You're the life of the party
Feb. 11th, 2005 03:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaBlimey, I haven't updated much this week, have I ? Anyway...
It's Friday! It's about three o'clock! It's time to Boogie At Your Desk!
Friday afternoons need a little something. I think they need a Top Tune. Something to make you shuffle in your seat and, if possible, Boogie At Your Desk. I'll be endeavouring to fill this gap some Fridays this year.
I'm not claiming that any track provided to enable At-Desk Boogying is one of the world's best or most profound pieces of music. It will, however, be one of the tunes which make me smile, and which have at some stage made me surreptitiously Boogie At My Desk.
Desks are not compulsory, of course. Feel free to boogie through your office, in your bedroom, round your lab, across your classroom, on the train - wherever you find yourself on a Friday afternoon.
If you like the track, go out and buy the album it belongs to - I'll try and recommend a suitable CD to purchase for any BAYD track.
Today you are invited to Boogie At Your Desk to:
Bloc Party - Banquet (Phones Disco Edit)
(This is a legitimate download from Bloc Party's own website.)
Anyone with an encyclopaedic memory will recall me reviewing a band called Union about 18 months ago. I commented then that I'd been impressed, and that I liked the idea of having a tiny, unknown band to follow about.
By the time I saw them next they were called Bloc Party, and I watched them go from obscure third-support-in-empty-pub to headlining small "proper" venues. There was the moment of surprise, the first time I saw them after they'd got their own sound man, that they suddenly sounded like "a proper band", and the excitement when their third single made it into the top 40. On Wednesday, I saw them playing at the Brixton Academy on the NME Shockwaves tour[+], with their current single standing at number 5 in the charts.
And actually, I still stand by most of what I wrote in that original review. In particular, I said and for the first time in a while, the first thing that struck me wasn't who they sounded like.
The thing that I noticed most on Wedesnday was that the other bands on the bill (The Futureheads and The Killers[*], both of whom I like a lot) each have a very particular sound. Both bands released debut albums last year (The Futureheads and Hot Fuss respectively), and each provides a consistent slice of guitar-driven indie-rock. They're both great bounce-along, sing-along albums, but neither brings much in the way of variety.
Bloc Party's debut album, Silent Alarm, is out on Monday 14th and frankly, it couldn't be more different. From others, or from itself. It moves from sounding like Joy Division for the 00s (She's Hearing Voices) to the almost pure-pop-ballad of So Here We Are, passing through all kinds of interesting places on the way. The consistently spare, slightly edgy sound means that despite the variety they remain distinctive, and it doesn't sound bitty. I think it's fantastic.
(It's consoling to know that, after I'd said this, I discovered that the NME agrees with me.)
More downloads can be found on the band's own site, or on an unofficial site. But I'd definitely recommend the album - particularly to those people I've heard grumbling recently that there's no new and original music about at the moment :)
[+] Update Of which there are some very fine photos taken by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kneeshooter.
[*] and technically the Kaiser Chiefs as well, but sadly I missed them.
It's Friday! It's about three o'clock! It's time to Boogie At Your Desk!
Friday afternoons need a little something. I think they need a Top Tune. Something to make you shuffle in your seat and, if possible, Boogie At Your Desk. I'll be endeavouring to fill this gap some Fridays this year.
I'm not claiming that any track provided to enable At-Desk Boogying is one of the world's best or most profound pieces of music. It will, however, be one of the tunes which make me smile, and which have at some stage made me surreptitiously Boogie At My Desk.
Desks are not compulsory, of course. Feel free to boogie through your office, in your bedroom, round your lab, across your classroom, on the train - wherever you find yourself on a Friday afternoon.
If you like the track, go out and buy the album it belongs to - I'll try and recommend a suitable CD to purchase for any BAYD track.
Today you are invited to Boogie At Your Desk to:
Bloc Party - Banquet (Phones Disco Edit)
(This is a legitimate download from Bloc Party's own website.)
Anyone with an encyclopaedic memory will recall me reviewing a band called Union about 18 months ago. I commented then that I'd been impressed, and that I liked the idea of having a tiny, unknown band to follow about.
By the time I saw them next they were called Bloc Party, and I watched them go from obscure third-support-in-empty-pub to headlining small "proper" venues. There was the moment of surprise, the first time I saw them after they'd got their own sound man, that they suddenly sounded like "a proper band", and the excitement when their third single made it into the top 40. On Wednesday, I saw them playing at the Brixton Academy on the NME Shockwaves tour[+], with their current single standing at number 5 in the charts.
And actually, I still stand by most of what I wrote in that original review. In particular, I said and for the first time in a while, the first thing that struck me wasn't who they sounded like.
The thing that I noticed most on Wedesnday was that the other bands on the bill (The Futureheads and The Killers[*], both of whom I like a lot) each have a very particular sound. Both bands released debut albums last year (The Futureheads and Hot Fuss respectively), and each provides a consistent slice of guitar-driven indie-rock. They're both great bounce-along, sing-along albums, but neither brings much in the way of variety.
Bloc Party's debut album, Silent Alarm, is out on Monday 14th and frankly, it couldn't be more different. From others, or from itself. It moves from sounding like Joy Division for the 00s (She's Hearing Voices) to the almost pure-pop-ballad of So Here We Are, passing through all kinds of interesting places on the way. The consistently spare, slightly edgy sound means that despite the variety they remain distinctive, and it doesn't sound bitty. I think it's fantastic.
(It's consoling to know that, after I'd said this, I discovered that the NME agrees with me.)
More downloads can be found on the band's own site, or on an unofficial site. But I'd definitely recommend the album - particularly to those people I've heard grumbling recently that there's no new and original music about at the moment :)
[+] Update Of which there are some very fine photos taken by
kneeshooter.[*] and technically the Kaiser Chiefs as well, but sadly I missed them.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-02-11 03:15 pm (UTC)And you're supposed to plug my photos in posts like this :-P
no subject
Date: 2005-02-11 03:21 pm (UTC)Aye, I know you said that. That's one of the reasons I was disappointed to miss them.
Plug now added :)
no subject
Date: 2005-02-11 04:59 pm (UTC)He'sYou're right, they're good photos.Could've done without the first 30 seconds of the above track, but aside from that I have most successfully boogied once again. Thanks !
no subject
Date: 2005-02-11 05:03 pm (UTC)Perhaps I should instigate a Designated Boogier of the Week award :)
(Only calling someone a boogier sounds vaguely insulting.)
Maybe I should encourage others to report their boogiage for comparison.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-11 08:21 pm (UTC)You're right - boogiest is where it's at.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-11 03:17 pm (UTC)no subject
no subject
Date: 2005-02-11 05:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-13 10:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-11 03:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-11 03:38 pm (UTC)Or possibly "boy".
no subject
Date: 2005-02-13 10:27 pm (UTC)Bloc Party, however, will be on my CD shelf soon. A small clip of this week's BAYD was used in a Channel 4 trailer this w/e, btw - made me revisit here and listen again!
no subject
Date: 2005-02-11 03:36 pm (UTC)I shall have to "stand around the edges of the club getting too drunk to notice I don't really recognise or like the music"-at-my-desk instead. Go me.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-11 03:40 pm (UTC)So playing music through speakers at your workplace isn't acceptable, but getting quietly paralytic is :)
The link above will hang around for a while, so you can always boogie round Templars later or something.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-11 04:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-11 03:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-11 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-11 03:56 pm (UTC)Actually.., one of these days I'm going to have to concede that the track that kicked off this whole idea was very mainstream. I wasn't really aiming for obscurity, honest!