Fly away to Malibu...

Well, it's been a long time to say the least. Life has been crazy busy, so I guess neglect of a blog was in order. Good news is that my 'busy break' was entirely musical.

On Sunday, I won my local music school's competition title for 'Musical Performer of the Year'. It took a load of hard work and dedication, but somehow I pulled it off! As a result, I will probably never listen to any Blondie ever again, as I have incredibly worn it out so much so to win the competition with some of the best Blondie songs known to mankind :)

To celebrate, I will post one of my favourite songs at the moment, and a song that will remain one of my favourite songs for eternity. Obviously being songs at LEAST 15 years old, for crying out loud. You didn't think anything different, did you?
From one of my personal favourite musical eras, I shall display. Riot grrrl is something I've been interested in for a while now, so when I hopefully get to write about in my Grade 6 onwards Pop Music Theory examinations, I'll post some of those thoughtful writings on here.


Next Post will be more thought-provoking... perhaps. But for now a break, and an insight into my mind.



Peace, Love, Empathy [...]





Bikini Kill's 'Rebel Girl'. This kicks ass.


And my favourite music video of all time, it has to be said. Why do I always keep looking it on YouTube, when I can have it here right on my own blog? Simple. Now convenient and lovely.
There is something undeniably beautiful about Courtney Love dancing, setting fire to palm trees and wearing a beautiful dress all at the same time. Enjoy.

Music Video of the Month

Hm... well I'm not sure if I like this video.. or the song. BUT I love Tiffany's style and other music so here. The video has got lots of that sun setting- guitar, chevy thing that I just can't get enough of.

This single was Fearne Cotton's 'Single of the Week' a couple of weeks ago. Says it all really.

Enjoy.

Another record created with extreme Love...

Courtney Love has made a full, fledging comeback.

She rioted her way through the rest of the nineties as a widow and ultimately, a single mother, and didn't dampen down the way she was feeling at the time. She battled through grief, drug overdoses and the media displayed her who was spinning out of control wildly.

The only great point after 2004 for her came when Celebrity Skin received good reviews, with a new drummer, a new bassist and a different sound. Many cite this as the only shiny gem in Hole's back catalogue, and I agree, but not with the only bit. Sometimes these records made with pain, fury and complete anguish turn out to be the best of one's career. After all, they're true to the bone.

So she's returned and she's done exactly the same thing, hitting us with a record so powerful, even without Eric Erlandson and missing the rest of the original Hole line-up. (Which quite honestly, saddens me. They can't even get to grips with things and make the classic line-up Celebrity Skin era [...])

Nobody's Daughter was released last Bank Holiday Monday, to mixed reviews. Many said that with the works of Billy Corgan and a new vocal sound, now aged 45, the record is not only completely true and real, but a matured Love sound, something obviously her, but with something that not even Celebrity Skin had. It has experience.

It's a whooshing 11 tracks of pure Alternative American bliss, careful producing and help from the likes of Billy Corgan, and the brave and heroic approach of her favourite subjects, which even now after the nineties flourish and middle aged songwriting, are not stale yet, remarkably: "Someone Else's Bed"is a tall of well, waking up in someone else's bed; she revisits her scarred soul in Nobody's Daughter where she growls a epic Love line, crafted so obviously by her where she says exactly what we've all been trying to say for years that she sums up in one painful, reaching line: "Asphyxiate all your pain away..."

Obviously, the sensitive subject of nobody but her husband "I met a boy, he came from the sea, he was the only boy who ever knew the truth, about me" crops up in "Pacific Coast Highway" among others screeching revenge and on the other hand, gorgeous tributes. It is something she can only sing about, when in other songs she just feels she should just lament her anger with him for leaving her ('Someone Else's Bed': "Were you there when I'm ready to top myself? Were you there when I'm all alone? Do you even know why I am suffering? Are you down to your bones..." is quite a painful reminiscence with her) She also expresses her anger, jealousy or perhaps sarcasm in how people are portrayed in "Skinny Little Bitch", the press in 'Letter to God' : "I never wanted to be some kind of Comic Relief" and abandonment are all featured from a true life, first-person angle.

From the world's shattered whore, as she puts it so aptly herself, it's a great journey over great waves of a scarred and troubled soul.

"It's glorious, its terrible god I need it.

It’s beautiful, it’s ravenous..." as Miss Love puts it herself, soaring to a climax on and as Nobody's Daughter.

Best of the Best Round-up

Okay, well it's May now, unexpectectedly and kind of ridiculously, so I shall share on my blog simply the countdown of the 5 best things that have happened in music for the past 2 months:


5) Finding out that there will be a Kurt Cobain biopic detailing his fulfilling, or not so, life. And finding out that Robert Pattinson will thankfully NOT be playing him. That made my month and year. With Courtney Love co-producing it's sure gonna be warts and all.


4) Seeing Courtney Love cut her hair back to it's Live Through This days. Those extensions were truly awful. (although that's not necessarily music-related, but still.)


3)Finding out that Sub-Pop is going back to it's former glory days with a line of young, ambitious bands, making that Sub-Pop Alternative Rock sound that only the Americans can do. No matter what they don't do right, bands such as Avi Buffalo, Happy Birthday and riot grrrl revival girl group, Dum Dum Girls are sure to go far. II 'll certainly be buying their records. And word that Mark Arm (former North-East Punk-Rock GOD and lead of the tremendous, and timeless Mudhoney), is still at Sub-Pop headquarters working as Manager. Awesome. Awesome. Proves that with time, things don't change one bit.


2) Discovering that the Hole-but-not-kinda-hole-because-it-only-contains-one-of-the-original-members are releasing a new album. Having already being released in America, but not until Monday in Britain, obviously I've heard many of the songs on the web and seen Courtney Love at the NME's promoting Nobody's Daughter songs. I am loving Hole's 'Skinny Little Bitch' and 'Samantha'. Although it's not the real Hole, it sure sounds like it is. The bitch is back, everyone. And she's back for good.


1) Foo Fighters announce they are releasing another album, starting recording in September and plan to release by next year. With a new album will come a shedload of tour dates will come with it, usually. With news of this, I started jumping around the room. That's all to be said.


































This is definitely turning out to be a very good year in music. Some people will say. I hope people will be able to look back and say "Why, yes, 2010 was the year of Alternative Rock Revival... It was quite a nice year.."


Peace, Love, Empathy ..

Music Video of the month: Miss World

It's not new or modern or filled with special effects or anything like that.

Sorry, but this is coming from a girl who's stuck in a decade forever,and this is one of my favourite music videos. I just love it.

Look out for: "Cleaniless is next to Godliness"

Cult and Mainstream: the fight between the special people..

First off, I'm not sure if "Cultdom" is actually a word. Ah, well then I have just invented it. Deal with it.





Def: Cult ADJ [ADJ n]


Cult is used to desscribe things that are very popular or fashionable among a particular group of people.





Sounds simple enough, doesn't it? But really, it isn't. This one little word has spawned decades of misconceptions and misunderstanding.


When something is given a "cult status" it often confuses many. I have just said this, I know. But I want to emphasize it.


It all started for me when I had read that once when the "Twilight" saga started, it had only a cult following. A misconception followed making the connection of cultdom to vampirism. Yes, this is going to sound pretty bonkers, but that's what I thought. I guess that makes ME bonkers. So basically, I thought something that was said to have a cult status was a vicious circle of blood-thirsty humans following this particular "cultdom", all connected with each other. This was a year and half ago. Really, if you think about it, this could be true, with all these cult groups in the world (HA!). This is only with a series of books. The Music Business is perhaps the greatest example to show the border between Cult and Mainstream (And, is there really one?)


NME wrote a list wuite recently that really interested me. It was a list of the 'greatest' cult stars with the title "The World's Greatest Unsung Heroes". It may still be on their website somewhere: http://www.nme.com/home

It was basically a collection of musicians that I hadn't heard of. With the exception of Daniel Johnston. He was described, in so many words, as America's greatest Cult Alternative Indie Star. What does that mean? It means hemight even be worth listening to. If you're into that kind of thing. My main attraction to these double pages was the column on one of the first pages titled: "KURT COBAIN: CULT KILLER". Reading this article in semi-disgust, it was confusing. But I made confusing sense of it all. It told of, how Kurt Cobain unpurposedly lifted artists such as Daniel Johnston and Teenage Fanclub out of their comfortable ground and cult status, into the eyes of a wider audience, and almost destroying their careers as a result. Why am I explaining this? You can read it all on the article yourself, but I guess I'm just trying to make a point.

Now, recently I have been listening to Teenage Fanclub, and are now loving them as much as anything else on my iPod in the mainstream (I admit, I am a bit of a mainstream music girl, apart from the odd occurrence), but I wouldn't have any idea about them if it weren't for him. That just says it all really. Did these artists like their cult following? Or did they want to hit the mainstream? Some people go mad for mainstream, but some just want to get their beloved music listened to by an audience. Any audience, being mainstream or not. Teenage Fanclub are a Scottish Indie still, though, but damage has been done to their full cult status. Their fans are the biggest fans of one Kurt Cobain himself, who was a fan. So, does this mean they're on the cult side, or the mainstream part? It could be the middle. There is usually a middle in these kind of things.

Well, anyway, now I realize the importance, or not, of this "barrier" between cult status and mainstream. Because there is undoubtedly one.





My advice? Don't choose any. Because either could kill you.








Haha. Well, I tried.








P.S


Be daring this week and listen to some um... "iconic" cult. Try Daniel Johnston's Hi, How Are You (1983) or Teenage Fanclub's Songs from Northern Britain (1988).



























They're both equally brilliant.








Peace, Love, Empathy x

Out Today: A Classic?

Today, Gorillaz release their third album, titled Plastic Beach.

Now don't get me wrong, I love Damon Albarn and a Poster I recently received with an NME magazine package was some very impressive artwork of the new album and it's really cool, but there is something about this album that strikes me as slightly odd. I was flicking through my new issue of Q magazine, and as it happens, little things catch your eyes. Well, I wouldn' be lying to say yet again, the album artwork in the review of this album is simply fantastic. But.. another thing.. the rating Q had given it. This shocked me.

"5 STARS?" I said to myself. The little 5 stars hightlighted in red stunned me.

Now, it is known that in the history of Q, it is very rare that any album gets 5 stars, even if it is some tremendous remastered compilation of some iconic artist. This is only usually the case with remastered Rolling Stones' albums and other things of that status.

But for a album just released to gain this kind of honour is just remarkable. I can't really say anything yet because I haven't listened to the whole album yet (but what I have heard doesn't seem anything different from their old stuff, or special, but what do I know?), and I haven't read the whole review, so I can't be too judgemental..

Time will tell, I suppose, to whether this is a "Classic. You need it in your collection today." or the "Best Album of the Year" when only three months have passed...

Listen to it today, and see if you think Damon Albarn has hit the spot yet again.

Peace, Love, Empathy.