The Daily Planet

The Duckworth Lewis Method, ‘The Age Of Revolution’

The Duckworth Lewis Method

Let’s get this up now, before they all take to the field at Lord’s and tear up the history books. The Age Of Revolution, eh? Shorter forms of the game, pyjamas, fewer strokes through extra covers – and massive fourth innings winning totals? Just because 522 hasn’t been achieved before, doesn’t mean these pesky Aussies won’t do it.

Neil Hannon (Lewis) and Thomas Walsh (Duckworth)’s glorious cricket concept album sails so close to arch parody (what? With Hannon on board?), but squeaks through thanks to its wit, affection and tunes. ‘The Age Of Revolution’ is that old chestnut, funky Charleston, and revels in a changing game. It’s a tasty scene-setter for an often hilarious and poignant record, warm with nostalgia and wide-eyed at possibilities.

Junior smiles as it wheezes into action, but when pressed on her thoughts says, “I haven’t decided.” She’s hedging her bets. Me? I think Australia will win.

Get Clarke:

La Roux, ‘In For The Kill’

La Roux

Now, I bow to no man in my devotion to all things synthy/plonky/tinny, but aren’t La Roux a step too far? Isn’t theirs a slavish fixation on 1981 electrobop, right down to the hairsprayed-within-an-inch quiff? Isn’t it all an unseemly retread? No!

Hmmm. Yes. Maybe. But it doesn’t matter when it’s done with this much panache, with this many hooks, with a singer possessed of just the right amount of pouty glower to slip seamlessly into Ultravox. June Ackland’s daughter Elly Jackson is doing a marvellous job rubbing everyone up the wrong way – well, rubbing interviewers up the wrong way, while the public falls for her in swoony droves – and that’s how we like our pop stars. OK, that’s how we like some of our pop stars. More than a handful of Mark E Smiths is too much of a good thing.

Anyway, let’s take opinions from a cross-section of the kids.  Junior pouts like a common Elly and says she doesn’t like ‘In For The Kill’. Is it the auditory challenge of Jackson’s high-pitched trill? No, she just wants to watch Milkshake. Different response from Junior 2 – let’s call her A-Trak – who bodypops in her highchair with all the glee that Junior’s pouted out.

La Roux, then: big with the kids unless Peppa Pig’s on.

Dog whistle:

Arctic Monkeys, ‘Crying Lightning’

Arctic Monkeys

They’re men now. They brood. They grow their hair. They sport beards. They make records with ginger gorilla Josh Homme. It’s a patina of manliness, though, with Alex Turner still whippet-thin, still a bit too Sheffield to be proper muscular rock’n’roll. ‘Crying Lightning’ seems a bit deeper, a bit less eager to let go and indulge in childish things, but then Turner goes and ruins it all with a reference to “pick’n’mix”. It doesn’t sound like an honest hiccup of salt-of-the-earthiness. It sounds like a sop to those who suspect they might be about to go all Hollywood. It sounds Peter Kay.

There’s a grower here all the same and a meatiness that neatly disguises the lack of – let’s face it, chaps – a song. They’ve always had that gift. Whether it’ll keep on giving, album after album, well, we’ll see. At least they’re only starting to look like Kings Of Leon, rather than buffing, polishing and dowdying up their music to sound like them too.

Cheerily bursting the Monkeys’ oh-so-serious bubble, Junior giggles at their name. “Is the monkey singing now?” “Do they dress up?” “I liked the first bit but I didn’t like the last bit.” That last remark’s obviously a withering comment on the transience of pop favour. You can search for the pick’n’mix all you like, Alex; it’s gone.

Everybody Wang Chung tonight:

Empire Of The Sun, ‘We Are The People’

Empire Of The Sun

By any reasonable standard, it’s a bit early for a “new MGMT”. Actually, I think it’ll always be a bit early for a new one, best single of 2008 notwithstanding. On the face of it, Empire of The Sun are more pleasingly uncluttered and electronic – a little cleaner, a touch poppier – but obviously they look equally ridiculous. Credit where it’s due, Empire’s Luke Steele looked pretty ludicrous in The Sleepy Jackson too, so he’s no mere copycat. He and his PR people have just grabbed the main chance.

I dunno, though – this doesn’t amount to much. It’s catchy, but I can’t help slipping into Starship’s ‘We Built This City’ every time I try to sing along. Is that a bad thing? That might not be a bad thing. Junior sings the last word of every line, like some sort of MGMT-copying-Empire-Of-The-Sun-copycat. I think that’s satire.

Tangling the web further, she saw Flight Of The Conchords gently putting the boot into EOTS (or was it MGMT?) yesterday and said, “I saw this before.”

Are you gonna leave me now?

Animal Collective, ‘Summertime Clothes’

Animal Collective

So it’s Junior’s fourth birthday. It seems only three and a half years and a bit since we were reviewing Antipop Consortium records together and plumping for Kanye West over Missy Elliott in the 2005 chart. How time flies, innit.

And in those few short years, Animal Collective have gone from quirky indie electronica nerds to quirky indie electronica nerds with something approaching proper tunes. There have always been squirts of brilliance, but 2009’s Merriweather Post Pavilion has pulled together more than most and set them to some full rave dynamics. The jaunty ‘Summertime Clothes’ isn’t the best single on it – mayyybbeee we’ll save one for the year-end chart – but it’s a ray of hope as everything goes haywire outside the window.

Newly grown-up Junior is more interested in the flashy magic eye madness on the album sleeve, gracing the song with a mere handclap or two. She’d have loved them at Glastonbury though, where they stole the show with disco lights and hands aloft and sent all my mates packing to buy their album.

AndIwaaaaannawaaaaalkarooouuundwithyou:

N.B. Coming soon(ish) – The Top 50 Singles of the 00s

The Horrors, ‘Who Can Say’

The Horrors

Strange House was an awfully enjoyable debut, big on the eyeliner and silly on the goth-garage growly histrionics, but that was about the size of it – silly yet enjoyable. It’s amazing what a pinch of Geoff Barrow can do. The surly Portisheader has twiddled the knobs, kicked against the pricks and, er, twisted the appendages for The Horrors’ second album Primary Colours and – against any odds you care to chalk up – we’re left with a fantastic record. Still garage rock, still psychedelic, still fronted by a bit of a Brett Anderson, but this time The Horrors are Joy Division with Krautrock propulsion. It can’t all be Barrow because basic songcraft has hepped up a notch – still, credit where it’s due.

‘Who Can Say’ piques the gossip buds with the idea it’s all about frontman Faris Badwan dumping polymath Peaches Geldof. When Faris gets all Shangri-Las in the middle talky bit – “And when I told her I didn’t love her anymore, she cried” – you even feel sorry for Bob’s bonny bunny. All that aside, it’s fuzzy, echoey and seedily real.

We had a talky bit in the car too:

“Are they Horrors?”

“That’s the name of the five of them together, sort of like The Beatles on your t-shirt.”

“Beatles?”

“Yes, and The Horrors all play instruments on this song. One of them, the second one along in that picture, sings. One plays the guitar, another plays the bass – which is like a guitar with fewer strings – another plays drums and the last one the piano.”

“I’ve got a pink piano.”

“I don’t think The Horrors have a pink piano.”

“No, they have a black one.”

“You’re probably right.”

Better off this way:

Jarvis Cocker, ‘Angela’

Jarvis Cocker

It’s pretty big of us to give space to Jarvis Cocker, what with the bearded beanpole ripping us off all over the place, but we’re pretty forgiving types. And come on, old Jarv is having a rough time of it right now – his marriage is kaput, the new album barely tickled the Top 20 and Pulp show no signs of “doing a Blur” and rebooting flagging finances.

Now I hate to fly in the face of the true wisdom of this place, but Junior reckoned ‘Angela’ was “lovely” and, well, she’s wrong, isn’t she? It’s surely a seedy account of a man suffering a mid-life crisis – and nothing autobiographical about it, of course – set to unlovely, galumphing rock. It sounds unfinished, although we might just allow it some raw, primal energy. Yeah, OK, it sounds unfinished.

Most of Further Complications bleeds that crisis, albeit with some zip and humour. It’s a more considered, Anglo take on Nick Cave’s Grinderman, with the same regular recourse to macho guitars – hiding that paunch with feedback. Jarvis could’ve done better with the melodies, but when Junior’s chanting “An-ge-la” long after the song’s finished, who am I to argue? Much.

A dry stick at the end of a branch:

Little Boots, ‘New In Town’/Saint Etienne, ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’

Little Boots
Saint Etienne

*Tap, tap* Is this thing working? One, two, one, two. “When you were yooooouuuung…”

There’s something in the air. Music goes in cycles, doesn’t it? I’m hoping you’ve got some evidence, because I’m whistling in the wind here. Strikes me, though, that the ’91 feeling is abroad, that Balearic’s back, that everything from rock to dance and all grimy stop-offs in between is daubed in pop, in that cred-shedding musical vernacular that makes all good records sound like hits.

Little Boots is exercising her sunny beats just as Saint Etienne are once more hawking Foxbase Alpha around to anyone who’ll listen – mainly 36 year olds who were there the first time, but perhaps a few Boots fans will jump on board too. Victoria Hesketh (er, yeah, Little Boots) is a lovely breathy singer like Sarah Cracknell, a cooing frontwoman for some capital dance-pop grooves and a poster-girl-in-waiting for the shy end of the indie boy spectrum. It’s a link of sorts!

Junior’s no shy indie boy, but she’s sweet on Victoria: “I love her singing, I love the picture.” There’s a story behind Saint Etienne, however, and she wants to hear about how she “saw” them at Koko a few weeks before she was, erm, born. “Was I dancing in Mummy’s tummy?” I rather think she was.

New In Town:

Only Love Can Break Your Heart:

COMPETITION: The 7-inch is still 60

A heap of my 45s, Sunday

It’s competition time! Identify the 60 7” singles above – some easy, some fiendish – and send your answers (artist and title) to matthew@jukeboxjunior.com. The person with the most correct answers (earliest entrant if there’s a tie) wins The Kinks’ recent Picture Book box set (promo version, I should say – 6 CDs, double-height jewel trays, some artwork on the “book” cover, no booklet). Competition ends midnight, 30 April. Slapdash terms and conditions apply, probably.

The 2004 No.4 may follow later today.