So I Heard That New Panic At The Disco Album Today...

...someone put it on at work. Fucking hell it sucks.

Are they taking the piss?
They seem to be trying to make a 21st century "Sgt Pepper's..." or something, mixing up styles and switching from serious songwriting to jovial follies and back again. Problem is that while the Beatles were musical innovators and arguably geniuses, Panic At The Disco have less talent than plankton. The main problem is the utterly ridiculous vocals that sit smugly on top of everything, even though the guy is just another whining American emo cock.
(Sorry Americans, but it has to be said that whining is instantly about 10,000 times more annoying if it's in a Stateside accent, just like hip-hop dancing is instantly hideous if done by almost any British white middle or upper class student twat.)
The other problem is that it just comes across as being done so knowingly. "Look at us, we're so Goddamn crazy! Who else woulda thunka throwin in somea this old kinda shit in the mix? We're like, totally gonna mess with people's minds here dude!"
It's like they're already on a U2 or REM level of smugness where they think they can do whatever they like and it'll get released and sell bucketloads.
Thing is, they're kind of right. Uninspiring dirge that the album is, it's sold fuckloads. How did they get to that stage so quickly?! I'm betting their third album will be accompanied by the sounds of them shitting into the solid gold toilets they've bought with the money from poor unfortunate gullible children buying this apeing garbage. I'd rather they were forced to release an album of them grovelling to the world for forgiveness as their fans all returned their Panic... albums after having listened to their parents copies of the real "Sgt Peppers..." and realised they've been totally screwed over by this bunch of talentless chancers. The bonus track could be a recording of them crying themselves to sleep at night as the record company takes all their money back, and they realise they are totally devoid of any worth to society.

Sadly this will never happen, and Panic... will continue to peddle their inane trash onto teenagers ears, and other bands of the emo moment will follow suit. Expect a Cute Is What We Aim For album that sounds stupidly like "OK Computer" by the end of the year. Then expect to see all the emo kids that hang around outside HMV talking about how great it is to find their faces smashed into the pavement as I finally lose the plot and unleash Axl justice upon them.

At least Does It Offend You, Yeah? are fun. And they use cowbells. And DIRTY synth. That's right, I like Does It Offend You, Yeah?. I heard a couple of their songs, and I like them. Screw you.

Oh whatever.

Questioning Lyric.

Why should I have to suffer,
Because you could never say no?
Why should I have to be the bad guy?

The Great Passport Application Disaster.

So, you may have noticed that it's been a while since a proper new post appeared on here. That's because, after a second time of failing, I told myself I wasn't allowed to do another blog until I filled in my passport application. I seem to have done it right third time. The fact that I did a little mini-post anyway was just to stop me going a little mad. I've become over the months, a little addicted to my blog.
But, I hear you cry, what was so tricky that it took you 3 goes at filling in your passport application Axl?
Well I'll tell you. The thing that stumped me both times previous, was the simple act of writing my name and address.
It made me seriously question my inteligence and sanity.
Seriously, how dumb do you have to be to spell your own name wrong?!
1st application: PAUL ASKEN.
Yup.
No, sorry, that's a lie.
The N was backwards.
And I wrote my address and e-mail address wrong too.
Oh dear Axl.
Oh dear.

2nd application: After following advice from Micaela, I filled out my form in pencil first so that no mistakes would be made. Now, what I should have done was gone over the pencil with my pen and then rubbed out the pencil afterwards.
No.
What I did was rub out the pencil first, then write in pen.
I rubbed out a line of my adress and put the next line in it's place, coz in my head the line I had rubbed out had already been written and didn't need to be again, so I wrote the next bit. Which cocked the whole thing up.

3rd application. Written in pencil. Gone over in pen. Am so paranoid of i going wrong that this takes a stupidly long time and I haven't dared rub out the pencil underneath in case the ink smudges and ruins all my hard work.

But it's done now.

Thank fuck for that.

What Does Thom Yorke Look Like When He's Fighting?

I reckon he looks like someone doing the doggie paddle, but just using their hands. And on dry land of course.

The 5 Day Blog Post.

This blog was started on Monday and ended on Friday. I don't really know why I'm telling you that. It's pretty useless of me really.

My job does not always provide the healthiest environment for a wandering mind. Sometimes it can be the perfect breeding ground for dark thoughts. Dwell on those too long and people start to look at you like you may try to bite their knees off or something. It's all too easy to lose yourself in things like imagining what you're going to do to that cunt if you ever meet him, or what you're going to do to this prick if he doesn't shut up, and it's far too easy to become unable to think of anything other than your own hang ups, neuroses, problems, issues, etc, etc, while doing some task that requires the brain power of a stoned kitten.

One successful way to combat this is to become momentarily obsessed with trivial ponderings. For example, today I was wondering what a Pot Noodle would taste like if you made it with hot milk, what a cat would look like if it had a 5th paw, how words were created/invented, why I am often asked for drugs but never offered them, and what would the world be like if sharks evolved and grew legs and walked on dry land.

I also wondered for about thirty seconds why NME only gave The Young Knives "Superabundance" album 5 out of 10. Of course, the answer came immediately. It's because instead of emphasising upon the post-punk cool side of their sound, they have instead gone for a pop-rock sound, essentially making an album of guitar pop songs. Gone is the "cool" sheen, in comes a band unashamed of brushing that aside and choosing pop hooks as their trade. It's a shame that NME can't see past this really, because it's a damn fine album. The song "Counters" should pretty much just be called "Anthem", because if there is any justice, that is exactly what it will be. Like "She's Attracted To" from the previous album, "Counters" is a song that has the phrase "Staying Power" sewn into it's DNA, an absolute killer of a chorus (literally), and the kind of sound that the summer goes crazy for. If it's not been used on a thousand tv & radio shows and adverts by the end of the year, then some people really won't have been doing their jobs properly. "Current Of The River" meanwhile is surely going to be one of the years great album closers. Previously released as a b-side, I was never that keen on this song, and didn't really get why the band liked it so much. Hearing it re-jigged and re-recorded though, it suddenly makes sense.

The band seem to be more comfortable, more at ease with this direction. Oxford can legitimately lay claim to another great guitar-pop band.

So NME "loses" another of it's prodigal sons. Well, they stayed in favour with them longer than some have (anyone remember Terris?). Still, NME's fickle nature wouldn't necessarily be so annoying, if it wasn't for the fact that it's so bloody obvious. They've stopped being a music magazine, and have instead become a printed version of the fickle, trendy kids at indie clubs. Gone is any sort of legitimacy of anything approaching journalism, it's all about who dresses cool and who's sound is "in" or "hot" right now. More concerned about being seen to be cool, rather than having any sort of mind of their own.

Case in point: MGMT. A bunch of chancers who put some nasty but optimistic sounding synth on one of their songs, record company sticks it on an advert, BAM, EVERYONE wants a piece. They're so young, fresh & new. They're so hot right now.

No they're not. They're just another bland twee American indie band making the same music as every other bland twee American indie band. They are not fresh or new, they may play with ever-so-slightly differing styles on the same album, but without any sort of talent they end up just sounding like Modest Mouse lite. And I don't even like Modest Mouse.

I was gonna make a point about bands sounding like other bands but not being as good as them here, but the only example I can think of right now is Editors sounding like Interpol. Thing is, and I know this is pretty controversial to hardened indie fans reading this, I prefer Editors to Interpol.
My problem with Interpol is that their first album opened with "Untitled", an incredible song that was powerful and moving and made me really excited by this band and wonder what could possibly come next. The answer was an ok album that never matched up to the heights of that first song, and actually got a little boring towards the end. Then came a second album that sounded exactly the same as the first but with even worse lyrics.
Seriously, those lyrics. They're terrible. They're right up there with that guy from The Killers in terms of dreadful lyrics. "I submit my incentive is romance, I watched the pole dance of the stars, We rejoice because the hurting is so painless blah blah blah dirge dirge He doesn't look a thing like Jesus but he talks like a gentleman etc etc"
See what I did there? Merge the bands together and they both sound ridiculous.
Indie kids and Interpol fans think the guy from Interpol writes such great meaningful lyrics. Testicles, this is the kind of arse-wank we used to write in sixth-form when we thought we were fucking poets. Would you read a book of sixth-form poetry, or listen to someone reciting it?, coz unless I had to, I sure as shit wouldn't.
And yes, I like Editors. Start the backlash now. I know they're just a UK version of Interpol, but they do it far better in my book. I defy anyone to listen to "Blood" and honestly tell me that Interpol are better. I will brand you a liar and throw rotten fruit at you.

(Seriously, what's happened with the font here? It's annoying me!)

But I digress. I don't know why I'm surprised about MGMT. I should've seen it coming. The hype machine working it's magic once again. You hope it'll throw something interesting your way, and occasionally it does (can't think of any examples now though (apart from Foals, obviously)), but I really should've known they were going to be awful when a friend of mine whose music taste is pretty awful recommended them to me. I know what you're gonna say, "But Axl, music is like, this thing with no set of rules, people like what they like and it may be different to yours, but that doesn't mean it's inherently any worse."

Bollocks. I can understand why people like bands I don't and all that, but certain bands I just don't. This person likes the band Cute Is What We Aim For. Have you ever heard them? They sound like puberty. There is no reason for anyone over the age of 16 to be listening to them. If you listen to their album intently enough, you can actually hear their pubes growing.

I've wondered off the point again and I can't remember how I was going to conclude this post. Oh, hang on, that's right, I never figured that out.
MGMT are rubbish. Interpol are boring. The Young Knives are ace.

Twelve.

That was the number on the card. Why Twelve? What does that mean? He'd had enough of this crap. He lit a cigarette and took a sip of coffee. A woman came up to him.
"I'm sorry but you can't smoke that in here. It's against the law now."
"Fuck. Sorry, I forgot."
"That's alright, a lot of people have been."
He stubbed it out on his shoe. He carried on looking at the card, as if it would suddenly trigger some sense of recognition. Nothing came.
He tried to think of other things, just to take his mind off it for a moment. His mind was blank though. Great time for him to not be able to let his mind wander.
He tried to read the paper, but didn't have the concentration, not today. He'd get a couple of paragraphs into a story and realise he'd taken nothing in and had no idea what he was actually reading about.
He looked around the room. His eyes fixed on one woman in particular. At first he thought he recognised her, then he just couldn't take his eyes off her. Her shoulder length wavy brown hair. Her tanned skin. Her short dark green dress. The way it emphasised her breasts. The way you could see almost all of her right thigh as the dress seemed to end teasingly close to the curve of her bottom. Those legs. Those legs. God, those legs. He wanted to just go up there and kiss those legs all the way up and
"What the fuck are you looking at?!"
"Huh?"
"Gettin' a good look are you then?"
"What? Oh God, I'm really sorry."
"Yeah, go 'ave a wank you fuckin' perv'."

He put his face in his hands and breathed deeply. He arched his head back, looked up at the ceiling and sighed.

Then it came to him.

Twelve.

So that's what it fucking meant.

Is Morrissey A Virgin?

This may seem like an odd question, but I remember hearing or reading somewhere that he is. I found this easy to believe as, let's face it, who would want to have sex with the world's most arrogant douchebag?
However, his "Greatest Hits" album came out recently, and in the photo on the cover he looks distinctly post-coital. It looks like the photographer was brought to the the studio, told to wait while old Mozzer got his rocks off, was summoned in just as he was reaching the vinegar strokes and five seconds after Morrissey shot his self-righteous load, was told "NOW!" and had to shoot the worlds smuggest post-cum face ever photographed.
Poor sod. The horror must've been unimaginable.

Whether the album's any good or not is pretty much irrelevant. I don't really see the point of a Morrissey greatest hits. He's not really the kind of artist people dip into. He generally splits people into three groups. 1) People who can't stand the smug fuck and hate virtually everything he's ever done. (I say virtually, coz most will admit to liking one or two Smiths songs. Usually "How Soon Is Now".) 2) People who loved The Smiths, but see his solo work as nothing but Smiths Lite, generally just nowhere near as good and therefore not worth bothering with. (This is the group I fall into.) 3) People who adore everything he does EVER and will follow him to the ends of the Earth like brainwashed members of some sort of Morrissey cult. These are the kind of people who will get drunk and have 3 hour long conversations about how bloody sodding meaningful his lyrics are because, you know, he's like a fucking poet maaaaaaan. He sums things up so fucking perfectly blah blah blah shut the fuck up already. These are the people who you can never play, talk about, or even mention The Smiths or Morrissey to or they will blabber on about nothing else all night even when everyone else has run away or slashed their wrists or hung themselves coz they won't just shut the fuck up about Morrissey already.

So the number of people who would buy this particular collection are actually few and far between. Whoever doesn't fall into one of those groups of people either won't care enough about Morrissey to buy a greatest hits collection of his, or they won't care about the style of music he makes and therefore won't care about him. Or they just won't have heard of him. It just begs the question: Morrissey's Greatest Hits. What's the point of that then?

Axl is wondering...

...how long it will be before someone produces a full cast stage version of R Kelly's "Trapped In The Closet". Come on, it's got to happen. It would be amazing, and you know it.
I bought the dvd of all 22 parts done so far, and watched them all in a row in one sitting. It was pretty much the best thing ever. (It was so good that I forgot to eat my Milky Way!) Did leave me a little shellshocked though. It is quite an experience, I tell you! It's taken over my head a little bit, all I wanna do is watch it again, but I'm going to The Star to booze it up for my mate Enders' birthday. I know that the whole time I'm there, I'm gonna be singing a narative of everything that's happening as that instrumental goes through my head. Trapped In The Star Pub. "That guy's ordering a Guiness, Now Seb is pouring a Guiness..."

Actually, that doesn't sound half bad. Tonight may be a lot of fun. Or really annoying for everyone else if after a couple of boozes I decide to sing it out loud.