New Noisettes!!

I sort of knew that there was a new Noisettes album kicking around but I hadn't gotten around to checking it out yet. As a result of a promotional e-mail I checked their out their performance on Jools Holland via YouTube (above).

The first song, Don't Upset The Rhythm is, surprisingly very disco. It's really catchy and very danceable. The lyrics are a bit cliché but in a way that's befitting the poppiness of the song. Also Shingai Shoniwa rocked that gold lamé jumpsuit in a way I doubt anyone else could.

The second song, Never Forget You, started off with a bass line that, along with the off-beat ska rhythm guitar, made me like it immediately. I was kind of afraid at first that it was going to be a little too Winehouse-ish but Shingai's performance makes it very much a Noisettes song. Her voice is probably the best around currently and it's a shame that this band doesn't get more attention. Also the strings on both songs are perfect. I can't wait to pick up this album.

I really love bands that can change their style convincingly. I definitely prefer it to bands that do one style really well (unless that band is the Ramones). When I heard the Horrors new single for the first time I really didn't like it (despite the NME rave). They changed their style but it seemed kind of wishy-washy to me. Maybe I need to listen to it more along with the whole album, but that kind of reinforces how I feel about the Noisettes. I only needed to listen to Don't Upset The Rhythm once to like it and appreciate how seamlessly they were able to shift into disco-ey pop.If you're going to change your sound this is how you do it.

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Twitter

So I didn't think that I was going to join Twitter but I've had an exceptionally bad day and needed to do something that would occupy my mind but at the same time not require too much actual thought, like writing on here about Southland Tales, which I've been meaning to do and probably will do soon unless my day (and days in the near future) manage to get even worse which is a distinct possibility. See that was an extremely bad run-on sentence that I'm not going to even bother fixing because it would require too much thought. Anyway here's my twitter address:
www.twitter.com/ambivlentalumna. I couldn't spell ambivalent properly because it would have been too many letters so I deleted the a so it would still more or less work phonetically.

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I Officially Love Dollhouse

As you may have guessed, based on my affinity for Buffy, I've been watching Joss Whedon's new show; Dollhouse. I've liked it since I saw the first episode but I wasn't as impressed with it as I thought that I'd be. It did start to get significantly better, though, and even from the beginning it was probably still my favorite show on network television. Pushing Daisies, I'd say, is was similarly as good.

I loved Man On The Street, Echoes and Needs. They made it clear that the show was going to be much more than the first few episodes promised. The most current episode, A Spy In The House Of Love quickly became my favorite while I watched it yesterday. I hadn't been inspired to write anything about the show until I watched this scene between Ballard and Mellie:

(only watch this clip if you're up to date with Dollhouse)

Spoilers after the jump. (Definitely click continue though because that's where all my good ideas are.)

So, basically, Ballard has to sleep with Mellie after he finds out that she’s a doll in order to 'maintain the illusion', as whoever programmed Mellie put it, and not raise suspicion at the dollhouse.

He has to do something that he thinks is so wrong that he sacrificed his career to put an end to it. In sleeping with a doll he becomes corrupted; he knowingly has sex with someone who essentially lost any ability they had to consent. If he doesn’t corrupt himself in this way he'll have his plight to eliminate the dollhouse ended and most likely get himself killed.

I was kind of surprised that he went along with it so unflinchingly. As soon as Mellie went back to her un-hacked, active state he went back to exactly how he was pre-hack. He’s either ridiculously good at what he does or he’s pretty easy to corrupt.

What makes it an even shittier situation for him, if it was in fact Mr. Dominic who was hacking the dolls, Ballard's source has now dried up anyway.

At the end of the episode I liked how Dominic was kind of exposed as being similar to Ballard when he accused the dollhouse of hurting Echo after he'd tried to kill her twice. Kind of like how Ballard had to fight Echo in Man On The Street when his main motivation on the series has been to save Caroline.

It was also really funny that Dominic is actually an NSA agent since in Echoes he got outranked by Victor pretending to be an NSA agent.

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Friday Random 10: Shuffle vs. Genius

Finally, it's time for another Friday random 10 comparison (I did actually finish before it became Saturday)! Ok, so as of last time the score is shuffle 2, Genius 1. Here we go...

Starting song: Body Of An American - The Pogues



(This is another bad scan (this time of a not so great pic to begin with) but I decided that where possible I'd use pictures I'd taken. It's from the first time I saw the Pogues, St. Patrick's Day 2006)

Shuffle Playlist...............................Genius Playlist
1. Body Of An American - The Pogues..1. Body Of An American - The Pogues
2. Prayer Of St. Francis -.............W.....2. Police On My Back - The Clash
.......Sarah McLachlan
3. Shark Attack Theme - Sven Libaek...3. Sweet Jane (live) - The Velvet
.................................................................Underground
4. Pencil Skirt - Pulp (Peel Sessions).....4. Visions Of Johanna - Bob Dylan
5. Sell Out - Reel Big Fish....................5. Debaser - The Pixies
6. Chicago Seemed Tired Last Night -...6. Wonderlust King - Gogol Bordello
...... The Hold Steady
7. Under The Bridge -..........................7. Streams Of Whiskey (live) -
.........Red Hot Chili Peppers......................The Pogues
8. Girls & Boys (live) - Blur..................8. Please, Please, Please Let Me Get
................................................................. What I Want - The Smiths
9. Pulp - The Trees.............................9. Rudie Can't Fail - The Clash
10. Home Altars Of Mexico - Art Brut....10. A Message To You Rudy -
.....................................................................The Specials

Track comparisons after the jump.

Prayer Of St. Francis vs. Police On My Back: Since I have Prayer of St. Francis because of it's use in a Buffy episode so I figured I'd go with a Buffy themed video. It's pretty obvious POMB wins here, I don't even think I have to explain why, the songs speak for themselves. Also I'm pretty sure it's the only song that I've heard both Joe Strummer and Mick Jones perform. I saw Joe play it was with the Mescaleros in 2001 and 2002 and I saw Mick play it with Carbon/Silicon last April (wow, can't believe that was a year ago.)

Shark Attack Theme vs. Sweet Jane (live): I couldn't find anything on YouTube that comes close to this version of Sweet Jane. It's the live version form the Best of the 20th Century Masters Millennium edition so I just linked to the Amazon page where you can preview it. Also the Shark Attack Theme video is pretty random. But, anyway, Sweet Jane is the clear winner here. This version is slow and sparse, sad and pretty, basically everything a VU song should be. It's one of my favorites and beats a random instrumental from The Life Aquatic Soundtrack.

Pencil Skirt vs. Visions Of Johanna: No YouTube for Pencil Skirt but the Different Class version is up on Last.fm and you can listen to a sample on Amazon. The Peel Sessions version of Pencil skirt is a little more interesting to the standard version. It's more flowy, the violin is more featured and it has more of a live feel. Still it can't stand up to the sheer awesomeness of Visions of Johanna. I'd quote some lyrics but I'd probably just end up quoting the whole song. I used to sometimes use "The all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the D train" as an away message back in college when I still used AIM.

Sell Out vs. Debaser: Sell Out is a really fun song. It was kind of the first ska song I liked before I really even knew what ska was. That being said, Debaser is probably a better song. Like most Pixies songs it's really layered and the delivery of the lyrics is perfect. It also references a Salvador Dali film so points for that too.

Chicago Seemed Tired Last Night vs. Wonderlust King: Another Last.fm link for Chicago Seemed Tired and this one's actually working for me now. Wonderlust King is just so passionate and joyful that I definitely prefer it. Maybe if it had been Certain Songs, Don't Let Me Explode, or How A Resurrection really feels I would have gone with the Hold Steady but not this time.

Under The Bridge vs. Streams Of Whiskey (live): Not the same version of Streams of Whiskey but kinda close. The specific version I have is from 1988 with Joe Strummer on guitar. The sound isn't as good as the version in the YouTube clip but I'm going to be completely biased. Even though I don't like when Genius puts more than one song by the artist within the ten, and the sound isn't good the Pogues with Joe Strummer is going to beat just about everything. Sorry RHCP.

Girls & Boys (live) vs. Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want: Ok, so the G & B also isn't the exact live version but is pretty close and Please, Please is supposed to be a studio version but I linked a live version. So I'm going with genius yet again here. If it had been the studio version of G & B it would have been a really hard decision but the live version isn't as good. Please, Please is really is another one of those sad and pretty songs I love so much. (I'm totally thinking of doing a full post on sad and pretty songs...maybe sometime soon).

The Trees vs. Rudie Can't Fail: The Clash clip is from Hell W10 which is kind of awesome and makes me miss living in West-ish London. The Trees is a really good song, one of my favorite off of We Love Life but Rudie can't fail is a classic. The interplay between Joe's voice and Mick's voice is probably at it's best in this song. It's fun, great to dance to, has great lyrics; it's pretty much anything you could want a song to be. Has shuffle gotten even one point yet? This is pretty much a landslide.

Home Altars Of Mexico vs. A Message To You Rudy: I've had such bad luck with YouTube this time. Maybe companies are getting more rabid about taking songs down... Anyway, another point for Genius. I really like the Art Brut song but Rudy is just too good. It's a song I've loved for a really long time. I love it in pretty much all of its incarnations from Dandy Livingstone's original, to the Joe and the Meskies live version, to this version. The light, kind of airiness of the keys is what makes me really love this, and is also part of what makes The Specials' Pressure Drop my favorite version of that song.

This weeks competition was a total blood bath. Shuffle didn't even get one point. Genius was a bit repetitive with two Clash songs and two Pogues songs but the songs were so good I didn't really even notice. As for the overall score Genius has pulled into a tie with shuffle, 2-2.

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