With ‘Sing It Back’ in the bag, Moloko completed the improbable feat of releasing two singles in a row that weren’t irritating. On ‘The Time Is Now’, abrupt, voguing strings create an atmosphere of impossible tension and born actress Róisín Murphy is the diva to wallow in it. Frankly, it’s extraordinary that Moloko managed to wriggle out of the shackles of intensely annoying glitchy trip hop long enough to make sterling additions to the pop canon, but bravo for their moment of clarity. Post-split, Murphy kept these lessons in mind and now makes sophisticated, accessible dance music that no one buys.
Junior says: “I like it, play it again. And I like the owl.” And Junior 2 gave a sulky “Ohhhh” when I turned off the superfluous remix after a couple of bars. Moloko: massive with the under-fives.
Here’s a word to the wise, pop pickers: after years of toil, don’t have a massive hit. The pop kids only want you for your Norman Cook-remixed body, and your abandoned friends will never feel the same way about you again. More’s the pity, because there was more to come. ‘Lessons Learned…’ would have been as high as No.26 here on the strength of its title alone; it’s bumped up a place to 25 because it’s buttoned-down brilliant. Tjinder Singh’s spiky, quotable lyrics set to a royal stagecoach of a riff make this the best T. Rex record in 30 years (sorry, Supergrass).
Junior says: “Moving my shoulders like this makes my drawing zig-zaggy.” Well, quite.
Sometimes I think I’m in a minority of 1. Hot Chip are music press darlings with a fiercely loyal following at odds with their mild music. They should be one of my favourites – ticking boxes from synth-pop devotees to mates of Green Gartside – but I think they’re just a bit weak. Short on robust tunes, long on prissy fannying about. No one agrees with me. Perhaps I’m empirically wrong.
But look, here’s ‘Over And Over’, matching ideas with execution, gallumphing along with real verve, weight and pure nonsense. It’s never even tiresome. You probably don’t agree with me.
Junior says: “Cool.” We valiantly try to sing along with words we don’t know during what musicologists refer to as “the middle bit”.
Best bit: That middle bit. With what sounds like a kazoo. Cool.
Perfectly pitched Fyfe Dangerfield is an unashamed romantic, here seeing the beauty in any bit of scrap because he’s all luvved-up awww. The wonky, tootling ‘Made-Up Lovesong #43’ is the right setting for these skewed musings, its swoops throwing you from paranoia to affirmation. It’s a little needy, yeah, but you’d have to be a pretty cold fish to ignore its quirky charm.
Junior says: “Here’s the beat.” She didn’t mean, “This is the shiz” or, “That’s what I’m talkin’ abaht.” No, she was just marking where the song picked up tempo. I told her about the line-up and the radiant Aristazabal Hawkes on double bass. She said, “They have one of those on ZingZillas.”
Best bit: “I can’t believe you caaaaaa-aaaaaa-aaaaare.”
Seventh Tree proved Goldfrapp have a heart, not just a set of timely pop culture references – and ‘A&E’ is a murmur. All is not well, and the redemptive power of love is the illusion of the desperate. Ahem. It has a panicky beauty and swelling power, with Alison Goldfrapp inhabiting it a little fully for comfort. Still, sod the comfort of distance; this is a far cry from the play-acting of Supernature, Black Cherry, whichever costume party the duo soundtracked before, and it’s a winning gambit.
Junior says: “I like this song.” Blushing, she even sort of sings along with the first verse, but I’m sure it’s ages since she heard it. Perhaps it’s nuzzled into her psyche. As I try to put another record on, she says, “Can you play Blue Big Blue again?”
You have to admire the Trousersnake chutzpah. Ex-boyband clothes horses shouldn’t be able to swagger over to the cred side, and then there’s the aplomb with which he did it: Justified was convincing enough as a first foray; FutureSexLoveSounds was so surefooted you could believe Justin had pimped since the pram.
SexyBack isn’t really about wild melodic invention, just a groove that has to move. Real schmoove. Timbaland is the brains, but Timberlake is the big lusty balls.
Junior says: “It’s funny, especially at the start. And your dancing.” Can’t say fairer than that.
Best bit: “V.I.P.” All slack picked up, not that there was much in the first place.
Michael Angelakos’s champion Valentine’s effort didn’t just impress his girlfriend; it also caught the ear of a whole bunch of tastemakers who don’t buy any records. A rather more impressive mixtape than most of us manage (although, try stringing it out for a whole C90, Angelakos), Chunk Of Change cynically reached beyond the wooing to make Passion Pit a top tip for globe-wide very minor success. I’ve Got Your Number is our concern here, keeping to the now-patented Passion Pit template of killer chorus, deafeningly shrill production and nauseous falsetto vocal – and yeah, in a good way. It’s especially apt for Jukebox Junior, because it sounds as if it was knocked together in a school musical workshop, with its cheap diddy keys and that percussion instrument that sounds like a stick being run over the ridges of a wooden frog (you know the one). Angelakos is the wildly over-enthusiastic supply teacher. Or Jonathan Cohen.
Junior says: “It’s fine and good.” That was to I’ve Got Your Number, but we carried on through. Sleepyhead’s Disney woodland creature trills warranted, “I like this bit,” while the rest of the EP passed without comment. Passion Pit slope away with a sackful of faint praise.
Best bit: The tacit suggestion that I’ve Got Your Number might go on forever, as waves of chorus die away to leave the unbowed plinky synth line.
No One Ever Really Dies. They should be called N*O*E*R*D, shouldn’t they? Unless they’re spelling it Noone Ever Really Dies, in which case it’s a) nonsense and b) a poorly worded threat to the blameless Herman’s Hermits singer. Actually, I think it’s meant to be No-one, but point stands. Still, far be it from Pharrell Williams to be a berk. Scratch that – far be it from early 2000s Pharrell Williams to be a berk. Just off the back of Kelis’s immense debut Kaleidoscope and other scorching Neptunes productions, he and Chad Hugo and other mucker Shay Haley had plenty of leeway to make the pretty self-indulgent hip hop/rock/R&B hybrid In Search Of…, and it worked. Lead track ‘Lapdance’ is seedy as it should be, aggressive and – surprisingly rare quality, this – genuinely thrilling. Then they decided to re-record In Search Of… with a propah rawk band and it turned into Limp Bizkit. That’s one fine line. The original rock-facsimile just packed the greater punch.
Junior says: “It’s crazy.” Mind you, she barely heard it, what with me using the one-two combo of coughing and putting my hands over her ears for every “motherf***er” and “n****r”. I think she caught a beat at the end of the ninth bar.
Best bit: The intro. Croaking quasi-guitar and dirty dawgs.
Seems lazy to give props to this track with a mere blog post, when Paul Morley managed to devote an entire BOOK to it, but obviously everything about it sitting in a room with Alvin Lucier while – in its techno dreams – it sweeps down an autobahn with Kraftwerk has, erm, already been said. For some reason.
In its real-life context, ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’ was the sleek, pulsating sonic seduction that made it actually matter that Kylie had come back. The slight ‘Spinning Around’ made us say, “Isn’t it nice to have Kylie back in pop?”, but this one prompted a “Thank God.”
Junior says: Nothing, but a broad grin spreads across her face. “Do you know who this is?” I ask. “Kylie!” She’s come through her pop education.
Best bit: Where it breaks down and the synths go a bit ‘Love Action’.
While we’re celebrating UK chart success stories, Camera Obscura have had five 45s tear up the hit parade to peak between 100 and 200 – truly the shape of Pixie Lott’s career to come. ‘Lloyd…’ is the second, er, biggest of the lot, a Number 124 smash in 2006. Back then, Junior reviewed it twice: once as a random choice from the 7″ pile, then as our Number 4 pick of the year. Neither piece features on this version of the blog, so I’m free to plagiarise myself.
The first time, I admitted I could never remember this warm rush of indie-country-pop so instead blathered on about “answer” records – you know, this to Lloyd Cole & The Commotions’ fluttering meanie, Frankie to Eamon, Lydia Murdoch to Michael Jackson. But clearly these Scots also-rans worm their way into your head with galloping guitar and madly slurred vocals, and perhaps the fact it was so difficult to get a tight grip on in the first place is what keeps it so fresh.
Junior says: “It’s good and bad,” raising one thumb aloft with the other pointed down. “What’s good?” She mimes playing the organ. “And what’s bad?” “I don’t know.” “Ha!”
Best bit: The chord change from middle eight to final verse, of course.
While we’re celebrating UK chart success stories, Camera Obscura have had five 45s tear up the hit parade to peak
between 100 and 200 – truly the shape of Pixie Lott’s career to come. ‘Lloyd…’ is the second, er, biggest of the
lot, a Number 124 smash in 2006. Back then, Junior reviewed it twice: once as a random choice from the 7″ pile, then
as our Number 4 pick of the year. Neither piece features on this version of the blog, so I’m free to plagiarise
myself.
The first time, I admitted I could never remember this warm rush of indie-country-pop so instead blathered on about
“answer” records – you know, this to Lloyd Cole & The Commotions’ yelping beauty, Frankie to Eamon, Lydia Murdoch to
Michael Jackson. But clearly these Scots also-rans worm their way into your head with galloping guitar and madly
slurred vocals, and perhaps the fact it was so difficult to get a tight grip on in the first place is what keeps it
so fresh.
Junior says: “It’s good and bad,” raising one thumb aloft with the other pointed down. “What’s good?” She mimes
playing the organ. “And what’s bad?” “I don’t know.” “Ha!”
Best bit: The chord change from middle eight to final verse, of course.
Jukebox Junior 