NME of the Taste

It's an irony that won't scoop me many gongs at the Originality Awards for pointing out, but possibly the least 'express' means of discovering new music is through the New Musical Express. Granted, as a weekly print publication they're always going to be fighting a losing battle against the all-seeing, all-knowing Internet in terms of delivering content at speed to their readership, but a quick browse through the magazine's recent cover stars demonstrates that it's not exactly living up to the first two thirds of its name, either.

So far in 2013, Liam Gallagher (twice), Johnny Marr (twice), David Bowie (thrice), Nirvana, The Who, The Stone Roses, Nine Inch Nails and Paul McCartney have all taken their turns to leer out from the shelves of your local newsagent's music section. While admittedly some of these had new records / gigs / haircuts to promote, none of the hat-trick of front-pages featuring the Artist Formerly Known as Ziggy Stardust succeeded in featuring any actual interview content once you've handed over your £2.40 and peered inside, and with a Gallagher brother having appeared on a total of ten covers since the start of 2011 (note: Oasis disbanded in 2009; Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds have released just one album since; Beady Eye are shit) the NME seems to be running dry on inspiration. But is it the magazine's fault?

As is always the case when bloggers pose questions to themselves during an article, the answer is both yes and no. The problem for the NME is that the browsers of the WH Smiths magazine aisle who would have any interest in parting with their disposable income are those who would stare blankly at a picture of Disclosure before plumping for the reliably nostalgic coziness of MOJO instead. The audience that will be interested in the latest exploits of the brotherly dance duo, or of the sisterly trio of American new arrivals Haim, will be the kids that have grown up comfortably enough with the Internet to be able to access all their music fixes from their laptops, speedily and for free, and what's more it's unlikely that they'll be doing so from NME's messy eye-sore of a website.

I feel I'm hating a little on NME here so far. Perhaps with a touch of rejuvenation and rebranding, they could be back dominating the world of music journalism, with lines of school-kids waiting impatiently outside their local retailers every Wednesday morning to pick up a copy of the latest edition to rifle through keenly in double Geography a few hours later. Well hey now, whaddya know? The NME has just relaunched itself, along with a promise to expand the magazine's Radar section, which focuses on new and up-and-coming acts. So, who's on the first cover in this new dawn for cutting-edge music exploration? Oh, it's David Bowie again. Never mind though, the following week saw a celebration of 'Young Britannia', an ensemble cover featuring new British artists as commendably diverse as Erol Alkan-affiliated producer Daniel Avery, scuzzball Welsh rockers Joanna Gruesome and electro-pop babe Charli XCX, alongside more established UK names as Jake Bugg and Katy B. Things, then, definitely seem to be looking up.

However, just as any makeshift team of footballing nuns who can't afford a proper ball will tell you, old habits are hard to kick. This week's issue sees the NME flaunt its restraining order and make a bee-line straight back to Memory Lane (electronic tag around ankle still in tact - it just seemed to work well with the vintage Doc Martens), as they counted down the 500 greatest albums of all time. Spoiler: The Smiths' 'The Queen Is Dead' won. A more than fair choice, in this commentator's personal opinion, and entirely befitting of the publication's aesthetic.

A rather more unsavoury fall-out from the list is the accompanying 'staff lists' on the NME website blog. I'll quickly hold my hands up and say that the use of "unsavoury" in that past sentence is rather strong and unjustified - it's not as if the NME have daubed a big willy on their local mosque, or pissed on someone's kids on Christmas morning. Probably more accurately, the staff lists are just down-right wearisome. Each is a Top Ten from various staff members, and each reads like a blindfolded individual has put ten pins in a generic 'Greatest Albums of All Time' list, removed their visual impairment and thought, "oh yeah, that'll do". The majority of entries are mind-numbingly conservative - you've got to wonder whether anyone who lists 'Dark Side of the Moon', 'Revolver' (AND 'Rubber Soul'), 'The Velvet Underground & Nico' and 'Blood on the Tracks' in their favourite albums of all time has either never listened to a record that hasn't featured in a late-night Channel 4 countdown, or misunderstood the task and thought they had to predict the most likely final rankings. Honestly, is 'Dark Side of the Moon' actually anyone's 'favourite' album? No, no it's not. David Gilmour's, perhaps, but even then only at a stretch.

Several lists (without showing too much dedication to the cause by researching each release date, I'd guess at least two or three out of eleven lists) contain no albums that were released in the past twenty years, and there are only a small number of albums over the course of the page that were released in the past decade (this ratio is boosted by Laura Snapes, who decides to populate five out of her ten slots with albums by The National). Does this matter? Well, no, obviously on the worldwide scale of 'Things That Matter' it ranks just behind, "hmm, this milk's expiry date was yesterday, but it smells alright, I guess". What it demonstrates, though, is that NME might need to look a bit deeper than the design of their logo to discover why they're not quite as on the pulse as they once were - which, unfortunately, was when most of the albums on their list were released.

* * * * *

What's that dear reader? You want me to demonstrate how much cooler than the NME I am by listing my own Top Ten favourite albums of all time and pointing out the difference in how less mainstream and obvious they are in a thoroughly narcissistic and self-congratulatory manner? Ohhh, you guysss...

Having studied the NME staff lists, I did begin to wonder what would populate my own Top Ten. There were some more immediately obvious candidates, but as I was trawling through the recesses of my mind I realised that perhaps the classics are considered the classics for a reason, and that I'd judged the NME staffers a bit too harshly. Then I remembered: DARK SIDE OF THE FUCKING MOON. 

The list I've ultimately come up with is, of course, very subject to change, and will probably do so in the very near future. It's certainly not the list I would've conjured up ten, five, or probably even a couple of years ago. As the magazine's writers did with theirs, I've arranged it in to a rough descending order, kicking off with some untouchably brilliant Icelandic introspection and rounding off with a bonafide classic that our friends at NME would be proud of, taking in socio-politically aware East Coast rap, socio-politically aware expansive deep house, and socio-politically aware tongue-in-cheek UK garage along the way. I've linked to a key track from each as well, so get stuck in.

Just one quick final note - as always, I'm fully aware that I'm just writing this blog post to pretty much myself, but in the unlikely scenario that anyone else happens to a) stumble upon this article and b) bothers to read all the way through to here and fancies popping their own Top Ten list in the comments, then they'll be warmly welcomed.

My Own Top Ten Favourite Albums

1. Björk - Vespertine 

Listen: It's Not Up To You

2. Nas - Illmatic

Listen: N.Y. State of Mind

3. DJ Sprinkles - Midtown 120 Blues

Listen: The Occasional Feel-Good

4. Cocteau Twins - Heaven or Las Vegas

Listen: Heaven or Las Vegas

5. The Streets - Original Pirate Material

Listen: Weak Become Heroes

6. The Smiths - Meat Is Murder

Listen: Rusholme Ruffians

7. Björk - Debut

Listen: Big Time Sensuality (<< from where this blog derives its name!)

8. Burial - Untrue

Listen: Archangel

9. Grouper - Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill

Listen: Heavy Water/I'd Rather Be Sleeping

10. Fleetwood Mac - Rumours

Listen: Dreams

enjoy.

End of Year Countdown: 29 - 20

Here's the next instalment of my Top 50 Favourite Songs of the Year. Listen to them, love them, but don't MAKE love to them. Or if you do, remember to wear a skin before going in.

29. Boys Noize & Erol Alkan - Waves

28. Nosaj Thing - Fog

27. The Field - Leave It

26. Darkstar - Need You

25. Dizzee Rascal & Armand Van Helden - Bonkers

24. Bibio - The Palm of Your Wave

23. La Roux - In For The Kill

22. Major Lazer - Pon De Floor

21. Birdy Nam Nam - The Parachute Ending

20. Bibio - Jealous of Roses

Classic Track(s)

To celebrate the start of December, this post will feature a spectacular triple bill of classic tracks, one for each of the major religious festivals that this final month of the year contains - Hanukkah, Al-Hijira (Islamic New Year), and, of course, Yule, the Pagan celebration of the Winter Solstice. Anyone who doesn't think these three are the most important religious dates in December is a skin-head racist and anti-multiculturalist, and is probably already balls deep in Nick Griffin's podgy anus.

Anyway, this ménage à trois of legendary songs isn't just a random group of tunes that drank a bit too much at Tiger Tiger last night, and having eyed each other up across the dance floor decided to all pile in to a taxi together and head back to a sordid Holiday Inn room to engage in an orgy of vintage musical fornication. No, these tracks are linked both stylistically and geographically, as they represent the work of The Belleville Three - Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, and Derrick May, who, due to their productions that emerged from Belleville, Detroit since the early 1980's, are often labelled the founding fathers of techno. The three high school buddies drew on influences ranging from George Clinton to Prince to Kraftwerk, and set about establishing Detroit as the birthplace of modern-day techno, a legacy it has continued ever since with such techno giants as Carl Craig, Jeff Mills and Richie Hawtin (who clearly saw more potential in the American city's scene than in his own home town of Banbury, Oxfordshire) all establishing their reputations there.

• Cybotron (Juan Atkins) - Clear
• Derrick May - Strings of Life
• Inner City (Kevin Saunderson) - Good Life

Songs I'm Currently Loving: Female Tekover

So apparently women are making music these days. While your natural reaction is probably this, I've tried to make the most of a bad situation and have compiled a selection of some of the finest tracks around at the moment to have been crafted by dainty little hands that should have been doing the washing up instead. If you wish to read more of my educated opinions on the state of the nation then the News Of The World will be serializing my forthcoming book "Uh-Oh, Here Comes Trouble" over the festive period, in which I impatiently tut at everything that's even marginally changed since 1816. The full publication will be released on December 21st, with a RRP of 17 groats.

• Cooly G - Narst - a slightly sinister piece of dancehall/UK Funky/dubstep from the consistently excellent Brixton lass Cooly G, who's already establishing herself as one of the finest producers of the genre.
• Ikonika - Sahara Michael - Ikonika is rising fast in the dubstep world, easily surpassing many of the shaved-headed blokes who are still churning out unimaginative bass thuds. She's released a number of quality EPs, and whenever her album comes along it's sure to stake it's place amongst the ranks of Hyperdub classics.
• Dinky - Westoid - it's a little known fact that female producers at the moment don't JUST produce UK urban music, some of them come from Chile and make very lovely jazzy minimal techno too. Dinky's music sounds like the result of Ricardo Villalobos performing a sex change operation on Moodymann, and it will be a very sad world indeed if that ever stops being a good thing.
• Tokimonsta - So Sick - hailing from LA, Tokimonsta is Brainfeeder's most notable (possibly only) laydee creator of beats, and a fine creator she is at that. She's also pretty damn hot.
• Shuanise - Baggage For Sale - an artist on Floating Points and Alex Nut's excellent Eglo Records, Shuanise makes chilled out jazz-hop which is perfect for both a sunny summer's day in a paddock* with a glass of cool lemonade, or a cosy rainy day indoors with some boardgames and Hama beads.

*99% guaranteed that's the only time you'll read the word 'paddock' in any form of blog for a long while.

• Bjork - Big Time Sensuality - could easily crop up in the Classic Track section any day of the week, but seeing as the (wonderful wonderful wonderful) Icelandic songstress has appeared there already I thought I'd take advantage of this feminine Songs I'm Currently Loving to throw in the song which spawned the name of this very blog.

Listening to the songs in this post has left me in a very good mood, I hope they'll have a similarly uplifting effect on you. And as I stated in the previous post, I'd love to hear your thoughts on my countdown, the classic tracks, the Songs I'm Currently Loving, or any other unreserved praise you have for this blog, so why not imprint your mark upon the world wide web by leaving a comment below? It's a quick and painless process, and is a far better use of time than not leaving a comment.

The next post will either be the penultimate set of songs in the countdown (19 - 11), or my Top 10 Favourite Albums of the Year, so that's an exciting cliffhanger for you there isn't it.

County Down, part 1

When I was a child, I went on a family holiday to Switzerland. While we were there we took a wee day trip to the Large Hadron Collider, to see if we could spot the Higgs boson for ourselves. However, DISASTER STRUCK. I, convinced that I'd just spotted the Higgs boson bombing past, rushed to the edge of the machine to take a closer look, but in my excited haste I failed to notice a crate of low-fat Dairylea Dunkers that had been set down just beside the collider -I tripped, and was sent tumbling in to the collider.

I cannot recall much of what occurred once I was inside. All I'm aware of is that what I had perceived to be the Higgs boson was in fact Higgs' bassoon, which Higgs was carrying on his way to wind band practice just further down the collider. From then on, my memories are nothing more than blurry, incomplete shapes and whirls, until I suddenly snapped back in to full consciousness to see my family and Dr Fox anxiously peering down at me. Heaven knows how long I was in there until I was fished out, but I appeared to have emerged unscathed.

Or, at least, it appeared that way at first. After I'd been comforted and given a steaming hot mug of cocoa and a low-fat Dairylea Dunker, Dr Fox took me to one side, out of ear shot of the rest of the group. He explained to me that his experiments with the LHC were not quite what the public were being led to believe. Instead of trying to recreate the Big Bang, he whimpered, he had in fact been using the machine to try and recreate Big Brovaz, who at the time had been the height of musical innovation until their tragic volcano-based demise. He explained that if he could just unleash another R&B/hip-hop collective on the world with the talent and vision of Big Bro, then he might finally be able to convince Simon Cowell to revive Pop Idol and give him a slot as a judge again. The good doctor explained that he wasn't sure what, if any, side effects I would feel from my brush with the collider, but that he would personally ensure that I was looked after properly for the rest of my life, and given all the funding and resources I needed to ensure that this experience wouldn't hinder me, and I would be able to build a successful career in the future.

Of course, just like all the others who had received the same pledge from Dr Fox or any other talent show judge, my prospects were soon to implode. I was haunted by my ordeal in the collider: I couldn't sleep properly, I got jittery whenever I heard the sound of a bassoon, and I massively went off low-fat Dairylea Dunkers. Like, MASSIVELY. But the most significant effect of my experience was the most mind-blowing of all: I could now see in to the musical future. I knew as early as 2002 that Take That would reform and that Robbie Williams would fall from stardom, only to return years later with a comeback that everyone heralded as magnificent but in truth wasn't particularly impressive. I had a vision in 1997 that over-the-top europop synths would make passionate love with the scrag-end of the hip-hop world and their offspring would rule the planet, and lo and behold in 2009 the love-children of the affair, Taio Cruz and Tinchy Stryder, stormed the charts. At this very moment, I know that the winner of this year's X Factor (who I can't reveal on here due to legal restrictions) will go on to land the Christmas number one, do fuck all for the next 7-8 months then return to prominence briefly with a series of heavily American-influenced hits interspersed with weak cover versions.

Why am I telling you this? you might ask, probably about 70 lines ago. Well, I've used my superpower of being able to gaze in to the future of music and have decided that there won't be a sufficient amount of stingin' toons released between now and the end of the year to stop me from entering the initial stages of an End Of Year countdown. The top ten has actually already been drafted but will be left for a later date, partly due to the recent emergence of a tune that is making a strong argument to be catapulted to the top end of the list (said tune is to be found in Song's I'm Currently Loving).

So for now, let me present to you the songs that I have listed as 50 - 40 on the list of My Favourite Songs of the Year, and the rest will be portioned out in the coming days and weeks. There's a mixed bag there, so if you pick one out you don't like then just try and swap it with someone else, and for heaven's sake don't just put it back in the mix once your grubby fingers have been all over it. Learn some manners, you filthpot.

- - - I'm providing YouTube links for these as far as is possible, if you wish to own the track then either buy it as I can guarantee that it's propah good, use some form of YouTube song downloading tool, or it could already be on this blog so check tha side list of artists yeah? - - -

50. Jesse Rose - Well Now

49. Lady GaGa - Poker Face

48. Sticky K - Bandari Funk

47. Shitao - We

46. Shackleton - Moon Over Joseph's Burial

45. Zombie Nation - Worth It pt.1

44. Burial & Four Tet - Moth

43. Martyn - Elden St.

42. Luke Vibert - We Hear You

41. Rye Rye feat. M.I.A. - Bang

40. Joy Orbison - Wet Look

So there we go, I hope that's wet your appetite for the even more heavyweight tunes yet to come. Before we get to the customary Songs I'm Currently Loving, in my infinite wisdom I've decided to add even more length to this already lengthy-enough post through the introduction of a new little segment. From now on, the downloading section of each post will also include a 'Classic Track'; that's to say, an absolute gem of musical brilliance that you should own by law, so if you don't already have it then download it fast and avoid a 7 year jail term.

The début Classic Track is a stunning combination of one of the finest voices ever committed to record, enigmatic and beautifully romantic lyrics, and set against a driving yet hypnotically soothing techno backdrop. So please, stop what you're doing, lay yourself down somewhere, and immerse yourself in:

Bjork - Hyperballad

Songs I'm Currently Loving:

• Gemmy - BT Tower - Gemmy combines the best bits of both the past and future of dubstep, with a throbbing filth-fest of a bassline fused with the more atmospheric side of the genre that's becoming increasingly healthier
• DatsiK - Southpaw - more dutty thumps and squelches c/o Datsik, here sampling Wu Tang Clan to create a propah nawty banger of a tune
• Tricky - Slow - I recently discovered the 'Tricky Meets South Rakkas Crew' album and am currently enjoying it greatly, hunt it down if you haven't heard it already.
• Shinichi Osawa - Maximum Joy (Van She Remix) - Another bad-ass album that's recently wandered in to my life is Southern Fried & Tested vol. 2, a compilation released by Norman Cook aka Fatboy Slim's Southern Fried Records. Got some real treats on there, including the next song as well.
• Touché - Vampires - even if you don't think you've heard anything by DJ Touché (one half of The Black Ghosts) before, you have. Here you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iODdvJGpfIA&feature=related
• Pom Pom - Untitled - I am currently in love with Pom Pom, and this is currently my particular favourite of his hoards of untitled tracks.
• Slagsmalsklubben - Brutal Weapons - one of the few saving graces on the new Kitsuné Maison compilation. Band name is Swedish for 'Fight Club', FYI.
• Four Tet - Love Cry - a lovely bit of new Four Tet, which is a precursor to a new album which should be out early 2010 me believes.
• Ill Mana feat. P-Money - What Did He Say (Remix) - currently my favourite example of the newly crowned 'Greatest Genre In The World' - Bassline (of course)
• Deadboy - U Cheated - This is the song which has thrown my previously nicely settled 'Top 10 Favourite Songs of the Year' in to disarray, as it only got released a few days ago but is already infecting my brain at every given opportunity. Definitely one of the biggest tunes of the year, I only wish it could have revealed itself sooner and saved me the hassle of having to shoe-horn it in on the upper platforms of my End Of Year list.

Bye.