Last week I saw Avatar in 3D. Avatar was good, the 3D was not.
Avatar – a really good film. Reasonable plot, good script, very good acting, good action, excellent special effects. It is exciting to watch and, famously, looks brilliant. In terms of effects, it’s the biggest thing since LOTR. Motion-capture has been improved from Peter Jackson’s model so that characters interact better with the environment and facial expressions are more detailed. This was required because of the large number of animated characters that required the motion capture technique (as apposed to just Gollum in LOTR).
Critics have said that Avatar is just a chance for director James Cameron to try out new technology, and the film itself is inconsequential. This is not completely unfounded, as the film is clearly centred around the new special effects, but I don’t think the rest of the film is useless. The Middle East parallel is shamelessly obvious (humans invade an alien planet and displace the helpless to gain access to a natural resource), and the name of the resource, ‘unobtainium’, is criminal, but otherwise it is a decent film.
3D – currently very overrated. This was the first film I’d seen in 3D, and I was disappointed. It didn’t look any better than the usual ‘2D’ films. The terminology is loose here, because ‘3D’ films are no more 3D than ‘2D’ films. Both are obviously still on a flat, 2D screen, but in both it can be seen that some things are closer and some further away. What ‘3D’ does, is make things “come out of the screen at you”. The problem with this is that you think something is flying towards you, and then is slides off the side of the suddenly-very-obviously-flat screen. This just looks stupid. ‘3D’ looks no better than ‘2D’, but can look stupid and hurts your eyes. In time, I expect 3D will improve, but for now, it is very overrated.
In concerts, performers sometimes get the crown to clap.
Why is it that crowds can never retain a steady beat while clapping? They always speed up, even when the drummer continues drumming, giving a clear beat to follow.
Are people just rubbish, or is there some deeper explanation?
Sports Personality of the Year is becoming a farce. (This rant has 2 parts)
Back in the day (when I were a lad…) the show wasn’t even called that. It was Sports Review of the Year, and was focused on an overall review of the year in sport. The awards were a small part of the programme, rather than the focus.
Now, the show has become a popularity contest. Every part of the show is geared towards getting the (relatively ignorant) public to ring in and vote, and we get a much more skewed view of the sporting year. It has become more about celebrating certain poorly-chosen individuals (see below) and less about celebrating sport as a whole.
That’s the first part of the rant. The second part is about two of this years awards – the individual and the team.
Here are the contenders for the individual award, in order of the number of votes they received.
Ryan Giggs (winner) – won 2 major domestic trophies with Man Utd and was a key player in their team, but not the most key player (that would be Ronaldo).
Jenson Button (2nd) – got lucky in signing a contract to drive a very fast car and still only just won the title.
Jessica Ennis (3rd) – Came back from an Olympic-missing injury to win the world title with several event personal bests and an overall personal best.
Mark Cavendish – won a ‘record’ (they mean British record) 6 Tour De France stages.
Beth Tweddle – After being robbed in Beijing, won double gold at the WorldUniversity games, then won the World Floor after falling in the bars.
Tom Daley – won the world 10m diving at age 15.
Andy Murray – got to world number 2 and won 6 events, none of which were grand slams.
Andrew Strauss – captained England to the Ashes and won player of the tournament.
David Haye – fought one fight to win the world heavyweight title.
Phillips Idowu – won the World Triple Jump with a personal best.
2 of these people (Cavendish and Murray) didn’t actually win anything important. Others (Giggs, Button, Strauss, Haye, Idowu) won stuff, but weren’t outstanding (Giggs wasn't United's best player, Button is a racing driver and his success is therefore mostly due to the car, Strauss has a good series, but not mind-boggling, Haye won one fight and Idowu was no more impressive than any other athletics world champion. Another (Daley) did well, but won the young award, so shouldn’t get the main one too.
This leaves the ladies – Ennis and Tweddle. Ennis was superb all year, especially after the nightmare of missing Beijing due to injury, and was untouchable at the World Championships. Tweddle was similarly supreme, especially on the floor after falling in her main event, the bars. One of these two should have one.
However, the award is decided by a public vote, which means minority sportspeople such as Tweddle never stand a chance.
Now to the team award. It was given to the England Men’s Cricket Team, who won the Ashes. It was not given to the England Women’s Cricket Team, who one the Ashes, the World Cup, and the World Twenty20 cup. What a joke.
The greatest of the decade, and the greatest of all time. No Name Face has held this spot, unchallenged, for years. This review will not get close to doing it justice. An album about identity, and an album full of honesty, reality and vulnerability. Many people will know ‘Hanging by a moment’ and ‘Everything’ – two amazing songs, but neither of which are even in the top three on this album. ‘Quasimodo’ is the representative contender for greatest song of all time, while ‘Simon’ and ‘Sick Cycle Carousel’ come very close indeed. The other tracks are almost all outstanding. The music, while not unique, is well-crafted and sounds excellent, especially the bass guitar. Jason Wade’s lyrics are like nothing else and he sings them both beautifully and viciously. Lifehouse perform that incredibly hard feat of taking songs that should be very cheesy and performing them so genuinely that there is not even a whiff.
I should also mention here some of the albums that didn’t make the top ten, and that it caused me pain to exclude.
Some of these are:
Athlete – Beyond the Neighbourhood
Coldplay – A Rush of Blood to the Head
Delirious – World Service
Editors – An End has a Start
Enya – A Day Without Rain
Idlewild – 100 Broken Windows
Lifehouse – Stanley Climbfall
Linkin Park – Hybrid Theory
Mew – And the Glass Handed Kites
Muse – Absolution
Red Hot Chili Peppers – By the Way
Sigur Ros – Takk
Sixpence None The Richer – Divine Discontent
Steve – Falling Down
U2 – All That You Can’t Leave Behind
U2 – How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
A relatively recent discovery, and some people still don’t believe that this album supersedes The Remote Part. It does. Lyrically, this is a brilliant critique of modern life, but not a depressingly negative one, like so many are. ‘Kreuzberg’ in particular is a song I think everyone should listen to and memorise. Bloc Party’s mix of rock, pop and electronica is magnificently balanced and gives Weekend an sense of excitement – it’s just a very exciting album to listen to. While it doesn’t quite present a single outstanding contender for greatest song ever, it includes some enormous tunes in ‘Song for Clay’, ‘Waiting for the 7.18’ and ‘I still remember’. Also, the lyrics to ‘Sunday’ are some of the prettiest I’ve heard. Another album that hangs together amazingly well and, although a recent discovery, well deserving of its place behind the number one.
What more can I say about The Remote Part? It’s been one of my very favourite albums for years. It genuinely has no weakness; there is not a single song that lets it down. Roddy Woomble’s vocals are charming, and are accompanied by music that is practically perfect. It’s hard to put into words just how good this album is. One reason I love it so much is the melodies – they are written at what I think of as “speaking pitch” – that is, they rise and fall as the pitch of a spoken sentence would. They are also right on my singing range! ‘American English’ is the expected contender for greatest song of all time, but The Remote Part is packed full of songs I love to bits.
Cities is an absolute monster of an album. Other than a couple of tracks, and the three (yes, three!) bonuses at the end, it is simply a beast. The sound is basically pop-rock, but on a massive scale. Each song seems to start incredibly fast, loud an up-beat, yet still manage to explode into the chorus. The music is the sort that you’d listen to before entering the boxing ring, except for the lyrics, which get really quite deep, especially on ‘A Whisper and a Clamour’ and ‘Fin’, this albums contender for greatest song ever. ‘The Unwinding Cable Car’ and ‘Inevitable’ give brief and beautiful respite from the otherwise enormous sound of this album. Cities is also very well put together – the track listing is perfect and gives the album a feeling of completeness.
Delirious have quality everywhere, but it is most concentrated on Glo. ‘God’s Romance’, ‘Investigate’, ‘My Glorious’, ‘Everything’, ‘The Years Go By’, ‘Jesus Blood’, for example. Song after song of unashamed worship, from the masters of this genre. But what makes Glo so outstanding are the four so-called ‘Glo in the dark’ tracks that bind the album together and add to the already-present live feel. This impact makes Glo the most ‘complete’ album I own. With fifteen tracks, several at 6 or 7 minutes, this album is a massive work and has quite a big, epic feel, while still remaining close and intimate with songs such as ‘What Would I Have Done’ and Intimate Stranger’. Another contender for greatest song of all time here – the enormous ‘My Glorious’.
Not very well known, this wonderful band hail from Denmark, and this, their debut album, it outstanding. From the opening crashes of ‘Am I Wry? No’ to the sweeping epicness of ‘Comforting Sounds’, this album is full of marvellous musicianship and song-crafting. The drumming in particular is incredible. Lyrically, they move from a quirky love song to a song by a stalker to a song about drugs to a ballad, and that’s before they even reach the bizarre ‘Eight flew over, one was destroyed’ and the beautiful but chilling ‘She came home for Christmas’. ‘Am I Wry? No’ and ‘156’ are battling it out for the right to be a contender for greatest song ever, but Frengers is by no means limited to these two.
Just like Stellastarr*, Easyworld have a vocalist that sets them apart – David Ford’s voice is really quite remarkable. Apparently he once sang so high and loud on stage that the blood vessels in his nose exploded. Another brilliant sequence from tracks 1 to 7, before the last four admittedly tail off a tad. The melodies on this album are just amazing, and behind them are layers of guitars and drums as well as some really cool electronics and brass. Easyworld also really know how to enter a chorus with a bang. Although there are no contenders for greatest song of all time from this album, the overall standard is very, very high.
I discovered Stellastarr* the one time I watched MTV – a very lucky day for me. This, their second album, is packed full of enormous tunes. ‘TUNE’, in capitals, really is the best word to describe most of this album. Almost every track is insanely addictive, and the opener, ‘Lost in Time’, is another contender for greatest song of all time. The album doesn’t seem to have a clear theme which is a shame and can make it seem disjointed, but taken on a song-by-song basis, it is unbelievably strong. Probably the most ear-catching album I own, the drums, guitar and bass combine seamlessly, and the vocals are strong and haunting. However, what gives Stellastarr* the edge over many other similar bands are the enchanting backing vocals of bassist Amanda Tannen, especially on tracks like ‘Sweet Troubled Soul’.
This is, guaranteed, the least well known of the 10. It is probably the least well known of any of my albums. Yes it is immense. Only 8 tracks, but every one is excellent. The genre would be labelled Christian Rock, but this is no cheesy American trash – this album contains some of the most real, intense, intimate and vulnerable lyrics I have heard. The music is very well crafted, from the mainstream guitar driven ‘Meaning of my life’ to the harder rock of ‘Money Makers’ to the piano ballad ‘Frozen’. Frozen usually makes me cry, by the way - possibly the best lyrics ever. The standout track is ‘Mother’, another contender for the greatest song of all time. One of those songs that words genuinely cannot describe. Sadly, this was all that Sabio every produced, before splitting and embarking on other projects. I can only imagine what they could have become.
For a more detailed review of Escape, go here.
Over the next ten days, I will be publishing my top 10 albums of the decade, in reverse order. Much thought has gone into this list, yet I still cannot say for certain that it will not change. But the end of the decade approaches, so here they come. All but numbers 9 and 7 are available for listening on Spotify.
Those who know me well may be surprised that this album is ‘only’ number 10. Fear not – I love this album! After the admittedly bizarre opening 3 tracks, Decline Of has an incredible 7-song sequence, including the energetic ‘Remember Me’, the mellow ‘The Lonely’ and the epic ‘Lately’. BSP are weird, both musically and lyrically, but they are so refreshing because of this. They sound like nothing else. The guitars soar and pierce, the drums are just plain bizarre, and the vocals sound like a cross between a scream and a whisper. Lyrically, they sing about everything from Fyodor Dostoyevsky to the ocean. Truly amazing. Decline Of also contains ‘Carrion’, a contender for the greatest song of all time.
Last year I wrote a blog about my soundtrack of 2008. Here is my soundtrack of 2009. Links take you to Youtube videos.
Athlete - Black Swan Song
A great song, I think anyone would agree. On of my current 'funeral songs' Also has an outstanding video. Emotional stuff.
Bloc Party - I Still Remember
Possibly the most fun love song ever. Another great video. And the best up-the-octave move I've ever heard at 3.26.
Bloc Party - Sunday
A wonderful song, with one of my all-time favourite middle-eights, especially when they link it back in with the chorus. The album combination of Kreuzberg (on last year's soundtrack), I Still Remember, and Sunday, is enormous.
Bottlerockit - Die Out (no video available)
A song I've known for years but has really come back to me this year, by the small-town punk rockers.
Enya - Book of Days
I don't think I will ever stop going on about the genius that is Enya. This is an old song of hers, but one of her very best. The video is a live version - this is incredibly rare!
Feeder - Morning Life
This song just sounds so good! The four guitar parts are amazing. Morning Life has actually entered my list of contenders for greatest song ever.
Lifehouse - From Where You Are
Clearly a lovely song. Lifehouse somehow manage to play songs that on paper are immensely cheesy, but without making them cheesy. Remarkable. Apparently this song will be on their next album, to be released in February.
Mew - 156
Another song I've known for a while, but this year I've listened to it a lot. It is currently challenging 'Am I Wry?' for the title of Mew's best song and a place in the list of contenders for greatest song ever.
Regina Spektor - The Call
This is on this list because of its place as the end song for the film Prince Caspian. Best non-LOTR film ending song I've ever heard, perfectly captured the poignancy at the end of the film.
Stellastarr* - Move On (no video available)
The best song off the new album and, as is often the case with Stellastarr*, it's just an absolute TUNE!
This blog would not be complete without mentioning Athlete's third album Beyond the Neitghbourhood. While no song quite matches Black Swan Song, almost every track comes close, and the overall standard of the album is outstanding. The best album of the year, highly recommended (it's on Spotify, go there now!)
