Separating the sweet, juicy flesh from the stone and skin of this week’s major label releases.

Things are a little different this week. For some reason, there are quite a few good albums being released in the next few days, so instead of the usual three reviews, we’re going to have… well, we’re not sure yet. We’re just going to work our way through the promo copies until we accidentally stick in something by Justin Bieber and end up running away from the computer with our brain on fire.

It’s exciting, and it’s all going on right after the jump…

Firstly, Black Sands, Bonobo. Done wrong, laid-back electronica is a terrible thing: all flat, emotionless beats and the sound of seagulls put through too many flange units. Done right, though, it’s a glorious way to spend a dark Sunday evening in the house, or a bright and beautiful Wednesday afternoon in the park. Bonobo does it right.

El Toro is a wonderful piece of 20s jazz tomfoolery. We Could Forever samples a lovely funk guitar riff and lays it gently on top of a smooth, hip-swaying beat. And Eyesdown takes a  stripped-down Samba beat and somehow makes it feel like you want to dance and have a snooze, both at the same time.

So, Black Sands is a lovely piece of music. Even on the last (also, title) track, where Bonobo comes perilously close to tumbling into a full-on Mike Oldfield tribute wank-off. It’s represented by the thought:

Now, hang on. My head wants to settle back into this pillow, but my feet want to whirl me around the floor like a demented Brazilian. What’s going on here?

I’m all for some mellow beats. Could you take me to Black Sands, please?

Secondly, God Of War 3 OST, Various Artists. 100 years ago, children could spend entire summers amusing themselves with nothing more than a sheep’s head for a football and a kid with rickets to stand around being the goalposts. Fifty years ago, advancing technology meant they could now afford a leather ball. Sadly, air had not yet been invented, which meant that playing with the thing was rather like spending an afternoon kicking Adrian Chiles around a field. Hmmm…

Anyway, time moved on and computers were born. 20 years ago all the kids wanted to do with their spare time was play Outrun, a game whose only appeal was in trying to fling the smug driver and his passenger out of the car.

Nowadays, when they aren’t watching internet videos of ginger children getting PWNED!!!!!! by a fat kid, youngsters plug themselves into a computer and dive into a fully-submersive world of hyper-real images, frenetic action and incredible aural authenticity.

Which leads us, in a criminally overlong fashion, to this album. While the venerable Outrun‘s soundtrack was little more than a weedy, rasping approximation of an exhaust pipe (we’d imagine it sounds just like Victoria Beckham farting), no game today is complete without a huge, bombastic soundscape. And this means that, just as happened with movies, the best computer games now feature music that can stand alone as piece of art.

Your Mango has not played God Of War 3. Your Mango apologises. But your Mango can recognise decent music when it comes along and this is it. Big, stirring orchestration. Lots of ominous strings, horns and choral chanting. Some really nice Middle-Eastern and ancient-world influences.

If you’ve played the game, you may listen to this and have each of the 24 tracks spark a little memory for you. We haven’t, but still found the album to be an enjoyable experience, and one which we’ll return to. It’s represented by the thought:

Dummm. Dumm dumm dummmm. Oh, hey, this is what was playing when Kratos shoved the Claw Of Hades up Gaia’s arse. Cool.

I enjoy the sound of gods exploding. Take me to God of War 3 / Game O.S.T.

I would like to hear the gold standard for this kind of music. Take me to Orff: Carmina Burana

Thirdly, Memphis: A New Musical, Various Artists. This needs to be said right at the outset: we don’t like musicals. Nothing personal against the kinds of people who do – flabby women with too much perfume and too many cats; the kind of gay man who will actually vocalise the expression OMG – but they ain’t for us.

But listen up, Mangons, because here is something you need to know about musicals: sometimes, the music is quite good. It’s all about the setting, you see. Here is an example of the reverse situation: Hunky Dory is an album very close to our heart. Listened to in your front room with a beer, it is a thing of great beauty. However, if you were to listen to even this masterpiece in a theatre filled with the stench of cheap perfume and the sound of a thousand men screaming OMG!!!!!!!!1 at each other, well… you’re going to be flinging yourself off the balcony within seconds.

Our point is this: do not let the ‘Musical’ tag put you off having a listen. This is an album written, we assume, as a journey through the swampy musical history of this Southern US city. As such, the songs are homages to all the classic genres that have been born or perfected there: honky tonk (Ain’t Nothin But A Kiss), blues-gospel (Make Me Stronger), and soul (She’s My Sister).

Look, if you want the real thing then go and buy yourself What’s Going On, Songs in the Key of Life, or Lady Soul. But if you’re just looking for an album you can throw on and feel good, this might be for you. It’s represented by the thought:

OMGOMGOMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

I would like to hear a musical. Please don’t tell my friends, just take me to Memphis: A New Musical (Orginal Cast Recording)

Fourthly, Wu Massacre, Ghostface Killah, Method Man, Raekwon, Meth Ghost and Rae. Oh, The Wu-Tang Clan. Dirtier and more misogynistic than John McCririck‘s underpants.

How we love your rhymes, your beats, and your frankly alarming views of women (check out How To Pay Rent Skit, a track whose central thesis is: “You bitches better recognise that your vagina is an ATM“). Well, that may be the case for the beautiful women of Los Angeles, Mr Killah, but here in Blighty we’d be alarmed, frankly, if a stream of ten pound notes were to suddenly pour from Susan Boyle‘s clunge.

You know what you’re getting with an album from these chaps. And if you don’t, then you probably shouldn’t buy it. It’s the usual, solid rapping, with the usual, ghettocentric targets. Fine, but a bit out of date now. This album is the rap equivalent of the office comedian who still has a Crazy Frog ringtone. It’s represented by the thought:

Wow, I’m finally here in sunny LA. It’s gorgeous, there’s loads of…WTF?? Why the hell are there hundreds of dollar bills pouring out of that lady’s bikini?

I’m the real motherflicking deal, motherwhacker. Take me to Wu Massacre. Right. Motherlicking. Now.

Fifthly, and finally, Telephone: The Remixes, Lady GaGa. Sorry, but into every life a little rain must fall. To appreciate the mango’s softly sweet flesh, one must also acknowledge its hard and unyielding stone.

Thus, the music industry feels obliged to occasionally deliver an album so monumentally, stupidly, vacuously, brain-meltingly pointless that we consumers are forced to run, shrieking and gurgling, to buy something that will soothe our troubled ears.

So thanks, Lady GaGa. Thanks a lot.

This is an album of remixes of the theme tune from that recent advert for mobile phones, cigarettes and Beyonce‘s tits. If this in any way catches your interest, then we apologise. Because there is no way – believe us, we’ve spent hours trying – that we can adequately warn you about how horrible this is.

The original song was a trite piece of pop poop. But what we have here is a whole new level  of aural torture. Nine remixes, by nine electrotwats, all of who have just taken the song, turned the bass up (DJ Dan) or down (Dr Rosen Rosen) a bit and then sat back, satisfied.

Do you know how bad this stuff is? Well, Amazon‘s listing for an import of the new Craig David album, Signed Sealed Delivered, has the usual PR guff about his latest bit of soulless guff. That’s Craig Bloody David. He’s only ever sold three albums in the US, and they were to fat women from Coventry who were on holiday in Florida.

Surely, for a Lady GaGa release, the PR will be a completely OTT, hysterical piece of hyped-up journalism? Let’s see:

This CD features 9 “Telephone” remixes by some of today best remix artists!

See! That is literally it! Even her own record company hated themselves so much for releasing this that their PR department gave the writing job to Jose, the Mexican kid on a week’s work experience.

Enough. We can’t contemplate this mess any more. Here’s its thought:

Christ, I am a disgusting human being. I am going to burn in hell for this one. And why did I have to bring Jose into it? The poor kid’s still in a coma.

I am responsible for torturing prisoners in Guatanamo Bay. I think I have just found my new secret weapon, so take me to Telephone: The Remixes.

Hey, PR people: we love and respect you, really. Why don’t you get in touch here: TheGibbo[at]Gmail.com

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