A God-awful Small Affair

Confessing that you're a Coldplay fan has been risky territory for a good 5 years or so now. Only the hardcore haters would fail to appreciate their earlier records - A Rush of Blood to the Head in particular remains one of my favourite albums of all time. Whether it's the Radiohead derivatives, the miserable soft-rock and the ensuing TV montage spots or just a plain old dislike for Chris Martin, it seems that, whilst the sales and audiences are getting bigger, so are the cynics. Up until 2011 the band had never yet disappointed me - even last year's Christmas Lights charmed the socks off me - but 'Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall' should've been a warning sign. Yes, it seems noone is safe from the eurodance trend. The fact that its tune was just so uneventful, in addition to being identical to a dodgy 80s Simon Cowell production , led to a horrifying thought: maybe the critics were right. Nonetheless, album tracks have always been highlights for me throughout th...

To review this fully one would have to immerse themselves in not only the already pretty kooky world that is Björk's discography, but the heightened multimedia experience that she's chosen to indulge us with - applications, taglines and her token innovative instrumentations have made this already an incredibly complicated work of art to gauge. A huge fan of her earlier records - Post and Homogenic in particular - I was first introduced to her through the crazy dancing and Aboriginal anti-humanism of Volta 's 'Earth Intruders' (ignoring, of course, the obvious hit 'It's Oh So Quiet'). It appears in retrospect the world remains divided on Volta's gamechanging, but for me it was the first moment where I opened myself to music that was neither pop nor chart-rock. 'Declare Independence' particularly shook my perception of music and its power. None have been as scientifically orchestrated as Biophilia , though, surely. Each track has a backstory, a...

Things have finally come full circle for this little old blog of mine. Back in March I posted here a little bit of giddy praise for an EP that had come out last year, spawning several of my favourite playlist inclusions this year (particularly ' Don't Say Oh Well '). But enough ego boosting, I have a band to rave about. Hopefully. Borrowing just the two of their EP tracks for this, their debut LP, Grouplove have set out to inject buoyancy and vitality into a predominantly sour-faced indie scene. The album begins with clapping and twee basslines on 'Itchin' on a Photograph', a brash and blustery vocal assault that teeters uncertainly between youthful and irritating thanks to Christian Zucconi's nasal delivery, but is backed promisingly by a gripping chorus and climactic instrumentals. Any uncertainty about their poppy sounds are washed away though in 'Tongue Tied', a sugary-sweet anthem that exclaims "don't wave no goodbye!" with raw en...

Whatever was left for me to wax lyrical about Sheeran has already been done so to death by the radio personality-vacuums of Fearne Cotton, Jo Whiley and co. The UK has been gripped by a plague of mediocre genre-mashing and it doesn't seem to show any signs of imminent release. As Facebook spawns seventy hundred groups about how cool/fit/peng (delete where appropriate) gingers suddenly are now thanks to him and Rupert Grint (both of which I struggle to understand; the latter of which happens to pop up in Sheeran's latest music video), I'll just dive in to what I know will be a very tedious 50 minutes. Beginning with early 2011's radio surprise-hit, 'The A Team', Sheeran strums along rather inoffensively and it's fair to say it deserved to be a hit in the same way that James Morrison, Jason Mraz and the Plain White Ts deserved their minor successes. It's also fair to point out that few mainstream sensations have the freedom to sing about heroin addiction a...

A credible member of Girls Aloud. Gosh. The thought of it sends shivers down my spine. Whilst two have already gone it alone to polarising degrees of success, neither really shook the musical press up beyond the occasional tabloid spat. Yet with production from the very-credible-indeed sorts of Metronomy and Diplo, Roberts has finally served up a worthy retort to all of the pundits that've been tearing into Girls Aloud since their inception (although why a group who've released Biology, The Loving Kind or The Show would need defending is, quite frankly, beyond me). Beginning then with the Diplo-produced lead single 'Beat of My Drum', Cinderella's Eyes bursts onto the scene with an insanely-catchy chorus that at first irritates but then enraptures; a typically Major Lazer instrumental thuds and skids with about as much precision and sense as the lyrics, but I can't help but like it. 'Lucky Day' sees cowriting from the ever-underrated Dragonette, and is e...