Pacific! - Break Your Social System

Revolutionary lyrics via the medium of funky electro-pop-dance. What more could you ask for on a Monday morn? Pacific! are from Sweden. I dunno what it is with Sweden. How are they so effortlessly cool? Pacific! released ther debut album Reveries earlier this year.

I'm having a bit of an operation today and may be woozy for a few days so I expect the next couple of posts will be a bit random. Having said that, most of my posts are a bit random, so maybe they'll seem unusually lucid.

Pacific! - Break Your Social System

Death In Vegas - Aisha

While randomly skipping through the jukebox in the pub a couple of nights ago I came across this song, which I hadn't heard for ages. What a CHOON. The whole thing is just effortlessly cool and with Iggy Pop as the vocalist, well, it's time for superlatives.

Death in Vegas - Aisha

Los Campesinos! - The International Tweexcore Underground

Today, I am we. Bear with me/us. It's been a long day (and it's only about 11am)!

We love Los Campesinos! very much here at A Cloud Of Starlings. They makes us do a small wee with pleasure. Their debut record, Hold On Now, Youngster! is our favourite of the year so far: exuberant, funny, clever, happy, shouty, and singalongy. (Yes, singalongy, that IS a word, what's your problem?).

This track wasn't on their debut, but was a single from back in 2007. It got to #126 on the UK singles chart which says a lot more about the UK singles chart than the song.

Los Campesinos - The International Tweexcore Underground

Angus and Julia Stone - Here We Go Again

I'm feeling really blue today. You may laugh at this but my favourite chicken, Brain, got taken by the fox, and I only just managed to save Pinky. The names don't help you take it seriously, do they? I nearly put "R.I.P Brain" as my Facebook status but realised that was asking people to laugh. I'm really not joking! I mean, I'm starting to feel a certain amount of gallows humour but I'm still really upset. Bastard fox.

Anyway, here's a song that may chase the blues away. Kings of Convenience style guitars with harmonies that remind me of the Magic Numbers. Angus and Julia Stone are Australian siblings, whose debut album A Book Like This was released back in March and reached 5 in the Australian chart, though I must confess to not having heard of them before a couple of weeks ago. Pretty damned good though!

Angus and Julia Stone - Here We Go Again

Blah Blah Blah - Death To The Indie Disco

"Death to the indie disco
Death to the London scene
Death to the dancers in their best clothes
To be in your gang dont mean a shit to me

In a backlash to conformity
Where by there is a format thats obligatary
This all seems quite contradictory
So we've got nothing in common"

I couldn't agree more.

Blah Blah Blah are, apparently, often described as the most fun you can have with your clothes on. I dunno about that (whoever wrote that obviously hasn't ever stirred a slurrey pit. That's a joke by the way. hafuckingha) but they certainly are endearingly ebullient. That's my word for the day, by the way.

Blah Blah Blah - Death to the Indie Disco

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Now playing: Dresden Dolls - Night Reconnaissance

Sufjan Stevens - Casimir Pulaski Day; Regina Spektor - Chemo Limo

Cancer is an extremely difficult subject to treat sensitively. These two songs are the only two I know of to so do well. The first is Sufjan Steven's 'Casimir Pulaski Day' off the Come on! Feel the Illinoise! album (2005). It's written from the perspective of a Christian (I assume male), in love with Christian girl who has been diagnosed with cancer of the bone, and is full of wise perspectives on how people deal with anticipated grief. It's sad but it's also about the beauty of life. I recommend reading the lyrics.

Sufjan Stevens - Casimir Pulasky Day



Regina Spektor's 'Chemo Limo' is written from the perspective of someone with terminal cancer, though this isn't immediately obvious. In fact, initially it's surreally funny ("crispy crispy Benjamin Franklin") but soon the dark underside to the lyrics becomes apparent and it's heartbreaking, especially the part about Barbara. Lyrics.

Regina Spektor - Chemo Limo



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Now playing: Sufjan Stevens - They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From The Dead!! Ahhhh!

Tim Williams - Novel

Sky's now clear, do you like what you see? I do!
Living in your garbage, throwing in your dreams
We know that if you live your life all that way
You're stuck in the novel that no-one will let you leave

Tim Williams - Novel

Sometimes it's best not to say too much, other than that I like it muchly.

HOWEVER.

There is something I want to talk about, and that is what everyone else is talking about... COLDPLAY. I really really like their song 'Vida La Vida'. I can't get enough of it. I hear it on the radio and there's goosebumps. The orchestra accompaniment is just phenomenal - I think it's the best bit of orchestral writing I've ever heard in a pop song. But I've listened through the album a couple of times now and I don't think there's anything else there that comes close, musically or lyrically. There are a few good-enough songs, but nothing anywhere near comparable. Worst are tracks like 'Lost?' The music is ok but the lyrics are absolutely awful. The first half has a series of typical Coldplay "clever" lyrics:

Just because I'm losing
Doesn't mean I'm lost
Doesn't mean I'll stop
Doesn't mean I will cross

Just because I'm hurting
Doesn't mean I'm hurt
Doesn't mean I didn't get what I deserve
No better and no worse

I just got lost
Every river that I've tried to cross
Every door I ever tried was locked
Ooh-Oh, And I'm just waiting till the shine wears off...

My personal favourite is the clunker "Just because I'm hurting doesn't mean I'm hurt". Well, I'm sorry but I really think it does.

And then we get this little beauty:

You might be a big fish
In a little pond
Doesn't mean you've won
'Cause along may come
A bigger one
And you'll be lost

Now, I'm sorry Mr Martin, but everybody knows how the big fish in the little pond thing works. We were taught in primary school for fuck's sake. If you really must use it, at least add to it, don't just paraphrase it. It's just lazy.

This is a criticism I'd extend to pretty much every Coldplay album. The music is frequently beautiful, especially on Parachutes and A Rush of Blood to the Head. The lyrics can sometimes be pretty good (I really like the lyrics of 'Vida La Vida', by the by) but sometimes they are just blah, and blah for 50 minutes can make even the most beautiful music dull after about 5 listens. They rarely - if ever - make you think; rather they're just cut and paste cliches and grand but vague statements that anyone can listen to and think "yeah, that expresses what I feel". Don't get me wrong here, I'm not some ridiculous idiot who thinks that there's something inherently wrong with that, I just know that it's not for me, and that I don't think much of the people who think that the "big fish small pond" analogies are particularly profound. They sound profound because they're accompanied by beautiful music but if you took the music away and read them out in a room full of people, you'd rapidly get slow handclaps and people leaving. Compare most of the lyrics of Coldplay with some of Radiohead's best (Radiohead are so often cited as an influence on Coldplay) and I think you'll see what I mean. Thom Yorke writes far better analogies and can also construct a narrative, which is something I've not found in a Coldplay track. I'm not saying Thom Yorke writes the best lyrics in the world, just that Chris Martin ought to pay more attention to their lyrics, having already developed a wonderful sound.

Radiohead - Subterrannean Homesick Alien

The breath of the morning
I keep forgetting
The smell of the warm summer air

I live in a town
Where you can't smell a thing
You watch your feet
For cracks in the pavement

Up above
Aliens hover
Making home movies
For the folks back home

Of all these weird creatures
Who lock up their spirits
Drill holes in themselves
And live for their secrets

They're all uptight
Uptight.. (x7)

I wish that they'd swoop down in a country lane
Late at night when I'm driving
Take me on board their beautiful ship
Show me the world as I'd love to see it

I'd tell all my friends
But they'd never believe
They'd think that I'd finally lost it completely

I'd show them the stars
And the meaning of life
They'd shut me away
But I'd be all right
All right..

I'm just uptight
Uptight.. (x7)