Product Of The Day #1

Two things. Firstly, welcome to the less-than-glorious world of the 2 Megapixel Blackberry camera. Good if you want all pictures to look like NES screenshots, bad if you want to say, take a photograph. Oh well, if you're gonna read this blog you'll have to get used to it.

As for the product, I saw this in an Asian Food Superstore and couldn't help but chortle, I mean do these guys not speak English or something? What's next, クを発見しましょ?????????

H.O.T.C.H.I.P

In an ideal world, the BPI would have Hot Chip tracked down and collectively shackled to a typewriter. The resulting Rough Guide to a Successful Band would be standard issue to musical daydreamers everywhere.

Stage 1 – Release a first album of metronomic laptop-soul to a murmuring of critical praise.

Stage 2 – Pen first crossover single, something with a big repetitive hook maybe?

Stage 3 – Deftly ascend festival bills with new-and-improved major label-backing. Successfully balance the commercial/critical tightrope by releasing singles that hold equal appeal to both your milkman and to your well-established fanbase. Top with sell-out tours, a Mercury Prize nomination and a live appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel Show.

Done that? Good. So what about Stage Four? It’s the tricky situation Hot Chip find themselves in with One Life Stand, a record that sees their familiar pick'n'mix genre-shopping combined with unprecedented levels of Mills & Boon sentimentality. It’s a heady cocktail, but when mixed in the right proportions the results are stunning. Album showpiece ‘I Feel Better’ is the perfect example, an epic hit of neuphoric hands-in-the-air bliss. Ascending strings and auto-tuned vocals simmer away before the chorus lifts-off with enough fission to blow a fuse in your speakers. The song is one of Hot Chip’s most crowd-pleasing efforts to date, and the lyrics? “I only want one night, together in our arms”, of course.

Similarly, opener ‘Thieves in the Night’ begins with scattered arpeggiators and a throbbing 4/4 beat. Just as you’re expecting a Dave Pearce voiceover, Alexis’s delicate voice chimes in with characteristically playful juxtaposition. It’s a magnetic introduction that weaves through layers of synth-fireworks before emerging in the aching refrain “Happiness is what we all want.” This song, like all the best of Hot Chip’s canon, works because of the dynamic synergy between lead songwriters Joe Goddard and Alexis Taylor. It’s perhaps telling that their respective solo albums, (Goddard’s minimal techno-house Harvest Festival LP and Taylor’s folk-soul Rubbed Out) aren’t stunning records in their own right. The banner of Hot Chip coaxes out the best ideas in both of them, and it’s only when this synergy fizzles out that One Life Stand falters.

The placid trio of songs that comprise the middle of the record, ‘Brothers’, ‘Slush’ and ‘Alley Cats’ feel bereft of either the firepower or the emotional weight to maintain interest. They’re not badly written songs, but as the band contentedly set sail towards genteel Robert Wyatt-esque pop-soul balladry, fans might be left back on the shore wondering what happened to the idiosyncratic Hot Chip they fell in love with. In an album where no song clocks in under four minutes, it feels decidedly like there’s a gap where the meat of the album should be. By the time suitably hushed penultimate track ‘Keep Quiet’ arrives, Hot Chip seem like a band who have spent their time in the ring and are now happy enough to hang back in the dressing room penning love-letters. They may have boasted about the size of their alloys in ‘Playboy’ and threatened to snap off your legs in ‘The Warning’, but One Life Stand sees them faithful and enamoured throughout, “Remember, my love is with you”Alexis and Joe harmonise in ‘Slush’.

However, there’s a fine line between mentally nudging an SH-101 under the band's collective nose and getting caught up in the loving mood yourself. ‘One Life Stand’ pits rapidly detuning synths against the titular refrain to form the aural equivalent of Picasso’s Weeping Woman; a crooked and deeply emotional masterpiece. When final song ‘Take It In’ comes around you’re left wondering whether Hot Chip have misfired with this album at all, or whether they were just shooting at targets you didn’t realise were there. It wages its own cluttered minor-key battle with itself before blindsiding you with the most unashamedly soaring chorus you’ll hear this side of the X-Factor 2011 single. Heart/sleeve interface may be at record highs on this album, but only a cast-iron cynic would turn their noses up when the treats on offer are so lovingly prepared.

T-Shirtz n' ting

If you were cursed with an XY chromosome formation in the womb, then you’re fucked when it comes to fashion. Girls, your splendid array of halternecks, juliette sleeves and tapered hems leave me seething with rage. You hog the fashion smorgasbord and leave boys with nothing but discarded remains. As far as our torso’s go, we can choose between T-shirt and shirt. That’s it. You all sicken me.

Given our limited options, design is everything. So here are the T-shirts most likely to amplify your personal brand in 2010.

GENRE-CORE



Christian-blip, fish n glitch, shoe-rave – all legitimate trends for the discerning twenty-tensy music consumer. But how to let people know exactly what you’re buzzing on without looking like one of those fold up n’ draw three-people-draw-three sections-of-a-man-game? Enter Hipster Runoff to pull you out of this puddle of discontent. From Sufjan-house to Pitchforkcore, it’s all there. In any relevant dive-bar you won’t even need to open your mouth to let people know you’re surfing on the crest of an epic cultural wave.



As the above diagram shows, in 2010, ambiguity is out. Increasingly shorter attention spans are going to lead to a new-wave of litero-style. Look out for Blogrizovic's new snow-boots featuring a constantly updating ‘last.fm most played’ list embossed on the sole. If you’re gonna leave a footprint, at least make it say something about you.

TWEECORE



If you’re going to sit cross-legged in the corner of a bar reading Hunter S Thompson on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, this is the T-shirt to do it in. Within days you’ll have the entire shy-girl-in-cute-plaid-shirt market covered. You’ve got a subtle yet intelligent sense of humour, you enjoy cups of tea, and the last thing you want is to have your heart-broken. Just remember to delete your internet history often and you’ll be fine.

AUTHENTOCORE




When it comes to band T-shirts there’s a definite cool-hierarchy. At the bottom you’ve got your mis-shapen Kasabian T-shirt written in the wrong font and bought from a Kosovan refugee outside the 02 Academy.

Slightly higher up but still not acceptable are Ramones/Sonic Youth/The Clash T-shirts bought from Topman. By wearing these you’re kind of a walking metaphysical paradox, violently negating any sort of kudos you may have had to the point where you actually cancel out your own existence. All that’ll be left is a gloopy patch of VO5 BedHead Clay where you once stood. That’s no way to live your life.

Striding to the top of the pile are authentic vintage band T-shirts that you secured via the three beautiful words we know as ‘Buy It Now.’ Mmmm, Michael Jackson original 1982 Bad Tour Shirt, Oooooh 1987 Genesis Invisible Touch LP Cover Shirt. Content is irrelevant here. You reached beyond the High Street, and the rewards and yours and yours alone.

WTF-CORE



Classic T-shirt syllogism passed down from the Greeks tells us the following:

Supposition A - Plain White T-Shirts are uninteresting.

Supposition B -You are wearing a plain white T-Shirt

Ergo: You are uninteresting

(Dionysius et al; forthcoming)

So let’s reverse this statement and extrapolate to its opposing parallax:

Supposition A – You are wearing a T-shirt displaying the illustrated face of an elder lion, proud, hirsute, staring intently through thick-rimmed NHS prescription lenses, quietly contemplating whether contact lenses are adaptable into his daily routine.

Supposition B – “WTF even is that? Hey *insert name of girl who previously assumed you were the University Janitor* have you like, seen this? LMAO!

Ergo – You get all the girls you get all the girls.

Chances are any attention you get will strictly be for a limited time only. If you’re wearing this you must come prepared with pre-scripted conversation topics to revert to once the initial hubbub dies down.

xxx

Ps.

Since this blog entered the public domain all of the above T-shirts, ideas and attitudes have ceased to be cool. Be aware that by subscribing to any of the above viewpoints you are essentially selling yourself out. Maybe you should just grow a beard or something.