“Thou shall not watch Hollyoaks”… what? What the fuck else am I meant to do on Sunday mornings while chowing down on cheesy beans on toast – mixed herbs, optional – and nursing something of a foggy head following the, sadly inevitable, x-amount-of tinned lagers and pints of ale consumed the previous evening. I am not settling for Something For The Weekend: that Tim Lovejoy, there’s something about his eyes… vaguely vampiric… like he’d rather bleed Helen Chamberlain dry than go at her in a Nuts-approved manner. Yeah.
But I’m digressing from the point at hand, the point at hand being a hip-hop-styled list-a-load-of-things offering – i.e. a novelty single however you dress it up otherwise – that’s, basically, Baz Luhrmann’s 1999 hit ‘Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)’ for beat-freaks. The more chin-stroking among you might compare ‘Thou Shalt Always Kill’ to LCD Soundsystem’s ‘Losing My Edge’ single of 2002; whatever you choose to reference, this has been done before.
Although its title is provocative, few lyrics on this collaboration ‘tween bearded poet Scroobius Pip and producer Dan Le Sac are anything but lightly titilating – sure, referring to The Clash as “just a band” (and Radiohead, and Oasis, and The Beatles, et cetera...) is sure to stir up some fire in the bellies of pathetically ghettoised NME-target-audience indie kids, but beyond this poking fun at an obvious some there’s nowt here to get one’s knickers in a twist over.
Occasionally Mr Pip gets political – “thou shalt not buy Coca-Cola products, thou shalt not buy Nestle products” – but these references are bleeped out on the radio edit (why?), leaving just that lengthy band-after-band tirade to ruffle the feathers of FM-tuned office workers and evening listeners (Zane Lowe is over this like mumps on an unimmunised infant). Flashes of humour – “thou shalt not question Stephen Fry”; “thou shalt not wish your girlfriend was a freak like me” – do go some way towards balancing out the purposefully annoying bleeps ‘n’ basic beats that comprise Dan Le Sac’s instrumental backdrop, but there is no way that anyone with half a brain could regard this as anything other than a novelty hit, albeit one a good few rungs up the quality ladder from Crazy Frog and its primarily seasonal cronies.
“Thou shalt not stop liking a band just because they have become popular,” instructs Pip early on – on form like this, it’s unlikely he and Le Sac are going to lose a significant percentage of their fanbase anytime soon. And I sure as shit am not gonna stop getting my omnibus fix.
Available to download now, here
LOLZ
that hollyoaks lyric really cut deep didn't it?
Thou
shalt not make repetitive generic music, though shalt not make repetitive generic music, though shalt not make repetitive generic music, though shalt not make repetitive generic music.
True.
i reeeeeeally
really really like this, if only for the line that has a go at chavs saying "iiis iiiit?" all the fucking time.
That's not a chav thing, cheers
sorry
rudeboy thing then?
bored
bored bored of this song now, but i agree with le sac that thou shalt NOT watch hollyoaks... and the sex pistols were just a band
I still love this song
Im just happy that I can still as I dont listen to radio AT ALL anymore. Still it does seem like the most unlikely song to ever get airplay.
Anyone who thinks
this pairing is novelty need to realise they are a legitimate combo with lots of good songs
the beat that my hert skipped
angles
letter from God To Man
for example. Anyone who thought LCD Soundsystem was novelty because of the line 'but have you seen my records...?' Would look rather foolish now would they not?
but it IS novel
going by dictionary definition.
What?
You eat cheesy beans on toast for breakfast on a hangover? fuck me, I bet your toilet gets a right seeing to.
Also, how has this song been done before? I've never heard it before. Maybe it reminds you of songs in the past, but very few things nowadays can be called totally original.
But I do agree, it is a novelty single and is doing nothing more than getting in to our heads and repeating itself, over and over again
decent tune...but gets a bit tedious
Nevertheless.....
"thou shalt not attend an open mic and leave as soon as you've done you're shitty little peom or song you self reighteous prick"
This is a good line
At first it's really
good but after two listens becomes pretty tired. There's some good observations and some poor ones. My favourite is the paedophile one.
In some parts he sounds like Sacha Baron Cohen.
That is all.
Some people are just nice.
Scroobius sounds exactly like Lorenzo
the hairdresser off of Shipwrecked.
Good shout!
He starts off the song sounding like Sacha Baron Cohen and then slowly morphs in to Lorenzo.
Wow
I disagree on this one. It's all about de-deifying legends and empowering the individual! It's not a novelty song at all. It's great.
It's the kinda song
You can only ever listen to twice. I have listened to it twice, I like it. I never want to hear it again.
5/10?
FIVE OUT OF TEN!?
Oh, sod off Granddad. This is vital dance-floor fodder, coupled with tongue-in-cheek, wry wit.
I hope you are commenting with your tongue in cheek
...
ahaha
FIGHT!
but really, each to their own. some are going to take this as a call to arms, others will just see it as repetitive generic music. dance floor fodder, it is, but so's the Locomotion innit.
(but i still love it)
i'm with crabs.
fucking tune. easily more than 5/10.
As ive said before
5/10 is probably quite generous.
The beat is boring and the lyrics are lazy and blah blah blah. Altogether just a lacklustre attempt.
And yeah, its probably just the line about hollyoaks.
but whatevs
Novelty
it may be, but this song as a single is decent. it takes an interesting angle. i enjoy. i think 5 is a tad harsh. only a tad mind
Thou shalt wear sunscreen
"Commandments-based über-tune 'Thou Shalt Always Kill' is already single of the year and it's not even released yet."
So spoketh another DiSer, recently.
Can't stand it personally, but I do get the intro stuck in my head at times.
I'd be very interested to see...
...what some of the DiS lot would make of this song if it hadn't featured in last weeks NME as the 'underground hit of the year'.
Either way, I think the wit of the song and his beard make this better than a 5. But its not going to last. Within a month everyone will be sick of it!
i hate that
the line's about Coca-Cola and Nestle have been bleeped. Whatever happened to freedom of speech?
Good score
I'm glad that not every zine/blog is falling all over this song. It really is quite crap after you listen to it a second or third time.
I thought it was just...
...a bit of fun. Te actual music itself is being over looked because everyone is deciding if they can like it or not because it critisises something they like. It sounds a bit like Gay Against You.
Rah rah rah
But surely..
You can't blame the band because the radio bleep out some of their words.
This is a great single. The fact that it's provoking so many different opinions makes it more interesting than pretty much anything else bothering the charts at the moment.
Plus I love the bit about the open mic line and the bit about not assuming people are paedophiles.
Yes people will get tired of this quickly but at least it isn't boring from the beginning. Good effort.
With regard to the radio bleeping out the words
It depends whether Le Sac/Pip made their own radio edit.
If they did then they have to take responsibility for what's edited out.
This is one of my favourite Mike Diver reviews
I agree with almost every word
I really love this
But I've only heard it once and will probably hate it soon.
One Of Those Songs...
...That although it isn't going to be an all time great it does pick up on a lot of things which people think about on various levels.
Yes they might be just cliche lines to provoke a reaction. Some more deep than others
Don't dislike it but i don't hate it either
agree to disagree
I think 5/10 is generous to say the least. it takes a very obvious stance and I would never describe the beach boys as 'just a band'. at least it's not nu-rave though.
donk
'Thou shall not watch Hollyoaks”… what? What the fuck else am I meant to do on Sunday mornings while chowing down on cheesy beans on toast – mixed herbs, optional'
This point just underlines how shit the world is, if this is your only option on a Sunday morning. 'Mixed herbs - optional'? Fucking hell, man!!
But still, the fact that the Nestle and Coca Cola references are bleeped out makes me annoyed.
Just for the record...
Original inspiration could be Gil Scott-Heron :
The revolution will not go better with Coke. The revolution will not be televised.
Dan's a guy with an opinion - I'd have preferred his name to be Scroobius sac...but that's me.
Very good point
i think the 'just a band' bit is the best bit by the way.
Big fan of this.
But can someone tell me why 'Phoenix' should be spelt 'Pheonix' please?
Anyone else suprised
they mentioned Bloc Party instead of The Libertines given the Libs fans obsessive natures.
i wondered that.
but on the subject of the song, some lines are great, but its inevitable that a song with a forgettable bleep bleep thing and spoken words is not going to get boring after a few listens.
ignore the
not.
also big fan but two listens are enough..
I think cuz everyone pronounces it eo rather than oe and theres no apparent reason it should be spelt oe
to the guy above i don't think there is a gil scott link, he was singing about consumerism in general but le sac has a problem with coke specifically - probably all the colombians they murder
and why would you need hollyoaks when there are perfectly good Sunday morning cartoons to entertain you? Or, if channel 4 is the only working station in the house while hollyoaks is on and you absolutely have to be in front of the tv, clawing out your own eyes?