Soopsworld 2.0: Volume Six

Prepping for your office Christmas party? Not having a Christmas party but fancy having your own anyway (yes, that’s YOU, freelancers)? Already had your Christmas party and would like to re-write the memory somehow? Well, TA-DA – Volume Six is here! There are even at least 5 songs with ‘dance’ or ‘dancing’ in the title (usually a giveaway) and a vintage Beastie Boys number perfect for bogling to! You are very welcome.

In other news, well, you might have noticed the quietness in posts in this week. I’ve been busy and there’s not that many new albums out. See last week’s posts for Christmas albums and playlists if you’re maxed out on Wizard, Mariah Carey & suchlike, though.

I’m not doing a best albums of 2011 list. Here’s a link cloud full of albums (and 1 ep because he’s not put his album out yet and I’m impatient), see if you can crack my highly sophisticated code to see which I liked more than others…

Tune-Yards – W H O K I L L Chinese Man – Racing With the Sun Cat’s Eyes – Cat’s Eyes Beastie Boys – Hot Sauce Committee Part Two The Dears – Degeneration Street Munk – The Bird And The Beat Rival Schools – Pedals Frankie & The Heartstrings – Hunger Gruff Rhys – Hotel Shampoo Anna Calvi – Anna Calvi Joan As Police Woman – The Deep Field The Horrors – Skying EMA – Past Life Martyred Saints Little Dragon – Ritual Union Blood Orange – Coastal Grooves Sbtrkt – SBTRKT Bon Iver – Bon Iver Michael Kiwanuka – I’m Getting Ready – EP Is Tropical – Native To Veronica Falls – Veronica Falls Lanterns on the Lake – Gracious Tide, Take Me Home Peggy Sue – Acrobats I Break Horses – Hearts Lia Ices – Grown Unknown Thee Oh Sees – Carrion Crawler / The Dream El Rego – El Rego The Bandana Splits – Mister Sam Presents The Bandana Splits M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming. Feist – Metals

I’ll post you some links to other people’s lists over the weekend, I’m nice like that.

Soopsworld 2.0: Volume Five

Yes I know, the artwork looks suspiciously like the type of shot you’d get from from one of those glass-bottom boat trips you do on holiday. Lo and behold, it IS – it’s from a particularly surreal boat trip I took with my brother, the captain/tour guide was tenuously linking it to Finding Nemo (“Can you seeeee Neemoo? Is he under there? Is he over here?”. Weren’t no goddamn clown-fish off the Egyptian coast, unsurprisingly), My brother shudders to this day at the mortifying memory of me being dragged to the front to ‘drive’ the boat and getting death-stared by all the children that weren’t picked. Ah yes, fond memories…

 After Monday’s new releases I soundtracked job applications and project plotting with relics from my 2011 folder (yes I have my albums filed, along with folders of playlists categorized neatly – andwut?) so far Frankie & The Heartstrings – Hunger The Dears – Degeneration Street The Strokes – Angles Beastie Boys – Hot Sauce Committee Part Two Chinese Man – Racing With the Sun Tune-Yards – W H O K I L L… Evidently I only got as far as the ‘Spring 2011′ folder within the 2011 folder.

I should probably do one of those Best Albums of 2011 things like a proper grown-up music blog – comment if you feel passionately that any particularly album should win such a prestigious title. 

It’s Monday so that means another pile of albums to listen to should you so desire. Can’t think why I haven’t posted the links on a Monday before when I clearly am more fussed about linking people to music than trying to describe it.

SO on our collective musical To Do List to try before we buy we have:

The Black Keys – El Camino (on Grooveshark cos it’s not on Spotify yet)

Amy Winehouse – Lioness: Hidden Treasures 

The Roots – Undun

The Cure – Bestival Live 2011

There’s also a post-humous Winehouse single, ‘Our Day Will Come’ out today. For me it feels too soon after her death to be rinsing what scraps of unreleased material she left behind but when is a tasteful time to scavenge through an artist’s work that is no longer here to say whether they want it used or not? She’s not the first artist to have this treatment and undoubtedly not the last, her pedestal is has only been raised it’s first few levels for now – over the years you can guarantee she’ll be cranked up a few more feet each time as the tragic heroine icon:  the re-issues of albums and singles, a remix album, a covers album, tribute concerts on her birthday and the anniversary of her death, virals made from home video/mobile phone footage, it will go on and on… Let’s not even go there with what money-making plots bloody Blake’s got up his sleeve, My Blake the Movie? It’s only a matter of a time before some tw*t thinks putting out a 27 Club compilation is a great idea. let’s face it.

I’m not sure I believe in an afterlife but if there is one, I hope Winehouse is haunting the f*ck out all the vultures and the fakers that seem incapable of paying tribute to her with any sort of grace and having a right laugh doing it.

No not Azealia Bank’s favourite c-word (212 = best song ever to do housework to ever btw), the other c-word that makes people go all crazed at this time of year, including with their choices of music. 

Clunky segways aside, this particular muso is not really a fan of the Slade school of Christmas tunes until Christmas week… back to back Wizard/Slade/Mariah Carey in an office and it used to make me look to the heavens thanking whoever was up there for the invention of noise cancelling headphones. I accept that not everyone else shares my bah humbug attitude to festive trash so I figured I’d compromise with some indie Christmas album links for y’all. If you want a somewhere-in-the-middle kind of Christmas playlist then here’s one of mine SoopyChristmas but it would appear that Christmas albums are, like, so hot right now, ranging from earnest-Christmas-aint-great-for-everyone with Smith & Burrows, sort-of-ironic-but-not-really Christmas pop with She & Him and then indie-f**k-it-chuck-in-zombies-tongue-in-cheek from Emmy The Great & Tim Wheeler.

I’ll admit, much as I quite like a fair bit of Editors’ stuff (the less said about Andy Burrows former band the better), I did think “Uh-oh, it’s gonna be a bit panto-doomcore” when I saw the lead singer had made a Christmas record. Opening with In The Bleak Midwinter with Tom Smith on vocals is, well, as melodramatic as I feared but despite it’s big entrance, Funny Looking Angels soon balances out into a really rather lovely record that I know I’ll be playing throughout the winter. Yes, there’s meloncholy round the edges but it’s some welcome depth in such a traditionally fizzy season that can make you sometimes feel like you’ve overdosed on cr*p long before you reach the 25th. The track I’ve had on repeat is ‘As The Snowflake Fall’ which is the first song I’ve heard in years that I’d make a Christmas number one if I had the power. The cover of Black’s ‘Wonderful Life’ is a, sorry, cracker too – showing off Smith’s voice in it’s richness without leaning back into panto-drama territory. Oh and they cover the Flying Pickets which I could kiss them for. 

Recorded before they decided to split up (presumably, and hopefully not the reason they decided to split up… this all feels a bit awkward suddenly…crashing on), we have uber-indie (ex)couple She & Him’s ‘A Very She & Him Christmas‘ which is much more, well, cheesy Christmassy albeit dripping in irony I’m sure. It’s alright, I found it a bit Christmas-by-numbers(and cashing in shamelessly, which I’m surprised at – I thought Zooey Deschanel’s acting career was going rather well, surely she doesn’t need the cash?) but it’s fine to have on in the background while you remove your turkey innards or whatever.

I’m sorry, and all fairness to them, of the three albums I think Emmy The Great & Tim Wheeler have their tongues pushed furthest in their cheeks with ‘This Is Christmas‘, they’re sending the whole thing up and are shamelessly cashing in and you can see their point, with the likes of X Factor dominating the charts at this time of year, why the hell not?  It’s not to my taste for the most part, despite liking both artists’ stuff normally, but it’s good fun and, like the She & Him record, fine to have on in the background and you fancy a change from the normal Christmas trash. Ho ho ho, etc etc.

p.s

All three albums + the Crocodiles/Dum Dum Girls Xmas single here in one playlist for your convenience:

Smith & Burrows/She & Him/Emmy The Great & Tim Wheeler/Crocodiles – Alt Christmas

Soopsworld 2.0 Volume Four

So after posting some new albums for you to try out on Wednesday, we get to Friday and yes, another Soopsworld 2.0 playlist to soundtrack your Friday afternoon or whenever you choose to play it. Don’t forget to actually subscribe on Spotify, a) it gives my ego a well needed boost and b) you get to refer back to it super-quick and stuff = winners all round. 

This week I have mainly been doing delightful things like cvs, job applications and radiating positivity in the face of unemployment stats pumped out by the Government, Daily Mail, news and doom merchants all over the place (including home, FUN TIMES). Oh and organising a new series of midweek posts that should hit Soopsworld in the near future… And taking pictures of the cat’s enormous fluffy tummy with retro camera phone apps because it never stops being amusing (the vignette filter isn’t slimming, unfortunately for him).

Got any albums on Spotify you’d like to recommend? Post them in the comments section below or tweet @soops77 the link or email soopsworld@gmail.com.

Oh and if you’re bored of Spotify already or compiling a playlist is just too strenuous for you… some of us got a new toy…sign up to see what tracks we’re playing and why.

http://thisismyjam.com/soops77

So we made it to Wednesday, high-fives all round right? It’s been a morning of experiments at Soopsworld temporary HQ, alongside the usual Sorting Stuff Out, Experiment 1 which you will see above is quite possibly the worst piece of Photoshoppery I’ve ever produced in my life. I’m publishing it a) because I don’t have a back-up and b) as a digital reminder of what can happen when you don’t pre-plan your artwork and you muck around with the smudge tool too much. May it be a lesson to us all.

Experiment 2 is hopefully far more beneficial (and less nightmare inducing hopefully) to you lot. It’s a tried and tested (Soopsworld) concept – put 4 albums/EPs in one playlist, hit shuffle and hopefully they’ll sort of work together. This normally works if they’re of a similar genre only this week, yeeeah, it’s eclectic to put it politely. We have Canyons from Perth, the psychedelic rock ramblings of Portugal, The Man from Portland, Oregon, Little Majorette from Stockholm and Wise Blood from Pittsburgh. It could work, it could be a disaster – hit shuffle and see what happens…

Canyons/Little Majorette/Portugal, The Man/Wise Blood

 Bored of vacuous regurgitated nonsense pushed by the pretentious? Just when I was beginning to get a bit jaded with Music Land, I got sent this gem and my faith was restored.

It’s evident to that The Ghosts know exactly what they’re doing and one of the things they’re doing is taking synth back off the Idiots and putting it within stylish, catchy pop songs that you’re just as happy contemplating the lyrics to as shimmying to on the dancefloor.

This track’s not out until January 15th so it means a fair wait until the album which I want rather badly. I’m not very good at being patient but the best things come to those that wait, yada yada yada…

You can keep an eye on The Ghosts here.

Soopsworld 2.0 Volume Three

Another week, another collection of songs in the form of Soopsworld 2.0: Volume Three. It starts of fairly synthy then ends up in a succession of female solo artists. Boom, etc.

As I mentioned earlier in the week, I wasn’t really in the mood for either Kate Bush or Rihanna (both had stuff out this week) but I got round to listening to both and well, Kate Bush – 50 Words for Snow was a particularly pleasant soundtrack to a sunny, crisp morning pottering about getting stuff sorted… I don’t know how I can elaborate, really, it’s very Kate Bush and if you like her then you’ll probably like it. 

Rihanna, on the other hand… Facebook friends may have seen the article on Lana Del Rey I posted that discusses the somewhat jaded, bordering on sinister tone of ‘Video Games’s lyrics. Inevitably it brought Rihanna to mind, Rihanna – Talk That Talk to me sounds like a woman on her back that is so bored she can’t even be bothered to fake it. Sure, there are songs on there that with the right remix I’m sure will feature at Christmas parties all over the land but for me, it sounds like both Rihanna and her producer/songwriters are going through the motions and writing/performing even more to a formula than normal. 

Which brings me to X Factor. Despite some people that class themselves as ‘musos’ turning their nose up at X Factor and snorting with derision at those of us that watch and even Tweet about it (hell, I even do ‘notes’ and post them on my Facebook wall but that’s admittedly more to do with my limited entertainment options at the moment), I still find it entertaining. And that’s sort of the point of X-Factor, it’s about entertainment more than music (and shifting units of course). Each year the contestants’ eyes get more crazed with the hunger for fame, the characters get more grotesque and cartoon-like – there are in-jokes and catchphrases like any old school variety show only the added pressure of viewing figures, maintaining profiles and selling records and stuff. X Factor on Twitter is the digital equivalent of the colosseum only instead of wrestling lions, the contestants perform karaoke in varying degrees of stylish costume depending on how nice they’ve been to the show’s stylists (allegedly). As my friend Rob pointed out to me during a ‘debate’, there has always been trash, with X Factor they’re actually releasing it and if you want to start dissing the whole X Factor contestants being products then well, you have to look at the whole bloody music business to an extent (in marketing not creative terms obvs) so let’s not go there.

N.B

My Twitter name is @soops77 if you want to join in taking the piss out of X Factor tomorrow.

Robbers On High Street – Hey There Golden Hair

LIke a good little social media person that actually listens to ‘statistical advice’ for once that the peak engagement time is Wednesday around about now (yes, that’s why your Facebook/Twitter feeds are heaving with matter, ah how funny it would be if that was nonsense…), I figured I’d pop a little something on the site. I looked at this weeks New Releases using my highly sophisticated methods (Amazon new releases pages & the rarely updated on time Spotify New Album Releases – cutting edge or what).

I’m not in the zone for the new Rihanna album (this zone requires lots of vodka and having robotics dance-offs on a sticky indie dancefloor with Fox and co) and I’m not in a Kate Bush sort of mood today (not wearing sufficient sleeves to wave around while expressing myself in the form of daaaance) so I mooched through my recent folders of albums on Spotify and found the Robbers On High Street album I mentioned the other week.

Out in September (so contraversially Not That New), ROHS have been likened to The Strokes (nope, not hearing that comparison), Spoon (errrm, no) in the past. I think a US Belle & Sebastian with slightly less sophisticated lyrics is more accurate in this album’s case… in a good way. More to the point it’s good midweek music in that it’s upbeat and has brass bits that will remind you of dancing round festivals off your face on scrumpy in your denim cut-offs and straw trilby or whatever. So if you’re staring at spreadsheets, losing the will to live – probably ideal, then. 

Soopsworld 2.0 Volume Two

Eclectic mix of tracks? Check. ‘Guerilla’ artwork knocked out in 20 mins? Check. Shameless raiding of muso mates’ Spotify libraries? Check.

Another Friday, another playlist. This week as well collecting tracks here and there on my ongoing online treasure hunt as normal, I also raided DHY Creative‘s and Rollo Grady‘s Spotify playlists (again) as well as visited Drowned In Sound regularly. I trust their ears, so should you.

p.s

Yes that is the back garden in Somerset, I literally looked out of the window for my inspiration. Imagine what it’d have been if I was back in London?