And now we come to everyone’s second favourite single of the year. ‘Zero’ is brilliant, a long-, long-awaited blossoming of Karen O and co’s always obvious pop chops; a striding, mammoth synth sledgehammer here to deliver us from indie wetness; a brazen bit of late-Noughties electro land-grabbing; a bassline-bouncing hot rock in leathers; a massive sigh of relief in the face of hitherto diminishing returns; and a Blondie-on-Berocca zig-zag through Julian Casablancas’ electric dreams.
Junior sings, “This time, baby, I’ll be blaaaaaiiiiiiirrrrproof”. It sounds like an anthem for a resistant European Union.
She loves this song, loves its chorus whatever its words. This is understandable – gratifying, even – because ‘Bulletproof’’s toytown hook is one of the most delightful I’ve heard in years. It seems based on minimal effort (Elly Jackson pouting, sullen, around the studio) but the results are perfect, like an even more immediate ‘Ready For The Floor’. And like Hot Chip, La Roux’s cheap Casio sound is just that bit too tacky to sustain an album. Let’s hear it for the singles.
This would have been a better Christmas No.1. It has droney vocals, seemingly endless monotony, a metronomic rhythm like the slow trundle around the Boxing Day M25, that pervading sense of doom – in all, it’s a real festive cockle-warmer. But of course it neither has *GASP* swearwords nor the relentless Cowell machine behind it, so there was never a snowball’s chance. And no one thought about it. Next year then.
The Horrors can comfort themselves with all the critical garlands they received for an impressive step forward. Only the gloom and occasional tough riff remained from their (pretty funny) goth-garage debut; otherwise, Primary Colours was a fug of glacial synths, Krautrock basslines and happy-go-lucky Joy Division ambience. ‘Sea Within A Sea’ was the astonishing curtain-raiser, galloping in on a Satanic groove, hanging around for five teasing minutes, then sailing away between banks of tinkling keyboards. It’s good.
“I like the singing,” came an atypical response, “but I don’t like the music.” She said that, but she performed a wafty indiegirl dance for the full seven minutes, with some slapstick falling-over thrown in. Slapstick. It’s what The Horrors are all about.
Jamie Treays is a national treasure, only no one realises it yet. He’s smart, wily and witty, and is all the best bits of The Clash rolled into one rat-faced, half-cut Wimbledon marauder. ‘Sticks ‘N’ Stones’ was going to be the record that did it; the first fruits of a difficult second album (so difficult he made it twice) and a boisterous tune blessed with at least two different choruses along with a serious treatise on the ideal circumstances for a “crap”. Forgive the unlikely compliment, but it’s Mike Skinner gone plastic punk.
And did the record do it? Was it T’s big break? Barely. Just another No.15 hit. You should take a long, hard look at yourselves. When she’d finished pogoing (a natural response, even to the plastic variety), Junior took a long, hard look at the sleeve and declared Jamie “green”. And that’s not all: he even “sounds green, like a tree.”
Röyksopp get away with being coffee table dance bores because they’re Norwegian. Stick them in the Home Counties, and they’ll be held in the same esteem as Groove Armada, Morcheeba, Apollo christing 440. “Didn’t you make a good record once?” an aging hipster will say. “Yeah, that one on the advert,” will be their chipper reply. “Oh, and the one that Robyn rescued.”
And she does rescue it. This would be a hi-NRG SAW-era Kylie record (OK at the time, but in 2009?) if it wasn’t for the “killingest pop star on the planet” and her ability to make the mundane sound heartbreaking. She could make the Liverpool FC year-end financial figures sound dramatic and devastating. But instead, it’s the story of a poor girl ignored by her cold, workaholic boyfriend. He’s like a robot. He may even be a robot. After all, as well as sounding like 1989 this sounds like The Future. It’s a wormhole.
It’s also the key to unlock Junior’s dynamic array of disco moves, which now appear to include The Robot. Fortunately, she doesn’t look like Peter Crouch. My brother looks like Peter Crouch.
Too many people give Lily Allen a hard time, because of who her father is, because she’s got an unfettered mouth, because she writes songs that tell how it is – at least for a young LDN lady. She’s undervalued as an artist. She runs the full gamut of pop – straightforward catchy songs, ska, hip hop, even country – and somehow is taken less seriously for it. Where the hell was her Mercury nomination? Sweet Jesus, Glasvegas got a nomination. Kasabian got one.
‘The Fear’ is Lil’ at her best: sharp, witty, personal, snippy and set to the best pop hook of the year. For Junior, it means earnest school disco dance moves and her parents coughing loudly over the swearwords.
Everyone loves a good volte-face in music, particularly when it’s a rather wacky folk-pop outfit deciding to ditch the jarring ditties in favour of widescreen heartbreak-infused indie-country-soul. So imagine the world’s delight when Laura Marling dumped chief Noah head Charlie Fink, forcing him to lick his wounds and make an excellent album detailing his “I’m fine, really. Really, I am. OK, I’m not. But I will be” stance. That’s what The First Days Of Spring turned out to be, and lead single ‘Blue Skies’ was its ray of hope.
But we’re concerned with YACHT’s remix here. The DFA crew took Noah And The Whale’s big music, stripped it back and turned it Balearic – yet still retained the beaten-and-bruised hopefulness of the source material. Junior does jazz hands to it, and a lengthy impersonation of one squeaky vocal effect, sweetly undercutting any grand moodiness. I play her the original too, which she describes as “mad”. It’s what this blog’s all about: an unfathomable perspective.
New York reminds me of Christmas anyway, possibly through seeing When Harry Met Sally a dozen too many times, so it feels right to eulogise this love letter right now. But is it a no-holds-barred tribute? Alicia Keys’ commanding, spine-tingling holler sounds like a throaty homage, but The Hov swings between wallowing in the neighbourhood and caution-poem acknowledgement of those who have fallen by the wayside. It adds bite – “Mommy took a bus trip/Now she got her bust out” – and intrigue – “Good girls gone bad/The city’s filled with them” – to a big, ballsy anthem.
As I cue ‘Empire…’ up, Junior asks, “Will it make my shoulders go funky?” Built around samples from The Moments and Isaac Hayes, I should say so. She bounds about, dangerously overexcited, and seems to know every word of Keys’ contribution – until she starts singing her Nativity song over the top, sampling anew. Anyway, this one couldn’t fail to move her; it’s a tune as massive as Alicia’s champion asset.
Not ‘til this year did I realise I liked shouty Scottish “fight-pop”. Thanks to Dananananaykroyd for leading me into the light. ‘Black Wax’ is the closest thing to a proper song on their debut album, and of course they find it a bit wimpy with hindsight. It’s a kind of surf-pop with screaming, a real chorus and some lovely guitar meanders at the close – and seen live, they’re a blast.
On this play for Junior, the CD skipped like billy-o, but somehow it seemed appropriate, unhinged and jumpy. She clapped along to the choppy riffs and went for a bit of hoarse-throated yelling, just to get into the spirit of the thing. Tags like “fight-pop” conjure playground knockabouts. I doubt the Dananans are long out of primary school themselves.
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.
Jukebox Junior 