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- Readers recommend: Songs about villains
Last week was all about the bossanova backbeat, this week we're stalking robbers, moustache-twiddlers and the truly evil
I think Pairubu had it right. The South American topic was limiting and we did end up heading down a road where the signposts largely read "bossanova – next exit". But do I think this was a bad thing? Why, quite the opposite m'lud. It's a good thing now and again to go headlong into one or two styles, particularly those which one (I say "one", I mean "me") might be less familiar with. Particular thanks to ejaydee and Sao Paolo-ite farofa for their contributions – muy rico.
A list (and column in which I attempt to claim the spirit of tropicalia for the list):
MC Júnior and Leonardo – Rap das Armas
Sepultura – Ratamahatta
Big Audio Dynamite – Sambadrome
Burt Bacharach – South American Getaway
Joao Gilberto/Stan Getz – Corcovado
Tom Ze – A Brigo do Edificio Italio Como Hilton Hotel
The War On Drugs – Buenos Aires Beach
Roxy Music – Amazona
Caetano Veloso – Tropicália
Roberto Carlos Lange – Amazonian Pacific
Here, also, is your B list. I'm afraid that my imminent departure for Glastonbury (join us here throughout the weekend for peerless coverage!) means I'm going to skip my explanations this week. Hope you can forgive me. Suffice to say a lot of this list had similar qualities to those I enjoyed in the A list.
Cristo Redentor – Donald Byrd
Seu Jorge – En Sou Favela
Frank Sinatra - There's an Awful Lot of Coffee in Brazil
Lalo Schifrin – Rio after dark
Robert Fripp - Buenos Aires Suite: III Streets
The Band – Amazon
Tortoise - The Suspension Bridge at Iguazu Falls
Devendra Banhart – Rosa
Mountain Goats – Quito
MIA – Amazon
Those two lists put together in one place = the Spotify playlist for Songs about South America.
Now, to this week's topic, and it's villains. They don't have to be fictional, they don't have to be historical. They don't have to be moustache-twiddlers or truly evil. They do, however, have to be the subject of the song. So it could be about an adulterer or a bank robber, but I want the singer of the song to be clear in their mind that the subject is a villain. We'll discuss instrumentals later ...
I'll try to pop into the blog from Pilton, so post your questions, etc. Also, Tin – I never got into the thread in time to justify my Lily love. Suffice to say I think she's witty and has a sharp eye for detail and ear for contemporary speech. There's more, but I'll save for another time ...
The toolbox: Archive, the Marconium, the Spill, the Collabo.
DO post your nominations before midday on Monday if you wish them to be considered.
DO post justifications of your choices wherever possible.
DO NOT post more than one-third of the lyrics of any song.
DO NOT dump lists of nominations – if you must post more than two or three at once, please attempt to justify your choices.
DO be nice to each other!
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Переслать - Glastonbury 2010: Who forgot the sun cream?
The Guardian music team has arrived at Worthy Farm … and they're already considering running to the Green Fields wearing nothing but a fig leaf
Flippin' heck, a bit of rain wouldn't go amiss round here! Glastonbury 2010 is absolutely sizzling right now, and the forecast suggests this is only the start.
It seems that the Somme and Passchendaele, so long (rather inappropriate) analogies used by music journalists to describe Glastonbury, will have to be replaced by the Battle of El Alamein if we're to carry on making four days of live music sound like a herculean test (and we have to, because it justifies us getting sent out here – "Oh, the poor little lambs, off to bravely fight at Glastonbury AGAIN … I don't know how they do it").
Walking through the festival site we saw people passed out by their tents, sunburnt to shreds already. Others have squandered their festival booze allowance on pints of fresh watermelon juice. Jeans have been replaced by shorts … we may throw caution to the wind and roam as nature intended come Sunday (although that normally happens whatever the weather).
Anyway, the Guardian music team has arrived safely, and is fully Wi-Fi'd up to provide you full coverage from Worthy Farm. We've already got our Glastonbury scrapbook (via Tumblr) app running for live tweets and pictures. And on the side of every article you'll find the latest updates from Glasto bands and our army of tweeting readers as well.
We'll also bring you a daily podcast, loads of reviews, video features, galleries and a fully interactive Glastonbury map. And we'll do this without worrying about having to canoe home. Stay tuned!
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Take cover! It's the Swells iPod!
From classical music to comic hero-baiting pop-punk ... take a trip through the depths of Steven Wells's music taste
Steven Wells, the late and legendary NME and Guardian journalist, died one year ago today. Among the many moved to write in tribute 12 months ago was James Brown, former editor of Loaded. He declared, rather oddly, that Swells had "little true interest in music". This was utterly wrong. Wells was captivated by music. You couldn't chat for 30 seconds without him starting a "Have you heard ...?" discussion.
To prove it, and to remind ourselves of the kind of music Swells championed (anything to make you "laugh, wince, shout ... dance, copulate, riot, or write an angry letter to the Daily Mail), his wife, Katharine Jones, gave the Guardian access to the most played tracks on Steven's iPod. Because iPods know our taste better than we do.
We may kid ourselves that we like highbrow indie and critics' darlings. However, as Swells might have put it: "Your iPod's number-of playlist is a little Gestapo taste-Nazi in your pocket, kicking away your vegetarian knees, smacking the Tibetan twat-hat off your noggin and hurling you against walls by your shrivelled, indie-withered genitals until you CONFESS! CONFESS, VERDAMMTER ENGLANDER! YOU LOVE ATOMIC KITTEN'S WHOLE AGAIN! TWELF THOUSUND PLAYS!'" Although he'd probably have said it with more exclamation marks.
So here is a selection of the most-played songs on Swells's iPod, passing the highly scientific threshold of seven plays or more. It proves, beyond all doubt, that the man
a) loved music – punk, country, rap, rock, folk, classical ... the whole shebang b) meant every word he wrote about it c) really, really liked Lily Allen.
All Comic Heroes are Fascist Pigs – Terrorgruppe
This 24-second burst of pop-punk delight argues, with impeccable anarcho-logic, that because comic-book superheroes are on the same side as cops, they are all bastards, and therefore we should "barbecue their dicks". Terrorgruppe are multilingual German punks who aim to write songs of "malicious joy: 10% politically correct, 90% politically incompetent". In other words, custom-made for Swells.
Ça Plane Pour Moi – Plastic Bertrand
The quintessential Swells song, which, in his book Punk: Young, Loud and Snotty, he defied "anyone with a brain and soul not to smile like a masturbating chimp every time they hear it". Not only is this one of the catchiest things in recording history, it strikes a blow against one of Steven's lifelong musical nemeses: the quest for "authenticity". The song rips off Elton Motello's Jet Boy Jet Girl (Bertrand even used the same musicians). The lyrics are complete nonsense. And punk purists still hate it. But do we care?
Allegro Con Brio from Symphony 5 in C Minor, Opus 67 – Beethoven
Good tunes grab you right away, or get skipped. Wells was brutal with the skip button. Most of us are probably the same but don't admit it. But that doesn't make you a philistine. Beethoven knew his audience, and served up the greatest first bar in the history of music. Once he had us, he was free to take the next six minutes and make us cry, laugh shudder and gasp.
Downtown – Petula Clark
Swells felt it went without saying that this Petula pearl was vastly superior to anything ever recorded by Bob Dylan. Reasonable people might disagree, but in dark times, folks turn to the Surrey-born siren. After 9/11, Lower Manhattan adopted Downtown as their official recovery anthem. Swells felt the pull, too: iPod records show he listened to the track through his battle with cancer. And be honest: would you want to fight lymphoma with Dylan droning in your ears?
Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen from The Magic Flute – Mozart
According to his family, this was Steven's favourite piece of music. It's weird, wonderful and otherworldly, and his sister still fondly remembers being tortured by the song on long car journeys, as Swells compulsively demanded replays of the famously high-pitched aria. It's also the one piece of classical music that every human listener has responded to thusly: "What the fuck was that? Play it again."
Henry Ford Was a Fascist – David Rovics
Rovics is the contemporary Woody Guthrie: a witty, wily and unfashionably socialist folk singer. This song is about the antisemitic tendencies of capitalist in-chief Ford, who Rovics chastises for getting into bed with the Nazis.
Canon and Gigue in D Major – Pachelbel
Repeat listens prove that, at heart, Swells was like all skinheads with ANL tattoos: a big softie. Before Steven was a ranting poet or a culture warrior he was a choirboy who sang at Bradford cathedral. He retained a genuinely beautiful voice into adulthood, and often launched into full-throated, childishly enthusiastic renditions of Baby One More Time.
Jerusalem – Paul Robeson
Perfect for the professional Yorkshireman in America: Broadway's greatest baritone singing about ... mills.
Not Ready to Make Nice – Dixie Chicks
As well as being a great song, this should be the anthem of anyone who refuses to shut their big mouth. It was difficult to make Swells go quiet. But his wife says the documentary Shut Up & Sing, which documented the bravery of Natalie Maines and the other Chicks in the face of near-total ostracism by their artistic community, made the man mute in admiration. But thank God he never lived to see them tour with the Eagles.
Worst Things First – East Coast Avengers
The East Coast Avengers are a political hip-hop supergroup trio famous for their verbal attacks on rightwing US talk-radio nutjobs. Their other classic, Kill Bill O'Reilly, calls for the murder of Fox News's breeziest blowhard, on grounds of sexual harassment, bigotry, fondness for terrorists who kill pro-choice doctors, and generally twisting all truth. Swells had a soft spot for anyone who tangled with the conservative-outrage machine, having once spent a whole election day consuming only right-wing media. He described the experience as agony – "a sort of reverse detox" – although he did take part in an on-air discussion about whether Obama using the word "buffet" was elitist. The consensus? It was.
Smile – Lily Allen
This is the motherlode: the most played song on the iPod, spread across three different versions. Other Allen songs were high up the most-played charts, too, Friday Night, Not Big and Blank Expression among them. Her best bits are Swells' best bits: quotable, gobby, biting, brilliant, BNP-hating, fearless, feminist and vulnerable. They're both people who wrote things we love, things that we've shared with friends, put big, stupid smiles on our faces, and sent mini endorphin rushes through our culture cortex. Not many people can do that. Not many at all.
OTHER TRACKS SWELLS PLAYED SEVEN TIMES OR MORE
All the Things She Said – t.A.T.u.
Baby One More Time – Britney Spears
Basket Case – Green Day
Bad Reputation – Joan Jett
C'mon Everybody – Sex Pistols
Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey – the Beatles
Formed a Band – Art Brut
Caro Mio Ben – Giuseppe Giordani
The Girl Can't Dance – Bunker Hill
Girlfriend – Avril Lavigne
Good Golly Miss Molly – Little Richard
Helter Skelter – the Beatles
Hit That – the Offspring
I'm So Bored With the USA – the Clash
Flower Duet from Lakmé – Léo Delibes (as sung by Dame Joan Sutherland)
Let's Dance – Chris Montez
Long Tall Sally – Little Richard
Nervous Breakdown – Black Flag
Pieces of Me – Ashlee Simpson
Police On My Back – the Clash
Promised Land – Elvis Presley
Mothership – Led Zeppelin
She's Automatic – Rancid
Torn – Natalie Imbruglia
(White Man) in Hammersmith Palais – the Clash
Whole Again – Atomic Kitten
The 11th Hour – Rancid
Back in the USSR – the Beatles
Borstal Breakout - Sham 69
Come Scoglio Immoto Resta from Così Fan Tutte – Mozart
Hate Myself for Loving You – Joan Jett
Janie Jones – the Clash
Mommie Is a Commie – the Diskords
Olympia, WA – Rancid
Pressure Drop – Toots and the Maytals
Should I Stay Or Should I Go – the Clash
Silly Thing – Sex Pistols
Sink Venice – Ikara Colt
The War's End – Rancid
Yer Blues – the Beatles
Gary Gilmore's Eyes – the Adverts
Lithium – Nirvana
Ace of Spades – Motörhead
You Send Me – Aretha Franklin
While My Guitar Gently Weeps – the Beatles
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Send us your Glastonbury reviews
Think you can do better than our crack team of Glastonbury reviewers? Let's hear from you
Hi. The A-team have gone off to have fun in the fields, leaving myself and a few other unfortunates locked in the office with the brooms to keep the place clean and tidy. We get a bit bored reading the same kind of stuff about Muse and the Gorillaz; we'd like to get a flavour of the more offbeat parts of the festival. Are there any would-be reviewers out there ready to press their sharp eyes and educated ears into service to rescue us from office-bound ignorance? Can you help us to pretend we're where we ought to be, in a collapsing, baked beans-stained tent next to the toilets?
We're especially interested in hearing about the gigs the usual reviewers cannot reach, but if you have a burning opinion about anything you've seen, in person or even just on the telly, get writing. Send your long-considered views, your scribbly rants, your cloud-parting revelations (no longer than 200 words, please) to glastoreviews@guardian.co.uk and we'll publish the best ones we receive right here. If you don't fancy strutting your critical stuff on the main stage, you can always just heckle from the crowd in the comments section below. Hope to hear from you soon ...
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Behind the music: What's in a band name? | Helienne Lindvall
The wrong moniker can lead to empty gigs and lost royalties. How to avert this disaster? One app thinks it has the answer
The other day, I came across an advert for a band-naming app that exclaimed: "With no cheesy names like 'Purple Fuzzy Dog', you'll get results that you can actually use!" After reading the examples, including SilentSound Wires (for electro pop), Spark Darkens the Dream (for emo) and Weakness in the Hero (for metal/hardcore), Purple Fuzzy Dog didn't sound so bad after all.
Far too many musicians spend too little time on naming their band, failing to factor in all the repercussions a bad title can have on their career. Of course, the first issue to consider is a name that no other act is using, which gets increasingly difficult with each passing year. As a teenager, I was going to call my band Love – until I realised it had already been taken before I was even born.
Today, coming up with a decent name that no one else is using is not enough. In fact, a "cool" name can often work against you these days, thanks to the physics of search-engine optimisation (SEO). Try running a Google search for the band Girls – or even Spotify – and see what happens. An endless list of titles and group names with the word "girls" in them. I thought I'd try their album's name, but as it's called Album I had no more luck with that, so I gave up. I imagine searching for Love would be even harder.
I bet Girls thought they were being clever when they came up with their name and their album title, just like I thought I was when I named my former band "Helienne's Private Party". We couldn't figure out why the only people who turned up to our gigs were those we'd invited, until a regular at the club said they thought it was closed on the night we played – for a private party. If only we'd been as clever as the Australian act Free Beer!
Having an unusual name, like mine, can sometimes work in your favour, at least when it comes to SEO and creating a website. When it comes to receiving royalties, though, it can be a bit hit and miss. If you're a session musician, the money could remain with the PPL, the licensing company that collects performance royalties. It could end up on someone else's statement, if someone spells your name incorrectly – or even remain with the Performing Rights Society (PRS) if you're a songwriter. Doug Wimbish, a bass player who's performed on albums with Mick Jagger, Seal and Annie Lennox, is often credited as Doug Wimbush. On Madonna's Erotica, he was labelled as Doug Wimbash. That's why it's a good idea to register your name with examples of every misspelling you can think of.
Of course, you can always turn a case of mistaken identity in your favour by piggybacking on someone else's success. Before the internet, companies would sometimes call themselves AAA Plumbers (you can substitute the word plumbers for any other profession or product), to appear first in the Yellow Pages. Taking advantage of SEO, these days they'd probably call themselves Bieber Plumbers. But at least it's a name that a search engine can decipher; try Googling MIA's latest album /\/\/\Y/\.
Prince, on the other hand, went one step further and turned an unpronounceable symbol into his name. He at least had the excuse of being unable to foresee the problems it would create in the internet age (though he had the foresight to register the trademark for the name Prince, despite there being several royalties with the moniker, and a Scandinavian cigarette brand). Unclaimed royalties, misspellings and misunderstandings: if only naming a band was as easy as consulting an app.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать
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