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- Hermione Hoby on music
In light of a wave of homophobic attacks in New York, it's encouraging that pop stars are banging the drum for acceptance
The past few weeks must have been a particularly hard time to be young and gay. A wave of homophobic violence in New York last month was shocking, but most upsetting were the stories of suicides. Five high-profile instances of gay teenagers taking their lives were reported in the US alone. This side of the Atlantic, meanwhile, we were reminded of how far we have yet to go when a lesbian couple were denied a marriage service (rather than a civil partnership) in Greenwich.
Hope, however, comes from the unlikeliest places. Paul Simon sang that every generation throws a hero up the pop charts and, at this moment in time, he might be talking about Ke$ha, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga or Taylor Swift. Thanks to them, the airwaves are full of songs whose shared message, no matter how cheesily delivered, is "gay's OK".
Katy Perry's contribution to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) awareness was, until now, the ditsy sapphic dabbling of "I Kissed a Girl", a song that the inimitable Beth Ditto deemed "offensive to gay culture". Before that was "Ur So Gay" – a song as inane as it is pernicious. "Ur so gay and you don't even like boys" runs the chorus, to which its subject might reply, "but at least I'm not a queer-bashing bonehead who can't spell".
You may therefore not be best-disposed towards her latest single, "Firework", but that would be a shame. Although the song has one of the crappest opening lines in history ("Do you ever feel/ Like a plastic bag?") and a video that implies that Perry's pyrotechnically gifted mammaries are somehow going to save us all, it is, nonetheless, a straight-up (no pun intended) gay youth anthem. With lines such as, "You don't have to feel like a waste of space/ You're original, cannot be replaced", it's a rally cry for self-esteem and acceptance. Yes, it's groaningly mawkish, and yes, it is to music as a Creme Egg McFlurry is to gastronomy, but I'm nonetheless glad every time I hear it.
Perry dedicated the song to the It Gets Better project, a series of videos in which gay men and women talk to the camera to let LBGT teenagers know that, in one way or another, "it gets better". If you haven't seen any yet, steel yourself: I've yet to watch a single one that doesn't set me sobbing. Ke$ha's contribution may not be the most heart-wrenching of the lot, but it's still moving to watch her assuring gay, bisexual and transgender viewers that "however you are choosing to live is beautiful".
Ke$ha describes her latest single, "We R Who We R", as an anthem dedicated to those "who haven't felt accepted because of their sexuality".
Then there's Lady Gaga's new album due next year. Elton John has already declared that its title track, "Born This Way", is "the new 'I Will Survive'... This is the new gay anthem".
She'll be in competition with Pink, whose single "Raise Your Glass" urges us to "...raise your glass if you are wrong/ In all the right ways/ All my underdogs". Pink's video also features a now seemingly obligatory kiss between two men – a pop video trope that's pretty much all down to Christina Aguilera. Her 2002 hit "Beautiful" featured a close-up of two men kissing in slow motion: the fact that it was so much more shocking in 2002 is a small but significant indicator of pop's power to change things. Similarly, whereas "Beautiful" was a sombre ballad, its successors are beat-pounding, shout-the-chorus dance numbers: the welcome implication is that homosexuality and difference are to be celebrated, rather than just endured.
There may well be some bandwagon-hopping going on among these artists, but frankly, when a wagon so desperately needs passengers, let 'em hop. Likewise, some might gripe over it being ostensibly straight women, rather than gay singers, putting out these hits, but perhaps it doesn't matter who the message is coming from. The reach and power of pop music is not to be underestimated, as Dan Savage, who founded the It Gets Better project, well knows. He has said: "I get frustrated with gay politicos who discount or undermine the importance of pop stars. They're a huge part of this fight."
On "Firework" Katy Perry sings: "If you only knew/ What the future holds/ After a hurricane/ Comes a rainbow." And, to paraphrase an early gay icon, somewhere over that rainbow, there's a land where no gay teenager is ever driven to end their own life.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Music Weekly podcast: Bryan Ferry and Ariel Pink
It's a varied show for you this week. First up, Bryan Ferry got on the blower to Rosie Swash to discuss his new album Olympia, which sees him joining forces with members of Roxy Music, as well as Scissor Sisters, Groove Armada and more. He tells Rosie why he finds songwriting lonely (despite collaborating with just about everyone on the planet) and why you don't hear his music on the radio any more.
Singles Club sees Rosie, Alexis Petridis and Michael Hann discuss the merits of Big Deal's Homework, N*E*R*D's Hypnotize U and the Young Edits remix of Arthur Russell's How We Walk On the Moon.
Finally, Ben Beaumont-Thomas interviews Ariel Pink about Haunted Graffiti's recent album, Before Today, and why the LA noise-popper believes in realistic career expectations. And cross-dressing.
That's all this week, hope you enjoy the show. Let us know your thoughts, and come say hello on Facebook or Twitter should the fancy take you.
Переслать - New music: Girls – Carolina
Our favourite druggy cult band are back. And this time they can afford to use a proper recording studio
San Francisco's Girls caused a minor ripple among the music blog fraternity last year with their debut album (the creatively titled Album). Arriving on the back of singer Christopher Owens's simultaneously awful and amazing life story – a tale that takes in religious cults, multi-millionaire benefactors and drug addiction – Album was loaded with bruised tales of loneliness and heartbreak. While that record often sounded like it was recorded using a couple of tin cans and a bit of string, their new EP, Broken Dreams Club, was recorded in an actual studio, the result of some of the cash that has arrived after a year of touring. The final track on the EP is this seven-minute epic that evolves from a discordant, wordless opening to a downbeat murmur to a sudden new dawn around the four-minute mark when Owens's sweetly affecting croon trills over distant "doo ron ron ron" harmonies.
Broken Dreams Club is out on the 22 Novemberguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Readers recommend: songs with famous last words
As Paul bows out from curating this column, we'd like you to suggest the best lyrical exits in pop
"Get your motor running, head out on the highway, make sure you've got your helmet on, and a snack for later in the day ..."
Born to be Road Safe there, by me, a song that narrowly missed the Z-list. I know you know I'm going to say this, but I thought Bicycles was better than Motorbikes. Perhaps similarly limited as symbols – see the column for more on this – but I thought the humble pushbike inspired a broader range of music, and of course not every song was in praise of the machine neither.
Here is your A-list: Daniel Johnston – Speeding Motorcycle; Motorcycle Emptiness - Manic Street Preachers; 1952 Vincent Black Lightning – Richard Thompson; Midnight Rider – The Allman Brothers; The Motorbike Track – µ-Ziq; Ghost Rider – Suicide; The Barber Feel It - Dr Alimantado & Jah Stitch; Born to Be wild – Steppenwolf; The Living End – The Jesus & Mary Chain; Unknown Legend – Neil Young
And also your B: Little Honda - Yo La Tengo; Leader of the Pack – The Shangri-Las; Come a Long Way – Michelle Shocked; Metal Firecracker – Lucinda Williams; Gypsy Biker – Bruce Springsteen; Wheels of Fire – Judas Priest; San Franciscan Nights – Eric Burdon and the Animals; Black Denim Trousers & Motorcycle Boots – The Cheers; Psycle Sluts – John Cooper Clarke; Black Boys On Mopeds – Sinead O'Connor
I am not providing any text for the B-list this week I'm afraid, but there is a reason behind it. This, dear Rrers, is my final week as your guru. After 18 months in the chair and with the legend "second-longest running guru in RR history (so far)" tattooed on my chest I am standing down. I have just landed the plum job of editing the Guide in Saturday's Guardian and, sadly, it won't leave me the time to consume your suggestions each week. It has been a distinct pleasure and honour to have been able to do so this last year, however, and I'd like to thank you all for making me feel welcome and only slagging me off when I deserved it (by and large). You're a great bunch of people who not only know your music but seem set on grabbing life by the boiled eggs. Whether it be cycling across Lancashire, marching against fascism, supping hell in Bavaria or just preparing cod bacalhau in the kitchen, your energy and enthusiasm is inspiring. I hope you continue to enjoy the game and that the Guardian continues to support this community.
Anyway, I thought I'd finish by giving a quick list of 10 songs that I love and would not have discovered if it weren't for RR.
Pamelo Mounk'a – Ce n'est que ma secrétaire
I have vivid memories of sitting on the banks of the Rhine in Cologne, listening to this and letting the world slip past. An incongruous pairing perhaps but such is the transcendent power of the melody of this song that it seems apt anywhere.
Nilsson – Me and My Arrow
A pop song about a roundheaded kid in a pointy-headed village and his trusty dog. Surely that's pop gold, right? Right. Well, at least in my mind. Again it's the melody, which can't help but make you feel "just a little" better.
Terry Callier – Love Theme from Spartacus
I think Nilpferd has nominated this track every week since I gave it a B on Victory week. And why not. A sumptuous, delicate, tender piece. If anything has happened to my taste since doing RR it's that it's exposed its tender side.
Peter Brötzmann – Machine Gun
It's also exposed its serrated side too. This piece of experimental jazz noise as performed by Brötzmann's octet (sounds like a starter at The Fat Duck) appalled me at first, then intrigued me, then fascinated me.
Nick Drake – River Man
Back to the tender side again, but this was not without its intrigue either. The nuanced lyrics and the delicate balance between beauty and melancholy (or indeed the mixture of the two) made me sit up and realise why everyone bangs on about the bloke so much.
Benjamin Britten – Saint Nicolas, Op 42: Nicolas and the Pickled Boys
I started liking this song simply because it was classical music about cannibalism. But I was drawn in by its restrained power. How it soared and roared but always within itself. It felt considered, deliberate, mature.
Eurythmics – Angel
Another thing I loved about RR was the little details, the trivia you would pick up without even trying. To realise that, exactly at the point where as a child I was dismissing Stevie Wonder as a corny dullard, he was contributing the best solos to the biggest hits in pop (songs that, at the time, I was perfectly happy to dance around the sitting room carpet to). This, is one such.
Fela – ITT part 2
Fela was nothing but a name to me before I started doing RR. I'm sorry, but it's true. Now, as far as I'm concerned he's the godfather of hip-hop and soul brother number one. This is the song that first sold him to me.
The Byrds – So You Want to Be a Rock n Roll Star
Sometimes RR just dropped great pop songs in my lap. This was one such number. Just a great guitar hook.
David Bowie – Station to Station
I walked around for about six weeks muttering, not even under my breath: "It's the return of the thin white duke/sticking pins in lover's eyes." I felt pretty cool doing it too. Like Fela, Bowie is another artist I was criminally uninformed about. Nowadays? Not so much.
Think that's the end of my navel-gazing? Not a chance. This week's topic is looking for the best exits in pop. Lyrical exits, I think, the last lines that linger in your mind, but also sum up a song, condense its themes and images, or perhaps even undercut everything that precedes it. I'm now off, getting a little RR + R before starting at the Guide next week so you'll have to decide on the details for yourselves. If in doubt, just do what Tincanman says, he's usually right.
The rulebook
DO NOT post more than a third of the lyrics to any one song.
DO Post your nominations before midday on Monday if you wish them to be considered.
DO Post justifications of your choices wherever possible.
DO Be nice to each other!
The toolbox
Archive, the Marconium, the Spill.
See you later alligators.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Behind the music: Funder pressure
Businesses and banks are reluctant to invest in up-and-coming artists. Are bands worse off now than in the 80s?
I recently attended an event by Music Mind Exchange that addressed alternative funding for artists. One of the panellists was Paul Bedford of Ingenious Ventures, a private equity company that invests in media and entertainment ventures. In the past, Ingenious has supported acts such as the Prodigy and Peter Gabriel. "We've also invested in lesser-known artists, but only two out of 20 recouped," Bedford said. As Ingenious handles a pool of clients looking for at least a 15% profit from their investments, Bedford says they've now decided to move out of the recorded music industry altogether. "It's just not generating enough revenue and is way too risky," he explains. Instead the company has moved into live music, and not touring artists but festival brands.
Of course, Ingenious is not the only investment firm dabbling in pop. Power Amp Music still sees it as a viable area for business, though it tends to do multi-rights deals. It recently put £500,000 into Carl Barât's next solo album, which entitles them to a share of revenues from record sales, publishing royalties, touring, merchandise and sponsorship. Charlotte Church and Madness have done similar deals with the company. Yet, as you can see, these acts are already established. Artist manager David Bianchi says he only knows of one investor that supports new acts: private investment company Shamrock.
So, where apart from record labels can up-and-coming artists turn to get the help necessary to launch and build their careers? Brian Message of ATC Management, which represents artists including Radiohead and Rumer, says it's almost impossible to get banks to lend money for new music ventures despite the government's Enterprise Finance Guarantee scheme, which is making €2bn (£1.7bn) available to viable small companies without a credit history or collateral. His band the Rifles made a £100,000 profit from touring in 2009, which Message says should make his group a less risky prospect for investors (not to mention the fact that they have management with a proven success rate). Yet their application for a loan under the EFG scheme was rejected. This has led to two members of the band leaving, reportedly due to financial pressures.
"The creative industry has been one of this country's biggest exporters for generations," says Message, who's also the chairman of the Music Managers Forum. "But who's going to fund the future of our culture?" He doubts that banks will ever loan money to artists – no matter what the government says – so instead he suggests the government takes 1% from the EFG scheme and makes that €20m available as startup seed capital.
Or they can do what the Canadian government did. About a decade ago, Canada decided to loosen its rules on the radio industry by letting American radio stations buy up local ones. They worried that this would lead to more US artists being playlisted, so in return they demanded that a small percentage of advertising revenue would be invested in Canadian talent, partly as loans and partly as grants. At the time Canada was far down on the list of music-exporting countries, but within a few years it had jumped into the top five.
Message manages the Canadian band Metric, who took advantage of this scheme with a small grant. As they hit certain targets they got more money for tour support and studio time, which added up to C$450,000. The band didn't make it big until their fourth album, so this support was vital for them to keep going.
In the 70s and 80s Britain produced numerous successful artists, many of whom dominated the music scene all over the world without government support. How come they need it now? Well, ignoring the slump in sales of recorded music, both Bianchi and Message point to the simple issue of survival. Back then, you could survive more easily on the dole while you developed as an artist, with cheaper housing and rehearsal space available. These days, it's far harder to keep a band going if members have to take on part-time work to sustain themselves. And thanks to the speed at which bands rise and fall, time to develop is a luxury most groups can't afford.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - New music: Patrick Wolf – Time of My Life (Leo Zero Dub)
Sadly not a cover of the Dirty Dancing classic, but this remix of the Wolf's paean to strength is still adorable
Decadent, pretentious and a self-confessed outsider, Patrick Wolf is the perfect pop star. Over four acclaimed albums he's embraced everything from folk and baroque pop to Berlin-influenced techno. Well, he's back with Time of My Life (not, unfortunately, a cover of the Dirty Dancing staple), the first single from his forthcoming album The Conqueror, due in May. The original is a sumptuous, string-drenched paean to strength in the face of heartbreak ("happy without you" is a recurring lyric), while this remix adds throbbing synths, crisp beats and spacious piano breaks. Around 3.30 mins, strings appear before the track builds towards an appropriately OTT climax.
Time of My Life is released via Hideout Recordings on 6 December
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Gang of Four: free EP download
The legendary Leeds post-punk band talk us through three new tracks for you to download for free
Next year, Gang of Four are set to release Content, their first album of new material in 16 years. As a taste of what to expect, here's a three-track EP to stream or download (if you don't mind parting with an email address).
Featuring a reworked version of the classic Glass (from their debut album Entertainment!), a brand new song (Sleeper) and a remix of the Content track I Party All the Time, we could tell you a bit about how they came about. But then, why do that when Andy Gill and Jon King can do it for us?
Glass (reworked version)
Andy Gill: Glass is a song me and Jon had been confused about for years. We loved the words with Jon's cartoon-like snapshots of our banal real lives, and we knew the music was great but not right – it seemed too busy and kind of old fashioned. Then in 2005 we said: "Enough! This song needs to breath!" So we did a simple stripped-down thing that matched the ultra-minimalism of the words. That was it – confusion over.
Sleeper
Jon King: This song didn't make it on to Content but we like it a lot. It's a jangling slab of signature Gill guitar drone over a repetitive humping groove. Two layered voices tell an untidy story about living in a world of ersatz smiles and ersatz coffee.
In the song, my character isn't feeling right. As attractive young people in Barista baseball caps shout the orders, I'm fumbling for a lost loyalty card. There'll be no freebie Americano and, meanwhile, I'm stuck behind an angry suit complaining about a late flat white. The lower orders try to placate him. They're under observation by a managerial junta, and dream of change and manumission.
They work but they'll never be free. The man in the queue before me gets aggressive; trying to operate his Crackberry and pour sugar, he believes the immigrants have come here on a mission, traitorous codes embedded in their brownness, sleepers who've hijacked jobs the idle poor should embrace. Right now, he's my enemy. I hope he chokes on it.I Party All the Time
Jon King: A rocking guitar riff heisted from Andy's vault of genius licks takes us on a journey to nowhere – a deranged town where if only we stay schtum it'll all be all right. Eddi Reader joins in on backing vocals – now that's a voice – and our tale's about getting down and keeping your head down.
Scene one: After a period of reckless government, the aristocracy has taken power. Despite failing to win an election, a ConDem conspiracy sets out on a ruthless class war. There is an assault on the poor, the disadvantaged and middle-income families. The über-rich and City gamblers are accumulating wealth at a breathtaking rate. So, what's to be done?
Scene two: Our hero realises he's had a hand in these crimes and tries to make sense of his own role. He realises that there's something he can do: Look the other way! There's a song to be sung and a gift in our hearts! We're all in it together! Get Down On It!guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Scene and heard: Mutant house
UK dance has given birth to a hybrid genre created from classic 4/4 beats, regurgitated samples and immense sub-bass
House music is a shape-shifting master of reinvention. But it's taken a new generation of artists from outside the genre to completely alter its DNA. Mutant house exists in the fluid interzone between styles. It's not dubstep or UK funky; it's not techno or Ibiza club fodder. It's something else entirely.
But what makes it so different? Well, though a 4/4 beat pumps lifeblood around its system, it's also a treat for old ravers to spot the samples of dance music's past. But the percussive bustle has shifted; here alongside more traditional house qualities are immense waves of sub-bass, usually found in derivatives of jungle and dubstep. Rave-era breakbeats clatter, and the stripped-back grooves could only be a product of the post-minimal years. In short, this could be the ultimate postmodern distillation of dance – pop eating itself.
One of the chieft exponents of mutant house is Julio Bashmore (see clip above), who is affiliated with Claude VonStroke's San Francisco techno empire, Dirtybird, and the Bristol bass stalwarts, Soul Motive. Plus, there are musicians operating on the fringe of the UK funky scene, such as Lil Silva and T Williams as well as drum'n'bass producers including Instra:mental who have shed their stylistic straitjackets to make something wild and wonderful.But the most radical of all mutant house's advocates is Danny Yorke, aka Altered Natives (see clip below). A north Londoner dissatisfied with the broken beat scene, Yorke has fashioned a futuristic fusion of darker dancefloor styles – acid's roughest, toughest edges, the polyrhythmic clatter and rudeboy energy of jungle – and mixed them with house production techniques.
"All I've done is incorporate everything that's inspired me," says Yorke. "What I'm doing now has been tagged bruk house – I was calling it dirty bruk step. The broken beat tag just wasn't fitting me. The mutant house thing, it's definitely becoming a phenomenon. It's not orthodox. It retains that freestyle edge. There are a lot of labels coming up, and producers, who are doing the same kind of thing, and it's fresh, it's interesting."
Tracks such as Yorke's Rass Out became a huge hit within the UK funky scene, but didn't really fit with the genre's constrictions, while his recent album Tenement Yard Vol.1 saw him push the boat out even further, inserting No U Turn-era cybernetic bass clangs and drum'n'bass elements into a 4/4 rhythm template.
People outside of the nascent scene are catching on. Pinch, Bristol's foremost dubstepper and owner of the Tectonic label, made his new underground smash Croydon House from a desire to mesh Metalheadz stylings with the new groove of funky, while German minimal techno artist Kassem Mosse's remix of Commix's Strictly actually digs out a sample of Goldie's Inner City Life in its explicit melding of rhythms. Instra:memtal, known for their reshaping of drum'n'bass's DNA with their Autonomic podcast have also recently turned to their own weird version of house, with tracks such as Let's Talk.
"House music is a genre that is widely accepted and quite easy to digest," says Instra:mental's Damon Kirkham. "There is a lot of room for experimenting. House music will always be around, but it will keep evolving."
That house is so malleable has perhaps inspired these artists to embrace it. As dubstep becomes increasingly fettered by its rules and rigid blueprints, many are jumping ship and embarking on a new mutant musical excursion.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Which artists should perform at the royal wedding?
Our spies have seen Prince William and Kate Middleton getting down to BodyRockers and Primal Scream in the past. But who should they book for their special day?
What part will pop play in next year's royal wedding? As dedicated denizens of Boujis and Mahiki, Wills and Kate will surely want some bands to perform at the do. Little is known about the couple's taste in music (which no doubt means that they don't have any), but a friend of a friend saw them getting down to BodyRockers' risible I Like the Way You Move and, perhaps more susprisingly, Primal Scream's Rocks at Tom Parker Bowles's wedding a few years ago. So will Harry invite Dizzee Rascal to play? Will James Blunt come armed with his guitar? Will Duran Duran turn up in a nod to the fact that they were Diana's favourite band? Will Elton John, who performed at Diana's funeral, feature on the bill and land himself another chart-topping single? What are your tips?
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - New music: Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young (sort of) - Whip My Hair
The two men solely responsible for keeping harmonica shops in business have joined forces for an unlikely cover
OK, one of these men isn't really Neil Young, it's American TV host Jimmy Fallon. But he does a pretty convincing impression of the Canadian rocker's dulcet tones. The other definitely is Bruce Springsteen, who rocks up halfway through this earnest version of 10-year-old Willow Smith's Whip My Hair. The pair appear to be feeling the lyrics: "I whip my hair back and forth (whip it real good)." And who wouldn't?
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - New music: James Pants – Darlin'
Buzzsaw guitars, echo-laden drums and deadpan vocals ensure this track is Pants, yet anything but pants
James Pants signed with respected hip-hop imprint Stones Throw Records in 2006 while still in high school. He approached label head and DJ, Peanut Butter Wolf, after a prom and the pair hit it off. Darlin' is taken from his third album, Love Kraft, due in spring 2011, and it's an intriguing mix of buzzsaw guitars, echo-laden drums and deadpan delivery. After 90 seconds, a jovial one-note keyboard solo emerges for a quick burst of playfulness before guitars and distant chants emerge to offer something more sinister. Fancy Pants!
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать
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