Manic Street Preachers - This Is The Day

REM - Off to "The Great Beyond"

The Sound: Sense of Purpose

The Fall: Lay of the Land

The Weekend and Wire

I'm away over the next couple of days, so the sedate and philanthropic posts that this blog has become famous for will not be appearing until Monday at the earliest. But just to keep you all interested, YouTube will be popping in now and again to offer you some gems from the post-punk era. Now, who wouldn't want that?

Let's start with a rather boring video for the wonderful "Outdoor Miner" by Wire:

Bob Geldof, in self-pity mode:

I'd love people to hear it, but I don't think people will. You've got all the baggage that comes with me: The Boomtown Rats, all the tabloid stuff... You've got to get through an awful lot of stuff, then put it aside and say, "well, I'll have a listen, I'll give him a go".

But bizarrely enough, people do buy my stuff, so I get to play great theatres all over the world. Except in the UK, where they don't give a crap.

You could put up a poster with 'Tonight! Bob Geldof!' on it, and people would see it and say, "OK, fair enough…" then wander off saying, "Doing what? Is he gonna rant at us about Africa?"

Yeah, that's all true, Bob, but I do think that there is another reason why people won't want to hear your record - it's the fact that you haven't actually produced anything worth hearing since 1982. A 20 year gulf in the production of anything of real artistic merit is a big jump for any artist to overcome, Bob, even one as arrogant and self-assured as your good self.

Joy Division, Playmobil Style

British Sea Power: Valhalla Dancehall

It is very easy to have released the record of the year (so far) when we are only in January. And make no mistake about it, British Sea Power have managed that. The thing is, they may also have the record of the year when we reach December as well. Because, and make no mistake about this, Valhalla Dancehall is a great album. In fact, it is pretty fucking fan-fucking-tastic.

The tendency thus far in BSP's career has been for them to open with a mood piece - a piece of music or a song to set out the stall for their album ("It Ended On An Oily Stage" being the honourable exception. Not so Valhalla Dancehall. The opening song is BSP at perhaps their most political; it is an angry song that laments the fact the protesting on a Saturday night isn't considered cool. It very much taps into the protesting zeitgeist - intentionally or otherwise - and as such is precisely the sort of song that Manic Street Preachers should be writing these days, but (sadly) they aren't. And from there, we have a mix of both the normal BSP songs yet a more confident band and therefore a more compelling final product. It all culminates in "Heavy Water" - a song that combines the best of Pulp and Echo and the Bunnymen in their respective primes, yet still retains a distinctly BSP flavour to it. And by the time that rolls around for the first time, you know that you have heard something good. But the best thing is that you know you will have to go back to it and listen to it again to fully appreciate it. And that's when it starts to get even better.

Confidence is probably the watchword here; this is a band who know that people will listen to their record, and as a result don't feel the need to chase popularity (a problem with Open Season, perhaps) but instead can focus on making their songs as strong as possible. Plus, the lyrical dexterity - what other band could have a protest song that involve the lyrics "I'm a big fan of the local library/I just read a book/But that's another story" or have a lead single that talks about the nature of celebrity in part through acronyms ("Your VPL in the SUV")? Even the refugee songs from last year's slightly lacklustre Zeus EP fit in well here. It sounds like a complete musical project.

Of course, BSP are not for everyone, and if you prefer less cerebral and less obscure indie music, then this will not be for you. But as far as I am concerned, this is a document of a band at the very height of their powers. A clever, witty, moving and anthemic record; and it may just end up being your record of the year, even if you buy it right now.

Album of the Year

The album of the year has to be The Suburbs by Arcade Fire. There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, it is an exciting, compelling album containing striking, memorable songs done in an eclectic style. It even has a couple of bona fide classics on it – songs like “We Used To Wait” deserve not only to be widely heard hits but have the potential to join the ranks of the truly great rock/indie songs of all time. Despite their increasing fame, profile and (presumably) wealth, the Arcade Fire are not only still producing albums that are worth hearing, but positively demand to be heard. Not just highly recommended – it’s essential listening.

But there is another reason why the Arcade Fire had the album of the year this year – basically, I just haven’t kept up to date with new releases beyond the bands (such as the Manics and their largely phoned in offering) I already like. Consequently, I don’t have much to compare The Suburbs with. So it is over to you, diligent reader, to help me out – what were your albums of the year, and what should I have listened to?

Merry Christmas, Everybody

In part to aggravate Jackart, and in part to say "Merry Christmas", here's Slade's Christmas anthem (it's an anthem in that it is overplayed at Christmas). Enjoy.

Rather like the Queen's Christmas Address, this is a pre-prepared announcement - I'm not actually blogging on Christmas Day as I have better things to do; such as binge-eating, binge-drinking and the Doctor Who Christmas Special. So if you're reading this on Christmas Day, I urge you to stop and go do something fun. Because Christmas really shouldn't be about blogs like this one.

Anyway, laters all. Have a grand ol' Christmas Day.

Fairytale of New York - The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl

Probably the best Christmas song ever, and one that manages to be a good song in its own right - a colossal rarity for a festive treat. Enjoy.

I Believe In Father Christmas - Greg Lake

The curse of restricted playback is with us again, but you can enjoy this (slightly angry and bitter in places) Christmas tune over at YouTube. There'll be another one along this afternoon - and I think that one can actually be embedded. Which is nice.

Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)

In which the Ramones create a Christmas song that sounds a lot like the rest of their songs. But with a hint of sleigh bells and the use of the word Christmas. Magic.

It's Clichéd To Be Cynical At Christmas - Half Man Half Biscuit

A little bit of monotonous indie festive whining this morning - but, amazingly, a video I can actually embed. Woo-fucking-hoo. Anyway, enjoy the wonderfully named Half Man Half Biscuit:



BTW, they'll be a second festive treat for you all this afternoon! I know, I know, I'm too kind - but it is Christmas.

James Dean Bradfield - Last Christmas

Today's festive treat is James Dean Bradfield (of Manic Street Preachers fame, natch) performing Wham's "Last Christmas". However, to enjoy it, you'll have to head over to the Tube of You.

The Wedding Present - Step Into Christmas

For today's Christmas song, you'll have to head over to YouTube as, in what I think may well become a theme for the week, embedding has been disabled by request. Still, enjoy an indie version of a not absolutely terrible Christmas tune.

The Top 10 Worst Christmas Songs Of All Time

'Tis the season for recycled pop pap to be pumped by radio stations and into stores across the nation. Yes, we get to hear dreadful dirges that would be rightly ignored at all other times of the year because they happen to have festive lyrics and sleigh-bells in the background. Sure, there are some good Christmas themed songs, but they are very much the exception rather than the rule. And in case you were wondering, this is the list of what I reckon to be the very worst - the steaming turds at the very summit of a big ol' pile of crap. In reverse order:

10 Mistletoe and Wine

There is an increasing number of people who want to revise our opinions of the eighties. Sure, the fashion was loud and the music was a bit bombastic on occasion. But actually there was a lot of joy that can be taken from the eighties - even its music.

This song is a standing rebuke to those people. It isn't so much that it is a bad song (although it is - both smug, calculated and an affront to your ears) but the fact that it was so popular. The best-selling single of 1988 - fuck me, that must have been an appalling year for music.

9 Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End)

The Darkness were a curious band. Whoever thought that making the sort of pomp rock that even Queen at their height would have avoided while wearing spandex leotards was a long-term career option was hopelessly naive. Nonetheless, they were amusing. For about three minutes. And this song is when the joke ceased to be funny.

It is all very well vying to be Christmas number one, but if you want to actually achieve that with a Christmas song, then it is probably best not to do so by writing Scrooge-like lyrics that carp on about an unpleasant Christmas. Particularly not if your "anthem" sounds like phoned in screeching rock music that has been done about a billion times before.

They didn't reach number one, and this was the beginning of the end for the band. They were beaten by a stripped down cover of a song about teenage alienation and depression. Which is somehow fitting...

8 In Dulci Jublio

Mike Oldfields' Christmas tune (well, his cover of it) sounds exactly how you might expect it to if it had been performed a precocious school orchestra. The whole thing has a jaunty air about it for no reason whatsoever, and some of the instruments involved could shred your nerves. The only real indication that Oldfield had anything whatsoever to do with this song is the guitar solo - which is hideously out of place and an example of fret-wankery that even Spinal Tap would have thought twice about.

7 Driving Home For Christmas

There are many things to romanticise about Christmas, but this song - in which Chris Rea rumbles on about driving during the festive season - represents a level of insanity about Christmas that has seldom been replicated. Honest to God, there is nothing to celebrate about driving - or to put it another way, sitting in traffic - at Christmas time. It certainly isn't something to writing a fucking festive ballad about, Rea, you gravel-voiced cunt.

6 Saviour's Day

Is this song tangibly worse than Mistletoe and Wine, I hear you ask? Well, yes, because Sir Cliff of Dickshaft not only offers and aural atrocity for our delectation, but he also decides that he is going to force his God down our throats at the same time. God-bothering and the musical equivalent of botulism - never going to be a winning combination for me...

5 Proper Crimbo

I don't quite know whether it is the least Christmassy thing of all time, but Bo' Selecta must be a strong contender. A man in a rubber mask making crude jokes that cease to be funny after roughly 3.5 seconds is hardly a natural idea to be converted into a Christmas hit. But they did it anyway.

The end result is a bit like a Christmas hit from The Inbetweeners - but only if the characters from that show were deliberately trying to be more irritating and puerile than ever before while mashed up on an heady mix of ketamine and cheap speed. The fact that it didn't make Christmas number one is one of the few things I can cling to when I want to convince myself that our culture isn't in a permanent decline into utter retardation.

4 Do They Know It's Christmas?

The Band Aid 20 version, fact fans. I'm not saying that the other two versions were any good, but the 2004 version just sounds so weedy and so puny that it is an immediate insult to an already pretty crappy song. Rather like Live 8 which (barring the reunion of Pink Floyd) was a generally bad photocopy of the original Live Aid Concert. But it is worth just stressing how pathetic this version sounds - but then again it would, featuring leading lights such as that dweeb from Coldplay. Ultimately, this song only works if it is done in a big, bombastic and slightly pompous yet earnest way. This version sounds like a demo for an utterly anodyne, unthreatening version of the song. Best avoided. Like the plague.

3 Wonderful Christmastime

Paul McCartney, dick that he is, has still managed to write some great songs in his time. Make no mistake about it, this is not one of them. In fact, it makes John Lennon's hopelessly naive Christmas song look like a bona fide classic - since at least that had passion. This is McCartney at his smug, indolent worst. It is just a really shit, lacklustre song.

It sounds like McCartney just went into the studio one day, armed with a half-written lyric and a kid's synthesizer and churned this piece of shit out. I dare say it would prove that you can't polish a turd had McCartney made any attempt to polish it - as it stands, this sounds like a half-hearted attempt at a song that should have been erased from history.

If McCartney ever wonders why so many people hate him (and I don't, for one second, believe that he does) he should listen to songs like this. People hate you, Paul, because at your worst you are smug, self-indulgent and lazy. Songs like this show you wasting whatever talent you might have in the most cynical way possible.

2 Another Rock n' Roll Christmas

Ah yes, the troubling Christmas song. It is, as Gary Glitter songs go, not too bad. I mean, it has lyrics, as opposed to a chant, and a tune, as opposed to an endlessly repeated four-note melody. But there is the whole problem that it is by Gary Glitter. I mean, he went from the position of slightly oafish glamrock star to monster in next to no time. Which is a problem for this song - with lines such as "I love to hear the children sing", "this ain't gonna be no silent night" and "you'll be rocking/in your stocking/when you see you big surprise/I'll be rocking/in your stocking/you won't believe your big blue eyes", it all becomes a little bit sinister.

And because it ended up on so many Christmas compilations, and because so few people seem to realise it is a song performed by a convicted sex predator, it still gets played to this day. Which I sometimes feel is pretty creepy.

1 The Millennium Prayer

So, Sir Cliff of Dickshaft wanted another Christmas number one, but those behind him were not able to come up with a new song for him to warble at the world. So, what to do? Ah, yes, combine the Lord's Prayer with Auld Lang Syne. What could go wrong? Well, given the idea is toxic shite, pretty much everything. But the fact that, at the millennium, you want to convert people to God by performing a song that sounds like a whiney karoke number means that you are utterly naive and completely worthless.

Seriously, Sir Cliff, you can take your God and shove it.

But, as I mentioned at the start of this unexpectedly long post, despite all the above, I do have a sneaking like for some Christmas songs. And one video a day will appear on this blog of the songs I do actually like until Christmas Day itself. So enjoy. Possibly.

On Cage Against The Machine

I support pretty much anything that represents a slap in the face to that massive tit Simon Cowell. I see The X Factor and its odious ilk as a resounding death knell not just for our culture, but for our society. Voting for the latest no-talent non-entity being judged by Cowell inspires far more debate and opinion that even a General Election - which is one of the reasons why this country is headed to hell in a handcart.

So I do support the sterling work of Cage Against The Machine. I've been a member of their Facebook group since the summer, and like the idea that silence is preferable to the latest pile of toss from the anodyne, amorphous blob who happened to win in Cowell's show. But my support does have its limits.

See, I'd rather a period of silence (or background noise, depending on how you look at it) won out over the alternative, but I have to say that I'm not actually willing to pay for either. I can get silence for free, right here, right now. I don't need to pay for it.

Which is rather my point. I'm all for making a song and a dance about the negative impact The X Factor is having on the UK. Unfortunately, in their choice of track. Cage Against The Machine aren't making a song about it, and that means that if they do hit number 1 today, then it will have been without my help.

Magazine - Shot By Both Sides

The Pogues - Thousands Are Sailing