Watching the Detectives is my favourite Costello song.

I also always wonder how on earth he got involved with two and a half men enough to want to be in it.

XOMuggins wrote:

I like that song quite a bit. (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea is probably my favourite. New Amsterdam is up there too.

I don’t want to go to Chelsea is my second favourite in fact on the great hits I own that one two is so powerful it doesn’t really recover although Oliver’s army comes close

Kow wrote:

I've always found Elvis Costello massively irritating. I can't stand his voice and his music just seems so bland. I've never understood his popularity.

Listen to watching the detectives I guarantee you’ll like it and if not I’ll refund you double the difference

Yeah, I don't like that song at all.

Posted because young Kim Wilde is hot.

Stuff I've been listening to recently...

Firstly the new Porridge Radio album's great. It's been out for a bit now, but it's still getting regularly aired in my household.  Lyrically it's not complicated, but it's often honest were others would simply be trite - the power being in the delivery.  Take the opening track's repeated refrain of "Thank you for leaving me, thank you for making me making me happy" which goes from joyful reclamation to deranged desperation without changing a word.  Or "Sweet's" insistence that you'll like her when you meet her, which feels somewhere between, promise, threat and wishful thinking.  Sonically it is, in places, gloriously loud, but again it knows how to play with sound, luring you in, then submerging you in noise, before gently easing off and threatening to venture into shoe gaze territory in places. It's a great record - I notice they're getting a fair bit of radio play suddenly, and they deserve it...



Next up's the new Waxahatchee album.  If you've heard them before, I'd say there are no great surprises here, but it's easily their best record since Cerulean Salt.  This is her first record since getting sober, which by all accounts has been a struggle. It was worth it - a nigh perfect bit of folk americana...



Meanwhile Laura Marling's got a new album out as well - dropped with little ceremony, released early because of The Time In Which We're Living.  I find I tend to either love her records or bounce off them - but this is firmly in the former category.  It's a weird one - feels much more commercial than a lot of her previous work, but it's also pretty stripped back, often featuring little more than a guitar or piano and her voice. There are nods to Dylan and Joni Mitchell, and an explicit reference to Leonard Cohen with Alexandra, but it remains its own thing - picking up her recurring themes of womanhood and distilling them into something beautiful.

 

Finally there's the latest Malkmus album, "Traditional Techniques".  He seems to have been enjoying himself lately, each of his most recent albums being clearly distinct from the last. This features everything from sitar driven jamming on ACC Kirtan, to a pretty great Velvet Undergorund homage in Xian Man.  There's a general air of psychedelia (partly due to the production from The Decemberists' Chris Funk), whilst still being pretty clearly a Malkmus joint...

I've not been up to date with Laura Marling for years, was very keen on the first two but didn't gel with the next couple and hopped off the train. Once I Was An Eagle was one of releases I bounced off, but I listened to it multiple times last month and I dunno now, it might be even better than the records I loved. Might be a good time to go back in.

Moot_Geeza wrote:

I've not been up to date with Laura Marling for years, was very keen on the first two but didn't gel with the next couple and hopped off the train. Once I Was An Eagle was one of releases I bounced off, but I listened to it multiple times last month and I dunno now, it might be even better than the records I loved. Might be a good time to go back in.

For what it’s worth I think I probably rate Once I was an Eagle as her best - particularly the first four tracks, but then I’m a strange one.  The new record’s less intense, and lighter, despite the stripped back approach. Certainly an easier one to get into, though it’s too early to say whether it will linger. There are moments where it threatens to get a little bit too Radio 2, but even then it has an emotional honesty that rises above it.  Definitely worth a listen.

I speak because I can is her best

I’m listening to her on shuffle though on amazon music and it’s a ridiculously high quality - I’ll let her off for Mumford

Change of tone but limp bizkit’s chocolate starfish and the hot dog flavoured water has stood the test of time

Nice.

Bob wrote:

Change of tone but limp bizkit’s chocolate starfish and the hot dog flavoured water has stood the test of time

As in it was shit then and it’s still shit now? Sure, I can get on board with that.

Not gonna lie I fucking love(d) it

The only thing that dates it Reg

I'd keep my pants saggy, and I'd keep a spray can for the taggin'.