There should be a warning label with this video, something along the lines of the “Happy Fun Ball” skit on “Saturday Night Live.”
– Those who are pregnant or may become pregnant should not watch “Alice”
– Those who suffer from vertigo should not watch “Alice”
– Do not consume excessive amounts of alcohol before watching “Alice”
– Do not taunt “Alice”
Simply put, this is not an easy video to digest. On the plus side, Mr. Melville seems to have gotten back in touch with his former self to create a dizzying hip-hop track that is equal parts Play and Everything is Wrong. Here’s hoping that the rest of the record lives up to that potential.
That boiiiing sound you just heard was BE Associate Editor Will Harris. He introduced me to this song, you see, and in the process introduced me to one of my favorite albums of all time, so he is surely enjoying this post.
Truth be told, I’m generally not a pastoral pop kind of guy. Yes, there are Kinks and XTC records that I will defend to the death, and I even have a healthy amount of Belle & Sebastian in my CD collection – something I am loath to admit after being shamed by my former coworker Katie a few years ago – but if you’re going to be precious, you damn well better make it catchy, and hooks are the one thing on which the Lilac Time does not skimp. For me, the key is the backing harmony of Claire Worrell; without her, lead singer Stephen Duffy’s clever lyrics and the pedal steel guitar land on deaf ears.
Interesting fact: Duffy agreed to co-write songs with Barenaked Ladies singer Steven Page after Page sent him a demo tape. Whether Duffy has made more money from his association with Page than he has on his own, however, is unknown.
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, Lenny Kravitz has a new album! Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah! Sorry, just got carried away there. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, I did.
The first single, “I’ll Be Waiting,” is actually rather pretty, though is it just me or did the melody in the first verse instantly make you think of his 1993 song “Believe”? Just sayin’.
I usually reserve this slot for new songs by relatively new bands, but since the music industry shuts down for a good two months at year’s end, we have nothing to promote but Christmas records from guys like Keith Sweat and Christopher Cross, neither of which I want to inflict on an unsuspecting public.
Instead, I am going to take a cue from our local modern rock station, which has unveiled the top 2008 “most requested” songs in its history. The songs they’re playing are awesome, but the order of these songs, in all objectivity, is freaking ridiculous. Today they played Crowded House’s “Mean to Me,” which ranked somewhere around 1,200 or so. Now, I love, love, love Crowded House, but I don’t buy for a minute that the station has received that many requests for Crowded House, not for a station that began in 1990. For starters, they almost never play the band, and when they do, they play “Don’t Dream It’s Over” just like everybody else. If they actually received that many requests for “Mean to Me,” you’d think that they play the song more than once a year. Second, they played Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android” yesterday, and Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know” the day before. Are they really telling us that they’ve received more requests for a Crowded House song, ANY Crowded House song, than they have for “Paranoid Android” and “You Oughta Know”? Not bloody likely.
Personally, I think they take the entire lineup from 101 to 2008 and shuffle them, and I’m perfectly fine with that. It makes the first week of the year the most enjoyable week of the year. Hell, I heard Shakepeare’s Sister’s “Stay,” the Lightning Seeds’ “Pure” and Elvis Costello’s “Beyond Belief” almost back to back. How the hell do you beat that? I can only imagine how awesome this station would be if they actually played those songs (or Robyn Hitchcock’s “So You Think You’re in Love,” which I heard yesterday afternoon) more frequently. But hey, they’re still pretty awesome as modern rock stations go (they don’t play Evanescence and they love Muse, Kaiser Chiefs and Hard-Fi), so take the good with the bad, I suppose.
But back to the video. The scene where Paul Hester points the trick gun to his head is more than a little disturbing now. Sigh.
Let’s keep this one simple, shall we? It’s a holiday, and we work during enough holidays as it is. Merry Christmas, everyone. Here’s to hoping that Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn will grace us with a new record sometime before we die.
