Gorillaz - Tomorrow Comes Today
Remember when you first heard Clint Eastwood and thought it was bloody amazing, so rushed out to get the album (because you still bought CDs at the time), and then put it on your stereo, expecting to listen to that track over and over again, but then discovered Tomorrow Comes Today, and just absolutely fell in love with it and realised that Gorillaz were going to be something special?
Well, that’s what I’m doing today…
35 plays
I guess what is interesting about Germany’s winning Eurovision entry is how completely unremarkable it is. Lena, bless her heart, can’t sing or dance particularly well — or if she can, the song isn’t about that. The performance is noticeably free from the usual manic Europop disco kitsch expected of entrants; Lena’s thing is to appear ordinary, to sing kareoke-style about everyday things in a bouncy but slightly dull way. Hence a supposedly authentic rendition of cute/quirky girl-next-doorishness triumphs over the normal, mostly ironic vote for Eurotrash horror. Which is actually quite nice when you think about it.
That, and her oddly-rolled vowels make me suspect the Irish were in on this: ‘Oi did it just de odder day!’, etc.
I seriously don’t understand how this song won Eurovision last night, nor why it was such a runaway winner. The song is pretty poor, and her pronunciation is just incredibly weird. I thought it was a bit more Eliza Doolittle than Irish, with some Guy Ritchie mockney thrown in for good measure.
The thing is, it doesn’t seem to be something odd from just last night. Watch the acoustic version on the Eurovision website (yes, I know…): it’s just as strange.
Apparently this song has been huge all over Europe for the last month, which strikes me as a touch unfair in terms of being entered for Eurovision. Surely the night of Eurovision should be when we hear these songs for the first time, save for our own country’s entry?
Anyways, it wouldn’t have helped the British entry anyway, because it truly was terrible. The backing singers were completely out of tune, and it was a crap song to boot. See for yourself.
Reblogged from: marginalgloss
Originally posted on: marginal gloss
Eurovision 2010 - Moldova - “Run Away”
This was my favourite from tonight’s European songfest, because it’s so gloriously cheesy and upbeat. They’re just about to announce the results, so expect it to do terribly…
Other good songs included Turkey, Serbia, and Iceland.
The British entry? Absolutely godawful. I’ll wait until there’s a video of the live performance up, because the backing singers were so out of tune it was painful.
Reblogged from: brilliantology
Originally posted on: Brilliantology
Last night’s Chemical Brothers gig was immense, and I’m still buzzing this morning. It was hot, sweaty, loud, fun, and everything else you want from going to see live music.
I realised after it had finished that neither of the two guys had said a single word during the entire gig, instead just concentrating on pounding out the music and keeping everyone bouncing. It was an odd juxtaposition to the Flight of the Conchords on Tuesday, where everything was based around words and lyrics.
Nevertheless, the music spoke for itself, and the whole place was jumping. The first half of the show seemed to be all material from their new album, Further, which isn’t out yet here. According to Wikipedia, Further is a collaboration with visual artists, which probably explains the almost story-esque videos that accompanied that half of the show.
For me, the new songs seemed to blend into each other somewhat, but this is probably because they are so new to my ears. The crowd seemed to be really into it when the beats became a bit more pounding and quicker, but in all I think the new stuff was well received.
There was a very brief pause, and then the music came storming back with a run-through of some of their biggest songs from previous albums.
Hey Boy Hey Girl was an obvious crowd-pleaser, but I really enjoyed the mix from Out of Control into Setting Sun. In fact, a good chunk of the second half of the set was almost a medley, with brief snippets of tracking blending into and out of one another. Off the top of my head, the only songs which got a pretty much full play were Hey Boy, Believe and one other track whose name escapes me right now (Exit Planet Dust, maybe?).
As a sidenote, last night reminded me that Believe is an absolutely immense tune. It’s aggressive, relentless, and you can’t help but jump up and down. What a song.
Just reading through the Chemical Brothers’ discography, it’s amazing how many tracks they didn’t play. There was no room for Galvanize, It Began in Afrika, Let Forever Be, Star Guitar, nor The Test and Do It Again. Instead, the choices seemed to be centred around the biggest beats and aggressive noise, getting everyone pumped and keeping them at that level.
As you can see in this photo, the stage set is pretty much just an enclave of gadgetry and decks, with a huge screen behind them. To be honest, it’s not about the stage presence of the two guys (arrowed); it’s about the music that they’re putting out, and in that they excel.
The Chemical Brothers are doing three more nights in London this weekend, and I’d highly recommend trying to get hold of a ticket if you can.
I wrote a couple of months ago about an upcoming weekend in May that was threatening to be absolutely massive in terms of being out and about at loads of different events.
As it turned out, that weekend has sort of become an entire week: this week. It started on Monday night with a Charlton v Swindon football match, then Tuesday was Flight of the Conchords at Wembley Arena. Tonight I’m heading to Camden for the Chemical Brothers, whilst tomorrow night is Faithless at Brixton Academy (which is probably what I’m looking forward to most).
Saturday is a friend’s birthday dans le pub, or maybe an afternoon out at Wembley for another football match if a mate has a spare ticket. If not, it’s football and rugby finals all day in the pub.
To cap it all off, Sunday will see 10 mates from back home coming up to London for a spot of daytime clubbing/carnage at The Church, which will just be plain messy, and then the final of Premier League Darts at Wembley Arena again. Yet more beers.
Three of them are staying at mine Sunday, so Monday morning will require a recovery breakfast of some sort, and then once I’ve shipped them out the door I’ll be needing some recovery sleep…
Wish me luck.
OK, so I was sat right at the back for the Flight Of The Conchords gig last night, but it was still really good fun. The songs are great live (with the odd extra/alternative lyrics thrown in), and the banter between songs is brilliant.
Jermain and Bret are obviously very comfortable with just ad-libbing and riffing off each other, and it shows in their back and forth on stage. Yes, some of it is obviously semi-scripted, but when they just go off on random tangents it’s at its funniest. I particularly enjoyed a fairly long joke about whales trying to dial emergency services on a mobile phone, which was just surreal.
Their musical talents and range are astounding. They can go from ballads to electro to rock to hip-hop in the space of a couple of songs, each staggeringly funny and accurate spoofs of the genre. And it works in a massive arena too, which is something I wasn’t entirely expecting.
I still have “Too many dicks on the dancefloor” in my head today, which is a good sign.
Oh, and a word for Wembley Arena’s organisational skills: terrible. Yes, I know you used an alternative ticketing system for this particular night, in an effort to combat touting and re-selling, but please have more people on the doors to scan credit cards and let people in. The queues outside were just plain ridiculous, and pretty slow-moving.
Although it was a refreshing change to walk up Wembley Way without hordes of touts doing the old “Anyone got any tickets? I’ll buy or sell tickets, any tickets? Tickets? Tickets?” routine. They do my head in normally.
I’m off to see Flight Of The Conchords this evening, and excited does not even begin to describe how I’m feeling. The reviews of this tour have been solid, and I still smirk whilst replaying scenes from the TV show in my head.
This is going to be amazing.
