Much like everyone else in the cosmos, British (Berlin-based, we’re obliged to say) DJ/Producer (we’re obliged to say) Scuba got caught up in a Twitstorm earlier this year. I forget what. Now he’s a mainstay of the DJsComplaining account. So, bless him and all that, but let’s just concentrate on the music – ‘The Hope’ is a grab bag of hard 90s house tropes, hovering, blasting and Josh Winking in what they’re already calling a thrill-ride. It’s as crisp as a Walker’s.
Junior the musicologist identifies some castanets. I bet even Scuba didn’t realise he put them in there.
Saint Etienne are eating themselves, singing about the joy and anticipation of seeing their favourite band, of seeing themselves. Self-mythologising, London-mythologising, pop-mythologising. They’re so far into their navel, they’re sending shivers up their own spine.
And mine. I mean, look at this place, constantly turning over the past. This kind of pop nostalgia is catnip. Obviously, Saint Etienne’s celebration of that pre-gig buzz could apply to bands now, but “maybe they’ll open with… a top five hit”? Does anyone think like that now? You probably know exactly what they’re going to play by aggregating setlist.fm stats.
This did nothing for the girls, who scrapped over a toy ladybird. Junior admitted she liked the beat, but she wasn’t captivated by the feeling or the propulsive synth wash. Perhaps she’ll get fuzzy about this in a couple of decades.
Most of the Bat For Lashes chat this year has been about her standing there starkers on her album cover heaving an also-threadless man about. What could be, uh, naked titillation is in fact making a more artistic point about stripping herself bare, no ornament, no facade, and expressing an openness in relationships too. As she explains to Andy Welch here in an absorbing interview.
Phwoar. Sorry. But ‘Laura’ backs it all up, as unadorned as it is beautiful. There’s a glumness about it, but just listen and it’s a lovely pep talk to a cautious pal – and that chorus, that word in fact, hits like a graceful steam train. A hook so refined.
It prompts some interpretive dance from Junior, which seems right for Natasha Khan. There’s a touch of the aesthete about her, however good a straight-up popstar she could make. Junior 2 wants to dance on the table. She drinks in lyrics, you see.
I’mma party, I’m gon dance, put your hands upon my body
On my body, on my body, put your hands upon my body
I’mma party, I’m gon dance, put your hands upon my body
On my body, on my body, put your hands upon my body
I’mma party, I’m gon dance, put your hands upon my body
On my body, on my body, put your hands upon my body
I’mma party, I’m gon dance, put your hands upon my body
On my body, on my body, put your hands upon my body
I’mma party, I’m gon dance, put your hands upon my body
On my body, on my body, put your hands upon my body
Well, you get the idea with that. We’re no strangers to inanity here at Jukebox Junior, so we recognise a direct, concise message and appreciate the ease of the singalong. Junior responds the only way that makes sense – big fish, little fish, cardboard box – Junior 2 does a pointy routine and Junior 3 screws up her face and lip syncs. Which is a bit alarming. Must we feed this filth to our kids? In a tense, lucky escape they seem to think every word is “party” so it’s just bop-about nonsense.
Which it is, I suppose. And yet, and yet, that quasi-classical synth refrain suggests something deeper, that Wiley is satirising the booty bounce as he tumbles through existential quandary to existential quandary in a Grimeception nightmare.
We did the ‘Saturday Night’ dance to this cute pelting kitten of a dance-pop frippery. Well, if we’re getting picky I think we did the Macarena, but you know, details. Either way, 18 years on – EIGHTEEN YEARS ON – plundering Whigfield is fair game, or even long overdue. And this is a promotional song for Red Bull so it’s not exactly bearing any standards for purity of art.
In fact, Charli – one of the planet’s leading blogstars – doesn’t even sound as if she’s particularly arsed, coming on like the sulky teenager I’m looking forward to Junior being in (oh God) six years. Blogstar, blogstar. It’s a different stratum of pop, isn’t it? Amazing popstars, loved by daytripping indie boys, barely getting within a whiff of Reggie’s Top 40 cologne. Maybe Charli, Robyn and Solange are just rubbish popstars after all.
Junior’s now moved onto the funky worm and declares ‘I’ll Never Know’ “fabulosa”. It’s everyone else who doesn’t know.
Junior is 7. When we started our year-end countdowns on 7 December 2005 she was five months old and our No.20 single of the year was Gorillaz and De La Soul’s ‘Feel Good Inc.’.
In 2006 it was Secret Machines’ ‘Lightning Blue Eyes’
In 2007 it was Bat For Lashes’ ‘What’s A Girl To Do?’
In 2008 it was Hot Chip’s ‘Ready For The Floor’
In 2009 it was LCD Soundsystem’s ‘Bye Bye Bayou’
In 2010 it was Lykke Li’s ‘Get Some’
In 2011 it was Surkin’s ‘Ultra Light’
And now it’s Regina Spektor, exhuming a song from a decade ago and slapping on a bouncing, pop reggae rhythm track that you’d have expected to see Rockmelons fail to have a hit with in 1993. So it’s all about history today.
“I know this song,” says Junior, turning sharply to the stereo and draping her hair in her apple strudel and custard. “This is the best song ever,” projects Junior 2 (aged 4), hearing it for the first time. By the second chorus she knows all the words because she’s got a brain like that. Junior 3 (aged 2) just wants to get down and dance with her sisters. With every daughter we produce, this blog gets more complicated. That’s why I take six-month breaks – not laziness. No.
Spektor’s never been more than a kooky distant blip on my radar but What We Saw From The Cheap Seats is a deep-pile, affecting album and this is its shining pop moment. It also makes me want to hang out on Lexington and claim, “I love Paris in the rain”. I just love Paris when I’m not throwing up the previous night’s dinner from that place near Sacré Coeur. So that’s nice.
It’s not my fault, it just happened. The little worm has probably used that line too.
Anyway, I searched my conscience and found that this is a Benny Benassi record, so all good. And all good it is – I’ve not heard a record that so perfectly captures early 90s club euphoria since… since…
Read not too closely between the lines and this is deeply narcissistic, of course. Could Chris be singing about himself, kids? Isn’t he a little bit beautiful inside as well? Maybe he has rather smashing internal organs. Still, taken purely as an audio experience ‘Beautiful People’ is dashing, thrilling, direct, hangs on a superb hook and is about the only rave-synthed tune of the last five years that sidesteps a cheesy doom. Come on, it does.
All these songs are purely audio experiences for Junior. That’ll change, but right now she and her sisters can just enjoy chanting “Everywhere, everywhere…” and puzzle over how Brown can be singing both the title and the woah-ohs. We’ll discuss studio techniques another time.
Anyway, we agree on this one – “I like it the most of all the others. Bom-bom-bom [‘Super Bass’] and live your life [er, this] are *thumbs up*, the others are *middling thumbs* and *thumbs down*.” So there.
there’s a fire going out,
but there’s really nothing to the south
swollen orange and light let through
your one piece swimmer stuck to you
I think this is ‘Astral Weeks’, and the whole album is a son of Astral Weeks the album. It has a poetry wrapped up in the fug of memory, of magic, heartbreak and lost places. ‘Calgary’ is a rising storm with hooks too beautiful to remain composed in the face of, and anyway, Justin Vernon could make the TV Burp theme sound like a distraught elegy for Old Yeller.
Junior picks this up. “Oh, I know this one. Is it about someone dying?” Well, who the hell knows? It’s the impact that matters. As for her opinion – “The same thought that you think” – she’s learning Iverese.
So it should be No.1. It’s my favourite song of the year, but top spot goes to clearly the best single of the year. And it’s a disgrace.
Now I love a nine-minute record that doesn’t waste a second as much as the next man, so no doubt we’re all delighted to see this has placed so high. My wife says it’s very me, by which I’m sure she means it’s funky, addictive and a joy to have around the house rather than over-polite, unsexy and called Jeremy.
Jeremy Greenspan isn’t a very rock’n’roll name, is it? Further evidence from Junior: “I don’t like the singing. It’s not rock’n’roll like ‘Firework’.” Well, nothing’s as rawk as Katy Perry. Not even P!nk. Junior’s in the mood to examine this record, dismissing a banana ripple for more foodstuff-based suggestions: “What about one potato, two potato? You rip the skin off them too.” There’s, um, food for thought for Junior Boys’ fifth album.
In the end I catch her doing a strutting hip dance – moving like Jagger once more – in secret. That’s Junior Boys really, dance music to be enjoyed in private.
To deliver this skintight streak of acid soul, Hercules use three singers: one to, well, sing the song, one to say “Get up, get up”, the third to say “Ca-con-con”. Staggering. The last days of disco indeed.
It’s all very Fingers Inc and diva-defiant but goes to show just how fresh this kind of thing still sounds. There’s no way you can’t at least jerk your head around to ‘My House’. In a way though, it was a false start for an album that never quite catches fire like their wonderful debut; maybe that’s the absence of Antony, but I think these three singers do a fine job even with their ill-balanced burden.
Or do they? Over to Junior: “It’s a bit good. Not the singing, the instruments – they suit the singing.” I wouldn’t like to work out those royalties.
Jukebox Junior 