Entertain Me, Bitch!

I'll be honest, readers: by the time Adam Lambert's closing extravaganza of a performance at the American Music Awards came around, my head was practically on the keyboard, so tired was I. So much so I didn't even know he'd kissed that male keyboardist until I woke up the next morning and everyone was either complaining about it or insisting that it was completely unimportant. I don't watch 'American Idol', so apart from two friends virulently on each side of the Lambert/Kris Allen divide, I didn't really know much about them, so how Lambert scored the closing slot while Allen was shafted with presenting an award when he actually won the show remains a mystery to me.

But whatever the controversy or even quality of that performance, I have to confess for having a strong liking for the song he was performing. Sure, 'For Your Entertainment' is a bit derivative (I'm sure you've already heard it likened to Britney's 'Womanizer'), but Lambert's slick, punkish vocals shine on enunciating every bit of the utter filth that is the lyrics that I'd probably even say I was slightly sexually attracted to the song. It's got swagger, it's got attitude, it's practically coated in pure horny sex. So, I awaited a video delicious enough to match. Did I get it? Let's observe.



So no, not really. (Hey, when Rammstein have taken music videos to the pornographers, the stakes have well and truly been raised.) But here is a list of good things about this video.

1. A CANE. Lest you need reminding of the irrefutable, very factual, mathematical equation that male popstars + canes = amazing music, I point towards you to the greatest single of 2008. My affinity for the cane might, yes, be slightly lewd on some level, but I honestly think its more to do with the innocent wonder of their acrobatic circus properties. And the exclamation point stomping they can manage. Lambert doesn't use the cane nearly enough, but he's got one, and, by Jove, that's enough for me.

2. The snake. Again, it's not used enough, but it exists and the man handles it well. He also does this on some sort of throne, which generally makes things about twice as good as they already are, in this case reminding us of the Sheriff of Nottingham, and leading me to wonder if Adam grew his hair long he'd end up looking like Alan Rickman. There is no point to this train-of-thought whatsoever. Basically, he can handle a snake and not look shit-scared doing so, he passes.

<---- 3. Hands. Just look at all those hands! Many hands make light work, they say, although what exactly they're making light work of here is debatable, unless perhaps it's Adam's penis, and really, I'm far too prudish to go thinking about things like that. I feel dirty even mentioning it, to be honest. Don't show, don't tell, don't even suggest. Put that gayness back in the closet.

4. The smile. I'm still not sure if Mr Lambert is actually attractive, per-say, but when he gives that sly, dirty little smile I can't say I don't fall a little bit in lust. Say what you want about his AMAs performance the other night, but he can definitely sell this image, and that delicious little smirk proves it in one second flat.

And those are the reasons why Adam Lambert's first ever music video is quite good and why I think he might have quite a good career if people stop getting their heterosexual knickers in a twist. Goodbye.

A Monstrous Thing

I was going to start off this review by stating that I tried to resist Lady GaGa, but that isn't quite right. She was an entertainingly bizarre popstar, but the music never truly fitted to the image (excepting perhaps the lavishly indulgent 'Paparazzi' video and MTV VMAs performance), and I remained only half-interested. But what she has become in the last few months is a truly remarkable popstar, one that has grown, blossomed even, from the one that the wider world fell in love with at the beginning of the year.

So now GaGa, though you can hardly say she's been away, is back with a tight little bundle of pop pleasures that see her game stepped up quite a bit. More importantly, all those bizarre costumes and affectations (although I still don't understand what the teacup thing was about) now seem to make perfect sense with the dark, twisted world that sears through The Fame Monster. The closest you'll get to the more frivolous, upbeat world of The Fame comes in her Beyoncé duet, 'Telephone', which matches hits 'Just Dance' and 'Poker Face' for pure balls-out mania that you can immediately tell will set any club on (metaphorical) fire. Beyoncé doesn't just dash in for a quick rap and shuttle off again, her vocals remain entwined with GaGa's for the remainder of the song, providing a real sucker punch as the raves escalate.

Perhaps on the other end of the extreme we get 'Speechless', a close cousin to previous ballads 'Again Again' and 'Brown Eyes', if thankfully slightly more passionate and tuneful. After a crashing, slightly painful intro, it becomes a melodic, off-kilter (this is GaGa), mournful hosanna to the man who broke her heart. All very well, and it certainly proves that GaGa is at least becoming more adept at this piano-playing heartache business she seems to like, but its placement on the tracklisting basically slices the dark, synthy nightmarishness in half. A small concern, and it says a lot that it's about the only one I'll be raising.

Lead single 'Bad Romance' bursts the album into life, featuring a repetitive "rah-rah-ooh-la-la" chant that reminds of "P-P-P-Poker Face", but the thumping drum beats and crying synths immediately make it clear that you're in deeper and darker territory this time. It's the same with 'Monster' and its "m-m-m-monster" moments, but once again the robust, bouncing synths and the delightfully rude, yet effectively pained, lyrics, make it irresistible, and again, a whole shade darker than anything we've had before. "I wanna just dance, but he took me home instead", she wails, showing off her sheer bravado by a reference to her own debut single that only hit the top spot this year.

'Alejandro' spins a wistful, melancholic cry out of Ace of Base, ABBA ("I'm not your babe, Fernando") and Madonna's divine 'La Isla Bonita', and features some of GaGa's finest vocal work to date, especially in the plaintive, misery-sodden verses. The chorus is also one of the album's high-points, a thumping beat matched by the swirling, exotic synths and GaGa's cries to the titular man. 'Teeth', the album closer, takes the exotic feel and runs down a rabbit hole with it, producing a vibrant, violent, almost terrifying end to the proceedings, although it does leave you wondering if Christina Aguilera had been invited along for the ride as well.

But the album has two apexes, different in tone - as expected, since while the album has themes and vocal tics running through it and feels like a cohesive work in terms of its mood, it never repeats a distinct sound across its eight tracks - but equally transcendent in terms of both GaGa's career and the year in music as a whole (and the two, at this point, are practically equivalent). 'So Happy I Could Die' is a lucid, ethereal chill-out, beginning with a clattering, jerky vocal intro before segueing into a self-obsessed ("I touch myself and it's alright"), melancholy ("Be my best friend and I'll love you forever") that, as GaGa so often does, twins lyrics about partying and clubbing with the inner sadness that can be found inside so many who writhe upon the dancefloor.

'Dance in the Dark', though, mixes so many reference points into its blackened, enrapturing Euro-disco that it almost emerges as better than any of them. The title spells things out for you: it makes you want to dance, but alone, lost in your own moment. The jerking vocal effects are its orgasms of madness, its 'Vogue'-esque middle-eight ("Carolyn, Judy, Sylvia") a deliriously indulgent staccato breakdown, and the chorus is a tragic but explosively thrilling summation of every reason why GaGa is today's cleverest, catchiest, most beloved popstar. And she's barely even started. A

Oh, Timbaland

Don't worry, Timbaland hasn't gone around messing with the greatest song of all time again (Nina Simone's 'Sinnerman', in case you still don't know what I'm talking about - 'Oh Timbaland' was the opening track of Timbaland Presents Shock Value), it was just an effectively plaintive title. I'm not here to moan about Timbaland's recent productions, because, to be perfectly frank, I'm quite liking them. 'Morning After Dark' is a slightly grungy, rhythmically jerky production that admittedly sounds like it was recorded three years ago, but is effortlessly catchy nonetheless, especially with the previously unknown SoShy's sexually-infused vocals piping up. And 'Give It Up To Me', the Shakira and Lil' Wayne collaboration that was performed by the former at last night's American Music Awards, is another rather dated track but still, to these ears at least, is catchy and enjoyable, and features the most hilariously crude rap (from Lil' Wayne, naturally) I've heard in years.

No, no, for I've no problem with the music. I just don't understand what the hell's going on with it. 'Give It Up To Me' appears to be Shakira's current American single - after all, she did just perform it with a troupe of female dancers, stealing the Sugababes' ass-patting dance move in the process - and yet it was left out of the international release of her album She Wolf altogether (do I smell a re-release?). Nevermind that current UK single 'Did It Again' (with one of the best videos I've seen all year) got the biggest exposure you can land - a spot on The X Factor - and still flopped on its arse in the mid-20s, depriving the wider world of a song you're promoting elsewhere is just bleeding money away.

And then we come to 'Morning After Dark'. You might've seen this performed at the AMAs last night too, in a perfectly competant staging, and if so you'll know that Nelly Furtado popped up to perform her rather nasal verse. This is the official single version, the one you'll be hearing on radios either side of the Atlantic, although as is usual with these things you can mosey down to iTunes in America and buy the song both with and without Miss Furtado, while we in the UK have to sit on our hands and desperately fiddle with the radio dial in an attempt to find the song. (Oh, I am a joker.) But the video doesn't feature Nelly, instead using the SoShy-only production - which to these ears is superior, thanks to her introduction and a more palatable Timbaland verse where Nelly's would be. The video has a polished sheen but it is overall an indulgent, hilarious failure, with an attempt to make the vampire-inspired lyrics into some kind of plot. It's mainly notable, though, for showing off how foxy SoShy looks in a red beret, and for giving Timbaland a whole seven minutes to make as many ridiculous facial expressions as he can manage. Drink after every one, and I imagine you'd be on the floor by the end of the video.

Timbaland's album Shock Value II, featuring Justin Timberlake, Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus amongst many others (including Timbo regular Keri Hilson), is scheduled for release on December 7th in the UK, and the 8th in the US, while 'Morning After Dark' is available in the UK from November 30th. Watch the video, if you dare, below.

Baby, She's A Rockstar

Certain things, like the sound driver deciding to vanish from my computer, got in the way of being a fully committed!, consistent! blogger like I promised in small text at the start of the previous post, but ways around such problems have been made and I'm going to try to be back for good. It wasn't all screaming at the computer in the absence, though - yours truly somehow wangled himself an invite to the well-publicized Rihanna album launch, courtesy of Nokia Music, at the Brixton Academy in London, something I'd intended to blog about beforehand... but didn't, and I've already mentioned why. However, that would have all been hyperbolic pish, and surely you'd much rather read about an actual experience of seeing a global superstar live, albeit one retrospectively infused by me practically devouring every inch of her new album, spitting it out and devouring it again. (That means I loved Rated R, in case my metaphors are too confusing, which they often are.)

What was ostensibly an album launch was really more a short greatest hits set, really, but when you've got songs like 'Don't Stop the Music', 'Umbrella' and 'Disturbia' in your back catalogue, you're hardly going to catch me complaining when she opts to sing those crowd pleasers over songs that, at that point in time, had never crossed my ears. Yes, celebration of Rated R was left to just the few singles or buzz tracks, or whatever the hell you want to call them, with album intro 'Mad House' providing an atmospheric prelude to the woman's sudden appearance. Second US single 'Hard' proved our highlight of the new material, though not for Jeezy's (he grew up, it would seem) guest appearance - no, the song is a thrillingly arrogant thumper, containing the ingenious, tossed-off line "brilliant, resilient, fanmail from twenty-seven million". Basically, fuck off, haters.

A more laid-back acoustic section containing 'Take A Bow', and, rather oddly, 'Disturbia' (which thankfully segued into rockier territory where it belongs), gave Rihanna the chance to show off her greatly improved vocals - still at times boosted by pre-recorded ones, but generally proving strong and emotional. As Jeezy and Jay-Z joined her on-stage, the latter to piercing screams of hysteria from the thousands-strong audience, Rihanna looked like she truly belonged in such company, confidently singing along to Jeezy's rap and strutting back out halfway through her set with a microphone stand resembling a particularly intricate stabbing weapon. Unsurprisingly, Rihanna has gone dark - befitting the slightly grungy location where she chose to kick this all off - but what's wonderful is that she's thrown herself so fully into it, taking her career by the throttle and melding image and music into one. We knew she was a superstar. Now she's proving why she deserves to be one.

Watch Rihanna kick off the Monday night launch with 'Wait Your Turn', and check the Nokia website for more highlights:

Into My Head, Into My Head, Say Hello!

Readers, we have neglected you. To be fair to our (- that's quite enough of the up-yourself plurals, there's only one of you)- myself, I have been a busy little bee, but still, you've been starved of my fascinating musical insights and for this I deeply apologise. No more of those shenanigans! We're back and ready to rock. (I said enough of the "we"s!)

Leona Lewis was always going to be a success: she could sing really quite well, and she had Simon Cowell's enormous marketing budget behind her, as well as his uncanny sense of knowing exactly what the general public will feast their dull, yellow teeth on. But her first album, Spirit, was from a musical perspective, well, a bit of a bore. I'd tell you more about her new release, Echo, but I'm afraid I've got all hung up on one utterly amazing song. Really, readers, this song is so amazing you'll probably faint with shock that someone's stuck it in the middle of Leona Lewis album, which means you'll have to flick the back button when you recover so you can faint all over again.

It's called 'Outta My Head', and if you're too intrigued to listen to me waffling about it you can skip to the listenable video apparition at the bottom of this post. It's easily the most upbeat thing that's ever emitted from Leona's mouth (in a studio, anyway - don't ask me about her time on 'The X Factor', because, quite frankly readers, I wasn't paying attention), and bests for dance moves the funky r'n'b-ness of her derided #10 single, 'Forgive Me', which if you ask me on most days of the week I'd probably say was my favourite Leona song. (Oh, keep bleeding, love.)

'Outta My Head' is all about how Leona's had ENOUGH! of this guy who keeps playing her up and now she's going to get him OUT! of her head (I do not approve of derivations of the English language; naughty Leona). It has an absolutely stonking chorus where she blasts her vocals as loudly as she can against the cacophony of synths and other big noises, and, well, the song ends up living up to it's name. But there are also bits where her voice goes all raspy, and sad, and the heartbreaking element that's in all the best disco shines through. Basically, it's a masterpiece of her song, and if it's not a single at some point, I'll personally go to her label and slap them all around the faces. (Especially Leona. Oh, someone got there before me? Damn.)



Leona's announced some tour dates for next year, and, honestly readers, the antipathy I have towards the spectacle of Leona talking (shudder) and standing in the middle of the stage looking - literally - like there's a light shining out of her arse is undone by the prospect of seeing her blast out this TUUUUNE at full force.

Sheets Threaded Through My Ears

Usually I wouldn't post this type of thing without it having a proper video or having some kind of download link to shove at the bottom of this post, but this, folks, is really just too good to ignore. I've kept my eye on Ellie Goulding for the past year or so, and, while her track 'Starry Eyed', which basically set the music blogosphere on fire, is indeed really quite lovely, and continues to grow on me, she's hit on something BIG with her newest single, 'Under the Sheets'. The song apparently premiered on Radio 1 about a week ago, but no one bothered to tell me so it's only for the past day that I've been obsessing over this here thing.

The extreme thinness of Ellie's vocals still doesn't entirely win me over - it occasionally becomes too high-pitched, as if she's straining for those frequencies only dogs can here - but you can't say it's not unique. You know it's her as soon as she starts singing. However, it's the music (as well as some ghostly effects put on Ellie's vocals for a divine post-chorus refrain) that really makes this track special. Starting off slow, with a simple drum beat keeping time, slowly bells and xylophones and synths and strings start to chime in as Ellie's vocals slowly escalate in their oddly panicked tone. And THEN it explodes into the loud, bubbling, dark and foreboding chorus. Even there, though, it's clever, see, because while the first chorus might strike you as nothing that special, such deception only makes the power of its second appearance greater. This probably won't catapult Ellie to stardom - what would, really? - but that doesn't stop it from being absolutely magnificent.

I'll be seeing Ellie live as one of the support acts on Little Boots' tour at the end of October, so check back for a report on how she stands up before an audience. For now, though, hear 'Under the Sheets' below, and - for I have not failed you completely! - grab the track exclusively on Neon Gold's blog.

Sorry MJ, But This Is It

You might, or might not, have noticed it going round on that funky little wheel we've got in the sidebar, but it's hardly spoiling things to say that Röyksopp have produced one of the best albums of the year in the form of their third long-player, Junior. The promised follow-up, Senior (see what they did there?), is looking unlikely to be put out before the end of the year, but that doesn't mean there's nothing exciting happening in Norway. (Or indeed wherever Röyksopp happen to be.) Bafflingly, the supreme second single, 'The Girl and the Robot', which features Robyn and a genius video involving, well, a robot (and a pregnancy test), went nowhere, but that's probably because they didn't promote it and no radio station played it more than once and they didn't issue a physical single, so they've only got themselves to blame for depriving the wider public from one of 2009's greatest pieces of music. I'm talking as though the same won't happen with third single, the rather stunningly stormy 'This Must Be It', featuring Karin Dreijer (alias Fever Ray, who you might also have spotted circling on that fun-packed wheel), but Röyksopp have evidently given up shooting for chart success. Which is fair enough, really, they know their niche and they're at the top of it.

What Röyksopp's camp are good at delivering at a shitload of brilliant remixes. And 'This Must Be It''s digital release is chock-full of the things. As you might expect, or at least hope for from such a plethora of remixes, the track is attacked from just about every angle. The Moguai remix is a disco confection, taking Karin's vocals out of the darkness and lifting them up high amongst rising synths and thin drum beats. The Dantom Eprom remix is a smooth chillout take in the style of Air or Zero 7, while Rex the Dog put their swirling distortions to it, with a surprising side of tropical mambo. Peter Herbet delivers one of the finest, the original track ghostly and swirling around beneath a heavy, repetitive beat that really comes alive on the chorus as it changes to a rhapsodic keyboard melody.

But best of all is LehtMoJoe, who start off by funking it up with a load of horns and harsh clashing keyboard strokes, but by the end of a remarkably quick 4 and a half minutes, have turned it into a twinkly disco bonanza with superb use of the haunting saxophone. And that, my friends, is why that's the delicious little taster I've offered you below, with the video of the original track, which is rather bizarre yet brilliant. A bit like Röyksopp themselves, then.



download: This Must Be It (LehtMoJoe remix)