I can't think of a title, or much else right now

I just want you to talk to me. Please...

I feel so happy!

It's like that bit in Spaced where they're dancing along in the middle of the pavement, all smiley and hugging everyone. Ah love...

V-Day!

A happy (or not so happy) Valentine's Day to you all! The final song is of course The Beatles' classic 'All You Need is Love' (how could it be anything else?!). By far the most widely recognised and famous song on the entire list, I reckon it's the perfect song to finish it off.

Now, if you'll excuse me I have a rather important matter to attend to...

As promised earlier, here is a shiny new review for you all! (of an old album...)

Portishead - Dummy
Right, from trip-hop to yes, more trip-hop. I only really started listening to Portishead earlier this week (I am the world's biggest musical slowpoke...) but I can already say that I like them more than Massive Attack. Why? Their albums are just consistently more brilliant, their songs far more haunting and their singer is just much better than any of the vocalists Massive Attack reel in (although for Hope Sandoval I might make an exception). Dummy is the best example of this; I haven't actually listened to Third yet but I'll be very surprised if it can beat Dummy's level of brilliance.

'Mysterons' starts things off with a chilling and appropriately sci-fi sounding (the Mysterons were the extraterrestrial villains in Captain Scarlet) loop before dropping into a rolling bassline/beat that carries you along with it and refuses to let go. The next track, 'Sour Times', is one of the highlights of the album and really takes things up a notch. The beautiful vocals from Beth Gibbons speak of despair and loss, as well as a burning desire for something distinctly out of reach (the chorus goes 'Nobody loves me/It's true/Not like you do'). A theme of despair seems to run throughout the album, with none of the tracks sounding particularly happy at all. This is no bad thing though. Portishead channel their collective complex of emotions beautifully through their music, this has the effect of drawing you in and leaving you craving for more.

It's not just the emotions running high either. They are clearly very talented; the soundscapes they create here are incredible, going from eerie to intensely powerful within the same song. Listening to Dummy feels less like listening to a trip-hop record and more like a complete thing, a thing about love, loss, despair and everything in between. 'Glory Box' is the perfect closer; it starts off with a lazy bassline (actually a sample) accompanied by Gibbons' ghostly vocals, before exploding into a cacophony of guitars that could be the soundtrack to the end of the world. It brings to mind the climax of Muse song 'Take a Bow'; the apocalypticness and huge sense of scale is still there.

So in summary we have a quite remarkable record here, one which will take every person who listens to it on a personal journey of their own. Just a little bit of advice: don't listen to it if you're feeling a bit emotionally fragile. It'll tear you to pieces.

Rating: 9/10
Released: August 1994

So throw those curtains wide!

One day like this a year would see me right!

I really wanted to use an Elbow song as one of the Valentine's songs, they're very very romantic so I was a bit spoilt for choice (even though I only have The Seldom Seen Kid). It's taken me a while to choose which one to use (I only wanted to use one song from each artist I used) but I finally settled on 'One Day Like This'. In the end it was a bit of a toss-up between that and 'Mirrorball'; they're both two of the most beautiful and romantic songs I know, by any artist. I'm not sure what made me choose the former over the latter... maybe 'One Day Like This' is just more obviously romantic (with 'Mirrorball' being a bit more subtle) and even if you don't know Elbow, you will likely recognise it. Therefore it gives me great pleasure to give you the penultimate song of my Valentine's Playlist: 'One Day Like This' by Elbow. If you haven't already heard it, first of all where have you been?! Second of all, LISTEN. Even if you know the song well, listen to it! It is vital music for the soul.

I've got a corker lined up for the final song tomorrow. With regards to tomorrow, I am very nervous, excited and scared all at the same time! I've never really tried anything like this before...

Oh and don't worry, I haven't forgotten. Review will be up later today!

It's Friday, I'm in love (doo do do do do do do doo...)

Don't worry, I'm not actually in love yet. That would be creepy and quite frankly ridiculous. It's just a lyric from today's song, which is of course the classic by The Cure. How could it be anything else?

On a totally unrelated note, may I introduce to you... BANANAS BRIAN!! I should probably explain, myself and a few others have set up livejournal accounts and started posting as fictional characters. These characters are all middle aged or elderly and all have hilarious names (generated by taking a boring name and putting a bizarre adjective in front of it. I wanted to alliterate mine just to make it that little bit funnier), they're also ridiculously exaggerated and have very old-fashioned points of view. Just read some of the posts by 'us'. You'll understand. As well as me, there is also Crazy Simon (Kayleigh), Dangerous John (Rachel), Wild Floyd (Adam) and Juicy Margaret (Heather). You should be able to find them from Bananas Brian's page fairly easily.

I was going to do a review of Dummy by Portishead today, but two nights of taekwondo on the trot really tires me out. You'll just have to wait 'til tomorrow, ha!

Teenage Kicks

Yet another classic tune for all of you's, today's song is 'Teenage Kicks' by The Undertones. I feel it describes that intense feeling of wanting someone all to yourself perfectly. I listened to Merriweather Post Pavilion (remember, that Animal Collective one?) for the first time in about a month today. I'd forgotten just how good it is, listening to it is just such a brilliantly happy experience. 'Brother Sport' (the closer) is definitely my favourite; words simply cannot do it justice for how incredibly uplifting it is.

There will be no review today, I'm far too knackered after taekwondo. Maybe you'll get one tomorrow. On another completely random note, Skins was well good today. This week's episode is definitely up there with my favourite episodes ever.

It Must Be Love

Of course, I had to include this one in the Valentine's playlist somewhere. It's a bonafide classic! I grew up on hours of Madness videos (we had a couple of brilliant compilations on VHS) so this is also quite a personal one for me. If you don't warm to this song (or even relate to it) then I'm afraid you don't have a soul. I'm sorry, that's just the rule. I can't wait 'til Sunday!

In other news, my next review should be up soon. I don't know what it'll be of yet, but I've been listening to a lot of new stuff over the last week or so (not new new, just new to me) and it's all pretty good so I shouldn't have trouble deciding. I'm afraid I'm going to have to end this one here and leave y'all with a short post again. You can't expect me to do a properly long post every day... that's just unrealistic. I'm only posting daily currently because it's special circumstances. Anyway, see you tomorrow!

Tender

The Blur classic is today's Valentine's song. I chose this one not only because it is a classic (and one of my favourite songs in general) but also because it can be interpreted in a lot of different ways. You could view it as a song of loss, a song for those waiting to fall in love, or even just for being in love. Listen to it, you'll see what I mean.

I've put it up at the top of the page, along with the others (including 'A Life Less Ordinary' just because why not) in a handy playlist-esque format. This is where all of the Valentine's songs I have chosen will end up eventually. That'll be all for now, goodnight.

MY POKEMANS

Let me show you them. Yes, it is once again that time of year (starts about one month prior to the release) where I get really ridiculously excited for a while about the current year's set of Pokémon games. I mean main series RPGs here, none of that shitty spin off stuff. The Pokémon game series has for a long time been one of my favourite game series' ever (even though I'm not much of a gamer) although I think that the main reason I get so excited is because they always get released so much earlier in Japan, so by the time the games come out over here I already know virtually everything about them. The upcoming games, HeartGold and SoulSilver, were released in Japan way back in September, which feels literally like an age ago. They see their release over here on the 26th March and I can't wait! As you may already know, they are the generation II (for those of you who aren't that into Pokémon, we're almost at the end of generation IV) games Gold and Silver remade for the DS. This is an insanely exciting prospect for me, as Gold and Silver are my two favourite Pokémon games (possibly my two favourite games ever...) and the fact that they're being remade for the DS can only be a really good thing (all the generation IV games have been on the DS; this has meant that they've been able to make huge improvements on previous generations, in all areas). Elements of the third gen II game, Crystal, will also be incorporated into the new versions and as such there will be no 'third' game in this set. To get back into a gen II sort of mindset, I have been playing through Crystal over the last week on an emulator I own on my computer (mostly because I haven't really played Crystal much in the past, and it's fairly different to Gold/Silver) and I've been having a blast. I'll admit, they aren't really the most difficult games in the world (I've already got all 16 badges and beaten the league...) but it's fun as anything. My current team is as follows:

'This Fire' the Typhlosion
Level: 51
Moves:

Strength

Swift

Flame Wheel
Earthquake

'Innocence' the Dragonair

Level: 51

Moves:

Iron Tail
Dragonbreath
Thunder Wave
Surf

'Helicopter' the Magneton

Level: 51 

Moves:

Thunder Wave
Thundershock
Tri Attack
Flash 

'Angel' the Espeon

Level: 51 

Moves:

Psychic
Cut
Bite
Shadow Ball

'Hunter' the Noctowl

Level: 51

Moves:

Dream Eater
Hypnosis
Fly
Confusion

'Waterfall' the Gyarados

Level: 51

Moves:

Waterfall
Hydro Pump
Icy Wind
Whirlpool




 

As you can see, I have a pretty awesome team. You may have also noticed that they are all named after songs; these are by the bands/artists Franz Ferdinand, Björk, Bloc Party, Massive Attack, Björk and The Stone Roses respectively. Anyways, enough about Pokémon. Deary me I am such a NERD.

I am still in the same romantic mood as yesterday; I can't seem to get away from it. Seeing as this is kinda Valentine's week I was thinking I might put up a romantic song or something each day of this week. You all got Muse's brilliant (well I think so) cover of the classic 'Can't Take My Eyes Off You' yesterday, today you can all have something a bit more old school. Now that I come to think of it, this song isn't really one you'd think of when coming up with a romantic playlist but it's fantastic anyway. So without further ado, here is the Jimi Hendrix classic, 'Bold as Love':

Can't Take My Eyes Off You

I am feelin' WELL romantic. Can't you tell?

You're just too good to be true, can't take my eyes off you
You'd be like heaven to touch, I wanna hold you so much
At long last love has arrived and I thank God I'm alive
You're just too good to be true, can't take my eyes off you

Pardon the way that I stare, there's nothing else to compare
The sight of you leaves me weak, there are no words left to speak
But if you feel like I feel, please let me know that it's real
You're just too good to be true, can't take my eyes off you

I love you baby and if it's quite alright
I need you baby to warm the lonely night
I love you baby, trust in me when I say
Oh pretty baby, don't bring me down I pray
Oh pretty baby, now that I've found you stay
Let me love you baby, let me love you

You're just too good to be true, can't take my eyes off you
You'd be like heaven to touch, I wanna hold you so much
At long last love has arrived and I thank God I'm alive
You're just too good to be true, can't take my eyes off you

I love you baby and if it's quite alright
I need you baby to warm the lonely night
I love you baby, trust in me when I say
Oh pretty baby, don't bring me down I pray
Oh pretty baby, now that I've found you stay
Let me love you baby, let me love you

Heligoland

Sorry it took a while for this post to appear, I've been a lazy sod again. I could've reviewed Massive Attack's new one Heligoland days ago, but I guess I'm just too good at procrastinating. On an unrelated musical note, Ash (one of my favourite bands) did a live performance/Q&A session yesterday, streamed for free from their website. I'm not sure why they did it (I just got an email telling me it was going to happen the day before) but I thought it was a great idea and more bands should do stuff like that to show their appreciation for their fans. They played a wicked set too (true, it was only 7 songs, but the guys chose them very well). It included my favourite Ash song, 'A Life Less Ordinary' (recorded specifically for the film of the same name). Ash have been releasing a lot of new material lately via their A-Z Series, a series of 26 singles released over an entire year, one single every two weeks. Anyway I've been properly getting back into them lately so in recognition of this (also, so it doesn't look like I'm completely Damon Albarn's bitch... I am anyway) I have changed the song at the top of the page to 'A Life Less Ordinary' and the subheading to said song's title. It's pretty appropriate seeing as the theme for my life recently seems very much to be love and it's a dead romantic song (well I think so anyway). Anyway, onto the review!

Massive Attack - Heligoland
I'll admit, I was really looking forward to this when I first found out about it. Massive Attack were pretty much dead as far as I was concerned; they hadn't really done much since 2003's 100th Window and that one basically passed me by as well. So to find out that they were actually going to release a whole new album for so long was pretty damn exciting. I don't really know what I expected from Heligoland, but I suppose I was excited to see if their sound had drifted off in a completely different and new direction.

To be honest, I was a bit let down when I first heard it. For the most part, Heligoland sounds like standard Massive Attack only a bit tedious and well... boring. There are a few moments on the album where they do really well (most notably 'Paradise Circus', 'Babel' and the previously released 'Splitting the Atom') but even these moments of brilliance don't sound very much different to stuff they were churning out over ten years ago. You'd think by now they'd be able to evolve their sound a bit. The bad songs aren't that terrible, they're just usually ruined by one or two elements. For example, 'Rush Minute' would be a good song if Del Naja's vocals weren't so shit; he just drones on in the same monotone for the whole song. In contrast, the main reason why 'Paradise Circus' is the album's high point is because of Hope Sandoval's beautiful voice (and a brilliant vocal melody).

For the most part Heligoland is a pretty dark album (even for them) with the exception of maybe 'Babel', a track possessing one of the most upbeat and jumpy beats they've ever created. The song still retains a fairly dark atmosphere, but you get so caught up in that swirly beat that it's not very noticeable. 'Pray For Rain', the opening track, is probably the darkest piece of music on here and isn't really the most obvious choice for an opener, but it works. The only problem with it really is it drags on a bit too long. Unfortunately Heligoland is niggled by loads of little problems like this all over the place and while it is a good album, it could have been a lot better.

Rating: 6/10
Released: 8th February 2010

Things are lookin' up

Yes, it's true. Exams are finally over (for another few months) and seeing Sia/Gabe/Kayleigh at the weekend made me happy. It's also half term soon (hurrah for another week off college!) and Valentine's draws ever nearer. For once that doesn't feel like a bad thing though. My plan is developing (makes me sound like some kind of evil mastermind/freak, although it's not really that complex) nicely and it'll be nice to break my habit of never doing anything on Valentine's. I was thinking about the fact that I've never gotten a proper valentine as well, and how happy I would be to receive one. With this in mind hopefully I'll at least be able to make someone pretty happy (and wasn't that the original point of Valentine's day anyway?) although I refuse to reveal who. I'm actually strangely optimistic about the whole thing. Normally the massive pessimistic side of my mind would be warning me not to get too excited, but I just somehow feel like it's all going to turn out okay. I hope I'm right.

So yeah, I feel really happy about everything for once. It actually makes me quite nervous, my natural pessimistic side is just waiting for something awful to happen (nothing ever seems to go this well for me, so it's logical for me to think something terrible will happen soon) and my mind is agitated trying to make sure I make no mistakes. Still, it's nice to be positive for once. Oh and the new Massive Attack album leaked over the weekend. On the first few listens I can happily report that it's looking pretty good so far. Full review coming VERY SOON.

It's also my Dad's birthday today. I know, it was only Mum's birthday the other day (they're only 10 days apart!) so it was quite stressful having to get something together for both of them in such a short period of time. I actually asked my Dad yesterday whether he deliberately got with Mum just because their birthdays were so near, he replied "Yeah, we organised it in the womb." He also went on to tell me that that's a very important factor to consider when choosing a partner. Yeah it is, depending on how much I want to annoy my future children. Thanks for that Dad, I'll be sure not to forget that one. Happy birthday as well, by the way.