We have some harsh words for Ms. Minogue :( x 10000000

We try to focus on the positive here in DN-land, and we're sure we are all in agreement that Kylie Minogue is a fairly positive subject. We've always had nothing but the utmost respect for Kylie, and literally had to leave work when she was diagnosed with breast cancer (not joking). So it pains us to type these words, but WHAT. THE. FUCK. Every time we hear "All I See" we become more and more adamant in our thinking that it's really, really Not Good. Not Good At All. The problem presents itself thusly: We assume, as it has been demonstrated by various labels since "Fever" came out all those years back, that Universal/Astralwerks want to break America--something like how Leona Lewis just destroyed every radio format over the past month--and they thought that the quickest way to do so was to release a fluffy, totally harmless R&B ditty to assuage the US masses, as that's all we'll ever really listen to (except country, and somehow a "Kylie: Live in Nashville" album almost seems like a good idea at this point). What whoever chose "All I See" as her lead single in America forgot is heartbreakingly simple: Kylie Minogue is a 40-year-old white woman who can't sing. Again: KYLIE MINOGUE IS A 40-YEAR-OLD WHITE WOMAN WHO CAN'T SING. We love her. We adore her. She is our everything. She is our #1. But it's true. She needs huge, awesome pop production in order to sound like her larger-than-life self, and "All I See" just doesn't deliver in that department. In the above performance (from this morning's "Ellen Degeneres Show"), anyone with ears can hear that Kylie is not in her element: yes, she looks fabulous, yes, the dancers are doing their best to distract from the fact that the song is weak and Kylie surely hasn't gone to a "club" with a "boy" in quite some time (which is FINE), and it all comes off as SO desperate and shallow that it really makes us wonder if it was even worth releasing "X" in America in the first place. Surely a performance like that on a daytime television show geared towards middle-aged women and the lesbians who love them can't be doing a EURO-POP RECORD that much good? We would have been behind any other song (LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE) from "X" being on American TV (imagine the MAJESTY that is "In My Arms" or "Wow" or "Sensitized" or "Heart Beat Rock" in front of a couple hundred thousand viewers!), but not this. In a post-"Umbrella" world, "All I See" is totally useless, whereas "X" grows on us more and more with every listen. Sad.

Just to remind us that Kylie is amazing and can perform amazing songs amazingly, let's all dry our tears, sit down and watch this a few times, together:















:(

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

We've posted about this before

...but as Dragonette are the best pop band in the world you'll just have to deal.



It's a shaky YouTube clip of their new song, "Big Sunglasses". Will "Big Sunglasses" be dubbed Best Song Ever™ 2008? Possibly, if Hot Chip cease to exists this very second.

Maybe we'll keep posting live clips of this song until you can paste together the entire single! It will be all "user generated content" etc etc.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh dear Lord Jesus in the heavens above, WE ARE GOING TO DIE.

Over the weekend we went to the last ever Avenue D show

...and it looked like this:



For an hour.

And it was fucking awesome. RIP, etc.

This is all we have to offer

Last night we went to see Tigercity, currently the Best Band in New York™, play an early set at the Bowery Ballroom. It was one of the best shows we've seen in a while (well, since Tigercity last played NYC) and it completely blew us away. We danced to every song with Abbey Punk Photo, smiled the whole way through, and marveled at singer Bill's new mustache. Good thing we brought our trusty "camera"-phone along for the evening, right?





Indeed.

Here is some more "lively" footage from when we last saw them during the CMJ Music Marathon last month. The song is "Are you Sensation?" and it's amazing, and as we write this we're realizing we have talked about this track before, but it is THAT GOOD.



Don't thank us.

You should try not to clap your hands and film a show at the same time...

...especially if said show features something as fucking brilliant as Patrick Wolf doing a Spice Girls medley.



AMAZING. Could have thrown in some "Stop" for good measure, though.

Here's a clip of Dragonette's new song

Readers:



Was that not the best 58 seconds of your lives? We saw the almighty Dragonette perform this new, untitled song when they played in NYC a few weeks ago, and it was fucking superb. We love Dragonette more than our own lives. If you haven't seen them yet, they are currently on tour (all dates on their MySpace page).

Hot.

We just so happened to see Operator Please the other day

...and it was amazing, as this live shot will properly convey.



It looks like the keyboardist Sarah is having a bit of a problem there--we hope she's alright.

We wrote a review of the entire "shebang" as it were, and it's up at supmag.com. Here.

Also, here is an MP3. It's of the brilliant "Just a Song About Ping Pong", which is about ping pong. We take it that Operator Please have no sense of irony.

Operator Please - "Just a Song About Ping Pong"

We saw New Young Pony Club yesterday, along with about 10,000 other bands

BUT THIS SERIOUSLY HAPPENED.



What you just witnessed was NYPC covering "Pump Up the Jam" by TECHNOTRONIC. COULD A BAND POSSIBLY GET MORE META. It made our night, and we are SO glad we traipsed out to the butthole of Brooklyn to see the Pony Club in action.

Muscles opened for them, and were amazing. Guns Babes Lemonade is the best record of the year etc.

We saw Interpol at MSG last night...

And Jesus Christ on a motorbike, HOW SHIT ARE THEIR NEW SONGS.

Here is some shitty fan video to validate this statement.



The problem with "Serious Interpol" is that instead of just writing a slighty weepy ballad and calling it a day, they basically just write an Interpol song without any good hooks or guitar parts. It's like they purposely write shit songs instead of good poppy ones like they're capable of. Look at what happens when they play a song that's not horrible:



OMG! GOOD GUITAR PARTS! CATCHY CHORUS! AMAZING!

Interpol, you know what you have to do.

It's 5AM and we just got home from Calvin Harris' very first American gig...

...and we have some thoughts. First off, it was amazing, for a lot of reasons, though we weren't exactly "feeling" the full band renditions of our favorite Calvin tracks--a part of us just kind of wants him to bust out the lap top and Bonde Do Role it up. But most of it was Very Very Good Indeed including, surprisingly, "The Industry", which is kind of bizarre on record but makes for quite the live tune. "Girls", "Acceptable in the '80s", "Merrymaking at My Place" and "Vegas" were all crowd pleasers. FACT: CALVIN HARRIS HAS NEVER THROWN A HOUSE PARTY. We asked him. Coincidentally, we were also yelled at at Calvin's afterparty by a woman for having brown nipples.

Here is an utterly horrible picture of Calvin we took on our "camera"phone.



This blog is a total disgrace to music, etc etc.

Oh look, SMD to tour in September

...right around the Stateside release of Attack Decay Sustain Release. QUITE exciting.

Sat 09/15 - The Gramercy Theater New York NY w/ Dave P & JDH
Sun 09/16 - La Sala Rossa Montreal PQ
Mon 09/17 - The Mod Club Toronto ON
Tue 09/18 - Empty Bottle Chicago IL
Thu 09/20 - Neumos Seattle WA Diplo, Switch
Fri 09/21 - Mezzanine San Francisco CA w/ Dave P & JDH
Sat 09/22 - Echoplex Los Angeles CA w/ Boys Noiz

Their jolly little press email also came with a video of them playing in Philly:



BUT pales in compatison to 'Sup's footage of SMD performing their international "hit" "It's The Beat" at Studio B in Brooklyn last week:



One more time, just so everyone's on the same page:

Good:



Much better:



Glad we cleared that up then!

This shit is heavy like it weighs a ton

Remember Robyn? The Swedish girl with the platinum blond combdown who made a splash a decade ago with "Show Me Love"? It's no secret that she's been back in the scene and recording for a while, but her new video came out a few days ago and frankly, we find ourselves obliged to represent:



UM, OMG. Was that not the most awesome 3:04 minutes of your life? We thought so. Brilliantly, the song is called "Konichiwa Bitches" and is a strong early contender for Song of the Year, even though it's been kicking around the Internet for the past century or so.

Check out these links for more Robynsanity:
1. The "Show Me Love" video, which 10 years down the line, isn't as bad as we remember it to be. It's actually a pretty decent pop song. Who'd have thought!
2. Robyn's MySpace profile
3. A Robyn interview at popjustice.
4. Her official site (didn't realize people still did those).

WAIT! BONUS!

A fan recorded Robyn performing "Konichiwa Bitches" somewhere in the UK, and it sounds quite "new rave". PERHAPS KLAXONS WERE LISTENING.