App-ster

Spotify is brilliant.

iPhones are brilliant.

So what happens when they, like that intro to Hart To Hart but without the "moider", meet?

Very simply, an Everest Of Amazingness happens, that's what.

I've had the beta version of the Spotify app for over a week now (it's a review copy and still might not be approved by Apple). You can stream over Wi-Fi and it's as good as the streaming on your computer. But the thing that snaps your teeth off is the ability to cache songs and playlist (apparently up to a very convenient 3,333 tracks) for when you don't have a Wi-Fi connection.

Get ready - here comes my amazing "exclusive" review of the app.

It's easily as good as you've heard. The end.


Here are some nice pictures of it "in action" to look at.

Say Hello, Wave Goodbye

Here is tomorrow today.

Google Wave looks astonishing.

Ready, Steady, Go

I've been playing the Island 50 boxsets this week. There is one on folk rock and one on beardy rock. And then there is one on reggae (called War Ina Babylon).

Leafing through the sleeve notes, I noticed a shot of this album cover (it was an Island compilation from 1968). This has to be the most simple and, here's the trick, most joyful record covers in the world.

You just need to look at it to see that the world is not always a bad place. This album cover is Instant Happiness.

Back (crack and sac)

It's been a while since I blogged. I blame Twitter. Anyway, some random things to get the fingers typing again.


Speck Pistols
Speck Mountain's Some Sweet Relief is rapidly chasing Phantom Band's Checkmate Savage as my most-played album of the year. It's a lovely, lethargic mess of Mazzy Star, Throwing Muses and Cat Power. It is pretty much perfect.

So, fucking Specials
The Specials at Brixton Academy were possibly the tightest band I have ever seen live. I was, wonderfully, probably the youngest person there, but they played all the hits as you would want them to be played – not a single ounce of fat on them. Sure, Jerry Dammers wasn't there but I fear that in the euphoria of how brilliant they were he simply wasn't missed. Sad, I know, but there you go.

You don't have to be Madness to work here, but it helps
And in a seamless Two-Tone-related connection, the new album by Madness is as close to a concept masterpiece as you're ever likely to hear in an age of downloading tracks rather than albums. The Liberty Of Norton Folgate is the band's sprawling love letter to London (always their greatest muse) and pivots around the notion of Norton Folgate as a space where the normal rules do not apply and we can run wild – both physically and philosophically.

Digital watch
I had to review this book for the new issue of The Word. It's about how digital changed everything for the recorded music business. The first half is a pointless rehash of the era of the 'flamboyant' (i.e. annoying) label executive that is told better in Frederic Dannen's Hit Men. But the second half is a wonderful romp through Napster, Kazaa, iTunes and BitTorrent. Of course, as soon as it hit the shelves it was out of date due to the speed of change. Still, if you want to understand how and why digital changed the way you hear and discover music, get this book, rip out the first three chapters and start at chapter 4.

Plague For Today
In my heart, I gave up on the Manic Street Preachers when Everything Must Go came out. I was never into the Cult Of Richey, but they definitely lost direction when he went missing in 1995. The Holy Bible, of course, remains a shocking and astonishing work, made all the more head-spinning when you consider they were all around 25 when it came out. I was terrified when I heard that the band were going back to Richey's notes and lyrics for their new album. But Journal For Plague Lovers has revitalised my love for this band. It's really disquieting hearing them revisit the words, the sounds and the feeling of The Holy Bible – the album that has been both a milestone and a millstone for them. I've had it on a loop for the last week and it keeps revealing new (rotten) layers. It's the second best album they've ever done and that's, you know, good enough for now.

Stone Roses' rock bottom
If the Specials' gig made me feel like the youngest person in the room, the hoo-hah around the 20th anniversary of the The Stone Roses' debut album has made me feel like the oldest. It's not the greatest album ever. It's not even the greatest debut album ever. But it is good and I love it. It arrived when I was 17 and was a portal into several new worlds. I will always adore it as a 'facilitator'. But it has been reissued and repackaged so many times that it makes any right-thinking person queasy. Rarely has so little (there are only 11 tracks and a handful of associated b-sides) been diced, sliced and regurgitated so many times in the shameless pursuit of money. This was partly down to the band leaving Silvertone in a storm of acrimony and the label milking their cash cow before the public got bored. But this has lasted two decades and now Sony, the album's new custodian, has taken this to horrific new extremes (or lows). You can buy a box set of the album that looks very pretty but it costs £100. A hundred quid? The only "new" stuff is some (no doubt shonky) footage of 'Fools Gold' being recorded, some demos, an "unheard" (i.e. shit) track and a load of 'backwards' songs. Christ. You have to admire the desperation here. Still, you get some nice 'art prints' (i.e. postcards) with it.

Phew. My fingers hurt now. Can I stop typing?

Thanks.

Disco 1000

Could this be the weediest cover version of all time?

For some reason it came up as 'recommended' on YouTube. It's Keane (a snore and a shrug of a band if ever there was one) in Sheffield doing a cover of Pulp's glamorama gem 'Disco 2000'.

Bands do covers for a variety of reasons (paying tribute to an act they love, rewiring a song in a new context, showing their fans how diverse their taste is). Keane bring to this all the enthusiasm a binman might bring to his morning shit.

It is literally pointless on every single level. The only redeeming feature it has is that it ends.

AC/DC = \m/

The quality is a bit poor, but you'll get the idea.

I saw AC/DC at the O2 last night (this is how the show opened). They were the first band I ever loved. Indeed, Back In Black was the first album I ever bought. On cassette. For £3.99. From Caroline Music. In Cornmarket in Belfast. I remember it vividly.

The shop is long gone. AC/DC remain. As thrilling and as wonderful as when I first encountered them.

You never really get over your first true love, do you?

Off Your Boxmaster

Billy Bob Thornton gives the most uncomfortable interview since the last uncomfortable interview you saw.