Cork's Simple Kid is making a virtue out of being in the middle of the road, that easy-listening, glam-rock neighbourhood that often produces uplifting music. And this Kid knows his stuff. Kicking off with a tribute to David Essex à la "Rock On" for opener "Hello", he then ventures into Bowie meets Lieutenant Pigeon territory on "Staring At The Sun" and turns up a Ween-standard ditty for "Drugs". Most albums that spin around the pop-about-pop axis can fall short and wane, but SK1 retains interest. It's exciting, sassy and funny. T.
"Oh, I just don't know where to begin," Elvis Costello swooned in the opening line to his lusciously hummable 1979 hit "Accidents Will Happen". Not strictly true. Elvis Costello has always known precisely where to begin. Knowing when to stop, that's been another kettle of worms. His latest batch of reissues being a case in point. Each has been fattened up for market with a mind-bending welter of bonus tracks, so that Get Happy!!, a 20-track tour de force in the first place, now weighs in at 50 tracks (with Trust at 31 and Punch The Clock at 39, see right).
From the all-star fable casting Ole Bob as Jack Fate—"a fallen rock legend well past his prime." They said that, not me. This includes several exotic covers of his songs, from an Italian folk version of "If You See Her, Say Hello" to a Japanese "My Back Pages". "One More Cup Of Coffee" is tackled, amusingly to some of us, by Turkey's recent Eurovision winner, Sertab Erener.
Miraculous, much underrated adaptation of posthumous Kieslowski screenplay by Run Lola Run director Tom Tykwer. Cate Blanchett is a British teacher in Turin who, as an act of vengeance, becomes an unlikely terrorist. Young policeman Giovanni Ribisi falls in love and joins her on the run, but it's more about magic realism and haunting, luminous beauty.
