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Ariana Grande - thank u, next

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  Why on earth, you may well ask, are you reviewing an Ariana Grande album? Basically, it is the fault of a contributor to a music forum that I belong to, who was frequently exasperated and perplexed by my lack of knowledge of and interest in what he regarded as essential popular culture. (He was outraged, for example, that I had no idea who Molly McAleer or Kobe Bryant were.) But then he posted a review of thank u, next and suggested that I would be too closed-minded to even listen to it. Well, however woefully out of touch with many aspects of popular culture I am (and I really  am), I dislike being thought of as not having an open mind... and this is how I ended up reviewing  thank u, next . I'd never actually heard of Ariana until the Manchester terrorist incident , and leading up to this review, this was the only thing I knew about her. Googling her, I found that she started out in a teen sitcom called Victorious , has sold a shedload of records and has dated several celebrit
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A Nostalgic Playlist on the Subject of Relationships

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  I have been a member of Scopitones , the Wedding Present fan forum, since 2006 (that's me third from the right above, enjoying the company of some of my fellow forumites after a TWP gig).  One of the long-running threads on the forum involves the sharing and review of Spotify playlists, often with a specific theme. My playlists generally get a bit of a hammering, most of my fellow Scopitoners disapproving of my tendency to include lengthy prog / psych / experimental material that is often instrumental. Johnny Mac, for example, once commented: 'No words again. Words are good Stevie baby, they express emotions clearly, oh yeah, I get it now...Emotions Steve, they are these things that normal people feel, they can make you happy or sad and stuff like that, it's too complex for me to go into here, maybe have a read up about them on the internet.' When someone chose the subject 'relationships', this gave me pause for thought. Topics like Covid, numbers and travel c
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A Mixtape From mutatedpony

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  I know mutatedpony (who is actually Gavin Laird from Telstar Ponies ) via the Fall Online Forum. He sent me this mix in the summer of 2019. White Heaven - Blind Promise Bursts into life with a squall of nasty, grainy noise-rock. A collision of Neil Young and Dinosaur Jr after they've spent an intoxicated evening listened to VU's I Heard Her Call My Name . Grabs you by the labels and forces you to turn it up to eleven. Walter Wegmüller - Der Herrscher Lovely slice of woozy, trippy bluesy krautrock. Rockaragnarok - Pleasure Centre Of My Mind A bit of a mystery: not to be found online anywhere, and the sound quality is reminiscent of the days when you used to hold your tape deck with built-in mic next to the TV to record Top of the Pops . Nonetheless a intriguing, rather sweet and melodic slice of glam-pop-rock.Put  The Music In The Coffin -  The Shadow Ring Angular, dissonant art-rock. Several playing completely different songs. A mayfly falls to the ground; a waxwork corpse ju
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The Other Side of the Counter

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  You can find the multitude of stuff I've written about The Fall at The Fall In Fives , and you can buy my book about them, You Must Get Them All , here . I've also written separate blogs about The Wedding Present and Cinerama . This blog collects together all my other music writing. Album Reviews The Cardiacs - On Land And In The Sea Ariana Grande - thank u, next Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood -  Nancy & Lee Again Universal Congress Of - Prosperous and Qualified Playlists & Mixtapes A Mixtape From mutatedpony  A Nostalgic Playlist on the Subject of Relationships Twitter: @TheFallinFives Facebook: Steve Pringle email: thefallinfives@mail.com
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Universal Congress Of - Prosperous and Qualified

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  This review arose from a short-lived thread on a music forum to which I belong. We were going to write about an album a month, but we only managed three, unfortunately. Universal Congress Of are an American jazz ensemble from Los Angeles, founded in 1986 by  Joe Baiza .  Prosperous and Qualified (1988) was their second LP, following 1987's  Joe Baiza & The Universal Congress Of .  The line-up on  Prosperous and Qualified was: Joe Baiza – guitar, vocals Jacob Cohn – alto saxophone Ralph Gorodetsky – bass guitar Jason Kahn – drums Lynn Johnston – tenor saxophone, clarinet, bass guitar, baritone saxophone Steve Moss – tenor saxophone, vocals The album isn't on Spotify and is quite hard to track down - however there's a YouTube playlist that I made  here . I did enjoy this album. My first few listens were as background music whilst I was working/writing, which I often find helpful to get the 'feel' of an album. And my first impressions were positive; prosaically
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The Cardiacs - On Land And In The Sea

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  Thanks to ' Leeroy Halloween ' who suggested this for review.  This was originally written a couple of months after  Tim Smith 's death  in July 2020 .  I didn't do a huge amount of research into the history and context of Cardiacs' work before writing this review. This is not because I don't think that these elements are necessarily unimportant. It's more the case that, having been immersed in the minutiae of the history of The Fall over the previous three years, it was quite refreshing to take a formalist approach to reviewing other artists in these blogs; to just hone in (hopefully) objectively on what the music actually sounds like .  I should confess in advance that when I'd previously dipped my toe into Cardiacs' back catalogue, I always ended up a little bemused and slightly disappointed. The two songs I'd most often seen referenced or promoted were ' Is This The Life ' and 'Tarred And Feathered'. The former, from the alb
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Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood - Nancy & Lee Again

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"I'll Never Eat That Pie" Suggested to me via Twitter by  Mark Dyball   This is what I knew in advance: Nancy is Frank's daughter, obviously; famous for ' These Boots Are Made for Walkin' ' and the theme to the Bond film You Only Live Twice . She had also appeared in my  You Must Get Them All  blog   via The Fall's cover of ' The City Sleeps Tonight '. As for Lee, he had also cropped up in my Fall blogs: 'Loop41 ‘Houston' was a cover of one of his songs . In addition, the two of them recorded ' My Elusive Dreams ', which MES referenced in 'The Reckoning'.  Hazlewood was a complex character. According to a 2013 Guardian   article : 'He was funny, charismatic and supportive but he could also be cold, vengeful and mean. Like Serge Gainsbourg, he made both exquisitely subversive pop music and cynical kitsch, and gave the impression that he regarded his career as a private joke with financial benefits. The only niche he
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