"A terribly poor grasp of the English language"

What is happening to the education system in Canada? I always thought it was top of the UN's "most totally pampered places to live in the world" chart (I think it's really called the Human Development Index) but if Canada's pop lyricists are any indication, the country's children have a terribly poor grasp of the English language.

Sixteen years have passed since Alanis Morisette famously got in a muddle over the definition of irony, but it's not getting any better. Here are some recent examples.

1) "Before you came into my life, I missed you so bad"
Carly Rae Jepsen - she either fundamentally misunderstands the linear nature of time, or has mixed up her tenses.

2) "I like a woman with a future and a past"
Drake - who is trying to express his preference for a female partner with plenty of experience and a lust for life. Sadly, his clumsy phrasing makes it sound like he's willing to have a go on anyone who's not a baby or a corpse.

3) "We don't need a cure for the weight of the world / cause its floating round in the universe"
Dragonette - displaying a shocking ignorance of Kepler's laws of planetary motion.

4) "Your lips are undeniable"
Carly Rae Jepsen (again) - who has confused undeniable with irresistible. Of course you can't deny someone's lips. You'd look pretty stupid saying, "those aren't lips, they're plasticine snails. Everyone knows lips don't really exist, dummy".

Oh dear, readers. Oh dear.

That last lyric, by the way, comes from Carly Rae Jepsen's new single This Kiss, a song which tries so hard to shout "I am not a one hit wonder" that it nearly gives itself a hernia. It needen't have bothered, it's a proper sugar-pill pop classic once it settles down into itself.

Carly Rae Jepsen - This Kiss

PS The world's best pop lyricists (writing in English) come from Sweden. Deny it if you can.

Tweet

James Bond megamix and four other songs you may have missed

A semi-regular round-up of songs I haven't had time to blog about during the week, which is by no means a comment on the relative merits of those songs, although it sort of is when you think about it, isn't it?

1) Krafty Kuts - 50 Years Of Bond

I had to wade through 23 Bond films to compile this ridiculous / brilliant / ridiculously brilliant infographic for the BBC News website last month. So I completely sympathise with the utter madness that went into this five-minute mash-up of Bond music from the past 50 years. Best bit: Mixing between the all-time best and all-time worst Bond themes at 2'45".

You can download this for free at http://soundcloud.com/a-skillz-1/50-years-of-bond-mini-mix if you are so inclined.




2) The xx - Chained

A selection of headlines about this video:
"The xx go underwater". [Spin]
"The xx hit murky waters" [Consequence Of Sound]
"The xx get wet" [What's Hot]

In other words, you don't need GCSE art studies to fathom (ha!) the basic visual motif.




3) Ciara - Got Me Good

Over the years, Ciara has been blown about like a wasp in a musical sandstorm. When she's good, she's the master of utterly filthy slow-jams (Ride, Goodies, Love Sex Magic). When she's bad, she makes utterly filthy slow-jams with all the erotic charge of a weetabix (Like A Surgeon, with the inexplicable lyric 'my love's like anasthesia').

Luckily, her new single is in the former category - and it comes with some top-notch choreography-in-a-desert. Watch her kicking up the sand below.




4) Haim - Don't Save Me

After The Staves, Haim are my next favourite sibling vocal harmony trio of the year.

Their music is an indescribable mix of R&B and folk, with an unexpected Max Martin twist. "I know the dance routine to every Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys song," eldest sister Este Haim told the BBC a couple of weeks ago.

So perhaps it's not too strange that their next single is being released by uber-hip boutique pop label Neon Gold (which launched Marina, Ellie and Gotye in the States). The label announced their new single in a tiresomely breathless blog post this week, describing it as "a breathtaking sunny-side-up megajam pooled from our '80s fever dreams, all morning glory hooks and syncopated goodness."

Yeah, yeah. We get it. Just play the song.





5) Solange - Losing You (Cyril Hahn mix)

Didn't I blog about Solange's excellent new single already? No? That's weird. I really thought I had.

Ah well, Losing You fully deserves your attention. It's a beautifully lachrymose ballad, fastened to a scrappy hip-hop loop that sounds like the future of R&B. The video, directed by Melina Matsoukas, features the dapper Congolese gentlemen known as Les Sapeurs.


But I don't feel guilty for waiting so long to discuss the song, because it means I get to post this delicious remix by Cyril Hahn, which drops the vocals down two octaves and gives the song a deep house makeover. It'll be on repeat all weekend at Discopop Towers.




And that's it for this week.... I'm off to celebrate my birthday for a couple of days, after which I've been seconded to the BBC's six o'clock news bulletin for a month. If the blog posts dry up slightly during November, I apologise in advance.

Tweet

Biffy Clyro cover Starship in the Live Lounge

Of all the shirt-eschewing Scottish rock bands with a penchant for weird time signatures, Biffy Clyro are clearly the best. Partly because they always have ridiculous facial hair, and partly because they make impeccable choices for their Live Lounge appearances.

Their tender, acoustic version of Umbrella brought new layers of subtlety (and harmony) to Rihanna's all-conquering R&B stomper. But popping into Radio 1 today they surpassed even that milestone... with a flawless cover of Starship's We Built This City.

It would only have been better if they'd come dressed as them, too.

Biffy Clyro - We Built This City

You can also listen to them perform new single Stingin' Belle (it's in 6/8, music nerds) on the end of this link.

After a few delays, the band will release their ambitious double-disc rock opus (uh-oh) on 28 January. If it's any good, I reckon they'll be sitting atop that Pyramid Stage with the Rolling Stones come next June.

Tweet

Prince: When inspiration dries up

"The moon, the stars, everything plays a part. And there are no accidents. Music is made out of necessity. It's a fact of life. Just like breathing. The voice inside tells U when there is a song 2 be born. All children are born beautiful, How that are perceived may be another matter indeed. Much like an unborn child, a song is never conceived whole. That would be like taking dictation. Pleasure comes from not knowing what your baby's character will be. Pleasure comes from the nurturing process. Whatever we are... Whatever we make."

Those are the words of enigmatic rock midget Prince - a rare direct quote from the back pages of his Diamonds And Pearls tour programme in 1992 - making it clear that writing music is a compulsion, an obsession. Something over which he has almost no control.

So what must it be like when that muse deserts you? Prince's work rate has flatlined over the last decade. The man who wrote Little Red Corvette while drifting to sleep in his bandmate's bright pink Ford Edsel, and who used to churn out four albums a year via a multitude of side projects, has only managed five studio records since 2000.

Maybe it's a relief, breaking the bond to this restless muse and reclaiming your sleep. But I'd wager there's a feeling of bereavement. If Prince sees his songs as children, he's experiencing the musical equivalent of empty nest syndrome.

Not that the purple pixie stopped writing completely. He turned up on Jimmy Kimmel's TV show on Tuesday to play his new single, Rock n Roll Love Affair. It's a fairly uninspired romp through the blues, with a chilly blast of Minneapolis horns - the sort of thing he used to knock off in an afternoon. But watching him perform is always mesmerising, and the magic moment here is a cheeky little guitar solo around 2'20".

In the meantime, I'm off to dig out the Lovesexy DVD for an afternoon of Paisley Park-themed nostalgia.

Prince - Rock n Roll Love Affair

Tweet

What exactly is an 808?

I've been dithering around for the last hour or so, trying to find something, anything new to blog about. Nothing seemed to be hitting the spot but, eventually, I stumbled across something that cheered me up no end: It's a video of rap pioneer Egyptian Legend programming his Roland TR-808 drum machine.

No doubt, you've heard of the 808 many times. Beyonce namechecks it in Deja Vu, Outkast extol the virtues of its sub-bass frequencies in I Like The Way You Move, and Madonna informs us that she is compelled to sing "hey-hey-hey like a Girl Gone Wild" when she "hears them 808 drums". As you do.

But have you ever seen what an 808 looks like? They're lovely. Big, chunky prehistoric hunks of plastic that could easily be a cheap knock-off of the 1970s TARDIS console. But they sounded better than they looked, particularly that low and dirty kick drum.

There's also something pleasingly robust about the machines, first produced in 1980. Look at how Egyptian Lover pounds those keys like they're indestructible. I might be able to programme more complex beats on my phone these days, but if I stabbed it that hard my fingers would go through the screen.

The video comes in two parts. First an excerpt from a 1981 documentary:


And then an extended tutorial filmed last month for FACT Magazine. I love how he rolls his sleeves up as he gets ready to programme the kick drum.


And thus concludes today's history lesson.

Tweet

New talent alert: Nina Nesbitt

Allow me to introduce you to Nina Nesbitt, an up-and-coming singer whose name sounds pleasingly like an ambulance siren.

The Scottish teenager was raised on Abba and Roxy Music by her pop-loving parents. She only started playing live last May, but by the summer she'd been spotted by Ed Sheeran. That led to a support slot on tour and a cameo in his Drunk video. Now she has a recording contract with Island Records. Funny how these things work out.

But you don't need me to tell you the details - here's what Nina in her own words, talking about her stellar rise to almost-fame and some other stuff, cherry-picked from press interviews and public statements "to date".

:: I used to write short stories at the age of about six or seven. Just really bad stories. As I grew older, I got a little keyboard and started plunking away on that, learning bits. I put stories to songs and that's how that came about. Over the years I developed that and picked up the guitar 3 years ago. That is when my song writing really took shape. [Fistful Of Sound]

:: I once broke my arm [while] rollerblading down a steep hill, getting pulled by a skipping rope, shouting faster. I was a fearless child. [Coup De Main magazine]

:: I wouldn’t like to be Adele's ex-boyfriend but my album is a break-up album, too. Her music is a lot more mature. She was 21 when she released her most recent album and I'm only 18. [Daily Record]

:: Child having a tantrum on the train, he's not allowed to go to the zoo now :( [Twitter]

:: I used to do gymnastics for Scotland. I trained all the time and I was going to go to the Commonwealth Games but I decided to do music instead. [Undersong]

:: My biggest musical iPod influences right now are Bon Iver, Ben Howard, Ed Sheeran, Mumford and Sons, Laura Marling, Lissie... to Example... to Nirvana. I like variety. [Soundhall]

:: My favourite pancake topping is actually syrup. [YouTube]

:: I dislike butterflies immensely, unless they're in my stomach. [Twitter]

So that's Nina Nesbitt in a nutshell. You can have a listen to her song now. It's called Boy, and it's available from all good download stores today.

Tweet