Oxford’s Foals are a strange sort of band. When they broke through with the energy-filled Mathletics, they were undoubtedly a math-rock band. This is was a theme that was continued well into their debut album Antidotes, a masterpiece in the trademark staccato guitar work of that genre. However for their follow-up, Total Life Forever, they shifted their style to a more wafty, anthemic sound, exemplified by their slow-burning hit single Spanish Sahara.
Having escaped the perils of “second album syndrome” though, it was always going to be interesting to see how they approached their brand new third album, especially as their previous critical acclaim and live prowess hadn’t seemed to quite fire them into the public domain thusfar.
Holy Fire starts with a proggy four-minute instrumental, resembling a showcase of the band’s individual abilities. You half expect singer Yannis Philippakis to start saying things like “On bass, Mr Walter Gervers…” before the four-string lick starts, but it’s an instrumental… Then the fun really starts as the pizzicato guitar work of excellent lead single Inhaler (below) kicks in, joined as it in by a crescendo preceding the bombastic blast of a chorus, before we go back to the prog-funk.
And that really best sums the band up. They still have their roots in the math-rock they started with, but have sucked up influences from funk (My Number) as well as the anthemic emotional rock of their second album. This album gathers all the elements of their previous efforts and mashes them all together. It might not be perfect, but when it works it is superb.
Foals continue to be the thinking man’s Friendly Fires, the connoisseur’s Delphic and one of the UK’s most inventive bands. Long may it continue.
“Who is this Monet whose name sounds just like mine and who is taking advantage of my notoriety?” said Edouard Manet in 1865. I remember being a fledgling art history student and thinking almost the opposite: “Who is this Manet whose name sounds just like one of the few artists I’ve actually heard of?” Bloody confusing for any AS Level pupil. Still, at least Monet and Manet were actually spellable, unlike old Bruna… Broonalesski… Brunelleschi… or whatever that bloke who built that dome in Florence is called. Unlike other Renaissance masters like Leonardo et al, he probably failed to become one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles because his name was too unspellable.
Then we discovered Manet, to confuse matters further, became friends with Monet and they even painted pictures of each other; Monet by Manet, Manet by Monet etc. Oh, for the love of…
Anyway, I digress. The purpose of this blog is to tell you all about Edouard Manet, the ‘Father of Modernism’, whose work forms the basis for the superb show on at The Royal Academy at the moment. He gets the quotation marks around his ‘Father of Modernism’ because he’s often attributed that label, and like many sensationalised titles or style-labels, I’m not sure it’s particularly helpful. But rather than dwell on that, let’s state what is true, which is that he was certainly a pioneer for the modern age.
His bold painting style, unafraid to do something as academically frowned-upon as painting thin black outlines round his figures, or leaving areas of his canvases ‘unfinished’, riled many of the more traditional members of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. But often more problematic for them, was his subject matter, which depicted a reality that he saw, rather than an ideal that the institution wanted to see. His Street Singer of 1862, on display here, is a great example of this. Depicted is a life-sized portrait of an ordinary, working woman. The Académie would have had issue with this for a number of reasons, not just with her ordinariness; wearing street costume and holding the instruments of her trade, but also the fact that it has been created on scale normally reserved for historical figures or members of the aristocracy.
There is also a smaller version of his Le déjeuner sur l’herbe (Lunch on the grass), which along with Olympia (not present) is his most famous work. He could have depicted a nude in the surrounding landscape and the Academy would have appreciated its association with masters like Titian and Ingres. But, by placing her with two fully dressed gentlemen, who barely notice her as she directly confronts us with her gaze, he created uproar amongst the critics. If viewing this in 1863, their contemporary clothing and the recognisable faces of the artist’s brother and future brother-in-law would reinforce the notion that we were not looking at a classic, but something very modern. The close proximity of the figures and the suggestive fruit with cherries spilt out onto the leafy ground provides us with an obvious sexual message; ‘all most shocking’ the Académie might say.
Manet was no stranger to controversy as the title of this show recognises: ‘Portraying Life’. In my last blog, I mentioned the hierarchy of genres, which the art academies of Europe set in order to formalise an approach to governing the cultural value of a painting. And this exhibition demonstrates successfully that Manet wasn’t afraid to flirt with the boundaries of these categories and it isn’t clear whether we’re looking at a genre painting or a portrait.
Throughout the show we see many of his family and circle of friends, whom he used as his models. The beautiful painting of a pouting Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets, wearing a black hat and clothing, is powerfully juxtaposed against a painting of the same sitter in mourning after the death of her father. Both portraits use black extensively; a colour the Academy believed should never be used.
Sometimes Manet catches the identity of his sitter, and sometimes he deliberately chooses not to, as with the portrait of one of his greatest supporters, Emile Zola. He reads a discourse on Goya and Velasquez (two of Manet’s greatest influences), there are Japanese wall hangings and prints (another source of influence for the artist), a book on Manet written by Zola, and a drawing of his infamous Olympia – the portrait of Zola is more about the artist than the sitter.
We see the different guises of Victorine Meurent, his favourite model. In The Railway, rather than being about her, she is part of a very modern scene, which baffled critics. They failed to understand why Manet had abandoned traditional depth in space and given such prominence to the wrought-iron railings and the volumes of steam produced by a recently departed train from the Gare Saint-Lazare. Now, of course, we know of it as one of the great images of modernity, just as we know Edouard Manet as one of the great painters of modernity.
Manet: Portraying Life is at The Royal Academy until 14th April
It’s the phenomenon that has swept the nation, it’s the longest-running musical in history, it’s the UK’s number 1 film. Of course, I speak of Les Miserables, as last night I finally got round to seeing the movie version of the story and I have to say I was quietly impressed.
To add a bit of background to this claim: I have , surprisingly perhaps, always been a massive fan of Les Mis. I say surprisingly, because I absolutely detest musicals. There’s something so toe-curlingly naff about them. I’ve been to Chicago, I’ve seen Cats, I’ve watched Kiss Me Kate, I’ve even survived the stage version of Mama Mia, even if it did involve months of post-traumatic therapy to fully do so.
Les Mis is an anomaly. It is in a totally different class to all those other examples. For a start, the songs are, in the main, phenomenal. The others are disposable bubblegum pop. Rogers and Hammerstein are the Stock, Aitkin and Waterman of the stage in my mind, while Gilbert & Sullivan are sort of twee and camp. A bit like, say, Mika.
Conversely, Les Mis is Pink Floyd. It contains moments of genuine musical beauty. Songs like Stars, On My Own and the much celebrated I Dreamed A Dream are genuinely fantastic solo songs. Then you have the ensemble numbers such as One Day More, Look Down and At The End Of The Day. It is a great and, dare I say it, enormously emotional story told through the medium of outstanding music.
Bottom line is that I liked it so much that I have seen and loved it three times. But enough of a eulogy, that was the play, what of the film?
My guess is that, from director Tom Hooper’s point of view, my situation as such an ardent fan of the stage version made me both the target audience but also potentially one of the harshest critics. As any director who makes a bad superhero film inevitably discovers, you fuck with someone’s beloved franchise at your own peril.
To look at the broader aspects of the film, such as location and casting, they had done a decent job. The sets were pretty spot-on, while on the whole the actors looked the part. From Russell Crowe’s rough, officious Inspector Javert to Eddie Redmayne’s weedy, starry-eyed romantic, Marius, all of the actors were well picked for the characters they portrayed. This would, however be overlooking one hugely important aspect of this film as a musical – the singing.
Please just speak the words, Hugh…
I had, prior to going, tried to limit my exposure to critical reception for the film, as it can inevitably cloud your judgement of any art form. Many of my favourite albums have been critically panned, for example. I had however heard that Russell Crowe had taken a bit of stick in the press, which in hindsight I thought might have been slightly unfair. On the whole he sings his songs relatively well and crucially with an air of realism. I thought the worst offenders in the singing department were Hugh Jackman, who acted quite beautifully but was let down by a severe lack of depth in his voice, and Eddie Redmayne, who perpetually looked like if he tried any harder to hit a note, his head might explode.
But enough of the negatives and a huge positive came in the performance of Anne Hathaway in the role of the doomed Fantine. Hathaway has sold her soul to Satan. Or something like that. There really is no other explanation for how sharply she has turned her career round. What began with Princess Diaries and Bride Wars, to name but a few abominations, has somehow morphed into first her film-saving performance in Dark Knight Rises, and now this. The girl can certainly act, but crikey she can sing too, adding genuine lump-in-throat passion to her I Dreamed A Dream.
Additional kudos came in the form of Samantha Barks as Eponine, who cheated a bit by actually having played the role on stage beforehand, while Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter provided light relief from the atrocities as the comically deviant Thenardiers (one of the few roles in theatre that I would love to play). The ensemble numbers are, in the most, performed with aplomb too.
The power of some of the songs maybe doesn’t come across as much as on stage, although it is worth noting that when you see the play, they are almost entirely performed as a concert, projected directly to the audience. In the medium of film, with its close-up shots, there is much more acting to be done. This explains to some extent why “top actors who could sing a bit” were seemingly cast ahead of singers who want to act. And fair play. As much as I don’t particularly rate the likes of Redmayne, the other route would have involved someone like Justin Timberlake playing Marius, and frankly no-one wants to see that.
So, all-in-all a job well done by Tom Hooper. If you are still to experience the global phenomenon, I’d thoroughly recommend it. The film is good, the play is superb. Take your pick. But I can offer one bit of advice: If you want to soundtrack on your iPod, for god’s sake get the stage version.
Math-rock was a sort of weird phenomenon that threatened to take off a few years ago. It emerged from the late 90’s and stewed for a bit in the King-Crimson-addled minds of a select few before bands such as Foals grabbed it and made a break for the mainstream. Stylistically it involves weird time signatures, lots of layers and loop pedals, with songs that are almost scientifically built (hence the name, “math rock”).
New York band Battles are probably the stereotypical math-rock band and 2007’s Atlas is their seminal track. For anyone with an interest in the genre, it’s an obvious starting point.
Coming in at just over 7 minutes in length, the track is driven from start to finish by an awesome tribal drumbeat. This then evolves, via a series of electronic noises, into what I can only describe as a mashup between Gary Glitter’s “Rock & Roll, part 2” and… erm… The Hamster Song. But somehow it is excellent.
The second half of the song builds up from almost a standstill and crescendos into an orgasm of nerdy laptop-looped music heaven. Below is both the shortened ‘single’ version of the song and a full live version from Later with Jools Holland, which is worth watching from about 3:15, if only to appreciate how wonderfully anal they are in creating the sound. Their drummer is even wearing a tank top. God bless the geeks.
It’s as British as you can get; three towering Royal Academicians painting that most British of genres; landscapes. Intimately housed in the Academy’s gilded John Madejski and Weston Rooms, the setting is fairly appropriate too.
I enjoyed this exhibition, but if you’re heading there to marvel at great volumes of work and paintings by the three Masters, you will be disappointed, as one friend I went with announced: “that was the worst exhibition I’ve ever seen”. I think this was a tad harsh but then I don’t know which other exhibitions he’s ever seen.
The bottom line is that there are about six or seven big paintings between Constable, Gainsborough and Turner and the majority of the rest is made up of their influences, contemporaries and followers, so the show’s title is certainly guilty of being misleading. But I think there’s plenty of joy to be had in its intimacy.
From the 17th century to the late 19th century, the art academies of Europe formalised a hierarchy of subject matter in painting, which according to them, determined the cultural significance of the work. Up at the top end of the ladder was history painting (big paintings of historical, mythical, religious or allegorical subject matter) and down at the bottom end was good old still life (fruit… and stuff). In mainland Europe, our Brits and their landscapes would have been regarded somewhere in the middle of this ladder: “the common footmen in the army of art”, according to Samuel van Hoogstraten. But, as this exhibition demonstrates well, since its inception in 1768, the Royal Academy regarded the landscape genre differently. It has always included landscape artists within its membership and has always taken seriously the depiction of nature in a truthful manner driven by often British-based philosophies of aesthetics, the picturesque and the sublime.
When you look at a Constable, a Gainsborough or a Turner you don’t have to be Brian Sewell to see that you are looking at far more than just a nice spot for a picnic. And if you delve a little deeper, you find with Turner, for example, that there is often an emotional or political significance, as seen in the most recent Bond film. Constable’s landscapes are more sentimental documents of rural life and Gainsborough’s preferred genre is a case study in aesthetics.
Another particular highlight for any amateur artist is the collection of watercolour landscapes and monuments in one of the rooms. As a recent self-taught student of the medium I marvelled for a while at the achievements of the guys from the 18th century, before finally admitting defeat in my own efforts and recognising my eternal consignment to amateurism at best.
The great Hugh Honour said that “the contents of a great art gallery should be sipped, not gulped” and I think the same principle applies to the works of great artists. On that basis there’s some good sipping to be done here.
‘Constable, Gainsborough, Turner and the Making of Landscape’ is at the Royal Academy until 17th February
Hirst, Munch, Leonardo, Picasso, Freud; such was the strength in competition for 2012’s shows that picking my top 5 was tough. This year, it’s even tougher; missing out on my cut to name a few are Man Ray, J.S. Lowry, Dürer, Holbein, Klimt, Schiele, Klee and some 40,000 year old sculptures. All of whom are due in our nation’s capital in the coming year. Yes, you might say 2013 looks set to be something of an annus mirabilis for art lovers living in our capital city.
Here, again in chronological order, are my Top 5 London Art Exhibitions for 2013.
The Royal Academy well and truly kick-starts the year with not so much a bang and more an explosion from one of those TNT plungers made famous by Wile E. Coyote. It’s the first time that ‘Father of Modernism’, Edouard Manet’s work has been assembled to present his approach to portraiture. Expect paintings of social realism on Haussmann’s boulevards of Paris and in the newly accessible countryside. Opening to the public this weekend and five star reviews already from The Times and The Telegraph, this has all the hallmarks of a classic. It’s probably too early say something like “If you see one show in 2013…”, especially as I haven’t seen it yet, but go on, this is probably it.
In light of the shows that haven’t made my top 5, this is perhaps the most controversial selection, but for those fans of the Spanish Golden Age, this show brings together 30 paintings that explore the relationship between Baroque painter, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, and his friend and patron, Justino de Neve. The reason it makes my top 5 is because it offers something different to the standard art gallery experience. The entire Dulwich Picture Gallery is currently closed for two weeks whilst they turn it into a mock 17th century Sevillian church, windows and all, allowing you to see Murillo’s impressive lunettes and other paintings ‘in situ’, hung at their intended height and with their appropriate light settings.
With reproductions of his iconic, comic-strip canvases adorning the walls of student bedrooms the Western world over, this is the 2013 crowd-pleaser from Tate. 125 paintings and sculptures by Benday dot enthusiast, Roy Lichtenstein, will span the walls of Tate Modern and bring in the pop art loving public in their droves. This retrospective will be as good a chance as any to see his instantly recognisable work irrespective of varied materials which he used. For a couple of quid, those of you with iOS and Android phones will be able to download a Lichtenstein App dedicated to the exhibition featuring commentary on 24 key works and insights from the curators.
From TNT explosions to volcanic eruptions; when Vesuvius famously blew its lid in AD79 it buried the city of Pompeii and seaside town of Herculaneum, casting them and their inhabitants in a millennia-long preservative of volcanic rock and ash. Between March and September, The British Museum will put together 250 artefacts unearthed 1700 years later in states of near perfect preservation, many which have never left Italy. The exhibition will show how people operated in everyday life, but the highlight will surely be the plaster-cast models on display made by filling the voids in the rock left by those shielding themselves from death (pictured) as the ash enveloped them.
Music, Love and Leisure? It sounds like a day in the life of our editor-in-chief, but in fact, these subjects form the basis of the NG’s flagship show this year. A bit like the Murillo exhibition at the DPG I think this show featuring paintings by the Dutch master, Vermeer and his contemporaries, will offer something a little different – beautiful Virginals. That’s right, on display amongst the paintings will be innocent, young ladies dressed in period costume 17th century harpsichords. I’m secretly hoping for a glimpse of a sackbut too (an early form of trombone) but perhaps I should be careful what I wish for.
Anyway, suggestively-named instruments aside, music was a popular theme in Dutch painting and so the exhibition promises to incorporate music of the era in ‘various ways, enriching our experience of the serene and elegant ambiance created in Vermeer’s painting’. And what’s more, it’s free. Hoorah.
So that concludes my top 5 for the year ahead. “What?” You may cry. “What about…”
A list of the nominees who finished outside the top 5 is here for your convenience:
The Northern Renaissance: Dürer to Holbein
The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace
2 November 2012 to 14 April 2013
Light Show (Dan Flavin et al.)
Hayward Gallery
30 January – 28 April
Man Ray
National Portrait Gallery
7 February – 27 May 2013
Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind
British Museum
7 February – 26 May
J.S. Lowry
Tate Britain
26 June – 20 October 2013
The Portrait in Vienna (Klimt, Schiele et al)
National Gallery
9 October 2013 – 12 January 2014
Paul Klee
Tate Modern
15 October 2013 – 9 March 2014
And it would be rude not to say that a trip to Tate Liverpool for Chagall: Modern Master would be well worth it (8 June – 6 October 2013)
As stated earlier, there wasn’t room for everyone. If you disagree with my top 5 do write in the comments section below and let the world know what they really ought to be seeing.
You know how arty, pretentious people like to decry their former heroes as soon as they hit the big time? Suddenly it seems that they can’t admit to liking something because it is popular, and that erodes at its coolness. Well, I have similar feelings about the Kings Of Leon. However much I try to avoid the phrase “not as good as they were back in the day”, I can’t avoid it. The last few KOL albums (Only by the Night and Come Around Sundown) are complete crap compared to their early work.
Where I think I can save myself from being too wanky, though, is that their popularity (these were the two albums that really ‘hit the big time’) had little to do with my opinion of them. Sure, the omnipresence of Sex On Fire and that horrific dance cover of Use Somebody was annoying, but the fact remained that the only song on either album that was a patch on their earlier work was OBTN opening track Closer. I dislike their modern work for the simple reason that it is distinctly average. But enough about them…
Anglo-Swedish-American band Alberta Cross are often compared to the Kings Of Leon’s formative albums, in addition to the likes of My Morning Jacket and Neil Young. They fit snugly into the category of folk-rock that saw the Followill brothers catapault themselves onto our radar all those years ago. Interestingly, as the Kings of Leon commercialised their sound, Alberta Cross started releasing material, and very impressive it was too. Debut LP (following two decent EPs) Broken Side of Time is a wonderful album. Varied, exciting and infectious, it is the perfect listen for those of us who hark back to the days of Youth and Young Manhood.
From the crunching slide-guitar rock of ATX (below) to the chilling crescendo blues of Rise From The Shadows, it’s a superb album and one that hopefully bodes well for the future of the band. A great live draw too, you should catch them if you can.
Heavy Metal is a slightly outdated phrase, it throws up images of leather-clad, long haired bikers headbanging in sweaty bars. It seemed to be a genre that was killed off by irony and self-parody. Some of its lurking dinosaurs went the way of The Darkness and embraced the absurdity, others profiteered from teen angst and ended up torturously screaming over a backdrop of chugging guitars and spotty adolescence. The rest were probably killed off by Fred Durst. Anyhow, the demise of the genre from the mainstream was a sad end for a scene that produced beasts like Metallica and Guns N Roses. There’s no doubt that, when done right, Heavy Metal was very, very good.
Northern Ireland’s Therapy? were a band who did Heavy Metal the right way and their 1994 UK top 5 album Troublegum was as good as they got. Released in the halcyon rock months preceding Kurt Cobain’s suicide, the album produced a handful of top-20 singles, with flag-bearing track Screamager even being performed on Top Of The Pops. The band were a more commercial version of Metallica, creating an accessible blend of heavy riffs and growly vocals but with shorter, catchier songs (Lunacy Booth, with it’s sparring chorus, being a personal favourite).
It’s a shame that the boys from Belfast never really kicked on from this release. Despite it being shortlisted for the (then fairly embryonic) Mercury Music Prize, fame and fortune failed to arrive. It is still however a cracking album, one that has stood the test of time well and one that perfectly soundtracks the controlled anger of commuting on the Underground. Plus it contains no screaming. Highly recommended.
Ah yes, I remember this feeling. The Christmas period is over, the turkey flanks your bones like jelly, your new year hangover still throbs deep in your head as you contemplate the bleak outlook of the next twelve months. So what is there to look forward to? Well, over the course of a few articles, we at Trivial Pursuits will outline why 13 may be lucky for some. This week it is the turn of the silver screen…
As the rain beats down through January, what better reason to stay indoors? And what better doors to stay in than those of your local cinema. The new year kicks off with two big films already bursting into the cinema in the form of Les Miserables and The Life of Pi. Les Mis has all the ingredients to be very good: it’s one of my favourite plays, it has a stellar cast and in Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech) a very capable period director. However it is also a musical, and early reports are that the singing of some of the actors leaves a lot to be desired. The Life of Pi looks interesting, not least because I have no idea how I’d go about filming the book myself. Fortunately Hollywood heavyweight director Ang Lee is rather more qualified for the task than I am.
Another film that is bringing in the month is the return of Quentin Tarantino in Django Unchained. By this stage everyone is familiar with the quirky style he brings to films, so expect Django to bring to westerns what Inglorious Basterds did to war films… Including the brilliant Christoph Waltz.
The final big release of January is Gangster Squad starring the dreamy fanny-magnet Ryan Gosling (swoon!). The film charts the trials of the LAPD in the 1940s as they try to keep the mafia out of Los Angeles. Co-stars Josh Brolin and Sean Penn have decent pedigree, while the director Ruben Fleischer created the excellent Zombieland, so needs few further endorsements. Worth a look.
Moving on a month, and the spectre of Valentines Day raises it’s ugly and commercialised head. As men up and down the country pay absurd sums of money to keep their other halves (bleugh) happy, what better way to repay them than the Feb 14th release of the latest instalment of Bruce-Willis-running-round-in-a-vest? Yes kids, John McLean is back. A Good Day To Die Hard (see what they did there?) should be the perfect respite to flowers and chocolate. It’s set in Russia and, unlike a line-up of prostitutes, it will display an array of cunning stunts. Bruce Willis is also 57 years old now, so the absurdity of the whole thing will be turned up an additional few notches.
There follows a bit of a lull, which only subsides with the coming of May and the creation of a pair of trilogies. The Hangover and Iron Man franchises (although upon writing this, it did strike me how awesome a one-off The Hangover and Iron Man film would be) both receive their third instalments in 2013, with the former side-stepping accusations of lazily cashing in by not even involving a wedding this time out. It will however still be lazily cashing in, albeit with a few good laughs along the way. Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man is one of the great movie characters of recent times and in addition to two decent ‘solo’ films, was the driving force behing last year’s superb Avengers Assemble. Expect more quips, bangs and ludicrous baddies in his third outing.
Also in May, Baz Luhrmann’s vision of Fitzgerald’s classic novel The Great Gatsbyfinally gets released. From the trailer (below), the wise money appears to be on a hedonistic mash-up of period drama and pop culture as perfected by Luhrmann in Moulin Rouge! Leonardo DiCaprio is usually worth watching in any film, so this has many of the ingredients to be a cracker, albeit six months later than intended.
June is, as usual, the month where the year’s big guns really come out. The film attracting the most attention in this regard is the rebirth of the Superman franchise in Man of Steel. Zack Snyder (300) and Christopher Nolan (just about everything good in the last decade) take the helm, while Russell Crowe heads a pretty strong cast. Everyman superhero support for the month comes in the form of Kick Ass 2, which could be utter dross, but given the strength of the original, it might well be very decent indeed.
The theme for the rest of the month is, cheerily, the end of mankind. Brad Pitt’s big-budget zombie film World War Z looks absolutely bonkers from the trailer (below), although the excitement about this one is tempered by the fact that Hollywood zombie blockbusters like I Am Legend have disappointed in the past. This one could go either way.
A lighter take on the fall of man is provided by This Is The End, in which comedy flavours-of-the-month Seth Rogan, Jason Segel, Jonah Hill, Paul Rudd and James Franco all play themselves. The gang all go to a party which makes them survive the apocalypse. Or something like that. It doesn’t matter. It will involve a fair few cheap gags and promises to be this year’s Superbad.
Finally for June comes a bit of a dark horse in the form of After Earth. Will Smith and his son play a spaceship pilot and, erm, his son who crash to earth 1,000 years after mankind has been forced to evacuate it. The mystery factor that could elevate this from being a poor version of Planet of the Apes is the return of director M. Night Shyamalan, whose recent films have been absolute bollocks, but undoubtedly possesses talent. Expect a massive plot twist that everyone will ruin if you don’t see it early.
Johnny Depp is the flavour of the month in July as he hollers “Hi ho Silver!” and rides off into the sunset with The Lone Ranger. Depp actually plays Tonto, the native-American sidekick to Arnie Hammer’s Ranger, but this should be a good family romp for the summer holidays and will probably bring in an absolute fortune at the box office.
One of the biggest excitements of the year for me personally comes in October with the sequel to one of my favourite recent films in Sin City: A Dame To Kill For. Pretty much every character who survived the original appears to be back along with the original director, while there is enough of Frank Miller’s source material to ensure that this won’t just be a lazy cash cow.
Fans of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz rejoice! October also sees the triumvirate of Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and director Edgar Wright (untarnished as he is by association to the woeful Paul) return for the third in what has become known as the “Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy”. Details on The World’s End are hazy, but seem to involve retracing the steps of a legendary pub crawl. Brit comedy-legend-cum-global-megastar Martin Freeman joins them on the way and at some stage Nick Frost will order a cornetto. Which will amuse me.
Autumn’s big release from a commercial point of view will be that of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. I don’t really understand the hype about the Hunger Games myself. I’ve not read the books and I’m not a teenage girl, so maybe I’m missing the point here, but the first film was absolutely abysmal. I’m unlikely to be heading to the cinema for this one myself, but no doubt droves of mindless teenagers, lost since the death of the Twilight saga, will stop BBM-ing each other for long enough to see this. Expect it to make a bafflingly large amount of money.
Peter Jackson’s plundering of Middle Earth continues at Christmas with The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Then, just as the year seems over, a comedy icon returns in Anchorman: The Legend Continues, which stars all the original cast (most of whom have since hit the big time) and appears to be cut from identical cloth to the cult classic that was Anchorman.
So plenty to look forward to in the new year from the studios of Hollywood. Get down the Odeon, buy a big box of popcorn and settle yourself in for the year ahead. Entertainment guaranteed.
You’ve probably heard of them. In fact you’ve probably got this album… It’s taken me a while to get up to speed with Alt-J’s 2012 Mercury Prize-winning album An Awesome Wave for a number of reasons. Originally, I was put off by hearing a few songs off the album randomly and was slightly underwhelmed by them. Their name (actually spelled Δ, but called Alt-J as that is the keyboard shortcut for Delta) panged of wanky post-modern buffoonery. And they won the Mercury Music Prize.
Now I realise this may come across as slightly facetious, but the prize has a fairly mixed history. For every Elbow, Portishead or Arctic Monkeys who have won the prize, there has been some utter dross like Antony & The Johnsons and Speech Debelle. “Who?” You may ask… Well, quite. Even 2011’s winning XX album left me slightly cold, with only the excellent but brief Intro track actually striking me as anything more than dull (I have similar “issues” with Sigur Ros, feel free to abuse me below)… Anyhow I digress. For these reasons I was wary that Leeds Uni boys Alt-J could be another duff Mercury winner, until a friend (props Ollie Campbell) told me that it was an album that only worked in its entirety.
I’m a sucker for concept (or in this case multi-concept) albums, having been brought up on a diet of the likes of Pink Floyd and Genesis (and Elton John, but that’s my mother’s fault). One of my biggest gripes of the digital age of music is the ease with which people can stock their iPods (other MP3 players are available) with individual tracks. I mean why bother paying £6.99 for the whole album when you pick and choose the three songs you like for £2.50. Who cares about the other tracks, right? Wrong.
So kudos to Alt-J (ironically I can’t actually make their Delta symbol by actually pressing Alt+J on this computer, so I won’t bother) for making an album that almost exclusively works as one piece of music. Stylistically it’s fresh and original. It’s a bit Radiohead-y, a bit Wild Beasts-y, a bit Mystery Jets-y, a bit folky, a bit this, a bit that, a bit wooooah, a bit wheeeey (tangent: god I miss the Fast Show)… And so on. The chaps are clearly into their cultural references, the nod to The Good, The Bad and The Ugly in Tessellate particularly brought a smile to my face, but never in a particularly “up their own arse” way. And that’s really the summation of the album, it’s certainly pretentious, but never in an offensive way. It’s big, it’s clever, but it wants to be your friend rather than patronise and belittle you.
It’s also absolutely terrific.
I don’t really want to supply a song, as none of the tracks on the album are as good individually as they are in the collective. But here is Breezeblocks, mainly as I like the video. Go buy the album and dedicate an hour to its entirety. You’ll thank me.
Well done Mercury, you might have got this one right.
