Sportsday Megaphone

at last, i have returned to the world of blogging, apologies for the lack of any activity on here, but exams and all prevented me from relaxing.. but, its all done now, so check back regularly for new posts.


and here i am, having just finished watching last weeks episode of the inbetweeners on E4 and lo and behold, sportsday megaphone, my guilty pop pleasure, featured as the opening song. i have therefore decided it is finally time to blog the wonder that is sportsday megaphone

because its the most uplifting, simple, immature, colourful music i have ever listened to.i have been avidly listening for over a year now, but unfortunately he has only released one E.p (less an less). i adore all four songs on it, and they are all in my top 25 most played in itunes. its just one bloke with a synthesiser, drum machine, and a guitar, very simply chatting and singing over the top. and to be honest, on the first listen, your just gunna think.. what? and probably the same on the second, but after a few plays the tracks really start to grow on you and the endless synth phrases will stick with you for days. i truly recommend having a listen, and really giving it a chance, i did, and i am seriously glad, because it has managed to keep me upbeat and joyous throughout the past year and a bit.

i really do hope he manages to crack into the mainstream, because the world of pop could do with some good artists, especially one so light hearted. and i would love to see people wondering the streets humming and nodding their heads occasionally screaming 'loveboats!' or something of equal frivolity.

i was blessed with a comment from the man himself on my myspace telling me he had uploaded a new song, and i was overwhelmed with excitement. Young Lust also lives up to its predecessors and has evolved slightly from his previous work, but still carries the same attitude, and cheerful nature, and this time we hear some backing vocals from a lass.

i'm still gagging to see him perform live, but i'm also apprehensive that i would be the only one in the room singing along? so i've been saving myself until i see some sort of breakthrough into the mainstream, or even a mention in the nme to get the word out about how great this bloke is!

anyway, enough of my endless bummage, all in all, hes great
lovely when your down, lovely when your excited. just an all rounder

listen to anything you can find, theres only about 5 songs out there, so any will give you an insight i especially recommend 'one small page', it manages to tell a story, but in a very modern way and somehow in a way that i can easily relate to, and i'm sure other can. i don't know why, it just seems very normal, very truthful, from the heart.

www.myspace.com/sportsdaymegaphone

CHOOONS Of The Week

apologies for the lack of posts this week, my exams have started so i have almost no spare time on my hands at the minute, but heres my five favourite tracks of this week (again, in no order)

1.Elevator - Flo Rida featuring Timbaland







2.Lollipop - Lil' Wayne featuring T-Pain (Gabriel Antonio Remix)







3.Love In This Club (Part II) - Usher featuring Beyonce and Lil' Wayne








4.Standing Next To Me - Last Of The Shadow Puppets








5.L.E.S Artistes - Santogold (XXXChange Remix)

CHOOONS Of The Week

my five favourite tracks of this week (in no order)

1.Courtship Dating - Crystal Castles

fantastic new song from these two beauts, far slower than their usual material, but still with the unique 8 bit synth lines, and screamed lyrics.






2.In The Heat Of The Morning - Last Of The Shadow Puppets

apparently a bowie cover, but i cant find it anywhere, and i assume its a very early one. still a quality song, with a hard hitting chorus that gets me singing everytime.




3.Take The Weight - Blood Red Shoes

great song from the new album, 'box of secrets'. my favourite part is just them singing, with laura one line behind, the song then erupts into the usual blood red shoes distorted punk riff.




4.Two Doors Down - Mystery Jets

like something from an ad in the eighties, a really catchy tune as well. this song has got me very eager for the forthcoming album, "twenty one".





5.Numerology - These New Puritans

strange at first, but after a few plays the song starts to evolve and becomes an odd hybrid of a dance/techno song. classic tune

Blood Red Shoes

in this instance, love is an understatement. i am in pure utter adoration for everything this duo are. their looks, their music, their attitude, and i do fancy the pants off both of them.

seen them live four times now, and each time, the bar has been raised. for example the last time i saw them was at northampton soundhaus on the 2nd of april, and throughout their set they kept dropping hints about how great the previous night had been because they had "half the audience" on stage with them. the venue management/security didn't seem happy with this encouragement for anarchy, but because the stage is about a foot off the ground their was nothing stopping us. just before their last song laura asked the sweaty crowd ahead of her if someone wanted to come and play cowbell with them. i gladly stepped up to the mark, and had the cowbell in my hands. about 30 seconds into the song however, a few mates of mine decided to leap up there with me, and within seconds so had the entire mosh pit. because thirty odd teenagers had scrambled onto a stage made for a band of four, the security team intervened and threw some of us back. steve and laura however seemed more invigorated than before and finished 'i wish i was someone better' with enough power to blow every amp in a ten mile radius.

their album is also on par with their staggering live performances. the opening track is a tune and a half, 'doesnt matter much' will have you gagging for more, and just begs to be released as a single with the catchiest chorus i have heard in a fair while. you wouldnt think the words "lowlowlowlowlowlow, yeah! yeah! yeah!" could make such a killer chorus, but they really do. another track well worth a mention other than those previously released (you bring me down, i wish i was someone better, etc) is new single, 'say something, say anything'. much a like the usual material but something about this one sticks out from the rest, a very catchy song, definatly worth a listen.

i'm dissapointed with their popularity, i cant work out what it is either, originally i assumed their wasn't enough musical depth, with only two instruments, and two people. some also claim they are "too rock for pop, and too pop for rock" which i can understand, but the recent success of all too similar band the tings tings dispels this thought. people have said to me that they sound like the ting tings, but its completely the other way round, and yet somehow blood red shoes have come out worse. i'm not saying the ting tings suck, far from it, but they have stolen blood red shoes thunder, and taken their place in popular culture.

www.bloodredshoes.co.uk

Doesn't Matter Much - Blood Red Shoes

Take The Weight - Blood Red Shoes

I Wish I Was Someone Better - Blood Red Shoes

Does It Offend You, Yeah?

having gone to see them at the summer festivals last year, you wouldn't expect that this band would be making the impact that they have made on the music scene over the past few months. i was a big fan quite early on when i heard via myspace that a three week old band who had taken their name from a sketch in the office, had received a staggeringly large record contract considering they had only played together a few times. i was however pleasantly surprised, and was hooked on 'lets make out' for a good month or two, but when i went to see them in the usually packed dance arena at reading festival, the place was barren, and they sounded nothing like their records, which did disappoint me.

luckily, they seem to have worked on their sound since, and have just released a great album, 'you have no idea what your getting yourself into'. a really universal album in my view, some fun tracks to sit and listen to, and some other tunes that'll get you and your mates jumping round the room like complete loons. i strongly recommend the album for anyone with an interest in electro, dance, rock, alternative tastes, although you might have heard the majority of the tracks before, as some of them have been lurking on the internet for a good year or so.

my favourite tracks of the album are 'with a heavy heart (i regret to inform you)', 'dawn of the dead', and 'weird science'. the first of which is a real party tune, and i'm sure would get any crowd reaching for the fucking ceiling, whereas 'dawn of the dead' reveals a slightly more musical side to the band, with actual singing as opposed to the usual screams of morgan quaintance. weird science is somewhere in between, but i remember having it blared in my ears as i skied down the alpes at christmas and it filled me with adrenaline. nothing on this album strikes me as bad, just some of the songs, 'being bad feels pretty good' for example, are just not as energy filled, and lack substance. so there, well worth checking out if your unfamiliar with them, and i'm sure after you say their name out loud a few times, you'll start adding "yeah?" to the end of sentences. funfun

if you are a fan its also worth checking out some of their remixes of some other classic tunes, links below, enjoy :)

www.doesitoffendyou.com

with a heavy heart (i regret to inform you)
dawn of the dead
weird science

remixxxes
the prayer
map of the problematique

Last of the Shadow Puppets

probably old news to everyone now, but only in the last few weeks have i actually started listening to these two geniuses collide, and what they produce is something truly special. only two frontmen with such talent could pull off something like this on such scale. miles kane does truly deserve almost equal recognition in this double act, because some of his work with the rascals, and even his earlier material in the little flames is commendable.

their relationship seems to be more of an infatuation with each other, and their similar musical interests spark song ideas that don't suit any common, or popular genre in modern music. breaking the mold as it were, but done so, in such a casual way. alex turner just seems to seep audio brilliance, into anything he is involved with.

i ordered the album purely based on my feelings for arctics, and rascals, but after a few listens through i couldn't get into it. i then reverted back to age of the understatement, and this time, it really got me going, but i discovered a gem of a song. the b-side to the single, called in the heat of the morning,is a very early bowie song, revamped, and covered beautifully by these two musical vagabonds

so there, the single and the b-side are my favourite tracks so far, but i'm sure with a few more listens the rest of the album will start to grow on me, but definatly a band worth checking out if you have a diverse musical taste, and want something organic, personal and utterly bohemian.

unfortunately they have said they wont be touring until autumn, but i'm still holding out for surprise appearances at the festivals this summer, fingers crossed. also, its definatly worth checking out their website aswell (link below) to see four exclusive live videos from the recording studio.

www.theageoftheunderstatement.com

the age of understatement
in the heat of the morning

We Are Scientists

pretty much my favourite band of all time. their first album (with love and squalor) is by far my favourite record of the past few years and i think i could just sit and listen to it for the rest of my days quite happily. i have managed to learn the entire album from start to finish on guitar, bass, vocals, and air drums. also, i think my sheer adoration of this band isn't helped my the slight crush i have on keith murray, the lead singer..

i just think they need some fecking credit, because they only recently seem to be getting any radio play with their new-ish single 'after hours', and tend to be left out of lineups for any big festivals, when in fact they are probably a hugely influential band.

after too long in the recording studio they have released a second album 'brain thrust mastery' and after a few listens through i have found a few great tracks (lets see it, chick lit, tonight), but i don't think it lives up to its predecessor. im not saying its a bad album though, its still amazing, just not compared to their debut. im expecting it to be a grower, and within months i know i will be blaring it on repeat throughout the house.

another thing i love about them is their sense of humour, they are quite an odd bunch, and if you just take a look at some of their videos on youtube, you might fall for them without having listened to a song. here's just a suggestion, to give you an insight into their strange minds, we are scientists at the NME awards 2008.

www.myspace.com/wearescientists

lethal enforcer
tonight

some grand tracks from the previous record..
inaction
nobody move, nobody get hurt

MGMT

i remember going on a music crusade via myspace last summer and stumbling on these two electro rockers from the US, and i didnt really think anything of them. all you could hear was a sawtooth synth over a basic drum beat, which wasnt really appealing to me.

but after having read a recent nme article i decided to go and check them out again, and since they have been signed, they have cleaned up their sound and have just released their first album 'oracular spectacular'. i now have their record on repeat. im sure the rest of the tracks will grow on me, but at the moment, i would suggest listening to 'kids' and their new single 'time to pretend'.

also, they have come up with quite a quirky new music video for their song 'elecric feel'. basically you have to download it which is simple from their myspace, and your given a set of buttons and as the song plays you can choose camera angles, backgrounds, whether odd characters appear, what instruments they play, etc.. so there are literally billions of ways the video can look, and all that without any lag.

i cant really pin them down and say what their music is like, but its kind of a mix of techno/nu rave/country/80's. actually reading that back doesnt sound too appealing, but just give 'em a listen :)

http://www.myspace.com/mgmt

time to pretend
kids
electric feel

Dodoz

another myspace find, and what a find it was. i must say, i do have a softspot for female fronted indie bands, but these guys have to be top of the list. after having accepted my friend request, i received a cheerful message (in poorly translated french) from the drummer explaining how he liked my name (on the right in this picture). after many messages flying backwards and forwards, i found out a tad more about them, and discovered that they had toured with babyshambles in france, and were in the running for NME breaking bands competish.

although they are currently releasing 'do you like boys?' in the UK, 'werewolf in love' their previous single has a massively catchy opening riff, and has been on my stereo for a good few months now. they have told me they are coming to the UK for a tour soon, but due to adriens poor english skills i couldn't quite understand when..

anyways, i sincerely recommend giving them a listen, and even a message because they are indeed a friendly bunch

http://www.myspace.com/thedodoz
listen to 'werewolf in love'