"No One" is still our least favorite pop single of the past 12 months

...but watching it sung through a glory hole by a gay porn star does make it a tad more palatable.

PS: We know this is old and we opted against posting it when it first came out, but after hearing "No One" "out" last night, we remembered it and thought it should be brought to light after all. Just FYI, before the hate comments* start rolling in.


*[What comments?--Ed]

Oh wow, as it turns out Tilly and the Wall are fucking amazing

So yeah, we've just been told that Tilly and the Wall, who are from the Midwest (where pop goes to die, obviously) have a new single out called "Beat Control". For some reason we've never really been into Tilly and the Wall, despite their having several components that have "DN SEAL OF APPROVAL" written all over them (women, tap dancing, etc). But because this song has the word "beat" in the title, we decided to "take it for a spin", so to speak (putting the word "beat" in your song title always makes for a tune ("It's The Beat", "We've Got the Beat", "The Beat Goes On", etc), much like putting the word "high" or "higher" into your song title makes said song irreversibly shit ("Higher", "Higher", "Higher, etc)). Anyway, we listened to this thing and it turns out that Tilly have left the twee/indie pop thing by the wayside and made a Very Good Pop Record Indeed, which the world is always in good need of.

AMAZING.

ALERT ALERT ALERT

We have the Teenagers record, and it looks like this:



It kind of looks like an American Apparel ad, which it sort of is, when you think about it.

Anyway, before we get to the part of the post where we see if the record gets a million per cent or not, let it be known that we are continually (that's CONTINUALLY) disappointed by bands that re-record great demos and rough cuts for a debut album. You;d think it wouldn't really matter if you glossed up a song that said the word "cunt" twice in every chorus. But whatever.

Here's what we think of the album.

1. "Homecoming": Amazing (It's kind of a testament to our lifestyle that at the tender age of twentysomethingteen we are completely morally immune to the word "cunt". CUNTCUNTCUNTCUNTCUNTCUNTCUNT. See? Nothing).

2. "Love No": AMAZING (The line about watching Showgirls alone in your room 15 times = our lives circa 1998).

3. "Feeling Better": Very, very Good.

4. "Starlett Johansson": Not as Good as the demo version but Good nonetheless.

5. "Streets of Paris": Amazing, basically because it is the third track with a batter beat and the lead singer saying "c'est la folie!" in the GAYEST way imaginable. C'est la vie, belle du jour, vive la revolution, escargot, pret a porter, etc etc.

6. "Make It Happen": AMAZING.

7. "Wheel of Fortune": Not good.

8. "Fuck Nicole": Amazing.

9. "French Kiss": Meh. Actually NOT GOOD.

10. "Sunset Beach": Very good ("VODKA RED BULL". This album is so "2008" it's blowing our minds).

11. "Ill": can't really be bothered to listen to this all the way through for some reason. OH WAIT THE CHORUS IS AMAZING. It's the song we really liked when they played. AWESOME

11. "End of the Road": We actually tricked ourselves into thinking that this song was a cover of "End of the Road " by Boys II Men. How amazing would that have been? PS this song is not good, like at all. There's a really promising accelerated beat and vocal edit around the 2:10 where it sounds like some pretty heavy house shit is about to jump off, but we guess not. Apparently there's a great demo version of the Teenagers doing "My Heart Will Go On" somewhere, if we're to believe Crystal Castles (we don't). Anyway back to the half-assed review.

12. "Trouble": Ok.

13. "Starlett Johansson (Rory Phillips remix)": Sticking on a Rory Phillips/Boyz Noize/Kissy Sell Out/Erol Alkan/SMD/etc remix at the end of your record is a HORRIBLE idea, not because those producers aren't good but because it gives the impression that the record is a little bit "whatever" and needs a fashionable remix of the most recent single in order to trick cool people into buying it, which is exactly what people are expecting from the Teenagers anyway. It's an OK track though.

So, in conclusion, a brightly colored electro rock album from a band for who the most evident path is not always... oh who are we kidding. 10,000%, amazing.

COLOR CHART

Doesn't this seem like a whole lot of fun....

DFA Dance Party
Saturday, March 1, 2008
9:00 p.m.–1:00 a.m.
MoMA

In conjunction with the exhibition Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today, PopRally invites you to bring the color chart to life on the dance floor with an amazing lineup of DJs from DFA Records.

Featuring DJs:

Juan Maclean
T&T (Tim Goldsworthy & Tim Sweeney)
Holy Ghost!
Justin Miller & Jacques Renault

Click here for more INFO / Click Here for TICKETS

BE KIND REWIND

ARE YOU READY FOR THIS?

YOUNG LOVE IS THE BEST KIND OF LOVE

When we first heard the Mystery Jets, it was love at first sound. We've loved "You Can't Fool me Dennis" and "Diamonds in the Dark" and now we have a new song to love.



The new track "Young Love" is produced by Erol Alkan (<3<3<3), featuring vocals by the lovely, Laura Marling.

Check out the video courtesy of 9 & 12:

There's a new Girls Aloud video out

"Fancy"* that.



This is what the Gays would call "French revolution boudoir realness", we believe.

Oh, the video is for the mid-tempo number "Can't Speak French" and it's AMAZING.

*Do you see what we did there?

WE ARE SO GONNA BE HERE!!!!!!!!!

HOLY SHIT!!!!!! YELLE!!!! at the KNITTING FACTORY NY!!!! on 02/19!!!!!

Buy tickets here.

YOU CAME TO ME

It's a dreary, rainy day here in New York City and we're sitting in our depressing cubes, twiddling our thumbs just waiting for winter to be over already. In our complete deviation from "work" - we stumbled across Baltimore's Beach House (Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally) who are releasing their second full-length, Devotion (Carpark Records) later this month.

Here's the video for "You Came to Me," directed by Baltimore underground film legend Skizz Cyzyk. It's completely rainy day music with playful visuals of sequins and metallic streamers. Pure awesomeness.

Enjoy!

ONE PURE THOUGHT

Hot Chip's newest release, Made in the Dark (Astralwerks/DFA) dropped in early February and we have been raving about it for months now. We would write about them everyday if we could to be honest.

Well, we've got a treat for you. Here's a remix of the track, "One Pure Thought" by Streetlab.

Check it out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hot Chip - One Pure Thought (Streetlab Mix) (mp3)

Quite literally the longest Dragonette post ever

This is, as you should know by now, Dragonette.



Before continuing with this post (in which we will talk about the band's nomination for a Juno Award for Best New Group) we'd like to bring to attention the amazing accessorizing that The Drag's frontwoman Martina has managed to pull off in this promotional photograph.



Hm, somehow our choice of font just doesn't seem to do this fabulous chunky '80s bracelet justice.



There we go. Truly AMAZING™.

Anyway, as we mentioned before, Dragonette have been nominated for a Juno Award, which is Canada's version of the Grammys (which may very well be America's version of the Junos--who knows, really). Unlike the Grammys, the members of the committee at the Juno Awards actually take a couple of minutes out of their busy schedules to listen to music every once and a while, instead of giving awards high and nigh to people whose publicist might have called them up once or twice. Hence the nomination of the best Pop Band in the world. Justice is served, Canada-style (with a moose and a side of poutine, or something).

We almost forgot, if you go to the Juno Awards site you can listen to about 16 seconds of "I Get Around", which is kind of redundant as we're pretty sure that you already have the full song, and if you don't you can surely get it for free off of the Hype Machine, but we thought it was a nice touch nonetheless.

We told you so.

It is to our great shame and dismay that we didn't know this existed until we saw it in the "Most Viewed Today" column as we were perusing YouTube.com today. Apparently more than 700,000 people have seen this video (though haven't talked about it because the embedding feature is disabled). So we had to find a mirror. Anyway here it is, it's the new Lil Mama featuring Chris Brown and T-Pain single, "Shawty Get Loose". Oh how the mighty have fallen.



It's kind of a good song, though no where near the genius of a "Lipgloss" or a "G-Slide" (WHERE ARE THE NURSERY RHYMES AND COSMETICS?!?!??) but Mama's hair is approximately 70% better here than it was in those videos, so we're sure wrongs have been righted in some respects.

We shall reserve judgment until her album is released. In like 2085.

PS: We feel like T-Pain is older than Chris Brown and Lil Mama combined (albeit, the median age for that crew is like, fetal).

Be prepared for another YouTube video within the next 24 hours

We're slightly confused if Stefy is basically just Californian singer Stefy Rae OR an eponymous band featuring her and a couple of white men playing rock instruments. A little bit like Goldfrapp then (but what isn't). Anyway, we were somewhat "into" Stefy about a year ago when she (they?) released a bunch of singles no one listened to but were still pretty good. She is (they are?) are now back with a video for "Pretty Little Nightmare", her (their?) best song to date. Watch out for the "I'm so pretty/I'm so pretty" part at the beginning of the chorus, it's definitely the best bit.

Here's the video. It's stop-start animated, so don't be surprised if it makes it on the frontpage of YouTube.com, like right now.



We're pretty sure the theme of the video is "Oooh I'm Stefy I break lots of hearts because I am a sexy lady". Not exactly the same can be said for Simian Mobile Disco, we're afraid.

Last night we saw Robyn

...and it almost made up for the fact that we're probably not going to be able to see the Spice Girls next week (we don't want to talk about it). Abbey Punk Photo was by our side the whole time and took some wonderful photos and video.

Here are the videos.





AMAZING.

Numericals:

1. "Handle Me" might be the best fucking song we have heard live in a very long time. That title would have probably gone to "Ready For the Floor" if we hadn't fucked ourselves clean up the ass and forgot to get tickets for the Hot Chip show last week (we don't want to talk about it squared). That said, perhaps it was all for a reason and "Handle Me" was meant to shine bright in our consciousness on its own merit and not to be compared to The Best Song of the '00s. Whatever.

2. Actually fuck it, "Handle Me" was utterly fantastic.

3. We actually had what Victorian medical practitioners would have called an "episode" when she played "Konichiwa Bicthes".

4. OH WAIT SHE DID "SHOW ME LOVE". WHO CALLED IT? WE CALLED IT. THAT'S RIGHT. ABOUT A MINUTE BEFORE SHE PLAYED IT. And it was awesome.

5. For some reason "With Every Heartbeat" always seemed longer than it actually is.

6. OMG "Handle Me" OMG ETC.

AND THAT IS ALL. Robyn is amazing and should release her record in the United States. If you want to know more about what we thought, check out our review at 'SUP

Here are the Ting Tings

...again.



Despite slipping slightly off of the Ting Tings bandwagon this week due to their new single "Great DJ" not being QUITE as amazing as we first thought upon multiple listens, when we heard Sir Calvin of the Harrisons (no relation to Her Majesty Sophia von Bextovilles) was doing a remix of "Great DJ" our interest was, shall we say, "re-piqued". The remix is FUCKING BRILLIANT and definitely restores "Great DJ"'s status as a song that's OK to listen to sometimes, when one feels a little dance-y.

The Ting Tings - "Great DJ (Calvin Harris remix)" [zShare] [YSI]

The remix is 100% amazing until the 1:30-minute mark, where it brutally and suddenly drops to approximately 94% amazing. Then when the verse picks up again, it's back to 100%. Magical.

PS: We want to make "The drums the drums the drums the drums etc" the "Umbrella-ella-ella" of 2008. I.e.: "What does Ross Jarman play in the Cribs again?" "The drums the drums the drums the drums etc".

PPS: THE TING TINGS JOKE OF THE DAY:

Q: What are the Ting Tings always careful to tidy up after they've eaten a box of cookies?
A: The crumbs, the crumbs, the crumbs, the crumbs, the crumbs, etc.

So that was educational

This is the sleeve for Cut Copy's new record. It's called In Ghost Colours.



What a literal "representation", etc.