Emmy the Bloody Fantastic

Emmy The Great – live @ The O2 Institute, Birmingham, 19/03/16

It’s taken me the best part of a week to put finger to key and write this review. You see, I went to see Emmy the Great as a punter and a (new) fan, rather than with the express intention of writing about it. I’ve always been of the opinion that it’s better to write because you have something to say, because you feel compelled to, rather than simply for the sake of it (I believe the same applies to making music), so did I need to write a review of a gig I enjoyed just because I have a music blog?

Here we are, almost a week later, and I’m still thinking about the show and how Emmy played to a fairly small audience (I’d guess between 80 and 100 people, tops) in a relatively tiny room at the very top of the venue while another band I’d never heard of were playing a sell-out gig in the main room downstairs to what looked like thousands of teenage girls, and how those 80 to 100 people watching Emmy the Great remained fixed to the spot for the duration of her performance, hanging on to every word, every note, and how that same audience was also a little reserved but in a quietly reverent and politely starstruck kinda way – and NOW I feel the need to write about it.

As seems to be the case with many of the artists I’m enjoying at the moment, I was a little late to the Emmy the Great party. I’d always been aware of her name, but her music had never really been on my radar (no particular reason, but better late than never, right?). Then, having read a few glowing reviews of latest album ‘Second Love’, I decided to explore some of her work via YouTube and immediately realised what I’d missed out on. Said album was duly purchased and subjected to repeated listens until I found myself singing the lyrics to songs such as ‘Hyperlink’ and ‘Phoenixes’ in my head at random points in the day.

Anyway, on to the gig. Emmy was fantastic, of course, as were her band: all four people on stage completely in sync with each other. She writes hypnotic, mesmerising songs which feel like layers are being peeled away as they progress, revealing greater depth and detail to the listener. Much of tonight’s set (quite understandably) draws from ‘Second Love’, although even a newcomer like me (who’s done his research, natch) recognises older songs such as ‘Dinosaur Sex’ and ‘Paper Forest’ (the latter closing the encore).

Her between-song banter is delightfully surreal, ranging from anecdotes about Lord Elgin (Google him), how weird it is that River Phoenix never owned an iPhone (before ‘Phoenixes’, of course, and just after she moves a pot plant decorating the stage to cover up the glowing Apple logo on a laptop) and inviting the audience to join her on a mission to ‘repopulate’ Mars – she later asks: “You’re all still thinking about repopulating Mars, right?” and when questioned on why she said ‘repopulate’ instead of ‘populate’, replies cryptically: “I guess I know something you don’t.”  

As part of her encore, she invites singer Grace Petrie (also there as a punter) onstage to perform one of her own protest songs (the brilliant, Billy Bragg-esque ‘Farewell to Welfare’) while Emmy perches on the crowd barrier and watches: the ‘no crowd surfing’ signs on the walls may not have been necessary on this occasion, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t an air of unpredictability about tonight’s proceedings.

It certainly won’t be the biggest audience she’ll play to on this tour, but as we all know, the best gigs are often also the most intimate. The kids downstairs in the main room who queued round the block for hours can keep their sell-out show because I know where I’d rather have been.

Next stop, Mars. 

The Brit Awards 2016: from A to Zzzzzz

You know, I was tempted to simply repost last year’s article, seeing as this year’s Brits line-up appears to be little more than a regurgitated hybrid of the past few years. I haven’t done that, however – I still respect you, even if the organisers of the Brits don’t.

Last year, I wrote what was effectively a chronological breakdown (in every sense of the word) of 2015’s audio-visual atrocity. I could easily have done that again, but it’s kinda self-defeating when you’re trying to criticise the rehashing of old ideas, so instead I’ve lovingly compiled the highlights (in no sense of the word whatsoever, in many cases) of this year’s ‘spectacular’ in the form of an A to Z, for no particular reason.

And yes, some of them are pretty tenuous, but work with me here…

A is for Adele, who probably does the most interesting thing of the entire evening by dropping an F-bomb approximately 85 minutes in after Major Tim Peake announces (from space and everything!) that she’s won yet another fucking award for her godawful caterwauling. That said, if you think she sounds bad on record, her speaking voice is something else entirely – in an alternate universe, she’d be running the caff in EastEnders or gaining meaningful employment as a human burglar alarm.

B is for Bieber. The first artist to simultaneously hold the number one, two and three spots in UK chart history, apparently, which is odd as it all sounds like number two to me. He rather predictably wins the International Male Award (which I’m sure had absolutely nothing to do with the fact he was in attendance) and gives a speech lifted straight from one of those bullshit pseudo-inspirational memes about life being a journey and how we’re all on our own individual journeys. That’s true – after hearing that, I went on my own individual journey to the bathroom to reacquaint myself with my dinner.

C is for Coldplay, who demonstrate the truly wretched state of mainstream British music by being named Best British Group. They also open the show with a performance so reserved that it may as well have a German beach towel slung across it. Chris Martin plays his battered old piano whilst rocking back and forth like someone who swats imaginary pigeons, the drummer looks like he was rudely awoken just seconds beforehand and the other two decide to alternate between playing their usual instruments and a set of additional drums, for no apparent reason. I would wager this is what the producers think passes for an explosive, on-point show opener these days and yet the end result is probably one of the most underwhelming, by-numbers performances yet at any Brit Awards ceremony, as Coldplay slip ever further into predictable self-parody. One question: do you think the other three members of Coldplay actually know they’re in Coldplay?

D is for Dec and Ant, also known as Ant and Dec. It’s their third (and thankfully final) year of hosting and this means we have to endure a whole evening of two excitable Geordie foreheads in designer suits harping on about “upping their game”. Not sure what their game was, exactly, or how they think they’ve upped it, but tonight they could have beamed in a hologram of any Ant and Dec hosting job from the past decade and no one would have noticed the difference.

E is for ecstacy, as in something which might make sitting in that audience even vaguely enjoyable.

F is for fire – and lots of it. That’s literally all I can remember about Justin Bieber’s performance. While he’s undoubtedly as popular as ever (maybe even more so), he’s really not doing anything that Justin Timberlake hasn’t already done a hell of a lot better.

G is for Gary Oldman, who comes on to accept the Icon Award for David Bowie. It’s clearly an emotional occasion and no one can blame one of our nation’s finest actors for wanting to pay tribute to one of our nation’s finest musical legends, but you can’t help feeling everyone in that arena is wondering how long Oldman’s speech is going to go on for…

H is for hairy, which could be used to describe Jack Garratt, winner of this year’s Critics Choice Award, who has a rather alarming hair and beard combo, giving him the appearance of a graphic design student who works part-time in Urban Outfitters. He sits there taking advice from last year’s winner, James Bay, who tells him to ‘keep doing what you’re doing’, by which I assume he means keep folding those jeans and hand in your coursework on time. On paper, he sounds like he should be an interesting proposition (“brilliantly talented multi-instrumentalist”) but in reality he sounds exactly as you’d expect someone who’s won both the Brits Critics Choice and BBC Sound of 2016 accolades to sound: relentlessly pedestrian.

I is for International Female, deservedly won by Bjork who has the honour of being the only winner of the night not to be present at the ceremony (I’m obviously not including Bowie here). Instead, she sends an acceptance video in which she appears to be wearing melted plastic over her face. Unlike Lady Gaga, Bjork’s kookiness never feels contrived. Treasure her.

J is for James Bay. This year’s George Ezra, I guess – he sounds like every over-ambitious busker on every city centre street corner and you’d probably struggle to name more than one song. The only real difference is that Bay looks a bit like Jack White, if he’d been styled by River Island and the Amish. He wins British Male Solo Artist and duly accepts his gong from Kylie before rotating on the spot, apparently unsure which direction to face (a common problem tonight, thanks to the circular stage in the centre of the arena). To his credit, he seems humble enough, but there’s no escaping the fact that his win is exactly what’s wrong with this year’s awards.

K is for K-hole, as in you’d probably need to be stuck in one to enjoy much of tonight’s ceremony.

L is for Lorde. The rumours about who would be taking part in tonight’s Bowie tribute hadn’t been promising – Noel Gallagher and Chris Martin (with whom Bowie had famously refused to work) were among the names touted. In the end, it was Lorde who stepped up to perform ‘Life On Mars’, accompanied by Bowie’s own backing band. A beautiful, subtle and, above all, fitting tribute.

M is for Mark Ronson, who still irritates the living shit out of me for reasons which have yet to become entirely clear.

N is for Nick Grimshaw, who comes on with Cheryl Whatever-Hernameis to present the award for British Breakthrough Act. It goes to the appallingly named Catfish and the Bottlemen (I’m sure there’s probably some ‘hilarious’ story behind it but frankly I don’t give a shit) but all I can think about is the fact Grimmy’s head appears to be at least four times the size of Cheryl’s. Feeling slightly disturbed.

O is for One Direction, who, despite technically not really existing at the moment, manage to win the British Artist Video of the Year Award. Two boys in suits who look like they’ve drawn crude beards on their faces in felt tip accept the award. It’s good that they’ve given the work experience kids something to do.

P is for Pam Hogg, who designed this year’s statue and thankfully succeeded in ensuring she didn’t repeat Tracey Emin’s mistake of making 2015’s trophy look like an ornament in your gran’s downstairs toilet.  

Q is for: “Quick, Adele’s about to swear, press the mute button... oh, never mind.”

R is for Rebekah Brooks. Oh no, wait, sorry – it’s Jess Glynne. If I’m honest, she’s not been on my radar at all and I’m pretty sure I’m not in her key demographic. That aside, she has one of the least pleasant-sounding voices I’ve heard since Sam Smith. Still, if the music career doesn’t work out in the long-term then she could probably make a pretty reasonable living recording those warning klaxons used when bin wagons are reversing.

S is for Simon Le Bon, this year’s token Veteran Pop Star Who Looks Like He Doesn’t Really Know Why He’s Here. Good of him to take time out of his undoubtedly hectic schedule to be here tonight.

T is for Tame Impala, who scoop the International Group Award. Pleasant surprises (or indeed ANY surprises) at the Brits are few and far between, but this is definitely one of them.

U is for underwhelming, which is exactly what British music SHOULDN’T be, right? Maybe the bigwigs at the Brits missed the memo?

V is for varying degrees of mediocrity. Fifty shades of Bay, if you like.

W is for white, as in: “Wow, the Brits seem overwhelmingly white tonight – I wonder why they chose to overlook the many innovative black artists who made fantastic music over the past year in favour of yet more homogenised River Island balladry from skinny, long-haired, hat-wearing white boys with guitars or miserable, watered-down blue-eyed soul from whining white women who’ve been ploughing the same stale creative furrow for the best part of a decade?”

X is for xylophone jazz-wobble tech-hop, a genre woefully under-represented at this year’s Brits, to the point where there were no xylophone jazz-wobble tech-hop artists nominated at all. I’m writing a very strongly worded letter to my MP as we speak.

Y is for years and years. Not the awful pop three-piece of the same name, but the amount of time I feel is passing with each excruciating second of Adele’s closing performance. I note she’s playing it safe by not wearing a cape.

Z is for Zzzzzzzzzzz. Wake me up when LEVELZ are nominated for Best British Album, okay?

Going all the way to the top

Hip Hop Hump Days #10: 

LEVELZ – LVL 11 (2016)

Yeah, that’s right – 2016. I’m using a column that is (with the exception of the Rough Trade compilation I reviewed last time) normally reserved for revisiting classic hip hop albums released in years beginning with ‘19’ to write about a mixtape released JUST LAST MONTH.

Why? It’s simple really - I only heard ‘LVL 11’ for the first time three days ago and I’m already convinced it’s a modern day masterpiece, a future classic in the making. I’m trying to remember the last time I heard a hip hop album as fresh, as inventive, as utterly compelling as this… and I’m still scratching my head.

LEVELZ are a 14-strong collective of rappers, DJs and producers from straight outta Manchester. I know very little else about them, but that’s not important right now because what I DO know is that ‘LVL 11’ not only DEMANDS your full and undivided attention, but manages to hold it through each and every one of its 13 tracks AND leaves you wanting more.

Refreshingly, ‘LVL 11’ is entirely free of those lazy ‘skits’ many hip hops artists rely on to pad out albums. No fillers here – we’re talking exceptional quality from start to finish, an exhilarating showcase of smart, on-point lyrics, breath-taking vocal dexterity (with Mancunian accents in full effect, of course) and crisp, clean production.

This is an album literally bursting at the seams with ideas, which is to be expected when so many different people are bringing something to the table – and yet it never sounds too busy or crowded. Musically, they cover a phenomenal amount of ground, from filthy-but-fresh grime (‘Look Who It Is’, ‘LVL07’) to gloriously hypnotic G-funk (‘King Of The Disco’, ‘Bow Wow’, ‘Slow Down’) through to exuberant dancehall rhythms (‘Rowdy Badd’ – one of the album’s highlights for me) and even Bukem-esque liquid funk (album closer ‘Jazzface’). There’s also razor-sharp social commentary in the form of the fantastically frank ‘Drug Dealer’, while the punchy but humorous ‘Dickhead’ is probably one of the most unapologetically British hip hop tracks you’ll hear this year.

I don’t know what they put in the water in Manchester, but there isn’t a single duff track here – each song bristles with the same boundless energy and enthusiasm: these guys aren’t just fantastically talented at what they do, they actually sound like they’re having fun doing it too.

Astonishingly, for a group who’ve just turned in one of the best albums of the year (and yes, I know it’s only February), it seems LEVELZ are still unsigned. On the one hand, this is utterly staggering because their music very clearly deserves to be heard as many people as humanly possible and yet, for many, it’ll slip under the radar. On the other hand, however, ‘LVL 11’ is an album of pure, undiluted, uncompromising music which its creators have made on their own terms. Crucially, this means it’s free of the curse of major label interference – no one’s looking at pie charts, thinking about market demographics or trying to write a radio-hit-by-numbers. Fuck that shit.

‘LVL 11’ is available to download from the group’s Bandcamp page. You can pay as much or as little as you like. I trust you’ll all do the right thing, because albums this good genuinely don’t come along very often.  

Back to the fusion

Sound Advice #3: 

Cornershop – When I Was Born For The 7^th Time (1997)

Let’s start at the beginning.

It’s a hot July afternoon in 1993 and my 13-year-old self and a school chum have just walked through the gates of a free music festival taking place in the grounds of a stately home in Nottingham. It’s my first proper gig (I say ‘proper’ because my first gig was actually East 17 earlier that same year, but I won’t tell if you won’t) and we’re looking forward to seeing a ‘Modern Life Is Rubbish’-era Blur later, even though they’re not deemed big enough to headline (that honour goes to textbook crusties Back To The Planet). 

Walking past the stately home in question, we head down the hill towards the deep, bass-heavy rumble emanating from the huge tent at the bottom. I can’t yet make out the song being performed inside but as we get closer I recognise the people on stage: Cornershop.

Just two EPs into their career at this point (the excellent ‘In The Days Of Ford Cortina’ and ‘Lock, Stock and Double-Barrel’), the band make deliciously raw post-punk noise-pop reminiscent of The Jesus and Mary Chain. To the side of the stage sits a sitar player, his delicately plucked notes piercing through the dense wall of feedback and crashing drums, seemingly out of place and yet also making perfect sense. It’s chaotic, it’s noisy… and obviously brilliant. To a 13-year-old in a Nirvana T-shirt whose dad will be picking him up at the end of the night, it’s nothing short of a revelation.

The kids down at the front in long-sleeved T-shirts are going wild, naturally. Immediately in front of me, a middle-aged guy sporting a trilby, leather jacket and rucksack leans casually on one of the tent poles, arms folded, swinging his head from side to side in time to each alternate beat as he surveys the swarming moshpit ahead of him – he’s been there, done that, but he’s still having fun.

Looking back, though, one thing is clear: no one in that tent, not even the band, would have predicted that five years later Cornershop would be performing live on Top of the Pops, having scored a number one single. From the very start, the band were unashamedly outspoken and direct in their approach: the name ‘Cornershop’ referenced an all-too-familiar stereotype still prevalent in Britain today, as did the fact they pressed their debut EP on ‘curry-coloured’ vinyl. Their first Melody Maker feature in late ’92 saw them burning a Morrissey poster outside EMI’s offices (Moz’s label at the time) in disgust at the singer’s disastrously ill-conceived flirtation with far-right imagery. They were also notable for being the only all-male band to be embraced by the Riot Grrrl movement. In short, they weren’t about to compromise their politics and principles for anyone.

The original line-up burning the Morrissey poster in late 1992

Fast forward to 1997 – Cornershop now have two albums under their belts in the shape of 1994’s ‘Hold On It Hurts’ and 1995’s ‘Woman’s Gotta Have It’. Both great, but destined to remain cult classics – although the latter did offer a tantalising glimpse of a more funk-tinged direction, as did a handful of low-key 12” releases from side project Clinton, indicating that Cornershop were starting to outgrow their earlier sound.

If ‘Woman’s Gotta Have It’ laid the foundations for a more dance-orientated direction then ‘When I Was Born For The 7^th Time’ represented the crystallisation of those ideas, achieving the simultaneous feat of being both their most experimental and accessible work to date. It felt like everything had now fallen into place: here was a band who had found their niche.

‘Sleep On The Left Side’ still feels like a strong choice of opening track, with its hip hop beats (one of several tracks co-produced by Dan The Automator) and earworm melodies setting the scene for the next hour’s musical journey. ‘Brimful Of Asha’ you already know, of course, but it’s important to remember that this is the original, definitive version, with its warm, reassuring, bluesy guitars building up to a truly gorgeous string-filled climax. I always felt that the Norman Cook remix stripped away a lot of the original song’s soul, but maybe that’s just me?  

‘Butter The Soul’ is one of several (largely instrumental) hip hop-influenced numbers peppered throughout the album, alongside ‘Chocolat’, ‘Coming Up’, ‘It’s Indian Tobacco My Friend’, ‘Candyman’ (featuring vocals from Justin Warfield) and ‘State Troopers’, showing just how far the band’s music had evolved in the two years since their previous album. It’s fair to say some of these pieces wouldn’t have sounded out of place on a Mo’Wax compilation, which is certainly no bad thing.  

‘We’re In Yr Corner’ feels like a logical progression from ‘6am Jullandar Shere’ from ‘Woman’s Gotta Have It’, with Tjinder Singh’s Punjabi vocals sounding like a rallying cry soaring over a sitar-drenched accompaniment. ‘Good Shit' (renamed 'Good Ships' for its single release) and ‘Funky Days Are Back Again’ show Cornershop at their most funky, demonstrating that it’s possible to write decent songs for listeners AND dancers.

‘What Is Happening?’ is an experimental sound collage, layering snatches of spoken word samples (creating a ‘channel-surfing’ effect), scratching and space-age sounds over hypnotic, bubbling dhol rhythms interspersed with affirmative handclaps. ‘When The Light Appears Boy’, meanwhile, features Allen Ginsberg (who died just five months before the album’s release) reading one of his poems while what appears to be a street carnival takes place outside (you half expect Ginsberg to stop reading and stick his head out of the window to tell them to keep it down).

Country and folk influences are also present and correct in the form of ‘Good To Be On The Road Back Home Again’ (featuring Paula Frazer) and a quirky and genuinely wonderful Punjabi language cover of ‘Norwegian Wood’, which closes the album.

Next year will mark two decades since ‘When I Was Born For The 7^th Time’ was released – the same age that ‘Never Mind The Bollocks’, ‘Low’ and ‘Trans-Europe Express’ were in 1997.

Nearly 20 years later, ‘When I Was Born For The 7^th Time’ is still a record worth talking about and, more importantly, listening to.  

The stars look very different today: a tribute to David Bowie

Like many people, I woke up to the news. In fact, I was literally woken up by the news. My radio alarm clock crackled into life in time for the 7.30am bulletin. I was sure I’d misheard them. I sat bolt upright, paused for a few seconds and then reached for my phone. I’d received a text message 40 minutes earlier from a very dear friend. It read simply: “Bowie is dead!”

I’d heard correctly, of course.

I immediately felt compelled to write something about David Bowie, his music and why the world was now suddenly a much poorer place without him in it, but of course I had to go to work (real life can be both a gift and curse sometimes), so I’ve spent much of the day trying to work out exactly what I wanted to say. Goodbye productivity.

Here goes…

How does one sum up someone like Bowie? To refer to him as a singer and songwriter, or even a musician, is to do him a great disservice. He was an artist in the truest and purest sense of the word. Sure, his career hasn’t been without its questionable choices (Tin Machine and that duet with Jagger are obvious examples) but, ultimately, he has never made music just for the money (although he made plenty) or to appeal to the widest possible audience (even though his music often did) – he did it because he genuinely felt a need to express himself creatively, often captivating and confounding in equal measure.

Never one to rest on his laurels, Bowie has been through almost as many incarnations and personas as The Fall get through bassists. It’s a well-worn cliché to say this, but you genuinely never knew what he was going to do next – and even when he returned with a completely new musical direction, it was still unmistakeably Bowie. Crucially, it never felt false or forced; it just felt like Bowie being Bowie.

For me, what really made Bowie stand out was that he was truly individual in everything he did – a genuine one-off. No one else has come close to matching the innovativeness and sheer eclecticism of his rich canon of work. Seriously, when was the last time you heard anyone described as ‘the next Bowie’? Come to think of it, when did you EVER hear anyone described as that? It’s really no exaggeration to say that we will never see his like again.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Bowie refused to fall into the comfort zone of becoming a ‘heritage act’, instead continuing to push forward and make music on his own terms right until the very end, as clearly evidenced on astounding final album ‘Blackstar’. Released just two days before his untimely death, the album now takes on a whole new poignancy when you realise that its creator recorded it knowing he was on borrowed time (producer Tony Visconti described it as Bowie’s ‘parting gift’, which is both heart-breaking and heart-warming at the same time).

While many in his situation might have been tempted to give up, Bowie instead turned in his most creative and intriguing work to date, blending space-jazz, frenetic broken beats, post-apocalyptic funk and even techno-tinged rhythms. ‘Blackstar’ and its equally lauded predecessor ‘The Next Day’ (his first album in a decade) revealed a reinvigorated Bowie clearly still bursting at the seams with ideas – it seems so cruel and unfair for him to be taken from us at a time when he was not only producing his finest work in decades, but most likely still had so much more to offer, if he’d only had more time on this earth.

Like Lemmy, Bowie was someone we probably all took for granted – we assumed he would always be here and now we’re going to have to adjust to a world without him.

Goodbye Spaceboy and thank you for the music. Safe journey home.

2015: an alternative review (part 2)

As promised, here’s part 2 of my alternative take on 2015. Same format as part 1, but a different set of irritations. Dig in, you beautiful, beautiful people…

Kanye West

If there should ever come a time when a man is permitted to marry a cloned version of himself then it’s a safe bet that Kanye will be first in line. I know you want to tell me that he’s a genius, an innovator, a true maverick, and that strutting around alone on the Pyramid Stage in filthy decorator’s overalls under a job lot of lightbulbs constitutes some sort of triumph over his critics. You’re entitled to your opinion, of course, but please don’t expect to sway mine any more than I would expect to sway yours. I used to have a great deal of respect for Kanye – he made genuinely decent music and wasn’t afraid to speak out on issues such as homophobia – a stance largely unheard of in hip-hop circles. But somewhere along the line he has become so absorbed in his own self-importance and the apparent need to remind anyone that will listen (and even those who won’t) that he needs to be respected as an artist that he has effectively been reduced to self-parody. I’m resigned to the fact that he could shit in a paper bag on stage and people would still declare it the boldest artistic statement in the entirety of written history, but personally I’d find him a whole lot easier to respect if he didn’t persist in being a dick at every given opportunity. You’re rich, famous and successful – what are you still trying to prove, and to whom?

Music award shows

I’m going to let the Mercury Prize off the hook here because although it’s been responsible for some highly questionable winners in its time (hello, M People), it does at least recognise that British music extends beyond the lukewarm, play-it-safe fare of Ed Sheeran, James Bay, Sam Smith and Adele. Nope, my ire today is reserved specifically for the Brit Awards and the BBC Music Awards, which may as well be one and the same given their relentless pursuit of celebrating the offensively mediocre. My thoughts on this year’s Brits can be found here and speak for themselves. The BBC Music Awards are basically more of the same, but with Chris Evans (now dyeing his hair a rather fetching ‘Chernobyl sunset orange’) and Fearne Cotton (apparently still a thing) doing their whole ‘we’re still down with the kids, honest’ shtick, desperately trying to convince themselves as much as anyone else that we’re all having fun celebrating The Best of British Music. Rather predictably, the awards were dominated by the wailing banshee Adele (who couldn’t even be arsed to turn up) while Song of the Year (the only category voted for by the public) went to Hozier’s dismal Take Me To Church. That’s right: THERE WERE NO BETTER SONGS THIS YEAR. Honestly, some people don’t deserve ears.

Justin Bieber

Hasn’t he grown up a lot? Hasn’t he matured as an artist? Wasn’t ‘What Do You Mean?’ such a wonderfully strong choice for a comeback single? The answer to all of those questions is, of course, NO. He may look a little taller, a little more tattooed and have a ludicrously lop-sided haircut but he still comes across in interviews as a spoilt brat with absolutely nothing to say for himself. ‘What Do You Mean?’ is the most sorry-sounding, directionless excuse for recorded music I’ve heard all year, not helped by that incessant, panpipe-heavy ‘tropical house’ masquerading as a backing track. Even David Guetta would probably dismiss it as ‘too generic’. That clear enough for you, Justin? Textbook fucked-up child star.

The X-Factor

A confession: I didn’t actually watch it this year, but that’s okay because apparently neither did anyone else (for the most part, anyway). Each year, this low-brow corpse is subjected to the ritual humiliation of being dug up from its grave, dressed in new clothes (from River Island, naturally) and paraded through the streets under the pretence that it’s still new, fresh and relevant. Except viewers are now starting to get wise to the fact they’re being made fools of and switching over (or off). They’ve seen their reflections in the polished turd Cowell’s presenting to them and it’s all starting to feel a bit tired and smell a bit stale. Maybe people are fed up of watching twat-for-hire Grimmy and Rita Ora (from the mean streets of stage school) coming across like your uncle and aunt trying to be down with the kids. Maybe the new presenting team of Murs and Flack didn’t resonate with the viewers in the way that O’Leary apparently did. Maybe people have just stopped caring about someone with a predictable sob story (and a tabloid-unearthed assault/drug/theft conviction) being moulded into whatever Cowell thinks hysterical teenage girls or bored housewives will go for. One thing has always been clear, however – the best thing about X-Factor is clearly earlier in the series where the proudly deluded and genuinely tone deaf are given their five minutes of fame and then ritually rejected from the competition (even better when they storm back in to tell Cowell he’ll be sorry when they have a number one album and their toothless face is adorning billboards across the world). Trouble is, a show focusing entirely on this element would either be tantamount to bullying or the greatest outsider music showcase you’ve ever seen. With that in mind, let’s leave the corpse to fester in the ground next year, eh, Si?

Martin Shkreli

I grow more and more convinced each day that some people are put on this earth with the sole purpose of showing everyone else what a complete and utter twat looks like. A case in point is Martin Shkreli, a snivelling excuse for a bunch of cells who has had both the best and worst year. The kind of person who would genuinely wipe his arse on bank notes, Shkreli first came to the wider world’s attention earlier this year when he acquired the rights to HIV drug Daraprim – and promptly hiked its price by an eye-watering 5,000 per cent from $13.50 to $750 a pill, giving the rather dubious excuse that the extra profits would be used to develop an ever better product (but only after tweeting about raising a middle finger to his critics). He also reportedly paid $2 million for the only existing copy of a Wu-Tang Clan album – although to be fair, no one bought their last commercially available album anyway. His luck now seems to have run out after he was arrested on suspicion of running a Ponzi scheme at his previous company, prompting him to resign as CEO of his present company (are you keeping up with this?). Let’s see the twat buy his way out of this one.

2015: an alternative review (part 1)

2015, eh? It’s been a year of ups and downs, and all that… blah, blah, blah. You’re probably sick of reading about the highlights of 2015 by now, so in keeping with my own personal tradition, here’s a slightly different take on some of the year’s events in the world of music and popular culture in general, with a tiny smattering of politics (but not too much) thrown in for good measure. Part 2 to follow very soon.

Adele

To be clear, I have no issue with Adele as a person. I’ve no idea what kind of human being she is but I’m more than willing to tolerate her continued existence. What I do have an issue with, however, is the hype which surrounded the damp sleeping bag of a third album she saw fit to unleash on us this year. I don’t think anyone was expecting a radical change in direction (a psychedelic jazz-funk opus, for example) but surely the most hardened Adele fan (I’ve no idea how such a concept would even manifest itself) was hoping for more than a tepid regurgitation of EVERYTHING ADELE HAS EVER DONE IN THE HISTORY OF ADELE BEING A THING? Everything about this album smacks of a total lack of imagination, from the uninspiring title (looking forward to ’86’) through to the same lazy preoccupation with trying to patch up shitty relationships. And that’s before we even get to the music, which is basically the aural equivalent of the bitter disappointment experienced on discovering that the cup of tea you’d be looking forward to has now gone cold. It’s a truly sad indictment on the British music industry when this utter puddle of whinge breaks all sales records. She’s getting away with murder and we’re all letting it happen.

Sam Smith

Maybe I just hear things differently to other people. I remember having a conversation with someone at university about M People caterwauler Heather Small and how her voice really grated on me – an opinion met with genuine surprise from the other party who genuinely felt she possessed a perfectly fine voice. History is now repeating itself in the form of Sam Smith. A work colleague agreed with me that his songs were dull, dreary and largely forgettable and then added “but what a voice though, eh?”. See, where a lot of people are apparently hearing the saviour of British soul music, I’m just hearing the incessant whining of a child about to break into a full scale tantrum because his mum won’t let him go to a family wedding dressed as Spiderman. His voice is not only unremarkable, it’s also downright unpleasant to listen to, like a shrill, never-ending apology for wetting the bed. Sometimes, if you listen hard enough, the sounds he emits form actual words. He also has the distinction of making a Bond theme worse than Madonna’s ‘Die Another Day’, something anyone with ears had hoped wasn’t physically possible. Like I say, maybe I just hear things differently, but there are times when it would be preferable not to be able to hear at all.

Donald Trump

There was a time when The Donald was little more than a figure of fun because he didn’t really understand how hair worked and, let’s face it, Trump means fart (if you’re British). And fart jokes never stop being funny, right? In short, he was seen as an eccentric but ultimately harmless character, a bit like Simon Cowell, Lord Sugar or Mr Bean. Somewhere along the line, however, he’s turned into some sort of bright orange bouffant Hitler, spouting the type of venomous rhetoric which ended in old Adolf lying face down in a ditch, on fire. I don’t know whether Trump actually means it, whether he’s just saying what he thinks ‘his’ kind of people want to hear or whether he’s just trying to see what he can get away with, but one thing is clear: if you were standing next to him at a urinal, you’d sure as hell splash the fucker’s shoes.

NME

Yeah, it went free and, in the process, defied accepted science by actually being worse than it was before. Cover stars since they stopped expecting people to pay good money for the ‘pleasure’ have included Sam Smith and that gimp from Twilight who went back for seconds when they were handing out eyebrows. Inside, the magazine is so dumbed down that its few remaining staff may as well come round to your house and act out its contents using brightly coloured sock puppets. As a product, it’s clinging on for dear life but as the go-to music magazine of record, it died a long, long time ago. What a shame it wasn’t allowed to float off to the great newsagent in the sky with at least a modicum of dignity still intact.

TFI Friday

Admit it – if you had your own TV show, wouldn’t you just fill it with your mates and things you like? That’s basically always been the formula for TFI Friday, which made a long-awaited and much-trumpeted return to our screens this autumn following a successful anniversary special in June. But now the dust has settled it’s becoming all to clear that the new series has failed quite miserably to live up to expectations. The format remains largely unchanged and all the familiar ingredients are still there, but it no longer seems to work. Evans grates in a way that he didn’t back in the ‘90s (even when he was in the grip of his very public meltdown) and the whole ‘look at me, I’m rich, I have famous friends and can get away with anything’ vibe no longer feels like good-natured, laddish banter, but now has a distinctly vulgar tone. The music has been dire (U2, Justin Bieber, Coldplay, James Bay, Texas, to name but a few), making Later With Jools Holland look like the Bangface Weekender in comparison, while the celebrity interviews feel stilted and awkward, punctuated by pointless little skits and routines shoehorned into the show for the sake of it. In the 90s, TFI Friday worked perfectly because it captured the alcopop-fuelled lad culture of the Britpop era, but in the 21^st century it just feels like you’re listening to a particularly embarrassing speech full of jokes which fail to land given by an obnoxiously inebriated relative at a family party. Come in TFI Friday, your time is up.