Friday 21 December 2018

SPINAL BAP'S TOP ALBUMS OF 2018



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
This is the greatest hits album we’ve been waiting for: all of Prince’s biggest hits packed onto one disc. Arguably the most influential artist of the 1980s, Prince is one of the very few musicians of this or any other era to find a massive and intensely loyal audience while still being praised by critics and musical contemporaries alike for his bold experimentalism and prodigious instrumental skills. His brash, high-energy mix of pop, rock, funk, and psychedelia picked up where Sly Stone left off, and the result was music that was revolutionary in its sonic experimentation and provocative fashion. This collection brings together the absolute best of Prince’s Warner Bros. recordings on one hit-jammed disc.


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.”



Wednesday 3 January 2018

HAPPY NEW GUY GARVYEAR



It has become virtually impossible to listen to the radio, switch on the television or enjoy an artisan pork pie in Manchester’s trendy Northern Quarter without being confronted by the ubiquitous bristles of Elbow frontman Guy Garvey. When not presenting his own 6Music radio show, he’ll be chatting to Lauren Laverne or Marc Riley about the latest Elbow studio album, best-of Elbow album, Guy Garvey solo record or collaboration with I Am Kloot.

He’s only gone and broken into television too, adding profound wisdom as a talking head on last year’s BBC4 Tom Waits documentary (“If I did what Tom Waits did, I’d be kicked out of Elbow”), ruining The Beatles on the John Lewis Christmas advert, and playing a cameo role in the acclaimed sitcom Peter Kay Berates A Ditzy Woman Who Is Deemed Less Intelligent Than Him In A Small Car For 30 Minutes.

It turns out all this was merely the first phase of Guy Garvey’s sinister plan to dominate the entire BBC schedule, as demonstrated by this glimpse at the forthcoming listings...

Radio
Desert Guyland Discs
Each week Kirsty Young asks a celebrity castaway to select which eight Elbow songs they would take to a desert island. They can also take a book with them, besides their complimentary proof copy of Garvey’s forthcoming autobiography Good Guy To All That. Episode 1’s guest is none other than the legendary Sir Guy Garvey.

TV
The Guy At Night
Not content with his daytime monopoly of the media, Garvey sleeps soundly while amiable scientists Maggie Aderin-Pocock and Brian Cox provide running commentary on the astronomical beauty of the snoring giant.

Elbow Selecta!
A reboot of Leigh Francis’ vulgar sketch show in which Garvey plays a grotesque caricature of resurrected chart botherer Craig David. Unlike Francis, Garvey doesn’t require a latex mask because his face is already unfeasibly huge.

Stars In Their Guys
The timely relaunch of the Matthew Kelly-presented talent contest in which members of the public impersonate pop stars. The twist here is that every single week all the contestants are forced to mimic the one and only Guy Garvey. It’s still less monotonous than The X Factor.

Film
Les Misera-Elbows
Big budget movie adaptation of the successful Broadway Elbow musical set in the nineteenth-century French town of Angoulême which as we all know is twinned with Bury, Greater Manchester. Craig Potter plays the anonymous “Elbow Member 00002”, imprisoned for stealing a loaf out of Doves’ feeble indie shtick. Sing along at home, everybody: “I dreamed a dream of Garvey, Guy / Rugged, handsome, Seldom Seen Kidding / I dreamed a dream of Garvey, Guy / Though I found his music to be middling...”