So Junior preferred this challenging little time signature-defiling tune-meshing number. I should introduce her to Pitchfork. She did a rather alarming Beyoncé tush-shaking routine to it, laughed at the word “Dirty”, joined in with the “Oh oh oh-oh oh-woah-oh”s and rounded it all off with a game of musical statues – which is probably what the Projectors were aiming at. It’s pretty clear they weren’t trying to be covered by the X Factor winner.
I don’t know whether DPs are massively ahead of the game, or just have the compositional skills of cheesecake. They’re prodigiously talented, happen upon the odd moment of real beauty and doubtless nark off pop classicists everywhere. Bravo? Bravo.
Passion Pit’s Michael Angelakos made their debut Chunk Of Change EP as a Valentine’s gift for his girlfriend. It was awesome, so I hope she appreciated it. The long player’s not quite as great, but perhaps that’s familiarity with the shrill, sugary tunefulness of the Pit. Maybe it’s an analogy for the relationship too. The initial charge has gone, now the couple’s treading water, seeing where it goes from here, refuelling, cleaning their visors, waiting for the lollipop to turn over. Perhaps the passion’s in the pits. Let’s hope the nozzle doesn’t get stuck.
Still here? ‘The Reeling’ is crazed, giddy euphoria with the treble set to nausea. I think it’s twee electro magic and wanted it at No.11, but Junior insisted I swap this and the other song around. Yes, boss. Not that she didn’t like it: it prompted high-speed dancing, some sort of hand jive, twirls (“I’m doing ballet”), and eventually pure chaos with both sisters chasing each other around screaming until I got chopsy.
We take these band names on trust, but Junior wants to know, “Are they ghosts?” “I don’t think so.” “They have no legs on the cover.” They must be then. She also notices howls subtly buried in the mix (not so subtle a motif, really) and “aaa-ooo”s along with them. An even smaller Shakira.
Krautrock’s rumble and pulse is all the rage, and Glasgow’s Phantom Band deliver it with a fair helping of swing, sounding like Nick Cave in a groove. The riff’s so compulsive it doesn’t need the song to make it a record of the year; it thrums and sashays with a style missing in the players themselves. Disappointingly, they’re a bunch of outré moustaches and beards in lumberjack shirts with not a ghoul in sight.
Nobody told me that you become more susceptible to glossy R&B with age; I’ve had to find out for myself. It was shocking at first, thinking “This Ne-Yo album knocks most modern pop into a cocked hat/Jordin Sparks sounds awesome on ‘No Air’/Everything Beyoncé does is – how do you say it? – The Bomb/Christ, I like more than one Leona Lewis song” etc, but now I wear my bling on my sleeve. Well, I’ve got a 10 quid Casio watch.
Although blessed with a silky, appealing voice, Keri Hilson doesn’t have the charisma to pull off the hits, so she gets in the smartest talent bankrolling can buy. Seem to remember Kanye being a smart talent, anyway. 808s & Heartbreak sounded superb on first listen, then turned out to be a moany nothing; neither was I sold on ‘Supernova’, but if we’re talking charisma, Mr Hudson hasn’t even come within a universe of an ounce of it. Kanye’s rap on ‘Knock You Down’ is a mess – the Michael Jackson gag not in the same league as the same on ‘Slow Jamz’ – so it’s left to Ne-Yo to give the song some class. His disbelief at wanting to spend more time with the missus than his mates – “I used to be commander-in-chief of my pimp ship flying high!” – is enough to carry the track alone, but credit to Hilson for some fine cracked vocals as this soppy song peaks.
“This is a lady singing,” Junior points out, puzzled because she thinks Keri is a boy’s name. Maybe if you’re a rotten Chelsea player. She then confirms that it looks like a lady on the cover, so it’s a relief for Keri even as the boys threaten to subsume her. Not that you can tell Junior anything – when I inform her Ne-Yo’s on the mic, she says “I knew that”, and it’s possible she did, what with the bounder being everywhere these past few years. His touch is magic enough, and Junior demands a repeat play.
It’s a riot, isn’t it? ‘Bonkers’ is exactly what you’d expect from a van Helden/Dizzee face-off, hammering your knapper with drones and judders while the Rascal does his slightly panicky yelp over the top, and it works because it’s utterly without side. It’s a shameless tilt at the No.1 spot. But it’s only that because Dizzee has worked himself into a position where he understands the tweaks that need to be made for full-on success – and they are just tweaks. Sonically, he’s always been a cartoon Public Enemy – blaring, intrusive noise, sharp lyrics, no let-up – but when he keeps it concise, gives it a hammy title and adjusts his flow into a chorus, Bob’s yer uncle. Sell-out? You bet.
And that much is obvious from Junior’s reaction. She can sing along with an alarming amount of this puppy-dog bouncer, and finds it absolutely side-splitting. You see, when you get to the bottom of it, it’s all big fun.
Sunny Day Sets Fire are this year’s Alphabeat. Oh, come on, don’t be like that. Both bands are little nuggets of joy. This lot aren’t Scandinavian – they’re a polyglot collection brought together in London – but they play a similar jaunty pop, a spring-heeled update of swinging 60s sounds, fab, gear and frenetic. ‘Adrenaline’ sounds like it’s got a surfeit of the stuff, of course, and while you wouldn’t want a much bigger dose, an occasional slice of silly aural sunshine is just the ticket.
Junior’s not much of a morning person, so this could give her the boost she needed or irritate the hell out of her. In the end, she managed to stop pouting long enough to offer a perfunctory “lovely, brilliant, beautiful” and then asked, “Can we have Girls Aloud?”
Annie Clark, a former member of the Polyphonic Spree, no less. There must have been an intervention. Now she makes music as St. Vincent, sounding for all the world like an avant garde (yet somewhat indiefied) Judy Garland. That’s lovely stuff, by the way. ‘Actor Out Of Work’ is as boho as it should be, with gorgeous “ooo-ooo-ooo”s and some brass that sounds as if it’s tumbling down the stairs.
When I asked Junior what she thought of it, she said, “Yes.” A positive response then.
So you emerge blinking into the light around the end of 2007, early 2008, playing sharp, clever-clever East Coast pop with inflections of world music, a touch of Peter Gabriel. Everything goes just swell. Then you’re back in late 2009, early 2010, ready to consolidate vast critical and sturdy popular acclaim with a second album. Triumph is assured, right?
But what if you’re not Vampire Weekend? What if you’re Yeasayer? The answer seems to be to mainstream it up a bit more, move your world music closer to the US borders. Reggae! ‘Ambling Alp’ is a cosily appealing song, a grower and a fashion-free standalone. It also has Junior in paroxysms of giggles, which may or may not be a guarantee of success.
I suppose it’s Lady GaGa’s year. Not that I’ve been completely suckered, but there’s something refreshing about how her slavishly marketed, focus-grouped quirks buck the system and… Oh, I see. Still, in the current climate she looks like a one-off and she’s not conventionally attractive, nor does she seems to give much of a hoot what she says – so if this is the new breed of major label diva, make mine a small one with a flaming bra.
Sorry, the music. For songs that have been battered to death every day for the full 365, GaGa’s singles hold up admirably (must be the flaming bra), but original breakthrough “Just Dance” is the one. It has flow and – what shall we call them? – STENTORIAN synths. Junior prefers ‘Paparazzi’, but is delighted we’re playing GaGa at all. “I LOVE Lady GaGa,” she gasps, and gazes adoringly at her blank, sunglassed visage.
IT STRUCK ME that 2009 wasn’t a sparkling year for singles – until I started trying to compile a Top 20. Then it was heartbreaking. So, regret and recriminations to Eels’ ‘That Look You Give That Guy’, Saint Etienne’s ‘Method Of Modern Love’ and Fuck Buttons’ ‘Surf Solar’. It hurt, but you had to go.
Let’s cheer up with the long-(well a couple of years at least)-awaited return of James Murphy and his so hip they’re actually hip and not just what hip people think is hip quasi-band LCD Soundsystem. Here he turns Suicide’s Alan Vega’s psychotic rockabilly screecher ‘Bye Bye Bayou’ into – let’s face it – Underworld’s ‘Mmm Skyscraper I Love You’ and the results are absorbing, bracing and head-nodding.
Junior was all primed for the year-end countdown, holding out for some Girls Aloud and sharpening her critical faculties (these are usually her shoulders; they’re the litmus test). The title amused – she and her sister changed it to “bye-bye, you” with plenty of waving – but then the bombshell: “I don’t like it”. Oh. Murphy rescued it with a zappy sound effect at the end which “makes my ears go crazy. And my legs. And my socks.” If he can crazify socks, he’ll go far.
Jukebox Junior 