Something weird...

A Man With Three Heads...



Not really that but this, while going on a subject which I do talk a lot about (that being music) but it is something that people whom know me well will be extremely confused about. What I am going to do is step out of my traditional music tastes (usually Rock/Metal) and have a look at a few songs from the grimey, disgusting and all around appaling world of general pop music. The sort of thing you are likely to find in a lot of the typical club nights you are likely to go to in the next few weeks.

Now you may all think that I am going totally mad (that said I am a bit jacked up on caffine today but that is not really the point...) but there have been some genuinely interesting new songs from what I like to call the side of the fence everyone else seems to be on. I'm gonna take this span as far back as about 6 months from me first hearing the songs and the fact that they are still being smashed around the radio like confetti at a wedding or alcohol in a student accomidation pre-drinking bender.

Firstly is one that I actually only listened to because of something I saw written about it in a Newspaper:



Yes your eyes and ears are not decieving you. It's the latest single by Britney Spears by the name of 'Hold It Against Me' and while it may not be as cringe-worthingly obvious as her last single '3' or the dancefloor classic 'Slave 4 U' but (seemingly like 95% of her songs) they are about finding a guy in a club and wanting to get some of his (here comes a Lady Gaga reference...sorry) 'Disco-Stick' away from the rest of the sweaty club attendee's.

At first you might think it's just typical garbage with a Nazi style marching beat for the vast majority of the song and Britney sounding as Monotonal and auto-tuned as ever and I agree. But I have selected this for this most odd of blogs for one main simple reason. Aside from the fact that it mostly uses the same dynamic reversal as Metallica's famous single 'Unforgiven' generally with the verse being louder than the chorus until the end one but also for the section I suggest skipping through to which appears at about 2:17.

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Hopefully some of you have listened to it but that is (from what I know of Dubstep) a really well excuted and quite intense dubstep drop. I find it as (quite frankly) the most interesting piece of music to be found in a song concering Ms Spears. It's quite a big drop and from what I would imagine it would produce one of the most bizarre moments in any clubber's psyche (if they are still sober enough to think that clearly):

'Ok this is a beat I imagine being made from a proper Dubstep person not Britney Spears' record label... WTF!!'


This next song may have been around for a bit longer than I might think but I don't know. It's from a little British artist who does not have the loudest voice and could be seen as annoying and has released one or two of the worst songs ever in 'Stary Eyed' and 'Guns & Horses'.



Yes it's Ellie Goulding with 'The Writer'. First thing to say is that as a song it was my favourite pop song of 2010 along with her not quite so well known track 'Under The Sheets' ,which with a few minor tweeks (I know cause i've tried) makes a cracking Hard Rock love song, but does not qualify for this list as I heard it back in last May.

So why do I add 'The Writer' to this rag tag list of slightly more interesting chart hits? Well firstly the verse and middle section has a rather interesting time signature which (while trying to learn the song) has caught me out in several times to the tune of exclimations of profanities like 'F***' 'S***' and my new rather outrageous favourite 'F**knuckle'. It's a rather beautiful song really as it features a really great melody throughout vocally, a really effective piano part and a chorus which manages to be on the one hand to be calm and emotional but on the other hand (with the right setting and the volume turned up all the way) absolutely bloody enormous. Put that chorus in a big stadium and I have no doubt it would produce a huge moment the first time it comes around.

The next song comes from another realitively new song with not much in terms of a massive voice but has a habbit of some interesting little numbers like this following dubstep inspired ditty:



Yes it's the true club anthem which you are basically garunteed to hear almost every club night you go into. It's Katy B with her signature song 'Katy On A Mission'. Well first off it's different because it uses a style that was (at the time) still relatively underground and therefore was like a breakthrough. It is a song structured much like any other so I can not offer you any difference on that front but the lyrics are in fact the most interesting element to this song. Because it's not about what a lot (96.7%-ish) of pop songs are about, sex, love and variants thereof, but about something which connects to the same amount of, if not more people who are going to listen to the song. Going on a dancefloor and when the right song comes on going absolutely ballistic not caring how you look and just having a damn-good time whether you end up lip locked with a fellow dancer or just sweaty but with a feeling of utter euphoria. The lyric has become a mantra of mine when I go clubbing with the right combination of people 'Keep up with me as we lose control'.

Following on from these I'd like to be able to put a pop song by a male artist to rebalence the list back bring back some semblence of gender equality... but Male pop singers have slowly become the most samey-samey sounding bulls*** these days but now with my most interesting choices taken up I've litterally had to go on a bit of a research through the recent chart hits. To be as frank as I can about all this it has made want boil my own head as quite a large amount modern pop is truly, saddeningly, almost hopelessly appaling. With Simon Cowell's X-Factor machine and the increase of auto-tuning into alot of music and just the stereotypical lyrical content often makes me despair at how some people can be so blind and listen to these songs and take them as the best the world of music has to offer.

But before you think I am going to say that modern music is not as good as it was in previous decades I have one unfortunate thing to say to you:

The Previous 4 decades were no better




I say this because yes there are classic tracks from those decades which everyone will remember: Beatles, Stones, Led Zepplin, Thin Lizzy, Guns 'N' Roses, early Madonna, Abba, 2-Pac, Pre-drug abuse Eminem and many, many more that I can mention. These are the artists that will be looked back on as the memorable artists of those respective creative periods with hits that will live in memory until the end of time.

But a lot of these songs were beaten to the top spot by some utterly appaling pieces of s*** which people will choose to forget was the week long fads people liked at the time. Take this list of songs for example and my point will be proved:

Gnarls Barckley - Crazy
Crazy Town - Butterfly
Journey - Don't Stop Belevin'
(Who the F*** cares) - Agado ¬_¬
Cliff Richard - Misiltoe and Wine
The stupid fast food song
All of the UK's Eurovision entries for as long as I can remember
Lulu - Shout
Mungo Jerry - Baby Jump
And everything wirtten by Donny Osmand.

My point is proved and this would be an excellent way to end this entry.

However, my research did pay off and what I have coming up is as interesting as the songs I have already mentioned and actually, in my view, somewhat of a special song to me:



I will conceed that this song does not apply to either of the rules set I set to put songs in the blog and yes it is not even a very recent song. But Viva Forever by one of the most legendary Girl Groups that there has ever been in The Spice Girls is a song which a chilled out number with 2 or 3 absolutely sensational acoustic guitar solos. It was one of the last songs the band recorded with Geri Haliwell and was in fact released after she left the band so there is in fact a hidden story behind the song and even though I do not know the story knowing this song had a difficult inception makes it very special to me. It may be utterly ridiculous but this is one of my favourite of all time. It might be embrassing given my normal taste in music but it is.

Now we can end.

Next up after the pre-season testing ends I make my thoughts and predictions for the 2011 F1 world championship.