IT'S CHICO TIME

Chico

If I see this CD anywhere near a toolbox, it’ll be hammer time. I can’t even begin to describe how utterly wretched this has turned out to be. Here’s how lame this song is - if this was a racehorse it would’ve fallen at the first, broken a leg, got put down and ended up as glue before the winning horse finished the race. Some songs are fun to listen to, unfortunately my ears still haven’t forgiven me for hearing this one to the end.

INDUSTRY

The Modern

Just imagine you’re watching a classic TV cop show that dates from the mid-1980s, when the Fashion Police were too busy laughing at 1970s Littlewoods catalogues to bother looking at what they themselves were wearing. The aforementioned TV cops are running about with guns bigger than they are, and they’re wearing… oh dear God just look at what they’re wearing. Fluorescent T-shirts, pastel-coloured suits, ties thinner than a French fry, jackets with the sleeves rolled up (now Keith Harris, I can understand him doing that, it made it easier for him to shove his arm up Orville’s backside… it’s okay younger readers, stop crying, Orville wasn’t a real duck). At least they weren’t constantly yapping on mobile phones, or if they were, the phones were mobile in much the same way that the Isle Of Wight is. So anyway, we have these TV cops and… oh what the hell, let’s give them mullets and designer stubble too. Let’s go as eighties as we possibly can. A Rubik Cube hanging from the windscreen of their Ford Escort XR3i instead of a furry dice? Why not? Anyway… they turn up at some seedy nightclub that resembles some sort of descent into Neon Strip Lighting Hell and what’s the DJ playing as the law arrives? Something just like this, that’s what. Exactly the sort of industrial (no pun intended) synthpop that people were lapping up twenty years ago. You’ve got hints of Propaganda, the Thompson Twins, to a less extent the likes of A Flock Of Seagulls as well and I bet after all this you think I’m going to slate it. Well, I’m not. Fischerspooner have been trying to do a song like this for years, but where they’ve fallen down is by trying to be clever. Where the Modern have got it right is to capture the spirit of fun that a song like this needs and not worry too much about being arty. Yes, it reminds me of what I was listening to when I was 11 as opposed to what I’m listening to now I’m 31, but come on, be fair. Twenty years ago, Crazy Frog didn’t exist and neither did Chico. See, the eighties weren’t all that bad really.

THE YEAH YEAH YEAH SONG

Flaming Lips

This is… mental. No other word for it. Unfortunately I have to use a few more to fill the review out a bit, so here goes. It starts off with lots of acappella “yeahs”, then turns into the sort of song Paul Simon would’ve jumped on when he was doing Graceland and then, well after that it’s anyone’s game. I’ve no idea if I like it or not, but it’s certainly different. I think that’s a good thing.

WHEN YOU WASN'T FAMOUS

The Streets

I remember when the Streets first appeared. I reviewed Has It Come To This? and I have to say, I hated it. Credit to Mike Skinner though, he’s stuck at it and even now, five years later there’s still nobody else around who sounds like him. He’s also got better over time, but then I suppose from that starting point there was only one way to go and it wasn’t down. He does like telling his stories over nondescript backing tracks and this one’s no different, sort of a post-watershed Jackanory if you like. This week he’s going on about girlfriends appearing on cd:uk after doing more speed than a jet-propelled greyhound and how the gossip magazines love that sort of thing. Surely not, I’d have thought they’d be the last to jump on a scandal like that. I really didn’t expect to like this, the fact that I did is some achievement.