8th November 1999


If my ISP loses all my webpages again, I swear I'll kill someone...

Single of the Week

"Waitin' For A Superman" by Flaming Lips

It's about time innovation stuck its head above mediocrity's parapet once again, and The Flaming Lips practically leap over the battlements with this release. Although the b-sides (of which more later) are superlatively innovative, "Waitin' For A Superman" also shakes originality's tree until the coconuts drop. A mellow slice of US tunefulness, it is lovingly wrapped in swathes of strings, guitar sounds and features a vocal that pierces the underbelly of heaven with its gentleness. The kind of thing Mercury Rev used to produce before they vanished on a one-way trip up their own backsides, "Waitin' For A Superman" is a gentle drift on an alien sea with lyrics being beamed directly inside your head from another dimension ("It's just too heavy for Superman to lift"). Just don't go operating any heavy machinery whilst listening to this.

Originality pumps itself full of steroids and jumps up and down on your head on the b-sides however. Both "Riding To Work In The Year 2025" and "Thirty Five Thousand Feet Of Despair" appear on CDs 1 & 2, but are complementary sides of the same coin in that they are designed to be played together simultaneously. Each track has different parts of the overall production, and although they can be listened to separately (in which case they sound like My Bloody Valentine journeying to the moon on the back of a giant space porpoise), when combined the effect is truly startling and reminds me all at once of being asleep, awake, drunk, stoned, depressed, ecstatic, and just about every other emotion I've ever experienced whilst listening to music. To top it all, you can listen to these in conjunction with the same b-sides from the excellent "Race For The Prize" single released earlier this year, which doubles the experience, making it the equivalent of pouring opium into one ear and sulphuric acid into the other.

The Lips' LP "Zaireeka" (released on 4 CDs) is all like this apparently, which means I must have it now. I may never be the same again.

Rating: 10/10

The Rest

"Turn" by Travis

"The Man Who" is a likely candidate for LP of the year for me, filled as it is with moments of quite serene beauty and spine-tingling genius that only the likes of Radiohead can better. "Turn" - the 4th single from the LP - is a ballad of epic scope and gigantic widescreen choruses, sweeping aside all before it with its majesty and ambition that reaches for the moon with outstretched fingers. Tugging at the heartstrings with all the power of a sumo wrestler wielding a pair of pliers, "Turn" is perfect music for soulmates to commune by, and manages to scale the heights of romanticism without succumbing to cliche and tweeness. And this from the same band that did "U16 Girls"...?

"River" on the b-side is a quiet unassuming cover of a Joni Mitchell song, featuring Fran and piano waltzing around a deserted building. "Days Of Our Lives" is a new number, minor of key and dark of tone, a torchsong for the cynically jaded. CD1 also features the remarkable video to "Turn", the most original and compelling promo I've seen since "Street Spirit".

CD2 features another new track, "We Are Monkeys" - a kindergarten piano-based ditty that sits uneasily next to the rest of Travis' stellar soulfulness. Then comes the highlight of the week - "Baby One More Time". Every band should by law be forced to do a Britney Spears cover, and Travis take the cheerleading original and manage the impossible: turning it into a dark and sinister track that would make the likes of Marilyn Manson weep into teddy's face with fear. "My loneliness is killing me" they pine, and the colour drains from La Spears face as her signature tune is subverted into a ghostly paean to solitude and despair. Only the idiot contributions from Mark & Lard (funny as finding a fingernail in your rice pudding) spoil what would have otherwise been song of the week...

Rating: 9/10

"Swastika Eyes" by Primal Scream

Anything else sounds pretty mundane after all that, but here goes anyway...Another quicksilver-encased fruit from the colloboration between Primal Scream and The Chemical Brothers (young Bobby was last spotted warbling along with Barney on The Chems' "Out Of Control"), "Swastika Eyes" bubbles along at a helluva pace. The Chemical Brothers bring their usual Pandora's Box of electronic tricks to the party, which Bobby takes great delight in opening and letting the beats and synth noises buzz round his head like a swarm of bees. Less hippy-drippy and stoned & dethroned than Gillespie has been of late, the track benefits from his slightly wailing vocals, which resemble a man being sucked down into a whirlpool and loving every minute. Having said that, he'll probably have to go and lie down for the next two years after this.

Remixes on the b-side, comprising the more technofied "Spectre Mix" and an edit (i.e. shorter version) of the a-side.

Would have benefited from a Britney Spears cover though.

Rating: 8/10

"Sexx Laws" by Beck

In which Beck auditions for the role of Austin Powers in the next movie. A funky cat getting down to piano, brass, C&W guitar and hillbilly banjos, "Sexx Laws" is prime rib of Beck with all the trimmings. "I want to defy the logic of all sex laws" proclaims Mr Hanson, and given the off-kilter nature of his muse, your imagination starts to go into wild and possibly illegal overdrive when you start to contemplate how he'd go about doing that...Perhaps not as vital as "Odelay"-era material, "Sexx Laws" is still a bit of a romp and ten times as bizarre as most other US acts out there - but only a twenty-sixth as original as The Flaming Lips.

"Salt In The Wound" wheels out the metal guitars to fire salvos at the Monkees-ish tune from one speaker to the other, resulting in something that sounds like Sonic Youth guest starring on Scooby Doo. Then comes the effervescent Wiseguyz remix of "Sexx Laws", which rubs the original up and down with a soapy sponge then lets it loose in a big bouncy castle full of jelly.

Would have benefited from a Britney Spears cover though.

Rating: 8/10

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