Remember when all he wanted was total chaos and a holiday home in the east? Well… [Video][Website] [7.91] Anthony Easton: I love this. I cannot even tell you why. It’s swoony, romantic, horribly lovely: sort of Pet Shop Boys doing a soundtrack to a reboot of Brideshead Revisited, but without the edge. That should sound […]
We live in a lovely world where Girls Aloud and Slipknot fit within the same parenthesis… [Video][Website] [6.60] W.B. Swygart: This is fucking magic. It sounds like playing squash inside a tetrahedron – everything bounces back but never quite at the angle you’re expecting. It’s hook upon hook upon hook – remember how that was […]
The Queen of the Jukebox’s crown slips ever so slightly… [Video][Website] [6.36] Al Shipley: I always felt like Swift’s attempts at folksy girl next door narratives felt xeroxed from cheesy rom coms, so it’s nice of her to spell it out by cribbing a title from a Rob Reiner flick (and not even one of […]
Ever wondered where Internet memes go to die? [Video][Website] [5.07] Katherine St Asaph: Review without the video: Real nice sound, but no surprise from a Katy Perry track; real nice sax, but no Clarence; real ni– no, “epic fail” doesn’t get a compliment. Real edgy debauchery, but no fun when your credit’s wrecked from those […]
As if Kele would have been able to sing the Republica song properly, anyway. [Video][Website] [4.90] Jonathan Bogart: Not a Republica cover, worse luck.[4] B Michael Payne: I’d like to hear a particularly drunk person sing this at the end of a long karaoke session. That’s literally the only context in which I ever want […]
We like a bit of funky, brainy electropop, don’t we? [Video][Website] [6.86] Anthony Easton: Dancing to forget, dancing as maybe an act of mourning, dancing to full and complete exhaustion, is this even dance–carefully constructed, beautifully repeating on itself, coiling and uncoiling, i understand the ripple, but not sure where the banana is. [8] Jer […]
Does exactly what it says it’s gonna do, pleasingly. [Video][Website] [6.86] Pete Baran: So this is all about that fuzzy bass and slow build, right? [8] Chuck Eddy: The indie world as usual is too ridiculously behind the curve on its own damn music to ever realize it, but this band peaked way back in […]
80s soundtrack soft-rock revival starts (and probably ends) right here! [Video][Website] [5.88] Anthony Easton: I never got Bon Iver until Kanye, and I never got Calgary, though I have spent weeks off and on there, once or twice a year since I was born. Less now that I live in Toronto, but I went last […]
What, no “laborious” jokes? For shame. [Video][Website] [3.43] Jer Fairall: If you say so.[3] Michaela Drapes: There’s always something in The Saturdays’ songs that make me cringe — from the weird sample of “Situation” on “If This Is Love” to the hideous cover of “Just Can’t Get Enough” to, well “my resume says I’m a […]
It gets better. Unless you’re Selena Gomez, in which case it’s ALREADY PERFECT. [Video][Website] [6.33] Katherine St Asaph: If asked “who says you’re not pretty,” most kids who’ve actually been bullied would rattle off an explicit list of at least a handful and an implicit list that contains everyone; meanwhile, the reverse list would contain […]