What’s on your RIO?: My new MP3 player is just so lovely, even if it is objectively speaking an overpriced gew-gaw which is a hassle to update all the time. But from my single-holic point of view, it’s a treat. What have I been listening to? Well, apart from a certain mimsy Scots band, the following:
–Act‘s awesome “Snobbery And Decay”, the 12″ mix with hilarious spoken word asides (“Charter a small private jet…”) from Claudia Brucken. It’s a late-80s anti-yuppie song which itself sounds like a million dollars, so you can have your nostalgia cake and eat it.
– DMX‘s monster “Party Up”: how come these damned enormous hip-hop hits never hit so big over here? “It sounds like a sports game”, said Fred, and he’s right, but DMX takes it with the poised aggro of a great sports player.
– Stacey Q‘s “Two Of Hearts”, which again we never got in England. The beat is on, Q sings with a mouth full of icing sugar, the stutter almost trumps Britney for voice-manipulation pop kicks.
– The Dandy Warhol‘s “Nietzche”, big dumb drum fun. Their new album is a deeply frustrating record – just like Daria, the funny bits are way less funny for trying so hard to be deadpan.
– The Television Personalities‘ “Part Time Punks”, a showdown between nasty snobbery and Biscuit-style observation-comedy. The shambolic good-naturedness means that the comedy wins out, easy.