How To Party With The Coalition Party

After months of political in-fights and bitching, we've got a boiled ham for Prime Minister and a Cabinet who no-one really voted for. And no amount of pseudo-anarchic Facebook groups are going to change the situation.

So here are 5 reasons why this government will do right by clubbers.

1. No ID cards. The 'Con-Dem'-ed coalition agrees on this above all. This paranoid, Orwellian style of monitoring baddies and scaring the living daylights out of the good, law-abiding citizens was always going to have its problems, especially amongst clubbers. How often do we lose our stuff on a night out? Calling the bank at 3am for the third weekend in a row to get your cards cancelled is one thing, but having to call up the home office each weekend? Spare us the hassle.

2. Greg Knight. As MP for East Yorkshire, Greg may, at first glance, have precious little effect upon clubbers nationwide. But this chap is at the forefront of the 'Save Our Pubs & Clubs' campaign, which is requesting that the smoking ban be relaxed in order to keep booze Britain alive. If successful, clubbers could go back to those halcyon days of smelling toxic tar, tobacco and burnt formaldehyde in their favourite jaunts, instead of beer and puke.

3. Cuts to universities. Seriously, a brilliant idea. How amazing would it be to turn 18 without the pressure of having to spend another three years getting a degree which employers find entirely irrelevant? All of that money spent on student digs can now be spent on going out a lot more and listening to a hell of a lot more music.

4. Even if the new government takes a turn for the worse and repeats all of Thatcher's mistakes, we'll get some great music out of it. Some of the biggest pioneers of dance music were inspired by the Iron Lady's fuckups. In the early 80s alone, New Order's Blue Monday was all about the Falklands War, Bronski Beat wrote a whole album dedicated to overturning homophobic statutes and the New Romantic scene was all about escaping the dire realities of Thatcherite Britain.

5. The extremist right-wing nut jobs who are out to ruin everyone's fun (see: Norman Tebbit kicking a kid in a dragon costume up the bum during Chinese New Year festivities) will feel so disenfranchised by a government that doesn't charge four year olds for milk money, that they'll up and leave, making Britain a friendlier place for all people, including clubbers.

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This piece was written for the Ministry of Sound blog.

MIA - Born Free

To a lot of British viewers, the controversial video to MIA's Born Free may resemble a Catherine Tate sketch gone wrong. It's not a tasteless joke at gingers' expense, though.

Ginger is being used to show how arbitrary hatred and violence is applied in violent regimes across the world. The clip is shocking not only because the gingers are obviously different to the white consensus of 'us', but so closely follow its definition. In the Venn diagram where one circle is labelled 'white' and the other....'other', gingers are placed in the overlap. This accessibility improves the video, because the west is saturated with images of suffering people. Suffering people with different skin colours in faraway lands. Would we have taken as much notice to this video had the gingers been replaced with, say, men with darker skin, hair and eyes and dishcloths on their heads? No, we would've thought it was ITV News.

In light of the obvious analogy, brusque US commentators have suggested that it's concerning recently-introduced laws in Arizona allowing the police to hold suspected terrorists indefinitely. This just shows how parochial some Americans can be. It only takes a little read through MIA's Twitter to realise that this video was definitely intended to represent the treatment of Tamils in Sri Lanka. I wouldn't have a clue of what's going on over there, as so much news of its Civil War is being censored. So, enjoy the song.

I think it's a banger. Masterminded by a whole bunch of Mad Decent, and banned by YouTube, it's getting more attention than Lady GaGa and Justin Bieber put together...

M.I.A, Born Free from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.

Glee: Keep Me Hanging On

I've been watching Glee religiously. Unlike other 'girls' around my age, I didn't start watching the musical series because I'm interested in High School Musical, or teen comedy-dramas. Those ended for me when Marissa died; I've still to watch a full episode of Skins. I was initially drawn to Glee because of creator Ryan Murphy. He worked on two of my most favourite series ever made: Popular and Nip/Tuck. And like these programmes, Glee contains hilarious surreal tangents, flashbacks and witty dialogue.

Yet Glee ultimately fails in two places where its predecessors reigned: it lacks any sex appeal and fails to approach (or mock) any issues of moral panic, instead opting for incredibly conservative story arcs. Whereas Popular would look at eating disorders, and Nip/Tuck would introduce viewers to such ethical minefields as the possibility of letting Catherine Deneuve have her husband's ashes put into her breast implants, Glee doesn't get too specific on its issues. Or the way they're handled.Have you noticed that whenever a woman is pregnant on a FOX-syndicated TV series, she'll either have the baby or die herself? Funny, that.

The didactic nature of the programme slows its progress, but I take great comfort in watching a complete season of a series. I hated Ugly Betty, but insisted on watching to the end of season 1 before forgetting all about it.

However, there is something brilliant about the songs on Glee which may well keep me hanging on. As they are covers, the songs introduce the audience to a whole new world of genre and possibility. For example, the recent cover of You Keep Me Hangin' On. In ascending order of brilliance.

5. The Glee version. The shit version. It's got as much soul as a melting ice cap.

4. The 60's psychedelic version - Vanilla Fudge

3. The 90's country/house genre-bender - Reba McEntire

2. The 80's synthpop version - Kim Wilde

1. The astounding, 1960's Motown version - Diana Ross and the Supremes (although it was argued that Flo Ballard sang most of this track...)

Hurts and Crop Tops

You know how girls are wearing crop tops again? Well, they’re still as impractical as ever. It's not that the bastard child of a t-shirt and a sports bra has changed. We’re the ones who’ve changed. Ten years ago, our only logical explanations for wearing a crop top would be either a sudden growth spurt or the new professional name of ‘Krystal’. But now, we gaze upon crop tops as throwbacks to erstwhile glamour, the kind of trashy early 90’s look that we spent a whole decade running away from, just to return to its acrylic-taloned clutch.

In a similar way, I think we could all do with changing our attitudes to Freestyle. It’s just as trashy as crop tops are, but it’s been left behind in the cold. With only its crop top to keep it warm. I’m hoping that Hurts will bring it back. Most hype about the band Hurts discusses how they’re arty and aloof and European. But not many people have got to the heart (yes, there is one) of what makes them great.

The two tracks floating around the ether are both sombre pop-opera affairs laden with hyperbole over a synth backing. The differences are very telling. They’re either going to stick with the Disco Lento (literals, ‘slow disco’) of ‘Blood, Tears, Gold’ and be shuffled into the neverending pile of sing-a-long-a-synthpop, right next to OneRepublic and Timbaland. Or they’re going to aid a Freestyle resurgence with more songs like ‘Wonderful Life’.

This isn’t proper Freestyle, but it contains elements: syncopated beats, slap bass, subtle falsettos and a naughty touch of brass. This makes it pretty sassy, and something that people who aren’t white might enjoy.

Freestyle found its feet as part of Latin pop in the late 1970s. It soon developed as an alternative to Disco, bringing listeners back to dance music during a lull in the early 80s. Freestyle lyrics are all about people upset about a lost love, or striving for more. It’s all quite tragic. It’s called Freestyle not only because of the dancing, but because beats were so syncopated that DJs had to switch their mixing styles FREE-quently. Or something like that.

If crop-tops have made their way back into fashionistas’ hearts and onto cold-stomached shoulders, then why can’t Freestyle wriggle back towards our ears? People want to look like 1980s Miami Latinas, adorning themselves with pale denim shorts and trashy piercings, snarling around East London with curly tendrils… maybe they should have a worthy soundtrack. What do you think of Freestyle?

Hurts – Wonderful Life (Arthur Baker Remix)

Santa Esmerelda – Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood

Nayobe- Please Don’t Go

Shannon – Let The Music Play

C Bank with Jenny Burton – One More Shot

Planet Patrol – Play at Your Own Risk

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This piece was originally written for the Chew The Fat! blog.

Loads of 'sleb goss

During what has been a shocking hiatus from blogging, this is what I've been writing. It's been tricky, as I am incredibly adept at remembering useless celebrity facts, but I don't agree with slagging people off without knowing them, or spreading rumour without a basis in fact.

As of this week, there will be no glorification of famous-for-being-famous types. More details to come...

REVIEW Rihanna - Rude Boy

Her album, Rated R has been credited as Rihanna’s exodus from pop into a rockier, edgier sound. Rude Boy isn’t rocky in the slightest, and is all the better for it. This summery track takes the singer back to her Caribbean roots with ragga and dancehall influences. The catchy backing has a steel-pan freshness, and the sultry pacing compliments this with a semblance of tongue-in-cheek indifference. The lyrics are definitely sleazy: 'Come here rude boy can you get it up/Come here rude boy, is you big enough?', but Ri’s monotone delivery is less begging, more indifferent; it’s the aural embodiment of a moody pout.

Up until a month ago, promotion involved Rihanna persistently faced with the looming spectre of the domestic abuse debaucle. With its strong sexuality, and an artsy promo video, Rude Boy confirms that she won't remain a poster-child for victimhood, or dwell moodily on her past, but re-assert herself as a powerful, and somewhat cocky young woman.

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This was originally written as part of a brief for a job application.

Music #753

Our senses have been completely saturated with mass-marketed talent, to the point where we don't really recognise what true talent is anymore. The very word 'talent' has been hijacked by a series of music and television execs who probably don't realise the devastating impact they're having upon the world as they're too busy counting their money, all of which they've made by exploiting said 'talent'. Yadda yadda yadda.

It would be all to easy to continue in this vein. To dissect the horrors of Jedward's return to the British public's consciousness through endless promotion of a Queen bastardisation set to send Freddie Mercury's long-deceased body in a spin. Or to analyse why Susan Boyle has been adulated and mocked to such extremes, despite being pretty average on all counts. I understand that the more examples I place here, the less my eventual point, (that we should ignore these Cowellistic visions of unstoppable fame, glory and musical purity), will actually mean. But I've started to realise how enjoyable it is to have a growing readership, and search engine optimisation is one way of improving my page-clicks. Additionally, I wanted to have a legitimate way of dropping into this post that life does have oddly recurring moments. In an interview with VH1 in the early 'noughties', Vanilla Ice retrospectively commented on his debut album: "I would have licked my own mother's asshole for a million bucks"

Maybe there's something to be said for biting one's tongue. No, seriously. As much as it's the gut reaction of many to counter the mainstream, isn't it quite graceful to hold back the venom? To instead appreciate good music? Having an opinion on the latest tabloid limpet will keep one relevant, but if it's just for the sake of relevance, then it's not going to help one be interesting. Similarly, liking music simply because it is contrary to the mainstream is the reason why I attended a Slipknot concert aged 14 and came face to face with a man in his mid-fifties who was dripping with blood which was pouring out of a hole where most people keep their noses. Here are some songs, all of which I've been enjoying a lot over the past week. They are neither very left-field or (too) overexposed. But I like them.

Massive Attack -Paradise Circus (feat. Hope Sandoval) (Gui Boratto Remix)

I Blame Coco - Caesar ft. Robyn (Diplo Remix)

Simian Mobile Disco ft. Beth Ditto - Cruel Intentions (Joker Remix)

Shy Child - Disconnected (Anoraak Remix)

Honestly, I love this last one. It'll take approximately 27252342 years for this it to leave my mind.

Penultimately, I would like to add that if you listen to Christina Aguilera's 'Fighter' whilst watching the music video to Lady Gaga's 'Bad Romance' (the latter on mute), good and unexpected things will happen.

And finally, if you think the Helping Haiti song is good, buy it for £1.98. If you think it's shit, go to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) and donate at least £3.96 to Haiti.