Seven Songs You May Have Missed

Like it says above... Here are seven songs you may have missed over the last seven days (and one for luck).

Gorge yourself silly on half an hour of quality pop.

1) Zara Larsson - Lush Life (live)
The song Rihanna should have released as her comeback single gets the Live Lounge treatment.



2) Cassius - Action (ft Mike D and Cat Power)
Daft Punk take a long time between albums but it's nothing compared to their contemporaries, Cassius, who return from a 10-year break with this fiesty firecracker, featuring a real-life Beastie Boy.





3) Zayn - Like I Would
"Talking about it's not my style," declares Zayn, who proceeds to spend the next three minutes talking about it. "It" being "sex", in case that wasn't clear. He's very good at the sex, apparently, but is his assessment really objective?

Still, nice to see his debut album raises the tempo above "moribund" every so often.






4) Kygo - Carry Me
This track by Norwegian DJ and producer Kygo leaked a couple of weeks ago, but now we finally get an HQ version, trailing the release of his debut album Cloud Nine. It continues in the vein of his previous, tropically-flavoured house tracks, confirming him the as the Lilt of dance music.





5) Denzel Curry - Knotty Head (ft Rick Ross)
Florida's Denzel Curry released his "sophomore" (second) album, Imperial, this week describing it as an attempt "to reach my ultimate form", like he's a character from Street Fighter. Still, you can't argue with his ferocious, hardcore raps - and this track is one of the album's stand-outs.




6) Ladyhawke - Sweet Fascination
Remember 2008, when every other post on this blog was about Ladyhawke? Well, on the basis of this new single, prepare for a second onslaught. Superlative synthpop. And the best lyric video of the year.




7) Gallant - Weight In Gold (ft Seal)
As previously noted on these pages, Gallant is a major new talent; and Weight In Gold is a stunning calling card. It now comes with added Seal (and a saxophone solo). How can you resist?




Hidden Bonus Track) Iris Gold - Steve McQueen
Raised on a commune and inspired by 70s psychedelia, Iris Gold turned heads with last year's gauzy R&B jam Goldmine. Some of those heads included Taylor Swift, Robbie Williams and Blur - all of whom have booked her as a support act. Her debut album is shaping up for a summer release, and the latest single should be saved up for your first picnic of 2016.

So there you go... Have a nice weekend.

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Is this the best school ever?

Over the last 24 hours, a video of some US school librarians recreating The Beastie Boys' Sabotage video has gone viral - ending up on Rolling Stone, Huffington Post, The Onion and dozens of other websites.

If you haven't seen it already, you're in for a treat.



What most of the coverage has failed to spot is that this video is part of a series, and they're all excellent.

The school in questions is Francis W. Parker K-12 School in Lincoln Park, Chicago. It's named after a US educational pioneer (note to Michael Gove: He successfully challenged the idea of rote learning in the 19th Century), whose motto was "A school should be a model home, a complete community, an embryonic democracy."

It's with that in mind that these videos get made, every year since 2006, for something called the Mike And Duane Show. Essentially, it's a big comedy sketch show the staff put on for the pupils at the end of term, but the production values are insane.

Here they are recreating Michael Jackson's Bad in the school cafeteria.



This is Taylor Swift's I Knew You Were Trouble, filmed in the style of Vampire Weekend's A-Punk video.




And, of course, there's an obligatory Fresh Prince cover.




I don't know about you, but my school would never have contemplated anything like this. We were lucky if we got to sing Handel's Messiah once a year to an audience of reluctant and borderline suicidal parents. One of FW Parker's teachers wrote a great blog post [read it here] explaining why their approach is better. It's certainly inspirational, and I don't even go to there. I just wonder if all this creativity and exuberance can ever make up for double maths.

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Welcome to the remixatron

Friday night is party night. Actually, Friday night is collapsing on the sofa with a bottle of wine night. But I always like to end the working week with a few remixes, which is some sort of hangover from listening to Radio One's Big Beat with Jeff Young in the late 80s.

Here's what I'm putting on tonight's playlist.

1) Beastie Boys - Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win (Major Lazer Remix)
With Switch and Diplo at the controls, this Beastie Boys album track gets a dancehall makeover that propels Santigold's contribution to the forefront. Which is exactly how it should be.




2) Kelly Rowland - Motivation (Remix)
Hands up who thought Kelly Rowland had given up on R&B? If she's not collaborating with David Guetta or Alex Gaudino on some abysmal Magaluf "anthem", she's practically invisible. So this track, which also features Busta Rhymes and Trey Songz, is a revelation. A slow, seductive soul jam - it's sexy in a way Rihanna could only ever hope to be.




3) Arcade Fire - We Used To Wait (acoustic version)
Technically not a remix, but who cares? It's brilliant.

Arcade Fire - We Used To Wait



4) Adele - Set Fire To The Rain (Thomas Gold Remix)
Remixing Adele is about as pointless as putting a coat on a dog. Nonetheless, this arms-aloft retwizzle is so cheesy it almost works. Hang around til 3'45" for the drop. Amazing!

Adele - Set Fire To The Rain (Thomas Gold Remix)



5) Alex Winston - Sister Wife (Ladyhawke Remix)
Ladyhawke has never done a remix before, so she must have been really impressed with Alex Winston to get involved. Or maybe she thought the song was broken and only a Ladyhawke remix could fix it. Or maybe she needed a bit of extra money to finish her second album. Either way, GET ON WITH IT LADYHAWKE.




6) Ronika - Wiyoo (Ronika 'own you' Remix)
I'd be lying if I said I hadn't listened to Ronika's Wiyoo EP every day this week. This remix isn't as good as the original, but it has bits of the original in it, and as such is brilliant on toast.



Hope you enjoy... Have a great weekend!

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Beastie Boys: The Sitcom

Fight For Your Right: Revisited is a cameo-filled, knockabout farce courtesy of The Beastie Boys. The concept, such as it is, is that the 1986-era Beastie Boys (Volkswagen pendants, snarling lips, inflatable phalluses) tangle with future versions of themselves (socially conscious Tibetan freedom fighters who occasionally remember to make awesome rap records).

It's been called a short film. It's been called a megavideo. I reckon it's a brilliant pilot for a sitcom. Suggested titles for this Beastie Boys comedy include:

• Hello, Nasty!!!
• Third Ad Rock From The Sun.
• Ill & Grace.
• Fight For Your Right To Partridge Family.
• Actually, this idea's rubbish. Let's move on.

Fight For Your Right: Revisited premiered last night in Greenwich, New York. It was posted online shortly afterwards... And here it is.

Beastie Boys - Fight For Your Right: Revisited


Did you spot all the cameos? The cast-list includes... Will Ferrell, Seth Rogen, Elijah Wood, Jack Black, Danny McBride, John C. Reilly, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, Rainn Wilson, Rashida Jones, Orlando Bloom, Jason Schwartzman, Steve Buscemi, Chloe Sevigny, Kirsten Dunst, Maya Rudolph, Laura Dern, Amy Poehler, Shannyn Sossamon, Alicia Silverstone, David Cross. And The list goes on.

You can also check out a full stream of the Beastie Boys' new album Hot Sauce Committee Pt 2 on the end of this link.

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Boys on Film

The trailer for the new Beastie Boys movie is basically amazing.

Beastie Boys - Fight For Your Right (Revisited)


The veteran rap act's new song, Make Some Noise, is also worth three minutes of your life. It leaked on Wednesday, so Mike D posted the full track on The Beastie Boys' official blog last night, explaining:

This wasn’t really part of the plan, but since this track is out there we wanted to let you hear it here first, or maybe second. Enjoy.

Here is the link you require: Beastie Boys - Tumblr

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Frickin' Unicorns!

(Before we get to the frickin' unicorns, here is something about a rap group)

About four years ago, when I got my first iPod (it was made of cement, had buttons the size of your dad's hands and stored a massive eleven songs) one of the first albums I uploaded was Northern State's Dying In Stereo.

I listened to that record so many times, it would probably still feature in my all-time most-played list, if only my PC hadn't gone all melty in 2004.

Often likened to a female Beastie Boys, the band had a snarky, playful delivery over some home-produced lo-fi beats. One of favourite lyrics was on the title track:
Edmund Hillary couldn't climb this
Parsley sage rosemary and thyme this
Step off, your flow is weak
Save that talk for Dawson's Creek

But, since their debut I've heard precious little about the New York-based, all-female rap trio. I remember readng they'd signed a deal with a major label and then... nothing.

Well, it turns out they had a big old row with Colombia Records and stormed off in a big-booted girly huff to make a record on an independent label. According to their website: "We teamed up with producer Chuck Brody of Shitake Monkey (Wu Tang Clan, Yoko Ono etc.) and Adrock from the Beastie Boys and began making our new album.

"We wrote some rock songs and some hip hop songs and some other kinds of songs. We pushed the limits more than ever in terms of what a hip-hop song might sound like."

And, listening to the results, it turns out that this genre-defining hip-hop sounds a bit like a rap version of the theme to Sabrina The Teenage Witch.

Worse things could have happened, I suppose.

The album is called Can I Keep This Pen? and it came out in the US this week. The first single is Better Already and the video features a frickin' unicorn.

We love frickin' unicorns.

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Ch-ch-check it out

The Beastie Boys have added a new section to their website, offering free a-capella versions of their songs to download. A prize for the first person to doctor one of the raps to say "Fuck Tibet - I fancy a nice, juicy burger".

Beastie Boys.com - remixers

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