Jim Jiminy, Jim Jiminy, Jim Jim Jerroo...

Now that pop music has penetrated every sphere of human existence, from supermarkets to call centres, it's not unusual to make new discoveries in strange places.

For example, I Shazam-ed this awesome Michael Jackson cover in a Norwegian branch of Ikea. And the first time I heard Girls Aloud's The Promise was on holiday in Nice, via a mobile phone, after Discopop Directory reader Lisa kindly emailed it to me.

One of my most regular sources of new music in recent years has been video games. Not just Guitar Hero, which fed a particularly nasty Pat Benatar obsession, but more obscure gems like Da Blob and the delightfully bonkers Katamari Damacy. Check out a sample of the latter:

Katamari On The Rocks


Yes, I actually bought the soundtrack for that game. I wouldn't advise listening to it in the car. Or on drugs. Or on drugs in a car. Or at all.

But it doesn't end there... I set off on an ill-advised skater punk spending spree after completing snowboarding classic SSX3; while Grand Theft Auto: Vice City nurtured a distressing attachment to 1980s synth-rock twatfest Owner Of A Lonely Heart.

I suspect that, when you take 20 hours to complete a full-price title, you end up beaten into submission the soundtrack. I'm not proud to admit I've found myself jumping over bollards, humming the Mario theme song when I thought no-one was looking. I've heard it so many times over the last 25 years, it's just part of the personal soundtrack to my life.

To get to the point, the game currently lodged inside my PS3 is platforming gem Little Big Planet and its imaginatively titled sequel, Little Big Planet 2. The game uses a mixture of original score and off-kilter dance tracks by the likes of The Go Team and Battles.

The biggest earworm of the lot is a bowler-hatted bone shaker by the name of My Patch. It's one of several charming tracks to emerge from Manchester musician Jim Noir over the last couple of years... Radio 4 listeners might also recognise it as the theme for panel game The Unbelievable Truth.

Jim Noir - My Patch


Jim's recorded a whole bunch of bananas new music since LBP came out - and he's releasing it independently, via a subscription-based website. Basically, you give him £2.99 a month and he sends you a clutch of exclusive tracks, new material and anything else he has handy. Think of it as a porn site - only there are no nudey bottoms and you won't feel guilty about it.

To reinforce the porn model, Jim is offering a free track to entice you through his paywall. Called One Note World, it has touches of the Super Furry Animals' stoner-rock with luscious Beach Boys' harmonies and a shouty bit with a megaphone. At a push, I'd sum it up as "a voodoo Monkees" (which is coincidentally a great name for a band).

Here's the song - click through to SoundCloud to claim your free MP3.

Jim Noir - One Note World by mrdiscopop


If you want more of that sort of thing, Jim's website / porn domain is http://jimnoir.com/.

Don't let your mum see what you're up to.

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A cornucopia of distractions for Friday

:: This is a must-see - Neil Young performs the theme tune to Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air (okay, it's Jimmy Fallon pretending to be Neil Young, but see if you can tell the difference...)



:: The permanently underrated Kelis released a new song via her new website earlier this week. It's called Acapella, but its got instruments on it. Confusing. But Amazing. [link]

:: "I like girls. But now... it's about justice". The Top 50 Worst Moments of Video Game Dialogue [link]. See also: "Just before you die, I’m going to tell you a secret so you really don’t want to die!" - part of the ever-expanding catalogue of poor video game dialogue on the website Audio Atrocities. [link]

:: The Tao of Don Draper [via Gawker]



:: The 14 most awesome fake products from The Simpsons. [link]

:: This basketball mascot has gone above and beyond the call of duty with his half-time dance...



:: US public radio station NPR (think Radio 4 after a hostile takeover by Harvard University) ran its list of the Top 50 Most Important Recordings Of The Decade. Despite the pompous title, they have pretty funky taste - Kelly Clarkson rubs shoulders with Outkast and someone who's done a manic jazz cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit. The 1h20m podcast has music from all the winners and some hugely pretentious chit-chat. Essential listening. [link]

:: While we're looking at the end of the musical decade, you should also check out this excellent Spotify playlist from Drowned in Sound [link] and NME's Top 100 Tracks Of The Decade - correctly topped by Beyoncé's Crazy In Love. [link]

:: Lady GaGa put on an atypically understated performance of THE BIG BALLAD from her new album on Ellen De Generes' US chat show.

Lady GaGa - Speechless


:: Wikipedia quiz -- can you guess which wikipedia article is being quoted before time runs out? WARNING: This will eat up your entire afternoon. [link]

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Guns, maps and goo

Back in pre-histoy, when men rode dinosaurs to work and Simon Cowell was still a teenager, this blog was born. I often wrote about games and games culture, particularly around the birth of the Wii - when the possibilities afforded by waggling a thingy in the air (fnar) seemed endlessly exciting.

These days, however, I'm struggling to care about my consoles. I spend a lot of time on Rock Band and Guitar Hero - but they're just another way of listening to music (even if some of that music is by Tool).

Then there are those "open world sandbox games" that promise a million solutions to each task. They always sound promising, but they can't hide the fact that the task in question is, without fail, killing someone. Your choices ultimately boil down to this question: "Which noun would you like to use in committing a brutal murder?" As someone whose favourite game moments came in the cartoony, imaginative brain-teasers of the Super Mario and Banjo Kazooie series, the endless parade of headshots and body armour and healthpacks and "melee assaults" is horribly uninspiring.

Furthermore, thanks to Grand Theft Auto, every game now seems to be set in the middle a huge, sprawling city. Even Burnout has adopted this format - leading to the ridiculous situation of a racing game where you can take a wrong turn. Do you remember the last time you went the wrong way in your car? Was your reaction either (a) to say "hey, this is a really exciting, unpredictable driving experience" or (b) to bite a huge chunk out of your steering wheel and shout "you fucking imbecile" into the rearview mirror? If you answered (a) then congratulations, you have won a job at Microsoft Games Studios.

The obvious conclusion is this: Games need rules. It's as true of Monopoly as it is of kiss chase. I’d rather that designers concentrated on giving me focussed, structured gameplay than sending me on aimless quests around endless maps telling me I should enjoy the freedom. Wandering around unsure of what you're supposed to be doing is what you do when you've got Alzheimer's or a seat in the European Parliament. If it not fun, it's not a game.

But enough grumbling, let me tell you about the best game I've played this year. It's called World Of Goo and it's a taut little puzzler, full of charm and character. All you have to do is stack little blobs of gloop together to reach a big pipe in the sky - but the designers have taken the care to create a quirky, satirical story around the tiny goo-balls' predicament. It's utterly compelling, and frequently hilarious.

This weekend, you can get it for the bargain price of $0.01 (or whatever sum you decide to pay, Radiohead-style). I heartily recommend that you do.

In the meantime, here's a lovely little video from Adam and Joe's Radio 6 show that perfectly encapsulates my formative gameplaying experiences.

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Rock Band: Radiohead

A note for the gullible: This is a sketch from MTV's new animated show, Popzilla, and not a real advertisement

Excitingly, got to play the new Beatles: Rock Band game today. I would write a review but all I saw was a stream of dots racing towards me in quick succession, just like in the previous iterations of the game. The visuals in the background could have been a new high watermark for computer graphics in the 21st Century, but I wasn't really paying attention. Someone swore they saw a giant spunking donkey cock up on the flatscreen at one point, but that was probably just a glitch.

Anyway... I don't want to boast (I do) but I scored 99% playing the drums on my very first go, which finally proves I'm as good as Ringo Starr and could have replaced him in the Beatles if I had a time machine and a pudding bowl haircut.

Yes, I realise Ringo Starr was an actual genius who had to invent those drum patterns from scratch, but creative thinking is completely overrated these days. I am his equal, and nobody can prove otherwise without arranging a live drum-off at the Royal Albert Hall.

Go on, I dare you.

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The music will never die...

...It even survives this:



Cha'mon.

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A mixed bag of internet goodies

It's like a 10p mix for your PC.

:: Jordin Sparks' new single is officially "a bit of a belter". It's from the pen of Ryan Tedder, him of Bleeding Love and Halo (halo, halo, halo, HALO) fame. In an unlikely tribute to Pat Benatar, it has been called Battlefield. The MP3 is over here.

:: Terrible online waste of time pt 1: Play Scrabble against yourself, against the clock. The very definition of "okay, maybe just one more turn"... Go to Deepleap.org.

:: Overlooked synth-pop genii Dragonette have put a free MP3 of their new single on Myspace. The chorus is astounding, the rest is a bit of a mess.

:: There is a certain degree of pant-wetting about the new Sophie Ellis Bextor / Freemasons single from the sort of people who like Sophie Ellis Bextor and the Freemasons. I'm guessing a low top 10 chart placing when it comes out on 15th June.



:: Watch Little Boots play Stuck On Repeat for an embarassing uncle who's desperate to prove he's trendy, and his wife, who believes she is "in touch" with "the kids" because she's heard of Tetris. Cringeworthy.

:: Terrible online waste of time pt 2: Broken Picture Telephone. It's like Chinese whispers, on the internet, with pictures. In this game, for example, the phrase "Everyone gets punched in the face at the same time" became "an upset robot trapped on the train tracks breaks free", via a circuitous route involving the following picture:




:: Cat plays peek-a-boo.




:: Robert Downey Jr is back in his big red romper suit on the set of Iron Man 2...

:: Are these the Top 10 hidden album tracks of all time?? (Personally, I'd have put Janet Jackson's Strong Enough from The Velvet Rope in there, but what does my opinion count for??)

:: Have a quick peek at Where It's At - an online map that shows you famous locations from pop culture, from the real Hotel California to the parking lot that inspired Big Yellow Taxi. Needs a bit of work to add locations outside the US (Abbey Road isn't even on there!).

:: Rejoice! Flight Of The Conchords is back for its second series - starting on BBC Four tonight at 10:30pm. Set your Sky+ thing, cause it won't be on iPlayer.

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Goodies from the internet cookie jar

Today, we bring you links to external websites to create the impression we're working when, in fact, we're reading external websites. Duplication is keeping this blog alive, folks...

:: Katy Perry is all tucked up in a cosy duvet.

:: Following the much-emailed literal interpretation of A-ha's Take On Me video, and the not-nearly-as-funny version of Tears For Fears' Head Over Heels, comedy gold is mined once again in the series' third instalment.



:: Credit card warning. Don't do what this guy did.

:: Isla Fisher looks truly scrumptious in this photoshoot for Allure magazine.

:: Lily Allen is streaming her new album on MySpace. I can't be bothered to listen to it - can someone else pass it through their auditory system and let me know if it's worth buying? Thanks.

:: We all suspected Christian Bale had a bit of a temper, but here's confirmation - an extraordinary two minute, expletive-filled rant on the set of Terminator: Salvation. Disgraceful. Update: Here's the inevitable dance remix.

:: Following SingStar Abba's success, we're promised Singstar Queen later this year. I don't care what Sony says, however, I'm not buying a PS3 until we get Singstar Girls Aloud. And the price drops by £100. And pigs fly.

:: President Obama reads Bush's handover letter live from the Oval Office



:: A trainspotter-esque, but nonetheless fascinating, Wikipedia page on unusual types of gramophone records.

:: Whatever happened to TV's Blossom? "I was too 'ethnic' or 'quirky'," she tells The Onion.

:: Here's what Guitar Hero would have looked like in 1982 [via b3ta]

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Does Guitar Hero discriminate against drummers?

I got my first drum kit aged 8 and, over the next 15 years, played it to the extent where I destroyed my ears, my parents' relationship with their neighbours, and my cat's nerves.

But since I moved to London in 1997, there hasn't been space for a drum kit in the series of poky little rooms I've called home. So, it was with great excitement that I purchased Guitar Hero: World Tour - a video game music simulator which comes with a six-piece set you can fold away and store in a cupboard.

The trailer for the game promised it would have "the most realistic drums" of any game on the current generation of games consoles. Not actually realistic, of course, but as close as you'd get. There are touch sensitive pads, so you can play a gentle shuffle or thump the living daylights out of the tom toms, depending on your mood. And, unlike rival game Rock Band, you get a pair of cymbals to smash.

It arrived at Discopop Towers on Saturday and, after a few days experimentation, I have discovered the awful truth: I am too good for this game.

Now, I'm not saying I'm a modern-day John Bonham or Cozy Powell, but every ounce of skill and instinct I've picked up over the last 30 years actually counts against me.

Take the opening song - Survivor's Eye Of The Tiger. Except on the puny easy setting (which recreates precisely the experience of banging sticks on a wooden block at nursery school) I invariably failed within ten seconds of the beat kicking in.

In exasperation, I turned to the game's practice mode and played the intro over and over again - to no avail. "There must be a bug," I decided after an hour of mounting frustration, during which my success rate never peaked higher than 60%.

After another thirty minutes, I was sadly convinced that all those years of flailing around garages with a pair of drumsticks had amounted to nothing. When set to a click track, I couldn't keep time to save my life.

Eventually, my wife asked to watch me playing to see if she could work out what I was doing wrong.

She got it in about five seconds. There is a subtle swing to the hi-hat pattern on Eye Of The Tiger, which I was playing instinctively. But the game wanted a strict 4/4 rhythm.

Once the error had been pointed out to me, I was easily able complete the song on the game's hardest setting, expert mode. But it was still a struggle - the drum pattern just felt wrong (it doesn't help that, when you hit the pads in the 'correct' sequence, the game plays back the drum track from the original recording - including that lilting hi-hat). As a result, I kept slipping back into the swing beat.

Understandably, the game has to be calibrated to make it playable for non-percussionists - but I wonder whether they will struggle with it, too? Neurologist Oliver Sacks (whose fascinating book, Musicophilia, looks at the effects of music on the brain) believes rhythm is an innate skill for humans. "We respond to rhythm by keeping in time, by moving our heads," he told science website Universe last year.

"One cannot not respond to music: even if you don't make any external movement, the motor parts of the brain respond to rhythm. This appears spontaneously in every child - but you cannot train a chimpanzee, or a bird, or a whale, or an elephant, to keep synchronized time to a rhythm."

Of course, anyone who's seen their dad dance at a wedding will realise that rhythmical ability varies from person to person. So maybe the syncopation issue will only affect people like me, who've "fine-tuned" their rhythmical abilities.

I got some consolation from rock legend Slash - who was interviewed for Guitar Hero's last iteration (in which he made a cameo appearance). In the video, the Velvet Revolver / GnR guitarist spoke of similar frustrations with the guitar mode:

"Guitar Hero is harder as a guitar player than if I'd never touched a guitar and all I knew I had to do was touch all these different colours on the neck," he said.

So, has anyone else experienced this exasperation with the Guitar Hero / Rock Band series? I'd be interested to know...

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Katy Perry in a computer game

Like Natasha Bedingfield and Lily Allen before her, Katy Perry has recorded a "simlish" version of her new single for hit PC game The Sims 2.

If you ask me, the nonsense lyrics are an improvement.

Katy Perry - Hot N' Cold (simlish)


PS: I usually can't stand video game sequels, but The Sims 3 looks stunning.

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Alicia wants us to tap her Keys

When you think of Alicia Keys what three words come into your head? For me it's probably piano, slightly, and dull.

But not the people who run the soul star's website, oh no. They have squeezed their brain cells very, very hard and come up with the words: tetris, Tetris, TETRIS!



Yes, you can play the famed 1980s rotating blocks puzzle game on Alicia's website while being brainwashed seduced by her mum-friendly music (although surely they've missed a trick by using No-one instead of Falling?)

Why they've decided to offer this "feature" is a complete mystery. Unless they're trying to subtly reinforce the link between listening to Alicia Keys and boring, reptitive tasks.

PS: Here is Alicia's new video, for the literally quite-good-if-you-like-that-sort-of-thing Teenage Love Affair. The storyline combines the perfectly-matched topics of a college campus relationship and African Aids orphans. Tasteful!

Alicia Keys New - Teenage Love Affair

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Ride your music (fnar, fnar)

I haven't written about games on the blog for a while, principally because I haven't played anything that's set my world on fire. But, for the last week or two, I've been toying around with a little thing called Audiosurf and, while there are no flames in my garden, my keyboard is slightly singes.

Basically, it's a cross between a shoot-em-up (think Space Invaders) a puzzle game (Tetris) and a media player (iTunes). Seasoned gamers would draw parallels with Rez or Space Giraffe but, let's face it, they're just nerds with too much time on their fat sweaty hands.

You take control of a ship flying along an outer-space race course, which is littered with bricks (bloody asbo teens, etc). Points are scored by collecting similar-coloured bricks and chaining them together. The more bricks you have in a sequence, the more points you score.

It's not exactly a ground-breaking concept, I grant you, but Audiosurf has an ace up its sleeve: The racetrack is based on the song playing in the background, and you can use any track from your iTunes library to create a new course.

Really intense bits of music - guitar solos, for example - make the game speed up. Hundreds of bricks come flying at you, simulating the experience of being a Chinese policeman in Tibet. Slower songs - anything by Westlife - are more like a stroll in the countryside with the occasional speed bump.

When you finish a level, you get shown the scores of all the people in the world who have played the same piece of music. I am proud to say that I am currently the globe's best at Little Red Corvette.

I'm not so good on Ace of Spades.

Best of all, the game only costs $9.95 - or £5 in real money - and you can download it now from audio-surf.com.

Here's a video of some nutter playing The Rolling Stones' Paint It Black:

Audiosurf - Paint It Black

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Super Mario Chortle

I am now the proud owner of 87 stars on Super Mario Galaxy, which I have been playing on my Wii so hard that my elbow is about as useful as that bit of string holding two raw sausages together.

It is fabulous, by the way. Full of glorious technicolour landscapes and unfettered imagination, unlike all those XBox games set in a disused factory, a brown desert or - for variety - a disused factory in a brown desert.

It also feels like a proper game, full of exploration and innovation - particularly when it plays fast and loose with the rules of gravity. At no point do you have to run down a corridor and shoot forty identical zombies working for a faceless corporation in a dystopian version of the future.

There is also a planet shaped like a lady.

But I'm not going to attempt a full review because (a) the game is two months old and (b) I've just stumbled across this drily sardonic video review, which caused me to bellow a guffaw across the office (nb: not a euphemism for farting).



Good, huh? The reviewer in question, Yahtzee, has a whole archive of similarly mirthsome reviews. The archive is available here.

And for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, here's a snippet of Mario action:

Super Mario Galaxy - Trailer

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How to make Friday afternoon disappear

1) Click on this link
2) Play the game by clicking on the little confetti dots and trying to string together a chain-reaction of colourful explosions
3) Play it again
4) Oh go on, just one more time
5) Say goodbye to the rest of your day
6) Don't say I didn't warn you

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Some distracting materials from the internet!!!1

Because Fridays are all about mucking around on the web and waiting for the moment you can run out the office door and go to the pub. Don't forget your jacket.

The Spice Girls are (still) back! They have all put on something black and lined up in front of a man with a camera, who pressed a button and took a photo, which he sent to their record label, who asked the Spice Girls to approve it, which they did, and then the proof was scanned and given to a press person, who sent it to journalists, who put in on the internet. And then I copied it and pasted it here. Look:

While appearing on Conan O'Brien's US chat show to promote his new comedy I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry, Adam Sandler was asked to introduce a clip from his new movie. Conan then played a scene from a gay porn film, featuring men who get off on fattening each other up. Nice:

Play your favourite 1980s aracde game here. Paperboy is still a work of unfettered genuius.

Uberblog Pop Star Poetry imagines Ray Winstone meeting up with Amy Winehouse:

To The Ivy for lunch
With Quentin Tarantino
We rap about political
Subtext in The Beano

Onetime discopop fantasy figure Mary Louise Parker bares (almost) all to promote the upcoming season of Weeds. But is that really her bottom?

"Angelina Jolie is the best woman in the world because she is the most famous woman in the world". Esquire magazine writes the worst celebrity profile in the world.

Listen to the fantastic remix of Justin Timberlake's Lovestoned by dance supremos Justice. A gazillion better times better than the original, I swear.

Take a look at this clickable map of Lindsay Lohan's slow-motion self-destruction and ask yourself the following question: "Is this the future of interactive reporting, or just sickening voyeurism?"

What are Tom and Katie doing in this photo?

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Foo Fwi Ziba Seeba Smwee-ee-ee

No, I haven't gone mad - those are some of the lyrics to Lily Allen's new song...

You may remember that a couple of weeks back I posted MP3s of Norwegian popster Annie singing in Simlish. Simlish is the made-up nonsense language from The Sims 2, a computer game so addictive it has been made a class B narcotic in Finland.

Well, hot on the heels of that revelation, Lily Allen has done a Simlish version of Smile. EA, a video games company with almost limitless resources, have made a video for the song using in-game footage. In a bizarre twist, it is better than the actual video for the actual song. I like the bit where she sets her boyfriend on fire.

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Is the PS3, like, totally fucked, dude?

Just a quick note to clarify my points about the PS3 in the next post down:

It is the fastest-selling console ever in the UK, shifting 165,000 units in the launch weekend. Isn't it weird how seeing brand new games consoles on the shelves makes it seem like they're not very successful, even when they are? [source]

But the machine is being outsold 2:1 by the Nintendo Wii in Japan. [source]

And in the US, 127,000 PS3s were sold last month, compared to 295,000 PS2s and 335,000 Wiis. Ouch! [source]

Meanwhile, people who queued up for a PS3 hoping to sell it for profit on eBay are actually making a loss. Double ouch! And [source]

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I still love Wii-ing

Last December, it seemed like every other post on here was about the Nintendo Wii and how much I was looking forward to getting my hands on one. Then it arrived and, one paltry review of Zelda later, everything went quiet. Here's what's happened since:

Everyone who plays Wii Sports wants to take the console home with them. It's the most intuitive and addictive game since Tetris.

While playing Wii Tennis, at least one guest has come close to throwing themselves through the window with a rather overzealous backhand return.

The tutorial videos on Wario Ware: Smooth Moves made me laugh chips out my nose.

Mrsdiscopop-in-law got overly competitive on Wii Play's shooting range, making everyone a little more nervous on Christmas Day.

If you like the internet smaller, blurrier, and more difficult to navigate then the Wii's Web Browser is the product for you.

I completed Zelda in 50 hours, and was smug for approximately the same amount of time.

Lots of people who are better at computer games than I will ever be posted their high scores to Flickr. Does the phrase "too much time on your hands" mean anything to the youth of today?

The PS3 came out. Nobody bought it. We all laughed.

Although it's a bit too early to claim victory for the tiny white console - especially as Nintendo can't get enough stock to the UK while the PS3 sits winking coquettishly at people on the shop shelves.

Added to which - can we have some new games please, Nintendo?

Actually, I've just come across the following trailer for Wii Sims. Once mrsdiscopop gets her hands on this, I won't be able to get her off the sofa for weeks. Which could be a problem, as we're supposed to be moving house...

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Play safe, kids

Which of the following two images from Nintendo's saftey manual for the Wii console is real and which is fake?




Wrong! They're both for real! Quite why Nintendo thinks anyone would be willing to put a shamrock in their gamehole is quite beyond me, but maybe the Japanese are more litigious than I previously imagined.

Kotaku has grabs of all the illustrations from the safety manual, while theiconfactory has created some fake ones and loaded them up to Flickr. They are almost as funny as the real ones.



PS: 2 days to go! 2 days to go!!

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2 wiiks to go

I've now placed two pre-orders for a Nintendo Wii, just to make absolutely sure I get one on release day (8 December).

Does that seem a bit excessive? I admit that when I woke up this morning I was beginning to question my own sanity... Then someone sent me this video of a small child playing the boxing mini-game on Wii Sports and I realised why I'm so excited all over again.



How could you not want something that makes you do that in front of your tellybox?

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Big Dipper Disaster

One of mrsdiscopop's favourite games is Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 on the PC. But she doesn't play it like this.

Oh, the humanity!
[via kotaku]

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