On the verses she trips across syllables like skipping stones and chews vowels like gum — an affectation that’s spawned no end of affectionate memes. On the pre-chorus, she switches to the sloshed gutters of her low register, Auto-Tune bubbling off the vocal like a Poliça record. On the chorus — a big one — she belts loud, but it’s not the immaculate belt of a Whitney Houston, but one with exertion and rasp, strain and push (in the spinto sense, pushing away air). Where traditional divas’ voices sound like centers of gravity, Sia sounds like she’s fighting against gravity itself. She’s singing about it, too; the chorus doesn’t end with a big high note, but an almost-mumbled oath: “holding on for dear life.”
I’ve been trying and failing to persuade one of my friends that Carly Rae Jepsen’s Call Me Maybe is one of the greatest pop songs ever made, which of course it is.
I was genuinely dancing to this when I played it this morning. Given that I was in a dressing gown at the time I resembled an asylum escapee, but that’s fine. It’s the power of pop!
This song’s great too, and the video has Tom Hanks, making it twice as great.
And now there’s a new one, Party For One. And guess what? It’s great! (and mildly unsafe for work)
I hate people who pretend to like pop music ironically, or call it a guilty pleasure. Good pop music is one of the greatest art forms, an expression of pure joy and so much more.
BBC Scotland has announced some of the shows for its new channel, launching next year. And it’s clear that with a roster including River City (But Broadcast Slightly Earlier), it may need some fresh ideas.
Allow me to introduce “Battle Royale Mile”.
The premise is simple. Each week, two Scots music legends fight in a pit in Edinburgh. No weapons, no environmental hazards. Just two pop, rock, indie or dance music titans fighting. The winner is the last one standing; the prize, critical acclaim and booze. Mainly booze.
Imagine it. Imagine Del Amitri vs Deacon Blue, Justin Currie making the fatal strategic error of not hitting a woman and Lorraine McIntosh bludgeoning him senseless. Imagine Simple Minds vs The Rezillos, Â the latter’s sheer force of numbers easily overwhelming the stadium rockers. Imagine Honeyblood vs Primal Scream, Bobby Gillespie squeaking with fright before Cat Myers even lays a finger on him.
Imagine Mogwai, Jesus and Mary Chain, Biffy Clyro, King Creosote, Texas and KT Tunstall pummelling Gerry Cinnamon. I may be letting my personal taste show here.
Not every bout would be so entertaining. While I’m sure Garbage vs Chvrches would be a win for Manson’s group, her fearlessness more than compensating for the other band’s youth and agility, it’s one of those bouts where you don’t want anybody to get hurt at all, let alone lose. Similarly Teenage Fanclub vs The Proclaimers. And Travis vs Wet Wet Wet might be a ratings disaster, although I suspect the Wets might prove to be pretty handy.
There would need to be some kind of weighting system, though, because otherwise some fights would be hopelessly one-sided, which is why the only fair opponent for the might of Belle And Sebastian would be a paper bag or perhaps a small mouse.
I’d watch it. You’d watch it. I think we’ve got a hit on our hands.
This is the final song from the album we’ve been uploading in dribs and drabs. I still haven’t come up with a title for it, and we’re nearly done writing the next one. Oops.
New Normal is a song about heavy sadness: what if everybody feels the same and we’re too scared to say it? Musically I can hear R.E.M., Gin Blossoms (especially “Hey Jealousy”, one of my very favourite songs) and the big guitars of early Suede, and vocally I’m definitely trying and failing to be R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe.
In this modern and exciting social media age it’s very difficult to share this kind of thing: the last time I posted a link to our music on Facebook it was shown to exactly two people, because Facebook hides any content it thinks it can sell as an advert. So if you like this or any of our other songs I’d appreciate it if you could share it with others. Thanks.
The first time I heard John Grant, I burst into tears.
People who know me won’t find that remarkable, because I burst into tears a lot. Long before I became the hormonal mess I am today, music often made me blub. But this was unusual, because it was – terrible pun alert – blub at first sight.
I was at a gig to see Elbow, and Grant was the support. I knew nothing about him, had never heard him, and he was playing this; many of the same visuals appeared on the screens above him.
I was in bits. It’s a beautiful song (and better still live), and it’s particularly powerful if you’re LGBT.
This range of sweet and sour, deep and dark emotions set against appealing melodies is what characterises Grant as a major talent. On “Glacierâ€, from Pale Green Ghosts, you can hear the emotions frozen by fear and self-hatred crack into righteous anger. Grant passes through the shock of people saying things “that sting and leave you wincing†to the refrain: “Don’t you pay them fuckers as they say no never mind/ They don’t give two shits about you/ It’s the blind leading the blind
The whole thing’s well worth reading. Glacier made me an instant fan, and I’ve since been seen blubbing away at the Edinburgh Festival gigs Savage refers to in the piece.
Grant’s a fascinating musician, both from a fan’s perspective and a musician’s perspective. While his music is becoming increasingly electronic (and oh man, you have to hear the punch of Pale Green Ghosts through a massive PA system before you die) a lot of his songs are very close to 1970s soft rock of the Elton John variety, and I mean that as a huge compliment: the melodies and arrangements are masterful. I’m currently trying to learn to play Caramel, which is one of my very favourite things in the whole universe (and I’m delighted that my long-suffering piano tutor has fallen in love with it too: as I play it badly she can go to her happy place where JG plays it properly).
Here’s a live version from the BBC.
Great, isn’t it? I love pretty much everything about this song, but in particular the chord change to A flat as he sings “he hits me with tiger eyes”. It’s a staggeringly beautiful musical moment and it has me on the brink of tears every single time. If you don’t like it we can’t be friends.
I think John Grant has a lot in common with one of my other musical loves, Mark Everett from Eels, and not just because I’m learning to play Eels’ It’s A Motherfucker too.
Both men aren’t afraid of adult-oriented rock; both men write often hilarious lyrics; both men take often harrowing experiences and subjects and turn them into truly transcendent music.
This is the penultimate upload from the album we haven’t actually got a title for yet. It’s called Your Love Is Not Enough and it’s a typically bleak slab of minimalist electronic pop.
We’re available for children’s parties and other celebratory events.
Morrissey has cancelled his UK and Ireland tour citing “logistical problems”. Various well-informed sources say those problems are of the “persuading people to buy tickets” variety. Â In one Scots venue with a capacity of 2,900, I’m told, he barely sold 400 tickets after weeks on sale.
In the last six years, Morrissey has cancelled 134 shows. Between that, poor record sales and increasingly divisive on-stage banter, it’s a miracle he managed to persuade anyone to buy tickets at all.
Same Star is another of David’s compositions and another vocal where I appear to be channelling E from Eels, which of course is never a bad thing. It’s a musical version of the Scots phrase “we’re a’ Jock Tamson’s bairns”: we have much more in common than what divides us, and we’re all busking it. As Kurt Vonnegut wrote: “We are here to help each other through this thing, whatever it is.”
