Holiday! Celebrate!

Madonna has so many great hits that she's decided to release a THIRD hits collection, entitled Celebration. The album is her last for Warners and is in no way some kind of 'will this do', contract fulfilling gesture with little artistic merit. Hell, it's Madonna, she's got more integrity then that.

Either way, it means there's some new Madonna material to go with it, which is usually a good thing. The first single is also called 'Celebration' and as if to prove that she doesn't just work with hot, young producers, it's produced by Paul Oakenfold.



It's back to the dancefloor after that mostly misjudged foray into 'urban' with Timbaland and Pharrell. It suits her much better in our opinion. Rumour has it that the video will feature Madonna's daughter Lourdes recreating scenes from the 'Like A Virgin' video, which is some insane, Freudian nightmare made flesh.

EDIT: The video has been removed. Boo Madonna, boo!

Blast furnace(s)

Imagine for a second that so-called 'cool' indie bands had their own version of Heat magazine. For a start it would be called Chaud or Sweat, and it would focus on the personal lives of these real artists, ones that write their own songs. If such a thing were to exist then Eleanor Friedberger from The Fiery Furnaces would be most famous for stepping out with Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand. Imagine the shots of them reading Bukowski in an uptown cafe or stumbling out of a beautifully dishevelled hotel.

Luckily, such a thing doesn't exist and we're not even sure they're still together, but who cares because it's all about the MUSIC. Unfortunately, The Fiery Furnaces have a habit of making music that needs to be endured rather than enjoyed. One of their albums was sung by their grandmother, another was a live album that stretched to over fifty songs. Their latest opus, I'm Going Away, has, you know, some tunes and stuff, which is nice. Not to be left behind on the pretentious front though, the band have since decided to re-record the album twice, with Eleanor making a version and brother Matthew making another.

This is a very good video for a song called 'Charmaine Champagne':



The album is very much a return to form. Expect to see Eleanor puking outside The Ivy very soon.

Kiss with a fist

Friendly Fires were recently shortlisted for the Lemington Spa All-day Breakfast challenge, which saw ten acts compete to cook the perfect fried breakfast. Results won't be known until September but we're all incredibly excited.

In the meantime, they've decided to release some new music in the shape of 'Kiss Of Life', produced by 'man of the moment' Paul Epworth. The single isn't on the current version of thier self-titled debut, but we wouldn't be too surprised to find it on a re-released version some time soon (August 31 to be precise). The single is a jolly old romp that features lots of tribal drums, some synths and a chorus sung in a sweet falsetto.

Here's the video. Look out for some properly jaw-dropping dance moves from singer Ed Macfarlane, especially around the 3 minute 40 mark where he throws caution to the wind and sets loose his inner diva.



We were talking to someone from near St Albans in Hertfordshire (where Friendly Fires are from) and he said it's the most straight-laced part in the country and that the band were three dullards pretending to be cool. In many ways, it's part of their charm.

Anyone?

We've not seen enough of Big Brother this year to know who Angel is exactly. What we can tell just from her advert in last week's NME is that a). She's got that androgynous, almost other-worldly quality that all pop stars must have (think David Bowie) and b). she's got lovely gloves. So, if there are any record company executives, producers, managers or session musicians out there and you want to be part of something amazing then do ring that number. Don't be shy, Angel won't be around forever.

We double dare you to ring the number! Imagine if she picked it up and spoke to you! Eek!

New Musick Monday

OK, we're back after a well-earned break to bring you some more essential purchases for this week...only, it's not really us doing the recommending, you'll see. Last week we urged you to purchase Mpho's brilliant 'Box N Locks' and you know what, no-one did. Well, some people did seeing as it crawled into the chart at no. 49, but still, it hardly seems worth it. Shame on you all.

This week is another pretty barren week for albums, but there was one that caught our eye. Normally we'd fudge it, pretend we'd heard it and judge it based on the specific act's back catalogue. This time, however, we decided to get a real journalist involved, one that has actually heard the album. Ladies and gentleman, we introduce Jake Kennedy...

BUY THIS

Judy Sucks A Lemon For Breakfast by Cornershop



Eight years – eight long years since the last Cornershop album. Don’t giggle – lots of people have missed them, this writer included. Here’s a a duo with an ethos that hasn’t changed in the 18 years they’ve been together. To make boundary-free good time music – and Judy has it in spades. Their fifth album isn’t so much eclectic as schizophrenic.
There’s the usual T-Rex riffing 'Who Fingered Rock’n’Roll?'/'The Roll Off Characteristics', Rowetta-tinged funk 'The turned On Truth' and plenty of sweet ass little segues that make it feel more than just a 12” remix spread over an hour. A cover of 'The Mighty Quinn' sticks out as one question mark – at least when they did 'Norwegian Wood' it was in Punjabi – 'Quinn' here sounds a little bit like a step backwards. But everything else is vital sounding (although 2004’s 'Topknot', would have fitted well) – so yes, they’ve still got it.
There. I didn’t mention “Brimful” once….

Jake has a blog, which will one day house his stories. For now it's got some lovely photos on it. It's called Rubber Echoes.

LAUGH AT THIS ON THE SHELF

The Best of Sandi Thom



Stretching the concept of a 'best of' to its absolute limits. Popjustice.com sum up the ridiculousness of it all better then we can so click here.

DOWNLOAD THIS

'Heartbreaker' by MSTRKRFT feat. John Legend



We nearly managed to palm the entire section off on to other people, but we thought it best to do some actual work of our own. This is a rather nice electropop ditty by two men who don't like vowels and who used to be in other bands but aren't anymore. The singing is done by a certain John Legend who has thus far failed to live up to his surname. This isn't going to change that, but it certainly is a diverting four minutes and that's probably all we can hope for right now. This is the video. We think the guy with the sunglasses on has taken some drugs, so don't let anyone who is easily offended walk down Camden High Street.

Running up that hill

It's the gift that keeps on giving.

Jay-Z's forthcoming new album, The Blueprint III, surely has no more secrets to reveal come release time? So far, we've had the one that mentioned Noel Gallagher, the one about Obama, that other one with Santigold on it and finally the one dissing Autotune. Well, none of these are the official first single, that comes in the shape of 'Run This Town', which features Rihanna on the chorus and Kanye West rapping sans Autotune.



It's alright. The beat has that marching-band motif that 'Jesus Walks' has, and hearing a guitar over the top is a nice surprise, but Jay-Z sounds a bit bored and Kanye West says the following; "she got an ass that will swallow up a g-string, and up top two bee stings". Rihanna is the real star of the show, delivering the chorus in that kind of dead-eyed way she's perfected.

There are more surprises on the album of course - MGMT also make an appearance!

Remedy the situation

The problem with the Little Boots campaign thus far is that they a). chose the wrong single to launch with, then b). gave said single an alienating, 'arthouse' (in pop terms) video and c). the album doesn't age well, even after a few weeks. The fact that it entered high (no. 5) then dropped out of the top 40 two weeks later doesn't bode well, but 'Remedy', the second single, should fix things.

For one it's a massive pop belter with a great, stuttering intro that TV pluggers will piss themselves over and it has at least two choruses. Plus, for the video the label have realised what people liked about Little Boots in the first place which was that despite all the glitz and glamour she was a bit of a nerd and liked nothing more then playing cover versions on her keyboard in her pyjamas. This video is a much more glossy version of that, only this isn't a cover and she's not playing it live...



The single is out on the 17 August and was produced by RedOne who is responsible for Lady GaGa.