A God-awful Small Affair

How depressing: this is my third blog post on Grouplove now. We are time's subjects , and time bids be gone and all that. The first was a little shortsighted "one to watch out for" piece that I may have written under the impression that they would have the same level of breakthrough that Cults/Sleigh Bells enjoyed in the same year. Then came their debut LP Never Trust a Happy Song , an album dotted with potential hits that had a true feelgood factor. It would seem the advertising scouters would agree: their single Tongue Tied went on to feature in adverts for the iPod Touch and then Coca Cola, throwing it into the Billboard Hot 100 at a respectable #42.  The major boost though has come for their profile: the debut album only charted at #75, and this time around they've leapt to #21. Over here in the UK, however, they remain relative unknowns - probably because we have a pretty strong roster of uplifting pop as things stand already - but the record is something

It's almost like I don't need to write an introduction. 2013 has spawned so much discussion - most of it negative and catty - about Miss Cyrus that I'm tempted to just gloss over the album and pretend she doesn't exist. The solid nature of We Can't Stop and Wrecking Ball - the songs, that is, not the videos (and I thought we stopped being "shocked" by music videos when Madonna appeared) - made me change my mind. I'm quite comfortable in saying they are excellently crafted pop songs, and she does have a history of it (even if her input is incredibly minimal). What has changed, though, is obvious; the shackles were loosely shaken off in 2009 with the release of the eyebrow-raising Can't be Tamed , and it's frankly bizarre that people are acting as if the whole Hannah Montana character has only just been put to bed. But the drastic change of appearance, costume and the addition of 2013's most bothersome quirk - the stuck-out tongue -

3 albums in and I'm probably one of the last ten people on Earth that hasn't got whipped into a frenzy over the work of Drake. As such, I'm a little taken aback when the man - commonly mocked by online communities for being too soft and emotional to be in the game he's in - makes claims such as that at the start of 2011's Take Care : "I think I killed everybody in the game last year, man". Really? Because when I think of 2010 I think of a lot of things (oh, just that little thing called My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy , for example) other than Drake.  I listened to Take Care back then but forgot to review it - I wasn't that blown away, but I enjoyed it. I did feel that the samples - or indeed covers, in the case of the title track, relied a little too heavily on the source material and as such didn't quite make an impression on me as something new; hopefully Nothing Was the Same is a mantra this album adheres to. Indeed, the vocal war

16 year old Kiwi Ella Yelich-O'Connor has come from absolutely nowhere (or, as some call it, New Zealand) and started racking up #1 singles all over the world. What's more, she's done it with her debut. The buzz might not quite be as word-of-mouth as that of the last colossal rise to fame (Lana del Rey), but rather word-of-chart, and that both puzzles and alarms me. With all sorts of praise flying around like " the most vocally striking and lyrically thought-provoking " female vocalist around and claims that she " comes pretty close to birthing a ‘Common People’ for Generation Y " (good GOD how misdirected he is) it would be pretty fair to say that people are only setting her up for a fall. Right from the word go the world of Lorde is a joyless place. "Don't you think that it's boring how people talk?" she begins on 'Tennis Court', a moody, quiet ball of catchy vocal hooks and pouting. The production is one of newcomer

When news emerged that Daniel Blumberg had ditched Yuck for a solo project under the name Hebronix earlier this year in April, a small burst of panic occurred within me. Such is the fondness for their 2011 self-titled debut that I hold - and one of the rare records that even my mum will enjoy if I stick the CD on in the car (she likes Phil Collins and that's about it) - but I guess I needn't have worried. They aren't quite a trio yet - having brought in Ed Hayes as a replacement guitarist, they remain a foursome - but there was the worry, building up to this, that something would have been lost. That fear, added to a very noticeable new soundalike on Glow & Behold , will most likely lose the band a few fans of their debut's lo-fi, noise rock, The Go! Team ish sound. But where their debut found gorgeous jam-alongs in a sea of chaotic riffs and feedback, the sophomore effort is a lot more upfront about the feelgood factor. In fact, this might just be a happier r

Alex Frankel and Nick Millhiser's 2011 self-titled debut - as reviewed here - may have been a little late to the making-EDM-cool party, but of all of that was quite immaterial when presented with anthems as catchy and sublime as Do It Again . The rest of the album may have struggled to resonate in a year when chilling electronica was being put out by stronger artists like Washed Out, Bjork and Katy B (just covering all ends of the spectrum, there), but if anything the indie scene has only grown more accommodating for such acts with the return of Daft Punk and their Moroder-worship, and strong performances from Disclosure, Arcade Fire and Phoenix. The challenge here, really, is to make an album as symbiotic as their first, but keep the interest running past the first three tracks. And going back to an even stronger 80s influence is certainly a step in the right direction when the whole country (us UK patriots, that is) is currently enjoying adverts blasting Nothing's Gonn

After it gave birth to one of the most well-documented band meltdowns since, well, the Beatles, the timing of Come Around Sundown was a little unfortunate. I shall use this defence against its scathing reviews: I quite enjoyed it. After the colossally try-hard efforts of Only By the Night and Because of the Times , seemingly designed to just front a couple of future singles (I think we're safe to go outside without hearing those opening OHWHOAAAAAHs of Use Somebody now), CAS came and sounded like an album by a band who just wanted to make music rather than hits. And it sounded lovely. The problem is, when bands start to sound "lovely" they are very quickly written off by people who care about music and are allowed to propagate and cultivate this loveliness to death, because it's all they come to know. See: Mylo Xyloto . Kings of Leon are no longer a band for musos; they'll still grab #1 albums because they're one of the biggest bands in the world for p

When our house signed up for the internet in 2005 (I know!) I was thrust into the world of music downloading and the ease with which new bands are recommended to me. A friend of mine at the time was something of an emo girl and - amongst other bands I'd never heard of yet, in my world of Top of the Pops and Now! CDs, like Tool, A Perfect Circle and AFI - thrust upon me Placebo. Since then it's been a bit tricky to justify loving them: their heyday, of course, was very much in the 90s and that whole decade's love of genderbending angsty rock, and today...well, they're putting out albums like this. I actually enjoyed 2009's Music of the Sun . It was obviously everything from their back catalogue condensed into a poppier, maturer sound, but considering the internet age has now destroyed any allure and word-of-mouth quality about bands like Placebo - who critics have written off from the start as contrived and marketed towards teens desperate to appear alternativ

When I reviewed Jessie J's Who You Are back in 2011 I wasn't quite aware of how much an absolute nuisance she would go on to become as a judge on the UK's version of The Voice , let alone anywhere else. The small vocal tricks and flicks she did on the record were irritating, sure, but seeing them live about once a week was almost the death of me. Whilst a talented singer, indulging in such grating and childish flairs is so unnecessary (aside from the use of making her stand out), and heaping on a quite undeserved sense of accomplishment and wisdom in her comments as a talent show judge only served to exacerbate her status as one of the UK's most annoying popstars. And we're the country that made Cher Lloyd. Then came the Olympics Closing Ceremony. After such a brilliant opening counterpart, and 2 weeks of inspirational achievement, I suppose the Briton in me expected something of a comedown, but Queen's perpetual effort to destroy their own legacy and make

As far as musicians' back stories go, winning £44k on a UK gameshow ( Deal or No Deal ) and spending the money on building a studio in your parents' garden, before striking lucky with the very first single you release ( Never Be Your Woman , featuring Wiley and Emeli Sande) is a pretty strong start. That partnership with a then-unknown Sande would only go on to be Watford-born Shahid Khan's ace in the hole: singles released as a collaboration between the two have now resulted in six (!) UK top-ten singles ( Heaven, Wonder, Never Be Your Woman, Clown, Lifted and Diamond Rings ). That's an excellent track record for a pair that only started out 3 years ago. It's his work with other fresh new talents that have resulted in Khan making a big name for himself, though: namely his #1 smash earlier this year with the great new voice Sam Smith, La La La . That song features on his debut LP, and so too do a list of established and emerging talents: Gabrielle, Bastille, E

There are occasions in following music where it's difficult not to adhere to the hipsters' sense of bored eyerolling, and the fervent shoving of HAIM down our throats these past 12 months is one strong example of how easy it is to overlook good bands for being everywhere . I've put off listening to both this and their Forever EP earlier in the year until now, merely out of my interests lying elsewhere, so I'm probably one of the last people in the UK to discover them. Now a #1 album-selling powerhouse, the three L.A. sisters got this ball rolling with topping the BBC's Sound of... series earlier this year. I suppose the major turning point though was signing to Roc Nation, and joining a roster of artists who're inevitably going to find some level of fame in the UK (Rita Ora, Rihanna, M.I.A.) The album, too, is produced largely by Ariel Rechtshaid - who's already pulled off some great albums in the past 12 months with Vampire Weekend, Charli XCX and Sola

I'm struggling to remember a more drastic change of musical style (although last year's passing glimpse of Charlotte Church that I made raised an eyebrow). The debut in 2009 of Travelling Like the Light from VV Brown (I understand she's now V V but I've stuck with VV and I ignored V. V. so deal with it) may not quite have seized the UK public and enamoured us all, but it certainly had a fairly unique sense of sound. What cynics wrote off as wobbly-pop may more accurately have been labelled as a heavily retro, highly energetic love letter to Motown. Of course I struggle to remember some tracks, but they peaked with Shark in the Water . To this day, it is my fourth most-played song in over 7 years of last.fm use, and I'd cite it as quite comfortably one of the best ten songs of the noughties. It is beautiful, and fun, and reminds me of a pretty great summer I had that year. Brown looked set to continue that trend with the release of the nursery rhyme sampl

One would be forgiven for assuming that no synthpop groups hail from Scotland; the nation doesn't exactly scream carefree pop music after all (or at least, it hasn't since the Proclaimers disappeared into the annals of history). Yet with Boards of Canada and CHVRCHES both making explosive returns or breakthroughs to electronic music in 2013, the wee nation can finally shake off those dour-rock stereotypes. The Glasgow trio of Martin Doherty, Iain Cook and Lauren Mayberry already had an uphill climb ahead of them purely by being a brand new synthpop group in 2013 - I can quite comfortably say that I have around a hundred or so from the past 24 months lurking on my iTunes library - without all of the usual pressures of the  big debut and the critical praise from institutions such as the BBC Sound of Music. The Bones of What You Believe doesn't show that, though, and comes across as one of the most confident and consistent pop records I've come across this decade.  

I and a great deal many others tuned into the BBC coverage of this year's Glastonbury and spent an uncomfortable period of time wincing over Alex Turner's new mannerisms and stage performance. In recent memory only one other Briton has undergone such a drastic and embarrassing transatlantic personality change (Joss Stone), and it filled me with fears that the Arctic Monkeys - not exactly the most American-sounding band, would soon falter. I had a read back over the review I made of 2011's Suck it and See and was surprised to see that I'd not only given it an 8.5, but also called it my second favourite album of theirs. Whatever I was smoking at the time soon wore off, and it became pretty boring pretty fast. It now stands, in my opinion, as just about their weakest ( Humbug remains divisive, but at least interesting). Where will #5 stand? (For now, that is...) If there were any concerns, 'Do I Wanna Know?' shook them off quite rapidly. Toeing the line