Alicia Keys Live Review @ M.E.N Arena 09/07/2008
A semi full arena always leaves your average gig goer slightly weary over the evening’s forthcoming proceedings and Alicia’s Keys’ rescheduled February date had a good few empty seats knocking around.
Could a piano ballad fuelled set really be the answer to a notably undersold MEN Arena?
Well that didn’t matter as she came on guns-a-blazin’ with an un-stereotypical (and unexpected) cacophonic, yet controlled entrance. Her first four songs were something one would expect to hear her more lively female American counterparts of the Beyonce ilk take the stage too. Furthermore she even included her two female backing singers to such a degree that during one track she was in serious danger of being upstaged by the sass and vocal prowess of the supposed ’supporting’ duo.
But then it all went dark and voila; the grand piano had made its entrance and Miss Keys showed us why she’s worth the entrance fee.
It’s her simple piano only ballads (albeit with a pinch of twinkly percussion) that make the songstress so appealing. With a beautiful, booming voice that accentuate her lyrics about love, loss and desperation; Alicia Keys had her young crowd listening to her every word with genuine intent.
There will always be a market for simplicity and Alicia should strive to make it hers as she has the genuine song writing talent to do so, but as moments showed tonight; she is in danger of slipping into a genre in which there are people far more entertaining than her.
More ballads, less booty. Simple.
4 out of 5
Los Campesinos! – My Year In Lists – 14/04/2008
Artist: Los Campesinos!
Title: My Year In Lists
Label: Wichita
Rating 3 out of 5
“…all the best pop songs are short, or short-lived. As are most pop bands careers.” Note Los Campesinos! And at 1:51 in length ‘My Year In Lists’ definitely falls into the category of ‘short’ but unfortunately not into the more exclusive category of ‘all the best pop songs’.
Taken from their rather good debut album ‘Hold On Now, Youngster…’, MYIL is a rather bizarre single choice given the selection they had to pick from, but it will nevertheless further add to their current perception of ‘cool’ that comes inevitably alongside being featured on Skins.
A catchy little song with cute lyrics about impressing your distant partner with your penmanship skills is flawed by its briefness. A couple more verses to help digress what became of the jilted lovers wouldn’t have gone amiss and unfortunately leaves this song with a sense of ‘?’ when it comes to a close.
Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip – Angles – 12/05/2008
Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip
Angles LP
Released 12th May
Sunday Best Records
Rating 4 out of 5
Optimism. It’s a great thing isn’t it? With HV being a natural panglossian we accept that optimism is a day to day feeling for us, but every so often our optimism does end up leading to that inevitable disappointment that we all feel once in a while. Now this may sound like a negative start to this review but don’t fear, this album is great, but we expected more. We expected pure musical brilliance. 12 tracks of audio genius. Unfortunately a couple of tracks really do suffer from filler syndrome (Rappers Battle and Tommy C being the 2 culprits) which disrupt the overall flow of the album.
We all know how brilliant all 3 singles are (with Beat That My Heart Skipped having ‘song of 2008’ potential written all over it) and there are other fantastic tracks to enjoy also; ‘Fixed’ is a rally call to the UK urban scene to pull its socks up, ‘Back From Hell’ is fast-paced dance floor filler and ‘Waiting For The Beat To Kick In’ is a trip around the exceptionally talented Scroobius Pip’s subconscious (which also contains a fantastic hidden track at the end which its exclusion from the track listing rather baffles us).
There is little doubt that this album is a cut above the rest and we shall be listening to it repeatedly this summer, but it’s probably 3 or 4 tracks short of becoming the genre defining masterpiece it had the potential to be.
Onions – Pickin up the Pieces single – 19.03.2008
The Mancunian 3 pieces latest offering comes in the form of ‘Picking Up The Pieces’. Despite the somewhat questionable band name they do deliver chirpy and poppy indie foot-tap-a-longable songs that will no doubt be heard playing across the parks of Manchester this summer on the various portable CD Players that aid the cities students in their procrastination.
Picking Up The Pieces is one of those songs which on the first listen makes you wonder if it is actually in tune or not and makes you contemplating cringing somewhat, however any thoughts of said discomfort are soon cast aside when the memorable chorus kicks in. And lets be honest; everyone loves a song you can sing-along too and at the same time feel you’re as good as the geezer singing it.
Rating 3 out of 5
Hello world!
Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!
