Chartsengrafs - Why don't you like me?

Sunday gone: It's a bit of a slow week at the top. Mika is still number 1, still kind of smug looking. Just Jack still follows, with Mason/Princess Superstar jumping to 3. Fall Out Boy enter at 6 with their absurdly self-referential "This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race" and still sound like the one mainstream emo band who aren't actually really good. As opposed to My Chemical Romance, obviously, who are two places below with the full release of "Famous Last Words". Well, their last single was rather unfollowable. They do get the biggest selling physical release of the week though, incedentally, an achievement which means increasingly little as digital sales reach the 80% mark of market share.
Akon climbs to 11 with his ignorable new single, Bloc Party enter at a not bad 13 with "The Prayer", a grower to put it politely. I'm seeing them tomorrow by the way. And I still haven't heard any of their other new stuff. Will report back soon. The Fray climb to 16 and see the physical release date of their single put forward another few weeks. Can't we miss out on a big American hit for once? I mean I know we gave them "You're Beautiful" and all, but still. Brining up the rear of the top 20 are Little Man Tate, who win the least hatable Arctic Monkeys soundalike competition by some distance. The prize is to still kind of suck.
Keane's "A Bad Day" only gets to 23, but they won't mind too much as their album finally takes off again a little. That single's number two in the airplay charts at the moment, but happily those don't count for anything chartwise here! (although, woah, I had no idea that radio liked "Annie, Let's Not Wait" so much)
Amy Winehouse falls from 21 and 24 to 24 and 28, with "You Know I'm No Good" proving to have just as much sticking power as "Rehab". Larrikin Love's "Well, Love Does Furnish A Life", confusingly released on a disc called "A Day In The Life" is 31. It's not especially good, but it's ok because the release has given us a gorgeous Guillemots cover of it. I bet you knew I'd say that. the Skins effect does indeed push The Gossip up into the top forty at 34, and Kelis and Cee Lo are the last new entry on downloads, with The Shins just missing out despite early week promise at 42.
Further down you get some larger new rules oddities. The release of Rocky Balboa pushes "Eye Of The Tiger" and the original theme to 47 and 52 respectively - they've got to have peaked by now, surely - and if anyone can explain why Placebo's version of "Running Up That Hill" is at 66 I'd be grateful.

At the top of the albums chart The View are on fire! Sadly not literally. The Good, The Bad And The Queen are just behind, with the only other new entry for The Cooper Temple Clause, who still have some fans at 33.

Sunday coming: Mika will be number one again easily since his CDs are out, keeping Fall Out Boy off. Bloc Party for 3, and, uh, The Fray for the top 10? Oh dear. Your other new entries or climbers will be:
Kasabian
Kelis/Cee-Lo
Gwen Stefani/Akon (not that he does much)
Nas/Will.I.Am
Lady Sovereign
Bowling For Soup
Switches
Take That

And in the albums, Lex favourites Klaxons are going to be number one. Though only number 34 in Sainsburys' chart. There's loads behind them but we'll talk about that this time next week.

Lucky for some

As promised - a compilation of 13 of the acts that I'm looking forward to great things from this year, ready for you to download. Usual rules apply: they can't have released as album yet, basically. Having come around to them a lot, Klaxons might be on here except that there really isn't any point at this stage.

New/2007

1. Los Campesinos! - You! Me! Dancing!: Four exclamation marks for excitement entirely justified. The reason that this is the most likely song for you to have already heard is becauseit isn't so much promising as the magnificent complete article; it takes a while to get going but you soon realise that that's just to prepare you for the unrestrained joy to follow. They seem to have some other songs nearly as good, too.
2. Dead! Dead! Dead! - Colours 123: 2006 was a bit quiet on the Dead! Dead! Dead! front, but they did contribute the standout track to 50 Minutes, a hectic minute of brooding atmosphere followed by crashing aggression. This is rather like that but stretched out a bit - think a cleverer Cooper Temple Clause before they decided to become awful and you're somewhere near.
3. I Was A Cub Scout - Teenage Skin: I was too, you know. Nottingham teenageers who have come up with some marvellous skittery beats to back up their angst, this being a good example.
4. Lorraine - Saved: Popjustice favourites tipped for big things at the start of last year, which resulted in a number 29 single in April and then not a lot. Hopefully they won't be completely forgotten because their pristine electropop is actually really good.
5. Snowfight In The City Centre - Listen: This is the third year in a row that I start by picking this band, though previously in their old guise of Lisa Brown. Yet in the meantime the likes of The Upper Room have managed to make a success of a similar sound without any songs nearly as good as this. Mystery.
6. GoodBooks - Turn It Back: As was clear when they wowed me at last year's Camden Crawl, they have a lot of great songs. Enough in fact to have actually given this one away for free. Ooh.
7. Candie Payne - Take Me: Not a cover of The Wedding Present's song, but a forceful piece of retro pop soul that excels way beyond mere pastiche.
   
8. Lucky Soul - Lips Are Unhappy: Achingly sweet girly pop with gorgeous harmonies. Anyone who liked The Pipettes and Camera Obscura's albums last year, this is like the best bits of both put together.
9. Sky Larkin - Somersault (Notes): Hottest British Act of 2006! I can't add much to what they say, except that I'm rather excited about going to see them and Los Campesinos!
   
10. iLiKETRAiNS - A Rook House For Bobby: I spent a while trying to work out where to put this in the tracklisting, but it would sound like nothing else wherever I'd gone for. Such is the extent that their deep, dark post-rock sounds beamed in from another reality entirely.
    
11. The Indelicates - New Art For The People: 'If it weren't for the cum in your hair, the cocaine on your teeth...' Well, a first line like that is one way to grab the attention. Pleasingly the rest of this boy/girl duo's scuzzy dramatics are just as captivating.
    
12. Emmy The Great - Secret Circus: Rich and evocative folk from a girl who sounds a little bit like Joanna Newsom might if she weren't so annoying.
    
13. Kate Nash - Birds: Lily Allen comparisons aplenty coming her way, and if anything puts you off this it will probably be her Laahndan accent. But under her folk's surface attitude there's some heartwarmingly beautiful songwriting at work . Her first single proper, then, is of course a spoken electro mess called "Caroline's A Victim". Whatever works.
    

'Happens to be about nine feet tall and have a mohican'

It's Stylus Singles Jukebox time once more! Except that it's different now - it has changed format to a blog and will now provide a more constant stream of snarkiness and fine music from mainland Europe. I'm on the first new entry, for Teddybears (who fit into the second category, as long as Sweden counts as mainland) and if you keep an eye on it I'll be on more soon. Plus there are a lot of other rather excellent writers that you should be reading for too.
I won't be mentioning updates I'm on now unless they're particularly notable, obviously, but that's ok because I'm going to have lots of other exciting stuff right here. Starting this weekend with a compilation of songs by some of the most promising new acts around.

Just heard on the radio

'The original emos, Good Charlotte, are back!!'

Chartsengrafs - Should I bend over?

Sunday gone: It's an all hyped all new acts top three this week, headed by Mika getting the second ever download only number 1. You know, I could almost bring myself to actually like him if it wasn't for the spoken bits in this song being so incredibly irritating. Just Jack is at 2 (and he would have been number one under the old rules, ha) and is pretty much the opposite to Mika in that his current single is enjoyable but I have a feeling that it will be a bad thing to ever hear from him again.
The View go up to 3 on full release, presumably selling to people too young to remember "Brimful Of Asha". Jojo is also a riser to 4, with Leona Lewis and Eric Prydz tumbling as a result of all this new activity. So with the new rules, does this top five feel a little... unearned? Even less worth anything than normal? Well, yeah, actually. But then it is January, long the season for Mercury Rev to score hits and unexceptional records to climb to unrealistic heights. If we have the same feeling come March, then there's a problem.
The Ordinary Boys probably can't believe their luck re the Celebrity Big Brother furore reminding people of that Preston guy from last year's just in time for their new single (ok, that part must be deliberate) - it's enough to put it up to 7. Not-so-secret Manics fan Jamie T goes up to 9 with "Calm Down Dearest".
Five years on from "Bad Babysitter", Princess Superstar neatly gets her second number 11 single thanks to Mason's "Exceeder", although that might be ruined by a rise next time; Klaxons creep up to 14; The Good, The Bad And The Queen scrape into the top twenty this time around.
Oh and there's some silliness as Chris Moyles tells his listeners to download Billie's "Honey To The Bee" and it's enough to get it to number 17. Which is not too high for January and thus rather a relief, although it's still difficult to imagine Ms. Piper herself actually being too pleased for everyone to be reminded of it. Actually, the msot interesting thing is that is solves the mystery of what else Hear'say's "Pure And Simple" was assembled from apart from "Never Ever" and "All Around The World".
Lower down the forty, Guillemots' awful rerecording of "Annie, Let's Not Wait" (but hey, it has a nice video!) is their second biggest hit yet at 27; The Fray are at 29 two months before their single is released and will presumably soon be as huge here as in the US; and we get a first sighting of My Chemical Romance's new single at 38, one place behind "Welcome To The Black Parade".
Just outside we have The Gossip's "Standing In The Way Of Control" maybe because of that advert for that program that it is on? I don't know. And love her or hate her, Lady Sovereign sure is an obsession at, er, 48. To put it in brave new chart world context, that's three places ahead of "Eye Of The Tiger" and all of five ahead of The Jackson 5.
Amy Winehouse is still number one album, still nothing else interesting happening. Unless you count people buying The Fratellis again, but we'll try to forget about that one.

Sunday coming: No change looking likely for the top two, but Mason/Princess are heading for 3. Other new entries or rises coming up from:
My Chemical Romance!
Klaxons!
Little Man Tate!
Bloc Party!
Fall Out Boy!

And Amy Winehouse is going to be deposed from the top of the albums by the combined efforts of The View, The Good, The Bad and The Queen. See, this could get easily confusing.

Eurosonic day 2 (12/01/07)

(Day one here.)

Day two begins with another couple of instores - first of all The Duke Special, who remind heavily of Liam Frost's passable but derivative folk-pop, only with a Belfast accent.



Then Tunng, who also offer folk but of a decidedly more twisted bent. Their acoustic instore is good, but they promise 'more beats and some dodgy rave music' for their Usva performance later. The latter claim is rather an exaggeration but electronic edges do improve their set and the closing cover of Bloc Party's "The Pioneers" is just as wonderful as hoped.



Massive queues prevent us taking in Osark Henry, bar his closing song, which has enough of a feel of Coldplay's "Clocks" about it to make his popularity unsurprising.

Dead Combo, upstairs at the Grand Theatre, are a Portugese duo who play intricate instrumentals somewhere between fado and spaghetti western in style. Between song explanations that broken English frequently renders funnier than intended (and this is as good a place as any to note that every act we saw spoke English, usually not even attempting Dutch venue names) they show off some fantastically proficient guitar and bass playing. It's not music that I'm particulary familiar with, but their enjoyable set is always approachable, culminating in a kazoo driven Tom Waits cover.



Datarock are a bunch of overenergetic red tracksuited Norwegian mentalists, and as such are great fun to watch. Unfortunately what we see of their set proves a little lacking in hooks or direction, to the point where actually remembering what they sounded like afterwards proves a bit of a challenge.So it's upstairs again early in plenty of time for Hello Saferide.



Seeing Annika Norlin (Hello Saferide is her, plus her friend Maia for tonight) play her songs further emphasises some of the contradictions of her recorded work. See, the person that you see in her lyrics - the one that's jealous, neurotic, obsessive and scared of feet - is kind of pathetic. Her slightly stilted explanations almost always place her songs as autobiographical, too. There are moments when she's obviously exaggerating for comic effect, like "Last Bitter Song"'s 'I'm feeling happier already' followed by an overdone grimace, but these are few and far between. For the most part, this is being presented as straight down the line.
And yet, as she marches her way through great song after great song, taking in much of her debut album and more recent Would You Let Me Play This EP 10 Times A Day? it's impossible not to take her side. Surely someone able to write songs this consistently funny, insightful, and quotable can't really be such a wreck as she makes out? Not the one whose new year's resolutions in "2006" include 'I will learn a new word every day, today's word is dejected' or who can make the brilliant handclappy pop of "My Best Friend" and make despair sound as good as on "Summer's Going To Take The Pain Away".
A handful of new songs even suggest that there's still better to come. The finest is about how 'people are like songs' and balances very funny verses ('I'm like Can't Get You Out Of My Head/Sure I'm annoying sometimes but I'll make you dance') with a chorus that's the most ingenious and affecting declaration of love I've heard in a long time: 'You're the only one who is like God Only Knows'. Aww.



From there it's back downstairs for Belgians Goose, whose name seems particularly ill-suited to their energetic dance-rock. LCD Soundsystem and Soulwax says the bits of the EuroSonic programme entry that I can understand and both are fair comparisons. But they're most similar in the more song-based early part of the set, where they are good but suffer from a frontman who doesn't quite have the necessary authority to convince. No such problem later on as he gets more into it and the emphasis switches to pounding, euphoric instrumentals. They're great enough to be worth looking up as soon as possible after the festival and it turns out that they're signed to Skint Records with an album to come out in the UK next month. With the right press and a flimsily attached new rave label, they might just get somewhere with that.

After Goose it's a quick trip to Fancy, whose preposterously awful glam rock provides a few minutes of laughs. Bar some time at an underpopulated but still enjoyable party on a boat, that's it for Eurosonic 2007. With some luck, I might just be back next year!

(Thanks to Ada for photos, bar the Hello Saferide one for which I have Sabrina to thank)

Eurosonic Day 1 (11/01/07)

Eurosonic is two thirds of the Noorderslagweekend festival in Groningen, the Netherlands. With Patrick Wolf among the hundreds of acts from across Europe playing at the town's many venues, and a generous invitation to stay with a friend in the town, I couldn't really turn down the chance to go.

Utroubled by licensing or noise issues, the festival proper starts at 8pm and runs through well into the night. There's stuff to watch during the day too, though, at Groningen's big record shop, Plato. As well as being a hell of a lot better than the crap ones in Amsterdam that I visited, it puts on instore performances from some of the festival acts, and that's where I start with Peter, Bjorn and John. Armed with infectiously cheery demeanour and equally infectious songs that come to life much better than on record, they play an enjoyable if short set. The highlight is obviously "Young Folks" though, complete with badly mimed whistling and a cardboard cutout of Erykah Badu standing in for Victoria Bergsman.



First choice of the evening was between The Young Knives and Gomez singer (yeah, that one) Ben Ottewell. Alone I would have gone for the former but the latter isn't without his merits and is playing a rather nice venue, the plush seated upstairs room at the Grand Theatre.
Now, one of the better organisational points of the festival is having 45 minute sets, with some venues having two alternating stages to eliminate any time in between sets and few gaps built into the schedule to move around in. This does make it hard not to miss the starts/ends of sets but is generally preferable to the measly 25 minute shows common at UK festivals. Not in Ben Ottewell's case, though. As amazing as his voice is to be bellowed at with up close, there's nowhere near enough in just him and an acoustic guitar to hold interest for so long. Especially when he insists on playing as many Gomez B-sides as A-sides. A cover of Nick Drake's "Black Eyed Dog" works very well though (what is it about that song? I've seen JJ72 and South play it too...)



Worries about overcrowding in the tiny Usva send us there well before Patrick Wolf's set, giving a chance to check out the preceding act Lo-Fi-Fnk. No expectations there, really, but they turn out to be easily the greatest discovery of the two days. They are three ridiculously young looking Swedish guys who play slightly fey and extremely sugary electropop, and they are FUN. Winningly unwilling to take anything very seriously, a precision and ear for a glossy hook shines through regardless and every time it seems like they might let up another exhuberant beat or riff comes from somewhere. Their set produces wide grins and dancing all round and anyone getting excited about the likes of I Was A Cub Scout at present would do well to have a listen.



Patrick Wolf is initially plagued with tehcnical problems that are a welcome abscence everywhere else at the festival - he starts about 15 minutes late, instruments repeatedly don't work and setting up a microphone at the front of the stage and at his piano is a task beyond the flustered looking guy running around the stage. Though he once looks like losing his temper, Patrick largely takes it in his stride, joking about the difficulty setting up a microphone stand for a 6'4" platform shoes wearer and offering to take requests. The start of his set is ruined beyond rescue though, with a wobbly "Teignmouth" particularly awkward. It's only when he says that he's in a 'retrospective mood' and turns to his laptop that he really gets going.
Highlights: "Tristan" is more of a defiant holler than ever, he brings out unexpected high camp in the normally harrowing "The Childcatcher" and he finishes off with a great run through the title track of his (amazing) new album and a defining "A Boy Like Me". He'll do better sets, but seeing him play so many old songs so close up is a treat unlikely to be repeated.



After that we go to Vera (more like your standard small gig venue than most here) for The Hormonauts. They're Italian rockabillies whose set is not particularly impressive but includes a song that rips off "Bang Bang You're Dead" by Dirty Pretty Things so blatantly that it's admirable for its gall if nothing else.

To finish, cancellations and rearrangements allow us to take in a second set of the night from Lo-Fi-Fnk. It's still fun, although not nearly as revelatory as the first, not least because they have the distinct air of being up well past their bedtime... us too.




The second day (when we saw a few more bands than on the first!) to come very soon.

Some people wait a lifetime for.... Chartsengrafs

See what I did there?
Anyway, time to review the burning wreckage of the UK's singles charts. Well, really, the switch to allowing all downloads to chart at any time was a sensible and inevitable one, and within a couple of years will give us a perfectly good download based chart. Only problem is that while physical singles overall sell much worse than downloads, newly released big singles are still mostly sold on old fashioned CDs (or vinyl, or DVD, or... cassette? Perhaps not). This means that unless you follow the release dates very closely, lots of singles are going to start having big jumps for no apparent reason. At least last year's one week in advance rule made things easier to follow.



Sunday gone: Leona Lewis just about manages to hold off Eric Prydz (less than 100 copies in it, apparently) for a fourth week at number 1 with "A Moment Like This". At this point the only explanation I can come up with for such dreck still being foisted on X Factor winners is that Cowell and co. actually make more money by them having a massive first single and then a career that's over by June in order to better clear the way for next year's chump.
3 and 4 are new entries on downloads only, so pretty much readying themselves to fight for next week's number one are Mika and Just Jack, both highly placed in the BBC's early year survey of music biz types to find the next big thing. The former's song, you'll notice, all but announces him as Freddie Mercury redux, such is the conviction that this is all that we should want. "Too Little Too Late" surprisingly isn't for Jojo at 6.
The View's "Same Jeans" (previously a number one for Cornershop nine years ago) enters at 11 just ahead of full release, Freemasons get a 12 with the help of some actual CDs and Klaxons get a very early 16 for "Golden Skans", which is probably going to be rather big. It's worth mentioning at this point that my previous unimpressed stance on them has been overturned, not so much by this song as by belatedly seeing the fantastic video to "Magick". The response was something along the lines of 'oh, now I get what they're doing'. Amy Winehouse just about manages to get her new single ahead of "Rehab", at 18 to its 20. It's working out well, anyway, because her album hits the top of the (otherwise uninteresting) album chart for the first time.
"Chasing Cars" is back out of the top twenty again but still ahead of The Ordinary Boys' "I Luv U". I would like to say something about that one and it's video, but really, where the hell to start? The Automatic's rerelease of "Raoul" (hey, it's better than Lostprophets) gets to a measly 30, with the small consolation that it does at least place ahead of the six month old "Monster". Just. Evanescence are at 32, Jarvis is at 36, Jamie T at 40 (but sure to climb next time) and The Cooper Temple Clause are 41 and unlikely to ever see any higher again.
That's your lot for this week. Finished. Done.

Oh, alright then, the much reported big news of this week's chart is that of Koopa, who at 31 are the first unsinged act ever in the top 40. As long as we're ignoring, you know, Marillion, SimplyRed.com, Sway having managed the same thing a year ago, that type of thing. Which we are, since they didn't make it through revolutionary chart changes that reflect the changing ways in bla bla bla. This is their single, and they've, uh oh, decided to use it to make a statement about the music scene. Its chorus goes 'this is what real music sounds like'. Click at your own risk, because if I have to cover a more disheartening single this year I'll be kind of surprised.

Sunday coming: Mika is going to be number one, though his single isn't out til 29/01 so under previous rules he wouldn't even be allowed in yet. There'll be some more news stories about that, no doubt.
Just Jack just behind, followed by The View lining up to be this year's Kooks.
Other new or rising songs by:
JoJo
Ordinary Boys
Klaxons
Jamie T
The Good, The Bad And The Queen
Guillemots
Akon with Snoop Dogg
The Gossip

Haha

via Popjustice. It's difficult to grasp how anyone could have the necessary skills and time to create this and put it up on YouTube and yet...