Features

Primal Scream, Olympia, London, November 26, 2010

Primal Scream have long held firm to the belief that the past is a hostile foreign country, much of it best left unvisited. It’s a condition that extends, for the most part, to their first two albums. Rarely – if ever – do they perform any of those tracks live, while 2004’s Dirty Hits compilation did a very good job of pretending nothing existed prior to the band’s self-declared Year Zero: Screamdelica. But it’s a strange policy, really. After all, without that self-titled second album – in particular the ballad “I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have” – Screamadelica arguably wouldn’t exist, and we wouldn’t be here tonight.

Slow Previewing 3: Ölöf Arnalds, The Coral, Zombie Zombie

Another round-up today, following on from the Slow Previewing blogs I filed a week or two back. Again, a few records that I didn’t get round to writing about at time of release, but which definitely deserve flagging up.

The 45th Uncut Playlist Of 2010

Crawling from the wreckage of the Kanye West business, “Runaway” is still stuck in my head, in spite of this week’s impressive crop.

Kanye West: “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”

Far be it for me to hang around with the popular kids, but the internet seems full these past couple of days with opinion on Kanye West’s “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”, culminating in a sort of collective music journalist meltdown in the face of Pitchfork awarding the album a fabled 10.0 rating.

The 44th Uncut Playlist Of 2010

Bit of a dash today, since we’re finishing up the end-of-year issue, Top 50 Albums Of 2010 and all. Some good new things in here, as you can see; particularly taken with the Six Organs record.

The Sexual Objects: “Cucumber”

To be honest, I more or less gave up on The Nectarine No 9 over the last few years of their career. Not sure why: maybe Davy Henderson’s personal interpretation of the obtuse became a bit much. Could be wrong here, because I certainly don’t know the albums well enough to pass real comment, but I suspect he strayed too far into the curmudgeonly.

Slow Previewing 2: International Hello, Fabulous Diamonds, Highlife

Following on from Friday’s blog, another round-up today of some records that’ve taken me an embarrassingly long time to write up.

Slow Previewing 1: Dylan LeBlanc, Imaad Wasif, Ballaké Sissoko & Vincent Segal

For the past week or so, my inbox and mailbag have been assailed by labels and PR companies hyping their Tips For 2011, in readiness no doubt for the Brit Newcomer award and the BBC New Artists Poll. Annual frenzies, really, in which a lot of journalists diligently try and help out the music industry by anointing Clare Maguire or whoever as the next Ellie Goulding, and the odd sullen arrested adolescent like me effectively spoils their ballot paper by voting for the likes of Sun Araw.

The return of Alan Partridge

This week has mostly been about Steve Coogan. The Trip – his BBC series with Rob Brydon – has prompted much discussion here in the Uncut office. As has the return of Coogan’s most famous creation, Alan Partridge – who as I’m sure you know by now is back in a series of short episodes released online.

The 43rd Uncut Playlist Of 2010

Some next-level spam last night, in that someone/some bot tried posting, “I can't believe LeBron is going to the Bulls, he should really just stay where he is” on an old Elliott Smith blog. For what it’s worth, I can’t believe Notts have signed Ben Phillips this morning, either.
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