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Archive for the Category "Music"

TV heaven Aug 17

Some top notch telly last night. After Mastermind on BBC Two came BBC Four’s Britpop Night, interrupted briefly for The Smoking Room on BBC Three and rounded off by the premiere of the new Franz Ferdinand video on Channel 4.

The Britpop Story was interesting and full of nice clips (although some were lifted from Britpop Now which followed). However, having defined Britpop as pretty much Blur-like music, it seemed odd that Oasis could fit under the same banner when they agreed that their music had different forms and themes. The likes of Menswear and Sleeper really have very little in common with Oasis bar some guitars and a drumkit.

The real disappointment of the otherwise very good Britpop Story was the end. We hit 1997 and John Harris pretty much said “Then Labour swept to power and Diana died and that was the end of Britpop” – followed by a clip of Oasis performing Lyla, the intervening eight years completely ignored. Having carefully charted the rise of Britpop and its influences, there was no real discussion about its decline.

I watched half an hour of Britpop Now which brought back plenty of happy memories and was full of top tunes, as well as Echobelly. TOTP2-style captions also filled us in on the post-Britpop lives of the bands – more of which on the BBC News site.

Needless to say, The Smoking Room was as understatedly brilliant as ever. After that, I switched back to BBC Four and Live Forever. Supposedly about Britpop, the title hints correctly that this documentary was dominated by Oasis. Noel is entertaining and on the mark: he understandably derides Be Here Now but can’t fathom why anyone would have (What’s the Story) Morning Glory but not own Definitely Maybe. (For the record, I do – but only because the former was a present.) There are some revealing interviews with Damon Albarn and Jarvis Cocker, but whereas the night’s other two programmes covered a breadth of Britpop, this is too focussed on Oasis to tell the wider story.

Having only heard it once, I’m not yet humming the new Franz Ferdinand single, Do You Want To, but the video was amusing – the band prancing about in front of spoof modern art. I was a bit concerned that in the video Alex Kapranos resembled Nicol Stephen but I’ll blame that rather odd comparison on tiredness…

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One song to the tune of another Aug 16

Nine years too late I know, but have you noticed that the lyrics to the verses of the Blur song Stereotypes can be sung to the tune of Squeeze’s Cool for Cats?

Blur Squeeze
The suburbs they are dreaming, they’re a twinkle in her eye
She’s been feeling frisky since her husband said goodbye
She wears a low cut t-shirt, runs a little B&B
She’s most accommodating when she’s in her lingerie
The Sweeney’s doing ninety cos they’ve got the word to go
They get a gang of villains in a shed up at Heathrow
They’re counting out the fivers when the hand cuffs lock again
In and out of Wandsworth with the numbers on their names
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The cat in the hat Aug 05

A while ago, I mentioned that I’d been an extra in a music video. Said video (which the faint-hearted should be warned contains some men in drag) is now online: High bandwidth / Low bandwidth. I crop up a few times in the audience and am easily identified thanks to my much-derided flat cap.

Nostalgia screen grab" Nostalgia screen grab"

The excellent track is called Nostalgia and is by the Readers Wifes featuring Justin Bond. You can buy it from Amazon and HMV.

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You missed the eBay boat, Bob Jun 15

Testing mini-posts with this story from the Guardian Newsblog.

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