This would be single of the week even if it wasn’t a free download from his website. Because it’s GRATE.
Hey, ho, Emo Boy, give us all a smile…
Single of the Week
Archived Posts from this Category
April 27, 2009
MJ Hibbett – Being Happy Doesn’t Make You Stupid
Posted by britpopsurvivor under Single of the Week | Tags: Being Happy Doesn't Make You Stupid, MJ Hibbett, Single of the Week |Leave a Comment
March 27, 2009
Röyksopp – Happy Up Here
Posted by britpopsurvivor under Single of the Week | Tags: Happy Up Here, Röyksopp, Single of the Week |Leave a Comment
I’ve never really cared for Royksopp, thinking them the preserve of Pitchfork types. But their new single is very pop, sounds like a kid’s tv theme, and delays the hook brilliantly. I’ve heard it six times now, and I think once I’ve heard it 20 times I won’t wish to be stuck in a lift with it, but for now: you know, I really like it.
Also, the video has space invaders in it.
March 5, 2009
Art Brut – Alcoholics Unanimous
Posted by britpopsurvivor under Single of the Week | Tags: a record collection reduced to a mix tape, Alcoholics Unanimous, Art Brut, headphones on I make my escape, I'm in a film with a personal soundtrack, I'm leaving home and I'm never gonna come back, Single of the Week |[4] Comments
I just heard the new Art Brut single on the radio, so it’s officially my single of the week.
I really like Art Brut. They sound everything and nothing like a lot of my other favourite bands. They’ve written my favourite song about forming a band (Formed a Band), my favourite song about having got oneself a brand new girlfriend (Good Weekend), my favourite song about Emily Kane (Emily Kane), and my favourite song ever, Nag Nag Nag Nag*, the lyric to which is my life, and is probably yours, too. No, it’s not about nagging.
On first listen, this new song doesn’t match up to those heights, but like most Art Brut songs it hits home because it’s true: brutal in its honesty but funny and charming with it. Art Brut are like a doomed, eccentrically dressed uncle – you just know they’re going to run away to sea at some stage, so appreciate them while they’re around.
This one’s about drinking, and being at work all day hungover, and admitting to not admitting to having a problem. It basically describes my life of about X** number of years ago, when I’d regularly turn up to work on a couple of hours sleep, in the same clothes I left work the night before, giggling with the idiocy of it all and drinking tea to stop my eyes exploding.
I look forward to their new album – the heroically titled “Art Brut vs. Satan” – with shaky-handed dependency.
—
* As with all favourite songs ever, this depends on what time of the day you ask me, how the stars are aligned, if I’m staring at the sea, if I’m angry, happy, or lovelorn, if I’ve had too much cheese, or not enough sleep, or what have you. It changes all the time. But right now it’s Nag Nag Nag Nag.
** As in long enough ago for it to be comfortably distinct from my life now, but not long enough ago to keep me off my toes. Take that, idiom!
February 27, 2009
Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career (single)
Posted by britpopsurvivor under Single of the Week | Tags: Camera Obscura, London Popfest, My Maudlin Career, Single of the Week |Leave a Comment
I’m heading to an all-day twee-pop massacre tomorrow, so I thought it fitting to end the week with this. Hey Lloyd, I’m just about ready for a new Camera Obscura album.
Ok, so it’s no dancefloor stormer. But it’s a lovely, languid, lazy summer’s day shrug of a tune, and for that I salute it – or possibly give it a high five.
A respectful nod as I pass it in the corridor, at the very least.
December 18, 2008
The Boy Least Likely To – The First Snowflake
Posted by britpopsurvivor under Single of the Week | Tags: Christmas songs, Single of the Week, The Boy Least Likely To, The First Snowflake |Leave a Comment
The Boy Least Likely To sound like they need to snort many liquified sprouts and bite the heads off of 100,00 turkeys before they develop the strength to compete with the big boys of my seasonal top ten. But this charming – if slight – christmas effort has the advantage of not being by The Wombats, and so deserves the dubious award of being Britpop Survivor’s Slightly Grudging Christmas Single Of The Week. I’m sure the boys will be very proud.
The video is quite nice, as I’m sure we’ve all considered hitchhiking north to find the snow that never seems to visit us southerners these days. But while watching it I couldn’t help but feel it would have been much improved if, rather than finding the snow they were looking for, our plucky twee heroes had instead become trapped in a giant wicker man and burnt to death while screaming Christmas hymns.
Merry Christmas!
December 8, 2008
Rose Elinor Dougall – Another Version of Pop Song
Posted by britpopsurvivor under Single of the Week | Tags: Another Version of Pop Song, ex-pipette, Rose Elinor Dougall, The Pipettes |[3] Comments
Single Of The Week time again, a mere three weeks since the last Single Of The Week here at Britpop Survivor towers.
Rose Elinor Dougall used to be in rapidly disintegrating girl group The Pipettes. Rosay was the best Pipette – this is scientifically true and I can prove it with complicated pie charts – and her debut single is worth getting pretty excited about. Gone are the 60s stylings of her previous group; instead we have a stereolab sheen and a beautifully sung love song that speeds along as smoothly as Eurostar does (when the tunnel isn’t on fire).
And don’t worry: there are hand claps.
November 18, 2008
Emmy The Great – We Almost Had A Baby
Posted by britpopsurvivor under Single of the Week | Tags: Emmy The Great, Single of the Week, We Almost Had A Baby |Leave a Comment
I’m not getting the hang of this, am I? Last week I wrote about something that isn’t out until next month, and now I’m writing about something that came out last week.
It’s appropriate, because I keep missing Emmy The Great. On many occasions I had tickets to see her live, but no-one would come with me, and gigging alone is terrifying (while giggling alone is brilliant). Also, I did own her early singles, but now I can’t find them, and I worry that I left them on a bus, or in the suburbs, or merely dreamt that I bought them in the first place.
I have been waiting for what seems like an eternity (but is in fact around eighteen months) for her to get around to releasing an album, and I was beginning to despair that she was going to be one of those artists who releases a few awe-inspiring early singles, then falls between the floorboards* and gets a proper job instead of making the most of their talent**.
But no, she’s in for the long haul – the album is out next February, and We Almost Had A Baby is the first single from it. It’s not as wonderful as last year’s Easter Parade, but then few things are. Doo Wop acoustic loveliness: File under P for ’songs about Pregnancy Scares’.
* Yes, in my mind proper jobs exist below the floorboards. Take mining, for example. That’s a proper job.
** Hopefully she will mind the cracks and follow in the footsteps of Dazza Hayman, who she interviews in appropriately gushing fashion here.
November 14, 2008
The Leisure Society – Last Of The Melting Snow
Posted by britpopsurvivor under Single of the Week | Tags: Last Of The Melting Snow, The Leisure Society |[7] Comments
This isn’t released until 15th December, and when I say released, I don’t mean that lots of shiny trucks distribute this slice of delightful whimsy to record shops across the land, to be deposited into the nation’s ears via the begrudging service of surly shop assistants. No, it’ll be available to download on iTunes, whatever on earth that is.
But even so, it’s still single of the week, even though singles, and weeks, are outmoded concepts now. I should rename this section ‘track of the nanosecond, dude’, and I should put a baseball cap on backwards and surf off a mountain wearing a jetpack. In a gnarly fashion.
You can’t imagine this band wearing baseball caps. Judging by the background to their myspace page they come from the future, albeit a future in which all live in giant caverns underground, wear comfortable jumpers, and ride around on monorails, while waiting for the surface to become habitable again.
To my ears it’s unshaven early Beta Band meets Fence Collective meets Shakin’ (I mean Sufjan) Stevens. What I’m trying to say is if it catches you at the right moment, perhaps before you’ve cynically hardened yourself to the world (I do this when I’m cleaning my teeth), it’ll make you cry.
“And America seems a long way to go / as we hide ourselves in the last of the melting snow“.
Incidentally I am going to ignore this band’s lazy advice, and go to America anyway.
October 31, 2008
Chris T-T – We Are The King Of England
Posted by britpopsurvivor under General ranting, Single of the WeekLeave a Comment
Loathe as I am to see this blog briefly turn into a single-issue party, but there we are. This is Single Of The Week.
It’s strange seeing this video, as it brings back memories of what never was. It was filmed in California in February of this year, you see, and I was also in the area, braving the shithole known as LA for my friend’s wedding. I was desperate to catch one of Chris’ shows, to confuse him by turning up and hopefully making him think I am a proper-mad stalker.
Unfortunately the dates and the stars never aligned, so it never happened. Ah well – next time I am coincidentally in the same far-away country as one of my favourite singer-songwriters, I will be sure to see them. Possibly while wearing a crude cardboard mask of their face.
Anyway, read more about Mr T-T here, and buy his single here.
October 3, 2008
Dirty Rotten Soul – Nat Johnson
Posted by britpopsurvivor under Single of the Week | Tags: Monkey Swallows The Universe, Nat Johnson, Sheffield |Leave a Comment
Nat Johnson – formerly of the swoonsome Monkey Swallows The Universe – unleashes her roller-skating, bearded men seducing new direction.
