The Album "Total" by Sebastian.

Someone, I can't remember who it was now, mentioned that I never review anything on here anymore. Well, that's because I hate music reviews. Or rather, I hate what they have become.

Almost all music reviews now fall into two categories:-

1) The Empty Review: Smug reviews that serve only to show how clever/trendy/relevant the reviewer thinks they are and barely say anything about the music itself.

2) The Boring Review: Smug reviews written by people who see themselves as being about that trivial stuff and write purely functional reviews that are lacking in any sort of joy or interest.

Music journalism has become stale and filled with people who have no interest in anything past their own egos and seem to have forgotten that people are supposed to actually want to read what you write/publish. If I went out in the street and started handing people cards that just said "Look at me! I'm great, I am!" people would think I were a total dickhead, but dress it up as a music review and it's somehow alright.

Now, my plan for this post was to try and write something that was both fun and informative. This however has the drawback of me seeing myself as above both categories of reviewer and therefore DOUBLE SMUG. However, the fact that I'm even writing this post could be seen as me being obnoxious and smug anyway, so I'm just gonna go with it.

I've become a little obsessed with the new Sebastian album, "Total." I fucking love it, and here is my review of it:

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Sebastian - "Total"

Kate looked at her watch. Thomas was thirteen minutes late. He was always late.

She took her phone out of her handbag. To kill time she looked at Facebook. Someone had put up a video of a cat supposedly saying the words "I love you." Kate remembered the video she saw a while ago of a dog doing the same thing. It occurred to her that many of the videos of animals on the internet are utterly pointless. Still, they made those boring moments at work much easier to deal with.

Another friend of hers had put as their status, "Go to Wikipedia and click "Random article". This is the name of your genitals."

Kate was surprised to find out that her genitals were in fact Eris, the Greek goddess of chaos. Kate was shocked at the thought that her vagina could have initiated the Trojan War. It hadn't of course, but she momentarily imagined that her vagina was the reincarnation of Eris and had done this in a past life. Kate felt both guilty and powerful.

Thomas arrived with no apology, simply a "Get in."

Thomas drove Kate back to his house.

Once in his bedroom, Thomas told Kate he had something to play her. He took a cd of the new Sebastian album "Total" out of his bag and put it on his stereo. "I love that you still buy cd's," Kate said to him.

The album was a masterpiece of "The French Touch," a particular form of house music synonymous with French dance acts, most famously Daft Punk and Justice. Samples, dirty sounding synths, with beats you just can't help but bounce your head to.

Kate was mesmerised. The music was infectious. She couldn't help but dance.

"Thomas, this is really good!"

"I know, right?"

"This album is so good, it makes me want to take my clothes off!"

"Well, I'm not gonna stop you!"

Kate, feeling the power of a Greek goddess coursing through her body, with a feeling of reckless abandon tore her clothes off and pounced on Thomas. Thomas wasn't used to Kate being so forward. It excited him. He ran his hands over every curve of her body as she kissed his neck and undid his shirt. When she stroked the bulge in his trousers with her thigh, he felt like he was going to come instantly, but he managed to control himself.

They made love. It was the most passionate love either of them had ever had.

Afterwards, as they held each other in a sweaty, post-coital embrace, Thomas said to Kate,

"I think we should always fuck to that album."

Kate agreed.

"Paul, what kind of review is this?"

"Well, I was going for something a little different."

"It certainly is that. What's it saying about the album though?"
"That it's a French house album that's really good, that you can't help but move to. It's exciting. It's primal. And it's really sexy."

"Sexy?"

"Yeah, sexy! There's a kind of filth element to the sounds he's using that along with creating some hard sounding tracks, makes you want to take your clothes off and fuck."

"So it's a sexy, dirty, dance album?"

"Yeah!"

"Why not just say that then?"

"I dunno, I just thought it would be fun to do it like this."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Erm... That went in a completely different direction to what I had planned. Hmmm...

Hello Blogger, My Old Friend...

Hi. How've you been? Sorry I've been away for a while. Here is a brief explanation why:

I've been writing my dissertation. It's a creative writing dissertation. I'm writing a play. It's a comedy about three men who kidnap their local MP. What I have learned from doing this is that writing a play is actually really fucking difficult. Every single word I write sounds unconvincing and stale. I didn't think this would be a problem as normally I am told that my ability to write dialogue is rather good, some even say it is one of my strongest points.

I just had to lick Ribena off my laptop keyboard. It tasted like hot pebbles.

But no, turns out that writing a play is an entirely different beast. Dialogue that would be fine in a story, is often awful in a play. You have to almost completely rethink what it is that dialogue is actually doing, and it seems virtually impossible to write good play dialogue the more I try it.

But my tutor likes my ideas. Which is good.

But I have no idea what I'm going to do for my essay.

And every bit of work I do on my play/dissertation creates about three times as much work still to do.

And I have just over three weeks now to get it all done.

Which is nowhere near enough time to get everything done to a good standard.

I'm totally screwed and will probably end up only getting a 2:2 now.

(I am borderline 2:1 at the moment because I am really shit at writing essays.)

If I don't get a 2:1, I will hate myself. I will see myself as a failure.

I am competing in the Hammer & Tongue Oxford Slam Poetry Final next week. I am crapping myself even more than I normally would be due to the fact that Simon Munnery is headlining the event. Simon Munnery is one of my favourite comedians.

I am writing a poem for someone to use in an art project they are doing. It's an awesome idea, but I've gone for something stylistically different to what I normally do and I have no idea if what I'm doing is any good or not.

And I've just been asked to be involved in something I can't tell you about yet. It's a fairly small thing, but it's quite exciting and I'm looking forward to it. It's gonna be happening after all this other stuff is done too, so I'll actually be able to enjoy it.

Whereas right now, I'm going "AAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!" quite a lot.

NaPoWriMo 2011.

April is finished and so therefore is "National Poetry Writing Month."

Out of the 30 days of April, I only missed one; the 16th.

That's 29 poems in 30 days.

(Well, I see it more as being 28&1/2 due to the fact that I only got halfway thru my idea for the 30th poem, but that's just me being picky really.)

Sure, a lot of them need quite a bit of editing and rewriting if I'm gonna use them going forward, but looking at it in that way, I now have a bank of drafts and ideas that I can work on and hopefully make into some pretty decent poems. I'm really looking forward to seeing where some of these go.

(I've done some of them as they are in performances and they seem to have gone down pretty well already, so fingers crossed...)

I'm actually really proud of myself for having done it. Whenever I decide I'm gonna do one of these challenges, I never seem to make it more than a third of the way thru. The fact that I actually stuck with this to the end is pretty awesome for me.

If you fancy having a read of them, they are at my tumblr blog here: http://paulaskew.tumblr.com/

Some of them are humourous, some aren't supposed to be. Some are pretty bad, but others are alright actually. And there are only 2 or 3 that I really hate.

Go on, shoo. There's a good reader.

30 Day Song Challenge: 30

Day 30: Your favourite song at this time last year.

Oneohtrix Point Never - "Hyperdawn"

I was actually sad enough to go into my last.fm page and look up what I was listening to in April last year because I couldn't think of what to put for this one. There wasn't really any one artist or song I listened to significantly more than any other. So I looked at what I listened to on April 30th last year, just to be really pedantic. Turns out I listened to a lot of Oneohtrix Point Never that day, so I've picked my favourite song from the album "Rifts." Enjoy.

(Sadly the sound quality of tis vid isn't great, but it's the only vid I can find on YouTube for it, so it has to do. Listen anyway, it's a fucking great track.)

and with that, we are done. Sorry if this whole thing got tedious. I hope there were enough songs you liked to make it worth it.

30 Day Song Challenge: 29

Day 29: A song from your childhood.

MC Hammer - "U Can't Touch This"

The first album I ever bought was MC Hammer's "Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em" when I was about 9 or 10 years old. I got it on cassette. The album has a song on it called "She's Soft And Wet." I had no idea what it meant, I genuinely thought it must be about someone who was caught out in the rain or something. People always think I'm joking when I say that, but I was 9 or 10. What else was I gonna think it was about?

Anyway, I played that album a hell of a lot. I loved it, and of course this was the song I loved the most off it. Still makes me smile a bit when I hear it.

30 Day Song Challenge: 26, 27 & 28.

Day 26: A song that you can play on an instrument.

Day 27: A song that you wish you could play.

Day 28: A song that makes you feel guilty.

Okay. I can't play an instrument, which means that pretty much every song I like is one I wish I could play.

And, a song that makes me feel guilty?! What?! That is one of the most stupid things I have ever read.

30 Day Song Challenge: 25

Day 25: A song that makes you laugh.

Ivor Cutler - "Bicarbonate Of Chicken"

I love Ivor Cutler. Poet, humourist, musician, etc, he is a legend and an idol of mine. This song is possibly my favourite of his. My poetry tutor at college in an effort to get me into poetry lent me some Ivor Cutler albums. The first one I listened to was 'Jammy Smears' which this is the first track of. The rest as they say, is history. Enjoy.

30 Day Song Challenge: 23 & 24.

Day 23: A song that you want to play at your wedding.

Day 24: A song that you want to play at your funeral.

I'm really getting quite bored of this "Challenge" right now. The categories have just become annoying and vague. I don't know the answers to these.

30 Day Song Challenge: 20, 21 & 22.

Day 20: A song you listen to when you're angry.
Day 21: A song you listen to when you're happy.

Day 22: A song you listen to when you're sad.

These would be pretty subjective and depending on what mood I was in at the time. Especially angry and sad. my choice would depend on whether I wanted to stay angry or sad, or whether I was trying to cheer myself up. I can't seem to answer these at the moment.

30 Day Song Challenge: 19

Day 19: A song from your favourite album.

Spiritualized - "Broken Heart"

I could never decide on one definite album that I preferred over all others. I would answer differently depending on what day you asked me. One of my favourites was Spiritualized's "Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space." When Sweet G took me to see them performing this album at the Barbican about a year and a half ago now, it was pretty much the best gig ever and cemented this album as the one above all others in my mind. I adore this album. Utterly adore it. I don't think I have a favourite song from it, I think the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and it's the album as a whole taken as one piece of work that is simply phenomenal, but I think this probably works best as a song to be singled out of the context of the rest of the album.