Track-By-Track: Christmas Special

Track-By-Track is a series where I listen to albums for the first time and pass comment on the individual songs as I listen to them, before giving my final verdict on the whole album at the end. For the first of these reviews, I’ve decided to go seasonal and review a Christmas album.

The Boy Least Likely To are a “twee-pop” band. They’re a two piece, consisting of Jof Owens and Pete Hobbs, and their music sounds like the sort of thing a bunch of stuffed toys on Prozac might make. Very cutesy and child-like musically, but lyrically tend to touch on issues of anxiety and fear. Their music is almost like the loss of innocence in a way – growing up and taking on stresses and responsibilities while wanting to stay connected to childhood somehow. So they sing about stress while jaunty xylophones play in the background.

I thoroughly enjoyed their first album The Best Party Ever, and was pleasantly surprised to see they’d made a Christmas album, entitled Christmas Special. This is my Track-By-Track review of that album.

The Christmas Waltz

An instrumental track kicks off the album, and is very much a Boy Least Likely To track to begin with, only with sleigh bells in amongst the usual cutesy instruments. It sounds a little like something out of a toy music box in fact, until there’s a brief sombre strings interlude. However, the track’s not particularly interesting, but does serve as a good introduction for the style the band are going for.

Happy Christmas Baby

Such a blatant Christmas song in its production it’s almost a parody. But no, it’s a perfectly legitimate homage to the Phil Spector-esque Christmas song sound, even down to the use of “Christmas stabs”, the same little riff utilised in the likes of Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You and Wizzard’s I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday. All the other elements are present and correct, of course, from the prominent string section to the sound of bells buried in the production.

It’s catchy as hell, and a lovely little Christmas song that could easily sit alongside other Christmas classics. The lyrics are happy and upbeat, evoking imagery of what makes the holiday so magical. There is a sense of BLLT’s loss of innocence themes with the mention of feeling sad that it’ll never feel as good as when you’re a child, but this line is more hopeful than usual for them, suggesting that this year they want to rediscover that childlike joy. This becomes especially obvious in the singalong coda, which repeats the line “I still believe in Santa Claus, even if no one else does”. It’s hard not to join in and feel like a little kid again. Brilliantly done.

Blue Spruce Needles

Starts off sounding like something from some odd barn dance, and unfortunately this instrumental intro (which appears later as a break) doesn’t fit the rest of the song and threatens to drag it down.

However, the rest of the song is catchy, but as usual for TBLLT, the lyrics are not cheerful at all. This is one of those “I miss my lover at Christmas” songs, which could easily be cliché, but mercifully they’ve chosen to make into an analogy through the pine needles of the title. Last year, the protagonist of the song put up a tree with his girlfriend of the time, and shortly after they split up. Over the year, he’s still finding shed needles from the tree lying around the house, and it’s an obvious analogy to how he’s being constantly reminded of his ex as he goes about his daily life. It’s quite effective imagery, and clever in its mundane nature.

But seriously, lose that barn dance break.

Little Donkey

Unfortunately, I’ve never liked Little Donkey as a carol. It’s always seemed very dreary and tuneless when compared to other more emotional or thrilling carols. Little Donkey always just evokes school plays with terrible child singers and one kid attempting to play the recorder.

Well, TBLLT don’t help matters by actually having a recorder introduce the tune, so the dreary school play interlude imagery sticks. And sadly, they’ve added little to the arrangement to make this interesting. It’s still as dreary as ever, and tuneless. This isn’t their fault, of course, it’s the carol they’re working with, but still, no.

But, based on their sound, the village school play imagery kind of suits TBLLT, so while it’s probably the least exciting track here, it’s still quite fitting. Which is odd.

Christmas Isn’t Christmas

This was the song that made me listen to this album in the first place. Which basically means I’d already decided that it was a brilliant song. It’s catchy as hell, and while not quite as in your face as Happy Christmas Baby, it’s still obviously a Christmas song in its arrangement, especially when the bells lead into the chorus.

It’s another lost-love-at-Christmas song, and although it’s been done, many times, many ways, TBLLT are still very effective in their imagery here. It’s almost like they tried writing another Happy Christmas Baby celebrating the wonders of the holiday, and then twisted everything around into saying how boring those wonders are when you can’t share them with someone special. It’s almost an anti-Christmas song, but there a deep yearning in the vocals that sound like he wants to enjoy the holiday but is also feeling lonely.

It also has the line “I’ll just have a pizza with a bit of holly stuck in it”, which I love. It’s just a brilliant image.

The Wassail Song

Here’s the second cover of a traditional Christmas song, and it’s certainly a lot more interesting than Little Donkey. It helps that The Wassail Song is a much more upbeat and catchy tune in the first place. But TBLLT build on it brilliantly, practically throwing every instrument they could get their hands on into the mix, and adding a choir (of course!). As such, the track is irresistibly fun, and enough to make you go a-wassailing.

Once you’ve looked up what wassailing is first, of course. It’s fallen out of the public consciousness a little.

Jingle My Bells

This track is awful. It’s really not clever in any way and feels like a way of padding out the album without covering more carols. There’s barely a tune here, and the lyrics are borderline schoolboy joking about mutual masturbation (“Jingle my bells and I’ll jingle yours” – really?). And it ends abruptly, having gone nowhere. A disappointment. I expect better than this.

George & Andrew

Yeah, like this. This is what I expect more of. George & Andrew is, without a doubt, my favourite track on the album. The title seems a bit unusual, until you figure out that the men of the title are George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, better known collectively as Wham. Yes, this is a Christmas song about Wham. Not a cover of Last Christmas, but an original song about how George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley decide to meet up in a pub on Christmas Eve to catch up on old times. And it’s AMAZING.

Now, while this isn’t a cover of Last Christmas, the arrangement is certainly trying to make you think it is. It’s notable that this is the only song on the album that obviously uses a drum machine, and it’s one that sounds like a cheap version of Wham’s. The chord changes evoke the Wham song in every way possible without having to pay George Michael royalties. Even some of the little instrumental breaks sound like they’re about to slip into the instrumental breaks in Last Christmas.

But why Wham? It’s not clear. I get the feeling TBLLT were just listening to Last Christmas far too much when making the album and got into a discussion about whether or not the members ever get together at Christmas. And so, in this song, they do. They discuss the controversial song Shoot The Dog and whether George regrets going solo, while Andrew talks about joining in the campaign for real ale. It’s an utterly bizarre topic for a Christmas song, and yet…it works. It’s such a nice little song, and it really evokes the feeling of meeting up with an old friend for the first time in years.

A truly clever and sweet little song, and is easily worth the asking price for the album alone.

In The Bleak Midwinter

Another carol cover, only this time it’s instrumental. It’s led by accordion, and it quite calm and relaxing, albeit very sad at the same time. Oddly it captures the sound of bleak winter quite well. The arrangement is good, and it will just make you want to curl up with a mug of hot chocolate and watch the snow fall.

That’s if the snow was falling, of course. Right now it’s not. But never mind.

I Can’t Make It Snow

I wasn’t sure when this started, but as it started to build up I was won over. The arrangement is very Christmassy and, much like the last track, evokes the feeling of curling up somewhere warm while it’s freezing outside.

Lyrically, this is a very bittersweet song. The singer describes wanting to do a million things for his lover, but can’t do everything, in this case, wanting to make it snow to make Christmas perfect for them. I sense some kind of analogy in here somewhere, but it’s hard to spot it.

However, at the end there’s a whole load of random cymbals that kind of spoil the cutesy feel to the song. Largely unnecessary.

The First Snowflake

This is a sad, guitar-led ballad. The guitar parts are lovely, and very sad, but the vocal melody is less interesting unfortunately. As a result, the song does threaten to get a little dull as it moves along, as the arrangement initially does little to progress the song. It feels very wintery, but a bit slow.

And then the bridge comes in. Wow. They could have made that bridge the entire song, it’s so beautiful. The arrangement just leaps out and it ends up sounding like someone watching a snowstorm at night. It could be the soundtrack to some heartfelt Christmas movie. It’s a brilliant end to the album.

Verdict

Overall, the album is quite good. It’s not amazing, and much of it is filler, and considering the album’s short length (it only amounts to roughly half an hour) it may have been better do an EP with a few songs on instead of a full album.

But that said, it’s good to see bands doing albums of original Christmas music. Far too often modern musicians like to release covers of existing Christmas songs. KT Tunstall did this a few years back, with a Christmas EP that was entirely covers, and it was a little disappointed. So to see The Boy Least Likely To apply their unique style to Christmas, it’s refreshing, and it’s enjoyable.

The best tracks are easily George & Andrew, Christmas Isn’t Christmas, Happy Christmas Baby and The First Snowflake, and the worst are Little Donkey and Jingle My Bells, which could have been dropped without any effect to the album as a whole.

It’s worth picking up if you want some cutesy original Christmas songs with a mixture of childlike wonder and sad nostalgia, but if you’re allergic to xylophones you might want to stay away.

Dogger, Rising slowly

Can someone please tell me why iPod menus insist on lagging like crazy? Oh, Apple, you and your silly ideas of style over usefulness! When will you learn? (Having said that, I do love my iPod and wouldn't change it for another mp3 player just...because)

Anyway, thought I'd write another blog into the ether of the interwebs in hopes of entertaining a few passing strangers. I've said this before, but I will say it again. I aim to write in this daily from now on. I mean it, guys! Don't try and stop me!

Today I was reading a new instruction book that I bought. I buy many instruction books about all sorts of topics with the good intentions of saying "THIS will make me awesome! I'll buy this book on car maintenance, become a mechanic and then become filthy stinking rich! YEAH!"

Then I abandon the book and play some video games or watch Lost. By the way, I'm currently watching ALL of Lost, right from the beginning. I've made it to Season 4 but I haven't seen any of Seasons 5 or 6. So if anyone DARES tell me what happens in those seasons, expect to wake up dead tomorrow. Yes, you heard me.

Anyway, yes. Tangents. I buy instruction books and then forget about them shortly afterwards. Recently I bought a book called The Remixer's Bible: Build Better Beats, because I'd like to think I have the capabilities of being a fantastic music producer despite having about as much understanding of music theory as a polar bear understands how to make a cocktail.

In this book, there was a section on sampling and the legal wrangles that occur, namely "sample anything copyrighted and the RIAA will kill your entire family, but if you're British the BPI will just tut at you disapprovingly then call the hounds on you". Not quite in those words, but you get the idea. Amusingly, it mentioned that Chrissie Hynde gave Garbage full permission to her ass once, which naturally will get real person fanfic writers writing Chrissie Hynde x Shirley Manson erotica, but whatever.

The important thing is, it got me thinking about copyright law. No rants, it actually raised an interesting question in my mind.

Is the Shipping Forecast under copyright?

The Shipping Forecast, for those who don't know, is the ultimate chillout broadcast. Basically, BBC Radio 4, at some crazy hour of the morning, broadcast the sound of a very posh man/woman reading out place names in a very soothing rhythm in order to help people get to sleep. Also, apparently it helps sailors not die horribly in a storm or something, but that's not important. The important thing is that it's so soothing and amazing that it's been sampled and referenced by a range of musicians from Blur to Kate Bush to....that other guy. Yeah. His version was the best.

But my point is, if you sampled it, would you have to get permission from Auntie Beeb? Or because it's issued by The Maritime And Coastguard Agency (they're a government department involved in helping sailors not die in a horrible boating accident or something, but that's not important), does this make it publicly-owned? I know that government issued propaganda educational material is generally public domain, so why not The Shipping Forecast?

Does anyone know? Seriously, this is important. My life depends on knowing the answer to this. Help me!

In other news, I'm unofficially participating in NaNoWriMo, although in my case it'd be InternaNoWriMo, but that's complicating things. I aim to have the first draft of a novel by 30th November. I shall hopefully report my findings here. Which should be fun.

Do you belEEEEEEve in love after love?

Two topics have cropped up in the news today, two topics I could argue for hours on, but instead I'm going to argue it in this blog. That's good enough, right?

Anyway, yeah, so first of all, The X Factor has proven its contribution to music yet again...sorry, proven its contribution to THE DOWNFALL of pop music, got my lines wrong (even though this is written), by apparently using autotune in the auditions of the show. Why? I don't know. At the end of the day, I thought auditions were about seeing whether or not someone was capable of singing. If you're going to tweak everyone's voices so they're all singing "in key", then surely what's the point? Now, OK, they didn't use autotune live on the night, but the fact they've used it for the TV audience is still baffling. The reasons for it are especially great.

"There were too many microphones in the studio and we were just cleaning up the audio for broadcast" (seriously, what?)
"Everyone expects autotune these days, no one wants to hear a bum note"
"We were delivering the most entertaining experience possible"

These are paraphrased, but close enough to what I read. First of, too many microphones? No, just no. I've done a media degree, part of which involved working with microphones and I can safely say MICROPHONES DO NOT WORK THAT WAY. In fact, if you've got lots of recordings of a single show, then that's even less of an excuse to use autotune, since if the audio messes up on one recording, you can simply edit in the audio from a better recording. SIMPLE! Secondly, no one NOTICES bum notes here and there. Sure, if someone's singing wildly off-key throughout the song, then everyone will notice, but the average member of public won't pick up a single flat note in an otherwise flawless line delivery. However, EVERYONE will notice if the singer suddenly sounds like a robot for no apparent reason. And as for delivering the most entertaining experience possible, how about not dragging the inflated Blackpool Pier "talent" show over 5 bloody months and actually make it about proper music not just Simon Cowell's half-arsed shiny balladery? But no, Cowell needs another house in the Algarve, we can't possibly do that.

My issue with all of this isn't shock at what X Factor did because, well, I've been a staunch opponent of the show since its inception (Cowell's comments about "giving these talented young people a chance to live their dream" ring hollow when you realise Joe Pasquale or whatever his name was hasn't released a single thing since his ill-fated Xmas single got beaten to no. 1 by Rage Against The Machine), my issue is the fact that autotune is an abomination.

No really, autotune is what's caused modern day pop music to sound hollow and lifeless (well, that and the fact that anybody can apparently get a record deal these days, talent or no talent). Autotune, as an effect, can sound good, but only when it's used an effect. As my title alludes to, Cher used it years ago for her song Believe. However, she had every intention of making her voice sound robotic and inhuman as an effect. Other examples of this, such as Ellen McLain having her voice tweaked in the end song for Portal (because she was playing an AI) or any synthpop band in the past ten years (because, well, if all the instruments are electronic, why not do the same to the voices and say we're all robots?). In those uses, autotune becomes no more offensive an effect than echo or reverb or phasing.

But when it's used incessantly on every single pop record, to the point where everyone sounds like an android, it becomes less of a fun effect and more a sinister ploy of the media to homogenous everyone and everything, also notable in the fact than many of these singers look identical too, with the makeup and the hair and the exact same designer label clothing. Hell, sometimes it makes me wonder if all of this is autotune at all and is in fact a secret invasion of some super advanced android race, slowly assimilating everyone into its cult of personality. Either way, it's terrifying, and we should all be prepared for some kind of uprising. I'm prepared, why aren't you?

But seriously, my main issue with the use of autotune is the fact that raw, untweaked vocal performances sound BETTER, imperfections and all. I'd rather hear a singer occasionally slip on the odd note and glide from word to word than hear a jarring set of twisting electronic noises vaguely resembling a human voice. If I wanted that, I'd listen to Daft Punk (and usually do). An untweaked voice sounds human, it has soul and emotion, it's warmer. And remember, this is coming from someone who loves electronic music in addition to non-electronic music. I also like the two combined, but tweaking someone's voice so it sounds "perfect" just seems...wrong...

Is it just me who feels this way? I hope not, because I'd hate to be the only sane man left on earth!

Also, I said there were two points. What's the other? Medal Of Honour. Our government is now urging a ban on the game because it's "anti-British" and "a disgrace". Why?

Because apparently, this EVIL game is ABOUT the Taliban and it TEACHES CHILDREN to kill BRITISH soldiers and it says THIS IS OK.

Please note that from what I've been reading in gaming circles, those bits in caps are actually all innaccurate. Well, maybe not the evil bit, it is being published by EA after all :p

First of all, it's not about the Taliban at all. You merely can play as the Taliban in multiplayer. This is not new. Many games with online multiplayer will have players on the "good" side and the "bad" side. That's how it works. I fully agree with the EA spokesperson that when we were kids, we all played games like cops and robbers where someone had to play as the bad guy. In fact, other games in the series allowed you to play as the Nazis during World War II, who, if my historical knowledge has taught me anything, were just as bad as, if not worse than, the Taliban. And yet it's fine to play as one but not the other. Oh, well that makes sense. Oh wait, no it doesn't.

And laughably, the government argument is that many people have died at the hands of the Taliban. Let's not tell them about the many atrocities committed by the US government in regards to Iraq, that might make their minds explode from the logical fallacies they're presenting. Also, again, Nazis in previous games. How many innocent people died in the Holocaust again? Yeah, but that's OK, right?

Secondly, there are apparently no British troops in this game, only American, because, remember, the American are always the Big Damn Heroes coming to save the day. Remember, Team America was a documentary. With puppets. Unless Liam Fox meant it was anti-British because the British aren't in it, but judging by his level of research, I don't think so somehow. Next point.

Oh yes, the "murder simulator" argument again. Let me tell you something. Playing a driving game is considerably less complicated than driving a real car. I own a copy of the original Gran Turismo, yet I learned how to drive with an actual instructor. Because, you know, games aren't simulators. And Microsoft Flight Simulator isn't a game, it's a simulator. There is a line. Please note the dividing line.

Similarly, playing a first person shooter isn't going to instantly make you into a trained killer, because a DualShock/360 controller/Wiimote is nothing like an actual gun. I've played many games with guns in them, yet if you were to hand me an actual gun, I wouldn't know what to do with it. All I know is what I've heard in films, and from what I've read elsewhere, all that information is slightly less than accurate. Hell, I can't even name an actual model of gun, and I get confused over what the actual definition of a "rifle" is. And yet I've been "trained" by video games to fire guns. Apparently.

Here, let MC Lars explain:

"Beating Call Of Duty doesn't mean your aim is good
Beating Wii Golf doesn't make you Tiger Woods
Playing Apples To Apples doesn't make you a farmer
Watching UFC won't make you any harder
Friends on Myspace won't make you a musician
Beating Operation doesn't make you a physician
Watching CSI doesn't make you a detective
Playing Mario Paint doesn't mean you have perspective
Beating Gears Of War doesn't make you Winston Churchill
Quoting 90s sitcoms doesn't make you Steve Urkel
Grand Theft Auto doesn't make you a player
Playing Sim City doesn't make you a mayor
Beating Rock Band doesn't mean you rock
Beating Tony Hawk doesn't make you Tony Hawk
American Idol won't make you a star
Beating Guitar Hero doesn't mean you play guitar"

Get it yet?

By the logic of the "murder simulator" argument, my PS3 collection would mean that I'm a trained assassin, capable of shooting lightning out of my hands, playing guitar, drums and turntables like a pro, manipulating strange mythical creatures to do my bidding in the Netherworld, successfully capturing ghosts, performing parkour, opening portals, running at the speed of sound, taking out a helicopter with a grenade launcher, discovering the Hammer Of Thor and using it to cause great damage to Atlantean gods and leading a great war effort with a ragtag band of anime-esque commandos.

However, can I do any of those things? No. But the instruments would be fun. And maybe the parkour too.

In other words, again, GAMES ARE NOT SIMULATORS. Very few people are going to play as the Taliban in MOH's online multiplayer and immediately start shouting "DEATH TO THE WEST!" and strapping C4 to themselves. And if they do, then they're probably already terror suspects anyway. Also, please note the "children" bit cropping up again. This game will be rated 18, ie. ILLEGAL to sell to minors. Figure it out.

But never mind. I won't be playing it. I'm too busy trying to get into Stonehenge at night so I can go into the land of faeries as a result of currently playing Folklore on the PS3. See ya!

Race For The DAREing Knights Of Suburbia

Why I'm simultaneously sad and happy I'm not at Glastonbury:

On the Main Stage tonight, the Gorillaz are playing, on the Other Stage, The Flaming Lips (aka The Best Band I've Ever Seen)

Tomorrow, the Main Stage sees Muse, while the Other Stage sees the Pet Shop Boys.

Why I'm sad:
- All these bands are AWESOME and I would give anything to see them all (again in the Lips' case)

Why I'm happy:
- I'm glad I don't have to make the IMPOSSIBLE decision between Gorillaz and Flaming Lips and then the decision between Muse and the Pet Shop Boys. I can't choose! That's mean!

Not that I have to worry, I'm not there, but seriously, Glastonbury, did you do that deliberately just to make me feel so emotionally conflicted? D:

And all the friends lay down the flowers

Stuart Cable has recently been found dead in his home. He was only 40 years old.

As a fan of Stereophonics, this is genuinely sad news for me, as part of the appeal of the band for me originally was their highly entertaining drummer Stuart Cable. OK, he was no longer in the band, replaced by Jose Espanol or whatever his name is (can never remember) but it's still very sad to hear he's died. He had a sizeable fanbase, both through people who liked the band and those who listened to his radio show in more recent years, so I imagine they, like me, are all shocked by this news.

RIP Mr Cable, wherever you may now be floating.