Let's listen to some indie-disco you sexy bitches

The first port of call these days, for anyone even remotely linked to Kitsune, is to get a La Roux remix up on your MySpace as a matter of urgency.

There is a La Roux remix on their MySpace page, so in this respect, Jump Jump Dance Dance have succeeded.

They have also succeeded in the following areas:

1. Done more than one remix. As well as their 'In For The Kill' remix, JJDD have also reworked bits and bobs for the likes of Datarock, Lost Valentinos and Ghost Ship.

2. Taking the danceable and yet still essentially guitar based indie sound of once quite hyped Foals and made it bigger, better and a whole lot more fun.

3. Getting signed to the same label as Digitalism, The Knife, Annie and Pnau, the Australian based ETCETC. It is also the home of Kitsune in Australia, hence the La Roux stuff above.

4. Getting a song on the House Bunny soundtrack.


This final point in a short list of achievements is clearly the most out of date, but the one which impresses us most. 'Let's listen to some indie-dance you sexy bitches' etc.

We are also greatly impressed by 'City On Fire' by Jump Jump Dance Dance. It is brilliant on it's own as an indie-dance record but is simply begging for a remix to turn it into something quite monstrous and The Rapture or Gossip sized crossover dance hit.

Sadly, Jump Jump Dance Dance fail in the following areas:

1. Getting a photo of the band either a. on their MySpace or b. anywhere else on the bloody internet.

Listen to Jump Jump Dance Dance on their, literally faceless, MySpace page.

Wish the new Calvin Harris single sounded more like this

The only thing missing from the Riton & Primary 1 video for 'Who's There' is Yvette Fielding or Derek 'the fake' Accorah.

It's got everything else after all, including an exceptionally rave-y sounding Muppet sound.



Who's there? Cath from make-up probably (that is a Most Haunted joke that you may not get if you've not seen the show. Sorry).

Drugs Are Not Cool

But the new Black Lips video for their song 'Drugs' is. We like the little girl stealing cookies. And if you stick around until the end the whole video suddenly makes sense. The song's pretty good too in Credence Clearwater Revival kind of way. In fact, we've only listened to twice and already it's stuck in our head. Sort of like a drug. Uh-oh, we're hooked. "Leah Betts, Leah Betts"

This could be anyone's video really...

There's more than just a whiff of the Dan Black or the Passion Pit about the Miike Snow 'Animal' video. If you were to tell a deaf man that he was indeed watching a new Passion Pit video, he probably wouldn't be able to argue the fact, even if he recognised Miike Snow and could see that these beardy men clearly weren't the beardy men who make up Passion Pit.

Oh, and btw, this really isn't the new Passion Pit video because that one is over here.

'Animal' has been around forever now. So getting a video is clearly a logical step. Getting into the charts would be the next. Lets see what happens eh?

Hassled into turning his songs into dance records

Don't ask us what's happening with Erik Hassle - we're not Island Records after all. Fortunate enough to be signed to the same label who have made such a success of the whole VV Brown project, the brilliantly-haired young Swede led us all to believe that his first UK single would be the rather fantastic 'Hurtful'. He fooled us, basically, by making a new video.

Was 'Hurtful' released? Did it all go tits up? Either way, 'Don't Bring Flowers After I'm Dead' is now the track Erik and Island are pushing in the UK. And it's been pushed all the way onto Radio One's 'Upfront' playlist (which is for songs they play less than Simian Mobile Disco tracks).

More importantly, remixes of said track are starting to leak worse than our tent at Secret Garden Party, and we particularly like the Martin Roth re-work of 'Don't Bring Flowers'. We also like the choice of picture for the YouTube upload, making the most of his enormous ginger afro.

This remix is very good.

Secret Garden Party 2009 ruined us...

Our favourite festival in THE WORLD happened last weekend. We were at the front for most of it. Not for any of the music, but we barely slept for the whole weekend and basically spent four days drinking, inhaling laughing gas and occasionally taking ILLEGAL DRUGS in order to truly appreciate the brilliant of this stupendous festival experience.

Things we liked:

The Madame Geisha Tent: the best dance tent on site, although the rather wobbly wooden benches for dancing on were a little unsteady.

The Correspondents: for the second year running, this Wandsworth skiffle/hip-hop/funk band were completely incredible. And we're not over fussed on skiffle, hip-hop or funk. Make of that what you will.

Phoenix: seeing this lot live we could only wonder why this French band are not more popular than they are. Amazing live set on the Friday night.

Things we didn't like:

Jarvis Cocker: we appreciate him as an artist but not as a headliner. His set was a bit boring. More exciting was the festival rumour that he done a rape. He didn't. Also rumoured were the deaths of Lulu and Ozzy Osbourne. None of the above is true.

VV Brown: VV performed a rubbish remix of 'Leave' and then spoiled a perfectly good show of 'Crying Blood' by following it with a reggae version of the same song. Fortunately 'Shark In The Water' was completely amazing, obviously. She deserves better material.

The toilets: several thousand extra people, half the number of toilets. Go figure. Most people had 'gone figure' in the woods and up against the trees.

Bad drugs: lots of fake pills and MDMA floating around the festival. You know there's a shortage when you can hear the sound of balloons being inflated with laughing gas from every tent across the site.

But none of these bad things were bad in the 'bad' sense of the word. Secret Garden Party is still the best festival in Britain and we are already thinking of booking our 2010 tickets...

Does this, or does this not sound like a hit single?

Ke$ha is amazing.

She has recorded a song called 'Tik Tok'.

It is due to be her first proper single.

It sounds like a Lady GaGa song in a world where Lady GaGa goes out to a club, gets drunk and falls on her ass and spills beer down her tits - instead of mimsying around in the VIP area with a stupid tea cup and some 'kooky' lipstick.

In other words, it's a no-holds barred good-time pop record about going out and having a really brilliant bloody time dancing to some amazing music.

Have a listen.

Ke$ha 'Tik Tok'

Spanish Zumertime

Ignore the photos of people at Benicassim festival being blow away or stages catching fire, Spanish summertime is nice. We were there recently and it was all warm and sandy and we drank Don Simon until we were shouty drunk on the beach. Brilliant.

But nicer than Spanish summertime? Well that's Spanish Zumertime, which is basically a word we made up to sell the new mixtape by The Zumers to you. And by 'sell' we mean give you the link to download it for free. It's a properly brilliant collection of lovely, sunny house tracks which would sound lovely drinking a cocktail by the pool in a villa in the mediterannean but equally nice while still lying in bed in your North London flat.

Here's the tracklisting:

01. High Life - Skyskrapers
02. Monospace - Loving You
03. Nigty Max - Treehouse
04. Moby - Bodyrock (Olav Basoski's Da House)
05. Allen Walker - Hurt
06. Breakbot - Penelope Pitstop
07. Calvin Harris - Merrymaking at My Place (Mr. Oizo Remix)
08. Louis La Roche - Distant Lovers
09. Groovy 69 - Stardust Medley With Dust
10. Agent Stereo - Luv Feeva
11. Inventus - Stay Alive
12. Sedat the Turkish Avenger - Take Me (Ce Soir)
13. Daft Punk - Too Long
14. Leonardus - Is This Funky Enough
15. Burns - Heartbeats
16. Jamiroquai - Little L
17. Tzarr - Love In Da Fast Lane
18. Metronomy - A Thing For Me (Breakbot Remix)

Click here to download Zumer Summer

When you've done that, head down to the water and mix yourself a mojito. Or failing that, put the kettle on and crack a fucking window.

Here's The Zumers blog.

And here's their MySpace page.

Here's a band we doubt we'll ever see release a bean in the UK...

Robot and Pigeon are off to 'sunny' Huntingdon today to spend the weekend dancing on pagodas over lakes, climb on hay bales and watch people like VV Brown, Phoenix, Sonny J, Chew Lips and some other people who we can't remember right now at Secret Garden Party. It's quite exciting.

However, this is not the only noteworthy musical event on the planet this week. The new Bag Raiders video is also a big whoop for us, because we love 'em a lot and would live them very much to stop only releasing singles in Australia and put something out in the UK. We want this only so we can go to a club and dance to just one of their songs, just one. We're not fussy, 'Turbo Love', 'Fun Punch' or 'Shooting Stars' - any would do.

The latter is their new single, which we're sure Australian fans will be watching on their TVs, listening to on their radios and then downloading onto their iPods and enjoying for the rest of the year. We'll just have to make do with watching the videos they send over via the medium of YouTube. It's better than sending a load of old convicts back in our direction, that's for sure...

The single is out on August 7. In All good music stores. In Australia.



More Bag Raiding at their MySpace.

Sound Of Arrows

'Pfsssshhhhhhh'. That is the sound of an arrow we would suggest. Or 'krrrrrrpfff
ssssssshhhhhppppwwww' if it was a flaming arrow. Or 'bdoingaaaaarrrggghhh my foot, my foot' if Pigeon was firing the arrow.

However, the band Sound Of Arrows don't sound like any of the above. They sound a bit like Neil Tennant off of Pet Shop Boyses, mixed with Lorraine (RIP), mixed with We're From Barcelona, mixed with Sam Sparro (but only Black & Gold, none of the other tosh), mixed with Empire Of The Sun, mixed with a children's choir, mixed with.....oh fuck it, just watch this little promo for M.A.G.I.C......



It's sort of like Mickey Mouse took some liquid GHB and then did a poo in the middle of the dance floor.

Listen to the full track on their myspace right bloody here.

We saw them live the other week and there is a fucking brilliant track which somehow sampled Cyndi Lauper's 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' and turned it into the best thing we have heard all year*.

In short, Sound Of Arrows are great, and from what we heard there is a whole lot more good stuff to come.

*don't hold us to that we were totally hammered by that point.

This is one of Robot's favourite songs of 2009 so far

Kid Sister 'Right Hand Hi'

There's a reason we write this blog. It's because every now and again a song will come along that will suddenly make every other song on your iPod seem completely irrelevant because there's that one special song that you cannot help but repeat on a loop all the way to work, the shops or in the shower.

The last time it happened to this extent was with Yuksek's 'Extraball' but as of this morning, Robot is completely obsessed with Kid Sister's 'Right Hand Hi' (and getting the chorus wrong every time by singing 'left' instead. It's really not that hard to remember).

She was originally meant to be famous in 2007 because we, the record buying public were meant to be impressed that she had Kanye West on her single 'Pro-Nails'. We weren't. It didn't happen. It didn't work for her single 'Beeper' either, even though Radio One picked up on that one and it received a fair bit of TV play too. Well done, but it was the second runner's up prize of a Number 69 (snigger) chart placing for that one.

Whether or not she is even bothering to release 'Right Hand Hi' in the UK is completely irrelevant. That it exists is enough and in fact, hearing Chris Moyles cut it off halfway through to play a hilarious jingle about himself would be too much to bear. So maybe if we all keep it to ourselves everyone stay happy.

The song itself is 30% lady hip-hop amd 70% old-school rave. It's a brilliant, innovative single which goes some way to make us think that there is someone working in the world of hip-hop that has a though beyond 'can we afford to get Ne-Yo in on this one'?

It's totally amazing from start to finish and the sort of song which, should it come on in a club, would make us stop dancing for a moment, throw our heads back, shout 'whoa' at the ceiling and then pick up where we left off. It's one of the best singles of the year - it's heavy but commercial, serious but with an incredible sense of fun.

But there's no need for any more words. Click here and treat yourself to a visit to Kid Sister's MySpace page and listen to it for yourself.

PS. Robot has just been all the way to Big Sainsburys and back and listened to nothing but this song. If you'd like some proof of how much he loves it. It's quite a walk too.

One big reason to love Kesha

Other than she's a foul mouthed pop chick who could teach Lady GaGa a thing or two about A. pop music and b. being cool, is the following picture:

Just think what she'd do for some drugs?

We wrote about Kesha shortly after her Number One with Flo-Rida earlier in the year and since then she's grown to be one of our favourite new pop singers. Thanks in part to the hefty amount of filth she injects into her music (and of course songs like 'Backstabber' and 'Disgusting' on her MySpace).

Her album is due at the end of the year.

And the Oscar goes to...

There's not a lot we can say about this:



APART FROM: It's a shame he couldn't look up from the cue cards just once to make eye contact.

When Robot puts his iPod on 'shuffle songs'...

He can be sure that the following song will be played within the first ten songs. He's not complaining, he loves it. I reminds him of being little and buying the album from WH Smiths in Camborne, Cornwall.

It's 'What's It Like To Be Beautiful' by Lena Fiagbe.



Robot remembers Lena once being interviewed by Jane Middlemiss on a space hopper outside a camper van in the countryside. Was the show called The O-Zone? Was Jamie Theakston involved? WHO KNOWS.

Wonder what Lena Fiagbe is doing now. Hope she's enjoying it, whatever it may be.

Work this out...

We have been very confused by some homework our music teacher set us. He said 'spot the difference between these two songs':

The Saturday's 'Work'


and:
Kelly Rowlandses' 'Work'


Now, it's not just the title. Songs can have the same title and still be very distinct works. It would be hard, for example, to mix up 'Crazy' by Patsy Cline and 'Crazy' by Aerosmith. But these two songs called 'Work' mess with our head. They are clearly not the same song, yet are so interchangeable that as soon as you listen to one, and then quickly skip to the other to check out exactly what the similarity is, you've forgotten what the first one sounds like. Question is: which one is better?

Shark In The Water watch

This week 'Shark In The Water' is officially better than Michael Jackson and worse than, er, Michael Jackson.

Alphabeat and Xenomania? Hmmmmmmmmm...

Alphabeat are working with Xenomania for their second album. We're not exactly sure this is a good thing - as much as we love both Alphabeat and Xenomania.

Alphabeat's debut album was a completely and utterly brilliant pop record which sounded exactly like the sort of upllfting pop music a group of ridiculously cheerful friends from Denmark should be making. Xenomania have steered Girls Aloud into becoming one of the biggest and best girl groups in the world, and have done this with military precision (not to mention genius songwriting skills and production).

But we are a little hesitant over the two working together on a new Alphabeat album.

The Alphabeat debut was so brimming full of ideas that it seems slightly worrying that the UK's biggest 'idea-factory' has been called in to work on their new record. Don't they have another ten brilliant ideas for songs among the band themselves? Obviously they didn't work alone on their first record, but it was a very definite album with a very definite sound (which as many people despised as others loved). That they need the creative input of Xenomania, after such a long period since the release of their debut and some unpleasant label-wrangling doesn't raise our hopes for a follow-up to an album we played to death in 2008.

Obviously Xenomania aren't going to churn out a load of old crap but that's not our worry. Our worry is that the new Alphabeat stuff will be stamped with Xenomania quirks and trademarks and lack Alphabeat's own. After all, you don't turn up on the doorstep of one of the country's most reknowned hit-makers and expect them to just add a few tweaks to your own songs.

Perhaps living in East London for so long has stripped the band of their inherent sense of joy and the countrified lifestyle enjoyed at the Xenomania mansions is the place to find a bit of it again.

However, Alphabeat have announced in a MySpace blog that their new album is going to sound like a cross between Black Box, Ace of Base, tennis and Family Guy - so we're not expecting there to be much in the way of 'See The Day' on the album...

Question

Tell me what you think 'bout this:



It is Florence And The Machine 'in the live lounge'™. Having real trouble deciding if this is:

a) Better or worse than Stephen Gately doing 'Single Ladies'
2) More towards Leona Lewis or Geri Halliwell in terms of 'being in tune'

What we do know is that:

1) Florence & The Machine's 'Lungs' is bloody brilliant.
b) Annie Mac was robbed of Jo 'guess what my children did at school today. What do you mean I am supposed to be playing music? Here is a fantastic new band I discovered called the Beatles' Whiley's Radio 1 slot.

Great music, shame about your popstar name

There's a good reason we call ourselves Robot and Pigeon. We've both got really normal, boring names. For example, the Tom and Pete blog wouldn't be so interesting or pretentious as RobotPigeon would it. (Tom and Pete are not our actual names).

So 'PAUL' should probably rethink the name he works under, especially since his music is so good he will soon be under the scrutiny of lots of important musicians who want him to remix their songs and record labels who want him to make them huge amounts of cash.

He sounds like Fred Falke or Alan Braxe or Russ Chimes or one of those other men who take great records and make them even greater. But at least they all supplement their dull first names with exciting surnames. LEARN THE LESSON PAUL.

He's also French - which is good. Also a bit 80s - which is good.

His music is quite spectacularly brilliant and you can listen to it here.

New Calvin Harris single and remixes: fussed or not fussed?

The new Calvin Harris single, 'Ready For The Weekend' is only slightly less disappointing than the new Calvin Harris produced Dizzee Rascal single, 'Holiday'.

Whereas the Dizzee single is like some sort of awful joke and will probably cause the UK tourism industry to plummet into freefall as people decide that going on holiday sounds like the shittest idea ever, the Calvin Harris single is just a bit... Oh.

'Meh' if you prefer.

However, there are already mixes of 'Something For The Weekend' floating around and we are relived by how good the Fake Blood mix is. It a shame, that after 'You're Not Alone', that the original of the song didn't sound more like this. It's ravey, modern, brilliant and uplifitng in a way that the single version, despite it's lyrics about going out and having a brilliant weekend really isn't. The lyrics are the equivalent of putting loads of exclamation marks on the end of a really boring sentence.

Also, there's a really nice piano-house break in the middle of the Fake Blood mix and everyone likes one of those.

Fussed: Calvin Harris 'Ready For The Weekend' (Fake Blood remix)

Not Fussed: Calvin Harris 'Ready For The Weekend'

It's just a bit 'Chaz and Dave' for us.

Here are some Mewly announced tour dates

Where would we like to be heading tomorrow night? That's right, to see Mew at London's ICA.

Where are we most likely to be heading tomorrow night? Either home or to see Harry Potter if we're lucky.

Big, fat ticket blagging/buying FAIL.

We're not sad though, because we only have to wait four months until Mew come back to the UK and do some more shows. And, ta da...

Mew are one of the best bands in the world FYI, we wouldn't just stick up a list of places where you could go and see Katy Perry or The Enemy on here.

Simple but effective-ish

Seems pretty standard for any up and coming musician to try to ingratiate themselves with the music mainstream by popping out a cover version of a song outside of their chosen genre. It is almost law that an indie band must cover a pop or R&B record on Jo Whiley's show before being allowed on the Radio One A List.

Likewise, should Sugababes be stuck for promotional ideas for their next single, they will simply slip out a cover of something by whichever indie band are currently on the cover of the NME.

So here's MPHO's contribution, covering Kate Bush's 'Running Up That Hill'. It's lovely if a little misguided. You need to do more than just get the notes right if you're covering someone like Kate Bush, who isn't famous and successful for just having quite a nice voice and some nice songs. It's a good cover but one without any personality. The musical equivalent of a MacDonalds meal - it does everything you want it to do but leaves you strangely hollow afterwards.

It is good.

The quickest thing ever...

We wrote the other day about Cass Lowe and said we didn't know whether he warranted further investigation.

Well we've further investigated, and this man is bloody brilliant. Why hasn't he been on Jools Holland yet? Or at the very least, a Terry Wogan record of the week? Seriously middle class England, this man is your polite wet-dream.

The above ramblings mean he is very good. He reminds us of Jack Savoretti but will hopefully come to more than that poor, talented chap.

Here is his MySpace. It has some really lovely acoustic piano-y ballads on it. And some country-ish pop songs. Brilliant.

PS. He is kinda handsome too - which isn't exactly going to hinder matters.

Now this could work...

We've seen a lot of posters for Dan Black around lately, and you can't go on a website without his head appearing at the top of your page and sicking up some cassette tapes. Much as we admire the enthusiasm of the blanket ad campaign for him we can't help thinking it's another one to file under 'never gonna happen'. Which is a shame, but you'd think after Ali 'how quickly they forget' Love and Frank 'Radio1 didn't playlist the amazing single, but then they decided to playlist the so-so one' musik, major labels would have given up on quirky solo male artists.

And then we found Ed Tracy.

Aside from having a penis (we assume) the similarity between Ed and any other male singer songwriters kicking around at the moment is minimal. He's got a hint of Mick Jagger in his voice, but there's nothing to suggest he should be fronting a band of 60 year old prunefaces. There's a bit of the Jamie T's and Kate Nash about him, but these lyrics are not about skipping down Shoreditch High Street with your ex-boy-fuh-rend.

Of the songs on the myspace 'Smoking Gun' has had the most plays and is probably the closest thing at the moment to a chart hit, but that's a little 'Madness' for our liking, and we sense there's a lot more, better, to come. Personally, we are favouring the 'Dance Coloured Lights' route.

The thing with Ed is that it doesn't quite seem to have fallen into place yet. And that serves to make it all the more exciting. We will follow this one with interest...

Diana Vickers is Jumping Into Rivers

Quick, fill her pockets with heavy rocks.

This girl can be phenomenal. Her version of 'Call Me' on X Factor actually made us drop our pineapple and cheese on a stick it was so good. But herein lies the danger of being brilliant. If you're mediocre you can get away with being mediocre and then when you're above average everyone thinks you're brilliant. But when you're actually brilliant it's no good being brilliant once and then being mediocre, you have to be brilliant all the time to be constantly brilliant. And that's why Diana got voted off of X Factor. We believe they call it a 'victim of your own success'.

Now here pops up Diana Vickers' 'Jumping Into Rivers'. And it's awful. Stop shouting at us, we're not being mean, it's just the truth. Step back for a moment and forget the fact that you want it to be good because that won't mean it is good.

For all we know this track might never make it to the album. Artists have sessions with writers all the time, and it doesn't always result in a cracking track, no matter how much you like the artist. Just like when you buy a bag of crisps - sometimes there's a green one in there that you don't eat and other times there's one covered in loads of Grilled Steak flavouring.

This is a green crisp:



We want Vickers to do well, but is this a number one, even top ten, single? Really? REALLY?

So here's the point of this post:

Dear Diana Vickers and team,

Today we heard 'Jumping Into Rivers'. It's not very good. It sounds like a rejected Emma Bunton b-side. Diana's voice has become so affected that you can barely make out what she is singing. Please brief all future Vickers' producers on annunciation. We hope you do something good because there's definite potential there, but this is not it.

Love,
Pigeon (we're not sure what Robot thinks)

This is proper goosebump territory here

We haven't had a proper chance to look to far into Cass Lowe and whether he warrants further investigation as a singer, songwriter, handsome long-haired Jeff Buckley-a-like but what we are sure of, is that this collaboration with Marcel Legane, James Wyatt and a whole load of other mates is bloody lovely - in a singer/songwriter meets school assembly sort of way.

It's a great big acoustic cover of both 'New Slang' by Shins and 'Don't Panic' by Coldplay. It was recorded yesterday while some of us were getting drunk in the pub. It makes us feel very unproductive and also, a little more hungover than before.

Simply wonderful.

It's official

'Shark In The Water' by VV Brown is better than 'Earth Song' by Michael Jackson:
It's beyond us why this hasn't been playlisted by Radio 1, but well done the British public for showing the tastemakers who's boss.
We like the camerman's confusion between a wolf and a lion (at 1:35) in this video:

There are loads of good songs on the Lily Allen album

But '22' isn't one we'd ever have chosen as the next single.



Number 22 is about right for this one. Sorry Lily, but 'I Could Say' was the next big hit on the album (as far as we are concerned).

On the plus side:

It's a good video.
Lily Allen is getting prettier.
There's a bit of a story to this one.

Sunday Sidechains mixtape thing

Robot got too drunk on Friday night, woke up next to someone he didn't quite remember and then spent the day watching Torchwood, Psychoville and Damages. All good.

However, sober as hell and hangover free on a Sunday, now wondering what the hell to do with the rest of the day. Drink wine and listening to Sidechains' brilliant Sounds of Summer mixtape in the kitchen seems about it so far. Highlights of the mix so far have been Blackbox, Strike, Alex Party and loads of other 90s stuff i've got on video somewhere in my parents attic. Unless they threw that away with all my He-Man toys.

But anyway, Robot's Sunday sounds a lot like this.

Sidechains 'Sounds of Summer' mixtape.

Bloody brilliant. Both the mixtape and the wine.

Nextmen in the Lion's Den

Pigeon effing loves this. Loves in the way that we haven't heard a track which is so is totally disjointed, perfectly structured, catchy, completely inaccessible, mainstream, niche, brilliant, incredible, over-rated and not praised enough. In other words this is a contradiction in music.

It's Nextmen feat Ms Dynamite. The track is 'Lion's Den'. Check it out on their myspazz right here. They say they're electronica, we say it's funky garage. Someone needs to do a dictionary of these dance terms *has idea for a new Christmas market book*

Second time Luckett?

LeToya Luckett's first album was a boring old plod through tired r&b cliches and mid-tempo songs for people to have a bit of sex to. It wasn't very exciting.

History lesson: Before we go any further, does everyone know who LeToya Luckett is? She used to be in Destiny's Child before they got really famous and found Michelle Williams. She was the pre-Michelle, along with another girl called LaTavia. Class dismissed.

Her new single, 'She Ain't Got Shit On Me' is completely different kettle of fish (what the hell does that mean even? Why would there be a fish in a kettle?). It's brilliant and fairly obviously a stab at the pop mainstream instead of the r&b lets-have-sex-now-stream. That stream probably smells a bit funny :(

For one thing, it's got a great big swear word in the title (amazing) and she also dances around with a baseball bat in the video (also, amazing). She does a lot of dancing in the video, in fact perhaps too much and it may be a little over-choreographed but watching some nice ladies bounce around is better than watching her loll around on a bed for three and half minutes trying to be seductive with a mobile phone.

Most importantly, the whole 'swing batter batter' bit could be this year's 'Umbrella-ella-ella'. This is a career-making single and if 'She Ain't Got Shit On Me' flops, her career as that girl who is even less popular than Michelle Williams is sorted.

So here's the full thing

Pigeon wasn't keen on Sugababes' 'Get Sexy' when we heard a snippet earlier in the week. Here's the full version and a few more thoughts:



In a way we hope it does well because you could do a lot worse than have the Sugababes knocking around the charts for a few more years (although soon they'll be pushing Sugamiddleaged), but we still feel this is the death knell for the group.

If we took the band name off would you really know who 'Get Sexy' was by? There's no identity. There's certainly no Sugababes. That's not to say we want a constant re-working of Overload, but don't you want your popstars to at least have a recognisable sound (be it crafted by the band members themselves or a country house full of songwriting geniuses)? Sugababes have proved on numerous occassions, even through an ever changing line-up, that they do have one. This isn't it.

When you resort to riding out the zeitgeist just to claw back some sales it's usually a sign something is waning. Last time Robot and Pigeon saw Sugababes live we were laughing affectionately at their bumbling attempts at a choreographed dance routine. They looked like they didn't give a fuck and just wanted to sing their songs. And that's what we liked about Sugababes. They had a no nonsense here-are-our-bloody-great-songs-we're-bloody-great-singers-let's-sing-our-bloody-great-songs-bloody-well-and-bloody-well-enjoy-it attitude to being pop stars. Can you picture the three of them leaping around to an auto-tuned-looped-vocal-over-a-semi-dance-backing screaming 'get sexy right now'? Nor can we.

Pigeon stands by the earlier assessment. 'Get Sexy' remains a pick n mix of various chart hits held loosely together with some scotch tape. If this was the lead single from a breaking act would you think it was a postmodern jigsaw of popular culture, or would you write them off for not having a shred of originality?

Saddest of all is that we were almost joking about the Right Said Fred reference last time we wrote about this - to the point of thinking about taking it out altogether - and now they've gone and unashamedly lifted the chorus from 'I'm Too Sexy' word for word. Let's hope the girls aren't knocking on our door to try out a whiter than white washing powder any time soon.

Definitely our favourite Fin

It's only a matter of time until Manna puts the finished version of her 'Some Girls / Some Boys' video on the internet, and it is only a matter of time until we copy and paste the embed URL from whatever video website she puts it on, write a few words about it and then expect you to watch it.

In the meantime, here's a trailer and way to listen to this rather brilliant song without going away from this page to some strange and unusual MySpace page (not that Manna is strange or unusual in any way).

Here's the trailer clip teaser preview thingy.



It would work well on a jeans advert. Or maybe for some posh perfume. Or maybe just as a Top Ten hit. All would be good.

Well, Vickers looks pretty pleased with her Starsmith work

*Stolen shamelessly from Starsmith's Twitter (@starsmiff).

Dee Vizzay though? Not convinced.

Robot Pigeon Fest '09

So, we're off to see Kelly Rowlandses tomorrow in London's Roundhouse and we were just looking on her myspace to be, you know, up to speed on all that is Kelly Rowlandses (her publicist has denied that Kelly is selling her house because she has no money. Phew etc).

You'll never guess what we discovered. It turns out that you can demand Kelly to come and play wherever you want, and because we 'demanded' it she will definitely come. Look:

View all Plympton Saint Maurice events on Eventful

This got us thinking. We could arrange our own festival just by 'demanding' that lots of popstars come and play. So Robot Pigeon Fest '09 is going to be in Pigeon's mum and dad's garden. They live in a posh little town called Plympton Saint Maurice.

So far the line up includes Kelly Rowland. Who else shall we book?

The amazing Enter Shikari continue to be amazing

The new Enter Shikari video, 'No Sleep Tonight' pretty much sums up everything we love about the band. Energy, aggression, rebellion. The sort of things we strive for when we're writing RobotPigeon with a cup of tea and a half-eaten banana in either hand.



What's odd about how much we love Enter Shikari is that neither Pigeon or Robot likes much in the way of metal music but one of the few things we both agree on is that Enter Shikari are one of the best bands in the world.

Live, they're one of the most exciting things we've ever seen. On record, they are one of the most exciting things we've ever heard. New album 'Common Dreads' is one of the most inspiring albums we've heard all year. It's not as tight and tidy as their first, but the mess of screaming, raving and really fucking noisy guitars gives us goosebumps. It's amazing.

Free-Free Brown (read it out loud, it might make more sense)

VV Brown's still-amazing 'Shark In The Water' is out this week and it seems like VV and her label have given up hope already and decided to give the song away for free. Or at least they are through American blog, ArjanWrites. Of course, this being the internet, it's not exactly as if British people can't go there, download the song for free and NOT buy it from iTunes.

It's a shame this has all gone so horribly wrong, because 'Shark In The Water' is a no nonsense, perfect pop single with every conceivable chance of edging VV Brown away from the hype and into the spotlight.

It sadly seems there's just no interest in VV Brown as a popstar, but that's not her fault because she's talented and despite an irritating and clownish performance we saw of hers late last year, we've grown to love her quite a bit. However, even we are sick and tired of being told how amazing she is in the introduction to every interview she gives to a broadsheet, a fansite or another music blog. 'Shark In The Water' and 'Leave' are great pop songs, but they are nothing more than that - great pop songs. Nothing about either convinces us that VV Brown is anything more than a very talented lady who genuinely deserves a crack at pop stardom - there's certainly nothing that scream 'superstar' or 'world class' about either, she's far too British for that. The imminent failure of 'Shark In The Water' is another example of the damage hype can do. See also Little Boots.

Of course, we're going to look bloody stupid if the single plops into the Top Forty this weekend, but we can always delete this post and pretend we never wrote it.

Click here to download VV Brown's 'Shark In The Water' from ArjanWrites. For free. Legally.

Oh now that's interesting...

One of our favourite producers, Starsmith, is today writing with Diana Vickers, that girl with the possessed claw from X Factor last year.

See accompanying image for evidence of The Claw opening front doors before the rest of Vickers is ready for daylight.

We've written about some of Starsmith's friends before on RobotPigeon, Marcel Legane, Yes Giantess and of course, Ellie Goulding.

We'd be slightly worried if we were Ms. Goulding today, since the gap in the market for young, blonde, quirky singers is probably a small one. Let's hope Starsmith doesn't show up, hand over 'Starry Eyed', collect his cheque and head off to the pub.

The person likely to come off best from this collaboration is Diana Vickers, obviously, and we're suddenly interested to hear what her material is going to sound like with people like Starsmith involved. Down-tempo, alternative electro-pop with an acoustic tinge - we're guessing.

Simple but effective: the new Vitalic single, 'Your Disco Song'

Vitalic has still yet to better 'My Friend Dario'. It's probably not going to happen but he's surely not losing sleep over it.

His new single 'Your Disco Song' is a whole other beast. A subtle, understated sort of 'beast' (ie not beastly in the slightest) which builds from something small into something, well, bigger. It sounds not unlike something from the first Daft Punk album AND THAT IS SAYING SOMETHING. It is very good indeed.

The video is pretty amazing too, in a Roisin Murphy 'wish i'd thought of it first' sort of way, and has something very ominous about it. Plus, you sort-of see some boobs at the end.

Don't get carried away at home with superglue and bits of old mirror all over your head though, it will end in tears. THIS IS A LESSON TO PEOPLE WHO GO TO THOSE DRESS-UP CLUB NIGHTS IN SHOREDITCH.

Something positive

Let's not have something fuelled by bile and loathing at the top of this blog. Lets have some music we have good things to say about instead.

What do we have to say about 'Animal' by Miike Snow?

We like it, we think it's good.

Miike Snow 'Animal'

The end.

Pigeon Gets Sexy

I would normally respond to something Robot's posted with just a comment, but I have so much to say about Sugababe's 'Get Sexy' I'm doing my own post. And it's a bit of a rant. *clears throat*

Or another take...this is truly awful. An obvious attempt to crib from a whole host of previously successful songs in the vain hope that one element might strike a chord with the record buying public. Here's a blow-by-blow run down (see Robot's post below for clip):

0.00-0.09 The THX sound test:



0.10-0.16 is a lift of the intro to 'Piece Of Me', Britney's uh-uh replaced with some man shouting hey. Try and get to 0.16 without wanting to burst into 'I'm Miss American dream...'

0.17-0.32 Is some sort of horrid N.E.R.D hybrid incorporating bits of ‘Lapdance’ and ‘She Wants To Move’ with Pharrell on Britney’s ‘Boys’

0.32-0.34 Is the ‘I ain’t lyin’ hook from Pussycat Dolls’ ‘Don’t Cha’

0.34-0.46 The topline is ripped straight from Black Eyed Peas' 'Humps'.

0.46-0.48 ‘Shut Up And Let Me Go’ anyone? We hope they cleared this with Ting Tings’ publishers.

0.49-1.00 Dare we even mention Right Said Fred?

1.00-1.03 May be some original material

1.04-1.18 is actually lifted direct from Black Eyed Peas’ ‘Boom Boom Pow’?

1.18-1.25 repeat to fade

Oh, and this truly is Sugababe's worse case of rhyming dictionary-itis since 'In The Middle'. 'car, bar, are' (don't start me on the grammar), what's the betting verse two has 'cat, mat, hat'?

True, we haven’t heard the full song, but Pigeon can’t see it rapidly changing direction this far along the line. Or perhaps therein genius lies. But for now this is all we have to go on. And going on this the first thought is it would probably be an idea to claw back some respect from the UK market before attempting to appease the Americans. Or have we really slipped so far into someone else's (already stolen) culture that there's no room for a UK girl group in the UK market? Well, thanks to Girls Aloud we know that’s not true (although the rumoured collaborators for Cheryl’s solo album may suggest otherwise).

Maybe this is all a bit harsh, but, you know what, Sugababes have brought this upon themselves. This is a group who made it big purely on originality. They were embraced by both the public and the industry for bucking the trend of manufactured girl groups with shallow lyrics and barely present melodies, and making some truly great music. So for them to resort to cribbing from other people is really a sign that this should stop. Now.

If Mutya’s solo career hadn’t gone tits up would Keisha really still be hanging in there? Because this really isn’t the Sugababes who released ‘Overload’, ‘Run For Cover’, ‘Freak Like Me’, ‘Round Round’, ‘Too Lost In You’, ‘Caught In A Moment’, ‘Push The Button’, ‘Red Dress’, ‘About You Now’....

I am the first to admit I was completely wrong on ‘About You Now’, and it took me the best part of 50 listens to ‘get’ it. Maybe we will have to add ‘Get Sexy’ to that list at some point in the future. *barely concealed snigger*

Well, the new Sugababes single 'Get Sexy' is a bit bloody brilliant

The last Sugababes album was chronic. One of the most disappointing pop records of the past 12 months. There was some serious sock-pulling-up needed in their camp.

Here's their new single 'Get Sexy'. It's safe to say those socks have been pulled so high that they are up over their knees and probably straining around the toes and threatening to tear.

Sugababes - 'Get Sexy'

Or, another take...

It must be funny to be a fan of the Sugababes. They've been floundering for some time, without a sound or style to call their own while Girls Aloud slowly but surely become one of the biggest and most respected bands in the UK. They tried an Amy Winehouse type thing for their last album and now they've gone all Black Eyed Peas. Without the team behind them to innovate they have opted for the easy option and simply Americanised their sound.

However, pop music is about the here, the now and the single release. There's no question that 'Get Sexy' is their best since 'About You Now'.

This is a Number One single and it's all about Amelle. She owns this group now.

Manna, she feels like a woman

Sorry about that headline. It was either that or 'Manna from Heaven' and we're not really the religious sort...

Anyway, we could have possibly avoided all the puns and just opened with the following:

STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND LISTEN TO A BRILLIANT POP SINGLE.

By pop, we don't mean that 'Some Girls / Some Boys' by Manna is anything like The Saturdays or Tinchy Stryder, it's more like The Kills or Ladyhawke. She's from Finland, so we'll call her 'the Finnish Ladyhawke' and see if it sticks.

Her single (and only song on her MySpace) is a completely and utterly brilliant, life-affirming piece of pop amazingness which is as equally influenced by The Rolling Stones as it is Madonna. It's as rock and roll as it is pop as it is danceable. There are ten million different things going on between the beginning and the 3.39 close but most notable of all are a fan-bloody-tastic tune and the several hundred hooks throughout the song.

The picture above shows the 'life-affirming' influence of the song on Manna herself. She looks pretty pleased about things as you can see. We think she's doing semaphore for 'great pop artist' or indicating that the time at the next DONG will be 11 o clock.

'Some Girls / Some Boys' is totally incredible and possibly one of our favourite songs of summer 2009. It's out in Finland now. Hopefully picked up by a clever record label in the UK at a later date.

Listen to Manna at her MySpace.

UPDATE: Oh look, you can buy it in the UK already from Play.com. Here's the link.

Oh look, it's that song from the telly

Remember Feist's '1234'? Woman. Catsuit. Good song. Video with loads of people in primary colours. Sold a lot of iPods - and a fair few records.

Well 'Bruises' by Chairlift is essentially the same sort of thing - and not just because it's from an Apple advert.

Things 'Bruises' has in common with Feist's '1234' include:

1. It's both young-people-cool and also the sort of thing your parents my ask 'who are this lot then?' with some genuine interest in their voices.
2. A nice quirky female vocal which is catchy despite the catchy bit not being made up of actual words (swap Feist's 'whoah oh oh' for Chairlift's 'You-hoooo ooh ooh ooh ooh ooooh ooh')
3. The general feeling of wellbeing of both and the overwhelming sense that buying an Apple product would be a really good idea.
4. You'll already have been singing it for months.

It's a short list, we admit, but had we carried it on any longer we were thinking about putting something like 'both women have got brown hair'. Insightful huh?

Anyway, the reason we're writing a thing about some song from an advert that was on the TV a while ago is because it's now got A. a video and B. a release date.

Here's both.



Out 27th July.

Best of all, Chairlift are playing this year's Secret Garden Party (three weeks away - we can't wait) and this song will sound bloody lovely in a sunny field with a cider, a cup of tea or a nut-burger sat on top of a hay-bale.

Kyte continue to amaze us (or they certainly do Robot at least)

Brilliant Leeds downbeat band Kyte seem to have perked up slightly for a couple of new songs posted on their MySpace. 'The British Sigur Ros' have gone a bit Pet Shop Boys (that's quite a leap, we admit) for new track '8'. Ditching Kyte's trademark epic wistfulness and delusions of grandeur (possibly not so deluded), this is a song with a proper catchy bit (a chorus some would say) and is an 8/10 swerve into making pop music. Their ever increasing popularity in Japan is clearly having an influence. Don't expect a Hello Kitty tie-in just yet however - we're not quite in J-Pop territory.

Other new track '30' mixes the sound of Kyte old and new, with a more upbeat sound but mixed with the thoughful melancholy of tracks such as 'Planet' and 'Eyes Lose Their Spark'. Once they have finished releasing and touring in Tokyo we hope they find five minutes to release their deubt album 'Science For The Living' in Britain.

Kyte continue to amaze us. A brilliant band, who need the tiniest of prods to get off the cusp of commercial success and into the ears and hearts of the more thoughful pop fans everywhere.

Listen to the new Kyte songs here.

Yeah err, good luck getting radio play on this one Lily

Pigeon hates Lily Allen while Robot is rather fond.

She's not the greatest singer in the world and she's hardly a lyrical genius, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with her and her music. There's quite a lot to like. It's nice, listenable and there's more to it than, say, a Jordin Sparks single.

However, she's pushing her luck by releasing 'Fuck You' as her next single, don't you think? Not bothering to be in the video isn't helping matters either...

We need your ears NOW

Point them in this direction. Yes Giantess popped onto our radar all but 17 or so days ago, so we can't claim to be hot off the mark on this one, but listen to 'Just Another Step'. It's all manner of MGMT/Empire Of The Sun, but more along the lines of the singles that everyone bought the albums off the back of, and not the boring album tracks which everyone wished were more like the singles which everyone bought the albums off the back of etc etc.

We will take credit, however, for being well and truly (though not literally) on top of Starsmith who we suspect might have been involved somewhere along the line here, and is probably going to be the biggest producer in the world and then die when he is just 50 and everyone will cry and buy bits of his paper for £75. Or something. Well done everyone.

In other news, it's hot isn't it.

PS Dear Yes Giantess, get a new logo. It's rubbish. Love RP x