Bands that can toss out songs that make you tap your feet are ten a penny: bands that weave tapestries of sound into something that can almost make you weep are less common. Coldplay - on the strength of the delicate melodies and intertwined aural bliss of "Yellow" - are most certainly one of the latter. "Look at the stars, look how they shine for you and all the things that you do" may be little more than monosyllabic words strung together, but here - set to some of the most ethereal music this side of Galaxie 500, and sung by a voice that sounds as though its been crying all night - they take on a resonance that moves you in the same way as some of Radiohead's finest. And married to an instrumental crashing guitar chorus that your heart begins beating involuntarily in time to, "Yellow" becomes something nigh-on essential.
First b-side "Help Is Round The Corner" is less mesmeric, sounding more like one of Noel Gallagher's acoustic cast offs. "No More Keeping My Feet On The Ground" is much better however, an early (1998) experimentalist track that flits its way through classic indie, psychedelia and grand romanticism. Which isn't a bad journey for any song to take.
Will you all get angry if I say Coldplay are the next Muse?
Rating: 10/10
The Rest
I don't want to get all Guardian on you, but Marshall Mathers is not a nice person. He would not be my friend. He would hate me. He would call me a pussy and a fag. He would kick the shite out of me and piss petrol on me if I was on fire. I hate Marshall Mathers. But I love Eminem / Slim Shady. Thanks to the digital mastery of Dr Dre (another lovely guy) and to the genius lyrical rhyming powers of the bleached butthead, Eminem is one of the best rappers around today. His topics are homophobic, misogynist, obscene but - and this is the Guardian bit - all he really is doing is reflecting his society: that trailer-trash, MTV-fed generation of slackers that really do swear, snicker and circle jerk in public, and that have done so long before Mr Mathers ever appeared on the scene. Eminem's popularity reflects not only the extent of this audience base however, but also his ability to rap like a rabid rat on Rolling Rock. And yes, the adolescent git inside of me thinks he can be pretty damn funny with it - especially when his targets are the big and the good, such as Britney or music awards ceremonies.
"The Real Slim Shady" (at last, the song - you can wake up now) is a marvellously funky bag of hooks, riffs and lyrical masterpieces with a chorus that goes in one ear and refuses to come out the other. It may not be clever, but it certainly is big.
A grab-bag of b-sides: an instrumental of the a-side, a version of "Guilty Conscience" with what claims to be a "new hook" (I couldn't spot it), and the One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest-on-crack-cocaine dayglo video.
I'm sure he loves his mum really.
Rating: 9/10
More bouncy Stateside three-chord t(h)rash from the Blinky Boys, probably riding the crest of the "sports metal" (© NME sometime last month) wave - at least they're better than the bloody Bloodhound Gang. "What's My Age Again" is a re-release, this time less likely to bounce off the armour of the charts due to the success of "All The Small Things". It's great, it's got a fantastic chorus, the vocals remind me of Bob Mould (this is a good thing), but I'm sure if you played it backwards it would sound a) exactly the same and b) indistinguishable from all the other songs ever released by bratpack US college students with guitars. Good for a jump about to though.
A couple of live tracks follow, the first being the frantic punk thrash of "Pathetic" that spends itself in just under three minutes before wiping itself clean and falling asleep. "Untitled" follows, a bit of a mess and not really worth talking any more about.
Also included is the video, featuring the boys running around the streets of LA in broad daylight stark naked, and also notable (and commendable) for the fact it slags off those bloody Gap adverts.
Rating: 7/10
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