New Musick Monday

Another decidedly mixed bag last week with Yeasayer entering just outside the top 60, which, all things considered isn't too shabby. Gil Scott-Heron's much vaunted I'm New Here managed a top 40 entry, whilst there was much surprise round our gaff that Erik Hassle's 'Hurtful' entered outside the top 50. Just goes to show that being playlisted by Radio 1 doesn't necessarily mean a hit single. We suggest his label license it out to a tampon advert quick smart (although repeating "What you did to me was hurtful" might not be the right way to go, but it's certainly got that uplifting quality musically). This week isn't a classic either, so here goes...

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Life Is Sweet! Nice To Meet You by Lightspeed Champion



The second album under the Lightspeed Champion moniker for musical polymath, Dev Hynes. Following 2007's Falling Off The Lavender Bridge was always going to be tough seeing as Hynes seems to make music is his sleep so choosing the tracklist was probably the biggest obstacle. As it is, Life Is Sweet... is split into four 'suites' (one entitled Oops) and features fifteen tracks. So far so sprawling, but there's a cohesiveness to the record that was missing from his debut, with a more polished sound thanks to Animal Collective producer Ben Allen. Witty, maudlin, self-deprecating and surprisingly upbeat, Life Is Sweet... can be a bit of a struggle at first but it rewards repeated listens.

DOWNLOAD SOME OF THIS AND THEN JUST WATCH THE TV SHOW

Glee: The Music Volume 1 by Various Artists



As we all know by now, Glee is amazing. Only it's not really, it's kind of OK in an American teen comedy kind of way, but the characters are lazily sketched and the whole thing feels incredibly forced (apart from when that cheerleading coach is about and then it's as funny as You've Been Framed). Conflating the popularity of teen shows like The OC with the comedy of the Judd Apatow films and the talent show format of American Idol is clearly a genius idea, and there are moments on this soundtrack album where the new versions sound fresh and offer a new insight, but mostly you're left with the songs that fill the gaps in between the funny bits, like listening to an album of adverts in between Friends.

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'Under Pressure (Ice Ice Baby)' by Jedward



Jedward have been twittering for most of the day imploring people to purchase their debut single on CD, three weeks after the single came out to download and two weeks after it peaked at no. 2. It seems someone needs to tell them that particular ship has sailed. Still, they're ever the optimists and even describe themselves as 'musicians'. Those crazy cats.

New Musick Monday

When is a hit not a hit? Is it when an act who has received blanket coverage in the press and who finished second in the BBC Sound of 2010 poll ends up at no. 12 on the singles chart with their first 'proper' release? It's not a bad show by any means, but Marina & The Diamonds' 'Hollywood' missing the top ten is a bit of a surprise, but perhaps she's 'doing a Florence' (who also missed the top 10 with her first few singles) and will sell billions of albums. We'll have to wait and see. The albums fared pretty well with Midlake breaking the top 20 and Hot Chip entering at no. 11 (which is kind of disappointing seeing as the album is really very good).

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Odd Blood by Yeasayer



This is a bit of a turn up for the books if you were expecting another 'interesting' but 'noodling' album from everyone's second favourite 'interesting' but 'noodling' American alternative band (Animal Collective being number one, natch). Odd Blood injects Yeasayer's percussive, gloriously off-kilter songs with a pop nous that was missing from most of All Hour Cymbals. 'Ambling Alp' is a clear highlight, with a chorus as glorious as any song about a failed boxer has the right to be, whilst tracks like 'O.N.E' and 'Love Me Girl' are stone cold anthems. It's nice to see a band who understand that alienating just about everyone does not necessarily a good band make.

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I'm New Here by Gil Scott-Heron



This album is streaming for free to the right of this post so if you haven't already then give it a listen. We're not going to tell you about it seeing as you can do the work yourselves.

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'Hurtful' by Erik Hassle



This has been floating about for what seems like a musical lifetime but finally gets it's UK release today. Having been deftly retwizzled by Starsmith, it's now slightly less MOR but still a whole load OTT, Hassle sounding like he's about to cry on every other line. It's not rocket science, it's not going to change the world, it's not 'cool', but it is a very good example of a radio friendly rock(ish) ballad and manages to break the inexplicable monopoly Snow Patrol have had over that particular genre in recent years. You'll either love it or hate, not like Marmite, because we like Marmite but we're allergic to it and we're not allergic to this...*METAPHOR FAIL*

Yea ha!

Yeasayer are a bunch of guys who make music with instruments and their mouths. They have released an album, which collects together some of these recordings and now they're about to release another one. In order to generate some excitement surrounding this release, the band have decided to pick one song from the bunch and let you, the public, download it for free. Their hope is that once you've heard the song you will think, "that was jolly nice, I might purchase the album once it's released".



It helps that 'Ambling Alp' is proper bangin' all up in our collective grills. Ecouté:



You hear some Animal Collective in there? We do too. But it's a genuine leap forward for a band who previously seemed intent on tying themselves in knots in order to hide a catchy melody. We particularly enjoyed the last 30 seconds, where it sounds like someone's having a spasm on the keyboard.

The album, Odd Blood, is out in February 2010.