2012 Archive
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Title: Review: Hit So Hard - The Life & Near Death Story of Patty Schemel
Published: 2012-11-10 15:47:10
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nThis documentary is a must for any Hole fan not just for the, often heartbreaking, old footage but for offering us up the time to appreciate exactly how good a drummer Patty was and what a lovely woman she appears to be now.nMore than a rockumentary though, Hit So Hard is a devastating portrait of addiction and excess. Not just excess in the pursuit of entertainment or escapism but excess of emotion, of anger, of energy, of passion and the blaze that these often difficult, selfish, self-destructive people set fire to for the world to warm their hands around. Being a rock fan can be a vicarious, morally dubious thing at times and this film underlines precisely why.nIt’s also a worthwhile reminder of the still-fragile place of women in the industry. Will we ever see another band like Hole again? I hope so, but I suspect not any time soon.nn
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Title: Review: Kylie - The Abbey Road Sessions
Published: 2012-10-31 13:18:00
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nOk, so straight off the bat I’ll fess up that I’m a covers junky. I have a real thing for finding interesting reworkings of songs and I had already loved Kylie’s Live Lounge session so I was probably more up for this than most to start with.nThere is a long tradition of artists stripping down and re-inventing their hits, most notably during the height of MTV Unplugged in the mid 90s. In recent years there have been a lot of (often ‘ironic’) reworkings of pop songs by more 'credible’ artists. Sometimes this delivers something wonderful, sometimes something that makes you want to slap the artist for thinking they are so much bigger and cleverer than pop. nWhen a pop artist decides to do this to their own songs the desire can often come from a surprisingly similar place - to imbue it with something new, something different or to try and prove that it is 'real’ music after all. Much as I love her Gaga’s recent Thanksgiving EP is a perfect example of the kind of po-faced schmaltz that often consumes stripped-down pop. (Although she has done similar things much better elsewhere - so I’ll give her a free pass on that one.)nSo which is this? Well, thankfully it’s more of the former than the latter. Had she attempted this during her indie-Kylie period it would almost certainly have been an exercise in cred-flexing. Thankfully at this stage of her career she is far more comfortable in her own skin and approaches the project with just the right mix of humor and melancholia.nShe’s had her fair share of chart bangers and OTT pop moments but I’ve long suspected that it’s the breathy mid tempo roboto-porn songs that have formed the backbone of her appeal. Kylie can sing almost anything and make it sound at once salacious and oddly refined. For a singer who’s voice has never really been considered her strong point it seems the closer and more intimate it gets the more enjoyable it becomes. And in that sense this album is a sidestep rather than a volte-face. The overall feel of the arrangement is stripped down in the sense that it’s not electronic but it’s certainly not girl-and-an-acoustic-guitar noodling and teeters on the edge of big-band but, Locomotion aside, remaining more reigned in and less 'retro’ than that.nThe standout tracks on the album for me are Finer Feelings, Confide In Me and Can’t Get You Out Of My Head - the latter two becoming so obsessionally seductive in tone that they start to sound, frankly, quite threatening.nOther highlights include On A Night Like This, All The Lovers (a 24 carat classic through and through), I Believe In You, Wow, Better The Devil You Know and I Should Be So Lucky. It’s also nice to hear Locomotion after becoming progressively dirtier and dirtier over the years re-instated to something more joyfully like, if not the original Little Eva version, then certainly Little Eva meets PWL.nIt perhaps could have done without a couple of tracks here and there and, beautiful as it is, the new(ish) song Flower does feel a little out of place but all in all it’s a lush, mellow and slightly saucy affair with some beautiful instrumentation and backing vocals that help give it warmth and depth.nClearly this album has a fairly specific demographic as you will have to enjoy both Kylie and these kind of easy listening/MOR arrangements - but it hit the sweet spot for me.n7/10n
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Title: Review: The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling
Published: 2012-10-14 10:21:00
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n(mildly spoilerish but no actual plot details)nLet’s get a couple of things out of the way before I start:nThis isn’t a Harry Potter book.nThe idea that Jo Rowling has any ongoing obligation to the children of the world when writing for adults is absolute bollocks. nIf the writing style or the content surprises or shocks you and you have actually read the Potter series then you clearly weren’t paying attention.nWith that out of the way let’s get down to what I thought of the book itself.nIt took me a little longer to get into in than I would normally have persisted with a novel and although I enjoyed the tone from the offset I found the lack of discernible plot in the first chunk slow going and would probably have given up on it had it not been the new JK novel etc. It’s worth pointing out that I’m a pretty impatient reader though and often give up on books after a half dozen pages, sometimes even less, if they haven’t grabbed me - however I still suspect it could have been edited a little more toughly in this opening section. Somewhere around the 200 page mark it suddenly clicked with me though and from that point on I found it pacey and highly enjoyable with the last quarter being un-put-downable. nTypically of Jo’s writing the highlights of the book for me are the plotting and the characterisation, particularly of the teenage characters and the odious Howard Mollison. nThe writing style and characterisation was exactly what I expected it to be. Pagford is basically Little Whinging dragged into a more invasively adult scrutiny. Like her previous writing every character is flawed and many of them fairly unlikeable but in almost all cases we are encouraged to empathise with them too. We are given all sides of each nobly story to mull over in a way that real life rarely allows us to. A few reviews have criticised the writing for being stiff or two dimensional but I think that’s largely an illusion. Whilst she does occasionally have a tendency to slip into trite phrases or slightly overwrote metaphors there is this odd aspect to her writing, which I love and which is also present in the Potter series, where she gives you the feeling of something slightly pompous and old fashioned (Enid Blyton or Agatha Christie often come to mind) then punctures it repeatedly with moments of humour, horror or realism. I can understand how people could take it at face value but it has an unsettling push-me-pull-me quality that I adore - in much the same way (albeit not quite as twisted) as Twin Peaks where the cherry pie and strong jaws are just as integral as the madness and terror.nI’m not sure if this will make any sense but the plotting is the book’s key strength but not the plot itself. The way the various character’s lives weave together - finally crashing into each other in an operatic and somewhat melodramatically Hitchcock-esque final act (also reminiscent of the end of the third League of Gentlemen series) is fantastically enjoyable but the main story itself is not all that involving. I did enjoy the device of the pivotal character being dead (reminiscent of The Virgin Suicides or Twin Peaks again) and revealed to us only in drips and drops through the lives of the remaining characters and their own intricate stories, but the larger arc concerning Pagford and Yarvil and the council itself felt more like a vehicle for the message she wanted to deliver than a fleshed out story.nI was quite concerned in the opening chapters that the class war between Pagford and The Fields would become naive or cloyingly liberal and while at points in the early stages of the book it does feel a little like having a finger wagged at you I was relieved that as it progresses the moralising becomes much more evenly spread and complex. If there is an over-riding message to the book it is a borderline-nihilistic suggestion that we should all try to be more aware and kinder to each other but that life itself makes that almost impossible to achieve - that social conscience of any kind is an almost Herculean effort when combined with your own desires and needs. And that’s very Jo.nIn summation - it’s not the best book I’ve ever read but it certainly wasn’t the worst either and although it’s not really like these author’s books I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys slightly gothic character based thrillers like Donna Tart, Patricia Highsmith and Louise Welsh . Or - and this really is the target demographic - Agatha Christie fans with a stomach for sex and swearing ;)n7/10
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Title: Whatever happened to the teenage dream?
Published: 2012-10-06 17:57:35
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My mom should’ve understood. At the Beatles’ 1966 concert in Chicago, she’d had to slap my Aunt Martha hard to get her to stop from screaming herself into a faint. From the teenyboppers to the Beliebers, teenage girls have been mocked for their crushes, but that scorn is just a shoddy mask for the anxiety these crushes inspire. Because a teenage girl with a crush is frightening. The Beatles were always on the run from shoving, hysterical girl-crowds, who wanted—what? To crush into them, to crush themselves, to crush against other girl-bodies that were all feeling the same feeling together, a chaos of feeling, a feeling that took your breath away. “A Beatle who ventures out unguarded into the streets runs the very real peril of being dismembered or crushed to death by his fans,” Life reported in January 1964. A girl with a crush is also capable of crushing.nnThe Killer Crush: The Horror Of Teen Girls, From Columbiners To Beliebers | The Awl
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Title: Can you believe it's been 20 years since she taught us how to uuuhh ?
Published: 2012-10-02 22:07:00
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n20 years ago tonight, the Erotica video premiered. Happy Birthday Dita.nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
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Title: You did something interesting recently.
Published: 2012-09-25 20:06:32
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screenshotsofdespair:nnI wanted to share a few links to things that are related to Screenshots of Despair, as well as to the general idea behind this blog.n-This Nevolution post, titled “Mood-board of Unknown Tumblrs” says some interesting things about emotion and the New Aesthetic, name-checking Webcamtears (a project whose editor also runs La Gazette du Mauvais Gout), Rich Kids of Instagram and Rob Walker’s Pergoogle. (Close readers will recall that Mr. Walker gave this site a huge boost when he wrote about it for Design Observer.)nAbout SoD, Nevolution says: “It’s the most interesting of the bunch, but it’s the one I feel least comfortable writing about. It’s the smartest of the bunch but also the one I feel least able to articulate.” This is pretty much what I’ve been striving for in every aspect of my life (yay, total inscrutability!), so it’s wonderful to read.n-Screenshots connoisseur Hayley Pearce sent in this article about skeuomorphic design, and the interaction and tension between the physical world and the digital one. Mr. Walker (cited above!) has also tackled this topic, and very well.n-Screenshots also got a little mention on Lost at E Minor.n-Panacea: A Screenshots reader submitted this site. It has a MAKE EVERYTHING OK button. Maybe it will make you feel better?nAs always, PLEASE submit stuff via the Submit button on this blog or by e-mailing me at josh.kimball@gmail.com. All submissions are appreciated!n
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Title: Review: Dusty Limits - Post Mortem
Published: 2012-08-22 19:32:00
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nOnly the best shows contain an addiction medley.nLike Meow Meow, who I had the joy of seeing at the festival a couple of years ago, Dusty Limits offers that strangely rare combination of camp humour, actual talent and moments of surprising emotion. nI’ve seen him in the past as an emcee which he was so good at I often found myself wishing he would just stay on the stage (no offence to the other acts) so decided to go and see his solo show this year. I’m glad to say I wasn't disappointed. Loosely hung around the theme of ageing and mortality (I still maintain it’s a lie he’s anywhere near 40) his chat was at times surprisingly political but always funny and caustic. His singing voice is exceptional and he treated us to his interpretations of, amongst others, Sinnerman, Losing My Mind (an ode to booze) and Ashes to Ashes as well as with some very funny self-penned numbers.nHe also performed at one point soley lit by the glow of his HTC smartphone after a mid-song lighting failure. It was a moment at once suitably eerie, glamorous and ridiculous.
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Title: Review: Re-Animator the Musical
Published: 2012-08-22 19:06:31
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nI went to see this on it’s opening night at the Edinburgh Festival and enjoyed it so much I went back a week later! nAlthough it features both a small cast and a fairly minimal stage set you leave feeling you have seen a big show. The cast are all so good it would be hard to single any one performance out and everything is delivered with energy and enthusiasm.nProvided you like your humor black and aren’t to squeemish it is absolutely hilarious - the front three rows being a gore splash zone is a particularly brilliant idea. Also, although there is a lot of extra joy to be had for those who have seen the film I doubt it’s necessary to enjoy the show.nThe props maintain a suitably shlockly aesthetic but that conceals some incredibly sharp and sophisticated effects. One slight of hand (or should I say head) I still couldn’t spot the second time even when I knew it was coming..nAll, in all I can't recommend this highly enough. It’s still on until the 27th, so get along and see it if you can.
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Title: I wake up and my wig is falling off my head, and my mole is on the other side of my face. My fake mole. No not fake, it’s just surreal.
Published: 2012-08-15 12:50:00
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nOk so there has been a shitstorm brewing around Lady Gaga and fur for the last few days and since everyone and their uncle has been sending me links to articles (of varying levels of accuracy) about it I figured I might as well just go ahead a post up my thoughts here. Kill two birds with one stone as it were. Sorry, was that inappropriate?nThe essential facts of the story are as follows:nGaga has been seen wearing various fur coats recently nnPETA sent her an open letter calling her out on itnnDear Gaga,nMany of your gay fans, I among them, have long admired what you told Ellen: “I hate fur and I don’t wear fur.” I included a link because these recent photos of you in fox and rabbit and with a wolf carcass make it appear that you have amnesia. I’m also including this brief videohosted by Tim Gunn showing the violent cruelty that you promote when you wear fur. What happened? Are your stylists telling you that it’s fake, or are you a turncoat? Many gays are animal advocates because we recognize that the same arrogance and indifference that some have toward animal suffering has at times been directed toward us personally because of our orientation. PETA has long participated in Pride events around the country, and just last week, we helped lead protests against Chick-fil-A. But by wearing those dumb furs in a heat wave, you’re making yourself a target just like the mindless Kim Kardashian. As we plan our fall campaigns, please tell us whether what you gracefully told Ellen was heartfelt or just a pose.nWe await your reply.nSincerely,nDan MathewsnSenior Vice PresidentnPETAnnShe deflected the issue with a trollish tweet and cryptic follow-upnnnEveryone is freaking outnSo my thoughts:nWell, for anyone reading this who doesn’t know me, I’m a vegan and therefor don’t wear leather or fur or eat meat or dairy.nSo far no one still really knows if it’s real or fake she’s wearing - and I’ll be damned if I can tell from looking at it - I can never spot fake fur unless it’s like the coat I’ve got that cost £12 from the kids section of Primark and basically looks like skinned Build-A-Bear.nThis either makes her pretty smart or pretty dumb in how she’s handling it. I don’t much care for how PETA are handling it either way - what exactly does Mr Mathews’ sexual orientation have to do with anything?nI will be disappointed if it is real but less because of her actually wearing the fur than because of her response. Hang in there with me on that one..nI can look the other way when she wears fur or leather because I live in a world where almost everyone I know wears leather and eats meat and fur is really not a whole lot different to me. It’s much easier for the average person to be sanctimonious about real fur because they will likely not be able to afford it (other than someone’s Aunt Trudy’s of course) but would never dream of giving up their inexpensive leather or meat - fur is, rightly, seen as more flagrant and dickish. It has that air of Cruella De Ville. Yes, yes, meat is (albeit in-essentially) nutritional not just fashion and leather is a byproduct and blah blah blah but once you get over the other side of veganism it just all starts to look like uniformly barbaric carnage. So I choose not to think too much about the choices of others in that respect because, you know, I want to have friends and shit. nBUT WHAT ABOUT THE MEAT DRESS I HEAR YOU SAY? The meat dress I could live with because it was an arresting image, really is no different to eating the meat (which she does, along with spending most of last year head to foot in leather) and opened up a lot of interesting conversations for me with meat eaters who funnily enough often seemed to find it really disgusting..nAnyway the point is there is a BIG difference for me between wearing fur on occasion and being actively pro-fur. Being pro-fur is not saying ‘I know, but I couldn’t resit’ or 'I know, but I was given it for free’ it’s saying 'Fuck you, I don’t give a shit and neither should you’. And more than anything it bothers me how being all sassy about it will result in a million fans thinking YAYZ FUR IZ COOL GAGA SEZ!!! Taking a pro-fur stance would be neither popular with me or many of her fans (judging by comments on her posts about it) even if the fashionistas might back it.On the other hand if it’s fake her tweet is hilarious. Well, it’s hilarious anyway but you know what I mean. If the coats are fake and she knows that PETA just haven’t done their research then she’s basically just giving them a big old 'talk to the hand’. Right now I’m swinging towards fake because I would prefer that to be the case, her second post about where 'real’ elegance comes from seems to indicate that to me and because I don’t think even Gaga is wilfully publicity hungry enough to take an openly pro-fur stance. Funny as it is, I do wish she would clarify her feelings on the matter one way or another though.nAnd no, even if it is real I won’t suddenly stop being a fan - that’s patently ridiculous - although I would definitely be pretty sad about it. I have a small handfull of friends who I would allow to argue with me on that but the rest of you can go back to your chicken fillets and zip it.*n*With love, of course ;)nEdit:nGaga responded tonight:nnTo the fans. i want you to know that I care deeply about your feelings and views, and I will always support your philosophies about life. We’ve been having over-arching conversations about society, equality, and politics for the past five years, and we should continue. I do not however support violent, abusive, and childish campaigns for ANY CAUSE. Particularly one that I respect. “Animal Rights.” I am choosing not to comment on whether or not the furs I purchase are faux fur-pile or real because I would think it hypocritical not to acknowledge the python, ostrich, cow hide, leather, lamb, alligator, “kermit” and not to mention meat, that I have already worn. This should already put me in a category as one who appreciates and adores the beauty of animals in fashion, but am not a strict vegan. I have truly always stayed away from skinned fur, especially as i have never been able to afford a nice one, but this does not mean my morals are rigid and that I won’t bend at the sight of an absolute art piece of a coat. I have no chains about this. You see a carcass, I see a museum pièce de résistance. But I am truly sorry to fans who are upset by this, its a fair and applaudable feeling about the health and safety of animals. I respect your views, please respect mine. And to campaigners, Save your flour to make bread for the children who are hungry. And Kim Kardashian is fabulous.nnnI may not share her feelings but she has articulated almost exactly the points I felt about the blowup myself. I agree with her about PETA’s approach and although I would have loved a more emphatically anti-fur response I am just relieved to see that she respects and understands the issue itself and the feelings of her fans. nEdit: I know that sounds a bit wishy washy and confused, it’s hard to explain exactly what I mean. I like her response in so much as it’s honest. It teeters on pro-fur but is more 'never say never’ than 'fur is fabulous’. As I said before I have a hard time seeing why fur is any more grotesque than the millions of everyday, invisible crimes that are committed against animals by almost everyone - it was reading about what is considered 'free range’ and 'humane’ that tipped me into veganism not couture coats. nI do think fur is abhorrent and I respect the more hardline views of other vegans but I have issues with meat eaters and leather weathers being sanctimonious about fur. I realise I’m a bit contrary in this and I don’t expect many people to agree with me. I’m not saying Gaga’s position is good - I’m just not any more (or less) horrified by it than a whole lot of other horrible stuff. I think the view she is expressing is probably also less of a distance from the way most people feel about animals than they allow themselves to admit - and I respect her for manning up, even if I think she’s wrong. nI predict the media will skin her alive for this though. Boom Boom.
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Title: Pop Bitch Celebrity Death Match
Published: 2012-08-11 12:03:00
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nPlaylist: Pop Bitch Celebrity Death MatchnHeavyweights: MadonnanMiddleweights: KylienFeatherweights: Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj, Gwen Stefani, Ke$ha, Britney Spears, Christina AguiliranBantamweights: Shakira, RihannanTag Team: Spice GirlsnOutside Contenders: Cher, Lana Del ReynNew Favourite: Lady Gagan—–nPlace your bets.. :)(Source: https://embed.spotify.com/)
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Title: MADONNA HAS A KIKI
Published: 2012-08-06 19:42:20
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scissorskiki:nnn Thanks Mutant Pop/Captain Obvious!n
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Title: Because We Can can Can.
Published: 2012-07-30 12:11:00
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nBecause we can can can(Source: https://embed.spotify.com/)
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Title: Madonna, last night, being amazing.
Published: 2012-07-27 10:11:00
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The last minute of Je t'aime makes up for the last 5 years as far as I’m concerned.n
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Title: Review: Madonna MDNA Tour at Murrayfield Stadium
Published: 2012-07-22 15:42:00
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All photos in this post by Chrissi McAlpine :)nBefore I review the show in earnest there are a few things I’d like to get out of the way first. I’ll do a track by track review after and if you just want a quick summary of my thoughts skip all the blah and go to the end ;)n“It’s the worst concert I’ve ever seen” Nonsense. Either it’s the only concert you’ve ever seen or you’ve only been to the closing night of the Ziggy Stardust tour, the Bad tour and the Blonde Ambition Tour so far. What I’m saying is it might not be the best show you have ever seen or ever will see but saying it’s the worst is just pure hyperbole in my opinion.n“She doesn’t play The Hits”I don’t hold any truck with the criticism coming from a lot of the media reviews that she isn’t playing enough back catalogue. This isn’t being billed as a greatest hits tour, she has an album out right now and the tour is in fact named after it so to expect the Celebration tour is foolish. Any artist that considers themselves still functioning will play a similar balance of new to old - unless you do what Bowie did when I saw him in 2003 and play a beast of a setlist that accomplishes both. But then he did end up having a heart attack two thirds of the way through that tour so maybe not. Whether the tracks from her current album are as good as they should be or hold up well enough live is a different matter, however saying that she shouldn’t be playing new songs is not really the issue to me. The fact that the audience were generally going home unhappy with this balance last night (comments overheard ranged from ‘It’s a lot of money to pay to be disappointed’ to ‘I’ll know not to go and see Madonna again’) doesn’t surprise me though - partly because she hasn’t had a genuine hit from this album and partly because the audience last night was exactly the kind of drunk-to-oblivion hen-party horror show that really should have been at an 80s revival disco instead. It was without doubt the most annoying crowd I’ve ever been in - and I include 2 hours stood at the front of T in the Park during Black Grape in 1995 in that. So no, I’m not surprised they didn’t want to see a world music version of I’m A Sinner. But then again who does really?One thing that was immediately apparent to me was that for all her trend chasing and Niki Minaj features at 34 and ¾ I was at the younger end of the average age bracket last night. It’s like trying to get a date - the more desperately you want it the more it turns people off. The Kids can smell it and they are staying away in droves. I’m absolutely convinced that if she relaxed on the ‘still relevant’ push she would actually pick up more younger fans - or at least ones in their 20s! I do think there is also an element of people reading reviews in the Daily Fail or whatever and just going along with what they are told to think though. A lot of the comments I heard afterwards (‘the violence was unnecessary’, ‘she didn’t play the hits’) seemed to be verbatim regurgitations of the press reviews. And maybe that just means it’s a consensus of opinion but i guess I have a little less faith in people’s ability to form their own opinions ;)“She lip synchs the whole show”I was very pleasantly surprised by how little of the show appeared to be mimed - and all the better for it. There were a couple of numbers (Human nature I think stood out particularly) where she sounded a bit ropey but generally her voice was good - Papa Don’t Preach, Masterpiece, Express Yourself and Like a prayer all sounded particularly strong.“She’s too old to be doing a pop show”I genuinely, and again to my great surprise, was really not aware of the ‘mutton dressed as lamb’ issue apart from during he majorette section where a combination of an unflattering costume and dance routine did make her seem a bit wobbly and trussed up. Generally I just felt I was watching a pop star not a grandma. The question of whether she can keep up with the choreography is a funny one though. It’s really hard to explain but I was impressed at how well she managed consistent, high energy and quite complex routines but at the same time I was aware of it. It’s like that thing about how good design should be invisible and there was an element of feeling ‘god, she’s doing it so well for a woman her age’ rather than it just being effortless. I think taking it down just the tiniest notch would have erased this though because the parts of the show where she is moving less frantically felt absolutely perfect in that respect. The stagingIt became pretty apparent to me when the show started why she’s been coming on so late at a lot of venues. I had assumed it was just because she was fannying about doing the downward facing dog in her dressing room or whatever but the strict curfew at Murrayfield meant she came on just after 9pm in pretty much daylight and I have to say the reliance on huge video screens to form the basis of the set really didn’t work well in the light. She made a comment during the show about having to keep it moving or they were going to pull the plug on her and as it was she cut two songs from the set (the two I was most looking forward too grrrrrr) and I highly suspect this was because she was holding back starting until it got darker.I was standing a little to the side at the front of the general admission area but due to the fact there was a VIP area and a golden circle then some space then the GA area I had a good view but was still really not that close to the stage and from where I was the first section of the show looked surprisingly flimsy and the stage quite empty. The motel set was particularly disappointing from a distance in the light. Everything looked so much better as it got darker though.The stage as an object is massive but the actual stage area was surprisingly small, or seemed so from where I was. In general I think the screen-based sets would have looked amazing close up but were not so good from where I was in the crowd. I think the show will look fabulous on DVD and certainly the sets looked much more dynamic even on the live feeds but for some reason felt a little flat to me in person. Of course this could just be down to where I was standing but since I had a fairly good spot I can imagine it would have been much the same if you were anywhere in the main bulk of the crowds.nnDown to the nitty gritty..Opening section / Girl Gone WildI feel like this should have been really epic but it fell a little flat for me. It probably doesn’t help that I really don’t like this song much. I’m not sure if this was mimed or autotuned or what I but either way the pitch of her voice was really weird. The crowd seemed to enjoy it though and I’d say that out of the new songs it got the best reaction from those around me with a fair amount of singing along etc.nRevolverI’m basically the only Madonna fan that liked and bought this song. It’s just me, Madonna and Lil’ Wayne digging it. Putting it on the set list was typically obstinate of her but I enjoyed it so raspberries to the lot of you ;)Gang BangThis was one of two set pieces I was most looking forward to seeing live (the other was cut ;_; ) but I didn’t enjoy it as much I was expecting for some reason. It’s hard to put my finger on because I do love the way it looked and it was definitely my favourite of the more elaborately staged numbers but I found it sort of dragged on a little or something. It might have been the light, I’m not sure, it just didn’t rock my boat.Papa Don’t PreachMassive cheer from the crowd. She sung it really well. Only complaint was it was too short.Hung UpThis was an unexpected highlight for me. The audience seemed to get a bit bored because there was no ABBA sample and the song was reworked but I really enjoyed the way it sounded and the physical routine was one of my favourites in the show. The part where she walked the slackline barefoot was particularly lovely for some reason.I Don’t Give AAnother unexpected highlight. One of my main fears was that this would be one of those Britney-type shows where there was so much spectacle going on because the performance at the center was vacant. I know that everyone loved her Superbowl performance but it left me pretty cold because it seemed she was heading in that direction. But having this number fairly early in the set last night really alleviated a lot of my concerns about her performance abilities because it was predominantly just her standing singing - and singing with bite, vigour and some actual emotion. The funny thing is I’m not that keen on the song but she really brought something to it live I hadn’t got from the album version. She sounded pissed off, but in a good way. If only she could let go a bit more in the studio and get some of that feeling on record.nExpress Yourself / Give Me all Your Luvin’ / Born This Way / She’s Not MeThe majorette costume has to die. I hated the routine, the costumes and pretty much everything about this section apart from the vocals for Express Yourself which were fabulous. I actually loved Express Yourself I just wish she had worn something that didn’t make me feel nauseous while she sang it. GAYL was a remix which I actually enjoyed far more than the single version. It was also not, in fact the song of the same name by ZZ Top as my husband thought when I was telling him about the concert. That would have been amazing though.I still think including the Born This Way excerpt was classless and unnecessary, even more so within the frame of the show, but it was mercifully short and while I did see one guy wearing a t-shirt with Gaga’s face and the word ‘BITCH’ written underneath I did also hear the audience around me singing along to BTW so who knows what it accomplished other than some column inches.Turn Up The Radio Uneventful and unmemorable. She had the front row singing into the mic which was cute but other than that I don’t really remember much about it. I do remember that it was preceded by a rather interesting, scratchy little intrlude that mixed up video clips from throughout her career. I remember thinking ‘ooh, what’s this leading towards’ and then hearing the chorus line of TUTR and thinking ‘oh, that. oh well.’ I actually like TUTR well enough and it’s my favourite of the fluff songs on MDNA but still, it’s hardly stellar material to follow up a recap of her career highlights with.As a side note: who knows where her career - touring or otherwise - will go in the next few years but I do hope she takes stock a little before her next move. As enjoyable as the show was and as not-as-bad-as-the-singles-make-it-seem as MDNA is there has been a lot (too much to go into here on a review of the tour) wrong with her approach to her career recently and I sincerely hope that she is not beaten but emboldened by the criticism. No Fear not No Care.nOpen Your HeartThis was a weird one because I really enjoyed it but it went down like a lead balloon with the crowd around me. It was reworked completely with those Basque fellas whose name I can’t remember and I thought it was really interesting. A crowd pleaser it was not though. I could have done without the dancing at the end but she does love a bit of ‘ethnic’ street dancing does our Madge.MasterpieceThis was another highlight for me. The song has really grown on me recently and excepting the opening clunker the lyrics are lovely. I found the performance quite moving and very well sung. I’d love to see her do a theatre tour of this kind of stuff but it will never happen.VogueVery enjoyable classic performance of Vogue. Exactly what you would expect from it but in a good way.nCandy Shop / Erotica / Human natureThis was my favourite section of the show despite the fact that I can’t stand Candy Shop on record. The choreography was paced just right and the set up fell on the right side of sexy - at times moving, at times humorous. Human Nature was visually particularly good and probably the only part of the show that gave me food for thought or stimulated emotions beyond the purely visceral. I’m absolutely gutted that she cut Like A Virgin (which would have fallen after this set) although if she was going to cut something I guess the audience that was there would probably not have been that receptive to the version of it she is doing on the tour so maybe it was the best choice in that sense. You can see what I missed here.nI’m A SinnerI thought she looked really beautiful during this section - the slightly hippy look has always suited her so much. The song itself was a bit of a snooze for me though.Like A prayerSimilar to Vouge this was a strong, classic performance that did nothing more than you would expect but nothing less than you would hope. The crowd loved it and she sounded fantastic.CelebrationI felt this was a bit of an anti climax for a closing number although she certainly gave it her all. I geuss Celebration is the new Holiday though and I never liked that much either ;)nSo..All in all I enjoyed it and I’m glad that I went. The bits I expected to wow me (the big visual set pieces) didn’t really but the thing I was most fearful of (her core performance) was actually really good. I know I was quite out of step with the crowd around me in terms of the bits I enjoyed most so obviously it’s just my opinion but I would love to see her focus on less high energy but more performance led numbers - which she has done plenty of on previous tours so this isn’t a ‘she’s old’ thing just a personal preference. That also doesn’t need to mean sitting on a stool for an hour and a half just more routines like Human Nature and less like GMAYL. Overall I’d say it’s a 7/10 for me - but since I nearly didn’t go because I was so worried about it being terrible that’s a score that’s made me really happy.
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Title: MDNA.
Published: 2012-07-18 11:55:34
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nI’ve been revisiting MDNA over the last week or so having not really listened to it at all since it was released. Generally I won’t put in the effort to go back to an album I haven’t connected with but partly because I have given in and am going to the tour this weekend and partly because I’ve had the nagging suspicion there was a much better album lurking in there than it appears I decided to give it another go. I’ve been working on this little redux playlist and I think I’ve finally hit the sweet spot.nA lot of albums these days have problems with weak bonus tracks cluttering up otherwise sturdy albums but I have to say that with MDNA the bonus tracks are far from being the problem - in fact it’s the singles that drag it down most for me. The running order also exhausts me with far too many of the flimsy or psuedo-ballsy songs up top leaving the songs I rate most obscured or so far down the tracklist that I’ve given up by then.nWhittling the album down to these 11 tracks has made all the difference and I feel like there is a pretty strong little record there after all. No, still not her best but in this format certainly stronger than Hard Candy and arguably Confessions too.nThere are a few songs that I’ve left on here (most notably Turn Up The Radio, Gang Bang and I Don’t Give A) that still bother me for various reasons but in this context I can enjoy far more.nIn my mind I am currently living in a parallel universe where this was the album, the singles were I’m Addicted > Love Spent > Anything apart from GMAYL, GGW or Birthday Song and the artwork looked more like this:nnand less like this:nnIn that unviverse MDNA is really rather good actually.(Source: https://embed.spotify.com/)
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Title: Review: Prometheus
Published: 2012-07-01 11:38:00
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nI feel like there are two angles that I need to broach in reviewing this - firstly how does it square up to / sit alongside the Alien franchise and secondly is it any good in it’s own right.n(This review is very, very mildly spoilerific btw but no major plot details or anything..)nLet me get the big Alien question out of the way first.nAesthetically and visually it feels akin to the first two to me but with a glossier, slicker edge. It’s by no means sanatised when it comes to grooey bits and unpleasant deaths but it doesn’t have the run-down, grimey quality of the original film. Contextually in terms of the actual space ship etc this makes sense because of the reasons they are there but it’s present in the direction and cinematography too. The characters are thankfully fairly close in spirit to the best moments of the Alien films in that I found them mostly believable and uniformly well acted. nThe clue is in the title of course but philosophically it felt like quite a departure from the original series. For all that the Alien films spun on the axis of gestation, birth and survival it was in a unilaterally darwinistic way. Rape as the most effective form of impregnation, survival of the fittest, and above all the devastating strength of mother-love. So despite all the procreation the creationist dilema of Prometheus still came as little bit of a surprise to me. It sits (albeit inconclusively) to the side of theology I’m personally comfortable with but this is absolutely a film about looking for God in our ancestral trail. I perhaps found it slightly disappointing that the theology had to be framed within the recognisable symbolism of the crucifix but I can understand why it works as as a shorthand for the audience. I do think it’s interesting that the cesarian scene is written as a cesarian and not an abortion, but I am possibly reading too much into that.nIf the Alien films are Mother then Prometheus is Father. This is born out both by the fathers and their children (both metaphoric and literal) that pepper the plot as well as the design of the huge, muscular, Fusili-like Engineers and the general masculine heft and might of the film itself.nOn the whole it feels like a film that exists within the same universe as the Alien films but very much has it’s own rhythm and agenda.nSo on to the second question - is t any good?nThis is much easier for me to answer because yes, as a standalone piece I found it very enjoyable. It looks magnificent and it has a solid mixture of nastiness, action and dialogue. The cast are excellent particularly Michael Fassbender and Charize Theron who between them stole the film for me. Noomi Rapace has some strong moments in the film but for some reason never really felt like the lead to me although technically she is. Fassbender’s Bishop by way of Bowie in The Man Who Fell To Earth is without doubt the best thing on screen at any point in the film - he is absolutely spellbinding.nIf I am being critical the pace sags a little in places, particularly in the first third, but it still tops out as a well above average sci-fi / action movie.n7.5/10nn–nAnd for anyone who has seen it - I leave you with these:nnn
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Title: Review: The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins
Published: 2012-07-01 10:08:00
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nThis series may start as a familiar, if well crafted, dystopia but it ends as one of the most brutal and bloody indictments of the politics of war I have read - be that for the teen demographic or otherwise.nSuzanne Collins’ writing uses fairly broad brush strokes and at times can verge on the more stylized futurism of something like Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series* but ultimately remains grounded in a bone-crunching realness that gives weight to both the story arc and the characters.nAlthough all three books are consumate page turners (I downed the series in less than a month) it’s not always the adrenaline rush of the standard action page turner. There is an intrinsic, unspoken caveat to these books that anything - especially anything bad - could happen to any of the characters at any time and whilst this makes the action gripping it also creates an uncertainty and anxiousness I rarely feel with hero (or heroine) led stories. There is also a grinding, ‘last-gasp crawl towards the finish line’ quality to a lot of the action that at times has more in common with horror movies, in particular those that veer into torture porn, than anything else. None of these observations are criticisms by the way, they are exactly what makes the satire present in the story arc so powerful.nOnly just raising it’s head above the parapet of nihilism it’s not a series for anyone looking for a new Alex Rider but if you like to have your buttons pushed along with your action then I would absolutely recommend it.nIn terms of where it sits within the frame of teen writing, and for any parents considering whether it's appropriate for their kids, I would say it's definitely at the upper end of the YA spectrum. That’s not to say you have to be 17 to read this - I think I could have tackled it effectively by the age of 14 or so - but it will depend on the individual and their reading habits. It’s not a book that is controversial for the sake of it but it could certainly be a conversation starter for younger readers. I also suspect that under 12 or 13 it would be the emotional language of the personal relationships in the story that might be an issue in digesting the series rather than just the violence.nIn short - highly recommended.n8.5/10n–n*RE: Uglies: I love those books too. Here is my very old review of them.
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Title: Review: The Book Lover by Ever Dundas
Published: 2012-06-29 09:31:29
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nThis might look like a small, fragile sliver of a story from the outside but it’s a wonderfully messy, urgent and visceral little beast on the inside. It’s sexy, honest, real and slightly perverse. nTitillating? Yes, but if The Book Lover were burlesque it would be the pulling glitter out of it’s arse kind not the awkward fan dance in perfect lipstick and lacy knickers kind. And all the better for it.
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Title: Madonna's Hands
Published: 2012-06-16 17:11:00
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When I'm dead, they'll finally kiss my ass. Isn't that how it works? (Madonna, 1995)rnI’ve got a lot of problems with Madonna right now, but her hands aren’t one of them. Despite that, they are the subject of this nauseatingly long think piece
I’m not going to talk about her laissez-faire approach to her recent musical output, her terrible lead single, or her dubious forays into gym franchises. I’m going to talk about her hands
Why the hands? Why not the exposed nipple, the cheek implants and the 20-something boyfriend? Or whether she’s too old to dress like a majorette? Or that mash-up?rnI’m going to talk about her hands because they are a microcosm of all that and more. Madonna’s hands sum up all our fucked-up issues with the aging process in one fell swoop. Yuk! Granny hands! Madonna’s losing it! What an old hag! She’s so past it now, why doesn’t she just give up and leave it to Gaga and RiRi and Katy??!rnHow about this:
I mean, it’s pretty pathetic how she is soooo blatantly trying to cover up her ugly old lady hands with those nasty leather gloves right? And fingerless gloves?? On a 53 year old?? It’s so juvenile and unbecoming. She needs to get a grip and stop trying to dress like a teenager! Leave the rock-chick look to Lola!!
And there's the rub - as a woman aging in the public eye you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Not even Madonna can stop time and we can’t have it all ways at once. It’s not fair to bitch about her surgery and the signs of aging at the same time. It’s not fair to blame her for the gloves when we recoil in horror at the sight of what lies below
Some people would rather she continues down the surgery route and fights her age as much as she can. They are usually the same people who enjoy the idea that her faking a vacuous nubility that she never really inhabited the first time around (baton twirling! pom poms!) is liberating for women who want to 'stay young’. They are the glove people. Some people feel she should act her age, be more responsible in front of her children, stop flashing her boobs in public. Age 'gracefully’. They are the hands people, right?
You would think so, but from what I can tell no-one seems to be the hands people. The age-gracefully people still have a utopian notion that she will somehow do this without a wrinkle on her brow. Only she’ll be doing it in a twin-set. Kind of like Evita, but without Jimmy Nail
When we see wrinkles and veins and liver spots appear on someone like Madonna it scares the shit out of us because we are staring straight into the face of our own mortality. If even our immortal icons are mortal, what hope do we have? Asked in an interview in 1998 what she thought people saw when they look at her she said simply “they see themselves”. And we do. Not because she is 'one of us' or 'the girl next door' but because she has always been, and always will be, a mirror to our collective social mores
A little vanity can be a healthy thing and while I, personally, disagree with the people who are all-out, knowingly and enthusiastically for the surgical approach but it doesn’t bother me as much as thinking that she/we can do both at once forever. With the right bank balance you can get away with it for a while - a little Botox here, a slight alteration there. And maybe over time the procedures will get better, more sophisticated - but the inevitable end-point will still be waiting for us all
Those candid, pre-photoshop pictures of her in her underwear that get used as the full stop on any reference to Madonna’s current sex appeal will never bother me as much as the puffy cheek photos and the way her face barely moves any more when she talks. One is a fit, fifty-something woman photographed off guard, the other is someone fighting their age desperately and unsuccessfully. One is the hands and the other is the gloves
If you can’t see the connection between how we, as a society, react to the hands and why Madonna, of all people, has ended up in the gloves then let me put it this way: congratulations world, we broke her. Enjoy it while you can though, because you will be wearing those gloves yourself sometime soon no doubt
This piece isn’t really about Madonna of course (which is precisely why I don’t want to talk about the underwhelming album or the religious connotations of her show, or whatever) but she is an unparalleled cultural barometer when it comes to how we view our own vanity, sexuality and self esteem
Lets, please, learn to love Madonna’s hands?rn
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Title: 5.4 Pitchfork, 1995–present
Published: 2012-06-16 09:19:00
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5.4 Pitchfork, 1995–presentnnWhat did we do to deserve Pitchfork?nnFantastic article on the history of Pitchfork and the recent music industry in general. Here are a couple of excerpts but please read the whole piece..nn..as indie bands watched the industry’s collapse, the envy and contempt they had traditionally felt toward major labels stopped making sense. What was there to envy anymore? Wasn’t it obvious that indie bands, with their devoted networks of fans, critics, and performance venues, had it better? Not only were the major labels soul-sucking money machines, they couldn’t even make you rich! This made early indie’s militancy and paranoia look silly, and the hard lines began to soften.nIn the last thirty years, no artistic form has made cultural capital so central to its identity, and no musical genre has better understood how cultural capital works. Disdaining the reserves of actual capital that were available to them through the major labels, indie musicians sought a competitive advantage in acquiring cultural capital instead. As indie’s successes began following one another in increasingly rapid succession, musicians working in other genres began to take notice. Hip-hop is an illustrative foil. As indie bands in the ’90s did everything they could to avoid the appearance of selling out, rappers tried to get as rich as possible. The really successful ones stopped rapping—or at least outsourced the work of writing lyrics—and opened clothing lines and record labels. But for all their corporate success, rappers knew where the real cultural capital lay. When Jay-Z decided, as an obscenely wealthy entertainment mogul, that he wanted finally to leave his drug-dealer persona behind, he got himself seen at a Grizzly Bear concert in Williamsburg. nPitchfork has fully absorbed and adopted indie rock’s ideas about the uses of cultural capital, and the results have been disastrous. Indie rock is based on the premise that it’s possible to disdain commercial popularity while continuing to make rock and roll, the last half century’s most popular kind of commercial music. Sustaining this premise has almost always involved suppressing or avoiding certain kinds of knowledge. For indie bands, this meant talking circles around the fact that eventual success was not actually improbable or surprising. For indie rock’s critics, it meant refusing to acknowledge that writing criticism is an exercise in power. nnnThis is a kind of music, in other words, that’s very good at avoiding uncomfortable conversations. Pitchfork has imitated, inspired, and encouraged indie rock in this respect. It has incorporated a perfect awareness of cultural capital into its basic architecture. A Pitchfork review may ignore history, aesthetics, or the basic technical aspects of tonal music, but it will almost never fail to include a detailed taxonomy of the current hype cycle and media environment. This is a small, petty way of thinking about a large art, and as indie bands have both absorbed and refined the culture’s obsession with who is over- and underhyped, their musical ambitions have been winnowed down to almost nothing at all.nIt’s usually a waste of time to close-read rock lyrics; a lot of great rock musicians just aren’t that good with words. What you can do with a rock lyric, though, is note the kinds of phrasing that come to mind when a musician is trying to fill a particular rhythmic space with words. You can see what kind of language comes naturally, and some of the habits and beliefs that the language reveals. This makes it worth pausing, just for a moment, over Animal Collective’s most famous lyric: “I don’t mean to seem like I care about material things.” The ethical lyric to sing would be, “I don’t want to be someone who cares about material things,” but in indie rock today the worst thing would be just to seem like a materialistic person. You can learn a lot about indie rock, its fans, and Pitchfork from the words “mean to seem like.”nnnI sometimes have the utopian thought that in a better world, pop music criticism simply wouldn’t exist. What justification could there be for separating the criticism of popular music from the criticism of all other kinds? Nobody thinks it’s weird that theNew York Review of Books doesn’t include an insert called the New York Review of Popular Books. One of pop music criticism’s most important functions today is to perpetuate pop music’s favorite myth about itself—that it has no history, that it was born from nothing but drugs and “revolution” sometime in the middle of the 20th century. But the story of The Beatles doesn’t begin with John, Paul, George, and Ringo deplaning at JFK. It begins with Jean-Philippe Rameau’s 1722 Treatise on Harmony, which began to theorize the tonal system that still furnishes the building blocks for almost all pop music. Or, if you like, it goes back to the 16th century, when composers began to explore the idea that a song’s music could be more than just a setting for the lyrical text—that it could actually help to express the words as well. Our very recent predecessors have done many important and wonderful things with their lives, but they did not invent the musical universe all by themselves. The abolition of pop criticism as a separate genre would help pop writers to see the wider world they inhabit.n
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Title: Imaginary Stripclub.
Published: 2012-05-18 10:42:36
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nPlaylist: Imaginary Stripclubn
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Title: Review: Marilyn Manson - Born Villain
Published: 2012-05-15 17:27:13
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n“When all of your wishes are granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed.”nIt’s got to be pretty weird being Marilyn Manson in the post Burton/Emo world. How do you carry on as the Antichrist Superstar when no-one cares if you are the Antichrist or not?nThe key word in that moniker for me however has always been ‘Superstar’. It’s long been a frustration that his one obvious road out of this hell was to be our last great glam rock star - Mechanical Animals set the stage perfectly and his career since then has been punctured by blindingly good reminders of why he has all the sex, sass and swagger necessary to be the God of Fuck forever - unfortunately it’s more often not the road he chooses to take.nBorn Villain, like much of his career, is a mixed bag. When it’s good it’s very, very good and when it’s bad it boring.nHigh points: There are a few excellent tracks on Born Villain - Pistol Whipped, Slo-mo-tion, The Gardener, The Flowers of Evil, Born Villain and Breaking the Same Old Ground are all above average, with Pistol Whipped and Slo-mo-tion being the standout tracks.nPistol Whipped is a claustrophic, sexy, BDSM drawl that, although tempting to view as part of the recent I Love The Way You Lie trendification of domestic violence is in fact probably best just not thought about too much at all!nSlo-mo-tion is a fantastic big glamorama done in the way only he can. Reminiscent of songs like I Don’t Like The Drugs (But The Drugs Like Me) and Arma-goddamn-motherfuckin-geddon it’s exactly my favourite kind of Marilyn Manson song. Pop-rock with a great big middle finger.nLow Points: One of the biggest disappointments on it is the cover of Carly Simon’s You’re So Vain (intriguingly also credited to Johnny Depp though I’m not sure doing what). Marilyn Manson has recorded some of the greatest cover versions of all time, I Put A Spell On You, Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) and Golden Years spring to mind, but sadly this is more in the vein of Tainted Love and Personal Jesus - tired rehashes that don’t really bring anything new to the table. What a wasted opportunity!nThe rest of the tracks range from average (Murderers Are Getting Prettier Every Day, Children of Cain) to tedious (Disengaged, Lay Down Your Goddamn Arms) and most anoyingly the album does that strangely common cardinal sin of starting with one of the most boring songs on it (Hey, Cruel World). nNo Reflection, the lead single, comes alive significantly alongside the video but is also hardly the strongest song on the record.nAll in all not a classic and certainly not an album that will gain him any new fans but there is still enough here to keep the ones he has happy.nScores on the doors:nHey, Cruel World - 5/10No Reflection - 6/10Pistol Whipped - 8/10Overneath the Path of Misery - 6/10Slo-mo-tion - 9/10The Gardener - 7/10The Flowers of Evil - 6/10Children of Cain - 5/10Disengaged - 4/10Lay Down Your Goddamn Arms -4/10Murderers Are Getting Prettier Every Day - 6/10Born Villain - 6/10Breaking the Same Old Ground 7/10You’re So Vain - 5/10nOverall rating: 6/10nBuy / Listen / WatchnnThe final word: Not the God of Fuck-All quite yet.n
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Title: Bossy Bottom.
Published: 2012-05-01 08:23:09
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“Are you a top or a bottom when you sleep with women?” I ask.nn“I’m still trying to figure that one out.”nn“How about heterosexually? Top or bottom?”nnShe dips her head back in the water. “Heterosexually I’m a full-out bottom.”nn“You’re probably a bossy bottom,” I guess.nn“No,” she says. “That’s Madonna. That’s the difference between us… .nnLove Child | Hollywood | Vanity Fair 1995
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Title: THE CASUAL VACANCY - Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2012-04-12 14:46:01
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THE CASUAL VACANCY - Little, Brown Book GroupnnLittle, Brown Book Group announces that the new novel for adults by J.K. Rowling is entitled The Casual Vacancy. The book will be published worldwide in the English language in hardback, ebook, unabridged audio download and on CD on Thursday 27th September 2012.The Casual VacancyWhen Barry Fairweather dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little town of Pagford is left in shock.Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war.Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils…Pagford is not what it first seems.And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations?Blackly comic, thought-provoking and constantly surprising, The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults.nnWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA SO EXCITING!
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Title: Review: Madonna - MDNA
Published: 2012-03-29 07:38:40
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I’ve been trying to write this review for about a week now and here’s the thing - I still can’t work out if MDNA is a better album than it appears to be or a worse one. Let me try to explain..nThe SongsnIn her early years Madonna was a master at that great pop art of making songs about not very much feel like they were about quite a lot - Borderline, Open Your Heart and Crazy For You all being perfect examples of songs with a gravitas far exceeding the lyrical content. From Ray Of Light through Music and American Life she started writing far more lyrically complex songs and emerged as a near-perfect crystallisation of ‘smart pop’. Great tunes and a mature depth often absent in the Top 40. Since then she has, with varying degrees of success, been engaged in an olympian sprint in the opposite direction - the coveted crown of Club Queen in her mind’s eye and a lyrical focus largely of the 'get up and dance’ variety. Like some patronising parent I have so far indulged it as a mostly enjoyable but hopefully passing phase.nAnd now here we are with MDNA. If in her early days she was good at conjuring more substance out of her material than it naturally contained MDNA feels like an odd exercise in the reverse. Once you scratch beneath the surface these songs contain easily some of her most explicitly personal lyrics - Lord knows Guy Ritchie’s ears must be permanently burning these days. Some are undeniably brilliant ('all of Falling Free for starters’), some clunkers ('Frankly, if my name was Benjamin’) and some so awful they become brilliant ('Baby Jesus on the stairs’).nAnd yet somehow it all feels so.. impersonal..nIt’s often noted that post-Evita her vocals have become increasingly clipped and over-pronounced - perhaps this new voice can’t commit fully enough to the sound of MDNA? Perhaps it just not 'her’. There is certainly some kind of disconnect going on here. Strangely, I find myself thinking about Kylie a lot listening to this album. I can’t help suspecting that several of the tracks on MDNA would fare better with her breathy, electro-purr wrapped around them. So many of her songs are equally (or even more) weak/forgettable but often pull it off in that odd slutty-but-classy way that Kylie has been curiously pulling off things that she shouldn’t for the last couple of decades. That said, her vocals are hardly centerpiece stuff either - frequently nasal and equally over-pronounced. I find myself comparing it to other recent dance-pop but the less said about chart rivals Katy and Rihanna’s vocals the better (I’m not entirely convinced that Britney actually is human any more) so I don’t know that vocal delivery is the problem I’m having with MDNA. Or at least not the only one.nMusically it certainly feels like a case of style over substance which may well be a greater part of it. There are shades of Music and American Life, the expected how-very-2011 dubstep breakdowns and a few (far less expected) moments of celtic influence. The production is good and almost every song starts promisingly but crucially most seem to go nowhere - there are few strong hooks and I find it hard to remember many of the tunes once I stop listening to them. The bubblegum songs (Girl Gone Wild, Give Me All Your Luvin’, B-Day Song) are pretty awful and beaten out of the water by most of the nonsense banging around the charts over the last year or two. Unfortunately the 'proper’ songs generally leave me wanting more too. There is plenty of sassy spite - Gang Bang, I don’t Give A and Some Girls are all full of superbly nasty, tough lyrics and big punchy fuck-you beats but it’s a violence that lacks plausibility. Even when telling us to 'die bitch’ it’s a cartoonish lip curl rather than a bloodied fist.nThere’s nothing 'bad’ about MDNA - on the whole it feels like a very credible stab at credible dance-pop and it’s consistent where most pop albums (including a few of her own) are horrifically patchy - but at the same time it leaves me mostly unmoved either emotionally or sonically.nThere is a cynicism to the creation of this album - the musical trend boxes that are ticked, the Nicki Minaj / M.I.A guest features, the constant references musically and lyrically to previous Madonna moments - that is both obvious and exhausting. Amusingly, one of the few songs on the album that I find genuinely engaging is about money. I know I have a personal tendency to root for the underdog (it’s no accident that I have an uncomfortable relationship with ego boosting rapper-bling-speak) but I can’t be the only one who feels a sense of relief by the time Falling Free and I Fucked Up come on. After having it pounded into me over and over again that 'There’s only one queen and that’s Madonna’ (thanks Nicki) I’m glad to be reminded that she is a fallible human being too. Even then I Fucked Up is delivered with an ironic (favourite Madonna word) caveat at the end.nThe VisualsnI’m not particularly interested in Madonna’s personal life beyond how it influences or appears in her work but with an artist as evocative and with a level of fame as unparalleled as hers it becomes impossible to talk about a new Madonna record with talking about Madonna. How does she look? What are the videos like? The album art? This might seem irrelevant but it’s not - it’s absolutely integral to her career and I would be doing her a great disservice to pretend otherwise.nSo, it occurs to me while consuming the visuals for this era - and in particular the video for Girl Gone Wild - that the notion that she has been primarily concerned over the years with sex is only partially correct. Madonna has never had the raw sexuality of Debbie Harry or Susanna Hoffs but what she did so, so well was present a frequent dissection of sexual politics - an almost academic appraisal of cultural approaches to sex and sexuality. If it was sexy it was reaching us as much through the brain as through the groin. It’s no surprise to me that Madonna would want to continue to be sexual, even aggressively so, at this point in her career but what I see now, visually, is the smoke and mirrors of pop-sex with all the brain removed. It’s amazing how unsexy Madonna is when there is no brain work to do. In the words of Jarvis Cocker 'you’re so perfect you don’t interest me at all’.nnnThe Give Me All Your Luvin’ video is undoubtedly her best video in a long, long time and it’s witty and smart. But like her superbowl performance it’s a series of quips and re-affirming gestures designed to again remind us why Madonna is the Queen and little more.nnnnOh, ok then..nThe elephant in the room of this review is of course her age. Lets not beat about the bush - no other pop artist has ever been in the position she is. She has a very real stab at being the first POP star to transition past her 40s without becoming a niche, greatest hits or Vegas parody artist. It’s what I’ve always wanted for her and I’ve long nurtured the seed of hope that she would be the one to lick the incalculable challenge of being an older woman in an industry obsessed with youth and beauty. Will she manage? Quite possibly yes, but it would seem not in the way I had hoped. It’s all gone a bit Death Becomes Her. I’ll be brief here because it’s a subject that I could write an entire blog post about on it’s own but I’ll take those much-mocked ropey, veiny old arms, crows feet and sags over a badly molded Barbie face (or photoshop smudge) and vacant expression any day. People are loving it of course but it’s breaking my heart that she’s going to win the battle by losing the war. When will we get another shot at this opportunity? 30, 40 years from now if any of our current bright young things are still around? On a human level I totally understand - I can only begin to imagine the pressure on her. I empathise entirely but it still makes me sad. It’s a bitter irony (that word again) that the most moving, human aspect of this campaign so far has been her fight against nature itself.nGirl Gone Wild artworknnPontificating aside, here’s my ratings:nGirl Gone Wild: 5/10nRather horrible and generic. The inexcusable Act Of Contrition retread aside I actually (controversially) prefer this to the lead single but, admittedly, that’s a bit like saying I prefer Body Of Evidence to The Next Big Thing.nGang Bang - 7/10nSoooo much potential. Starts off brilliantly and ends well but there’s a bit too much 'ho hum’ in the middle for my liking. I feel like this should be my favourite track on the album and every time I listen to it I’m disappointed it’s not.nI’m Addicted - 6/10nPasses by pleasantly enough but absolutely will not stick with me afterwards.nTurn Up The Radio - 7/10nEnjoyably vapid and contains one of the few memorable choruses on the album. If she really, really had to release a 'fun’ single then this should have been it.nGive Me All Your Luvin’ - 3/10nThe spelling of Luvin’ tells you everything you need to know about this song. Horrible. N.O Thanks. Don’t Wanna.nSome Girls - 7/10nI feel much the same about this as Gang Bang although to my eternal surprise I think this is slightly better.nSuperstar - 6/10nCute and probably a grower.nI don’t Give A - 6/10 (but 10/10 for the last, totally epic 50 seconds)nFor some reason not entirely clear to me the ah-ah-ah-ah bits always remind me of the music in Tim Burton’s Willy Wonky.nI’m A Sinner - 7/10nStarts off tantalisingly Frozen then goes all Girl Gone Wild by the chorus. One of several songs on MDNA that sound a lot like Beautiful Stranger - a Madonna song I’ve, unhappily, never been that fond of.nLove Spent - 10/10nMy favourite song on the album by a country mile. This will be the one that makes it out of my MDNA playlist and gets hardcore listening. It’s neither the most lyrically sophisticated or the the 'toughest’ song on the album but it all comes together beautifully. Even/especially when it gets a bit Riverdance in the middle.nMasterpiece - 7/10nA pretty enough melody but a shadow of her great ballads. And for my money Madonna has often been at her best on ballads an down / mid-tempo songs.nFalling Free - 8/10nI don’t like this quite as much as most people seem to but it’s still very, very good. I also suspect it might sneak up to a 10 over time. The last minute of it is absolutely beautiful.nBeautiful Killer - 6/10nAnother song I suspect may be a grower.nI fucked Up - 9/10nThe other of two songs on the album that grabbed me straight away and one of the few that I think sit comfortably next to my favourite songs from across her career. It’s not perfect and like almost everything on MDNA it does noodle on a bit but I love, love, love it anyway.nB-Day Song - 4/10nMarginally better than Give Me All Your Luvin’ which has a similar retro feel but definitely a skip-track for me all the same.nBest Friend - 5/10nAnother pleasant but weak song that won’t really stick with me.nnThe final wordnMDNA is either a slightly weak, rather vain exercise in self aggrandisement mascarding as a much better, cooler, beast of an album or a pretty decent stab at current adult pop that unfortunately tends to come off a little cheaper in places than desired. I’m going to plump for the latter because ultimately I don’t want to see the woman fail.nNot a classic but not a turkey either, and if it seems lke this is a tough review it’s because Nicki is right - she is the fucking Queen. And I want more from her. I want her to make me think and feel not just dance and give her all my $$ luvin’. But to do that her heart needs to be in it 100%, not just her wallet and and her production crew.n*or not ;)nnOverall Rating: 6.5/10nHighlights: Love Spent, Falling Free, I Fucked UpnLowlights: Give Me All Your Luvin’, Girl Gone Wild, B-Day SongnBUY | LISTEN | WATCH
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