Do It Yourself - The Story of Rough Trade

Do yourself a favour and watch this great BBC 4 documentary "Do It Yourself - The Story of Rough Trade", if you haven´t done already.
From its humble beginnings as a small record shop filled with records which owner Geoff Travis had brought back from America, to its rise as a major distribution force of independent music and one of the most influential labels of the 1980s.

It´s especially interesting to follow the rise and fall (and rise) of a couple of devoted people who never wanted to be part of the mainstream music industry but soon found out that they needed hits, "Top of the pops" and binding contracts to sustain their growing business.

It is a whopping 88 minutes, but there are lots of worse things you can waste your time on...

This Used To Be "This Used To Be The Future"

"This used to be the future" is a track from the bonus CD of the upcoming, new Pet Shop Boys album "Yes". The special gimmick: vocals are not only sung by Neil Tennant, but also by Chris Low and Phil Oakey from The Human League.

MARCH 23 UPDATE:
This used to be "This Used to be the Future": After the song was taken down due to our beloved copyright violation bla bla (after all there is no such thing as free promotion?!) there is now the "Ken Saint X-tended Mix", which is surprisingly good and very close to the "original" version. I wonder how long this will be up...

Hard Sell

Luscious cover art was dying when the cd replaced vinyl, but it wasn´t dead until mp3s rendered everything that was bigger than a stamp-sized image obsolete.

Pitchfork has compiled 20 of the worst stinking remains of 2008. From bad and boring to flat out ugly. See them all here.
Make sure to read the introduction with links to some extra "what were they thinking"- ugliness.

The above Vanilla Ice-sleeve is not only a bad idea badly done, he also dares to cover (butcher) classics by Public Enemy and Bob Marley. Ugly inside and out.

Kelis: Young! Fresh! New!

Kelis has a lot going for her, but this is by far my favourite moment in her already 9 year old career.

"Young, fresh n´new" was the one and only single that came off her second album "Wanderland". It is a bold song about running away from home and being young and fresh and new. Why this never got a proper release in the USA is really beyond me. It´s not that her first album was in any way a flop!

In 2001 the Neptunes/Timbaland production style had already caught on in the mainstream. Aaliyah`s "Try again" brought the year 2000 to a minimal funky, futuristic kickstart. But it sounded almost conventional compared to the squelching, dirty particle-storm the Neptunes cooked up with "Young, fresh n´new".

The video is a candy-coloured rebellion with Kelis as the pied-piper, crashing through neatly manicured frontlawns in her monster-truck and dancing in front of giant slo-mo explosions. It´s a pop dream come true and a briliant match to a song which opens with the memorable lines: "Young and different. She looked at a condom. And could still see the sun."

But maybe it was just bad timing. I remember seeing this phenomal video shortly after the horrors of 9/11 and rebellion, monster truck destruction and slo-mo explosions were not considered to be entertainment in the aftermath.

However, Kelis left Virgin records who were nearly wrecking her career and came back as schoolyard dairy-queen with the sonic onslaught that was "Milkshake". From the healing shock of "looking at a condom" without getting blind to "I can teach you, but i have to charge". Kelis rocks!