Songs you may have missed: Songs I may have missed edition

Oh lordy. Two weeks off and so much good music to catch up with. Here are some of the highlights, accompanied by a desultory 5-word review.

1) Lana Del Rey - High By The Beach
The template has been refined.




2) Chvrches - Leave A Trace
The creation of a star.




3) Hailee Steinfield - Love Myself
Amazing songs deserve better visuals.





4) Disclosure ft Kwabs - Willing & Able
One to sink into deeply.





5) Dmitri Vegas & Like Mike ft Ne-Yo - Higher Place
Luscious, lilting late night anthem.





6) Calvin Harris & Disciples - How Deep Is Your Love
Generic dance music video ahoy.




7) Duran Duran - You Kill Me
Spot the clunky Bowie reference




8) Krept & Konan - So Long
Samples SWV's Rain. Is good.






9) Robin Thicke - Back Together (ft Nicki Minaj)
He's still going? Sadly, yes.




10) FKA Twigs - In Time
Uncompromising but compelling but bonkers.





11) Odesza - Light (ft Little Dragon)
Wispy, hypnotic and bloody brilliant.





12) Little Mix - Black Magic (live on the Late Show)
Bring back TOTP. Tomorrow, preferably.




13) The Dead Weather - I Feel Love (Every Million Miles)
Potential new TOTP theme song.

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Songs you may have missed: A Lorde (and S Club) special

So it was back to work this week after a very generous (although partly-unpaid) 12 weeks' paternity leave. I won't say it was easy to leave the kids behind but on balance my wife has the harder job.

Anyway, the cogs of the music industry machine continue to turn despite my domestic arrangements. Here's a round-up of the songs I heard this week and couldn't find time to write up. NB: They're basically all by Lorde.

1) Lorde - Yellow Flicker Beat (Kanye West Remix)
Intense.



2) Charli XCX ft Simon Le Bon - Kingdom
This one's from Lorde's hand-picked soundtrack to The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1.

Charli talked about it to Pitchfork earlier this week, using the following words: "I worked with Rostam [Batmanglij] on that song. We went to the Miley Cyrus show in LA and got really wasted. Then we went back to his house and I sat on top of his piano, and we wrote Kingdom. We sung it into his phone.

"I remember thinking in the morning, 'Ugh, this is going to be the worst thing ever,' but it was really good. So when Ella [Lorde] reached out to me about the soundtrack, I decided to send her that song even though it’s really different than my usual shit. She was really complimentary about it."

So there you go.



3) Lorde - Don't Tell 'Em (Radio 1 Live Lounge cover)
Intense.





4) S Club 7 - Greatest Hits medley (from Children In Need)
A greatest hits medley featuring four songs isn't really worthy of the title but it's interesting to see what S Club look like in their mid-to-late 30s.

Paul Cattermole is the highlight, dancing like a drunk uncle at a David Brent lookalike competest.





5) Nicole Scherzinger - Run
Intense.





6) Lion Babe - Jump Hi (ft Childish Gambino)
Possibly R&B's best-kept secret, Lion Babe have been on the Discopop radar since 2012. They've been quiet for a while but this song, the title track to a forthcoming EP, suggests they're getting their ducks in a row for a major push 2015.

Sample watch: The chorus uses a vocal hook from Nina Simone's interpretation of Mr Bojangles.





7) Ariana Grande - All My Love (ft Major Lazer)
Also from the Hunger Games soundtrack. A total racket, but in the good way.






8) Calvin Harris - Outside (ft Ellie Goulding)
Do you think Calvin regrets giving all his best material to Rita Ora?





9) Taylor Swift - Shake It Off (Tesher remix)
This is magnificent - reframing Taylor's pop hit as a dark and dirty club hit. If Lorde had written Shake It Off, it would have sounded like this.

Sample-watch: The backing track is based around the intro to Justin Timberlake's What Goes Around (Comes Around).





10) One Bit - Won't Hold Back
Superlative sunset grooves from Radio One's "Most Played New Act of 2014". For fans of Disclosure and Holy Ghost!




11) Fergie - LA Love
Featuring cameos from Hilary Swank, Chelsea Handler and Ryan Seacrest. Hardly Liberian Girl, is it?




12) Chvrches vs Bleachers - You Can Go Your Own Way
Featuring the worst live sound mix you have ever heard in your life, this is nonetheless a brilliant cover version. Lauren's vivacious vocals really bring a new dimension to Fleetwood Mac's kiss-off classic.

And that, readers, is that. Happy listening!

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Feliz Navidad de Simon Le Bon

I'm taking the customary Christmas break from blogging... but I'll be back next week with the Top 10 singles and albums of the year (a definitive list - none of the others count).

Hope Santa brings you everything you want, and that the Top Of The Pops Christmas Day revival isn't an unholy mess. Until we meet again, here are Duran Duran, wishing you a Happy Christmas in poorly dubbed Spanish.



Mark
xx

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Duran Duran: The supermodels are back

The new video from Duran Duran looks very expensive and raises a few smiles. True to form, they've hired a bunch of supermodels - but unlike Girls On Film, the ladies keep their clothes on, and get to play at being rock stars. Naomi Campbell is Simon Le Bon, Eva Herzigova does Nick Rhodes, Helena Christensen plays Roger Taylor, and Cindy Crawford is John Taylor... The Mark Ronson-produced song, Girl Panic, is intercut with fly-on-the-wall footage and interviews, that quite bravely poke fun at Duran Duran's lowered status in the pop firmament: "Silence doesn't mean you're forgotten".

The song's rubbish, of course.

Duran Duran - Girl Panic!

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Duran Duran invented pop, you know

Duran Duran's John Taylor has hit out at Madonna, accusing her of copying their colllaboration with Justin Timberlake and Timbaland.

"It wouldn't be the first time Madonna's copied us," the bassist added. "She's been doing it for years."

Imagine what it must be like being inside John Taylor's mind, twisting and turning every pop happening to reinforce the fact that Duran Duran are the most important and groundbreaking act of all time.

Remember that video where Madonna had highlights in her hair and mimed to a song? WELL DURAN DURAN DID IT FIRST.

And what about her song about dancing on an Spanish island? WELL DURAN DURAN DID A SONG ABOUT RIO WHICH WAS NEARLY EXACTLY THE SAME.

And that one time when she was the biggest female pop star on the planet and earned more than $150m from concert tickets in a single year? WELL DURAN DURAN... Erm... Oh, fuck.

John, if you're reading, here are a list of people who collaborated with Timbaland before you came up with the idea for the first time ever in history and then Madonna stole it:

Jodeci, Sista, Aaliyah, Ginuwine, Missy Elliott, Magoo, Playa, Nicole, Jay-Z, Total, Nas, The LOX, Da Brat, K-Ci and JoJo, Snoop Dogg, Outsiderz 4 Life, Torrey Carter, Mocha, Jadakiss, Fabolous, Bubba Sparxxx, Petey Pablo, Ludacris, Limp Bizkit, No Doubt, Destiny's Child, Tweet, Truth Hurts, Mack 10, Shade Sheist, Pastor Troy, Ms. Jade, TLC, Baby aka #1 Stunna, Solange, Lil Kim, Mýa, Obie Trice, Alicia Keys, Kiley Dean, Zane, Nate Dogg, Brandy , Cee-Lo Green, Knoc-Turn'al, Lloyd Banks, Beenie Man, LL Cool J, Shawnna, Utada, Jackie O, Xzibit, The Game, Jennifer Lopez, The Black Eyed Peas, Fat Joe, The Pussycat Dolls, Ray-J, Jamie Foxx, Nelly Furtado, Busta Rhymes, Danity Kane, Chingy, Lloyd Banks, Diddy, Omarion , Young Jeezy, Beyoncé , Redman, Björk, Bobby Valentino, Tank , Rihanna, M.I.A., Kanye West

That is all, Thank you.

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Killers + Duran Duran

Here's something I missed while I was in Cannes - Brandon Flowers duetting with Simon Le Bon on Duran Duran classic Planet Earth:



It's quite good, isn't it. Perhaps Brandon looks a little embarassed, and Le Bon is relishing the spotlight a tad too much (was it ever any different?) but wouldn't it be good to see the Killers go "a bit Duran" on their new album? Stuart Price is producing, so it's not entirely out of the question.

You can see the whole performance - with bonus tedious intro! - on youtube (youtube).

In the meantime, I'd love to get to see the Mark Ronson / Duran Duran collaborative gig in Paris next month. Anyone got a spare ticket?

[via Arjan Writes]

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Video of the week: Wild Boys

I can't believe I've been writing this feature since January and not managed to talk about Duran Duran's videos yet. Here's where I make amends.

Many people think of Duran Duran's promo clips as the epitome of wasteful 80s shallowness. And, to be fair, that's not an unfair conclusion. The band jetted off to Antigua and Sri Lanka, hired massive yachts, made girls strip and sprayed countless litres of hairspray directly at the ozone layer.

But the videos do have a few saving graces. They are eye-catching, full of personality, snappily edited, and as often as not, tongue-in-cheek. The video for "Hungry like The Wolf" was so cinematic, in fact, that Duran Duran became one of the first acts to be broken by MTV.

Wild Boys came a few years later and, perhaps, marks the point where they began to lose the plot. It was crazily expensive, and ditched their jet-setting fashion model look in favour of a dystopian fantasy world full of S&M fetishists and disembodied heads. Luckily, the band hadn't quite disappeared up their own arses by this point, so they play their parts with panache, not pomposity.

For director Russell Malachy the video was supposed to be a calling card. He wanted to make a full-length feature based on the frankly freaky 1971 novel "The Wild Boys: A Book Of The Dead" by celebrity junkie William S. Burroughs - and this was a mini-version of that film, produced in an attempt to raise funds.

Simon Le Bon wrote the song based on what little he knew of Burroughs' book (he certainly hadn't bothered reading it) and the video was filmed at the 007 stage in Pinewood studios.

What impresses me most about the whole endeavour is how Malachy managed to get the band to go along with his vision. You can picture the scene:

Malachy: "So, Andy, we're going to suspend you from the roof, where you'll fight off flying gargoyles with your guitar. And Simon, you'll be thrown off a spinning windmill into a swimming pool full of piranhas."
The Duran: " ... "

As you can tell, the video is brilliantly ridiculous. Absolutely potty in the way only 1980s pop promos can be. It won the 1985 Brit Award for Best Video, and is probably the only deserving winner of that prize in the ceremony's history (they abandoned the category in 2001 after Robbie Williams won it three years in a row.)

Here it is:

PS That windmill nearly killed Simon Le Bon when it broke down with his head submersed in the water. If he had died, Duran Duran would be thought of as one of the UK's seminal pop acts, instead of a dreadful joke. Makes you think, doesn't it?

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Apropos of nothing - a peacock

Mrsdiscopop was trying to take a photo of a peacock eating my hotdog at Whipsnade Animal Park (stop sniggering at the back).

Unfortunately, Mr Cock's deft footwork proved too much even for her nimble fingers... But there was something pleasing about the way the photographs displayed on the contact sheet, don't you think?



Elsewhere in the universe:

Jude Law is selling his sordid snooker table of sex

Medical students can now practise their surgery skills on the Nintendo?!

Simon Le Bon is getting back on the boat that tried to kill him.

And finally... Britney wants to call her baby "Charlie" -- as in 'and-the-chocolate-factory'. We suppose that if you really have to name your child after a Roald Dahl book, Charlie is probably one of the better options. Indeed, it's amazing that Britters hasn't chosen something more in line with rockstar offspring tradition - like "Giant Peach" or "The Twit"...

Incidentally, Britney has decided not to give birth live on TV. So it will be safe to eat your dinner in front of the telly this October.

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