Monthly Archive

I am now the proud owner of a beautiful diploma and a pretty well-earned Master’s Degree in English Literature. In celebration, I’d like to share this with you all:

After meeting this terrifying dragon, Harold’s frightened little hand begins to shake and he accidently draws waves of water! But don’t worry, it all ends up reasonably well.

I found Harold and The Purple Crayon hidden away on a bookshelf a few days ago. Harold’s always been my favorite character of children’s literature and it seemed appropriate that he should re-appear just as I recieved my degree.

Well, I was scooped by Stereogum (actually, by So Much Silence) on the Kaiser Chiefs thing, by one measly day. No matter, I know I’m still cool.

While I’ve been cleaning out the storage in my house recently, I found this and I thought there must be someone who would like it as much as I do.

I told my brother about it, and he said it must have come from “that place” our uncle used to work. I have no idea what this mysterious “place” was, but it must’ve been awesome. It’s one of the most 80s things I’ve ever seen and it must be cool if I’ve kept it for nearly 20 years.

Expect more bizarre things from the dusty corners of my home in the future.

A few weeks ago, I pre-ordered the new War Child compilation, Help: A Day In The Life, but I only got around to listening to it today. I’m sure you all know about the making of this album but, if not, it’s a charity album recorded in one day by (British) bands. The same was done 10 years ago, at the height of Britpop, and I’m sure it raised loads of money for War Child.

This time around, the album features new tracks by Razorlight, Coldplay, The Magic Numbers, The Coral, Maximo Park, Bloc Party, The Go! Team, Babyshambles - among others - and, much to my confusion, a cover of John and Yoko’s “Happy Christmas, War Is Over” by Boy George and Antony (of Antony and the Johnsons).

My personal favorite is the Kaiser Chief’s cover of I Heard It Through The Grapevine. I know a lot of people out there have issues with the Kaiser Chiefs, but I think they’re fun, so I’m going to share this track with you all.

   Kaiser Chiefs - I Heard It Through The Grapevine

I’ll only leave it up for a day or so because it’s a charity album and you really should go buy it yourself, you cheap bastards. You can buy it at HMV.co.uk and Amazon.co.uk. Or you can download it from anywhere in the world (as far as I know) via the War Child Music site.

I’m sure everybody out there has heard the new Strokes songs that have been floating around out there. (If you haven’t, you can check out “You Only Live Once” over there at Stereogum and “Juicebox” is up on the official Strokes site.) I thought that the emergence of these tracks might be a good reason to finally start this here blog, which has been ready and waiting for me for months, while I figured out what to actually do with it.

I like the new songs. I think they’re fantastic. I am, obviously, a big Strokes fan. I don’t understand why so many people out there have been criticizing “Juicebox”. Well, I actually do understand: people don’t like it because it doesn’t sound like it could’ve been on Is This It. And they do like “You Only Live Once” because it does sound like Is This It, or at least close to it. People seem to have this reaction to new albums (or songs) if they don’t sound just like the one that made them originally fall in love with a band. In a way, it’s a great compliment to the band.

I like it when bands try out something new. I like when they put their guts into it and don’t just take the easy way out. Besides, The Strokes aren’t exactly changing drastically – they still sound like themselves, do they not? It infuriates me that The Strokes have been basically apologizing for their last album in interviews. What is the problem with Room On Fire? Everybody loved it when it first came out. I guess the music on the CD physically changed about two months after its release.

Even the ‘music press’ hates it now. Which brings us to the very first entry (in what I hope will become a recurring feature here at 100b) of How The Music Press Is Crap. Room On Fire became a joke pretty much overnight, though I never did catch on to why. The NME regularly uses it as an example of a disappointing second album. Even Rolling Stone (a publication that lives in fear of actually forming an opinion, lest they should offend anyone, anywhere) has implied that it was a big letdown. Oh, but wait – what’s that? Rolling Stone’s Revised and Updated Album Guide? And they say what about Room On Fire?

If you read the whole thing, it’s not all adoring, but I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s a pretty positive description of an album. And NME’s original review was positively glowing. Oh, and before you ask: yes, I do understand that sometimes an album seems great but after a while, you realize it’s not quite as good as you thought. Maybe it turns out to be a little corny in ways you hadn’t noticed at first. Maybe you go a few days without listening to it and you’ve already forgotten it. Whatever the reason, sometimes you get wrapped up in an exciting new release only to find that, when the dust settles, the excitement wasn’t really justified.

But I don’t think that’s the case with anything The Strokes have done (so far, at least, and I’m including the two new tracks). I guess people just want them to keep recording Is This It over and over. That is, until it’s time to start complaining that The Strokes don’t ever progress.