Who Says Pop And Politics Can't Mix?
I doubt anyone is going to mind this clip being borrowed from The X-Factor, seeing as it is their song, and therefore to even mention it is effectively giving them free publicity even though they are on a rival nework to the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and...hang on! Do you think that was part of the plan?
Here we see, as I'm sure you know (or will come to realise after Sunday), the 12 finalists on the X Factor performing a version of 'Hero' by Mariah Carey, to benefit British troops who have been wounded. As a result of this (the second bit, not the first), there is literally nothing funny to be said about this song whatsoever.
*dramatic pause*
Time to break ranks here, I think. When 'I Kissed A Girl' came out, the official ChartBlog position (not that we really have an official position on anything much) was that you can go a long way by chasing that Titillation Dollar, that faux-mosexuality sold as female solidarity is just plain attention-seeking, and that the pop fans of Britain deserved less cynical treatment from its stars. 
When indie bands do shambolic things, it's easy to assume that no-one in their devil-may-care, freewheeling organisation is bothered enough about perfection to try and correct them. That would be a little bit like trying, and trying is officially lame. Pete Doherty's un-tuned and unlovely guitar, for example, is never going to sound good, because that would imply that he works at what he does, rather than just letting inspiration run through him like a thick milkshake through a straw. The jig would be up, and he'd be scuppered. 
I don't believe in guilty pleasures; you like what you like and if what you like is supposedly embarrassing, then two fingers up at embarrassment. That's the theory, anyway; of course eventually if you have any sort of map at all of what you claim is 'good' and what you claim is 'bad' then eventually there'll be the occasional moment when you think "I really shouldn't like this. Really."
Once upon a time, Christina would have named this song after the most provocative line in the chorus. You know the one. It's sweary. Music shops and download sites all over the world would have been blessed with endless variations on the three-word mantra "Christina Aguilera: Superb****" (only without the asterisks) and she'd have sealed the deal with a picture of such amazing filth that any issues of Nuts magazine left within eyeshot of even the tiniest screen-grab of it would burst into flame. 
Oh sure, to judge from appearances, Lemar seems to be a laid back, relaxed kind of chap. Slow to anger, quick to forgive, all that stuff... But is that REALLY what he is like, or does that calm exterior mask a gut-full of festering passions and bleak moods? And if so, what are the situations which are guaranteed to bring him to the boil?
Bands always work best when they appear to be a gang. They don't even really have to get on as people, just as long as everyone can see that they've got each other's collective back. It works best if they went to school together, or were otherwise introduced by circumstances which are not related to getting a group together. This is more 'real' than being put together live on a TV talent show, for example, and it means that fans can imagine what it would've been like if they had gone to that school at that time...maybe you could have joined the gang too (OMG! LOL! etc). 
It's probably bad manners to begin a review with a technical, muso-type question, but there's something that needs clearing up. In the verses to this song, is Roy Stride singing a major key melody over the minor key bits, and a minor key melody over the major key bits? Is this something we're allowing these days? It certainly doesn't sound like the kind of thing we should encourage, sounding as it does like a dog's breakfast of clashing notes. And not good clashing notes either. 
There has been a shocking change in the Chart Show this week. And I'm not talking about the No.1 slot. Unless by 'No.1 slot' you think I mean the plum job of presenting the nation's favourite chart rundown, and becoming part of a tradition which has been in place since before your parents were even conceived. 
Is it wrong of me to want to hold Adele responsible for the fact that we've got lots of kooky white girls singing soul with affected voices on The X Factor this year? I mean, it's no more her fault than it is the fault of The Beatles that Oasis exist, but still, I find myself looking for someone to blame, and my brain always jumps to Adele. So I would like to take this opportunity, first and foremost, to say: sorry Adele. I know it's not your fault really, and I shall endeavour to blame Simon Cowell in future, as I do for most things.
Whoa! You're never going to believe this, tender listeners, but Dido - the lady with a half-full pillow for a voice and the lung-capacity of a tiny little mousie - has gone ROCK. Srsly! She's been caning the B4MV and the A7X, she's been seen doing the circle pit at Trivium gigs. She's been working out the riff to 'Enter Sandman' with her teeth, and now, in her latest video, can be seen wearing a schoolboy's outfit just like him out of The 'DC, and playing a guitar solo of Dragonforce-level complexity. And all the while winking and leering at some ladies in burlesque outfits and squealing like a tom cat in a vat of rapidly-cooling bikini wax. 
This, everybody, is Spinal Tap. This is the moment at which we all realise that The View were, after all, a sociology postgraduate's research for a thesis in which they attempted to study the affectation of 'credibility' within British popular music and the factors which are conditional to this. Except they've done their research now, are sitting on a doctorate and with research grants being cut back in the economic recession, they're just taking the mickey.
Sometimes life is too amazing for words, y'know? Jamiroquai got into endless amounts of trouble with music critics, for being so heavily influenced by Stevie Wonder that he might as well have had corn-rows and massive shades, but no-one cared. They just kept buying his crazy records and enjoying his choice of headgear. 
Wait wait wait...did I just see what I think I saw? Did Cheryl Cole just pick up a piece of popcorn from the floor of her car - flicked in her direction by a handsome man - and eat it? And is she doing this to a backdrop of another amazing song by Girls Aloud? Well! 
Actually, this picture should be a pretty good clue. Zane Lowe recently travelled all the way to abroad (such dedication!) in order to meet with Marshall Mathers and discuss stuff about things. Some of the things include his first recording session with Dr Dre, his plans for the future, and why he thinks hip hop has gone down the toilet since he stopped releasing records. 
We are all reasonable people, aren't we? Slow to anger, quick to forgive, all that stuff, that's how we roll. And it's not nice to automatically dismiss the hard work musicians put into creating their latest hot waxings, unless you're just trying to make a name for yourself as some sort of written-down version of Simon Cowell. But there are limits to what we, as a music-loving nation, should be expected to put up with, and the slow transformation of Razorlight into Meat Loaf is so far across that line that the sign reading 'Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here' is now a mere speck on the horizon behind us. 
Fall Out Boy do like to write about Fall Out Boy, don't they? Songs about Pete Wentz, as a lyricist, being like an arms dealer doling out word-weapons, songs about Pete Wentz having a God Complex, cocked and ready to pull, and now this, a song about the band attempting to shush the critics by doing a little preening dance in front of them, and claiming not to mind what they say. A dance which is set to the riff from 'Spirit In The Sky' no less. 
Much has been made of Bloc Party's changes to their sound over their three albums. 'The Prayer' was supposed to be them going pop, then 'Flux' was supposed to be them going dance, then 'Mercury' was supposedly them just going mad. Synthesisers! In indie! THE WORLD MIGHT AS WELL END NOW, HISTORY IS AT A JUNCTION!
If you believe all the hoo-hah around the final weeks of the X-Factor, you'd think the winner had performed some Herculean task above and beyond that of just turning up once a week to sing a song in a television studio. You'd think that he or she had found a cure for the common cold, while enticing hidden pixies from their homes using the power of song, and lifting their own bodyweight in treacle, balanced on a spike. 
If the delights of 
Shamefully, we're going to need to play catch-up a bit with Keane and their new material, seeing as 'Spiralling' sort of happened without anyone's permission and blew the doubters to one side for a while there.
Yesterday, the Pigeon Detectives got four stars for 
Wouldn't you love to have been in the room when whichever fever-sodden Pigeon Detective came in with the idea for this song? Just to see the panic in his bandmates' eyes as the penny dropped that they're going to have to learn how to play a song with a distinct verse and chorus, made of musical ideas which are different from one another, and not just change the melody over the same four chords. 
There are some artists for which the whole process of a review seems a little bit unnecessary. Cliff Richard, for example: he's been in this business a long time, and it's unlikely that there's anyone out there who hasn't made their mind up about him one way or the other by now. The same applies to Celine Dion - we all know what we're likely to get from her, and it's something most of us have a pre-determined opinion on, to the extent where individual singles make absolutely no difference. 
It may seem inconceivable to those of us who were THERE, MAAN, but there were other things going on in the world yesterday than Switch Live. No, really, I've got evidence...
I think I'm going to start a campaign for popstars to release season-sensitive songs at the correct time. It seems all the summer-y songs just designed for lying with your window open trying to find some air and stop sweating for five seconds spend their time building up a reaction over the appropriate period and then actually see a release at the point when frosts start happening. 
Oh so THAT'S how the marketing strategy works! The X-Factor winner doesn't put out his second single (or debut album) until the next series of the show has started. This is presumably to ensure that people aren't so distracted by Britain's Got Talent or Any Dream Will Do or Last Chair Standing (celebrity musical chairs, it's only a matter of time before they actually do do this) that they forget to re-invest in their champion from last year. 
I could always cope with the fact that people were releasing songs which have names in, but not MY name, rather well. In fact, as an issue, it has never really been a problem. I've an unusual Christian name, it's not one which is easily sung, and besides, there's the connection with the comedy show on TV, even though they're not spelled the same. 
Pop stars, you know you've really arrived in popular culture when mainstream comedians start spoofing your videos and re-writing your song with comical lyrics. We've all seen it, they attempt to mock your public image by baldly stating what it is, who you are, and why you aren't as cool as you think you are. The joke (such as it is) can only work if everyone watching has some idea of what the original song is, how it goes, and who sings it. Therefore, no matter how cruel the final skit may be, and how bad, it's always a massive compliment to even be considered.
Oh brilliant! I love this song! We all love this song, don't we? Yes we do! Come on, sing it with me! 
It must be quite daunting being Gary Lightbody. Imagine the pressure involved in having to get your band together in a studio, ready to record some new material, all the while knowing that one of your songs - 'Chasing Cars', obv - is considered by some people to be the best musical thing which has ever happened (out of a list of 500 other musical things which are also considered to be very good too). What are you supposed to do with that kind of thought?
I did debate briefly doing this review in a "cuh, why did it take until being featured on the Pineapple Express soundtrack for this amazing song to achieve mainstream success, eh?" style, but then I realised it would've been a bit disingenuous of me, since I was quite a latecomer to M.I.A. myself and only truly realised the amazingness of 'Boyz' when I heard it in a nightclub last year and then it was played in an episode of 'Heroes' a few weeks later, so absolutely no rocksnobby behaviour from me in this review, I promise.
Popular music! WHY do you insist on throwing conundrums my way? Conundrums which are complicated enough to give Stephen Hawking a headache? All I have ever asked of you is that you give me a few cheap thrills now and again and keep the happy chemicals in my brain sloshing about. I just want your playful tickle in my ears and a steady supply of fish and hoops for my endolphins to enjoy. But oh no, that's not enough for you, you have to throw in a few curve balls to see if we're all paying attention, to see if anyone has just been PRETENDING to love you and what you do, and if they have, to weed them out and throw them away. 
I'm not entirely sure what to make of this band, really I'm not. When I first heard this song I thought "why is some British band making such American-sounding music?" and then I thought about the problem and realised the question is actually "why does an American band making American-sounding music sound so much like they're British?"
Aw...aren't they cute when they're sleepy? This is a band whose entire output until now has been all about hyper-caffienated jitter-indie, with scalded-tongue yelps over the top. Everything they have released to date has come from a place of massive intensity and energy, played with maximum fire and delivered with total abandon. 
See this? It's a lovely doll of the popular singing star Sophie Ellis Bextor. What's that? It's not her? Oh, OK. So it's a suspiciously pink Alesha Dixon. No...hang on, Katie Holmes? Angelina Jolie?
2008 is going to go down in musical history as the year in which pop music got what can only be described as a makeunder. Records which, due to their lack of superpolished pop production would not get within sniffing distance of the Top 10 in any other year, suddenly found themselves duking it out with Timbaland and Madonna, and winning. 
There are lots of different reasons for why some songs work. Sometimes the lyrics have to take a back seat to the soaring melody and general air of loveliness, sometimes, even thought the tune isn't all that, it's all about the words, sometimes it's all about the singing. You very rarely get a perfect lyric matched to a perfect melody and perfect delivery, and even if you did, it wouldn't win everyone over. This is just one of the reasons why music is a bazillion per cent more complicated (and fun) than sport. 