A further point about Newton Faulkner

A further point about Newton Faulkner. Here's a picture of him. This is Newton Faulkner.

Back in the day, in fact as recently as last month, Newton Faulkner would have been excommunicated from mainstream society and branded 'a hippy' or 'a weird dirty hippy with ginger dreadlocks'.

But now he's being heralded as 'the next big artist' just because he's got an acoustic guitar. When did being a hippy with an acoustic guitar cease being laughable and become admirable?

I'm not against hippies, per se, but I think I probably am against hippies in mainstream popular culture.

It's all wrong.

James Blunt - All The Lost Souls

It's only August. Bit early for the onset of seasonally-induced depression, isn't it? Give us all a chance.

You'd best prepare yourself. Draw the curtains. Curl up in a ball. Put James Blunt on. Train your thoughts solely on how pointless life is. Think about how nothing in the world is of any worth. Despair at how nothing quite grabs you. Wonder how you used to have 'enthusiasms'.

Who let Blunt have a guitar in the first place? If they'd given him a glockenspiel we wouldn't have all this trouble. Solo glockenspiel artists never make it onto the radio.

Balls.

Hed Kandi - Summer Sampler 2007: A Taste Of Kandi

Holy shit! Was it only yesterday that we were bemoaning Hed Kandi's summer output?

Look at this cover. Four cartoon women. FOUR! It's a new record, even if the blonde one second from the right looks like she's a bit of a dick. That still leaves three and a spare in case one of the other three likes talking about Big Brother.

I think I recognise the one on the right from 'The Mix', but that's okay because she's a good one. Hed Kandi can use the good ones as many times as they like.

Speaking of which, they should feel free to use the other dark-haired one on everything from now on. In fact, I'm tempted to start a campaign to have her put on stamps.

Look at her face. She clearly knows stuff that you don't know. And I bet she could spend a week in the same room as you without so much as acknowledging your presence, even if you were the only other person there and you were bright yellow and 300 feet tall.

Hed Kandi - The Mix, Summer 2007

It's summer! That means the Hed Kandi cartoon women are, er, doing the same as they normally do: cavorting around in bikinis, looking bored and taunting you with both of their dimensions.

Sadly, however, Hed Kandi have once again made 'the blonde error' on their cover. And look at that outfit. It's ludicrous. If the Hed Kandi women wear bikinis in winter, they should be wearing LESS in summer. They certainly shouldn't sport bastardised one-pieces.

This Hed Kandi woman makes even the last one look good. Rubbish.

And look at the ones in the background. They look they'd be great. It's infuriating amateurism from Hed Kandi, once again.

It's almost like I can't be bothered

Being as I'm criminally neglecting this site at the moment, here's a token update.

Being as I haven't reviewed anything in nearly a week, here's a link to several singles being reviewed according to how sciencey they are.

This is a good way of reviewing music.

The Cat Empire - Two Shoes

"Emperor, it is time for thy meal. Are you hungry?"

[Enthusiastic look gives way to blank look.]

"You are hungry, but not for that. How about I provide thee with something different?"

[Enthusiastic look once again gives way to a blank one. The emperor wanders off.]

"No? You are not pleased with that either? Well perhaps we should attend to the empire. There are a number of matters that..."

[Emperor walks past the assistant and lies on top of some papers, ignoring the bed which is right next to him.]

"No, emperor, no. Er, could you, er, move elsewhere? Those papers are, er..."

[Emperor fixes his assistant with a steely gaze before closing his eyes.]

The Thrills - Teenager

Hands up who likes approximating the strained, cracked vocals of The Thrills' lead singer. Be honest.

Of course you do. It's because it's easy. Or at least it appears easy until the radio switches off and you hear yourself.

I like The Thrills' shameless desire to be from California. Ordinarily, trying to be in some way American when you're not (or even if you are) is a pretty unforgivable crime, but here the alternative permits it. At least The Thrills aren't cheeky, fun-loving Irishmen who like a drink.

Besides, they don't just adopt the vocal style and melody, they actually bother to go and live there. It's kind of like method acting.

However, this album was recorded in Vancouver, which is resolutely not Californian. For one thing it rains like frigging murder there. Not sure how this'll impact on The Thrills' inconsequential chirpiness.

The Coral - Roots and Echoes

The Coral seem to labour under the misapprehension that melody is in some way 'enough'.

It's not. More psychedelia. More effort. Try and do a track which is a bit more rock 'n' roll and a bit less pastoral and agreeable.

Somebody needs to crank up the overdrive on the amps and irritate the drummer into a more vigorous performance by calling him names. Not good names, either. Not 'The Drumminator 9000' or 'The Rhythminator 9000' or anything like that. More like 'wee-pants' or 'gay-face'.

Less love. More hate. Like real life.

Paul Potts - One Chance

Bit of a relaxation of normal policy for Paul Potts, Brother Number One, to give you even the one chance.

Ordinarily it'd be: Out to the country with you. Work on the farm. If you don't like it, you can go for some 're-education' at Security Prison 21 or maybe just get shot down at the Killing Fields.

Oh, wait. Paul Potts, you say, not Pol Pot?

I'm not a man who's easily deterred from an obvious joke which has already been done to death.

Robyn - Robyn

Skyscrapers? Androgyny? Y instead of I? I'm not happy. I'm not happy at all.

Here's Amazon's artist description:

"She is Robyn. The most killingest pop star on the planet. A pint-sized atom bomb dosed on electric and dispensing wisdom in three-minute modernist pop bulletins on the post-adolescent condition."

That's awful enough without the nagging suspicion that it was penned by Robyn herself.

'Three minute modernist pop bulletins on the post-adolescent condition' - it's what the world's crying out for.

Why doesn't anyone pen songs about grouting the bathroom or the perils of randomly selecting a take-away menu and ordering from it?

Korn - Untitled

I'm not sure whether this album's untitled or whether it's Untitled. That is to say, is it entitled 'Untitled' or has it not been named?

If it's 'Untitled', then that's really annoying. If it's untitled, then it's a bit annoying, but I can live with it.

Korn. We're on solid ground with 'Korn'. It's like 'corn' only much, much scarier. So dark, sinister and untamed that the C has been replaced with a K. There's no more powerful weapon in the band namer's armoury than the use of a K in place of a C.

Interestingly, Korn's singer is called Jonathan Davis. I was really, really hoping it was the same Jonathan Davis who represented Wales in Rugby Union and Great Britain in Rugby League, but it isn't. He's Jonathan Davies with an extra E in his surname.

The difference one letter can make, eh?

Newton Faulkner - Hand Built By Robots

"Ohjesus, ohjesus, ohjesus, ohjesus, ohjesus. What did they build in the night?

"When I open this door, I'll find out what they've been up to. I can barely imagine.

"Let's go about this logically. Last week they built legs, a head, a torso, feet, upper arms, forearms and one hand. What could they have possibly built last night?

"It's no good. I'll just have to open the door and see...

"It's... It's... Another hand!"

Newton Faulkner's real name, according to Wikipedia is 'Sam Newton Battenberg Deutoronomy Faulkner'. Where do we stand on that? Is that 'true' or 'bollocks'?

Newton Faulkner's got ginger dreadlocks. Where do we stand on that?

Kate Nash - Made Of Bricks

Is it a house? It's a house, isn't it? Or a robust garage. More likely a house though.

What else could it be? What else do you make out of bricks? A pile of bricks is made of bricks. A raised flower bed?

The single off this album's called 'Foundations' which is also a piece of construction terminology or 'jargon'. Is Kate Nash a builder? I don't know. I've only heard that one song and it was a bit embarrassing actually, so if it were made by a builder I'd feel better, because at least I'd know she had a career to fall back on.

There's a song called 'Shit Song' as well. People always do this on records these days to try and pre-empt and therefore nullify criticism. Robbie Williams did a song called 'Dickhead', but, undaunted, I called him a dickhead anyway.

I'll go so far as to say that 'Shit Song' is a shit song as well - and I've already admitted that I haven't heard it.

Manic Street Preachers - Everything Must Go

"I'm paunchy and sport a 1950s haircut. You're really short and look like a boulder. He's far too tall. Do we look like a rock band or do we look like a rock band?"

Here's my 'Design For Life': There's nothing to do. No-one talks. You 'make your own fun' only it isn't actually much fun. Nobody likes anybody else, but nobody has to see anyone else, so it's okay. And everything's cheap, only you don't have any money.

Doesn't that sound brilliant? Vote for me. I'll make it happen.

Michael Jackson - Off The Wall

He was once the King of Pop. Now he's at best a relatively high-ranking clerical worker of pop.

So can he once again work his way up to pop's zenith? I've come up with an ingenious one step plan. It was going to be a two step plan, but then I realised that 'being a bit weird' was really one of his selling points.

Step one: Release some music of some description.

It could be pretty much anything. He could do folk interpretations of Akala records. He could team up with Siobhan Donaghy and do a version of Ghostbusters. He could bang a tea tray with his elbow while pretending to be a mirkin.

There's three perfectly decent suggestions. There are plenty more.

Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral

How can Nine Inch Nails be so certain that it's a downward spiral? Couldn't it just as easily be an upward spiral? Surely it just depends how you approach the spiral.

My approach has always been to start at the bottom and try and work my way up. This at least gives the illusion of an upward spiral. However, I regularly slip and undo my good work by sliding back down the spiral.

Nine Inch Nails strike me as the kind of band who are wedged somewhere in the middle of the spiral, arguing about which way to go.