Low - Double Negative
When Low had almost completed work on their latest album, a bored studio intern rested his elbow on the wrong button and accidentally wiped over half the music with dusty fuzzy noises. Instead of starting the recording process from scratch, Low decided to weather the storm and just release the botched results anyway.
Lo(w) and behold it turned out to be the most critically acclaimed thing they’d ever done. Every reviewer on the entire planet was soon hailing Double Negative as the masterpiece Low had always promised, an apparently thrilling sonic evolution with its spilt-coffee white noise effects acting as some kind of metaphor for societal collapse.
I’m not saying those people are wrong but if your favourite Low album is the one on which you can hear THE LEAST AMOUNT OF LOW then maybe you aren’t really a Low fan at all. Maybe you should just detune your wireless slightly when listening to Radio 3.
(Having said that, the clumsy intern still proved himself a more talented knob-twiddler than Jeff Tweedy did on that terrible one he produced.)
Robyn - Honey
SHE’S THE CREDIBLE FACE OF POP MUSIC
SHE’S THE CREDIBLE FACE OF POP MUSIC
SHE’S THE CREDIBLE FACE OF POP MUSIC
SHE’S THE CREDIBLE FACE OF POP…
Why aren’t you listening?
I mean... why are you STILL not listening?
What do you mean you’re not interested?
SHE’S THE CREDIBLE FACE OF POP MUSIC
Hello? Hello? Where are you going? Wait.
She’s the...
The 1975 - An Online Inquiry Into Briefs
The latest album from Wimslow’s answer to leading INXS tribute band INXSIVE was promoted via a series of puff pieces printed in respectable publications with a clearly premeditated and sensationalist “my struggle with heroin” angle. Talk about glamorising the use of hard drugs to impressible young pop fans. Tell you what Matty “Matthew” Healy, come back to us when the habit’s gotten so hard you haven’t performed for over half a decade and you’re found dead from a speedball overdose like the sorry bloke from Alice In Chains. That’s what a real rock star looks like. Decomposing and surrounded by paraphernalia. Not nicely posing, surrounded by Pale Waves’s Heather.
Nine Inch Nails - Sandwich
Nine Inch Nails’ “ninth studio album” (six tracks, 30 minutes, £16.99 on vinyl from HMV) was conceived as a political protest record. However, during the recording process it soon evolved into a concept album about sandwiches. It includes the tracks ‘A Bread Of Ourselves’, ‘Starch Of The Pigs’, ‘Big Man With A Bun’, ‘That’s What I Baguette’, ‘Head Like A Wholegrain’, and ‘I Do Not Want This Ham And Cheese Toastie Because I Ate Too Much At Breakfast Time’.
Janelle Monáe - Dirty Computer
Thom Yorke - Suspiria (Music For The Luca Guadagnino Film)
“Look Jonny, I can do film music too. I can. I CAN. I can do film music too. Why do I keep repeating myself, myself, myself? I can do film music too. I can. I can do film music too. Filllmm musiiic toooo. Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon. Yesterday I woke up scoring a remake. Yesterday I woke up scoring a remake. Yesterday I... Ice age coming. Ice age coming. Why do I keep repeating myself, myself, myself? Look Jonny. Jonny, look. I can do film music too. I can do film music. I caaaaaan doooooo fillllllllm muuuuusic toooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...”
Chris Rea and The Queens - Chris
The ‘Driving Home For Christmas’ star sent shivers down the spine of the pop world earlier this year when he decided to shave off his famous beard, drop the second part of his name and reinvent himself as simply “Chris”. This was no fickle attention-seeking gesture, however. The freshly clean-faced Chris invented a whole new form of woke pop defined by its emotional inclusiveness, informed in its discussions of gender, sexuality and class, and steadily determined in its ambition to overturn masculine and feminine social stereotypes. Still had quite a lot of songs about cars, mind.
Ed O’Brien - 50 Shades Freed (Music For The James Foley Film)
Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien followed in the footsteps of his bandmate Jonny Greenwood by composing his first ever film score for the adaptation of E.L. James’ ‘milf filth’ novel Fifty Shades Freed. O’Brien noted that “Jonny’s just so far ahead - he understands orchestral works, he can read music, he’s studied it all” adding that “so I copied him but with more RUMPY PUMPY.”
Philip Selway - Avengers: Infinity War (Music For The Film By Whoever Directed That One)
Radiohead’s Philip Selway followed in the footsteps of his bandmate Jonny Greenwood by composing his first ever film score for the Marvel Comics superhero blockbuster Avengers: Infinity War. Selway noted that “Jonny’s just so far ahead - he understands orchestral works, he can read music, he’s studied it all” adding that “so I just copied the soundtrack from Avengers Assemble and stuck a new track on the end called ‘BIG CGI BADDIE MAKES FIFTY PERCENT OF CAST VANISH DRAMATICALLY THEREBY CUTTING STAFF COSTS FOR THE NEXT EXPENSIVE SEQUEL.’”
Colin Greenwood - Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (Music For That Stupid Abba Film)
Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood followed in the footsteps of his bandmate and brother Jonny Greenwood by composing his first ever film score for 2018’s jukebox-comedy-musical-sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. Greenwood noted, “Jonny’s just so far ahead - he understands orchestral works, he can read music, he’s studied it all” adding that “so I just forced Pierce Brosnan to sing ‘Morning Bell’ over and over again and insisted each one was a different original ABBA song. Nobody was any the wiser.”
