20/05/2008

She's back.

I always preferred her to 80's Madonna, she had better hair. And now Cyndi is back, with a new studio album, 'Bring Ya to the Brink' which is released on May 27th in the states, don't know about the official release for us Europeans, but thanks to the internet, we have our ways of getting a piece of the action.
Listening to the songs on her myspace, it's sounding pretty good, I can't wait to hear the remixes, I think the hooks are strong enough to translate well into some fabulous collaborations. Speaking of fabulous collaborations, Lauper is said to have worked with Basement Jaxx, Digital Dog, Dragonette, Kleerup and more, giving the New Wave pop queen a dance pedigree.
The U.S. single 'Into the Night Life' (produced by Peer Astrom, who's worked with Madonna and Britney), sounds like a definite club hit, and considering the download-only release of 'Same Ol Story' got to number one of the first day, 'Into the Night Life' is likely to follow in the success. The song is very Madonna-esque but the good Madonna, when she's being all dancy and working with shit hot producers, not being predictable and contrived like when she's roping in Timberland and Timberlake for 'four minutes' of hell (is it me or does she make four minutes seem like a lifetime?)
Sadly I don't think Lauper will be donning her quite frankly, awesome look from the 80's (I think she's like 55 now, so maybe shaving half your head off wont be the classiest of moves) but it'll be interesting to see if she can make a successful comeback.

19/05/2008

Florence, the machine, and me.

I was thinking the other day about my friends who look like famous folk. Not that I socialise exclusively with celebrity impressionists or anything but there are a couple of people I know who do emulate certain TV personalities, musicians etc. It's quite exciting when one of my friends is like "oh I saw this film and the girl in it looks JUST like Nicola!" then we all go investigate said film and argue whether Nicola might possibly be a film star without telling us.
That sort of thing has never happened to me before, but coincidently, when I met up for drinks with my friends Chris and Nicola (the secret movie star), Nicola turned to me and said "Oh there's this band called Florence and the Machine and you look JUST like the lead singer!" so off I go looking for my long lost twin Florence, and on the way I find a cutie female singer-songwriter. I'll begrudgingly upload a recent picture of me and my house mate Andy, very drunk, in a coffee shop for the sake of comparison, because it would be a bit daft to go on about Florence looking like me without a picture.













I can see the resemblance more now, but at first I thought it was simply the hair. I'm glad for such a complement though, because Flo is lovely.
As to be expected, the music is cute and pretty-pretty too. Florence has such a beautiful voice, it's a shame that our similarities are only skin-deep. Some of the myspace stuff reminds me of the dodgey early recordings of Kate Nash, except a hundred times better because seriously, Kate Nash, before all the hot-shit producers came to her rescue, sounded shit, like really shit.
If a label could be arsed to sign our dear friend Flo here, I think she'd do really well, because there's no denying the market for this acoustic/indie/prettypretty songstress, or is there?
To be honest, I do like listening to Feist, Regina Spector and Laura Marling-types every now and then because the sound is so sweet to the ear, but there are so many, do we have too much of a good thing?
It's like when your a kid and you have a cute cuddly bear, and it's so soft and comforting you want another, and another, and another, and before you know your looking round your room as a teenager and thinking "why the fuck did I accumulate so many sodding teddy bears?!"
But then again, some people never grow out of teddy bears, and they spend allot of time and money trying to convince people that the army of beady eyes in their bedroom is actually a collection, an investment.
So I think there will always be people who'll love this music, maybe I'll be one of them, and we'll never get over the cuteness, and in terms of cuteness; buttons ain't got shit on Florence and the Machine.

09/05/2008

Santogold

I found Santogold from clicking through the good ol' iTunes shop, and I'm not too ashamed to admit that It was purely based on the fact that there's shiny shiny glitter on the front, and I like glitter, so already the lovely Santogold and I where on good terms.
Basically, this album is awesome. It's pop but you can still really get your teeth into it. Like a good stake, and stakes are good eatin' for Gold Lions.
Front Woman Santi White's style and sound is distinctive, like her voice, but although she can sing it's not like, "wow. She can sing", meaning she's not overly technical and her voice couldn't handle a ballad etc.. but hey, we can leave that to the Polished Pop Poppets and Big Label Lovelies like Gabriella Cilmi (who sounds like Winehouse, but shitter).
The album is a colourful mixture of Pop, Rock, Hip-hop, Dub, New Wave, Psychobilly, and Electronica, amongst others. Also every song stands on it's own, with not a filler in sight.
My stand-out tracks are;
★ You'll find a way - free on iTunes single of the week, which explains why it's not the debut single, there's a stella surreal remix too, which I also love.
★ L.E.S Artistes - the debut single.
★ I'm a Lady - the chorus takes me somewhere special.
★ Shove It - can't wait to unleash that on my stereo once the sun decides to stop sulking and put his hat back on.
So far this album is my favorite I've heard this year, it's right up my street and really hits the spot. So thakyou Santogold (because Santi White is obviously reading this) for showing us all how pop should be.

www.myspace.com/santogold