Discopop Directory

Lazily copying another press release*

2012-02-08T16:38:00.000Z

* Except this one is better than the usual guff.

There's no need to thank me but I have just sorted out 17 minutes and 44 seconds of any DJ set you're ever going to do again.

Ever.

HI MARK

War of Words just posted a mixtape.

Yeah, yeah, i know: everyone does a mixtape, don't they. BUT NOT LIKE THIS.

It's got SNAP! and TLC and BLACK BOX on it.

AND an amazing new War of Words original called Sympathy.

Here it is:

Thanks!
Me

What is great about this particular mixtape is that (a) it is a free download and (b) War Of Words have gone to the effort of re-recording several of the tracks. In the words of Louis Walsh, they have "really made it their own".

Well done, everyone.

So there you go.

Fantastic Mr Fox (and a Dove)

2012-02-08T10:00:00.000Z

Swedish pop duo Niki and the Dove are what you get when you force the entire Top 40 through a sausage grinder and try to make a Kylie song out of the minced meat. More simply: Niki and the Dove are musical nutjobs of the best possible variety.

Their proper debut single DJ Ease My Mind is out later in the month, of which more later. First up, let's take a look at the video for their free EP download The Fox. The animated clip was created by WINTR, whose website says this: "We unite creative, technical, strategic disciplines to deliver culturally activated digital experiences".

They sound like a bunch of nitwits, but you'll probably forgive them once you've watched this.

Niki & The Dove - The Fox

So, what exactly are Niki and the Dove? Here's what we know so far.

:: Nike and the Dove are really Malin Dahlström and Gustaf Karlöf.

:: They think war is "shit".

:: Their album was written in Northern Sweden "with the forest and mountains surrounding us".

:: "We're inspired by female half-goddesses, bubbles and trancey moves," says Malin.

:: She also notes: "We have the heritage of ABBA".

:: They really, really like afternoon tea.

Isn't that cute?

Now, you might be asking yourself why a superlative pop band of this nature has not featured on the blog before. The answer is quite simple: I didn't really get it until last weekend. Then, as is often the case, I heard them on the radio and suddenly everything clicked *click* like the Fonz's fingers.

So don't dismiss DJ Ease My Mind if it doesn't immediately grab you by the balls and shout "I am a very good pop song" at your faceholes. It's an acquired taste, like Tequila, with almost exactly the same after-effects.

Niki & The Dove - DJ Ease My Mind

The new Ladyhawke video is a disaster

2012-02-06T11:18:00.005Z

It is very disappointing to have to report that the new Ladyhawke video is awful. Not just boring or average - but stilted, cheap, awkward, amateur, tacky, pointless and a total distraction from the song.

Nothing about this makes sense. What about the song suggested the theme "Ladyhawke is a photographer on the worst ever episode of America's Next Top Model"? Why do all the men have comedy 70s moustaches? Isn't there a better way to illustrate someone's slow descent into madness than putting a red gel over the camera lens?

Apparently not.

Last week, the Robot Pigeon blog made a good point about the Ladyhawke campaign: While everyone in the real world can see she's a proper pop star, the record label are desperately trying to insist she's some sort of indie maverick.

The video for Black And White And Blue is the direct result of that idiotic mindset. Websites like Pitchfork and Line Of Best Fit will probably declare it a kitsch triumph. Everyone else is just thinking "what a wasted opportunity".

At least the song is still brilliant. And Pip's new hairdo is very glamorous.

Ladyhawke - Black And White And Blue

Update: Apparently it's based on the 1978 movie Eyes of Laura Mars.

No, me neither.

Madonna's Super Bowl performance: 10/10

2012-02-06T09:27:00.000Z

Even LMFAO couldn't spoil it...

Madonna - Super Bowl Half Time performance 2012

As one friend pointed out on Facebook: "Madonna makes an amazing cheerleader because behind that smile you know she's a bitch."

Automatic, systematic, hydromatic

2012-02-04T12:45:00.002Z

Knock, knock
Who's there?
Carson
Carson who?
Carson two wheels in the new M.I.A. video

M.I.A. - Bad Girls

NSFW? Andrew in Drag

2012-02-03T11:49:00.000Z

One of the songs we had played at our wedding was The Magnetic Fields' magnificent The Book Of Love, which appealed to our juvenile sense of humour, Kaye's love of all things literary, and a general desire to prick the pomposity of the marriage ceremony:

The book of love is long and boring
No-one can lift the damn thing
It's full of charts and facts and figures
And instructions for dancing
But I love it when you read to me
And you can read me anything

The band have released a new single today. It would also be appropriate for a wedding - albeit a slightly less traditional ceremony. It's about singer Stephin Merrit falling in love with his best friend when he sees him dressed as a woman. "He's the only man I'd ever shag," he notes.

Coincidentally, the subject of the song has the same name as my best man... But I've seen Andrew in drag and it did nothing for me.

The Magnetic Fields track has a great video, which is basically an instruction manual for dragging up. But there's some "mild nudity", so maybe wait til you're at home before clicking the play button.

The Magnetic Fields - Andrew In Drag

Totally (ep)worth the wait

2012-02-03T11:30:00.000Z

I've just stumbled across the new single by London-based singer Mary Epworth. I say new, but in fact Black Doe has been out twice before - in 2009 and 2010. But just because we all missed it first time round, it doesn't mean we should ignore it now.

Black Doe starts off with a simple plucked banjo and an unsettling lyric about being watched by a stranger until, around 1:30, someone chucks a drum kit down the staircase and all hell breaks loose. It'll make your bones shake, your knees knock and your hair stand on end like Zayn out of One Direction.

It may help to know that Mary is the sister of Florence & The Machine producer Paul Epworth. Gothic psychedelia and spooky melodrama are clearly a family trait.

Mary Epworth - Black Doe

Cheerleaders and leotards

2012-02-03T11:00:00.002Z

What is this, Madonna? 1985?

Madonna - Give Me All Your Luvin'

Madge'n'MIA'n'Minaj (Madgina for short) are performing this at the SuperBowl this weekend... If it's as good as the video, it's going to be spectacular.

If you can't watch the video at work, here are the key frames.

1) Nicki Minaj can't believe her luck.

2) M.I.A. shakes her pom-poms.

3) For Madonna's big entrance, she is pushing a pram, because she is just a regular mum like the rest of us.

4) M.I.A. is left holding the pram because Madonna doesn't really care about children, after all.

5) Bum cheeks.

6) Director instructs the principal vocalists to line up in descending order of height.

7) Cunning perspective trick resembles cut-price version of Lionel Richie's Dancing On The Ceiling.

8) If Madonna entered a Madonna look-alike competition, do you think she would win?

9) Literally no idea what's going on here.

10) Backing dancer has an opportunistic grope.

11) It all ends up at the imaginatively-named "Disco Club".

Somebody stop them...

2012-02-02T15:58:00.000Z

Remember 2003, when everyone treated The Darkness as if they were a serious proposition? They won three Brits. Kerrang! gave them its best album award. They even headlined the Reading festival.

What on earth was going on? I mean, The Darkness were ghastly, weren't they? If they weren't basing a Christmas single around the world's most laboured nob gag, they were locked in a competition with Brian May to see who could most upsettingly violate Freddie Mercury's corpse.

May won, of course, when he signed brutally uncharismatic truck driver Paul Rodgers to front the "new Queen". But The Darkness won't be defeated. Due to absolutely no public demand, they have reformed and are putting out a new single called Nothing's Gonna Stop Us - which is essentially Don't Stop Me Now with rusty nails driven into its eyes.

I have posted it below for two reasons:
1) To stop you buying it on iTunes "out of curiosity".
2) The video has a rather brilliant caricature of Purple Rain-era Prince.

PS: I know it's all a big joke, and the melodies aren't that bad, and at least The Darkness aren't Olly bloody Murs. But do we really have to go through this again?

The Darkness - Nothing's Gonna Stop Us

Going for a walk with Rebecca Ferguson

2012-02-02T11:24:00.000Z

When you work on a news website, there's a constant stream of user feedback on the stories you write. Aside from the emails and tweets, the BBC has a "heat map", which tells you where people are looking and clicking in real time. It's fascinating, and often terrifying, to see how people interact with the website.

The main thing I've learnt, however, is that you can never guess what stories people will respond to. For example, of all the interviews I've done over the last six months - including Martin Scorsese, Mick Jagger, Robert Downey Jr - the most popular, by an overwhelming degree was this chat with Rebecca Ferguson. Somehow, while I wasn't looking, the public have totally latched on to the softly-spoken, quietly modest X Factor contestant and her pleasingly easy-on-the-ear album, Heaven.

With a tour about to kick off, she's released the second single Too Good To Lose. It's one of the album's more uptempo numbers, and one of the ones where she most channels the spirit of Heather "what have you done today to make you feel proud" Small.

The treatment for the video is a simple, but effective. A one-take shot of Rebecca strolling down Venice Beach in a floaty red dress. Those blue skies look beautiful, don't they?

Rebecca Ferguson - Too Good To Lose

If you'd like to recreate that walk for yourself, sit next to the radiator and click around this Google Maps widget. Minutes of fun guaranteed*.

View Larger Map

* No refunds will be issued for people who are not having fun with this marvellous implementation of internet technology. Miserable bastards.

Bombay Bicycle Blast Off

2012-02-01T12:52:00.002Z

Bombay Bicycle Club's polychromatic guitar phrases always seemed to possess an hypnotic, hallucinogenic quality. So it's fitting that their latest video, How Can You Swallow So Much Sleep, is a stop-motion dream sequence in which a man in his pyjamas climbs a ladder to the moon.

Painstakingly pieced together over six months by the band's school-friend Anna Ginsberg (that's her above), it's a beautiful, lyrical companion piece to the song. Take a look.

Bombay Bicycle Club - How Can You Swallow So Much Sleep

Anna has documented the creation of the video on her website, Bicycles On The Moon.

And if that all leaves you in the mood for more whimsical, lunar-centric puppetry, here is an episode of Button Moon. Don't say I don't spoil you.

Have a listen to Jack White's debut solo record

2012-01-31T11:27:00.000Z

Look at that picture. Jack White is contemplating a razor. He's probably thinking "I could form a band with this razor". Jack White likes forming bands. He's already been in three - The White Stripes, Dead Weather and The Raconteurs. Last week, he formed a band with a jam sandwich, and called it The Defibrilators. They're headlining the NME tent at Reading in August.

Amazingly, however, Jack is also preparing for the release of his first solo album. It's called Blunderbuss and it's due out in April. Love Interruption is the first single and, if you will indulge an incredibly pretentious anaolgy, it continues the razor theme.

The razor I'm talking about is Occam's Razor - the principle that "simpler explanations are, other things being equal, generally better than more complex ones." That neatly sums up Jack White's approach to music: The simpler his songs are, the better they turn out. And Love Interruption sounds like it was dashed off in an hour.

Appropriately for a recent divorcee, the lyrics aren't especially positive about relationships. The refrain " I won't let this love disrupt, corrupt or interrupt me any more" is bad enough, but Jack also claims: "I want love to murder my own mother, and take her off to somehwere like hell or up above."

Hmmm... Maybe someone should take that razor off him. Not the metaphorical one, the other one.

Lana Del Rey interview off-cuts

2012-01-31T10:00:00.000Z

So, last week I met up with Lana Del Rey, who was coughing and spluttering after cancelling her gig at London's Koko venue the night before. Demure and softly-spoken, she was absolutely charming. More homebody than homewrecker, despite whatever impression you may have received from her lyrics.

Our chat formed the basis for a BBC profile piece, which was published over the weekend. But I thought you might like to see a fuller transcript.

Can you remember the first time you thought "I can write a song?"
I didn't really start writing until I was 18 and my uncle sort-of taught me six basic chords on the guitar. I realised I could probably write a million songs with those six chords - so I moved to New York and I took a couple of years to just write whatever I wanted.

That's quite a late start.
It's really late.

Had you been creative in other ways before that?
Yes, in some ways. I don’t know if I'd say it was my focus. I never really thought about writing my own music but I did like to sing.

Do you remember the chords your uncle taught you?
It was G, C, A. It was D minor, A minor and some diminished chord as well. Some trick, some shortcut. When I learned F, which I assumed would be easy, I was like "fuck". F was just never going to happen. Four fingers? Never going to happen. It's too hard.

There isn't much guitar on the album. When did you switch to piano?
I didn't switch because I don't really play piano – unless it's a Wurlitzer and I'm sort of just holding sustained chords. On my first record, I played guitar throughout most of it. With this one, I started working with this guy Justin Parker who's never really done anything in pop music. I just started freestyling over his sustained, melancholic chords. And that was how, really, the second evolution of my style began.

You said you were always a singer... Where did that start? Do you remember singing with your family when you were young?
I remember singing with my mom and with my dad. There were musical children's movies, like Mr World and Raffi.

In my house, my sisters loved Grease.
We loved Grease, me and my sister. [Sings Summer nights] They're really beautiful, those songs.

... Click here to read the rest of the interview

An open letter to Labrinth

2012-01-30T18:06:00.003Z

Dear Labrinth,

I wish to bring to your attention a minor error in the lyrical content of your (otherwise excellent) new single, Last Time.

In verse one, you state: "I ain't leaving Paris until I get a French kiss". However, in France the French Kiss is not called a French Kiss. It is instead called "baiser avec la langue", which literally means, "kiss with the tongue". If you spend a lot of time in Paris asking for a French Kiss, the response will largely be "je ne sais pas ce dont tu parle" accompanied by a haughty shrug of the shoulders.

Please amend your song accordingly.

Thanks and goodbye,
Mrdiscopop

Labrinth - Last Time

If, by any chance, you felt there wasn't enough vocoder in that song, Labrinth has made all the vocoder parts available as a "stem" so you can enjoy them in splendid isolation. Knock yourself out.

M.I.A. and the arms aloft quandary

2012-01-30T16:34:00.001Z

One of these days, rappers will discover that putting your hands up in the air isn't as difficult or amazing as they think. Look, I just did it now. And again. My hands go up and down at will. And I'm not alone. I was in a school classroom recently (18 years ago) and the kids were putting their hands up all the time. In the supermarket this weekend, I even saw a woman of very advanced years put her hand up, in order to reach a packet of Bourbon biscuits that had been placed on a high shelf.

Eventually, I went onto Wikipedia and checked up on this phenomenon. Apparently, the ability to raise your hand above shoulder height is common to all primates. It's no big deal. Chimps can do it less than half an hour after they're born.

So come on, rappers, let's have some REAL challenges in your music. I have some suggestions:

Fold your legs over your shoulders like you just don't care
Pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time for Detroit
Throw your hands up (having previously cooked them into a warming casserole, then tried to swallow them prompting an involuntary gag reflex) in the air

While this message filters through to the hip-hop community, here is M.I.A., whose supremely slinky new single Bad Girls contains several "hands up" moments.

Bon Jovi + Bon Iver = Bon Joviver

2012-01-27T09:57:00.000Z

Is it me, or has the new music tap started to run dry? It's probably just a temporary thing. At this very moment, the music industry is evacuating all its staff to an underground bunker in preparation for the hailstorm of hate that will greet next week's triple whammy of new releases from Lana Del Rey, MIA and Madonna.

In the meantime, here is a lovely thing: Bon Jovi, sung in the style of Bon Iver, by musical miscreants Miracles Of Modern Science.

Bon Joviver - You Give Love A Bad Name

More like this, please.

Sleigh Bells: Comeback Kid video

2012-01-25T14:46:00.000Z

In the video for Comeback Kid, seen below, Sleigh Bells frontwoman Alexis Krauss bounces on a mattress while clumsily grasping a rifle. We do not recommend bouncing on a mattress while clumsily grasping a rifle. Bouncy castles are more fun.

Sleigh Bells - Comeback Kid

Ladyhawke's new single: What happens when?

2012-01-24T09:19:00.000Z

00:00 Static, hiss and crackle from a "vinyl record" (ask your dad).
00:01 A Vibraphone.
00:04 A cowbell. Some sticks that go clickety-clack.
00:08 "Time is never easy when you’re alone"
00:13 "Uh, oh, oh".
00:15 Amazing drum fill.
00:25 The bridge.
00:38 The chorus.
00:40 Fans of Abba's On And On may find themselves in familiar territory here.
01:22 "Your slow descent to madness has just begun"
01:27 "Uh, oh, oh".
01:44 Open hi-hat heralds the arrival of the second chorus.
02:27 Flamenco guitars - this must be the middle 8.
02:56 It's the freakin' axe solo, yo.
03:14 Final appearance of the chorus.
03:45 Digital watch has nervous breakdown.
03:50 The end.

Ladyhawke - Black, White & Blue

Lana Del Rey proves the haters wrong

2012-01-23T17:26:00.000Z

Rhubarb, rhubarb, can't sing live, rhubarb, blah, waffle, no charisma, nonsense, huff.

That is basically a summary of the entire internet's hysterical response to Lana Del Rey when she made her US TV debut on Saturday Night Live the other week.

At the time, I strongly suspected her awkward appearance and kinda wobbly vocals had something to do with stage fight. Lana isn't the world's most seasoned performer, after all, and SNL is one of the most high pressure gigs there is.

After hearing her play the exact same set on BBC 6 Music this morning, I'm even more convinced that crippling shyness had something to do with the SNL debacle. Put at her ease by the ridiculously affable Huey Morgan (to the extent that she did a - gasp - accidental swear) and safe from the denuding gaze of TV cameras, the sultry melancholy of Video Games was fully restored.

Afterwards, Huey's team said it beautifully on Twitter:

Or, to put it another way:

If you're visiting this page between 27 January and 26 February, 2012, you can listen to the interview and performance below. After that, the BBC will press a huge self-destruct button and the audio will be removed from the internet FOREVER.

You have been warned.

PS: If you haven't already read Popjustice's backlash against the Lana Del Rey backlash, then get over to their website forthwith.

This is not a new track by Daft Punk

2012-01-23T17:00:00.000Z

Today's blog post is about 17-year-old French dance producer Madeon who burst into our consciousness last year with a breathtaking, 39 song mash-up performed live on a sampler. The appropriately-named Pop Culture incorporated bits of tracks by Buggles, Kylie, Girls Aloud, The Killers and ELO - comme ça:

Madeon - Pop Culture

An astonishing display - and one that has rightly seen him booked for a ton of DJ sets around the continent.

He's also been working hard on his debut album, and the first single - Icarus - got a preview on Pete Tong's radio show a couple of weeks back. Clearly, Madeon has had to borrow all of his equipment from Justice, who bought it second-hand from Cassius, who had it on loan from Daft Punk after they won it in a bet from Stardust.

Seriously, all French house music sounds like this, doesn't it? Not that I'm complaining.

Icarus - Madeon

Have Radiohead killed rock music?

2012-01-20T13:05:00.001Z

Earlier this week, it was revealed that sales of rock albums were in decline, having been overtaken by pop music for the first time in seven years.

The Jessie J-ification of the album charts has caused a lot of hand-wringing in the "serious" music press. Gigwise even printed a story headlined: How Can We Save Music?, thereby displaying more misplaced snobbery than a box set of Downton Abbey.

I reckon it's all Thom Yorke's fault. Practically every British guitar band is in thrall to Radiohead - holding them up as an example of a commercially viable rock group who've maintained their creative credibility.

As a result, there are hundreds of artists that try to emulate their heroes by noodling about with indistinct vocals and skipping drum tracks. The likes of Foals, Everything Everything and The Maccabees are lauded for their avant-garde compositions - but ultimately their records sound like the musical expression of a maths lesson.

Even Kasabian have stated their intent to make more textured, intellectual albums. Bless their hearts.

When did we all forget that Radiohead had two big, dumb albums full of bigger, dumber melodies? The Bends didn't just win the band a loyal audience, it bankrolls the experimental stuff (you may notice that The King Of Limbs doesn't feature in last year's Top 10 best-selling rock albums).

Or maybe Radiohead aren't to blame at all. Musicians are loathe to admit it, but it's really hard to write a proper rock anthem - a straightforward, power chord barnstormer that connects with people on a fundamental, emotional level. It's much safer to show off how great you are by playing obscure scales through an echo pedal. Perhaps the current crop of guitar bands just aren't good enough to write a High & Dry or a Creep.

So while we wait for a decent rock writer to come along, we'd better just buckle down and try to enjoy the math rock. And what better way to start than with Django Django (they drink it in the Congo).

They're a new band who met in Art School, live in Dalston and named themselves after a Belgian jazz guitar legend (please try to suppress your gag reflex). Their latest single is called Default and it's actually quite catchy - IE they remembered to include a hook. The video is an arresting watch, too, featuring a stop-motion collage, hand painted by the band themselves.

[end of rant]

Django Django - Default

New artist alert: EJ

2012-01-19T13:33:00.001Z

Yes, I know it can be a struggle to listen to new music. All that effort and so little reward. But stick with me here, because EJ, a Swedish-born, London-raised R&B singer only asks for two minutes of your time. Her debut single is Mama, I'm Going To Sing and if you were to visualise its influences as a mathematical formula, it would look like this.

Have a watch and take a listen.

EJ - Mama I'm Going To Sing

There's more information (but not much more) on EJ's Facebook Page.

Oh, hello there new Santigold MP3

2012-01-18T16:49:00.000Z

Get ready to say "hooray", because barmy old Santigold has returned to scream a load of old nonsense into your skullholes.

This is her new single, Big Mouth, which is a thinly-veiled attack on Lady Gaga and Katy Perry. At least, I'm 99 per cent sure it is. The lyrics are almost completely indecipherable - but the subtext is pretty obvious from the cartoon segments of this psychedelic, Neneh Cherry-indebted video.

Santigold - Big Mouth

If you like what you hear (and why wouldn't you?) the song is available for zero pennies* at Santigold's website. It's taken from her new album, Master of My Make-Believe, which is due later this year.

* Well, whatever it costs you to download an mp3 on your current provider's broadband service plan

R.I.P. Jimmy Castor

2012-01-18T12:26:00.000Z

Funk legend Jimmy Castor - a cornerstone of hip-hop - has died at the age of 64. But, although he's one of the most-sampled recording artists of all time (after James Brown), you might not know much about him.

His most influential song was It's Just Begun, recorded 16 years into his career. The opening trill of the saxophone and the intricate, hi-hat heavy groove have been pilfered by everyone from Grandmaster Flash to The Spice Girls (the sax riff appears on If You Can't Dance, fact fans).

But there were more strings to his bow than writing an iconic breakbeat. Castor penned the million-selling doo-wop classic I Promise To Love You for Frankie Lymon when he was still at high school. That led to his first recording session, in New York's Bel-Tone studios in 1956, after which he worked for almost all of the major labels - including Decca, RCA, Atlantic and Mercury.

Castor's career spanned rock, funk, soul, latin and pop. Like Prince, he produced his own records and played many of the instruments himself - earning him the nickname "The E-Man", short for The Everything Man. If you're seeking him out on Spotify today, the key tracks are Troglodyte (Cave Man), The Bertha Butt Boogie and King Kong.

Yet, despite his lingering popularity with hip-hop producers (Kanye West, Ice Cube and Mos Def are all fans), his biggest hits are largely absent from the airwaves. In fact, Compare My Radio shows that he's only been played on UK Radio once in the last month.

He called it "a curse".

"MTV, VH1 they kind of shunned me and my group," he once said. "Some of these guys have been with me for 30 years and I feel bad for them because they don't get the recognition they deserve. It's been a total insult."

A sad state of affairs, maybe, but Castor didn't let it get him down. He continued to record, write and play to big audiences until late last year, when he suffered a heart attack. Although he recovered from that and had bypass surgery, he sadly died on Monday in Nevada.

As a tribute, here is a blistering live performance of It's Just Begun from what looks like a 1972 episode of Soul Train. In Castor's own, frequently re-appropriated, words: "What we're gonna do right here is go back".

The Jimmy Castor Bunch - It's Just Begun

A tiny note about Emeli Sandé

2012-01-18T11:16:00.002Z

It's a small thing, but the moment when drums drop out on the second chorus of Next To Me's new single is a proper pop moment, and one of the reasons why Emeli Sandé is just a little bit more exciting than her contemporaries.

That is all.

Emeli Sande - Next To Me

If you are keen to hear more of this sort of thing, there is an album sampler available on YouTube. For a "deep" and "insightful" interview with Emeli, click on this link.