Metallica (pictured) might yet be spared their blushes as it turns out most people are looking elsewhere for their music criticism and reviews.
Music criticism is apparently being rubbished by fans as they begin to seek muso advice from other sources.
Professional opinion is being ignored by eight out of ten consumers who are favouring online reviews from music stores and social networking sites for the latest reviews of albums and gigs.
E-commerce firm Avail Intelligence conducted this latest Trust Index research which showed 40 per cent of respondents preferred information sources such as the iTunes Music Store and the iLike Facebook application.
The opinion of family and like minded mates came in at the top though with 41% of the vote.
On top of this the ability of the internet to be a successful platform for the sale of music is being questioned.
Fifty-one per cent of people said they prefer to purchase CDs while 25 per cent opt for digital downloads.
At the moment the average spend on CDs is £9 per month. Due to the minimal cost of electronic tracks that’s around 38 per cent of an equivalent digital music spend.
Dr Rolf Elmer, chief executive at Avail Intelligence, said: “What this research shows is that today's consumer is more informed than ever and that personalisation will be critical for e-tailers looking to stand out.”
Some of this change can be attributed to the now common use of social networks to launch new artists such as Lily Allen and Arctic Monkeys and the diversity of these sites.
Discuss: What do you think of these revelations? Is our opinion null and void? Surely not!?
This discussion can be found on Drowned in Sound with other pieces by Dean Samways.
Would-be suburban poet laureate Mike Skinner has debuted four new Streets tracks from his forthcoming album online.
Mike Skinner posted the offerings as a medley of snippets on the band's Myspace pace.
The tracks include ‘The Escapist’, ‘The Way Of The Dodo’, ‘The Sherry End’ and ‘On The Flip Of A Coin’
The teaser comes a month before the Brummie beat master is expected to preview more new songs at a special Brighton gig on August 10. Skinner will be joined by N*E*R*D for the Vodafone TBA beach party. And the rain the rain it cometh down...
Everything Is Burrowed, the fourth album from The Streets, is due out later this year.
This news story can be found on the Quietus with other pieces by Dean Samways.
With the cleaning up and rebranding of the Reading and Leeds Festival sans-rubbish dishwater alcohol, the new bands tent has gone through somewhat of a metamorphosis.
As of this year the smallest of the stages at the festival formerly known as The Carling Weekend will be called the Festival Republic Tent.
Headlining this stage will be Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip, Elliot Minor and The Kills (pictured above).
This year the Reading and Leeds Festivals will take place over the August Bank Holiday weekend of 22-24. More information here.
This news story can be found on Drowned in Sound with other pieces by Dean Samways.
A rift opened up in the masterly anthem-penning partnership that is Dizzee Rascal and Calvin Harris today.
Harris (pictured above, cunt) has begrudgingly stated that he deserves more credit for the current UK number one ‘Dance Wiv Me’.
Speaking to the Daily Star the singer/producer (pictured) claims that fans do not realise how much of his work was put into the project:
“I'm slightly frustrated with those who just think I sing the hook. I did the beat, of course. But never mind, I'm made up that Dizzee is at number one.”
Seems Dizzee was right to have Harris only 'featuring'. There’s not been a true duet since Aerosmith and Run DMC.
Have a look at the said single below:
This news story can be found on Drowned in Sound with other pieces by Dean Samways.
Sabbatical-loving Bristolians Portishead have spoken of their plans for a new album – and revealed that they’ll no longer be setting forth musical nuclear wind in the live auditoria of the world.
Talking to BBC 6 Music this morning guitarist Adrian Utley told fans, “We are thinking a new album, that’s partly why we’re not touring enormously. In 1998 we toured for a year and a bit and it just crashed us. None of us wanted to see each other for a while after that.
“We got together the other night discussing stuff and getting a bit of a plan together.”
But Utley added that these writings will probably hit the cutting room floor before they get to work proper: "I mean we have got stuff, but we'll start again - that's what we want to do.”
With other commitments like families and various side-projects it seems touring will be the first sacrifice made by the band in order to keep writing: “We’re all gonna be doing stuff. We’ve finished our touring for this album for this year because of things that we want to do.
“To be at home with our children, very young children. I mean really, just babies - it is an important time and I don’t want to miss that.”
Watch 'Machine Gun' by Portishead below:
This news story can be found on the Quietus with other pieces by Dean Samways.
Icelandic ambience mongers Sigur Ros have revealed that a barny with legendary producer Flood "kicked us up the arse" during the recording of their tongue-melting new album Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust
Flood, best known for his work with U2 and Depeche Mode, didn't immediately see eye-to-eye with his charges. "There was a clash," lead warbler Jonsà Birgisson told The Sun of the Canute-like standoff. "Flood came to Iceland and we were already in the middle of writing songs. But Flood doesn't work like that - he usually works with a band from scratch and writes with them until the end. We had been writing for 14 years so his methods were a bit hard to take on board. He kept butting in, saying, 'Oh, why don't you put a guitar here or there?' and we'd reply with a firm, 'No!'"
"So we sent Flood home and finished writing our songs - and after that he was perfect. He did help. He has this great focus and works hard. He kicked us up the arse."
As well as a beef with the famous desk jockey, Birgisson told the popular daily that single 'Gobbledigook', was written after the band survived the tedium of this year’s Eurovision camp-off.
Birgisson said "We wrote ['Gobbledigook'] on the night of the Eurovision song contest. We were in a rented farmhouse, it was a long evening, we watched the whole contest, and afterwards our brains were so fried we had to write 'Gobbledigook'."
The song’s title may appear to poke fun at the song contest but there’s actually an entirely different meaning behind it. "It translates badly into English. [In Icelandic it] means some sort of prank. Something like things going wrong, like roofs falling down on to your head."
Watch 'Gobbledigook' performed by Sigur Ros with Bjork at the Naturra festival below. It's gold for the eyes:
This news story can be found on the Quietus with other pieces by Dean Samways.
Let’s not kid ourselves: This Is Not The World was almost the album that never happened. So many great bands fold after being dropped by major labels, so it could have been easily assumed that The Futureheads would follow the likes of Hope Of The States into the history books.
The band’s third album always had to be something much more than a return to form, then; it had to make a statement of longevity that would welcome in Nul Records-era Futureheads and see them through this challenging new chapter. Considering the magnitude of the task they’ve pissed all over it, laughing their socks off.
The Sunderland four-piece would’ve been forgiven for taking on the task with a degree of restraint, approaching this LP with a fear of pushing their evolution too far, too soon. But the only back-pedalling here is evident in the absence of two-minute raging pop songs and the presence of very definite structures: verse, chorus, verse, bridge, chorus, chorus. However, This is Not the World remains a frenzied dash through stunning build-ups and punk poundings.
The disco angst of patented material brazenly shines through, but there’s a suggestion of dissent where there used to be unashamed fun. The opening track and first single ‘The Beginning Of The Twist’ is a call to arms, proclaiming an imminent shift in something chaotic; it’s already the song of a picture of great big middle digit pointing skyward from a tightly clenched fist. And why not?
After all, following their dumping by former label 679 this was always going to be a retaliatory record. Documenting many of the feelings and exploits in the aftermath, these 12 songs are dark in places with hints of confusion about where the band currently is.
‘Walking Backwards’ is deceptively chipper; it cries out in confusion, not knowing a role or direction. Suffering the abuse of an oppressive body, the entire album is a mouthpiece for a creative freedom not felt for a long time.
Built of compounded riffs and sliding basslines ‘Sale of the Century’ is a Pumpkins anthem that Billy Corgan never penned, a crude anger outlet. Snapping between darkness and traditional liveliness the transition is so blatant and underhanded it sounds like a cut and paste job. This is overshadowed by the extraordinary outro: a complex unravelling of missed drumbeats and guitar interjections that morph into something almost unrehearsed.
The new single, ‘Radio Heart’, is something very different. Wetter than what surrounds it, it longs for a girl with a transistor blood pump. Sticking out like a sore thumb, feels like an afterthought addition with standalone cuts firmly in mind. Some will expect this album to bash the music industry throughout, from the electronic hum of a second in to the record’s climax 39 minutes later, but it’s peppered with inoffensively tuneful offerings that need, maybe, to grow some balls to really keep such company. Then again, no band can be angry all the time.
That said the standout track is a post-love song chronicling the transmission of advice from one friend to another as he tries to get over a girl. There’s something brutally honest about ‘Hard To Bear’: “You lock yourself in your room / You keep your curtains closed to help seal in the gloom / Your bedclothes still stink of her stale perfume / But you hope the smell doesn’t vanish too soon.”
Another highlight attacks that destroyer of life, routine. ‘Everything’s Changing Today’ is a boozy emancipation from being stuck in a rut every night to becoming a social butterfly; the kind of escapism all bands offer their fans.
In places this album is the statement it should be, a Trojan Horse bringing down one of the biggest symbols of capitalism from the inside. It’s a shame then that, sometimes, the quartet chooses to equip themselves with teaspoons and not chainsaws to do the job. Still, it’s one almighty journey through realms uncharted by The Futureheads thus far, and it’s done in fine form.
Being dropped from a label is something many of us can only empathise with. Perhaps as gutting as your mum throwing you down the stairs, but apparently not. According to reports The Futureheads have never felt so creatively free since splitting with Warner. It maybe a pushy maternal instinct to see your creation to thrive but to cut them loose when the second album proves a commercial miss is a bit much. Kicking shit into the eyes of the majors, they’re now doing it their way. This tour, the album, ‘The Beginning of the Twist’ are the fires whence this phoenix rose.
Ever confident and holding absolute belief in their new mission, Sunderland’s favourite sons storm through ‘A to B’, ‘Area’ and more. Turn to a friend, chat to a neighbour and you’ve already missed the opening numbers. The playful aggression nurtured at Fantastic Plastic Records suddenly seems a lot more belligerent tonight as mettle is tested. Despite this serious rites of passage, Barry and Ross maintain a mischievous mood demanding people dance as if at the school disco just as ‘Skip to the End’ explodes from the setlist. Barry’s new hair, a throwback to a This Is England age, and raged filled expressions stand juxtaposed to his request for everyone to sing along mimicking the call of the seagull.
The effort in making ‘Stupid and Shallow' and ‘Meantime’ as dance-able as humanely possible has been used to demonstrate growth in the band with new songs reflecting a maturity that’s not all pretense and pomp; that is if you overlook the ballroom timing of the future hits. Ross announces proudly: “The next one starts in waltz time”, the title track of ‘This Is Not the World’ that is. You’d be forgiven for thinking the boys are catering for the Strictly Come Dancingaudience as the last song started in tango time. The current single and the ‘Man Ray’ encore indicate that they’re definitely not turning into pounces as the din peaks at stadium rock anthem levels.
There’s a natural pause in the ‘Man Ray’ lyrics while the music ticks over mercilessly. The four Futureheads each graciously thank the crowd for dancing the school disco salsa to which a roar silences the instrumental din to reassure the band that while 679 Recordings may have deserted them their fans certainly won’t.
How the fuck do they do it? How does Ninja stay so ecstatic, so enthusiastic, so hyperactive through entire gigs? Then there’s the high-legged, arm-flailing dances. Tonight the hysteria isn’t born in the crowd; it streams from the stage and infects the hip congregation as they feed on the energy. The Go! Team never seem to tire and, on top of this, each member of the Brighton crew possesses an enamel-rotting sweet smile that’s going to either make you sick or envious. The fun starts now.
Tonight Ninja’s squeezed into a tiny green top and the most fashionable black bin liner skirt but she doesn’t stay still long enough for you to appreciate it. Before long she’s running on the spot, windmilling and bellowing at the peak of every leap. Beyond Sam, Jamie and head-honcho Ian, the wandering guitarists who dodge and weaver around the little rapping dynamo, the pace of the evening is blisteringly hammered out.
The two drum kits hypnotize but as you watch and listen you’ve got to ask whether or not they add anything musically. Thankfully Chi steps out from her skins to sing the most adorable ditty as an interlude while Ninja disappears for a costume change. Either side of this uncharacteristically subtle intermission the band rage between tracks that stretch between Super Furry Animals homage to a driving soundtrack arranged to throw hulking Cadillacs into cardboard boxes for no particular reason.
‘Grip Like A Vice’ may be a skip-rope anthem suited and booted in leg warmers and faded retro vests, but ‘The Power Is On’ is the coolest playground power track with hints of action figure fights and sandbox skirmishes. The tempo is so rampant you’d think they’d need a sit down but a sip of water and they’re back on it. ‘Huddle Formation’, ‘Bottle Rocket’ and ‘Ladyflash’ are already Go! Team classics, vintage with their Grandmaster Flash-era beats.
Last year’s Proof Of Youth album has consolidated the band’s mainstream status. Tonight’s hearty versions of ‘Titanic Vandalism’, ‘The Wrath of Marcie’ and ‘Doing It Right’ sound like themes from programmes that give kids mini-scramblers to race up and down slagheaps. Amazing! This is their beauty: the electroclash of retro on retro, white pop and black rap, producing a universal party sound. The fusion’s so perfect tonight that I’m not sure if I want to go home and play with Transformers or continue my dissertation. What year is it again?
2 Many DJs, !!!, ...and you will know us by the Trail of Dead, 22-20s, Adam Green, Adele, Air, Albert Hammond Jr., Ambulance Ltd., Amy Winehouse, And What Will Be Left Of Them?, Animal Collective, The Animals, Anthony & The Johnsons, Apes, Aqualung, The Arcade Fire, Arctic Monkeys, Art Brut, Ash, At The Drive-In, Au Revoir Simone, Audioslave, Auf Der Maur, Babyshambles, Badly Drawn Boy, Battles, Be Your Own Pet, The Beach Boys, The Beastie Boys, The Beatles, Beck, Bedouin Soundclash, The Bees, Beirut, Belle & Sebastian, The Beta Band, Billy Corgan, Bjork, The Black Keys, Black Kids, BRMC, Black Sabbath, Bloc Party, Blondie, The Blood Brothers, The Blueskins, Blur, Boards of Canada, Bob Dylan, The Bravery, The Breeders, Brian Wilson, British Sea Power, The Buff Medways, Burning Brides, The Buzzcocks, Cajun Dance Party, Caspian, Cat Power, Cave In, The Charlatans, the Chemical Brothers, Chrome Hoof, Clap Your Hands And Say Yeah, The Clash, Clinic, Clor, Coin-Op, Cold War Kids, Coldplay, The Cooper Temple Clause, The Coral, The Courteeners, The Cribs, CSS, The Cure, Cut Copy, Daft Punk, Damien Rice, The Dandy Warhols, Dangerdoom, The Darkness, The Datsuns, David Bowie, De Facto, The Dears, Death Cab For Cutie, Death From Above 1979, Death In Vegas, The Delays, Desert Sessions, Dirty Pretty Things, The Distillers, DJ Dangermouse, DJ Format, DJ Shadow, DJ Yoda, Dies It Offend You Yeah?, The Donnas, The Doors, Doves, Eagles of Death Metal, Editors, Eels, 80s Matchbox B-Line Disaster, Elastica, Elbow, Electric Eel Shock, Electric Six, The Electric Soft Parade, Elliott Smith, Eric Clapton, Errors, Eurythmics, Every Move A Picture, Explosions In The Sky, Faithless, The Flaming Lips, Foals, Foo Fighters, iForward, Russia!, Franz Ferdinand, Fratellis, Fun Luvin' Criminals, The Futureheads, Gay Dad, Get Cape Wear Cape Fly, Gin Palace, Girl Talk, Gnarls Barkley, Godspeed You Black Emporer!, The Go! Team, Goldfrapp, Goldie Lookin' Chain, Gorillaz, Gossip, Graham Coxon, Green Day, Guillemots, Happy Mondays, Har Mar Superstar, Head Automatica, Hell Is For Heroes, The Hives, The Holloways, Hope Of The States, Hot Chip, Hot Club De Paris, Hot Hot Heat, Idlewild, Ikara Colt, Interpol, The Jam, Jeff Buckley, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Eat World, JJ72, Johnny Cash, Johnny Greenwood, Jose Gonzales, Joy Division, Juliette & The Licks, The Junket, Jurassic 5, Justice, Kaiser Chiefs, KaitO, Kanye West, Kasabian,Kate Nash, Kid carpet, The Kills, The Killers, Kimya Dawson, Kinesis, King Adora, Kings of Leon, The Kinks, The Klaxons, The Knife, Kyuss, LCD Soundsystem, Led Zeppelin, Lemon Jelly, Les Savy Fav, Lethal Bizzle, Liars, The Libertines, Lightspeed Champion, Lily Allen, Llama Farmers, The Long Blondes, Low, M83, M.I.A., The Maccabees, Madness, The Magic Numbers, Manic Street Preachers, Mansun, Mark Ronson, The Mars Volta, The Martini Henry Rifles, Maximo Park, McLusky, Medium 21, Mercury Rev, MGMT, Mika Bomb, Miss Black America, Modest Mouse, Mogwai, The Moldy Peaches, The Mooney Suzuki, Morning Runner, Morrissey, MSTRKRFT, Mull Historical Society, Muse, The Music, My Vitriol, Mystery Jets, N*E*R*D, Neil's Children, New Order, New Rhodes, New Young Pony Club, Nine Black Alps, Nirvana, Noah and the Whale, Oceansize, Of Montreal, The Open, Operator Please, Orbital, The Ordinary Boys, The Others, Outkast, The Paddingtons, The Parkinsons, Part Chimp, Patrick Wolf, The Pattern, Paul McCartney, Paul Weller, Pavement, Pendulum, Pete Doherty, Peter Bjorn and John, The Pigeon Detectives, Pink Floyd, Pink Grease, Pixies, PJ Harvey, Placebo, Plan B, The Police, Portishead, Postal Service, Primal Scream, The Prodigy, Pulp, Queens Of The Stone Age, Raconteurs, Radio 4, Radiohead, Rage Against The Machine, The Rakes, The Rapture, The Rascals, The Raveonettes, Ray Charles, Razorlight, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Reindeer Section, Reuben, The Rifles, Rival Schools, Rodrigo y Gabriela, The Rogers Sisters, The Rolling Stones, The Rumble Strips, Sam Sparro, Santogold, Seafood, Sex Pistols, Sigur Ros, Simian Mobile Disco, Six By Seven, The Sleepy Jackson, Smashing Pumpkins, The Smiths, Smokey Robinson, Snow Patrol, Soledad Brothers, Sonic Youth, Soulwax, Spacemen 3, Sparta, Spiritualized, Stephen Malkmus, Stevie Wonder, The Stills, The Streets, The Strokes, The Subways, Super Furry Animals, Supergrass, Syd Barrett, This Et Al, T-Rex, Test Icicles, This Et Al, Thom Yorke, The Ting Tings, Tom Vek, Tom Waits, Travis, The Undertones, U.N.K.L.E., The Velvet Underground, Vampire Weekend, The Velvet Underground, The Verve, VHS or Beta, The Vines, The Von Bondies, The Walkmen, We Are Scientists, Weezer, Whirlwind Heat, The White Stripes, The Who, Willy Mason, Winnebago Deal, Wolfmother, The Wombats, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Yeti, Yndi Halda, Young Heart Attack, Youth Movie Soundtrack Strategies, Zero7, Zwan
Goodbye.
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Fuck this shit. We're outta here.
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