POP BITES OF A T4 MUSIC MAESTRO
2008 Preview Part One
Happy New Ear To You All,
There seem to be a lot of the 'January... what’s the point?' feelings knocking around. So if you’re one of the many feeling 'way down in your shoes' let’s try to lighten the load slightly, without going to the extreme of staging a musical, with the aid of some ace new pop music.
There seem to be a lot of the 'January... what’s the point?' feelings knocking around. So if you’re one of the many feeling 'way down in your shoes' let’s try to lighten the load slightly, without going to the extreme of staging a musical, with the aid of some ace new pop music.
Initially I thought I’d have Five Fab new tracks to champion in the New Year but it actually turned into a Funzie 15... and then a Top 20, and then I stopped counting. If you thought that the Klaxons had a whiff of Spandau/Duran circa 1982 about them last year, then positively stinking of Yazoo comes Hercules And Love Affair. Straight outta New York this is the new Antony And The Johnsons-fronted project on the DFA label. Antony’s organic voice sits wondrously on top of the battery-farmed throbbing synths and free-range trumpets and cowbells. By March the album will be on constant play in the more hip boutiques and by summer it will have reached the high street stores. The Yazoo revival starts here!
Also from NYC is MGMT with ‘Time To Pretend’. The sight of singer Andrew VanWyngarden topless in the promo is already causing many to swoon. South Carolina’s finest, Band Of Horses, at last release ‘No One’s Gonna Love You' a truly beautiful song which according the press release "evokes images of moonlight gently glistening on the water", and for once you can believe a press release. The current crop of Brit Girls, all with cracking singles and about to release their debut albums, seems to be growing by the week with the likes of Adele Adkins, Amy Ann Duffy, Laura Marling and Beth Rowley. The race, it seems, is on to see who will have shifted the most albums and which one will be the next to make regular prison visits and backcomb/bleach their hair by the end of the year.
Not to be outdone but possibly outsold by the girlies are my four fave indie boy bands and leaders of the Math Rock 'phenomenon': Foals, Glasvegas, Friendly Fires, and The Courteeners, all of them about to release brilliantly individual debut albums, each containing a couple of future anthems. And finally what may well be the album cover and title of the year is Miss Dolly Parton with her ‘Backwoods Barbie’ album. More 2008 New Ears Tips next week.
You can now add or subtract your own views on the above by contacting me via Facebook.
By Nick Neads - T4's Head of Music
Also from NYC is MGMT with ‘Time To Pretend’. The sight of singer Andrew VanWyngarden topless in the promo is already causing many to swoon. South Carolina’s finest, Band Of Horses, at last release ‘No One’s Gonna Love You' a truly beautiful song which according the press release "evokes images of moonlight gently glistening on the water", and for once you can believe a press release. The current crop of Brit Girls, all with cracking singles and about to release their debut albums, seems to be growing by the week with the likes of Adele Adkins, Amy Ann Duffy, Laura Marling and Beth Rowley. The race, it seems, is on to see who will have shifted the most albums and which one will be the next to make regular prison visits and backcomb/bleach their hair by the end of the year.
Not to be outdone but possibly outsold by the girlies are my four fave indie boy bands and leaders of the Math Rock 'phenomenon': Foals, Glasvegas, Friendly Fires, and The Courteeners, all of them about to release brilliantly individual debut albums, each containing a couple of future anthems. And finally what may well be the album cover and title of the year is Miss Dolly Parton with her ‘Backwoods Barbie’ album. More 2008 New Ears Tips next week.
You can now add or subtract your own views on the above by contacting me via Facebook.
By Nick Neads - T4's Head of Music
