Supergrass and Their Not-So-Sloppy Second

Second albums are notoriously sticky wickets. The best bands - the Radioheads and Mansuns of the world - overcome Second Album Syndrome by going bigger and more ambitious; other bands are content to simply rest on their laurels and phone it in on album number two.

At first glance, Britpop bruisers Supergrass seem to fall into the latter category. Their sophomore effort, 1997's In It For The Money, sounds in many places like it was written on the spot - most of the lyrics are nonsense, and song structure seldom strays from the classic verse/chorus/verse/chorus/Rob does a solo on whatever instrument he's got handy/chorus/chorus format.

In this song, that instrument was a theremin.

Even the song titles appear to betray a stark lack of effort; G-Song, for example, is a song in the key of G minor, and given how little the lyrics Richard III actually have to do with King Richard III, I'm forced to assume that the late monarch just so happened to be in the news that day, and that his name seemed as good a title as any.

Björk Battles the Leakers

Björk's new album came out yesterday, which is weird because it wasn't supposed to come out until March. Who do we have to thank for this earlier-than-anticipated release?

Why, the good people of the internet, naturally! Vulnicura was leaked online a few days ago, and so Björk and her record label responded by rush-releasing the album on iTunes, presumably to stop people from downloading the leaked version and forgetting to buy the real thing in two months' time. The digital version is available now, although you will have to wait until March if you want it on CD.

The Long Song (Guest Post)

In today's blog, Paul Jennings scours his library for >8 minute odysseys that he actually likes...

Meat Loaf. It's always Meat Loaf. Usually Bat Out Of Hell. All 9 minutes 53 seconds of it.

You know the guy. He's the one nursing his quid, analysing the pub jukebox, trying to find the long songs. It's quantity over quality. He demands his VFM. He wants his Meat Loaf. If you're very unlucky he'll double up with a portion of American Pie, weighing in at a calorific 8 minutes 33 seconds. I feel sick and fetch my coat.

The beauty of the 3 minute pop song is that if you don't like it, there'll be another one along shortly. Hard to do when ruffle-cuffed theatre boy insists on dragging his songs out to a fortnight.

The long song is wide open for self-indulgence. The six minute solo for the bassist who feels undervalued by the band or the drummer still irked that he didn't get a co-writer credit on the last album.

So, I set myself a challenge. Five songs of eight minutes or over that won't make you hit the skip track button.

1. Johnny Was - Stiff Little Fingers

from Inflammable Material, 1979

“Woman hold her head and cry,

'Cause her son has been shot down in the street and died,

Just because of the system”

Encore favourite from 1979 classic Inflammable Material. SLF have made this Bob Marley cover so firmly their own it's hard to believe it wasn't written in and about their native Belfast.

Waiting for My Okkervil River CD to Arrive

I recently ordered a couple of albums from Amazon Marketplace. They were Loves Comes Close by Cold Cave and Down the River of Golden Dreams by Okkervil River.

The Cold Cave album arrived very promptly indeed, and while it's nowhere near as satisfying as the more recent Cherish the Light Years, it is a pretty cool slice of Joy Division-imitating electrogoth.

As of this morning, however, I'm still waiting for that Okkervil River album.

Sure, the cover is horrifying, but I bet the music is awesome!

The Wolfshank Redemption

It's not like I hadn't heard of Patrick Wolf before last summer. On the contrary, his was a name I'd heard many times, but for some reason I had never bothered to check him out. He, like Deus and Owen Pallett and so many others, was just another indie act that I was content to know I would probably like if I ever did take a listen.

But, as of August 2014, I still hadn't listened to a single Patrick Wolf track. And so it was that I arrived in Cornwall for the Knee Deep Festival with practically zero knowledge of the biggest name on the bill. I strode up to Stage A, eager to find out what I had been missing all these years...