Naked and Famous: A Stillness

You know how bands are always saying "our new record blurs the lines between jungle and rock and techno and baroque chamber music?". And how it always turns out they've made the exact same album as last time, but with a violin buried deep in the mix of one of the bonus tracks? Well imagine what would happen if they were telling the truth...

Here are The Naked and Famous with the second preview of their new album In Rolling Waves. It's called A Stillness and it genuinely does try to cram as many different genres as possible into its 5-minute running time. Allow me to illustrate.

Amazingly, it all hangs together impeccably. The results of this crazed musical alchemy can be sampled below.

The Naked And Famous - A Stillness

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Paul McCartney hits the nostalgia button

And he hits it pretty hard, right in the smacker. The result: A new song with a Beatle-tastic descending chord progression and a spunky harpsichord. It's good. It's really good. And the a capella coda seals the deal.

Produced by Mark Ronson and lifted from a forthcoming album titled (with unbridled creativity) New, here is his new single, New. It's new. In case you hadn't noticed.

New.

Paul McCartney - New

And if that's not enough Macca for you, here is the man himself teaching you how to cook mashed potatoes. Because: reasons.

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The five best lyrics of Eminem's comeback

By calling his new record The Marshall Mathers LP 2, Eminem is setting himself a huge challenge. The original album is the one with Stan and The Real Slim Shady on it - and marked his creative and sales peak, selling 27m worldwide. Eminem's recent releases, however, have lacked that potent brew of snark and fury. So can LP2 recapture the magic?

Well the first single, Bezerk, certainly has a lot going for it. Produced by Rick Rubin (he gets about a bit, doesn't he?) it rips up Billy Squire's hard-rockin' anthem The Stroke and sticks it messily onto an old-school Run DMC beat. "Let's take it back to straight hip-hop and start it from scratch," spits Eminem, who goes on to deliver some of his best lyrics for years.

1) "Been public enemy since you thought PE was gym"
2) "So sick I'm looking pale, well that's my pigment"
3) "I just showed up with a coat fresher than wet paint"
4) "Just like I did with addiction I'm about to kick it"
5) "Make like K-Fed and let yourself go"

OK, the last one suggests his cultural reference points are stuck in a 2004 timewarp, but you could also argue it ratchets up the nostalgia factor. A cautious welcome, then, for the new material...

Eminem - Bezerk (audio)

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'Ello Lolo

Can a singer get away with scrapping everything and starting again? You'd think not - changing your name or your musical style means admitting you weren't being genuine in the first place. But it happens more often than you'd think.

In 2011, winsome singer Lizzie Grant entered her cocoon and emerged, fully formed, as doompop overlord Lana Del Rey; Dear Eskiimo got dumped by their label and came back as The Ting Tings; Tony Flow and the Miraculously Majestic Masters of Mayhem achieved moderate success after they rechristened themselves Red Hot Chili Peppers (a massive mistake, if you ask me).

So it's not entirely bad news for Lolo - an exciting new urban artist, unless you happen to remember pop crooner Lauren Pritchard, whose 2010 album Wasted In Jackson scored positive press, but failed to leap of the shelves.

As a result, Lauren has started using her nickname (Lolo Pritch), giving her license to pursue a harder, crunchier sound than the watered-down Winehouse of her debut. You might have spotted her recently on Panic! At The Disco's Miss Jackson, but it's her new solo single you should really be listening to.

Year Round Summer Of Love crashes through your speakers like a dumper truck, as a madman pounds out chunky piano chords and Pritchard's voice is fed through a shredded loudspeaker. It sounds tremendous.

It's taken from Lolo's forthcoming debut album. She hasn't given it a name yet, but she says it'll sound like "Fiona Apple & Eminem's love child," - IE "loud, very loud". I'm ready and waiting.

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The MTV awards in gifs, pics, a vine, a soundbite and a video

Justin Timberlake was the big winner at last night's VMAs but nobody watches it for the awards, do they? Here are the best bits in "this video has been removed due to a copyright claim from Viacom Ltd" form.


Lady Gaga glued her eyes open by accident.


But her multi-wigged performance of "Applause" was a triumph.


Even if the dancers looked a little confused at the end of it.


Pharrell cycled to work.


The rest of Daft Punk probably arrived on a spaceship -
but they failed to perform or win any awards :(


In fact, Get Lucky inexplicably lost best song of the summer to One Direction.


Taylor "shut the fuck up" Swift was not amused. And she wasn't the only one...

One Direction were loudly booed as they took their prize.
Which led to Lady Gaga giving them an exceptionally cute pep talk backstage.



Meanwhile, Miley Cyrus did this sort of thing a lot.


And showed how she failed her interview to be a London 2012 Games Maker.


The Smith family were distinctly unimpressed by the hoedown throwdown.


Robin Thicke managed to be an even bigger sleaze than ever.


Rihanna looked thrilled just to be part of it all.


Kanye West performed in the dark.


TLC reunion!!


Justin Timberlake basically got to perform his own concert.


Which included this incredible N*Sync moment.


...As well as this one.


Taylor Swift seemed to enjoy this one.


Katy Perry closed the show by skipping under the Brooklyn Bridge.


It was the most traditional performance of the night...


...But it chose a theme, stuck to it, and didn't fall back on gimmicks or nudity.
Well done, Katy.


THE END.

So that's the awards "in full". They're on MTV UK later tonight, and pretty much every other night until the end of the month. If you don't have time to sit through it all (there's a performance from Drake, FYI) the best bit is Justin's mind-blowing 15-minute hits medley, which incorporates Led Zeppelin's Kashmir and Rapper's Delight, amongst other thing. It's incredible.

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Songs you may have missed: Bumper edition

Work's been exceptionally busy this week, so I haven't had the chance to blog as much as I'd like... With the result that this week's "Songs You May Have Missed" is a bumper edition. Lots of exciting new tunes and remixes to choose from.

Roll up, roll up...

1) MKS - Flatline (MNEK remix)
Initial-tastic pop acts MKS and MNEK (it's an anagram of KK SEMEN if you squint a bit and imagine an extra 'E') get together for an Ibiza-flavoured remix of truly brilliant pop number Flatline.

The mix doesn't improve on the original - but it does give Mutya Keisha and Siobhan extra opportunities to aimlessly wave their hands around in the air.





2) Nirvana - Heart Shaped Box (Director's Cut)
Santa in a nappy, foetuses in a tree, a young girl in a Ku Klux Klan costume: This video has it all. The director's cut of Nirvana's Heart Shaped Box, previously only available on DVD, was thrust upon the internet this week to celebrate the anniversary of In Utero. It sounds as awesome as it did 20 years ago.




3) Sam Smith - Nirvana
From an angry, growly Nirvana to a happy blissful one. Sam Smith's sensuous new single is cut from the same cloth as Marvin Gaye's Let's Get It On - IE a very sexy silk cloth draped across your naked breasts. This'll steam up your spectacles.





4) The Preatures - Is This How You Feel?
Sydney quintet The Preatures (pronounced "the preachers", I presume) are quite lovely, mixing 50s harmonies and jangly guitars in a slightly Haim-y fashion.

Is This How You Feel, from their forthcoming EP, starts off sounding like The Cure's Close To Me, then swirls off into wistful psychedelia. Yummy.




6) The Saturdays - Disco Love
Can you fault a song with the lyric, "It's never winter when its Donna Summer all year long"?

The answer, it turns out, is a big fat yes.




5) Lady Gaga - Applause (DJ White Shadow Trap Remix)
This pared back remix (for the most part) highlights what a strong tune Applause is. Deliberately choosing obscure chords to counterpoint the melody, it makes the song much more unsettling and interesting than the pop version.



7) John Newman - Cheating
If you've been dumped there are two options: Sobbing and eating cake, or hiring the building opposite your girlfriend's house, erecting a massive billboard spelling out the word "cheater" in lights, and performing a song about her infidelity at full volume while she's still in bed.

John Newman goes for the classy option. Sort of. 

And there you have it... See you after the bank holiday for more musinourishment.

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