I said I'll pay you right back; you know I love you the most

Alterkicks, "Oh Honey" - I have to admit that I'm starting to feel a little guilty about file-sharing - not so much because it's wrong, mind you, but because ever since I bought my iPod, it's REALLY been killing my CD-buying habits. I mean, not too long ago (well, unless six years isn't too long ago) I would have bought an album like Less Than Human sight-unseen just on the basis of its pedigree and the people pimping it to me. These days, however, file-sharing lets me experience the whole album before I ever set foot in Amoeba, so I know whether to buy blind or not. Which is, of course, fine, except that it means thirteen fewer bucks for the DFA, who I quite frankly think deserve the money even when I don't much care for the music. (yes, I am aware that this is exactly the kind of attitude that makes me a sad example of a man.)

MY POINT IS that in an effort to try to not cause worthy labels & bands to starve, I've started buying singles from over the pond. It's actually a whole different kind of fun - if you buy four or five at a time, the price is basically equivalent to what you'd be paying for a full-length you'd import regularly, but it's a SINGLE~ and therefore implicitly promises more immediate pleasures. The success rate isn't going to be %100, of course, but I like looking at it like betting on horse racing - part of the fun lies in figuring out what information you can trust and how you can decode it. I mean, ordinarily if someone tells me a song sounds like the Cure, I'm going to haul ass in the precise opposite direction, but when you make it appear to sound like whatever it is about the Cure that appeals to all those other Paul Epworth-produced bands, my ears perk up. In this case, it happened to be a pretty big success; I could easily see this slotting in between, say, the Kaiser Chiefs' "Every Day I Love You Less And Less" and Bloc Party's omnipresent "Banquet". And I have to say that that's a radio playlist that I can get down with. (Click here to buy the "Oh Honey" single from HMV)

Speaking of which:

Bloc Party, "2 More Years" - I'm generally kind of skeptical of radio rips; most of them tend to get ruined by low recording quality and DJ-patter wankery, although then again I don't even bother to listen to Elton John's majestic "Are You Ready For Love?" except in the radio-rip form where the DJ can barely contain his giddiness over the track. This, however, is something different; the recording quality is Not Spectacular and Steve Lamacq does need to shut up a lot, but even these obstacles can't hide the genuine awesomeness of the song lurking beneath. Admittedly, I'm not much of a fan of Silent Alarm outside of "Banquet" and Helicopter, so I may be doing a little damning with faint praise here, but no joke - I like this more than just about anything they've ever done. I think that a lot of the praise for Bloc Party is due to their rhythm section (i.e. Matt Tong), but I always thought their strongest songs were marked by the qualities of their pop hooks - it's just that howling along to singalong choruses like "WE DON'T NEED TWO MORE YEARS" > appreciating the drums on "Like Eating Glass". The official release date is apparently sometime in October - hopefully I won't have burned myself out on this song by then. Lord knows I'd buy it.

The Flying Picketts, "Only You" - And since this is a new blog, I wanted to throw up a bonus mp3 of one of my all-time favorite songs. Most people are probably more familiar with the original Yaz version due to its prominent featuring in both The Office and the genuinely majestic Can't Hardly Wait (due for a critical reevaluation like few other recent movies - yes, really), but as far as I'm concerned, this is the definite version - it's so lush and strikingly human, although I guess that's pretty much par for the course when you talk about acapella groups. It's also got that MURDEROUS swell at "Sometimes when I think of your name" which Just. Fucking. KILLS me - small wonder that Wong Kar-Wai made such devastating use of it at the end of Fallen Angels. It's a shame that WKW seems to be moving away from using contemporary pop music in his films - not that it's hard to see why, of course, since he's grounding his movies in the tangible present less and less and less these days, but that doesn't make it any less of a shame, since his use of "Only You" is legitimately one of my favorite uses of the medium of movies. I mean, ever. They should teach this shit in film school, and as a recovering film-school student I can conclusively say they do not. They do, however, teach very, very shallow classes on Steven Spielberg, and that's almost as good - right? Right? (Click here to buy The Best Of The Flying Picketts from Amazon.com)

Also: I am aware that the layout of this blog is pretty bare-bones. I have apparently become an idiot at This Internet Thing, and will therefore give any offers of help my full attention. Hit me up at trdn89@gFUCKASPAMMERmail.com if you've got any ideas/free time.