P-p-p pick up a Penguin

Penguin Prison has been blogged about a lot recently, but not by us. That's because we're lazy and notoriously behind the times.



This doesn't make this single any less great.



Perfect for a depressingly grey Friday afternoon.

One of the blogs that does feature him a lot is called Neon Gold Blog (the label also releases his music), and it's so much better than most blogs out there that it's kind of depressing. You can download a lot of great things from there, free of charge. We recommend the 'Kids' remix by Chiddy Bang and 'Havin' My Baby' by Think About Life. (Expect both to feature on here soon, because that's how we roll; someone else does the leg work and we swoop in and steal the glory).

Bad song/Great song interface, pt 1

This is a song by Beyoncé featuring Lady GaGa. It's a bit shit. This is it:



Reasons it's bad:
1). It wasn't a great song when it appeared on I Am...Sasha Fierce over a year ago and, unsurprisingly, it hasn't grown into a good song over night.
2). Lady GaGa doesn't really suit it and her vocals have obviously just been tacked onto it rather quickly (they even sound louder in the mix then the rest).
3). Videophones are a bit creepy aren't they? Not as good as telephones.

This is a song by Lady GaGa featuring Beyoncé. It's really great. This is it:



Reasons it's great:
1). It's was originally written for Britney who didn't want it and was then offered the guest spot on it but then decided she'd quite like it on her own forthcoming Greatest Hits package and GaGa said "No, I'm going to get Beyoncé on it instead".
2). It's got three choruses, Beyoncé's rap bit is brilliant and the whole thing thunders along at a rate of knots.
3). As we said above, telephones are great.

Bad song/Great song interface, pt 2

Alicia Keys has a new single out. It's shit. This is it:



Reasons it's bad:
1). The sentiment is basically "I've got so much money and wealth and luxury goods but if I haven't got a boyfriend then it's all meaningless". Boo-hoo, Alicia. If only you hadn't brought the third plasma screen in your bathroom, he might have stayed. Also, being rich and lonely is better than being poor and lonely so please move on.
2). It sounds a lot like her last top 10 single, 'No One', so is quite cynically a rip off of a previous hit
3). It's just really dull, isn't it?

This is Alicia Keys' next single. It's much better. This is it:



Reasons it's good:
1). It's all about being broken-hearted - like the shit song - but makes that sound interesting and fresh, and not the subject of millions and millions of other songs
2). She sounds genuinely engaged with the song and not like she's recorded it on the loo like the last one.
3). It's better than the first single.

GaGa-gantuan

Lady GaGa is like marmite. That's what people say, right? That you either love her or hate her? Well, we're allergic to marmite, so that makes no sense. We don't break out into a rash when 'Just Dance' comes on, or slowly start to choke when the 'Paparazzi' video starts. By strutting around in her pants for the cameras and seemingly being EVERYWHERE she's become the pop star that everyone's heard of and got an opinion on. This is a good thing, given that these kind of worldwide megastars are increasingly rare and who wants a pop star that is, you know, down to earth and just, like, really nice and just feels blessed to be doing what they're doing, etc.

Anywho, she'll be releasing a new(ish) album in November called The Fame Monster. This is one of the amazing covers, taken by fashion photographer Hedi Slimane:



The album features 8 new tracks (including a duet with Beyoncé) as well as the original Fame album that everyone who wants it probably has already. Still, it's better than just chucking on some remixes and a DVD with three videos on it. This is the first single, 'Bad Romance', which has a video that is, frankly, barmy. Watch it until the end to get the full impact:



'Hot'.

Daddy or (Hot) Chip?

This is a new song from Hot Chip that you probably read about yesterday. So, why didn't we do this blog post yesterday we hear all 10 of you cry? Were we off at a swanky party? Did we get VIP tickets to an amazing gig? Were we injecting heroin with one of JLS? No, we just couldn't connect to the internet last night due to BT's incompetence...sometimes life is that prosaic.



It's rather good, isn't it? It starts off a bit Hot Chip by numbers, but then blossoms into a really lovely chorus that makes us want to sway a bit. Nice organ sounds too. 'Take It In' may or may not be the first single from the band's new album, One Life Stand, which is out in February.

New order?

This is a rather lovely slice of synthpop from Matador-signings, Cold Cave. It's the title track from their new album.



No, that is literally it. One post made from copying and pasting a link from one website to another.

New Musick Monday

What an unmitigated disaster last week was. For a start, the Marina single is actually out on the 16 November (yeah, thanks nme.com!) and the much-touted and intermittently amazing Julian Casablancas album only went and missed the top 40 altogether. Just goes to show that oodles of 'proper' music press coverage (Musick included, naturellement) and a killer first single means diddly squat when your fanbase are only interested in the next album by the band you're meant to be fronting. The Nirvana reissue didn't shift many units either, but there was also a live album out at the same time and that managed to sell quite well, so we're claiming a small victory. Hurrah! This week's a bit of a struggle to be honest...

BUY THIS

Harvest Festival by Joe Goddard



Joe Goddard is the bearded one from Hot Chip. Not the singer, but the one who sometimes wears those retina-destroying woolly jumpers and worked on some of the early (and best) stuff by Little Boots. Harvest Festival is a diverting, kind of enjoyable slice of warm electronica that isn't exactly light years away from his day job, but does miss the pop sensibilities of their best bits. So, when we say 'buy this' we kind of mean 'buy this if you've got some vouchers left over or your Gran has found a fiver down the back of the sofa and given it to you thinking it was a tissue'.

DOWNLOAD THE CLUB BANGERS FROM THIS

In Love & War by Amerie



For those not on top of who's who in the great post-Beyoncé feisty female R&B challenge that took place about five years ago, Amerie is the woman that made this piece of perfection. She then went on to release some more songs but everyone just wanted to listen to '1 Thing' so nothing much ever happened career-wise. This is her fourth album and though it's not exactly trying new things, it does feature some pretty special moments, not least the first single, 'Heard 'Em All'. Again, you might not want to actually buy this. Oh, we don't know, just do what you want.

DOWNLOAD THIS

'Laura' by Girls



Girls are that band with scraggly hair and the backstory that everyone from Pitchfork to, well, other similarly minded music websites are calling 'the greatest thing of 2009'. This is the second single from their new album, Album, and it's a rather lovely concoction, all jangly guitar and little boy lost lyrics. The singer sounds like Elvis Costello, but looks like one of Hanson had they turned to crystal meth after 'Mmmbop'.