Shake It Off by Taylor Swift - Reviewed

No time like the present eh? So I see this come up in my twitter feed...

Taylor Swift actually has a long history of trying to rap... http://t.co/xsAqovBmxo pic.twitter.com/w5JBwBMCTC

— Huffington Post (@HuffingtonPost) August 19, 2014

I thought 'oh, ok' out of morbid curiousity I have to have a look at this: Taylor Swift's new song; and lamentably there will be no hipping and hopping on this sick beat.

In spite of not only being a Taylor Swift song, but also being possibly the most obnoxious song I've heard in a good long while; I really like it. It's uptempo, in-your-face and ridiculously catchy and that's about all there is to it; I'm a little apprehensive of saying this, but I think it's the case that the catchiness that gets Taylor off the hook for goofy lines like: 'The haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate hate'. To criticise the outlandish lyrics would be to completely miss the point and take the song too seriously; this is a song that falls into the same category as Happy by Pharrell Williams and Friday by Rebecca Black: infectiously memorable and simply about having fun.

The only thing I'm going to say holds the song back is the uncomfortable talking part in the middle: very reminiscent of Girlfriend by Avril Lavigne and Hollaback Girl by Gwen Stefani. In fact, I'd go as far as saying the ostentatiousness turned up to 11 feel was what Gwen was going for, but it fails as a song by not being playful at the same time. And I'm not sure what it is about awkward mini-monologues mid-song that Taylor insists on, I've already mentioned this on the blog before here. Nonetheless it's good to see Taylor not taking herself too seriously and laughing at herself as opposed to whining about various subject matter in frequently insecure appearance.

It's already got well over 13 million views and it was uploaded under two days ago at time of writing, my hope is it doesn't suffer the dreaded death by overplay, I fear this song may become inescapable and wear thin fairly quickly; at the moment though I am hopeful that this song will have a pretty good lifespan.

Hurt: What's the Best Version?

So the song Hurt, just about everyone knows it, and it ranks very highly in my favourite songs lyrically. There is one thing I struggle to put my finger on however; that is what is the best version of the song? There has been a number of strikingly distinct renditions of the song and making a decision as to which treats the lyrics better is indeed difficult. If you look at any version's youtube video the comment section is packed with disagreement over who performed the superior rendition, and in typical youtube comment section fashion, the discussion is completely sophomoric, so here's my thoughts in a little more detail on the who did it best.

To begin with let's talk about the original by Nine Inch Nails, written by lead singer Trent Reznor. It deals with the isolation felt within the grip of heroin addiction and self-harm and the feeling of all internal value being dismissed one way or another. The lyrics' sheer bleakness is matched by sparse atmospheric instrumentation and a beat with real impact on the chorus, almost like its begging for some kind of breakthrough to the solitude. What brings the whole song together is the way he Reznor goes high on the chorus putting desperate emphasis onto the words 'You could have it all, my empire of dirt, I will let you down, I will make you hurt', driving home the image of the singer as a liability: no good to himself and no good to anyone else, expecting nothing less than desertion.


Right off the bat I'm going to upset a few people by saying that the best version is quite certainly not the Johnny Cash cover from American IV in 2002; there are few songs for which we can say the cover is better than the original and I'm afraid this is not one of them. I speak as a big fan of Cash (who himself was no stranger to addiction), of course it is such a significant song looking back at his life: it's gone down as his epitaph, being released so close to his death. As well as this the video is so touching, filmed in his own home, it reflects the pain in the lyrics being taking form in Johnny's grief for his wife June, and as the closing of the piano lid at its conclusion is such a fitting farewell for the music legend we call The Man In Black. While I (as well as Reznor himself) consider the changing of 'crown of shit' to 'crown of thorns' in the second verse a more fitting, thoughtful idea; Johnny's age really shows in his vocals, staying flat in the chorus is a lot to lose for the progression of the song, no less the lack of time taken to build the song, the tempo ought to evoke lethargy rather than the usual cadence one would expect from a country record.


David Bowie joined NIN for the performance of Hurt at then end of their set before playing his own as they opened for him in 1996. There's two things about this version that make it stand out, one is the all new guitar riff to introduce the song, adding another edge to the song. The second is the harmony that Bowie provides on the chorus making the words flow in much more melodic fashion.


The piano based version from the Beside You In Time live film; if you prefer piano to guitar then this bonus will probably be preferable, that's more of an arbitrary preference though. Another benefit of a live version to this particular song is how authentic Reznor's vocals sound to the mood of the song, sounding somewhat tired and out of breath toward the end of the set. Another difference between this and the studio is the conclusion is cleaner and for my money is an improvement as opposed to the distortion of the original, meaning the whole band coming in on the last line has more impact.


So it turns out Leona Lewis covered this song. Wait, what? No and no. Leona Lewis voice does not fit this song whatsoever, and the production sounds daft; it would fit your average Leona Lewis song but does not match the decorum a song such as Hurt merits. Also most of the second verse and chorus is cut for some reason. Honestly, it's as baffling a choice for a cover version as you'd expect, and given its shoehorning into Lewis' style, you have to wonder why they bothered.


Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam performed the song live in Chicago in 2008. Sadly it's surprisingly unremarkable, recommended only if you really enjoy the sound of his voice. Depending upon the acoustic guitar put's him right up against Cash, and he's someone difficult to beat when that's all you have with your vocals.


It is thanks to my good pal Ben that I heard the version reimagined by choral composer Eric Whitacre at Union Chapel in London a few weeks back and good grief does it capture the haunting nature of the song. The last few lines are dropped, but that can be forgiven, seeing as it takes the best part of seven minutes.


I'm inclined to say this version from the Vevo Presents concert is my personal favourite. The ethereal feel of the chorus really appeals to me, and there's something about that slightly quirky sounding piano coming in on the chorus that sounds beautiful. With this and the retention of all the benefits of the Beside You In Time version, here is the best version of Hurt by Nine Inch Nails.

Some Good, Some Bad: World Cup Songs

With the World Cup in Brazil just around the corner I thought it's time to review some of the football songs we've had over the years that surround the major football tournaments.

New Order - World In Motion
1990 was a very important year in rap music: Ice-T and Run DMC were still going strong, Public Enemy dropped Fear of a Black Planet, Ice Cube released his first solo album after breaking with N.W.A. and England winger John Barnes of all people did his part for one of the country's best loved football anthems. It's not just the rap (that people drunkenly try to sing along to every two years) that makes this song iconic, it's a great mix of New Order's dance sound and a good old-fashioned football match sing-along, either way it's very catchy and easy to sing along to.


Baddiel & Skinner and The Lightning Seeds
Like New Order, a song very heavily influenced by its time, with The Lightning Seeds providing a britpop backdrop. What makes it really great is it captures perfectly what it means to be an England fan, being let down time and again but still believing that they can redeem themselves at the next tournament and emulate the heroes of '66.

Both the '96 and '98 versions got to #1, it turns out it's one of only two songs that has reached the top of the charts twice with different lyrics; the other you ask? Mambo No. 5, originally by Lou Bega, covered by Bob the Builder.

Pitbull ft. Jennifer Lopez - We Are One (Ole Ola)
No...not you two again. why do Pitbull and Jennifer Lopez have to keep getting together for pop songs? I've complained about 'On The Floor' and 'Dance Again' before on this blog and it looks like I have to cover them again. For goodness sake it is no surprise that Pitbull has landed himself the job of singing the official World Cup song being the generic, corporate muppet that he is. The title says it all to be honest, it's a song that is so hopelessly trying to be memorable and inviting all to sing along that it falls flat on its face, that and there's always the problem of Pitbull writing lyrics. I don't think I'll mind hearing it on TV too much this year though: the obligatory samba backdrop for the song makes it at least passable in spite of whatever the featured artists could do.


442 - Come On England
Now right off the bat I'll come out and say I don't really like 'Come On Eileen' by Dexy's Midnight Runners but this song is egregious on possibly every level. New Order mixed in a few words from Kenneth Wolstenholme's legendary commentary in '66, Baddiel and Skinner had a bit more commentary and pundit quotes from the 90s for their introduction; but 45 seconds of unbroken commentary of David Beckham's free-kick vs. Greece in 2001 is just awkward. Add to that the crime of shoehorning lyrics into a popular song means the song is like a carcrash, you want to look away but you just can't. The video also includes the singer repeatedly committing the offence of getting far too close to the camera while pulling gawky smiles as he sings the words, almost as if he knows how bad the song is already.

Bottom 10 Christmas Songs

This time last year I offered my favourite Christmas songs here, this year it's time for me to be more of a grouch and complain.

10. I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday - Wizzard
Surely there could be nothing more egregious than such a marvellous day becoming prosaic through having to live it every day over and over, probably exchanging presents with Ned Ryerson if you catch my drift.


9. All I Want For Christmas Is You - Mariah Carey
Three Words: Death. By. Overplay. And that's only from hearing it one month a year.

8. Merry Christmas Everybody - Slade
A Brummie yelling 'It's Christmas' is no way to start anything, no less one of the most pervasive Christmas songs.

7. Stop the Cavalry - Jona Lewie
In the world of the anti-war Christmas songs, this is blown out of the water by McCartney and Lennon respectively. A rare hit for Lewie whose next greatest hit is called 'You'll Always Find Me in the Kitchen at Parties'.


6. Christmas Wrapping - The Waitresses
Infectiously irritating and somehow manages to take over five minutes to ram together a number of Christmas cliches.

5. Stay Another Day - East 17
If a Mariachi band from a Doritos advert can make a better version of your song than your attempt, then you ought be feeling remorseful. Moreover this isn't even a Christmas song, the only reason it's considered one is because of the bells added towards the end and the snow on the video: shameless.


4. Once Upon A Christmas Song - Geraldine McQueen
Being a Boltonian, I run the risk of being lynched for criticizing my hometown's state religion. But seriously, Peter Kay, in drag, singing, a parody about how Christmas songs are played ad nauseum in hope that it can share the same status; there really isn't a way it could be found enjoyable. Even Dennis Waterman showed a comedy Christmas song can be done, and no, that isn't London embarassingly rubbing off on me.


3. Fairytale of New York - The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl
The song that keeps Shane MacGowan in supply of drugs for another year; the cynic in me says one of the main reasons this song is popular is the fact it gives people an opportunity to shout the line 'you scumbag, you maggot, you cheap, lousy faggot'. That and anything with New York in the title cannot possibly be good, no exceptions, I'll maybe be persuaded into accepting 'Leaving New York', but you can't usually talk me out of R.E.M.


2. Mistletoe and Wine - Cliff Richard
It's sad that the genius behind one of my favourite Christmas songs managed to also be the source of this atrocious malaise through the most banal aspects of the festive season. It's been said before, but hey, I may as well say it: Gifts ON the trees?? We all know you can do better than that Cliff!

1. Lonely This Christmas - Mud
Commits some major high crimes and misdemeanours found in Christmas music. It's by a band who no-one has heard much of apart from their Christmas song. As a song, it's nothing to do with Christmas really, there's just Christmas references shoehorned in. The worst offence is that it's so ridiculously downbeat; come on, it's Christmas not a funeral: lighten up already!

If you'd prefer a more somber Christmas song, how about a cut from the classic Who album Tommy:


I wish it was January 2nd already. Season's Greetings.

Portishead, Sonic Youth, Cherry Ghost, Delphic: More Album Reviews

Third - Portishead
So for the sake of completing my triumvirate of reviews for the Bristol group's three albums, my thoughts on Third. Compared with the other two LPs this has a much more varied, experimental theme; particularly producing more industrial feeling sounds. For instance if you like beeping to introduce a song (which I'll accept won't be found be melodic by everybody) you'll love 'We Carry On' and 'Magic Doors'. At only 93 seconds long, the folkish 'Deep Water' is certainly an odd fixture in the album in between 'We Carry On' and the anthemic 'Machine Gun' but such variety is idiosyncratic of Portishead, who with all of these boxes ticked still find time to close with a return to classic trip-hop form with closer 'Threads,' which could be a James Bond theme in my opinion, but having said that there's a litany of things which would be better than Adele's and Jack White's recent attempts. 'Silence' introduces the album with an immense buildup moving from drums to an alarm like eeping into strings and guitars. This progressive sound creates a spectacularly ominous atmosphere, nearly everything drops for the desolate and shaky vocals of Beth Gibbons for a verse until the two duel for the rest of the song.


Goo - Sonic Youth
It was always going to be difficult to follow up one of alternative rock's most esteemed albums in 'Daydream Nation' but to me, 'Goo' surpasses it, channelling longer songs like 'Teenage Riot' rather than the short, impactful songs like 'Silver Rocket.'
If Thurston Moore would have died after the recording of this album I have no doubt he would be the revered icon that Kurt Cobain is in alternative music (particularly having married Kim Gordon as opposed to Courtney Love), but like Stewart Lee discussing Bill Hicks: the hardest thing is to put out new stuff every year, gradually decreasing the quality of your own obituary.

Having said that there's shorter cacophanous interludes like 'My Friend Goo' and 'Scooter + Jinx' that are just odious and don't connect the more moderate, tolerable noise rock moments that make up the fabric of the longer tracks. The first two tracks sound really sweet; the delicate opening riff from 'Dirty Boots' and 'Tunic (Song for Karen)' which despite opening with a stabbing guitar vibe winds down into a settled song with Kim describing Karen Carpenter in Heaven with Elvis, Janis Joplin and Dennis Wilson. My pick of the album is 'Mote' which has a wonderfully intense atmosphere and is one of the rarer moments when Lee Ranaldo leads; an anthem in its first half and a descent into a chaotic noise rock instrumental in its second.


Beneath This Burning Shoreline - Cherry Ghost
The second album from the Boltonian band led by Ivor Novello award winner Simon Aldred, 'Beneath This Burning Shoreline' revisits the feel of the tenebrous Northern town that made 'Thirst For Romance' a success. Again Aldred has an effective poetic style and unusual imagery such as in 'Black Fang' the lyric 'Be my backstreet kisser and I will be your Golden Mile' is not only evocative, but conveys something ineluctably Northern also(the Golden Mile being part of the beach front in Blackpool to those eluded by that reference); the inertia in life's progression being an essential trope in the fabric of the LP. 'The Night They Buried Sadie Clay' paired with the next track 'My God Betrays' is the most caliginous corner on the album, describing the eponymous woman being found cold with a bottle by her bed, in dire contrast to the titilation experienced from the briefest intimate encounters experienced in youth and the 'done for dream' mentioned later on again touching on the near-futile attempts to escape isolation heard throughout the album.


Collections - Delphic
Delphic's debut 'Acolyte' is an album I very much enjoy, so when I got 'Collections' I had high hopes and was lamentably disappointed. To me the energy that characterised their first LP just isn't heard here, the longest song (Atlas) is only 6:05 and doesn't build up to anything; when the lyrics aren't too strong, they really haven't given much to carry the album and this happens far to many times. There are still some cool sounds to be found listening to this, 'Baiya' being a cool pop track, scratching the itch that 'Doubt' did last time around.
'Memeo' is easily one of the most pleasant things I've heard in recent memory and ought to be longer than three and a half minutes.

Bottom 10 '13 Part 2

4. Blurred Lines - Robin Thicke feat. Pharrell and T.I.
As fun as it is to have a catchy bit of bass and to shout 'Hey Hey Hey' at the end of every line, for me it's not enough to save this cut from the bawdy, poor man's Justin Timberlake that is Robin Thicke. I can't tell you why Pharrell Williams keeps showing up in things as if it's 2003, particularly seeing as he doesn't contribute anything substantial to the song and only seems to be there because the name power of Robin Thicke and T.I. isn't good enough. As for Robin himself, he comes across as a complete and total jerk (takes one to know one eh?), largely because of the video. Not only for slapping hashtags cheaply over the top of the video but also having an array of balloons spelling out that a certain part of his body is sizeable. And then there's having the creepy refrain of 'You're a good girl, I know you want it' as women wearing very little indeed dance around him in the MV. Now I'm not going to rant on feminism, misogyny or daterape as there's people far more qualified on the subject who have already written way more eloquently than I could. Not much of a denouement but I hope we don't have a song so pervasive with such a seedy theme.

3. Started From The Bottom - Drake
This is a song I still struggle to believe anyone actually likes, it has no retaining features whatsoever! The beat isn't catchy at all and is matched by Drake lackadaisically repeating the utterance 'Started from the bottom now we're here.' In spite of this some of the lyrics are really evocative, I personally have utmost sympathy for him having arguments with his parents, encountering traffic on the way home from work and having an uncle who'd lend him his car (which turns out to be a Lexus by the way), why it was so bad he wears his chains even when he's at home so he can remind himself he's rich. In fact, in case you didn't know, Drake has a great deal of money and has good friends and dislikes his haters, but if you've heard anything else from his back catalogue you already know that. At this rate if this is your only reason for rapping, should I be expecting Bill Gates to turn up on this list next year?

2. Heatwave - Wiley
I seem to remember 'Heatwave' escaped last years list by only a few days so here it is this year. What really gets on my nerves about Wiley is he has such a limited ability to rhyme: Case in point: in the first three lines he rhymes the word 'day' three times, which is about as lazy as when Chris Brown rhymed 'dick' three times in 'Look at me Now' or when our beloved Pitbull memorably rhymed 'Kodak' with 'Kodak' in 'Give Me Everything.' But what can you rhyme Kodak with? Kojak? Prozac? It's somewhat understandable with a word like Kodak but are you going to tell me Wiley couldn't think of anything to rhyme with 'day'? And it's the same throughout the song rhyming 'them' with 'then' with 'heatwave' with 'them' and 'road' with 'road' with 'flavours' with 'zone'. Not to sound cynical but is Wiley just trying to write an annoying phrase repeated over a partyish beat in hope that it'll stick in the heads of slow people for a short while?

1. Walks Like Rihanna - The Wanted
Now I could criticize this song for its video which is a mix of amateurish shooting and acting and ripping off 90s boybands or for its insipid, generic music or the asinine verses and that's as well as may be, but as is the growing theme on this half of the list, the lyrics are what will condemn this song. And all it takes is the chorus for me which has to go down as one of the most ill-thought utterances anyone has made for a long time:

'She can't sing'
Well that's not the most polite thing you could say of someone, I mean even if she's tone deaf you couldn't protect her feelings could you?

'She can't dance'
I don't profess to be an expert on how the fairer sex thinks, but how can saying such a thing be taken well? You're ostensibly saying this woman is a bumbling oaf.

'But who cares?'
Ah! So there's something positive...

'She walks like Rihanna'
Of every conceivable compliment you could give to someone, I struggle to imagine a less effectual one. For a start how many times have you heard a guy say his favourite thing about his best gal is her walk? There's been many a romantic ballad talking about eyes, lips, hair or clothes, and if we must there's plenty of stuff out there about understandable yet more visceral body parts which you can imagine for yourself. As well, of all people that you could reference, does Rihanna even merit a cultural reference such as this? Does she even have that distinctive a walk as opposed to anyone else in the public eye? And is that what anyone thinks of as characteristic of her? Could this be a backhanded compliment given that Rihanna is meant to have serious alcohol/drugs problems? Are we back to using this song as a vehicle for calling a woman a buffoon? Notwithstanding all of these things, this is what sums up the song for The Wanted or whoever their handlers are. That's what makes it the worst song of the year and #1 on this year's list.

So there you have it, my hostility towards music assuaged another year.

Bottom 10 '13

10. Power - Kanye West
Not too bad a song, so why does it appear here? Someone as good at sampling as Kanye, completely wasting the use of one of the best songs ever in King Crimson's '21st Century Schizoid Man' is a crime that cannot go unpunished.


9. Five Years' Time - Noah and the Whale
An insipid, flat track which I hold somewhat responsible for allowing ukeleles to get a foot back into the door of modern music; they belong with George Formby, in Hawaii and nowhere else in my book.

8. Home - Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
It has a lot of asinine whistling, it has an ill-thought-out, generic, country-sounding opening line, it's been played relentlessly on an advert. Alabama and Arkansas aren't even next to each other, and Arkansas rhyming with 'Ma and Pa' is just gorky. Never stood a chance with me really.

7. One More Night - Maroon 5
The Adam Levine Experience have never really matched the quality of their debut 'Songs About Jane' and now the other 4 members of the band seem like they're going along for the ride and as well they might given the chart success of releases like 'Moves Like Jagger.' With there being nothing to this song but some unenthusiastic oohing and lyrics about reluctantly getting back with an ex I'm not sure what you could do to make it more bland and anonymous. What's even more perplexing is that such a song kept a song as fun as Gangnam Style off the top off the Billboard Charts. Yet another reason we're better than the US, we sure didn't make that mistake. At any rate, it's a real shame we didn't get more of this from Maroon 5:


6. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together - Taylor Swift
And now, from the completely passive to the actively irritating. There's the awkward phone call in the middle of the song, there's the horrid sounding high-pitched 'Weeee!' in the chorus, there's the chunky, unmelodic endings to each line of the verses and there's the cranky, juvenile and somewhat spiteful register of Swift herself. All this does is undermine the effectiveness of what a breakup song is trying to achieve, can you really see whoever it's directed to saying to themselves 'Well damn, that sure put me in my place, such a shame she's so reluctant to take me back'?

5. Scream and Shout - will.i.am
It really is surprising how many grating sounds and choruses will.i.am has been able to fashion over the past few years, from the horrific sounds of 'The Time' which won it a place on this list two years ago, to his butchering of The Buggles 'Video Killed the Radio Star' on 'Check It Out' and the trying repetition of the words 'Tell me where'd you get your body from' in 'I Got It From My Mama'. Moreover, in that last song he dragged Gwen Stefani down to his 'stars that couldn't help will.i.am to a hit club' which lamentably boasts Mick Jagger as a member. 'Scream and Shout' is perhaps the worst offender yet: a mess featuring a dull bassline, too much autotune and an uncharacteristic performance from Britney Spears. Aside from the logistical problem of turning up a song in the club, the lyrics are a hodgepodge of used pop music clichés, most noticeably to me 'Shout' by Tears for Fears and 'All Eyez on Me' by 2pac. The other thing that bothers me about will.i.am (and plenty other pop artists by the way) is how much he says he rocks (and rolls) when he's nowhere near either. Unfortunately I doubt there's the slightest bit of self-awareness when he sings 'It goes on and on and on' but then again can a machine experience self-awareness or comprehend irony? I'll leave you to ponder that while I write up my top 4 least favourite songs for this year.