Mini review: Marina and the Diaaaah-tishooo!

Dear old Marina is poorly sick. “I’m ill, everyone, i’m ill, pity me, make a fuss, pity me,” she writes on Twitter just hours before she took to the stage in London’s Bush Hall.

She certainly seems a little under the weather (unless sneezing into microphones and generally looking a bit peaky is all part of her act). But if there is a frog near her throat, he’s been given his hopping orders.

From the opening – a larger-than-life Girls, performed in what can only be described as a Pikachu Slanket – Marina is in fine voice, belting out her kooky pop confessionals like a true Welshwoman. With her album out this week, a lot of reviewers have focused on the singer’s vocal tics, falling evenly on either side of the genius / irritant divide. But the whoops, animal calls and hollers are all just window dressing. Tonight, the fragility with which she sings “you’re vulnerable, so vulnerable” on I Am Not A Robot, proves what an emotive, genuine singer Marina can be.

As the concert draws on, however, the star begins to look precariously wobbly. When she is highlighted with red spotlights during Rootless, it is presumably meant to convey drama and passion, but instead resembles a particularly frightening Vicks vaporub advert.

Then, a medical miracle occurs. The shaggy backing band (dubbed the ‘rough diamonds’ by one especially unkind acquiantance) kicks into “the one the audience knows”, ie Hollywood, and Marina is carried away on a wave of positive energy. The adrenaline boost lasts all the way to the end of the show, when a prowling, predatory Mowgli’s Road bursts right through the doors and into the shadowy night.

Properly amazing. Even with the snuffles.

SETLIST
Girls
Seventeen
The Outsider
I Am Not A Robot
Oh No!
Numb
Obsessions
Rootless
Hollywood
Shampain

Encore
Mowgli’s Road

Photos from Manchester Deaf Institute gig on 21st February, via Astrocreep and Ricky Orr on Flickr.

Ellie Goulding in the Live Lounge

Ellie Goulding looks set for a top 10 SMASH with her debut-single-that’s-not-her-first-single-but-is-her-debut-despite-those-two-words-being-synonyms-and-what-a-perfect-illustration-of-the-mess-the-music-industry-has-gotten-itself-into-that-is, Starry Eyed.

To ease its passage into the charts, Ellie turned up on Radio One this morning with a beautifully breathy version of the song. She also re-interpreted Temper Trap’s Sweet Disposition as a drippy acoustic ballad. Best to give that one a miss, though.

Radio One have proudly uploaded some photographs of the session to their website, along with the declaration “audio coming soon”. It’s been four hours, though. What are they up to? Probably making one of those jingles where someone shouts “Ray-dee-oh ONE” into a dustbin, then they chop it up and play each syllable in a different speaker with a whooshy sound effect and a bit of Hadouken.

In the meantime, here’s a 30-second snippet of Starry Eyed.

3, 2, 1… We have Blaskoff!

Aussie warbler Sarah Blasko launched her bid for UK stardom last night, playing a short, 40-minute set in London’s wintry Soho. After last week’s Gagavaganza, this was a simple, stripped back affair, with seven musicians elbow-to-elbow on a tiny stage – but it was no less impressive.

Blasko is a big deal back at home. She was recently named Best Female at both the ARIAs and the Rolling Stone awards, and she’s been hand-picked by Temper Trap to support their upcoming UK tour. Now, she has moved to East Dulwich as she attempts to get a foothold in Europe.

The 33-year-old singer-songwriter has an intoxicating, husky voice. Quite rightly, she doesn’t embelish it with studio trickery on her album, so you’re immediately struck by how pure it sounds in concert, as she flits between doe-eyed vulnerability and that trilling, outer-space operatic thing Alison Goldfrapp used to do in the early days.

For a performer with nearly 15 years’ experience Blasko seems unnecessarily shy, but she remains fascinating to watch – making intense, angular movements that bring to mind a Raggedy Ann doll impersonating David Byrne (the song Over And Over even lifts a few lines from Road To Nowhere for its coda).

The set is entirely comprised of tracks from her third album, As Day Follows Night, which is released over here in April. Produced by Bjorn Yttling of “Young Folks” fame, it is a crisp collection of folk-pop, full of dainty piano riffs, brushed snares, and understated strings. The arrangements may be easy to replicate on stage, but not with this amount of soul and verve.

Arbitrary verdict: 8/10

Sarah Blasko – No Turning Back (live)

Vaguley interesting Janet thing

Apparently this isn’t a single, or a buzz track, or an official leak, or an unofficial leak, or a leak and potato soup, or a leaky tap, or a tap-dancing leek, or a leaked wiretap, or [that’s quite enough of that – ed].

Janet’s people say it is “just for fun”. In fact, it’s barely a song at all.

Janet ft Pitbull – HeartBeatLove

You can download it from producer Rodney Jerkins’ website, if you’re interested.

Vampire Weekend + celebrity cameos = blog post

Vampire Weekend have somehow roped in Rza, Jake Gyllenhaal, Joe Jonas and Lil Jon for their new video. It may be a cynical ploy to make the promo go “viral” in the “blogosphere” – but I love a party with a happy blogosphere*.

You can just hear the pitch: “They’ll come for Jake Gyllenhaal’s tight, tight shorts, but they’ll stay for the music”. They may or may not have finished this sentence by drawling the word “dude” and taking a long slow drag on a ‘special’ cigaratte.

Vampire Weekend – Giving Up The Gun

PS: I really, really like the Vampire Weekend album. Does that make me square?

How I survived the attack of the Fame Monster

I was jammy enough to be sent to Manchester last night for the opening night of Lady Gaga’s first headling tour of the UK. It was predictably grandiose and grotesque, but I generally felt like a rubber-necking outsider, rather than an special invitee to The Monster’s Ball. That could have been because I had my “professional” hat on (it’s a sombrero, in case you’re interested) or it could have been down to opening night nerves making the performers concentrate on hitting their marks, rather than reaching out to the audience.

Anyway, enough jibber-jabber. There were 20 (20!) journalists at the MEN Arena in Manchester, and here’s what the ones who survived their hangovers enough to bash out a few paragraphs had to say:

“Right up until the wire there was a mad panic” (Digital Spy)

“For the third act she wore her most bonkers costume, resembling a tasselled lampshade.” (The Sun)

“Gaga herself is on imperious form, displaying a powerful singing voice not readily apparent on the album” (The Independent)

“Muppet Wonder Woman” (BBC – clearly the most insightful review in this list)

“A dishwasher overheated in an MEN Arena kitchen, and the fire brigade were called.” (Manchester Evening News)

“It still leaves every other pop star looking a bit wan by comparison.” (The Guardian – who liked this phrase so much they used it twice)

“Her piano burst into flames during her song Speechless – which is exactly how many of us felt.” (Mirror)

“Hold on to your hairdo, this is one helluva ride.” (The Times)

Bjork explains how televisions work

If this video had been released today, it would be part of some bizarre “media strategy” to build up advance word about a new Bjork record.

But it’s not. It’s from 1994, when the only reason for a pop star to sit down and describe how a television set works was because the video was going to be used on an actual programme on an actual television station – and in those days there were only seven television stations in the enitre world (subs please check).

Bjork TV

Can you imagine one of today’s pop stars understanding the inner workings of a television? Does Aston out of JLS know the difference between 1080p and 720i on his HD flat screen? Can Dappy from N’Dubz make the subtitles work when he’s watching Holby City or Dispatches? Have John and Edward established to their own satisfaction that televisions are not the same as magic mirrors?

The answer to all of these questions is “no”.

A rememborable night

You’d think that, with 30 years of practice, the Brits would have finally worked out how to throw a decent awards ceremony. But no, last night’s effort was as shambolic and hopeless as ever.

Now, putting on a two-hour live television show is hard work and I accept that a myriad of things can go wrong. Sam Fox’s stuttering intro to a video of “rememborable” Brits highlights, which then failed to play, could have been technical gremlins (or a snide tribute to the hopeless 1989 ceremony).

But there were so many more gaffes, mistakes and cringeworthy moments – Jonathan Ross, I’m looking at you – that you have to conclude the whole evening was as competently thought-through as my 1979 attempt to discover how many buttons I could fit inside my nose (Answer: four, before you need to go to A&E).

If they were really celebrating their 30th birthday, why were there no big performances from past winners? Why was the background music for the 30th anniversary award categories Rule Britannia, a classical piece written in 1740? And why did they hire a host whose only “joke” was to mock the music they were supposedly celebrating*?

On a more basic level, when the video inserts begin “here are the nominees for best xxxx”, the script leading into those videos shouldn’t say “here are the nominees for best xxxx”. They teach you that on first day of TV school.

Then there were the terrible pregnant pauses, the inexplicable appearance of Prince Harry, the inexplicable failure to edit out the bit where Prince Harry mugged to the camera, and the ongoing problems with syncing the sound to the picture – which meant that even the acts who were singing live looked like they were miming.

Some people have suggested that, like Ireland entering Dustin The Turkey for the Eurovision, ITV is trying to sabotage its hopes of producing next year’s ceremony. Lets’ face it, if the BBC stepped in with the team behind the amazing Children In Need Rocks concert, we’d see a marked improvement.

But the real reason for last night’s terrible, amateurish production is more mundane. The Brits still think they’re organising a big party in London for their showbiz mates. They’re not – they’re making a TV show, one that is supposed to showcase the sheer brilliance of our artists to the rest of the world. In the future, they have to make that the priority.

Anyway, rant over… The performances saved the show, as ever. Here are the best bits.

Jay-Z and Alicia Keys – Empire State Of Mind

Effortless, energising, excellent. Easily the best performance of the night. As is so often the case, the Americans were there to show us how it’s really done.

Florence and Dizzee – You Got The Dirtee Love

Should have been a mess, turned out to be excellent. But why didn’t these two award winners get a performance to themselves?

Robbie Williams – Lifetime Achievement Medley

Unbelievably, Robbie managed not to pull silly faces, talk to the crowd, forget his words or act like a twerp. AND he did No Regrets. Masterful.

Cheryl Cole – Fight For This Love / Show Me Love

Channelling the spirit of Janet Jackson, this wasn’t as spectacular as her X Factor performance – and the mash-up with Show Me Love was a bit pointless – but Cheryl had the best choreography of the night by far.

Lady GaGa – Telephone / Dance In The Dark

Polarising as ever, GaGa ditched a planned medley of her hits for a heartfelt, idiosyncratic tribute to Alexander McQueen. It was odd, but mesmerising – and she totally drew us into GaGa world. The mark of a true artist.

* Actually, Kay had one other joke, about the ceremony being “20 minutes of entertainment spread out over two hours”. He nicked it from Johnny Carson, who used it at the 1979 Oscars.

Hello, here is some vandalism

Today’s morally reprehensible video comes courtesy of Crookers ft Miike Snow. Naughty boys.

Crookers fr Miike Snow – Remedy

Er… that’s all.

New music: Akala – XXL

London-based rapper Akala is being touted as the new voice of British Hip-Hop. Music magazines have described his last two albums as “smart and addictive” and a “riot on wax”. They also note that he is Ms Dynamite’s brother (but his record label consistently ignores that enticing factoid on their press releases. I wonder why?)

But who cares what the “meeja” says? Let’s ask the REAL fans; the ones who write reviews on Amazon. Here’s their considered opinion on Akala, if that is indeed his name:

“This album features great tracks. I would recommend this album to anyone with musical taste.” (Ashmore Smooth)

“Be sure of one thing, this guy will get inside you.” (XXX)

“He is our Lupe Fiasco only better.” (L Hodson)

“It isn’t that hard to listen into, his words are easy to digest but yet he does touch upon many matters.” (Deano)

So there you have it. Akala is pretty bloody excellent, okay? His new single, XXL, is out on 19th April and it sounds like this.

• XXL by Akala