Quality Threshold Lowered - Get Sexy by Sugababes

Being an indie music snob I love being critical, passionate and pompous about popular music. I believe that also loving cheesy throwaway pop is compatible with such snobbery. The problem comes when the the artists I like from the more the poppy end of the music world make a crap song and I'm urged to condemn. It isn't what commercial pop is about, I'm not the target audience and I should know better but sometimes I can't help myself.

Of all the pop acts of the last decade none has pleased me more than Sugababes. (note it is Sugababes, not The Sugababes – these things are important).

I'd call them a guilty pleasure but that would infer that my adoration is a secret. Anyone who knows me has, at some point, been subjected to my passionate recommendation / defence of Sugababes, not to mention my less than healthy fixation on the divine eye candy that is Keisha Buchanan. I maintain that Freak Like Me and About You Now are two of my favourite songs by any artist of any time, and I don't care who knows it.

To have lasted so long is rare, albeit with line-up changes (Keisha is the only original member). Perhaps inevitably their music has evolved over the decade from semi-authentic r n' b pop, to polished dance soul, mutating with each album towards the plastic pop world. But whatever the style or presentation there have been memorable, catchy tunes throughout. Ignoring some trite album filler tracks, their singles have been consistently charming – even the dodgy ones have some redeeming qualities.

The last album (Catfights & Spotlights) didn't sell that well and even the singles weren't that great. No doubt this has led to the 'management' deciding on a full on commercial direction for the comeback single – Get Sexy.

Sugababes - Get Sexy

It's a bit of a stinker and the first Sugababes single that I really don't like. If I find myself singing it at some point (which I suspect will happen) I'll feel even worse. There are no circumstances where I'm Too Sexy by Right Said Fred should be embraced.

What really bothers me is despite this I suspect it might grow on me. The (unimaginative) lyrics suggest that there might be scope for some cheap thrill titillation in the video, but it doesn't even manage that. The video is one of the dullest they've done.

I'm not the right age or gender for the Sugababes target market so there's no point being precious about them. It will take more for me to give up on them and from what I've heard this may be the first time that Sugababes album tracks are better than the singles. To redress the balance here's one of their finest moments.

Steven Wells 1960-2009

Steven Wells (Philadelphia Weekly)I've just heard that Swells has died. 

He was the NME's most notorious music writer in the 80's and 90's. An irritating provocateur, and a vulgar contradictory angry man. His vitriol annoyed the hell out of me, not least when he dared to critique my beloved indie bands. Secretly knowing he was right just made it worse.

Passionate, punk and frequently hilarious.

Thanks for everything Steven. Wednesdays were a brighter day because of you.

Swells last column for Philadelphia Weekly

Recent work in the Guardian

James McMahon NME tribute

Terry de Castro - A Casa Verde

I'm a sucker for 'side projects' of my favourite bands. A real sucker because after I buy the records I then realise that they're crap. I've never really liked any offshoots of The Wedding Present / Cinerama. Cha Cha Cohen had the elements of potential – Keith Gregory was in it – the bass player on Seamonsters, the man who discovered Pavement earlier than most – they had to be good. Only they weren't. Cha Cha Cohen were awful.

So many years on I've approached the new solo album by the current Wedding Present bassist with caution. Terry de Castro has played with David Gedge in The Wedding Present since their 'reformation' in 2004 and previously with Gedge's Cinerama.

My expectations were hardly helped by Swingers - the closing track on the last Wedding Present album El Rey featuring Terry's vocals. Out of place, out of mood and tagged on the end of an album which should have ended with (what is wrongly) the penultimate track Boo Boo, a classic Gedge full-on crushing guitar epic. The flow and tone of the El Rey was shattered by Swingers. And Terry's is not the strongest of voices – let's say understated.

A Casa Verde  is a covers album with a difference – all the songs are Terry's rearrangement of tunes written by musical friends and fellow / former bandmates, many of whom perform on the record. The CD version has sleevenotes with Terry's comments on each song. This is as compelling a reason to keep buying CDs as the audiophile argument. Terry's thoughts on the genesis of the project and her connection to the songs as both performer and admirer complement the listening experience.

Her choice of album opener could have been obscure but no, it is a bold one given that a large number of listeners are likely to be Wedding Present fans. It's Dalliance – almost a deity amongst Gedge afficionados.

The original appeared on The Wedding Present's 1991 masterpiece album Seamonsters recorded by Steve Albini. It was grunge before grunge, emo before emo and a zillion times better than anything produced from these subsequent genres. A landmark album likely to forever more be my favourite. Anyone attempting to cover it (even a Wedding Present member) needs to be careful.

Terry's a big fan too and it appears we have her to thank for the regular appearance of Dalliance in The Wedding Present live setlists. Terry nails it with a significant reworking (and required gender reversal).

It is a country tinged work of gorgeousness, and the best Wedding Present cover I've ever heard. (If it counts as a cover of course – Gedge appears on the album too – and it is released on his Scopitones label).

Starry Eyed is the other Gedge song on A Casa Verde, co- written with Simon Cleave. Probably my favourite Cinerama song but here it loses the energy that made the Cinerama original such a treat. Shame, because I agree with Terry's comments in the sleevenotes about just how fantastic this song is. The vocal melody and the harmony is gorgeous but the urgency of the instrumental sections that made the original such a treat are watered down. Shame these bits weren't reworked completely – could have been a superb version.

These two Wedding Present / Cinerama songs are the obvious entry points for me – the only songs I am in any way familiar with. The rest of the album succeeds by showcasing Terry's talent for song selection, arrangement and performance.

My other highlights:

Animals That Swim's East St. O'Neill follows Dalliance and cements the album's gentle pace with observational lyrics. A real highlight from the album.

The Sun Is Always Sweetest is a touching hymn written by Dean Hawksley – a fellow Warwick University student. Terry also performs Hawksley's The Great Avalanche, reworked from “melancholy folk song'' origins to good effect.

America in '54 by Simone White ups the tempo with an acoustically driven tune recalling events and characters from Simone & Terry's days working in a vegetarian cafe.

A song of no small personal resonance to Terry as she highlights in the sleevenotes is Glorious - taken from her old band Goya Dress and written by Astrid Williamson (who also performs here).

The album closes with Williamson's To Love You. “You Don't Know What It's Like To Love You” is just a wonderful line from a wonderful, haunting song.

The songs I was unfamilar with have sparked curiosity in the originals and the output of Terry's mates. A Casa Verde is a success and I would love to hear Part 2 one day if Terry fancies it, or maybe this will give her the confidence to write and perform her own solo songs.

There are some fine choices among the 12 songs with enchanting storytelling and melodies. My favourites are East St. O'Neill and To Love You plus, of course, Dalliance.

The album has a gentle acoustic feel with more tinges of country / folk than guitar rock. This may not be to the taste of all Wedding Present fans but there are some imaginative arrangements here and no shortage of inspired musicianship.

Noisy it isn't. Recommended it is.

Terry de Castro on Myspace

Terry de Castro on Twitter

A Casa Verde - amazon mp3

A Casa Verde  - amazon cd

eMusic - The Beginning Of The End?

I used to love eMusic. It is a subscription service offering a number of mp3 downloads for a monthly fee.

They had to cancel my membership a couple of years ago when they stopped supporting my preferred payment method. That has now changed and in response to their relentless emails I've been considering a return.

When I joined (about 3 years ago) I chose a UK price plan (no longer available) offering 90 downloads per month for £14.99. That was 17p per mp3.

The sound quality was often good but variable. At that price point I didn't mind. The joy of eMusic was to treat it as a trial of new music and recommendations of other users. I would often find something new and this would lead me to want to buy it again on CD to a) have a decent quality recording without the lossy compression of mp3 and, to a much lesser extent, b) to help reward the artist more financially than their cut of 17p provided.

It also led to buying concert tickets and other music from the artists I discovered.

This might not have been eMusic's business model but is how it worked for many of their customers.

It isn't the most straightforward consumer experience. If you miss your quota of downloads in a month they don't carry over. It takes a bit of effort and the most likely market to embrace this is the committed independent music lover. A perfect fit.

Now, it has all changed. It would appear that the business isn't working maybe as services which offer music discovery as their intention rather than consequence -  Pandora and last.fm have stolen eMusic's thunder.

Even three years ago legal mp3 purchases were a rarity. Not now, as the music industry has finally accepted that copy protection of DRM punishes the honest purchasers of music. We now have DRM free tracks on iTunes and mp3s for sale a la carte just about everywhere. No doubt this has hurt eMusic too.

Whatever the reason the price point is now far less attractive. As The Register has highlighted the UK price plans now range from 24 songs per month at £9.99 to 30 per month at £17.99. So, from 17p per track to 38p in the space of three years and now only a third of the total number of songs available to me each month, limiting the discovery aspect of the service.

Not that the pricing is obvious. Their price plans are not mentioned on the home page and you have to enter your personal details before you can choose a plan. All they have is a carrot and stick approach of a no-commitment free introductory offer. Not enough now for people to stick around I suspect.

The forthcoming inclusion of some major label music (songs on Sony that are two years old) is likely to have no effect on the existing user base (who like their indie experimenting) as many of the user comments on the eMusic employees blog seem to bear out.

Many are angry that their loyalty is forgotten (many of the long standing plans are being cancelled and some customers are losing 2/3rds of their monthly quota) and I have to wonder if eMusic really understands their customers at all. The whole trial and experimentation nature of the site is now lost for me. P2p services, including legal streaming services such as Spotify and the likes of last.fm now seem more attractive.

A shame, but I feel this is the beginning of the end of this once great service. Sorry eMusic but you can stop with the emails now. I won't be coming back.

Simple Minds - Rockets

Even at the height of my indie snobbery (probably in the early 1990's) there were always a few guilty pleasures. The release of a new Simple Minds album always permeated through the cool.

I was a sucker for their late 80's arena filling rock anthems.

A few missteps over the last 20 years (most notably a quite horrific covers album) but they always have a knack for coming up with an inspirational tune just when the critics are ready to write them off.

They're back with a new album on Monday - Graffiti Soul (Deluxe Edition)and I'm as keen as ever to hear it (although I'm dubious about the bonus cd of cover versions).

The new single Rockets is a joyous little affair. Good to see Jim Kerr hasn't lost his arm flailing style. Just makes the song seem a bit bigger.

Ride - Leave Them All Behind

I originally wrote this journal entry in January 2009 on last.fm:

1992.

I was 20 - an adult. Of sorts. I had been in employment for a year. I maintained contact with many of my old school friends, and during those days my pleasure was derived at the end of a pint glass with most of them. The yin yang of responsible adulthood and the irrelevance of youthful exuberance. My days were spent at work, my nights and weekends in a drunken mess of silliness. Much of the remainder was spent, quite diligently, in music.

The NME, the Melody Maker and John Peel on the radio.

I would go out, be it the pub, a party or a nightclub, always wearing (if dress codes allowed) a music based t-shirt. That was my identity. I would be somewhere, often a place far removed from the world of indie, often a drunken mess amongst neon lights and the latest 'club' sounds of the day, enjoying myself with my peers yes, but also showing my true colours, telling the world who I really was and what really motivated, connected and excited me, secretly hoping that someone would somehow recognise everything going on my head, my real stimulation, connect with me and take me to some magical place somewhere else, just because I happened to wearing a t-shirt. I could have gone further with my image - I contemplated piercings, a pseudo gothic dress sense, something to offer a public demonstration of my feelings, my passions, hunger, spirit and yes, my frustrations. I was however too self conscious to really go there and besides I would have lost my job overnight and my friends at the time would have taken the piss out of me mercilessly as an oddball. My t-shirts were all I had.

At that time artists defined their record label, or vice versa, I never was sure.

Rough Trade had the spunky, spiky, left field bands - music to approach with caution but often I'd find a gem.

Factory Records was the Manchester label which in 1992 was still squeezing the creative juices from the nearly shriveled fruit of the late 80's summer of love and the subsequent indie 'baggy' scene - it had New Order, Happy Mondays and a host of 'Madchester' wannabes.

4AD was was a repository for the indie cognoscenti - Cocteau Twins, Throwing Muses, Pixies. Being an elitist connoisseur of all things 'alternative' I naturally have a fondness for 4AD ;)

Then there was Creation Records - Alan McGee's label whose name aptly captured the innovation of the period. The Jesus & Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine.

Then, in the early 1990's a string of bands, 'shoegazing' bands influenced by the established indiedom of The Cure and their like and the Boston 'scene' but more than anything the contemporary 'wall of noise' dreamlike guitar sound, created with such imagination and inventiveness by Kevin Shields and My Bloody Valentine.

Creation Records were their home. Early records by The Boo Radleys captured this. Slowdive worked too in their own ethereal, dreamy way (as did Lush, on 4AD). For me though, Ride captured it best.

Oh how I loved Ride. To this day, I can't think of a better debut album than Nowhere . Released in 1990 with a wash of distortion, mood, and oblique, often desolate lyrics.

'Nowhere' stands the test of time. I've played it in its entirety this week. It can't be played loud enough. The production by Alan Moulder is sublime, creating a cavernous, engulfing noise with the echoes of the drums, the distortion of the guitars and subtleties of the vocal harmonies. It sounds like a desolate place, particularly on the slower paced tracks - Dreams Burn Down and Nowhere. The faster songs Taste and Seagull fill the room with tension and bitterness in equal measure.

It is heavily influenced by My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth records of the period but like Slowdive and Lush, Ride created their own, unique sound - theirs being a melodic, passionate, harmonic wonder.

Sadly they never created anything so unique again. The follow up album - Going Blank Again is good but isn't as special as Nowhere. Much of the record suffers from '2nd album syndrome', where bands fall into the trap of trying too hard - trying different styles, adding too many instrumental quirks and saying 'look at what we can do '.

Ride's subsequent two albums are poorer still in terms of invention, exploring 1970's influences and the songwriting by the two guitarists / vocalists, Andy Bell and Mark Gardener took place away from the band dynamic. Solo projects and subsequent bands have never come anywhere near the creative spark of the early 1990's. Indeed, in recent years it has been hard to see how the Andy Bell who wrote most of the gems on Ride's debut - Dreams Burn Down, Seagull, Taste and Vapour Trail is the same Andy Bell who now plays bass in Oasis and contributes the odd, uneventful song to their albums.

One day, (like they did in 2001 for a TV show about Sonic Youth), all four members of Ride might get back together and make something truly creative again. That is perhaps just me being greedy. They've done enough to bring sparkle into my life. Maybe all four of them no longer feel a need to make music so passionately and they are happy somewhere else. Maybe Andy Bell is content with playing Champagne Supernova to packed arenas. Good luck to him.

But back to 1992 and Going Blank Again.Ignore what I said about the album. I was talking about everything that appears after track numero uno, the lead single. The best song ever recorded.

Leave Them All Behind

I first heard a 'radio edit' of this single and reacted indifferently to it. As a four minute pop song, it is nothing special at all. But then I bought the single and listened to it in full, all 8 minutes 16 seconds of it. I remember the day, looking at the cd artwork while listening.

View fullsize

When it finished I played it again. Then again. I've been playing it every so often ever since.

If ever I'm asked the question - 'What is your favourite song?' - the answer has been the same since 1992 and probably forever more will be - Leave Them All Behind by Ride.

I love plenty of songs, spanning my lifetime. Many have sounds that energise and move me. Many more have lyrics that capture my mood, emotion, memory or hope. Such lyrically connecting songs, such personal songs.

Leave Them All Behind is different. Lyrically, nothing remarkable at all:

Wheels turning round, Into alien ground, Pass through different times, Leave them all behind

Just to see, We've got so far to go, Until we get there, Just let it flow

Colours shining clear, Fading into night, Our grasp is broken, There's nothing we can do

I don't care about the colours, I don't care about the light, I don't care about the truth

Hardly fills 8 minutes does it?

I understand that the lyrics were written by Mark Gardener and added at a late stage. It makes sense. I like the lyrics - they suit the song but it is the sound of the vocals, the sound of bloody everything in Leave Them All Behindthat is astonishing perfection to these ears.

I know every note of every instrument. The two minute 'intro', the beats of Colbert's drum, the bass riffs, the acoustic break, the crashing beauty of the guitar whooshes. Every distortion, every echo, every effect. All 8 minutes and 16 seconds of it. I wouldn't change anything. The studio version, the version that appears on the album, cannot be bettered.

The live versions only capture part of the magic but here's a performance from Brixton Academy in 1992:

Live at Brixton Academy 1992

Andy Bell wrote most of Nowhere, and thereafter much of Ride's songs were split between the two guitarists / vocalists - Bell and Gardener. Leave Them All Behind is however very much a band effort. All 4 contributed to the song, which they began work on whilst on tour two years previously, and it shows. It is what Ride were all about. For me, it is more than just the definitive Ride song. It is the definitive song. Full stop. It is mine.

What happened in that studio, sometime in late 1991, when Bell, Gardener, Queralt and Colbert recorded that noise two years in the making, and Alan Moulder produced it to perfection , I will never know. Over 17 years on though, I'm writing about it. I'm as moved by it now as I was then.

They made a difference. What a feeling that must be. That is the inspiration.

As I say unlike my other favourite songs, this one doesn't address my mood, bring a tear to my eye, or speak to me about a particular emotion, memory or aspiration. Wonderful and precious as those songs are to me, 'Leave Them All Behind' is the one.

It takes me to another world - some parallel universe where all the thoughts and feelings in my head, my heart, my soul, be they confused, upsetting, joyous or whatever all come together in a cavalcade of swirling guitars, bass and drums. Real life's complexities make sense.

I was 20 when I first heard it. I was young and the prospects of where I would go, what I would do with life were so uncertain that I didn't even entertain any such thoughts. If I did, they were fanciful not tangible. I was naive, immature and just happy to have made it past my education and formative years. I was fitting in with my adult surroundings and at that time I didn't contemplate the aging process. The thought of even turning 30 seemed like such a long time away.

If Leave Them All Behind took me somewhere else, it was still, at 20, a place where everything could fall into place in reality at a point in the future, a point so far away. For then, I was just happy to have made it that far, to have friends, the stupidity of life with them, concerts and compact discs and income from a job that made these things possible.

Leave Them All Behind was an inspiration as well as an imaginative, ethereal experience. One day, I would "grasp those fading colours" and dreams wouldn't "burn down", they could come true.

Somewhere, out of the fog that 20 year old has become 37 (goodness - I'll be nudging 40 before I know it!). What the hell happened there?

But you know what, that 37 year old has still been wearing his music t-shirts. Even in his office. He has been making business chat, concerning himself with professionalism, dividends, and tax compliance, in a sense acting these things out. But his t-shirts have remained. That 20 year old hasn't gone away. He still has dreams. He can still, like those 4 young lads from Oxford in 1992, make a difference, to others, but also to himself.

Now, at a time in my life when I've been contemplating my history, my future, my motivation, my reasons for my very me-ness, I listen again to Leave Them All Behind. Again it is too perfect, but I do have a reaction to it. I'm back. I'm 20 again. Everything I was capable of then, I'm capable of now. If anything I'm better prepared than before.

The noise of Leave Them All Behind still inspires, still takes me somewhere else. I'm going to chase that somewhere else, find it, colonise it and live there, not just visit it for 8 minutes and 16 seconds.

I do care about the colours. I do care about the light. I do care about the truth.

Links:

Ride official site