Songs you may have missed: Making up for lost time edition

Hello, and apologies for the temporary hiatus - which was mostly self-enforced due to half term and the Oscars, and partly actually enforced by nasty bout of Norovirus.

BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME HERE IS SOME MUSIC.

1) Rihanna - Towards The Sun
Nice to hear a more optimistic Rihanna on this track - taken from the soundtrack to the DreamWorks animation Home (which seems like it might be Jim Parson's Aladdin).

Turn your face towards the sun," she sings. "Let the shadows fall behind you." It's a midtempo banger that's crying out for a dreamy Penguin Prison remix.






2) Ed Sheeran - Dirrrty (live lounge cover)
I will personally give Ed Sheeran £500 if he plays this at tomorrow night's Brits wearing Christina Aguilera's ass chaps.





3) George The Poet - Cat D
George The Poet has noticed something. Certain people are damaged - but you don't notice because they project an aura of confidence.

He's noticed something else, too. Some second hand cars aren't as good as they're made out to be. AND THAT'S A BIT LIKE PEOPLE, ISN'T IT?

At first, you think he's going to stretch this tortured metaphor to breaking point. Then he goes way beyond that. And then, somehow, it comes full circle and becomes rather touching. Odd, but brilliant.





4) Calvin Harris ft Haim - Pray To God
I am firmly of the belief that Haim can do no wrong.





5) Clare Maguire - Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?
I naturally recoil from anything recorded "especially for Burberry" - but, oh hell, Clare's voice on this could melt the icecaps. Astonishing work on the Carole King / Gerry Goffin classic.

And note that this is a live vocal. Fucking hell.






6) Blur - Go Out
Oh, I do wish Damon Albarn would stop singing in that "won't someone please just give me a hug" whine. But, hey, it's nice to hear his increasingly polite melodies being scuzzed up by Graham Coxon's deliberately atonal guitar lines, even if it's just for old times' sake.

This is from the band's first new album in 12 years, The Magic Whip, which is a great title.





7) Kanye West - Wolves (ft Sia and Vic Mensa)
Imagine if Kanye just turned up at the Brits, played this, then dropped a new album on iTunes. It won't happen. But imagine if it did. (It won't).

(But imagine).





8) Jess Glynne - Hold My Hand
I'm as much a fan of the handbag house revival as the next man, but it's nice to hear Jess Glynne drawing inspiration from Shanice's I Love Your Smile, too.





9) U2 - Every Breaking Wave
The one Noel Gallagher called "a fucking tune". The one you shouldn't have deleted from iTunes in a fit of pique because Bono is a twerp. The one that's about "the troubles".

The video is awesome, too: Shot by Belfast-born director Aoife McArdle, it video depicts a Catholic boy who falls in love with a Protestant girl at a punk show in 1980s Northern Ireland until (you guessed it) their burgeoning romance is torn apart by the realities of the troubles.




10) Hozier - Problem (Ariana Grande cover)
It's a cover that makes you realise how astonishing Ariana Grande's tonsils are... Nice switch into Warren G's Regulate at the end, too.





11) Lennon and Maisy - Boom Clap
Lennon and Maisy are the singing siblings who play Maddie and Daphne in country music soap opera Nashville. Their Charli XCX cover was uploaded to YouTube just before the show returned from a mid-season hiatus in the US - and the lush, folky harmonies give the song new life.





12) Ariana Grande - One Last Time
We're definitely in fourth single from a hit album territory here, but the apocalyptic video is something of a surprise.




13) Chvrches - Cry Me A River (live lounge cover)
Taking a break from recording their second album, Chvrches popped into Radio 1's Live Lounge to play their Drive: Rescored track "Get Away" and this masterful take on Justin Timberlake's breakout ballad. It somehow manages to be vulnerable and menacing at the same time - like one of those terrifying dolls in Toy Story.

Incidentally, an album of Chvrches cover versions would be a welcome thing. Remember this version of The Arctics' Do I Wanna Know last year?

Phew! Well done if you stuck around to the end (the Chvrches thing was your reward for not closing the tab as soon as I mentioned U2).

Normal service should return to the blog in the next couple of days once awards season dies down. I've missed you guys. All eight of you.

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Eleven songs you may have missed (and one you definitely haven't)

This is the first "songs you may have missed" post since Christmas so in all likelihood these are songs you may not have missed. But there's always time for a good music megapost so let's begin, with...

1) Rihanna - FourFiveSeconds
About bloody time, pop's most elusive pop star is back, collaborating with Kanye West and Sir Fab Macca Wacky Thumbs Aloft on a surprisingly attitude-free, stripped back acoustic pop "number".

It's good. So good, in fact, that it's going to appear on both Kanye and Rihanna's new album. Which is going to cause havoc with my iTunes library. HAVOC.




2) Sia - Salted Wound
The 50 Shades of Grey soundtrack is shaping up to be superb, even if the film looks like a turkey. We've already heard Ellie Goulding's saucy Love Me Like You Do and The Weeknd's even saucier Earned It, now it's the turn of Sia - who takes a different tack altogether.

Her harp-assisted ballad Salted Wound is full of remorse and doubt. "Give your heart, and say come take it," sings Sia, "and she will see you're a good man." It should be a fitting accompaniment to Christian Grey's more introspective scenes.






3) Kelly Clarkson - Heartbeat Song
Is it me, or does this sound like Shania Twain?





4) Shura - Indecision
Feather-light synth pop from London's hotly tipped Aleksandra Denton. This would make a perfect Track 7, Side B on an "I like you" mixtape.






5) Prince & 3rdEyeGirl - Marz
Prince apparently thinks this throwaway rock track is dynamite. He's following up an SNL performance of the song with this YouTube video - which appeared days after he deleted his YouTube account. Strange chap.





6) Alex Winston - We Got Nothing
Alex Winston's wonky pop curio Sister Wife is one of my all-time favourite under-rated tracks. Catchy as all heck, with a killer lyric about polygamy and jealousy, I have played it to death over the last four years.

She's been in limbo for a while, but this sumptuous new single - on the influential Neon Gold label - hints at a slightly more mainstream, but no less hook-laden direction.







7) Jessie Ware - Jealous (Labrinth cover)
Stick around for the bit where she chucks in the chorus to Chaka Khan's Through The Fire. Beautiful.





8) Bearson - Pink Medicine
Bearson is a Norwegian producer who works in the "tropical house" genre (no, me neither). This hypnotic little song is a little too glitchy to be chill-out and a little too chilled out to be danceable. But I like it, for some reason. There's a free download available here if you like it, too.







9) Lana Del Rey - Brooklyn Baby (Yuksek remix)
WARNING: If you or your family are sensitive to the effects of synthesized saxophones, please seek advice before streaming this song.





10) U2 - Every Breaking Wave (single remix)
I wonder if anyone actually listened to Songs of Innocence when it gatecrashed our phones last year? I certainly couldn't be bothered... but it turns out that at least one of the songs is worth four minutes of your time.

Ranking it as the third best song of 2014 (!!) Rolling Stone called Every Breaking Wave the "emotional centrepiece" of U2's 13th album, saying it's "stark, shimmering" melody recalled With Or Without You.

To be honest, Joey Tribiani's not going to be staring out a fake window to this one any time soon... But this stripped-back radio remix of the song is surprisingly affecting.






11) Tobias Jesso Jr - How Could You Babe?
Officially endorsed by Adele, this is about as old-school as pop gets in 2015. Tailor made for Radio 2 and fans of sweaters, it recalls Elton John back in the Yellow Brick Road days.





12) Rae Morris - Love Again
As previously noted on these pages, Rae Morris is rather brilliant - with a husky voice like Ellie Goulding and a percussive thump worthy of Florence and the Machine. I interviewed her last week and, pleasingly, she let slip that her first ever gig was S Club 7.

If that's not enough to recommend her, try out this song: Love Again, one of the standout tracks from her debut album, Unguarded, which came out on Monday.

And that's a wrap. What an oddly diverse bunch of songs, eh?

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Songs you may have missed - Saturday style

Sorry for the lack of posts this week - it's been a busy one at work (mostly working on this piece, about the first 1,000 albums to reach number one in the UK). Here's what I missed along the way.

1) Pharrell Williams - Happy
As you may have heard, Pharrell's swinging new song (from the Despicable Me soundtrack) comes with a 24-hour music video. You can see that on 24hoursofhappy.com, or you can watch the TV edit right here. Your choice, but both will bring a big stupid grin to your face.




2) Arcade Fire - Afterlife
If Pharrell made you smile, this might be a bit of a comedown. Beautifully cinematic but eerie with melancholy, Emily Kai Bock's video adds an emotional wallop to Arcade Fire's rumination on life after death.




3) Lizzo - Batches and Cookies
I have no idea what this song is about - but Detroit-via-Houston-via-Minneapolis rapper Lizzo sounds like she's having a lot of fun anyway. Brimming with energy, this is what it would sound like if Nicki Minaj covered Salt-N-Pepa's greatest hits.




4) U2 - Ordinary Love
The first new material from Bono & co in three years, Ordinary Love is taken from the Nelson Mandela biopic Long Road To Freedom. Bono sounds like he's straining for the high notes these days, but there's a rush of nostalgia when The Edge's chiming, reverb-soaked guitar kicks in. The gospel-infused chorus is rather special, too.

The lyric video, unveiled on Facebook on Thursday, is the opening salvo in the band's return. Bassist Adam Clayton recently told Ireland's 98FM: "We're in the studio. We're trying to get these 12 songs absolutely right and get them finished by the end of November, and then we can kind of enjoy Christmas,"




5) Eminem - Stan (Radio 1 Live Lounge)
Eminem turned up for his chat with Zane Lowe after watching Kanye West's bizarre mad-man-at-the-back-of-the-bus performance on the show earlier in the year.

"I was trying to figure out how I was going to top the publicity of yours and Kanye's interview," he said, "so I decided I was gonna walk in here, and just pee on the floor and leave." He then held Zane's gaze with an icy glare for what must have seemed like hours, before he deadpanned: "I'm peeing right now".

The massive, four-part interview is well worth dipping into (here's the link for the first segment) but it was Eminem's performance with a live band at the end that really made it appointment listening. Here's Stan, sounding as fresh as it did 14 (!) years ago.




6) Tinashe - Vulnerable
After waxing lyrical about the new wave of dark&b earlier this week, this song zinged into my inbox. 20-year-old Tinashe is every bit as captivating and seductive as Banks and Solange and her peers. Vulnerable is possibly the sexiest new song you'll hear this week. Although it could do without the "asses" and "bitches" of Travi$ Scott's predictably banal rap.




7) Sophie Ellis Bextor - Young Blood
If you've been watching Strictly, you'll know that Sophie Ellis is turning out to be quite the dancer. Her Argentine Tango literally gave me shivers (admittedly, the heating was up the left that day). But she's also hard at work on the day job, making big old pop songs with PROPER ENUNCIATION.

Her forthcoming new album, Wanderlust, is a real labour of love - written with Ed Harcourt, and eschewing the frothy disco of her earlier records. The first single, Young Blood, is a gorgeous, dramatic ballad aimed right at the top of the Radio 2 playlist. It's the best thing she's done since Groovejet.

And that's your lot. If you're still after something to listen to, I'd really recommend Bret Easton Ellis's first podcast - in which he has a big old chin-wag with Kanye West about movies, lacking maturity and binge-watching Breaking Bad. You can download it here.

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Glastonbury: A top 10 from behind-the-scenes

Working at Glastonbury is hard going - 18-hour days, 20 bands to interview, 20 live inserts on 6 Music and Radio 2, covering the death of a politician, and producing eight or nine other radio segments across the weekend.

But let's face it: I'm a lucky pup. I get to see and do things that only a privileged few will ever experience. The lack of sleep is a small price to pay.

So... Here's my top 10 moments from the behind-the-scenes at the world's muddiest festival.

10) The Joy Formidable. Not only did they ROCK the John Peel stage, but they started a rumour that Beyoncé would have a "giant inflatable clitoris on stage as a symbol of female empowerment". We didn't broadcast much of that interview...


9) Jo Whiley getting her umbrella stuck in a door, but still looking inconceivably glamorous.

8) When the MC on the West Holts stage implored everyone to lower their flags, and everyone obeyed.


7) U2... I didn't get to see any of their set, but this stripped-down version of Stay was a highlight of the TV coverage. It's not one of their best-known songs, but it was a subtle and tender moment in a blustering "biggest band in the world" headline set.

The song's subtitle, Far Away, So Close, reflected the general feeling that U2 had fumbled their big moment - thanks in no small part to the weather.

U2 - Stay (Far Away, So Close)



6) Watching Jimmy Cliff at the side of the West Holts stage as he got ready to perform. The 63-year-old reggae star limbered up by spinning his arms like a human windmill, dressed in a chain-mail tracksuit with gold lamé shoes. And what an incredible set he delivered...


Jimmy Cliff - World Upside Down



5) When Plan B went AWOL 30 minutes before a live interview on Radio One. We had to scramble the emergency phone lines to find another guest, ringing anyone who might have their hands on a pop star. Kaiser Chief Ricky Wilson eventually came through (and was brilliant on air) but not before Steve Lamacq wandered past, laconically noting: "It's ironic that you need a Plan B for Plan B".


4) Sneaking out into the audience for 15 minutes of Elbow - just as they performed my favourite song, Mirrorball. Guy Garvey gave the most affable performance of the weekend, holding the crowd in the palm of his hand with some perfectly-judged bandinage between the songs. I got to be part of his "reverse mexican wave", a beautiful moment of communion between band and audience.


Elbow - Reverse Mexican Wave / Neat Little Rows



3) Standing next to Beyoncé as she waited to speak to BBC TV. She was totally buzzing from her spectacular set on the Pyramid Stage, glowing like a gorgeous R&B firefly.

We were stood as close as the first "W" and the final "E" of this sentence and, if she hadn't been ushered onto the set, I might have gone all Alexandra Burke and started weeping like an idiot. The interview was incredibly sweet, though. As Olly Richards said on Twitter afterwards: "Beyonce seems lovely. I bet she & Jay-Z just sit at home being brilliant and not feeling a need to make it a big thing."


Beyoncé chats to the BBC after her Glastonbury performance



2) Everything about Janelle Monae. The pin-sharp choreography, the stunning voice, the monochrome stage set (everything was black and white, right down to the string section's instruments)... even the bit where she brought out an easel and started painting in an unexpected tribute to Rolf Harris. Possibly the most gifted and individual performer of the weekend.


Janelle Monáe - Tightrope



1) Interviewing Robert "Kool" Bell of Kool & The Gang. Our chat ended like this...

Me: "You're on stage at the same time as Beyoncé. Do you feel any competition? Who's going to be more funky?"

Kool: "It's interesting that they've put us on at the same time, but I think we have enough people out here. And we gonna get down".

Me: "How do you get down?"

Kool: "We get down... on it."

There were other moments, too... Getting to stand in the wings as Cee-Lo played his set. Having to ask The Vaccines to write their names on a piece of paper, because I kept getting them wrong on air. And the backstage catering, which was of an unfairly high standard compared to the falafel vans on the main site (a special shout-out to whoever made the sticky toffee pudding).

I have an amazing job.

If you listened to our coverage on 6 Music, thank you! And if you missed any of it, here's a round-up of everyone I saw and spoke to at the John Peel stage - which was my main home for the weekend.

Glastonbury 2011 - From the John Peel Stage by mrdiscopop

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Jive (Easter) Bunny

As regular readers might know, I grew up in Northern Ireland in the 1980s. It was an era when Christianity was a fact of life and Religious Education was a compulsory subject at GCSE. Although I'm not a regular church-goer now, I remain fond of those Bible teachings that haven't been distorted into a demented manifesto for small-minded intolerance.

At it's best, religion taught me to look at the world with a sense of awe and gratitude and compassion. That is perfectly alright by me.

I could never get to grips with the music, though. Hymns were tolerable - the bad ones have been filtered out over hundreds of years, after all. It was all that drippy "Jesus is a sunbeam" bollocks that made me want to impale myself on a candelabra like a macabre Marilyn Manson wannabe.

So, just in time for Easter, here are five songs with a religious theme that are 100% not rubbish. I bet they wouldn't play any of them in St Paul's Cathedral, mind.

1) Regina Spektor - Laughing With

Because God has a sense of humour, even if you don't (cf the Duck Billed Platypus).


2) Kanye West - Jesus Walks

Because you can't get Prince's back catalogue on YouTube. if you could, this video would either be The Cross (from Sign O'The Times) or Eye Know (from Lovesexy). They're both amazing.


3) U2 - Until End Of The World

In which Bono plays the character of Judas, betraying Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Alternatively, it's about fighting with your wife at a party thrown by The Great Gastby. From the brief "good period" in U2's career.


4) Nerina Pallot - God Of Small Things

I particularly like the lyrics of this one. Nerina has doubts about God's existence, but has a few ideas of what her "ideal" creator would be like. In honesty, most church-goers are exactly like this, and I prefer them to the staunch, immovable fundamentalists. To quote Kevin Smith's film, Dogma: "Having belief is a bad thing. It's better to have ideas... You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier."


5) The Headhunters - God Made Me Funky
Amen.

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Glastonbury 2010: Highlights in video

The BBC coverage largely stuck to the Pyramid stage this year, but that's hardly surprising given the quality of the acts on the bill.

Still, if you could be bothered to sit through the Editors for the eightieth year in a row, there were some gems to be found. Here are my totally subjective highlights.


And the highlights in video included:



Scissor Sisters and Kylie - Any Which Way


Mumford & Sons - The Cave


Florence & The Machine - Drumming Song


Pet Shop Boys - West End Girls


Muse and The Edge - Where The Streets Have No Name

Stevie Wonder - Signed, Sealed, Delivered


Marina and the Diamonds - Mowgli's Road

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Glastonbury 2010: The view from the sofa

Another year, another weekend spent in front of the television going "why didn't I buy tickets for this?" Next year I will be tweeting up a storm from Worthy Farm. Mark my words.

Until then, here's a lazy person's view of what they saw on the television this weekend when they weren't treating picnic tables with Ronseal.

Gorillaz flopped. They just don't have the rousing, sing-along choruses of, say, Blur. Or U2.	When The Edge plucked out the opening riff to Where The Streets Have No Name, Muse's spine-tingling Glastonbury set reached its zenith.	Stevie Wonder brought mile-wide grins to everyone’s faces. Superstition, Uptight, Signed, Sealed Delivered. A masterful, remarkable end to the weekend.
In a massive breach of security, Kylie Minogue rushed onto the stage during the Scissor Sisters' set.	Thom Yorke gave us his best Bjorn Borg impression during Radiohead's "surprise" set.	Hot Chip must have built a nest under The Other Stage. How else do they get onto the bill every year?
Shakira presented her bottom to the world like a Baboon in heat.	Marina and the Diamonds did a very good Hammond organ version of Mowgli’s Road while dressed in a comfort blanket.	Phoenix looked very, very French and were very, very good.
Paloma Faith did something totally unpredictable and mad involving balloons.	At one point, the normally calm and measured Mrdiscopop exclaimed: “Kate Nash is as talented as a bucket of sick”.	Snoop Dogg looks like he’s wasting away. Someone should feed him a Bonio.

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You've been a very bad girl, Gaga

Note to world: The most shocking, depraved thing about the video for Alejandro isn't the Nazi imagery, the inverted crucifix on her crotch or the machine gun brassiere. It's that Lady Gaga dresses up as Bono.



The full nine-minute extravaganza is below but, be warned, it's about as much fun as a fart in the mouth.

Lady Gaga - Alejandro

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Gig review: U2 at Wembley Stadium

U2 really know how to reach out across a football pitch and tweak your nose. Even at the far end of Wembley Stadium last night, we felt part of Bono's big party, despite our handclaps coming a full beat after everyone else's.

As the wee Irish fella pointed out, though, U2 have had plenty of time to polish their act. "It's just occurred to me - we're older than Wembley Stadium," he noted, recalling the day he slept in Waterloo station clutching a demo tape on his way to a meeting at Island records.

Later, for no apparent reason, he started listing the names of tube stations. "St Paul's, Embankment, Tottenham Court Road, Grange Hill" (are you sure you took proper notes? Ed)

It encapsulated everything that is great and ridiculous about Mr Hewson - the ability to conjure up a tingling feeling of fellowship, only to deflate it with a piece of "poetic" whimsy that makes you snigger into your beer.

The tension between greatness and unadulterated crap carried over to the set-list. Vertigo was enormous, intoxicating, bonkers... and followed by a useless dance remix of I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight. U2 also continue to insist on playing Get On Your Boots, as if everyone had secretly conceded that it wasn't the worst song of their entire career.

The odd stinker aside, however, there were more classic moments at this show than most bands manage in an entire tour. An acoustic version of Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of was an early highpoint, and current album track Unknown Caller proved to be a rousing singalong, thanks to some karakoe lyrics on the big screen.

But the most magical moment of the night came without the need for a hymn sheet. As the audience sang a full-bodied version of I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking, the four members of U2 stopped playing, one-by-one, just to savour the noise of Wembley's biggest ever crowd.

It was a concert experience I will never forget.

Unsurprisingly, the best songs were the old ones. Pride, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For and Mysterious Ways all hit the sweet spot, while One and With Or Without You once again earned their place in the great rock songbook. Bono seemed a bit impatient with the latter, however, rushing his words as though he was fed up of singing it. We saw a limo arrive backstage during the song, so maybe he just wanted to make sure he caught the Big Brother eviction show.

The infamous "claw" stage, by the way, is amazing. It looks like the festering foot of an otherwise invisible Godzilla, and comes complete with a 360º video screen, moving bridges and a huge cocktail stick topped with a glitter ball. It played such an integral role in making the audience part of the show that you wondered why no-one had ever thought of it before. We also wondered whether we could pay 20p to make the claw scoop up a cuddly toy Bono. The staff at Wembley just looked at us weird when we asked.

All in all, it was a great night out - improved even more by the presence of Elbow as a support band (they really work in a stadium context - it'd be great to see them graduate to that status with their next record).

U2 play at Wembley again tonight and there are still tickets available. If you've got the time and the inclination, you should definitely make the journey.

You won't be disappointed.




SETLIST
Breathe
No Line on the Horizon
Get On Your Boots
Magnificent
Beautiful Day (incl London Calling, London Bridges and Blackbird)
Elevation
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (incl Movin' On Up)
Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of
Unknown Caller
The Unforgettable Fire
City Of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight (remix)
Sunday Bloody Sunday (incl Rock The Casbah)
Pride (In The Name Of Love)
MLK
Walk On (incl You'll Never Walk Alone)
Where The Streets Have No Name
One (incl Desmond Tutu speech)
Mysterious Ways

Encore:
Ultraviolet (Light My Way)
With Or Without You
Moment of Surrender

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"Important" U2 news

You may not be aware of this, but U2 have a new album coming out next week. You think they'd do some promotion, or a discreet interview on the BBC. Strange to have omitted such a crucial plank of their marketing, er... gangplank.

Anyway, I have spent the morning listening to No Line On The Horizon it on Spotify (it's legal, don't worry) and, terrifyingly, it's not completely awful.

Get On Your Kinky Boots, probably the worst song of 2009, is probably the worst song on it. One or two of the tracks, Stand Up Comedy and I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight, veer dangerously close to being catchy pop tunes.

Unbelievable news, readers. Simply unbelievable.

Anyway, it turns out that the band have been playing a low-key set for a tiny provincial radio station this morning. If you want to hear them do a new song (Breathe - a bit like Simple Minds covering Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changing) and their last proper classic, Beautiful Day, I would click on this link. Or try this one for an MP3.



PS: If you don't know what Spotify is, I insist that you check it out. Here's a quick guide which I've adapted / plagiarised from Popjustice.

1) Spotify is a programme you install on your PC or Mac, which looks and feels a bit like iTunes.

2) It has songs from all the major labels and quite a few of the indies available for instant, high-quality streaming. Pre-release stuff, remixes, the entire Girls Aloud catalogue. It's amazing.

3) You can listen to full albums, or bounce around picking tracks at random.

4) It's completely s legal... but ad-supported.

5) You only have to listen to one advert every half-an-hour or so, so it's not too intrusive.

6) You can make playlists, like in iTunes, and share them with friends.

7) Even better, you can make "collaborative playlists" that people can add tracks to. The new additions appear instantly - so everyone gets to hear (or skip) your amazing choices

8) You can sign up and download it here. The ability to create an account seems to have a daily limit on it, but I've got a few invites to share if anyone wants one.

If you manage to download it and get it working, I've started a Discopop Directory playlist here (The link launches Spotify and takes you straight to the playlist). Add some tracks, and we'll all have a Friday night disco. No UB40, plsthxbye.

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Sing it like you mean it

According to the Brits website, "U2 will be performing their brand new single Get On Your Boots for the very first time" at tonight's ceremony. Clearly, they missed the Grammys last week... or maybe they're hoping that, this time, the performance won't be such a s crushingly bad, dad-at-the-disco fiasco.

Somehow, I doubt it.

Get On Your Boots is a fascinating song. Bits of it - particularly the supple harmonies in the chorus - are sublime. But all the great writing never combines into a coherent, uplifting pop song. I think the main reason is this: Bono sounds insincere.

I know lots of people will be saying "Mark, what did you expect? That massive Irish gasbag is genetically incapable of sincerity". But they are wrong. Bono can sell a song like One with the raw, emotional conviction of a gospel singer. Which is pretty awesome if you consider that Mary J Blige - a real gospel singer - completely trashed it.

No, the reason Get On Your Boots doesn't work is because Bono wants to be something he's not - cool. It's a craving that's derailed the U2 train in the past (cf Discotheque) and it's happening again - Get On Your Boots is only at number 10 in the midweek charts.

Of course, some artists make a career out of play-acting in song. David Bowie is the obvious example, but you could also mention Anthony Hegarty or David Byrne.

Funnily enough, I have real trouble engaging with their music, too.

When Bowie puts on that silly nasal voice in Space Oddity, or sings "Sound and Vision" like he's Goofy, it completely spoils the atmosphere. You know when you ask, "Is it Wednesday today?" and some guy in the office replies: "Yes it is - all day!"? That guy is David Bowie.

As someone once said: "Music is what feelings sound like". You can't fake a feeling. People around you know when you're forcing a smile, paying a false compliment or acting confident.

So why does Bono think he can get away with it in music? I suspect he genuinely believes he can be cool at the age of 49. To me, that's a worse crime than all the other nonsense that's levelled at him. He can squirrel away his money into a offshore tax havens, gladhand war criminals and wear those stupid fucking fly shades until he goes blind. But, please, please don't put your midlife crisis on record.

U2 - Get On Your Boots

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Grammys = crushingly boring

If there's one thing the Grammys does well, it's making rock and roll seem like the planet's most pointless and boring pursuit.

The 2009 ceremony opened in Los Angeles last night with U2 - who played a terribly important rendition of their terribly important new single Get On Your Boots. They projected the lyrics onto a big screen, even though the lyrics are a load of turgid old bollocks. "The future needs a big kiss"?? Whatever you say, Bono.

Things barely improved when Justin Timberlake joined Al Green for a lacklustre Vegas lounge version of Let's Stay Together. We were also teased with twenty seconds of MIA's excellent Paper Planes before TI, Jay-Z and Lil Wayne came out and shouted a load of nonsense all over the top of it. MUSIC FAIL!

Estelle's run-through of American Boy, meanwhile, was notable only for Kanye West's haircut tribute to Bobby Brown.



There was some light in the dark, though. Coldplay got Jay-Z on stage for an awkward/brilliant rendition of Lost+, and Radiohead's Thom Yorke started Vogueing (?!) during a marching band-assisted version of 15 Step.

The best performance of the night was probably the Motown medley, featuring Jamie Foxx, Ne-Yo and Smokey Robinson. You can't really go wrong with a bit of Motown, of course, but as Stereogum noted in it's liveblog, you couldn't see the tracks of Smokey Robinson's tears "because the plastic on his face is water-repellent".

Katy Perry also turned up to do her thing - her thing being the ability to wear amazing costumes (with actual watermelon breasts) while not singing very well. She had at least spent some money on the set, which is why I'm posting her video and none of the others. So there.



All the news outlets are going on about how Robert Plant was the big winner but, for me, the most interesting winner of the night was Jimmy Sturr & His Orchestra. The gourp picked up the best polka award for the 18th time -- meaning he's won it two out of every three years since the Grammy committee invented the prize.

Keen to find out more, I went to Wikipedia, which helpfully notes that Jimmy is the "Irish son of a local bank president" and "the band has also played at many famous casinos".

Here's what you're missing:

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Listen to the new U2 single!

U2's comeback single leapt onto the airwaves this morning, full of slinky guitar riffs and spooky harmonies.

The track is called Get On Your Boots, and it feels quite political for a late-period U2 track. The first verse sees Bono crooning "night is falling everywhere, rockets hit the fun fair, satan loves the bombscare but he won’t scare you," which could either be a reference to the Middle East conflict, or naff amuement arcade horror flick Final Destination.

First impressions are mixed. One the one hand, it could be a game-changing slow burner, like The Fly was back in 1991 (1991!). On the other hand, given the slightly schizophrenic cut'n'paste aesthetic, it could be a great big old mess, like Discotheque was whenever it was that Discotheque came out. On our third, freaky extra hand, it all sounds uncomfortably like Billy Joel's 1980s crapfest We Didn't Start The Fire.

Why not have a listen and judge for yourself:
U2 - Get On Your Boots (radio rip) [mp3]

The single's out on 15th February, followed by the album, No Line On The Horizon, on 2nd March. That's the artwork above... The tracklisting was revealed last week, and it is this:

1. No Line On The Horizon
2. Magnificent
3. Moment of Surrender
4. Unknown Caller
5. I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight
6. Get On Your Boots
7. Stand Up Comedy
8. Fez – Being Born
9. White As Snow
10. Breathe
11. Cedars Of Lebanon

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Shameless self plug

Last week, I interviewed Steve Lillywhite - the British producer behind such era-defining records as U2's Achtung Baby, Morrissey's Vauxhall and I and The La's eponymous debut album.

He was talking about the three years he spent behind the mixing desk (and playing bicycles with knives) on U2's first three albums, Boy, October and War - which are all being re-released next week.

The finished piece, complete with archive footage of Adam Clayton's afro and The Edge without a hat on, is over at the BBC website and it is really rather good if I do say so myself.

While you're with the Beeb, have a squizz at this piece about Delia Derbyshire. She's the visionary composer who made all the whooshes and swizzles for the original series of Doctor Who. An unbelievably brilliant woman.

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Great pop cutbacks

The Onion's AV Club have just published a splendid article running through 21 average albums that would make great EPs. Among their choices are REM's New Adventures In Hi-Fi, The Verve's Urban Hymns and Kanye West's Graduation.

It's a great read... but saldy lacking in pop records. And, as we all know, pop records generally need a good bit of pruning before they make it over to your iPod.

So, here are some of my additions to the Onion's list. Feel free to add your own using the comments thingummy. It'd make my day.

Christina Aguilera - Back To Basics (2006)


In which Aguilera pays tribute to the jazz singers who inspired her by, erm, dressing up like them and singing exactly the same songs she always sings. The public duly ignored it, aghast at the thought of Aguilera screeching and wailing over the course of two entire discs. But, pared down to a more manageable size, this is a corking little album. The big band flourishes and jazz inflections actually serve to highlight Aguilera's vocal technique (it's not just shouting, after all) and the Mark Ronson track, Without You, is among the best things she's recorded.

EP Version: 1) Back In The Day 2) Ain't No Other Man 3) Candyman 4) Without You 5) Slow Down Baby 6) Save Me From Myself


Madonna - Erotica (1992)


Having hit a career high with Vogue in 1990, Madonna dragged that song's co-writer Shep Pettibone into the studio for an entire album. One of the most prolific and talented remixers of the time, Pettibone struggled when it came to writing actual songs. Tracks like Thief of Hearts and Why's It So Hard are little more than drumbeats, and Madonna - never the world's most profound lyricist - is particularly woeful here "Friends they tried to warn me about you / He has good manners," she declares bafflingly during Words. On Deeper and Deeper, Madonna and Pettibone even acknowledge their lack of ambition by slapping the chorus of Vogue over the coda. The good tracks, unusually for a Madonna album, are the ballads.

EP Version: 1) Erotica 2) Deeper and Deeper (a decent song despite itself) 3) Bad Girl 4) Rain


Radiohead - Kid A / Amnesiac (2000)


Amnesiac already appears on The Onion's list, but I reckon you need to combine both records to create a decent EP. The two albums actually derived from the same recording session - so the songs cohere perfectly. Amnesiac has the best tunes in Knives Out (pretty) and Pyramid Song (claustrophobic). Kid A provides the experimentalism and menace… Plus, in scrapping Life In A Glass House, we can pretend Radiohead never "experimented with jazz".

EP Version: 1) Everything In Its Right Place 2) Knives Out 3) Pyramid Song 4) Morning Bell (Kid A version) 5) You And Whose Army 6) Optimistic 7) Motion Picture Soundtrack


U2 - Zooropa (1993)


This is a bit unfair, as Zooropa was originally intended to be an EP accompanying the band's Zoo TV tour. Instead, in a flurry of activity partially prompted by the dissolution of Edge's marriage, the group turned in a full 10 tracks. Predictably, given the circumstances, they're not all of the highest standard. Stand-outs include the title track - a montage of three different songs that perfectly captures the chaos of the recording sessions - and Stay, Farway So Close, which is perhaps U2's most under-rated ballad. Future Batman single Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me was also started during the recording sessions, so I'm reclaiming it here for my six-track EP.

EP Version: 1) Zooropa 2) Numb 3) Lemon 4) Stay (Faraway, So Close) 5) Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me 6) The Wanderer


Prince - Symbol (1992)


Apparently conceived as a rock soap opera, this album (the sequel to Diamonds and Pearls) has a plot more confused than Terry Gilliam's Brazil. The music, too, lacks focus - as Prince tries to marry his new-found love of 70s funk with the rap stylings of his then-band, the NPG. Sexy MF, for example, wouldn't sound out of place on a James Brown album until it is spectaculraly derailed by Tony M's agressively misogynistic rap. Luckily, there is an edited version that jettisons this atrocious interruption which we can purloin for the purposes of our EP. In addition, several "classic" Prince tracks survived the NPG's onslaught, with The Morning Papers in particular recalling the glory days of Purple Rain's pop/rock crossover.

EP Version: 1) Sexy MF - edit 2) Love 2 The 9s 3) The Morning Papers 4) 7 5) 3 Chains O' Gold


The Beatles - White Album (1968)


A certain breed of Beatles fan thinks this double album ranks as the fab four's best work. They are so wrong it hurts like a spike in your ear. More than half the record is self-indulgent, druggy bollocks. The other half is frequently unfocused - presumably the casualty of the discordant atmosphere in the recording studio. Indeed, many of the better songs were essentially recorded in isolation - with McCartney playing drums on Back In The USSR and Harrison performing While My Guitar Gently Weeps with Eric Clapton after several Beatley attempts at the song proved unsatisfactory. You could probably get a decent single album out of the 30 tracks, but I prefer a more brisk stroll through this musical wasteland… and I'm subsituting the single version of Revolution for Lennon's throwing-the-toys-out-of-the-pram album mix.

EP Version: 1) Back In The USSR 2) Helter Skelter 3) Dear Prudence 4) Revolution 5) While My Guitar Gently Weeps 6) Happiness Is A Warm Gun 7) Blackbird

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Neil Tennant goes apeshit, attacks Bono

Only verbally, mind you, but he's been whining to Yahoo Music that El Nobbo only "increases his celebrity" by campaigning for good causes.

"I've always been against the idea of rock stars lecturing people as if they know something the rest of us don't - it looks arrogant," he added.

"It's not as if they have a private source of information. To state the obvious as if you are the only person that knows it is intellectually weak."

The thing is, Bono probably does have a private source of information - or, at the very least, better access to the people that tackle issues like poverty, debt and Aids on a daily basis. It probably wouldn't be too hard for you or I to find out the same things, but most of us can't be bothered. So, in the end, isn't he doing a worthwhile job?

In any case, didn't the Pet Shop Boys headline one of the Live 8 events in 2005?

Tennant, normally a pop star whose opinions I respect, then digs himself further into a deep and murky hole by proclaiming: "The Princess Diana concert is fair enough, but I feel more uneasy about the Al Gore thing."

Words fail me.

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Staring at the sun

I bloody love U2. For all their detractors (Bono is a twat, their music is preachy, Larry Mullen eats people's kidneys to stay young) they are one of the most consistent and exciting rock groups ever to pretend to be Irish.

As it happens, I've just finished reading their new book U2 by U2, which tells the band's story in exhaustive detail.

Some poor bastard had to edit down 150 hours of interviews with the rockers into a manageable manuscript, which dishes the dirt on everything from the thrill of appearing on Top Of The Pops to the shame of Bono wetting himself of Frank Sinatra's sofa.

The whole story starts when Larry Mullen Jr pins a scrap of paper to the school noticeboard looking for musicians to join his band. By all accounts, the prototype U2 (Feedback, or The Hype, as they were known) were pretty shoddy, and struggled to make ends meet for years. They even tried playing gigs at airport hotels to earn some money.

"It didn't work," Adam Clayton explains in the book, "because the bands that were actually making money there were almost showbands, doing cover versions... I think six people turned up, and that was only because they thought another band was playing."

It wasn't until Edge stumbled across an effects unit that they really hit their stride.

"Edge acquired his echo unit and that changed everything," says Bono. "It was punk rock with a symphony - suddenly you're in outer space instead of suburbia."

Later, with a few hit singles under their belts, the band made their first forays into writing lyrics with a political message. Edge reveals that the first draft of Sunday Bloody Sunday had a much more explicit anti-terrorist message.

"If I remember rightly, my opening line was 'Don't talk to me about the rights of the IRA, UDA'," he says.

The book is a hefty read. Indeed, it's taken me about a month to get through it (mostly because it's too big to carry onto the bus). But it’s a great little insight into the workings of a globe-straddling rock behemoth. Sure, the band are indulging in a certain amount of self-mythologising - they even admit as much in one passage - and there's only a certain amount of Bono's random association self-analysis you can take, but if you're interested in the band at all, it's a great peak behind the curtain.

Mind you, there is a better U2 book out there. Bill Flanagan's U2 At The End Of The World follows the band for two years as they record Achtung Baby and mount the stupendous Zoo TV tour. With the benefit of an outsider's perspective and full access to the band, Flanagan uncovers some really juicy gossip from a period in time when U2 were at the height of their considerable creative powers.

He accompanies Bono as he steals a boat in Australia, and as the singer wakes up in Brezhnev's bed. But the best part is Flanagan's account of the Achtung Baby recording sessions in Berlin.

"It has never been this hard for U2 before," he writes. "The band begin to consider that they have really reached the end of the line together.

"Bono's wide-eyed raps about junk culture and disposable music are met with disinterest from Adam and impatience from Larry, who finally says, 'What the fuck are you talking about?' Larry says there is a simple problem here: 'You haven't written any songs! Where are the songs!

"That really goes up Bono's ass sideways. When Bono and Edge started abandoning the U2 tradition of all four of them writing songs together and brought in songs on their own, Larry was the first to bitch that he and Adam weren't getting enough input… But now that Bono's laying the burden on the four of them again, Larry wants the songs written for him. There's a fight brewing.

"Larry accuses Bono of not knowing who he is, which Bono throws back at him saying Larry always knows who Larry is because Larry never changes. 'You haven't changed your haircut in ten years!' Bono says."

It continues in this painful vein for dozens of pages before the band accidentally record One, then kiss and make up before it all descends into a torrid night of homosexual love (I may have made that last bit up).

After reading either of these books, you'll want to reappraise U2's songs. And by happy coincidence, they're releasing a new, compact, best-of collection on 20 November. The track-listing has just been announced, and it looks like this:

U2 18
1. Beautiful Day
2. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
3. Pride (In The Name Of Love)
4. With Or Without You
5. Vertigo
6. New Year's Day
7. Mysterious Ways
8. Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of
9. Where The Streets Have No Name
10. Sweetest Thing
11. Sunday Bloody Sunday
12. One
13. Desire
14. Walk On
15. Elevation
16. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
17. The Saints Are Coming (with Green Day) - new
18. Window In The Skies - new
19. I Will Follow - UK Bonus Track

There are a few glaring omissions - including three of my personal favourites (Angel of Harlem, All I Want Is You and Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me, since you ask). But you'd be hard pressed to find a better greatest hits CD Christmas - and I'm including the Girls Aloud one in that list.

See? I bloody love U2.

You can buy U2 by U2 and U2 18 from Amazon. You'll have to find U2 At The End Of The World at your local second-hand dealer.

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The Grammys: In pictures

I really have very little to say about the Grammys. I watched the 2-hour synopsis of the ceremony last night, and even that seemed like extended aural torture.

U2 clearly had to restrain themselves from killing Mary J Blige as she systematically ruined their one decent song.

There was general confusion, and the air of a ramshackle last-day-of-term show, for the the 'tribute' to Sly and the Family Stone. Sly himself looked particularly discombobulated, probably because of the industrial amounts of coke he's shoved up his nose over the last 35 years.

Stevie Wonder did his joke about taking his glasses off, the better to see a pretty lady (again(. And Madonna displayed her gusset for the all world to see (again).

As is par for the course at these ceremonies, mediocrity was heavily rewarded. Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams", for instance, was clearly not the record of 2005. Nor was U2's "Sometime You Can't Make It On Your Own" the song of the year. And what is the difference between those two awards, anyway?

I could ramble on about this for days, but in the end the awards make little or no difference. Especially 'Best Polka Album'. What we're really here for are the frocks - so let's take a look:



Stefani: Hollabump girl



Kanye: Tells it like it is
(In all seriousness, this man needs taken down a peg or two. We used to beat up the cocky kids like him at school. And we were the nerds.)



Sting: "I'll fight you for that mushroom vol au vent"



Madonna: GUSSET!



Joss Stone: "Does anyone know how to get superglue off your chin?"



Jamie Foxx: Pa-rum-pa-pum-pum



Mariah: She's got the horn(s)



Fergie: Face or fish? You decide.
(Oh, alright, it is a fish. Sturgeon, I think.)



Missy: Cool as ice-cream, and the only deserving award-winner of the night (best video for Lose Control)



Beyoncé: Prom queen (again)



Macca: "Help! I've dislocated my hip."

Grammy Nominees: Full list of winners

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