There’s a lot to be said for honest-to-goodness, old-fashioned misanthropy. Face pressed up against the glass, peering in on the Cratchit’s idyllic Christmas dinner scene, Ebenezer Scrooge failed to recognise what any self-respecting sneerer would tell you in an instant, which is that secretly, the Cratchits all hated each other. They’d just learned to grin and get on with it.
Scrooge: what a fucking lightweight.
With that in mind you might want to consider the fact that choppy-fringed warbler Adele’s ‘Chasing Pavements’ is still loitering at number two in the singles chart this week, like some annoying childhood trip to a garden centre on a Sunday afternoon.
Basshunter’s ‘Now You’re Gone’ clings to the top spot like jism to the bathtub sides – one might imagine (I am actually horrified by this language – Ed) – while there’s cause for rejoicing at six where Hot Chip’s magnificent ‘Ready For The Floor’ makes its entrance.
There’s more top ten action, too, with One Night Only rivalling Beckett in the ‘odes to meaninglessness’ stakes with ‘Just For Tonight’ up 40 places to nine. There’s a weird man hanging around at number ten with the utterly bizarre ‘Sun Goes Down’, his name is David Jordan and he keeps asking me if I want a sweetie.
More than a few eyebrows have been raised about Vampire Weekend’s collegiate Afro warbling by now, but fuck it, they’re ace – so melodic! And so cleanly produced! ‘A Punk’ goes in at 67, FYI and that. Here is a nice review for you to cast an eye over.
Speaking of which, ver Weekend's self-titled debut going in at 22 on the album charts is a pretty sterling effort. Not as sterling as Adele, though, whose 19 makes a hefty splash in at number one.
If music has a top then The Mars Volta go way over it, but the top 40 proves a peak too far as fourth album The Bedlam In Goliath debuts at number 42. Sons And Daughters, meanwhile, fail to reap the rewards for the poppier sound debuted on This Gift, which goes in at 62. And all this in spite of two thumbs up from DiS. Ts, and indeed, k.