A God-awful Small Affair

In a world of ever-changing musical scenery and festering hype there can be some warmth in the solace that there's still some of the old pioneers still standing. It's no secret that Kate Bush is far and away my favourite female musician of all time, and I feel I needn't explain that decision. Thus the end of 2011 was an excellent one - as Christmas loomed, Bush invited the world into her frosty and enchanting creation, and as ever, the experience was a bit weird. Everyone's already covered how she sings about having sex with snowmen and gets Stephen Fry to make up some new...uh...words for snow. But even musically, Bush has stretched herself here. The shortest track being a mighty 6 minutes and 48 seconds long, this is clearly a record to be taken seriously. What may have perished in potential for radioplay, however, is more than made up for with atmosphere and sensory indulgence. To kick us off, Bush invites her son, Bertie, to sing over 'Snowflake'. A piano-le...

Too much of a good thing? Hell, it's not always been good. For every great pop song that Robyn Fenty has lent her well-worn hand to (What's My Name?, Man Down) there's been a shameless, tacky dud (S&M, Who's That Chick?) and whilst she's certainly got more personality and attitude than the majority of current popstars I can't help but wish she'd just go away for a bit. Just two years on after the release of her seminal Rated R - which really made the world sit up and listen - she's put out three albums and featured on 6 hit singles that aren't even hers. Sadly, and predictably (since to keep up such high standards in pop music would be nothing short of miraculous) the quality has suffered, and a largely terrible Loud might have shifted millions of copies but it seems with a Faustian bargain. Faith was restored this year, though (and I do reiterate that it didn't take much since Loud had two or three phenomenal pop tracks) with the release ...

Once upon a time (some point in early 2009) there came a moment where Shaun Collins thought "yes, yes this girl is just what pop needs". Whether this was an abridging of my heterosexual tendencies remains a mystery, although an FHM cover didn't exactly hinder her chances - and to be fair I thought exactly the same thing about VV Brown and look how that turned out. Skip forward two years and what were some very fine-indeed singles along the lines of 'Mama Do' and 'Turn It Up' have been replaced, like much of British pop, by the unfathomable urgency to become nocturnal and 'party'. Y-fucking-awn. Taking an album title from the 1968 Tams song of the same name, though, Lott demonstrates a prerequisite for various Motown, soul and classic R&B influences on this, her sophomore album. So whilst the use of the clubs in promotional capacities is to be understood from a marketing point of view, maybe it would be unfair to write Lott off as the product of...

Thanks to Twitter the art of criticism has taken a lot of the wind out of my sails. Why wait for a review when you can just check your name trending and see 3,000 death threats? Sadly, the venom and vitriol directed towards the world's rich and famous has come to be more covered than the poised judgments and critical reviews. There therefore came a requirement, a self-defense mechanism installed into the lyrics of the popstars, to brush aside such anger: and that's how the birth of 'haters' came about. It's so convenient that music can now come with its own review. "You're a hater, just let it go" has become the catchphrase of a generation of clueless, tasteless, mindless and worthless pre-teens who've reached past the age where Barbie dolls are a go-to form of entertainment but are still aeons before any sense of self-respect. Lloyd, the fourth-placed contestant on last year's The X Factor, seems to have stuck in this awkward phase. Engaging w...

Ah, good old Snow Patrol. For what seems like an eternity now the Northern Irish soft-rock gods have played second fiddle to Coldplay in the chart stakes - but that's not to belittle their success. The seminal Chasing Cars was crowned the song of the noughties by Channel 4 (UK) and has received a special award from Q Magazine, not to mention spending 106 weeks in the UK top 75 charts. Far from a one-hit wonder, though, the group are now on their sixth album - the second of which to reach the #1 spot - and show little sign of slowing down. Sadly, the same cannot be said for their quality. As a big fan of Final Straw and Eyes Open , I was a little more than mortified by the complacency and mediocrity behind A Hundred Million Suns and the single 'Just Say Yes' that came with their greatest hits collection. Will Fallen Empires continue their careering decline, or kickstart a resurging for the band? We begin with synths aplenty and distorted vocals on 'I'll Never Let...

Q have announced this to be the album of 2011 (I started writing this review way after the 'publishing date', by the way, as I have done with many of my reviews since I format the images and rating system way in advance). As a huge fan of the Lungs album I was concerned that Welch would have difficulty in living up to her debut - where spirituality, atmosphere and guttural vocals all blended into some stellar performances (my favourites were Howl, Blinding and Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) if you're interested). Yet it's with a mix of cynicism and defiance to her hype - particularly when much better albums have seen the light of day this year - that I must confess I'm disappointed in Ceremonials . I try to judge artists fairly neutrally, even when they're ones I'm an observant fan of, which is why I mostly avoid the internet's breeding grounds of "she's sold out! / she's too mainstream! / she's repetitive!" nonsense. Perhaps it'...

Even 2007-Shaun, a past version of myself that was often far from musically-adept, could appreciate the immensely happy and infectious tracks that emerged from Justice's debut, Cross - particularly D.A.N.C.E. and We Are Your Friends , the hits which propelled them into mainstream dance giants. Unsurprisingly, the duo refuse to stray too far from the sonic formula that made them big - and Audio, Video, Disco has consequently divided opinion over their musical progress. From the get-go, with rip-roaring 'Horsepower', Justice are in familiar territory. Sounding closer to the soundtrack to Street Fighter or Gladiators' theme tune, it carelessly chucks out 8-bit synths and epic solos that are a little bit kitsch. First single 'Civilization', accompanied with my favourite music video of the year (where buffalo stampede through falling replicas of classical architecture), is a hotbed of suspense and crashing energy - sadly an energy that rarely gets reintroduced thr...

The talent-show contest has rarely produced fruits as lasting as Kelly Clarkson outside of the country genre. It's been 5 albums and 9 years since the Texan shot to fame on American Idol and she's enjoyed worldwide success thanks to genuinely-great pop songs among the likes of Miss Independent , Since U Been Gone and My Life Would Suck Without You . But let's not get ahead of ourselves here - aside from the rather excellent Breakaway , Clarkson, like most pop prodigies, has failed to deliver on albums. That trend doesn't look set to change. We begin with the earworm single 'Mr. Know It All' and its typical you're-a-guy-you're-a-dickhead shtick and a remarkable semblance to Bruno Mars' Just the Way You Are . Vocals aside it's a total pastiche and when you're rechurning year-old tunes you've got a bit of a problem on your hands. Shameful. However, there's better news with 'What Doesn't Kill You (Stronger)' which takes infl...

Even two or three years into my amateur music-writing I still find myself suddenly surprised by a musical phenomenon that's inexplicably missed my radar. M83, the five-man project from the beguiling mind of Anthony Gonzalez, have now gone a decade without so much as a tickle at my sensory feet, but earlier this year that changed (thank you, Niall, I know you're reading xoxo). There's something of a naivety about M83's music, like the direct antithesis to Sigur Rós' grown-up ethereality, and the nostalgia even finds its way into the packaging and marketing of Hurry Up, We're Dreaming , turning into a two-disc conceptualisation of dreams and imagination. There are worse ways, too, to start an album than with an intro called 'Intro' featuring Zola Jesus. Shoegazing synths serve as little more than background noise compared to the echoing howls of Danilova and Gonzalez, before turning into a U2 tribute act on 'Reunion', which is as giddily excitable ...

Just before we start: yes, I'm team Noel. Yes, Liam Gallagher's a cunt. Yes, their feud is boring now. Yes, this is better than the Beady Eye album. That's all that'll be said of the UK's favourite music topic here. The tabloid spats are all quite irrelevant really when you consider the music on offer; and it's some of Noel's strongest in his entire career. Opener 'Everybody's on the Run' positions Gallagher in a gritty motivational epic that thrusts strings, tambourines and heavy percussions at the listener with gusto, virtually yelling "Hang in there, love!" As blustery and exciting as it may be, it fades into comparison when pit against the classic songwriting that's to follow: 'Dream On' is classic Oasis from start to finish. Slightly nonsense lyrics are effectively veiled with a stomper of a rhythm and tune. The single 'If I Had A Gun...' muses beautifully: Let me fly you to the moon/ My eyes have always followe...

i did not start this review a month ago thinking that I'd have nobody else interesting to get through, no, that is not what happened at all. Here is a picture though: the album is fine and not 'not fine'. there are songs and they are all varying degrees of pleasant. there are no songs as good as 'Limit to Your Love' either so I think James Blake might be a bit buggered come difficult-album-#2. shame because he's very 'in' right now isn't he. here is another picture. this review is not the core formula of all of my others i didn't even mention track names. they just all bore me and there's nothing interesting about her or them. Rating: 5/10 Highlights: no Avoid: meh Artwork Watch: Well it has an oddly-shaped tree and the album title is upside down, so it must be brilliant.

She certainly churns out the studio albums, doesn't she? Despite a breakthrough in only 2009 (I think I have socks that predate this), Zola Jesus is already on her third album and has managed to squeeze out 3 EPs to correspond with them. In the same week that Rihanna's manager has spoken out about the necessity of popstars to release more than one record every 3 years (as some kind of pitiful excuse for her saturation and quite-easy-really guest spots every month), you could be mistaken for thinking we're supposed to have the attention spans of stoned pre-teens. If you are a stoned pre-teen, though, keep reading. There's a Mars bar at the end of this page. I'm getting sidetracked. So the album. After a minute or so of ethereal whisperings and sighs on 'Swords', 'Avalanche' kicks in with a disjointed beat and dark synthetic backgrounds. Vocally she's at her best here, but there is a concern with how indecipherable her lyrics are. The single 'V...