Blog: the blackened air

it seems hard to imagine now that the cranberries were ever in a position to be offered a peel session. while today they might be largely forgotten, for a while they were huge, a great wailing behemoth of a band, churning out increasingly bland soft rock/pop ditties to be lapped up by hoards of americans (mostly). stories abounded of singer dolores o’riordan ’s diva-esque behaviour, while no stories whatsoever abounded of the three sleeper blokes. in short, the cranberries were not a cool band. but i still remember reading [...]

no common thread between these songs other than the fact I keep going back to them at the moment. each is quite different from the other. or at least I can't see what they have in common. if anyone can tell me then please do... a quick note about lily allen : she seems to be flavour of the month in blogland as well as myspace's latest pin up , and so far everything i've heard justifies it. you might be tempted to dismiss her as some kind of celeb's daughter/chav wannabe (and she does [...]

this song is taken from a compilation that absolutely inflamed me, back in the day. bought in the rough trade shop in covent garden, when "the nation" was in the grip of riot grrrl fever and every other bugger was starting a fanzine and releasing tapes. i think that day i bought about 5 different tape compilations along with a handful of fanzines. go into rough trade today and you'll be lucky to find any zines, let alone any tapes, a sad state of affairs indeed. okay, so almost no one releases tapes these [...]

the national are playing in london tonight. i wish i had tickets but i didn't get organised so that's that then. still, at least i saw them at ulu last year. one thing that struck me during that performance, apart from just how good a band they are, was the curious spasmodic mannerisms of singer matt berninger. frequently bringing his arms up to the side of his face, standing at the back of the stage with his back to the audience, thrasing about like ian curtis - after a while it felt like [...]

today’s post is simple: three songs that i’m loving at the moment featuring lady singers that like to stretch their vocal chords now and again. simple as. be your own pet - wildcat pretty girls make graves - the nocturnal house yeah yeah yeahs - cheated hearts