Posted July 20, 200619 yr Lily Allen - 'Alright, Still' (Tuesday July 18, 2006 3:34 PM ) Released on 17/07/06 Label: Regal The danger with word-of-mouth is that the trendsetters who create the so-called tipping points can grow tired of a product before it hits the mainstream. So it seemed with Lily Allen, who was shining so brightly ahead of any releases that she could almost have burnt out with those in the know before even getting her album out. It barely even matters now - what with a Number One single under her low-slung belt - but no-one seems ready to relegate her to 'ovah' just yet. So she's survived the hype - being an Observer Music Monthly cover star when all she'd released was a limited-edition, chart ineligible 7" of "LDN"; getting a brilliant, Smash Hits"-y cover line on The Word magazine: 'Whatever Happened To Lily Allen?' - but is the underwhelmingly entitled album all that? Well, half the tracks will soon settle comfortably inside the Top Ten, keeping sales buoyant enough for her to have a second long-player out within 18 months, on which she re-teams with Mark Ronson (with whom she's crafted the Cat Stevens-y "Littlest Things") et al and reaches her full potential. For now, it's way more than a stop-gap but sadly not the second coming (or rather, "The Stone Roses") you might have been hoping for. The Streets-only-in-tune delivery, the cheery piano lines, the pop/ska arrangements - a more perfect summer sound you cannot imagine in 2006. And for the first three songs ("Smile", "LDN", "Knock 'Em Out") it's five-star stuff (as opposed to 5 Star stuff, of course). Alas, the mid-section ("Not Big", "Friday Night", "Shame For You" and "Friend Of Mine") goes all sub-Kelis with bad-man baiting and dull dub and only the odd sprightly chorus to elevate t(h)ings. "Everything's Just Wonderful" sounds like a snatched Girls Aloud backing track and "Take What You Take" is a pseudo-baggy abomination with the stench of Jesus Jones, but "Alfie" pops up at the end ("Puppet On A String" via the big-top band) and order is restored, brilliantly. Behind the middle-class rude girl stylings and apparently bottomless confidence, there really is the talent to match. (Compare and contrast Lily with Amy Winehouse who, no matter how talented, could never make good on her career-crippling arrogance.) Somehow, this doesn't always extend to Lily's vocals - there's an offhand style to her delivery but beneath that there's a hesitancy, an audible self-doubt that, in truth, adds to the charm. And four smashes out of 11 tracks is more than alright. For now, anyway. by Emma Morgan --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thom Yorke - 'The Eraser' (Monday July 17, 2006 1:31 PM ) Released on 10/07/06 Label: XL Recordings For a man so consumed with rage and electrocuted by fear for the future of the globe, Thom Yorke has been curiously selective in his efforts to smash the system. Having reliably baulked at an opportunity to rail the global superpowers at the somewhat overblown Live 8 event last summer, he is also understood to have swerved a summit with his nemesis Tony Blair. These are frankly chilling times and with Iraq at civil war in all but name and the globe melting while we piss out the petroleum, we could do with his articulate power beyond the occasional rant and windswept CND demonstrations. Enter "Harrowdown Hill", which is surely the most locked-on, infected and damaging slash of polemic Yorke has ever committed to tape. In fact, one can think of few pieces of music that carry such terror and weight at the sinister puppeteering of 21st century politics. This track alone, depicting in quite harrowing tension the suicide of doomed MoD man David Kelly, makes "The Eraser", Yorke's first solo album, a success and a memorable exercise for both us and him. "Harrowdown Hill", like "The Eraser" as a whole, twitches and skitters across the kind of choppy electronic waters Yorke seemed to impose on Radiohead for the brave, landmark "Kid A". We're trapped within narrow, compressed sonic walls which are slowly squeezing the very life from us and, as you might expect, Thom has the right hump. Such despair is not expressed explicitly, rather through randomised phrasing - "time is running out", "you should have took me out when you had the chance", "this is f*cked up", "it's doing me in" - which are accompanied by Yorke's genuine gift at creating epic glitchy laptop gloom. Amongst the most potent moments here are opening track, "The Eraser", which begins with a bout of polite disgust from Yorke plus cut-and-paste Warp beats, before accelerating into your head impressively. "Analyse" is more mysterious, a myriad of spiralling keys and dusty, crumpled loops building to a claustrophobic close. "The Clock", meanwhile, picks up where the magnificent, breakthrough "Idiotique" left off, all clanging, processed alarm bells, spliced vocal ticks and swift, paranoid electro tap-dancing. However, "And It Rained All Night", alongside "Harrowdown Hill", is perhaps the most realised moment, as Yorke envisages New York City drowning in a tidal wave of sci-fi terror catastrophe, the kind one can almost inconceivably recognise in the aftermath of 9/11. All of these compositions bear the sheet black stamp of Yorke and confirm how utterly insistent his hand clearly is on Radiohead. To that end, a couple of tracks - "Skip Divided" and "Atoms For Peace" - are rather more forgettable, marooned in a mist of wailing and anodyne grey digital mush. If any further justification is required for "The Eraser", take a walk into "Harrowdown Hill", as the layers of transient "Low"-era Bowie / Eno synths rise against a whipping bass line and a dying man admits "I feel me slipping in and out of consciousness". You must surely marvel at Thom Yorke's insistence to challenge his audience and his enemies. It may not be pretty but, as David Kelly's family would surely attest, real life rarely is. by Ben Gilbert -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peaches - 'Impeach My Bush' (Monday July 17, 2006 12:59 PM ) Released on 10/07/06 Label: XL Recordings Exciting news: Peaches has gone political. Mind you, she's done so after her own unique fashion. "I'd rather f*ck who I want than kill who I'm told to," runs the opening, endlessly-repeated line of her third LP, and one really couldn't ask for a more successful fusing of geopolitical affairs and the inexhaustible sexual obsession of Canadian ex-schoolteacher Merrill Nisker. Once "F*ck Or Kill" has sated Peaches' politico tendencies, a track called "Tent in My Pants" pops up, and we're plunged deep inside the pink-hued, sugar-walled monomania with which Peaches' name is synonymous. Make no mistake: on the subject of her rapacious equal-opportunities sexuality, Miss Nisker has a lot to say for herself, and, consequently, plenty of these tracks have titles that might get you in trouble if they showed up on your hotel bill ("Downtown", "Two Guys For Every Girl", "Slippery Dick"…all of them, pretty much). So assertive of her libido is Peaches that you almost wonder if she's trying to mask a deep-seated prudishness. Or maybe by writing that sentence your correspondent has revealed his own prudishness. It's all so confusing. Sonically, the story is less confusing. "Impeach my Bush" - and how funny you find that title may indicate whether or not this record is for you - sounds very much like Peaches' first two records, and that's no bad thing. Cheap and nasty electronica sidles up to crunchy punk-rock guitars, and to the ensuing din Peaches adds vocals that flit between banshee-like screeching and monotone rapping. Those rock guitars may fall foul of those for whom the electroclash era carries fond memories, but it's worth remembering that many highlights of Peaches' brilliant live shows have found her wielding a Flying V. Of course, by the time the album has climaxed with a closing quartet of "Get It", "Give 'Er", "Do Ya" and "Stick It", a big part of you is wondering if Peaches maybe needs to find some new hobbies. But there's method to her (sex-)madness: like that of Har Mar Superstar, Peaches' shtick is all about the democratisation of desire, about sex not being the sole preserve of the rich and beautiful; and in an era of rampant celebrity obsession, this probably needs saying. What's certain is that "Impeach my Bush" is another riotously entertaining record from a woman who - like The Ramones and The Cramps before her - is riding a one-trick pony toward legend status. by Niall O'Keeffe ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
July 20, 200619 yr is this peaches that everyone keeps talkin bout the same peaches that did oh my god with pink on try this album?
July 20, 200619 yr is this peaches that everyone keeps talkin bout the same peaches that did oh my god with pink on try this album? Yep.
July 20, 200619 yr cool :D she sounds sexy in oh my god so i mite buy her album :P I've heard a few songs by her, and they're VERY raunchy. From what I've read about her, she's famed on her raunchy songs. :lol: Edited July 20, 200619 yr by Aly
July 20, 200619 yr lol, have u got any pictures of her? i tryed doin a search on google and it found the wrong kind of peaches lol
July 20, 200619 yr lol, have u got any pictures of her? i tryed doin a search on google and it found the wrong kind of peaches lol This was the single cover of her recent single 'Downtown', assuming it's her of course :lol: http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000FUU6KY.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V62943718_.jpg Edited July 20, 200619 yr by Aly
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