The Square Table

THE SQUARE TABLE 11 / Busted – “Thunderbirds Are Go!”

POP FACTOR: 635 CONTROVERSY RATING: 183

The new Thunderbirds are not puppets any longer – and so who better to soundtrack their adventures than Busted… who… are also… not…. gnarrrrr. This record exists beyond all definitions or pretensions of ‘artistry’, it’s a three minute jingle and it doesn’t even make me want to see the film. The plainly disaffected Charlie Simpson should though take heart from Outkast, whose last work before their critic-slaying double CD was the similarly crass “Land Of A Million Drums”. If Andre 3000 can rap about Scooby Doo then you, Sir, can suck it up and jump about for Brains and Lady Penelope.

From that you might think I hate the song – or that I contrarily adore it. Neither, really. I don’t feel a thing listening to “Thunderbirds” – EXCEPT – Busted’s unerring ability to hit the accelerator at just the right moment to make you wish you could jump like them survives any commercial indignity. Damn it, boys, you win again. Hardly their best or funniest record but I can’t help smiling and bouncing: a fine, professional job done. 8 (Tom)

Few things more dizzyingly exciting than songs that sound faster than they are: this rattles past, breakneck, passing overhead in a sonic-boom rush and – BANG!- gone.

It’s all in the backbeat. The brass fanfare’s at the same 200bpm as the rest of the song, but parade-ground percussion holds it down with gravity and gravitas even as the clarion cornets stretch up ad astra. That was the original Thunderbirds, held down to martial tradition, old pomp and grandeur doing their best to smother the thrill of spaceships and rescue and action.

This is the new.

A guitarneck squeal, violins shooting off like fireworks, and that breathless off-beat batter bouncing your feet off the ground. Even Charlie Simpson’s voice, so languid and gravelly against the nasal whine and strained yelp of the others, can’t escape the urgency. The tune of the chorus hurries forward before the beat or even the words can catch up, the string section cruising at altitude in the background stratosphere.

It’s insistent, irresistable, when the bridge pits panting vocal against snaredrum snap; when guitar and bass hammer demandingly at a single chord like tantruming toddler fists; when the instruments and harmony drop away to make the title stand out more; when the violins twirl in their spiralling rise; when, after a scant two lines’ hush (don’t despair – they’ll be there), everything crashes back in and piles up on top of itself, struggling to be heard in the busy rush–

And then – BANG!- gone. 10 (Cis)

I saw the movie. It wasn’t very good. And yet when it finished, and the screen went black, no-one moved. There can be no greater demonstration of “Thunderbirds” status as a world-striding pop colossus. It is so good that I found out well over thirty Plasterers worked on Thunderbirds (the movie).

First time I heard it I was annoyed there was not more of the old Thunderbirds theme tune in it. But just the sting of orchestra at the beginning is all the homage needed. The theme tune is the theme tune of the film anyway, this just caps it off. The gags in the song are cheeky rather than pedestrian, and they do this with a surprising amount of meaning. If the film had been as good as this, it would have been my film of the year. Busted Jumps Are GO!!!! 9 (Pete)

OK. They have won me. I’m melting with the ELO-like string arrangement and verse structure.. And because I reckon the tune is not very memorable, I guess that after all I’m sold cheap. 7 (Diego Valladolid)

Replacing the theme tune feel wrong, but then again the film is strings-less so anything goes I guess. It’s not as cartoony-cute as ‘Thunderbirds Are Go’ by FAB feat. MC Parker, but it’s still good. “Rhythm guitars- up”. The usual bouncy-ball style pogo-ing kicks in, tweaked a little by the addition of soaring strings. The sonics are unimportant- the song is galvanised by vocals (poised chummily between a UK and transatlantic twang) that are as playful as a kitten in a box. “You always look so cool when spaceships come out the pool. You know that you’d be such a fool to be a bad guy”. Spot on. 7 (Derek Walmsley)

Neat! Not my cup of mud, but one can only be so critical of a song that reminds one of little kids in Tough-Skin jeans riding Big Wheels through a makeshift moto-cross course. Exists somewhere between that horrible Spiderman song and Ray Parker Jr.’s great “Ghostbusters”. 6 (Henry Scollard)

The start reminds me how much I like the original theme tune, and it’s a shame they don’t really continue it much. Still, the choppy guitars suit this well enough, though the chorus seems a bit too smooth, not punchy enough to fit the rest. I feel as if I am being too picky, as this is so much better than a Thunderbirds theme song could have been, but I think it’s only okay, and the singing on the bit where the music drops out is very weak and flat. 6 (Martin Skidmore)

I’d offer nothing more than a cheap shot & say that Ash (or Metallica!) does this bombastic punk-pop-meets-Boston-Pops a sight better than these nasal chaps, but… Yes, I’m upset that they pull the old punk trick of starting a pro-forma 4/4 tune w/ an intro that promises some nuance (or, in this case, martial Bolero-esque bombast), just as much as the inevitable run down the guitar neck to bridge the gap between intro and gabba gabba hey brings forth tired sighs from my dead ass, but… And clearly my inner 12 year old is dead to the world, as the shout-outs to kicking ass and spaceships looking cool coming out of pools make me roll my eyes and shake my fist (oh, I’m a bad guy! that’s so not cool!), but…

Well, as the rockcritics.com blog put it, “([A]lmost any time you read a guilty pleasure piece, half of the piece tends to be about refuting the concept.),” so I’ll just be a hard grader and leave it at that. (And why the hell do I think they’re singing “ThunderCATS are go”?) 6 (David Raposa)

Bloody Thunderbirds! I hate them!

Let me explain, when I was very young I used to love the show. The angriest I remember being as a kid was when the BBC cancelled an episode of Thunderbirds to make way for a repaet of the royal wedding, grrrrrrr! Then, a few years later it was on again, the whole country was Thunderbirds mad, I settled down to watch it, and the sinking feeling of its awfulness overcame me, another childhood memory betrayed! Just so so bad.

Oh, the Busted song? It was written in about 5 minutes, contains a nod to Thin Lizzy and sounds like every other ‘Sted song, yet not quite as good. The curse of the Thunderbirds. 5.5 (Jel)

I dislike being manipulated by a song, especially when it’s done in a very base level. Swell the strings, cue the harmony, bring in the horns and keep playing those two chords over and over again, don’t forget the echo effects and the brief quiet moment just before the third chorus THEN bring the whole crew in at 11. Formula rewarmed. Didn’t Smashmouth do this same song for the Scooby Doo movie? Or Matthew Sweet for Josie and the Pussycats?

I imagine this is meant to have some sort of nostalgia value attached as well, but I’ve never seen an episode of the Thunderbirds. As it is, I’m just nostalgiac for when every pop-phenomena film didn’t require a poppity-punkity theme redux as de rigeur.

I can’t be too hard on this tho’; it does what it’s supposed to do, which is to make me want to go drink a Mountain Dew and go kick some ass with the T-Birds. It’s just rare that I’m in that kind of mood these days. 5 (Forksclovetofu)

This is good fun as standard summer pop fare, better if you don’t think of the television show, but then that is usually the case. 5 (Anthony Easton)

Somewhere there’s a great joke to be made about puppets, spacemen’s helmets and cock-rockets. But not here. 5 (alext)

I am sure those trumpets are the sign that these nubile – yes, i am hinting at the effeminacy of Busted – lads are ready for the charts once again. “Thunderbirds are go” is your regular Busted material: buzza-chugga geetars, squeaky clean helium voices, sugary Pop-Punk, singalong lyrics… It isn’t that I hate the way they made an adult-approved version of Buzzcocks mixed with Bros – what is a kid left to do when s/he’s over the latter and not ready yet for the former – it’s just that I don’t want to be reminded of the fact I am old. There I said it… I am too old for this fodder. 3 (Stevie Nixed)

Tom in FT /New York London Paris Munich • 1 Comment

THE SQUARE TABLE: 12, Avril Lavigne – “My Happy Ending”

POP FACTOR: 450 CONTROVERSY RATING: 344

Hard-won experience of life has crushed poor Avril’s enthusiasm: the instrumental hook of “My Happy Ending” is the hook of “Sk8er Boi” stuck in a sulky tar-pit. I’m grateful for my fuzzy grasp of American indie history but as I understand it getting from the crisp slap of punk to the precious moping of grunge took 14 years: with a copywriter’s gift for summary Lavigne has managed it in two albums. 2 (Tom)

Donald Judd was asked once by an interviewer what he called his work, and he called them specfic objects, and then he was asked what he looked for in other peoples work, and he said that it had to be interesting.

What happens when we stop looking at music to be authentic and start looking for work to be interesting? We get abstract specfirc objects like Toxic by Britney or Dirrty by Xtina.

What happens when we claim that the big 5 media companies can give us filthy female empowered punk authenticity? Well, bullshit like this. 0 (Anthony Easton)

“All this time you were pretending so much for my happy ending”

Avril you’re 19 for God’s sake. Life for you should be a joyous flux, not heading towards “ending” and premature middle age. This maturity is joyless, like the sex-educative bits of a teenage soap opera. The words are heavy and laboured, as if she’s been locked in a room, sweating blood to get these lyrics out. It gets 1 pt solely because her voice does not cause me the same degree of internal haemoraging as Anastasia. 1 (Derek Walmsley)

This sounds like if Alanis Morrisette needed to collaborate with Jarabe De Palo in order to have a hit record. 2 (Diego Valladolid)

Somehow I’ve managed to miss Avril’s music completely and now that I’m finally forcibly introduced, I still feel like I miss Avril’s music completely. Formulaic in the extreme, Creed-y inflection, running-in-place lyrics and a rhythm that sounds like it was put together by a corporate computer; this would’ve sounded derivative and uninteresting ten years ago, much less now. This isn’t even really deserving of disdain, just apathy. Why bother? 3 (Forksclovetofu)

Oh, Canada. Your pop songs, much like yourself, are blandly comforting. “My Happy Ending” has me skimming though my Handbook of Faint Praise for adjectives like “serviceable”, “competent” and “perfectly acceptable”. The chorus hook is sticky, but if Avril is one-tenth the punk she makes herself out to be, she’d ditch the corporate production team. She’s too young to sound so polished. I do like the line about her “darn friends”, though I suppose that’s the radio-editers at work. 5 (Henry Scollard)

Ah, Avril Lavigne. My mothers middle name is Averil, a mispelling I believe so I have always had a soft sport for the narky teen and her tie wearing antics (it pays to wear a suit to a job interview but that attitood just means she never gets the job). Bit early to say, but I think it is clear that Avril saves the better tracks for the second single, and whilst this is no lexical feat of ingenuity like Sk8ter Boi, neither is it a complete pile of festering poo.

I like the moans which sit in for a chorus. They are the kind of moans not made by people who have ever really had to moan about something, which of course make them all the more plaintive. Your eighteen my’dear, you don’t get a happy ending. You haven’t even had the trying middle bit yet. 6 (Pete)

Again, Avril Version 2.0 brings a box of sardonic whine to the party, giving her not-so-complicated fella the “shyeah thanks a LOT” kissoff. The orchestra chugging away in the background seems redundant, but you can’t expect AL to trump punk rock horns by copping moves from Michelle Branch – a little Train is U&K, too. All snark aside (and believe it or not there’s something left once I shelve the snark), it’s a grower – Avril Co. is getting really good at this. Perhaps a mature, less pwecious & pwecocious AL might not be what Devon X. Sk8er (or Devon’s pervy dad) was expecting, but it’s a development that augurs well for her future. At the very least, tapping her angst early and often now offers hope that she won’t exploit her future love troubles the way Alanis cashed in on her tryst with Brat Pack waterboy Dave Coulier. 7 (David Raposa)

Wednesday afternoon, half past one. Work is boring today, and I’m trying to think of some words to say about “My Happy Ending”, essentially it’s a song about how crap being a teenager is, and the general lameness of relationships. Poor Avril, she can’t find the right guy at all, if her past singles are anything to go by. I like this song, it’s one of the stronger tracks on “Under My Skin”, angsty and anthemic, rising and falling, pre-chorus, all great elements! – I even like the totally Alanis breakdown at around 2 minutes 20 seconds. It’s a sad song. 9 (Jel)

All loves are first loves: all endings are the same ending. All endings hurt like the first one. So love ends, over and over. But belief in truth dies only once: the first time. When happy endings become only stories, and you realise, sickening, that your happy ending was only ever a story, a trap that you set for yourself, YOUR happy ending. Yours. Not only do we deceive each other – ‘you were pretending’ – but we have to deceive ourselves to be taken in – ‘you were all the things I thought I knew’ because ‘all I ever wanted’.

Which doesn’t mean we’ll stop believing in happy endings, unless we never love again, but from now on they can only be stories, never truth. This could itself just be a mawkish story, but what convinces is the disparity between teen angst and schlocky AOR ballad. Avril finds herself caught up in a story that everyone else already knows – it’s passed into cliche. But in the space between the over and over and the for the first time, truth, which dies, flashes up. 10 (Alext)

EDITORIAL NOTE: This is the end of Round 1 of the Square Table. Round 2, with a handful of new participants and most of the old ones, will kick off soon and hopefully there will be a little statistical fannydangle beforehand too.

Tom in FT /New York London Paris Munich • 2 Comments

THE SQUARE TABLE 13 / The Libertines – “Can’t Stand Me Now?”

THE SQUARE TABLE 13 / The Libertines – “Can’t Stand Me Now?”

Pop Factor: 510

“How can anyone still get it up for this?” asked Blissblog a bit ago. Good question. Listening to this I can’t help thinking of what Kate The Saint used to say on ILM, about band dynamics and all bands being love stories. We live in an unsubtle age, so the Libs take what was hidden in their forebears and make it that bit more explicit (look at that naff sleeve with the angelic androgynes and the smears of blood!). And in doing so they make it less mysterious and less interesting – for me, anyway. Meanwhile the seamy, intimate way they present themselves – guerrila gigs in flats and lobbies, their ever-more-shambolic sound – feels I’d guess pretty relevant for an audience used to camgirls and livejournals and goldfish bowl TV.

So that’s my ‘take’. Can I get it up for the Libertines, though? No, at least not now the soap’s overtaken the sound as their focus. There are pretty moments here – the guitar work at the start, the harmonica at the end – but the song they bolster is a weak and scrawny thing, and if you don’t care about the boys’ problems it’s tedious to boot. 4 (Tom)

hooray for songs where every part sounds like the brilliant bridge in a somewhat inferior tune. lately i’ve heard lots of distinctly inferior tunes with good bridges (hello, franz ferdinand). they tend to sound as instantly familiar, but lack the restless energy that makes me want to throw all of my clothes on the bed and put up new posters and run around in the center of the room like an adolescent. points deducted and then returned for: 1) the improbably swollen intro and 2) the unflattering but endearing “oh-oh-oh”s in the coda. no points returned for the harmonica solo, though. 8 (vahid fozi)

Shambolic =! Sham 69. And would you want to take them anywhere? No of course not. But hiding on the other side of your speakers, well its all rather sweet. There is room for rubbishness in pop when it is stapled to a hook, and whilst it takes ages to get going, that’s oklay because you know that the big pop lollop of a chorus is coming. Nothing else on the radio dares to sound like this (for good reason) and whilst the Libertines star may fade fast, that it burns at all is a miracle. 8 (Pete)

The Libertines are suddenly big! Weren’t they the kind of band who would just about scrape the Top 20 a few years ago?

It’s quite sparkly, switchy singing, tinny drums or maybe that’s windows media player. No, it’s really squeaky! It’s got that chuggy guitar thing, I like that. Nice little song!

Anyway, yeah the Libertines are okay! 7 (jel)

Funny how it goes in Rawk ‘n’ Po(o)p: sometimes fame notoriety precedes the music. So how do I judge the soundtrack of a soap-opera you know so well? Actually should I try and judge a band based only on their product, neglecting the brouhaha they produce with their brown shenanigans? No, hell no. Certainly not when Can’t Stand Me Now is only about that – the story of a band falling apart because of drugs/theft and so on and so on. It’s part of the… myssstique. So the song’s fantastic… if you know the story. It wouldn’t be the same if you didn’t know Pete Doherty was a smack addict. The hook kicks in way too late – so the punters that need instant gratification are already experiencing withdrawal effects – and the Morissey intonation is a little too much at times but does it RAWK or what? I love the production (and producer, Mick Jones), it oozes exuberance. It’s all about tough love, staccato, precious melodies and harmonicas. It’s time to bop along to the sounds of British Rock. 7, if you’re part of the incrowd. (Stevie Nixed)

At first I thought this was a bit too explictly hook-y and Power Popish (The Libertines’ attraction so far has been that their songs burst through the door, run around in circles in your room for a few minutes and then pass out, after all), but then they had to go and give us a Bob Dylan harmonica at the end and I just feel like hugging them. I love Record Collection Rock. 7 (Daniel Reifferscheid)

I might be tempting sensation, but “Can’t Stand Me Now” plays out like an ode to brotherly love that nears Husker Du-style homo-eroticism. Carl Barat & drug-addled Pete Doherty trade off lines to each other like “I know you lie / But I’m still in love with you” and “You can’t take me anywhere, I can take you anywhere” with such dewy-eyed sighs that it resembles a petty lover’s quarrel from two people who always end up succumbing to mutual admiration. They can’t stand each other, yet they wouldn’t have it any other way.. Musically, it sounds like a slightly morose Jam B-side with glossier production, but if this amusing spat between two boys smitten with each other is what the NME is hyping to death these days, I’m all for it. 7 (Michael F Gill)

I doubt that Pete Doherty and Carl Barat’s much-publicised rivalry is any worse than that of many other bands, but the Libertines have taken the shrewd move of turning theirs into their central selling point. It works, of course – it’s in the music press’s interest to keep them ‘relevant’ as long as they continue to return the favour with the biggest rock soap opera since Britpop. Hence “Can’t Stand Me Now” – a pleasant enough 1981 throwback, cobbled together between broadsheet interviews and no doubt elevated in standing by its self-mythologising chorus.

Still, something about the Libertines endears them to me despite my becoming bored stiff of reading about their internal squabbling many months ago. Maybe it’s the clipped, layered guitar build-up, or the use of the cowbell in the intro, or the way the opening riff seems to melt away at just the right time. Or maybe it’s the fact that they’re the only one of the latest crop of Rock Is Back! bands with a clue what do with a rhythm section. I’m deducting a point for the frankly rubbish harmonica solo, though. 6 (Matt D’Cruz)

If there’s a band around today more manipulative than The Libertines, I want to hear them. No-one else seems to tie music and mythos together quite so neatly, quite so tightly, no-one else seems to inspire such a painful and ardent fanbase love, such a serious devotion. I’m on the outside: I can’t help but be suspicious.

So. Pete’s out of the band, again, disappointing his fans by turning up everywhere but where he’s scheduled to, again, and the Libs are releasing a Pete&Carl song, not just written by but seemingly written about. You have to appreciate the timing.

“Can’t Stand Me Now” reads like a dramatisation of the already melodramatic saga of their doomed love-hate, the spitting intense knot of comradeship and disappointment that – we’re told, we assume – binds them together and drives them apart. Reading their press has always been like listening in on a friend of a friend’s relationship, the kind you know you’d never have because you don’t have it in you to live like that or love like that, the kind you start to suspect has been amped-up for the dramatic retelling.

They’re soap characters, living out this awful messy plotline of throwings-out and breakings-in, a boy fucking himself up and a boy torn betwen trying to pull him out and knowing that it may never work. But they’re real people. But they’re media constructs. But what’s happening is so horrible that it can only be discussed in platitudes, by Guardian journalists and saddened television pundits, and often.

“I can’t take you anywhere – I’d take you anywhere”, and you assume it’s Carl; “I can’t take me anywhere,” and it has to be Pete; “cornered, the boy kicked out at the world – the world kicked back a lot fucking harder” and it’s an editorial step back, their narrator looking out upon Pete and summarising his position, and it’s Pete re-romanticising Pete as a poor urchin unable to escape the thuggish world looming in upon him, locked away by his unfeeling mate who’d rather blame the drugs than look to what’s really happening. The two of them, fighting over a vocal line and a ragged scrap of guitar; sitting opposite one another three inches from recriminations, trying to work out who hurt who, and when, and with what.

The two of them, praying upon luck and pretence to keep it together.

It’s a good image.

Too good, perhaps, for the shabby fragment of song that comes with it, a shambling rackety backdrop leavened by some nice half-arsed harmonica. Underrehearsed, underproduced, unpolished, and rightly so — without the rough edges, it would be nothing. Bit like the band, really. 6 (Cis)

It’s like surfer music for the Brooklyn set, like Shiny Happy Ramones, like depressed people singing Up With People. You can’t really dance to it, but you CAN bounce to it and that’s the next best thing. Great drummer and what’s that harmonica doing tacked on at the end? I only wish this were my cuppa so I could rate it a bit higher but it’s hard to get too excited about anything so bipolar. 6 (Forksclovetofu)

As an American estranged from the press adultation heaped upon The Libertines, it’s difficult for me to participate in the rather extreme hatred heaped upon the group. Sometimes I do pretend to loathe them, but it’s largely affectation – the Libertines have always seemed indistinguishable from the other bands my Cure-discovering younger brother has grown to admire.

Even though I haven’t a taste for all of the motifs, the single isn’t entirely bad. The lyric isn’t terribly coherent, and the opening few seconds don’t impress, but the song manages to shake some of my negative preconceptions by its end. The hooks are dated but effective, and the harmonica adds some sorely-needed color to the arrangement. 5 (Atnevon)

If the Strokes were to ever record a “Ringo song”, this is what it would sound like. I’d love to go on about its’ shambolic, hooky goodness, but after 6 or so listens earlier in the afternoon, I honestly have no sonic memory of this thing. Except that it gave me a funny mental image of the Strokes performing on “Hee Haw”. So it’s not a total wash. 4 (Henry Scollard)

God, I hate British bands. They really just don’t know how to rock what-so-ever. The Libertines look like they should rock, hard, but they sound as limp-wristed as all the other pretenders. It doesn’t help that Pete Doherty is some sort of iconic loser figure now. I can’t stand you. Go away.

The whining chorus is so repetitive and dull and it isn’t really a chorus, more of a half-hearted chant. Vocally they could try to accentuate the highs and lows a little really because there’s probably some message in here somewhere, but I’m really not bothered in finding it. “The boy kicked out at the world, the world kicked back a lot fucking harder” is said with none of the conviction you would expect. It’s a punk song wrapped up in cotton wool. Nice harmonica bit, but they’ve hid it away at the end in shame.

Shame. 4 (MW_Jimmy)

I was quite surprised on actually listening to this that the chorus doesn’t appear until 1’33″. I have found myself singing this in my head where it’s just the chorus and it’s much better. Also minus 1 for the godawful harmonica “solo”. 4 (CarSmile Steve)

It seems a long time since I heard music sounding so hamfisted and poorly composed as the opening to this shambolic rocker. It rambles on for a bit, and I wait for it to cohere into something with drive and purpose, but it never does. I think there’s something like a decent tune (maybe just a chorus?) emerging after a few listens, underneath the ramshackle construction, and maybe a better production could have brought it out, but as it stands I don’t care for it at all. 3 (Martin Skidmore)

Well, it’s a nicely arranged tune with a good melodic swoop about it, and the guitars really let fly in the background (on the other hand, the vocals have the condescending wit of James or something, and it’s got the worst harmonica solo since the days when Bob Dylan couldn’t play).

But it’s all immaterial because this is a new wave karoke, wannabe Brit guitar beatnik poets, forever writing songs on the spur of the moment because if they sat down and thought about it they’ve got nothing else to say. As for the drama queen nature of the lyric- oo, these two flawed geniuses are struggling to stand each other- it’s perilously close to the self-regarding indulgences of Menswear.

It’s all rather reminiscent of the once wildly popular Levellers. Yeah, they can bolt a tune together, they’ve earnest, they strike a chord with lots of people, but it’s a hasty patchwork that comes apart at the seams if you listen to it enough. There’s not even the sweet smoothness of The Strokes, just the self-conscious jerky edginess of The Jam. They were shit and all. 3 PLUS JOKER (Derek Walmsley)

Another song from the best new band to sound like the last best new band that sounded like the best new band before that one. More than just musical recidivism, this is music to reoffend to. 3 (Alext)

So, yeah, there’s the title. And there’s the trick of making 3 minutes and 23 seconds seem like the sort of foreverever embodied by water torture or food poisoning. Oh, and how about some slap-dash Jack Daniels harmonica for those Mojo-reading corpsefucker folks seeking some musical rock-excess signifiers to go with the intraband squabbling, the drug abuse, and all the trumped-up tragedies that don’t mean a damn thing to oblivious folk (like myself) when the rough & tumble rock band in question is caught flailing like a flock of castrated Buzzcocks. 2 (David Raposa)

Tom in FT /New York London Paris Munich • No Comments

THE SQUARE TABLE 14 / Three Of A Kind – “Baby Cakes”

POP FACTOR: 620 CONTROVERSY SCORE: 248

What you hear in Baby Cakes depends on what story you’ve been following. The story of garage? Then it’s an afterthought, a sidestep, barely even vital enough to qualify as a move backwards. The story of pop? It’s alright, another quirky dance-pop hit – those writer names on the sleeve are suspiciously Italianate, and you know what the continentals are capable of. The story of Summer 2004? Ah, well now. There’s a weakness to it, an introspection that feels right for these washed-out weeks. This time last year it was sizzling and I was planning my wedding with every window open. This summer it seems better to draw the curtains, lay low, hunker down and cuddle up. 8 (Tom)

So Solid Crew on codeine. What a sprightly stew this one is, referencing (at least to my ears) A Guy Called Gerald, Steve Reich, Dem 2 and every Detroit techno artist who has ever used those forlorn, synthetic strings. It’s a sing-a-long confection that resists consumption, all slurred vocals and detached delivery. Least-convincing use of the term “babycakes” ever, and very much the better for it. 9 (Henry Scollard)

Imagine a cake made of Babies. You could eat it with Evian, that baby-flavoured water they advertise on the television. I think Babycakes is my favourite of the Tales Of The City books. It is increasingly bitter, but feels like the somewhat disconcerting air you get at a great party that it might be the best one you have been to (cf The Party by John M.Hall). All of this is to say for pure summer pop fun, Baby Cakes is a minor classic. The Artful Dodger might be a touchstone here but even they never made anything quite so cynically clinical. Wunderbar! 8 (Pete)

A garage anthem that’s hardly there – 2:35 long and sung by tone deaf teenagers, and the rapping is as tough as saturday morning telly. But I love this, I hum it under my breath, and the vocals have a real sincerity about them- “take it step by step, because I’m not something you own”. How does garage churn out these icky tunes and make them so emotional? I guess because it’s so off the cuff that it seems that much more genuine; a brief whispered tete a tete in the middle of a pissed night out. It’s gone before you know it, but what a sweet afterthought. 8 (Derek Walmsley)

The second coming of Aqua, this time new and improved with a Heart and Courage…. no Brain, but even the Wizard knew that shit was overrated. This is the kind of bare bones synthpop that falls prey to Modern Art arguments (“heck, I coulda done that!” yeh, but you DIDN’T) but melts on the dancefloor. Call it PowerPuff.

The lil’ giggle that ushers the track in and out, the Chime-y video game rhythms, the nasal four year old rapping, the chopped verse and the sheer sheer mindless mindless mindless REPETITION. Never heard it, but I gotta guess that this is ‘jam of summer 04′ material; I’d go to the club more often if I knew THIS was waiting. Just the thing to pop pills and asses to. Verra verra good. 8 (Forksclovetofu)

If we ignore the potential implications of the laughter that bookend the track, this is quite good. The too-sweet-for words chorus may smack of superficiality, but that doesn’t keep the group from packing hook upon hook into about two and a half minutes of cynical pop. That cynicism will bother some, and the sugariness of the hooks will irritate others, but neither of those things stops the song from being a great, ephemeral rush of faux-naive charm. If this were ever to become ubiquitous on my side of the Atlantic, the single would grate my nerves by the third week. But so long as I experience it voluntarily and on a limited basis, it earns an 8. (Atnevon)

This morning: adbreak channelhop, a polyphonic ringtone, that odd muted-warm treble for the tune and a delicate fuzzy-edged counterpoint.

This evening: walking home past a trio of fake-tan legs and denim miniskirts, sing-song voices, “…baby, maybe…” and they’d walked past, out of earshot, into screams and giggles.

I like this song. I like the music-box twinkle, the sickly-sweet lyrics, the tinny syncopated ‘oh oh oh’ coda, how muffled and hazy it all sounds despite the sparseness of the arrangement, the crispness of the chorus. A little too pretty, maybe, a little outdated– but, three years ago, I would have ignored its existence with an inner sneer. Right now, I’m quite glad to recognise it, to hear the rap chanted by a Saturday girls’ night out gang. A little blip of charming two-step twee, bobbing its way up to the top of the charts like it had just been forgotten down the back of the sofa.

And the girl really is very short. 7 (Cis)

I’ve just listened to this 10 times, and it’s still making me grin. I haven’t heard a summer single that bounces quite like this since Shanks and Bigfoot, and this is far less obvious or brassy. From the giggle to the bridge, it all shimmers along without even trying. And the start of the girl’s rap is the pop moment of the summer. 7 (Jim Eaton-Terry)

I like the laugh at the start, but the almost-acapella vocal after it is rather flat and lifeless, and lacking the feeling the lyrics seem to demand. It needs the perky bleeping and chugging beats to carry it. The rapping seems too far back in the mix, and very poor in terms of flow (perhaps that’s why it’s left so far back), but the chorus is a good one. I rather like it really, in a low-key way, but I can barely think why. I guess it’s just a cute, stripped down single. 6 (Martin Skidmore)

Appropriate misreading of a Google result: “3 Of A Kind are a puppy two-step act.” Tweeeeee! 6 (David Raposa)

In which 2-step drifts past pop and lands pretty close to bubblegum. Garage followers will have none of this – the tawdry “atmospheric” synths, the amateurish vocals laced with PG-rated raps, the frothy chorus which sounds like it was initially composed as a ringtone – but if you are divorced from the scene, you might find this innocuous piece of plastic mildly addicting. And although “Babycakes” can’t muster up the same amount of icy allure that Rachel Stevens’ “Some Girls” has, it does follow in the footsteps of that summer anthem by duplicating its damp and somewhat downcast aura, and refusing to play dead after
numerous listens. A nice place to be for sure, but if it turns out that poppy grime is just around the corner, I’m not going to hang around here much longer. 6 (Michael F Gill)

Odd one this. As others have said, “why now?” It’s a perfectly diverting piece of UK Garage and if it had been a hit a month after “sweet like chocolate” it would have made a lot more sense, but it seems like a window into a long-lost past to me (according to a friend who knows about these things, it’s been a CHOON for about two years). 6 (Carsmile Steve)

Was 2000 really that long ago? Records like this were all over the UK charts just a few short years ago, but Baby Cakes sounds curiously out-of-place in today’s pop landscape. This is enlivened by a few nice touches – the twinkly backing, the muted mini-house buildup at the beginning and especially the oh-too-brief verse from the female MC who pops up half way through. But everything about Babycakes sounds frustratingly restrained – I keep expecting things to really take off, but they never do by the time the track limps off after a mere two and a half minutes.

I’ve now listened to this record five times in a row and am already yearning for one of the more abraisive moments from the new Dizzee album, hoping that grime never produces anything as tepid and bland as this flimsy affair. And by ‘eck, that chorus lady sounds bored doesn’t she? I can hardly blame her. 4 (Matt D’Cruz)

A good hook usually works its way in your brain – or preferrably your hips – and dominates your world. Each time I listened to 3 of a Kind, I alienated myself more and more from their Artful Dodger meets Aqua single “Babycakes.” It’s catchy as hell. The more I listen, the less I love life. The music is great, it’s just the infantile voice that irks me. Especially the rapping, which is more Wee Pappa Girl Rappers than Salt ‘n’ Peppa. Maybe the appeal lies in its amateuristic veneer. 2 step’s back. (Stevie Nixed)

Y’know I don’t know if this is Babycakes by 3 Of A Kind or vice-versa. Does anybody care?

Erm yeah, I could write something deep, long and insightful here, but it really doesn’t deserve it.

Its shit. You know it. 0 (MW_Jimmy)

Tom in FT /New York London Paris Munich • No Comments

THE SQUARE TABLE 15 / Natasha Bedingfield – “These Words”

POP FACTOR: 624 CONTROVERSY RATING: 263

Sometime in the endless pre-release life of “These Words” I decided I loved the disarming ending. A little while later I decided I loved the beginning too – so confident, so cute. And the middle? Well, there is rather a lot of middle. The sound of “These Words” is a sweet, overbearing, slightly malco-ordinated lunge at R&B, as disingenuous in its way as the lyrics. But what odd lyrics! (I like them, as it happens. A few years ago lyrics were by far the weakest part of British pop songs, and nowadays people are at least trying, even if the results are a bit clumsy.)

Anyway, in summary: better than “Single”, better than “The Mask Of Anarchy” (though not better than Scritti’s “Lions After Slumber”), not as good as “James Dean”, not as good as “Ozymandias” (the big tunes are the best), Keats may have the edge on her but she shouldn’t worry too much about Byron. Next! 7 (Tom)

Love song paradoxes no 1. Even for the polygamist, love should be singular: he loves each wife equally, since each has her own charms, her own special ways, her own beauty. But how can the same word, the same concept do equally for each, each time he uses it? If I tell my beloved that I love her, the most intimate is passed through the most general (for haven’t we always and already heard too much about love?): but if I don’t tell her, if I don’t chance my ownmost to the worn-out coin of cliche, she’ll never know. And how much worse in a love song: a declaration of affection which goes not to one, but to all: yet which by some miracle becomes more rather than less in the process, as if the words, the sentiments could be re-charged, and the song becomes anyone’s, a new way to say the impossible: I love you.

This is the contradiction which gives ‘These Words’ their electricity. Of course these aren’t really her words: but how could they be? Love itself is a concoction, a confection, a construction, so the creaking joints (‘from my heart flown’? For fuck’s sake!) of this track are intimately nuzzled up to their topic. Who cares if Shelley and Byron could only write love poems to themselves, with or without the hip-hop beats, and that Keats is too busy hanging around at the cemetary gates to lend us some decent lyrics (‘Romantic poets are not romantic poets’: Discuss)? Hyperbole becomes hyper-bowl and Lynne Truss chokes on her semi-colons.

Skipping across the stage of Top of the Pops, Natasha Bedingfield is a beguiling mess, gabbling the verses, over-trilling the chorus, nervous energy and enthusiasm slopping over the choreographed spontaneity of her movements. Giddy with what will surely be her only great moment — but only great because she’s giddy — the honest emotion overflowing the simulated ones, if only for a moment. These words may not be my own, but they’re the only words I’ve got. I love you. 10 + Joker (Alext)

There is an infectious joy about this song, it’s rare in pop these days. Terrible lyrics with an exuberant delivery. I would never hold bad lyrics against anyone, and certainly not Natasha (Daniel yes – mainly coz he’s annoying). I remember hearing this song whilst taking a car journey on a sunny evening, and it was perfect. A modern classic, single of the year. 10 (Jel)

The verses are really really bad, writing a song about (having difficulties) writing a song, cor blimey, off to the stereophonics naughty corner for you, ms b’DINGfield. The invocation of Adrian Gurvitz is always welcome though, certainly more than shelley, byron and keats in the second verse… The chorus is where it really comes alive though, i mean iloveyouiloveyouiloveyouilooooveyouuuuuuuuu is an undeniably great lyric and the BAM BAM BAM hook is ridiculously infectious as well. i’m sure it’s saying something deep and meaningful about the songwriting process (and probably by extrapolation, THE STATE OF CULTURE), or something, but i just like whistling it. 9 (Carsmile Steve)

Dear Natasha,

It was very nice that you deliberated over how to write this love song but you didn’t need to add the Shelley and Keats line for credibility.

Love & Kisses. 7 (MW_Jimmy)

Sounds like a cross between Miss Dy-na-mi-tee-hee and that Lauryn Hill thing. I’m a sucker for meta-meta, even if it’s NB asking the Muses to help her with a silly love song, and even with D-E-F yucking up its double meaning – whatta G-A-G! As for the “I love you ad infinitum” bits in the chorus – some things are better left unsaid, and the more I hear it, the more I wish it were. As it stands, though, I love thee for eschewing a shout-out to E-B-B (that’s Elizabeth Barrett Browning, kids) in lieu of some true romantics, though I really hope Ms. Bedingfield is aware that “The Second Coming” isn’t about a mighty mighty good man double dipping. (That’s Yeats, dude – Ed.) 7 (David Raposa)

This might be the best single to ever come from this family, unless their Mum & Dad duet on a cover of ‘Save Your Love’ this Christmas (OK I do prefer ‘Gotta Get Thru This’ ultimately). But look out there, sun is shining weather is sweet yeah…and this seems achingly appropriate and TWEE for that. Quite charming ode to not being frustrated with love, only frustrated in trying to express said love. Bit audacious to then think ‘oh wait I can make the song about THAT instead’ but she gets away with it pleasantly enough, and in fact the approach feels relatively novel. 6 (Steve M)

Ms. Bedingfield synthesizes the stylistic associations of Nelly Furtado with some lyrical idiosyncracies that wouldn’t have felt entirely out of place on Nellie McKay’s last album. Those lyrics imbue this song with its character. Unfortunately, in spite of one absolutely amazing three-note hook and a near-perfect chorus, vocal acrobatics threaten to undermine the lyric’s sincerity. This isn’t nearly as convincing as it should have been, and it’s roughly a minute too long. Still, there are some great moments here, and that three-note hook is great enough to earn any song at least a 6. (Atnevon)

This is a lost, glammed up Lauryn Hill track, right? No? Coulda fooled me. It’s effortlessly catchy, perfectly constructed (it enters and exits so smoothly and unobtrusively that you might not even notice it until it’s half over) plus it’s bouncy as fuck… but also lyrically puerile (you are NOT allowed to rhyme “Keats” and “hiphopbeat”, hear me world?), not memorable in the way that Rachel Stevens is and I have a sinking fear that this is going to age about as poorly as Daniel’s stuff does. That delayed reaction is what brings the score down to a 6 (Forksclovetofu)

Songs about writing songs. Usually shameful affairs, like the columnist’s column about thinking of a subject to write his column about, you tuck it on an album and hope no-one takes the piss too much. One of the worst songs of all time, “Your Song”, is a song about writing a song and at least Nat can beat Elton in this case: these words, unlike those pieces of shit, really are her own. Does Daniel have owt to do with the music? Who cares. It is a silly piece of fluff, with remarkably clunky chord progrssions, giggly bits, has already been number one and with that Shelly and Keats line has already assured Ms Bedroomeyes of legendary songwriter status. Bravo. 6 (Pete)

I’ve never been terribly keen on Daniel, so I didn’t feel any great need for another Bedingfield, but this is pretty good, in a vaguely sub-Dynamite way. It’s more than a little clunky in places, those heavy chords every few lines obliterating the singing, but Natasha is fine, and the arrangement sounds reasonably fresh and imaginative. Pleasant, and I’d happily sway along to it, but it doesn’t do a great deal for me. 6 (Martin Skidmore)

Like her brother, Natasha Bedingfield aims for the A D D pop format. Forever going for more (genres) is more (quality), they tend to forget the words matter just as much. Alas, both siblings only treat them as an after-thought. So instead of the statement of the debut – being “Single” rawks, oops, I forgot we’re in the 21st century – this is all about the song writing process. How. Very. Meta. And boring, if you pay attention. Ah well, the radio likes it. It’s a declaration – these words are my own. Natasha, I don’t think anyone really wants to claim them. It’s a perfect kandy kolored radio tune: From the stabbing strings, Ms Dynamite Urban (empty) Soul to the Pink melisma. All the references really give away is that Natasha hasn’t found a style of her own. Very cute, yet also very headache inducing. 6(66) (Stevie Nixed)

Part of me hates the rookie rawness of this pop debut, and I want to say the whole thing should have been canned at the 4 track stage, as it’s quality wise so short of these lyrics promising she’s “trying to find the magic, trying to write a classic” – “Keats and Shelley on a hip hop beat”. Yet it’s an endearing puppy dog song that one can either love or hate, depending on whether you warm to lyrics about the difficulty of trying to write lyrics. An earworm that is frivolous but not offensively so. But me, I hope this single was so tough for her to write that she’ll never write another one. 4 (Derek Walmsley)

I’m sorry Avril, but you have been outdone in the land of anti-corporate corporate pop. Ms. Bedingfield may claim disdain for manufactured singers, oversexed photo shoots, and meaningless songs, but after hearing “These Words”, I doubt a team of industry songwriters could make her songs any more commercial and sellable than they already are. Because “These Words” is a bombastic clump of awkwardly sanitized R&B that not only sends shudders down my spine, it also completely contaminates me with its melodies no matter how much I try to resist. The doctor says I should seek help from Susumu Yokota.

Natasha?s lyrics deal with how hard it is to express yourself, and how easy it is to give in to simplicity, which could have been a very palatable subject if she didn’t over sing each and every phrase as if her authenticity depended on it. Ironically, her notion of simplicity could almost justify the banal lyrics of the disposable pop songs she rallies against. Is it so hard to imagine a clumsier version of Westlife or The Backstreet Boys singing “There’s no other way to better say I love you [than] I love you?”

I may be close to throwing up, but there are bits of fascination in this. 4 (Michael F Gill)

A pop song about writers’ block. Clever, but this generic piffle just does not deliver. Ack. Next time, just buy a Hallmark card. Or better yet, give us the dead poets and drum machines. Funny how NB spends the whole song singing about how “these words” are her own, without really SAYING what those words are. Like in “Krush Groove”, when Run rapped about how good a singer he was. Sorta, but not really. 2 (Henry Scollard)

This is why pop stars should never be allowed to write their own songs, people. According to some hastily cobbled together internet lyric sites, there’s a rhyming couplet midway through this song that goes: “Written by Ricelli and Keys/ Recited in over a heartbeat”, which is either a charming mishearing of young Natasha’s most embarrasing line or a transparent attempt to disguise its sheer awfulness.

Anyway, I’m sure there are others sitting round this table who will rightly have a pop at that bit about dead poets and drum machines, and it seems such a shame to let that act as the lightning conductor for all the critical ire when there are so many other worthy reasons to dislike ‘These Words’. Like the way our Tash can’t decide whether she’s just throwing some chords together or agonising endlessly over her composition. Or the truly appalling minor-key slide into introspection in the bridge. Or the “do you see???” way she sings “kil-ler hook” over what passes for a killer hook here (the chords D-E-F in case you like your pop as demystified as possible).

‘These Words’ is one of the most hamfisted records I’ve heard in years. Where it should slink, it lumbers. Where it should hint at ambiguity with a cheeky look in its eye, it bashes you over the head with its message. It’s quite fittingly clumsy – truly great pop sounds effortless, but Miss Bedingfield wants us to know just how much she’s laboured over this terrible song – easily the equal of such modern classics as ‘Zombie’ by the Cranberries or Stereophonics’ ‘Mr Writer’.

Of course, its not about that really, its about how even the grandest statement can’t match a simple ‘I love you’. Awww. That Daniel’s a lucky, lucky boy. 0 (Matt D’Cruz)

Tom in FT /New York London Paris Munich • No Comments

THE SQUARE TABLE 16 / The Thrills – “Whatever Happened To Corey Haim?”

POP FACTOR: 288 CONTROVERSY RATING: 226

The problem with retro in a pop context: absorbing the lesson that things were better back when can limit you. If you believe in the golden past then maybe you subconsciously believe that all YOU can do is put your tiny footprint in the vast sandy tread of [whoever], and so no matter how big you get your records are always smaller than they could/should/need to be.

Don’t buy it? Well, I can’t think of any other reason the Thrills might imagine this horrid, mewling thing would somehow do. It’s just so… it’s like, if you visit a city farm or pet shop and one animal has a litter of babies and the litter includes a runt. And at first you think, aw. But then as you keep looking, and the other babies rush to the nipple and jostle and start to show a bit of spirit and grow different enough from one another to earn names, the runt just gets what little it can and sits away from the others, twitching, sniffling, ugly, half-hairless, waiting to die. And your affection turns to pity and then to a kind of half-ashamed contempt. And you look away.

All that is what I think of when I hear the singer of The Thrills go “ooh!”, which in this pitiful record he does, a lot. I also think of Tim Henman’s air punches, and having to eat cereal with water because the milk’s run out, and the first love poems I threw away. None of these are attractive or happy thoughts. I think what I’m trying to say is that I hate The Thrills. 0 (Tom)

And I said, “What about Prayer of the Rollerboys?” And she said, “I think I remember that film, and as I recall, I think we both kinda liked it.” And I said, “What does kissing really mean to me? To me, if you feel, when you kiss a girl, that certain feeling of all those dolphins, like, swimming through your blood stream, and you get those good tingles inside your stomach, I don’t think there’s any better feeling. It basically comes down to that word: Love. I guess that’s what it’s all about.” But she started to holler. So I had to hit it. Hit it. Hit it! HIT IT!

But then I shut off this godforsaken painfully dorky smug piece of shit song, and everything went back to normal. No more wispy mewling, no more gratuitous string crescendos, no more ironic references to the American Dream and Andy Warhol that mean so fucking much when attached to the sordid tale of a has-been party-boy actor so far gone he’s reduced to selling pieces of himself on eBay, because fame is fleeting and fickle DO YOU SEE!?!, and this rote message is so damn important to get out there that it should be set to song-not-song and foisted upon unsuspecting listeners like so much junk mail. Please please PLEASE if you have a shred of dignity within your bosom return this trite shit to sender postage due and change your address yesterday. 0 plus JOKER (David Raposa)

come back travis all is forgiven 0 (Carsmile Steve)

If The Thrills are “pop craftsmen” of any sort, they’re like over-enthusiastic kitchen fitters, doing the hard sell by giving you two extra sinks and a superfluous breakfast bar. Case in point- theycram an “oo… girl I say oo” ladies-man interlude next to the “whatever happened to…” blokes-in-a-bar nostalgia. There’s no continuity of mood, instead just a lot of fatuously combined rock personas in the one song. Strings, Rod Stewart, theremins, fender rhodes, Steve Harley- they’re all here, and none of them and nobody knows why. 0 (Derek Walmsley)

So much for the shitty. The novelty of “ooh gosh they’re doing a song about Corey Haim” doesn’t even make it to the bridge (as if I even know what a bridge is). I’ve read nothing but high praise in the critical circles these last two years about The Thrills and their winsome early-70′s California pop, but this here is fake maudlin dreck, not fit to clean David Crosby’s water bong with. And who even really cares about Corey Haim, anyway? 2 (Henry Scollard)

Another Thrills single, another unimaginative rush of criminal banality threatening moment by moment to morph into something more magnificent. The “Ooh”s in the chorus are delived with feeling, but there’s only so much sex that can be squeezed from a voice as castrated as this one. 3 (Atnevon)

Ah, The Thrills, it’s like you’ve never been gone. Or like you were never here. One of the two, I get confused.

When I try to remember what this song sounds like I end up with their earlier ‘hit’ Santa Cruz (You’re Not That Far), which I’m still convinced was not written by mortal man but formed from the secreted pheromones of a thousand dull and earnest Brian-Wilson-worshipping bedroom rockists. It’s just been hanging about ever since, a fuzzy miasma, waiting for a suitably blank-faced set of indie-mopped young men to shuffle and burble amiably beneath it. Aren’t you glad it was the Thrills were caught in its cloying cloud and not you? I know I am.

Relisten, and yes this does sound like Santa Cruz, ie like any and every other Thrills song: unassuming sunkissed California pop except from Ireland and what indie people call pop as opposed to actual pop music, etcetera etcetera. They try to inject a little individuality into it by singing ‘oooh!’ every so often in constipated ways. It doesn’t render it any less forgettable. 3 (Cis)

The post-Neil Young ‘straining to reach all the notes’ technique must be the worst method of singing anywhere in pop. Wayne Coyne, Jonathan Donohue, Thingy from Grandaddy – there’s something I find hugely uncomfortable about listening to blokes audibly unable to reach the high notes singing, more often than not, nothing but high notes.

The Thrills take this step one step further by grafting the singer’s half-yelp-half-whimper on top of a cod-Motown stomp for which it is completely unsuited, with the end result aking to trying to skip through treacle. After seeing his career nosedive, the real Corey Haim apparently filed for bankruptcy and then checked into rehab – now the poor sod has this as his epitaph. And all because The Thrills couldn’t think of a rhyme for ‘Guttenberg’. 3 (Matt ‘Santa’ D’Cruz)

It always surprises me when my habitual dislike of the “whiney male voice”, found in so much indie rock, disappears. My swoons over Superpitcher’s house re-working of “The Dream of Evan & Chan” and the experimental musings of The Animal Collective suggests that my vocal block stems from the run-of-the-mill musical context the whiney voice is often placed in, not the actual voice itself. My indifference towards “Whatever Happened To Corey Haim?” looks to be more proof of that train-of-thought. It is a pleasant mid-tempo pop / rock song. Lead singer Conor Deasy hesitantly whines over a string section. It is as exciting as that description sounds. 3 (Michael F Gill)

I quite like his voice: it has a hint of that high plaintiveness you hear in Neil Young or J Mascis. It doesn’t come off at all where he tries to punch an ‘ooh!’, though. It’s a wet and dreary and limp song, about someone I had to check IMDB for. Their would-be West Coast stylings rather exasperate me too. The vocal mostly makes it tolerable, but I still couldn’t stand to play it as many times as I normally do these Square Table singles. 3 (Martin Skidmore)

I rather liked the first Thrills album, in a weedy West Coast but actually from Bognor sort of way. Therefore I kinda like this, the way i kinda liked Cowboys, the first single off of the second Portishead album. It offers nothing new, merely the sad suggestion that this is all that The Thrills can do, and here they are beefing it up with a pop culture reference which seems to miss the point. 4 (Pete)

Have these clowns never heard of Teh Modern Interweb? I found out what Haim has been up to straight away. So really this song does not need to exist because it’s a question easily answered. This is probably a metaphor for a more general ‘where does the time/youth go’ lament but it’s definitely hella dull and they make me wish Dodgy would come back and blow them out of the water – I mean with actual weapons, not that Dodgy are that much better than The Thrills (just more honest). I’m not sure where the current trend for 80s references in song (see also Franz Ferdinand, Estelle) is going – the 90s presumably. I am more interested in finding out what happened to Alex Winter anyway – so off to Google once again I go… 4 (Steve M)

I can’t stand bands who don’t bother doing any research, it’s laziness.

It’s not at all hard to find out what happened to Corey Haim, you could just check the Internet Movie Database, and you’d see he was in loads of films since Lost Boys. In fact, he has a film called “Universal Groove” in post-production, it’s about the underground party scene.

I imagine I’m not the only one to comment on the ease in which the song title’s can be answered. The whole square table will probably just be comments about IMDB and whatnot…oh, the song? It’s okay, the kind of song you don’t need to hear more han 4 or 5 times. 5 (Jel)

I haven’t really listened to the song properly yet really as I just keep getting distracted by other things. It’s just that it sounds exactly how you would expect a Thrills comeback song to sound like. Less than thrilling, just another quaint little rock song. Rising vocals, token strings and a sing-a-long chorus for your campfire kumba-ya moments. Trying to listen to this is like looking for your misplaced car keys – you keep looking in the same places over and over expecting to find something but nothing turns up. The harmonies seem nicer than usual and the inane subject matter does appeal to some small part of me. All this sounds like a nice solid 6. (MW_Jimmy)

These guys sound like a more sincere version of They Might Be Giants. Or a happier grunged out Oasis. It’s awful hard to really dislike this; the soul strings and headbobbin’ keys and drums make for a good time and the unprepossessing nature of the lead vocals make for critical teflon. It’s a nice late summer happy jam: silly sugary poppariffic instant nostalgia. I don’t think I need something this flimsy to be my generation’s “Where Have You Gone Joe DiMaggio” but as long as it only sticks around for a few months on the FM dial, I don’t think it’s gonna drive me TOO nuts. 6 (Forksclovetofu)

Funny, I didn’t think a band stuck in the sunny 60/70s could foresee 80s pout
hunk Corey Haim being a lost boy in the 00s. To answer these lads question: selling molars on Ebay and checking into rehab. 7 (Stevie Nixed)

Tom in FT /New York London Paris Munich • 1 Comment

THE SQUARE TABLE 17 / Girls Aloud – “Love Machine”

POP FACTOR: 774 CONTROVERSY RATING: 190

Girls Aloud take their mockabilly strut a little too fast, there’s a lockstep urgency to the rhythm that makes the fun more frantic by giving you the feeling they’re just a trip away from falling in a heap of tangled strings. They’ve never sounded more like the glossy puppets of Morley myth: I wonder sometimes what they think when Xenomania presents them with something like this. The gap between its electro-skiffle backing and the girls’ breathy big tunes singing is absurd (and rather charming) – don’t they ever think, “Stop the pop, I want to get off”, sing a Linda Perry love monster rather than more allusive nonsense? Actually I hope they don’t – a record as silly and delightful as “Love Machine” is Evidence A that being in Girls Aloud must be quite the experience after all. 9 (Tom)

From the Katrina & the Waves intro to the chorus ripping “put a little love in your heart” this is nearly perfect and follows the GA principle of making EVEN BETTER POP out of some QUITE GOOD POP ALREADY. The words are beautifully nonsensical as well, interesting gender twist on “love machine” though, a phrase usually associated with the gentlemen (google brings up the miracles, wham!, uriah heep and prince on the first page of “love machine lyrics”) and their mechanical sexiness, rather than the ladies. 10 (Carsmile Steve)

It’s the eighties fifties revival coming back!

If the first Girls Aloud record made them a teenage gang, scowling and despairing and delighting in equal measures, these last two singles are twentysomething. I think it was Stevie Nixed on the Show’s Square Table that talked about the female in-group in Girls Aloud songs, and it’s even stronger here, even more girly. Not just the we “ladies” and the you “fellas”; the hypercute images of gift-wrapped kitty-kats (only turning into tigers when they’ve got to fight back) and love easy as pie, the demand that a girls’ mind be read, that a mutual language be found, the promise not to change you but…, the camp little “what will the neighbours say?”. The modern Feminine Mystique wrapped up in a jaunty, wordy saunter of a song.

And, oh, it saunters, hip-swinging its way out of conventional pop structure with such self-assurance you barely notice. Two separate bridges, one reprimanding, promising, one soft close-vocal alluring. Verses that pretend the other never existed, a different audience and different rhythm and different tune entirely. So natural that you’re pulled along with them, following the off-beat snare-drum shuffle and punchy bass, flirting around the high notes, finally falling in with that chummy guitar and tap-dancing away into the night. 10 (Cis)

Lovely, old-fashioned start – much of it is almost Motowny, which suits me fine, lots of nice hand-clapping stuff, very bouncy and cheerful. It’s a little surprising to sound a bit like Motown with a Motown title (the Miracles had a hit with ‘Love Machine’) and still not really evoke that previous song. Their singing seems to be improving gradually, perhaps simply in confidence, but that’s enough, as they are more than decent singers when they believe it – there are several very pleasing vocal moments here. A delightful single, their best since No Good Advice – when was the last time Britain had a genuine pop group making a string of records this good? All Saints? The Spice Girls? Take That? 9 (Martin Skidmore)

The pub is one of the best places in the world for conversation. Music gets talked about regularly and I’ll normally get involved and mention band X from Japan or wherever. Then something pops onto the jukebox and Ill make a passing comment on it and talk moves on to pop music. All my credibility seems to go out of the widow at this point. On Girls Aloud the most I normally get out of my friends is “That Cheryl’s fit though” and a handful of jibes. Not that it bothers me because I am always totally honest. I really do believe that they are one of the best pop bands around.

So to Love Machine, and all of us internet geeks await with trepidation the day of the leak. Will it live up to previous efforts? Will they continue to surprise? On my first gut feeling listen I hate it. I rush online and spout my disappointment at others. “It’ll grow on you” says a hypothetical Daphne & Celeste fan, but it doesn’t seem to click. I cringe during the verses and that twang country bebop just sounds so…so wrong.

Then slowly over the course of their promotion of the song this week I find myself being drawn to it. My ears prick up when I hear it on the radio. They come on TV and I’m captivated by the girls. (As an aside I love the fact their TV show performance is a re-enactment of the video. Also, how cool is that rat pack band they have dressed as “The Hives”?). Now, I just have to put it on every morning. Then again in the evening. Then perhaps once more at night.

It’s very unlike most of their songs ? it’s so much more fun. There is nothing going on under the surface. They just dance and sing and do all your favorite things. Still, it remains a guilty pleasure and that’s the first time I’ve seen a GA song in that light. So next time I’m in the pub with my friends and this comes on I’ll still be able to say I like it but it’ll be said in a slightly ironic student fashion. 9 (MW_Jimmy)

It’s great witnessing the steam being gathered gust by gust, vapourised drop by drop. At this rate the album will be cracking and perhaps the most burgeoning with ideas and activity since Kish Kash. As usual for GA ‘Love Machine’ reminds you of about a dozen other songs, like strips of plasticine rolled into one multi-coloured whole. More than that though this sounds like their most cheerful effort yet – even Nadine is smiling! Now, what was that about negligee? It’s got more of a B*witched vibe than anything else and the rollicking tempo and skiffly rhythm is retro yet refreshing. 9 (Steve M)

1980′s; Glossy; shoulder pads; polka dots; lipstick; pony tails; ever so slightly robotic. It reminds me of Dynasty and Cyndi Lauper with a touch of the Bangles. Girls Aloud keep making great singles that always seem to bring something new. The drum beat is great! Reality TV’s gift to the world! 9 (Jel)

Bugger skiffle, this is the great lost Huggy Bear single! Rerecord it on a four track and it could sit next to Blowdry or Into The Mission without raising any eyebrows. OK, maybe the lyrics need tweaking, but still they do it more convincingly than Shampoo or Bis ever did.

Since Sound Of the Underground it’s been a truism that GA are a work of genius but, to be honest, it’s been more the narrative – the idea of a really great pop group coming out of Pop Stars, especially that last limping faked series which lost all the thrill of the first and the drama of Pop Idol – and the styling of them as drugged prostitute dolls that kept me interested. SOTU was brilliant, and the Transvision Vamping of No Good Advice kept the momentum, but after Life got Cold and the sub-Rachel Stevens of the Show I was starting to think that they’d burned out.

But from the opening riff this just demolishes that idea. Welding a slice of smart modern dancepop onto a fakeabilly chassis is the best pop idea this year, and the song has easily enough hooks to keep up with the production. Plus they rhyme “squeeze a day”, “negligee” and “neighbours say”. If this isn’t number one I may emigrate. 8 JOKER (Jim Eaton-Terry)

Jangley as all hell, although sadly not a cover of the Wedding Present track: but wouldn’t you love to see GA get their teeth into some of the meaty tracks off of Seamonsters? Well, erm, maybe: but it’s hard to imagine Gedge’s snarling misogyny standing up to the self-proclaimed ‘gift-wrapped kitty cats’. Just as in The Show, you can’t win against these girls: yes, you are supposed to have read my mind, to have known what I really meant, of course I can change my mind, not know what I mean, get it wrong, want all of it and none of it. So classic GA: another song about having your cake and eating it too, in life, in love, and in pop. 8 (alext)

With so many credible “indie” bands packing the shelves of my local record retailers, it seems altogether wrong that procuring a copy of anything ever released by Girls Aloud remains next to impossible. This is, of course, because I am not from the United Kingdom. That cultural distance is indispensable as I listen to this record. As far as I am concerned, Girls Aloud is not a pop culture phenomenon; they produce excellent pop singles, but they haven’t saturated the American press. That the music holds up so well without the alleged stylistic excess so frequently attributed to the genre is a testament to the single’s greatness. Oversinging is a fair criticism, but it never ruins the romp. 8 (Atnevon)

Who in their right mind gift wraps a cat? Its cruel, unnecessary and a terrible example to be setting to our impressionable children. And they say ‘eskimo’ instead of ‘inuit’. I would ask if the girls have ever even seen Blue Peter, but where else would they have heard any skiffle in the past 30 years? What is the world coming to? 8 (Matt D’Cruz)

All about velocity, Girls Aloud, in terms of both tempo and changes of mood. Today it’s Motown- just a template on which they can launch those frisky sugar-coated lyric attacks. And it’s brilliantly memorable and brilliantly disposable. Yet you still can’t dance to it – that role is reserved for the girls themselves, which appeals to the voyeur in all of us. Excellent, bewildering, excellent. These vocals would sound ace on the bootleg too. 8 (Derek Walmsley)

Again i saw the video and again their physical presence distracted me from the Stray Cats Strut slice of genius, Love Machine. Made for a particularly bad dance routine, it still impresses with an insatiable perkiness which yet again seems at odds with who the band are and what they do. Whatever, the Girls Aloud management have realised one thing about the pop sweetshop. Nothing goes out of date, and sometimes the gummi bear favourite of twenty years ago makes a refreshing change.

Now if only they would get on to the Wham! bars… 8 (Pete)

A dune buggy rolls off the Girls Aloud assembly line (as opposed to the Delorean that was “The Show”). Reminds me of those madcap Monkees and their wacky misaventures (appropriate, given the Girls’ origins). Also reminds me that, ready or not, the Indiepop revival is just around the corner. I’m ready. I like this song, even though I fear it could quite possibly spawn a whole new generation of Molly Ringwalds. 7 (Henry Scollard)

Someone slap these lyrics on top of That Damn Jet iPod Song so we can get down to more genius stroking – this fancy-pants digital love backbeat ain’t cuttin’ any sort of condiment. By the way, I appreciate the heads’ up re: the Mars / Venus throwdown. See, I met this woman a couple weeks ago, and thought we hit it off, but I haven’t heard from her since. Total FUBAR, I feared. I was worried that she was cutting off access to her trade routes because of my interpretive etiquette, or my lack of arable assets – it turns out she’s just towing the company line, battening down the foxholes & all that. Roger that, swing out sisters. If anyone needs me, I’ll be here in the MASH mess with some surgical gloves, a bottle of ether, some Grade F meat rations, and a whole case of grape knee-highs. 6 (David Raposa)

Like a one night stand, the attraction can be found in the first few notes. That snappy recalcitrant guitar – it’s a popesque Cheesy
Lipstick – lures me right into “Love Machine.” But as with the previous singles – so insanely catchy, its energy draining quality could be mistaken for vampirical – there’s never a moment I can really enjoy Girls Aloud. The Rockabilly craziness blurs the Geri Halliwell style singing. It’s just too much. The song is never about the Other, only about those kitty cats feeding themselves. Alas, I can’t feed the “Love Machine.” 6 (Stevie Nixed)

As I wake up and attempt to brush my teeth, the DJ on BBC1 curls his voice through the static of my world band radio/scanner: “…And that was ‘Love Machine’ by Girls Aloud, another smash hit for them! It sounds like rockabilly born on a different cloud!”

(For some reason, my radio cuts out and the scanner picks up a cell phone conversation between Girls Aloud and their songwriting team)

Girls Aloud: Baby, you’re a rich man! We just saw the charts today. The love machine works!
ToS (sounding very fulfilled): Ah girls, thanks. How does it feel to be one of the beautiful people?
GA: It is some kind of miracle. Let us thank Mother Superior!
ToS: Don’t jump the gun now. A lot of people want their share of mechanical royalties, so I took the liberty of hiding our profits for the song in a secret location. Meet me at the London Zoo in two hours. I’ll be waiting in the VIP area behind the hippos. Look for a man that resembles Johnny Marr, and is holding a large brown bag.
GA: The zoo! What a thing to do! Are girls allowed in this VIP area?
ToS: Oh yes. And no press is allowed in there either.
GA: White lies! White lies! How often have you been there?
ToS: Often enough to know that it is safe for us. Just like our songs, there is no trace of humanity behind a group of hippos.
GA: But we think hippos are cute.
ToS: Yes, so does the public! I initially saw something in these hippos, and baby, I’m currently a rich man.
GA: This is getting confusing. What did you see when you were there?
ToS (in a voice dripping with sassy apathy): Nothing that doesn?t show all over our faces, in our words, and on our records.

(click) 4 (Michael Wells)

Getting your pop in my honky tonk neither pleases nor amuses. Something tbout this totally rubs me wrong, in an 80′s new wave sorta way. Can’t really put my finger on it. I’m surprised because everything else I’ve heard by Girls Aloud has really pressed ALL of my buttons but this faux twangy country sound is downright repellant. This is maybe the first track you’ve sent me that I’d change the channel to avoid. At best, this could be a halfway decent TV show theme, but only if it were about thirty seconds long. 3 (Forksclovetofu)

Tom in FT /New York London Paris Munich • No Comments

THE SQUARE TABLE 18 / Alcazar – “This Is The World We Live In”

POP FACTOR: 857 CONTROVERSY RATING: 174

My second favourite record of the year – ten out of ten! Ten squared! Can I justify that? Maybe. There are a lot of things I can use music for – catharsis, communication, comfort, profundity, scratching a technophile itch, a hundred others. In my life music has done some of these things well, some poorly. But what are the things that only music can do to me? One is make me dance – not that I do enough of that, these days. The other is to give me what this gives me, a joyful moment of self-erasing, transporting intensity. Almost nothing else – and certainly no other artform – can provide that wide-eyed feeling, which comes without effort, cost or consequence.

The feeling isn’t always ‘happy’ but it’s always linked with excitement, like something’s heating up my spirit. The feeling isn’t often transferable and you can’t talk someone into it: I might get it from a stitch-up of Diana Ross and Genesis, you might be repelled. It can come and go, which is why I don’t often stand by lists. I can enjoy and admire and discuss music that doesn’t give me the feeling, in fact for the sake of conversation I prefer to leave it implied (pretend you never read this post). Sometimes everything on the radio can give me it a little; sometimes nothing can, and the songs which sent me to heaven yesterday can leave me vaguely satisfied tomorrow. But that clean hit on the pleasure centres is the irreplacable and highest truth of music for me: almost everything else is justification. 10 Joker (Tom)

I’m not entirely sure that my puny words can do this monster of a track Justice. The warped imagination of the someone who thought “i know what Upside Down needs, THE CHORUS TO LAND OF CONFUSION!” is *exactly* the sort of person we Need in the world we call pop. “And then i shall get four beautiful android kids to front it and TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!” The verses are delicious euro-nonsense, but hey, it doesn’t matter who you are, when you’re moving up with Alcazar. 10 Joker (Carsmile Steve)

I love songs which are song with lyrics which are sung in a deeply meaningful, heartfelt way – where said songs also have completely ridiculous words. I am not talking about the “Cos we’re moving up with Alcazar” bits, rather the Genesis original ones. Pompous, over-blown and a perfect fit to this pumping pop Porsche of a song.

Yes it is the soundtrack to ridiculous drinking at Glastonbury and as such cannot even be touched objectively, but if dancing round and through fire whilst off ones nut on calamacho makes me unable to judge this beauty properly then so be it. 10 Joker (Pete)

Disco double-handclaps! 10 Joker (cis)

The exact polar opposite of Gary Jules and yet more proof that production and arrangement are more important than the songs themselves. This takes the chorus from a frankly rubbish Phil Collins record and makes it brilliant purely by whacking on a hook nicked from Diana Ross’s ‘Upside Down’, a big chunky disco beat and the sort of unselfconscious sugar rush that British pop has largely abandoned since the sad demise of the original S Club. I first heard this at 1am at Glastonbury, dancing drunkenly round a tape recorder and grinning from ear to ear at the end of what is up there as one of the most out-and-out FUN days of my life. And every single time I’ve heard it since, that same ear-to-ear grin has been impossible to suppress. 10 (Matt D’Cruz)

In the beginning was the word, and the word was POP! Alcazar turn the book of Genesis upside down, and welcome you to the world God forgot to create. This is discotopia: entry free, dress smart casual (no indie-scruff here, please), soundtrack Abba, Janet Jackson, George Michael and Metallica (Tess’s favourite band). Impeccable pop classicists Alcazar have filled the Steps-shaped hole in my heart, and they can do the same for you, you and all of you. 10 (alext)

First heard this blaring out of Ricky T’s portable stereo at about 1am at Glastonbury. Instant Svensk-pop thrills from that magical land with such a terrific knack for this stuff. It feels like a BIG tune even before you reach the Genesis-pilfering chorus – that being the extra fruity segments atop this scintillating cheesecake. Problem with cheesecake is too much of it makes you feel sick very quickly, but with Alcazar the judgement and measures seem as balanced as can be, a strained but earnest degree of soul in the vocals and the slickness of production suggesting they genuinely love and believe in what they do. That’ll be having colossal amounts of fun then. I’m unsure of its durability but when they’re this focused on ‘right here, right now’ maybe I should be as well. And the thought of a hundred or so outrageous campers exploding with glee as this song is played at ‘that sort’ of club just makes me smile. 9 (Steve M)

They pillage, they plunder, they triumph. It really doesn’t matter who Alcazar’s latest sampling casualties are as long as they keep making bouncy and chirpy Europop as enjoyably brain-dead as this. Phil Collins come back, you never sounded so good. The lyrics may seem to be a sequel to Jacko’s “Heal The World,” but perhaps there are deeper things at hand.

To me, the way that Genesis and Diana Ross are rudely appropriated for Alcazar’s personal gain is akin to the way an average person brazenly manipulates another for their own advancement. When Alcazar sing “This is the world we live in / Let’s make it a place worth living,” the implicit context is all skillful exploitation of Genesis’ melody, while the explicit context is all about people bonding together for the well-being of the world. Contradiction city! Both contexts are pitted against each other as the song plays, and in the end, I have to say goodbye to the betterment of the world – because I’d rather be moving on up with Alcazar! 8.5 (Michael F Gill)

Alcazar haven’t done anything for ages – perhaps biding their time, waiting to pick the finest blend of pop tunes in the time honoured manner of the Man From Del Monte. Upside Down and Land Of Confusion are both fantastic tunes, and work together wonderfully- the tough Diana Ross boogie tune mind-expanded by an 80s concept pop lyric. And if you miss the Diana Ross vocal, that compact, sassy shuffle, well the melody is quoted by the guitars anyway. This is easily the sum of its quality ingredients, and more besides. 8 (Derek Walmsley)

Oh. Oh my. Well. Yes. Of course. 8 (Forksclovetofu)

Both of the voices and most of the upbeat and rather vacuous lyrics (fires Keeping circles turning?) remind me of happy hardcore, but the rest is much more europop, with a big slice of Francophile filter-disco – it made better sense after Listening to Daft Punk on my walkman during a fag break from the office. I think the only thing I don’t like is the strained ‘uh-ohh-oh’ backing vocal. I know nothing of these people (I think I may be the most out of touch person doing these Square Table reviews), but I like this – a strong tune, and lively music. 8 (Martin Skidmore)

Aha. The force is strong with disco retro revivalists. They always work precisely because the original hook still sounds as great as ever. But I suppose the true test is if they stand up on their own. Alcazar bump through this as if they are the only survivors of the disco era and take great delight in trying to get everyone else “moving up with Alcazar”, like some sort of dance troupe, handclapping all over the place, skiffling and sliding, or something.

I can’t fault this. It should be ripping up the clubs up and down the country but I suspect it won’t, ever. My jiving will probably have to happen with me still firmly planted to my chair. 8 (MW_Jimmy)

I must’ve dreamed a thousand dreams. But one slipped into reality. Alcazar is a sound devoid of blemishes – every sound is hyperfiltered, all fuzziness erased– so you’re left with… nothing tangible. But that’s what (Swedish) Pop is: a parallel world full of peroxide bouffant hairdos, ultra-pink handbags and winking lads. It’s a one way ticket, baby, your fake nail stuck between the stereo buttons. “This Is The World We Live In” doesn’t give a tiny Jordan’s bum about problems, it’s about Prozac induced madness. You’re stuck with a screaming grin but, strangely, there’s no way you can dance to it. Hmm. It could be merely the Diana Ross sample, it could be the cheeky way they sampled Land Of Confusion or it could merely be the Swedes re-enlisting Army of Lovers for world control. Whatever. Let’s Pop. 8 (Stevie Nixed)

I thought I might hate this, but I don’t. It’s cheesy and meta, and that’s Okay with me. I guess it’s ‘social’ music – for dancing about to, and that’s pretty alien to me, but when the video comes on, I don’t turn over to one of the shopping channels. It could do with being a bit more Eurovision, i.e the vocals ain’t so great. 6.5 (Jel)

More filter disco, this time Diana Ross’ “Upside Down” (the groove of which pretty much works in any context, though I’d be staggeringly impressed had they chosen the Jesus & Mary Chain song). But “Land Of Confusion” by Genesis is not welcome in ANY context. Not even the wonderful world of Irony would welcome this duffer. The end result is a mental Battle Royale of imagery. Hey! I’m on the dance floor! Wha?! Genesis puppets?! The dance floor! Puppets! Buzzkill, Genesis is thy name. 6 (Henry Scollard)

As much as I should love this, the band seems committed to making it a difficult relationship. Winning me over would seem easy; people accuse me of delighting in plastic, “manufactured” pop music, and I take that characterization . But as much as I love the transcendant sample, the band fails to do it justice. Naivety and insincerity swamp the chorus, and the last minute or so are unbearable. But a great first thirty seconds or so mean a 5. (Atnevon)

Hey! A Swedish pop group where the guys are cuter than the girls! Now that’s what I call music! If they could sample “Land of Confusion”, slap on the “Upside Down” chorus, and make THAT bounce in their disco castle, then I’d really be impressed. On the other (good? bad?) hand, I think I sense a bit of anti-war dissidence in the lyrics (yeah, you BET someone’s filled with hate over here in Terror Inc.), but that’s because I have “Toy Soldiers” on the brain when I should be chewing on “Super Troop-oop-er”. But, yeah, Alcazar + Miss Ross + Philbo Baggins = a move up not so much; more like a push sideways. 5 (David Raposa)

Tom in FT /New York London Paris Munich • No Comments

THE SQUARE TABLE 19 / CIARA ft PETEY PABLO – “Goodies”

POP FACTOR: 762 CONTROVERSY RATING: 205

An apology: work has been very, very busy lately. Something had to give, and that something was the Square Table. Hopefully it is now, in the immortal words of Barlow,G. “back for good”.

Touch-don’t-touch R&B very much from the Milkshake school but with added drooling from Petey Pablo. The initial bubblecrunk intrigue wore off pretty quickly for me – after a few plays the teasing turns to frustration. Some lovely sounds but they don’t – how shall I put this – give much up. 6 (Tom)

I mentioned how out of touch I’ve become in my Alcazar comments: well I’ve no idea what kind of record this is, except when Petey Pablo is rapping, in a very cool and laconic style, it sounds rather crunk to my ignorant ears, but I expect it is something quite different and probably very fashionable. It’s a beautifully controlled and produced record, and the restrained but sexy female vocals, presumably Ciara, are great. It’s got a lot of subtle, underplayed sexiness that reminds me of Prince’s ‘Kiss’ or some of the best of TLC or Kelis – I wonder if this might have the same kind of popular success as ‘Milkshake’? Given the right video, I think it might. Absolutely wonderful, and one of my favourite singles of the year. 10 Joker (Martin Skidmore)

It seems impossible that songs like this don’t make the UK Top 40. Naturally, it’s ubiquitous on this side of the Atlantic. Lil Jon and his cohorts saturate the airwaves to such a degree that it’s difficult to appreciate any one track on its own distinct merits. Then again, that may be because each of his productions adhere to such an idiosyncratic formula that they become nearly interchangeable. But even in the face of such criticism, this is simply excellent. Amazing (albeit recycled) production, great vocal hooks, occasionally-great lyrics (“You’re insinuating that I’m hot”) – I love it. More evidence that mainstream pop trumps indie foolishness every time. 10 Joker (Atnevon)

Like: acid-style synth line (actually k-like, more of this please, producers take note; breathy Tweet-lite vocals; ‘goodies’ in general. Can’t really imagine this at no. 1 in UK, though.
Dislike: mixed metaphors — image of goodies squeezed against glass jar: surely they should ‘stay in the bra’ instead?; pervey Pete Pablo drooling over the goodies — couldn’t we be left to imagine the goodies-grabbers? (also makes listener third party to goodies-perve dialogue, rather than placed in perve position).
Generally bored of: war of the sexes R&B. 9 (alext)

this might be up there with Usher’s ‘Yeah’ by the end of the year though this is my first listen. the immediate distinction between this and that is the male/female vocal switcheroo. she sounds so flighty, breathless, high and concerned but still soothing like Beyonce in her quieter moments, he’s all whatever (‘i been workin at it ever since i came to this planet, i ain’t quite there yet but i’m gettin’ better at it’), such modesty a rare treat in this game. apart from a few sweet little nuances like that, not much else to say and i can’t get THAT excited about it. maybe too subtle – though that may prove to be a real strength in weeks to come and it should ride the crunk wave pretty well as it’s one for ladies AND fellas in equal measure. 8 (Steve M)

It’s a sort of Milkshake reshook, a dirty South jailbait come hither. The tiger-in-the-cage bass line, the freekaleek whistles and synths, the Faux-yonce vocal stylings, the de rigeur hip hop chorus… it’s all been done before. Not quite this nice, LATELY tho; which is a helluva saving grace. This is lean and nasty and struts on high heels it stole from mommy’s closet. Play ball. 8 (Forksclovetofu)

Neptunes?
Well a little rooting around sees me put wrong on that. It’s Lil’ Jon no less – the guy who spoils recording two-fold by getting himself on the record and also appearing in the videos. Thankfully not here.

What are her Goodies?
Where I am from goodies are sweets. I hope the video is Ciara naked in a sea of Werthers Original.

Better than (I’m obviously alluding to it) Kelis’ Milkshake?
Better put the headphones on. Yes, it’s sonically going on. Left, right, left. Snippets of things here and there, not quite giving us enough. Production is minimalist; it’s very reminiscent of Rosco P. Coldchain – Hot.

Best Bit?
The introduction of cowboy theme when the bad guy rappers arrive.

I’m sold. 8 Joker (MW-Jimmy)

“Goodies” is a slowed down “Yeah.” A Crunk & B tune that lacks the grit of Usher’s ultra-laser single. As such it doesn’t scream, instead it floats around you. Kinda overdosing on codeine. Although it’s supposed to be a Ciara tune, it’s Peter Pablo – basically a less manic Lil’Jon substitute – that dominates this track. Ciara’s sumnambulic singing appeals but never convinces. Cookies, boobies, whatever. She’s teaching us/Petey a lesson: you may have the bling, she’s not buying. Or selling. Like I said, whatever. Beyonce already taught me all I had to know about being independent. The lyrics don’t really matter, it’s the twangy guitar and the whistle that have me most hooked. Bada Boom Bada 7 (Stevie Nixed)

The dumb rapping at the start is a red herring, ’cause the gossamer female vocals are the main thing to relish. Smooth vocals catalyse an otherwise low key production (G-funk style synth sounding like the dry whine of a phone left off the hook). The lyrics describe a tantalising come-and-get-me flirtation. Not much happens, but it stays in the aural-erogenous zone expertly. 7 (Derek Walmsley)

Sex can occasionally be interrupted by moments of blandness. It happens. “Goodies” has enough going for it – the achingly stark vocals, a rough minimal beat, the synth from Usher’s “Yeah!” – to provide me with a sensual and insidious thrill, yet all of the additional adornments (Petey Pablo’s languid rapping, the vocal layering on Ciara’s voice) threaten to bring the sizzle down to a simmer. It?s a curious song to hit the #1 spot, since it doesn?t have a huge hook to grab onto, but we mustn?t underestimate the power of sexual allure. More girly crunk, please! 7 (Michael Gill)

For the first time in this Square Table I’ve been confronted with a record and an artist I know absolutely nothing about, so presumably this is massive in the States at the moment. Still, it allows me to approach Goodies with an open mind and… its not at all bad, actually. It sounds like a crunk record, great Southern drawl in the opening verse, but with all the awkward edges sanded off and glossed over with that great girly pop chorus. I can’t imagine a record like this really hitting big over here, but that says more about how far apart our singles charts are than anything else. Its probably too sparse, too minimal, to really appeal to UK radio programmers, but nonetheless I approve. 7 (Matt D’Cruz)

Goodies. Never really liked them. I always rooted for the baddies. And rooting is what this song is all about, which goes to show that goodies have changed a lot since I were a nipper.

Nice squeeky bit, but both the breathy lady sex bits and bored man sex rapping are inferior to other entries in this genre. 4 then, though if I think about Graham Garden, Bill Oddie and Tim Brooke-Taylor that score goes down to a 3, as the idea of a hairy ornithologist getting down to this is ALL WRONG. (Pete)

Bootylicious for about 10 seconds, but then turns into “Freak-a-leak” with Casios set to stunt and featuring the little Dutch dike boy cock blocking and sandbagging in his smart li’l clogs. Methinks a little carpetbagging’s happening here, too – sure, come on North, all you fine Southern pimps; bring your crunk and your draaaaaaarwl and maybe we can hook you up w/ some nice round reparations, sloppy seconds style. But, please, only able-bodied folk need cross the Mason-Dixon. Lady folk that sound like they hit the pipe sing like they got no pipes, and there ain’t no need to lay that rusty sort of stuff up here. 3 (David Raposa)

Tom in FT /New York London Paris Munich • No Comments

THE SQUARE TABLE 20 / Fatboy Slim – “Slash Dot Dash”

POP FACTOR: 342 CONTROVERSY RATING: 247

Simultaneously lazy and ballsy, a rum way to end a pop career but weeks away from its brief radio life at least it sounds like a footnote, so not as undignified as it might have been. As a track on one of the prime Fatboy albums it would have worked great – a little in-joke irritant to keep the party mischievous. As a stand alone – eh? 3 (Tom)

You could say this is one of the worst songs ever recorded, but it’s not really a song. It’s a bad idea, repeated over and over. It has no entertainment value, no value in being so bad it’s good, it has no meaning. It’s just terrible. 0 (jel)

Considering the likes of the Go! Team and Teddybears STHLM have recently – and surprisingly – been striking pop gold with elements of the Fatboy sound, its more than a little disappointing to see Norman Cook return with a track that fails on almost every conceivable level.

Slash Dot Dash would have sounded lame as a throwaway skit on a Rephlex release from 1999, let alone as a comeback release from the most famous face in British dance music. Who exactly does our Norm think this record is supposed to appeal to? The beat would struggle to ignite even the least discerning dancefloor, the vocal sample is too intrusive, and the guitar solo would elicit little more than a rush to the bar/toilet at your average indie disco. (Slash dash! Do you see?) There doesn’t even appear to be anything worth stealing for a decent remix. Thank heavens it’s only two and half minutes long. 0 (Matt D’Cruz)

Wire’s “Dot Dash” re-written as a wide-eyed jingle for an animated car commercial? This is the sort of pea-brain, sample-based dance track that nearly anyone with a computer and a couple of Acid loops can make nowadays. The main difference is that Norman Cook makes a living producing disposable plastic like this. “The Rockafeller Skank” might have sounded fresh to mainstream ears in 1998, but no-one asked for this carbon copy of a dim flash at the end of 2004. 2 (Michael Gill)

Go back into history, realize you left Rockafella Skank half-breathing on the dance floor. Revive it, give it a new name and serve it with an ironic vocal sample. The internet is so passe – that shoulda been “dot org” Mr Slim Not So Shady – even when it stutters around a surf guitar. The main problem I have with the song – apart from its block rocking dumbness – is that it won’t even get the lads dancing. Or maybe that’s a good thing? Dot dot dud. 3 (Stevie Nixed)

IT’S annoying IN a REALLY unsubtle WAY like A neon LIGHT flashing IN your WINDOW. slash DOT dash DOT slash DOT slash DOT com DOT com LIKE a MOUNTAIN dew AD with CARROTTOP slash DOT slash DOT and EVERYTHING everyone THOUGHT fatboy SLIM would SOUND like AND what DO you KNOW he DOES sound LIKE a REPETITIVE fratboy LET loose ON a SOUNDBOARD just MAKE it STOP now please.

It’s not so much that I hate it as that it makes me want to change the channel. But then I never cared much for that station anyway. 3 (Forksclovetofu)

There’s some XBox game – hell, there’s probably a bunch of applicable XBox games – where repeatedly pushing a button in a certain situation caused a character to repeat the same soundbite. Waiting for Player 1 to return from a potty break, or running through a boring stretch of plot-related hoohah, I’d entertain myself with a little re-re-re-r-remixing of that dialogue snippet. So, yeah – if I had access to quality recording equipment, I too would slap that jive talkin’ on top of a tepid fast beat and see how large a throng I can get throbbing and twirling with it. Norman, you lucky slack bastard, I salute you. 3 (David Raposa)

Dumbfounding. The rumbling bass is dance-inspiring, but the vocal sample eats at my nerves whenever I get going. Even without that, though, I don’t know that this functions so well even as a pop track – it’s short enough, but it’s not engaging. Feels dated too. 3 (Atnevon)

I could laugh, but it would just turn to tears anyway. This is a shockingly bad record and I say that as someone who thought the last album was great fun (I even liked the Macy Gray stuff). What happened Normy? I’ve often thought that married life just saps the creative spark from people (perhaps Liam Howlett is another example, though not even anything on the latest Prodigy album is as kamikaze yet retarded as this) and you’re only serving to prove this daft paper bag of a suggestion may actually hold some water. Riotous in a bad way, yet wretchedly predictable and formulaic much like the rest of the new album. I’ll give it something just because it reminds me of the theme from Art Attack and Neil Buchanan has more talent in his paint-drenched right thumb than Mr Cook has left in his entire self on the evidence of this cacophonous trouble gum. Oh God, I am now officially ‘teh old’… 3 (Steve M)

A stoopid surf guitar lick is the only thing that delineates what’s the chorus and what’s the verse here, and even that sounds like aimless jamming, like a misplaced band in that holistic jam that Jools Holland does as the start of each show. This is a structure on which to hang samples- I mean who LISTENS to this stuff? Yet the thing is, we all do- it’ll be ubiquitious on TV and radio trailers for ages. Cook knows this, which is why the actual track is only 2 minutes long. It’s marginally more proficient than most trash-dance singles, so it gets a slightly above average 6 (Derek Walmsley)

A comment on internet culture goes the press release. Yeah right, as if anybody will buy that crock of crap. You got bored and some PR guy told you this would be a good idea. You knocked it out in your tea-break. You know shit sells.

But this is enjoyable. Pleasingly primitive in its delivery. The Slash, Dot & Com simply and rather cleanly cut and pasted multiple times over a short guitar riff, over and over and over again. Dot com, dot com DOT COM. Completely dumb but strangely compelling. Ill happily plead musical ignorance for this short 2:20 of pleasure. 7 (MW_Jimmy)

The title and its repetition are a bit irritating, and any future-shock glamour of ‘dot com’ feels as much a thing of the past as Fatboy himself does now: but I really like the music – it sounds no more like big beat than it does like a rather old-fashioned crime movie theme, rumbling along with pace and energy, suggesting exciting gun- and car-related action, almost a modern Duane Eddy. I’m always glad to hear some prominent scratching too. Has there ever been a shorter dance music single, assuming the official version really is 2.20? I would have welcomed another minute, at least, and I imagine the release will have some lengthier mixes. Still, tremendously enjoyable, bar the lyrics. 8 (Martin Skidmore)

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