B
Benton
Guest
Andrew Mueller
Saturday December 11, 2004
Track of the week [/b]
Lucky Jim
Lesbia (Skint)
Lucky Jim are a Brightonian duo whose debut album of earlier this year, Our Troubles End Tonight, failed, sadly, to cause record stores to be knocked down in the rush. The release of Lesbia, the album's glorious highlight, will hopefully provoke at least the odd two-person queue at the tills. It's a gorgeous, understated epic, suggesting Jimmy Webb's MacArthur Park remixed by Air and rewritten by a committee of ravaged sages chaired by Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen; the b-side cover of Cohen's Hallulejah suggests that Lucky Jim are commendably relaxed about such lofty comparisons.
Morrissey
I Have Forgiven Jesus (Attack)
The upward blip in Morrissey's creative health builds to a plateau with this fine single, which confirms that his knack for terrific titles is undiminished, and would have fit comfortably on the Smiths' Strangeways, Here We Come. Morrissey may be vexed to be compared with his work of 20 years ago, but such is the fate of those who tilt the world on its axis in their youth. His tragedy is that he'll never do any better; his triumph that nor will anyone else.
Manic Street Preachers
Empty Souls (Sony)
When the Manics first appeared, in a typhoon of frenetic sloganeering and misapplied eye-shadow back in the early 1990s, they pledged themselves to a masterplan which involved releasing one album and then splitting - a moment which, while enduring this turgid evocation of Marillion at their most emptily bombastic, can only be contemplated with aching nostalgia.
Electric Six
Radio Ga Ga (Warners)
With the obvious exception of the Doors, Queen were the worst band ever. Radio Ga Ga was probably the worst record Queen ever made. Genius could not have rendered it tolerable, and Electric Six are as far from genius as Scotland are from qualifying for the World Cup. There must, one grudgingly supposes, be a certain satisfaction to be wrung from selling a feeble Queen cover to legions of tiresomely wry students who would never normally be seen dead with a Queen record, but it seems no way for grown men to make a living.
Bo Selecta
I Got You Babe (BMG)
In which Avid Merrion, a man who at his very funniest is less amusing than finding blood in one's urine, teams up with the inexplicably celebrated Davina McCall and Patsy Kensit to cover the Sonny & Cher hit. For a good cause, and all that, but the charitable intent of this lazy, puerile, dimwitted crap does not quell the desire to track down everyone involved in its production, and anyone intending to buy it, and stab them with a pitchfork. No jury would convict.
Singles of the Week
Saturday December 11, 2004
Track of the week [/b]
Lucky Jim
Lesbia (Skint)
Lucky Jim are a Brightonian duo whose debut album of earlier this year, Our Troubles End Tonight, failed, sadly, to cause record stores to be knocked down in the rush. The release of Lesbia, the album's glorious highlight, will hopefully provoke at least the odd two-person queue at the tills. It's a gorgeous, understated epic, suggesting Jimmy Webb's MacArthur Park remixed by Air and rewritten by a committee of ravaged sages chaired by Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen; the b-side cover of Cohen's Hallulejah suggests that Lucky Jim are commendably relaxed about such lofty comparisons.
Morrissey
I Have Forgiven Jesus (Attack)
The upward blip in Morrissey's creative health builds to a plateau with this fine single, which confirms that his knack for terrific titles is undiminished, and would have fit comfortably on the Smiths' Strangeways, Here We Come. Morrissey may be vexed to be compared with his work of 20 years ago, but such is the fate of those who tilt the world on its axis in their youth. His tragedy is that he'll never do any better; his triumph that nor will anyone else.
Manic Street Preachers
Empty Souls (Sony)
When the Manics first appeared, in a typhoon of frenetic sloganeering and misapplied eye-shadow back in the early 1990s, they pledged themselves to a masterplan which involved releasing one album and then splitting - a moment which, while enduring this turgid evocation of Marillion at their most emptily bombastic, can only be contemplated with aching nostalgia.
Electric Six
Radio Ga Ga (Warners)
With the obvious exception of the Doors, Queen were the worst band ever. Radio Ga Ga was probably the worst record Queen ever made. Genius could not have rendered it tolerable, and Electric Six are as far from genius as Scotland are from qualifying for the World Cup. There must, one grudgingly supposes, be a certain satisfaction to be wrung from selling a feeble Queen cover to legions of tiresomely wry students who would never normally be seen dead with a Queen record, but it seems no way for grown men to make a living.
Bo Selecta
I Got You Babe (BMG)
In which Avid Merrion, a man who at his very funniest is less amusing than finding blood in one's urine, teams up with the inexplicably celebrated Davina McCall and Patsy Kensit to cover the Sonny & Cher hit. For a good cause, and all that, but the charitable intent of this lazy, puerile, dimwitted crap does not quell the desire to track down everyone involved in its production, and anyone intending to buy it, and stab them with a pitchfork. No jury would convict.
Singles of the Week
