TELEPHONE - LADY GAGA & BEYONCE REVIEW

What follows is the transcript from a video taken as my brother and I watched Lady Gaga's latest creative opus, Telephone.

Alex: Ok, what the fuck is this "Telephone" video clip everyone is talking about!

Alex: Everyone's like "OH MY GOD IT'S THE BEST THING EVER!"

Rob: *Singing the harmonies for The Drums' Best Friend without paying much attention.*

Alex: *Watching* She got sent to prison by the looks of it.

Alex: ...Where she should be.

Rob: For crimes against humanity?

Alex: *Reading the on screen credits as they appear* Lady Gaga, and Beyonce.

Alex: ...And Tyrese Gibson.

Alex: ..."Prison for bitches"? Really?

Alex: "You're going to swim out of here in your own blood bitch"?

Alex: ...Why are these women wearing make-up in jail!

Alex: Pretty sure those outfits are inappropriate.

Alex: Already this seems like a bullshit video.

Rob: Did they just strip her completely naked??

Alex: "I told you she didn't have a dick."

Alex: Is this actually a music video or what?

Alex: Fucking hell how edgy is she!

Rob: *Says nothing*

Alex: She's so edgy. She's wearing sunglasses made of cigarettes, if that's not edgy I don't know what is.

Rob: Which gang is she going to join?

Alex: What the fuck is this shit?!

*Watching as she awkwardly makes out with the lesbian who is almost certainly a dude.*

Alex: Oh my god, did you just see that product placement!

Rob: Nah, didn't see.

Alex: Virgin Mobile!

Alex: *Rewinds* Wait for it...

Alex: Virgin Mobile!

Alex: Oh look, now there's bitches fighting.

Alex: This looks like a UFC action replay.

*The "music" aspect of the video finally begins, 2:55 into the clip*

Alex: *listening to the song itself* ...Fucking hell she's ugly.

Alex: She's got CANS in her hair!

Rob: ...Yeah she is awfully ugly hey.

Alex: Where's Beyonce! Where is she? Cause I am getting sick of this!

Rob: Let's hope, er, let's hope shes wearing the... prison attire.

Alex: *In an inadvertently high pitch* Is this really, is this REALLY what everyone's going on about?

Rob: I think it's more about the clip.

Alex: No it's not! All the critics are going on about both the song and the clip, like, the calibre of it.

Rob: This is first Lady Gaga song i've ever heard.

Alex: Yeah same.

Rob: Tell you what, I'm not going gaga over it.

Alex: It sounds like...the shit that comes out every couple of months...since the turn of the century.

Alex: Virgin Mobile again.

Alex: There is, there is NO reason to zoom in on that computer at all. It's just to advertise that website.

*Beyonce is finally shown*

Alex: There she is!

*Beyonce speaks her first line: "You've been a very very bad bad girl, Gaga."*

Rob: Yeah, she's a good actress.

Alex: Is this a joke!? Cause it seriously feels like a joke.

*Lady Gaga: "You know what they say, once you kill a cow, you gotta make a burger."*

Alex: Yeah, not sure that they do say that.

*Beyonce follows with an equally weak and nonsensical analogy: "You know Gaga, Trust is like a mirror, you can fix it if it's broke."*

*Lady Gaga continues "But you can still see the crack in that mother-FUCKER's reflection."

Alex: Seriously?? It's like she's never sworn in her life.

Alex: ...That's it I've had enough.

*Alex closes the youtube window.*

9/10

SONAR

HYPE

Egyptian Hip Hop are going to be big. Produced by Late Of The Pier's Sam Eastgate, Wild Human Child takes a very similar sound to LOTP's work as well. Loving the tropical breakdown about half way through. Rad Pitt sounds like early work from The Cure, if you're familiar with their first couple of albums this will be right up your alley. Both sound completely different, these guys have a lot of versatility it seems. They have another amazing song called Heavenly but all I can track down is an early demo which doesn't do it justice, so here's a streamable version of it only.

Egyptian Hip Hop - Heavenly by Pure Groove


Wild Human Child - Egyptian Hip Hop
Rad Pitt - Egyptian Hip Hop

//

Giselle is an artist from Australia, who once again, is going to be huge; probably bigger than Egyptian Hip Hop actually, because she can make young girls cry. One of her songs, They Stay Down Deep, was on episode 7 of the latest Skins season. Naturally, this means that it will explode very shortly. However it is also near impossible to find, but do yourself a favour and head to her Myspace page where you can play what I assume is a preview version of the track, it's only a little less than 2 minutes, but that's all you need (or so I tell the ladies). She recently collaborated with Flight Facilities (who may, or may not be Nick Littlemore) for the song Crave You, it's pretty shit hot so give it a listen. Very chill, loungey sort of feel, her vocals are easily the stand out aspect of the song.

Crave You - Flight Facilities (Feat. Giselle)

Head to Giselle's Myspace to hear They Stay Down Deep.

//

Troels Abrahamsen (who is the frontman of the band VETO) just released BLCK, the darker brother it would seem to his first solo album using his real name, WHT. Quite often when listening to BLCK I'm reminded of Radiohead. Of course the witty insightful people who read this will argue that this is a fucking stupid thing to say, because comparing artists to Radiohead is the laziest thing you can do. All I have to say to them is; spot on.

Stop Making That Noise - Troels Abrahamsen

//

Kisses remind me a whole lot of The Whitest Boy Alive, who obviously kick ass and take names like it's going out of fashion. This is all you need to know.

Kisses - Kisses

//

Nicholas Roy is rapidly becoming the poster boy for Triple J Unearthed. His indie-folky acoustic singer-songwriter vibe has always been safely competent, but now he has one of those catchy-as-fuck singles that is bound to result in him releasing a really really boring album that's suitably lauded by everyone who hears it (also known as "pulling a Josh Pyke"). So yeah looking forward to seeing this guy at every single festival under the sun come the summer of 2010/2011. Listen to It's All My Fault though seriously, it's really good.

It's All My Fault - Nicholas Roy

//

This Town Needs Guns strike me as a less cool version of Foals. This isn't actually as bad as it sounds, because Foals are close to the most stylishly nonchalant band I have ever seen. Their debut album Animals has thirteen tracks, all named after animals. The closer, Zebra, completely changes the mood established by the previous dozen tracks (which, while good, all sound basically the same). It's short and sweet, and has a childlike music-box quality to it.

Zebra - This Town Needs Guns

//

SPANISH SAHARA

Listen.

--

Spanish Sahara - Foals

HUSTLE

Bloc Party fucking kills it on the remix of Tunng's brand new single, Hustle. The original is a indie-folky feel good number that's bound to make you forget all your troubles for roughly 4 minutes. But Bloc Party essentially removed all the original instrumental aspects and transformed it into a techno beast. Perhaps it's my unrelenting love for Kele Okereke, and my desperation to hear something new from one of the greatest bands around at the moment, but I love this.

Listen to the original first I think, here it is right below. Then never listen to it again and blast the remix on repeat for all eternity.



Hustle (Bloc Party Remix) - Tunng

COMPLETELY ME

Here's some pretty damn compelling acoustic versions of songs from Frankmusik's rather disappointing debut, Complete Me. In Step and Better Off As Two were always the best songs on there, and these alternate versions are just as good. You can find both, and the rest of the album in acoustic format on the digital-only release rather imaginatively named; Completely Me.

In Step - Frankmusik
Better Off As Two - Frankmusik

LIGHTS // ELLIE GOULDING

To be honest, I saw Lights coming a mile away. It's too much for the record label suits to let a female artist with girl next door looks to be anything other than pop. There's no money in it otherwise, and nobody wants that. I also understand how very typical it is for the people who got her to where she is (her original fans) suddenly reject her as soon as she makes it. But that's what's going to happen, people are fickle and the weight of hype is suffocating for all but a select few.

While Ellie Goulding had this charming Electro/Indie/Pop vibe when we first heard her, it's a different girl we're listening to on Lights. Perhaps i'm being a tad melodramatic, but the whole thing feels over-produced and typical. From the album artwork, which will turn everyone but the most stalwart Beyonce fans away in disgust, to the cutesy sentimentality and sappy lyrical work in most of the tracks, it all reeks of a budding young artist steered towards the black hole of despair that is the Top 40 charts by the powers that be. It was obvious with Frankmusik's debut, Complete Me, and it's obvious here.

However like everything, Lights is not without its merits. The opener, Guns And Horses, is exactly what I was hoping for from Goulding with this album. It's catchy as hell but still retains that X-Factor that discerns credible songwriting from manufactured pop. Tracks previously heard and loved by many such as Starry Eyed and Under The Sheets are still there, but little vocal flourishes and production highlights make them sound far more pop than ever before, especially in the former. Your Biggest Mistake is another song that gives us but a glimpse of what could have been, it's a truly compelling track, and the vocal effects utilised remind me once again of Frankmusik, but here it's a great thing, rather than a disappointing similarity.

Which makes me wonder about the tracks that didn't make it on the album. You get a sneaking suspicion throughout the album that this is not her best work, just the stuff deemed least risky by her label.

All of this said, you could do far worse than buy Lights. In a world where people like Lady Gaga can become famous and respected, Ellie Goulding is a breath of fresh air. I sincerely hope this album and her inevitable success doesn't pigeon-hole her for the rest of her career.

5/10

WEBSITE