Bang bang to rights

In the 80s, electro-pop was dominated by men. Men with daft hairbonnets and eyeliner as thick as a Twix, but men nonetheless.

Now, in the second era of electro-pop, it is the women's turn. But while the 80s gave us Annie Lennox and Madonna, the new popocracy is closed to men.

Frankmusic? No thanks. Dan Black? A flop. Sam Sparro? One-hit wonder. Hurts? Their single stalled at number 50.

With that in mind, I can't confidently predict big things for new pop duo The Bang Bang Club, but let's take a look anyway.

John and David used to be in a band called The Protocol, but that all fell apart. Now they are The Bang Bang Club, a sweaty synth setup with a soft spot for a sumptuous chorus.

Their debut single, Chemistry, has been all over the blogs this week. It looks and sounds like this:

The Bang Bang Club - Chemistry


Not bad - but I actually prefer the band's other material. This Must Be Love ("I think I love you. I don't want to, but it won't go away") is happy and sad and brilliant all at the same time. Plants And Animals is what it would sound like if Soft Cell had electric babies with Empire Of The Sun.

The duo are still putting the finishing touches to their album so, sadly, you can't hear those tracks yet. But if they can find room alongside the Lady Gagas, La Rouxs and Little Bootses, they are definitely ones to watch.

Their website lives over here.

Tweet

Great record label own goals of our time

1) This is a screenshot from Parlophone's official YouTube channel.

2) Parlophone is owned by EMI.



To be fair to the people involved, YouTube has only been around for a brief five years and copyright law is really, really hard.

EDIT 4th June, 2010: The video has been reinstated. Well done, everyone.

Tweet

He's not even going to kill her Once

Take a look at this scene from Diana Vickers' new video, The Boy Who Murdered Love.



It is a BOY trying to MURDER a sign with the word LOVE on it. It is just about the dumbest thing I have ever seen committed to film. And I've seen Transformers 2.

Thing is, this boy is never going to succeed in his diabolical plot because he hits like a girl. He is wetter than a cup of tea, in a fountain on World Humidity Day. His wrist is so limp, it could be a cucumber sandwich. If those punches were a musical genre, they'd be Flaccid House.

And aren't there better ways to murder love than giving it a lacklustre slap? How about diverting a train line through its living room? Or dropping a piano on it from the top of a nearby cliff? Or replacing its favourite food with four sticks of TNT?

Alternatively, if you're not Wile E Coyote, I would consider NOT committing murder due to the harsh penalties the crime attracts in most civilised nations.

Now, where was I? Oh yes, Diana Vickers. The Boy Who Murdered Love is among the better songs on her debut album (sadly, a 5/10 affair). The video's not available for embedding, but you can watch it on the MSN video pages. Or, if you prefer not to endorse the "evil" Microsoft corporation, watch this live performance from Monday's Graham Norton Show.

Tweet

Hackneyed JLS video is hackneyed

Yes, yes, yes. You are in a club, not just lyrically but literally. And look at how much the ladies love you. It is almost as if you were desperate to prove something, but I can't quite put my finger on what that might be.

JLS - The Club Is Alive


To quote from finger-on-the-pulse musiblog We Are Pop Slags "Our favourite bit is still the ‘You can get up on me, BUM ME, BUM ME’ line, which is most clearly heard at 02.48."

Fnar.

Tweet

This is how I play the drums, too

[via Robert Popper]

Tweet

Kylie - inspired by granite

So, I've escaped the Eurobubble in Oslo - but while I was there I may have inadvertently stumbled across the inspiration for Kylie Minogue's new video.

To the north of the city centre is a huge sculpture park designed by visionary / madman Gustav Vigeland. He spent a lot of time making casts of people in erotic orgiastic poses - plus this famous one of an angry baby.



The centrepiece of the park is a 14m-high granite obelisk, wrapped in 121 naked human bodies, all clambering hungrily on top each other. It could represent mankind coming together to reach towards heaven; it might be suggesting that man will always trample on his fellow man to get to the top; it might be a Norwegian sex party in the form of a giant phallus. No-one is really sure.

But take a look at the monolith, then watch the video for All The Lovers, and tell me the two aren't connected.



Kylie - All The Lovers


Of course, I might be over-intellectualising this. Kylie's glorified underwear advert also made me want to take out a second mortgage.

Tweet