Entry 13: One Insurrection

Tween superstars One Direction were recently compared to revolutionary liverpudlians The Beatles. And, no, it wasn’t in sarcasm. These comparisons were completely earnest. So, what do John, Paul, George and Ringo, have to do with Louis, Niall, Harry (Shit, what were the others called? Ehhhhm. Lemme do a quick web check. Okay okay, here we go), and Liam and Zayn? Well, they are both massive domestically and across the pond. The young girls of the 1960s were as ear-splittingly crazy about the Beatles as today’s generation of young ladies seem to be about One Direction. But the biggest reason for them being compared recently, is that ‘1D’ (I weep, weep, for the future of my people)  made history by being the first band ever to go to No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100, for their debut album, a feat never met even by The Beatles. This has led lots of incredibly stupid people and a few journos to suggest they are comparable, and that, because of this success, perhaps, the skinny-jean superstars have actually bested their forbearers. You know how the rest of this article is going to go, don’t you.

I would like to say that I am not a great Beatles fan.  I find much of their work to be tinny and rather idiotic, chirpy, corny and often rather dry and mundane. The music has not aged well, and to my ears, it’s not particularly special. But while you are quite welcome to think the Beatles are a bit shit, you must still appreciate what they did for popular music. The Beatles changed the face of popular culture, and their format of what a band should be, was replicated and borrowed right up to the present day. Before the Beatles, you had record labels who owned their acts. Acts were assigned songwriters and an image and attitude they were to perpetuate. You had such fawning mongs as Fabian, or The Chordettes; acts that had little or no input into what they would sing or how they would conduct their recording life. All they had to do was sing well, and in fact, that is all they could do. But when The Beatles entered the scene, first in the UK, and then in the states, they were something new. Here were four working class lads with hair like girls, singing songs that they had composed, that they had written lyrics for. It was their creation; it was their sound. And this was so fresh, so new, that they became hugely, uncontrollably, and incomparably famous. They are the band that everybody knows. 

And One Direction are also fabulously successful. Why, you ask? No, you don’t ask that, I am losing my way with these rhetoricals. You know, as well as I do, why ‘1D’ are successful. Because they are five very, very good looking lads, a veritable troupe of heartthrobs. They are like Enid Blighton’s The Famous Five in this respect, without the lashings of ginger beer or Annie’s fruitcake. Girls seem to play spin the bottle as to which member of the band they now want to sleep with. I have serious beef with Louis as well, I was digging the braces look well before him, and granted I looked a bit like George Michael but still, that hurts. Legions of pervy old men and pre-teen girls alike (oh, and apparently every gay man on the planet) continues to fawn over the tightly clad pop stars, memorising both their first and surnames, as well as their particular style of dress, and favourite condiment (Zayn’s: Horseradish)  But the success of One Direction tells us something. The revolution in popular music, that occurred some fifty or so years ago, has been almost completely reversed. Whereas The Beatles proved that you could make it on your own; you could make it big off of the back of your own talent and flair for music, One Direction’s record-breaking album, Up All Night, proves that the public appetite is for a good looking singer; that more than ever, society prizes a fresh face and a cheeky grin over say, discernible musical talent. Up All Night is bad news for original music.

But surely it is not just this lot who are to blame for this erosion of solid, well written and original music? No, they are just a part of something much bigger. As the Urukhai were spawned in the foul birthing pits below Isengard, One Direction were born from the inner foundations of the X-Factor, with Simon Cowell playing the part of Saruman (very convincingly). The X-Factor has spread like a burgeoning pathogen to far beyond the parameters of a talent show; it is now the only thing on the charts. There was a time when some grinning twit like Leon Jackson would win the X-Factor and he would release some shitty cover album and that would be that. That was fine with me, I mean yeah it was an undesirable element in the music industry, but it didn’t stick about too long. But then Cowell and Co got wise, and started churning out acts that would stick. Acts that could top the charts week on week, that could rake in nationwide arena tours, could appear on live TV and generally not ‘do a Leon Jackson’. So now there is a whole range of artists churning out this bland, processed, mediocre schlock. 

The biggest success, perhaps behind the Famous Five, is preening tithead Olly Murs. There is something so infuriating about Olly Murs, probably because he is so charming and likeable. He has those sparkling blue eyes and this spunky cockney patter, it is hard to dislike him. But you have to look beyond his appearance. Murs is an asset of the X-Factor. His sound, namely the apeing of 50’s style jukebox pop, is the result of some calculation and consolidation by some square corporate types. His songs are given to him, probably with a note attached to the song sheet saying ‘Here kid, knock yourself out’. His look, even down to that twatish little whicker hat, has probably been agreed upon by a committee and deemed suitable for him. He is the result of the workings of a bland, calculating corporate machine; a literal hit-maker. And so to me his music is without soul, he is rather like Elvis Presley who all that time ago stole the songs of the prejudiced RnB community and made them chart toppers. Yeah, I am sure he is plenty cute. And probably a nice bloke. But this isn’t how music should be made.

And now he is everywhere. Three words; Life On Murs.  Yeah, I know. ITV2 scheduled a show about Olly travelling on the road, where he proves, as expected, to be very friendly. And it’s all smiles. We meet his mum. We meet his band. We meet his best mate. And we leave believing him to be a lovely lad, ready to throw our money at his grinning cockney face. Simon Cowell thanks you. Of course Olly has stated he does write his own lyrics, and I could probably give him the benefit of the doubt on that one. I guess you can’t legally say that unless it’s true. Although he is hardly a lyrical genius either way so it doesn’t matter much I suppose. But if you want proof Murs’style is part of a pre-determined vision, then look no further than Marcus Collins. 

Look at how similar they are; Collins sticks with plinkty plonk 50s style pop and soul, i.e, exactly the same as Olly Murs’s music. Even the way he dresses is the same, all dickie bows and waistcoats and daft hats. Although, to give Murs his due, Marcus is a far less bankable star.  For a start he is a bit too ‘ooohhh matron’ to draw in the ladies as Murs and One Direction can, and he comes across a little smug. That bandito moustache and all the pouting doesn’t help. And you will have heard his version of the White Stripes hit Seven Nation Army. And his reworking of it was quite impressive, wasn’t it, different right? Wrong. You see he has actually copied this cover from another act, French electro artist Ben l’Once Soul. Watch the video for yourself, the arrangement is exactly the same. It says something when you have to cover, another cover. Collins just half-inched it from a foreigner with talent. Beyond being lazy, derivative, and somewhat underhand, it is just so unnecessary; surely he could have created something new off of his own bat. I mean he is a superstar right, that is why he is famous, right? Surely he could write an original song, or at least do a fresh cover. Am I asking for a lot here?

Beyond this lot there is Misha B, Alexandra Burke, Leona Lewis, Little Mix, JLS. You name it. The X-Factor owns current pop music; it practically is popular music. And so, that is what One Direction has in common with The Beatles. They both acted to change the world. While one inspired originality, responsibility, and artistic freedom, the other advocated sales orientated productions. The X-Factor will only grow to earn more and more spots on the Top 40, more money, more exposure, more bland cookie-cutter pop acts. What can be done? Could anyone have stopped the impact The Beatles had back then? Probably not. And thank god. But this movement is probably unstoppable too. The X-Factor will only go to further sideline original talent and artistic flair in favour of easy pop bound for a high chart placing. Maybe it is a necessary evil, I mean I suppose some people do enjoy this sort of music, and maybe that is the most important thing. But Up All Night is just another step in the undoing of that cultural revolution all those years ago, and this is where Cowell ‘s evil wizard impression runs short. Even Saruman couldn’t stomach One Direction.

Entry 12: Movie Review: The Dark Knight Rises

Boy, has this movie been a long time coming. By the end of the blistering The Dark Knight, everybody, and I mean literally everybody, including your partially deaf Aunt Ida, was wishing and longing for the final chapter in Christopher Nolan’s gritty reboot trilogy . The Dark Knight was so, so good, that it seemed nearly impossible, almost unfair to suggest Nolan could up the ante again. And yet somehow he did. TDKR is one of the most provoking, most satisfying and best executed films you could see this year. Though be warned, if you have not seen the movie then stop reading here. It deserves your appreciation spoiler free.

Batman’s capers are ordinarily rather camp, but no such campery here sir. Where once there was skin-tight lycra and bat-copters and such shite, now there are marauding prison gangs, bone-breaking fight scenes, and Morgan Freeman. So Knight Rises starts with a daring plane escape, in which we meet our new villain; Bane. In stark comparison to (the excellent late Heath Ledger’s) Joker, Bane combines Joker’s master-of-puppets manipulation, with a forceful, crunching brutality. Tom Hardy is excellent here, and whenever he is on screen you are left slightly on edge. His screen presence is just so unsettling; Bane seems to lurch about with such weight, his big ole’ feet thump across the ground, and in some ways, he feels as much like the monster in a creature feature  as the calculating villain that he is. Bane inspires fear throughout the film, and he may be the best villain yet (though he is not on his own in this movie). Meanwhile in sunny Gotham the citizens are raving about how great Harvey Dent is, the legal eagle turned burnt-face-killah from The Dark Knight. It becomes clear that the actions of Batman in that film have been attributed instead to Dent, leaving him revered as a hero and Batman as his dastardly masked murderer. The injustice! So from the beginning right to more or less the second half of the film, Batman has it pretty rough.  This will not be an easy ride, nor a simple redemption tale.  And it is all the better for it.

This movie is consistently dark in tone. This really feels like a boys film; there is a lot of violence, plenty of men shooting guns, generally people talk in hushed and sincere tones about impending doom and ‘coming storms’ and such. At times during the first two acts the sight of nameless policemen being shot on masse actually becomes a little sickening, as even in movie form these are sort of the guys you root for. Yet this gritty tone can come as a surprise only to morons or new initiates; have you seen the other films? The crux of this film is that Gotham is on the verge of destruction and Batman, lying broken in some Middle Eastern storm drain come high security prison, must rise, literally, to save the city. There is a lot of social commentary and parallels drawn between the fictional America with the real-life America; financial meltdown, the haves against the have-nots and deep-seated resentment. Bane’s attack on Gotham echoes 9/11 and 7/7. This is no mere comic book popcorn film; this is deep, dark and brooding, with plenty of smart plot points, and yet it never feels overwrought.  

Of course, there are times it maybe takes itself a little too seriously, with everyone so severe all of the time there are points where you just wish everyone would lighten up. However Anne Hathaway’s wily cat burglar (Cat Woman, anyone?), the world weary Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) and the indispensible butler Alfred, played pitch perfectly by Michael Caine, do inject a bit of comic relief amongst all the frowning and shouting, though it is never gimmicky or irritating. Jar-Jar Binks they are NOT. The final half of this movie is one of the most satisfying conclusions to a trilogy or film that you will ever see. All the plot threads tie together in an electric finale, where Gotham’s very fate hangs in the balance (also, Anne Hathaway in skin-tight leather, on a motorbike).  

Of course this is not a perfect film. Films that strive to convey both an action-packed storyline and important themes in a wide universe are inevitably riddled with plot holes (see Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Spider-Man, The Lord Of The Rings). I mean despite Nolan’s attempts to distract us, this is still a bloke in an unconvincing bat suit, with a cape and a big shiny belt. At one point Batman actually uses what looks like the bat-arang on some wrong doers by the river. There is only so far you can disregard the fact that the protagonist looks like a bit of a fanny. Furthermore while Batman zips about like you wouldn’t believe, appearing calmly from back alleys and rooftops and such, it’s unclear how he does that. Spiderman can web-sling, Superman can fly, the show off. I guess there must have been lots of footage on the cutting room floor of Batman jogging to his next scene.  Then there is Christian Bale’s ‘secret identity’ shenanigan. I mean Bale has lips like a game fish; has no one recognised that Batman has big pouty lips just like Bruce Wayne’s? And towards the end of the movie where everyone and their granny seem to  twig who Batman really is (bar Commissioner Gordon , who will not be hosting Countdown any time soon), he still talks in that ridiculous shiatsu growl, even when the recipient of his conversation knows his true identity.  Why bother Bruce? Its purpose has been rendered moot. Do you enjoy talking like that? The weird voice and creepy outfit makes Batman feel a bit like a crime-fighting SnM enthusiast at times, and if he had a Bat-gag hanging off that belt of his I wouldn’t have looked twice. 

Furthermore the citizens of Gotham are a new sort of stupid. WHY LIVE THERE. After both of the Batman films? Seriously, why? Move to California for god’s sake where they don’t have freaking violent clowns and homicidal lumberjacks. And furthermore they accept Bane’s plan with the surety of a gang of Cocker-Spaniel puppies. I mean when he reads out Commissioner’s Gordon’s prepared speech? Which he could have forged? Or just written on the back of a bear mat? Who says it’s authentic! And Nolan expects you to believe that every policemen, bar like three, get stuck under the city? Oy vey. But you know this is just the nit-picking of a finicky little snot.  This is a brilliant, brilliant film. Everything about this movie is excellent. The Hans Zimmer score is beyond atmospheric; a  dark, clanking and primal score, with the tribal Moroccan chant of ‘deshi basara’ (rise up)  echoing throughout the film,  to particularly great effect in the prison scenes in the middle act.  The cinematography is consistently brilliant, the sound editing is top notch, and the ensemble cast is sensational. All of the main characters are captivating, even down to the fringe characters.  Ben Mendelsohn is excellent as the callous John Daggett, and Burn Gorman is equally excellent as his conniving underling Stryver. Mathew Modine, the Deputy Commissioner starts out as a coward,but  in the final act we see him redeem himself in style. This film is surely one of the best of the year, of the decade, of the last twenty five years. If this does not sweep the Oscars clean then it will be the biggest crime since Titanic pipped  L.A Confidential to the post in 1996. This is what film-making is all about; a sympathetic hero, an interesting story, blistering action and plenty of intrigue, this is the very best of the best.

Entry 11: Pop Culture Part II

I wrote about some songs I mostly hated. That wasn't really fair. This is more of the same but I actually like at least one of these songs. Promise. Though they still mostly suck big time. Just a warning. Back to the list then.

5. Coldplay-Paradise (January 2012)

Professional bed-wetters Coldplay released Paradise back in January, and it was the first No.1 of 2012. Coincidentally, it has, probably, one of the best openings of any single of the past ten years. The way the strings lead into the hip-hop drumbeat, the badum-dum-dum glam rock bass picking and the otherworldly, transcendent synths is truly a work of beauty, and even hard bitten Coldplay critics such as myself would really just be lying if they said otherwise. But Christ alive, does it devolve into drivel quicker than shit through a goose. While musically this song is undeniably excellent (I would certainly recommend downloading an instrumental version), the lyrics to this song are so weak, so basic, so inescapably blasé that it turns what could have been the song that changed my entire perception of this band into just another godforsaken Coldplay song. With vague, half-assed allusions to a girl sleeping and going to well, a paradise, this song is utterly barren. Lyrics like 'it flew away from her reach/ And the bullets catch in her teeth' tell us absolutely NOTHING, in a song that could have been some seriously poetic U2esque number in proper power ballad territory, as it stands it is just a pretty and catchy but void pop song. Furthermore the ill-placed plinkity-plonk piano ultimately overstays its welcome and sounds weak and tinny when compared with the awesome sonic rumblings of the synths and drums.


I always thought Chris Martin had an awful voice. He sounds like he constantly has a cold, and is just sat at the piano playing by candlelight with a red nose and streaming eyes in a night gown singing about blackcurrant lemsips. And he is equally tuneless in this song, with his achingly nasal, insultingly flat vocals laying over everything like a big snotty hankie. Of course the bogus lyrics do not help this, but god alive, that guy needs to kick the flu. Start getting your greens man. It's been like what, 10 years now? It's usually like, a two week sort of deal. You might have some sort of disease.


Amazingly I made it this far without mentioning the cartoonish and incredibly daft chorus that literally everyone surely knows by now (To recap; 'Para-Para, Paradise, Para-Para, Paradise, Para Para, Paradise, Wo-Wo-Wo-Wooooo-Wo-Wo'). This is almost identical to the equally daft but endlessly more stylish 'Ella-Ella-Ella-Ehy' in Ri-Ri's Umbrella. The two could have just combined Paradise and Umbrella, thus elevating the world of at least one terrible hit single with a shitty chorus; they could have called it Parasol. Unbelievably, they actually DID this. It's called Princess Of China and it is a Top 10 hit. That song is literally just Chopsticks, put through a synth, because Coldplay are big fans of racial stereotypes. Oh and it totally blows to boot.

6. Rihanna- Where Have You Been (May 2012)

'Where Have You Been'? What? Rihanna has been in the charts for every week since like 2006. More like 'Why Won't You Fuck Off'. The bridge in this song of 'I've been everywhere man' rips off  the country classic I've Been Everywhere, which Johnny Cash did a freaking amazing cover of on 1998's Unchained. This is a cardinal sin that would only be redeemed if Ri-Ri relcutantly agreed to sample the verses of that song as well (which in case you don't know, goes like this 'I've been to: Reno, Chicago, Fargo, Minnesota, Buffalo, Toronto, Winslow, Sarasota, Wichita, Tulsa, Ottawa, Oklahoma,  Tampa, Panama, Mattawa, La Paloma, Bangor, Baltimore, Salvador, Amarillo, Tocapillo, Baranquilla, and Perdilla, I'm a killer.' Yeah try that one you Barbadian wench). It is fairly standard Rihanna stuff; it isn't very good, but it IS very, very successful. God alive. Personally it seems to me that, while Umbrella had real swagger, her stuff since has been cookie-cutter club-pop fluff and this song is not a radical change. A large portion of the song is devoted to dumb synth 'wub wub wubs', although, in a similar style to Bieber's Boyfriend some acoustic guitar is a welcome addition to the ensemble. But that is a fleeting touch of class in a tasteless, bland, repetitive exercise in radio-friendly mediocrity.


The music video is equally portentous and over-developed. It begins with Ri-Ri rising out of some jungle river like a particularly hip deleted scene from the movie Predator. Unfortunately there is no bellowing of 'GET TO ZE CHAPPAAAA' from our RnB superstar, which is a shame. Nor does the film end with an epic battle sequence between a muscled Austrian smeared in peat and an invisible Rastafarian from outer space. Rihanna looks lovely here, no doubt, but the video is just full of her rubbing her legs like she’s feeling for bristles.There is a lot of dancing, but Christ who cares? She wears a bunch of different outfits in quick succession like a six year old clomping about in her mum's stiletto heels and poorly applied No.7 lipstick. This is similar to Rudeboy, Te Amo, We Found Love; and it’s is similarly derivative and boring. There is also some weird Hindi arm flailing and some distinctly religious motifs, but far from being high-concept it just seems really dumb and off-centre. Rihanna often looks daft in her videos but no more than here; her hair is all curled and sticking up, looking like she stuck her finger in the light socket and frazzled herself to shit.

Lyrically this song is, well, what do you think? Rihanna sure loves her repetition doesn't she, and while I have no problem with repetition to get some rhythm going, she really goes wild over saying shit over and over again (also see Umbrella, Rudeboy, SnM). The chorus contains the diamond line, 'Where have you been/ Cos' I never see you out/ Are you hiding from me yeah/ Somewhere in the crowd', though when she signs the song it comes across more as 'Somewhere in the ground', and for some time I believed that the subject of Rihanna's affections in this song was a vowl or some similar subterranean creature (Ri-Ri loves her small woodland mammals, yes she does). Squirrel or otherwise that line is creepy as hell; since its basically an allusion to serious restraining-order territory. In addition the line 'Where have you been, all my life' is repeated an ungodly nine times before the song can end. A song that simultaneously rips off country classics, alludes to vowl molestation and takes repetition to dizzying new heights; this is plain awful. None of the rather psychotic fun of SnM is here, nor any of the attitude of Umbrella. This is dull, mindless tedium with little or no redemption. I would advise you to not listen to this song, but I know you will have heard it by now anyway so too bad. God the radio sucks.

7. Maroon 5-Payphone

Praise the lord, I actually like this song. I have been a big Maroon 5 fan since well before Hands All Over (although that remains their best record to date), and was pleased to see them back so soon with 2012's Overexposed. Regardless of what you think of Moves Like Jagger (though I thought it was pretty cool) this is a solid track. As per usual its about love and feelings and all that stuff that guys hate but it deals with the subject matter in a pretty fresh and interesting way; Levine and co write the song from the perspective of a guy trying to actually restart a relationship after it’s failed. The song is well written, as ever, and the chorus is the catchiest thing this side of polio ('I'm at a payphone/ Trying to call home/ All of my change/ I spent on you'). Sadly absent from the track is James Valentine's intricate guitar hooks, which made up so much of the appeal of Moves Like Jagger, or the funky bass lines that peppered Hands All Over (see the nigh-on indecently raunchy Give A Little More). Still this is one of the best pop tunes of the year, and it’s good to see the lads at No.1.


The version with Wiz Khalifa (You are reading this right; probably the first rapper ever to decide his rapper first name ought to be a colloquialism for passing urine. That's pretty gangsta. See also GrandMaster Slash, Pissee Rascal, No.2-pac. Okay that's enough.) is the inferior of the two versions, with the caustic, rather ugly rap segment stuck in there, at odds with the sweet and sappy main chorus. Best to get the version without our chum Wiz. While on the subject of vocals, front man Adam Levine pushes to the limits of his range here, with, mixed results. For some I am sure it will sound fresh and heartfelt, but at times Levine's vocals sound rather like an amorous mosquito buzz. Still, Levine is still one of the most unique vocalists around, and many will find his performance on the song gratifying.  The music video is like a mini Steven Segal movie; and not in a good way. It has virtuually no bearing on the song itself; if the video had been of Levine peeling mangetout and flicking the seperate peas off the outer shell of an armadillo it would be more thematically linked to the song than the actual video. Nonetheless, a welcome return to one of alt-pop's most inspired troupes.

8.  Florence & The Machine- Spectrum (Say My Name) (Calvin Harris Remix)

Oh, here we go. Flo and Co. topped the charts with this single the other week, though originally it failed to even chart in the Top 100. That's what happens when you enlist jock ballbag Calvin Harris to remix one of your songs. I know you arty types think Florence Welch is some sort of indie deity but for the love of god she is just awful. And I hate this song, the feeling I get when listening to this is a sort of enraged nausea. Note I never said I hated Rihanna's song, nor Coldplay's; this song is particularly odious for me. Everything about this song and its accompanying video is so overwrought and pretentious, so bland and caustic it just makes me wish I could jam a chapatti pan down Florence's gapping pie hole and just stop her freaking wailing like that. Go get a Kate Bush single and lower the R.P.M enough and this is exactly what you would get. Flo thinks if she sticks in some synths and bloody harp plucking (I think I'm going to have an emotional breakdown if I here another sodding harp string being plucked), and hey presto, it's avant-garde pop music. No. Wrong. You can imagine just how much you have to over use a bloody harp before it sounds cliché. But she managed it.


The video for this song is annoying as hell. You know what you are in for when the opening sequence comprises Florence sat on a stool with a 40 watt light bulb in her snatch. The rest is standard Flo and The Mo; she wears a lot of stupid clothes, has her hair all done up to resemble some freaky venetian blinds and waves her hands about like she has violent tourettes ticks. There is this ballet theme she has going on, and you can't seem to go a single second in this video without having a mid-distance shot of Florence spazzing about with some weird ballerina bitch plié-ing and pirouetting across screen like a wayward beyblade choreographed  to the music of Baryshnikov. It is this sort of weirdness that Kate Bush fashioned into genuine art in the fantastic video for Running Up That Hill, but here it just comes off as sort of a bad joke; Florence Welch looks like a cart horse who pinched one of its rider’s powder wigs, and tried to imitate the lady of the manor. Flo looks like she should be working in a coal mine in 1930s Beverley. And that huge flapping gob of hers, Christ, it looks like a clown fish at feeding time.


This video could be for any of Welch's singles; they all follow the same format. As in other songs Welch gets picked up a lot; it's sort of creepy, like she can't go a video without being hoisted into the air by oily men in = tights (although note it takes like six blokes to lift her, poor thing), and she is always looking slightly upwards past camera; what the hell is on the studio ceiling? It's probably a mirror, or a picture of Richard Nixon in a shitty red wig, they are pretty much the same thing here after all. She waves her hands about, knocks her head back about seventeen thousand times (Director David Lachappele should enjoy a pretty hefty personal injury case for whiplash when all the fun is over), but it is so, so overdone. Please for the love of god make some music that sounds even slightly different from everything on your first album. I liked Drumming Song because it was fresh it was well produced and most importantly it had no pissing harps to note. But that was a long time ago. Flo better poop out something a bit different sometime soon or else perhaps even her devoted fans will realise she is releasing the same stuff over and over. Though I've met a few. And that isn't looking likely.

Entry 10: The Best Days Of Your Life

I have friends who decided that university wasn’t for them, that actually they didn’t want to spend three plus years pissing about, to come out the other end with a piece of paper with ‘Degree’ stamped on it, in addition to being saddled with a sizeable debt.  And yet despite the perfectly logical explanations for why they took the (perhaps preferable route) of going down some other avenue, they’ll often still feel, at least in some part, that they made the wrong choice, or that they missed something. But of course they did not. University is an experience, but then again so is everything else. Here are some reasons why avoiding university isn’t such a bad idea:

 1.  You Will Feel Really Stupid On A Daily Basis

Yes, funny as it seems, if you want to go to into the upper echelons of the educational system, prepare to feel like a complete tool on a daily basis. It is always the same, with anyone I know, in any university, even those who attended university twenty or thirty years ago. You were the top dog in college, you got the grades, the teachers liked you, and it was all good. But now you are right slap bang in the middle; not bad, but not great either. Your classmates will know endlessly more than you, guaranteed. They will tell you offhand about this thing you didn’t read and that thing you have utterly no clue about, not like they mean to make you feel dumb, it’s just you make out you totally understand what they mean, which, by the way, you don’t. This of course means they do it more. Nice move.  Furthermore, at least if you take law, you can count on the majority of your lecturers to be haughty and distinguished men and women who passed with a First with sugar on top, who have written books (some of which may even be on the syllabus), and who contribute articles to legal periodicals, and generally do not have the time or energy to deal with your stupid questions. They make you feel like you only just got the hang of shitting in your hands and clapping, and if you have the courage to actually go and present some queries, prepare to feel like a drooling imbecile.

 2. You Will Probably Have To Attend Seminars

Should you take a course at university, chances are you will have seminars, and if you are studying something even vaguely difficult, the seminars will be your worst nightmare; you, some fellow students (who are smarter than you, remember), and a seminar leader, in a confined space. Not sound so bad? Allow me to elaborate. You will have a sheet for this seminar. On the sheet there will be questions. But that is the easy part. At the top of the sheet, there will be reading. I study law, so on average, I will have between twenty and forty pages of reading to do, per seminar. But then again, on average I have between three and four seminars a week. That is a lot of reading isn’t it. So when you have read it, you will then apply it to the questions. Though chances are, something will come up, that disturbs your reading for at least one of these seminars (and yes, I am including getting paralytic on a Wednesday night as part of ‘being disturbed’). And so, you are going to have to wing it, or at least some of it. Allow me to return to my introduction to seminars; you, some fellow students, and a seminar leader, in a confined space. So for up to two hours you are going to be locked in with some unsympathetic assholes who know more than you anyway, and a person whose sole purpose for that time is to weed out those non-committal scamps who are partaking in the winging of his class. And so you will have to avoid their eyes whenever you don’t know the answer to the question they are asking, and, depending on how violent the ‘disturbance’ to your studying was, this may be often. So you will essentially have to stare at objects around the seminar leader (but not directly at him) for potentially the whole hour or so, desperately trying to avoid his gaze and not stir in him suspicions as to your completed workload. It’s like trekking through Mordor trying to avoid the eye of Sauron as he blazes to and fro, locking on to unlucky souls and booming out questions pertaining to the eccentricities of contract law. And on top of that, you might even be late. LATE. As far as avoiding your teachers wrath goes its equivalent to waltzing into his class totally naked and prodding him in the eye with a rusty teaspoon.

One time I turned up to an EU seminar fifteen minutes late, I’d ran so i was in a cold sweat, and I had been told that this seminar would be particularly important. I saw the room I needed, it was nearly completely glass, one of the newer rooms in the law building. With a mixture of relief and terror I took in a depth breath and turned the door handle. It rattled and did not open. The teacher had locked it at ten minutes past nine. My seminar leader (who was also the lecturer for much of the module, an Austrian of some years who looked at you through a thick pair of spectacles) stopped talking and peered past the desks so his eyes rested on me. The class craned their necks to cop a look at me as I stood there in the glass doorway with my papers. This continued for perhaps ten life-destroying seconds, before he turned away with some bemusement, and continued teaching. And so I had to turn and walk away, in full view of everyone in my class, the long walk of shame out of the building.  You really, really want to learn timekeeping.

 3. Your Union Is Really Stupid

Whether it’s some student show that is going to be on, some pending event coming up, or just your standard club nights getting some publicity, you can take it for granted your students union will annoy the hell out of you. You will need to use it; it’s a central meeting place, there are various bars and pubs, some shops, and a refectory, but if you do, prepare to have a dozen sour faced adolescents soundlessly shove a flyer in your face, for some club night you would never dream of going to. The shit really starts to fly when the annual union elections start, around February or March. Banners start popping up everywhere, with slogans like ‘Choose YOUR student representatives’ , like that’s a big deal. The Union, if you are anything like me, will be where you go to get your lunch, and occasionally where you go to get hammered, and little more. The way the election goes you would think there was a G8 conference on the horizon. There will be garish signs everywhere with gut-wrenching puns plastered across them. For up to a month the Union will be nigh on impenetrable, with tittering idiots dancing or dressing up or singing a song based on their manifesto, or some other such gimmicky shit.  It is all incredibly tedious and unnecessary. Once the election is over you can expect such life changing alterations as a particular item not being stocked at the union shop, just to underline what a crock of shit the whole process is. You will likely lose faith in democracy. I know personally I would much rather we could just re-animate the corpse of Chairman Mao and let him run the Union instead, bloody coups and all. It would be better than the current arrangement.

  

4. Students (Are The Worst)

You can generally expect to develop a deep seated hatred of your own kind. Everything people say and everything people do seems totally stupid. Generally students like to think they know everything when really they know very little at all, having only just reached majority, and with little or no life experience. Give a student a couple of sociology modules and he will come out with an undeserved sense of academia, spouting about the meaning of existence, like an annoying Karl Marx in low riding skinny jeans. Not like I am getting above myself. I know I am almost totally ignorant to what the process of life is all about, it’s just I never pretended to know otherwise. Male students are particularly odious, as generally this is the time when the ego has begun to inflate with the speed and severity of an air bag.  You can tell when a male student is bigging himself up or otherwise talking utter shit. Because this is the time when his mouth is moving. In addition the political-minded orientation of student life will rub some up the wrong way. I mean the student strikes were sort of annoying as well; in fact at Leeds uni most of the biggest lecture theatres were clogged up with a bunch of preachy Che Guevara types, meaning most of the students on the biggest courses (i.e their brothers in arms) were prevented from actually getting work done (i.e they were paying for a service they were not receiving). And miraculously Cameron and Osbourne didn't seem to care that a bunch of very naive unshaven young people had sat on their arses in a few lecture theatres in Leeds; I mean whether or not Rupert Beckett is running to schedule or not is one of their top priorities after all. Of course if you take this approach you will probably get labelled a counter-revolutionary come the great overthrowing of the Bourgeoise. Enjoy being strung up on big metal pipes and beaten like a pinata. I'll be right there with you.

5. The Student Dress Code (Is The Worst As Well)

I can hardly talk when it comes to this. I found out one guy I know actually knew me only as the 'one in the stupid jeans’ for most of the last semester. I think the problem is that I have never mastered the colour wheel (My friend went to great lengths to explain it to me, and showed me how the colours opposite each other generally went together the best. Subsequent to this I did improve, though I had been terrible before; one day I wore orange, blue and purple. I know). But you can expect to see the very worst that style has to offer at university. I just cannot fathom the legions of knuckle-draggers you see in those douchebaggy capris pants, you know the ones I mean, the browny-beigey ones with the white buttons.  I mean my old geography teacher Mr. Murray used to rock a pair just like that, but at least he never had any allusions that he looked fetching in them. Every time you walk across campus it’s like Revenge of The Slacks. The range of colours you can get is horrific without exemption, from a constipated brown to a sort of rice-water beige. These disastrous garments are generally complimented (this isn’t the right word) by some espadrilles; officially the most offensive shoe ever devised. I mean perhaps if you are holidaying in the tropics or are a Venetian gondola controller or something, it sort of makes sense, but outside of that, there is really no cause for wearing these wicker and canvas obscenities, especially as they usually come offered with no socks, which means most of the people at university constantly smell of feet.

Staying within the umbrella of excessively terrible shoes , flip-flops are also a pressing concern, with many young lads apparently under some sort of delusion they live somewhere in eastern Uruguay. No one wants to see your feet; your toenails are too long with sock fluff wedged under them, and you have hair on the backs of your toes. No one wants to see this. Furthermore your feet smell, that’s why you keep them hidden away. It’s like walking around jiggling your bare armpits in everyone’s faces.  And you can hardly walk in them, they hang off the back of your feet like old snake skins and make an annoying clapping noise every time they come back to ground. And while wearing flip-flops in the summertime does retain some logic, you won’t be hard pressed to see folks waddling about in the things well into September. For the winter months (and beyond) it seems most guys have developed an affinity for effeminate military footwear, usually worn with afore mentioned ugly chino pants, which though surely a seasonal thing, have proved an irritation that persists well into the latter half of the year ( Like aggressive hay fever in the summer, followed by a bout of influenza). If you enjoy or approve of wearing trousers that carefully replicate the ‘just violently shat myself’ look, then hey, you will have a wail of a time. But if you have any moral integrity, come prepared.

6. Your Flatmates Might Be Undiagnosed Socipaths

Living away from home is one of the most important steps a young person can take. It is like a sleep over but with the bad bits too. And chances are you will be okay and get on fine with your flatties. But you do hear those horror stories don’t you, and usually they end with everyone so pissed off they wind up quite willing to engage in mortal combat with one another over a blown light bulb. This is a problem made endlessly worse if you start seeing one of your flatmates as well; if it goes sour, history dictates that it gets very awkward, very fast. And if you live with girls, you will be aware for the first time in your life that actually, girls poo as well. And thats always a traumatic discovery. But, if you choose well , and maybe aren't a total pain in the neck yourself, then chances are everyone will be fine. But do be careful. No one wants a bunny boiler now do they.

7. The Student Lifestyle (Might Prove Even Worse Than Those Other Things)

Like many perfectly rational people you might not like jigging about in a dark room with crap music and a bunch of strangers. But if you don’t, then prepare to have a hard time of it. The Law Society once purported to cater for folks who didn’t like clubbing and drinking, I remember, on the first social I went to, when I had only just started at uni. What this turned out to be was that a small part of the function room had been sectioned off, and some J2O’s had been tastefully placed on a few tables there. That was it for the non-drinkers and those whose idea of revelling differed from that of your club-happy types. And that is the general attitude of student life at large, since it’s essentially vomit-centric and if you aren’t bothered about getting plastered you aren’t of much interest to most people.  This is a problem you will encounter outside of university too, but it is amplified when you live in a dorm with a bunch of smelly boys who want to get wankered every other night. Of course you do have some brilliant nights out, it is just, sometimes you do not. But it is best to try it, at the very least. You can have a great time if the time is right.

These are only some of the things that you should definitely be thankful for if you decided not to go to university. Of course there is a flipside to everything; living with people is a sort of rite of passage for later life and settling down. Being included in a vibrant student population has obvious plus points too, and as far as clothing goes you also see some people who look stunning and may even inspire you to develop your own sort of taste or style as you develop as a person (if you are so inclined). University is an incredible experience; that should not be doubted. But it is not the be-all or end-all, it is just one option of many. Not doing it is not equivalent to missing out on anything. At the end of the day, you have to right the make choice for you, and you would be wise, financially at least, to maybe leave university be, and choose a different path. Good luck escaping those chino wankers though. They are everywhere.

Entry 09: Movie Review: The Amazing Spider-Man

I am not really into super hero films. It all seems a bit silly to me. But seriously, why make a new Spider-Man film? Sam Raimi's seminal 2002 effort (Spider-Man) was one of the highest grossing films of all time, received critical acclaim on release, and is probably one of the best comic-book adaptations to date. So why start afresh? Well, probably because superhero films pull in the cash like you wouldn't believe, even incredibly lame ones, like the mind-numbing Daredevil (a film that will make you wish you too were totally blind). Although the reason may be that Spider-Man is one of the best loved superheroes in the Marvel canon and deserves a fresh start after things admittedly started to trail off a bit towards the end of Raimi's trilogy. Whatever reasons lie behind this re-boot, be glad, because it’s an absolute corker. Although if you haven’t seen it, spoilers exist herein. You have been warned.


This new outing is no longer in the hands of the capable Raimi, but instead has (appropriately named) Mark Webb at the reins, and Webb provides strong direction and gives a darker feel to the story. The general aesthetic of the film is darker than Raimi's effort as well, however this is no rip off of Christopher Nolan's gritty Batman reboot, and to accuse Webb of any such copy-catting is simply unfair. Webb is masterful here and should definitely be allowed to continue with the series, though his task was unenviable. He had to cater firstly for those who had seen the other Spider-Man films or otherwise knew a bit of the story, and also those who were new to the Spider-Man universe, of which undoubtedly there will be many. The inevitable result is that a lot of ground from the original Spider-Man is revisited, for better or worse.


Andrew Garfield is the new face of the title character. Which seems odd really, since Peter Parker is supposed to be a nerdy loner and Garfield looks like a Gillette model. Though ultimately he proves to be a good choice for the role, portraying Spider-Man as more like the trash talking teenager envisaged in the Marvel comics, and he brings some tangible charisma to the role. Garfield really gets to the  heart of what makes Spider-Man one of the greatest superheros; the conflict between the boy and the man, between the renegade and the paragon. All that ‘Great Power, Great Responsibility’ shit. Yeah, that. More importantly, we see real progression in Garfield through the film, whereas Toby Maguire's Peter Parker was still painfully awkward by the third instalment. Does that kid ever grow up? Mary Jane is replaced as the obligatory love interest in favour of Gwen Stacy, played by Emma Stone (thankfully the comic book story arc by which Stacy comes to have three clones was not considered for the movie). Stone is actually fairly average in her performance, overdoing the whole quirky thing and coming off as more annoying than anything else, but there is real chemistry between her and Garfield, and they prove a far more enigmatic pairing than Maguire and Dunst. Uncle Ben still serves as the catalyst for Peter Parker's transition to unitard clad Spider-Man, and Martin Sheen is an excellent choice for the part. His portrayal of Peter's uncle adds real warmth to the script. However, as in the 2002 film, Uncle Ben has relatively little screen time due to his quick death, which feels untimely in more than one way, as it would have been nice to see more of Sheen.


Rhys Ifans is just so-so as the villain Dr Curt Connors, and fails to match up to Wilem Defoe's Green Goblin from the 2002 film (though his costume is way, way less retarded; god that immovable mask was stupid). Though 'The Lizard', Connors' evil alter-ego, fits well with the darker tone of the film, and conveys real menace. One scene in particular towards the end, feels almost like an homage to the kitchen scene from Jurassic Park which, given the tension of that sequence, is an achievement indeed. Denis Leary plays Stacy's hardboiled police Captain father, who naturally doesn’t like Spider-Man on account of comic book movie cliché. Leary, who was so good in The Thomas Crown Affair and Recount is similarly great here, and serves to ground the script which otherwise verges on the wacky science-fictional, with big man-lizards and far-fetched laboratory settings. A recurring character from the 2002 film is Flash Thompson, Peter's classroom antagonist. Thompson begins the film as cartoonishly offensive as in the 2002 effort, however by the end of the film he actually sympathises with Parker over the death of his uncle, and it is hinted that the two may even become friends. This is just a minor detail but adds to the authenticity and feel of the film; the whole thing is more natural and makes a hell of a lot more sense. Though it is still spider-man, remember. High-tension wire web-slingers ahoy.


This new incarnation of Spider-Man takes a darker, more gritty approach to one of the best loved of the big American superhero franchises. Peter Parker is more human, more relatable and ultimately more interesting. Similarly the story is stronger, and picks up real traction as the script progresses. Some silly plot twists do pop up regarding some antigen that causes lizardisation and Spider-Man webbing up a flesh wound and then running on it because hey why the hell not, but this cannot really take away from what is a very good movie. And besides, this is a comic book story after all. No one was expecting High Fidelity. Lighten the hell up.

Entry 08: Low Place Like Home

You're back home for the summer. Your work and toil has ended, for the moment at least,  and in the ensuing blowout your already meagre student loan has completely dried up, and the whithered apple core that remains resembles Faye Dunaway holidaying in the tropics. And so you have made the pilgrimage back home. And yet, somehow it always feels like a retreat.


You are back in your old room, which you find decorated with some old nick-knacks, a bunch of outdated music posters and a few candid snaps of you when you were about thirteen. You have run home to Mom and Pop. You have your clothes and sheets washed, folded and even ironed (Ha, remember that?). Your meals are no longer scrappy pasta dishes hastily cooked up in a select few pots and pans , that all come coated in grease and bean juice slime. No, now you get veritable meals, that you don't even have to cook. The fridge is stocked with cans of the soft drink you like; for me it's coke, like actual coke and not the sainsburys crap. And I can have as much as it as I like as my parents have found in their middle age that carbonated drinks disagree with them. Sure you have to walk the now waddling old dog and push a hoover and broom around every so often but hey, this is great, sort of like a day pass prison. Two hots and a cot. That's swell right?


Well sort of. But after a week or so, you being at home loses it's maverick status and clearly starts to grind the gears of your dear parents. Your persistence in waking in the late afternoon and wandering about in a dressing gown till five o'clock clearly irks your dad, who, working from home, eyes you with a steely gaze as you wander to and  fro, as he takes work calls at the dining table. Furthermore it all becomes very obvious you aren't employed, and this isn't acceptable either, since it's basically equatable to being a member of the KKK. You drink up with glee all the free soft drinks that were picked on the basis that you like that brand, but this is seen by your providers, as a flagrant abuse of  process, and clearly shows that you are a sweet-toothed mooching sonofabitch. You eat the free meals but then prove ineffective in suggesting new ones, much to your mother's consternation. And you know, deep down, your parents are sort of wishing you would just leave already.


But it isn't just you who proves to be a colossal irritant to your 'rents, but the reverse is soon proven to be very much true as well. You see, since you and your sis moved away your parents have been alone together for extended periods for the first time in more than twenty years. And as they move gradually forward, blinking and rubbing their eyes in the blinding reality of their semi isolation , they have devolved to form a series of eccentricities in your wake. To start with, the pillow population has exploded, leading to the manic, impractical, otherworldly setup wherein each sofa has a whopping four pillows propped up on it. And so with disdain you toss the tastefully placed rectangles of yellow and green to the seat in the bay, where no one ever sits apart from when its crammed at Christmas. Upon witnessing this your mum springs forth like a particularly zealous gazelle and slips you the immortal line 'Leave them love, those are the DISPLAY PILLOWS (emphasis added)'. And its at this point you realise your childhood home has been utterly bastardised in your absence; there are new, freaky routines to learn, and boy are they maddening.


The bathroom in particular, due to it's communal nature, is a hotbed for this sort of interchange. It's like the Gaza strip of petty parent-child squabbling. For a start, your father has an obsession with wiping down the surfaces after a shower, which surely borders dangerously on fetishism. I mean it's sort of common to maybe wipe down the screen, or the door if it's a walk-in. But no, this is not acceptable. We are talking the walls, even the ones on the other end of the room, as well as the dials, the taps, the shelves, the border of the bath, the mirror, and possibly even the rim of the sink. If you fail to deal with any of these articles, you can expect a disdainful call from your father; 'The walls are running'. Of course to this you reply with 'Oh really, you better catch them then', like the cutting genius of wit that you are. God, you are such a catch. But that's not all. Your mother has a habit, nay, a routine (as it's a daily occurrence, way beyond the whimsical) of popping down the lid of the loo and doing her make up whilst sat on the toilet lid, using a little make-up mirror propped on the window ledge behind the cistern. This means whenever you go take a leak, the mirror is so placed that you wind up staring at a fun-house mirror image of your own junk, and no matter how often you move the mirror, every day you will find it in the same place, at the same angle, as this is presumably the exact height at which your mother's head reaches. So everyday you get this terrifying spectacle in the morning; like staring at your dong as it floats about hazily in some other dimension. It's sort of like having a video-call except its with your own penis and its calling from a particularly distant Stargate.


But living at home is downright dangerous. You suddenly remember all these creature comforts you took for granted when you were a bratty little kid; cooked meals, made beds, chilled beverages, and think, 'Hey, I don't want leave this.' And so, there is a good chance you won't. You risk slipping into a sort of vegetative state, whereby you do nothing creative, mooch off of your parents and generally become a bit of a dosser. It is very attractive after all. You seldom have to go out, can sit in your pants and smell like sweat and mountain dew till the cows come home, all the while clocking up hours on that video game that you really need to pump endless hours into again. If you are anyway near as sociopathic as I am, then this will appeal. But this is not good. Because you have most likely already done this sort of thing, its hardly fresh or new or exciting, nor does it pay. And boy, do you need a summer job, especially after the afore mentioned blowout after exams.


So home is problematic for several reasons; you annoy your elders, who in turn annoy you, and as a result of the comforts available to you either way, you risk squandering time by sitting about and dribbling at a screen for days at a time. So be careful. Of course with all seriousness, going home should be really nice, and be honest, you love your dear old parents and you have missed them whilst off being all independent. Furthermore its good to have some normalcy after the sweat and vomit soaked roller coaster of your other life, and you can take a little time to take your foot off the gas, enjoy some hospitality, and maybe practice a little domestic diplomacy. Just catch yourself if you find yourself dipping into that rut, even if it is all expenses paid. Should you find yourself staring glassy eyed at a TV screen, then pick yourself up and go do something else. And for the love of god wash that vest. It's been weeks and while I appreciate you don't have anyone to impress, there are some times when you should just be appalled at yourself, and this is one of those times. You smell like feet wrapped in old kippers.

Entry 07: Pop Culture Part I

So the past year has been a big one as far as mediocre pop tunes go. Whilst rock and indie slip further down the slippy slope of cultural irrelevance, terrible, cheap pop music is doing particularly well. Here is a selection of the biggest and best (HA. Just kidding) pop tunes of the past year or so, in no particular order.

1. Carly Rae Jepsen- Call Me Maybe (April 2012)

This seems like a good place to start. As far as earworms go, Carly Rae Jepsen's magnum opus of nigh on offensive mediocrity is a veritable Thresher Maw. The song manages to spare a whopping twenty-nine seconds before bounding happily into the chorus like an ecstatic and mildly defective border collie. Jepsen (though surely that isn't an actual surname?) sings about fawning over strangers and butterflies and young love and such shit, hardly new ground, but it's sufficiently fresh as to never be openly derivative. Visually Carly is utterly pedestrian, with a big unfashionable bob that hides most of her face and a petite, shapeless frame. Though this pre-teen aesthetic is quite refreshing amongst legions of massive busts and frighteningly huge butts (see: Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, Rita Ora). Lyrically Jepsen is utterly devoid of colour, sounding like basically every other tween superstar, and it passes over you leaving little flavour or feeling. Virtually anyone could have sung this song. They could have got Premier Merkel to do this one.


This is a curious song in that it feels really out of place, looking and sounding like something from 2003, although that isn't necessarily a bad thing. The chorus is so unbelievably catchy that it's hard not to feel at least some warmth for this track, and while it's fairly cheap and tacky, it's also quite sweet. In addition, Jepsen herself should be celebrated for surely being the first person to ever miss someone BEFORE even meeting them ('Before you came into my life/ I missed you so bad, I missed you so, so bad'). Yeah, nice one Carly, you fucking loon. The music video is now iconic simply due to its play count, although it's fairly basic. Carly falls for her gay neighbour, or gardener, or something. Carly is presumed to be wet for him on the basis he mows a lawn in slow mo and takes his shirt off. Carly washes her car, pervs on her vascular gardener, reads some shitty books and generally just tits about. Then there is some singing with her band in the garage (Does she live with her parents? What is she, 17? She owns the house? She has a mortgage? You know it's this sort of American lending which got us into this mess). Here we see the woosiest guitar player EVER, who at no point in the song is actually detectable over the joyous strings anyway. He actually moonwalks at one point. Nice one ever playing with any other bands ever again ('Hey, aren't you that douche out of Carly Rae Jepsen's band who moonwalks in a self-depricative manner? Yeah the vacancy is filled'). Call Me Maybe is terrible by any musical judgment, but it is hard not to like the song due to its sheer virulent ability to stick in your head, and while Carly's voice is a bit piddly, she seems like quite a nice girl and never takes any of it too seriously. The humour in the video is also quite well placed. And then there are the endless lyrical retelling! What fun.

2. Justin Bieber- Boyfriend (June-2012)

It's been a long while since Baby, not like that is a bad thing, and after releasing a godawful Christmas album, Dustbin Jieber returns with newest abomination, Boyfriend. This song is stupid, really really stupid. Jieber undoubtedly churns out the dumbest lyric of the year with 'Chillin' by the fire while we eatin' fondue', not withstanding sitting by a fire would appear to negate any chance of chillin', and even in a figurative sense, it just sounds dopey. And fondue? Yes nothing is more gangster than a big ole pot of melted cheese (or of chocolate I guess, but short of a wedding this is never really appropriate ). Maybe it's just Jieber recognising finally that he isn't some hood rapper, and that in fact his fan base is made up without exception of candy-munching little pre-teen girls. But sadly I doubt that, it's more likely that he, or rather whoever it is that writes his songs, just being dumb. Jieber himself is quoted as saying that he hopes this single is more 'mature', and, from a certain point of view, this is true. I mean the video starts with Bieber doing freaking donuts in a big orange muscle car, which is pretty much as masculine as you can get, and besides, legally he probably couldn't even drive that until a few months ago. He could save his record label some time, money and effort by just wearing a badge saying 'I am now of majority.' There is also a new look; dark wayfarers along with a leather jacket and quiffy hair. Those drawstring hoodies and mop haircut are nowhere in sight. Furthermore his 'nads have dropped lending him a deeper register. But this cannot mask the fact that this is candy apple crap intended for some chubby nine year olds.


Not content with just being bad this song is downright creepy (Need I say more). The rhythm of the song is set by a ghostly, intermittent wailing, 'weeew-eew' in the background, which is really off-putting, like the rhythm section was left to collaborating artist Jennet Humfrye. Bieber practically murmurs most of the first verse, giving him the air of a serial axe murderer-rapist whispering excitedly to the corpses of some butchered hitchhikers as he buries them under the shed. This rapey vibe is emphasised by the video itself, which starts with imagery of frosty industrial cogs and dripping icicles, like the whole thing is shot in Bieber's creepy rape warehouse. Bieber is then seen in a dark room standing behind a young girl, whispering that he intends to take her to places 'she ain't never seen before' (namely the trunk of his big orange muscle car, and, shortly after, the earth beneath his shed, via a heady dose of chloroform). Later on we see some nameless bitch come and stand by Justin. Justin glumly watches with arms folded as she approaches, then he pulls at her, pushes her to and fro a bit, and then makes her do twists for his amusement and gyrate on him for a bit too. All clammy like, reminiscent of some horrific re-telling of Lennie from Of Mice and Men. And then he has the audacity to proclaim 'I could be a gentlemen'. Well clearly not Justin. Chivalry is seldom formulated to include grabbing at a bitch like a raunchy hermit crab.


Musically the song is bog standard tacky RnB, with a persistent drum machine beat, the afore mentioned creepy ghost noises and some twinkly synths a bit later on. The use of an acoustic guitar is the sole source of merit here, adding a bit of funk and some substance to the chorus, along with a touch of colour and personality to a track which is otherwise totally empty. Bieber actually announces the introduction of his own vocals like the preening tit he is ('so say hello to falsetto in three, two, swag'), a feat of stupidity matched only by the fact he actually fails to reach a count of three, apparently believing swag is somehow a numeric. And if Bieber's singing equates to falsetto then hell, Yorke and Bellamy can sleep easy. Although, Bieber's singing on the chorus is not unpleasant, if a bit squeaky at times, and it makes the chorus very, very catchy. Though not quite to the extent of Jepsen's effort, nor is it as good as that song. This song is terrible almost without exception. The video takes itself too seriously, directed by the mysterious Director X, who tricks us by cutting off the video after thirty seconds only to restart the whole thing, like he's David Lynch or something. What exactly sports cars, ugly high-tops, Wayfarers, or swag have to do with being a boyfriend is anyone's guess. But it shows clearly what Island Def Jam Music think folks these days regard as essential in a potential love interest. And sadly they are probably spot on. Of course it's easy to blast Bieber himself, though it isn't really his fault; he seems like a nice enough guy, and while his talent is questionable, he doesn't really deserve all the flack. But that cannot save this train wreck of a song. I don't think anything can.

3. Dappy- Rockstar (Feat. Brian May) (March 2012) 

Dappy left N-Dubz and things looked good, because it was hoped he would go the same way as Geri Haliwell and bloody well disappear. But no such luck, as he reached No. 2 in the singles chart with latest effort Rockstar. I was content to let this song pass me by, until I learned that legendary Queen guitarist, Brian May, had agreed to a collaboration. This utterly stunned me. Grime shitbag Dappy had convinced a rock legend to work with him. How was this possible? It's hardly the first hip hop-rock crossover, but I can't remember there was this much disparity between the two. I mean Aerosmith and Run DMC were sort of on a level when they made the classic Walk This Way, but this is madness. What will there be next? Can we expect Tinie Tempah to crack out a single with Pete Townsend, or Chipmunk to release an Extended Play featuring the re-animated corpse of Judy Garland? This is just insane.


Renowned musical talents should be beyond the whim of shitty grime rappers. But somehow May was snared. The only way I can look to forgiving May is if there was some sort of abduction sub-plot involved along the lines of Taken. Though I suspect there was no such leverage, beyond the financial. Of course May's contribution which, to be fair, lasts little more than twenty seconds, is the only part of the song that is actually good. The rest of the song is angsty, juvenile, and tuneless. Dappy wears big ugly sunglasses with one of those scrotal sack beanies, and raps angrily about his life, like all those other times. Maybe this isn't fair, I mean I don't like Grime full stop. Tinie Tempah's wry wit and self-referential humour makes him fairly palatable, and Labrinth seems genuinely quite talented, but bar that, Grime seems to me tasteless, tacky, and just a cheap imitation of the far more genuine and authentic American rap scene. But still, this song seems to stand out as particularly bad.

4. Fun-We Are Young (Feat. Janelle Monae) (June 2012)

This song came and hovered around the Top 10 for several weeks, which was to be expected, it's a good song, fairly original, well sung and above all, catchy. But when it went to No.1 in early June, then questions started to be asked. Namely, can ANY song get to No.1 these days? Yes it's a catchy song, and yes front man Nate Reuss's vocals are quite fresh and even distinctive, but No.1? The problem I have with this song is that it has virtually nothing to say. What is the song about? The video focuses on the band performing during a bar fight, but what does that mean? Of course the whole thing is shot in agonising slow mo AGAIN. The band play the chorus in empassioned slow mo with concentration faces that makes the whole thing mildly hilarious. Furthermore while Reuss's vocal style is quite original, it is also, well, sort of whiney and emo-tinged. In fact that goes for the song as a whole, in that while it does stand out as quite a nice and twinkly alternative to most chart music, it also feels a bit like Fall Out Boy in the worst possible way. Lyrically the song is weak, with nonsensical references to a 'pair of sunglasses' taking Nates's seat and asking his beau 'about a scar'. While this is probably a drippy metaphor for like love trauma or something, it just sounds really lame.


Furthermore the transition into the transcendent chorus doesn't quite work, as the drums go from a deft, quick opening roll, to a pained, slowed down beat in the chorus, which doesn't sit particularly well. You can't help but get the feeling listening to this that they wrote the chorus, said, 'Hey, this is good!', then fudged together some sketched verses and shoved the whole lot together in the hope it would work. But it doesn't. The lyrics of the verses bear little or no relation to the chorus, again adding to the disjointed feeling, and the narrative is weak and almost impossible to follow. Like I said, this is a good song, but it should not be a smash hit, or No. 1. It just doesent seem to have the chops. It is a crude and scattershot song that, though not without its merits, ultimately comes across as sort of warmed over indie-pop meh.