Loving you is EP ’cause you’re beautiful

The music business has slowed down in some ways and sped up in others. While bands generally don’t release multiple albums and standalone singles per year any more, instead if your first record doesn’t set fire to your career, that’s generally the end of you.

Combine that with the fact that physical releases are increasingly on the decline and one casualty of modern music is the art of the extended play.

An extended play, midway between a single and an album, often worked as a preview of an album, as a way of mopping up extra tracks that don’t fit anywhere else, or as a dry run of a different musical style.

Better yet, sometimes they end up home to material that the artist would love to do but could never get away with on their mainstream releases.

With Azealia Banks’ 1991 EP out next month, which I’m hugely excited for, I thought I’d take a look at some of my favourite EPs.

Minor Threat – Salad Days (1985) - Minor Threat, led by Ian Mackaye, were innovators in many ways but only just after having accidentally created the straight edge lifestyle they were already sick of making hardcore punk. This was released two years after they’d already broken up and you can hear the hints of a more expansive sound on the title track, given a truly epic quality by the chimes overdub.

Refused – New Noise Theology (1998) - Refused’s The Shape Of Punk To Come is probably the greatest hardcore punk album ever made, and it’s pretty ridiculous that after the album came out and ‘New Noise’ was released as a single and broke, they packaged it up as an EP with three separate songs each of which as good as the album. ‘Blind Date’ is a fantastic song although it wouldn’t really fit in anywhere on the album, but I can imagine the eight-minute ‘Poetry Written In Gasoline’ working as an excellent midway point for the rest of the album to swivel around, and the remix of ‘Refused Are ****ing Dead’ might be even better than the original.

The Dillinger Escape Plan and Mike Patton – Irony Is A Dead Scene (2002) - When DEP were left without a vocalist, they collaborated with Faith No More’s Mike Patton (my favourite singer of all time) and this EP is what emerged. Patton’s massive range and sheer insane inspiration works perfectly with the DEP’s spasmodic songwriting, even if the cover of Aphex Twin’s ‘Come To Daddy’ is pointless.

Hope of the States – Blood Meridian (2006) - Only about 2000 of this vinyl EP were printed, and as Hope of the States are one of my favourite bands, since their break-up it’s one of my most treasured possessions. Each of the b-sides is as good as the title track, but my favourite one is ‘Under The Wires,’ a song which turns the fiery anger of their Left album and turns it into a pitch-black resignation.

Ryan Adams and the Cardinals – Everybody Knows (2007) - The Cardinals were only ever as good as Ryan’s inspiration, and on 2007′s Easy Tiger he was hugely inspired. A couple of leftover tracks that didn’t fit on the album, plus some other offcuts, combined to make this EP. ‘Blue Hotel’ was originally written and recorded with Willie Nelson, but this version is the better one, while the recreated live version of ‘Dear John’ (from Jacksonville City Nights) is actually better than the original.

United Nations – Never Mind The Bombings, Here’s Your Six Figures (2010) - Recorded at the same time as the original album, I was very happy to hear any new material from United Nations given that they basically ceased to exist after being one of the only supergroups ever to not completely suck.

Cave In – Planets of Old (2010) - Cave In proved another nice part of an EP, as throughout their career they’d fill the gaps between albums with EPs. When they returned from hiatus in 2009 they wanted to get some new material quicker than it’d take to do an album, so they released this the next year – it was reassuring to hear the Earth-shattering ‘Cayman Tongue,’ a return to their metal/space-rock fusion of yore.

Glassjaw – Our Colour Green (2011) - I’ve discussed this EP extensively before, but it’s Glassjaw at their best and was their first release of new material since 2002. ‘All Good Junkies Go To Heaven’ is amongst my favourites of their songs.

Rizzle Kicks – Left Over Presents (2011) - Rizzle Kicks are a charming pop act, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but there’s something slightly neutered about their album – Jordan’s best punchline on ‘Mama Do The Hump’ is bleeped (even on the album, parental advisory sticker and all), and his rapping is restrained at best. This EP, released for free during Christmas last year, shows how much more there is to them when their label isn’t paying attention – Jordan’s rapping is suddenly sparkling, twice as fast and much funnier – Harley has more room to breathe as a singer and gets a solo spot on ‘Wicked Games’ – putting ‘Miss Cigarette’ aside, ‘Coach Potato’ is probably the best song they’ve ever done.

Ed Sheeran and Yelawolf – Slumdon Bridge (2012) - Ed Sheeran is a man who is a supporter of the EP as an art form, creating thematic ones – some solo, some hip-hop tinged, some collaborations. This time around he collaborated for the whole EP with Eminem’s protege, Yelawolf. It peaks early with ‘London Bridge,’ a bizarre sort of hip hop equivalent to Bob Dylan’s ‘What Was It You Wanted?’

Mermaid Avenue

I’ve talked before about Woody Guthrie on this blog, because as a person I find him so inspirational. He was probably the single most influential musician in American history and the original rock ‘n’ roll badass.

The end of his life was taken up by his Huntington’s Disease, where he could barely play guitar any more. He did, however, leave behind hundreds of unrecorded lyrics.

In the mid-1990s, Guthrie’s daughter Nora asked Billy Bragg to investigate the archives and set the lyrics to new music written by him. He invited Wilco (one of my favourite bands) to join him, and 1998′s Mermaid Avenue  was born.

A second volume from the same sessions was released in 2000, but it’s only now that finally the collection is completed, featuring the first two volumes, the all new third volume and the documentary about the making of the album, Man In The Sand.

The first volume then, is the best. Split evenly between Bragg’s vocals and Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, it’s a truly stunning collection of songs and subjects.

Guthrie is often remembered as a political songwriter, but  he merely wrote about what went on around him and happened to live in a heavily political climate. So whilst there are spots of politics on Mermaid Avenue (notably the faintly daft ‘Christ For President’) most of the material proves how textured and varied a songwriter he was.

On the Jeff Tweedy-sung ‘California Stars,’ Guthrie merely sings about finding a place to rest after a long travel. ‘Ingrid Bergman’ is a wry, faintly dirty song about a movie star of the time.

‘Hoodoo Voodoo’ is an entirely ridiculous nonsense song he wrote for the benefit of his children at the time. The Bragg-sung ‘Way Over Yonder In The Minor Key’ is an odd concept but one of the highlights of the whole set.

Elsewhere, you realise just how introspective and powerful a lyricist Guthrie was. ‘Another Man’s Done Gone’ is only 96 seconds long, but in that time shines a harsh light on the Huntington’s taking its toll: ‘Sometimes I think I’m going to lose my mind/but it don’t seem like I ever do.’

The peak of the first volume is ‘One By One,’ one of the single most heart-rending lyrics I’ve ever heard – ‘One by one my hair is turning grey/one by one my dreams are fading fast away.’

The second volume kicks off with what might be the best song on any of the three discs, ‘Airline To Heaven.’ Rattling along on a moving 12-string acoustic guitar, it finds Guthrie in the midst of a crisis of faith, both his own and that of those around him, pleading ‘Them’s got ears, let them hear/them’s got eyes let them see.’

Politics rears its head again on ‘All You Fascists,’ a pretty fearsome rant against (well, you guessed it) fascism, while ‘Joe DiMaggio Done It Again’ is simply a fun song about Woody’s admiration for one of the most famous baseball players ever.

Another of the best songs is ‘Feed Of Man,’ a Tweedy-fronted, swampy blues that could’ve been a cut from Exile On Main St.

And so, the all-new third volume. Diminishing returns has definitely set in here, not helped by the fact that Volume III is the longest of the three. But the weakest of disc of a widescreen set such as this is still a worthwhile listen.

It opens, much like Volume II, with its best song, the Bragg-fronted ‘Bugeye Jim.’ Over a scraping, solemn slide guitar Bragg narrates the tale, and a couple of songs later dives into ‘My Thirty Thousand,’ an incredibly ballsy song that tackles the Ku Klux Klan head-on.

The Wilco stand-out is ‘The Jolly Banker,’ a waltzy number that’s oddly appropriate in the post-recession world, targeting bankers as basically being the scum of the Earth who – and this is paraphrasing from the lyrics – will rape you and scalp you.

Regardless of the slightly lower quality of the third volume, the three discs together make a truly astonishing trawl through everything that made Guthrie so interesting and idiosyncratic.

The Man In The Sand documentary has quite a disappointing lack of in-studio footage but has a lot of insight into Woody’s life and legacy (as recently as 1996, signs denoting Woody’s hometown were defaced to call him a draft dodger and a communist).

As a four disc set, this is lavish, beautifully presented and what we’ve all been waiting for since these sessions began.

It may not be as strong as a four-disc set as it was when it was a single album, but that a single project can produce such a huge number of songs of with this high a quality level and wide a scope is nothing short of miraculous.

Singin’ in the Rain

I’m going to skirt a little bit outside my usual subject matter here and talk about a movie – but a musical movie nonetheless.

When I was younger, my parents used to get the Independent newspaper on Saturdays, and despite the fact that it threw me into a rage literally every week, I would inevitably read their reviews of the movies showing that week.

They rarely ever said anything modern was good, but would inevitably give five stars to basically anything released before 1960, saying that it ‘still holds up today’ when compared to more modern equivalents.

Now, I’m sorry, I work in the business of criticism myself. As a fan of films, literature and above all music, virtually nothing that my fellow critics claim ‘still holds up’ does still hold up.

I can appreciate the contribution of the likes of Gene Vincent to modern day rock music, and with research I’ve been able to understand just how insane and out there his music will have sounded to 1950s straight America. But that doesn’t mean anyone listening to it today will hear it back to back with Slipknot and go ‘whoa, they’re one and the same.’

This isn’t a bad thing at all, obviously. I’m not saying Vincent’s music can’t still be enjoyed. I’m just saying it’s not about to start a mosh pit anywhere. Heck I still listen to loads of old music. Some of it genuinely does still hold up, like Black Sabbath for example; I’m no fan of theirs, but they were insanely ahead of their time, ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ by The Beatles could have been recorded yesterday.

All of this rambling brings me to today’s subject, Singin’ In The Rain. I tended, in the past, to absolutely loathe musicals. To some extent that’s still true, but I tend to give them more of a chance on the merit of their songs. I’ve rarely found many I’ve liked outside of the Disney animated classics, mind.

At Christmas time, I saw it in full for the first time expecting to hate it, but I was absolutely enchanted from start to finish.

The plot centres around a film studio that made its millions during the silent era falling on hard times, and trying to turn their new picture into a talkie, since it seems them talkies are all the rage these days. Hilarity does, genuinely, ensue.

This film’s legacy these days often centres around the title track, but to be honest I found that more memorable in A Clockwork Orange than in its original incarnation.

So much of it is brilliant. First of all, the colours are truly astonishing, everything just pops out of the screen in a way that just doesn’t happen any more, not least in one of the closing sequences which begins with a close up and then zooms out to reveal an array of huge, neon-lit signs.

In a modern movie, that’d be some pretty nice CGI to look at – like a perkier Rapture from Bioshock. But I know that the only way to have managed that in 1952 was to build, from scratch, a HUGE set. It’s simply jaw-dropping. I’m not going to find a YouTube video of it because it’s something that DESERVES to be seen on a big TV screen, preferably on Blu-Ray.

The biggest thing is that, for a comedy that is now 60 years old, it’s still funny. This microphone scene still has me in stitches:

And later on, they show a completed scene to a test audience, with the audio all over the place and terrible dialogue, and it’s literally one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

Parts of it are actually quite startlingly modern. The end of this scene – in which the two male leads place a huge letter ‘A’ in front of a speech therapist and then sing ‘A’ at the screen – is like some kind of internet meme, literally decades ahead of its time.

The visuals are amazing, the comedy is still worth laughing at, and the storyline still feels legitimately original to this day – to the extent that The Artist swept the Oscars with something pretty darned similar.

Sixty years on, if you’ve not seen it yet, you need to watch Singin’ In The Rain – because yeah, it really does still hold up.

Blame it on the hologram

Every year Coachella rolls around and I get increasingly sick of how all my favourite acts (Dr. Dre, Refused, At The Drive-In, Frank Ocean) play it and I have only a slim chance of ever being able to attend.

But the talk of it this year going in was that there might be a hologram of late crooner Nate Dogg to accompany Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg’s closing night set.

As it turns out, what we got instead was the 2Pac hologram.

First of all, holograms are a thing now? WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN?

Second of all, I actually thought this was pretty awesome. I got chills watching the video as 2Pac rolled into ‘Hail Mary’ and ’2 Of Amerikaz Most Wanted,’ the second one accompanying Snoop.

It was a pretty great way of reeling in the audience and giving them what they want but previously could never have had.

My only issue with it was that 2Pac (or rather, ’2Pac’) said ‘Coachella,’ and since the festival only started when he’d been dead for three years, that means they either brought in an impersonator or got two different syllables sewn together.

Other than that, I was unopposed. But then the rumours started.

Rumours about Michael Jackson touring with a reformed Jackson 5. TLC to tour with a hologram of Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopez.

Even better, the hologram creator saying he’d love to bring back Elvis to play with Justin Bieber, which I nearly had an aneurysm over.

For one gig, or even for one song a gig, I get it. 2Pac at Coachella was a really cool moment. But to advertise a whole tour with a hologram? With light projections being your co-headliner?

And we’re not talking about background members here. We aren’t talking about Weezer touring with its 2001 lineup, with a hologram of Mikey, or The Stooges with a hologram Dave Alexander.

What’s next? Lynyrd Skynyrd touring with literally every single member being a hologram? A 50% fictional Beatles? The Who with Keith Moon as a Whologram?

Okay that one would be worth it just for the pun, but surely you understand what I mean!

This is a slippery slope people, and I don’t like it one bit.

On next week’s blog, a hologram of myself will write it for me.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Ten years ago today, one of my favourite albums ever was released in North America. That album is Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

I haven’t mentioned Wilco much on this blog, which is a bit odd because they are kind of one of my favourite bands. Note the ‘kind of’ there.

The past few years they’ve released some shaky albums so they’ve kind of fallen by the wayside for me; I noted my thoughts on last year’s The Whole Love in the post I just linked, but back in 2009 I’d originally planned on reviewing Wilco (The Album) for the blog and found it so forgettable that I couldn’t even think of anything to write about it.

Yet, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot while still not my favourite album by Wilco (that would be 2007′s criminally underrated Sky Blue Sky) is undoubtedly one of my very favourite records.

The album was turbulent to make for Wilco. First of all, while making it, they fired founding drummer Ken Coomer and replaced him with Glenn Kotche, who remains with them to this day.

While making the album, conflicts arose between frontman Jeff Tweedy and his songwriting partner, the late Jay Bennett. After the album was completed, Tweedy dismissed Bennett from the band.

Wilco’s previous albums hadn’t performed to Reprise’s expectations, and it’s not hard to see why. Their debut album AM was like a blander version of Tweedy’s prior band Uncle Tupelo, but they weren’t exactly label big hitters as it was.

Follow up Being There was a truly kaleidoscopic, White Album-esque double set that took in country rock, psychedelia, soul, folk and blues. It’s a masterpiece, but sold poorly.

Then there was Summerteeth, an album with a surface of cheery pop that hides a darkness at its core – songs about depression, murder and domestic violence. Summerteeth at least sounded commercial, but it didn’t sell.

And then there was Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. It’s fifty minutes of what is vaguely Americana, but mixed mercilessly with noise rock, electronica and proggy soundscapes. It’s a difficult, moving record but it’s not exactly pop music.

Wilco were dropped, and given the rights to the album by Reprise to do with as they wished, and the original September 11th 2001 released date (no, really) was cancelled.

The album was streamed for free on the band’s site and the following tour was insanely successful. When the album finally emerged on this date in 2002, it sold a million copies – still Wilco’s biggest selling album and one that has basically guaranteed them a record deal for life.

The best part? They signed onto Nonesuch Records to release it, a label which was a subsidiary of Warner Brothers, as was Reprise. Yep, if there’s one fact you already know about this album, it’s that Warner Brothers paid Wilco for this album twice.

The album has since taken on a reputation as being a post-9/11 elegy for America, but as I’ve already said it was originally scheduled for release on 9/11. It’s just coincidence that its so funereal, so beautiful and so comforting all at once.

The album opens with ‘I Am Trying To Break Your Heart,’ quite possibly the quintessential Wilco song, possibly their best, and without doubt their weirdest up to that point. It’s seven minutes long, the drums are never there for a constant beat, guitar is scarcely featured and it ends with a piercing five-second squeal.

It’s also one of the most beautiful things they’ve ever recorded. The song’s title is legitimate.

The album immediately barrels into ‘Kamera,’ a song that sound innocuous (as so many of Wilco’s do) but is also just a little bit off-kilter and you can’t figure out why. I always preferred the squelching alternate version that appeared on 2003′s More Like The Moon EP, but this one is great too.

‘Radio Cure’ is next up, and is most likely the most obtuse song on the record. Its verse is very amelodic with atonal piano chords groaning over it, before the chorus shows the briefest glimpse of sweetness. As much as I love this version I still prefer 2005′s live rendition from Kicking Television, just because it just kicks in so strongly when it finally hits.

‘War On War,’ is probably the cheeriest anti-war song I’ve ever heard, and is followed by ‘Jesus, Etc.’ a weird, string-soaked track which seems to find Tweedy projecting the name of Jesus onto a sad lover.

The curtain comes down on the first half of the album with the truly extraordinary ‘Ashes Of American Flags.’ With pounding, overloaded drums, Wilco wistfully sings about cash machines, patriotism and the pointlessness of protest songs with one half wistfulness and one half carelessness. It’s honestly amazing.

‘Heavy Metal Drummer’ would have in the olden days have been the opener of side two, a chirpy weird track with gently amusing lyrics. Tweedy tends to spice them up at live shows but even on the album version you can appreciate the stand-off between the drum machine and Kotche’s live drums.

‘I’m The Man Who Loves You’ is next, a guitar-hero track that puts Sonic Youth to shame with its complete ignorance of anything tuneful during its solo. At its core though, it’s a fun blues jam and adds some much-needed lightness.

‘Pot Kettle Black’ is like a downbeat version of The Cure’s ‘In Between Days,’ with a gently feeding back guitar underneath it.

Then the album (for me) draws to a close with ‘Poor Places,’ that like ‘Radio Cure’ builds towards an ending where it seems to surface from underwater.

Alas, there is one more song – ‘Reservations,’ a dirge that I hate so much that I don’t even have it on my computer, and for those of you that know how much of a completist I am, that is pretty insane. But I really loathe that song.

And that is Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, a magnificent, uncomfortable, difficult record that you steadily learn to love.

As a piece, it deserves to be enjoyed in one sitting, but here are ten more Wilco songs to convince you to get into them anyway.

1. Casino Queen (AM, 1995) - This song is no indication of awesome Wilco are, and nor is the album – but this song is impossibly dumb and cute and I love it.

2. Hotel Arizona (Being There, 1996) - A giant leap in maturity in one year, I love the steady build towards the end where you actually hear Tweedy say ‘last one’ before the last chord progression.

3. Sunken Treasure (Being There, 1996) - Still one of the most delightfully odd songs I’ve ever heard, the centrepiece of Being There.

4. One By One (Kicking Television Live In Chicago, 2005) - Originally on a collaboration album with Billy Bragg setting Woody Guthrie’s lost lyrics to music, the live version is far superior here, and quite heartbreaking as Guthrie settles into his old age – ‘one by one my tears are falling on the page.’

5. She’s A Jar (Summerteeth, 1999) - At first sounding like a sweet song, mellotron and all, the last lyric of this song completely pole-axes the listener, changing the tone of everything that came before.

6. Muzzle Of Bees (A Ghost Is Born, 2004) - Like ‘Hotel Arizona,’ this is all build-up for the closing minutes as the electric guitar weeps over delicate fingerpicking and piano.

7. At Least That’s What You Said (Kicking Television Live In Chicago, 2005) - On record already just an excuse for a three minute guitar solo, on live it features TWO guitar solos concurrently. What’s not to love?

8. Impossible Germany (Sky Blue Sky, 2007) - Completely unrepresentative of its parent album, where ‘What You Said’ has completely unnecessary guitar work, all three distinct guitar parts contribute to the overall feeling of ‘Impossible Germany.’

9. Wilco (The Song) (Wilco (The Album), 2009) - A self-referencing, knockabout joke of a track to kick off their worst album since 1995, one of the few worth remembering from a terrible record.

10. One Sunday Morning (The Whole Love, 2011) - A strong contender for the band’s finest song, twelve whole minutes of simply stunning autumnal shades. Close your eyes, relax, and let it change your mood.

The Voice

The BBC have had mixed success with reality shows, some have worked out well (The Apprentice), some have disappeared without trace (ah, Fame Academy, I remember you).

They’ve never managed to get a singing contest off the ground before though, so they must’ve been giddy when they managed to snatch the rights to The Voice so that they can steal some ratings from Britain’s Got Talent and distract the attention of a few sodden mouthbreathers while X Factor’s in its off season.

No disrespect meant there, by the way, I watch/ed all of the above except Fame Academy. Sigh.

The Voice’s basic gimmick of ‘judge on the voice, not the appearance’ would be fine except for the obvious competition between the judges. I think it would be a much more interesting show if the judges couldn’t see each other and so didn’t know when they turned round.

Also, the variations in credibility are preposterous. Tom Jones is a showbiz legend, so I can’t fault him being there. Will.i.am knows how to write hit tunes and so does Jessie J, so that’s reasonable even if Jessie J’s own career has only existed for about an hour and a half.

And then there’s the dude from the Script, someone whose name I’ve either forgotten or never knew in the first place. He looks like if Nathan Barley had joined Razorlight. I think I’d sooner trust the opinions of a dented Vauxhall.

But what really kills this show after watching this week is the competitive segments, which idiotically pitch two separate acts against each other in simultaneous sing-offs, with the vocalists trading lines.

This leads to the worst elements of X-Factor mixed in with debating in the House Of Commons – everyone trying to shout louder than everyone else.

The absolute nadir was a duo – each with names impossibly stupid, I think one of them was called Indie – pitched against a 17-year-old who based on her demeanour onstage could pick a fight with an empty room. It ended up sounding like a foghorn arguing with two starlings.

Yet, the judges loved it. I guess Jones is now old enough that he’s gone deaf; but if I remember rightly he’s gone on record as thinking The Beatles were awful back in the 60s, so maybe his opinion ain’t to be trusted, you dig?

Either way, one of the last battles on the show was between two humble, reasonable guys, John James and David Julien (note: only one of them has two first names). Each of them has decent, unspectacular voices but that isn’t the point. The point is that they didn’t try to step on each other, they teamed up to make the performance as good as possible.

I’d have put them both through just for having the humility to do what was right for the song, but the judges by nature of the show had to choose one of them.

And you know what? David, who got through,is absolutely dead meat. As soon as the public can vote or the judges have to pick between him and one of the warbling strumpets they already put through, he’s as good as gone.

The Voice is pathetic. I never thought I’d say this, but – X Factor is without doubt the superior and (no, really) fairer show.

Azealia Banks, presumably not related to Philip or Lloyd

So, I was listening to Radio One the other day, and that annoying wispy scarecrow Fearne Cotton played this track.

Be warned, by the way, I’m pretty sure I’ve literally never heard language this foul on a song before, and that includes Odd Future.

Yep, she’s gonna ruin you… I’m gonna go ahead and not finish that lyric.

I loathed it, really loathed it. But it was lodged in my head for days, and yesterday I found myself seeking the song out on YouTube in its full unedited form.

It’s uh… kinda awesome, to be honest with you. She switches between three or four distinct voices in this track – you know, like Nicki Minaj except with good music backing her – each of which is compelling in different ways.

My favourite parts of it are the soulfully crooned bridge section which comes out of absolutely nowhere, and how delightfully foul-mouthed her rapped sections are.

A lot of the time when female rappers try to out-obscene the boys it ends up sounding forced and also being completely gross (Li’l Kim, we are looking at you, and your Sprite-can-swallowing antics). Banks here manages to be witty, dirty and funny without turning the stomach.

I’ve been let down before (yes, Minaj, you again) by talented female rappers who squandered their talent, but this song is simultaneously so naggingly catchy whilst also completely filthy that I think she might be able to have her cake and eat it.

For those curious after that above video, she has around half a dozen songs available to download free from her Soundcloud, none as good as ’212′ but a lot that are pretty great.

Now we play the waiting game.

Why I hate Biffy Clyro

I hate Biffy Clyro.

[Bill Hicks]There, I said it. I feel better.[/Bill Hicks]

Maybe ‘hate’ is too strong a word. In fact, I remember a time when I actually liked Biffy Clyro. Roughly 2002, that being when their first record, Blackened Sky, came out.

That might sound like I’m skirting towards NME/Pitchfork territory of ‘their early stuff was better, lol.’ Anyway, just give me a chance to explain myself before you judge.

 Blackened Sky is a quirky, interesting and at times genuinely original. I also liked ‘Questions And Answers,’ a single from their next record Vertigo Of Bliss.

They sold no records. At all. One of them still had a day job in roadworks while they toured.

After that I basically lost both track and interest, until they re-appeared with 2007′s Puzzle, an album the singles from which I loathed, not least ‘Machines,’ which I remember trying to be as even-handed about as I could at the time. Don’t get me wrong, I despise that track.

Since then, they’ve got bigger and bigger, become blander and blander and become a British Foo Fighters of sorts – i.e. arena rock that’s rarely interesting.

I thought I might hate them for their ubiquity, because they really are unavoidable and get flecked with the saliva of countless people who would otherwise never listen to anything with guitars in it.

But I have had a realisation, and it’s depressed me a little bit.

I hate Biffy Clyro because they got the success that I wanted my favourite bands to get.

Biffy grew out of the early 2000s alternative rock scene – the MTV2/Kerrang! class of brilliant, original (if not necessarily innovative per se) rock music.

Every time I see Biffy Clyro’s recent, big-budget videos on my TV screen, I see the faces of my favourite bands failing.

I see Reuben peaking at #53 in the charts, breaking up and then releasing a compilation named after the fact that being in a band wasted their time.

I see Hell Is For Heroes signing to EMI in a blaze of glory, releasing a flop album and disappearing into obscurity before splitting.

I see Hope Of The States doing the exact same thing except they only squeezed out one more record before they broke up.

I see Hundred Reasons signing to two labels that then shut down and completely buried albums they worked hard on.

Hundred Reasons didn’t even get the dignity of breaking up, they just stopped releasing albums and after reforming this year to play Ideas Above Our Station in full guitarist Larry confirmed they all have day jobs now and they can’t afford to leave them and record new album.

Of course, over in the US, the equivalent bands like Thursday and Poison The Well got top 20 albums on the Billboard charts.

This is an irrational, emotional hate, so no, hatred isn’t too strong for it, because for absolutely no reason I hold all of this against Biffy Clyro.

I know it’s ridiculous. Apart from anything else any of those bands might have also taken the steady route to mediocrity had they got any level of success.

It makes no sense whatsoever, but yeah, that’s why I hate Biffy Clyro.

The Chimes Of Freedom baffling

The following sentence may be one of the most horrifying things you’ll ever hear.

Four-disc Bob Dylan tribute album.

Oh, and it’s for charity.

Yes, it’s Chimes Of Freedom: The Songs Of Bob Dylan.

The horror, the horror.

Now since all the money is going to Amnesty International, my immediate reaction is buy it – buy it because it’s for a good cause and regardless of any cynicism you may have, that’s generally a good idea and I’ve yet to hear any convincing evidence for Amnesty International not being deserving of your money.

As for the album – it’s a head-wrecking, mental, lunatic mess and for all its faults one of the most outright entertaining albums I’ve heard this year or any other. For a Dylan fan it’s an embarrassment of riches if only to hear how your favourite song has been ruined and enjoy complaining about it – because I know you all love complaining about awful covers as much as I do. Let’s dive in.

Disc one has the most to offer. It opens poorly with Johnny Cash making ‘One Too Many Mornings’ sound like every filler track he recorded at the time – but it’s quickly followed by Rise Against’s ‘The Ballad Of Hollis Brown,’ which lays a legitimate claim to being the best Dylan cover since Hendrix.

It’s simply jaw-dropping, and really highlights the terror of the lyrics in the song. I’m not sure I’d ever truly heard them before now.

Immediately afterwards is Tom Morello as The Nightwatchman – his trip-hop-flecked ‘Blind Willie McTell’ is creatively satisfying even if his voice leaves a bit to be desired, and the very next song is Pete Townshend’s ‘Corrina, Corrina.’

Of Dylan’s first few, all-acoustic albums it’s one of the only tracks I can still stand (the rest are often too po-faced and serious), but Townshend has combined his affection for a woman (real or fictional) with his affection for the song and made it into a faithful but beautiful cover. There’s not much better on any of these four discs.

Later in the disc, Ziggy Marley manages to achieve the physically impossible by singing ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’ in the style of his late father without once sounding like an idiot.

Alas, the Gaslight Anthem follow this up with a serviceable but forgettable turn on ‘Changing Of The Guards’ that I only remember because it’s one of the only Dylan songs I still listen to.

Sting nearly ruins everything by turning ‘Girl From The North Country’ into ‘Fields Of Gold,’ but Mark Knopfler gives a breezy, Pogues-ish edge to ‘Restless Farewell’ to close out by far the strongest disc on the album. From here things just get stranger.

Starting out on the second disc, I was practically salivating at the idea of Queens Of The Stoneage covering ‘Outlaw Blues,’ but while it’s fun it’s nowhere near as good as it should be.

It doesn’t help that hot on its heels comes Lenny Kravitz proving himself as pointless as ever by singing over a carbon copy of the original backing track to ‘Rainy Day Women #12 and #35.’ Do better Lenny. Wait, you can’t.

Miley Cyrus covering ‘You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go’? Well, time to kill myself.

Closing out disc two, Adele’s cover of ‘Make You Feel My Love’ is brilliant – even as a live version because they clearly couldn’t afford the original – but at the end of the day it’s yet another annoying example of covers replacing originals in the public eye and Dylan’s version deserves as much attention.

Disc three is the most mental, first of all for featuring the barking My Chemical Romance rendition of ‘Desolation Row (live)’ (which is never either as awesome or horrifying as it should be).

Second of all, it has the strangest cover on here, and one which made me look at a particular artist very differently. ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right’ – as covered by Ke$ha.

Yes, that Ke$ha, the one I spent most of this blog’s first year ranting about how terrible yet car-crash entertaining she was. This must be terrible, it must be appalling, it must be…

…One of the most startling, honest and beautiful recordings here. Stripped of auto-tune and even instruments aside from what if I remember rightly is a cello, Ke$ha is something else. It’s not that it’s even good necessarily, because I completely understand someone hating it, but what it does mean is two things.

First of all, Ke$ha can really, genuinely sing and failing that make compelling, interesting music.

Secondly, she is a genius because she knew she’d never make any money doing this and instead auto-tuned herself and made terrible pop.

Things don’t get weirder, but they do get worse. Mick Hucknall goes one better than Lenny Kravitz by flat-out impersonating Dylan on ‘One Of Us Must Know,’ but we close on a sweet note with Pete Seeger and the Rivertown Kids covering ‘Forever Young.’

Seeger’s voice is a fragile croak now and singing a song with that title, over some delightful instrumentation is far more fitting a conclusion than bringing the hammer down with Dylan’s original version of ‘Chimes Of Freedom.’

So yes, all in all, this is the most mixed of mixed bags, style and quality all over the shop but a real rollercoaster in the way that I think the White Album must sound to people who like it.

Dylanophiles must buy it immediately. Anyone else who has five hours to spare to listen to this album in one sitting… get a job.

Someone tell Eileen the boys are back

I might just explode with excitement, because Dexys Midnight Runners are back – okay they might just be called Dexys now and the only real member of the band is frontman Kevin Rowland, but I don’t care; he’s back and that’s all that matters.

Dexys are without doubt in my top 5 favourite artists ever; in only a few short years their music has meant more to me than almost any other band.

Over the last few months, Rowland got back in the studio and finally recorded the new album he’s been threatening to make for around a decade at this point.

After a brief preview on YouTube which was 50% great and 50% ‘oh dear…’, they finally have a completed new song out. It’s not on YouTube yet but you can download it for free at Q’s website here.

The song hasn’t properly hit me yet, but it already feels like home. Rowland’s voice is one of the most distinctive in music history, and the song definitely sounds and feels like Dexys.

It also has regained some of the punch that was missing from the new songs they recorded in 2003. When Dexys was more of a band and less a Rowland solo venture, they had a real bite to their recordings that the session guys who backed him in ’03 just didn’t put across.

For those in doubt about investigating Dexys, here are the ten songs that I would use to make a case for them being among the true greats in history.

1. Burn It Down (Searching For The Young Soul Rebels, 1980) - ‘Shut your mouth until your know the truth,’ says Rowland, and then gives you an education. I fluctuate between this and the original version (‘Dance Stance’) as to which I prefer, to the extent of having both on my MP3 player.

2. Geno (Searching For The Young Soul Rebels, 1980) - One of the obvious ones, but I just love it. I think I’ve said on this blog before, that the lyric ‘academic inspiration/you gave me none’ might be the one lyric I would use to sum up my education, particularly at university.

3. Keep It (Searching For The Young Soul Rebels, 1980) - I may prefer Too-Rye-Ay as an album but this is my favourite Dexys song, without doubt.

4. Plan B (Let’s Make This Precious, 2003) - Far superior to the later album version, this single recording about being a hipster is as applicable today as it was now – ‘they say they’re just joking, and they stop talking to you, and that’s the worst thing of all.’

5. Let’s Make This Precious (Too-Rye-Ay, 1982) - This starts off sounding slightly like Ricky Martin unfortunately, but gets so much better. When I heard this song the first time I put on this album, I knew that this was going to be something special.

6. Old (Too-Rye-Ay, 1982) - I’m sure once I do consider myself ‘old’ this song will keep me warm at night.

7. Kevin Rowland’s 13th Time (Don’t Stand Me Down, 1985) - An awkward, weird song that you may hate if this is your first listen, but give it time and you may well love it as much as I do. His growl on the closing chorus might be my favourite moment on their much-maligned third record.

8. This Is What She’s Like (Don’t Stand Me Down, 1985) - Possibly the band’s masterpiece, get past the two minutes of weird conversation at the start and enjoy a song that is literally unlike anything else I’ve ever heard.

9. My National Pride (Don’t Stand Me Down, 1985) - The most accessible song on a hugely inaccessible record, Dexys have sung about being Irish and living in England a great deal but it was never this affecting.

10. Manhood (Let’s Make This Precious, 2003) - One of two new recordings in 2003, it may lack the punch (as stated before)