Arctic Monkeys sense of humour failure

There's a charmingly goofy new Arctic Monkeys video on the internet. The clip, for Snap Out Of It, pokes fun at Alex Turner's "sexpot" image, with actress Stephanie Sigman (that's her above) in floods of tears, smooching pictures of Alex on her TV and hungrily devouring a steak.

Over on YouTube, though, everyone has missed the point spectacularly.

"She's sexy but I don't get it. Why she sad? Why is she swimming?" asks a perplexed Vincent Peralta.

"I think the steak is the symbol for the carnal desires she feels for Alex," says contanns. This scene is interpreted differently by Estevan Candel, who writes: "In the video, Alex is dead. We notice that by the steak, which represents death."

Blimey.

It gets worse, though.

"More gratuitous, self-aggrandizing tripe from the ego of the century," grumps, arrloid, who is not alone in feeling Alex's ego has run rampant like a feral donkey.

"His confidence is sexy but this is a bit much," writes Anna Farid. "The only thing bigger than his ego," concludes FSAfykm, "is his nose".

Other posters are unable to differentiate between pale English fashionista Alexa Chung and a slender, cheekboned Mexican actress. "Girl in video = Alexa Chung," declares John Rains. "This is Alex mourning over Alexa," concurs Casey Reid. "I immediately thought of Alexa," adds Linda N. Why anyone would make a video raking over the coals of a three-year-old relationship is never questioned.

But my personal favourite reaction comes from Suzy N, who asks: "In all seriousness, where is her bra from????"

Watch for yourself below. It's really not that confusing.

Arctic Monkeys - Snap Out Of It

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Pharrell, Coldplay and other songs you may have missed

Hello, and welcome to another instalment of "songs you may have missed", aka "songs I have forgotten to write about".

There's a bumper crop this week, kicking off with...

1) Pharrell Williams - Happy (at the Oscars)
Guaranteed to slap a grin on your face, here's an ebullient performance from man-of-the-moment Pharrell Williams. So what if the song didn't win an Oscar, who else can say they got Lupita Nyong'o, Meryl Streep and Amy Adams to dance with them on Sunday night, despite wearing the worst pair of shoes ever seen by humankind? No-one, that's who.




2) Coldplay - Magic
True story: In 2011, one of my 6 Music colleagues ended up sitting next to Chris Martin at an awards show. All night long, she badgered him for an interview. All night long, he refused.

"You probably don't even like Coldplay," he said, trying to shut the situation down.

"I do!" she protested. "I really love your first album."

Eyebrow raised, Martin asked: "And you hate all the others?"

"No, no. It's not that," she protested. "It's just I never bought any of them, so I wouldn't know."

Coldplay apparently took the exchange to heart, because their new single sounds closer to that debut album, Parachutes, than anything they've recorded since. It's called Magic and it goes like this.




3) Arctic Monkeys - Arabella
Four singles in, and AM continues to deliver the goods. Arabella is the moody one, and comes with a video by in-demand director Jake Nava (Kanye's Monster, Beyonce's Single Ladies). Disappointingly, we don't get Alex Turner doing a dance routine in a leotard, but he delivers the song with one almighty swagger.




4) Moonboots ft Kyiki - Don't Ask Why
"I encountered the mysterious undiscovered star @kyiki on a winter night spacewalk," writes producer Moonboots on his Soundcloud page. "We came back with this song."

Not to ruin a fun story, but Kyiki is actually Crystal Fighters' frontwoman Ellie Fletcher, whose vocals caress this feel-good dance track into a dizzy swoon. It's a free download, too. So that's nice.





5) Shakira - Empire
Christing Jesus on a Hotdog, she's not holding anything back, is she?




6) Kate Miller - Collar Up
Don't let the unassuming name fool you, Kate Miller is one heck of a singer. A 19-year-old who is (I think) still unsigned, she sounds like Florence + The Machine, if Florence + The Machine discovered restraint. Her debut single Collar Up is a jagged shard of noir pop, with a chorus that'll stick to you like velcro.




7) Janelle Monae and Charli XCX - Simply Irresistible
Sadly not a duet, but R&B oddball Janelle Monae and pop's best-kept secret Charli XCX have separately recorded versions of Robert Palmer's Simply Irresistible.

The tracks were made for TV channel E! and played during their Oscars red carpet show on Sunday (although I watched it, and failed to hear either of them).

8) Paolo Nutini - Iron Sky (live at Abbey Road)
This one's a slow-burner, so stick with it. Taken from Paolo's forthcoming third album, Iron Sky is a powerful, passionately delivered protest song, which samples Charlie Chaplin's speech from the 1940 anti-Nazi movie The Great Dictator. Adele is a fan:

Fuck!!! This is one of the best things I've ever seen in my life hands down http://t.co/D47sRGtni1

— Adele (@OfficialAdele) February 27, 2014

And that's a wrap. More "fun" and "mayhem" (music videos) tomorrow.

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The Brits' best bits and eight other songs you may have missed

At this moment in time, I feel like a walking bucket of snot - so I dread to think how many pop stars I infected with the lurgy at last night's Brits. Poor old Katy B...

From a reporting point of view, though, it was a great night with lots of access to proper A-list stars. We spoke to Kylie ("There should be a David Bowie award. He should get an award just for being Bowie"), One Direction ("we're a bit drunk"), Haim ("we owe our lives to the UK") and Pharrell ("Yes, I understand why Blurred Lines was controversial").

The ceremony itself was an odd affair. James Corden's "hilarious" prison rape jokes were, presumably, a desperate attempt to recapture the Brits edgy reputation; and he had the temerity to announce Bruno Mars as "the finest showman performing anywhere in the world right now" while standing in the same room as Prince.

On the other hand, the performances (Bruno's included) were actually very good for once. Beyoncé, who was in London for approximately an hour, stole the show despite being dressed as the Little Mermaid. She didn't give The Brits permission to put her performance on YouTube, but lots of other artists did... So here are my picks, alongside the regular "songs you may have missed" selection.

1) Nile Rodgers and Pharrell - Get Lucky / Good Times / Happy
Unbridled positivity from the two nicest men on the red carpet. Pharrell even scolded a reporter who asked him whether the Brit Awards needed American stars to remain relevant, saying he wasn't fit to walk in Freddie Mercury's footsteps.




2) Disclosure and Lorde and AlunaGeorge - Royals / White Noise
Strangely odd. Oddly compelling.




3) Katy Perry - Dark Horse
"Katy Perry is reenacting a period of historic slavery in dayglo," whinged half a dozen killjoys on Twitter. I'm sure they'll raise the same objections when the RSC next stages a production of Anthony and Cleopatra. Or maybe they're just twats.

Anyway, this was the most visually-arresting performance of the night. All it lacked was Katy singing: "All the old paintings on the tombs / They do the sand dance don't you know..."





4) Arctic Monkeys - RU Mine
How Matt Helders manages to pull of those drum fills while maintaining a perfect falsetto, I will never know.




5) London Grammar - Hey Now
Interesting discovery at the Brits: London Grammar are really tiny. Like, smaller than Kylie. I wasn't expecting that.

Anyway, they've just unveiled a mesmerising stop-motion video for Hey Now, one of my favourite tracks from their debut album, If You Wait. If you like this, you should also check out the awesomely atmospheric club mix by Russia's Artyom Stolyarov.





6) Shakira - Nunca Me Acuerdo de Olvidarte
It's the Spanish language, Rihanna-free version of Can't Remember To Forget You and, as is often the case, Shakira's lyrics scan better before translation.

I still find the video slightly disturbing, though. Shakira's not being sexy, just making herself available. There are moments where she presents her posterior to the viewer like a dog in heat. Is that healthy? Am I just getting old? Answers on a postcard.





7) The Chainsmokers - #Selfie
This is the most aggressively terrible song since whatever will.i.am's last single was called. Truly, grotesquely, shamelessly awful. [Breaks a Kit-Kat in half] It's going to go a long way.





8) Lana Del Rey - Behind Closed Doors
Leaked Lana Del Rey songs are about as common as Malaria (and often just as infectious) but this one's particularly interesting, because it seems to be the first track to have emerged from the sessions for her upcoming album UltraViolence.

It has a slightly more contemporary, Britney Spears vibe to the production, but Lana's voice is as alluringly gauche as ever. Worth a listen.





9) Chvrches - Recover
Prior to the release of their debut album, Chvrches' Recover was widely considered to be their weakest single - but time has been forgiving, and it has set up a little camp site in my brain where, once a week, it toasts marshmallows and hosts a little singalong around the fire.

It's not getting an official re-release, as far as I know, but this tour video has just appeared on YouTube as a sort of travel diary / album promo.





10) Alexa Starr - Famous
For fans of Kelly Clarkson and Avril Lavigne, here's an unsigned young Londoner who's attracting interest for her brand of shiny guitar-pop. Her strongest song, Famous, could be an early Gaga demo with a couple of nice lyrical flourishes ("life is a stage but I need an arena").

The production could do with a bit of a polish, but the melody and the energy are there. One to watch.





11) Jungle - Just Busy Earnin'
All we know about Jungle is that there's two of them, they come from Shepherd's Bush and they are to be called "T" and "J" (for "The Jungle," presumably). Oh, and we also know that they've released a brace of clever, funky dance tracks with eye-popping videos (the one with the 8-year-old B-Girl and the one with the dudes on rollerskates).

Their new song, which sounds like Passion Pit covering Jungle Boogie, is an absolute blast. Zane Lowe made it the hottest record in the world last night, having reached Planck Temperature at about 19:22 GMT.






12) The Saturdays - Not Giving Up
God bless The Saturdays, whose latest single is apparently named after the band's mission statement. As you can imagine, this is a clubby-dancey-poppy track that will fill four minutes on the radio, without ever entering your conciousness.

I'm only mentioning it at all because of Una Healey's profound and compelling column about the making of the video, written in this week's Hello Magazine. "I was quite proud as I danced in the highest heels I've ever danced in," she wrote. "I think heels were necessary because the video is very glamorous. I especially liked the effect from all the wind machines."

You can read it here. It will change your life.

Blimey - that went on a bit. Congratulations to anyone who got this far. Now put your feet up and have a cuppa.

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Discopop Directory: Top 10 Singles of 2013

Right then: The best singles of the year. And what a year it's been. The singles chart was as vibrant and exciting as the albums one was disappointing and lacklustre. There was a lot of "mid-tempo" and a lot of twerking, but you won't see any of that here. As usual, the top 10 is compiled from my iTunes playcount because, otherwise, I simply can’t be trusted to tell the truth. So, here we go in reverse order:

10) Vampire Weekend – Diane Young

In which Ezra Koenig - a man whose name represents the worst Scrabble rack of all time - does his best Buddy Holly impression over a frenetic surf guitar line. With a vocoder. Fast, thrilling, and utterly, utterly undanceable, it is nonetheless a great song.

Koenig claimed the real Diane Young was "about 5 foot 10" and "fairly attractive". But she's really just a homonym for "dying young", which was the song's original title until the band decided it was too gloomy.

9) Demi Lovato – Heart Attack

It takes a brave composer to write lyrics in 72-point bold type capitals; and it takes an even braver singer to perform them that way. But Demi "Tomato" Lovato pulls it off – conveying a sense of frailty at the same time as she bellows out the chorus with the sort of force that could capsize a battleship.

Yes, it might be pop by numbers - but the maths is flawless.

8) Justin Timberlake – Mirrors

Great song, but I still don’t understand what he's doing with a pocket full of soap.

7) Arctic Monkeys – Do I Wanna Know?

Sleazier than Robin Thicke frantically rubbing himself through an overcoat, Alex Turner's ode to obsession marked a stunning return to form for the Arctics. Built around a swampy guitar riff Do I Wanna Know was lascivious, sordid and constantly on the cusp of... well, you get the picture.

6) Katy Perry – Roar

With a chorus two times bigger than an elephant (and thrice as nimble) Perry was the leopard-print victor of the year's biggest pop battle (turns out that obedient Applause is no match for a feral Roar). It's just a shame the rest of Katy's album was such a dreary therapy-speak borefest.

5) Little Mix – Move

All great pop songs should pull the rug out from under your feet and, on Move, Little Mix sent carpets flying like Aladdin [please stop – tortured metaphor ed].

It's all there: The stomach drop when the first bridge fails to resolve into a chorus; the "iknowthatyouwannastaycoolinthecorner" mid-section, the bum-rattling bass. A clever, brave single by a manufactured pop band that, for once, are in complete control of what they’re doing.

4) Haim – The Wire

Danielle Haim sings like she's got the hiccups and it's glorious. But on The Wire all three Haim sisters got the chance to shine. Each of them admits they bottled it when some guy told them "I love you". Poor some guy.

3) Zedd ft Foxes – Clarity

A tidal wave. A supernova. A bloody great pop song. Yeah, so the lyrics are mostly nonsense ("A clock ticks 'til it breaks your glass and I drown in you again??") but, oh my God, that chorus is a force of nature.

2) Lorde – Royals

They say a genius is just the first person who dares to say something everyone else is thinking. By that token, Lorde's decision to write a lyric that said: "Hold on, every single bloody recording artist on the planet, I've suddenly realised I don't care about how many diamond chains you own, ok bye" made her the biggest pop genius in 2013.

1) Duke Dumont ft A*M*E - Need U (100%)

It sounded like a classic the first time I heard it, and it still sounds like a classic now. An snappy, irresistible nugget of handbag house it was arguably responsible for a major 1990s revival in 2013, so we can hold Duke Dumont responsible for next year's inevitable Whigfield comeback. Until then, I defy you not to dance to this.

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They've got a brand new combine harvester

Whoever said The Arctic Monkeys' new album was "all about the backing vocals" got it spot on. Across AM Alex Turner, apparently the world's number one Susanna Reid fan, lets his bandmates do all the heavy harmony lifting, and the result is their strongest record since their debut.

Case in point is new single One For The Road which, with it's "whoo whoo" refrain, is like a 60s Motown stomper played at the wrong speed.

The video sees the band playing a game of chicken with a variety of farm vehicles. Because, you know, they can.

Arctic Monkeys - One For The Road

Bonus content: Here's the Arctics doing Fireside in Radio 1's Live Lounge a couple of weeks ago. The drumming is ferocious. And I mean that in a good way.

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Lady Gaga has Sex Dreams in Camden, and six other songs you may have missed

"When I'm without you, I can't live," bleated Lady Gaga at the iTunes festival last night, buttering up her fans like hot muffins. "When were in this space together we make the most beautiful thing in the world," she added. "We belong, don't we?"

OH GOOD GOD, WOMAN, GIVE IT A REST. Gaga's fawning nonsense wasted approximately a quarter of her 60-minute set at the Roundhouse. Is there a more sickening pop star vice than naked narcissism? Gaga dresses up this "mother monster" thing as a mutual relationship but, let's be clear, she's the one getting her ego stroked. At great length.

But when she finally got around to playing some music, you could (almost) forgive her. Manicure and Artpop sounded better, conceptually and melodically, than anything on Born This Way. My favourite was Sex Dreams, which sounded like the sort of thing Prince would have given Vanity 6 back in 1984. Here's some rehearsal footage:



But Gaga wasn't the only pop star unveiling new songs this weekend. Here's a quick round-up.

1) Arctic Monkeys - Stop The World I Wanna Get Off With You
Lord knows what's gotten into Alex Turner but his new songs all sound like they were written by a randy teenager ("I'm constantly on the cusp of trying to kiss you").

Stop The World... is a non-album b-side but it's as lurid and licentious as Do I Wanna Know? In other words: it's bloody good.




2) Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball
I always suspected the next track from Miley's new album (hilariously named BANGERZ) would be a little more palatable than the "look at me being all growed up" antics of We Can't Stop. And so it proves to be: Wrecking Ball is a stonking mega-ballad that will soundtrack X Factor winner montages for weeks to come.




3) Skream - Rollercoaster feat Sam Frank
You see the name Skream and you think "ah yes, the man who threw ball bearings in a dustbin and called it Dubstep". Well, this is nothing of the sort: A happy, slinky disco groove which veers dangerously close to Jamiroquai territory, but will win you over anyway.




4) Anna Calvi- Eliza
"Anna Calvi runs through the forest and the elements," says the YouTube description for Anna Calvi's new single. It means "Anna gets wet in the rain", rather than "Anna bursts through solid plates of magnesium and calcium" - which is either disappointing or magnificent, depending on how much phwoarr Anna generates in your loins.




5) Cher Lloyd - I Wish fest TI
Stealing Riffing on the chorus from Skee-Lo's I Wish, this is the first song from Cher Lloyd's second album. It's catchy enough, if you like that sort of thing.



6) Oh Land - Renaissance Girls (Nick Zinner remix)
I must have watched Oh Land's video for Renaissance Girls 100 times by now, and the choreography still makes me grin like a dolphin. Now it's been remixed by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Nick Zimmerman, who gives the song a more strident, military beat but does nothing to diminish it's kooky charm. Move forward, move forward.

Now... what on earth am I going to blog about for the rest of the week?

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Music video trends pt 245: Grumpystrolling

It's a good week for putting on a leather jacket and walking moodily towards a camera that's framing you to the right of shot.

Spookily, those are shots from three separate videos, all uploaded to YouTube yesterday. Why they've all adopted this trope, popularised in Bittersweet Symphony, is a mystery. Nearly as big a mystery as why leather jackets are a thing again.

But as well as grumpystrolling, the videos have one more unifying feature: A terrific song. In order, they are.

Arctic Monkeys - Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High?
Following up Do I Wanna Know, and sticking in the same vein, the Arctic Monkeys unveil this gnarly slab of rock sleaze. The video, in which a "refreshed" Alex Turner stumbles down the street sexting his lady friend, is largely NSFW.



Foxes - Youth
Foxes has had two top 20 hits this year as a featured artist (most notably on Zedd's barnstorming Clarity). Now it's time to ramp up the solo campaign with a re-release of her best song to date, Youth. If you fixate on women with Disney princess eyes, this video is for you.



Haim - The Wire
Haim take an unanticipated detour into comedy for their new video. We see Alana, Este and Alanis Morisette Danielle dumping their feckless boyfriends... with hilarious (emasculating) consequences.

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A decade of the Arctic Monkeys

Last week marked the 10th anniversary of the Arctic Monkeys' first gig at the Grapes in Sheffield (pictured above). They got paid a measly £27 and mostly played cover versions. One notable exception included a scrappy proto-punk number called, magnificently, Ravey Ravey Ravey Club.

Arctic Monkeys - Ravey Ravey Ravey Club

You know the rest: First single goes straight to number one; First album is the fastest-selling debut in history; Band increasingly surly in interviews; Band boycott the Brits; Dressing up as characters from The Wizard Of Oz; Teaming up with Queens of the Stone Age; Going bowling with P Diddy; Playing at the Olympics Opening Ceremony; and, most importantly, getting covered by the Sugababes.

Next Friday, they'll headline the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury and tradition demands a new single so there's a lull in the set where everyone can go and get a beer. The thing is, the new single is too good to miss... It's out today, it's called Do I Wanna Know? and it comes with an unusual animated video with shades of Pink Floyd's The Wall. Approved.

Arctic Monkeys - Do I Wanna Know?

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What's going on with the Arctic Monkeys?

Remember when the Arctic Monkeys arrived on the radio back in 2005? Their songs were incredible, incendiary... but they were reluctant and awkward, blinking in the limelight and barely able to make eye contact with anyone who tried to speak to them.



Granted, they were only teenagers. And Alex Turner showed the occasional flash of the wit he displayed in his dry, urbane lyrics. Simon Amstell, typically, got some of the best reactions out of him by appealing to their self-deprecating sense of humour.



But somewhere along the way, they grew into their roll as Britain's best rock band. If you caught them on tour last year, you couldn't help but notice how at ease with himself Alex Turner seemed on stage. One time, he even did The Macarena.



Amazing, right?

But this is all just a very long-winded and self-indulgent way of saying the band put out a new single this morning. It seems to have taken everyone by surprise. RU Mine isn't from their current album, Suck It And See, and it doesn't appear to be the launch of a new one.

I love it when a band is so hyped up about a new song they rush-release it so everyone share can the excitement. And this is definitely exciting - stuffed silly with towering riffs, and showcasing some of the most ridiculously overblown drum kit showboating of all time.

Nice video too.

Arctic Monkeys - RU Mine


Out to buy now from your local MP3 emporium.

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What is happening in the world of "indie"?

1) Arctic Monkeys have dispatched drummer Matt Helders to the US, where he's filmed a video for Suck It And See, the plodsome title track to the band's otherwise excellent new LP. Part Bonnie And Clyde, part Natural Born Killers, the resulting mini-movie is achingly, disdainfully cool. Warning: contains nudity.

Arctic Monkeys - Suck It And See



2) Noel Gallagher has released what can only be described as a surprisingly competent solo single. AKA... What A Life! is, despite the tediously overwritten title, a little gem - carried along on a psychedelic swirl of Madchester house pianos, and sounding not entirely unlike Ian Brown's better solo material. Well played, monobrow.

Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - AKA... What A Life!


3) Er... That's it.

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Monkey makes music

I thought I'd posted something about this several weeks ago but it turns out I was wrong: There is a new song by Arctic Monkeys' frontman Alex Turner and some bloke from the Rascals called Miles Kane - and it is an absolute belter.

Together, Turner and Kane are The Last Shadow Puppets, and they sound a bit like the Walker Brothers crossed with Arthur Lee's Love. Only, you know, good.

NME readers will be aware that they have a whole album coming out and, if it's all as good as The Age Of The Understatement, The Kooks et al will be going home looking very foolish indeed.

The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of The Understatement


PS: Are the lyrics to this song brilliant or the sort of terrible nonsense that novelists imagine pop songs to be like? I can't decide...

And she was walking on the tables in the glass house
Endearingly bedraggled in the wind
Subtle in her method of seduction
The twenty little tragedies begin

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The Brits, then

In order of appearance...

Mika: Insufferable
Beth Ditto: Underused
"The" Osbournes: Grotesque
Take That: Bless
Klaxons: Which ones are the Klaxons?
Rihanna: Hoodie

Fearne Cottons... Now wait a cotton-picking minute (do you see what I did there?)

Why are the public being allowed to decide who wins the Best Single award? The shortlist is already based on the top-selling records of the year, so why not just give the prize to the one that sold the most (Leona Lewis). The phone-in element just ruins the pace of the show, and cheapens the whole affair. They don't let you phone in at the Oscars, do they? No wonder none of the important acts turned up. They thought it was the bloody X Factor.

Adele: Guv'nor
Mika again: Vomitous
Kylie: Not really dancing
Kelly Rowland: Not really Beyoncé
Kanye West: Numbskull
Mark Ronson: Even the voiceover lady points out he shouldn't be given Best British Male
Kaiser Chiefs: Just awful
Kylie again: Best International Female? What must Rihanna think?



Leona Lewis: Wow!



Foo Fighters: Sarcastic
Kate Nash: Fuck off. For the love of God, fuck off.
Foo Fighters: Cheeky
Mark Ronson and Adele and Daniel Merriweather and...
Amy Winehouse!!!!: Jaw-droppingly, monumentally fantastic.



Arctic Monkeys: Girls Aloud wuz robbed
Amy Winehouse again: Wobbly
Take That: Cuddly
Arctic Monkeys: Smirksome
Paul McCartney: Hello, granddad.

And that was the Brits. See you next year, eh?

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Irony alert

The Arctic Monkeys have done a video for their new single Fluorescent Adolescent. It features a bunch of clowns and isn't as funny or clever as it thinks it is.

Insert your own joke here.

Arctic Monkeys: Fluorescent Adolescent
(warning: contains violence and a really terrible song)

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Click on this

We're currently in the process of ripping up Discopop Towers and moving it somewhere else. As a result, the blog might suffer a little. Especially as it looks like we'll lose our internet connection for three weeks (makes sad face).

Anyway, here's a quick rundown of some things on the fabulous magical interweb that have made me chirtle and, indeed, chortle.

:: Apologies to anyone who read my review of Spider-Man 3 and felt it was missing phrases like: "You bet your ass!", "Dude nails it," and "Spider-Man 3 is off the chain!". This is the review for you. Moron.

:: Just Jared has the first shots of Heath Ledger as The Crow The Joker in the new Batman film. And yes, he is holding an humungous Rubik's Cube.



:: Gwen Stefani's tour rider includes the following non-calorific treats. Water, some more water, plums, bananas, a little bit more water, parsley, 2 AC power outlets (?) and some more water. Note to Gwen: A chicken sandwich won't kill you.

:: Here is Bjork doing her mad-as-a-box-of-hats thing on Saturday Night Live. Except it's recorded, and it's now Monday evening. Freaky.



:: While I'm talking about Bjork, here's her Rolling Stone Cover. Brilliant, no?



:: The ever-amazing Zeon's Music Blog has MP3s of Arctic Monkeys covering Amy Winehouse and The Strokes on Radio One. I am so over the Arctic Monkeys, by the way.

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Please don't do the one about the boat

Hooray! I actually managed to get two tickets for Take That's Beautiful tour this morning, despite every website and "hot"line in the country crashing under the sheer weight of Thatties (or, more likely, ticket touts) trying snap up all the precious seats.

The gigs-and-tours.com website was so stressed by the whole process that it omitted to tell me what date my tickets were for, or where in the so-called "02" arena I'd be sitting.

No doubt that means I've got to watch the gig from a burger van in the car park. But, hey, at least that improves my chances of bumping into Gary Barlow...

The concert's not til December, so in the meantime why not download an MP3 of that Arctic Monkeys' single I was talking about yesterday [via zshare] and tell me what you think about it?

Also, to round off the utter random-ness of this post, here is a gratuitous picture of George Clooney with a brolly.

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Arctic Monkeys - the people speak

So last night on Fabulous Rrrrradio One Eff Emm they played the new Arctic Monkeys single. Taken from their forthcoming sophomore album, Favourite Worst Nightmare, it's called Brian Storm (do you see what they did there?). It has since been played on the station every two hours or so. There's a law about it, apparently.

As we all know, Arctic Monkeys are the biggest band on the planet. "They're like this generation's Oasis" is what well-known rock critic Dizzee Rascal said.

We also know that Arctic Monkeys are popular because of the internet, which allowed their fans to come together and say "crikey, I quite like this music", except using typing and modems.

So the online response to this hotly anticipated new record is bound to be stellar, isn't it?

Erm... no.

A total of three (count 'em) bloggers have written about the single. "I heard it. It's good, yeah", says Imdagger with unique insight into the creative process. Meanwhile, Pillaged Prose is more effusive, but slightly more cryptic: "Damn what a follow up", he writes. "But not the sort of thing to listen to when trying to do finicky seam work". An important health warning for all of those kids listening to the Monkeys in a third-world sweatshop, there.

And what of the response on the group's fabled myspace page? Similarly poor,I'm afraid. Just five of the band's 62,989 "friends" felt moved to make a comment. One of them, Mikey, wrote "your new song is the sex", which makes me wonder if he has ever actually had sex (hint: no). But, apart from Mikey, no-one seems to be wetting their pants over this much-feted record.

Come on, guys, the song's not that bad. I mean, the words are clever. And the guitar riff is pretty ferocious. Yes, the tune just repeats itself every two bars and there's no chorus - but what do you expect? They are this generation's Oasis, after all.

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Superficial

You may not have noticed, but I've been trying to increase the volume of original writing on the site over the past month. The idea is to create a flurry of opinion, criticism and erudite discussion, rather than just a bunch of links.

So far, it's been going rather well - that Nelly Furtado review from last week has tripled the number of visitors to the site. But sometimes there just isn't anything to get me fired up.

Perhaps that's because I've been listening to the Go! Team album on repeat. Its so relentlessly upbeat and bouncy that I can't help but walk around with an uncharacteristically sunny disposition. Even the rumour of Mariah Carey duetting with Janet Jackson isn't enough to wipe the smile off my face, even though the resulting song is sure to make dogs claw out their own eardrums in an attempt to make the high-pitched whining stop. Not to mention the video, which will be like witnessing a slow train crash.

Anyway, even if Jermaine Dupri manages to finally put an end to Janet's career there's plenty of other good music on the horizon. Radio One have been putting their Live Lounge to good use once again, getting those Arctic Monkeys in to perform their number one single and (taste-makers look away now) a cover of Girls Aloud's Love Machine.

This is good news. If Arctic Monkeys are to claim Oasis' crown as the biggest rock band in the UK, it can only be a positive development that they love pop music and don't throw a big girly tantrum every time someone else comes up with a good tune. Yes, Liam, we're talking to you. You twat.

Meanwhile Radio One's less hip uncle, Six Music (or "BBC we only allow songs by white men with guitars plus the occasional bit of Stevie Wonder if you're very lucky" as internal memos probably don't refer to it) has put Belle and Sebastian into the studio to go wild - albeit politely and within tolerable noise levels. They perform an acoustic version of their new single, which is fantastic and should be bought in actual bucketloads.

You can hear both the Arctic Monkeys and B&S on the ever-fantastic Mr Red Penguin's MP3 Heaven.

Finally, something I never thought I'd see, or be interested in seeing: One-hit-wonder Lisa Loeb prannying around in a thong. She looks surprisingly young and pert for someone who had a hit single 12 years ago... But knowing that fact makes me feel ridiculously old, which has put the dampener on my rosy disposition.

I must head off and listen to the Go! Team again...

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The sit-com is back from the dead (again) claims the New Yorker. Try telling that to anyone who's sat through Scrubs, Weeds or Two-and-a-half Men recently.

Get your MP3's on:
1) Mr Red Penguin has Mylo and the Arctic Monkeys from last week's Jools Holland
2) Sufjan Stevens and Arcade Fire sessions over at The Torture Garden
3) Fluxblog have the double-whammy of Girls Aloud's superb new single Biology and the classic Dolly Parton Baby I'm Burning (as they suggest, mix it with the White Stripes "My Doorbell" next time you DJ. It rocks).

Rate Celebrity plastic surgery if you dare.

How Stuff Works have posted an article on Nintendo's revolutionary wireless pointy, clicky, wave-it-about-your-heady game controller. It's mostly guess-work, but quite informative nonetheless.

Finally, Mike "Austin Powers" Myers is directly responsible for 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?'. Are there any crimes against comedy he isn't guilty of?

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