Not much time to post today, so here's an office playlist for your delectation. Thanks to everyone who posted their playlists last week - we can definitely do that again here if you're in the mood. I should also mention a few things I'll try and blog about before Christmas, if only in a fairly unsavoury attempt to book some return visits from you over the next couple of weeks.
Which comeback is this again? As The Verve mooch onto the stage at the Roundhouse, I’m reminded of a night at Glasgow Barrowlands maybe ten years ago. Nick McCabe had just rejoined the band, and I guess “Bittersweet Symphony” was about to be released. The lights went down, and the impeccable DJ played David Axelrod’s “Holy Are You”. Then the band came on: Simon Jones lunging at the crowd triumphantly; Ashcroft imperious, transported; McCabe a self-effacing figure consumed with his work. Men spilled beer and hugged each other. They’re back!
Up at six this morning, as usual, though the Radiohead album didn't arrive to download until, I think, about ten to seven. I played "In Rainbows" for the first time on the bus coming in to the office, and it was one of those records that seems dramatically suited to sitting in traffic on the A10, watching the commuters. Oh, the alienation!
It’s easy to be a bit snide about the Klaxons, as some of the fartish blather that greeted their Mercury Prize win proved. “Myths Of The Near Future” (was that the title?) wasn’t the best record on the shortlist, to my mind; I’ve played the Arctic Monkeys and Amy Winehouse albums more, if that’s any measure. Third best is still pretty good, though, and while I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the Klaxons were a truly futuristic band (one or two commentators claimed this after the Mercury win. I’m not even sure what “futuristic” means any more with regard to music, but never mind), I certainly like their ideas, their sense of intelligent mischief, and the suspicion that these are men who listen to a much more interesting range of music than their indie contemporaries.
