Reviews
UK Stylus Pressure by Graeme McGinty
January 2006
The very latest in new UK vinyl releases
Click here for last month's column
by Graeme McGintyIt’s the end of the year, took its time but it's here now. It’s fair to say it’s been a good year for music. It’s not all good. Although downloads have increased, meaning people are buying new music in their masses, there are still many releases charting that have nothing to do with music. A band called Gisli made the mathematical equation of TV=the devil, which has been proven by the brainiacs and boffins in a follow up equation, the devil=pop idol. The UK Christmas number one was this year’s X-factor winner. Weirdly I have a lot of respect for Simon Cowell. He does understand the charts and pop music, which is handy as it’s his job. The public, on the whole, don’t buy music because it’s a good song, but because they have been subjected to it. But this is what the charts have always been; only the public are now watching the TV rather than listen to the radio. Sure many people have the radio on the background, but it’s just noise.
So should we expect people to return to buying songs? No, lets just all do our bit to support new music, and if by chance we help make it chart then we can all be smug and pretend we heard the artists before anyone else did. But how did we hear it? Were we subjected to it on the radio, TV or the super highway? Or did we see them live and buy the record the following day? I’ll admit I buy stuff because I’ve heard it on the radio or music TV. So let us embrace the medium and admit we are also the public!
However you’ll never catch me buying a song derived from a f***ing ring tone.Frontline – ‘Captain’
Label: EMI
Web:-
Release:
05-12-05
Rating: 
Blurring the edges between some of the colours of the musical rainbow. Normally when you mix random colours you get brown, or that’s my memory of art lessons at school. But here Captain have managed to create a shade of, well, warm. Now that’s not strictly a colour but it’s the feeling I get from the song. It’s not dirty, it’s not unpleasant, but it is nice. Nice has been missing in the world of indie pop discos as of late. But it’s good to return to tunes you can smile to. The harmonies remind me of a cross between St Etienne and human league, with the flat out disco painting the way to the dance floor. It is a pop song, which I guess for a first release will get them noticed. Be good to see if they can get all dark on us, maybe just mix another couple of colours to get light brown.
I Am Kloot – ‘Maybe I Should ’
Label: Skinny Dog
Web:
www.iamkloot.com
Release: 21-11-05
Rating: 
This song lacks the originality of some of their earlier stuff, it seems a bit uninspired. It plods along like a pair of shoes with worn leather. But it’s not uncomfortable, it may be a bit unambitious but it is a well written song, all the bits are there it just doesn’t feel quite complete. The off beat guitars are there, the small tom fills and breaks on the drums are there bridging the sections but it just falls short. This is partly down to the vocals not sounding like they mean it.
Milk Kan – ‘Bling Bling Baby ’
Label: Play It Again
Web:
www.milkkan.com
Release: 05-12-05
Rating: 
More authentic cockney than Marry Poppins. If you replaced chimney sweeps for street buskers. Quick fire lyrics with a good old cockney knees up, a band that don’t take themselves too seriously and come across all the better for it. Not a keeper of a record, but put it on occasionally to remind yourself that some people can write more lyrics than verse chorus repeat. Even if the lyrics don’t really mean anything, they do rhyme.
More next month!
GM
