I Just Called To Say I Loath You

I've recently been inundated with literally hundreds of e-mails from The Hardcore and The Gentle fans imploring me to explain my reasoning behind each nefarious character included in the newly added 'The Unloved' list on the right-hand side of this blog. As befits the ingenuity and creative mindedness of the average THaTG reader, all of the e-mails have been wittily disguised as offers to watch Asian school girls get anally assaulted by horses live on webcam, or Nigerian business men imploring me to transfer money in to their bank accounts with the promise that my investment will quadruple within the space of two seconds. But I know who these "Nigerian business men" are. They're frauds. I know full well that they're really you lot, my enraptured fanbase, and that the request to transfer money in to bank accounts is really a thinly veiled plea for me to transfer some of my wise, wise words in to your yearning brains. Well, as has been recently pointed out in various media outlets, my generosity and good-will is comparable to that of Jesus Christ himself, and I like to think that I treat my disciples well. So, here you go guys: this is YOUR post.

1. Michael Bay

There's not a huge amount more that I can add in criticism of The Worst Film Director Ever To Have Lived (known to his mum as Michael Bay) that hasn't already been perfectly poeticized in Team America's lol-tastic "Pearl Harbour" song. Michael Bay is just a dick who thinks that the only way one of his piss-poor screenplays can be made in to a film is by hurling several hundred million dollars at it in the form of grossly over-indulgent CGI and special effects, while also having an uncanny knack of choosing exactly the worst actors possible for the roles. Pretty much all of his films can fall pretty comfortably under the label 'over-expensive pieces of shit': Armageddon, Pearl Harbour, The Island, Transformers (and probably Transformers 2, the original didn't have me scrambling for tickets to the follow-up). And Bad Boys and Bad Boys 2 aren't exactly gonna be jostling for place at the top of any 'Greatest Films Ever Made' lists. Oh, and Megan Fox doesn't like him, and at risk of infuriating my very anti-Fox girlfriend: that makes him a Grade A douchebag. FUCK YOU MICHAEL BAY.

2. Bill O'Reilly

A selection of the entries under "Bill O'Reilly" on Urban Dictionary should cover this section nicely:

"Completely ignorant white male who thinks he knows everything. Almost comical diction when is he cutting liberal commentators off and sweet-talking the conservatives."

"Another word for crap, turd, shit etc...

I stepped in some Bill O'Reilly."

"Pompous news anchor with a staggering ego. Claims to be neutral, unbiased, and "looking out" for the everyday American, but commits more logical fallacies per broadcast than any other. Also spends more time plugging merchandise, books, and website memberships on air than any other. Has been caught in multiple lies, fabrications, and exaggerations, and is prone to patronizing his guests as well as all of his viewers (whether or not they realize it). A joke of a journalist rivaled only by Geraldo Rivera, the "debate" content of his show is really a series of cat fights resulting in mic-cutting and arrogance."

"2. To cram a large dildo up your ass while having phone sex.

"Honey can you repeat that? I wanna do a "bill o'reilly" for the full effect.""

3. David Pleat

Painfully dreadful football commentator

4. Bob Geldof

Putting a pretty napkin over a piece of shit doesn't stop it from being a piece of shit. All the charity campaigning in the world can't remove the fact that Bob Geldof is an unpleasant, self-righteous cocktug, who is crap at making music and naming children. To be fair though, he was responsible for probably the greatest gig the world has ever witnessed. No, not Live Aid. His 2006 show in Italy, where only 45 people turned up to see him play at a venue with a 12,000 person capacity, prompting Bob to throw a hissy fit and call off the concert. The fans were probably left gutted not to have the chance to see such Boomtown Rats minor hits as I Don't Like Mondays and, um.... err.....

5. Kanye West

Far, far too up himself, but even his extravagant claims of being the most intelligent rapper in the world and the voice of a generation hadn't fully turned me against him. No, this was reserved for until I actually saw him live in concert at Sheffield Arena, in which he descended in to a long rambling semi-rapped monologue of how ill-treated celebrities were by the press, as I helplessly stood by and watched my £35 spent on a ticket slosh away in to inane egotistical twaddle. Also, I have never to this day actually known who on earth Taylor Swift is, apart from a shocked looking figure in a silver dress forlornly clutching a statue of a spaceman while being told she's not as good as Beyonce, but I'm definitely on her side in the great MTV Awards fiasco. Up yours Kanye, you motherfucking gay fish.

6. Terry Taylor

See Random Album Review #4

Songs I'm Currently Loving:

I have a suspicion that Mediafire's (praise be upon it) recent makeover now means that you can download all these stingin' toons in one fell swoop by clicking on this link and then doing some stuff, I'm not entirely sure how to do it because I don't download my own songs. Anyway, from now on I'll endeavour to include the whole folder link as well as the individual links, as I appreciate that downloading songs individually wastes precious time that could be spent navigating the hell away from this blog to the safety of some incestuous raccoon porn.

• Dorian Concept - Trilingual Dance Sexperience - relatively new track from DorCon which leaves the mouth watering for a follow up to the majorly mega When Planets Explode.
• Hard House Banton - Zulu Form - I genuinely hate the term "UK Funky". It just seems like a pointless tag that's been made-up for a style of music that I swear has been around in various forms for ages and has never needed to be called something stupid like "UK Funky" before. Could it not at least be UK Funkstep or UK Funky Munky Dance or something? All it is at the moment is the name of a place followed by an adjective, much like "Tranmere Juicy", which you might not have heard of because I've just invented it. So you can be safe in the knowledge that if you don't see hipsters starting to go to Tranmere Juicy nights in the near future, then there isn't an ounce of justice in the world.
• Silkie & Harry Craze - Favela - speaking of which, here's a nice 'n' Funky track from two UK producers, just for all you Tranmere Juicy-heads out there.
• Rhythm On The Loose - Break of Dawn - this is some vintage house from the early 90's, and it's MINT mate, fookin' MINT. If you've ever been surprised to see a suitcase by the door then this song is basically telling your life story; you should probably consider legal action.
• Acid Girls - Lightworks (Harvard Bass Remix) - I honestly have no idea why, but this song always makes me think that if it were a person then it'd be the man in the white suit with the ridiculous strut from the Dreadlock Holiday video. I have literally no clue as to why my brain decides to bestow this personification upon me. It's a banger of an electro tune though, it's earned it's strut.
• 1000 Names - Pum - these ace glitch-hoppers may want us to believe that they have 1000 names, but the best song title they can come up with is "Pum"?? I don't know about you, but I don't buy their audacious claims, not one bit.
• Shitao - We - this is a beautiful abstract hip-hop track from the rather un-beautifully named French producer Shitao. For damage limitation sake I'm still trying to decide whether it's better to pronounce his name more like "Shit how?", or "Shit 'ouse". This is probably (well, hopefully) the only occasion in life when you'll find yourself lapping up We from a Shit 'ouse, so enjoy it.
• Maluca - El Tigeraso - this track is pretty damn ludicrous, but is all the better for it. Definitely enjoyable, but not the sort of track that you'd wanna be walked in on whilst wildly flailing your hands in the air to it sitting at your computer in your dressing gown, trust me. No, really: TRUST ME.

In addition to this fine array of tracks to greedily cram down your ear'oles, it'd be well worth your while to check out this latest mix by fast-rising DJ/producer Dan Boadan, as it's bloody good: October 09 Mix

Random album review #5

The Japanese Popstars - We Just Are

I'll level with you - We Just Are is a great album, but I'm boring myself trying to write about it. For an electro house long player, it's good - REALLY good. All the songs are nothing less than banging, and it's full of thumping bass, euphoric build ups and slamming drops. But still it bores me a bit. I think the problem is that it's very four-on-the-floor head nodding music, which when listened to in a bedroom environment has a fairly short shelf life in just one listening session. I'm sure that if I was listening to it via one of The Japanese Popstars' live shows (which are highly rated and widely acclaimed - they're touring at the moment so I hope to catch them soon) then I would be doing nothing but gushing praise for We Just Are, but as it is (I'm currently sitting in my room hunched over my computer, it's a fairly grey day outside) the euphoric build ups are soaring by rather under-appreciated. All of the tunes on the album are obviously designed to have you reaching for the lasers rather than for a cup of tea, and while I can easily appreciate that each of the tracks are finely crafted pieces of dance music they just don't fully inspire when simply listened to on the CD, and really need to be experienced in a club environment. So my recommendation would be: aim to see The Japanese Popstars live, then the album will probably take on a whole new feel afterwards. A similar thing happened to me with Digitalism a few years ago; tracks like Pogo and Jupiter Room had intoxicated my brain with German electro goodness, but I'd been fairly cool on the rest of their album Idealism until I saw them live at Reading 07, a highly spiritual experience that made me enjoy the record a lot more from then on as listening to each track evoked the buzz of the live performance. That's how I see We Just Are: bit boring in mp3 form, probably very WOW live. Check out their tour dates, if they're playing near you then I'd definitely recommend trying to catch them live: http://www.myspace.com/thejapanesepopstars

Seeing as I've dealt with We Just Are fairly quickly, I'll tag on a proposal of what you should be pumping out your stereo's speakers instead. Bassline has for a long time been an object of scorn in my eyes, for two key reasons: 1) I don't carry a flick-knife, and 2) I don't own a modified Citroen Saxo. If you catch my drift. Despite spending a considerable amount of time in the bassline capital of the world, Sheffield, I've never felt the urge to attend any Niche nights, generally because my finest stab-proof vest coincidentally always seems to be in the wash when they're on. Shame. Instead I've tended to plump for the watered-down version of bassline, wonky fidget house, as pioneered by the likes of Jack Beats, Martelo, and various other inhabitants of Hervé's Cheap Thrills imprint and beyond. They make music that's acceptable for the middle-class young adults of Great Britain to bounce around the room like chimps to, safe in the knowledge that they can flail along to the wobbling basslines as much as they like without fearing to meet the eye of anyone else in the room.

I still wouldn't be first in line at a bassline or speed garage night, but my opinion of the music itself has rocketed in the space of the past day. This is because for once, I actually listened to some bassline. Proper bassline, courtesy of Rinse 05, mixed by Paleface. All of the Rinse series is great, and as this particular mix was actually released in the middle of 2008 I probably shudda trusted the Rinsers and acquired this record sooner, but it was just that tag stopping me: bassline. I already had Ministry of Sound's The Sound of Bassline compilation, but had never been fully captivated by some of the rather cheesy pop stuff on there (it's got the likes of What's It Gonna Be and Heartbroken on it). I was drawn to the Rinse 05 mix, however, because I'd been noticing Paleface cropping up quite a bit in association with the "UK Funky" scene (he's one of the cousinz in Crazy Cousinz - see Songs I'm Currently Loving), and felt a bit of bassline might shake me from my We Just Are-induced stupor (that's a wee bit mean, it really is a good album). Upon listening to the Rinse mix, I noticed something:

IT'S SO FUCKING GOOD!!!

Paleface rinses (ahem) no less than 40 tracks in the space of just under 80 minutes, showcasing some wonderful skittering beats and bouncing bass, as well as elements of grime and R&B (the suitably underground-sounding stuff, no Heartbroken here), which leave you wanting to do nothing more than dance around wearing a monkey suit on a trampoline for 72 hours straight, fuelled by gallons of Red Bull (that's the strongest stimulate they do at bassline nights, right?). Paleface's mix also incorporates much of the tribal afrobeat reminiscent of UK Funky that had lured me in in the first place, and with each track tending to get no more than a minute and a half blast before the next tune begins it's wobbling bass onslaught, this mix really keeps you bopping your head, shoulders, knees and toes. I've reached the conclusion that bassline is probably the most fun music genre out there - although I don't think I'll be rushing down to Sheffield's (newly reopened) Niche club to share my findings with the other clientele any time soon.

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Having given We Just Are fairly short shrift and established that bassline is the greatest thing in the world, all that's left to do now is sit back and let the otherworldly powers of the iTunes shuffle function select the next random album to be reviewed. Fingers crossed, eh?

.........

Oh Christ on a bike. I've listened to this album pretty much not at all, this is gonna be tough.

JEGA - VARIANCE

We're talking ambient IDM electroscapes here people, a bit Boards of Canada/Boxcutter-esque. I think. Like I said, I haven't really listened to it, so I'm basing these descriptions on the brief snippets of the tracks that I'm scrabbling through now. I'm not really sure why I have this album to be honest, I've really not paid it much attention at all, ever. Oh well, I'm sure it's good. It sounds like it could be good.

Here's a sampler:

Jega - Soulflute

(It took ages on this shitty internet connection to upload the 'songs I'm currently loving' to mediafire and I can't be arsed to now upload the actual soulflute mp3, and you're just gonna have to learn to live with that)

Songs I'm Currently Loving:

• Les Gillettes - Pompeii - Erol-approved slice of infectious electro house, sure to be heard on many a dancefloor in the coming months
• Paleface & Kyla - Do You Mind (Crazy Cousinz Remix) - I'm rather reluctant to use the term 'UK Funky' for this upcoming musical style as it's biologically impossible for a white person to use the word 'funky' in any situation and emerge with any shred of coolness, but this is a tuuuuune *makes 'T' sign with hands*
• Army of the Pharaohs - Dump The Clip - Old-Skool East Coast hip-hop gem
• Fuckpony - Orgasm On The Dancefloor Saturday - I find it beyond comprehension that anyone could look at the combination of words in this artist/track's name and not think "YES. THIS IS WHAT I NEED".
• Bibio - Sugarette (Wax Stag Remix) - The Hardcore and The Gentle favourite Bibio released a follow up to the excellent Ambivalence Avenue the other week, including a few new songs and remixes of tracks from AA. Guess what? Yeh, that's right. This track's one of 'em.
• Pom Pom - Untitled 06 - It seems to be the case in the electronic music world these days that the zanier the name, the more brilliant it is. All of the tracks on Pom Pom's album are untitled, and they're all wicked.
• Jogger - Nephicide - Jogger's debut album This Great Pressure was released last week, and as Alan Hansen might say, it's pretty tasty. This track is completely bonkers, and sounds like what I'd imagine Deftones, Squarepusher and Fionn Regan having an orgy would sound like, with Daedelus videotaping. Which of course is a good thing. And I checked - 'nephicide' doesn't mean murdering your nephew. You know you were thinking it too.

Now it's time to hand out The Hardcore and The Gentle's 'Props of the Week' awards, with props this time going to Monsieur Jack Opus for the heads up on Sbtrkt, and Turnado for the low-down on Chainsaw Calligraphy during Gaslamp Killer's set at Thrasher the other weekend.

• TJR - Just Gets Better (Sbtrkt Remix)
• 16Bit - Chainsaw Calligraphy - This song throws you over it's knee and proceeds to spank the living daylights out of you, ignoring your squeals and squirming and telling you to "take it like a bitch". Or, at least, that's how it seems to me. And I bloody love it.

Random album review #4

If you don't mind, I'm gonna kick off this post with a short review of The Event: How Racist Are You?, which I've just watched on 4OD. For a programme that primarily announces itself as "the event", I'd struggle to think of a bigger non-event that I've ever seen in my life. What could've been a thoroughly interesting and potentially harrowing piece of television was in fact an hour of volunteer douchebags arguing with each other and the experimental teacher Jane Elliott, and completely scuppering the whole experiment through their own obnoxious pig-headedness. The show was designed, through a micro-recreation of apartheid which divided people with brown eyes and people with blue eyes, to demonstrate how all of us can be perceptible to racism while not realising that we're actually engaged in discrimination. However, this was pissed upon by the cloth-brained middle-class twerps who were determined to turn the programme in to an opportunity to get up on their high horses (or remain on them, having probably rode in to the studio from their Surrey country homes) and assert that they weren't racist in the first place, and had clearly reached the limit of human learning capacity as there was nothing new anyone could teach them that was of any value. These people are a prime example of what the experiment was trying to teach - that you aren't always aware of racism until you're the victim of it yourself - but these wealthy white pillocks couldn't even stop downing pints of their own sexual ejaculate long enough to GET THE FUCKING POINT, and the programme leaves you feeling very depressed at the end as you know that the volunteers weren't going to be put through another experience of apartheid - lynching. Two women in particular really grinded my gears: some chick called Wanda (seemingly named after a fish, and needs to be battered like one too) who completely sabotaged and screwed up the final part of the experiment that was shaping up to be the most interesting section. And the bitch to end all bitches - Terry Taylor. I really fucking hate Terry Taylor. I hate her so much that I felt compelled to add another section to the side of this blog (on the right-hand side somewhere) of people I hate, just so that if she ever googles herself (which she probably will, the stuck-up cow) then hopefully this blog will appear in the results and she'll know how much I want to shove a nail bomb up her arse. She will of course have to filter through the results for Terry Taylor the ex-pro wrestler, who I'm sure is a decent bloke and whose back-side shall hopefully remain nail-free for ever more. I'm not gonna waste much more precious blogging time on this vile hag by detailing every fucking annoying thing she does (I recommend watching the programme yourself, if you want a thoroughly unrewarding hour's telly), but probably her worst part is where she tries to belittle one of the mixed race volunteer's account of how he feels ashamed to pick his daughter up from school in a white middle-class area because he fears his daughter's friends will judge the way he looks, by comparing it to how her rugby playing husband has to wear a suit to work each day instead of his rugby tracksuit. DEAR TERRY TAYLOR, PLEASE USE THE TIP OF ONE OF YOUR HUSBAND'S RUGBY BALLS TO GOUGE OUT YOUR EYES SO THAT NEVER AGAIN CAN YOU DO YOUR OBNOXIOUS AND PATRONISING EYE-ROLLING, THEN KINDLY THROW YOURSELF OFF A CLIFF. I HATE YOU. THANKS, BYE.

Stupid cow. Anyway, on with the random album review.

Spank Rock - YoYoYoYoYo

If you're unaware of the delightfully filthy and smut-filled world of Spank Rock, then a brief skim of their MySpace will soon give you a good idea of what to expect. At the time of writing, the songs in their music player are called 'Loose', 'Shake That', 'B-O-O-T-A-Y', 'Pu$$y' and 'Bitch!', while they describe themselves as sounding like:

"Fat girls in a hot tub, popping bubbly, after a long night of playing slots at Caesar's Palace. We sound like the X rated Motorcycle Diaries meets Kweli on crystal meth"

Apart from a love of crystal meth, there are other things that Spank Rock and Andre Agassi have in common. Namely, they're both fucking good. YoYoYoYoYo is both an absolute pain to type on a keyboard (try it) and an absolute banger of a Bmore hip-hop album. In my experience rap/hip-hop albums are notorious for being very hit and miss, with a lot of miss. Often filled with skits and filler tracks where they've clearly come up with a half decent beat, thrown some half-arsed vocals on top and said "yep, that'll do to pad out our album alongside our one or two genuine hit tunes", several of the hip-hop albums in my iTunes tend to have play counts of "0, 22, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0" - and usually those '1's are the result of library shuffling. Spank Rock's debut (and to date only) LP, however, is packed full of good tunes. Part of what sets them apart from other hip-hop groups is the electro-club element to their tracks, which may be becoming increasingly non-unique through the growth of the likes of Mad Decent and the Bmore and UK Funky scenes in recent times, but when it was released back in 2006 YoYoYoYoYo was, and probably still is, one of the finest examples of a 'hip-hop meets electro house' album.

It's audio porn in two senses. The rapping is pure smut from start to finish, with the emphasis very much on sex, drugs and fillin' holes, but the album successfully sidesteps turning in to a gimmicky all-sex-no-substance record and delivers some quality beats and samples to truly arouse your ears. For me the finest moments of the album come from the second halves of the two songs in the middle, Bump - Amanda Blank takes over with a groin-shuddering flow of deliciously dirty bars ("my rhymes are painful and fresh, my pussy's tasting the best") - and Sweet Talk, which drops the beat completely with about a minute left and the tune morphs in to an euphoric chorus sung by sugary sweet female vocalists, as well as anyone else who happens to be listening to this infectious breakdown. My other top tracks on the album are Touch Me, which heralds it's arrival with a fanfare of trumpets, and Rick Rubin, which must surely sample some '80s 8-bit video game for it's primary tune. As I said though, none of this album disappoints, and if you don't already have it then I'd highly recommend adding it your music library. I'd also highly recommend shooting Terry Taylor on sight, so you can tell that I can be trusted as a man of impeccable taste.

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Do you ever get that feeling that your precursory rant about an annoying volunteer on a Channel 4 TV experiment is actually longer than the album review that was meant to be the main body of the post? I'm getting that feeling now, not sure why...

Anyway - Postmen nationwide are striking for it. Somali pirates are demanding it in return for the safe release of a couple of British hostages. There has been fervid debate over it by the members of the EU for the past week or so. "What is it they all want?!" ...I hear you ask. Oh you jokers, as if you haven't been eagerly anticipating it yourselves: It's time to discover which random album we'll be reviewing next!!

Reet, here we goo... shuffle shuffle shuffle...

THE JAPANESE POPSTARS - WE JUST ARE

This group aren't actually pop singers from Eastern Asia (unlike this little fella), they are in fact electro producers from Northern Ireland. So there. Here's a track to wet your appetite for the next post:

The Japanese Popstars - Face Melter

I feel obliged to add that despite what previous random album reviews might suggest, I do actually have non-dance music albums in my iTunes. The good ones just seem to be rather shuffle shy. Yeah, you heard me 'Astral Weeks' - the GOOD ones. Fuck you Van Morrison, fuck you.

Songs I'm Currently Loving:

• Joy Orbison - BRKLN CLLN
• Terror Danjah - Green Street
• The Juan MacLean - One Day
• Brackles - Rawkus
• Fauna - Zombie - perfect tune for if your Halloween party has a tropical funk theme
• Ms. Dynamite - Bad Gyal - she's still "the same little girl that grew up next door to you", but just a bit more, er, ragga sounding

Some of you are probably asking: "Jack, are the next two songs two of your favourite songs of the year so far?"

Why, yes! They are! How did you know??

• Clark - Growls Garden
• Few Nolder - Chika - we always like to promote both excellent songs and excellent artist names on The Hardcore and The Gentle

Random album review #3

MSTRKRFT - The Looks

MSTRKRFT (for the uninitiated, it's pronounced 'master-craft') are a dance music making duo from Toronto, Canada, who released their debut LP in July 2006. Could they have dreamed in their wildest dreams that, three years later, they'd find that same album - The Looks - being reviewed by none other than The Hardcore and The Gentle? Probably not. But here we are. You can just imagine the looks on the faces of Jesse F. Keeler and Al-P as they eagerly logged on to the blogosphere last Wednesday to discover which album had been selected as the next album in their favourite online album reviewing series (far too many uses of 'album' there in quick succession, my hearty apologies), only to find out that their own masterpiece (or should that be MSTRPC) had been picked! I can just see now the look of wide-eyed wonderment that they must have shared upon reading this news, as gradual realisation dawned - they had finally MADE IT in the music world. Al-P (probably) ran out in to his garden - still in nothing but his dressing gown, the silly wotsit - and with child-like excitement and energy booted a nearby football high in to the air, before throwing his arms up and wooping at the top of his voice. Jesse (probably) bashed in to his prize synthesizer, almost knocking it to the ground, in his joyous rush to get to the phone, desperate to announce the news to his mum and - well, why not? - ALL his mates.

So here we are fellas - this one's for you.

The Looks has long been one of my most loved and most played albums. It comprises only eight tracks, but you'll seldom find a collection of eight songs that make you want to tap your foot and bop your head as incessantly as those laid down by MSTRKRFT here. Having been one half of dance-rock group Death From Above 1979, Jesse F. Keeler clearly felt he'd advance things a year on in to the next decade with MSTRKRFT, as the album is an eighties-influenced slice of electro-funkiness, complete with catchier-than-swine-flu vocal hooks, squelching basslines and squealing synth melodies. Now, I'm very much a man who knows nothing of the crunch, and especially not the credit crunch, but if I was to climb up on to my high horse for a moment whilst placing my head firmly up my own rear-end along with a still unopened copy of The Economist, I'd say that The Looks is very much "pre-Credit Crunch music". Not because it sounds expensively produced or anything, but because it's just such an uplifting happy record; each tune screams out, "wooo let's party on down, all is good in the world!", and you could never imagine needing to be quantitatively eased from anything whilst listening to it.

I was lured in to recruiting The Looks in to the ranks of my music library by the three singles it had spawned: Work On You, Easy Love and Street Justice. All absolute bangers which, along with their many fine remixes for the likes of Wolfmother and DFA 1979, were beginning to build up a rather favourable view of MSTRKRFT in my mind. However, I remained wary that The Looks could transpire to be another dance album that seduces you with the lead singles, before slapping you in the ears with drab filler for the rest of the record. Delightfully, I need not have worried. As soon as opening tracks Work On You and Easy Love have worked their magic, you're greeted by the somewhat childlike female vocalist on She's Good For Business insisting that she's "got to shake it to the one", along with various other numbers, as well as making it clear that you must also join her in this activity, while an infectious clapped beat provides the backdrop for this woman's rather blunt yet highly danceable demands. The rest of the album continues in a similarly groovy style, with title track The Looks, Street Justice and Bodywork also employing highly contagious vocal loops. Street Justice, my personal favourite from the album, slowly and surely builds up, sounding for all the world like a theme tune for some kind of funk-fuelled 1980's American disco-gang (who spend their time "killing on the dancefloor"), and it's not until past halfway through the track that the piece de resistance kicks in - a piercing yet nonchalant guitar solo, oozing arrogance and cool, leaving you longing to be snorting cocaine off a hooker's back in some super fresh Miami club. In the 80's, of course.

So there you go Jesse and Al, give yourselves a big pat on the back because your debut album kicks some serious ass. Shame you then got far too eager to use your success to enlist a variety of 'guests' for your follow up album, resulting in a fairly weak record that contained little of what had made The Looks so good. Little less John Legend and Ghostface Killah on the next album please, and more of the legendary killer tunes like those from The Looks.

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Now for that part of the post where all eyes turn towards what is being labelled, "the most captivating shuffling since Muhammad Ali"; that's right, it's time to select the next random album. With three albums down, things haven't been going too bad (with the exception of Astral shitting Weeks). Two modern day classic electro-dance records have been thrown up, enabling me to gush superlatives like Alesha Dixon judging a shoddy salsa on Strictly Come Dancing (that's right, not even sweet little Alesha is safe from the savage comedic barbarism of The Hardcore and The Gentle). So my friends, let's see what we'll be studying next shall we?

HA Astral Weeks has just come up again! Clearly iTunes and I have very differing opinions on how much we want to listen to that particular album. The shuffling will of course continue...

...hmm, does Brotherhood by Chemical Brothers count? It's a greatest hits after all, not an original album. Nah, it doesn't count. Shuffle shuffle...

...ooh. Interesting.

Ladies und Ehrenmanner, the next post in this ground-breaking series of random album reviews will focus on:

SPANK ROCK - YOYOYOYOYO

Tings gon' get dutty, yo (yoyoyoyo).

Here's a wee taster for you to groan to in aural pleasure:

Spank Rock - Bump

Songs I'm Currently Loving

• The Ian Carey Project - Get Shaky - if ever there was a song I'm currently loving, it's this. And I'm only slightly ashamed to admit it. Next time you see me I'll be dancing on one of those podiums they put in the middle of dancefloors for house nights, wearing ripped and faded jeans and nothing but a waistcoat and tie on my upper half. Apart from sunglasses, of course.
• 2562 - Flashback - recently released Unbalance by 2562 is already threatening to appear prominently in the old 'album of the year' list
• jj - Things Will Never Be The Same Again - as is the debut album by Swedish melodic popsters jj
• The Gaslamp Killer - Birthday Music
• Darkstar - Aidy's Girl's a Computer
• Invisible Conga People - Cable Dazed - PLEASE let the ridiculous band name entice you, this is a great tune.

I insist you download that song (along with the rest, they're all fab). In fact, I won't TECHNO for an answer:

• Vitalic - Second Lives
• Ricardo Villalobos - Baila Sin Petit
• Audion - Kisses

Bit too cutting edge with my comedy sometimes? Probably. Here are some sweet remixes of already super-sweet tunes

• Lil Wayne - Lollipop (Verdis Remix)
• Radiohead - Reckoner (LoveTongueAttack B-more Remix)

Crikey! Has this been the best 'Songs I'm Currently Loving' to date? Twelve songs-worth of indisputable quality says that could well be the case...

Random album review #2

Van Morrison - Astral Weeks

#19 in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. #2 in Mojo's 100 Best Albums list. #3 in The Times All Time Top 100 Albums. Voted the 9th greatest album of all time in a combined poll by Channel 4, HMV, Classic FM and The Guardian. #6 in Q Magazine's 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. Elvis Costello, Johnny Depp and Martin Scorsese all adore it (says Wikipedia).

SO WHY THE BLOOMIN' HECK DO I STILL NOT LIKE ASTRAL FUCKING WEEKS??

As any regular readers (hey, I can dream) will know, in my last post the newly introduced 'Random Album Generator'™ set me the task of reviewing Van Morrison's 1968 'classic', Astral Weeks, as part of the random album reviews series. While the opening to the series was a raging success and even drew more viewers than the opening episode of David Attenborough's latest nature programme, Life, when they went head to head on Monday evening (this blog peaked at 7.2 million viewers, compared to Life's 6.5m), I fear that things are headed rapidly downhill from here. Returning to the pretence for a second that I actually have readers, anyone who made it to the end of the previous post without resorting to the classic formula: shotgun + mouth = better than reading The Hardcore and The Gentle, will have seen that my prediction for how well I got along with a review of Astral Weeks could be judged by the amount of "songs I'm currently loving" that followed at the bottom of this post. In other words, the worse the review writing process went, the more filler would be inserted at the end. Scroll down. Look at the songs. Just look at them - there are loads. The very fact that I know there are loads betrays the fact that I wrote the "songs I'm currently loving" bit first, to put off having to write this sodding review. So, reluctantly, here I go...

In case you hadn't already realised, I don't like Astral Weeks. Or, more accurately, I can't see what the fuss that the likes of Mojo and Rolling Stone have been kicking up is about. For those of you who have read up to this point and are still wondering what the bejesus I'm on about, lemme break it down for you. Van Morrison is the rock and roll/folk singer-songwriter from Belfast that released Astral Weeks, his second solo album, back in 1968. If you know the name Van Morrison but are struggling to place him, his best known songs are probably Moondance and Brown Eyed Girl. Which, unfortunately for me, are not on Astral Weeks. What is on Astral Weeks, however, is a collection of - in m'opinion -fairly dull folk-y tunes. Upon first listening, the whole thing very much washed over me with the possible exception of Sweet Thing and The Way Young Lovers Do, which stood out as above average tracks. "Aha, never worry!", I thought. This has got "it's all about the LYRICS, maaan" written all over it. As a big fan of a clever or thoughtful lyric I was rubbing my hands with glee, waiting for Van the Man to sock it to me and send me to Emotionsville. Unfortunately the train to Emotionsville never arrived. I strained my ears in an effort to absorb each and every lyric, panning for the gold that must surely nestle just below the surface of Astral Weeks' stream of uninteresting melodies. To no avail. Panicking, I headed to the internet lyrics pages, desperate to understand why this album was held in such high esteem. Browsing through Lyricsfreak brought a shade more appreciation for the lyrics, but, well, when you're resorting to looking up the lyrics (plus a little additional search for song meanings) you know you haven't found an album that's gonna rest in your heart forever more.

In my eyes, it's just a bit boring. It's not dreadful by any means, but I can't think of any situation when I'd enjoy listening to Astral Weeks. I'm no hater of 60's-style folk rock, but I'd recommend albums such as Love's Forever Changes and Nick Drake's Pink Moon instead of Astral Weeks if you're in the mood for a bit of that particular genre (and a healthy dollop of Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel and Fleetwood Mac would do no harm either). It is, of course, blindingly obvious that I'm wrong. Now, I'm no list's bitch, but if you look at the sheer amount of critical acclaim and high-charting in all time greatest albums run-downs that this album has received, I can accept that maybe I just don't quite get it. I'd definitely recommend checking this album out for yourself rather than pay any heed to what I have to say about it, and for that I apologise for making you heed me in this blog post up until now. Heeding may now cease.

Actually, heed a bit more as it's now time for the nail-biting moment that is: selecting the next random album to review. For details on how the album is chosen, please consult the previous post. Billions of Pounds and Canadian Dollars have already been placed on the outcome of this iTunes library shuffling. Derren Brown claims to have predicted the outcome and is ready and waiting smugly in a studio somewhere, carefully lining up his split screen. President Obama is agitatedly sitting in the Oval Office with his finger hovering over 'the button', just in case it turns out to be 'Inside In / Inside Out' by The Kooks.

So, without further ado, the album to be reviewed in the third instalment of this random album reviews series is....

Oho sweet!

The complex random album generating procedure has just so happened to throw up one of my all time favourite dance LPs:

MSTRKRFT - THE LOOKS

So, there you have it. Tune in next time for my assessment of the Canadian duo's first forray in to the world of the full length album. For now, I'll leave you with a taster of The Looks; a song that just so happens to be sitting on top of my iTunes 'Top 25 Most Played', having passed through my ear holes no less than 89 times:

MSTRKRFT - Street Justice

Songs I'm Currently Loving:

Here's a new one from a man who could be said to do no wrong:

Thom Yorke - The Hollow Earth

And here's an old remix of Mr. Yorke's solo work by perennial The Hardcore and The Gentle fave, The Field:

Thom Yorke - Cymbal Rush (The Field Remix)

And while we're at it, here's an example of everyone's favourite musical genre - the mashup, of course - that fuses together Radiohead and Jay-Z. Big up to Matt (currently residing in the U.S. of America - he's asked me to make it known that he now avidly supports this man and everything he stands for) for the heads up on this, the rest of the album can be downloaded for nada here

Jaydiohead - No Karma

• Jem - They (Cut Chemist Remix)
• M.I.A. & Blaqstarr - Way Down In The Hole - Cover of The Wire theme song
• Taio Cruz - Break Your Heart - if you disapprove of this then my balls will be available for sucking between 10am - 4pm, Thursdays - Mondays
• Dorian Concept - The Fucking Formula
• Nightmares On Wax - Biofeedback Dub
• Dr Syntax - Subcultures
• FaltyDL - Tronman
• Squeak E. Clean feat. Karen O - Hello Tomorrow - this was used in an advert for Nike or Adidas ages ago, featuring the lead singer of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on vocals. It's been buried in my iTunes for a long time now and I've only recently unearthed it again. It's good.
• Ed Cox - Aired Karks - an example of Cambridge man Ed Cox's 'clowncore': circus-style accordion tunes played over jungle/breakcore beats. See if you can spot what he's up to with the title of this track..

Random album review #1

Over the past few months, there have been a few examples of things that people have done when they were bored that probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but have turned out to be a bit silly: James May (him off of Top Gear) got bored one day and built a full size house out of lego, which was promptly demolished; Anton Du Beke (him off of Strictly Come Dancing) got bored one day and decided to start racially insulting his dance partner, and was promptly met with a distinct lack of the mega-lolz that he had probably been hoping for; and a man in Thailand got bored one day and decided to stick a gun through his mouth, which should be promptly met with lots of respect and wonderment and no sniggering whatsoever because he's in Thailand and it was probably propah religious or political or sumfing yeah?

Anyway, in my most recent moment d'ennui I have decided to do a series of posts whereby I review an album selected at random from my iTunes library. Following the numerous allegations in recent times against The Hardcore and The Gentle in the British press that this blog deceives and dupes the reader by being, "so stunningly brilliant that it's hard to distinguish between what are genuinely the words of the author, and what has been passed down and engraved upon the page by celestial beings" (Richard Littlejohn, The Daily Mail), I will be thoroughly transparent with how 'random' these albums are, although technophobes beware: the selection process is a long and complicated affair. With the 'shuffle' function activated, a song is selected in iTunes. The 'next' button is then pressed. This process continues until a song in a complete album is reached. This album is to be the random album that has received it's calling to be reviewed. So without further ado, please inform any technophobes that may be cowering behind nearby sofas or billiards tables that it's safe to return, and let us explore our first album. As it's the first album of this epic series, it's not quite as random as the others will be, as I decided to keep going until I reached an LP that I knew well and felt I could talk about without listening to it again too deeply. That album, ladies and gentlemen and technophobes, is...

JUSTICE - †

Most likely due to the countless remixes that it spawned and the discovery that the French duo are actually a pair of prize prats, this album has lain untouched in my music library for quite a while now. If I was clever, I would have noted down when the tracks were last played before I listened to the whole thing again just now, to give you an idea of just how long me and this once crowning gem of my music collection have been separated. But I'm not, and I didn't. I can however use my eyes and my Windows calculator to calculate how many times I've listened to songs from it, before Cross took a sabbatical from my ears. 480 times, exactly. Four hundred, and eighty, times. Yes siree, me and the debut offering of Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay had truly rolled around in the hay together A LOT, and upon relistening I began to wonder what had kept me away for so long. Then I re-read the opening line of this paragraph, and all made sense. A huge number of remixers have added their own touches to the tracks of Cross since it was released mid-2007, although only a select few have conjured up anything that could be possibly better than the 12 galacticos that appear on the original release. Soulwax and Boys Noize produced incredible remixes of Phantom Pt. II, while Erol's remix of Waters of Nazareth was a classic (ed) banger long before Cross even hit the shelves. Such remixes have added excitement to tracks that eventually and inevitably become over-listened, and the beefier beats make for greater fun when played in clubs.

There are other reasons as to why Cross began to fall off my radar. One was due to the release of the 'A Cross the Universe' DVD/live CD, the DVD part of which chronicled the black-clad French pair touring around America being dicks, which instantly made listening to their music seem a lot less appealing. Apart from developing huge egos, another side effect of Justice's rise to the top was that their label, Ed Banger, also grew, which is not a good thing in my opinion. This heralded an onslaught of gimmicks rather than quality releases - every Ed Banger video now seemed to be a copy of D.A.N.C.E., their distinctive(ly annoying) t-shirts popped up everywhere, Uffie was for some reason granted greater exposure rather than being shot and dumped in to the Seine, and all the while the label was mainly releasing naff Justice soundalikes, with no real effort at innovation. On the subject of Uffie, has 'Pop the Glock' (her only good song, apart from 'The Party' on Cross) just been re-released or used in an advert or something? I swear I've spotted it around quite a bit recently, leading me to turn to religion and pray every day that this doesn't mean she's about to gain mainstream popularity. She's truly dreadful. She's a classic Ed Banger gimmick, only there because she's a female who raps and could be considered not bad looking. Absolute plop live as well; Bill O'Reilly could get up on stage wearing nothing but an apron with a picture of Stalin spanking my mum on and sing 'Ooh Stick You' by Daphne & Celeste in a shrill falsetto while doing rapid squat-thrusts with my head lodged between his legs, and it would still be ten times better than Uffie's performance when I had the misfortune of seeing her live.

As always, I digress. I think the biggest reason for my long vacation away from Cross was the same reason I had fallen in love with it in the first place. It was the record that dragged my 2007 indie-loving self away from the past-time of searching for obscure and usually rubbish (although this wasn't to be admitted at the time) indie bands - the constant quest for 'the next big thing' followed by the instant rejection of the same band once they so much as dare be played on Zane Lowe - and pointed me in the direction of dance music, which is just more fun. Cross is the perfect rock/electro record, combining enough guitar rock influences to satisfy your average Reading Festival goer with enough danceability to keep a Creamfields crowd bopping long in to the night. Indie gigs can often be a pretty boring and tepid affair, especially if you're tucked away in a small pub watching a band that was once featured in the backpages of NME alongside a crowd of approximately 6 other people, while dance music tends to be feel-good music that people can just shake off inhibitions to and enjoy. Cross has led me further in to the world of dance, and in the whirl of all the electronic beeps and beats out there unfortunately this perfectly crafted beauty has fallen by the wayside. Despite this, I can recall somewhat drunkenly enthusing at length to my unfortunate pal Gus not all that long ago that Cross is, "the PERFECT album".

Because it is.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Now, for the next instalment of this random album saga, I won't resort to clicking shuffle until I find something I can write about already. I'm gonna click until a track from a complete album is found (to clarify, this means a track from an album that I have the whole of in my library), and then I'm gonna give that album a damn good listen, no matter what it is. And I've got some tat in my music library, some absolute tat.

Right, here we go...

...hmm. OK. Riiight.

The sophisticated selection process has thrown up 'Astral Weeks' by Van Morrison. An absolute classic.... I'm told. Never really listened to it all properly if I'm perfectly honest. I'll strive on with the task regardless, but the next post could well be fairly short and boring. You'll be able to tell how I got on with this challenge without even reading a word, as I'm guessing there'll be a long list of songs in my 'Currently Loving' section at the end to bulk out the post if I haven't found much to talk about with ol' Van.

So, I hope you've enjoyed this first random album review (or rar... let's hope it's a WINrar, eh? Eh? Oh my wit is lost on you technophobes), and, er, maybe tell your parents to tune in for the next instalment? Here's a taster from Astral Weeks to get you in the mood for the next post. As if you weren't stoked enough already....

p.s. Seeing as I'd be ashamed of any of my readers (that's right - you. Yes, YOU, are now 'my reader'. How does it feel, bitch?) who didn't already have Cross as well as the best of the remixes of it, I'll do a blogging rarity and un-remix one of the tracks on the album. Here's the 1982 song that's sampled in Phantom: Goblin - Tenebre. It's not particularly good. But, y'know what? OOH STICK YOU, YO' MAMA TOO AND YO' DADDY.