So it’s now legally official that Robin Thicke and Pharrel’s “Blurred Lines” is the same or incredibly similar to Marvin Gaye‘s classic “Got To Give It Up“. Whilst I think that “Blurred Lines” is pretty shit and a long way from Pharrell William’s usual standards this whole ‘your song sounds like my song so pay me’ stuff is getting ridiculous.
Sam Smith giving Tom Petty a writing credit for “Stay With Me” because it ripped off Tom’s “I Won’t Back Down“; really? Oasis made a career out of it didn’t they? Maybe Status Quo should sue themselves for copying the same song over and over. Frankly the same could be said of much of UB40’s efforts after their first album. In case you’re wondering I am a fan of many artists including Oasis, Marvin Gaye, Tom Petty and Sam Smith, Pharrell Williams and a handful of Quo and UB40 songs. Personally though I think that Robin Thicke is a misogynistic twat! What do you think?
Here we are at December 9th and edging closer to the visit of the big, bearded, red-coated house burglar on 25th December. That also means that it is day 9 of this years advent blog posts. The theme if you are not a regular reader is the ABC of British bands and day 9 means that we are at the letter ‘I’. What delightful British band do I have for you today? Well it’s none other than the marvellous Inspiral Carpets.
The band was formed in Oldham in the early 80s by Graham Lambert and Stephen Holt. Strangely I went to school with a Stephen Holt and I worked with a Graham Lambert; sadly different people from the founders of the Inspiral Carpets though. The band’s biggest success came between 1989 and 1995 when they had 14 UK top 50 singles. The biggest of those was 1992’s “Dragging Me Down” which reached number 12. They were dropped by their label, Mute, in 1995 and they broke up a little while after that. They reformed in 2003 and are still together now.
You may know that the band once had a certain Noel Gallagher working for them as guitar tech/ roadie. Obviously before his Oasis days. The Inspirals drummer Craig Gill formed another band after the break up. That band were named after a Creedence Clearwater Revival song, Proud Mary. That band were eventually signed to Noel Gallagher’s Big Brother record label. Another Inspiral Carpets roadie, Mike Collins, went on to bigger things too. He joined the Charlatans in 1991. Collins also went to school with Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs off of Oasis.
My favourite Inspiral Carpets song ever is “Saturn V”, what is yours?
Weird lyrics are great aren’t they? Often they might be confused with crap lyrics I suppose. Such as Thin Lizzy’s “Jailbreak” contains the line ‘tonight there’s gonna be a jailbreak somewhere in this town’. Somewhere? Obviously it will be at the jail won’t it? That for me is a crap lyric. A weird lyric for me comes from Haircut 100’s “Love Plus One” as in ‘where do we go from here, is it down to the lake I fear’. Then of course this little gem from Pharrell William’s wonderful song “Happy”; ‘Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof’. Anyway, maybe there is a very thin line between weird and crap, what do you think? Online music company Blinkbox Music recently undertook a survey to find out the weirdest lyrics. They asked 2,000 people for their opinion and the resulting top 10 weird lyrics were;
The Killers – “Human”- ‘Are we human, or are we dancer?’
The Beatles – “I Am The Walrus”- ‘I am the eggman, they are the eggmen, I am the walrus, goo goo g’joob.’
This is a public service announcement; if you are easily offended by the word FUCK then please read no further. You have been fucking warned ok!
I usually listen to my iPod in shuffle mode when I walk from the car to the office every morning. It gives me a good ten minute blast of tunes before I start the day. This morning up popped Eamon with his UK number one from 2004 “Fuck It (I Don’t Want You Back)” I believe that is the first UK number one to feature the F Word in its title. It even generated an answer song in response from Frankee. That was called “FURB (Fuck You Right Back)”. It got me thinking a few things first that FUCK is a rather good word when used in the right context isn’t it?
The word has featured in plenty of songs; “Working Class Hero” from John Lennon and the MC5 introduced their storming live version of “Kick Out The Jams” with the line ‘kick out the jams motherfuckers!’ The word has perhaps been a little overused by rappers too. But secondly it got me thinking what are my favourite songs with the word fuck in the title. Here are my top choices (plus Eamon and Frankee’s efforts) what are yours?
The late and incredibly great Jeff Buckley was once a roadie for the Commitments and this is apparently how he secured his residency at the Sin-e in New York. I know that Noel Gallagher was a roadie/ guitar tech for the Inspiral Carpets before he joined Oasis and the Meatloaf played a roadie in the 1980 film ‘Roadie‘ (which also featured appearances from Blondie, Alice Cooper and Roy Orbison). There have also beeen a few songs about roadies too. But I’d love to hear from you with any other stories of roadies who went on to find fame themselves.
Apparently Paolo Di Canio the manager of Sunderland Football Club says he has improved his command of English by using a karaoke machine and listening to Oasis. So is his English better than it was? That is probably a definite maybe. Whilst his club may survive for another season in the Premiership I suspect that it is unlikely that they will live forever unless he really keeps his beady eye on the opposition; d’you know what I mean? The owners of the club have told Paolo to don’t look back in anger and to just roll with it!
There was another piece of premiership news in the UK press this week as well. Chris Martin off of Coldplay was spotted with his friend Jay Z at the Arsenal versus Manchester United match this weekend. I guess they had 99 problems but a pitch ain’t one!
With all the recent celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Beatles first album, ‘Please Please Me’ back in 1963 it got me thinking again about the impact the fab four had on popular culture. I know much has been written about the Beatles from a social history point of view so I won’t be getting deep and heavy about that. But my thoughts are more around mentions of the mop tops in popular music.
There have been some great songs that mention John, Paul, George and Ringo and to celebrate 50 years since the recording and release of ‘Please Please Me’ I thought I would mention some of those songs. Apologies in advance to Dora Bryan though as I won’t be including her ode to the band; “All I Want For Christmas Is A Beatle”. The chosen songs are;
“All The Young Dudes” – Mott The Hoople – for the line ‘My brother’s back at home with his Beatles and Stones, I never got it off on that revolution stuff’ I believe that this is probably the best song Bowie ever wrote.
“1977” – The Clash – a summation of life in the UK in 1977. The line ‘No Elvis, Beatles or Rolling Stones in 1977′ sums up the punk new boys.
“London Calling” – The Clash – a brilliant song that includes the line ‘Phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust”
“(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?” – Oasis – whilst this song doesn’t mention the Beatles it does mention a Beatles song from the ‘Revolver’ album; ‘Walking to the sound of my favorite tune tomorrow never knows what it doesn’t know too soon’. It’s no surprise that the Burnage Boys songs contain many references to their musical heroes from Liverpool.
There are plenty more songs that reference the Beatles, including solo Beatle songs that mention or reference the band. I’d love to hear what your favourites are too.
After continuing to pile on the sales throughout 2012 Adele’s ’21’ album, which was already the biggest selling long player of the new century, has now moved above Oasis’ ‘(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?‘ to reach number 4 in the best-selling UK albums of all time. It is also the second best-selling album in 2012 after Emeli Sande‘s ‘Our Version Of Events’. If it continues to sell at the same rate it is likely to become the 2nd best-selling UK album ever by this time next year. Not bad for an album that was only released in 2011 is it? Incidentally the best-selling UK album currently is Queen‘s ‘Greatest Hits‘.
At the same time as this excellent news, it has also been revealed that Adele’s ’21’ is the most returned and exchanged Christmas gift this year. Presumably because almost everyone in the country already has it. This is based on figures provided by the Music Magpie site. Emeli Sande was in second place with One Direction‘s (or Wand Erection as I like to call them) ‘Up All Night’ in third place. What album’s have you exchanged and why?
The Official Charts Company have released details of the biggest selling CDs in the UK since the format was included in album sales. The list probably holds no real surprises, but clearly has a few disappointing entries in my opinion. The fact that James Blunt, Dido, Leona Lewis and David Gray are in the top 10 shows how bland the UK’s music tastes have become in my opinion. Is this a result of many people buying their CDs from large supermarkets these days? Who knows, but surely that plays a part. Anyway here is the top 10;
There are clearly some classic albums in the list from Oasis, the Verve and Amy Winehouse. But the current top-selling UK CD is Abba Gold, probably soon to be overtaken by Adele’s ’21’. One thing that surprised me was that Dire Straits’ ‘Brothers In Arms’ , the first million selling CD was not in the top 10 or even the top 30. Dido has one more album in the list at number 11. Robbie Williams and Coldplay have three albums each in the top 30. The Beatles’ compilation ‘1’ is at number 12 and there is no entry for Queen in the top 30 either.
What did you think of Beady Eye‘s cover of “Wonderwall” at the London 2012 Closing Ceremony? It remains a great song, but frankly Liam‘s voice just wasn’t there was it? I saw Beady Eye at the Reading Festival last year and I thought they really weren’t very good. here is what I said about them last August. ‘They were like an Oasis tribute band playing songs they had written in an Oasis style. Liam’s voice is clearly not what it was either and his stage presence is way past it’s sell by date’.
Spookily it seems none other than Noel Gallagher, who wrote “Wonderwall”, shares my opinion. At a War Child benefit gig at Dingwalls in Camden last night he played “Wonderwall” and dedicated it to ‘Stratford’s finest Oasis tribute band’. This was a barbed dig at his younger brothers Olympic appearance. I’d like to think that Noel read my blog last August and the tribute band thought stuck with him. Either way I do believe that he is right. Keeping his own Olympic flame alive Noel also dedicated “Supersonic” to ‘the great Mo Farah‘.
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 