Laidback Luke vs Example – Natural Disaster
I saw Example three times in one week a few weeks ago, twice at Glastonbury and once at Wireless and it was after seeing Changed The Way You Kiss Me ‘go off’ the first time that it was so amazing I had to be there again. One of the new songs he performed was Natural Disaster, a collaboration with Laidback Luke and this went off basically because the build-up of “need some air, need some space” is easy to latch on to, the piano riff is striking and obviously it does make an effort to go off properly.
Glastonbury Pop Picks Playlist 2011
As I mentioned earlier in the year I got a free ticket to Glastonbury in return for being a Blogger Judge for Glastonbury’s Emerging Talent Competition and tomorrow/Wednesday is finally the time for me to accidentally impale myself with a tent pole. Here are 10 of the many brilliant acts playing.
Icona Pop – Friday – Pussy Parlure
Ke$ha – Friday – East Dance
Morrissey – Friday – Pyramid Stage
Example – Friday – John Peel
Yasmin – Saturday – East Dance
Benny Blanco – Sunday – Wow!
CockNBullKid – Sunday – Oxylers in West
Hurts – Sunday – John Peel
Robyn – Sunday – John Peel
Beyonce – Sunday – Pyramid Stage
Youth Kills
Xenomaniacs may remember a time when Xenomania seemed to work with a lot of unknown artists and a lot of it seemed to go nowhere. You may remember a band called DEKADE (previously known as NiteVisions and were in The Electric City) who were Andy and James, sons of Duran Duran’s Andy and Roger Taylor, and you may also remember Lite N Dark, a boy/girl duo that met at Xenomania and the boy was Tim Talbot who used to play keyboards in a Xenomania band that never happened. All three make up Youth Kills, remixers, producers, band etc. They’ve been working with ex-Mini Viver Britt Love on some songs. While Come With Me is a bit too Robyn-‘esque’ I really like Can’t Stop Loving You.
They’ve also done some remixes for other people. My favourite remix so far has been Ayah Marar’s Follow You. There is no original version (how Florrie) so it sounds like a straightforward noisy dance song.
We know what art is, it’s paintings of horses
Kanye West’s video for Monster starts with a disclaimer saying “The following content is in no way to be interpreted as misogynistic or negative towards any groups of people. It is an art piece and it shall be taken as such”. It’s difficult to say whether he’s joking at all with this or whether he’s seriously trying to tell people that they can’t make their own opinion and saying “No offence” before going on to be incredibly rude. My favourite bit of the song is Nicki Minaj and her bit actually seemed to have some thought-out idea behind it when I saw a clip a few months ago but this is edited so it’s meaningless and it just seems weak. Also, why aren’t Jay-Z, Rick Ross or Kanye on all fours in a lacy costume with their arse in the air? Ever? Because it takes something away from their status and they would look ridiculous.
Otherwise the video is of dead women in underwear and Kanye rearranges them so they’re in sexual positions. There is no real coherent story and it just seems like an excuse to get women not wearing much and a prominent theme is that the men have power over them. Dismissing misogyny as art is not fair on women. It’s also a rubbish and boring video.
I love Shakira and she’s someone I’ve admired for bringing intelligent sensuality with her naturally sexy image but in this video I feel like “Why does this pole need to be involved?” It panders to such an old-fashioned image for leery idiots which has been done before so many times and it’s incredibly dull. She is one of the best-selling pop stars around so I don’t understand why she’s acting like she’s desperate (something pole dancers in real life usually are because they need money) and it doesn’t add anything to a story so what’s the point?
Florrie’s video seems to compromise of a flash of cleavage, a shot of her flouncing the bottom half of her coat which she’s forgotten to close properly, legs akimbo in a tight leopard print thing draped over a drum, on repeat from different angles for four minutes. Am I missing something here? Is this a deep reference to something super arty and hipster? Is the fact that it’s filmed in black and white and she’s got a silly wig on meant to make me go “Ooh I see” while really not understanding what the hell this is meant to be? Who would think that this video is a good idea? While Begging Me saw Florrie in an 80s-referencing suit as a cool and in control singer this is just an uncomfortable mess where it’s not clear what she’s trying to be.
Nicola Roberts – Dance The Rain
It hasn’t been confirmed either way whether this Mark Tieku and CockNBullKid produced track will make it on to Cinderella’s Eyes and it sounds quite bland to me so I won’t be disappointed if it doesn’t.
If something I think it would fit in quite well with what Cheryl’s been doing with the rain theme and the fact that it’s a safe electro-infused R&B style ballad. The bridge where CockNBullKid sings sounds really good and it’s cool to hear Nicola warble which shows a different side to her voice and there are some One Touch-esque elements to it which are nice but on the other hand those touches makes it sound quite dated. It is just a demo so there’s things to be added and taken away but lyrically it’s a bit empty despite some nice lines. While the idea of CockNBullKid contributing something to the album is cool this song makes me see that Nicola brings the pop sound naturally so the people she’s working with need to bring something different to it and that I like CockNBullKid more than her songs because they always turn out blander than I’d hoped despite her coming across as a force of nature.
