A DIY TOTP FOR W/C 06/05/2013

The one thing people forget about Top Of The Pops is that, for every heart-stopping performance by The KLF or Destiny’s Child, you had to sit through half-a-dozen dismal efforts by Eiffel 65 or Jive Bunny. Yes, it’s bad that primetime TV continues to snub the music industry, but maybe the people who gave us Peter Andre got what they deserved.

Anyway, thanks to the beauty of YouTube, you can now curate your own Top Of The Pops with the added benefit of zero Fearne Cotton. For instance, if you trawl through the last seven days of chat shows and Jools Hollands, you could compile an episode featuring Vampire Weekend, Rudimental, Thom Yorke, Marina and the Diamonds, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Phoenix. But we kick off the show with the biggest song in the world right now...



Icona Pop - I Love It


Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Sacriliege


Rudimental ft Ella Eyre - Waiting All Night (acoustic)


Vampire Weekend - Diane Young


Phoenix - Trying To Be Cool


Thom Yorke - Ingenue


Marina and the Diamonds - Lies


Not bad, eh? And of course we'd play out with the UK's Number One. And of course we would cut it off half way through, in true TOTP tradition.

Daft Punk - Get Lucky (Peter Serafinowicz video edit)

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Cheryl Cole, Thom Yorke... and three other songs you may have missed

It's a run down of some songs that have been on put the internet this week, in no particular order. Roll on the tunes...


1) Cheryl - Screw You
Yes, Screw You a song about having your heart broken and coming back fighting but it is definitely not autobiographical. Even though all the lyrics have a direct parallel to Cheryl's life, she didn't write them and the whole thing is a merry coincidence. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar. HAVE I MADE MYSELF UNDERSTOOD?

OK, then. You can watch the video.




2) Atoms For Peace - Default
Atoms For Peace is the Thom Yorke's new project, featuring producer Nigel Godrich and Flea from Back To The Future III.

They came together as a live band a couple of years ago and, according to Yorke, "discovered loads of energy from transforming the music from electronic to live, and so afterwards, we carried on for a few days in the studio and decided to make it a loose, on-going thing - Immersed in the area between the two... electronic and live."

If comparisons are necessary, and they are, Default walks a similar path to Everything In It's Right Place from Kid A - a complicated, skittering song with a menacing swell of keyboard noise.





3) Ke$ha - Die Young
I don't hate this, and that alone makes it noteworthy in the cannon of Ke$ha. Best bit: "I hear your heart beat to the beat of the drums" [massive thump on the kick drum]. All songs should do this.




4) Night Engine - I'll Make It Worth Your While
A PR emailed me about brand new London quartet Night Engine earlier this week. Instead of exclaiming "Huw Stephens has tweeted about them!" or "they've played two sold out gigs in a shit pub in Shoreditch!", she explained in 100% ACCURATE terms what the band sounded like: "Talking Heads jitters, Bowie style ice cool and Funkadelic groove."

This is the song in question. A toe-tapper, as my Granny might say.




5) Foxes - Echo
The best video about the romance between a grown woman and a crash test dummy you will see this week, and that's a guarantee.

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Essential MP3 for your New Year party

DJ Earworm's mash-up of Billboard's Top 25 singles of the year has become an annual staple. This year's edition, featuring Lady Gaga, Eminem and Usher eeps the quality threshold ridiculously high... even if there's a little too much Ke$ha for my liking.

DJ Earworm - United State Of Pop 2010

You can download the MP3 from DJ Earworm's official website for tonight's festivities. And if you like that, you should also check out the mix he did for Capital FM's Summer Ball in June which, if anything, is even better.

DJ Earworm - Like OMG, Baby

Those of you looking for something a bit more "credible" could also check out Magnetic Man's excellent Essential Mix on Radio 1's iPlayer page [link here] or Gilles Peterson and Thom Yorke's spiffing 120 minutes of politics'n'chat'n'music, which the Beeb repeated earlier this week. [link here]

And with that, I bade farewell to 2010 and look forward to seeing you all in 2011. Hope you have a great night! Mrdiscopop

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Thom Yorke goes dubstep

"Ladies, let's get naughty,
Get drunk on this hypnotic,
If you want shag then we got it
Then let me wind up on it."

These are not, let's face it, the sort of lyrics you'd assosciate with Thom "I really am quite concerned about the state of the modern world" Yorke. There's a simple explanation, though: He didn't write them.

They're lines from a song called Jump Up, by Italian house duo Crookers, featuring Major Lazer (ie Switch and Diplo of producing-MIA-and-Robyn "fame").

Yorke's contribution is to have remixed the song for a Major Lazer EP, which came out yesterday. In the process, he transforms it from a big dumb party record into something altogether more intriguing.



The full Major Lazer EP can be streamed on MySpace.

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