABULUM (as Skye would say):

CROSSOVER APPEAL!!!! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRIUYgozCGo)

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i'm not sure how well it works -- instead of "bilingual" i wd have said "neither fish nor fowl", viz neither bartok nor grappelli, and def not making a very coherent musical argument for why something merely between those two is a useful thing to try ("transylvanian" and jazz string styles are different languages, and i think i'd prefer an argument BETWEEN them, a heightening and framing of difference, not a polyglot fusion that blurs the distinctions) (i LOVE bartok and i like the really tweaky avant-jazz violinists too, like leroy jenkins or billy bang; but i'm not getting double the fun here)

moggy, i can't work out if yr against it bcz you think it's a bad weak try at non-tonal music, or bcz ALL non-tonal music is a bad thing -- yr rant comes across as the latter mostly, which is a pity, cz i think the prob in this case really is the former; a project that isn't quite working and seems a bit pleased with itself (i don't think the problem is that it isn't accessible, it's that it's eager-to-please while believing itself pleasantly out there, so it comes across weirdly glib)

obviously someone liking it just because it "makes you better than ppl who like pop" would be totally crappy, but that doesn't apply to robert wyatt or john walters (who've both appeared on top of the pops) (i am being marcello in this post)... and some people really do like non-tonal music for its own sake -- ie sukrat-poptimists like me and

xyzzz___ and

giddyoldgoat for example, tho actually all of us prefer it a fair bit more hardcore than this (cf xyzzz's "screech" series that he posted on

sukrat: this is very mellow by comparison with any of that!)

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further notes on accessibility: julio's LJ name is IMPOSSIBLE to get right!

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I am against it because of the attitude and the badness, really. I actually like quite a lot of music that sounds not dissimilar to the Basquiet case (har har har I am so drunk I am making with teh puns good god deliver me from the internets) but I dislike that they clearly consider themselves superior to other people because they are crap. Essentially, I could throw the same criticisms I have thrown at them at Rasputina, for instance, who I adore and own about 7000 albums by but the difference is that Rasputina, despite having a clear 'we are bringing cellos into the fore of rock/pop' agenda, don't go 'o yeah and this means you're all ignorant peasants for not being us.'

Err, this is probably not making sense. Anyway, the point I wanted to make was that I don't mind the idea of people making music like the Basquiet people it's just I really think they have got it all wrong and as a violinist it makes me weep to realise this is the sort of thing people envisage when contemporary violin is brought to mind. I'd really rather people thought we were all mad Final Fantasy-esque types. :/

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nb: (OH DEAR MOGGY SHUT DOWN THE COMPUTER NOW PLZ) I am actually v. big fan of non-tonal, messy music when is done right but feel you shouldn't be able to pass bad musicianship off as it because it is an interesting and v. difficult to pull off sort of thing and I have immense respect for people that do. As was demonstrated by LoP ~~and my affection for Katharine McPhee~~.

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haha ok fair enough, i think i was misreading yr rant a bit -- actually i largely agree with it in regard to smugness (but this is based only on those mp3s), and am just somewhat feeling, well ok if robert wyatt sed he enjoyed it, then (on a good night?) maybe they are a lot better than they manage on record? (i interviewed him once, he is a very nice and quite sensible man)

everyone shd post more when drunk

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lockedintheatti.livejournal.com

as is now traditional, Popjustice have announced their shortlist:

http://www.popjustice.com/musicprize/shortlist.htm

A few good ones in there, but overall it doesn't give the impression that last year was a great one for British pop overall.

As with last year, there is one crossover with the Mercury list (Amy W this year; Muse last year). As usual, Girls Aloud will undoubtedly walk it. Roisin should win.

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Nominations for this most important of awards will open tomorrow. The bookies are tipping the Klaxons and Kate Nash.

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Noes not Kate Nash surely. Or am I mistaking the nature of this award?

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The award is for the best indie of the last 12 months. However since it is presented in the Lex's name, there may also be an element of "what will make the Lex squawk most entertainingly in the pub when the winner is announced."

I can't even remember who won last year which makes me suspect the award was a resounding success.

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carsmilesteve.livejournal.com

was it tompaulin? or was that two years ago?

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That was 2 years ago.

I SUSPECT it was Lallen last year, and was the spark for the "everyone surround Lex on the dancefloor" thing at Poptimism, where the winner was announced.

Announcing the winner at P'mism seems a good wheeze this time too so I will hold off polling for a while.

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jeff-worrell.livejournal.com

...was announced here (http://community.livejournal.com/poptimists/240700.html).

As The Lex suggests, some ballot-rigging seemingly took place on the night.

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It's always FIXED so that any 'indie' I actually like doesn't win!

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lockedintheatti.livejournal.com

Or to complete the 'K' theme, Kasabian.

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jauntyalan.livejournal.com

yeah, walk over for GA there

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