Tracks of the year, 34 - 25

"Take a good look at my face, and if my smile looks out of place, then you could do worse than have a listen to my tracks of the year" - sing it, it scans pretty well.

34. Chairlift - I Belong In Your Arms



This may be another thing that got me into Fleetwood Mac, seeing a review of this that said it sounded like a Christine McVie song. So I listened to her songs off Tango in The Night and it really does, but with more of a John Hughes film vibe mixed into it too. Terrifying thing - the 80's revival has lasted longer than the 80's at this point. Even scarier, the 50's has been revived even longer. The second it goes, it gets revived, but I'm wondering what from the 2010s will be revived and revisited - possibly there'll be loads of stuff that sounds like Burial. Simon Reynolds is right again, but you all knew that. Retromania writ large. All that aside, what really matters is that this is a fantastic, wintry sounding synth-pop song, and I love it. There's an abundance of great hooks crammed into it's short running time; I hate the term "perfect pop" but if such a thing exists (and it doesn't) this is a great example of it.

33. Aht Uh Mi Head - Shuggie Otis (from Inspiration Information)



Another most certainly not from this year but it really sounds like it could be, doesn't it? All I knew about Shuggie Otis up to the point of listening to it was that he was an early adopter of the drum machine and you can hear a primitive drum machine sputtering away on this one along with an almost toy like organ sound. If you brought a track that sounded like this out now it would still sound fresh, and that could be said if it came out any year since 1974 when it originally did. There's a run on theme in these last two choices of sorts that's painful to write out but simple to just realise - Aht Uh Mi Head sounds both AHEAD of it's time and OF it's time. Just as with the Disco Inferno choice before, you get the impression that if Shuggie was making this record now he'd use the technology and equipment available to him, not engage in pointless retro fetishism, but even if he did his voice is soulful as all hell so you'd forgive him.

32. Usher - Climax (from Scream)



Ugh. "Alternative R&B". What an oxymoron - it has been the mainstream, the mainstay of the charts for years now. I can see the Reynolds argument that some of it is so sonically inventive you can't help but like it, and in a few cases I agree. A good pop song is a good pop song, and there are plenty of artists like James Blake, The Xx, How To Dress Well and the like for who R&B was a big influence on their work, and know what it's been a big influence on mine too, it being inescapable as it is. I just can't help but think that while artists should be kicking against the pricks what they seem to be doing is in fact slobbering all over them. Good pop is good pop, good music is good music but a lot of it isn't good music, it's just Guetta shite with ill thought out misogynistic drool all over it. Homophobia from the mouths of preening manicured vest wearing tarts. And frankly, who needs that?

My problem with a lot of the so called R&B stuff coming out now is there's no blues anymore in there, the soul influence is pretty much dead replaced with a mix of the worst novelty hip hop records and the worst (and there are very few good ones) in sidechained chart dance music. There's no blues, just a wall of neon, the blues replaced with a dead behind the eyes hedonistic nihilism. Which is fine if you sound good but it doesn't, it's designed to be the soundtrack to predatory men cornering lonely cokehead girls on the dancefloor, same in every town.

But this record you do need in your life. That strain of R&B-influenced post-dubstep stuff influenced this R&B chart smash, and it really is good. There's a strain of melancholy in a lot of this stuff that's quite easy to pick out - "Dance like it's the last night of your life", anyone, but this takes it to another level. The vocal performance and production are great - not a spot of Autotune, tasteful use of falsetto, gentle dubstep-esque rhythms in the chorus. I've not liked many of his tracks but this one is excellent.

31. Cocorosie - Beautiful Boyz (from Noah's Ark)



Not a new one. I'm going to stop saying that before every track that isn't, this one was new to me. It features Antony Hegarty, which improves most things - here he sings the chorus which passed the litmus test for a great pop song by lodging in my head whenever the song is mentioned. The woman from Cocorosie who sings and whose name I don't know is really good too, her delivery mirroring Antony's in its unhinged beauty. The song is about Jean Genet, apparently, a writer who I also investigated this year to see what the fuss was about and I found him quite interesting. In a parallel universe this would've went to Number One and stayed there for ages when it came out, a sane universe that is. I found this through How To Dress Well's Live Yourself mix, so thanks to that guy.

30. Whitehouse - Cut Hands Has The Solution (from Bird Seed)



I've not actually checked out much Whitehouse, what I have done I've liked but it falls into the trap a lot of noise acts do of the output being pretty homogenous. Which is fine if you like it but it's something I can take or leave. The problem I have with a lot of art that is aimed at challenging and shocking me is I just find it really funny and actually quite conservative in the way that it goes for the easy mission of "winding up liberals" which A) is like shooting fish in a barrel and B) having the same homophobic, misogynist, racist attitudes as the ruling classes isn't exactly a blow against the status quo, is it? On the other hand, in the interest of balance, you could make the point (as I sometimes do somewhat optimistically) that by juxtaposing these outdated attitudes with references to far-right politics, rape and serial killers, these artists are actually pointing out how harmful these mainstream but ugly views are. In the case of people like William Bennett and Dominic Fernow, I'd think this is actually the case as they're obviously very intelligent people.

Cut Hands Has The Solution does not fail, because with very few ingredients (I like cooking metaphors) it engenders a reaction in me which I found very surprising. Just one monotonous plodding drum beat trudging on, and on, and on, some whirring electronic tones and a voice alternatively shouting and speaking in a calm but slightly terse manner. The text read out mixes the language of self-help with references to self-harm and strange methods of torture, and as with the best records it's hard to explain why it's good. It just is. It may not be to your taste. It may be your taste. But I'll tell you, it's helping, I'll tell you, you're doing the right thing.

29. Holy Other - Touch



Again, I find it hard how to explain why I like this, but as with Burial, Holy Other is not a cult of personality act, just a guy anonymously making great music and manipulating (presumably) the sampled voice of others to speak his message. In a way this idea is another way of the listener projecting their own preferred meaning onto a text, whether it be a song or a photo or a literal text, inventing their own backstory and a whole inner life of the song. In this case the only lyrics are "I've been looking for your touch", and "Everything you touch" sang in that same androgynous alien cut-up way as the voice on Burial's Archangel (or loads of other Burial songs).

Holy Other's name read aloud is also Wholly Other and he both is and isn't. Loads of people are doing stuff like this, it's just they're not doing it on a trendy well promoted label (spot any bitterness?). To be fair, nor are they doing it as well as he does, presumably. There's got to be some kind of limit on music this transcendent. It's all build, build, but when it switches and gets more 2-steppy it's a real eargasm moment. Slinky and spooky, like the best in electronic music.

28. Grimes - Oblivion (from Visions)



The soul and R&B thing's big this year, eh? It certainly fed into Grimes, who listed two of her biggest inspirations as Mariah Carey and Marilyn Manson - but she's better than both of them, so that's okay. Oblivion is a lovely, sighing helium-high falsetto pop song that reminded me more than anything of something Annie would do when I first heard it. The wisps of alien backing vocals and self harmonies here make me a bit jealous, and if I sang along all the nearby dogs would join in with me. The R&B influence is less obvious than on, say, How To Dress Well but it's there in the inventive percussion and melismatic vocals it just happens that here it's accompanied by synths that could be from a peak era Depeche Mode track. Definitely not a bad thing at all.

Makes perfect sense that Grimes is signed to 4AD, there's a kind of continuity between her vocal style and that of Elizabeth Fraser, where the words are almost secondary. Here the phrase "See you in the dark night" flits around and refuses to leave your head. Litmus test for a great record passed - it's staying in your head whether you like it or not.

27. The Weekend - XO/The Host (from Echoes of Silence)



From a free mixtape last year but re-released with added tracks as part of the Trilogy album, XO/The Host is the extended prog-R&B centerpiece of the Echoes of Silence tape from around this time last year (you've gotta love it - release three great free albums last year then reissue them "remastered" as a physical release. The remasters sound worse than the originals too). The lyrical content of this one is pretty standard, unabashed victim blaming, misogyny and cash-flashing as you'd expect. It's a world I want nothing to do with but The Weeknd makes it interesting by acknowledging the ugliness of it all. Technically it's lyrically well crafted and Abel Tesfae has a great voice, but it's all about the production for me.

The stabs of distorted guitar, wavering synthetic strings, semi-dubstep drum programming (soon to be R&B's new tiresome trope but for now it still works), ghostly backing vocals and that segue into the The Host section where the regular drums drop out to be replaced by a slow, intermittent tattoo, that's what it's about for me. In this production what could be the thing of a tiresome Chris Brown stupid-fest takes on a whole new dimension, but the importance of Abel's phrasing and nuanced delivery definitely helps. It was hard to pick just one Weeknd track for me, so there'll be another later, as the House of Balloons and Echoes of Silence tapes are fantastic.

26. Scritti Politti - The Boom Boom Bap (from White Bread and Black Beer)



See, this guy knows where I'm coming from. Green Gartside, another reason to be proud of having Welsh roots, went from post-punk to producing lushly produced soul/R&B with lyrics a step up from the usual R&B fare (like "true as the Tractatus"), before getting more and more into hip hop and collaborating with hip hop. Part of the appeal for him could easily be the same as my own aesthetic attraction to The Weeknd and stuff of that sort - it's exotic, because you know that you'll probably never go there yourself. Green is also pretty heavily into folk music, and of course hip hop was a late 20th century form of folk music, one not as beloved by the real ale and beard stroking crowd but folk music nontheless just the same as punk was and dubstep is.

The Boom Boom Bap is lushly produced and I recoiled from it on first listen, that late 90's/early 2000's R&B sheen combined with his androgynous tenor made me think of some boyband atrocity. Then as the song progressed the real, beating heart of the song emerged. The lyrics are, again, excellent: "The yes yes y'all was the siren call to come around to our life", progressing through a verse consisting of Run DMC songtitles (Hard times, Sucker MCs) to the closing lines "I love you still, I always will". It's open to your interpretation I guess who that's addressed to. Is it addressed to hip hop; is it addressed to the listener, or someone he knows; or is it addressed to music itself? I don't know. It doesn't matter.

25.  Julian Cope - Roswell (from Psychedelic Revolution)


The thing I like about Julian Cope is the same thing I like about The Fall and hip hop. I like prolific artists who weed things out less, who don't abide by the one 10 - 13 track album every 3 years schedule. With more and more artists releasing independently there's less and less need to stick to the release model of a rapidly fading industry. Well, it pretends it's fading, the sales of the Adele album and some others recently speak for themselves. Albums don't outsell Dark Side of the Moon in a time when people aren't buying music, people! Some people are still buying music - just a shame record company employees are being sacked to make up for the funds lost and shops are closing instead of the executives taking fewer holidays and living in, say, just one house. Downloading is a convenient excuse to behave like an avaricious pig.


Now onto talking about the artist. Julian Cope is a great singer and songwriter, and this gets overlooked in favour of talking about his madness. He reminds me a lot of Bowie, which isn't because he sounds a lot like him but because they have roughly the same two big prominent influences - Scott Walker and Iggy Pop, even if he doesn't like Scott much anymore. As important as Cope's madness is to his work, the fact he's a stone cold genius is too often ignored. I think the reason a lot of critics ignore him is that not only is he an immensely talented artist but he does their job better than them too! This track reminds me a bit of a more meditative Safesurfer which can only be a good thing, but here he keeps a less is more approach right until the end. Whatever I wrote about this song itself wouldn't do it justice, so just play it.

Tracks of the Year, 2012, 45 - 35

The usual proviso/disclaimer with these things - this list is not in any order of value, some of these tracks I like more than others but that's about it. It's been a good year for music but every year is a good year for music, there'll be none of this "Things were better in (insert year)" false nostalgia from me. Some of these aren't actually all that new, just new to me, so if you're reading it to scoop up stuff you've missed this year from just this year then you will definitely, definitely be disappointed. But if you really want to get technical about it, plenty of songs released this year weren't recorded last year anyway, were they? Quite a few of these songs aren't new but they're new to me. So if you're reading this (highly unlikely, I only write things like this to get it out of my system and avoid boring my friends, family and strangers) you may still discover something great. There are 45 songs in this multi part, and there may well be multiple tracks by the same artist but I'll try to keep it down per entry. Definitely only one per album.

45. The XX - Chained (from Co Exist) 



No beating around the bush here, this year's XX album sounds just like the first XX album sounded - sparse, saying nothing really but said it beautifully. When I heard the first new track Angels I liked it a lot, but this second track provoked the age old "this is brilliant" reaction - I put it on again, and again, and it's lost none of its splendour (which SHOULD go without saying, yeah, but there're plenty of songs that provoke the repeat listening reaction only to be drained by that burst of replaying). This is sparse but there're always new details I pick out, even if I'm picking them out for the 10th time. That Burial-esque "2step with one foot in the grave" rattle that underpins the whole thing, loads of people are doing it (I'm one of them) but Jamie XX is one of the best among them to my mind, even if Far Nearer by him has a sample that sounds like someone singing "I fell down a well" all the way through it. He's far better with The XX, especially the Tracey Thorn-esque longing in Romy Madley Croft's voice.

44. Patrick Wolf - Vulture (from Sundark and Riverlight)



I'm not one for the "rework your own material" glorified best of album, Kate Bush's attempt last year, while interested, didn't really add anything to most of the songs. Vulture only came out a few years ago, too, on the Bachelor album that it's trendy to slag off (possibly as he's an openly bisexual artist who makes political statements and is sonically inventive, not the done thing these days). I loved the perv-pop of the original but this version actually moved me. I'm really interested to see what he does next, after what was to me the misstep of Lupercalia he's definitely back on form it seems. Maybe he's realised that trying to be too "normal" doesn't suit him.

43. Fleetwood Mac - Tango In The Night (from Tango In The Night)



Not a new one by any means, in fact it's from before I was born but after seeing a documentary on Fleetwood Mac I realised how nuts their story was and Lindsey Buckingham's contributions were, are and will continue to be. Also Pictureplane's Seven Wonders sampling for the track Goth Star pushed me to check out this album, and when I finally listened to it this track blew me away. The strange operatic chorus consisting of the word "Tango" stretched out for ages, the dated synths playing off his trademark fingerpicking, the vague but evocative lyrics and the closing solo where he shows why he's the envy of and a huge inspiration for guitarists who hear him - what's not to like? It's great that a band who were this big had moments this odd on their records. The weird glitziness of this has rubbed off on me a bit.

42. Death Grips - I've Seen Footage (from The Money Store)



I'm not your typical "spell everything out" journalist so if you're reading this and don't already know about the No Love Deep Web fiasco/promo stunt then look it up, it's exciting stuff and a great shooting yourself in the foot punk gesture. People who're prepared to risk legal battles to defend their right to be prolific, I can't knock that. It'd be more powerful if this had been one of the tracks on No Love Deep Web, instead of the (subjectively, to me) inferior material on it. I've Seen Footage reminds me, in a weird way, of Replicas by Tubeway Army, and that whole period of Gary Numan's career. You can't get much higher a compliment from me (unless I'm comparing you to one of the instrumentals which marrs Replicas). Is there more hip hop that sounds like angry crackheads shouting over late 70's - early 80's Numan outtakes? Please find me some if so.

41. Angel Haze - New York (from Reservation)



If this was in order of merit this'd be near the top. The second I heard Angel Haze I fell in love with her delivery but this track (which happily everyone else has picked up on and realised how brilliant she is) is just something else, isn't it? Jamie XX rears his head again, a track from his Gil Scott Heron remix album sampled as part of the beat - it's a pretty minimal beat but it needs to be to make room for her performance. When she half-sings "I run New York" you believe she could if she wanted to, and due to her delivery "I'm Satan and I'ma take your ass to church now" is one of the lines of the year for me. Hard to pick a track off Reservation, there's so many good ones on there, it was this or the remix of Das Racist's Jungle Fever.

40. Kanye West featuring Big Sean, Pusha T and 2 Chainz - Mercy



Yes, 2012 was when I really got hip hop, mainstream or otherwise, and picked up on the mixtape phenomenon really late in the game. It was a natural progression as I'm a lyric man - I like lyrics to look good on the page and sound good too, but the meaning is almost secondary as because I'm usually not au fait with the life of the artist and what went into the song I'm going to be projecting my own meaning onto it anyway. Even if I know the artist's intentions, I'm going to project another meaning onto it anyway. I also like a bit of arrogance, and there's spades of that in hip hop, miles apart from the "muttering into their sleeves, waiting for approval of their opinion" indie mileu. DON'T tell me you're just like me in interviews and in your songs, it's insulting to both of us. If Bowie had done that, we wouldn't have Ziggy, Low or even the much underrated 1.Outside. It's okay to have dreams and aspirations!

All this is lending false profundity to Mercy which is basically your standard bitches and money mainstream chart-rap brag. Of course it sounds good, a hell of a lot of people worked on it, most of them making more in a day than we would in a decade. The chopped up hook is good, even if it is basically an advert for Lambourginis, but there's a real energy about this track. It's impeccably produced, with the Shakespeare sample, the synths and the piano line that gets stuck in your ears like wax, but there's still something off about it as there often is with Kanye's stuff, whether it be 808s and Heartbreak and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy clipping all over the shop or as here the way the drums are slightly out of step and 2 Chainz drop happens before Kanye's even stopped rapping. This just adds to the appeal, for me. Funny how he gets main billing on what is basically a posse track as he only does one verse and also shares production duties, but quibbling aside it's great - I especially like how the beat changes for his verse (and "Most rappers taste level ain't at my waist level" shouldn't be as good a line it is but it's all down to delivery).

This record is so good because when I write it down I don't get why I like it so much but when I play it I do.

39. Perfume Genius - Hood (from Put Ur Back N 2 It)



Now this track hit me full in the heart when I first heard it and still does. It's short and very bittersweet and again, shows how a good lyric can be something majestic with the right delivery. Very few music videos are actually worthwhile, as far as I'm concerned, but the bold, beautiful video to Hood (Mike Perfume Genius playing the twink dressed up in drag and later as Freddie Kruger by a large, hairy, musclebound porn star) is a piece of art in it's own right. The video also showed the homophobia/sexual wrongheadedness still shamefully prevalent even in more purportedly liberal quarters of society - this video judged inappropriate by Youtube, but you can listen to songs like ET by Katy Perry where she sexualises the idea of abduction without censure, don't worry about that. All that pales into insignificance when you hear the sub-2 minute girl-group-pop via David Lynch song itself. The sentiment "You would never love me if you knew me truly" is one that's easy to relate to, but the yearning he somehow pours into the line "I wish I grew up the second I first held you in my arms" is indescribable so just listen to it. I'll even forgive him spelling his album title like a twat.

38. Lana Del Rey - Born To Die (from Born To Die)



Strictly speaking last year, but I only heard it this year and it's lodged in my head today so here it is. Someone else using that now trendy Lynch aesthetic, someone else to spark the hoary old authenticity debate - for the last time, The Beatles, Pistols and Elvis were all controlled by their managers and Springsteen's had more plastic surgery work done than her so stop going on about her lips, the multi-millionaire symbol of the working man was going bald in the 80s and now has a lower hairline than I do, go figure. Smeone else doing great pop songs that lodge in your head. Lana is a hip hop literate Doris Day, I would've put Video Games in the list, obvious and great as it is, but I just like this one more. The high concept video does the opposite to me that the last track does, glorifying as it does women being drawn to physically abusive "bad boys" - but not showing that it happens isn't going to stop it, really.

Part of what appeals to me is the unabashed bleakness and nihilism of that statement - "we were born to die", true as it is, a subversion of "we were born to run" but it means exactly the same thing. There's a lot of bleakness and nihilism in the charts, sugarcoated in shitty Euro production that could be from any point in the last 20 years, music originating in gay clubs being danced to by beer sweating homophobes. The production is better on Born To Die, the songwriting is better, her voice is great, communicating so much in a sighing, numbed way and if Richey Edwards was alive he'd love it too.

37. Jesu - Tired of Me (from Jesu)



The two link up as far as I'm concerned, both are expressions of the same emotions, it's just Justin Broadrick's version is marginally less produced and sugar coated. It just so happens that instead of doomy trip hop beats and swaying strings he uses a doomy trip hop beat (but slower and through a few more pedals) and layers of distorted down tuned guitars. The melody is no less beautiful, and although many people categorise Jesu as metal I wouldn't as when I think metal I think purism and Broadrick's work is never totally straight ahead, there's always a lot of influences feeding into it - this is a man who's gone on record being equally enthusiastic about drum'n'bass 12"s, Teenage Fanclub, Celtic Frost, Public Enemy and Red House Painters. What he feels is what I feel - it's not about genres, it's about mood, and there's a melancholy running all the way through his work that really strikes a chord with me. "I'm so tired of me, withered and unclean, I'm too blind to see shit that is me". He's really not dressing it up but the soaring melody attached to it makes it uplifting, til the instrumental coda with the military drums confirms that tiny germ of an idea that it's going to be alright. That's always the point you may feel there's something in your eye, and your other eye, and your heart.

36. Odd Future - Oldie (from Odd Future Mixtape Vol. 2)



A 10 minute epic with most of Odd Future on it from this year's Odd Future Mixtape Vol.2 (mixtapes are supposed to be free guys, keep up). The album's not flawless, there's plenty of lazy shock tactics and as with a lot of hip hop albums it goes on way too long but it's better than Kanye's Cruel Summer (not saying much). Another one where written down I should hate it - it drags on too long, loads of cliches and dead wood, but the bits that're good are so very very good that it still winds up on the list (which again isn't in order of merit otherwise this'd be at the bottom. But still on there.).

The very very good bits are Tyler's verses and especially his second one that ends the song; Frank Ocean's verse - Ocean should do more rapping, he's got a real lazy golden age of hip hop voice; and Earl's verse, by miles. It's only been a year or two since his Earl tape came out but he's already developed so much that it's scary. This is best illustrated by the fact that his verse is longer than anyone else's, and he completely steals the show. The beat is pretty good, too, I'd swear it was made of old funk samples if I didn't know that Odd Future productions don't use samples.

35. Disco Inferno - Summer's Last Sound (from the 5 EPs)



This isn't a new band either and the fact that it isn't really made me sad. I heard this and thought "What the hell is this, it's brilliant", the bird song intro giving way to a steady build up that never quite crescendos with this voice ranting with great intensity but a kind of weary detachment too. "Fruits get bricks in windows and foreigners get hushed up trials", true as ever. There was something Joy Division like about it but if Joy Division formed now more informed about sampling and synthesis and immersed in the good side of shoegaze and hip hop, not a retro-fetishist glorified tribute to the great band. I wanted to hear more by them and then I looked to see this had been released the year I was born, and to be honest I felt quite angry because we've not moved on at all since then.

The lyrics are the thing about this, they look good on paper and they sound good low in the mix, half-ranted, but the meaning I'd project onto them seems to be the meaning Ian Crause intended. I read a great interview with him by Neil Kulkarni on the Quietus and his intensity seems undimmed, I bought a copy of the 5 EPs and excitedly played this track to someone I wanted to work on some music with, saying, "This is what we have to live up to". He just looked at me blankly, not getting why I was moved so much by it and to be honest this was around the point I realised it wasn't going to work. Not because he didn't like it but because he couldn't see the value of that or anything else I threw at him. Pop music telling unpopular truths, that's the stuff dreams are made of. If you're not touching people's hearts, then what's the point?

This touches mine. Thank you, Disco Inferno.

Frank Ocean - Channel Orange review

Channel Orange is my album of the year so far. Normally I'd be resistant to this level of hype but as far as I can see (hear) it really is that good. As occasionally happens, this is great pop music that is also very popular, being towards the top of the charts in various places in the world and breaking into the UK Top 20 before it had been physically released, breaking UK Records by debuting at No.2.

All reviews of this album are obligated to mention how Ocean "came out" as bisexual in the form of a letter on his Tumblr (included in the CD package) before the album was released, after speculation arose based on a few male pronouns on the album in love songs. I put came out in quotation marks as, typically, he did it in a much more nuanced way then saying "I'm bi". Instead he wrote movingly about how his first (and unrequited) love was a man, starting the letter with the phrase "I'm starting to think we're a lot alike". The fact that all reviews mention this isn't just journalistic gossiping though - the combination of this letter makes the proper opening track (after a brief Playstation sampling interlude) Thinking About You hit like a bomb. This had already been released but appears here with a gorgeous new string arrangement.

A few other tracks were actually enhanced by this revelation - Bad Religion, an organ led torch song and album highlight as previewed on Jimmy Fallon, is a rush hour confessional to a taxi driver drawing parallels between spiritual love and secular sexual love where he protests how he "can never make him love me" simultaneously referencing the homophobia at the heart of organised religion and the unrequited love that to him "is nothing but a one man cult". Similarly, Forrest Gump's admiration of a man "so buff, so strong...running my mind boy" is probably more likely to be about the guy in the letter than a crush on Tom Hanks. Indeed the song's postscript of footsteps walking out of a car, through the rain and into his house, shutting the door echoes the detail in the letter that following Ocean's admission of love the object of his desires left the car they were in and went back inside to his girlfriend.

This album is about more than an artist in a largely homophobic subculture coming out of the closet where no man has (willingly) gone before - even if it wasn't it'd be important but what is most important is how good the other tracks are too. There's the sparkling, Pharrel Neptune produced Sweet Life where the chorus "Why see the world when you got the beach" can serve both as a barbed comment on the rich subject of the song and a summertime singalong that runs through a grainy spoken word recording into the Earl Sweatshirt featuring Stupid Rich Kids which is less ambiguous. Rhythmic piano stabs frame Frank's story of "super rich kids with nothing but fake friends" and Earl's numb scene stealing guest verse.

Then it's back to a curious mix of innocence (the childlike premise of a sky romance) and experience (the character's a dealer) for Pilot Jones flowing into the druggy psych-soul of Crack Rock where the social commentary is even more obvious than it was elsewhere - but the political is still personal, as he refers to the addict's family stopping inviting him to things and not letting him hold infants. Via a monotone final recitation of the title/chorus the track segues into Pyramids - otherwise known as the first track released expressly for the album where I realised this guy was REALLY something special. It's rare I'll use proggy as a compliment but this is a proggy near 10 minute track drawing on both the poppy post dubstep of acts like SBTRKT and Stevie Wonder at his 70s peak. It moves from ancient Egypt to a man watching his stripper girlfriend who "for now let's call Cleopatra" get ready to work at a club called the Pyramid and reminds spellbinding for every second right up to the heartbroken Cortez The Killer fuzz guitar outro.

Lost is a potential hit single, like many other tracks on the album, and the perfect followup to Pyramids, bringing us back to earth. A pleasant guitar interlude (John Mayer playing over the instrumental track to White, Frank's contribution to this years Odd Future Volume Two) links us to Monks, a song about stage diving monks and Ocean and a girl "Who likes to fuck boys in bands" fleeing an army sent by an overprotective father. This song returns to the idea of a sky romance as mentioned in Pilot Jones, and is overshadowed slightly by the aforementioned Bad Religion and the Andre 3000 featuring Pink Matter where Frank's listless crooning is followed by Andre's drowsy scene stealing appearance. A common thread is any rapping on this album is done as if on the verge of falling asleep / having just woke up.

Then the final track, Forrest Gump leading into the final interlude....only for a hidden track to appear. Now it's encouraging that Frank cares this much about album structure - just a shame he included something that has never been a good idea in the existence of CDs. Luckily the Tyler the Creator featuring hidden track is a good one. That little sequencing irritation I have nothing bad to say about the album. It's a piece of art and I can't wait to see what he does next.

You Can't Spell Apathetic without Pathetic

Maybe there genuinely is or was someone on this sick planet for who the pinnacle of popular music was Dire Straits Brothers In Arms. By this same token maybe through some twisted fluke Adele’s 21 will be the moment that defines the current state of play. In a sick way it does - a double dip recession, highest rates of unemployment for years (and I’m writing this as one of many “flowers in the dustbin” stuck in this situation), a right wing government, and the far right enjoying a resurgence. None of this reflected in the mainstream or even the tastemaker's picks.

Our situation is very close to the endlessly revived and fetishised 1980s - back then we were all out of work too but this piece of writing would've been written in my neatest handwriting, photocopied and embedded in a fanzine, not an RSS feed. Way back when in a time I wasn’t even around for, you had voices crying out for help in the mainstream - The Smiths, Public Enemy, even Depeche Mode - all charting somewhere. What you saw of hip hop was the part that has now been replaced, typically, by the conservative version - patriarchal, homophobic and lusting solely for money - when it was (and still is, don’t get me wrong) a cry from the disenfranchised. The racial tensions hip hop shone a spotlight on are still there, and our Prime Minister recently echoed the language of the EDL in an uncanny echo of the Iron Lady's tacit support for the fascist NF.

They were shit times but if you read the right papers and went to the right places, what a soundtrack! Instead in 2012 we're drowning in a sea of endless blank faces and apathy, closed minds and open, drooling mouths. “It’s all about the music, we don’t really think about that” - you can safely read that as “Our agent told us to keep our mouths shut so we don’t run the risk of alienating anyone, anywhere, or inspiring anyone to do anything they wouldn’t already do.”. Studied blankness. Kick against the pricks? I dunno. Some of those pricks may want to use our song in their advertising campaign. A voice for the voiceless? Well that sounds nice but the voiceless don't do endorsements.

I know times are hard, I’ve just said they were above I don’t really begrudge any of these Apathy Merchants any money they can make, but at the same time there’s always going to be an element of nostalgia for a time I wasn’t around for when the voiceless were briefly, well, given a voice. Of course, its still out there but in no way will it cross over to the mainstream. Nice as Lady Gaga’s stuff is and I’m really not having a go at her she’s not going to have the same effect on a troubled young kid as Bowie putting his arm round Mick Ronson or Soft Cell singing about crying in the rain outside (both on Top of the Pops on primetime); she may make it easier for some, sure, but when the people who’re beating you up, saying you’re disgusting and making your  life a misery, driving you to the edge are listening to the same supposed message songs as you (like Born This Way) and still pushing you about isn’t that going to be all the more demoralising? They’re listening to the same shit as you, homo, its homogenised (and the ghetto has been Guettaised).  There is an enjoyable irony to the large amount of homophobes listening to Lady Gaga and the "chart hip hop" where a Swedish house producer has grafted an Autotuned and impossibly preened moron spouting drivel about his shorties on top of the cheesy Eurohouse that originated in gay clubs but that's another rant entirely.

Even though Bowie or Almond or Morrissey were in the mainstream there was still a hint of outsiderdom about them, something separate from the lumpen production line pop that surrounded them. Something separate from the music that THEY listen to, in a good way, to mirror how separate and Other you feel. Take Morrissey (and I wish someone would) and contrast “Beautiful in my own way because God makes no mistakes” with “No it’s not like any other love - this one’s different, because it’s us”. In the Gaga example we’ve got sympathy while offering no comfort. With Morrissey there’s a nod to the loneliness of being a young gay kid, the knowledge that while you shouldn’t be thought of as Different and Apart, you really are! You need a different soundtrack to that of the morons giving you a hard time, something BETTER ideally, because hearing the right song at the right time is better than any patronising speech or It Gets Better video. 

 In the charts in the 80s, that last time things were this dire for this many people in the UK, there was Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Relax, Depeche Mode poncing about in bondage gear and singing about pretty boys and the stuff I’ve already mentioned in the charts alongside Annie Lennox and Grace Jones’ androgyny. There was also, in Bronski Beat’s Smalltown Boy, a song about the loneliness that sometimes comes with people not liking something fundamental about you. And it was in the charts. No, not Gaga’s technicolour gay dance party where we look after her bag while she’s in the toilets and help her pick out men. A song about running away from a bunch of meatheads who want to kick your face in. A reality loads of us have faced and will continue to face. Can you imagine that in the charts now?

Well, no, because while the British charts used to have room for the outsider now its the oppressor's turn to stand in the spotlight, be they England's sweetheart who married a black footballer to distract from her fondness for beating up black women in toilets or a violent misogynist thug duetting with the very woman he beat up. Even our supposed "innovators" repackage tried and tested established conservative viewpoints in fancy new packaging. Look at Odd Future. Now I like Odd Future a lot because they’re funny, prolific, Frank Ocean is as near as we're getting at the moment to a progressively minded hip hop sex symbol and Syd tha Kid is a great step forward for hip hop, a sexist homophobic genre. She’s not just a lesbian she’s the lesbian who makes a lot of their beats and engineers their stuff. I'm a fan but who do they think they’re foo…oh shit they have actually fooled some middle class critics by being “delightfully un PC” and “brave”. It’s a sad day when someone apparently educated talks about how brave rape jokes and saying faggot all the time is (at a time when politicians are still advising women not to dress provocatively and "bring it on themselves". Makes my blood boil).

Tyler just said "faggot"! What a blow against the establishment who still inconvenience LGBT people that is at a time when homosexuality has only been legal for forty five years in this country and you can still be put to death for it in other countries who cannot be held accountable as they are following their imaginary friend’s doctrine. Yes. What a blow against the establishment calling a gay man a faggot is, or endlessly talking about bitches. These fools forget (or just try to block out) that this is just safety valve rebellion. Demonise "political correctness" all you want, you're just toeing the party line of the conservatives who are in power. But even this, irritating as it is is way preferable to the studied blankness of a lot of musicians just out for a quick buck. I don't know who to blame - the X Factor "pop music minus the glamour, sex and emotion" culture that nearly made Theodor Adorno rise from the dead is a tempting one to blame but its easier than ever to find some exciting new music!

Frankly it’s not for me, I’m looking for a job at the moment and while it would be nice to one day do what I enjoy and live off it I know how unlikely it is. So I’m not going to make any compromises for what I make or apologise for it. I will not be self deprecating from this point on as I know there are enough others out there  who are happy to put my stuff down. But above all it’s because I’m not cut out for it. Call me self indulgent, say I’m missing the point, call me a cry baby, I’m not going to say I don’t care because I do actually, more than you'll ever realise. For me the best music has usually been an expression of emotion, a way of getting stuff off your chest and communicating your darkest thoughts, your greatest joys and your own unabashed uncensored truth to someone in a way that can make them want to dance, cry, break things and/or get off with someone. It appeals to our primal instincts as the more sophisticated side of us can enjoy  the space in the music or the interplay between elements. When that first caveman played that first note it was because he wanted to express something about himself, not with a view to a potential lucrative sync with a cave painting or a sponsorship deal with pictures in the fire. Its an obsession for me, my first love and it will be my last, it just keeps on giving even now as I write this. So why, knowing I’m never going to be the next big thing, would I dilute my output? This isn’t the time to keep your mouth shut if you can’t think of anything nice to say.

"Not everything has to have a message", no, it doesn't. But SOMETHING has to have a message.
 

Thoughts on the Mixtape

I'm new to the whole mixtape thing, just now dipping my toe into the water - last year I was hooked by the free releases of The Weeknd and Frank Ocean and other Odd Future mixtapes. Yep, the "hipster R&B"/"PBR&B" stuff so often dismissed (as in one pompous Guardian thinkpiece) for fusing genres together. To quote Simon Munnery via Stewart Lee, if the crowd's behind you, you're facing the wrong way - I can't wait to see what this new blend of the always interesting and envelope pushing sonics of R&B production with lyrics that mean something other than "tits + expensive booze = good" has to offer, not that the likes of the Weeknd are short on celebration of that stuff either. The mixtape is something that appeals to me, and the more reading I do into it the better it gets. It appears mixtapes have been around since the 70s when people would record Kool Herc's shows and circulate them, and serve as a way for little known acts to get their name out there.

Now of course, the mixtape is an industry within the industry, with even the biggest acts like Kanye and Lil Wayne (who is inhumanly proliic) churning out mixtapes. This serves two purposes I can immediately think of - it bridges the gap between the major labels and the indies, giving something back to the fans who buy the tickets and merchandise and look the other way when David Guetta's involved. Mixtapes are a good place for less radio and user friendly material, room to experiment where "official" releases are (understandably in this climate) packed with hits. Well, in theory they're packed with hits and not stupid guest skits by Chris Rock and filler tracks but the reality is often different.

The other one is that on a mixtape, a free release, its possible to do things that haven't been possible since at least the mid 90s. The Bomb Squad's densely layered productions would not be possible in 2012, not without a budget even Jay Z would baulk at. Neither would Paul's Boutique, Entroducing, name your own sample heavy classic. They would all cost silly money to make now - not on a mixtape.

More on this as I learn, just almost writing this down as a record of some ideas I can come back to







 

National Treasures - Praising the Manics

At the time of writing it's the 20th anniversary of the Manics debut Generation Terrorists - a sprawling two disc mess of Situationism, left-wing polemics, small town boredom, classic rock cliche and fragments of nihilistic beauty. How many other bands would have the guts to start their career with, to make an obvious Clash comparison, a cock rock Sadinista. A self described mess of eyeliner and spraypaint for a useless generation, Guns 'n' Roses with an appetite for construction. But where glammed up God Ol' Boy Axl spat lazy homophobic and sexist slurs, the Manics Richey and Nicky pretended to get off with each other in videos and James duetted with porn star Traci Lords on a song about men's oppression of women. At this point in their career they often were described as sell-outs by a sneering press for ripping off different Yank rock poses to everyone else. In an era of studied apathy, here was a band who refused to pretend not to care and dumb themselves down, playing this (admittedly life affirming) trad rock by numbers because it was it was the most popular form. If they'd formed now....they couldn't form now.

The spirit may remain in every self conscious, wordy young World's Forgotten Boy on a mission but its not a popular enough form of expression now to be hijacked by a team of four young Adornos in Hanoi Rocks clothing. In typical High Fidelity list style I'm going to cherrypick 20 essential Manics tracks:

1.Motown Junk
The White Riot period. A repeated loop of the word "Revolution" crashing into a punk-rock riff Mick Jones'd have been happy with. Whats most striking here is how young they sound, the touching way James high voice struggles to fit all the syllables in on typical Wire/Edwards shock statements like "I laughed when Lennon got shot" (a line now omitted live, probably for the best when they played the same bill as McCartney). "We live in urban hell" may have worked on people with no knowledge of Blackwood, but actually its a lovely place. If Blackwood is urban hell then Pontypool is a horrific sci fi metropolis.

2.  Motorcycle Emptiness from Generation Terrorists
Obvious choice maybe but it sounds like nothing else by anyone else. Amid the nihilistic weird cross breed of studio polished punk and airbrushed cock rock, a six minute beauty with a cosmetic similarity to Journey's overplayed Don't Stop Believing. In a just and fair world the Glee brats would've brayed "Culture sucks down words" instead of "Just a small town girl" while grinning inanely and Melodyned to an inch of their life. But now's not the time for cultural snobbery and bitterness, this is really one of their classics. Irresistible and faintly mournful in a way a lot of great pop music is, only the sorrow here isnt that their baby done left them but the emptiness of a capitalist society. Sure, "this wonderful world of purchase power" rings out as a bitter punchline to their overpriced boxsets and multiple editions, but they're just small town boys born and raised in Blackwood after all. Albeit ones who tastelessly mocked Billy Bragg for walking the walk when they were all still at school. When the synth strings and raindrop piano falls around the beginning of the post bridge guitar solo I could forgive them anything.


3. Stay Beautiful from Generation Terrorists
And the fan favourite. Their deathless manifesto, and, as they still seem as into the R'n'R dream and rock myth as ever, ideally the last song they'd ever play. Can't even pick any holes in this one, every second of it pitch perfect, great guitar solo and shout along chorus. It was very hard to pick essentials off Generation Terrorists - honourable mentions go to the bold failure of the Bomb Squad mix of Repeat; the feminist Springsteenian power ballad Little Baby Nothing; the oft underlooked Methadone Pretty and the closer Condemned To Rock 'n' Roll which predicts the second album they said they wouldn't do and Richey's joining of the stupid club.


4. Life Becoming A Landslide from Gold Against The Soul
It boggles the mind that people who'd heard their debut could accuse them of selling out (AGAIN!) for making another radio friendly and quietly subversive pop rock album. One of Richey's finest lyrical accomplishments, and some of Sean Moore's best drumming. After being replaced with a drum machine on the debut he proves his work here, driving the song along from the hushed introduction and choruses to the distortion pedals being engaged on the second verse. "I don't want to be a man" isn't some Peter Pan of rock cry but a cry of despair at the joint cruellest sex, and "My idea of love comes from a childhood glimpse of pornography" is, let's face it, a show stopper. Predicts where they'd go next in many ways.


5. Donkeys from Lipstick Traces
One of the reasons I love the Manics so is a masochistic one. They tuck a lot of their best tracks away as B sides. No one ever went hungry underestimating the masses, though, but this could've been a hit too, a lot better then something like Drug Drug Druggy where Bradfield shouts melodramatically about dancing like a robot on the parent album. A beautifully world weary sigh contrasting with all the overwrought angst, ending in a beauty of a solo.


6. Faster from The Holy Bible
Any excuse to go on Top of the Pops in a balaclava with your name written on it. Notable for getting a sample from Ninteen Eighty Four into the charts at the beginning of a song ending in an infuriatingly catchy chant of "Man kills everything". The post-punk drums and bass, scything riffs and feral delivery are a million miles away from From Despair to Where's "70's Rod Stewart does 99 Red Balloons" chic.


7. The Intense Humming of Evil from The Holy Bible
Again hard to pick just one from this album, its all great and essential listening, but the dark heart of the album, Richey's musings on the Holocaust and the only time the Manics have made something thats actually unnerving to listen to. Bradfield's voice and guitar live out the lyrics, taking on different characters and crying out the pain of all those who died in the camps, the six million screaming souls. You can tell from the opening that its going to be a shade or two darker from the rest of the, already breathtaking, album - a hum of eery sampled strings and pounding industrial percussion beneath words from the Nuremberg Trials. Then, the final smack in the face, Richey reminds us of the atrocities brushed under the carpet - "Churchill no different, wish the workers bled to a machine". As he'd written earlier in the album, everyone is guilty - he'd been inspired to write this by reading the sickening words of historical revisionists like David Irving, conflicted by the establishments equally sickening urge to suppress their voices and present one unconditional, unquestionable version of history. 


I couldn't possibly agree that Churchill was no different to Hitler, and to me it's a stupid statement. I completely disagree, but history has underlooked Churchill's sins, his turning the army on miners (as less fondly remembered Tory successors would also do) and gassing of Kurds. I'd have overlooked it too, shamefully, if I hadn't heard this song and tried to work out what he meant. Another great thing about this band - they're not ashamed to wear their influences and beliefs on their sleeves. Far from ashamed, they're proud to. Another reason they should be cherished.


8. Everything Must Go from Everything Must Go
The band's semi - apology to those Cult of Richey types who'd say they should've broken up once he left, set to Hal Blaine's immortal Be My Baby beat. Swooning strings, weeping guitars and one of the many great Bradfield vocal performances, at times subtle and times roaring with the same ferocity as the Holy Bible but in different settings. The tragedy of knowing that they knew that, for all the bruised optimism of "Escape from our history", they never would completely.


9. A Design For Life from Everything Must Go
The reason they'll go down in history. Its almost overplayed but the beauty undented by this fact. The soaring Spector strings are in full force again as are my childish put downs of the band - fastforward from "We don't talk about love" to Your Love Alone Is Not Enough and (It's Not War) Just The End Of Love. It doesn't matter, because in two short verses and two choruses they say a lot. Even more is said without words when the spiralling strings arc downwards into the final choruses. There's something in my eye.

10. If You Tolerate This, Then Your Children will Be Next from This Is My Truth
Another deserved big hit, a number one about the Spanish civil war blessed with comet in the night sky strokes of guitar, a passionate vocal performance, an eerie video and some more great Wire lyrics. The same album would contain such monstrosities as "Disco dancing with the rapists" but "On the streets tonight an old man plays with newspaper cuttings of his glory days" is a beautiful line. Again accompanied by accusations of selling out but the odd whiff of stadium rock aside this album is Nicky Wire's Holy Bible, a melancholy album with the recurring theme of depression and feelings of uselessness.

11. Ready For Drowning from This Is My Truth
One that should've been a single in place of the turgid, shouty repetitive You Tore This Song From My Arse. Equal parts the band exploring the history they were trying to escape from and addressing the homeland they had a troubled relationship with. The band have progressed from erroneously labelling Blackwood an urban hell and slagging off Wales to celebrating the country. For me, the Manics and John Cale are just two great reasons to be proud of my Welsh roots (along with my mum's family; Dylan Thomas; Glamorgan sausage; the Super Furry Animalsl Plaiyd Cymru; Aneurin Bevan and RS Thomas who is quoted in the album title, the last two I was made aware of by the album). This song largely seems to be about the flooding of Capel Celyn to supply Liverpool and the Wirral with water, another in a long line of examples of England's mistreatment of Wales. All Wales have done in revenge is allow the Stereophonics and Lostprophets to exist and peddle trad rock dirge.

12. Prologue To History from Lipstick Traces 
Another from the Greil Marcus referencing B side collection, opening with some fantastic 90's house-y piano crashing into some Manics arena-punk with elements of the baggy bands like The Charlatans and Happy Mondays they'd claimed to despise at the time. James sounds genuinely angry here, and his furious delivery makes lines like "A brand new Dyson - that is decadence!" even funnier than they are written down. Which is still funny.

13. The Masses Against The Classes - Single
The first No.1 of the new milennium, quite an accomplishment, hot on the heels of playing the Milennium Stadium and being huge for a while (while never quite breaking America). Opens with a lift from Twist and Shout via Bowie's Let's Dance. Responding to accusations of being too commercial by, er, making a very commercial arena punk track. Occasionally marred by live renditions with hilariously naff Phoenix Nights organ.


14. Found That Soul from Know Your Enemy
Around this time they decided they needed to be less commercial, so recorded in a less expensive studio. This track, with aggressive vocals, pounding one note I Wanna Be Your Dog piano and powerful rhythm section, is the best of this period by far. This is of course the period where, being less than consistent as per usual, having spent their early years decrying sexism and homophobia they went and played nice for Castro with his long history of human rights abuses. That said, a Western rock act playing in Cuba is a big deal and one from the valleys just makes it all the sweeter so its hard to condemn them too much. I wonder if he bought the deluxe £200 edition of National Treasures?

15. There by The Grace of God from Forever Delayed
Another bit of proof they don't really know what they're doing. The Manics tend to only look back fondly at material that has sold a lot. This was a pretty big hit yet they still ignore it as its neither politicalised punk or swooning stadium rock with a string section. Instead its a gorgeous, subtle track with beautifully restrained guitar and lush electronic textures. Note the incongrous Marilyn Manson Coma White reference in the first line, someone Nicky Wire seems to have a thing about (see also the bizarre line "Brian Warner has a tasty little ass" on Know Your Enemy. Come on Wire, you can do better than Reznor's puppet).

16. 1985 from Lifeblood
They have also disowned Lifeblood, claiming it was a critical and commercial failure despite the almost universally positive writeups and the fact it spawned two number two singles. Lifeblood is, along with the Holy Bible, my favourite Manics album (Journal For Plague Lovers would be number two). This is one of their "Should've been a single" tracks, a beautifully reflective little thing with melodica, Peter Hook bass, heavily treated guitars and sighing, nostalgic lyrics. A great opening track too. All of the album is essential but its nothing like the rest of their stuff, probably why they don't like it. There is an element of a frustrated music journalist about Nicky Wire sometimes, a man who loves music and has a great passion for it but likes to put everything into tiny little boxes, and Lifeblood is hard to pidgeonhole. It's identifiably Manics because it has Bradfield's voice on it and the odd burst of effective guitar wankery (see the majestic solos on A Song For Departure), but is another album like This Is My Truth, a wintery album of elegaic pop songs to look inward to. Gorgeous stuff.


17. Bobby Untitled from Nicky Wire's I Killed The Zeitgeist
I Killed the Zeitgeist is tragically underlooked, listened to only by Manics fans and this is a gorgeous little song, its up to you whether its a love song or about Bobby Sands or another song about Richey. That skinny little ghost just won't go away, as you'll see, colouring reactions to everything the band does in some way. Even when I decried those who harp on about "tragic, beautiful doe eyed little Richey Manic" in faintly homoerotic terms, struck by his beauty and the fact he was a rock cliche who realised he was a rock cliche, I'm doing it myself now. In a section that doesn't need to mention him at all. I Killed the Zeitgeist is a lovely album with hints of early Primal Scream, Pavement and Jesus and Mary Chain about it, Nicky's C86 fandom coming through. It's a more important album in the Manic catalogue than given credit for, his new confidence as a songwriter allowing him to write "comeback hit" Your Love Alone Is Not Enough. Bradfield's solo album The Great Western is just as good, following on from Lifeblood in many ways, but not as interesting. It's a pleasant listen, though, and only a fool would say it wasn't well written.


18. Indian Summer from Send Away The Tigers
Listen to this to know why Send Away The Tigers is my least favourite Manics albums. This is a pleasant enough little pop song til you realise its a deliberate rewrite of A Design For Life to attempt to sell as much as Everything Must Go. See also the same album's dull Autumnsong, where Bradfield is reduced to singing "Now baby what've you done to your hair" in a song which has stolen the riff from Sweet Child of Mine. Not even attaching fierce intelligence to tired good ol' boy rock. And Your Love Alone Is Not Enough, not enough, not enough. Around this time, disturbingly, instead of writing two verses they just recorded one verse and pasted it into the song twice in Pro Tools

19. This Joke Sport Severed from Journals for Plague Lovers
With Richey pronounced dead they set to work putting his lyrics to music and unsurprisingly it was better than the last album by miles. The ghost, of course, is never quite laid to rest. Why would it be? The death of one of your closest friends is undoubtedly very hard to recover from - even harder the lack of an absolute full stop. This doesn't excuse the shameless exploitation of his memory that goes on a bit - see the timing of footage of a smiling Richey to line up with "You could've been anything if you wanted to" (paraphrasing) in the X Factor style cover of The The's This Is The Day chosen to promote National Treasures. Even if they weren't responsible for the video, you still have to step in sometimes and say "No, you're not using our loss as a cheap heartstring plucker".
Of course I have one sore point with this album - why record a sparse, bare bones album as live with Steve Albini then overdub glitz with Dave Eringa? Then if you're going to do that, why not release any singles from the album when its streets ahead of your last one and full of catchy, non derivative tunes. It doesn't suffer for this for the most part, though. This is a particular standout, starting off just James double tracked over guitar and sounding intense enough just in this manner. Then a false ending, headrush and reverb, and it re-enters with pounding tribal drums and an ominous wall of strings. 

20. Postcards From A Young Man from Postcards From A Young Man
The followup also echoed Everything Must Go the same way Send Away The Tigers did but this time it sounded like they were doing it for the love of it - resulting in a higher proportion of Manics classics on the album. This highly concentrated piece of Mass Communication was nothing like the Tamla Motown Metal Wire promised before the album was released - in the same way My Guernica doesn't sound like the Jesus and Mary Chain and Send Away The Tigers isnt a return to Generation Terrorists territory. Bless him. Instead its a testament to the remarkable work of Bradfield, Jones and Moore from the opening strums to the fantastically grandiose strings and choir ending with an echo of Queen's Somebody To Love. For all I and anyone else slags them off, this is as good a song to sum them up as any. "This life sucks your principles away, you have to fight against it every single day" tacit admission of and apology for their more questionable decisions and fixation on Hits Hits Hits at expense of their own soul. But still, when James roars "This world will not impose its will I will not give up and I will not give in" over the music of his friend and cousin and a mass of session players, you believe that they will stick around. They will be infuriating, they will be interesting, there will be moments of genius and they will Stay Beautiful.