“Full of Fire”… And its fair share of beans
This Week’s Singles: Strokes, Flaming Lips, Pulp, Knife, Nick Cave, and several others!
Published on February 7th, 2013 | Jonny Abrams
Have we got a bunch of singles for you! No need to answer, that wasn’t a question – just sit back and get a load of this week’s singles, filed neatly alongside Rocksucker’s thoughts on each…(you don’t have to sit back…you can lean forwards, spin around in circles, stand on your head…just live your own life)…
Ace Hood feat. Future & Rick Ross – “Bugatti”
FAO footballers: your new favourite tune is here! “One morning you wake up in the projects / The next morning you wake up in a 1.2 million dollar car” – don’t you just love it when that happens? Rocksucker wonders how much Bugatti paid for this outlandish product placement, which – other than an identikit ‘grime’ production and a whole load bragging – is what this essentially is.
It’s unpretentious, we’ll give it that. Otherwise: meh.
Rocksucker says: Two and a Half out of Five!
Booty Luv – “Black Widow”
“I’m leaving dazed and deranged / After he feels the poison race through his veins”: this lyric is by some distance the most intriguing thing about this turgid and pointless Euro-pop-trance-whatever-who-cares guff.
Hed Kandi? Dead bland-i, more like. Arf!
Rocksucker says: Half a Quail out of Five!
Don Broco – “Fancy Dress”
Strong early contender for worst song of the year, this one. Here we have a man who really ought to go back to pumping iron at the gym and keep his lumpen, troglodytic nu-metal douchebaggery the hell away from us all. See all that crowd going ape in the video? Every single one of them should be shot into the sun. No joke.
“Pop into the toilet, catch you in a few days / That’s the way the party rolls” – maybe, if your idea of a party involves chronic diarrhea. “Fancy dress invite / Animals and plants and we do it right” – now, this sounds like an infant’s report entitled “What I Did This Weekend”, which could almost be charming were it not emanating from the least charming, most witless man you’re likely to encounter all year. Truly, truly dreadful.
Rocksucker says: Have a Dead Quail!
Emeli Sandé – “Clown”
Stirring balladry blah blah blah. This would be much more fun and/or worthwhile is she’d do good by the line “I’ll be a clown on your favourite channel” – it goes without saying that Rocksucker would love to see Sandé on Sky Sports News squirting water at Jim White’s face out of a flower pinned to her lapel. For this imagery, she quails up (relatively) well.
Rocksucker says: Two Quails out of Five!
Eric Prydz – “Every Day”
Isn’t there enough of this exact type of track already? We have crappy gym/club fodder by the barrel load – anyone who’s been to a gym and/or club could tell you that. Enough already.
Mr Prydz: if you’re not going to put a load of sweaty, scantily clad people in the video then you might as well not even bother.
Rocksucker says: Half a Quail out of Five!
Granville – “Polaroid”
Blimey, something we like! The burgeoning francophilia of Cornershop‘s wonderful Ample Play continues apace with this fabulously breezy swinger that leaps into double-time and *will* have had you clapping along by the time it’s concluded. Cornershop is now well stocked with wares to peddle other than their own, and by gum they would appear to have much joy to deliver this year: check out this Rocksucker round-up of the stellar acts already on the Ample Play roster. Click here to subscribe to their Singhles Club for further aural treats.
Rocksucker says: Three and a Half Quails out of Five!
Karl Bartos – “Atomium”
Taken from the former Kraftwerk dude’s forthcoming Off the Record LP, this tribute to the iconic, Brussels-based edifice wields synthery by turns retro, loopy and dramatic, throws in the obligatory robot voice repeating the title and lays stabs of orchestra hits over some cartoonishly ‘ominous’ plastic string motif. Roll on the LP and its attendant provision of context.
Rocksucker says: Three Quails out of Five!
Kristina Train – “Lose You Tonight”
Try this at home: sing “Bitch” by Meredith Brooks over the top of this, thus rendering it infinetessimally more entertaining. If dreary Norah Jones/Lana Del Rey ripoffery sounds like your kind of thing then you’ll love this – otherwise, it’s one of those you’ll digest a few seconds of before saying: “…nah”. So inoffensive it’s almost offensive.
Rocksucker says: One and a Half Quails out of Five!
Lawson – “Learn to Love Again”
Wow! They play their own instruments! Hey Dave, check it out – these guys ACTUALLY PLAY THEIR OWN INSTRUMENTS! I know, they’re so totally talented and cool!
Oh wait, the song’s dire. Shame.
Rocksucker says: Half a Quail out of Five!
Marina and the Diamonds – “How to Be a Heartbreaker”
…on which Marina pulls down her American Apparel disco pants and curls one out all over “Reptilia” by The Strokes. It’s the usual faux-feminist drivel from this depressingly popular lass, this time spelling out a code of conduct pertaining to breaking hearts as if it were some banal Cosmo article, or one of those crappy little books you used to see on the counter at HMV.
There are lots of muscular blokes in trunks if you’re into that kind of thing, although the bloody head on a platter seems like an extreme form of heartbreak. Aren’t girls lucky to have the likes of Marina as a role model?
Rocksucker says: One Quail out of Five!
Mikky Ekko – “Pull Me Down”
Promisingly disorienting intro that turns sour the moment the vocals kick in. “I want to be your man” etc. Cool story, bro. At least some form of effort was made with the backing track. Now, what’s he singing about John Virgo?
Rocksucker says: One and a Half Quails out of Five!
My Chemical Romance – “Surrender the Night” / “Burn Bright”
Yep, these both sound like MCR songs – and we all know what that entails by now. Here are two of the buggers. Enjoy.
Rocksucker says: You might be left feeling a little like this kid…
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – “Jubilee Street”
“I should practise what I preach” considers Cave in the lyrics, but the dark, brooding atmosphere and sleazy video pretty much does that anyway. The new album Push the Sky Away is out 18th February, folks, and if this and previous single “We No Who U R” are to be heeded then it looks like being a decidedly more sombre affair than Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!.
Commanding, literate, gloomy, nocturnal, fades off into its own private tumult: if you like this, check out Tindersticks’ The Something Rain album of last year.
Rocksucker says: Four Quails out of Five!
Pure Love – “Beach of Diamonds”
So little of interest happens in this song that the video requires a shootout between some guys in crazy, bejazzled masks. There’s even an explosion and a Machiavelli quote at the end of the video, so we know they’re actually exciting and intellectual despite their bog-standard guitar pop. Remove the visuals and it’s a total non-event, though not unpleasant.
Rocksucker says: Two Quails out of Five!
Pulp – “After You”
Initial reaction: Pulp goes to the barndance! Then the His ‘n’ Hers/”I Spy” dark disco (here with extra added emphasis on disco) wrests control of proceedings, unfortunately not with quite enough of interest to detract from the deflating sense of spoof about lines like “the scriptures foretold of a party in Hackney” and “I can’t understand why you’d want to be free / But if you want to be naked, that’s okay by me”. I mean, humour and pastiche have long been Jarvis Cocker calling cards, but this just feels like an executive version of “Being a Dickhead’s Cool”.
It saddens Rocksucker to write this but this feels like a diminished return, especially as they went out on such a high note record-wise with 2001’s enchanting We Love Life LP. We will of course welcome a new Pulp album with open arms, but also with more scepticism than if we hadn’t heard this. Throwaway fare from a band capable of true greatness.
Rocksucker says: Two and a Half Quails out of Five!
Steve Mill feat. Keisher Downie – “Nobody”
This is basically a Logic tutorial enlivened only by some weird ‘n’ wibbly voices. We have nothing else to say about this.
Rocksucker says: One and a Half Quails out of Five!
The Flaming Lips – “Sun Blows Up Today”
In the famous words of Homer Simpson: “Yes, yes, yes, this rocks!” We’ve gushed far too much about The Flaming Lips on our pages and are bound to once again when their brand new studio album (eep!) The Terror (eek!) sees the light of day on 1st April, so we’ll spare you for now. Just know that the world’s greatest functioning band still sound pretty damn great on this rocking frost-melter, which is not what we were led to expect from the LP, that is if this even features on it. Anyway…
Rocksucker says: Four Quails out of Five!
The Knife – “Full of Fire”
Shuddering, rubbery, motor-y beat, weird buzzing vocal effect, a Marit Östberg video featuring people peeing, glasses getting smashed, a protester apparently hooking up with a soldier, an old lady roaring – welcome back to The Knife, whose long-awaited fourth album Shaking The Habitual arrives on 8th April. This bodes well.
Rocksucker says: Three and a Half Quails out of Five!
The Strokes – “One Way Trigger”
Speaking of diminishing returns – and that would have been a good segue had it followed the Pulp review – here are The Strokes with an idly mumbled “Take on Me” ripoff which, had it been their debut single, might’ve anchored them in anonymity forever more. The Strokes just sound monumentally bored of being The Strokes.
Rocksucker says: One and a Half Quails out of Five!
See you next week, everybody!
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About the Author
Jonny Abrams Editor of Rocksucker and the website's founder, Jonny is passionate about the music he listens to, both good and bad, as well as interviewing his favourite musicians.
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