50 quid bloke

Classical music frenzy over at eMusic

They've put 4,000 Naxos albums up at eMusic...fill your boots. Until the BBC decides to give them all away...

All aboard...the Arctic Monkeys bandwagon...

Well, I'd read the interview, smelt the hype and heard just how huge they were going to be. But to be honest, I thought it was going to be just a gang of noisy Northerners...another Futureheads: nice idea, but not very practical.

Still - ever fearful of missing out on a fad, I downloaded the new EP(iTunes/ Karmadownload) and it's the most fun I've had in months. The hype is almost entirely justified.

Yes, it really is the lyrical goodness of The Streets with the jagged guitar of - well, just about everyone these days. Above all, it's ultra-listenable. Good news for normal people, not just music hacks in search of something new. (I'll discuss the Animal Collective later)

'I Bet you look good on a dancefloor' has slipped alongside The Killers Somebody Told me as my favourite song about dancefloors this year. Obviously it makes me feel as old as Methuselah when they go: 'I bet you look good on a dancefloor, dancing to electropop, like a robot from 1984, 1984!' (or something like that) and then you realise that to them 1984 is pre-history , while to you, it seems like only yesterday you were slipping on your double breasted shirt, getting your mum to put on your mascara and heading out to show off your latest moves at Cagneys...errr..I'll stop there.

The 'b side' (I dont' know if that term's still relevant on a digital release, but there you go) of Bigger Boys and Stolen Sweethearts is one of the funniest songs I've heard in years - a painful tale of being at school and losing your girlfriend to a guy with a car. "They've got engaged/No intention of a wedding/He's pinched your bird/And he'd probably kick your head in " (full lyrics). Takes you back to a time when frankly that's all there was to worry about.

Enjoy...I'm sure you will.

Today, I am finding myself strangely drawn to...

Tanglewood Numbers by the Silver Jews. Which is funny, because I normally pass over the Americana section in Uncut...but this time after quite nice write ups there and in Word...I thought I'd try it.

About a billion times better than expected. Definitely much more alt. than country: 'I've been living in K-hole/ ever since you've been away/ I'd rather be in a trash can/ than see you with another man'. The first mention of a k-hole I can remember in popular culture since Jazzer on The Archers. And yes, The Archers is popular culture.

Open thread: please recommend 1 recent album for everyone else to listen to

As we're playing catch-up, I want to build up a good list here for everyone to read. 'Recent' can be anything within the last six months. Anyone who mentions the words 'James' and 'Blunt' is banned for life. Feel free to link to your own amazon affiliate etc

I start with: Smog: A river ain't too much to Love Bill Callahan doesn't so much sing as rumble..and he's very funny...sort of Tom Waites from his 'Heart of Saturday Night' era, with Elvis Costello's lyrics...but with all the melody taken out. Better descriptions very much welcome.

Right - that's enough hiding...I'm back

Won't go into the reasons for my silence...but in the meantime I've been listening to all sorts of stuff. This is a vague catch up. Please excuse the slight rambling style.

First - I've stopped buying CDs. Just given up. Can't be bothered with the things. Have gone completely over to iTunes (with a bit of archiving help, from ahem, Jhymn, ahem). Saves me all that effort ripping stuff, and waiting for Amazon deliveries etc etc. I might waver for the odd exception...but other than that, it's me

Oh, and I bought a Nano. I am now completely Steve Jobs's bitch - but that is the topic for a later date. While I was in Korea, I bought an iRiver H10 - and it's quite remarkable how unfavourably it compared to an iPod, despite having better features. I lost it in a tragic incident on the beach at Poole and had to get a lovely little Nano while in Terminal 3 (Duty Free etc) recently.

Unfortunately, this has encouraged something of a dadrock relapse. I really did findmyself listening to Neil Young's After The Goldrush repeatedly over the weekend, and The Band's Music from the Big Pink. I blame Uncut's 100th edition, which had all these people going on about stuff like that...how could I resist. I still think St Etienne's Love Will Break Your Heart is better...but there you go.

Talking of Uncut - I normally find their 'music inspired by an old rocker' or 'recommended by xxxx' utterly missable. However, their new Songs Inspired by Springsteen is really rather good. Much better in fact than listening to an hour of Springsteen.

That said - Steve Wynn's version of State Trooper isn't a patch on Halloween Alaska's version. They, incidentally have a new album coming out...aren't you excited? They featured on Word's latest CD [sidebar: 50quid tip for musical happiness - collect and rip all of Word's CDs, then put them all together in one playlist....brilliant listening].

On Music stuff - I was surpised to find myself enjoying Supergrass's Road To Rouen (yes, I have been away for a while, haven't I?), and really quite bored by Laura Veirs. I'm sure she's lovely and all..but enough about the mermaids, already...

I know it's late to be getting into them, but I like totally digged Death Cab For Cutie's Plans - and I'm glad they've re-released The Photo Album - because I'm now backfilling so that I can pretend I've always been into them. Expect to see their name painted on my rucksack soon [yes, I had Transatlanticism - but didn't everyone?].

Richard Hawley really delivered with Coles Corner didnt' he? I think Steve over at Reallyrather can feel very vindicated there - it's a much more polished album than Lowedges...and while we're on Mellow stuff, yes, yes and yes again to King Creosote's Kc Rules Ok.

My mate Steve steered me onto Jamie Liddell's Multiply - who I found to be a slightly more abrasive version of Jamiroquai, I really wanted to like it, I found it quite impressive, but even after repeated listening it's just not a very loveable album. He also told me to get into Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings' Naturally, which I initially thought was a bit too straight-up-and-down staxx...but on relistening is really pretty good, if a little lacking in surprises. Steve, incidentally is still banging on about The Go Team's Thunder, Lightning, Strike - but I'm getting a bit tired of sample-a-holics. Get out the studio, into a field and play a guitar, I say.

I'm currently ploughing through a load of other stuff...to be discussed later. but I have to say I quite like Damian Marley's Welcome to Jamrock . I don't quite know how to put this..but I think he's managed to make the whole ragga thing quite, errr...white-friendly.

Albums I've bought, quite liked, not really listened to..then gone back to and found I really, really like

- "The Alternative To Love" by Brendan Benson
- "Ambulance Ltd." by Ambulance Ltd

That'll do for the moment...

Catching up...

Along with the normal day to day joys that life brings, I've been slightly distracted recently by a hair-brained bandwagon-jumping scheme in the form of 'The 50quid bloke podcast'. More news on this in a couple of weeks (betcha just can't wait). In the meantime I've been ploughing through a fair old bit of music - some of which is actually quite fine.

It's quite old now, but The Eels' Blinking Lights and Other Revelations has been something of a revelation for me over the last few months. I've never really listened to them before, and sometimes you get to a stage with a band that you feel you can't really get into them this late in the game - there's just too many experts in eelsology to compete. Then it arrives, and I know it's been six years in the making - and it's got 33 tracks on it (five and a bit tracks a year: nice work if you can get it!). So I did something that I very rarely do with CDs: I listened to it start to finish, repeatedly. This is a rare privilege, and I just hope E and his friends appreciate it. Anyway, there's loads of reviews all over the place, and you probably own it already, so what can I tell you that you don't already know? That it's good but could have been a brilliant 18 track cd (which is what everyone says about all double albums)? That in the midst of some very missable noodling there's half a dozen complete gems here? Anyway - it's one of those that you just have to own.

"Pajo" by Dave Pajo is also a few months old. And very lovely it is too. Sort of Elliot Smith meets Simon and Garfunkel (ie it's got a bit of harmony on it). In other words - don't expect to dance to it. The puff on his website says the album 'reads like a musical parable with its delicate juxtaposition of beautiful sounds and bruised lyrics' which is somewhat over dressing it. You can catch a couple of his videos here.

Would I recommend it? Well, it'll do no harm...and if you like your music gentle, you'll like it, but if you're trying to economise, I reckon you should buy "Illinoise" by Sufjan Stevens as your quiet album of the month instead. He ticks all the mellow boxes, but he's also something of a story teller as well, and he also has lots of silly song titles (' A conjunction of Drones Simulating the Way in Which Sufjan Stevens Has an Existential Crisis in the Great Godfrey Maze'). I assume you know he's doing an album each year based on a different state. Personally, I'm not so sure how far I'll follow the experiment as it's already teetering on whimsy...but here and now it's really quite engaging.

Talking about story tellers, I even (legally) downloaded Devils & Dust by Bruce Springsteen. I can see what people see in him, but it doesn't really do it for me. The title track's quite nice...worth downloading.

What else? Well, I bought "Give Blood" by Brakes - although I don't know why. It's basically Yet Another Indy Band...and nowhere near distinctive enough to compete with some of the really rather excellent stuff that's come out over the last 18 months.

I also dabbled with "Ham" by Chap , which musically doesn't really belong in this roundup. Now, I like any band that names a track after our local park ('Clissold'),and this is quite good knockabout indie/electro stuff...but just a little bit too clever for it's own good. It lacks the full-on squelchy fun of LCD Soundsystem, or the melodies of My Computer's No CV. The result is that it's just a little bit too much of a racket a little too much of the time. I sense that Nathan Barley would love it.

Veering back to the world of quiet, the Observer had "Nolita" by Keren Ann as their album of the week a while ago. So I bought it. I think she's meant to be a sort of french chanteuse with a twist. It's very nice, I just can't find the twist.

If you're in need of something noisy

You might want to listen to this load of MP3s from Fat Wreck Chords (geddit??!!) in San Francisco. Most songs less than 3 minutes. Thrashing guitars. Titles like: 'the irrationality of rationality'. Oh happy days.

This completely passed me by...

The Album leaf put out an ep at the end of May, The Seal Beach EP.
First - let's hear it for bands producing EPs, or as they should be called 'albums without the fillers'. So much more manageable.
Second, let's hear it for The Album Leaf they do make lovely clean ambient stuff, and this is perfect for watching the rain on a summers evening.
Put it on a playlist with Halloween Alaska and Telepopmusik's latest: Angel Milk and you will be a very relaxed human being indeed.
It's on Amazon and iTunes.

Oooooh, we do like My Computer..

I have a mental list of 'where are they now' artists - normally people who released one album that I completely loved, then sort of disappeared.

Whatever happened to Clarksville following the wonderful Half Chapter? [now mutated into the Deciphers, it turns out - with a full explanation here]; and has there been any news of Trashmonk following 2001's Mona Lisa Overdrive?

Another on that list was My Computer. A few years ago, I listened to their debut album, Vulnerabilia, dozens of times on a walking holiday in France. It was a surprisingly melodic bit of electronic messiness - and I bloody loved it. And then they sort of disappeared. All the interviews I read with them was basically tales of two guys who'd take some pills and noodle away on computers to quite wonderful effect. Nice work if you can get it, I thought...

Anyway - you might have noticed they've got a new album out: No CV, produced by John Leckie. It starts with a right old screechy racket , and then calms down into a sea of utter piano loveliness, and over 12 tracks it bounces around genres. There's a whiff of prog-rock epic seriousness to bits of it, a bit of dancefloor-ish mayhem.

And, there's even a track where they basically say 'fuck you' a lot. And as we all know, swearing in songs is very big and very clever and almost always to be applauded .

What makes it all work and be something more than a load of experimental nonsense is that it's really quite melodic with some rather lovely songs on it.

Anyway - I suggest you buy it. It's about a million times more interesting than James Blunt.