Music Reviews / Previews
Keane
Island
Keane’s debut album shifted five million ‘units’ worldwide; they won two Brit Awards and opened for U2. Hurrah! Champagne all round? Err, not quite. Lots of people in skinny jeans with penchants for asymmetric haircuts called them “bland”, “weedy” and- gasp!- “bedwetters”. They weren’t entirely wrong. But Is It Any Wonder, the lead single from the band’s upcoming Under The Iron Sea album, is a big fat slap round the chops for all the haters. It features electric guitar! It sounds a bit like A-Ha! The chorus is bigger than Lea from Big Brother’s chest pillows! That’s right, Keane’s balls have dropped and it damn well suits them.
Hey Mister! You likey singles reviews? Singles reviews from LeAnn Rimes, Prince, Corinne Bailey Rae, Ronan Keating featuring Kate Rusby and Pink after the jump! Best price!
There comes a point at every single house party where, after the casuals have trundled off home, someone will say "Put Dark Side Of The Moon on," and everyone will sit around talking about how Digby, The Biggest Dog In The World is, like, a metaphor for life while The Great Gig In The Sky plays in the background.And this part of the house party is always rubbish. But we're digressing. Legendary Pink Dots have been peddling this '3am talking shit' shtick for 25 years now, and the latest Legendary Pink Dots album Your Children Placate You From Premature Graves is another yet example of this. Which would be annoying, if only Legendary Pink Dots didn't do it so bloody well.
Nerina Pallot
14th Floor
Nerina Pallot is a woman with balls. Her debut album never got released, but she knuckled down and went on tour with Bryan Adams anyway. She ran out of budget recording her second album, so she re-mortgaged her house to pay for some more studio time. Respect. And now she’s finally getting her just desserts: new single Everybody’s Gone To War is all over radio like Johnson’s Holiday Skin on an Essex wannabe’s décolletage. And rightly so, because it’s how Sheryl Crow would sound if she had a bit of grit - rather than Mac mascara - in her eye: equal parts spiky rhythm guitar, soaring chorus and a slightly lumpen lyric about the futility of warfare. How can she fail? Everybody loves a survivor. Especially one with an extensive TV advertising campaign behind her.
Here come another barrage of singles reviews from Matt Willis, Ordinary Boys and Lady Sovereign, Primal Scream, Sandi Thom and The Feeling, all after the jump...
Welcome one and all to the hecklerspray Eurovision liveblog 2006. We've spent the last month tearing through the Eurovision betting odds of each country; and now that Eurovision is finally here, we're going to be liveblogging the arse off it.
Eurovision is now just a matter of minutes away, and all of the Eurovision stars are preparing to show Europe that they can be just as spangly and incomprehensible and crap as anyone else in this goddamned continent. Lordi are strapping their prosthetic noses on, Daz Sampson is going "What did you learn? What did you learn?" over and over into a mirror like Robert De Niro at the end of Raging Bull, that Maltese bloke is furiously tweaking his annoying soulpatch and the Greek Eurovision hosts are visibly questioning if this was really the right career choice for them.
And us? Why, we're only vaguely certain that we'll be able to get all the way through the Eurovision Song Contest without a) bursting into tears or b) trying to pop our eyes with an unfolded paperclip.
So here we go! Liveblogging Eurovision 2006! Yee-ha! Don't forget to place a Eurovision bet if you haven't already, and don't forget that the most recent stuff is going to be on the top. Ready? This won't be pretty...
The Eurovision Song Contest will take place tomorrow, and we genuinely could be more excited if you made us a chocolate Shakira.
Over the last month, we've looked at 36 Eurovision Song Contest entries. Wait - 36? But aren't there 37 Eurovision songs this year? That's right - we've yet to look at the mighty Daz Sampson from the UK.
Don't forget to place a Eurovision bet while you still can - we know we have - and you still have time to take advantage of PaddyPower's fantastic £10 free offer. Go on...
But first, last night saw the Eurovision Song Contest semi-final - so now we know exactly who'll be appearing tomorrow night. Good news for our favourites (Finland, Croatia and the mighty Lithuania) and bad news for snotty Icelandic pop princesses who actually stop their song midway through to have a conversation with God on the telephone. Here's the full Eurovision list:
Switzerland, Moldova, Israel, Latvia, Norway, Spain, Malta, Germany, Denmark, Russia, FYR Macedonia, Romania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Lithuania, United Kingdom, Greece, Finland, Ukraine, France, Croatia, Ireland, Sweden, Turkey and Armenia.
So here, for the final time, are the latest Eurovision betting odds for the United Kingdom, with help from PaddyPower...
There's just a few more days to go until the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest is unleashed - and that means there's just a few more days of Eurovision betting left.
Eurovision betting is as easy as it is fun - PaddyPower even want to give you free stuff if this is your first bet - and it'll make Eurovision around a thousand times more exciting than usual. You want to, don't you? Don't you? Go on...
Here are the latest Eurovision betting odds for Turkey and the Ukraine, with help from PaddyPower.com...
You know what Sunday is, don't you? Eurovision Song Contest Day, that's what. And we've still got the pressing issues of some Eurovision betting odds to crack on with.Anyone going to Athens to see the Eurovision Song Contest this weekend has several sightseeing opportunities to mull over, from the Acropolis to... um... still, though, we hear the Acropolis is very nice.
Here are the latest Eurovision betting odds for Sweden and Switzerland, with help from PaddyPower.com...
We're steaming to the end of our 2006 Eurovision Song Contest betting odds, and it's been a hell of a journey so far. A frightening journey of mostly very bad music, but a journey's a journey.Come Saturday, we'll all be glued to our televisions, watching hour after hour of bizarre fashion mistakes, songs about flying and - if Finland gets past the semi-finals - five prosthetic rock overlords making fearsome music that sounds like the end of the world.
Here are the latest Eurovision betting odds for Slovenia and Spain, with help from PaddyPower.com...
