BakerStreetSaxSolo

and a phenomenal live show on a good day

and they weren't very good. it's been a long, long time since massive attack have done anything particularly good. i suspect their time might be up.

this really deserves a 3, right?

Music criticism is creative writing. Whether it's any good or not, has any influence or not, or is paid or not, there'll always be people who want to do it for their own reasons. Like music itself. The internet aint killing anything.

seeing them in Edinburgh in... 7 hours!

This review looks very similar to one I wrote for The Skinny and published 10 days ago - http://www.theskinny.co.uk/article/45963-broken-records-until-the-earth-begins-to-part

missed Lightning Bolt and Dan Deacon and [ahem] Bloc Party? and Throwing Muses and Sonic Youth? and NEIL YOUNG!? it's almost as if you are schoolboys who make basic positioning errors. But yeah, TPOBPAH were an unexpected highlight, that's true.

it's closer to a 7. Not quite as good as Curses.

I've wrestled with this album for a while and just couldn't wring much out of it. I think you've hit on several good points both in relation to B&S generally and this somewhat unsatisfactory record. Great job!

this is an average album, really don't get the fuss

this is a great article, spot on. It's why everyone here has heard of Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong despite them being really, really bad - because they had a stupid name, because the singer was a bit-part actor in a popular TV show, and because the singer made a tit of himself in interviews = voila, everyone's got an opinion on this thoroughly mediocre band while thousands of other, better bands get ignored.

I actually just wrote a wee thing about how the Bon Iver backstory massively contributed to his success. But it applies to all sorts of musicians - people want authenticity and mystery and intrigue - Robert Johnson at the crossroads anyone? How many times did 50 Cent get shot - everyone repeat after me - NINE TIMES! Labels are now MAKING UP stories for their bands to help the journalists with their angles and therefore to help the band get coverage. It's all a bit shitty for musicians like Kozalek, sorry to say, but if he wants to make a bigger breakthrough he's gotta play the game a bit more.

and a nice article too

but seeing them in Edinburgh confirmed just how godawful they really are.

I know how tempting it is to say - there's thousands of better albums than this out there - but records should be reviewed on their own terms as well. You say it's 'lovely', and you use 'touching melodies' as a negative(!). Her voice is stunning. Granted it's no earthshaker but there are some wonderful moments.

well I got my jacket stolen at a gig at The Caves last week, so that's what cloakrooms are for. Insurance policy.

nice review. Rook is a glorious album.

"dusty"? and "FROM an episode"? and what does "drift outing out" mean?

if I read one more thing about that bloody cabin...! He's hardly the first, it's not the moon it's Wisconsin!

ps they were ace in Edinburgh too.

Third is light years better than most of these other records

"post-dinner" and "Reagan"?

is generous. this is a really weak record. Mr Canning is getting bonus points purely because of his BSS history.

also, I doubt he's in a bath made of money. They may be (pretty much) critical darlings but bands like BSS are still miles away from mainstream-level sales.

"terrorist fist-jab"?

haven't listened to this so can't comment on the analysis (though as TimmyL says most other reviews have been scathing), but reviewers have been continually referencing back to Illmatic for just about every Nas album since. It Was Written, Stillmatic and The Lost Tapes are also all fine records, I wish Nas's career wasn't so continually reduced to just one album.

why isn't [album a] by my favourite [band b] on this list? Who are you, kinda idiots? I can't believe it's not there but then you put [record r] on, why? it's just a token [demographic d] entry anyway! So predictable DiS, I could've predicted [DiS favourites 1-12] would've been on this list, but despite it being 100% predictable I still cannot believe you included [token unheard LP x] instead of [other personal favourite y]!!!!!!

this is a really mediocre album, but the 'Norwegian Wood' cover is one of the few interesting moments on it

is terrible. I've lost hope for Primal Scream.

this is a retarded survey. The people on DiS (who do, presumably, let reviews influence their decision making process) represent a tiny proportion of the record-buying public at large. MOST people use a combination of friends & family recommendations, TV adverts and promotional spots (adverts), radio pub and club airplay to be exposed to and make decisions on music.
Besides, saying people "use internet services like Facebook" is just another way of saying people take recommendations from friends!
It always has been and always will be a minority of music lovers who take critics reviews seriously.

is one of Beck's best albums IMO. You're just being an indie-snob.

Agree with the bones of the Modern Guilt review though.

is quite pish

shits on 2008 from a great height

"Without context the above paragraph no doubt resembles the semi-intoxicated rant of an ageing, snotty-nosed hack whose idea of fun is slurping coffee on a Sunday morning while trawling through the entirety of Etta James’ back catalogue"

and that would be TOTALLY misleading, eh Billy?

I thought I'd left a comment here
;-)
yeah, nice review, looking forward to seeing them/hearing the LP

"a noisier version of LC"?

good god what have you done

but I did quite like Milkwhite Sheets, and seem to recall dishing it out a crumb or three. So you're wrong! Didn't you check EVERY SINGLE REVIEW!? that's what I call lazy journalism tsk tsk ;-)

1. "...with ACTUAL, SCIENTIFIC PROOF that hip hip – along with..."
where are your copy-editors?
2. "Glasgow University reckons hip hop and rap – those separate entities so lumpenly foisted together by middle-aged, white journalists"
hip-hop and rap *as genres* ARE the same. Obviously it is possible to rap (verb) in a non-hiphop song (nu-metal etc), and it is possible to sing (not rap) in hip-hop. Also, hip-hop culture encompasses more than just rapping or rap music. But when people talk of 'rap music' as a genre they are not referring to Linkin Park - they are referring to hip-hop music. 'rap music' is just an archaic term for hip-hop (since hip-hop was the first kind of music to predominate rapping).

yes?

Thou Shall Not Kill is fucking atrocious so a 1/10 is not a surprise.

of trivializing teenage depression"

cheer up love, you'll be fine when you finally get yer hole

it's not just like Rihanna. she has a point. she's obviously gone a bit sensational with the OTT racism game, but it is lazy and stereotypical.

and it's not tat either, bloody eck

well made

it read more like a 2/5, actually, because I had such high hopes, all that I could think to say was criticism.

the new album, very much.

really disappointed me. If a record is "so ...subtle...it could take weeks, months, or even years to [fully get]", isn't that a BAD thing? Who's got the time to spend months or years on one album, hoping to hear more? I played this on the best audio equipment I could find (i.e. my own) but after 6 or 7 listens there wasn't actually anything new coming out - it's dense, yes, but not clear, it's muffled so that you DON'T hear new aspects of the mix on further listens. That's either poor production (inexcusable), or an attempt to obscure lesser 'songs' with different shades of noise. Or a bit of both.

And I really wanted to love (or even like) this, because FH:FF is one of my favourite records of the decade so far.

why is it used as a pejorative? Don't people like coffee? Don't people need tables upon which to place their coffee cups?
same with "dinner party". Do people not enjoy dinner parties?

about 160kb MP3s being 'sub-standard' is hilarious. Nobody bitched about 128k MP3s when they first came out. But now, since memory got a lot cheaper and smaller and everyone's got more gigabytes than hairs on their heads, suddenly everyone has become an audiophile!

that last track is totally brilliant!

this is a fantastic album, far more dubby than MIA, and why does she have to push envelopes? Isn't dub a rare enough trope in 'indie' (whatever that means) these days than any appearance should be enough? Notice how singer-songwriters never get accused of being derivative because their style of music is considered naturalistic, whereas something like this is demanded to be different from anything remotely similar before it because it is somehow 'other'? I mean - so she's similar to one other prominent artist - who the feck isn't? Execution is far more important than stylistic origin, and this is executed really, really well IMO.

very short album, only half an hour.

but very good, 8/10 for me.

that looks quite good, but #105? really?

i think festivals are getting too greedy

...references? this must be a Nick Southall write-up!

nah it's very good Nick, agree with a lot of it though I feel a lot stronger about the LP generally and would give it 10/10 (even though it's not faultless - second song is rather weak, for example, and two songs have very unsatisfactory endings). But great art doesn't need to be faultless.

I'm sure 'soundtrack to a genuinely chilling sci-fi horror film' is approximately something I've said before about Third, re 'Machine Gun', 'We Carry On', and 'Threads' in particular - the climax to 'Threads' is like the day The Triffids arrive in town (not David McComb).

and remember Vashti Bunyan! She wins the comeback prize.

they have 'done a radiohead' because they're offering a special #40 box-set on their website. But it's only, like, the vinyl, a USB with the digital files, exclusive artwork, and not much more, so you don't get a lot for the roughly #30 or so extra it costs over just the CD/vinyl.

think it'll be Kraftwerk --> Portishead --> Prince on the Saturday night

ommfgblngdbhasfloshgfsgdabnsiohgf

but isnt #125 a bit much for this?

still, Grace Jones would be AH MAY SIN

bubble has hardly burst when we're all agreed it will still definitely sell out 180,000 tickets. It has sold 150,000 already, which was its full capacity up until last year.

I think we're just seeing a slight 'correction' to the market which has been going silly for the last few years to try to provide for a seemingly insatiable demand for festivals. That one that was cancelled yesterday for only selling 87 tickets shows that we've reached saturation.

Glasto also suffers from lots of mud, yes, and for the cost more and more people are looking abroad for 'guaranteed' sunshine. Like me!