I’m Not Interested In Fitting In: 6 Songs That Should Appear On Kylie’s Anti-Tour

Kylie Minogue has been saying for a while that she’s going to go on what she calls an Anti-Tour, which will feature obscure songs from her back catalogue that would never make it into one of her spectacular, hit-filled regular tours. Last night on Twitter she asked for song suggestions and I went a bit mad, throwing out everything from Butterfly to Chiggy Wiggy. But here are six songs she really needs to bring back to life.

‘Things Can Only Get Better’ (1990, Rhythm Of Love)

One of my favourite vocal performances from Kylie’s PWL years was on ‘Things Can Only Better’, which would have been an obvious single if the actual singles from Rhythm Of Love hadn’t been so impossibly strong. The backing track was a harder twist on her earliest work and as I said, the vocals were a showcase for a newfound maturity. Just as good – if not better – than many of her singles, ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ remains an obscurity that sounds like a number one. It needs to be heard!

‘Some Kind Of Bliss’ (1997, Impossible Princess)

Criminally underrated and almost entirely forgotten by anyone but the diehards, ‘Some Kind Of Bliss’ was the lead-in single for misunderstood masterpiece Impossible Princess. The chorus is one of Kylie’s greatest and most carefree moments, and this was the most exciting point in her career. As evidenced by the performance on the Intimate & Live tour, this is perfect for (what I assume would be) the atmosphere of the Anti-Tour.

‘Difficult By Design’ (2000, Hits+)

A very nineties sounding outtake that turned up on the excellent indie-years compilation Hits+, ‘Difficult By Design’ could receive an epic live makeover, and listening to it now I realise how similar it is to ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ – a mash-up would be orgasmic. I suspect it might not have made an album due to sounding too much like an SAW song, so oddly it fits in more with current Aphrodite Kylie than nineties Kylie. Either way it’s fantastic.

‘Where Is The Feeling?’ (1994, Kylie Minogue)

I imagine this would make an amazing opening song, with Kylie appearing out of some sort of ridiculous contraption (rising up from the depths of the underworld or something) and reminding everyone just how strange and amazing it is. The layered vocals would require multiple Kylies – I would like this to be done either on video screens or with actual literal multiple Kylies. Come on, you’ve got the money, let’s make it happen.

‘Sometime Samurai’ (2005, Towa Tei’s Flash)

I would also like ‘GBI’ to make an appearance because it’s one of the best things to ever happen. ‘Sometime Samurai’, the second Towa Tei collaboration, is a great laidback, light moment in Kylie’s discography that easily slipped under the radar for everyone outside Japan. Will obviously need to be sung in a geisha costume.

‘This Girl’ (2000, Hits+)

This is the song I want to hear most. Another one from the + section of Hits+, ‘This Girl’ is simply one of the best Kylie Minogue songs, obscure or not. Featuring one of her strongest melodies and excellent lyrics, it would be criminal for ‘This Girl’ to remain one of her least-known songs. Shit, she should put it on her next best-of, it’s that good. If she does this on the Anti-Tour I will explode with joy.

Now don’t get me started on what we need to hear when Dannii does an Anti-Tour!

Amy Winehouse, 1983-2011

The most interesting thing about Amy Winehouse was always her voice. So unique, so distinctive – her voice was unmistakable. One of the first songs I heard that featured her involvement was ‘B Boy Baby’, a Mutya Buena song where Amy sang the chorus, a rewritten take on The Ronettes’ ‘Be My Baby’. When you can make Mutya sound unimpressive by contrast and put an effective new spin on a classic song, that’s something special. As you no doubt have heard, Amy died today at the age of 27.

Amy Winehouse became a cultural icon in a very short amount of time. Famous worldwide and instantly recognisable, her beehive and eyeliner became symbols of pop in the 2000s. A giant with basically one major hit album under her belt, I saw girls at my school influenced by her visuals, and we all heard the endless stream of artists who picked up her retro schtick and ran with it.

‘Rehab’ was often pointed to as Amy’s defining performance, due to the obviously great vocals and writing, and the personal nature of the lyrics. Now, the subject matter will hit even closer to home, and for generations of future music fans it will offer an insight into a troubled mind, much like we analyse Nirvana’s In Utero. Her natural charisma and effortless talent bring so many layers to what is ultimately a very sad song, perhaps one of the most subtly downbeat to ever hit both the UK and US top ten.

“Yes I’ve been black,
But when I come back you’ll know, know, know”

I always, always thought Amy would make a huge comeback. I thought her third studio album would spend months at number one and she’d come out the other side of her addiction bigger and better than ever. Some people will say that this death was not surprising, but I was genuinely shocked due to the comeback story I’d written for Amy in my head. When Britney Spears was on the brink, I believed she’d pull through and she did. I still know Lindsay Lohan will come back one day. Amy was often lumped in with those two, especially because they went through their most public troubles at around the same time. With news earlier this year that Amy was continuing treatment, it looked like she might also get it together.

Perhaps this terrible news will shift the focus from Amy’s trouble to Amy’s talent, as people rediscover the reason we all gave a shit about her in the first place: her music. Today will be spent listening to ‘Rehab’, ‘You Know I’m No Good’, ‘B Boy Baby’, ‘Fuck Me Pumps’, ‘To Know Him Is To Love Him’, ‘Valerie’, and discovering the Amy songs I’m not familiar with. I know that millions around the world will be doing the same.

I’m An Almost Free Bitch, Baby: Is Gaga’s 99c Sale A Big Mistake?

For a very long time it’s been a foregone conclusion that Lady Gaga’s Born This Way would debut at number one on the Billboard charts. It was a preditable victory. How much she would sell was up in the air, but surely it’d be a lot? Perhaps not a million – that figure was fairly rare even before illegal downloading – but big first week sales were guaranteed.

So why, if everyone agreed that Born This Way would have a big debut, was it necessary for Amazon in the US to discount the album drastically – all the way down to 99 cents. A dollar, in the context of music buying, is a price I associate with second-hand Jackson Mendoza CD singles down at the dusty record exchange. Not new release albums, not even the digital versions. 99 cents is thirty cents less than what it costs to buy one (1) track on US iTunes.

Whoever made this decision (I’m assuming a combination of Amazon, Gaga’s label and perhaps even Gaga herself) seems to have done a good job: the album cleared the million mark this week and will comfortably debut atop the US charts, as it has in the UK and Australia. But it also devalues the album (reviewed by me here) considerably. If people are willing to pay $1.29 for one of Gaga’s singles, surely they can part with 99c for the rest of the album? Of course. This “I kinda like Gaga, I’d be stupid to pass up this amazing deal” sales tactic makes for a bigger debut but it isn’t a true representation of the impact Born This Way has had in it’s first week. 500,000 sales at full price is a more admirable figure than chucking the album out for almost nothing and shifting a million.

It all feels dangerously close to this photoshop classic:

While the discount is not as extreme as that fake giveaway, it opens Gaga up for criticism, at a time when she’s already suffering a slight backlash. The story covering her debut on Australian music site www.undercover.fm has the headline “Lady Gaga cheats her way to number one”, and while it should be noted that she was likely to debut at number one anyway, Gaga will be lucky if she escapes the “chart cheater” label, at least until the next controversy arises. Imagine if Britney had done this with Femme Fatale, there’d be cries of “Britney has to sell her album for 99c to get to number one! FLOP!” – or if Madonna did it with her next studio album, imagine the endless stream of “Madonna’s over! So old! FLOP!” etc. etc. etc.

How will Born This Way be remembered? Massive million-seller or the album that got to number one by being sold for 99c? How will it sell over the next few months now that everybody and their Nana had the opportunity to get it on the cheap? Well done to Lady Gaga and her people for a great album that did great numbers – but the way they did it may well come back to haunt them.

I’d Like To See You Live Without It: Silverchair 1994-2011

Hanson’s little-known “grunge years”.

Silverchair have an odd place in my music collection. I couldn’t be called much more than a casual fan but I have an immense amount of love for their first three albums. When I think of my favourite bands, they rarely enter my mind, yet they’ve always sort of… been there, since I first saw the video for ‘Freak’, which creeped seven-year-old me right the fuck out. I remember hearing ‘Anthem For The Year 2000′ on the Hot 30 with Kyle & Jackie O (or was it still Ugly Phil?), I remember what a big deal ‘The Greatest View’ was when it came out, and I remember when you couldn’t turn on the radio without hearing ‘Straight Lines’. My personal Silverchair playlist in my iTunes is a total knockout, and I never complain when one of their songs – especially if it’s one of their excellent singles – appears on shuffle.

Two things put me off Silverchair’s fourth and fifth albums: the change in sound, which saw them move from heavy-with-hooks rock to pop-rock that had sweeter choruses but was less interesting, and the band’s attitude to their early recordings, which is vaguely insulting to the fans who enjoyed them so much and put Silverchair in a position to make music that they now believe is worthy of their talents.

But from Frogstomp to Neon Ballroom they were brilliant. Why were they so great? I honestly couldn’t tell you. I could write a book about why Madonna changed the face of pop but I couldn’t do something like that for Silverchair because they didn’t change anything, really. They sounded and looked like a mini Australian Nirvana, they broke no ground and weren’t pioneers. In later years frontman Daniel Johns would push the band and himself into new directions, but the Silverchair I was interested in did no such thing. They simply wrote songs that I, and many others, enjoy listening to. Today they announced that they’re ending it (though they’ve been inactive for a while now) and it makes me think about why I love that early stuff so much.

They had a rawness that came with the youth of the bandmembers, and they often drew criticism over awkward or underdeveloped lyrics. On early tracks like ‘Tomorrow’ and ‘Israel’s Son’, there’s this heat and this drive behind all the instruments and the vocals, as if this was the last chance they’re ever going to get to say what they want to say, even if the band were teenagers at the time. Their second album Freak Show was led by ‘Freak’, which became my favourite Silverchair song, and it overcame some truly silly lyrics to become a pop song disguised as teen angst disguised as a rock song. The Remix For Us Rejects is well worth seeking out too. On Neon Ballroom, ’Anthem For The Year 2000′ became exactly what it aimed to be, and ‘Ana’s Song (Open Fire)’ took a truly uncomfortable subject and brought it to Video Hits – I have a distinct memory of my father turning the TV off when the video came on. These albums remind me of that great period in the late nineties where it felt like every Australian artist, from Kylie to Savage Garden, had something dark and sinister about their image or music. Alternative was in and our music scene greatly benefited from it. Silverchair were a big part of that.

In the end, any hardcore analysis of their early material will just sound underwhelming. They succeeded because they were great even without being original or groundbreaking. Imagine how many artists would be out of work if they never got a chance because they didn’t introduce something new – sometimes taking what exists and putting your own spin on it is enough. The stats speak for themselves: albums that have been certified (by my count) 23 times platinum in total, seventeen hit singles including nine top ten hits and three number ones, plus a handful of US and UK hits – including a Billboard top ten album.

So farewell, Silverchair, even if we’ve had our issues over the years. Thanks for ‘Tomorrow’, ‘Freak’, ‘Pure Massacre’, ‘Anthem For The Year 2000′, ‘Ana’s Song (Open Fire)’, ‘Cemetery’, ‘Israel’s Son’, ‘Emotion Sickness’, ‘Miss You Love’… even ‘Without You’ and ‘Across The Night’ from Diorama. All amazing.

Mother’s Day Gift Idea: 101 Housework Songs – A Soundtrack For Suburban Hell

101 Housework Songs.

At my local K-Mart, a very depressing place where the shelves are almost bare and the cut-price easter eggs are plentiful, they seem to have ordered about 4000 copies of 101 Housework Songs. The “101″ compilation series is actually pretty good, especially their decade-centric sets. 5CDs full of actual hits for about twenty dollars. Barg.

However, this may be one step too far. Even the cover, depicting a washing machine, is annoying. The full tracklisting can be found here (and I suppose you could buy it there if you want), and it contains a few curiosities. I think the songs can be split into these categories:

Songs About Actual Housework Or Work In General:

Dolly Parton – ’9 To 5′
Donna Summer – ‘She Works Hard For The Money’
Rose Royce – ‘Car Wash’
Sheena Easton – ‘Morning Train (Nine To Five)’
John Farnham – ‘Sadie (The Cleaning Lady)’

So none of those are actually about housework but they are really the only songs out of 101 that would fit on a compilation specifically about work or menial stuff or cleaning or whatever.

Songs Of Female Empowerment:

Pussycat Dolls – ‘I Don’t Need A Man’
Kelly Clarkson – ‘Miss Independent’
Alicia Keys – ‘Superwoman’
Eurythmics & Aretha Franklin – ‘Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves’

Unfortunately these songs are placed alongside…

Songs About Being A Slave:

Britney Spears – ‘I’m A Slave 4 U’

Oh lord.

Songs About Sex That Happen To Reference Working So They Got Thrown In:

Kelly Rowland – ‘Work’

Songs From “Chick Flicks”:

LeAnn Rimes – ‘Can’t Fight The Moonlight’
Cher – ‘The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss)’

Presumably included so the lady (and let’s face it, this compilation assumes every single person doing housework is a lady) can think about how much more fun she’d be having watching a film rather than doing this fucking washing up.

Weird:

Marvin Gaye – ‘Sexual Healing’

“Gosh I’d much rather be having sex on this bed that I’m making.”

Another Inappropriate Song To Include Alongside ‘I Don’t Need A Man’:

Tammy Wynette – ‘Stand By Your Man’

“This compilation of housework songs sure does send out mixed messages about feminism.”

Songs That Have Nothing To Do With Housework At All, Not Even A Little Bit:

Pink – ‘So What’
Lady Gaga ft. Beyoncé – ‘Telephone’
Katy Perry – ‘Hot N Cold’
Almost every other song

“I’m so glad I paid twenty dollars for this collection of songs I could hear over and over if I just switched on my radio!”

Songs About Desperately Wanting To Do Something Else Other Than Housework:

Cyndi Lauper – ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fun’

“This song reminds me of how fun scrubbing the toilet is!”

Songs About Desperately Wanting To Take Control Of Your Destiny:

Talk Talk – ‘It’s My Life’

“Why does this housework CD keep reminding me how unfulfilled I am?”

Songs About Relationships On The Rocks:

Pat Benatar – ‘Love is A Battlefield’

“I hate my husband, I really do.”

Songs About Those Awful Men:

TLC – ‘No Scrubs’

“I don’t know what a scrub is but I don’t like it either, T-Boz! I’m throwing this fucking vaccuum and these fucking rubber gloves out the fucking window!”

Songs About How Great It Would Be To Have A Different Existence:

The Beach Boys – ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’

“IT WOULD BE NICE, BEACH BOYS. IT WOULD. I HATE MY LIFE.”

Songs About Roaring:

Helen Reddy – ‘I Am Woman’

“I’M TAKING THE KIDS AND GOING FAR FAR AWAY”

The Final Straw:

Bobby McFerrin – ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRGH!!!”

Things We Need: A Little Nell Revival

These past few days I’ve been thinking about a hero of mine, Little Nell. She played Columbia in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, one of the most popular and recognisable films of all time, yet she herself remains a completely underground figure, a sometime singer and occasional actress who eventually found her calling as a nightclub owner.

Her contributions to Rocky Horror, the original play and the film, made Columbia a pivotal part of the supporting cast, and it is hard to imagine the film without her even though she never gets a solo song. Her section of ‘Time Warp’ (“Well I was walking down the street…”) is her greatest achievement, but she also stole the show in ‘Rose Tint My World’ and ‘Eddie’s Teddy’. Columbia – a groupie sucked in by Frank N. Furter’s charm – is a pretty tragic figure and Nell’s soon-to-be-trademark Minnie Mouse routine gave the character an extra layer of innocence, even when she was coming out of her corset. She reappeared in the kinda-sequel Shock Treatment, and again made the soundtrack that little bit better, especially with her verse on the title song.

Soon after Rocky Horror, Little Nell began her solo music career, which resulted in (by my count) six original songs and then four alternate versions. None of the songs charted or did much at all, but they’ve survived over the years on Rocky Horror-related bootlegs and a couple have even been released on CD. There was never a Little Nell album, and though her ten tracks could easily form a budget release, I’m afraid she’s just far too obscure for that to be a realistic expectation. Then again, stranger things have happened.

Nell’s songs range from the comically ridiculous to the genuinely great, with her disco version of ‘Fever’ (transformed into a dance song 15 years before Madonna did it) a particular highlight. As she repeats “what a lovely way to burn” while the music swirls around her, it feels like a great lost Donna Summer moment. ‘See You ‘Round Like A Record’ is an infectious girl-group throwback, full of vinyl metaphors and cascading backing vocals but most importantly a catchy chorus and melody. ‘Do The Swim’, ridiculous as it may be, is so much fun, a complete and utter rush of silliness. And when she sings “do it with me, THE AUSTRALIAN CRAWL!!!!”, I get a patriotic tear in my eye.

And while I hold out hope that we’ll one day see Do The Swim: The Little Nell Collection available for purchase, for now I cherish the scraps of music we’ve got, and I raise a glass for a woman who lived the Australian dream: move overseas and make lots of money.

You can find out more about this legend here.

Adventures In JB Hi-Fi With My Father

Occasionally my dad spontaneously buys an album without knowing who the artist is or what the music is like, judging, as they say, the book album by the cover. Why not? Well there are a number of reasons why not but doing this is still totally fun.

Sometimes this method of music buying has disappointing results.

But the other day when I was in JB Hi-Fi looking for the Pet Shop Boys album, he walked up to me with his new purchases.

I was so proud. Brings a tear to your eye, doesn’t it?

If You Only Download One Excellent Free EP Today, Make It Ray Grant’s Pre-Amp

If you follow me on Twitter there’s a chance that you also follow fellow pop connoisseur @raygrantdotcom, and will probably already know that his EP Pre-Amp is out right now. If not, you’re in luck, because I am here to spread the word, like Jesus, except with free downloads instead of rules to live by.

I first heard the ‘Pre-Amp’ single sometime last year (September? October?) – it was a monster back then and it’s a monster now. It has shades of Kele’s ‘Tenderoni’, with even harsher beats that will jump out of your headphones and punch you right in the brain. It is really, really amazing.

Also included are several excellent extended remixes, and two very good B-sides: a great interpretation of Tori Amos’ ‘Raspberry Swirl’, and another track called ‘Come Into My House’ (that title sounds very Pete Burns but we can safely say Mr. Grant is quite a bit nicer looking) (although my mother had a crush on Pete Burns in the eighties) (but then my mother was devastated when Boy George came out of the closet so let’s all take her opinion with a pinch of salt).

The Pre-Amp EP is free, free, free and available to download at www.raygrant.com.

Somewhere Right Now Madonna Is Worried Sick: Rebecca Black, Birth Of A Legend

I can’t do a proper single review for this because there is no such thing as 11 out of 10. If I were a drag queen I would say that Rebecca Black, with her debut single ‘Friday’, has snatched the wigs of every gurl who ever gurled, gurl. Consider yourself dragged (or whatever), BritneyLadyGagaRihannaBeyoncéInsertPopstarHere.

Really though this is probably my favourite thing to happen all year. “Wee wee wee”, “Fun fun fun fun” – this is bursting with classic lyrics and iconic music video moments that rival the Asian girl who bobs her head from side to side in ‘…Baby One More Time’. When Rebeccallah gets in the car with her friends, their sense of unity and togetherness is so real, it’s like the Spice Girls all over again. When they’re partyin’ partyin’ yeah, Ke$ha is somewhere in the background all pissed off that she’ll never ever be this fun fun fun fun.

Rebeccallah is such a rulebreaker too. Taylor Momsen looks like Taylor Swift compared to this rebel without a pause. Did you see how Rebecca was waiting for her bus but then just gets in the car with her friends instead? And then how she stands up in the back like she doesn’t give a fuck? Sheeeeeeit.

Meanwhile in New York City, Madonna and Lourdes sit in a penthouse suite looking over the buildings.

“Rebecca Black is the biggest threat to my reign since Debbie Gibson. Lourdes, you must become her friend and work from the inside to bring her down. You already orchestrated Britney’s breakdown, secretly directed Glitter and spread the hermaphrodite rumours about Lady Gaga, but this is bigger than all of that combined. This is war.”

“Yes master.”

“I feel so worried. I feel like I need to… I can’t believe I’m going to say this… eat. Eat to forget my troubles. Get me a small plate of seeds immediately.”

“Yes master.”

And somewhere in the background, blasting out of a nearby window, a demonic, ghostly sound:

Fun fun fun fun.

Kate Bush Is Actually Releasing Something For Real

According to Mojo, Kate Bush will be back in a few months with an album called Director’s Cut, made up of songs from 1989′s The Sensual World and 1993′s The Red Shoes re-recorded and updated, along with remasters of those two albums. The single from the album will be a new version of ‘Deeper Understanding’, which makes a lot of sense as Kate predicted a lot of internet culture with that song, and it was way ahead of its time. It is also a really, really great song, and I always thought it deserved to be a single.

The remasters are great news too, as long as we also get The Dreaming and Hounds Of Love soon, as the original rumours insisted we would. It’s going to be amazing to hear the old songs sounding better, and the Director’s Cut album will be very, very interesting. This is almost (almost) as exciting as a new album.