almost witty

Unusually, I seem to have rediscovered my love for pop music lately - probably as a result of driving around over Christmas with the radio turned up. But it’s never usually a good sign.

I’m certainly digging (daddio) Scouting For Girls, if only because Elvis Ain’t Dead lets me do my air synth dancing, which goes down well at the local discotheque.

Every time Girls’ Aloud’s Call The Shots, I can’t stop doing the “ooooooh” lyric - which can be embarassing in the office. Then again, I first heard the chorus starting off as “Just because you lay in your bed and call the shots”. But even with the correct version, I still have no idea what the narrative flow of the record is - it just makes no sense! Do you know what it all means?

There’s no such confusion with Rhianna’s Please Don’t Stop The Music. Simplistic pop that’s only saved by the grace of having that Michael Jackson sample in it. One that comes in very handy when trying to keep your cool and shopping around the place.

Then again, I still like hearing Take That’s Rule The World. Even if it’s been played to death on British radio. It’s still a damn good track.

Take:

- ethereal vocals from Sarah Nixey, formerly of the fantastic Black Box Recorder
- an ancient overheard Christmas carol in the form of Silent Help
- mix in some drumbeats from ambient pop duo Infantjoy
- download it
- put on headphones
- listen and marvel at how you can give a simple song a haunting twist.

Done.

(spotted via my latest must-read-blog, BBC’s Chartblog, who got it from arjanwrites)

Update: Heard it on 6 December. Hurrah. Christmas can now officially start!

Despite having spent the last three days trotting around all the shopping centres that Manchester and Cheshire have to offer - in the hunt for a new pair of spectacles actually! - and spending countless hours on shopping websites, I still don’t quite feel that Christmassy.

It’s partly because I’m still a bit ill so instead of rich mince pies I’m mostly craving plain jacket potatoes - and half-dreading the 12-hour drink fest that is the annual works Christmas party this weekend with special mystery guest star.

But it’s mostly because despite all the driving around and listening to the radio at work all day, I still haven’t yet heard The Fairytale of New York by the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl. The definitive bitter-sweet Christmas tune, and one that never fails to give me Christmassy memories, such as snow falling on an American car park. Ahhh, snow, where have you gone?

Has it been taken off mainstream UK radio? Has it now been deemed too unChristmassy? Is there a mass conspiracy behind its’ disappearance off UK Radio? Or is it just me?

An American friend of mine is coming to stay with me in Manchester next week, and has expressed a profound interest in all things Mancunian and music, such as Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays, The Smiths, electro music, goth music, etc.

Alas, the only things I can think of to show her are the Salford Lads Club and what’s left of the Hacienda. Do you have any better suggestions ?!

I’ve just come back from seeing a preview of Beowulf in the best possible scenario - at an IMAX screen in 3D. Let me tell you, it’s a cinematic marvel.

I hadn’t heard anything about it at all until the other day, when Angelina Jolie and Anthony Hopkins swooped in for the premiere. So I kinda knew it was computer-generated using virtual motion capture for the acting - which I had a bad feeling about because I really hated The Polar Express.

But I needn’t have worried. The actors looked like the actors - hell, forget computer graphics. That *was* Angelina Jolie rising out of the water, as sexy as ever. Even if she did have a scaly tail and impossibly beautiful (if spherical) breasts covered in mud. The sooner cinema gets to the point when you can take home your own computer-genreated 3D model of your favourite character as you leave the auditorium, the better. Seriously, the friend I took with me had no idea the acting was computer-animated. She knew something was slightly off, but she assumed it was a side-effect from the blurriness of the 3D IMAX format.

Over here, it seems to have been given a 12A rating. Which is so wrong. The first minute lulls you into a false sense of comfortableness, before it’s all blown apart in five harrowing minutes of gore, up close in CGI.

Once I got home, of course I had to look it up on Wikipedia. And while a lot of it did seem to have the Hollywood treatment, I was surprised at how much of it had been “changed” from the original story. Then again, the original tale has probably been augmented a lot (to say the least) over the years…